Dear ma + pa

Witch Christmas ("Witchmas" in English) is really cool! I'm learning all about it by doing it. There's a lot of food and burning. Conan is real! Yeah! The school went to the movies and saw the new Star Wars and it was cool! There was a big snowball fight yesterday and that was cool too. Sucy is really chilled out today so that's cool too. Everything is COOL! For Daoloth Day I learned that we have color-coded sashes and hatbands for roommates to help keep identify bodies cuz there's not always enough teeth or DNA left behind to identify after big magic accidents.

Tomorrow is Cthulhu Day so I'm gonna eat some 'certain alkaloidal herbs' (Lotte typed that for me!) and have spooky dreams! Ha ha I'm a stoner like Finny and Badcock :D I won't get hooked I promise!

Well off to have a dream!

Love,

Akko

"Aaaah," Sucy said, "it was nice to get laid." She smelled her hair.

"I'm glad for you," Lotte said, holding a framed photo to her chest. "I really am."

"Thank you," Sucy said. Akko, seated on her bed as she wrote an email on her phone, gave her a sharp nudge to the ribs. "And, uh, you know... sorry about how it all wound up."

Lotte mustered a smile. "I appreciate it, Sucy."

Sucy muttered under her breath. Akko elbowed her. "I said 'I bet that mouse posse tested good!' You know, from Secret of NIMH?"

"'Mouse?' Really?" Akko said.

"That was a classic," Lotte said.

"What was a classic, now?" Akko said.

"Oh my God, you do-" Lotte hiccuped up a small fish that flopped around on the floor. "I mean, Mighty Cthulhu, how did you not know that one? We really need to catch you up! Some other night, anyway."

"Sounds great!" Akko yawned. "Ahh, but I think those herbs are kicking in."

"I bet they are, you lightw-" Sucy yawned. "Ah, crap, now I'm getting it."

"Isn't that such a nice thi-" Lotte yawned. "-hoo, that was a nice one. Ahem: isn't it nice that people can share yawns like that?"

"Sure, 'nice.'" Sucy pushed Akko off her bed. "Now let's get dreaming so Great Cthulhu can get his jollies."

The three soon crashed into a deep and abiding slumber.

At three in the morning the fire alarm sounded, jolting Akko awake. "Whaaa...?" she said.

The door slammed open. "Hello!" one of the art teachers said. She pointed her wand and three canvases with attached pallets of paint and brush wooshed past her and set up in front of the beds. "Paint what's in your heads right now! Happy Cthulhu Day!"

"Hwhuh...?" Lotte said, turning over on the top bunk.

Sucy raised her head and grunted, eyes firmly closed. (Visible eye closed, unseen eye presumed.) "hrgggghrgh" she said.

Lotte tried to climb down and realized she could barely flop her arm over the side of her bunk. Akko grabbed Lotte's wand from the desk and held it up for her to grab.

"thank" Lotte cast a spirit-conjuring spell, awakening the spirit of the paintbrush. The sleep and sleepytime drugs in her system bade the spirit awaken in a hangover-like state of misery.

Akko said something that might have been a word but was more a formless wail.

The three struggled to paint against their muscles and nerves all crying for the pull of the bed.

Akko burst awake, smacking her head on the boards of the bunk. "Ow, crap!" she said, rubbing her new head bump. "Stupid bed, gettin' in my... way? Hey, didn't we do some painting last night?"

"Did we?" Lotte said. "I thought that was part of my dream." She felt around for her glasses, popped them on, and stared in bug-eyed shock at what was by her bed.

"Whaddaya know," Sucy said, "it's a Cthulhu Day... I don't know what you'd call this. Probably not a miracle."

"Is this what usually happens on Cthulhu Day?" Akko said.

"No, usually it's finger painting or squid sushi or calamari."

"Huh..." Akko squinted at the painting she knew was hers. At least, she remembered fixating on that one particular tentacle and painting it over like a dozen times, inadvertently, it turned out, creating a spooky cubist effect as the bloated octopoid form loomed over a little brunette witch lying curled on a rocky outcropping in a storm-tossed sea, one mighty talon stroking her shoulder with the affection of a man petting a cat.

Lotte's painting was an oily, evocative smear of blacks and grays with two fine dots of crimson, the subject too personal for Lotte to bear. Realizing what it depicted and that she had made it herself broke the dam in her thoughts and the waterworks flowed.

Sucy's was porn. Porny porn porn.

"Wow," Akko said.

"Whose friggin' idea was it to give us those herbs?" Sucy said. "This was, and you know I never use this word in jest, legit."

Chariot,

Don't ask me how many fingers I had to regrow harvesting these pieces of crap. (It was nine, by the way.) But I think they'll make for a killer Cthulhu Day. Don't tell Holbrooke, just give it to Westermark and make fun of her name for me (e.g. it's after two hilarious things to be named after).

Croix

p.s. I still hate you.