[Jon had a point. Well, aside from the little sister part. Shut up about that, Jon. Your sister was hot.]

Fine. Come on over here. Sit there, if you want. It'll take me a little bit to make one up.

[And thinking about it, he guessed he should have a few made anyway, just to be safe. Maybe he'd make a huge batch.]

Mm, nothing. Well, nothing big. I was trying to find a way to make flowers change colors and not die.

[Not that those flowers were for anyone. Ahem.]

Oh, they're not for me.

[Oblivious Stiles is oblivious to big brother suspicion.]

Alayne. Now that she's awake, I thought she might like something... nice.

I mean, she still has the tree, but girls like flowers.

[And he was being totally innocent about it, too. Alayne was a girl, therefore she liked flowers. It wasn't about getting under her skirts, either.]

Some girls, yeah. But hey, she liked the tree. That might be because of the snow, though. But she might like flowers that change colors, like a rainbow. That's kind of neat, right?

[Come on, Jon. He's totally the mac daddy. Just admit it. He was also putting together what he'd need for the potion because he wasn't a slacker.]

[Stiles had to laugh, turning to look at Jon before moving to go get some ingredients.]

You need to come to California some time. Maybe Mexico. Now that is hot. This? Not so much.

[Bringing the ingredients back to the table, he grabbed his staff, angling it juuuust so.]

I have been working on something. Again, for Alayne. She said she missed the snow, so...

[After mumbling a word, the stone in his staff flared and a whirlwind of snow shot up from it, spraying down to land just over Jon and his pup, sprinkling them both with flakes as Stiles smirked at him. Another word and it stopped.]

No more slush.

[Was that a smile? Wow, it had been. Guess there were more people that would like that than Alayne.]

Hey, don't you 'it's a start' me. That wasn't easy to figure out, buddy. But I'm working on something bigger. Like... something that will cover an area. A small cloud or something, like a bigger version of her tree.

[He knows guy-speak, Jon. You may as well just tell him you love him and want to live in a little log cabin in the snow with him.]

Well, the staff is like... the focal point. It channels what I do. The words are sort of the catalyst, but I have to be able to focus it properly. Otherwise slush. Or bedsheets on fire. If it were just that easy, I'd be able to do everything in the books by now. But there's more to it than that. Which is probably a good thing.

[He'll have you bringing him home a slain bear to cook in no time, Jon-boy. He needs a full season of courting. =|]

I hope so. I mean, I don't know how fast I'm supposed to be learning this stuff. Hermione says where she comes from, they have schools. There's no school here, so I'm just doing the best I can. I don't know if that's good enough.

[One thing Jon might pick up on was that for all Stiles' bravado and mouthiness, there was a large part of him that never thought he was good enough. At anything. He was always less than by some degree and it just sat there in his psyche like a lump.

He shrugged at Jon's question.]

No idea. Maybe it's part of the whole boon thing? You have to want it? Imagine giving someone magic who had no use for it or who didn't want it. It's about as effective as giving me a sword. They can give people all the weapons they have, but they can't make us use them.

No.

[He shrugged, grabbing something and throwing it into the mortar to grind up. A word had the little stub of a candle he used as a cooker lighting and he slid it under a bottle in an iron stand, pouring in something green.]

I didn't sign on to fight for them. I'm not a soldier. I'll use my magic to help myself and my friends and keep us all alive, but I'm not throwing fireballs at people that probably want to be here as little as I do.

You too, huh? I wasn't sleeping well at the time and sort of thought it was just a really vivid hallucination. Next thing I know, bam. Here I am.

[He was touched, Jon. Touched in his warm fuzzy place. Did you want to bring him roses now?]

Hah, yeah, well, it's never the ones that have any experience that get thrust into stuff. At least, that's been my experience. With non-experiencededness. Ess.

Totally true. I'm preaching and you're my choir, buddy boy.

[He added what was in the mortar to the bottle, leaning back as a puff of blue smoke flared up. He was learning. The first time, he'd had his face right in that. Ever snorted magic? Not a pretty experience.]

Just a few more things and this should be ready. I'll put it in a small bowl with some... what, water? Milk? What do baby things eat?