“A cake?” asked Tara, confused as the walked around the house, straightening a few things up before Lucy decided to head to do their main task for the day. Tara was slightly confused as to why Lucy would want their daily task, the day after they'd finally gotten back together from being apart at the store and at home, to be baking a cake together. Tara did love cake. There were no doubts there, at all. She was just confused at the fact that Lucy would want to make a cake, all of a sudden. They'd never baked any sort of dessert food together, unless you considered some breakfast food as desserts.

“Yeah! A cake! I think that would be fun!” replied Lucy, smiling towards Tara as she grabbed a hand-held duster, twice as long as Tara was tall and began to wipe off a wall in the hallway. She had her eyes constantly switching between her lovely little sorceress and the walls, not really having a whole lot of dust on them. She thought about a reason she could give Tara that didn't involve 'It's for your birthday party that you totally aren't supposed to know about!' She dusted along the hallway until she got to the doorway of the bedroom. With Tara watching her every move, she got on her tip-toes to reach the ceiling, getting a big pile of dust out of the way form there.

As the dusting continued, there was an unforeseen side-effect of it on the poor little sorceress that was riding on Lucy's shoulder. As soon as the duster started to work on the ceiling, clouds of that dust began to pour down into the room. To most people, little clouds of dust wouldn't do much, but infiltrate their system and cause a tiny, little sneeze. However, most people aren't the size of a doll, like Tara was. This made her particularly vulnerable to the elements, and to a lot of things that Lucy might not think about right away. As the clouds of dust fell to the ground, Tara started to breath heavier.

Putting her hand to her chest, she started to let out small cough. As they got worse, she covered up her face and leaned into her girlfriend's neck. “L-Lucy! Stop!” As soon as Lucy had felt and heard Tara, she put the duster down and looked at her, picking her up and holding her in front of her face. “Tara? Tara, what's wrong?” Her eyes scanned the girl, still holding her face, coughing into her hands. She let out a few louder coughs and, as another cough came through, her body began to glow. The black light around her dissipated as soon as she stopped coughing, but reappeared when the next cough came. She was, not only susceptible to dust, but her abilities were as well.

She coughed again, and again, but with each cough came a different sort of effect. The duster began to hover in the air and dust the wall on it's own. Then, both Tara's and Lucy's hair flew to the sides, making them look like porcupines. Lucy's eyes widened as all of this was happening, quickly rushing Tara to the bathroom to get rid of these coughs before some sort of bad effect happened. As she got into the bathroom, however, Tara coughed again, her face getting red. The toilet bowl flew open and started overflowing in response to this last one. Lucy's feet slid across the floor, hitting water.

She fell on her back, gripping Tara tightly. Pulling her into her chest with one hand, she grabbed onto the sink as water got all over her arms, head, and hair. Pulling herself up, she held Tara's coughing body in front of the faucet and turned it on it's lowest setting. Water began to run down, right in front of the girl as Lucy said “There, honey. Drink some water and get rid of that cough. Quickly!” Tara's chest was in pain as she opened her eyes and saw the water. Quickly taking in as much water as she could, she swallowed, taking all of the remaining dust down into her stomach.

As soon as she had stopped coughing, everything stopped. Lucy heard a thump from the bedroom behind her as the duster fell to the ground. The toilet's water immediately calmed down and retracted to where it had been before, at normal levels, still leaving a huge puddle of water all around in the bathroom. Finally, the redness in Tara's cheeks and the glowing of her body dimmed out, her breathing very deep as she looked back towards Lucy. Lucy looked bad, too. Her entire head of hair was drenched, almost sticking to her face. Tara looked up at her and blushed, a little embarrassed at what had happened.

“Sorry, Lucy. I kinda forgot to tell you about that...” she started, before Lucy shook her head for a moment. “No, no. It's alright. Dust is just bad for you, that's all. You're more susceptible to things since you're so much smaller than me. I just won't have you under the dust anymore! Then, we won't have to worry about all this...whatever just happened again!” Lucy was taking deep breaths as well, not quite believing everything that had just happened from some simple coughs. She was curious, though, so she inquired Tara about it. “By the way...what DID just happen?”

Catching her breath, Tara used the Arte to hover a nearby towel over to Lucy, setting it down on your head. “Here, Lucy. Dry yourself off and I'll explain it.” She waited for Lucy to set her down and start to dry off her hair before she began. “You see...these abilities I have...they're kind of tied in with my feelings, my physical state, and everything. They're part of who I am. So, when my physical condition deteriorates, the abilities are affected, too. When I started coughing, my lungs were in a state of, well...chaos, so my abilities reflected that, causing everything that just happened.”

“It's just like when we first met...that first night we had together. You remember our...kiss, don't you?” Lucy smiled and nodded. How could she possibly forget that wonderful, magical kiss? “Well, that night, you were making me feel love and compassion, more than I'd ever experienced before. So, my abilities reflected those feelings and created the magic-induced kiss that we shared. My abilities showed you what I was feeling, and how I was falling in love with you.” Lucy stopped drying her hair off, wrapping her hair up in the towel as her cheeks started to redden at hearing all of this from her. “Tara...”

“Well, it's the same thing in everything. Were I to get sick, there would likely be some effect in the air to clue you in to the fact that I'm sick. If I get sick, my abilities get sick. If I love someone, my abilities appear loving. Do you understan..hic!” Finishing up her statement, Tara had a quick hiccup. Lucy's eyes bulged for a moment, seeing a red bubble floating from her mouth as she had the hiccup and looked back at her. They both watched it and each other for a moment, until they both started laughing.

Lucy lifted Tara up again and walked back to the bedroom. “I think I understand. Well, Ms. Bubble-Hiccups, I need to get some new clothes. So, let's go get me something nice to wear and then we'll get to work on that cake. No more house-work for today.” Tara quickly agreed and rode in Lucy's palms as they headed back to the bedroom, having enough strange, magical experiences for one day...