At that unholy hour that normal people were not conscious during...

...though avoidant of the moon being just full enough

"Frock frock frock!! Are they still in there?"

Dotty was sitting in a nook, light only by a cigarette, holding one of three giant glass jars, big enough that both of her hands could not fit around it. She shook this jar then pressed her eye to it.

"Ffffffff--" If the things inside had flown out the air holes she was going to be denied a big haul of moolah. Plus several people might kill her. Or worse, take away her cigarettes.

She paused when she thought she caught a flash of blue in the jar but it was too dark to see. "Wand, wand," she had her wand on her, didn't she?

It was the kind of night that was late enough to finally hold the next morning - one which made two-hundred, ninety-one days until the release of Dazmond Wiedman's husband, Nathan Briggs, of Azkaban prison.  Those were at least, as she kept telling herself, the minimum quantity of days until his next hearing. 

With her night spent in the far hills and moors, Dazmond had been out scouting for plants to be collected on the morrow, when the moon was Full in all its wolfy glory.  Dropping pinches of invisible powders along the way, markers which she could see only with the aid of her potion as sparkling paths unfolding toward her destinations, Dazmond felt her spirits lift in less desperation.  The Full Moon was always a challenging and dangerous time to go collecting, and it was also a time when significant herbs were at their fullest potency.

There was some exuberance that followed her now, more than a few months ago when she was actively surrendering her private business practice in order to fulfill curious orders for Kronos Malvivicus.  Now Malvivicus and his curiosities governed a large portion of her existence and, surprisingly enough, she was still kept entertained by this arrangement. 

With a dashing crack, Dazmond apparated to the spot precisely two inches left of Anadotti Squiggs.  It hadn't occurred to her that she might be appearing so close to another questionable human being in her favourite nook off the alley, and Dazmond stumbled backward into the wall, drawing her wand with a sudden drive of adrenaline.  It was only moments before she recognized the Witch that was under her nose - Dazmond was, after all, under the influence of 'Night juice' - a concoction which made her vision glow orange and bright in the dark.

"Bloody hell," she cursed, only now focusing on the large glass jar that Anadotti had pressed to her face.  "What is that," she demanded, pointing at the jar as though the contents had just assaulted her.

"ASFGHGFUHD!" was the closest verbal approximation to the guttural noise that uttered from Dotty in the surprise of being apparated on. What the hell was up with her wand? She hadn't even said a damn spell this time before another human being was 'summoned' unlike last time when she was looking for Toyota Dale (some kind of car?)'s house keys.

Her jump caused her leg to kick one of the other jars down the steps. She scrambled after it hopping that it wasn't broken (forgetting that the jar was Unbreakable). Somehow she had contorted to scrape her stomach along the ground as she crawled after the jar.

"It's gonna have me set for life but if they're gone I'm neck deep in troll scat without a club!" She shook the second jar for another attempted to find the near invisible blue insects. Her wand had survived the spill. "Lumos!" The light pierced the seemingly empty jar.

Dazmond had been devoted to making potions since she was a little girl - and the sight of glassware falling, even when she didn't know at all what the contents were, was somehow thoroughly heart-wrenching.  She extended a hand forward, gesturing lamely as, with a clang, the glass jar came into contact with the cobblestone.  The expression on Dazmond's face was temporarily pained.  Daz was absolutely devastated until she saw that the piece had gone unscathed.  Sooner than she knew it she was on the ground next to Squiggs, peering into the jar like a coconspirator.  She tapped at the glass intrusively. 

"Billywigs," she said.  " I bet they're in there still.  You open her up and we'd know for sure, but there isn't any use in doing that."  She paused to look at Ana, letting silence stand in where normally she'd be asking who these were for.   Another moment and she peered again into the jar.   She, too, was flat on her stomach upon the ground.  Within the jar she could see a certain stirring to the slanted eye, and she thought to herself that Billywigs moved so fast that they were nearly invisible.  She really couldn't even see a speck of their brilliant blue, as her vision was still glowing orange.

"Are they even in all three jars. Wait you saw them? How many? There's supposed to be a dozen in each. That's three dozens. Six half dozens. Thirty six one-twelfth dozens?" She couldn't actually think math right now but there was enough of them.

She held her wand closer to the jar. There was maybe something disappearing but she couldn't be sure. "Look again. I'll get all of them." She indadvertedly pointed her lit wand right in Dazmond's eyes as she got to her feet.

With the other two clutched in her arms, Dotty began fingering the air holes. They were supposed to be small enough so the billywigs wouldn't escape. Maybe they were babies? Or if she could manage to squeeze her finger through an impossible space she could reach in and touch one.

"OW!!"

"I can see very well in fact, but none of their colour," said Dazmond.  "I'm certain they're inside.  I can see the air around them stirring, or the blur of their busy bodies, I think.  Do they never rest?"  Dazmond had her head cocked at the jar, mesmerized it would seem.  As she laid in the dirt and filth of the alley nook, without a care in the world or a curfew, she felt a strange sense of belonging. 

She had to squint her eyes tightly closed then, turning her head away as Anadotti stood with the other jars, pointing her lumos-lit wand in Dazmond's face.  Now with a hot-orange spot of color appearing in her field of vision, Daz blinked several times and was distracted from Ana's activities.

Ow was not a particularly good thing to hear coming from Anadotti Squiggs, keeper of the Billywigs, at this instant.  Dazmond quickly rolled onto her back to gaze up toward the Witch warily. 

"You haven't gone and gotten yourself stung by a bleeding Billywig, have you?" she said.  She didn't think that Knockturn alley would be very friendly toward someone floating-mad happy with three dozen Billywigs for the taking, a prime example of what she had available for ready thieves.  Daz realized she would have to be a proper neighbor and intervene, or she could shrug, take a jar for herself, and go away fairly safely into the night - but she did actually care about the idea of solidarity, and Dazmond had a soft spot in her heart for Ana. 

"They're bleeding? Sheep!" Dotty, still not quite used to all of Ye Olde Moderne English and its euphemisms, took this as the billywigs were actually bleeding. "Sheepsheepsheep I've got to give them back unarmed. Harmed. They don't have arms do they? How the heck do i fix a billywig? Tiny bandages?"

Dreams of gaudy shoes and a case of Blue Toad could go by the wayside if the goods were injured. "I mean, I was told just to baby sit 'em and its nothing like when I was a kid cause they're just bugs." The perfect job, it sounded like, if not for the magical community's lack of pay-per-view television. "And I had to feed them. I didn't know what so I just dribbled orange soda and melted ice cream in the holes."

Dazmond's brows moved from cocked and concerned to flat, but she appeared patient as she laid there on her back.  She had nowhere else to be.  Going home to an empty flat was not as thrilling as whatever might happen in Ana's strange company.  Where once she was on her back to be poised for action, now she just laid there idly and watched the other Witch.

"No, they're not bleeding.  I'm sure they're fine - although you might be better to starve them than to dribble sticky sugary stuff into their air holes.  Are you feeling alright?  If they stung you, you might see why such weird people want those things so badly.  It's a right good trip they put you on!  Who wanted them anyways?"  Dazmond pulled out a cigarette for herself and stuck it in her mouth.  "Do you want one?" she asked, lighting hers with her wand before sliding it back into her long pocket, relaxing on the dirty alleyway cobblestones because she could.  She hadn't done anything like this in so long.  All of her friends had more or less turned away from her, and she'd lost most of her clients since starting to work for Kronos Malvivicus. 

"That--huh?" A billywig sting got you a good trip? How come she had never heard that before, she would have taken the offer straight away. Probably didn't hurt as much as other pricks and the only downside seemed to be catching the buggers.

"I...crap, I forget who it was! Guy with a funny mustache. Did he give them to me or is that who I send them to? And there was a scraggly guy..."

At the offer of cigarettes Dotty just about pounced on Dazmond. "Yes, I want one!" She reached down for it with her free hand...and her fingertips just brushed past the tip. She reached down again and again, leaning as far over as she thought she should but each time the cig was just out of her reach.

"When did you get so short on the ground?" Dotty demanded, not realizing that by this point her feet had left the pavement.

Dazmond blinked as Dotti's hand swiped at the air above her, feet lifting off the ground and body pulled up and further up.  A pause was followed by the bubbling forth of radiant laughter.  Dazmond laughed a good while, beside herself with glee for the first time in ages, rolling on the ground in the grime with her bright orange vision of Anadotti floating high as a kite on an accidental Billywig sting.  She didn't even know where she'd gotten the three large jars or where she was supposed to bring them.  Bless her heart, she was why Daz should have been paying more attention to her alley.

"Here," she said, bouncing to her feet with another bit of laughter trailing off her voice.  She held up a cigarette to Anadotti, having to stand on her tippy-toes to reach the witch's fingertips.

"Guy with a scraggly mustache?" asked Daz, inhaling hard and blowing her smoke away from Dotti.  The breeze carried it in the opposite direction.  A scuttle sounded in the alley proper and Dazmond looked over her shoulder preemptively.  Looking back up at Anadotti, she asked, "You know you're floating, right?  Feeling giddy, yeah?  That'd be the Billywig stinger.  How's it treating you, then?"

Finally getting the cig was some sweet relief as it was telescoped up to her. A quick drag made Dotty forget everything for a moment as to why the night was so unusual.

"Scraggly. Yeah. I knew he had facial hair. Of a kind." Which, given the populace in and out of this branch of the alley, could be anybody on the greater underworld food chain from a drinking buddy, her 'landlord' or the heads of several gangs.

"Floating!?" That about caused the cigarette to fall out of her mouth. She leaned forward to catch it, then further still to try and see her legs. The result ending her with her head mostly upside down with the cascade of sable tresses falling away from her face. "The world's upside-down and it's like all buzzy buzzy fuzzy in my head."

Pressing her lips together, Dazmond just barely contained her giggles; she didn't particularly want the attention of any bystanders to be attracted toward them... especially not whoever roamed these alleyways at this time of the night, or morning, depending on your point of view.  She hardly knew who that might be anymore.  Though she lived there she had avoided most social interactions since her husband had been detained and her job description had shifted.

Daz tried to grab Dotti's ankle to right her in the air, but she couldn't reach.  Jumping, she got hold of the other Witch's clothing and tugged, trying to make her float right-side up again. 

"Of a kind," she repeated a bit incredulously, taking a drag of her cigarette and squinting with a certain business-y glitter in her eye.  It sounded like Anadotti had no idea where she was supposed to bring these stingers.  "I'll take them off your hands if you want," she said leadingly.  "Sounds like it'd be a bother for you otherwise."

Adding to the giggles was Dotty's own perspective flip flop, nothing that was causing her nausea problems from the nature of the billywig sting. Things actually looked better upside down, she realized, why being pulled upright again.

"What? Don't! I like these!" She put considerable but futile effort into trying to swim in midair down to the street to pick up one of the jars. "This is fantastic, who cares where they're supposed to go anymore?"

"Never mind about where they're supposed to be going," said Dazmond, waving a hand distractedly.  Whoever was expecting these beauties was fecked as far as she was concerned.  "Where did they come from," was the question she was much more inclined towards now.  Maybe there was more where they came from.  She looked up at Anadotti and took a patient drag off her cigarette.  Perhaps being upright wasn't the most interesting position for the Witch to be in.

Daz stopped messing with her and sort of pushed her back against the cool night air to float as she would. 

"Well," she said with a shrug, letting her hang upside down all she wanted as Daz smoked her own cigarette and otherwise took a bit of a step back.  "That sure does look like fun, though.  You know they've all kinds of alternative sorts of uses?  Billywig stingers and stings?  Because I know you've got to be feeling weird with this.  But wow there's so much beneath it; Merlin!"

Seeing as Dazmond wasn't after her stash Dotty calmed down. By default, after the push, her float returned to an upright but skewed left position with limbs crossed. Now the world was at an incline.

"Wait, what sorts of uses?" Dotty's addled mind could only think of two before growing bored: mix up the stingers into her gum or glue the bugs onto a hat. Sense or practicality were banned from the brief billywig summit.

"Weird? Underneath?" the floating witch had no clue what Dazmond was talking about. "Don't speak in word jumbles! What's underneath the bugs?" The Street was the most obvious answer but Dotty's first answer, owing to how long she had been staring at the jars, was going to be Bug Crap.