Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

[wasalmostdaphne]

Who: Catchall for Bay (Open) and Abby (Closed)
When: Throughout July
What: All sorts of things.
Warnings: Abby swears and does drugs and is generally going to be a problem. Abby and Jesper's closed prompt is NSFW.

Nocwich - Open
Horizon - Open
Thorne - Open

Comments

Nocwich (Open)

[wasalmostdaphne]

1. The Night Market

Bay takes time, now that she's a little less new, to go shopping to see what in the Night Market she can get for cooking, baking, and painting. Fiber arts aren't her thing, but all manner of things can be turned into paints if you know what you're doing. Not to mention better spice blends than she normally finds in Thorne.

The more interesting thing is when she's exploring plants and meats for the culinary arts. She knows, from look and smell, when she's found the right ingredients. The ones better than the others, even if she can't for the life of her tell you how she's managing it. But she's selecting quality ingredients like a professional chef. Maybe ask her about it.

2. Hot Springs

She has to get used to being naked.

She doesn't exactly want to, but she doesn't not want to either. Her hang-up is mostly about how exposed she is unable to hear those around her. Less than it is anything about being naked. Which feels weird, she should be more concerned about herself right? Like- why isn't she more ashamed? Why isn't she more worried about being looked at?

Another strange feeling she really needed to talk through with someone. After she's enjoyed the steam and water on her skin.

Wildcard

Bay regularly tries to take in a (non-musical) performance at the stage, she'll also regularly explore the food stands to try this or that, explore this more refined tastebud set she has as her father's daughter.

She avoids, almost entirely, the Gambling Dens.

2

[a_better_man]

Mat always makes the trip to Nocwich when it's open. For one, he gets real-world time with Jesper. For two, he only comes here once a month. The folks here - and from other factions - haven't heard him play and see him perform every week. It's good busking. And while the baths at Castle Thorne are wonderful and luxurious, there's a certain charm to the open air spring bathing in Nocwich.

Nothing feels better after an afternoon of performing than a proper soak.

He's never been bothered by the communal nature of bathing here. When one grows up without any privacy, that sort of thing simply doesn't matter. And how many folks in Emunds Field had their own private bath? Only a small handful. Communal bathing was just normal. It was easy. Just be polite and look at people's faces. He drops his bag with his juggling clubs and his hand drum to the side, and his theorbo case aside them. He's gotten well used to lugging things about in the last year. He'll never bulk up with muscles like Rand or Perrin, he'll always be a lean thing, but what he has are getting nicely defined. He can't complain about that, even if he loathes carrying all his equipment about in the summer.

As he takes off his boots and tunic and scans the springs, he notices Bay and grins. Nice lass, in his experience. Before he undresses any further he approaches the edge in her line of sight and waves hello, knowing not to bother calling out to her until she's looking directly at him.

As the summer has hit its peak of heat, he's clean-shaven for a change.

[wasalmostdaphne]

She spots the movement, and smiles. It's nice when people show her the tiniest decency. She definitely isn't smiling because of the lack of shirt. No, nothing to do with that.

She shoves that side of herself down, it's not really the time or place. She barely knows him, but he does look nice. And she has a boyfriend... sorta. That's another part of her she needs to talk through with someone. At a later date.

Besides, he probably isn't going to walk over and join her so she can just relax. That's the point of hot springs, to relax. She'd close her eyes right now, except she does kind of want to be aware of her surroundings provided she's alone. Maybe next time bring a friend so she can close her eyes and they can keep an eye out for her so she can relax a bit better.

[a_better_man]

Unfortunately, part of relaxing for Mat involves socializing. That's half of communal baths, chatting while you soak. Particularly in varied company, it's a good way for folks to feel comfortable.

So when he finishes undressing and slips into the water with a relieved sigh, he does approach Bay. Why not? He likes her, and he imagines she may be feeling a bit out of her element here. Even he had, his first few trips to Nocwich. It's damned different than Thorne and the castle. She might like a bit of familiar company.

"Mind if I join you? I always feel like a rude dunce, just sitting somewhere else and ignoring someone I know."

Horizon (Open)

[wasalmostdaphne]

1 Street Art -

Rather than work on an existing wall of someone else's domain, Bay simply conjured a wall to work on in the middle of nowhere. The Thing was parked nearby, full of art supplies she conjured up for her activities.

She taped up her stencil, and did her best to control a spraycan of black paint across the white brick wall she picked as her canvas. It was bad, she couldn't put together why it was bad. She couldn't maintain a consistent pressure of the spray. Her hand was shaking as if she's never held a can like this before.

She tossed the can into the ground, "What is wrong with me!?"

2. Studio Time

Anyone who comes near Bay's domain will hear loud metal music. And I mean loud. Drums and guitars screaming at a volume no person should reasonably be within. It's a perfectly listenable rate at the edge of the yard, a yard too large for the single two floor building present on the edge of a driveway.

Then a little too loud (but not dangerous yet) at the edge of the building. The building is clearly several garages that have been renovated into other spaces, with an upper floor that’s probably a guest house based on the stairs to the upper level’s entrance. Most of the garages are closed, save one. Standing center to that open space is a small box on a pillar, the box contains several pairs of earplugs with a sign.

Take A Pair

Naturally in Bay's art studio it is so unreasonably loud it would cause harm after prolonged exposure. Bay has a canvas she's effortlessly filling with colors and shapes, paints and brushes along a table next to her easel. Swaying a little to the loud music but otherwise unbothered.

Wildcard

Bay regularly drives The Thing around the Horizon (where roads are available) looking for places and things to explore. So she can get herself just about anywhere if you want her to find you.

Castle Thorne (Open)

[wasalmostdaphne]

1. Darkness Descends

Bay regularly finds a corner to read, and her reading is intense. There's no sound to draw her attention away, so the only threat to her efforts to learn is her own mind. And tonight she had no such distractions, delving deep on the history of the local language of Thorne.

She read through most of the book, and by the time she'd finished reading the room was dark.

Bay hadn't noticed.

It was only when she looked up at the sky, taking note of the stars, that she realized there was something wrong. She could see. Perfectly. By the starlight alone. "Okay, weird…"

She makes her way back from the gardens to the castle. More of her attention is on the nocturnal insects in the gardens than on where she's going because she can see them perfectly. She's got questions.

2. Castle Town

Bay finally took time to visit the Castle Town. She'd stayed in the castle almost exclusively save trips to Nocwich and the Feywilds. Much like Nocwich, she put a focus on looking for interesting culinary and paint ingredients. But she did stop in several bookstores looking for better resources on Abraxian pronunciation guides. She felt weird having an accent on words that didn't neatly correlate to English.

She doesn’t linger too long in any of the taverns, just long enough to get something to eat. Bay notably doesn’t drink while in any place that doesn’t have an offering of tea for her. Which gets her odd looks. But then so does her ordering, as she favors places where one of the servers speaks sign. Her Abraxian Sign is improving very well given she’s only been here a month.

2

[ordinar]

Wilhelm is out poking around for odd jobs to pick up. Once or twice a week he makes the rounds, knowing which shops and taverns usually have something for him to do, and which proprietors are generous with their coin. It doesn't amount to much. He saves up mostly for snacks from the bakery and drinks at the bar, which means that the money flies out of his purse almost as soon as it has landed. Never mind that "we have cake and booze at the castle" — it's a universal truth that it tastes better when you're out laughing with a friend.

That's when he spots Bay slipping out of a shop door and onto the street. Ever since the whole kidnapped-by-cultists ordeal, Wilhelm holds a sharp awareness of his surroundings whenever he leaves the castle walls, so her familiar face stands out immediately in the crowd. It wouldn't take much for them to cross paths. He just has to cross the road.

"Hey," he calls, waving his hand to catch her attention. Since, you know, she can't actually hear him. "What's up?"

[wasalmostdaphne]

Bay recognizes the movement of 'getting her attention' reflexively, something her body is more used to than she is. And her response is a small wave without saying anything.

"Oh, just getting some spices for cooking. The castle doesn't really use a lot of them, and my current tastebuds prefer some more subtle accents." She has a small bag of purchases, paid for by selling some of her sketches and paintings, under her arm along with her sketchbook. "I can make due the rest of the month, but I need to really stock up when I can get to Nocwich again."

[ordinar]

If he had three chances to guess what she has in her bag, he never would have stumbled on her own personal spice collection. He gives Bay a quizzical look, eyebrows drawn together and lips pinched into a line, but he accepts her explanation with a shrug and a headshake.

"Just don't let the queen find out," he jokes. Well, half-jokes. He has never met the queen personally, but his experience with her from an almost-comfortable-distance leads him to the conclusion that she tends to take things very personally.

While he wonders how she got the money to afford all of this, asking about it would be rude. He's just glad that she seems to be doing all right. Feeling a hazy sense of responsibility toward Bay — because she's around his age, and she's new, and he remembers how totally lost he felt a year ago — Wilhelm has kept an eye out for her. Nothing weird, just saying hi when he notices her or sitting across from her at dinner when there's an empty seat.

1

[blackeyedprince]

Kell was coming back from the tea shop a little too late. A little too unnerved by the darkness. A small ball of white light hovering over his head, lighting his path, was nowhere enough light for him to feel safe.
So he walks fast and almost barges into Bay coming back to the castle from the gardens.

"Woaah! I didn't see you there!"

[wasalmostdaphne]

Fortunately his light makes him very obvious to her. Eyes adjusting to the light level fast enough to catch his words easily. Which adds to the weirdness of her night. "I can see you just fine."

She sounds distracted, as she's trying to work out exactly what's going on. She holds a hand up to warn him off trying to talk as she turns and scans the darkness. Well past the edge of Kell's light source. And she can still see just fine, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and readjusting when she faces him again.

She drops her hand, facing him fully. "What are you doing out here?"

1

[northerndragon]

He had stayed out in the woods, then the gardens, longer than he ought to have done. Not much hunting to be done at night, nor is it wise to be alone among the trees in the dark. Not after what had happened a few moons past, and not in a general sense, when anyone might trip over a root and cause a pain that might keep them from finding their way back to the walls of the castle.

He near walks into the girl with the book.

"Steady there," he says, recovering his balance, looking to see that he hasn't knocked her to the ground, and to give her a hand up if he has.

[wasalmostdaphne]

The impact didn't topple her, but it did send her book to the ground. Which she collects with zero issue at all, seeing it perfectly fine on the ground. "Sorry, I got a little distracted."

She can see him fine, she watches to see how well his eyes can track her. Trying to get a sense of if this vision is hers, or just a nature of the nights in Thorne.

This place is weird it could be anything.

Claude

[everybodysterrible]

Abby's trip to the markets was fruitful enough. Although 'mad' could be used to describe her current purchases. She had some clothes, of course. No upstanding teenage delinquent could do without a little clothes. She also had art supplies, small tools, and a few random gemstones she was testing a theory on.

It was a perfectly reasonable level of weird to deal with, for here. Outside of here it seemed like the shopping basket of a hippy larper with delusions of carpentry.

Currently she was staring at weapons she had no business contemplating. She lacked the funds to buy them, skill to use them, and safety training to be left alone with them. Still- something just lingered in her mind, is this where she was going?

[godshattering]

It's a busy day in the markets, and he's wandering with a list scribbled in the notebook he has in hand of what he's supposed to be looking for: a couple items for the loft, some supplies for the gardening he's been working on, and then maybe some other miscellaneous things that'd help out his roommates if he can find them here.

Normally he'd be walking from shop to stop instead to cut down on spending time looking, but there's new stalls to investigate with offerings from both Aquila and Libertas. Why not take advantage of that and that the weather's not too warm to be outside just yet?

While peering down an aisle to see if it might be a good place to look for some small bowls for ingredients, he spots a familiar figure. That's reason enough for him to approach, though when Claude looks at the weapons - and the range of them - he raises an eyebrow even while putting on a smile in greeting.

"Thinking about picking up something from here, are you? Not a bad idea if you're planning to head out into the desert any time soon."

[everybodysterrible]

"Oh, no. Been out of the city once already. And I made the good call of bringing someone tall and stabby who loves horseback riding with me." Abby has no illusions she's capable of defending herself. Which as a modern woman who due to circumstances had to become self sufficient feels really boxed in not being able to leave the city.

But as someone who is tiny and never held a weapon before in her life has very mixed feelings about starting. She let Geralt do all the fighting while she hid and did not die. It was the best call.

"Just- wondering who the fuck I'd be if I was someone who knew how to kill." Questioning the exact distances she could go as a person was pretty much her main souvenir from the Feywilds. She got to see herself with confidence, see herself without her baggage, see potentials for who she could be if she wasn't who she is. And it just left her with more questions. "If that were me, the way this stuff is a lot of people here."

Sylvain

[everybodysterrible]

Abby put some coin on the bar, and the second her drink arrived she disappeared. It created a weird cognitive hole in the world. ‘The bar is packed’ and ‘that stool is empty’ both being true at the same time. Nobody tried to sit there, but nobody was sitting there at all either. Eventually Abby finished her drink. Courage.

She dropped her stealth a few paces from his table, before she sat down across from Sylvain, “Hey. Can we talk? In private?” Yes she sat down just to ask him to follow her elsewhere, sometimes it's just like that.

[philancer]

The loft had been tense this afternoon, so instead of spending the evening at home, like he's been doing most nights of late, he'd slipped out to spend a few hours at the Inn, catching up with some friends and relaxing with a few ales.

When Abby appears literally out of nowhere to sink down across from him, he blinks at her in surprise for a moment before arching an eyebrow curiously.

"I don't know. That depends. Am I in trouble for something?" He tends to assume the automatic answer to that is 'yes' anytime someone shows up with a 'we need to talk'.

[everybodysterrible]

There's a little smirk at the question, then Abby shakes her head quickly. Hair whipping around with how quickly she wants to dismiss that idea, "No, just- I don't want to discuss it in public. That's all."

She's a bit more animate than when they first met at the bar, him all bandaged up like a mummy and her not entirely sure what the fuck she was doing. Only a handful of months and she seems to be better than she used to be, "I still have my room here. We can talk there?"

Jesper

[everybodysterrible]

There were two important details to this plan. First she needed to make sure Jesper was home, it’d be a little awkward to go to all this trouble and not have him be here to appreciate it. Second, of course, was Inej had to not be home. Because while Abby did appreciate her company this would become very complicated very quickly with her here.

Abby readied her power to become inconspicuous, knocking sharply on Jesper’s door once she saw Inej leave, then letting her shadows hide her in plain sight at his door, careful to slip between him and the doorframe as he opened, leaning against the wall just next to the doorframe. Was this an unneeded level of stealth on her part? Yes.

But she had arrived at his room in a red dress meant to accentuate her features and be easy to remove. With a little more intention to her make-up, actually bothering to contour her cheekbones and darken her lips to something more noticeable. She had something in mind, and while her fears felt unfounded given Jesper’s intense desire to build her self-esteem with his flirting. They were still her fears.

Plus, right now, she wanted to only show this side to someone she knew already liked her. And not be seen by others in the halls of Mag’s inn looking this… thirsty.

Once in his room and out of the hall she'll let the power fade and become fully visible, "Hi."

FINALLY CAUGHT UP

[itookashot]

Jesper has something of a routine these days, strange but true, by coming back from the market with what he hasn't sold, making notes of what he'll need to replenish, eating, helping Mags with a variety of chores and fixes using his abilities, and checking in on others. He just has this constant vibe of someone with an enormous amount of energy so despite being 'on' 20 hours of every day, he still glows with it, including now.

He is about to figure out what he needs to make, sitting by his desk, when he hears the knock and glances up. A lot of people would typically walk in, although they do know his reputation means knocking is a good idea. Still, Jesper has a lot to react to all at once when Abby slips in when he opens the door.

"Hello," he says in response, grinning. Jesper moves back a step but that's only because she put in the work to make herself look this way, so it would be rude if he didn't appreciate it. Gray eyes take in the full picture with open interest.

Once that is taken in he leans an arm up next to her head, he's much taller than her so he has to bend down, but he gets into her space. Jesper's dressed down, his coat hung up, wearing a loose button-up shirt that is mostly undone in the heat, and he reaches out to gently touch her cheek with his other hand.

"You look beautiful, but are you sure about this?"

It's important to him that he always checks first.

[everybodysterrible]

It was a good question, easier to answer if someone wasn't very tall, very handsome, very in her space, and messing with her heart rate. She put a bunch of work into looking good, and he just gets to casually look like that!? Her breathing shallow and it’s clear she is not upset at his stupid annoying prettiness.

She wasn't sure of anything. But the risk reward seemed more than within scope, at least that was her thought before coming in. Now that she was here her thoughts were mostly 'tall' and 'eyes' and really nothing coherent past that. Eventually she scrounged up enough words for a sentence, "No. Not sure why that should stop anything."

"If it helps put your mind at ease, I've been told it'd do me good to get fucked." It seemed as good a way as any to make absolutely clear why she was here and what she was here for.

Julie

[everybodysterrible]

Weird thing about Abby's Magic #1: Abby cannot feel the magic without moving. This isn't surprising, if she isn't extra animated that usually means she's deep inside her depression. And that's a girl you don't want to have accessing powers to burn the world down. So she's tapping a foot, or bobbing her head, or her favorite portentous wizard finger waggling. It feels very magic and helps her focus.

This is pretty normal for Abby when she's practicing.

Weird thing about Abby's Magic #2: Abby can't conjure things directly from her hand. She gathers the power, feels it ready to bloom out into whatever it's meant to be. There's occasional sparkles of light, or wisps of smoke, but the spell doesn't do anything. Until she touches an object, basically anything. Tables, small rocks, bread. One time she made clouds drape around her shirt because she gathered up that cloud spell and then twisted her fingers around her shirt hem.

That's also pretty normal when she's practicing.

Today however her clouds are a little green and sinister looking. Her glitter doesn't glitter nearly enough. All the small magics she's gotten very proficient at don't work quite right. Which may have to do with the fact that she's looking distracted and twitchy the entire time. After her third attempt at a cloud shaped like sunglasses emoji — which came out looking like an M&M that was left in the summer sun — she just collapses into the floor of Julie's place in a very dramatic totally called for way.

That's generally not how Abby's magic behaves, although the rest of it is fairly normal Abby behavior.

[princessvegas]

Honestly, Julie has not yet taken any steps to try and redirect Abby's channeling. There's no real reason that she should need to be moving or touching objects to properly cast spells; Julie suspects it's a mental block of some kind that simply requires working through.

But, as someone with the opposite effect (Julie has a tendency to cause fires, storms and explosions when she's not controlling her emotions well enough), she doesn't see an advantage to pushing Abby right now. The girl is still in the roughest part of the transition between worlds -- the part where the routine is settled, where she doesn't feel under threat, but too soon to have fully processed the loss of her old life. Julie knows how difficult that period is, how much of that time is spent either dwelling on the loss or else masking it to get through the day. It's tough.

She has always been someone who views distraction as the best way to handle feelings. You can't think about the pain if you're already busy focusing on other things. So Julie has Abby on a well-balanced schedule of five hours' practice a day, which she is happy to repeatedly inform Abby is fewer hours than she used to devote to working at it. Five hours, for someone with no school and only a part-time job, seems more than fair to Julie.

It's not strange to Julie that Abby's magic isn't behaving today; part of the practice is learning to make it consistent even when that's not what her emotions might dictate. So, until Abby throws herself to the floor like a Southern belle with the vapors, Julie doesn't say anything. She just observes from the couch, her legs folded under herself as she drinks from a mug of very sugary coffee that she's thrown ice into. The morning paper is next to her, disheveled from where she's pulled out only the sections that interest her, though she has tossed it aside as Abby's attempts get worse and worse.

"So, what's goin' on?" Julie asks, remaining on the sofa even as she cranes slightly to peer down at Abby. "Somethin' is clearly botherin' you."

[everybodysterrible]

Five hours a day of 'do magic' takes a lot of the magic out of magic. Which is a fucking sentence that makes sense, don't test her. Abby isn't overly bothered by her magic being weird, why would she do things normally? Being like everyone else sounds like the worst. And would also take some magic out of magic.

Still, her mind hasn't been in quite so many knots as it was right now. She'd managed to get back into her routine coming home from the Feywilds. But her magic had been getting harder to sculpt as they days ticked on after it. Some of it fell into place, other pieces still floated in the air, waiting to fall. So the timetable of when her powers turned is pretty obvious. Although today was much worse than yesterday.

Doesn't mean Abby's going to just- say it.

"Maybe I'm just not feeling it today?" She rolled from her back to lay on her stomach. Letting her hair fall over half her face as cover.