abraxaslogs | Open Log - I feel like I should be cackling

Chris, meanwhile, was used to hiding his identity; whether it was from the demons and Underworld he was infiltrating, from his own family or those who would recognize the Halliwell name, he was used to playing it down. So here, where it didn't matter? It was just no different.

As for dragons? Chris and his absolutely terrible poker face outright twitched a that word, salt in an open wound at just how big the gap was in power between him and his brother. The one who could literally magic a dragon out of the freaking television as a toddler, to Chris, who was so far below that they were practically in another dimension. Yeah, he was completely fine with it, really. So he side-stepped the dragon thing, maybe they'd unpack that festering wound later.

" Well I can't ask you to remember the spells and information in here but, you can help, sure. I want to test out what I have in here so far and make sure its right. Before I waste physical ingredients." There was no Walmart or occult store in Solvunn sadly.

Chris flipped through a couple pages back to something he had already filled in. A potion. "There's nothing stopping us from trying to create it here and see if it works right? If you'd really like to help that is." Yes Sansa, he was going to make you chop ginger and pigs feet if you wanted.

"You want to thumb through it?" Call him paranoid. It was okay, multiple people had. Plus if she really wasn't that familiar with magic, maybe she'd learn something. If the Book didn't electrocute her.

Edited 2024-08-13 13:38 (UTC)

"I could certainly give it a look. It's far different from ledgers and raven scrolls, though, so I don't know what help I'll be."

She's itching to get her hands on it, actually. Sansa wants to know the secrets in this book, wants to know if there's something that she can learn and keep for her own in this place where magic comes to her in bits and pieces but others have much more than she does.

Sansa touches the book and looks at one of the spells, trying to memorize it.

Well that solved one mystery. He liked Sansa, at least in the 30 seconds he knew her, and the Book liked Sansa, even if it was super incomplete and not quite real. Chris helped her out and flipped to a sleep spell he thinks he got right. At the very least, if he didn't, it probably wouldn't hurt her?

"Try that one. If you get into trouble. Where are you anyone, I don't recognize you from Solvunn. And what do you mean by raven scrolls? You don't mean literal ravens holding scrolls right? Or scrolls somehow made from ravens?"

At this point, there was very little that would surprise Chris, so it helped to make sure things weren't completely wacked out.

"I am from Thorne, currently, but the horizon doesn't seem to care about factions when placing us together. My space here is that bit of castle nearby," she says, motioning toward the tower she's built as her part of Winterfell. It is equal parts sanctuary and a warning - she doesn't want anyone there she hasn't invited.

"And yes, I mean scrolls carried by ravens. You cannot write much on them but if it is an important message, something that must arrive quickly, you send it by raven so it gets there quicker than a courier would. It doesn't work for longer letters, naturally, but small ones can be sent if one has cramped enough handwriting. You get very proficient at using a quill and making sure it doesn't bleed through the parchment when you send a lot of them like I do."

"Looks....homey." Chris had honestly never been to a castle, or had he actually thought about what it would be like to live in one. What were the beds like? No electricity. No Google.

"So these ravens send quick messages. Is there a reason you just use ravens? I mean, why not pigeons or herons or something? Ravens are big without being too big?" The more Chris thought about it, the more he thought that he just didn't have enough information about who Sansa was and what her world was like to make a guess. Except. Ravens were cool? And Raven texts? Also probably pretty cool.

"Well you can't obviously use ravens here, but if you need me, you don't have to use the weird messaging system they have here. Just call my name, I'll hear. I can't get to you in Throne, but I'll hear. "

"Ravens are just what we have always used, I think. I suppose it is because they are clever birds and always return back to where they roost. They're dark against the sky and very distinctive, so you wouldn't accidentally kill one for your supper like a pigeon, and they fly very quickly. All of those things make them our choice in the end."

Simply calling his name would allow him to hear? What sort of power is that? Sansa doesn't know it.

"Did you learn that sort of magic here or did you know it from your book?"

There were all sorts of things Chris could respond with because the words coming out of her mouth were oh so weird. But the thing he came up with was "You eat pigeons? Isn't that like....eating squirrels? What do they taste like?" Cause the supermarket never had pigeons and the best he could think of is that they must taste like chicken right?

"Nah, it's something I'm born with. It helps if I have some connection with the person, but I don't have too." Chris tried to listen, to feel. He didn't think he had Sansa as a charge but....there was no harm in double checking. Keeping an eye out. Or an ear out as it were. She seemed nice, and he really didn't want to see her get hurt. Even if he wasn't physically around to help.

"Well, I haven't ever eaten a squirrel personally but I do know that people eat them. Pigeons just taste...richer than chickens, I think, in a way but they are so much smaller that you would have to eat much more of it to be full. I have never eaten a lot of food all at once but some people need more than me. I know my brother would. He's a warrior. It isn't so strange where I come from to eat them."

Apparently in other places, it is, and that is curious to her. It is simply a bird, after all, and birds can be eaten just as well as other things.

"Your magic must be strong if you can simply see about a person's welfare if they call for you," Sansa says. "I haven't ever experienced anything like that."

Chris got a bit of a look on his face, guilt, irritation, anger, shame? It flashed through his face and then halted, stuck on guilty. "Not really, my magic's pretty much the opposite of strong. It's a little like sending a letter on your ravens. Does that make the ravens strong and powerful?"

Was Chris comparing being a whitelighter to being a magical cell phone? Yes, yes he was. As far as he was concerned, that's kind of what he was. He couldn't heal, he couldn't shield, he couldn't any of the things that made his brother or father good whitelighters, and to top it all off, because of his own whitelighter half, his witch powers weren't as strong either.

Then he narrowed his eyes, looking at her and letting the words she had spoken go through his head once again. "You haven't eaten a lot of food at once because.....you weren't given any or because you don't get hungry as often?" Was he concerned? Yes, yes he was. Also, he was the son of a chef.

"I got used to not having enough," Sansa says. She doesn't often talk of her past but she doesn't think it reveals much of anything to say that she hadn't always had enough to eat for various reasons. Westeros is a very different place from the other places people come from here.

"War, famine, the coming of a long winter - all of those are reasons that food is less and all of those are things I have experienced. If my people must go without, I will go without too. I am no more special than they are. A good ruler always thinks of the welfare of their people above all else. I have seen many bad rulers. I did not want to be one myself."

Chris had a lot of thoughts and feelings go through his head at once, and for a moment he struggled to keep them all from overflowing. "You're in charge, like a queen?" Shit did he need to bow? "You already sound like a much better ruler than most. You care. A lot of rulers, they don't. Because they're in charge, because they can, they just do, and everyone around them suffers."

He got it Sansa, it was one of the things that drove him to try and go back in time. To fix his brother because he became a monster, or strangle him in his cradle. "You sound like you have a good heart."

"A queen, yes, though my brother doesn't know that. He thinks I keep the castle in trust for him because he is from an earlier point in time than I am. It is wrong to lie to him, I suppose, but I do it to protect him. I don't think that means I have such a good heart."

Sansa thinks she might have had a good heart once when she was a younger girl but she's been through too much and done too much now to think she still does. She thinks she's on the side of justice, yes, and she thinks she's a better queen than others she's experienced but she doesn't think it makes her good. She just thinks it makes her responsible and loyal.

"I would never ask my people to endure what I do not. I've seen people starve while kings and queens dined on twelve course meals. I am not that sort of queen. What my people suffer, I suffer, no matter how terrible."

Chris held up his hands, only following what she had said so far. Sansa was going to need to back it up a little for this very 21st century guy. As for whether either of their hearts were good? As far as Chris was concerned, the bar for that was pretty damn low. As long as neither of them tortured, murdered or starved innocent people, they were pretty good. Neither of their life experiences had been sunshine and roses.

"Wait just a damn minute. Are you saying your brother would be upset that the castle is yours and not his?" Chris is one hot second away from thinking Jon is the most macho asshole on the planet, but considering he was raised by a bunch of Halliwells, can you blame him?

"And yeah, that does make you a good person. Not starving people. That's generally what good people do."

"What? Not at all. Jon's never wanted to be a king. It's only that it hasn't happened for him yet and there are other things that happen that would be troublesome for him to hear," Sansa explains. "And I do not wish to hurt him. He would worry about things to come and not be able to focus on being here and there's plenty of danger to be had in Thorne as well."

Sansa doesn't want anyone to think that Jon seeks a throne or would be envious of hers. It is far from the truth.

"If it makes me a good person, that is a low threshold. It is my duty to protect my people. I am their queen by right of birth but it doesn't mean I shouldn't do my best to see about their welfare."

"Oh," Okay that was a dumb response but Chris was a little surprised. And probably projecting just a tiny bit. Give him an inch and he'll tell you all about how Wyatt got cool powers, and a cool magic sword and everyone's love and Chris got nothing. Maybe, just maybe, Chris was letting his own issues here cloud his view of Jon. A bit. A tiny, tiny bit. But Sansa not wanting to spoil future events? That he could understand

"I wish everyone in the world agreed with you. I'm glad you at least are looking out for your people. And your brother is....cool?"

Chris paused, and then thought back to something else she had said." Wait, are you not safe? In Thorne?"

"Our political situation recently changed," Sansa says. She thinks it's a delicate way of putting things and a simplistic one but if he does not live in Thorne, she does not know how much of it she should reveal. Summoned are summoned, after all, but there are still divisions between the three nations.

"It made things a little less safe, as you can imagine. As I am no stranger to coups and wars, I am a bit hesitant to consider myself perfectly safe even within our castle. Keeping the favor of royals is always difficult, doubly so when you are not a native to their land and have influence to rely upon. As I have no desire to have my head on a spike, I am trying to keep myself as invisible as possible."

Chris raises his eyebrows. "I think I know exactly what you mean." His own brother wasn't trying to bring his head back on a pike. Or his dead body. Safety was an interesting concept, and he hadn't thought that the same might hold true here. With the rising political machinations he'd only just begun to understand.

"Alright. Alright.....I can't fix the entire situation but I think I can help you. Meet me in Nocwich when it opens. Just keep your head down until we meet. And if you need me, just call out. I can't come to Thorne but I can meet you here. Or in your own domain. Okay?"

"I will meet you in Nocwich. I will have to slip my brother's escort but he will likely find something to occupy him and I can get away for a little while. We've been here long enough that I imagine he will think I feel safer than I did at first."

Bad things could still happen to her, yes, but Sansa thinks it's unlikely when there are Summoned like Nikolai, her brother, and Thancred about.

"I look forward to it, actually."

Chris was absolutely fine with himself doing the sketchy stuff. Other people? People he cared about? Not so much.

"Do you really think that's a good idea? Slipping your brothers escort? I mean, he's probably doing it for a good reason right? You just said you weren't safe. Not that you wouldn't be safe with me but, it's the in between I'm worried about."

Open Log - I feel like I should be cackling

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