abraxaslogs | it's not your act of creation

Entry tags:

it's not your act of creation

Who: Claire and closed starters + opens
When: September + October
Where: her house in Solvunn, the Horizon, will add more locations as needed
What: An open where Clarie discovers she can control bees (up to 30 ft), an option to bake bread or garden with her, eventual questing, a handful of closed starters and more!
Warnings: Will update as needed
Notes: Please feel free to match the brackets or switch to prose, tag with your heart. Assume wildcarding is on the table, just message me first or hmu on plurk @

babybananas w/any ideas!

look how cute, how adorable, how perfect

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"Jesus H. fucking Christ, goddammit."

It's the second time in as many months that Claire has been hit in the face, and she drops to her knees, one hand automatically moving to her mouth. She can already feel blood on her fingertips from a split lip, and she's annoyed that she's going to have to explain this one, too. It isn't her fault this time, at least. She's ninety-nine percent sure she could've gotten the mask off and not been popped in the mouth.

"Fuck." Once she's on her feet, she waves a hand, and Tegmar's legs are tangled in roots that shoot up from the ground, causing him to trip. They wrap around him, tendrils creeping to his hands to bind him at the wrist, and then Claire's attention is on her would-be hero.

"I had the situation well in hand, but thank you." She dabs at her bottom lip and mutters something else under her breath, digging in her skirt pocket for a cloth to dab the blood away.

That...is...an excellent point. [ Claire lightly bites at the inside of her bottom lip as she thinks, one hand on her hip. ] This is now the sort of draught I think I'd have to mix on the spot for the individual, not something to bottle en masse and sell.

[ This is why she loves having people to talk things out with, she hadn't though tof that before Annabeth. ] Which changes things completely, from a shop keeping point of view. Would a hypothetical owner hire a staff of one, then, to mind the front while draughts are made?

[ As she muses aloud, Claire begins making another, adjusting for Annabeth specifically; she doesn't want it to be bitter with the additions, so to smooth over the leaves and seeds, she mixes in a few other things. The result is something almost sweet and sour sauce flavored, but thinner. ]

Alright, we'll wait a bit and try this one after you have cake.

[ Just in case there are any delayed effects. She breaks away to go to the actual kitchen, not far, and looks up with a smile as she cuts. ]

How have you been, dear? Anything notable happening in your neck of the woods?

[ Claire smiles brightly at the mention of Wanda and Julia, even as she moves her hands slowly to direct the bees. ]

I do know them both; Wanda actually made a few new bees for me, enough to get a hive started. That was before the Singularity gave me this magic. Now I can call them from the woods, but I'll have to test my range. I haven't figured it out, exactly.

[ As she explains, the bees have formed a sort of shield around Claire, moving with her when she walks, staying in tight formation. ]

I imagine a person might think twice about trying to get to me through a barrier of bees. I could clear a path, you might say.

[ Her attention turns to Tifa again as she once again waves the bees away, letting them go about their business. ] Have you met Himeka yet? Between her and Julia, I've been able to connect with plant magic fairly well, I think. I'd be happy to pass along your name if you haven't spoken yet.

[ Again, she has to give some credit to the Singularity for gifting her the magic, but she had good teachers who helped her learn how to focus and train herself up, exercising her magic like a muscle. ]

"Oh, dear."

Probably not the words one wants to hear while over-heating, but she's having a thought. "I don't think this can be a one-draught-fits-all situation." He might need a bit less pepper seed than say, one of the demi-gods would. "Alright, not to worry."

Claire first writes down everything she's observing visually, then gives him a sympathetic wince. "Try to imagine when this will be its most useful. It's cold. Someone or something's attacked and we're all simply trying to survive in a shelter in the winter with no way to make fire large enough to warm everyone at once. Imagine the Singularity has stopped working so no one can magically and instantly create warmth."

That's really the larger goal, to have solutions in times of stress, though she does have a thought or two in mind for a shop. Her hands are busy now, putting together cooling things, and soon she has another small glass, pale blue liquid in color.

"Here, drink this, it should counter the effects. Too cold, and we'll just go outside and light the outdoor hearth for you. I'm sorry, but there's no better way to get results than in the Horizon. I'll neve have another opportunity like this in my life."

So many things are possible in this world, that they can't possibly have in their real lives.

We have this food back home - ambrosia - and it can help speed up the healing process. If you're brewing a magical warming potion, I think it'd either work faster on me or I'd need it to be stronger. We can try for both versions, if you'd like.

[ she loves a good experiment! ]

I guess it depends on how popular the shop gets? [ annabeth knows a lot of things, but running a hypothetical store is not one of them. she'd rather handle the numbers. she also knows claire was probably just talking to herself aloud, but she replies before she thinks about it. ]

Well, I'm not going to say no to cake. [ she meanders closer to the kitchen too, leaning against the counter while she considers how to answer claire's question. ]

I'm okay. It's... quieter than I might have thought after everything that just happened. [ but she supposes that happens sometimes, a lull after the fighting. a pause in the face of its chaos, where perhaps everyone is just trying to carry on like normal. ]

[ she might be thinking a lot about war lately, both in concept and in her mother. ] Though maybe not, when it's a powder keg.

[Winterfell in the Horizon does not have the purpose that its true counterpart has in the North. It doesn't exist to be a fortress, to withstand a siege, to help the Northmen survive a hard winter, to be a place where the Lord Paramount of the North can meet with the men who owe their fealty to him, or to be the seat of the King in the North, or to show any magnificence for House Stark. In truth, it exists only for comfort for its erstwhile denizens and anyone they might wish to invite there.

Through those dreamed centuries, when it had been bigger than it is now, Jon had gotten used to sharing it with Claire, and he is used to seeing her in it now -- most especially in the places he keeps for himself. But the place he means to take her to today does not belong to him alone, though he has taken special care to make sure that it is now as he remembers it, down to the last detail -- every bit of dirt and stone and rust.

His expression brightens when he sees her, and he pulls her in for a kiss -- but not until after he ruffles Ghost's fur.]

My love. You're ready to visit the Stark dead? All the old kings of winter are waiting for us.

[When their kiss breaks, he offers his arm, ready to leave the Great Hall for the courtyard outside of it. He is dressed more casually than he had been the last time he had been in the crypts in truth -- there is ever a chill in them, and ever a feeling deep in his bones that he is not wanted there. But it will be small work to produce cloaks for them both when they want them, and with her at his side, it will be warmer there for him than it ever has been.]

The other countries call us a cult, but really, it's a very benign cult. And no one's following any octogenarian calling himself High King God or anything daft like that. Our gods are real.

[And actual gods. When actual gods are involved, it's less a cult and more just local religion.

But oh. Dear. Arthur isn't sure how to answer Claire's question. He could give a very easy answer and brush over...everything else. But that feels disingenuous. He can just be honest without delving too deeply into things.]

Ah, well, I was lucky. I had my secret stash of books. There were the weekend concerts, but we only had two bands. Even The Make Believes get old after a while. And of course the daily, government mandated games of Simon Says. Those...also got old after a while.

[Of maybe just for him. Even before going off his Joy, he'd found something empty in the daily game playing.]

I hosted, once. Everyone ended up getting terrible electric shocks when the dancefloor shorted out. Freak accident, someone knocked over the prayer candles and tried to put them out with water. Why we built the Simon Says dance floor in the church, I've no idea.

[ She makes a face - like she doesn't quite understand waking up to see flowers. Maybe it's because it's not something she's considered. It reminds her of something - a time that's a literal lifetime ago and she snuffs it down. ]

What you mean is "quiet from people." [ She counters. ] The commune's noise is just that loud, but those sounds don't go away when they're awake. The whole forest is noisy.

[ it's not quite a complaint... but it might as well sound it. as someone who's hearing is usually better than others. If she's supposed to take it as wariness, she doesn't, not this time. Mostly, because to her, there's always so much noise. ]

[ "Night owls," the other woman says and she chooses to ignore it. ]

Nebula.

[ Her name. Lilac eyes frown without frowning as she says wryly: ] I'd say I wouldn't want to impose, but I've learned around here the immediate answer is to do it anyway.

[ Wanda made bees? Tifa's gathered from their lessons together that Wanda is incredibly powerful, on a level that she's never really seen. Making something from nothing isn't the sort of thing you see every day. And while Aerith had a sort of special power with nurturing plants, she hadn't ever made living creatures.

Tifa's gaze tracks the formation of bees as they follow Claire so closely, not unlike the way any trained fighter would keep tabs on a threat. She knows they're well under Claire's control now, but she makes a good point about their usefulness. ]

I guess that's true. Not many people are going to risk trying to push through that many bees to get to you.

[ Granted, some bees would get hurt in the process. Didn't they die if they used their stingers? ]

Oh! [ She nods firmly. ] Yes, I have met Himeka. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she's skilled at using magic too. It seems like most people here have some talent in it.

[ And if it's possible for anyone to learn here, why not? Although Julia and Wanda definitely knew magic from home; it's why they're such good teachers.

Tifa's eyes flick down to her hands for a moment. ] I've mainly been working on re-learning some elemental magic. The way it worked for me back home, you needed something called Materia to cast it at all. So this is kind of an adjustment...

John can feel himself beginning to sweat underneath his well-tailored jacket and he reaches up to loosen his neck cloth in the attempt to bring himself some sort of immediate comfort.

“I suppose that it would have been useful to have with me in Canada,” he posits, watching Claire mix together another tincture that he can only suppose is meant to improve this situation. Or possibly it will turn him blue. Only time will tell, really.

Letting out a breath, John prepares himself for what may come, and downs the second potion in a single swallow, handing her back the glass once he does.

The effect is not immediate. He thinks about making another joke about counting to ten but decides to hold his tongue for now, deciding to take the moral high ground.

“Dare I ask how you have familiarized yourself with these ingredients so quickly? I cannot imagine they are all common to North Carolina.” Oh. Does she know about that part yet? Oops…

Well she totally wasn't kidding when she said the situation had been under control. Chris watched kind of in horror as the older woman waved her hand and roots shot up from the ground to contain the man. Okay. That was cool. That was really, really cool. Maybe next time he could save someone who actually needed his help. And see if he could manage to not get them hit.

He was doing so well. Chris had to practically surgically remove his hands from his mouth. You'd think he would be used to watching people do magic like that. And he was. He just. Well, wasn't expecting it here. Go figure. He was a hypocrite.

"Apparently so. I am so, so, so sorry. Did I mention how sorry I am?" Was he mildly concerned those roots were going to turn on him? A little. He still took a few steps toward her, intending to help in any way possible, Chris dug through his pockets for anything remotely useful. " I have....what do I have? I have an explosive potion. Nope putting that away." He stuffed most of his potions and random herbs he's collected back in his pockets. "Are you alright?"

I've heard of that. To quote various sources from my time, ambrosia is the 'nectar of the Gods.' Some historians believe it was just a well-honeyed mead. [ She doesn't pretend to know that's a fact, not when someone who would know is right there. She offers a wry smirk. ] I'm assuming that's not the case at all. As far as experimenting goes, let's see how far this next one gets us and I'll decide from there.

[ She cuts two pieces of cake for them and returns to the table before sitting for a little break. Medicinal brew aside, her attention is on Annabeth. ]

Honestly, I'm surprised it's quieter out your way, too. Though I'm glad for it, however long it lasts. Solvunn's excitement tends to come in grand gestures such as ritual sacrifice to a new God.

[ She shakes her head; the statement deserves a bite of cake, so she takes one. Once she's thought about her words a bit more, she arches an eyebrow. ]

Someone is plotting. Likely multiple someones. It's only a matter of who strikes next.

[ Claire knows where she falls in rankings, and she has to admit, she'd go for ruffling Ghost's fur first, too. A small smile curves her lips against his, and everything in her settles to have her eyes on Jon again. It may not really be him, but to be here requires peaceful moments, which means all is as well as it can be when he's awake.

She's excited to see the things he never did, proving there's still plenty to learn from and of one another. Her arm eagerly slips through his, as close as she can be without causing them issues walking. ]

I'm ready. I want you to tell me every story about every Stark you remember and care to divulge.

[ She turns her head to kiss the side of his shoulder firmly, ready to go wherever he'll lead. ]

[ Alright, well. She has to ask because she wants to understand a bit more. ]

Why Simon Says? To see who pays attention, or how far they can push you?

[ Those are the only reasons her mind can come up with, but she immediately wonders if she should offer to change the subject. ]

We can, of course, speak about anything else, please don't feel as though my curiosity demands an answer at the expense of your comfort.

[ Claire likes to think she's a better friend than that, and she smiles, small but genuine. She is, however, thinking of so many questions at once that she's only now realizing he said Simon Says dance floor. ]

[Arthur takes a moment just to figure out how to explain this in a way that's understandable. And doesn't just sound like the ravings of a lunatic.]

No, it's alright, it's healthy, I think, for me to talk about it. That's part of trauma recovery, I've been told, and Wellington Wells was very traumatizing.

[Once you were off your Joy. He knows that his society left a mark on him, and he knows it's all very upsetting. But he does trust Claire, as much as he supposes he trusts anyone. And so far she's handled all his strange revelations rather well.]

It was mostly about control. Keeping us conditioned to listening to Uncle Jack without thought or question. He was...well, a sad story, really, but the mouthpiece and face of what passed for our government. He was on the telly from 6 AM until 11 PM. All we knew, all we learned, after the war...it all came from Uncle Jack. And most of it was just lies. He hosted the news, the cooking show, the music hour, the history hour, the comedy hour...and the daily Simon Says games. Everyone in town participated, either at the church with a guest host or at home or in the street watching through the general store's windows or one of the street mounted tellies.

[Arthur's eyes get far away behind his glasses, the static in the whites of his eyes thickening and quickening.]

You really didn't want to mess up during the game. The dance floor was electrified for a reason.

[As they pass through the courtyards that run between the door to the Great Hall and the heavy door that covers the crypt, he is grateful for how close she clings to his side. The weather outside is cool and crisp, reflecting the early winter days when he had last been in the North. That doesn't trouble him.

In truth, it's that part of him mislikes the crypt. In the Horizon, it isn't anyone's true resting place. At home... well, she will know his feelings on it soon enough. But the history of the place is of special interest to her, and in that, he doesn't wish to disappoint her.

They reach the door soon enough. Today, it's open. Just past it, a stone staircase spirals down deep into the earth, and candles, too many to count, pool creamy white wax on their stone shelves in the walls. Along with torches, they provide all the light there is.]

We're going down. Not to the lowest levels -- those aren't safe. Ceilings are collapsing, so us children never saw them. They say Bran the Builder might be down there; he built Winterfell and maybe the Wall. Maybe other things too. But we can see where my father is, and some of the others I can tell you stories of. Some I can't, as well. More kings than I know the names of, in truth, and more lords, too.

[When they reach the bottom of the stairs, there it is: a long row of large niches, filled in. Statues of seated kings with swords across their laps, but where they are now, the swords are just stripes of rust. Statues of direwolves accompany the kings, as Ghost accompanies Jon and Claire now. There are no statues of queens to be seen. There is a statue honoring one woman, but it's much deeper in the crypt and can't be seen from where they're standing.]

[ A large part of her love for Jon comes from his willingness to indulge her rather than dismiss her passion for history and old things. He indulges a lot, actually, and she smiles to herself, squeezing his arm just before they make it to the door.

She listens as he explains, enjoying the way he leans into his role as tour guide and storyteller. As they descend, the reverberation of his voice against the stone around them makes his voice sound deeper, surrounding her as it echoes. Her hair is still silver in color, but in the Horizon she can control whether it casts a glow or not, and here, she lets the flames create their own ambiance.

The orange light casts a glow over worn and etched faces, all that have one very obvious thing in common. ]

It's very...male-leaning.

[ She arches her brow but means no real offense, and especially not to him as stops them in front of the first niche, looking up at it. ]

The craftsmanship is wonderful, though. I can only imagine the sculptor was chosen with care for each piece.

[ Claire chuckles as she puts her mug on the table in front of her; she likes this person already. Straight to the quick of it. ] That's exactly what I mean. [ She does offer a little more context. ] When I was a trauma surgeon in a busy hospital, I often pulled the night shifts. Others hated it, but the middle of the night could have some of the worst injuries to fix.

[ And that's what she loved to do, to fix people. She had a reputation, once Doctor Randall was assigned to you, everything would be alright. She only lost one patient under her care in the 60s. A Scotsman she'd felt an instant connection to, widowed, with a fatal allergy to anesthesia. He'd haunted her for weeks. ]

I grew accustomed to being up late into the night, and the city was always loud, always bright. [ Claire nods into the general darkness before looking back at Nebula. A beautiful name, she thinks to herself, offering a small but genuine smile. ] I prefer the forest noise. And it's nice to meet you, officially.

[ Opening the thermos in front of her, she uses the top as a makeshift cup, then pours what's left into her own mug for a top-off. It's a black tea, blended with dried apple pieces, hibiscus, cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom and rose hips. ] This a new blend. Not quite autumnal, but getting there. If you'd like honey, I can get you some.

[ As she hands over the thermos, Claire gestures to the bee houses with her free hand, where the bees are lying dormant for the night. ] If I didn't want you here, you wouldn't be. Though I haven't regretted one visitor yet in my time living here, so I'm feeling good about our odds.

[ Magic bees mean they're heartier, at least according to Wanda, and Claire trusts her. But the bees aren't all magic, and she isn't eager to put it to the test. ] As a last resort, I might take all the help I can get.

[ She does have her bracer first, a gift from Hilda that will provde a magical shield. But as a backup, or if she needs to protect someone else, she has a very last resort. ]

'Kind of' an adjustment feels like an understatement. [ She gives Tifa a wry smile, then nods toward her patio so they can sit, walking toward one of the four chairs. There's a pitcher on the table, the last of her late summer tea blend, iced, and one cup half full, the other empty and waiting. ] At least it was for me. I actively avoided using magic for the longest time. Until I met and got to know Wanda and Himeka.

[ Julia came later, and Claire loves her all the same. ] I'm going to guess not everyone can access this, 'Materia?' [ She gestures to the table. ] Would you like tea?

Claire is writing what she's observing, asking another vital question. "Does it make you feel any sort of pain? Anything that would make the side effects worse than the cure, so to speak." Probably she should've asked that before he swallowed the second shot, but he won't die here, at least. And he can wake up at any point, so he has that going for him.

She's had some vague sense of winding up somewhere in the Americas, and he's assumed it's somewhere along the east coast and in one of the states with heavy fighting during the Revolution. All assumptions based on context clues from her various conversations with John. But this might be one of the biggest revelations yet.

North Carolina. At his blurt she goes still, keeping her eyes on the page in front of her. She doesn't mind the idea of that, she must not have then, either. "I suppose I'll have to let you know in ten years time when I've caught up with myself," she says with a somewhat forced smile. It nags at her sometimes, that he knows more about her life than she does. But they've agreed that with the biggest revelations out of the way, and knowing Brianna and her children are safe, Claire doesn't ask questions.

She does answer his question though, taking a breath and letting it out through her nose. "I snooped through all of Jocelyn's things while she was awaiting execution. I might have..." She gestures vaguely with one hand. "...borrowed some samples from her garden and read through her notes before the Council sealed off her home."

She looks back up at John. "The rest was filled in with research. Feeling cooler?"

Claire takes a few deep breaths, pressing the cloth to her lip. She can already feel the roundness of swelling, but at least it isn't a black eye this time. Once she's taken enough deep breaths to trick her mind into thinking she's calm, she finally takes in the person in front of her. She's seen him before, but only recently and only from afar, so she assumes he's newer. The last cycle of new arrivals, or the batch right before, she can't be sure. Still, she doesn't know him.

"You can stop apologizing. I'll be fine, there's been worse done in the last month alone." Michael is going to give her that look again, she knows it, but oh well. She'll point him at Chris.

"What, exactly, did you think you were going to do?" She isn't yelling. In fact, she asks calmly, completely ignoring the man struggling in the vines. He'll be fine, he isn't going anywhere. "Throw an explosive potion and hope it only affected him?"

[ Trauma recovery. After conversations with Sam, she sometimes wonders if she needs some sort of recovery treatment. He'd explained to her what PTSD is, what those moments are when the only thing she can feel is the tightening pressure in her chest, unable to move or breathe. Not only because of the war, but from so many moments that inflicted deep, scarring pain she's never been allowed or given the room to deal with.

She could go to Crane, she supposes, but her trauma feels safer tucked within herself. At least for now. She appreciates Arthur's willingness to talk, and she's an attentive listener. The more he explains, the more her face creases into what can only be described as a what in the actual fuck? expression. Which isn't that much different from what comes out of her mouth. ]

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, that's—[ Claire doesn't know what that is, but this might be the most reaction she's had to anything he's said. It gives more context to Arthur though, and she lets out a breath. ]—well, I hope you made it out of each game alright...?

[ She trails off on a question, realizing she doesn't know if he's arrived from any sort of death experience. ]

Doctor Claire, you have no idea.

[Arthur lets out a strange little laugh.]

Everything got so terribly fucked up after the war. But they drugged us all, so we didn't know. We thought it was all fine, everywhere was like this, and we never questioned all the things that didn't make sense. We believed Uncle Jack when he told us we weren't starving, and we'd be fine eating tulip bulbs and bark! And every day, so many activities designed to keep us suggestible and trusting...

[He shakes his head. It's just sad really. All those people, who were probably perfectly nice and normal people before the Germans came, doomed to such an empty and lacking existence.

He really didn't intend to bring down the mood of this visit, but so much has built up in him, away from Wellington and well flushed of Joy in his system. He understands even better now, how awful it truly was. And he'd known! He was one of the lucky ones who saw through it all.

And Claire does seem amenable to listening...]

But oh yes, I got a few shocks in my time, but that was the worst of it for me. From Simon Says, anyhow. I, er...well, I snuck off after I had to host, but in my defense, I was already in the middle of trying to escape Wellington. And I did! Well...I think I did. I was on the bridge...the one to the mainland. I was walking to the mainland. But then I was here.

[And really, probably for the best. He'd ended up in the same position, alone in a world he didn't understand and knew nothing about. Only here no one expected him to have ID papers or money, which may have been a problem in England. If England still existed.

He's still not terribly sure about that.]

[He responds, at first, with a sober nod.]

I have never been here when a Lord of Winterfell died, but I was told the sculptors try to keep a likeness. When we get to my father... it looks a little like him. And it is a statue, so it doesn't. You'll understand when you see it.

I didn't like this place when I was a boy. Played down here, we all did, but I had bad dreams. I had to keep going down into the dark, down and down, always afraid of what I'd find, and then I'd wake up. [He does not tell her that he still has these dreams. She knows he has nightmares, he has them with her, in Nocwich, but they could be of anything: wights, Boltons, things that have happened in Abraxas, the loss of her. Sometimes they are of the crypts.] No matter. There is one statue of a woman -- you'll see that, too.

For now, here's Brandon the Shipwright, and his son, Brandon the Burner. The Shipwright loved the sea, so he built ships to sail it. He was lost at sea, never returned, so in his grief, his son burned all the North's shipyards. We've never been a naval power since.

Then there was this one, Theon Stark. [It's a statue of a gaunt man with long hair, a thin beard.] They called him the Hungry Wolf -- hungry for revenge and conquest. He kept his people at war all through his reign.

[Moving them both along further, he pauses, smiles slightly.] I liked this one as a boy, but I envied him, too. Can you guess why?

[They stand before the tomb of King Jon Stark.]

If he had known Claire was close to Michael he might have been much, much more careful. Or tried to help harder and gotten her even more hurt. Michael? Chris wasn't sure where they stood. Because who asks for three character references when you meet someone?

Claire was asking a very good question. And Chris? Didn't really have a good answer. The true answer was he wasn't sure. He didn't have a lot of supplies yet and had only made one or two potions. But the fact that she looks almost calm while berating him? Well it reminded him a bit of his mother. Especially considering the guy struggling next to him and she wasn't phased at all.

"I actually hadn't thought that far ahead yet." Maybe at this point in his life he should just have that tattooed on his forehead. By now one might think he'd stop and think about the consequences of his actions. But he hasn't. In his defense, the human brain doesn't fully develop until 25.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Which she wasn't. Obviously. "Clearly you can handle yourself," Chris gestured to the vines, which he hadn't been expecting at all. He eyed the struggling man, and then eyed her again. "Uh....you're planning on letting him go eventually right?"

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it's not your act of creation

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cw: mentions of ptsd

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