abraxaslogs | it's not your act of creation

[ Claire loves having people over for tea or coffee. She'll always serve whichever dessert she's been working on in the Horizon—she practices with conjured-up ingredients first, only to perfect it and finally make it in her real kitchen. It wouldn't do to waste ingredients and ruin something she's never done before, so everything is well-practiced by the time it makes it to Solvunn. Today she's serving blackberry cake, served with the first autumn spiced tea of the season. She's forged or grown everything herself, using her magic to grow what she couldn't find in the tamer parts of the forest. The tea is a blend of hibiscus petals, orange peel, cinnamon, star anise, ginger, and clove. Not the full autumn punch yet, but a light September spice.

Her front door is open because she's expecting Arthur, the smells of the cake wafting out the door. There are bees buzzing, but they're polite and only two or three bob in the air near him as he walks the path, the rest stay near the bee houses and around the wildflowers.

When he arrives, Claire happens to glance up at the doorway and smiles brightly to see him, just finishing setting the cake on her small kitchen table. ]

Arthur, come in. Welcome. Don't mind the bees if any of them float in, they'll find their way out.

Edited 2024-09-07 16:06 (UTC)

[There's something so very pleasantly normal about popping round a neighbor's for tea. It's the sort of thing that belonged to a lost world, for Arthur. And he always enjoys chatting with Claire. She, too, is nice and pleasantly normal.

As much as normal can be found here.

He only hesitates a moment at the sight of the bees. Memories of swarms swim through his mind, but this is not Wellington and the bees here are not murderous. Certainly not Claire's bees.]

Cheerio!

[He gives a friendly wave as he ducks into the doorway.]

[ Claire's home is decorated in donated, mismatched but cozy furniture, mostly deep blues and greens if she could find it. The kitchen is just big enough for her brick oven and a wall of growing herbs and counter space, with an island separating her from the alcove where they'll sit at her small table for now.

The living room is filled with plants and books, and one side beneath a window has a table set up with all of her findings from the dig where she's sorting and cataloging. ]

The cake needs to cool a bit, but the tea should be ready.

[ Against the wall one countertop in the kitchen, is a row of jars for different tea blends; dried rose hip, lavender, orange peel. She's always concocting, experimenting with what she thinks others might enjoy. ]

I hope you don't mind a seasonal blend?

Oh no, not at all! A seasonal blend would be quite nice, thank you.

[Arthur reaches into his pack and pulls out a jar.]

I brought jam. Erna's made a new batch, there was plenty to spare. And you can never have too much jam.

[The matriarch of the family he lives with is quite the jam and jellies maker. Claire's always so generous and kind, he feels it's only right he brings something to the table. It's just the way he was brought up.]

It smells delightful in here. You've certainly been a busy badger!

That's the absolute truth. Especially if one has a good clotted cream to go with, and I happen to. Thank you Arthur.

[ She takes the jar from him, admiring Erna's work. Claire isn't so much of a jam or jelly maker herself, so she's pleased. ]

Now that I have bees again, I'll have to add Erna to my rotation of those to trade with. I'm sure she'd like honey in return. [ Who doesn't love honey? Except for those with unfortunate allergies, she supposes. At his compliment, she smiles, once again pleased. ]

It's because I don't know what to do with being still. Back home there's always something to do, no matter the century. In the modern one I was always at the hospital, and in the past, every day survival means not resting on your laurels for too long. Being here, I have to do something with all that energy.

[ It's most definitely why she spent weeks digging around Solvunn, to sate her curiosity yes, but to be busy and feel she has a purpose. ]

I'm sure she'd like that. Very big on that sort of informal trading in general here. I like it, it's surprisingly familiar.

[Wellington had descended into essentially a barter community by the time Arthur left. Not officially, but...well. He's not the only one who'd found themselves buying old cans of beans and powdered milk for anything but actual money. His repair skills went a long way in that kind of society.]

And I'm familiar with keeping busy, of course for the opposite reason. Nobody ever talked about it, but there really wasn't much to do back in Wellington Wells. Outside of work and, well, the daily struggle to survive...we found the strangest things to try and keep busy.

[Claire is one of the people he's more comfortable openly discussing his previous life with. Or at least aspects of it. Understanding how very terrible and abnormal a society he comes from, he's taken to just giving very broad strokes. But the doctor is never judgmental and while sympathetic, has yet to seem shocked or deeply bothered by anything he's shared.

He doesn't like to make people feel badly.]

I feel like this life is...simple but it works. And more importantly, I enjoy living here. Thorne seems awful, I won't live under anyone's thumb. And the Free Cities sounds a bit too busy for me. I've had that live.

[ She so much prefers the relative peace and quiet of Solvunn compared to the others. As Arthur speaks, Claire gets their tea ready, enjoying having something to do for someone, liking the times she has company. She tried to have friends in Boston, but something simply never...clicked. Not the way it has here. ]

Perhaps combined we should be a person with normal energy levels. [ She thinks she's funny and chuckles to herself before bringing both cups of tea to the table as they steep. ] About five minutes on the tea, I'm keeping track.

[ She can tell by the color and smell more than the time. ]

What did you find yourself doing the most often to spend time?

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.

[ 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.

[ 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.]

[ Claire really has nothing to compare that sort of experience to. She's lived through harrowing moments, times where she was sure was set to die or be killed. But she's never been controlled or manipulated in the ways Arthur describes. ]

May I say that I'm glad you're here? You don't deserve that sort of life. I'm in no position to decide what any of us deserve, but I do know that life wasn't it. Not for you. Not drugging and cults.

[ Unless one counted the deities here, but no one's forced to worship. ~~Yet?~~]

I can't tell you how it went exactly in the aftermath for for England because I happened to travel back in time. But upon return, there was certainly no Uncle Jack.

[ It's endlessly fascinating to her, how different their worlds are, and yet the similarities are there as well. ]

You and I both. Ending up here was no worse than making it to the mainland, and likely a good deal better. I didn't have to explain to anyone what's been going on in Wellington for the last twenty years.

[He manages a small laugh at that. But it's true. There were no awkward questions when one is summoned magically to another dimension. They'd been expecting him here!]

And I'm not surprised, Uncle Jack's influence never went further than Wellington Wells. We cut ourselves off from everything, even the rest of England. And it was illegal to leave, or admit anyone from the outside.

[There had been nothing, not even communication. London had become an exotic, far away land. An idea. Nothing existed but the little chain of islands in the channel - the ones that were still populated and had buildings still standing, anyhow.]

It...it really all went to hell.

Arthur, it went to hell on the express train.

[ She brings the tray then, setting a cup of tea in front of him first. Then she pours, orange and ginger permeating the air before pouring for herself. ]

Help yourself to the milk and honey. Would you like a slice of cake?

[ She supposes she could press him for more details, but it all sounds so awful, why make him live in those moments just for the sake of her own curiosity? Although, there is one thing she can't help but wonder aloud. ]

I wonder how long a cut-off community like that can stand? I suppose with the right resources...

[ She makes a sound close to an ugh, dropping the thought. ]

In any case, you're here now, and that's what matters. How long has it been now?

it's not your act of creation

𝖠𝗋𝗍𝗁𝗎𝗋 | 𝖼𝗅𝗈𝗌𝖾𝖽

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cw: mentions of ptsd

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