abraxaslogs | open | january catch all

[ castiel's drawn immediately to the gardens. Traces and whispers of his brother's touch, his grace, lingers on the stems, the roots, within the soil. Lucifer tends to these gardens, he knows, but his own fascination with nature and the cultivation of it calls him here. Something about assisting in the creation of the Earth leaves a mark. an awestruck reverence for an ecosystem's natural cycle. bloom, propagate, decay, seed, carry on. Lucifer, of course, had a much more impactful role in building their world, their eden, and part of Castiel is curious to see what that side of his brother looks like.

He only truly came to know Lucifer after the damage was done, after he became... whatever he is now. part of him wants to believe there was once something good, something pure, underneath all that became twisted and bitter in Lucifer. the other knows better than to hope. If he is looking to spy his brother in the midst of botanical care, he's not wishing to be caught doing it.

whether or not that spark of natural peace still exists inside him, the gardens are, in a word, magnificent. castiel's fingertips brush across leaves and petals as he explores, eyes drinking in the brilliant, vibrant colors, inhaling the clean, earth-scented air. it's easy to forget the war and political to-and-fro beyond this space. such mercurial and impermanent things in the face of a lifecycle as old as this planet's advent.

Don't touch your brother's toys, something in the back of his head whispers, but castiel can't help the urge to sink in and become a part of it all. he finds a secluded, silent, sequestered alcove between the lush vegetation, and settles himself down, laid back to against the earth, and simply breathes. A moment of serene peace. try not to trip over his feet. ]

[Castiel finds himself, eventually, in a staring contest with a long-haired calico cat. Her annoyance is grand. He is an unknown that does not belong here, but she has judged his stature and she can't sink her claws into him in any way that will leave a lasting impact. A feat for another time, that needs more thought, more planning.

For now, her tail flicks with an annoyed air about her, the staring contest put to the wayside.

Unfortunately in her wake, Castiel finds Lucifer, standing like he for all the world belongs here, the vegetation swimming up around him like Castiel trying to hide away into it.

Of course Lucifer would find him.

Both other yet familiar and the mixed feelings Lucifer has for Heaven's Most #2 Hated Angel has gotten lattices of complications laid out over him that the devil doesn't so much know what to do with him but...

But Lucifer has lost so many constants from Thorne in such a short time that he has his best vessel as his only support and...

He'll verbally drag Castiel through the muck while Castiel remains an unprecedented reprieve.

What the Actual Hell.]

[ the calico cat is a worthy staring opponent, and while she remains, castiel's content to stare back, tilting his head to one side, and five minutes later, to the other, as if waiting for telepathic communication to kick in.

when lucifer appears, the state of things continue much the same for the first several moments, castiel swapping the focus of fixation to his brother.

any moment, they'll descend into snipes and bickering and the same old patterns of familiar resentment. he doesn't need to explain to lucifer why he's here, certain he's brother's already heard about the portal mishaps.

well aware istredd, kyle and several others lucifer's balanced some level of stability on have been spirited away, castiel supposes he'll let him kick off this batch of snideness. he can practically sense the anxiety and frustration rolling off him. cas offers something relatively nuetral from where he remains relaxing in the vegetation. ]

Friend of yours?

[ the cat. there's certainly some resemblance between personalities. ]

Chris preferred to do this thinking and meditation on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. But since that was decidedly lacking in their current environment, the gardens were going to have to do. He was walking instead of sitting, trading a walking meditation for brooding over the top of San Francisco.

In a way, don't touch your brother's toys poked at Chris too. But at least here, he was away from Wyatt. As much as anyone could be away from their all powerful psycho brother bent on imposing his own world order. Chris couldn't even save him as a toddler. Or kill him. And now he'd never know what Wyatt might have been, if he hadn't been traumatized at the hands of heaven. Then again, Chris was also dead. So, maybe he should just stop worrying about it.

So, without looking where he was going, Chris just walked into Castiel. That's what happens when you try and meditate with your eyes open and don't pay attention.]

Sorry. I guess I should look where I'm going.

[ castiel started off in the horticulture section, as Istredd recommended. Unfortunately, Castiel's reading speed is rather rapid, so it didn't take him long to move on to the history section, and a brief overview of the first quarter of the magic section. It was never his forte, or the greatest of his interests, so the magic doesn't manage to hold his attention too well.

It was a revolving rack of alluring fiction that catches his eye, and captures his imagination. Selecting a novel with an enticing cover, Castiel sequesters himself into an reading nook and sets in. Moments later, he's back for the next volume. And the next. And the next. Until he's exhausted the extent of the library's collection, and locates another citizen in his desperate need to complete the story. ]

Do you know where I might find the next volume of this riveting series?

[ holding up the book, one can see it's a cheap, dime-store romance series, and the half naked man on the cover looks awfully cowboy-adjacent. The man has a type, but not a bone of subtly in his vessel's body. help him or don't, he's already doomed to bad taste. ]

[ Julia has been splitting her time between helping out in Thorne and investigating it more, and it's been exciting being in a new place even if it's also a little alarming. She didn't choose to be here any more than Solvunn, but she hopes it isn't forever. Still, she may as well enjoy this giant library and the many, many books on magic, right? She's been practicing spells in a little corner to learn some academic magic.

She looks up from where she's sitting cross-kneed when she hears Castiel speak, having spotted him somewhere in the library today but figured he was focused on studying too. She picks herself off the ground and fluffs off her dress, tilting her head to look at him. ]

Uhhhh can I see that?

[ Julia spots the cover where he's holding the book and laughs. ]

Cas, it's probably strange that they even have a romance novel in this library. I bet they got it in the local town.

[ waking in thorne wasn't the holiday surprise castiel was hoping for, but here we fucking are. after a quick, less than enthused, message to dean, castiel's up and searching around for folks he knows.

sam's easy enough to find. even in a new dimension, the man stands like a fucking redwood in the midst of saplings, and castiel jostles his way through the crowd to get to his side. ]

Sam. Sam! [ he grabs hold of his shoulder as soon as it's within range, giving him a quick, urgent shake before trying to speak above the confused jumble of the crowd. ] Dean's in Solvunn. He said Rowena's here as well. Do you see her?

[ since you have, like, a foot or something worth of height on cas to peer around for someone small and red-haired in the crowd. what do your ent eyes see, samuel? ]

( Sam leaves Lucifer, gets who he can to safety and rushes back to the portals, hoping that everyone will end up where they need to. except that doesn't happen, does it?

dean's in sam's head, but he gets his bearings first, also searching through the group who's ended up here at - the castle thorne if he's right about the surroundings.

cas is by his side in a second and he can at least breathe a little better. dean's accounted for. and cas. )

Rowena!

( he spins around, trying to get a glimpse of her fiery red hair. if dean says so! )

If she's here we'll find her. Rowena!

( it's not solvunn, that's the only thing that rowena knows for certain. aside from the two other territories, which is not where she expects to be, she doesn’t know where else exists in this world. solvunn, nocwich, the nether. and apparently more.

but there's a crowd, people that she doesn’t focus on as she starts to move away, to get her own space-- until she hears her name. samuel.

he's distance enough away, she can see his head above other people's, and her magic is quicker to grasp onto than moving through the others, a blink of an eye teleporting her beside both of them )

I didn't expect to see either of you so quickly.

( and not so confusedly either, her expectation was nocwich or the horizon )

[ bloop, there she is. cas is so used to be the one popping up unannouced, he does start half a second as she suddenly appears, but it's quickly replaced with relief. ]

Nor did we. This isn't typically how things happen here.

[ usually you're in your own territory, and the only other territory you can be in is nocwich. generally, it's a big problem if it happens any other way. ]

The last time unexpected visitors arrived in Thorne, I believe they were imprisoned. So we may wish to tread carefully.

Then we should stick close together.

( And stay together, should anything happen. )

I familiarized myself with all things Free Cities and Cadens, but not Thorne. What do we need to look out for?

( Besides, being imprisoned. )

Lucifer isn't enough?

( it's the one thing that rowena had learned about thorne: lucifer had been held here. not the cities, not solvunn but here. and now she was. as much as she wanted to downplay how she felt these boys knew her too well for her to do that: they'd see through her too easily )

I've heard that magic here is perhaps more familiar to what we know, that they accept it. It may be somewhere to look. In the library, perhaps?

open | january catch all

OPEN | Thorne: Gardens

no subject

no subject

Re: OPEN | Thorne: Gardens

OPEN | Thorne: Library

no subject

CLOSED to Sam + Rowena | Thorne: arrival

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject