[ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

[princessvegas]

WHO: Julie + others
WHAT: December catchall
WHERE: Places
WHEN: December
WARNINGS: Language, etc. Specific cws in subject headings.

[ ooc: dec catchall, starters in comments, bitchcraft or bitchcraft#2753 to plot. ]

Comments

[ open in the Horizon ]

[princessvegas]

[ Julie's domain is always easy to find and enter. It is, after all, a nightclub -- designed to be seen and to lure, with the promise of music and alcohol and fun, all lurid pink neon and glittering crystal features. The doors, open whenever Julie is in the building, usually let faint bass throb over the entirety of the Horizon, and the ambient noise of roughly a hundred manifested partiers occasionally floats out from within.

Today, however, it seems to be replaced mostly by... bells. Jingle bells. Those of equivalent Earths might recognize some of the more classic songs, "White Christmas" and "Santa Baby", but there's plenty of other interesting Christmas songs in the playlist too. Just in case you can't possibly take another round of "Last Christmas".

Inside, while the ordinary trappings of the club (crystal chandeliers, lush booths, a truly fascinating amount of neon lighting) are still there, things have begun to take a distinctly more festive direction. Enormous wreaths hang on the doors, and it only gets more intense from there; holly garlands drape along nearly every horizontal surface, wrap around decorative statues of reindeer and snowmen that never melt. Twinkling lights, in both white and color, wind all along the ceiling, strategically hung from the rafters and down the walls. Sparkling snowflakes hang down as well, alongside weighty paper decorations, fanciful flowers and fans, in every hue.

And there are trees everywhere.

Trees, towering twenty-footers, not just evergreen but in pink and white and gold too, stand proud throughout the room, in corners and in the center of open spaces. They're all covered in ornaments, jewel-hued baubles and cleverly blown objects, tinsel and ever more lights. Despite the unnatural shade of some of the trees, they all smell strongly of fresh balsam and... is that a hint of peppermint? Many of the trees have a plethora of gifts underneath them, wrapped in coordinating wrapping paper

This has not, however, been done without a lot of effort. Throughout the room, there are little piles, empty boxes and tangled cords, ripped up pieces of paper stuck to discarded glue guns. Nails and tiny spare lightbulbs dot the floor where they haven't been picked up. Empty boxes lie in nests of wrapping paper, waiting to be properly decorated and set under the trees that still have bare floor below them.

Continuing to the back half of the club, things get a little more construction site -- there are stacks of wood, even more electrical cords, hammers and power drills. A half-built manger next to a single sleeping lamb and a plastic baby. And, at the loft, a twenty-foot ladder at the balcony railing, which appears to have its own star at the top.

Julie, barefoot and still in her default gold dress, glinting and certainly not winter-appropriate, is at the highest rung of the ladder, affixing more garland to the railing. The greenery and lights are draped around her like a stole, and she has nails and hooks held between her lips. And she does not appear at all to be concerned about being two stories in the air. While she has not yet dressed to match all this sudden holiday cheer, she does have on a headband made of jinglebells and holly, which rings out every time the ladder shakes unsteadily underneath her.

She never reacts to the wobbling. ]

Horizon

[jealousbitch]

[ Lloyd much prefers hanging out in Julie's more lively domain, though the truth is, it's mostly just because of her presence there. Things are different from the first time he'd brought her to the Horizon, but that's only because she's got her wits about her, now.

Coming into her domain this time, he's delightfully taken aback by all the garlands, trees, and lights. It looks like a holiday card took a shit all over the place and then started experimenting with drugs. Needless to say, he's into it. It looks fucking amazing and still so Julie in its styling. He takes it all in, weaving through the trees and decorations in search of that mop of bubblegum pink. When he finds her, it's at the back of her club where things are a little more disorganized.

He sees the ladder wobble and darts over to steady its base, shouting up at her with a hint of worry. ]

You're gonna break your damn neck if you fall from up there!

[princessvegas]

[ If anything, the ladder suddenly being grabbed startles her more than the wobbling. She grabs the railing with one hand, pink garland in the other, and looks back down at him as if he's just said something stupid. Granted, she always kind of looks at him like that, and there's no particular venom behind it this time, but that's definitely her expression. ]

Lloyd, I can't break my neck in here. It ain't real, remember? Besides, I used to climb trees way higher'n this when I was a kid.

[ She starts to descend anyway, at a clip that's actually fairly impressive, leaving the loose garland hanging from the balcony. The lights glitter off her dress as she moves. ]

[jealousbitch]

[ The look on her face doesn't change his, because that's just 90% of their unspoken communication. ]

Okay, but still. Safety and all that shit. [ He looks up the full length of the ladder and his frown deepens. Nah, nah, that's not his thing. ]

I tried climbin' a tree once. Fell and broke my damn wrist.

horizon.

[gynvael]

[ A day or two after he's returned (home, as Ciri calls it, and he supposes it is home, with her there) Geralt sends Julie a note. It's brief, as expected, a short message that he's back in one piece, to pass that onto Nadine, as well—but the fact that he's taken the time to send anything at all says something. He takes another week before he ventures into the Horizon. Most of him has healed; the only stitches that haven't come out are the ones going up his back, though it no longer looks as grisly as it once had. He has not, particularly, bothered to leave his injuries behind in the real world, hasn't even thought about the idea of doing so.

Julie's is the first place he goes. The path to her domain is a familiar one by now. The inside, on the other hand. That's new. It feels like he's fallen into...he doesn't even know what. There's no comparison for it on the Continent. He recognizes the shimmery trinkets, the decorated trees. They're not unusual during Yule in some towns and cities. But he's certainly never seen trees in these colours. Or so many trees in one place. Usually, there's one, if they even have a tree at all. Sometimes it's a decorated log.

He steps carefully over a strewn bit of tangled string and piles of wood. (He hasn't any idea what half this shit is.) When the ladder wobbles, he reaches out to steady it. He'd question why she's doing this by hand when she can imagine what she wants into existence, but as someone who built his cabin log by log and hammered every piece of furniture together—he gets it. ]

Planning another party?

[princessvegas]

[ When he catches the ladder and speaks, she looks down through an armful of pink garland, which she then tosses several feet to land on the other side of the balcony. Her climb down is certainly not one of someone who has a fear of heights or really any solid self-preservation -- she's down quickly and skips the last three rungs entirely to land on her shoeless feet.

It doesn't surprise her that he's still got all the injuries, wouldn't surprise her if he was masochistically manifesting his own soreness, either. She does, though, sweep a judicious eye over him(as if she were qualified to decide what is and isn't healing acceptably) as she reaches out for him, takes his shirt in her hands with a grin. ]

Nah. Christmas shindigs never measure up to Halloween. This is just decoration. I'm sure whatever shitty holiday they have here is gonna fuck us all, so I figured I'd put a good one up for anyone who needs it. How're you?

[gynvael]

[ Is that what they call it? Christmas? He peers up at the bright lights as she makes her way down with startling quickness. It's nice. The decorations. A little much, but he rarely expects anything from Julie to be subdued and the whole thing is rather fitting for her. The pink matches her hair.

Truthfully, he can't tell how much of this is meant to be Christmas as her world does it and how much is Julie going the extra mile. ​]

In one piece. [ He steps closer towards her, fingers brushing the thin strap of her shimmering dress. He does seem to be better than she'd last seen him, moving without much of the stiffness lingering; if what happened continues to bother him beyond his wounds, the only sign of it is that he looks decidedly lacking in sleep. More than usual, anyhow. ] You? No trouble?

[ She seems in high enough spirits, so he assumes the situation is all right in Nott. Still. It's been a concern, how close they are to Thorne. After what happened, he knows he'd rather see Julie and her people away from there sooner rather than later, though he's aware of why they're staying for a bit longer. ]

[fourarmedandangerous]

Since establishing his Domain, it has become apparent to Goro that people will freely wander in and out of it as they please. Ergo, Goro will return the favour and because he is very big and monstrous-looking he expects that, as in most cases, people will simply let him have his way other than try inviting his wrath.

This place is...garish. The sort of pit Kano would probably enjoy, however. Though maybe not the more...festive decorations Julie has added to the place. Some sort of human holiday, which means nothing to Goro. He presses further in, pushing the revelers in the club out of his way, making little to no effort to be gentle, as they are not, in fact, alive.

In the back area, he spies Julie hard at work, and suspects he has found the Master of this Domain. If the thundering of his footsteps do not announce his presence to her, Goro simply folds his upper arms over his chest, and waits, watching her work with mild disinterest. He'll wait for her to notice him.

[princessvegas]

It's true that people can and do just walk around the domains of others, particularly nosy people like Julie, who consistently leaves a light coating of glitter all over everyone's belongings as she touches them without invitation. Her domain, of course, is meant for the company of others, to the point that the fake people don't ever seem to even care when they're pushed around.

"Yeah, yeah, hold on," she calls down in response to footsteps, which sound heavy but honestly, she's really high in the air, so she thinks it's just someone in thick boots, or maybe it's Volcano Guy. Volcano legs would be heavy. She's suspended in the space between the railing and the ladder, stretched out to finish linking a series of light plugs together, and when they suddenly illuminate in bright white, she straightens back up with a pleased sigh.

Then she turns and looks down, promptly shrieks and recoils, and sends the ladder falling backward.

It seems to almost happen in slow motion, the ladder clattering down with her in midair, a flailing mass of pink and gold that drops several feet but suddenly seems to catch on nothing at all. She's caught the balcony railing with her invisible third hand, although it's a struggle to keep hold for even the few seconds she needs to save herself from become a splat on the floor.

"What the fuck!" she yelps, kicking the air as a thick crash pad forms from nothing below her. The second it's done, she drops the rest of the way, bounces and then scurries away from this giant... thing. Where the fuck are her monster hunters when she actually needs them?

"What kinda insane mental illness bullshit is this look?" She gestures at the... four arms, the weird lizard-y skin, the everything of it all. "Just look normal!"

[fourarmedandangerous]

Goro watches it all, the ladder going down, Julie's fall, catching herself, and finally managing to reach the ground safely before skittering away from him, with the same mild disinterest, though his lip does curl in amusement at the antics his presence causes. He never gets tired of seeing people react in fear to him.

His head tils to the side. "Normal." He repeats, and his eyes narrow. "You mean "human."." They do seem to be omnipresent, in the Realms and larger multiverse. "Your kind always do insist that everything be made in accordance with your comfort in mind."

[falcony]

[ sam...should have known, in a way, that this is what he'd find when he decided to venture out to julie's domain. he'd been at the Halloween party, knew enough about julie herself, but still there's a bit of an appreciative awe that crosses his face when he steps inside and sees it all. the lights, the trees, the music. it shoots him back home, yes, but it also has him immediately worried - if julie actually went through the process of doing all this, or if she imagined it up this way.

thankfully, it's the horizon. and while sam isn't normally the type to impose, as he walks through the warehouse, there might be just a few changes made - garland straightened, boxes finishing being wrapped and set more specifically under trees, trash pushed away to the corners. because whether or not julie wants to have a picture perfect Christmas warehouse, sam figures he can help in small ways.

which is also why - as he makes it to the bottom of the ladder she's climbed, he's got a big bag of presents and gifts and tupperware in one arm, and he uses the other to - immediately - reach out and steady the ladder she's climbed. ]

Jules - I know we can't die up here, but save me the heart attack? Please?

[ and maybe the reason he's out here isn't as festive as his tone would assume, considering geralt's just now reached a more stable condition and it's only been a few days since h'd arrived, but sam's worried and couldn't sit still any longer. ]

[princessvegas]

[ It probably does not help Sam's nerves that Julie is not just at the top of the ladder, but balancing on the toes of only one foot as she reaches up with a nail gun. It's like whatever sense of self-preservation should be kicking in simply isn't there anymore, or perhaps it never was really there in the first place. She is, after all, from the part of the country where doing stupid, dangerous stunts counts as entertainment because there's nothing else to do. Either way, she peers down through an armful of garland, fires a last nail without actually looking, then begins to descend at a truly impressive speed, beaming. ]

Sam! [ She jumps off backward from the third rung and lands in bare feet on the floor, which is, of course, strewn with all manner of sharp debris. This is what having a toddler is like, Sam, except with slightly better conversational skills and less food stains. So, y'know, keep that in mind if you ever find a lady. She begins to take things from him with a face of concern, like he's the one who needs fretting over. ] Oh my god, why didn't you get Steven to take some'a this? You want anythin' to eat or drink?

[ Does this sound like a manic overcompensation yet? ]

[falcony]

[ no, it really doesn't. like at all. sam watches as she balances up at the top, a frowning immediately pulling at his expression as his one hand holds the ladder steady. if she falls, he's gonna be dropping everything he's holding and that won't be fun for anyone, so he hopes. and hopes.

and then she descends and sam feels like he can breathe again, shaking his head in that way that only someone who had to be in charge of younger cousins can. he pulls the box away from her when she tries to start taking his shit from him and instead moves to give her a hug with his free hand, because that is where things are and now that he can think about literally anything else, they might as well greet each other. ]

I can carry my own shit, girl. Come on. [ sam says it with a kind of easy exasperation, and then a grin. he's down to just poke fun about all this, to help her with some Christmas spirit and some decorating because he definitely needs a distraction after everything, but that is when he catches onto the speed at which she's talking.

he sets his free hand on her shoulder, leaning down to search her eyes for a moment. ] You take something, or are you stressed? [ and then, with whatever it is he finds in her eyes, he sighs and shakes his head. squeezes her shoulder once before dropping his hand. ] I am hungry, though, so you can tell me about it over food.

Ciri

[princessvegas]

[ When Julie heads over to Kaer Morhen, it is genuinely not in the hopes of finding anyone home. The only person she intends to visit is always there, sitting at the gates, and he knows exactly what it means when the sparkly collar appears around his neck, correlated to her very presence.

Julie is in the process of turning that wolf into a domesticated lapdog.

In truth, she knows this is a very stupid thing that she absolutely should not be doing, but between the fact that she has definitely known multiple people with wolf-dogs and the fact that this the Horizon, she figures the worst that will actually happen to her is Geralt gets pissy. Which, whatever, he can just make a new wolf if it's such a problem.

As she approaches, the wolf stands at attention, clearly happy to see her, and with good reason: she's holding an absolutely enormous tomahawk steak, the kind of thing that would cost a hundred bucks easy back home, and it's even cooked (just barely rare). Does a wolf care if a steak is cooked? Of course not. But does this wolf get cooked steak? Yes, because he is loved.

Reaching the wolf, she plunks right down on the ground and opens her arms for it, cooing as she feeds it, still holding the bone in one hand while she scratches behind his ears with the other. ]

Ohh yes, hello baby, good boy, yes. Look at that, you hungry today? You want a baked potato too?

[ She might be trying to butter the wolf up. ]

[wiedzminka]

[ Well, this is... a surprise. Ciri approaches slowly from further inside the courtyard at the sound of Julie's voice, dressed in leather armor and holding her sword loosely at her side. Silent as a cat, though she has no intention of pouncing. She's simply watching, absolutely fascinated by the way Julie treats the wolf.

And that collar, the way it glitters and shines.

She can't help it. Ciri bursts out laughing when Julie offers the beast a baked potato, of all things. ]

I'm sure he'd like it very much if it was mostly butter and salt.

Hello, Julie. Nice to see you again.

[princessvegas]

[ There's no sheepishness or sense of embarrassment when she looks up at Ciri. Why wouldn't she spoil an imaginary wolf in an imaginary castle in an imaginary world? The absolute worst possible outcome is just that Geralt gets huffy about it, and he can make a new wolf if it's such a problem.

This wolf is already on his way to full domestication, if the way he lets his head settle on Julie's lap while he eats is any indication.

She smiles up at Ciri, producing a very small, very sparkly Santa hat, which she uses the wolf's distraction to fasten to him. He paws at his face a bit, but there's still steak to be eaten, so he decides to deal with it later. ] I ain't never met a dog that doesn't love a good baked potato. Little butter, little sour cream. A wolf is just a less needy dog.

[ It's the kind of statement that isn't right, but is not exactly wrong either. She's good at making those. ]

How are you doin', sug? All of y'all, but especially you.

[wiedzminka]

Hah! [ Ciri laughs again, shaking her head. ] I suppose there is some truth to that.

[ She lets her sword fade into nothing as she steps forward -- no need for a scabbard in the Horizon, honestly, now that she's used to manipulating it so easily. And no need for a sword when what she wants to do is give Julie a hug.

Ciri settles down beside her on the ground, giving her a brief, one-armed embrace with her other hand already buried in the wolf's thick winter coat. ]

Better. Lying low for now. He's healing.

[ Also. ]

...what does "shoog" mean?

Magic Lessons

[nadine_he_loves]

[After work, and after scrubbing off the pungent scent of herbs and oils from her skin, Nadine seeks out Julie. She's promised the younger woman some instruction in the foundations of magic use, and she's not going to forget about that. She's still certain that Julie would excel at the sort of magic most commonly practiced in Nott, and that she can teach her.

Despite her first impressions - which were, admittedly, poor - Nadine has come to know Julie in the last few months. She recognizes now that the young woman is not too far removed from herself and those she finds kinship with. Rough youth, difficult life, hurt enough times that walls have been built. Only where Nadine's walls are smooth and placid, Julie's are spiked and armed. Just a different sort of defense, built for the same purpose. But under those defenses is a fierce, clever, caring woman that Nadine is pretty sure could take on the world if she wanted.

There is so much potential in Julie and all she wants to do is help her realize it. It isn't fair that no one has, in all the other woman's life. Julie deserves better. So she knocks on the door to the room Julie and Lloyd share, dressed in her usual white chemise and pale blue kirtle, and calls through it.]

Julie? Do you have some free time?

[princessvegas]

[ One thing that Julie has learned in her time in Abraxas is that life before television was boring as fuck. She'd always thought she'd do okay (well, more or less) in a place like this, but she's since realized that her confidence had been based on the idea of actually living on a farm. In the country, there's plenty to occupy your time, even if you hate it. But here, in Nott, there's nothing unless she's working. She reads, but they haven't written the kind of books she's interested in. She rides, but there's only so much time you can spend on a horse. She walks along the beach, but it's so cold now.

It's no wonder that she spends as much time in the Horizon as she can.

At the moment, however, she's not there, is in her room but still in her body. One of the only things that seems to actually eat up time is doing chores, something she detested back home and rarely kept up with, but here, everything that she can reach is spotless simply because there's not a damn thing else to do. She's hanging damp laundry in front of the fire when Nadine knocks, looks over her shoulder and opens the door with her invisible hand, still holding one of Lloyd's shirts in the other two. ]

Hey. Yeah, sure, c'mon in. I'm not workin' downstairs tonight.

[nadine_he_loves]

That's what I thought.

[Nadine comes in with a tired, but genuine, smile. She hasn't been sleeping all that well of late, and it's starting to show. It will pass. She's always struggled with bouts of sleeplessness when worried.

And there's more important things to focus on, anyway. Once they're all in a better position to defend and protect themselves, she's sure she'll sleep better. This is part of it - though she'd put money on Julie being the most capable of them when it comes to self defense, anyway.]

I wanted to see if you'd be up for your first magic lesson.

[ the week of the Dimming, Horizon / OPEN ]

[princessvegas]

[ This is a shitty, stupid holiday.

That is Julie's main takeaway from the whole thing -- that, for a week, this dumb world loses the only thing it has going for it (magic) and apparently everyone else loses all their common sense. But then again, what does she really expect from a world where the Halloween celebrations include raising murderous zombie ghosts for no apparent reason?

She's far more disappointed in her asshole, so-called "family". Once they'd heard about the travel, all of them insisted on taking a wagon back to the castle for the week. The castle. Where Julie and Flagg had been imprisoned, where they all fled from. Fuck, just last month, they were cleaning up the aftermath of torture committed at the castle! What has to be wrong in their heads to make them think that going back to that hellhole is such a great idea?

As retribution, Julie has taken every one of Lloyd's belongings and dumped it in a pile on Nadine's bed. Half of them are still wet from washing. Lacking similar leverage over Susan, she instead steals all of the pillows from Susan's room. This very mature woman is learning to do magic based on her emotions. It's fiiiiiiiine.

She curtly explains to the innkeeper that it's a religious holy holiday for her, and that she cannot be disturbed until December 26th, then she locks herself in her room, burrows under the duvet and goes to the Horizon.

In her domain, the partiers and music remain Christmas season festive, if perhaps slightly more aggressive, but Julie herself retreats into the loft at the back, where she puts on a ballgown and cowboy boots (which, believe it or not, she does have a history of doing in times of high stress), then goes outside on the balcony.

In the back of the empty warehouse, a wooden fence appears. Atop it is a series of empty cans. This is a scene that anyone from the boondocks of America should be familiar with.

Standing on the bottom two rungs of the railing, she raises her beloved shotgun (Winchester SXP, 12 gauge, pump action, walnut stock) and begins calmly shooting the cans down with a series of bangs and pings. They automatically replenish themselves once knocked to the ground, and she has an entire box of shells resting on the rail next to herself.

By the next day, she's calmed down quite a bit. She's still upset, but manageably so, and this is reflected in substantially less violent activities throughout the day. Though she's not ready to leave the confines of her jewel-toned imaginary home, she instead occupies herself with decorating several more Christmas trees throughout -- the ones from downstairs are long finished -- and carefully constructing a truly mediocre gingerbread house. The kind that implies that she's done this before, but only twice. It stands, but the decorating is not impressive.

Downstairs, the elaborate double doors to the loft stairs remain open to visitors. Unless you are Nadine, Lloyd or Susan, in which case they will lock and refuse to open. Because Julie is Big Time Angry.

On the actual 25th, Julie does the only thing she can think to do, which is create the kind of Christmas dinner that someone raised in a huge extended family from the middle of nowhere would have. It's downstairs in the club, on a series of tables pushed together. There's a honey ham, a deep-fried turkey (she can remember two different house fires caused by them in her childhood), several varieties of potatoes and casseroles. Baskets of rolls and biscuits dot the tables, as do smaller dishes of cranberry sauce -- both real and canned -- and dressing. A separate set of tables holds the desserts she remembers her mother and aunts spending weeks making: sugar cookies, gingerbread men, a Yule log cake complete with meringue mushrooms and bits of decorative holly. Cobbler, multiple varieties of pie. A bowl of individually wrapped chocolate liquor bottles. Winter punch and mulled wine. The only thing missing is eggnog, because Julie specifically hates eggnog and finds it disgusting.

It's all free for the taking. ]

shooting practice.

[wiedzminka]

[ The reverberating bang noises, heard even through the drums of the music at the club, draw Ciri closer with some alarm. And then there are the tinny ping noises that only serve to confuse her further. What the fuck is Julie doing in there?

It's the Horizon, so she's probably okay. She can do or undo anything here, as they all can. Julie is most likely not exploding or anything. But--

Well. Best go check, right? ]

Julie?

[ Ciri calls, approaching through the warehouse. She spots the fence, of course, and the things on top of it, but is still startled enough to jump and reach for her sword when the next bang sounds much louder. ]

sorry to geralt for the migraine he definitely just started to feel

[princessvegas]

[ Ciri manages to call her name at precisely the moment Julie fires again, sending one of the cans far enough to hit the wall and bounce back. It automatically disappears and resets itself on the fence. The sound drowns Ciri out and Julie doesn't look back.

Up on the balcony, she pauses for a moment to reload and crack a new can of beer -- Bud Light, as it is only proper to drink cheap, shitty beer directly from the can whilst one engages in the time-honored tradition of using a firearm to work through one's anger. The image and activity is so engrained in her mind that the cans on the ground around her are the old red and silver ones from her childhood, instead of the blue ones that were sold by the time she could drink.

Tossing a spent shell over her shoulder, she raises her gun and fires again, nailing the next can in line. ]

fried turkey time.

[gynvael]

[ Truthfully, Geralt meant to remain outside of the Horizon during this damn Dimming except for brief excursions. He enters not too often in the first place—only when he needs something or he's looking to get some extra quiet—and this...change to the Singularity, how on edge it seems to leave Ciri, he's preferred to remain present in the city as much as possible.

Still, Sam's back, no one's died, and Geralt has spoken to those he needs to about. Certain events. So when Ciri tells him she's found Julie left alone, it's a combination of promising Ciri he'll look in on her, concern over what the fuck Nadine was thinking, and his grasp that this is meant to be an important time in which Julie's family has abandoned her, that's got him stepping into the Horizon once more. He leaves a note for Jaskier—brief, punctuated—that serves as an invitation to join if he wants. Which he suspects Jaskier will want.

He takes the wolf she calls Snowflake with him. That's not its name, technically, but much like Geralt himself, the wolf will respond to several of its earned monikers. And yes. It is indeed still wearing the little red hat gifted to it this morning. Festive.

He walks in with little announcement, pushing open the doors to her club. A jug of spiced mead is in his hand. The tables are covered in food, which comes as little surprise. There's a tilt to his head, like he's listening for where Julie might be emerging from—and when he hears it, he'll turn in that direction. ]

[princessvegas]

[ If Geralt wants people to call the wolf by its proper name, then he has to tell people what the name is. Otherwise, it can and will be given a name that really belongs to a white Pomeranian who lives in a handbag.

If she's honest, Julie only put all of the trappings of Christmas together because she didn't know what else to do with herself. She has spent every Christmas of her life in the exact same place, with the same people and traditions, and when she tried to figure out anything else, she came up empty. She doesn't really want the food, doesn't care about the decorations. It's all just routine, something to occupy her time and energy. Only the gifts meant anything, and even then, it was bittersweet to deliver them because she'd finished Nadine's present before their fight.

So it's probably not surprising that she's nowhere to be found in the area that looks as if she was expecting guests. She wasn't -- no one was invited, and she figured that everyone else would either have their own plans, or else they wouldn't even know what she was trying to do, so she'd simply made it all, carefully laid the table, then wandered away. Instead, she can be found near the nativity she'd set up, which does include a live lamb.

But she's in sort of her own strange little tableau. To someone who doesn't look hard, she appears to be sitting, back turned to the room, in the middle of a field of white poinsettias (they're actually just tightly clustered potted plants). But there's a trail through the white, of petals in a splotchy ombre of pink and red, as if she has been trying to paint them with watercolors of varying strength. Many of the flowers are also singed on the edges, or otherwise damaged with tears and holes.

She's been trying to change the colors of the petals with magic, true magic instead of manifestation, and what had started as one plant soon became a whole heap of them, the failures pushed to the side to make room for fresh ones, like a child discarding coloring sheets. The flowers nearest to her do appear to be darker, more thoroughly red than the others, though they still aren't clean or crisp, still have spots and streaks of white cutting through the crimson.

Muttering to herself under the music of the club, she grabs a fresh plant from her side and sets it directly in front of herself, where she squints at it adversarially before she rubs her hands together and holds them out slightly. She is absolutely talking to the flowers. ]

You. You're gonna be it this time. C'mon, let's go.

[ With a deep breath, she knits her brow and tries to see the red, make all the white disappear from her mind's eye. She uses muscles that she didn't even know she had until recently, ones that seem to exist outside of her body, and pushes all the color with them, tries to pour the scarlet down over the blank petals. It works, sort of. The poinsettia begins to turn red from the center outward, like bleeding ink, though it's still patchy and some areas stay stubbornly white. Her shoulders shake and she bites the inside of her cheek, leaning closer to the plant.

One of the petals begins to smoke and curl at the edge. She exhales heavily and drops her hands in frustration. ] Oh, for fuck's sake -- [ Reaching out, she crumples the still-smoking flower and pushes the pot aside. She's not even sure how she's fucking it up. ]