Julie Lawry (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
princessvegas) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
abraxaslogs2021-12-06 12:33 pm
princessvegas) wrote in abraxaslogs2021-12-06 12:33 pm
[ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?
WHO: Julie + others
WHAT: December catchall
WHERE: Places
WHEN: December
WARNINGS: Language, etc. Specific cws in subject headings.
[ ooc: dec catchall, starters in comments,![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
bitchcraft or bitchcraft#2753 to plot. ]
WHAT: December catchall
WHERE: Places
WHEN: December
WARNINGS: Language, etc. Specific cws in subject headings.
[ ooc: dec catchall, starters in comments,
fried turkey time.
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. ]
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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. ]
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He steps carefully through the broken flowers, despite their sorry state. At first, he thinks she's simply unable to manifest properly what she wants; the Horizon has a habit of doing that, when your mind isn't in the right place. Fucking up your creations, manifesting what you didn't mean to. Only the gentle hum of his medallion makes him realize she's attempting real magic. Or as real as it can get in the Horizon. He isn't sure how it works in here, how much of what's learned translates to the world outside.
Whether Julie notices his arrival or not, Geralt only watched as she concentrates. The petals bleed a splotchy red before singeing at the tips. He crouches down beside her as she shoves away the ruined plant among the rest of her discarded attempts. Which. There's a lot of them. She's been at it awhile, apparently. ]
That sounds like a call for a drink. [ He holds the jug out to her: an offer to commiserate in silence or listen if she wants to talk about it. ]
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Magic inside the Horizon isn't substantially different from outside it, but then again, Julie only knows how to use the same magic on both planes. It all comes from the Singularity. It seems to be slightly different for those who had their own powers before Abraxas, but that's about all she knows. Her invisible hand works the same in both places as well.
Having put all of her focus entirely on the plant, she does not notice his arrival, and she does not notice how close he is to her until he speaks. She jumps with an audible squeak, her heart absolutely racing. ] Jesus fuck, don't sneak up on me like that. How long have you been there?
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[ He eyes the twisted plants, debates if he should say something about it. It feels like a private matter he shouldn't prod at just yet, so he doesn't. Instead, he sets the ale between them and pushes a couple of pots aside so he can sit down proper. Her place is decorated, but empty. Bit of a different atmosphere from her Halloween event. It feels lonely and maybe he can understand that. ]
Something on your mind? [ It's asked with no expectations attached one. A beat passes before he offers his own, ] I haven't been keen on the celebrations out there myself.
[ If one could call it such. He hasn't got any idea what it's like in Nott, but there's a discomfort in being around Cadens' sentiments towards magic these past days. He isn't a mage, but he is different and he is magic. Made from it, uses it. He's close to people who are capable of wielding it. It all reminds him too much of how easily these things boil over. Always does start like this, doesn't it? With a casual sort of disdain that festers. ]
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Eyes squeezing shut for a moment as she catches the breath she'd lost, she takes a drink from the bottle. God knows she's been in a haze of alcohol and weed since she peaced out of the corporal plane almost a week ago, so it barely matters what he brought. ] I fucked off before they got too far into it. What do I care if the Singularity wants to take a nap or whatever? Doesn't seem any different to me.
[ Which probably has something to do with just how few people have been around the Horizon this past week. She'd just assumed that everyone was taking part in the celebrations outside, respecting their hosts by not utilizing their ties to the Singularity, using up the magic or whatever. As far as she's concerned, that just means more of it for her.
In Nott, this appears to be a much more lowkey holiday than Eifstide, from the brief explainer that she received, and that's not Julie's style even when she understands all the lore around the events. At least being alone in here meant she could surround herself with tinsel and baubles and familiar music. Out there, it was just being alone in the dark. ]
I just wanted to see if I could do it, that's all. Change 'em. I thought it sounded easier than fire, but... [ She gestures vaguely at all the plants, then wraps her arms around her legs. ] I don't even know what I'm doin' wrong.
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So when he arrives with a flourish into Julie's club, boots about as high as he can make them and his attire about as bright and cheerful as he can make it, (which is definitely not overcompensating for the idea he, too, would like to drown in a bit of wine and weed), he is not entirely anticipating walking into a graveyard of burned plants.]
Er. Oh. This is certainly... striking decor. [He's more talking to himself than anything, eyeing a long table of food (he definitely entered the Horizon hungry, a terrible habit he's been sticking to), until he spots both Julie and Geralt on the floor, with more of those burned plants, sharing a bottle of what must be ale or mead.
It's not exactly the celebratory shindig he'd expects, but it... actually, it feels much more fitting. Even if Julie looks as if she might curl away from all of it.] Hello, my friends! [Normally one might pause at this sight, or taken a slight bit of care with it, but Jaskier walks right over and carefully slides a pot over to make room for himself, kneeling down.] My apologies if I'm late. Are we... are we drinking on the floor? I can provide, you know. A few chairs, perhaps. Not, of course, that they're necessary. I love a good bit of... ground drinking. Is there fire? I smell -- ah, we're setting plants on fire. Very good. I'm all about it right now.
[No, instead of gentle care, he sort of just talks a lot.]
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Possibly, he should have specified that this is not a party; he'd only informed Jaskier where he would be because he knows the bard and Julie are friends, too, or at least get along well; given that her entire chosen family in Nott has fucked off to Thorne, he'd thought she could use more than one Witcher to show up looking in on her.
He sighs a little when his friend arrives as he does. ] Jaskier.
[ There's a not now underlying it, though maybe a careless whirlwind is exactly what Julie needs for a distraction. He won't pretend to truly know, so he just helps scoot some of her blotchy plants over—he realizes they're technically ruined, but part of him still doesn't want to see her creations crushed, whether she deems them failures or not—to make room for what's now the three of them on her floor. Nearby, he thinks he hears a lamb bleat. ]
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It's fine. She was just doing magic based on her emotions, no big deal. When Ciri visited, she was shooting a gun, so things are definitely improving.
Inching closer to Geralt to help create space, she offers the bottle to Jaskier with a tired shake of her head. ] Not settin' 'em on fire. Well, not on purpose anyway. Just tryin' to change the color.
[ The lamb baas quietly and she calls to it, the way one might to a dog. ] Hey. Shut up. There's hay right there.
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So there they are. Drinking on the ground.
Oh. Strong stuff, too. He gives a throaty appreciation with a mumble as he wipes his mouth, handing it back, laying his legs out in front of him. As natural as if he's been living his life on the floor. Who needs chairs, anyway?
He sits up, a little stiff, looking at Julie across the bulk of Geralt.] Ah. You're having trouble with magic, too? [The too slips out, but he leads on despite it hitting him heavily.] I have found that forcing it, a bit like a tough shit, makes it all the more messy.
[There is a lamb, but he's choosing to simply accept its existence here, along with the flowers, and the... strange set up of whatever that is. Julie is clearly in a mood, which he's noticed among his friends that celebrate this holiday -- that something about it seems to cause these moods.]
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His gaze shifts to Jaskier, scrutinizing for a second. Too. He's noticed, obviously. The plants that wilt and crumble even when Geralt has given them some care, in an attempt to see if he can coax them the traditional method. (He will not get into why saving Jaskier's fucking plants feels important; it isn't to do with the usefulness of the herbs, most of which can be bought if needed.) But it's the first time Jaskier has admitted it out loud around him, that his magic's been fucking up. Given the circumstances around everyone here, it's hardly unexpected. Geralt doesn't draw on that magic to the same degree, so the only thing he's had to deal with are sleepless nights and some instability in the Horizon. The latter's mostly started to steady itself out.
He takes the bottle from Jaskier, whether or not it's offered. His remark is made into the mouth of the bottle, but it's clearly meant to be heard, though there's no needle behind it. ] Words from a renowned poet.
[ The bottle is passed back to Julie. He hasn't got a problem with drinking on the ground. The liquor's the same at any elevation. ]
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Jaskier definitely catches her by surprise, maybe just because he sounds so melancholy to be saying such a stupid thing, and she chokes on a laugh as she takes the bottle back from Geralt. ] Can't think of a classier way to put it, really.
[ With a swig and another pass of the bottle to Jaskier, she shakes her head and makes a vague noise. ] It's just always the end that fucks up. Like, I set the flowers on fire, so fire should be easy, right? Watch this shit.
[ Both hands in front of her, she narrows her eyes and focuses on the space above her palms, where a sparkling ball of flame suddenly erupts into existence. It holds for a minute, wobbling, then abruptly explodes into a shower of ash. She doesn't know why it won't stay lit when the flowers keep catching fire.
She dusts her hands off with a look of irritation at the whole exercise. ] Every single fuckin' time, for days now.
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[Besides, this was the result he'd hoped for. Julie laughs, and though it does not solve any problem, it feels like the weight in the room is lessened from the sound of it.
He takes the bottle back from her, another swig. He swears he can taste both of them on the lip. It brings to mind Geralt talking to her at Sam's so very long ago. Jaskier had taken a look at her and almost couldn't believe it. And Geralt came here, without him, to spend time with her. Obviously, they were well acquainted.
It was only a funny thought. So vastly different their spheres, but they all fit together so easily. Their experiences, in some ways, were universal.
Magic included. It's always the end. It is. He can grow his plants, and they'll be stable. For a time. And there, at the end, at their roots... that's where they rot.
The fire makes him jump, but it's nothing more than what Geralt's Igni has done to a pile of firewood (though he swears Geralt has lit them in a specific way to scare him on occasion.) It's a pretty thing, the fire. Wildly dangerous. It burns off of nothing, into itself. He must wonder what Yennefer would say about it. He knows little himself, but Jaskier, even as a magic layperson, knows that fire magic is forbidden.
Hard to say why. Simply expected from its destructive force, maybe.]
It's certainly a striking bit of chaos. [A shame he isn't better learned on the subject, because it would be a thrill to help. Yet... he can't much help himself with it either, can he?] You know, where we come from, it's said to be a forbidden magic. Fire. I don't know the specifics, but I imagine it must be quite hard to control. I think that you can create it at all, out of nothing -- certainly an impossible feat! -- is remarkable in itself. Perhaps if you play out differently how you want the spell to end, you'll find something to perpetuate it instead.
[It's advice to himself as much as her. If he uses the magic differently, perhaps... perhaps he can learn how to control it better. To understand why the thoughts he has have fucked with it so much.
Or it's bullshit and he wants to think that it's as simple as that. Be creative. Use it for something else. Make another cactus shaped like -- well, something, and it'll all work out in the end.]
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It's true, the Brotherhood shuns fire magic. Something about the destructive nature to the soul. Maybe there's merit to it, maybe there isn't. Fire certainly consumes. And where is the line, anyway? Igni is not so much the creation of fire as it is the application of heat. He can't conjure a flame in his palm. But one could argue that's a fine line. Though he supposes few turn their thoughts to what it means for a Witcher and their Signs. They're not meant to have souls for a flame to devour. Or something of that sort. Whatever shit it is people say.
Still, it does make him consider, both Julie's problem and what Jaskier is saying. Strange, when he stops too long over Jaskier having magic now. That he knows what it is to use it, learn it. (How should Jaskier feel, Geralt has wondered, if he were to return to a world where he will no longer have access to it? Would he hesitate?)
He picks up one of the plants and holds it up. ] I've found training comes easier when you have a target.
[ As in, perhaps she just needs something to set on fire to start with. Instead of struggling to maintain it in the empty air. ]
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She is, after all, from Kansas. She fears a tornado far more than a fire.
Geralt gives her something to aim at, and uncertainty floods her eyes. Not at the idea, but at her command over her own power. It's one thing to make a ball that she knows will fizzle on its own because it's happened fifty times in a row. It's another to set something else aflame. She also doesn't necessarily trust herself to light just the one plant on fire, to not mistakenly set them all blazing.
Nadine would say it's not safe, says a voice in the back of her mind, the same one that drives most of her terrible decisions. Julie's vision turns the red that she couldn't get into the petals, and she takes another drink. Nadine would tell you to sober up first. She wouldn't've let you even make the flowers to do this.
She straightens slightly. The only thing giving her pause now is Geralt himself, and she gestures at his hand. ] Put it down. I don't wanna catch you, too.
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[Jaskier rolls his eyes at Geralt's advice, but it's simple and it's probably not wrong. After all, the Witcher has more to do with fire than himself, even if it was mostly candles and roadside campfires. He steals a swig of drink once Julie's set it down, turning in interest to watch her. He can tell that she's genuinely trying to pull on it, to learn, instead of letting the Horizon do it for her.
He laughs.] All right, I'm not saying I want you to, but it would be a little funny.
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[ There's a reason for those claims, however small or large; he just suspects its truth holds less water in this world, if it does at all. Enough is different here that he can't speak to much with certainty. The magic, the monsters. It's familiar, all of it, and yet not.
He gives Jaskier a sidelong glance for that remark. She isn't wrong; he'd prefer to remain not ablaze. He clears a wide enough circle around the single plant, so that the small potted forest she's created won't catch.
Normally, he'd be more cautious than even this, but the Horizon is what it is. Nothing's permanent. Not even destruction. ]
I'd hate for my flaming corpse to inspire your next song.
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[ Turning back to the plant, she takes a deep breath, holds her hands up again. She has learned, over the past few weeks, to better wear mental blinders and focus in on only what she's trying to do. It's still not easy, and good god does she wish that Abraxas had the medical technology to produce Adderall, but she has figured out how to shut out the world with only her mind. Everything else muffles itself around her, until there's only the stupid fucking blotchy poinsettia. All she has to do it make it burn.
Her teeth clench and her brow furrows. Some of the petals do start to sort of smoke and curl, but the flowers overall stay stubbornly not on fire. You're grabbing, not directing, Nadine whispers in her ears, and though it's always been said kindly in the real world, now it is almost a taunt. You always grab. Like her magic isn't in fucking books, telling her exactly what to do. All she has to do is memorize, not pull it out of herself.
The poinsettias should be red. Nadine is white, perfect and pristine and immaculate. Julie is red, blazing, glittering red, and everyone knows that poinsettias are supposed to be red.
She grabs in her mind and the magic pulls back like a lassoed bull, but she still has the rope. Her entire body is tense, almost painfully so, and she can feel herself straining, her heart racing. Like a switch, the plant suddenly catches flame.
Which would be great, if she had better strength to pull back against the bull, to make it stop where it is. She doesn't.
The plant she's focused on goes from a cheery blaze to a towering eruption in a blink, though it burns back down almost as quickly, leaving just ash in the pot. Every other flower instantly turns scarlet, all at once, and then the rope snaps, drops her abruptly back into her body like falling from a cliff.
It's not as severe a descent as it has been in the past; she doesn't collapse this time. She does black out for a second, like standing up too quickly, but catches herself on her palms, arms aching and heavy. ]
I fucking hate poinsettias.
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[A pail of water appears by Jaskier's boot, though, just in case. (It's mostly a joke.)
They go still, and wait. Apparently they both can sense this is taking some concentration. However, Jaskier does begin to clap when the plant catches fire. That's. That's what she was going for, right?
Probably not the raging inferno, which makes Jaskier scramble back with a yell even further, only just missing a bit of a singe to the tail of his coat. The fire scorches, burning like a storm, and then at once, dies.
Well. Fuck.]
You... you meant to do all that, right? Because it was, er. Very impressive.
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His attention instead is on Julie. He's curious, how chaos manifests for her. He's watched Jaskier perform a small spell or two, but Jaskier's magic is—ironically—largely a quiet affair. A bird formed in the air, plants that simply grow and reach. No spells for combat. Geralt has never brought it up, either. He knows Jaskier finds his reason for being in other places. As an artist, a storyteller. Not a fighter.
This world has enough fighters, anyway.
He grasps Jaskier's elbow as the fire sweeps through. Faint concern knit his brows together, though all he does is take a step in front of Jaskier, an instinctive motion—and when Julie collapses, he steps forward again, reaching to offer a hand or to catch her if she needs it.
The one sacrificed flower aside, the rest are now gleaming red. It is impressive, actually. He sees what she means, the unpredictability of it. ]
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There's a slight wobble to her step when she stands, but she steadies herself and straightens. Her knuckles are white around Geralt's fingers. Looking first at Jaskier, then around them at the red flowers, she takes a deep breath, heart still pounding.
You meant to do all that, right? ]
Well... fire, color. It's what I set out for.
[ Which, of course, means that she absolutely fucking did not mean to do all that. ]
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Honestly, it was very impressive. He's selling her short, for sure.]
I can see why you've chosen here to practice. [He dusts a bit of ash from her, and from the end of his coat, looking over the plant that has been completely decimated. At least he understands why he's felt like Geralt was in relatively good hands.
He trusts dangerous hands more than... magically competent ones. Though one should hope they go hand in hand.] I'm sure it's fuck-all annoying to hear, but the old adage that practice makes perfect still rings true. I will say, you do seem perfectly suited to the more destructive part of the chaos. Maybe you should lean into it. Burn down a few buildings. Create new traditions around an... enormous bonfire.
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Speaking of chaos and destruction. Maybe Ciri might find some use for that, rather than simply lessons of theory with Yen. Though he isn't sure. Hers is a unique case—and she's just as liable to explode out there by simply attempting magic in here.
He helps steady Julie, and gives Jaskier a look that suggests no one should be burning any buildings down. But for Geralt, it isn't destruction that he sees in what occurred. It's something else. ]
You only set fire to one flower. [ He indicates the pot reduced to ash. The rest are intact. Cheerfully scarlet, just as she's been attempting from the start. It isn't perfect control—but it isn't a total lack of it, either. ] The one you were aiming for.
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She knows that, logically, she should be quite proud of what she managed. Geralt is right, she'd only incinerated the single plant that she meant to, and she supposes that she is pleased. But there is something terribly unnerving in accomplishing something of this magnitude without actually meaning to do it. Almost like an out-of-body experience, and not a fun one like taking a bunch of pills. A really scary one where she doesn't know exactly what she'll find when she returns back into herself. She can handle small magic, the fireballs and changing one flower's color. These huge bursts... they're something else entirely.
Once she has her footing back, stops feeling off-balance, she looks around at all the flowers and sighs. ] Yeah. [ It makes her skin crawl, makes her antsy, and with a wave of her arm, the plants all suddenly disappear so she doesn't have to look at them anymore. The whole concept of being able to do something so big (even though it's so small in the grand scheme...), it's foreign and uncomfortable to her. For her, what she just did is enough to have changed her entire world. Not just her world, on a personal scale, but the entirety of human history as she had known it. And here, it's absolutely nothing. Laughably nothing.
Once they're no longer standing in a field of poinsettias, Julie begins to walk away, toward the food, though she stoops to pick up the bottle on the way. Swallowing the gulp she takes, she looks halfway back over her shoulder. ] Hey, y'all want some of this? Promise I didn't actually cook any of it. It's my family's recipes, so it should be good.
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Then again, if this is like his situation with Ciri, he sort of understands. Capable of power, unable to control it accurately.
The threat of blowing up a friend. Or, in this case: setting them ablaze.
That's awfully encouraging for Geralt. If he wasn't already well aware of Geralt's affections for Julie, it's never been more obvious than in this moment. He looks between them for a moment, perking up at the mention of family recipes. Oooh, delightful!] Why, actually, I'd love to. Is this all traditional? For the holiday? Oh, what's this one? And, you know, I've been meaning to ask -- what is with the lamb? It's not part of the meal?
[Considering it's alive and running around.]
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