abraxaslogs | ( open — august catchall )

Yeah.

( he doesn't know if what he's done is here is really exact to the office back in hell's kitchen but it feels right. )

We always meant to upgrade offices but — you can only upgrade if you have the money and we sometimes got paid in muffins.

Edited (not me discovering a grammatical error an hour later.) 2022-08-09 00:08 (UTC)

Sometimes.

[feels more like it's closer to the spectrum of 'the majority of the time', but wanda only raises an eyebrow at that as she walks over one of the shelves and picks up a heavy book about some kind of law. she flips over it and finds— well, that she can't read it.

the page isn't blank, necessarily, it just has a bunch of raised dots.

she turns back now, walking towards matt, open book in her arms.]

It probably sounds stupid, but I've never seen braille up close. Do you seriously remember all this?

It doesn't sound stupid.

( he takes the book from her and picks it up, sliding his fingers over the dots before making face. )

You chose a book on maritime law, huh? Planning on committing a crime on the high seas? I'll have to tell you that walking the plank isn't a valid punishment.

[she watches over him working out the braille with his fingers, and makes a face right back at him. ]

What, you're not going to take my crime choice seriously?

[is this how law works?? she presses a finger down the height of the book, at all those pages.]

There's no way there are that many maritime laws.

It's not really my specialty. I had to learn the basics to pass the bar but otherwise?

( he closes the book and puts it behind him, shrugging. )

There's maritime lawyers so I'm guessing there's plenty of maritime laws to support them. I can't even rent a boat so no one wants to put me in charge of that.

[you don't know if she's interested in that book!]

Because of the blind thing.

[makes sense—and wanda is past the point of feeling decidedly sorry or awkward for making note of it; she knows matt doesn't care. and so, she joins him by leaning back on the table, beside him, glancing about. it's interesting to her, to see the world he comes from and what shapes it.]

You're criminal cases, right?

That's right.

( he nods, pushing away from his desk and just idly moving around the office, letting his fingers slide against shelves and bookcases that he'd managed to remember and create.

it all feels so real. he could convince himself that he was back in new york, back in his office with karen or foggy outside. but he'd ruined that, hadn't he?

he sighs. )

Jury's out on how good we are when it comes to criminal cases but that's what we took on.

[that sigh—coupled with some emotion she doesn't quite get a good read on. something about his friends? wanda stays quiet a moment, trying to see if she can somehow parse through it all.

he's a little more guarded about this in specific, seems like.]

"We" as in... You and your friends.

[a man, a woman—light banter and companionship. it's a warm feeling that seeps through.]

What are they like?

Good people.

( simple but the absolutely best description of them. matt shrugs a shoulder before he pulls another book off the shelf and pages through it, hiding his expression for the moment.

they were good people who got a raw break when they got tangled up with him. )

Smart, generous with their time. But good people.

( he closes the book and puts it away before he turns back towards her, smiling again. )

How are you?

[there is definitely something there—what with the guarded response. no names, no descriptors other than the very general? there's also something loathing between the lines, not towards them, but... inwards?

it's strange to think that this place seems to make matt a little sad, if she's getting this right; perhaps not the place, but the people meant to be here with him.

maybe he's just homesick.

(his smile isn't very convincing.)]

We're organizing a welcome event at the farm. [she says, then, after debating chasing him with questions and deciding ultimately not to.] For the new people who arrived. Solvunn is usually just like... just a few of us at any given time. They're making me the greeter.

[isn't that funny]

( the mention of new people arriving makes matt's thoughts go in an entirely new direction because he knows who's here, who's in cadens now and he hasn't figured out how he wants to deal with that.

he slides his tongue along his lower lip, thoughtful, before he nods, turning his focus back to her. )

The greeter? I think you'd be good at that, you know. You're friendly and funny. You'll make them feel comfortable since I know I felt like I was completely on my back foot when I got here. It was hard to not feel dizzy.

[wanda gives him a funny look.]

I actually cannot tell [—her words slow, measured, with a hint of confusion] if you're being sarcastic or not.

[about her being friendly and funny — suppose matt gets a different side of wanda, in the end. especially after all this, though?]

What if I just put up a sign that says 'be back later' and then never actually come back to my post?

[she's not comfortable in crowds.]

Wouldn't be doing a very good job as a greeter, though.

( he doesn't answer the question on if he was being sarcastic or not. he come back to lean against her again, resting his shoulder against hers. )

How many people are you guys expecting to show up? Maybe it won't be so bad and you can get it done and then leave.

( retreat back to somewhere more comfortable. )

[that's a fair assessment. still, wanda feels like she's been asked to do this because it's a good way to keep her distracted, get back in the groove of socializing with others. she can't tell if the thought process is a little backwards, because the first person the newcomers will see is just this mostly annoyed woman who had an early mid-life magical crisis.

super fun.]

Not sure, but maybe about... ten? Which is a lot, considering Solvunn.

[she presses back against him, leaning her head against his shoulder for a moment.]

Don't jinx it.

[things could always go sideways.]

What about the Free Cities? Know of any new faces?

( at her question, matt shakes his head. he keeps his expression mild and his thoughts as calm as he can before he glances over at her, shrugging. )

Not that I've seen yet.

( ha ha, seen. and it's true, he hasn't seen frank in awhile so maybe he'd imagined that. maybe it was just a bad dream. )

But I haven't really been looking either. As much as I can look, that is.

[ha ha, seen.

she glances up at him. it's fair to say he is at a bit of a disadvantage in general when it comes to being able to work his way recognizing others. besides, for all matt's good at talking, he's not really one for a 'greeter' position.]

Leave the welcomes to others, huh. [she rearranges how she stands, placing one foot in front of the other.] So many people always show up over in Cadens.

[silent for a moment, she elbows him to get his attention, putting her hand out in front of her, palm open.]

Favorite drink: go.

[no context, just go for it.]

Favorite drink?

( he can hear the movement of her arm, realizes that she's raised it in front of her and he brushes a few fingers against her palm before saying: )

I don't know, crappy beer? Good coffee? Never really thought about my favorite drink before.

[a little reluctantly, wanda pushes his hand away, settling it down on the space between them. she wants matt to focus, and she emphasizes once more, the palm of her hand open.]

Maybe 'favorite' isn't the right word. [hmm] Right now, if you could have one drink. What would it be? Can you imagine it into my hand? Don't burn my hand with just thinking about the coffee and not the cup if you do, okay?

( matt makes a face when he realizes what she's asking for and sighs, letting his hands drop to his sides. he tries to think of something that he'd want right now and tucks his hands into his pockets.

he sighs and closes his eyes behind his glasses before he thinks of —

orange juice. he doesn't know but that's what comes to mind and that's what appears in her hand, in a bottle and safely capped. )

I don't know if that's the drink I'd want right now so much as what came into my head.

[he's getting better at imagining things into his horizon, which is relatively an important thing to have—something about control and becoming familiarized with this when trying to use magic out in the real world.

it's a smaller bottle of orange juice, those packed to go for one person, and she looks it over curiously. the stickers are missing, but... can't be helped.]

But does it taste like orange juice?

[uncapping it, wanda sniffs it first before taking a small sip. immediately, her nose scrunches.]

That's pretty acidic.

[this proves a theory for her, though. she puts the cap back on.]

Food doesn't taste that great for you, does it?

Some of it does.

( he shrugs a shoulder. he doesn't go without eating because he can taste things so much more potently than others. there are some things he likes but he can taste when something's cooked wrong or spiced wrong. )

But I imagine what you just tasted isn't what you really taste when you have orange juice but it's what I taste so it's stronger.

( because everything was stronger or sharper to him. )

[she gets it. matt imagines the world within his limitations and understanding of the world, so it makes sense that the walls of this place seem a little more bare than what wanda thinks it would actually be. no actual words or posters to display, and—while certainly eerie without context—makes an extravagant amount of sense.

standing straight, wanda walks around the table of his office and sits down on what would be his chair. she pushes it closer to the table and makes if she's looking around the papers.]

Right, have a seat.

[it's her office now]

( matt raises an eyebrow at that and then moves around, feeling out for the chair that clients typically sit in. he slides into the seat and then leans back, unbuttoning in jacket and sitting back. )

Are you the boss now?

( he can't see her but he imagine she looks like a natural behind his desk, in charge of things. )

[wanda tries keeping a straight face for a moment, embody this 'boss' persona, but she honestly can't—snorting and smiling wide.]

Feels like I'm being judged up here. [she tries to find comfort on the chair a bit more] Don't know how you do it.

[but, in any case, she grabs at the maritime law book she had picked out from the shelf, opening it again on a random page.]

How do you read this? I mean— is each dot a letter or do different dots make a word?

Different combinations of dots make different words. They're not all individual letters because that would take forever to both create and read.

( he'd started out like that, reading letters until he'd gotten better and better at recognizing braille. )

I can't really explain how I do it because I just do it. It took me awhile to get to where I could read it quickly.

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