apocalypsehowcomm | network | text | backdated mid-late april

Entry tags:

network | text | backdated mid-late april

Who: Edalyn Clawthorne + you
Username: badgirlcoven
Warnings: possible mistreatment/neglect of labour workers, will add anything else that comes up

Has anyone else kept in touch with folks from Wolf Pen?

Sounds like things are getting weird again. I don't know if it's our brand of weird or your normal human brand of weird

The miners who got caught up in all that business sound like they could use some more help than they're getting–even the ones that got jobs with that copernicus company. I know that's probably your average human issue. [Which isn't to say she's happy about it.]

But it sounds like the ones with those new jobs are also talking a big game about seeing into an incomprehensible future in a way that sounds kinda like our brand of weird. sounds like some of the stuff they’ve built is moving around more than it sounds like it’s supposed to, too.

Like I say, might be nothing. I mean, I know we work with the guy who runs that place.

[Given this is in text, it's hard to tell whether she's implying the ADI would have noticed if Zyrian Steel were up to anything shady… or that the ADI might know he's up to something shady. It's possible she's leaving it intentionally ambiguous to feel out the response she gets.]

I don't think it'd be a bad idea to have someone check in there, just make sure everything's going alright.

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[Mercy's curious enough that she starts to go for the nest to sit, but then decides that might be like sitting on someone's bed without an invitation. And Eda lives here with her lover, doesn't she? Best to be polite. Mercy redirects to the sofa.]

How're you doing, Ms. Eda? I been- It's not just people going missing that's weighing on me. I been... sleep-walking. Dreaming about walking through spiderwebs and waking up all dressed and halfway to work. It's got worse of late. Leaves me missing Aelwyn all the more, thinking she could stop me, do something to stop the Web that's wound its way around us.

[Eda, meanwhile, goes to shelf to grab coffee mugs (one that looks like a stereotypical witch's cauldron, and one which simply says Local Harpy, which she suspects normally has different connotations here.)

She sets them on a cluttered coffee table (well, more of a multi-purpose steamer trunk) before also grabbing a bottle of... well it's certainly alcoholic. And made of apples. Mostly apples, at any rate.

She gives Mercy a concerned glance as she sets it down.]

Still? [She doesn't look happy to hear that.]

I... have been too. Since that bus. I've asked Raine and Owlbert to keep an eye on me, but if I wake up in Dogtown again... [Eda trails off and shrugs, rubbing lightly at her wrist as she takes a seat. The little web symbol doesn't show through her feathers, but she knows it's there, and she can't help thinking, not for the first time, about the fact she could technically get by with one hand.]

I can see why sleeping alone wouldn't help anything.

Edited (sent too early) 2023-08-02 07:07 (UTC)

[The mug that looks like a cauldron is a delight, but Mercy holds that down. The conversation has turned rather too somber for that sort of thing. Eda's first question gets a small nod.]

Aye. It's- I dunno if part of it's that I-I ended up going on it twice, maybe? Once with you and one with Mr. Johnny. I was trying to warn him off, too.

I wouldn't mind going to Dogtown. What's been happening is- It ain't worse, but I don't know what to make of it. I'll wake up while I'm just walking to work. I've had a shower and ate and dressed and packed my lunch. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. To find out I've been doing something else, too.

[Eda nods; she's not sure either, but she doubts it helps that Mercy had more than one trip. She sits down, pours them both drinks and pushes the little cauldron towards Mercy.]

Yeah, I don't like it either. At least getting us nearly eaten by things makes sense. But the idea the Web wants me to wash my hair or eat a salad...

[Eda shrugs and takes a long sip of her drink.] It's weird. I don't know what its endgame is.

[And she doesn't like that. Maybe it's just keeping up appearances until it can control them all the time? That's not a thought she enjoys at all. But even that feels like there must be more to it. That, and something about the way they're being made to take care of themselves makes her deeply uncomfortable in a way she finds hard to explain.]

Causing fear? Do you... worry about people controlling you? There's a little of that for me, if I'm being honest. The Abbey where I grew up was under the hold of a man who was manipulating all of us like puppets for years. And once I saw what he was beneath his mask...

[She sips her cauldron mug to help with the shiver that runs down her spine.]

He played it like he was just helping you when he told you to do things. All that he did was for our own good. Nevermind him having his thugs murder little 'uns just 'cause they knew too much.

[Eda doesn't love admitting to anything specifically scaring her, but that gets a little nod... and then a wince, as Mercy goes on.]

That's... honestly that sounds pretty damn familiar. I don't think I've told you a lot about the Emperor back home, have I?

[But it sounds like he might have a lot in common with the man Mercy is talking about, along with being one of the many reason she hates the idea of being controlled. She wonders if Hunter or Raine have mentioned much about the situation.]

[Mercy shakes her head.]

No. What happened with him?

Where do I even start.

[Eda sighs, and takes another long sip of her drink. She needs one, if she's going to get into this.]

Emperor Belos... he took over fifty-some years ago, but even before that he'd been manipulating everyone. [She sounds tired, and resentful. Finding out just how much that was true isn't a fresh wound at this point, but it still stings.]

Erasing our history. Saying he was the only one who could speak to the isles, to the Titan. Telling people they were making it angry by doing magic wrong.

[Another pause, another sip.]

That practicing magic freely was too 'dangerous.'

But... Wait. Is there anyone else who can talk to the Titan? [Mercy tilts her head.] Or are they just not the talking kind? Seems like there'd be a right easy way to settle that if anyone else could hear the Titan. Or was it more like he was telling folk that anyone else who said they heard something was lying?

[She's seen that before, certainly. An attempt to simply make the others sound like lunatics. It's what had happened to the Abbot's rival before they'd rallied enough people to the truth.]

[Eda gives Mercy a grim smile, because she's asking the right questions.]

As far as I know? It's not exactly the talking kind... at this point. [Her son sure is talkative, which gives her a lot more of an idea that the Titan was genuinely a person than she really had proof of before, but she's not quite ready to share that.]

Then again, what I've been able to find about wild witches in the old days—they did have a stronger connection the Isles. And he did say that was all lies. We don't know as much as we should about how they used to do magic, thanks to him.

[Mercy shakes her head.]

The folks that destroy history are just afraid of what it'll tell everyone else. Even if we do repeat it sometimes. [The words are offered in a cadence that says she's repeating someone else. Brother Ainsley had been so devoted to his archives and records. The loss of everything in the fire at the Abbey along with his life leaves an ache in her chest.]

So, what about you and your magic? Have you got a stronger connection than other witches?

[Eda can't argue that sentiment, though she wonders who Mercy is quoting. A part of her wants to ask, but she's quickly distracted by the next question. There's a soft snort, and a tinge of nostalgia in her expression.]

Me? I was the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. [There's a little pause.] For a while there.

[She's not sure if she feels like really explaining that that changed before she wound up here.]

He wasn't very happy about that. [Which she sounds pretty self-satisfied about.]

Few folks like that want anyone being stronger than them. What happened, though? Did he get stronger, or was it another witch?

[She is fully prepared to believe that Eda is still more powerful in Belos, just that someone else got a bit stronger than her. Hadn't Hunter mentioned witch school the first time he'd been here? Maybe a student?]

[As much as she doesn't really want to talk about it, there's also no reason to actually lie. Besides, she doesn't want to make it sound like someone was actually stronger.]

No one got stronger than me. I just kind of sort of... lost my magic. Except for the kind I can do with glyphs. [There's a little pause before she goes on.]

But I got some bad-ass wings out of it in the long run, so y'know. Can't complain. [Well, she could. But she doesn't want to dwell.]

Oh.

[That... happens?]

I didn't think it was like this place in your world with... pacts and things for magic?

[And Eda sighs because she hadn't really meant to get into all of this, but there's no real reason not to.]

It's not. Witches are born with magic—we have a sac of magic bile attached to our hearts. We learn to control the power in there and do spells. Only mine doesn't work any more.

[For the same reason she has wings now, but she might as well start simple.]

[Mercy considers that.]

It ain't... you ain't tried seeing if the doctors here could do anything to help with it, did you? Or maybe not the doctors who're from here, but anyone who's not? Healers from other worlds?

If not a single healer on the Isles could help, I doubt anyone here would know where to start.

[But she says this mildly. Not happy, of course, but comfortably resigned.]

It's a curse. The same one that makes me... well, the Owl Lady. There's no cure. But look, I get a badass title out of it, and like I said, the wings. Not the worst trade-off in the world.

[Not the best, either, but Eda likes making the best of what she has to work with.]

Certainly not the worst. [Mercy will allow that.] I've always wondered what it'd be like to fly. Maybe not cursed with it, but wings I could call out whenever I wanted? That'd be nice.

[She sighs, finishing up her drink.]

But I've pulled us well away from talking about the thing we meant to be. Didn't see any problems with the machines for now, but I'll have another look on my next shift, aye?

Yeah, it's pretty great. [When she looks at it that way, at least!]

But... you're right, better just keep an eye on 'em. Might be worried over nothing.

[But she'd rather be on the safe side, given tihs place.]

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network | text | backdated mid-late april

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