FAMILIA ANTE OMNIA

Maja Grimhjarta Aerielist/Acrobat & Trapeze Artist

[majagrim]

𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚌𝚞𝚝𝚜 ; 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝・ 𝚠𝚌𝚜・ 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢・𝚖𝚞𝚜𝚎

[coltmercer]

She had a strange way of speaking, not because of how thick her accent was, but the words she chose sounded all wrong in his ears. Maybe Colt was reading too much into it, but ever since his eyes had been opened to magic, sharp teeth and cold skin, things that shouldn't exist, he'd started looking over his shoulder. Paranoia had once been foreign to him and now walked beside him everywhere; in the barn, on the ranch, down the streets of town, through the market. His eyes followed her as she moved, as she spoke, as her fingers brushed against his jacket, he noticed the rings — many of them, tight around dainty digits.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up when she slipped behind him.

"You don't need to do all that," he said. "I promise I won't touch you." A gentle way of saying: I hope you're not planning on touching me, either.

His neck twisted as he looked back over his shoulder at her. "Converse with—cows?"

Confusion laced every word, though he was a man who talked to his own cattle often enough that most folks would consider him strange. He'd never admit any of it unless someone caught him in the act. People already thought enough odd things about him. "I wouldn't exactly call it conversin', seeing as they ain't talking back." A sheepish smile tugged at his mouth as his hand rubbed the back of his neck. "I ain't trying to be rude, 'cause you obviously ain't from around here, but the way you said it was funny."

He turned then to meet her eyes properly, his own full of kindness.

"I talk to animals too." He adjusted the hair beneath his hat and walked down the muddy path toward the ranch, his boots dragging through the dirt. "Got plenty of them back home. I treat 'em, too. I'm a vet." A pause, "They're nice, ain't they? Cows."

[majagrim]

"Bad promise." She titters. It takes the fun out of the game. And what use is a game, without the fun? There is more to be done, between them, now that Old Bill has left with his bullets and heavy barrels. "You look strong. How is your hand?" Swollen and aching, she suspects. "I have remedies."

Maja is not sure it is as much of a lure, to this man, as it could be to most others desperate to ride their pain. She could rid it all, with one slilce of those cows of his.

He raises her interest though. Her exchange with his four-legged friends were different. "You have this ability?" More than a mimic, but to be able to have a two-way conversation is something other. It could be useful, in taming beasts beyond farm cattle. But then, clarity strikes, and he is simply a madman for a moment. "Ah." Her excitement fades to nothing. "Yes."

He's lost her, mostly to the language of cows.

But she follows him to the ranch, because she plans to thrift many things. Though, frowning at his outlook towards impending sacrifices, Maja cannot decide if this man is a fool, or if he is as wise as he is handsome. Ruggish, the longer she looks. "You shepherd them, and I see them for something greater. I tell them that." That's her communicating; she lets them know she is thankful, and grateful for what they give to the art that Grimhjarta practices.

Maybe, if she befriends this man. Cattle would be easier to come by, in kindness shown by his naive nature. Perhaps he would be a pretty thing to see bled out in the circus, as a final act; an offering to their God.

[judegrigsby]

His lips part slightly in surprise. Is it.. kind of sweet that she's offering to kill the guy that killed him, or is it just another witch thing? Jude finds he settles on kind of sweet, because that's really the easiest thing he can handle right now. Witch stuff never made much sense to him, even though he'd heard a lot of Cerberus talk about Warwick and their pocket witches.

What a weird world.

He flinches from the tap, swatting gently at her. The pen and paper, though, stumps him. He takes it from her, and looks down at the paper - his first instinct is to just start doodling and see what kind of silly things he can make from memory. Maybe a Sora or a Dart or a Patches. Instead, his shoulders slump.

"Do you.. want me to write a spell or something, what are we doing here?"

[majagrim]

"The list of sacrifices. Hunters with this one that killed you. Write." He is a harmless man, living because of her power, and her magic. Maja would aid him in knowing whether he can possess a type of his own, through the life she'd bled into him. "Then we see if magic is in your blood."

Grimhjarta waited, wondering if the former furbeast knew anything else. Maybe he had more inside that scalp than she gave him credit for. "Do you know any spells to scrawl? Gods will like this."

Runes, insignia, maybe.

If she took him outside, the troupe would ask questions. And her brother would come looking soon, when she was late for rehearsal at the big top. It worked in her favour that he's always late, so for her to not already be there, he might come looking a little later; they had some time. But if he's asking around to see that she's rattling around in her caravan with Revived Jude, she'd have to explain the silly boy.

Not yet. She's not finished with him, or finding out what he knows.

[ivargrimhjarta]

closed — @majagrim

Ivar had only ever blamed his sister for one thing in his life, and that was for dying when he wasn't ready to die with her. Their lives had been so intertwined from such a young age that they were almost twins, despite not being born as such. Her death had been his death. He'd watched her plummet from the heights of the circus tent, heard the crack of her spine against the stage floor, and then the lights had gone out for both of them. The flip side of it all was that he would never truly process the pain of losing his twin, because he had laid there beside her in the dirt, six feet beneath rotting soil, worms crawling through hollow eye sockets.

But he'd discovered there were other things he could blame her for now, have his ringed finger pointed accusingly at her for bringing a dead man back to life who's last name wasn't Grimhjarta.

"We have to kill him, Maja." Simple as that. "Only problem is, sis, what if we die with him?"

She had done this stupid, stupid, stupid thing. And everyone dared to call him the foolish one. He laughed too much, and enjoyed himself too much, cared too little about anything except his freedom and the simple pleasure of being alive. Meanwhile, his dear sister had always approached life differently. She was smarter, wiser — at least, that was what Brynjar had always said.

The chair beneath him spun with a lazy rhythm, long legs dragging against the floor as he flipped his talisman between dirt stained fingers. Two long cracks split the white fang cleanly in half, the top edge chipped. Four more of those, and he would be gone forever.

"Why'd you have to meddle with this, Maja?" The words came in their native tongue, slipping quietly between rotations.

[majagrim]

On any other day, she'd agree with her brother. Revivals were not meant for mortals absent a Grimhjarta talisman. Would Hel forsake her, for this? Her intetions had not been to bring a soul back into its incorrect body. A boy. Mortal, human, no discernible greatness. Perhaps it would not be so dissappointing, if Jude had agreed to a role in the troupe; travelled with them, so they could see exactly what a transferred life looked like over the decades.

"The life is spent." Her nail rattled along the remaining phalanges tied together at her waist to indicate that they were still unequal. "It cannot be used again. We won't die, bror." It is done.

Maja could not know that, but her confidence is unquestionable.

It is a wasted revival; the extra finger that had meant to be moved; she would have one more life than Ivar, and she did not know how to live with the knowledge that she would have to do her final lifetime, without him.

Or maybe, she just would not come back, either.

"It was supposed to be your life, you stupid boy." Norwegian, and angry. He knew that she meant to give it to him, because she'd torn up every library in every city they went. Hunting down Garnett allies with knowledge she had yet to learn, to try and transfer what would have been two of her lives, to Ivar. Now, the search had ended because the singular rogue life cannot be shared.

The urge to spit chalk at him, and glue him to that ridiculous swivel chair, almost overwhelmed her. More pressing than a sibling spat. "Does Brynjar know?"

Her brother could flap his arms around, but their uncle would have the final word. If the boy were to die, it would be because their elder insisted on it.

[drownholywater-kennedy]

@majagrim

Aurelia's first priority was the civilians that had made the Aftcastle Mall their shelter from the storm outside. Trembling masses that may have clued into the monsters over the last months but were unprepared to be faced with the horrors that had crawled their way out of the snow. The blizzard had picked up to an absurd degree, the darkness crept through in a way that made Aurelias watch useless. The hunters teeth were on edge, the weather isn't something she could fight. She couldn't put a bullet in a snowflake or put a stake in a second fucking moon.

Aurelia pulled her jacket tighter around her frame, the intermittent power outages meant the large space of the mall refused to heat up. The chill was so great that she could still see her breath even after the doors to the outside had all been shut. Even the layers of jackets couldn't stop the hair on the back of Aurelias neck from standing on edge. Her tattoos hummed with power that itched from all the excess magic flying around in the air. Something was wrong in the air, Aurelia could feel it but couldn't pin it down.

Aurelia huffed, digging through the department store trying to find something to warm up the civilians. A flash of moment caught her eye, the disappearing shape of a figure. "Wait stop!" Aurelia shouted out, moving quickly towards the women. "It's not safe-" Aurelia was cut off as something bit her shoulder. Acid dripped, cutting through the layers. "Mother fucker" Aurelia reached for her knife, stabbing into the three wick candle that had launched itself into her should, biting down. Aurelia watched as the shelves rattled, objects with tentacles and legs, sprouting and moving.

"Anyone in here?" Aurelia called, torn between looking for the person she had caught a glimpse off and getting the fuck out.

[majagrim]

Bag stuffed to the brim with thrifted wares; trinkets, and jewellery that had been lifted from glass cabinets easily runed. Chalkdust sprinkled in shapes, allowing nimble hands to slide beneath as if its not guarded by a barrier at all. It's heavy enough; faster she'd believed, despite the small treasure trove. She moves between stores, like they are free-to-take shelves, and she plans to tell the troupe of the good spot.

And then her bag shifts on her way to the exit, and like an electrical charge; magical, and potent. It had reminded her that she is not the only one with power beneath her fingertips. It distracts her like a shock to the chest when the mall becomes rife with panic. Maja glances up and down the length of the mall as things begin shifting from where she has just trekked; objects wrangling from their shapes. Chattering teeth of a costume store, chomping and chewing, hungry for something to gnaw at between its teeth.

Port Leiry is a hungry little haven, Grimhjarta has learned that, in her time visiting. A small, spidery-like, legged creatures drops from her bag, where something has oozed through the fabrics; a caustic substance that had offered an escape for whatever nasty had been hidden in her wares. It dripped to the linolieum, and Maja curled her lip at the offensive odour.

She glares at the tentacled, legged thing , but it has no eyes to stand off with. She merely bares her teeth, as if it might recognise a bigger threat. Run little creature. Because Grimhjarta's are hungry too. Chalk always lives in her pocket, and bitterly, she tosses her bag to the side to make a sacrifice of her own.

The former aged whiskey, bolts towards it, shredding through the cotton tote like it hides all her secrets. You like sound, little spider-thing? She could do something with that, as she reaches into her pocket for chalk. More scuttling echoes from behind her, and when her eyes nudge to the right, it's not just one odd beastly thing that wants to turn its attention towards her.

She reconsiders her stance, clasping the chalk, before running in the opposing direction; she could lead them into another net, if that's what they want.

A chuckle, where curiosity outweighs fear. What will they do, kill her? Devour her? She would come back and do far worse to them. Whatever the critters are. She would have to delve into the backroads of her mind, to wonder where they have emerged from; the weather has been shifting veils; she's noticed. She wonders if one has snapped completely, to allow these through.

Encouraging, she talks to them: "Come, edderkoppunge."

She can hear them in pursuit, and her periphery captures one scuttling along the wall of windows to her left, faster than she is. Rolling the chalk between her hands as she sprints, dust powders between her fingers in a cloud, until she can skid along the ground and leave a stripe that a whisper could set aflame. A squeal, as legs strike its paws or spikes, or whatever dirty little things they want to stab her with. Then another strike as she flips acrobatically to her feet. Thenl she finds a door to slip through. There's a mutter in Norweigen, as she slams the door closed. A hex, to tell her when things of magic step on her chalkdust on the other side; it had not like flames; most things do not like to be purged of their purpose.

Then, she wastes no time sketching on the door a hex that'd eat them alive, if they dared pass through.

Maja snaps her head backwards, when a voice from the other end of the room, by another entrance door is ajar. Faen. Another person. Maja darts across and slams herself against the door to shut it, bolt it. And when she does, a slam of sudden force cracks on the other side. Critters she will eat for dinner, she thinks.

More chalk on a door. More whispered hexes. And then she is looking at the stranger. A careful point between the runes she has drawn in fast scribbles, and the woman.

"Touch this. You die. Yes?" Ground rules. "Silly creatures will die too." She would need some time to cast something bigger, to get back out of the box she's got them in.

[rosexhalstead]

"Yes. The different kinds of skills that you guys perform here." Annabelle corrected herself. Things. It wasn't necessarily things, but talent. Skills that she could only dream of having. "I came here to be shown more." She insisted, not quite caring, in that moment, that it wouldn't be Ivar showing her. She just wanted to feel the excitement again.

Rose noticed the way the woman's eyes flicker over her body. "Oh. We're not-- Ivar and I..." They weren't. They were friends. Even if her stomach twisted with nerves occasionally. "I was trying to learn how to perform. I didn't do all that well. Fell after a few seconds." She confessed with a small smile as her eyes flickered up towards the tightrope. She'd been caught on it and Ivar had come to ensure her safety.

"Rosie is fine." She said with a nod. Annabelle was often a mouthful, which was part of the reason as to why she'd gone by Rose after leaving home. The other reasons no longer mattered. Annabelle was back where she belonged -- where her family had pushed her into being: a hunter. The name Rose almost meant nothing to her anymore. It had just been a girl running away from a life that was inevitable.

At the request, Annabelle took off her shoes and socks and placed them against one of the walls of the tent. Then, she pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it onto her shoes. All she was in now was a sports bra and leggings. She took a step towards the woman with a smile, eager to start. "What's the most exciting skill to learn here?"

[majagrim]

She has no idea what she is asking for. More, as if skillfulness is learnt in a day, without the blood, or the sweat. When she becomes a pancake on the sand, it would be her own doing; a sacrifice that Maja did not need to encourage to fall; she already had once, in Ivar's company.

Maja will show her what is like to jump into oblivion.

"I do not care if he spread you wide, or not." It will not help her. "I will show you more." Maja already knows her brother does not think of Rosie, whilst he is throwing dice with a group of others. And she understands, when her shirt lifts that there is an appeal; muscle that shows that she is not entirely without strength.

And then there is the mark. It provokes Grimhjarta to circle carefully to stare at it from another angle. A blackened stain tucked beneath her bicep. A hunter. A sacrifice that would be riddled with borrowed magic if she bled on Grimhjarta land. Maja had not felt the pulse of it, from the girl. Strange. Even if her eyes hover there, calculating the threat, she eventually moves her gaze back to the ladder than leads up to the trapeze. "Follow." Hunter. Maja would hex the platform, if the woman got funny ideas. "Today, you will defy gravity another way."

Maja will show her what it looks like, and then they will see if Rosie has the stomach for the same.

[aelitatoussaint]

Maja, she realizes, makes her think of foxes. She feels herself being observed - sized up, maybe? Appreciated, almost certainly. But whatever it is brings a cocky grin across her lips.

She tilts her head at the question, and its like she's been tee'd up for it, it's so easy to roll off her tongue.

"Guess we'll find out if that's the way, huh?"

[majagrim]

FIN.

[aelitatoussaint]

She can't help but laugh at the cocky candor this girl possesses - honestly, it's kind of doing it for her. It's enough to make her laugh, just the same as what Maja says next is enough to make her flush - something that makes her grateful for the cold that's already pinked up her cheeks and nose.

She looks up, and once again can't help the smile the- what, praise? -brings her.

"Gothy, morbid, you remember suicide girls?" Nobody ever remembers suicide girls. "Like, I bet you own a human skull or a pet raven. Or both."

She stands, slings her skates over her shoulders. "I'm Aelita."

[majagrim]

Maja does not know suicide girls.

But she does have a human skull, a few, actually. No raven; they're messy, and she has never been one to like taxidermy. Dead things either stay dead, or they come back and live again. There's nothing worse than a stagnant, still thing, caught between half lives.

A smile is her answer, because she wonders what the ice skater thinks is truth, and what is not of her speculation. Maja has only delivered compliments to the pretty woman, and albeit, briefly mentioned a potential demise. But she stands, alive, and red in the cheeks. Half a rune in the snow, left unfinished, because Maja has had a change of heart.

The name hangs, and Maja imagines what it would be like to have it live on her tongue, for a night or two.

Whilst Aelita stands, eyes track the path she cuts. Instead of cutting the thread of what they're sowing, curiosity blossoms back in Grimhjarta's stomach. In the snow, are they the same breed of creature?

"Names are for those who meet more than once." Her head tips, in challenge. "Will we?"

[majagrim]

@ivargrimhjarta

[dread-frequencies]

Holly's head shakes; she can't tell if the strange girl's been scared off or if she's incredulous or if she's just having her on, but her body language pre-empts her words, and Holly can tell she wants to get out of this van. She can't blame her - and there's a piece of Holly Price that wonders if simply showing somebody this will mark them the same way she seems to be marked.

Maja keeps talking in her frustrating riddles though, and Holly follows to the edge of the van's hatch, half hanging out.

"I'm Holly," she calls after - maybe uselessly - but a name is something to hold onto, something to make this mean anything. "What's your name?"

[majagrim]

Maja does not give her name, even in the girls' pursuit of her. She should have drawn a ward on the outside of the van, and kept the girl caged there. But Grimhjarta had not been thinking that Holly would have the ear of a God, and the eyes of something that wants to watch her wander through the world, lost. Not at all, when she had experienced sights beyond the average mortal.

If Maja brought the devourer of worlds to their doorstep, would Hel intervene?

As a passing promise, Maja decides that another Grimhjarta — with knowledge older than hers, and lived longer lives may know something she does not. "You wish to see more, then you find us at the fairground." She should speak to Brynjar, and see if he has the patience for stories about towns being torn asunder. "You cannot walk on the other side, as you are." Holly would die, Maja is certain of it. And there is no coming back for her when she would be shredded by the layers of realms that lie dormant over the top of one another. Her faceless phantoms, born of devastation, are not her protectors. And Maja cannot be, either.

Retreating on deft feet, Maja quickly carries herself down the street, and back to the Grimhjarta grounds.

[judegrigsby]

He doesn't really react to being poked, but Jude does give her something of a nod, even if her verbiage is a little confusing. "Uh, yeah. Not my body. Same.. like, me? I guess? Memories and mind and everything all me. Not the same body." Hopefully that makes sense. He looks back to the mirror in front of him and frowns, rubbing his freshly shaved face as if it might warp back to the guy he used to recognize in the mirror.

The revelation that it was an accident he's here is almost a gut punch, but he tries not to react too terribly to that news. Magic is weird, he guesses. It's not like - anyone would go out of their way? Vengeance, maybe.

Turning back to her, his eyes widen a bit. "That's - weirdly nice. If he's not dead yet, sure. I had - I'm sure they're still here - crazy friends. Angry friends." Autumn's face when it happened flashes through his mind and he tries not to visibly wince in front of this witch, who is already moving on to magic.

At first, his answer is just a shake of his head. "Normal guy. Didn't know magic existed." Glancing down to the paper, his lips twist into a frown. "I can learn?"

[majagrim]

"Very strange." But she supposes that if the wolfen body is destroyed. There is little option in what could be revived from the soil at such sudden notice. Unexpected, in the exchange of sacrifice. "But this body is not broken. Good." Assuming it all works, then it is at least worth something. A complete revival, the same as any Grimhjarta would.

Maja did not know how far this extension of her magic went, or whether he would crumble to ash, if left unattended for too long. The rules of the talisman were not outlined clearly when she loses one of the bones, to revive a boy she has never met.

"Then we find them. Kill the hunter, if he lives. And I let you sacrifice them." A gift, to let him draw the blood, and see what power is in his marrow, if any. "You will grow strong from it." If done right; amplify power in ways the once-varulv has never known.

"Yes. Silly boy." She taps his head with the pen. A quiet murmur of a Norwegian curse rolls off her lips, but it is a harmless one. It does not strike at his ancestors, or have his limbs shrivel and wilt until they fall off. It is merely words, dismissed as quickly as Maja can think. "We see what you can do with this new life, ja?" She pushes the pen and paper in his direction. "Gods may favour you. It is a blessing, if they do."

[judegrigsby]

He finishes the last bit of the shaving, and starts about washing the foam off - rubbing moisturizer into the skin to stave off the worst of the crackling that comes with the frigid cold. Jude has no idea what shores this lady is talking about, but he's quickly learned that she just talks weird anyways. Accent, too.

But he doesn't wanna judge too harshly, so he just shrugs in return. "Oh, uh - Jude Grigsby. I'm Jude - don't know what this guy's name is, though." At this, he gives a gesture down to the rest of his body as he finishes up his grooming.

Straightening up, he stares at her - frowning a little that he seems to tower a little more over people than he used to. To compensate, he hunches down some, not wanting her to feel weird about him being taller. "I was dead, yeah. You brought me back? On purpose? Er. I guess, uh, probably not."

Another pause here, and he rubs the back of his neck, wondering how much he should share. But if she's the one who did it, then.. he guesses it doesn't matter, because at least she's not a hunter. "I used to be a, uh, a werewolf. And some hunter guy did me in."

[majagrim]

"Jude Grigsby." That is an ancient name, she thinks. Old, like Grieg. Interesting. Perhaps this is why he has somehow attached himself to the magic. There is no way to know, and the more he speaks, the less she is able to discern about origin. "There is two — inside here?" She pokes at his temple, because he gestures to himself, like his mind and his body are not the same. Ah. A soul, perhaps not the mind. "None of these parts," she pokes and pokes, stomach, and arm and — "They are not yours?"

If she is sacrificing, and moving souls from their resting sites into bodies that have reforged in the earth. There is something she has broken in the cycle of runes, and the power of talismans. Something gravely wrong. At the thought, her eyes dip to the bones tied together on her person, assuming she has not entirely stripped the rights to the power by bending the laws. They have not crumbled, and she knows the power in her blood. She would liked to have known she had this capability, or that the vampyr's blood she borrowed, along with the ribs she had carved meticulous runes into for an hour, had been capable of this, too.

Maybe she'd have done it sooner, for someone useful. Does he have any real power?

"No." She folded her arms, staring at him. "You were accident. I sacrificed life." A trade-off that is more frustrating by the fact that she had been certain the ritual had been perfect. If it had been the soil they were on, that shattered the intention, that could not have been pre-meditated. Every ounce of dirt has the dead rotting within it; it'd make ever casting a spell like that, void in its entirety.

She had lost a phalange of the talisman, regardless. Trading what she had, to give to her brother no longer evens the score. It simply lessens hers.

"Varulv?" That is a strange, and unfortunate factor in the bones that make up her talisman. She's got all the linkages to whatever, and whoever this man is. And now, he's got the residue of Grimhjarta all over him, that the troupe would know he is something other the moment he wanders back out through their circus. Maybe he wants a job, here. Make use of him. "You were made dead by hunter. That is sad." More importantly, "Are they here, this town? We kill them." Maybe this is kindness for him, and maybe it is self-preservation all the same.

Maja fishes through a cupboard in the caravan, for paper, and a pen. "Before you were Varulv — wolf, did you have power?" Magic, she means. "Do you have magic of Gods, mine, from where I have brought you back from the soil?" a beat, as she slaps the pen and paper to a small fold out table, "I will teach you."

[dread-frequencies]

"I have no idea what it is," she says, her tone a plea without a question behind it. Tell me, she thinks, you seem crazy enough to have an answer. Talk of Gods and stuff, that's out of her ballpark. She signed up for ghosts and goblins. She hadn't expected to find man-shaped monsters like Tom has. She was fine with that. But this? This is something she never wanted, and certainly doesn't want now.

"I don't know if they'll hurt me - I just know I don't want to let them, and sometimes..."

Holly's voice trails off into nothing, because she won't say that. That kernel she'll keep in her pocket. "I just know I don't want to find out, and I am here for a reason and I can't leave right now, and I think they know that.." Even if she wanted to, she couldn't - the world beyond the city limits turns into a desolate tundra of snow and scrub full of things that seem even worse than what's chasing her.

[majagrim]

It could be better for her, if she does not pry too deep at Gods who do not wish to make themselves known. Not to her, at least. A witness to something not meant for her eyes. Windows to her soul opened wide to power her body cannot handle.

Maja does not know exactly what this girl has done, or what she has wrought to tangle her soul in the power of Gods beyond her scope. She also does not think she cares to know, and risk the wrath of the one she worships. Would taking an audience with a thing beyond her realm, in the next life, ever dare share that with her, if she asked? A fool's errand, to even try.

"Echoes." She says it again. They do no harm. They're loud and repetitive. A voice in a tunnel that coils around and around. Like the mirror maze. But an echo is harmless. Just noise on repeat. "You keep them as that, yes? As long as you can."

Sometimes, is not her problem. A small pocket ripped out of existence — like the one this girl has shown her on a screen, is a power, and a magic that Maja cannot contend with, no matter her mastery.

Maja takes a step towards the door, as if the girl has sullied her own soul with her knowledge, and her Gods curse; like she has touched something filthy and now carries the stain on her palms, like a symbol of betrayal. "This. Or you dare to ask them to lead you to what they serve." Everything serves something. Mortals, men. Gods have their ambitions and their beliefs all the same. Physical, or not. Their purpose, as she seems to say, might become hers. If she delves into the veil that keeps her where she is, maybe she'll see what drives them. Curiosity is enough to keep Maja interested (and she has been, thus far — eager to know her secrets), but it's not enough for her to risk stripping the layers of the realms to see which one her ghosts lay between.

"I go now."

[aelitatoussaint]

Aelita's features pull into a tight, surprised smile, and she offers a shrug of her shoulders. Why? She could reflect the notion back. Why not?

Her skates leave the ice, onto the security of terra firma, and she plugs along the snowy shore. "If the ice cracked, and I fell in, and you stood there and watched, and somebody else happened by, and pulled me out? Is that meddling in the great plan or is that just... the way? Maybe the caring is the way for some people."

Her features light up at the compliment, and a smile splits her features, tongue pinched for a moment between her teeth. "You always this philosophical?"

Aelita bends down to clear a bench of snow, to switch out of her skates. "Really lends to the whole... vibe you've got going."

[majagrim]

"The way." It is not for Maja to interfere, she supposes. Not without a reason to snip the timeline and reattach it elsewhere. It's the same principle as when her lives are cut and restitched, she comes back either side of the pauses where she simply does not exist. Blank spaces in her lives; if one travelled through time, to one of those moments, there would be no Maja. But the ice skater doesn't appear to have a way to use those sharp blades at her feet to weave and stitch herself choices, or happenstances. Musing, she smiles — clarifying: "And I would have sat and watched. Not stood."

Maja would not have said philosophical, but maybe it is, to the skater.

"I care for your beauty," That's worth something. She licks her lips, cold and frostbitten. Shrugging, casual and free-spirited. "And maybe I believe in your skill to never let the ice crack at all."

Her eyes follow the skater, as she unlaces shoes, and trades out her bladed ones.

A foot gently carves a trough out of the snow, just to see how clear a rune might be made, since they talked vanishing acts. But she pauses, to ask about what exactly the queen of the ice sees, compared to Grimhjarta: "And what is that, vibe?"

[viktorialomidze]

She is asked to translate, so she turns the book - gently - back towards herself. Viktoria's fingertips trace the words as she reads and hums. Slowly, she translates the words out loud so as to not make a mistake and allow the witch to understand.

"The first bones. The first blood. And a vessel between kingdoms. First, sculpt the vessel in the absence of light, and cast a line into darkness."

Viktoria understands the first instruction, but not the second. She has no time to question before Maja is feeling around her waist for her ribs. With little to no reaction, she waits for the next task she needs to complete. Taking in a breath, she lifts an eyebrow in response.

"Dear, I'll come when you call, ribs in hand."

[majagrim]

Good. A grave disappointment if this ancient did not know the language. She memorises the words herself, clear off a slow moving tongue. Maja may need time to translate those from metaphor to purpose, and to arrange the sacrifices required to meet needs. Lomidze as a vessel; the pieces of her, so close to the heart would be the anchor to right the ritual.

She would ask for Máni's blessing, and for Sköll and Hati not to interfere. And she would cast on the next growing moon; it is always the most favoured time.

"The next growing moon." Waxing. Whatever ancients refer to it all. "I will come." And they will cast their ritual. Maja does not forget that she too, has paid a price of the Lomidze's compliance. If she takes too much, and does not give. Grimhjarta will devour more than the ancient's last slivers of stolen, half-given life.

Maja relaxes, and steps back, patient if the dead creature desires to indulge her earlier portion of their exchange. She nods, because they have made their plan and it will be enacted; there is nothing more to be done, here. Just for the creature to claim what is promised, in return. "Do what you need."

[judegrigsby]

closed starter for: @majagrim

Jude looked in the mirror again, rubbing longer finger than he's used to over growing stubble on his jawline. The razor provided to him is someone out of a movie - straight razor with just a blade. He's careful as he uses it, making short work of the itch that plagues him.

It's weird. There's a lot of geography to his features that he's not used to. Smaller eyes, bigger ears, fuller jaw and chin. Maybe one day he'll get used to it, but maybe not.

He hears someone enter into the shared space and looks up - he recognizes her from this new life, not the old one. "Shit's still a little weird, you know. It's.. I don't really know where to even start."

[majagrim]

She had found him wandering, too far from resting sites, and too close to civilisation. Maja would have left the boy be, aimless and bug-eyed with days old dirt still beneath his fingernails. But he had prickled at her senses, and her talisman had grown hot beneath her touch. He cannot see it, not like she can. But he's bleeding her power. The power over life and death sung like he is a Grimhjarta, belonging to the troupe of the never resting. A revival so unplanned, that it had never been written on the script; an adlib that stayed in the final cut.

Impossible. She did not know others blessed by Hel.

He is something uncharted. Port Leiry has become an enigma of raw power, and new ages of magic that Maja has never known. Even in all the countries she has slipped through. None of them brought back a life untethered to her, yet so bound to one of her lives, it broke the laws of Hel entirely.

She'd known something had gone wrong that night. Blamed a dead thing, of course. Blamed a brother for his disinterest, and dismissal to take a thing seriously. Blamed the name on the grimoire, too.

Maja sees this boy with soil in his lungs, and a face that does not belong to her troupe.

She had stolen him, like she would thrift a grave and stuffed him in a caravan's bathroom. It's her sanctuary, and he is another life within it, poking at his face in the mirror like a newborn child. Revived from a life that no longer hangs on her talisman, just ashes of bonedust. She cannot ignore the signature of Grimhjarta power, the same way she could not ignore Norwegian if she passed it in the streets of Port Leiry.

"Weird." Yes. Very. "You saw the shores, and clawed through the soil." Did you speak to her? The ruler of Helheim? Did she grant him a talisman like her own, and see something worthy of him, in their band of death and decay? He was not supposed to come back from wherever he had been, she had meant the life to be traded to her brother's talisman; not spent on a stranger now imbued with Grimhjarta magic. "What is your name?" A descendent perhaps? Granted new life, for the first time since the shattering of a talisman. "I brought you back." As if that delivers her rights and power on its own. "You were dead, yes?"

[elio-silvestrini]

The taut pull of tension underneath his shoulders still aches up his neck and behind his eyes, but he does not feel the need to act on it any longer. Now, he simply finds the cool air to give sort of a balm against it all, and as he looks down at the woman - he realizes that he's completely forgotten what he needed in the first place.

Something about.. an office?

It's gone from his mind, and he wants to lay blame on the fact that he can smell her rotted magic from miles away - but he know it's only because he had let his emotions get the better of him. Blinking away his confusion, he looks down at his feet - almost sheepish. "I.." A deeper frown. "I think I was - lost. I was lost. Looking for direction."

[majagrim]

Looking for direction. Weren't most? She cannot recall what his question had been between driving her teeth through his arm, and the aftermath of the wolf on her tongue. He's certainly lost, Maja could have figured that, without asking.

"For where?"

In recovered civility, Grimhjarta does a duty to point out what she knows. A finger lashes out by his shoulder, indicating to his rear. "Here. Entrance. Same as exit." Then a thumb to jut behind her. "Totes, smykker, meat in buns. That way." Either side of the crossroads of the markets they're in the midst of, "Food, also." And finally, she nods towards the left, "Business. Suits. Yes?"

All she knows, in her sly hands slipping between coats, open bags and overalls. She has already staked claim to the wolfen wallet, tucked in her jacket. It's time she leaves him to nurse his mind.

She slips back into the crowd with a smile, "Bye now, wolf."