( Assad Zaman / nonbinary / he/they ) — Jaya El-Amin has been living in Port Leiry for 1 week. They currently work as the owner of Obsidian, and are 26 years old. No one is sure if they’re actually a Witch or if they’re connected to the Garnett Coven. They tend to be quite stubborn and callous, but can also be hard-working and clever.
Name: Jaya El-Amin
Occupation: New owner of Obsidian
Age: 26 (July 18, 1999)
Sexuality: Bisexual
Species: Witch
Coven: Garnett
Hometown: Dhaka, Bangladesh, later Dubai, UAE
Relationship Status: Recently Single
Personality Traits: Clever, callous, hard-working, stubborn, prideful, analytical
Tw: mutilation of corpses, blood, violence, abuse
001. A plant must be moved when it outgrows the pot. The El-Amins were never going to stay in Dhaka, but Jaya will always call it his home. Dubai is loud, and busy, and there are too many new faces. They are an old name in Phial, but his mother is eager to prove their worth in a new country, a new place. Too many new faces, she claims, make it easier to overlook when some of them go missing.
002. The family business is ingredients, anything needed for potions, and Jaya is a natural alchemist. They consume books and knowledge, practically living in the family library and alchemical lab. By the time their sister is born, they could name the properties of over a thousand magical herbs, and collected hundreds of interesting samples, all proudly displayed in his rooms.
003. There is something clinical in the way his father taught him to butcher animals. Everything has its place, just like in life. Blood, fangs, claws, all in their neatly labeled jars for shipment. Take only what is needed, and the rest is returned to nature. Corpse magic is for necromancers, his mother always says. She handles them personally. The kindest thing to do is let them rot.
004. He prefers the greenhouses to their father’s workroom, the sharp scent of blood and smooth, clean surfaces. A witch must get their hands dirty eventually, his mother always says, but he thinks that does not need to be with blood. Dirt does the job just as well.
005. He was only teasing. Farrah always made it all too clear at dinner about how good grades and raving teachers meant nothing to his classmates, enjoying the way he wilted under their parents pitying looks. He thought nothing of it, when he laughed at her for her friends all skipping her birthday on the last full moon. He thought nothing of the sharp look his parents exchanged, the way she had paled. Neither of them had friends after that.
006. His sister forgave him, but she will not forget. Secrets were to be shared away from the dinner table, away from their parents. He does not know the full names of any of her new friends, but she is sure to have them over on the full moon. There is yet another watchful eye on any company he keeps, looking for a hint of fur, a flash of fangs.
007. Jaya didn’t know he was a vampire when they met. He didn’t know a lot of things when they met, and his lover was eager to teach. Witch blood is sweet, and runs freely through his veins, from his wounds, and into Jyoti's mouth. He starts to wear more collared shirts, begins to button them higher. It felt good to be needed.
008. He couldn’t tell if his lover was breathing. It wouldn’t change anything. In his father’s workroom, the man was already dead. “Take them”, his mother say, finding him in the greenhouse that evening, pressing something into his palm, “You earned them.” She looks proud. His childhood collection never had any vampire fangs in it.
009. His sister had enough shame to look guilty. His hand cramps from writing letters, but he can’t slow down. Someone has to have an opening for a student, some coven far away willing to poach the heir of a Phial family for themselves. He doesn’t know their magic, he barely knows where to start, but life has shown him an eagerness to learn will get him far, and that is what he can offer. It’s days before he gets a reply, and begins to read about Port Liery.
010. There is a thin chain around his neck, strung through a hole in each fang. Money is no object, and the Obsidian lounge is comfortable enough that he can busy himself with work without locking himself away in an apartment. His name is on the deed and the keys are in his hands before the old owner could finish packing up his office, muttering about creatures of the night as he goes.
“ it’s pink! ” is what she squeaks out at first, taking the drink from him. the glass is warm with his magic, when she gets it, and allie fits her fingers over where his had been. the drink becomes even more enchanting. “ and sparkly, and i love flowers, and, oh, it’s so pretty! thank you! ”
her eyes sparkle as she takes a sip, and, duh, she does like it- but allie gets caught up in his next question before she can tell him all about that. “ well … i like magic, maybe that’s it. ” the drink gets set down, and allie winds a strand of hair around her finger, absentmindedly. “ i keep looking for it, anywhere i can find it in the city. to, like, learn i guess, but also … ” she shrugs. “ i dunno’, i’ve never been anywhere that feels like this. ” and, allie really means port leiry, but, for now, she means obsidian. “ like, do you know what i mean? like, obsidian feels different. ” her hands flutter around, for a bit, trying to make sense of it.
then, allie stops, gives up. she sighs, “ i dunno’, i’m not very smart, only, like, super nosy. ”
“There’s nothing wrong with being nosy. If you’re looking for magic, there’s plenty of it here.” He said, beginning to mix up a drink for himself with a showy flourish as she began to talk about the magic of Obsidian, the way it felt different from other places. It was always nice to have his own suspicions about the building confirmed by outsiders. “You feel it too? I suspect the high concentration of witches had made the building itself have a little bit of magic of its own. It draws people in.”
“I was only in town looking for an apartment when I was guided here, and I have to say, running the place has done wonders for me. Quite a lot of my regulars are the same, unable to explain why they thought to come here in the first place.” He dropped a garnish in his own drink, lifting it to his lips.
“So, I wonder... Did it bring you here because you were looking for magic, or did it bring you here because it was looking for you?”
Maja barks a laugh. Pretty boy omitted a detail. Garnett's personal.
She could have hexed him until he pleaded for release; only his suggestion to awaken ghouls at the mauseoleum saved his flesh peeling from his muscles. His ancestors would not mind — whatever might be left of them, if not soil, ash or bone.
She likes his confidence. It's ambitious and testy.
"You." Grimhjarta is yet to know his name, his origin, or if he possesses anything more than a parlour trick of a tavern. "Talent." She plucks out the word from his string of reasons why the coven is unsuitable for her request. Trouble. Maja's curious, but she's not invested until it might bleed into Grimhjarta territory.
Perhaps Maja could ignite this pilot flame in the man's furnace; she could fan this flame, patiently, with a certainty to know he might be brave enough to bleed. Just to glimpse a power beyond his own.
New interest sparks in her gaze: "I take your name, now." a beat, "And then I tell you how to walk on the other side of the veil, and smile at Gods bigger than you."
“Yes, talent.” His arrogance might be annoying to the unenlightened masses, but it was earned. Talent, decades of dedicated study, and he could afford to act like his social peers who had much less to say in actual accomplishments without risking losing his place as the heir to his coven.
Not that that place meant anything to him, these days, but he had the talent and hard work to fall back on, and that never failed him. Arrogance had no place in the undeserving, and he made sure he'd earned every ounce of his.
“Jaya El-Amin. And yours?” He had some doubt that she might recognize the name, even as he said it as something that held weight. America might be where he called home after leaving his family behind, but part of that came with his family having relatively reduced influence here.
"Hey, man, I'm just a small town tea leaf reader. it says Mystic Insights right up there—" Ivar pointed toward the ugly sign Mikael had made. How that thing ever got approved by their uncle was beyond him, of course it would attract this kind of skeptical clientele. "It doesn’t say Nostradamus," he added, deadpan.
What was wrong with his cow predictions, anyway? Cows were beautiful, ancient creatures, worshipped by gods long before men learned to complain.
To hell with this random guy.
Ivar had plenty of capabilities, dragging himself back from the dead being at the top of the list. He’d like to see him choke to death and crawl his way back, but being a natural prankster, Ivar settled for a joke instead. He gasped with the theatrical flair of a court jester. "Are you here to insult my third eye? How dare you?" Eyes turned to slits. "I’ll have you know, I also see great danger in here—" (The cow would eat his face, but he decided to spare that part.) "—someone’s going to sneak into your house, through your bedroom window, and take everything you’ve got."
That someone being him, once he figured out where the guy lived.
"Oh no," He frowned, bottom lip popping out in mock sympathy, "it also says you’re never getting laid again. I’m so sorry—" Another faux sigh, quickly replaced by a bright smile. "—but don’t worry, whoever you might be leaving disappointed, you can always send my way."
“No, I expect Nostradamus might at least make a more interesting prediction than that I’d see a cow.” Jaya had already come here with low expectations, but managing to skirt beneath them and have a shit attitude was honestly remarkable.
“Tell me, fortune teller, where would that be? Oh, wait, don’t tell me!” He cocked his head to the side, pointing in the direction of the parking area. “The pasture just across the street from the parking your little circus has set up? Do you have another clever insight for me, oh master of the future? I was going to head over to the stands and browse after this, do you predict I’ll see t-shirts?”
The fake fortune teller’s retort was even more childish. “Never getting-! I’ll have you know that I-” He had to force himself to stop speaking. He knew bait when he heard it, and this was the sort of thing that might get a less controlled person to end up yelling about their sexual habits in the middle of a public place (bad), or just sitting by and accepting the smug fortune-teller’s jabs (worse).
At this point, he’d be making his day better just to stand up and walk away. “You know what? Keep the money. You’ll need it, if this is the sort of service you’re offering. Good day.” He gathered up his bag, standing.
TRICK: You wake up with a really sore neck. A sore neck with holes in it. A sore neck with holes in it that's bleeding.
She's not sure how long it's been when her brain turns back on, and its fuckin' windy, and all that shroomy high is gone, and she also feels pretty cold, and also she tastes blood in her own mouth that tastes off - like not that blood doesn't always taste off, but like, extra off. Then it dawns on her in little flashes, a vampire biting her, she goes a little crazy without thinking about it, and then whoosh, it's all a blur.
And also she's bleeding? She paws at a sore burn on her neck and pulls away glistening fingers - that's her blood! her blood from her body!
"Oh shit," she says, as it finally dawns on her; she's hanging from one of the light poles in the warehouse parking lot from the ass of her mouse suit, and she's got a hell of a wedgie going. She spots a lone straggler exiting the thumping warehouse and starts flailing her arms, trying to get their attention. But then she sees the vampire coming up behind her potential savior, and she can smell the shrooms he'd sucked out of her all the way up here. "Look out, dude!"
The mouse’s warning was heard just in time for Jaya to react.
A handful of powdered verbena in the face, a muttered curse, and the runes he’d taken the time to embroider around the edges of his sleeves to make everything tie itself together easier, and the vampire was frozen in place. Not a true, freezing, no ice and no time-magic, but a physical one, the seizing of muscles and the halting of joints. They wouldn’t have long.
Not his best work, admittedly, but he had to work with what he had, and for a split-second decision, it proved to be a fruitful one. He'd been forcing paralysis onto supernaturals for harvesting for years, and personal preferences aside, he was still an El-Amin. After the hurricane incident, the only vampires who were getting his blood were the ones he chose to give it to.
“Thank you for the warning.” He said, looking around for a box, a crate, whatever could be climbed on to cut the poor mouse down, giving him ample time to take in just how ridiculous the predicament was. “How on earth does someone end up in this situation?”
Crate secured, he pushed it over and climbed up on it, taking the time to smooth out his outfit before producing a small knife from one of its many pockets and beginning to saw away at the tail.
“As for you,” Jaya added, addressing the paralyzed vampire as he worked, “A mouse trap? Cliche. If you’re going to try to kill good samaritans, at least get more inventive.”
She should be happy Jaya was so excited. She probably was, it was just buried under layers of nerves and nausea. She couldn’t bring herself to sit again so soon despite the throbbing in her bones. The distraction of supplies was good for her, and she went through looking at them with a careful eye. Though the more she handled them the more she realized her own hands had a tremor. That would never do.
“Wine is good, but some occasions call for something stronger.” In a display of questionable choices, she poured herself a shot immediately. Taking it back and shaking her hands out until the tremors stopped and she felt herself more in control. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this by the way. Just in case I can’t say it later.”
Juniper gathered her notes and spread them out across the living room table. Walking through the steps of the surgical side of the procedure was simple enough, establish an intravenous line, make sure Juniper can’t feel a damn thing, cut, break, puzzle the bone back together- it was the rest that was within the realm of the unknown. “Basically, I am going to be fusing the bone and incision back together, fusing isn’t the right word… growing.” She sighed.
“I’ve been… experimenting. So far, I’ve been able to completely regenerate dermal incisions and lesions with high rates of success, minimal or nonexistent scaring. Balancing the cost is tricky, and I’ve never done it on this scale, or with bone. But if it can be done, we’ll know by the end of the night. If not… Then I’ll just be in a cast for a couple months. No biggie.” Yes Biggie. But she wasn’t going to make a show of her fragile pride. This had to work. It all had to be worth something.
He listened closely as she described her plan, not wanting to interrupt and ruin her flow. Eager and smiling as he was, he wasn’t here to laugh and drink, he was here to do a medical procedure. Juniper was clearly nervous, even as she had the distraction of cataloguing his supplies and talking through what the procedure would be.
They’d gone over it again and again. Juniper may be nervous, but Jaya wasn’t, and in this moment, the best he could do is make that clear. He had full confidence in her skills and his own. “That won’t happen.” He said, at her last rueful comment. “I’ve seen your notes, and I’ve seen your work. Your theories are sound, and I have full confidence in this.”
They had gone through every little detail, pored over their shared notes enough that the both of them could probably recite all the steps from memory. There was only one thing left to do. "Shall we head over and begin, then? Are you ready?"
“Yeah, I did…” He tilted his head, recalling the hand-bound bundles of pages he’d snagged, trying to save something of the coven before the Brotherhood had torched it all. “I figured… even if they all couldn’t do magic anymore, they’d still want their work. I kept hoping I’d find someone, but…” he shrugged. “Guess it’s just me, after all.”
It does cheer him, though, to hear Jaya’s interest in their contents. “I’ll bring them, next time. I guess they’re academic, from what I can tell, but I’ve never really made heads or tails of it.” He’d looked over them a couple times, but he’d never had the head for witchcraft. “They were just little illustrations,” he said. “My… he would leave notes of what they wanted, and when I’d come by, I’d work on it. He said it made their work feel more… complete. I’m not sure, though. Maybe he just wanted me to feel included.”
He traced his fingers along the fabric of the couch. “It was things like… plants. Gemstones, rocks. Potion and ritual ingredients, you know. A couple diagrams… some anatomical sketches. Nothing fancy or finished like I used to do, but I think they still hold up.”
“I would love to see them. I’m always interested in the notes of other witches.” The time he spent poring over Juniper’s notes on her procedure plans had reminded him of that. In C’s absence, he’d let his magical academic studies fall to the wayside, which was never good. An idle mind brought idle hands, and in the past few years, idle hands always found their way onto cold skin as fangs pierced his neck.
Orville, he suspected, truly had no immediate desire to do that, and it was a pain to go out and build enough trust with someone else who might be willing. He was a romantic, it was clear in the way he spoke about his own late love, and Jaya really didn’t have the energy for romance these days.
“That’s a sweet notion. You shouldn’t discount the need for good sketches in magical notes.” Jaya said, honestly, “I, myself, hate to draw. I'm not terrible at it, but it's never what I am looking forwards to when I am starting notes on a new ritual idea. I would have loved to have someone to do the chore of copying down the visuals, and to leave the fun parts to me.”
Jaya is attending with @orvillebarron by his side as his (platonic, surely) Romeo, excited more for the promise of a supernatural gathering than for the chaos of a rave. While he intends to leave early, he is going to get everything he can out of this event.
Anxiety was fickle. It did not care about time or place, it did not care about reason or logic. It simply took hold of you and only let you go with the right medication or a stroke of luck. A parasite without a body of its own. Juniper was familiar with it. More familiar than she was with herself sometimes. She handled it the only way she knew how. Drown it out.
If she kept herself busy enough she wouldn’t have the spare time or energy to talk herself out of it. Her accomplishments by sundown included pacing for a couple hours, pacing while reading through what she was calling her Book of Bad Ideas- which really was just all her accumulated notes and research on her new magical limits- as well as cleaning the kitchen twice. By the time she was alone in her apartment and the sky went from amber to indigo she was exhausted. Her leg ached with over-use and she was forced to sit.
It wasn’t the surgery she was worried about. Fracture reduction was simple enough in theory. She had faith in the combined knowledge and skill of herself and Jaya. It was the magic that scared her. It was only a couple months ago she realized testing her limits was even an option. Now she wondered if she was being overzealous, which is why no one but Jaya knew about tonight's plan. She couldn’t handle the embarrassment if she ended up making things worse.
A knock at the door made hours pass in a blink. She came too at her keyboard, hands moving with muscle memory to play songs that were heavy with comfort and nostalgia. She didn’t know if she was better, but she was calmer; ready.
Opening the door and being greeted with Jaya's enthusiasm for the macabre actually did wonders to make her smile more genuinely. Though it wasn’t as bright as usual. “I’m ready… Why don’t you come in and we can talk about the actual gameplan before heading down to the basement.”
He took her invitation gladly, smiling as he stepped into her home. Both the cafe and her apartment had a similar sort of design scheme, a cosy mix of warm lights and plants that she seemed to fit right into. His own style looked out of place in the mirror he glanced into, but that didn’t stop him from dropping into one of her comfortable chairs, the excitement of the night’s plans keeping him from letting himself from leaning back with his usual air of being there a thousand times before.
“I’ve got everything we agreed on, and then some extra of everything, just in case.” He said, opening his bag to set out the various bottles and tools he’d brought, holding out the too-strong liquor to her. “For you. Keep the bottle, I don’t serve the stuff in my lounge and I’m more of a wine man, myself. Now, talk me through the procedure.”
There are very few things Maja deems tolerable enough to save someone the torment of when she would have them dipping fingers into the cavernous hole of delusion; men who give answers she wants, skirt a very thin line. He lives, for now.
Deft fingers trace the shape of the chalked rune she’s carelessly scratched into the underside of the wood, easing off on buckling his knees so prematurely. It's merely a little entertainment when she might tire of him.
Siltshore Mausoleum. Maja does love to play in the walls of cursed stone and sacred burial plots. It's one of her favourite Tuesdays. Sometimes, ghouls are the best conversationalists, too. Mostly, they're just bitter hags that want to rattle the town as bones and gristle. Creatures and biting, and sucking, and all manner of deviant, dead-rising get boring quickly when that's all they devolve into.
A lot of the time, Maja considers letting them. But the troupe would call her careless.
She tips the contents of the bottle into the offered glass. Sceptical but satisfied that he has opted to understand the manner of this game. The hum of this tavern's magic prickles against her own; the song isn't known; it is as if it does not know what she is, other than a creature who knows what teetering on death's tightrope is like.
"Soon." She corrects. Eventually is a timescale that she does not favour. Eventually, all things must die, but that is not soon. Not even for this man.
Maja swills the rum, drops it back and refills it. All she needs is flame, and he may see a show for which her brother is formidable. "No business of yours. You have—" She gestures around to the bar they're sat in, a rattle of beaded bracelets, and the clink of rings as it flays wildly. "— this invasive-like power to dance with. Ingen." She mutters a hexing phrase about the dark-eyed boy in her language. However, he has given her a new haunt to play in, so it's only a minor curse about his ancestors' feet detaching from their resting places. "I thought maybe this meddling power may show me to helpful things." a beat, another dismissive slide of her hands across the bar, "Instead, I get pretty boy who believes he belongs to self, ha!"
That muttered hex-word of hers was not the sort of thing he would stand for in his establishment, the stink of death spells and ancestral enchantments always clashing badly with the scent of the candles he’d arranged so neatly onto any surface they could fit on. He had no love lost for his ancestors, and they had no bodies left to be defiled, but there was still a matter of pride, and basic manners.
“Well, if you’re looking for a Garnett witch to help with a ritual, I would suggest you start by not hexing the ancestors of your best choice.” He said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Considering the other options are busy, on sabbatical, or... with magical talents that lean away from complicated rituals.” That was the kindest way he could phrase the Roy boy’s situation, and there was a level of delicacy he was holding onto as he spoke to this outsider. “I’m afraid the coven is facing some trouble, lately, the kind that leaves me the most available member. So, I’ll ask again. What kind of ritual?”
Calling him a pretty-boy was going to earn her no good will, not with how she’d already disrespected him and his bar.
“Oh yeah of course,” Thera loved a tinker and had assessed the threads of all the objects, “the only one I can’t figure fully out is the key, I know it unlocks something but I’m not sure what yet.” That would be a fun little mystery for her to work out later.
“You are correct about the Rune being protection oriented, the glyph allows for a period of intangibility though not invisibility,” she warned knowing Jaya liked to push limits, “ the charm is special,” she slowly slide it off the counter, “it binds life forces.” She still didn’t know what she was going to do with it but it was a powerful and rare bit of magic that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“The candle,” she tossed it in her hand before extending it to Jaya, “I actually have no use for, my space is bound and protected with a thread tightness any weaver would be jealous of but you,” she was beating around the bush, “it creates a ring of protection when lit that will prevent anyone from coming in or out of its range and will last several hours, I believe until it goes out. Have you seen into warding Obsidian or your apartment in any way?” She arched an eye brow knowing the accident prone witch probably hadn’t, “If you haven’t this can be used in case of emergencies. Please take it.” She smiled.
Jaya was tempted to ask about the binding charm, but thought better of it. The only person he’d want to be bound to was dead and buried, and magic was always so unforgiving about ashen remains.
The candle, however, was interesting. The magic was evident, in both the runes swirling through the wax and the smell of potions ingredients when he lifted it to his nose, and the temptation to light it and try his hand at preservation magic just to see how long he could push it for was strong. “Oh, this is wonderful! Have you tested it at all?”
The interest he had in figuring out how to replicate its magic was stronger. “I’ll have to take it back to my place to figure out how it works, and how to replicate its protective wards in ways that could help Obsidian, but this is very promising!”
Once again, Orville found himself enraptured by a witch.
There was just something so charming about Jaya, and the sense of familiarity had only grown the longer they spent around each other. And Orville had found every excuse imaginable to spare time for him. It was fun, and he hadn’t realized just how lonely he’d been all these years.
“Mm, but I have been enjoying it.” Call him romantic, but he felt like he could listen forever. “But, something you don’t know about me…” he mused. “I still got some of the notes from the coven I was with back then. I don’t know what all they’re about, really, but… at the time, I thought I was saving them for when we regrouped. It meant I saved some of my old sketches, at least. It’s about all I have left of my old art that I didn’t sell off.”
“You held onto them?” Sentimental, likely, for his old sketches. Jaya was ever-curious, even without a real presence of interest, but the little urge to ask to see them was genuine. An artist who didn’t paint or sketch anymore was a tragedy, the kind that tugged at whatever romantic notions he had about the way grief affected other people, to pull his mind away from his own.
That was what Orville was becoming to him. A presence that helped to remind him of what his late love’s loss had done to him, while also being different enough to keep him from falling into one of his moods.
And, of course, it was always a delight to have someone who would sit there and listen happily as Jaya said whatever came to mind, made even more delightful when that someone was a handsome man.
“I’d like to see them sometime. Were they personal notes, or more academic in nature? I do have an interest in the rituals and spells of other covens, you know.” It was never a bad time to seek out new ways to improve his own magic, new spells to do things in three steps that he’d been doing in five. ”And I'm curious about your art. What sort of sketches were they?”
she may be a little doe eyed, but, mostly, she just wants to see as much of obsidian as she possibly can. allie wonders if she’d stepped into an enchanted forest, cloaked in shades of midnight. unfortunately, there’s just not enough trees for it to be a forest, is there? but allie’s happy to bask in the enchantment, and finds her way to the bar soon enough. she feels the magic in everything she touches, even dusting her fingertips over the countertop, she feels like little sparks dance up to meet them.
allie hums, meeting the brown eyes of the witch on the either side of the counter- and this time, she knows he’s a witch, she can feel him filling up every corner of obsidian. allie giggles, “ what about ... a surprise? ” then her eyelashes flutter, her gaze dancing away from him as she looks around the room, thinking. “ ooh, or maybe … ” back to the witch, curious. allie puts her chin into her hands, propped up on the counter. “ no, i want a surprise. ” her head tips to one side, “ pretty please? ”
“You’ll have to tell me how you like it, in exchange. I haven’t made very many of these.”
A surprise. Those were always fun, a chance to exercise some creativity in this new world of bartending that he’d stepped into, without the explosive consequences that come with creativity in the alchemical lab.
“So,” He set the glass on the counter, all pink and flower petals with a bit of that edible glitter he’d added to the order sheet in the last supply delivery, and slid it over to the smiling witch. “What brings you to Obsidian? Or, more accurately, what about you would Obsidian want to bring here?”
She took a deep breath at the reference to Kanta. They had apparently made their way around the party before they had their confrontation on the dais. She had tried to keep her mind from them most of the time. This was the right thing, they had a new start and word had even reached her that he had become co-head of the Port Leiry branch of the Brotherhood. Things were going well for them. And she had no place in that, not that she ever had. But the mindwipe had made that official and, with the exception of the reports she received from her colleagues, Thera was keeping the promise to herself that care of Kanta Shah was returned completely back into their own care.
She took a steadying breath, “I am just glad they are better now,” She pasted a smile on her face, “and I’ve been quite busy. I have a childhood friend staying with me and I always have my work.” She indicated the shop.
Thera then opened a drawer near her hip which held the items she had received. “I received a lot of things. I have a glyph, a charm, a Ward, and a candle.” her hand lingered over each object as she said them. She had had time to look into each object, the magic in the tethering charm was of particular interest to her. “Did you receive anything interesting?” She asked.
“Oh? A childhood friend?” That felt like a thread worth pulling on for gossip, or at least for the basic curiosity about Thera’s life. The Wendells were a name that he knew of, but didn’t really know much about. “You’ll have to tell me more about that later. How long are they in town?.”
He shrugged, setting out his own favors from the gala onto the counter for her to inspect. A rune that he’d already determined was protection-oriented, and a key he had no idea the use of.
“Nothing too interesting. May I?” He asked, only waiting for a nod before he reached across the counter to inspect the various objects, the symbols etched and drawn on them. “Do you have any suspicions on what these could be for?”
When Jaya started to show an interest in doing a wider range of spells than the potion-oriented work his father was focused on, his mother spent nearly two years modifying and altering every spell and ritual she had in her personal spellbooks to work better with his magic. He still uses a lot of those rituals, even as he has continued to modify them as his magic developed and changed over time.
Who: @juniperscauldron
When: Late July, just after sunset
Where: Juniper's Apartment
They’d been talking back and forth for a little while about the logistics, the plans for how to make sure this goes well. Jaya had pored over his medical textbooks, his magical healing books, his mother’s spellbook of potions, all in search of anything that might help. He’d gotten the ingredients, mixed the necessary potions, and acquired a bottle of that German gasoline that Juniper called liquor.
It was finally time for his chance to exercise his skills. As much as he loved running Obsidian, it offered sparse opportunities to use his magical and medical knowledge. This whole plan was a fantastic way to use them.
He tried and failed to keep the big smile from spreading across his face when she opened the door, his tone akin to a woman getting ready to pregame a bachelorette party instead of someone preparing to break their friend’s bones. “It’s surgery night! How are you feeling, are you ready?”
