the water rubbing against our hands sharpens knives

( wren hugo / scorpio )

[rorycaston-blog]

should have known better

[wrenhugo-blog]

rorycaston‌:

A short giggle escapes their lips before they can help it. Rory pictures their wings ripping open their suit, causing the room to erupt into chaos. That would definitely make the night a little more exciting, and it would definitely deter the attention away from Ruth. As much as Rory likes Ruth, they aren’t willing to blow their secret for her. “I won’t go that far,” They reassure Wren as they twirl the champagne flute between their long fingers. “I’ve been drunk a few times in the past year and I have yet to pop a wing in the process.” 

Rory pauses to take in the crowd, observing as they exchange small talk over hors d'oeuvres and champagne. Everything about them screams ‘dripping in money.’ Even if they care less about the cause, at least they have plenty of money to spare. “Well, this is definitely the crowd for it,” Rory nods before sipping their drink. “We could probably say we’re raising money to teach giraffes how to read, and they’d still donate.”

Rory’s back twitches from Wren’s question, but it’s faint enough to ignore. It gets easier to ignore the itching as time goes on, but it’s still annoying. Especially when they forget their earring. “Here,” Rory begins as they pull the feather earring from their pocket and place it in Wren’s hand. “It’s one of my feathers. I charmed it to ease the itching when I’ve got it on. Kind of like tricking my body into thinking the wings are out even when they’re not.” 

she can’t argue with rory and she knows that. they know their limits. they might test those limits from time to time, but she’s well aware that they know exactly how far to push and when to stop. even so, she frowns in open disapproval. magic is too real these days, and she’s not thrilled at the idea of tempting fate.

“you’re probably right,” she answers, thinking back to stories of gorillas learning sign language and elephants splattering paint on canvases and how thoroughly people would lose their minds over topics like that. she couldn’t say she wasn’t impressed, but she always imagined all the money that went into those kinds of projects could be better spent elsewhere.

rory explains that they’re handing her a feather as they do it, a reminder of why wren likes them as much as she does. they’ve paid enough attention over their time together to know when she needs accommodating and when she’d rather be left to her own devices. if they hand her something, they know to tell her what it is, and they’ve done it enough that it’s second nature and they doesn’t have to make a big deal out of it. 

“wait, that works?” when answers, turning the feather over in her hand and running her thumb along the ridges on one side. “that’s crazy. i mean, that’s amazing, but still. crazy.” she holds it toward them to take it back. “it doesn’t like, look magical, does it?” she asks, though she’s not sure what that would mean, exactly. she didn’t notice any light coming off of it, which seemed like a good sign, but one can never be too careful.

[wrenhugo-blog]

forgotten what i do it for

[wrenhugo-blog]

predictable-luca‌:

   Luca made face with the few people he could handle for minutes at a time; the first was a banker asking him how the millennial demographic viewed  cryptocurrencies and the other, an ostentatious women, peacock plumes decorating her hair that was wrapped into a loose bun as she asked if he ever considered modeling—frankly it was all jarring but luckily his trusty friend, Bombay (London Dry), kept his nerves humming at a low 5 instead of higher. It took some pleasant excuses me until the witch could find his focus for the night, Wren, yet like clockwork she sensed him before he could even say a word. “Wait….So breathing like a serial killer on the other side of a phone isn’t soothing?” he teased, knowing her anxiety was choking the lightness in her tone, “Damn, those teen magazines really do write nonsense.”

    He approached her, a wide smile across his face even if she couldn’t see since for Luca he was proud of his friend, even if Wren didn’t want to be. This wasn’t another college rally, some support group—this was larger and definitely richer platform. Hundreds of people could be inspired by her, which could lead to money or programs, hell maybe even books or movies written about her. Part of the boy knew that was dramatic in thinking but this world, half of the coven’s world, nothing seemed impossible. Laughing slightly, “Well weirdly I’m not white…a women…or blind, so that might be a dead give away for the audience.” he softly placed his hand on her shoulder, “You got this okay, no need to freak.” 

she laughs softly at the teen magazine joke, though the thought of luca cracking the spine of an entertainment magazine of any sort is funnier than the comment itself. this speech isn’t even that big of a deal- she really has given it a thousand and one times, and she knows she can deliver. jitters are just a part of the pre-show package, unfortunately. if she can’t have pluto to get her through them, luca’s not the worst substitute she can think of.

the not a woman comment stings, but it’s a familiar sting, one she can brush past without addressing. she’s used to keeping certain things to herself, and she has no reason to change those things tonight. “i’m jewish, asshole,” she answers, slugging him in the side with a limp fist and chuckling good-naturedly. “whitewash me again and i’ll sic tumblr on you.” if she were talking to just about anyone else, she’d squirm out of their grasp as quickly as possible, but luca was one of a very select group of people who had permission to touch her without consequence.

she lets her head fall against the wall, eyes aimed toward the hazy lights twinkling dully across the hall across a backdrop of nothingness. luca’s outline blocks most of them, so she tips her head to one side to see past him, using what little visual stimulation she could get to muffle the jangling in her nerves. “i swear, i’ll be old and hunched and i’ll still be giving this speech to all the nurses in the nursing home. i’ll forget everything and everyone and lose my mind but i’ll still know this speech back to front.” her mood drops a bit and she sighs before continuing. “honestly, i wouldn’t care about today at all, but it’s weird with... you know... everyone here.” luca’s smart enough that she’s sure he can pick up who the other ten everyones are. “i kind of wish i didn’t agree to give the whole sob story in front of them.”

[xprimeliv-blog]

baby :(

[rorycaston-blog]

should have known better

[wrenhugo-blog]

 rorycaston‌:

Rory pauses mid sip to roll their eyes, even if Wren can’t see. She knows them well enough to sense when they’re being stubborn. “I don’t know. I’m not counting,” They tip the glass back to finish the contents, licking the champagne taste from their lips. Their lipstick is long gone by now, between the drinking and sampling the buffet. They would touch it up, but they don’t care enough. It seems like a wasted effort for such a bust of a night. “They keep handing it to me, so I keep drinking it. I’m not turning down free champagne,” Rory explains. 

On cue, a waiter passes by with a tray of champagne flutes, pausing by Rory to take their empty glass and offer another, which they take without hesitation. They’re not usually the type to drink their problems away, but tonight seems like the kind of night they can only get through inebriated. Besides, they did like indulging now and again. Sometimes, it’s nice to lose control.

“Seems like a waste of a speech,” Rory leans against the wall as they wrinkle their nose. “On these people, that is. I can’t imagine any of them were that touched by it.”

"you’ll be pretty pissed you stopped counting when you’re too drunk to keep your wings tucked under that outfit,” wren replies dryly, drumming her fingers against the side of her cane in annoyance. “people aren’t going to remember you spoke at all if you morph into a bird in the middle of the dance floor.” she listens to the exchange between rory and the waiter and frowns louder in their direction. there’s not much she can do about the situation, but she can at least attempt a guilt trip.

“doesn’t matter if they were touched, so long as they reach into their wallets,” wren answers with a shrug. she’s never much cared where the money for her causes comes from so long as it gets where it’s going. sure, she’d prefer the money come via non-exploitative channels, but you can’t always get what you want in this life, and a little blood money given to a good cause is better than using it to cause more exploitation. then again, the fact that this money is going towards tax breaks does leave more money in the pockets of the donors with which to commit more exploitation- doing anything good always comes with the headache of figuring out how much bad has to be done in order to get there. it’s headache-inducing, really, and all wren can really hope some days is to break even, but she’s not entirely sure even that is possible.

right now, she can’t be bothered to think about things like that. her mind spins circles around the topic of safety and everyone else’s seeming nonchalance at the topic weighs heavy. “do your wings still itch when you’re not using them?” she asks, suddenly feeling very stupid for not having asked recently. “or have you figured that out now? there’s got to be something you can do about that, it must drive you crazy.”

[wrenhugo-blog]

forgotten what i do it for

it’s embarrassing just how lost wren feels without pluto at her side. not lost as in, i can’t find my way from point a to point b, though there’s a struggle there too to a certain extent. it’s more like i don’t know who i am or where the rest of me went. it’s as if she’s shrunk herself down by half. leaning against the wall in the walkway outside the banquet room, she absentmindedly taps her can against the floor, mumbling through the main points of her speech in her head one last time before she has to deliver the thing.

“i can hear you breathing,” she announces flatly. it’s meant as a joke, but the humor doesn’t quite land. “it’s very distracting. if i fuck this speech up, i’m blaming it all on you.” she half-smiles and readjusts her weight, her hips still sore from falling when she failed the spell weeks ago. she’d managed to get herself out of the wheelchair in time for the ball and she was toughing it out best she could without her sling, but she couldn’t quite ditch the wrist brace yet, unfortunately. “you’ve heard this speech enough, why don’t you just give it for me, hmm?”

@predictable-luca

[rorycaston-blog]

should have known better

[wrenhugo-blog]

rorycaston‌:

@wrenhugo

Rory sips at their champagne, hoping that the alcohol can somehow erase the disaster that is this night. Guilt weighs heavily in their stomach. Rory and Wren made a huge mistake in not warning Ruth about the theme of the night, but they didn’t realize that her parent’s would exploit her like that. Obviously, Rory is a strong advocate for mental health, and when they were asked to speak, they didn’t hesitate to say yes, but now they realize they would’ve been better off avoiding the night all together. 

Wren appears at their side and her presence is comforting when they’re surrounded by people who have probably been whispering about them all night. “I’ve got to say,” Rory begins as they swirl the champagne in their glass. “This has got to be the worst event I’ve ever attended.” 

had this whole eruption happened even just a few weeks prior, wren would have shrugged the whole thing off. ruth’s ridiculous. it’s her own fault for not taking twenty seconds out of her day to ask about the theme of the ball. hell, she’d managed to invite rory and wren to speak at the damn thing and the two of them had managed to figure out the theme enough to write speeches for it, ruth has no excuses for not figure it out.

and yet, here they are. wren isn’t stupid and she’s not one to take the blame for other people’s problems, but ever since fucking everyone over during the exorcism ceremony, everything feels like her fault. maybe if ruth had been less busy helping wren she would have had more time to focus on her own problems, maybe if wren had thought about someone besides herself for a minute she would have thought to ask ruth why she agreed to the mental health charity ball in the first place... maybe, maybe, maybe.

“honestly, same,” wren answers, scowling into the noisy nothingness of the ballroom. it’s not entirely true, but it feels true enough in the moment. “how many of those have you had, by the way?”

[wrenhugo-blog]

the fakest shit that i ever heard

some time before the group even knew about ulfrich, ruth took wren to a little magic shop near the beach to try to help her find some form of magic to connect with. when nothing seemed to be going right, wren was ready to quit entirely, but ruth persisted. in the end, she tried scaring wren by pinching her to see if the shock would help; wren jumped away and knocked over a basket. nearly embarassed to tears, wren announced she’d just take whatever was in the basket that fell- not crystals, to ruth’s dismay, but a handful of little shark teeth.

the shark teeth became useful later, however, when the group decided to put wren and dane in charge of killing ulfrich. ruth quickly thought of the teeth and designed a toothed glove for wren to fight with, enchanted so that she could fight from a distance and still do damage. terrified she wouldn’t be able to use it, wren turned to luca to teach her how to fight, and help her practice locating her foe through sound.

unfortunately, a weapon is only as talented as she who wields it, and wren just wasn’t practiced enough in magic. not only was she unsuccessful in attacking ulfric, she shouted in terror and created a sonic blast that knocked luca and rory, her two closest friends and the two people in charge of keeping ulfric contained, to the ground. both sustained minor injuries, as did wren. this also left dane to kill ulfric by himself.

since then, wren has been a ball of anxiety, hovering too close to her friends out of concern for their safety and generally nagging everyone to be extra careful.

[wrenhugo-blog]

wren’s all-purpose fancy outfit, which she is wearing to the ball

[wrenhugo-blog]

event tracker/plotting under the cut

@dxne-duclos - solo about failing to kill ulfric @eltoromagico - jude is writing a starter @marco-marino-hart - plans to follow up after the event @ruthsheart - i owe a discord starter @desmondbeaumont - nothing plotted yet @faye-westaway - nothing plotted yet @ava-x-park - nothing plotted yet @imogenxsong - lol @predictable-luca - i owe a dashboard starter @rorycaston - not sure yet but we’ll figure it out!! @wherescleo - nothing plotted yet

just pretend i copy pasted all the stuff from imogen’s tracker over here k???

[ratlezbian]

[ruthsheart]

the heart-lines on your hand

[wrenhugo-blog]

ruthsheart:

Wren assumes she has all the answers, as if Ruth has done all this before. Well, she hasn’t, but in her experience, magic tends to be pretty intuitive. Like picking up a brand new iPhone, it’s not hard to get it to do what you want. You poke around, find your comfort zone, and eventually it comes second nature. With a quiet huff of annoyance she tries to explain the obvious. “It’s the same way you do anything else. You decide what you want, and you make it happen.” Wren doesn’t understand. Ruth can see the frustration building in Wren’s stern expression, little wrinkles building around the eyes, the line of her lips tightening. Ruth suddenly remembers the reason they’re here. Wren has never done magic before. She’s never read the books. There’s a good chance nobody has sat down with her and explained the basics of magic. Ruth can’t keep treating her like she should know this, because even though she should, she doesn’t.

Ruth squints at the floor as she tries to think of a better way of explaining it. When Wren suggests she do one first, Ruth sneers with disbelief. “Psshh. Easy?! You are Wren Hugo, the voice for the voiceless, activist and warrior, the most powerful woman I know. When have you ever chosen to do something because it’s easier? You wouldn’t let the world conquer you like that. You’d rather do the hard thing, just to prove to everyone else how strong you are. No, I want to see you come up with something yourself. Besides, you won’t like the way I do it. Most people rely on colors when dealing with magic. Red for anger or passion or energy. Green for kindness or healing. Blue for communication and intuition. Me? I’d go pick the prettiest, swirliest red stone out of those bins and put your frustration away in it, but that’s too reliant on a sense you don’t have. Forget how everyone else does it, Wren. You aren’t everyone else. Everyone else can’t hear the stones, can’t sense them the way you do. Forget the old rules, and make your own.”

Ruth snaps the book shut as if to punctuate her tirade. She approaches Wren with swift steps, sharp with intent. She sets her hands on the counter top beside Wren’s but still she does not touch her. “If you just copy me, doing everything I say, then I’ll know how all your crystals are programmed and I could just walk in and use them whenever I like. You’ve got to protect your magic a little better, make it personalized. Here…” She shoved the book away to the end of the counter, making space beneath her hands. “There’s only a few things you absolutely need to know about magic. One: The intention is the key to everything. You have to know exactly what you want. Once you have your intentions clearly stated, everything else is an accessory. Like I said before, you decide what you want, and then you make it happen in whatever way you can imagine might possibly do so. Two…” She plucked a spiky amethyst out of a box and set it on the glass in front of her. “Think in terms of symbols. I know you can’t physically take a feeling out of your chest and put it in a crystal, and then literally set it free later, but you can metaphorically do so. Maybe it’s in the form of wrapping the crystal in something, and then unbinding its wrappings later. Maybe you get it messy in the dirt or blacken it with fire, then wash it all away later. I don’t know. Come up with your own thing you like best, in your own time. Try out ideas. They don’t all work and everyone’s methods are a little different.”

As she stepped back from the counter, her fingers flicked hard at the little crystal, causing it to spin rapidly in place, a tiny whirling spike of delicate purple. “Finally, trust yourself. The most magical sense we have is our intuition, our instinct. Don’t force it to make sense. It doesn’t have to. Even your emotions can mislead you, carry you away on tangents. Trust your first impressions. Forget what you’ve been told to think. None of it applies here. This is our world now. We make the rules. Let go of anything holding you back and do what feels right.” Slowly, her steps creep back into the center of the room. She scans the rows of little boxes, deep contemplation narrowing her dark eyes. “Wren, if you don’t mind…” She lifted a dainty, paint-streaked hand toward her friend. “Step back here with me for a moment. I think you might get a different impression if you gave them a little space.” Whether Wren can hear it or not, she wiggles her fingers enticingly. A vague smudge of an idea is beginning to form in her mind, an idea that might make Wren understand just how much power she has yet to discover inside herself.

wren hates pep talks, and ruth manages to spit out at least twelve different versions of they you could do it if you’d just try! tropes that make wren hate them so passionately. yeah, maybe she could, but that doesn’t mean she wants to. sometimes she wants to save her limited supply of physical and mental energy for something less stressful than bumbling around and trying to figure something out for herself. things like getting home from the store without relying on a mobility aid. she lets out a huff of frustration and she can already feel her throat tightening and heat rising in her cheeks and ears with a threat of oncoming tears. she grits her teeth against them, mentally berating herself for being such a fucking baby while she remains stock-still standing over the humming baskets of crystals.

“i can’t just forget the old rules,” she answers in a dry monotone. “i don’t know them to begin with. i’m not a prodigy just because i can hear the stones, okay? i just have bat ears. calm down.” she clears her throat and takes a step back from the counter, crossing her arms around her tensed ribcage and turning around. no matter how frustrated she might be, ruth is her best shot at figuring this magic shit out right now, she still needs to pay attention. head down, she follows ruth’s voice a few steps toward the center of the room. “what’s all the space for?”

[wrenhugo-blog]

beating louder than time

[wrenhugo-blog]

eltoromagico:

He tries to laugh with her humorless joke about curing sensitivity to loud idiots but it just comes out a tired grunt. If there is a cure to PTSD, magical or no, he feels like he should have stumbled on it. It’s not like he hasn’t been trying to learn. “That would be nice. I wish I could just fix it. I’ve been trying to, but therapy has been shaking me up more than it’s fixing it feels.” Their last session had been particularly hard. He stepped out of the building into the sunshine, feeling like every nerve in his body had been rubbed raw, as if his skin was stripped away and every touch stung sharp at his insides until his skin had the time to regrow itself.

“Of course, I owe you. Anything. You really saved my butt back there.” He ruffles his hair and a light slick of sweat cools his fingertips. Rubbing his hair a bit harder, he smiles at the refreshing sensation of a light breeze in his curls. His small, tired smile widens at the next thing Wren says. Honestly, it’s the last thing he had expected to hear from her. He would not have ever put the words Wren and team player in the same sentence. At one point he had been certain she didn’t care for him at all. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe he’d just been going about this haggard, forced acquaintanceship all wrong—trying to care for her needs when she’d rather muddle her way through. She never wanted his help, but she gave hers when needed. It all felt a little too familiar…

“Right.” He responds, a bit too late as his thoughts finally catch up with reality. “Nobody messes with the team.” They haven’t really felt like a team in ages, maybe not ever. Jude had wanted them to be a team, still wants them to be a team. Now that he’s stopped trying to make them into one, are they more of a team than ever?

Wren’s words interrupt his thoughts that are teetering dangerously on the edge of another downward spiral. “What? The sky?” Before he has a chance to berate himself for another thing he managed to fail at, his attention is turned to the little window of sky between the two buildings. “It’s umm…” How does one explain the sky to a blind person?

She hasn’t always been blind, his own little voice in his head reminds himself. He doesn’t remember where he heard that bit of information. It’s hard to get a good look at the sky in his hidden nook, so he pushes himself up to standing again and leans around the corner. Over the wide, open quad, the sky stretches off above the trees, more vast than the ocean. Leaning comfortably against the wall, Jude stares out at the afternoon sky. “On the edges of it, above the treetops and buildings, it’s kind of a light, tentative blue, like it’s not really sure if it wants to be blue yet or if that’s more of a summer thing and maybe it should just stay grey for safe measure. Then, there’s a layer of clouds. I think they’re called Cumulus? It’s the kind that looks like someone took the universe’s biggest cotton ball and tore it up into fluffy pieces, all soft and stringy. I know it’s just water vapor very far away but I’ve always wished I could lay down on clouds like that. They look like you could just sink into their fluffy little strands like a giant feather pillow.” Laughing quietly to himself, he shoves his droopy curls from his face and looks straight up at the center of the sky.

“Above the clouds, it turns a deeper shade of blue like… like Faye’s eyes.” He flushes with embarrassment the moment he says it. What a silly thing to compare to. Wren has never even seen Faye’s eyes. Hastily, he tries to recover with a better description. “It’s not dark, it’s just deep. Like it goes on forever. Endlessly, unbelievably, perfectly blue. It’s easy to get lost in that blue, like falling into the ocean, too deep to really comprehend. Way out there, the infinite abyss of outer space is being filtered by reflective layers of atmosphere and solar radiation to echo the big blue ocean of earth. It’s really beautiful. The most perfect mid-spring day you could ask for.”

wren chuckles to herself when jude blurts about faye’s eyes, but she doesn’t let him hear her laughing. some people are so soft it’s a miracle they survive the day. it’s sweet in a way, if a bit over-the-top. at least now she knows he’s into faye. she thought there was something up with them a while back, but the dynamics in this fucked up little group are too much to keep up with sometimes. 

also... so much science in the middle of jude’s poetic monologue? wren’s pretty sure that even if she were sighted she wouldn’t quite know what he’s trying to describe, it sounds more like a bland acid trip than anything. “so i guess the call for rain was a lie then, huh?” she answers, feeling for pluto’s harness before standing up from the bench. “can’t complain, i guess.” she shrugs her messenger bag higher over her shoulder and gives pluto the command to start for her next class. “so... you okay, then? everything good?” wren asks, cutting a slow path across the emptying square. “i’ve got a class to hit up so...”

[rorycaston-blog]

laundry and astrology

[wrenhugo-blog]

rorycaston:

“Guilty as charged,” Rory gives her a toothy grin, hoping she can hear the satisfaction in their voice alone. “I think they’ve started a club actually. The ‘Not Good Enough for Wren Club.’ There’s twenty members and counting,” They inform her, trying to keep their giggles at bay. It sounds ridiculous, but it isn’t entirely impossible. Rory will bypass anyone that attempts to date her, and they can make a club afterwards, for all they care. “Dental health is important, Wren. If their teeth aren’t straight then they should at least floss of all things. You don’t want to kiss someone with gingivitis.” 

As Wren starts speaking to Pluto in German, and Rory is unphased. They’ve heard her do it every day since they met her. Part of them wishes they knew what she’s saying, but they also appreciate that she has a secret language with her dog. They giggle as Wren pulls out a treat and Pluto eagerly eats it from her hand. If he was off duty, Rory would be cooing over how good of a boy he is, but they’ll save it for later. 

“Faye’s a Virgo and Luca’s a Capricorn,” They remind her, playing idly with their necklace. “Both earth signs, but one is not like the other. Capricorn is definitely the more intense of the two.”

“right. gingivits. can’t have that, can we?” in all truth, wren isn’t one hundred percent sure what gingivitis is- some kind of dental problem, she knows that much, but nothing more. must be pretty gross, though, by the sounds of things. then again, wren has always been the kind of person to keep floss picks in her wallet at all times, so her standards are a bit high. she’d always been a bit obsessive about dental care, but after losing her vision she’d gotten even more intense about it, the constant fear of spinach in her teeth looming.

“ahh. well. luca... yeah, intense. that’s a good word for him.” wren nods and smiles. it’s one of the things she’s always liked about him, so focused on his goals and ideas. out there accomplishing things. like rory, in a way, even though the two are very different people. “so capricorns are intense and everyone’s repressed. got it.” she feels around the top of her basket until she finds the grip on the handle. it’s the reason she bought this basket in the first place, and the reason she doesn’t let other people fill or carry it for her, even if they think they’re being helpful- she’s never found another laundry basket she can hold easily with one hand and still hold pluto’s harness with the other. if somebody broke it, they would have wren’s rage to deal with, 

without waiting for a command, pluto gets into position next to her. “i still can’t believe all your horoscope paid off,” she says, laughing at the absurdity of it. “all this time, i really should have been paying attention, huh?” she feels down the back of pluto’s neck until she finds his harness and gets a grip on the handle. “you about ready to go?”

[beingsoupahbi]

Arrow 3x12 Part 4 of 6

[ruthsheart]

the heart-lines on your hand

[wrenhugo-blog]

ruthsheart:

Watching Wren with rapt fascination, Ruth smiles at the tinge of pink that splashes over her pale cheeks, though Wren’s expression remains stony. It’s impossible to tell what Wren is thinking, a problem Ruth finds herself facing with frustrating regularity. She tries not to let it drive her crazy, though there is a part of her that can hardly hold itself together when moments like this arrive. There’s another part of her that enjoys the little guessing game. It busies itself with hours of making up stories to fill the empty space. Wren flushed with shy nervousness at Ruth’s praise, deep down she’d been searching for her approval all along, longing for something deeper than this awkward friendship of necessity. Some stories are more extravagant fantasies than others. It’s the only thing that keeps Ruth from falling into her usual ways of extracting more information. Compliments and flirtations have not been successful so far. The next step, working the emotions and getting physically closer, into more intimate space, might potentially get her punched. So Ruth continues to make up her stories and watch for clues. Something, anything, to shed some secret light on Wren’s shadowy thoughts…

Wren perks up suddenly at the mention of casting a spell. A satisfied smirk pulls at Ruth’s lips. It’s exactly the kind of clue she’s been looking for. “Sure, a spell, it would be pretty easy actually.” She baits the hook and casts the line.

Ever-cautious, Wren doesn’t yet bite, instead she swims circles around Ruth’s fish hook with careful questions. Ruth is not deterred, she feigns a casual interest and continues to flip through the pages of the book. “You can do just about anything with crystals. Think of them as batteries you can charge or drain with whatever you want. Or maybe tiny computers is a better analogy, you can program them to run certain tasks or gather a certain kind of knowledge.” Pausing, she skims paint-splattered fingers over the words on a page. “Here’s one. Take an emotion you don’t want to feel, identify it, and put it into a stone, to be released in a safer place. How cool is that?”

wren plucks a random stone from the bin and rolls it between her fingers. it’s bigger than a knuckle but smaller than her palm, polished, flat on one side and just slightly concave on the other. it might be one of those river rocks you’re supposed to keep in your pocket to fiddle with when you’re anxious. wren had a few growing up, but always managed to lose them. it’s a miracle she hasn’t lost her fidget cube yet, though she imagines that day can’t be far off.

she tries to follow along with ruth’s explanation, but once she mentions tiny computers, wren just gets the concept of nanobots stuck in her head. that can’t be right. “how do you put a feeling into a stone?” she asks. she tries to sound nonchalant about it, but ruth sounds so calm and casual, like taking things out of your brain and putting them in rocks is just what one does, that wren can’t help feeling a bit frustrated. is she just overthinking something easy? or is ruth just obnoxiously gifted with magic? she drops the little maybe-a-worrystone back in its bin and rests her hands against the edge of the counter, eyes fixed on the shapeless light coming through the window.

“you can do one, right?” she asks. she knows she can’t do this on her own, but she doesn’t exactly want a guided tutorial, either. it’s better than straight up asking for help, anyway. “you go first, i’ll copy you. it’ll be easier that way.”

[eltoromagico]

The Twelve Signs as Dragon Age Mages [5/12]

Wren Hugo ( @wrenhugo ) - Entropy Mage

These mages delve into the chaotic nature of the Fade, twisting the fabric of probability and ensnaring foes with horrifying visions. With entropic magic they manipulate the forces of erosion, decay, and destruction to create anew.

“You think that pain will make you stronger? What fool filled your mind with such drivel? The only one who grows stronger from your fear is me.” - Nightmare, a Fear Demon of unparalleled size and power.

[wrenhugo-blog]

you’ve got your intuition

[wrenhugo-blog]

faye-westaway:

Faye clutched the clipboard tightly in her hands, white knuckled and pale faced. She could feel herself losing touch with reality, with her surroundings. The morning had gone by in the blink of an eye. What worried her the most was the fact that she couldn’t remember what she had been doing up until she had walked into the room to greet her next patient. Ulfric was dominating her psyche, deciding when and how she should be involved in every situation. She wanted to leave the clinic, go home and lock herself in her bedroom, but each time she committed herself to the idea, Ulfric swooped back in and blindfolded her once more, shrouding her in darkness.

She was terrified. Her eyes, red and bleary, rose to meet her patient. Her heart practically leaped into her throat when she realized that it was Wren and Pluto. Her blood ran cold. Not them. Anyone, but them. She heard Pluto’s polite voice inside her head, formally greeting her. She wanted to answer him, beg him to take Wren away, but Ulfric was already one step ahead of her. He clamped her mouth shut, forcing her to retreat as he took the lead.

She doesn’t answer to you, dog, Ulfric snarled, his deep voice oozing with malice.

On the outside, Faye’s lips curled into a soft smile. “Hello, Wren,” she said calmly. “It’s been a while. How are you doing?”

pluto cocks his head in confusion. there are too many things happening at once and none of them add up. miss westaway looks exhausted and sad, neither the prim and put-together young lady he’d gotten to know in the past nor the wild thing she’d transformed into as of late. her human voice sounds more or less the same as always, but the voice that answer’s pluto’s question is something else entirely. it’s his instinct to growl and back away, tell wren to get out of the room, but he doesn’t want to scare wren unnecessarily so he remains calm for now.

“i’m fine,” wren answers, absentmindedly fiddling with the clasp on pluto’s empty harness in her lap, clicking it in and out of place over and over, just to give her hands something to do. “just wanted to check on pluto. he’s scratching a lot and i don’t know if he’s allergic to something or if it’s fleas or something. you?”

i’m sorry miss, but who is “she”? do you remember me? i’m pluto, we’ve met before.” pluto shifts his position on the table to reach one of his massive paws her way, placing it gently on one of her hands. humans often ask him to do this upon meeting him. he’s not entirely sure why, but if it’s good manners he’s happy to oblige.