Description: Two witches meet within the woods, but which is the real witch? Alexis shows an amazing display of 'power', but is it the real deal? Can a borrowed book hold the key to completing what it was she was attempting to do? Will Naerose follow her home for milk and cookies? WHO KNOWS???
The place to start is the forest... because every good story gets it's start there.
Add in a young girl, walking through the forest all alone, until she comes upon a clearing.
Lo and behold, you almost have the makings of a fairytale in two easy steps!
Now, in this instance the little critters of the forest aren't trailing after the girl. They're keeping their distance, because as much as the setting looks like that from a storybook, the truth of the matter is there's a highway not too far away and traffic can be continually heard in the distance.
Car sounds do tend to keep forest creatures at bay -- sometimes.
Alexis, the little heroine of this particular story, wanders out to the dead center of the clearing. From seemingly out of nowhere, she produces a wand (sans ribbon), and begins to swish it around through the air in direct imitation of the students in those Harry Potter movies. Each little swish of the wand sees a small glow of blue. The glow reaches the tip of the wand brightening for a moment before sizzling completely away. This usually brings a sigh from the witchly-clad girl, but it doesn't seem as though she's intending on giving up any time soon!
Witches are so in right now, but lets take a moment to look at the Original Witch gangsta. There was only one such person, the witchyest witch of them all, Naerose! She didn't have a wand, but she has a broom and everyone knows that the broom is a must have for all witch wardrobes. The only truly witch thing to do is to fly around on the broom, or sweep the floor. Naenae though is not concerned with either, she got here via scooter and therefore need not fly and the floor is forest dirt, totally unsweepable. So that leaves her just one option. Use her broom to carry buckets of water.. Unfortunately she hasn't so far managed to get it to work. The broom refuses to grow arms, so she tapes arms on, which refuse to carry buckets, so she gives up, takes pictures instead of nature stuff to send to discovery channel instead of pictures of a water carrying broom to disney. Either way she intends to cash in.
With a rather explicit curse coming out in French, Alexis glares down at the wand.
"You are rather annoying, you know," she states, not aware that there could be anyone else in the clearing (yay for lack of observational skills at times!). "I've come all the way out here and you're going to ruin this for me!"
She is, in fact, yelling at her wand.
The little blonde stares at the wand again, this time concentrating on it without the little flick and swish. Blue energy surrounds it, brighter than before. This time the energy seems to extend farther from the wand, but soon after it just dissipates.
"Oh, come /on/! It can't be this difficult!"
Nae observes what could only be one thing: A Harry Potter Live action role player. Just like those who go play Pheonix Mu* (short for order of the phoenix mu*)
"I think you're supposed to shout something when you do that," offers Naerose from where she is taking pictures, not far away. Come to think of it, this is totally a momment where she could get some cash sending these pictures into a cosplay website. The idea that this could be an actual other real witch in the world is unpossible. There are, to her knowledge, only a handful of real witches. Then again.
"Hey, are you a witch?" she asks with a smile and fixing her shades a bit.
At the voice, Alexis jumps. Now, this isn't quite just any jump. It's the jump of a gymnast, which means she gains quite a bit of height. A lucky thing they're not in the woods, because this means she's not bonking her head on the large branch of a tree.
"What? Like..." Fliiiiiick, and swiiiiish, "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!"
'course, this doesn't make anything happen. The blue just slides its way up the wand, then fizzles out again.
"Might as well attach the ribbon," she mumbles to herself.
"Huh?" Looking down at her costume, she giggles. "I guess I am. You?"
Pause.
Setting her hands to her hips, she quips, "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?" Seems someone is forgetting about the incident at Christmas.
It wasn't unlike Naerose to forget things. It was infact very like her and sometimes very unreal just how well she could forget things. Many people probably speculated a lot that the forgetfulness of Naerose was actually an act though non too elaborate. Luckily this doesn't come into the conversation as they both seem to have forgotten if they met. Even Naerose' player doesn't remember.
"I'm a witch, a sorceress and .." She scratches her head, "Well I'm certainly not bad, so given those two options I must be good." Naerose reasons, she would of preferred somewhere more middle ground really.
"If you're a good witch," Alexis says, her voice turning thoughtful for a moment, "then you can't be all /that/ bad." Which makes sense when you think about it. Of course good witches can't be /bad/! But she means that it probably won't hurt to talk to the older-witch or something along those lines.
"Even so, you can't send me back to Kansas," she says with a French accent, "not no way, not no how! No one has the ruby slippers!"
Now, Alexis is not usually this odd. Chipper to the point of annoyance at times, but odd? That's a rare occurrence. Still, one could likely assume that this peculiar behavior is brought upon by the oddness of the witch in front of her. Until...
"Hey! Weren't you like, that bell-ringing person with the charity pot at Christmas, when that funky kid on roller skates stole it?"
"Oh right.." Naerose says, remembering clearly the day that her money was pilfered.
"Oh that was awful, I had this great idea of the charity pot and then someone stole it and then blew it u p and then I had to give all the money away.." She sighs and shakes her head and by give it away, she means to the poor. Naerose was someone very affected by guilt.
"But they did give me some thankyous and cookies at the red cross, so I think it was worth it, in the end, except for well, the part where it hurt. I'm pretty sure it hurt." She obviously doesn't remember.
"Uhh..." Alexis furrows her brow, wiggling her lips back and forth like a bunny. "Isn't that like, the whole /idea/ of working for charity? You collect the money, you give it to the charity people, and they use it to help the poor kids get toys." At least, she's pretty sure that's the way it's /supposed/ to work.
"Oh, hey! At least you got cookies, right? Some charity places they don't even give cookies." Stoutnod.
Though they seem to be conversing, she turns back to her wand and gives it a quick shake. "You need to work! I gotta get this /without/ the ribbon so it can be a surprise!"
"Er wand?" Naenae adjusts her shades to observe the stick as though it might bite her on the nose. She takes a step back, "Wha watch where yo upoint it." She seems to believe in it's power too.
"Is it a gift or something? I wonder if maybe you need to use more words, or or draw a magick circle? I've totally never used wands before," Naerose admits, "I'm more a broomstick kind of witch. You know how that is right?" She assumes that the answer is yes.
"This is a weird place to practice though, I mean not entirely weird, but you should go to a magic user's club or something." No such thing exists.
"Wha?"
Alexis looks completely baffled by this. "Magic user's club? But..." It's not magic! They gymnast doesn't actually say that though, since this woman seems to be a total believer in the craft or whatever they call it.
"No, no. Look." Reaching into the back of the duster-style sleeveless overcoat, she pulls out a rather long, baby blue ribbon. Carefully attaching it to the end of the wand, she smiles.
Then she takes a deep breath.
Without so much as another word, she spins the wand-ribbon around her body in a gentle swirling pattern. Each twirl sees the ribbon become brighter, a blue glow snaking along its edges. Suddenly, the wand is thrust forward, the ribbon lashing outward with it. Bursting forth from the ribbon is a vortex of energy that spins toward a nearby tree.
"Woah!" exclaims the sorcoress in red, she is totally impressed. "Wow, real witchcraft, you are the real thing!" The other witch says with a gleeful grin and then claps a bit for the cool display of energy. Lots of people Naenae know could do that, it isn't rare and even more rare abilities is that she can get off the ground at all on her broomstick, but this never has impressed her as much as it progbably should.
Real witchcraft? Alexis tilts her head, furrowing her brow a little again. Isn't it just use of chi-energy? Like her yoga instructor taught her! The gymnast doesn't disillusion the woman though, that'd just be mean, wouldn't it?
"But see," she says, slowly removing the ribbon from the wand and folding it a few times, "Without this piece it doesn't work!"
Naerose considers this, really really hard. She then decides that maybe it isn't real magic. "Okay, I have an idea, what if you like.. put umm something smaller on, blue string? Then like a blue hair, then see if you can work your way off of the ribbon like some sort of crazy addiction.
"I mean if it isn't magick that is, if it is magic, I have a book here somewhere.." Naerose reaches into her hat and starts to feel around.
Oh.
Hey!
That's actually a pretty good idea! She could bring it up, anyhow. Maybe even if she just used a fishing line, or a fibre optic filament, or...
"Book?," Alexis asks, tilting her head questioningly. At this point, she's willing to read anything if it'll help her focus her energy. Using the gymnastics ribbon is /awesome/, but she's thinking that if she's going to keep teaming up with the fencer, the whole 'witch' thing would have more finesse if she made it look like real magic instead of just an energized ribbon whapping at people.
"Here we are." Naerose states and hands over a book, "The Grimorie." The book, bound in leather and sort of old looking might actually be the real thing, or the semi real thing, or a cheep copy. It resembles a bible, with the red topped pages and rice paper like feel. Very delicate, but clearly handled without the utmost of care. "You can borrow it I guess, but I need to know where I can get it back from." The witch passes the volume over, covered in bunny scratches and some doodles she probably did herself of little pink hearts.
Blink.
"Woah! Is that like, a real witchcraft book?" Eyebrows arch upward, and Alexis peers at the weird markings on it. It kind've looks like something was trying to claw it's way out of the book. Or into the book. That's just.... creepy. 'cuz of that, she's not reaching out automatically for it to grab it or anything, she just stares blankly at it. It's not until she notices the doodles that she warily reaches her hand out, looking as though she's terrified the book will chomp at her.
"Uhhm..." Peeking around she nods. "Here'll do. I can bring it back here in a few days. I mean, it'll likely take me that long to go through it and find what I need..."
Not that what she needs is in here, most likely. What she /needs/ is more time to focus on her prana yoga, or someone with l33t energy skills to teach her how to keep her focus without transferring the energy through an object.
"Whatever works," replies Naerose easily. She hasn't had a lot of luck with the book, but oddly enough it does seem to be legitimate. Not a REAL magick book, more like a philosophy book and a guide to magic. Would any of it work? Probably not, more likely it was chi manipulation by an unexperienced had, or perhaps someone who was deluded like other witches and sorcerersss in the world. It was hard to say. But needless to say, the book looks like a real deal. Of course Nae won't mention blackjack helped her obtain it.
"Cool! Thanks!" Alexis tucks the scary looking monstrosity of a claw-marked, doodle-hearted book under her arm and then begins to twirl around. No, she's not losing it or anything. She's trying to think of a good location to store the book incase the odd-witch isn't there when she comes to return it. After several rotations, she points in the direction of the forest.
"There!"
And 'there' is a rather large tree, with a rather round hole in it. The kind you see elves or dwarves hiding things in in stories, or video games. "I can wrap it up and leave it in there for you."
"That should work, " replies the laid back witch who is probably just happy to get the thing out of her hat. How it fit into her hat though, that's another story entirely. The hat, made it seems, specifically to be her pockets, since she doesn't have any pockets.
"Well good luck with your work .." Then she remembers her work, "Hey can you do that spinny thing again?"
Naenae readies her camera to take a picture or six.
"Thanks," chirps Alexis, wondering (not for the first time) if the book she's holding is even safe at all.
She's already started to turn, to wind her way back through the woods before it gets dark, but the question causes her to stop. "Oh, yeah! I can do that again!" Shifting the book around a little, she attaches the ribbon to the wand once more. Clutching the book tightly so that it doesn't plop down to the ground as she spins around, she starts to twirl the ribbon about her body in a soft, swirling pattern. Blue energy rides along the edges of it, growing brighter until it bursts forth a vortex of spinning watery energy toward a tree.
"Like that?"
"Yep! Perfect" Says Naerose, who snaps a bunch of pictures on her disposable camera, cause she can't afford a nicer one. Actually even if she could (and she has made good money before) the problem isnt' the camera cost, but that almost half the time whomever she is taking pictures of decides to destroy the camera. Expensive cameras just are not in her investing future. All the same, she seems to decie it is time to go.
Removing the ribbon from the wand as she walks, the gymnast carefully folds it up once more. Both wand and ribbon are then tucked away so she can begin her traipse through the woods. The last thing Alexis does before disappearing into the trees is give the book she carries another really odd look. "Just to be on the safe side," she mumbles to it, "you can sleep in the hall tonight."
Log created on 14:20:10 08/01/2008 by Alexis, and last modified on 16:14:20 08/01/2008.