Marina Andrieski (andrieski) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-08-17 03:23:00 |
|
|||
Marina was, admittedly, still hungover, but she felt better than she had when she first woke up, so she’d pulled on her flats, which were not a style of shoe she went for often, but she always had a few pairs of shoes that she could run in a little easier than others. Still wearing last night’s black leggings and a somewhat oversized purple t-shirt, she opened the room to Ethan’s room, a smile still playing across her lips as she walked downstairs. It had been a weird morning, but at least she’d been amused by it. She ran her fingers through her hair as she walked down the stairs, trying to make it look a little less messy than it did when she first woke up. It didn’t really work, but she managed to look a little less unkempt. It was probably going to be a long day. Part of her wondered if she needed to reach out to Julia and part of her wondered if she was likely to have to worry about anyone else looking like a toon. She didn’t have many friends, so if she needed to make fun of someone, she wanted to know. Otherwise, no one else really mattered. She needed coffee, though. She wasn’t certain if it was something they had here or not. Then again, she was fairly certain it was better to go somewhere where you knew the coffee being made. But as she came to the bottom of the stairs, she paused. “Oh. You’re here.” It wasn’t really much of a greeting, but she sounded more surprised than anything else. -- Holland was not hungover, nor was he surprised by Marina’s presence. He’d smelled her magic the moment she’d stepped foot in the house, though he hadn’t been sure it was specifically hers; all the magic from her world had the same scent. From her post on the network, however, it was clear that she was indeed the magician that had spent the night in Mr. Chandler’s room. That wasn’t why he was waiting here, though, sitting in the living room. No, he was waiting for Charlotte to return from her walk so that he could attempt to fix her condition, or for Mr. Chandler to come downstairs, for the same reason. But he could have waited for them in his rooms, where they both knew where to find him, so he wasn’t exactly avoiding this meeting. Although he’d had no way of knowing she would leave by the front door instead of creating a portal with her magic. “As it happens,” he said, “I live here.” -- Marina considered this for a moment before a slightly amused expression crossed her features. “Occasionally socializes my ass.” She wouldn’t say she occasionally socialized because Julia was around the house with her. Though, more people had been let in over time. She didn’t bother to think too long on that. Instead she casually adjusted her clothes and tucked her hair behind her ears. Few people had seen her morning look before she’d had time to put on her makeup or look even vaguely like the girl she usually was. “That would have made knowing where to find you easier.” She paused, considering how that sounded. “Since I don’t have magic sensing abilities.” That didn’t help. “Not that I was looking.” That hadn’t helped either, so she decided not to talk again for a moment, lowering herself on the arm of a couch. “I didn’t see you at Charlotte’s party.” A casual observation, but she’d been mostly sober and still trying to learn people and she felt she would have remembered him if she’d seen him. It was possible she’d missed him, though. Or maybe he hadn’t been around then. She didn’t know. -- It had been on the tip of his tongue to ask, were you looking for me? before she answered her own question. Holland said nothing, then, watching her with his perpetual facade of mild disinterest, until she continued. “No,” he answered. “I wasn’t there. I was traveling.” A half-truth, because he had indeed been out of the country at the time, but the main reason he hadn’t attended the party was because he’d known Rhy and Alucard were coming. And he probably would be avoiding future parties for the same reason, since they were still friends with Charlotte. Even though Holland and Kell got along now, and Alucard was perfectly pleasant, he knew full well that Rhy didn’t want to see him. Though he had no good reason to keep talking, he went on anyway. “I suppose it’s more accurate to say just that I have a room here, than to say that I live here. I’m traveling more often than not.” He shrugged one shoulder very slightly. “It’s easy, with magic.” -- Traveling. Marina considered the response and hmmed thoughtfully. She didn’t know anything about his troubles with people from his homeworld. They hadn’t really talked about it, though. She’d been surprised when Kady spoke to her. She knew her name and knew they did not get along well for her. She had an idea of the story and had a tendency to give her a wide berth, but did not bother avoiding her. It wasn’t for her to avoid people that didn’t want to see her. If they didn’t want to see her, they could do the avoiding. “I have a version of my home.” She paused briefly. “Well, my safehouse. There’s rooms, though.” It was homey enough for her, for New York. “I guess I haven’t done much traveling. Mostly I go to New York if I go anywhere.” She had no reason to tell him any of this, but she felt sluggish and she was fine with blaming her general openness on her hangover. “There’s not magic to collect from anywhere else, so I guess I haven’t found a reason.” She didn’t really travel because she wanted to see new places. At least she hadn’t. She’d traveled to get more magic from various places. The interesting tourist parts were just an added thing. “Where have you been?” -- “England, France, Spain, Norway, Mexico, and China,” Holland answered. He wasn’t sure why she was telling him about her home, but didn’t particularly feel like talking about any of his homes, so he didn’t answer. “I took advantage of the portals to the Pride Parades in order to leave my marks there. I’ve gone back and explored further since then.” He paused, then added by way of further explanation, “My magic allows me to travel between two places only if I have left a mark in one place, and then draw an identical mark in another, using my blood. Which, as I have learned since coming here, is not how the portals of other magics work. Are you able to create portals to other countries and continents?” It seemed strange to him that someone who could use magic to travel anywhere they wished would not spend time doing so. The itch to wander, to explore, seemed to be a common theme amongst the Antari he had met, though admittedly there were only two other than himself, which meant it was a rather limited sample. Still. -- Marina had been to a few places he’d listed, but not all. She didn’t hold as much stock in places or things that weren’t New York. It was funny how being somewhere else made her desire to travel home stronger, but there were pieces of it missing. Brakebills didn’t exist here and her safe house tried to be the same, but it wasn’t. Her apartment was gone. It was echoes of things that she felt an attachment to, but that was it. His explanation regarding the marks and the way blood was used were different. You could use various things to help certain spells. Even blood could be used. Not for portals however. “I can make them, yes. I could make a portal so when the door opened, it would open up where I wanted to go.” But she didn’t do that often. “I try not to make it obvious though. Memory spells are easily done, but I’d rather not.” Her gaze drifted off to a spot on the wall and she put on her usual mask. The expression casual and untroubled. “I traveled to get spells from all over for my hedge.” A lot of it was for her if she was honest, but she didn’t mention that. India had been a favorite, but she also didn’t mention that. -- “Mm,” Holland agreed. Memory spells were not so easy for him, but his objection to them had nothing to do with how easy they were. “Can you choose a more secluded place? I always make a point to choose a place where I’m unlikely to be noticed.” He watched her expression change with interest, unrevealed by his own expression. He was overly familiar with the use of a facade like that, and he knew it meant there was, in fact, some disturbance beneath it. Her mask was good enough that he hadn’t recognized it before, but at the same time, not good enough that he wasn’t able to notice its presence now. He didn’t judge her for that, though. His own was only so well trained to stay in place because of the circumstances under which it had been required to hold. And even then, the Danes had found ways of breaking through it. Not to mention Osaron. His gaze flicked away, as if he hadn’t noticed what she’d done. “I was thinking I would look for magic here, at first. Magical places, or places where the doors between the worlds might not be so… well locked. I don’t think I’m going to find any of the latter, but looking around seems worth doing, all the same.” -- Marina was not skilled enough in them to make them unseeable to those who knew what they were looking for, but she was not quite so aware of that. Still, she did not wish to take something from someone when she could remember the feeling. Though, her memories were amputated. She knew they were gone, but she could do nothing about it. The memories taken and replaced, stitched together to make a new reality? Those people would not know anything was taken. They would feel at peace. She wondered if that was better or worse and if the unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach would seem more or less at the time. “I know all the hidden places in New York, so it’s easier. I usually request places when I am going elsewhere or research to find things. It’s easier with connections.” With people who knew the place and where to go. But she didn’t have those anymore. It was possible she would have to find ways around it or see what some of those people Julia and her friends knew might have to shed light on. “I sincerely doubt that there’s anything here. If Fillory were here, Julia’s friends would have made a point to talk about it. They aren’t very good at secrets.” She had no idea how they were with secrets or that secrets and hidden things were such a big thing for them. “I figure the place has a sort of magic of its own, though. To steal us all from our homes and bring us here and then turn people into toons. Not sure how to figure out how to make it work in our favor, though.” -- Holland could have offered to show her where he went, the concealed and quiet places that he had left his mark. But he didn’t. The fact that he had even considered it surely meant that he absolutely shouldn’t. He considered her other point. “Fillory is a magical place?” he asked, out of curiosity. “I don’t think this world has much magic. It has the portal, which is not magical in nature, so far as I can tell. But it has power, certainly. Enough of it that I’d be wary of trying to make it work for me.” He glanced in the direction of the room. “If the portal is behind this cartoon incident, then there’s not much I can do to help your… friend.” -- “Yes. Most Magicians shit themselves over it. I don’t know what’s so great about it, though.” It was everything that happened because of it that colored it for her, stained it with an unpleasant feeling. “Besides the portal, no.” She didn’t mind, however. It had magic enough that she could use magic. “Then again, I can use magic and I could not back home, so there is that.” Marina followed his gaze for a moment, a slightly amused expression on her face. As she turned back toward him, the expression didn’t fade. “My friend. That’s cute.” She felt her smile grow a little bit more. The pause before he said friend was enough to entertain her. “I don’t give a shit if you can fix him. It’s been hilarious.” She’d be curious if he could, though. “What kind of friends do you presume we are? I didn’t fuck him if that’s what you’re trying to figure out.” She didn’t need to clarify and it was probably a bit crass, but she was never very good at being gentle with people. Her gaze stayed on him as she tried to gauge his reaction to the information all the same. -- “I wouldn’t mind seeing it.” But Holland doubted he would, as she phrased it, shit himself. He rarely did that, and there wasn’t much in the way of magic that could truly take him by surprise. Even the other types of it here made sense to him. “Although I don’t think I’d go out of my way.” It was interesting that she could use magic here and not at home. He would have asked why, but in the middle of musing on it, he heard her tone of voice change. He looked up, meeting her gaze. The amusement at Mr. Chandler’s expense was not a surprise. She had already made that very clear on the network. Her amusement at his expense was different. He raised his eyebrows, his expression mild. “You ‘socialize’ with him more than I do,” he said simply. “That’s all.” But he had, in fact, assumed that they’d slept together. He didn’t know what to do with the information that they hadn’t. Probably nothing, seeing as it really shouldn’t matter to him at all. -- Marina wasn’t sure he would, but then it was hard to say. He might not mind. It was hard to say. There was opium in the air after all. Or so she’d heard. She rolled her eyes at the thought of it before saying, “Depends on the Fillory you find. It’s not as much of a children’s story as it was made out to be.” Even without that, the fact that his eyes were so different probably meant he’d have fit in just fine. She felt the amusement grow, but her gaze lowered after a moment. “We work together,” she said after a moment. “It’s hard to avoid socializing with people you work with.” Especially when there weren’t too many people to get distracted from. She found it curious how he viewed the way she spent time with Ethan and she looked back up at him. “I socialize with a lot of people. It doesn’t make them my friends. Or my friends.” There was a moment of pause before she asked, “Do you like him or something? I could put in a good word for you if you did.” She wasn’t sure, really, that it was that, but again, she was speaking for the reaction. “Wynonna must have enjoyed herself if she wants to talk about it publicly, so I’m sure he’d show you a good time.” -- “Nothing turns out the way it does in children’s stories,” Holland agreed, wry and resigned. Certainly the stories he’d heard as a child, about the someday king, had not turned out the way he’d expected. Though it was rather miraculous they had come true in any way at all. He hadn’t managed to deflect her amusement as well as he’d intended. He didn’t think it was usual for coworkers to spend the night together, but then, he really didn’t know. The closest thing he’d had to a coworker was Kell, and they certainly weren’t the usual kind. Usual coworkers didn’t try to kill each other, either. “I’m not judging you.” He allowed himself to look vaguely amused, partly because he actually was, and partly because he suspected that any other reaction would only entertain her even more. “No. But thank you for the generous offer.” -- “That’s because we lie to children. Either we tell them that everything will end with a happily ever after or we tell them that if they don’t listen, a scary monster will come and eat their souls.” She shrugged slightly. She didn’t believe either way was true. She believed in monsters in the night, but she knew they came in the daytime as well and the reason they came was usually not the reason adults said. Marina hadn’t really been a ‘sleepover’ sort of girl. It was true, but she’d been drunk enough that she didn’t really worry about it so much. It wasn’t like he was in the bed and there had been no delusions on either side that it would end that way. It wasn’t that Ethan wasn’t nice to look at, but he was just so utterly Ethan that it didn’t really draw her in. He wasn’t entirely wrong about the reaction. To give her anything resembling being put out or displeased would have only made her all the more amused and all the more likely to poke fun, but the fact that he reacted the way he did made her feel a tug of curiosity that had nothing to do with his reactions. Inwardly, she frowned at the sensation, but outwardly, she continued to smile, but just a little less teasing than before. “Well, if that ever changes, I’m sure I could still do it.” -- Holland supposed that was true. Although the stories about the someday king had, in their own way, come true, they certainly had been a lie coming from his brother’s mouth. He certainly hadn’t wanted the magic to come back into the world, and if he had, he hadn’t wanted Holland to be the one to take credit for it. That thought sobered him enough that even the very slight glints of his amusement disappeared, restoring his expression to its default of mild and disinterested. The briefest, half-second flicker of something else, some inner turmoil, was visible in his one green eye, the black one as empty and unreadable as ever. Then it disappeared, as the emotion was smothered by the quiet calm he’d trained to take its place. “I’ll remember that,” he said simply, though he had no intention of taking her up on it. He wasn’t interested in Ethan Chandler, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t have acted on it. -- Marina had noted the shift in his expression. There was a part of her that wondered what it was that changed. An even smaller, more quiet part wondered if she might be able to change it back. That part was quieted. She didn’t want to humor it or let it get louder. She wanted to leave and not to talk to him again. She was careful not to move right away, however. “I should probably go,” she said after a moment. “I’m in desperate need of a shower and a change of clothes.” She stood slowly then. “And my head’s killing me.” It wasn’t completely a lie, but there was more to it than that. “I guess I know where to find you if I need to.” She was pretty sure she was going to avoid it. “And now I know your name, so that should help.” -- Holland’s gaze flicked up to her face. He wanted her to go, but he also didn’t. It was the latter part that worried him the most. He didn’t say anything one way or the other, only nodded. “Alright.” Then he tilted his head slightly to the side. “You know my name?” He hadn’t offered it. He would have remembered that. Had she asked Chandler about him? -- Marina smiled, but it was a teasing smile again, a different sort of mask. “Well, Ethan did say it right on my journal where I could see it.” Yes, she’d also asked, but he didn’t need to know about all of that. “It was only fair since I gave my name away before.” She felt the urge to stay where she was once, to talk more, but she pushed it away and walked toward the door. She needed to get home where she could at least think sensibly. She could worry about everything else later. |