InsaneJournal

We laugh at danger, and break all of the rules
Date: June 12, 2013 [backdated]
Time: 5:32 PM
Location: The Shack, Burnt Wood
Characters: John Irvine, Lux Warren, Elliott Ashford
Description: Questioning the answer.
Status: Private, complete.

[OOC: This takes place after the breaking of the Founders' Circle, which has yet to be played out]

He tossed the hammer around in lazy circles, catching the grip on each rotation as he regarded this particular problem. The latest, it had to be said, in a long line of them when it came to the structural integrity of the shack. He still didn’t know why they insisted on hanging out in this death trap, but every time he’d tried to raise the possibility of renting a space somewhere sensible, like an allotment, he’d been met with blank looks.

People… liked it. And as the most capable person, in a DIY sense, in this particular Circle, it fell to him to ensure that said death trap didn’t actually result in any fatalities thanks to a broken step, or the whole thing collapsing in a strong breeze.

He lined up a nail, and hammered it down, bolting the support plank into place along the load-bearing wall, which seemed to have been savaged by some sort of giant rat. Or rats. He’d have to talk to Harmony about getting some sort of repellent together. He sighed at the thought of his friend, and lowered the hammer from where it had been about to strike another nail, and felt a pang of sadness course through him. They’d talked for a long time, all of them, that night. Some of it was positive - everyone eventually accepted that the Circle needed to be broken and reformed, but not all of them had wanted to be a part of it. Harmony’s reluctance, he supposed, was understandable, but it didn’t make it any less upsetting. They’d all been friends for their whole lives, in a Circle for a long time, even with its rough patches. He didn’t know if it would be the same without her.

It presented them with a problem, too. The Founders’ Circle was old, centuries so, constructed in a very clear way. The blood was the key. Every member of the Circle could trace their lineage all the way back to the families from Salem, and most even further back than that, in some cases stretching a thousand years into the past. It was a constant, unbroken magical line, probably the strongest of its kind that the world had ever seen, or at least this part of the world. They needed that blood connection, that investment of patrilineal and matrilineal power that came with it, otherwise they’d be starting afresh.

The choice of who should replace Harmony, when they all thought about it, was simple. Now it was just a case of convincing the man to do it.

So, as was his wont, he did something that made sense to him in order to fill the time. Fixing things, making them better, that had been John’s way of coping with stress for his whole life. Now was no different, even as he waiting for Lux to bring Elliott here.