Mollymauk Tealeaf (mollymaukery) wrote in noexits, @ 2021-06-18 01:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread/narrative, the magicians: julia wicker, → week 015 (among us) |
Day 1 - Among Us
WHO: Mollymauk, Julia Wicker
WHEN: Sometime during Day One
WHERE: Molly's room
WHAT: Julia looks for answers and restores Molly's speech
TRIGGERS: Scars, memory loss, aphasia, suffocation
She knew magic. If she thought about it, the knowledge was there. How to create a ball of fire in her hand. She could do that. How to unlock a magical ward? She had experience with that. Using magical gestures to perform acts of telekinesis? Mysterious purple person with horns? ...Nothing. Her name? Nothing. Why they were there? Nope. Anything about their situation or what was going on? Not a clue. The purple man provided an interesting case study. Had he always suffered from an extreme form of aphasia or was he affected by the suppressed memories more acutely than most? If it was the former, maybe she could at least use it as a pretense to study what was happening to them and find some answers. She couldn't exactly take a look inside her own mind-- Julia had to think about that one, and it was a moment before she concluded that was true. First, she just had to find the purple man. If he was the purple man, what did that make her? The witchy woman? Ugh. She'd have to work on that. The locator spell was cast, Julia followed a small, glittering light until it led her to another door and she knocked. "Hey, Purple Guy. Open up." Waking up without memory of who he was or where he was had been mildly alarming, but he could've chalked it up to a massive hangover. Except that he couldn't talk. Except for one blasted word. That sent confusion and panic through him and he put that one word out into the ether via the device that was still so foreign to him. Maybe someone could help. The dorm room didn't offer any indication of who he was. He didn't seem to have any belongings here. Just the clothes on his back. Why was there so much dried blood on his shirt? He stared in a mirror, smoothing a hand along purple skin, touching the curves of the horns that protruded from his head. He might be short on memories, but at least he was good looking. The knock on his door drew him out of his examination of his face (he wasn't sure about the brightly colored peacock feathers that stretched up his neck and jaw). "Empty?" He asked as he looked over to the door. Oh. Right. No words. He sighed and walked over to the door, opening it. He didn't recognize the woman on the other side, except for having seen her picture on the network. He barely recognized himself, so that wasn't a surprise. He stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. Julia was petite, dressed in black cigarette trousers, a black t-shirt, and snake skin pattern boots. Most of her height that came over five-feet were due to the heels. She was remarkably small, brown eyes, dark hair and a sunned complexion. And yet she seemed remarkably unconcerned with their current circumstance. It was confidence that bordered on arrogance. Her smile was broad, as if this entire situation amused her more than anything. He was remarkably attractive for someone with an alien complexion and horns, and she didn't bother hiding the once over she gave him, either. "Can I touch your horns?" she asked. The question was probably rude, but Julia was unconcerned with rudeness. She ran completely on id and curiosity. Molly caught the once-over and gave her a smile. More of a smirk, really. He might not be able to talk or know his own name, but he still had confidence. And she was quite lovely to look at. He raised an eyebrow at her request and then he shrugged his shoulders and bent down enough so she could reach his horns. He was pretty certain this wasn't something that happened often. Surely he wasn't the only horned individual around. He wasn't alarmed by his appearance—and neither was she for that matter—so it couldn't be unusual. He opened his mouth to speak, to ask if she was there to help, but remembered that only one lousy word would come out. He sighed instead and stood up straight, gesturing vaguely. He didn't know how else to communicate. When he tried to write anything, his mind drew a blank, like he didn't know how to make the shapes of any of the letters he needed to string together. Julia very lightly traced the texture of his horn before dropping her hand. Neat. "Well you definitely understand me so it's some kind of aphasia." Had he always had it? Was there any fixing it? Was it magical in nature or a curse? There was only one way to find out. Try shit and see what works. Carried with her was a box of supplies she found in her room. Some of the items looked mundane; a set of best friends necklaces that said best bitches, pieces of colored glass, a book of strange text, crystals, herbs, a lighter. Julia set the box down on a nearby desk and picked up the glass shards, using it to look him over. She didn't know how she knew to do that, and so she didn't question it. "I'm not seeing any spell like energy on you. These rooms are warded to shit, though." She got a little distracted looking at the walls and the door with the pieces of glass before putting them away. "Non-magical attempt at a solution first?" Julia offered. She didn't exactly clarify her intentions, waiting for the flimsiest sign of consent before slapping him across the face. It was worth a shot, wasn't it? Did her smirk afterward make it better or worse? It could have been worse. She could have been a much larger person. He had no idea what the word aphasia meant, but he nodded as if he understood. Not that he had much of an alternative for responding to her anyway. She at least sounded like she knew what she was talking about, and he found that reassuring. He watched her curiously, wondering what each item was for. He assumed they had various magical properties, but detecting magic wasn't in his wheelhouse. Probably. Although the use of the glass shard became quite clear when she peered around with it. He looked around the room too as if his unaided eye would also be able to see the enchantments. Warded for their protection, he assumed. But warded from what? As he contemplated that, he felt the quick, sharp impact of a hand against his face. It both stung and startled him. "Ow!" He looked at her, brow furrowed as he rubbed his cheek. "Empty!" It was fair to attempt it, but he could've used a bit more of a warning. It took him a moment to realize he'd said another word and his eyes lit up. Holy shit, did she actually slap it out of him? He attempted to repeat that word and yet all that came out was a quiet "empty." He rolled his eyes. Maybe she was going to have to smack him around some more. "Holy shit," Julia said. "I definitely heard ow." She didn't ask the second time. Startling him was part of the point. The words were in there, she just had to coax them out of him. Also slapping him around was a little fun. With the right context it could have been a lot more fun, and the way she absolutely beamed as she did made it clear she thought this was funny as shit. Her own hand stung a little, but really what was a little pain? "Unless that was just reflex." She watched him carefully to see if she could slap any other words out of him. Even without warning, he expected it this time. That didn't make the impact sting any less. She was pretty strong for such a small woman. He grunted and rubbed the stinging side of his face once more. When was the last time he'd be slapped twice in a row by someone? Hopefully it wasn't a frequent occurrence. Nothing came out of his mouth, not even as a reflex. Maybe it was because he was braced for it or maybe the first time was a fluke. Either way, he was still unable to talk. He had to admit it was worth a shot, though. "Empty," he said with a heavy sigh. He hoped she had something else up her sleeve aside from just bruising his face. The pads of Julia's fingertips very softly brushed the part of his face she had slapped twice. That trick wasn't going to work again, but perhaps she was curious what color his skin turned when he blushed, or maybe she just wanted an excuse to touch him. Her eyes watched his lips as though there were other words hidden in there. Her id would have to come later. Julia had more to learn. "Yep, I think we exhausted the non-magical attempt." Julia gave him a light push to sit on one of the beds like a couch and then pulled a small set of drawers between the beds to set up a spell. She knew the spell intimately despite its complexity, what it would do, variations that could be used to harm or help. That told her something-- that this was something she'd done before, perhaps a speciality. "Relax, close your eyes." Once Julia had set up the ritual, she sat on the other bed and faced him. She closed her own eyes, took a soft breath, and her lips barely made a sound as she began to cast. There were no memories to fill Purple Guy's (Julia's name for him) subconscious. So when they first entered his mind it was a white, blank void the two of them were standing. That wasn't going to help either of them. Either of them could manipulate the dream-like state they shared, and with a little focus, Julia pictured them back in Purple Guy's dorm room. There. That at least gave them beds, a couple of desks, the closets, the drawers. Julia went to the desk first and saw not paper but parchment. Only when she pulled it out to examine them, all the words were blacked out in thick sharpie with a stamp that said ‘REDACTED' as though it were an official government document. "Someone is definitely fucking with us," Julia snarled. She handed him the paper that was impossible to read. And that was when Julia decided to turn the room upside down looking for anything. A sign of who did this? A scrap of paper or memory that had been missed. It was when she looked under the bed she saw a heavy volume of the Oxford English dictionary and pulled it out. Standing with it, she shoved it into Purple Guy's hands. "Here, take this." The blank void of his mind was even more alarming than the loss of speech. He had to have memories and yet, there was nothing. Not one single indication of who he was or where he came from. Or how to return his ability to talk. He was confused for a moment by being in the dorm room once again. Had she given up so quickly? Then she handed him the parchment. Redacted. He let the parchment drift from his hand as he looked around the room once more. This was still inside his head. He didn't like the revelation that someone was fucking with him. With them. He'd been so wrapped up in his own problem that he was only peripherally aware that others had been affected as well. Knowing there was a threat, he reached over his shoulder to grab a sword that wasn't there. Not that there was anyone to fight anyway. Instead, he ended up with a heavy tome in his hands. He looked at the cover and tilted his head. "What the fuck is Oxford English?" A beat later, he had a realization. "Oh, shit, I can talk here." "You're welcome," Julia said. She gestured to the tome in his hands. "It's a simulacra, a representation of language. Dictionaries contain words and English is what I call the language we're speaking. Concentrate and… embody it. Take back your language. Use your imagination. Eat it if you have to." Julia continued searching through the scraps that were present in Purple Guy's mind, but everything remained redacted. The dead end frustrated her and she let out a small string of curse words, as she tried to think of what they could attempt next. Something did this to them. Something powerful. A curse perhaps? There were no clues in what little memories they had for how to undo it or discover who had done this to them. He felt like the word ‘simulacra' jogged something. There was a memory attached to it, one he couldn't quite reach out and grasp. It was a shadow in the corner of the room, looming over them both, but completely non-threatening. In fact, it was four shadows somehow. He stretched a hand out toward the darkness, but it remained just that: dark. He turned his attention back to the book in his hand. He opened it, flipped through some of its pages, but most of the words meant nothing to him. He recognized them as Common, though. "Use your imagination," he repeated as he stared at the book. Then he closed it, clutched it in both his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He imagined the words scrawling up his fingers, snaking their way up his arms, his neck, his face. And as he imagined it, it happened. All the language held in that one book soaked through his skin. Other memories gathered in the darkness; the shadowed downward swing of a heavy weapon, the distant echoes of laughter. As the words disappeared from his skin, he dropped the book to the floor, his entire being overwhelmed with anxiety. Panic. He gasped, hyperventilated. The darkness encroached on him, enveloped him, suffocated him. He clawed at the nothingness of the air around him, his eyes wide with panic. "Help," he muttered, before collapsing to the floor. "Godamnit," Julia said. It was a tossup really. Help or stay and see what else she could find. Except there was nothing there to find so with some irritation, she broke the spell. They woke up. "Hey! Hey you! Purple Guy!" Julia shouted at him. Grabbing him by the shoulders she gave him a less than gentle shake. "I need you to keep your shit together or we're not going to figure out what the fuck is going on." That was mildly helpful? Because she was almost ready to slap him again. He woke up with a gasp and sat up, looking around. The dorm room still, but the real one this time. He rubbed his forehead and sighed, only sparing Julia the slightest of glances. "What the hell just happened?" There was a tinge of accusation in his voice, as if the panic that consumed him had been her doing somehow. He smoothed his hands over his face as his breath evened out. He wasn't suffocating. He was fine, sitting on a bed in a strange room with a strange woman beside him. A woman who could waltz through his mind like it was nothing. It would be more disconcerting if she hadn't helped him recover his voice. "Thank you," he said after a pause, his voice quieter now, deflated. Whatever happened wasn't her fault. Seeing he was alright, she dropped her hands. If he was frustrated, she was livid. No real conscious to temper the wild swings from delight to fury. Julia stood and walked to his closet shelves, shouting, "Goddamnit!" The toe of her boot kicked the shelves as hard as she could with a crack. It didn't break the closet. She wasn't that strong. But she wished she had. "What the shit was that?" she asked him. "Were you just scared or was it some defense mechanism from whatever the fuck is hiding our memories?" Maybe she could find someone else to help, but she needed answers to make sure she wasn't about to waste her time. Whatever the problem was, it appeared Purple Guy's mind wasn't going to be the test subject that let her crack whatever was going on. Maybe she'd had better luck with a fellow human. He watched her rage, and understood her frustration. He wanted his memories back as much as everyone else. And if someone was doing this to them, he had a scimitar in his closet with that person's name on it. "I- I think it was a memory." His brow creased as he thought about the sensation, trying desperately to extrapolate an actual memory from it. "It felt...familiar somehow." Although, on second thought, maybe he didn't want to remember suffocating. He looked down at himself, at the dusty blood-stained shirt, at the large scar that cleaved from clavicle to navel. Lightly, hesitantly, he touched the scar. "Did- did I die?" He looked up at her. "That's not possible is it?" His fingers lingered on the broad, thick scar. It stood out, even among all the smaller scars that covered his body. "I don't know," Julia said. It hadn't even occurred to her to try and sound sympathetic. That part of her was missing, and she lacked the self awareness to even try to fake it. She closed the distance between them and gave his shoulder a small shove. "Seem pretty alive to me." She was staring at him, because he was pleasing to stare at, even with the shirt and scar. Julia needed to think. Or murder something. She didn't think hurting anyone would actually help matters but maybe it would make her feel better. She sighed. Her fingers came up, and casting a spell, she mended the shirt. The stain was still there. "Better?" she asked. She looked over herself and her arms to make sure there wasn't any sign of blood or scars but she seemed fine? "Maybe someone healed you," she said. Her lack of sympathy didn't faze him. She was right, he was alive, there was a scar on his chest, not a gaping wound. "Probably. That makes a lot more sense than the alternative." He dropped his hand and stood up from the bed. "It seems pretty likely that I'm not the smartest guy around, but I don't think mine is the only mind that's a blank void. Whatever you're looking for, I think you'll only find it here on the Material Plane." He walked over to the closet she'd kicked. "And if you find out who did this to us," he opened the closet to expose the curved sword. "I have a few things I'd like to say to that person." Julia's eyes lit up at the sight of the sword and she smiled. Yes, the threat of violence against whoever would have done this to them pleased her greatly. Her look travelled back and forth between him and the sword. "I think I like you, Purple Guy." |