It had been a trying handful of weeks since she'd arrived, but it was a cakewalk compared to Life After Brakebills. Compulsion seemed to be the name of the game in Atlantis, and all anyone could do was stay afloat and make the best of it. Between risking hijinks just for eating or drinking something to being turned into animals, maybe compulsion was the better option anyway. The almond costume was just weird, though.
There'd been highlights, too. When she'd ventured down to the beach to see what all the noise was about, only to find a bonfire party going on and people acting oddly (food and drink again), she'd gotten a random hug from Julia before she disappeared back off into the party. At the time, she didn't know about the strange compulsions happening there, so she'd just awkwardly hugged back with a surprised look on her face before returning to her room. And honestly, she was prepared to write off everything that happened on the Day of the Nubbins, both with Julia and Jesse.
What surprised Marina, however, was the therapy. It did seem to be slowly helping her open up a bit to people. She'd been fighting it tooth and nail, convinced that it was a waste of time, but she'd been called kind at least once and she found herself acting less bitchy at people. That was a huge step. It had also gotten her a little addicted to sesame bagels and chai lattes at Footsteps - which is where she found herself at the moment, sitting idly with her thoughts and picking the seeds off the top of the bagel.
Julia had sensed something that night at the bonfire, but it had been temporarily forgotten in the midst of all the weird party shit. She’d spent a lot of her time with Sirius and then some with Remus, too that night and that had offered plenty of distractions that had made the experience of hugging Marina fade pretty quickly.
Then again, when she’d seen Marina on base while the nubbins had been around, she’d been easily distracted. The nubbins had cranked everyone’s hormones up to eleven and Julia’s ability to concentrate had definitely been affected. The whole month of November had been full of distractions, in all honesty, and it hadn’t left her with a lot of time to dwell on Marina, but now here she was, sitting at an empty table in Footsteps when Julia walked in for a latte and a pastry of her own.
Remembering that strange feeling from the bonfire, Julia decided she should walk over there with her order. She took a seat across from the hedge without waiting for an invitation. “Hey,” she said casually, as if she didn’t have something life changing to maybe tell her. Assuming she didn’t already know. Maybe she did.
Marina had seen Julia walk in, of course, because if she'd learned anything when clawing her way up in New York, it had been to be constantly aware of your surroundings. Especially when it came to other hedges. She didn't wave her over. In fact, to all the world it looked like she hadn't even noticed her arrival. So when Julia walked over and sat down, she let the ghost of a smile cross her lips before sealing it away and raising her face to meet her eye-to-eye.
"Julia," she responded, picking up her latte and raising it in a slight gesture of greeting. She waited a tic, to make sure no weird urges or compulsions were activated suddenly, before she released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
“How are you settling in?” Julia asked casually. She should probably get to the point - Marina would know something was up, anyway - but how did you bring that kind of thing up, anyway? She couldn’t even be sure if what she had felt was real or just another one of Atlantis’ mind games. Those didn’t really seem to be in short supply here.
Marina quirked an eyebrow with an amused look on her face. Which is her version of barking out laughter, all told. "Settling in?" she asked, her lips curving into a wry smirk. "I'm not. I feel like I haven't had two days in a row where I haven't had one thing or another twisting me in some direction I don't appreciate. How are you settled in, is a better question." Because, despite it all, she really was curious how anyone could find themselves comfortable in a place where you didn't know what the next day would bring. And not in an awkward 'oh, someone put mayonnaise in the doughnuts' kind of way; more like 'oh, someone got turned into a doughnut' kind of way.
Atlantis certainly had it’s weird quirks, Julia would give her that. It was hard to know what kind of crazy shit was going to happen from day to day, but it had its good sides, too. She did frequently miss London and the cozy little group she and Remus had there, but life in Atlantis was pretty good, too, weirdness aside.
Julia shrugged. The details weren’t something she wanted to get into with Marina right now. “It can be pretty weird, but I don’t always mind it,” she settled for. There were people here who made it worth it, but that was a thought she didn’t voice out loud.
With a smirk at Julia's shrug, Marina pinched a piece of her bagel before popping it in her mouth and chewing it thoughtfully while the other woman spoke. "Then I hope I get to a point where I don't always mind it, because right now it sucks." To add motion to her words, she pushed the bagel away from her like she had lost her appetite. "And I don't really have any choice but to deal."
With that, Marina closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of one of the breathing exercises she'd picked up in therapy for when she got mad or bitter. It helped a little. A little. At times, it was probably a good thing they'd put this anklet on her, because there were definitely moments where she really just wanted to lash out at something.
Julia nodded. It was easy to appreciate that the choice Marina did have didn’t feel like any choice at all. It was stay in Atlantis or go home to die. She also knew Marina didn’t have here what she did there. And she didn’t have something else, too.
“Marina,” she said after a moment of quiet, “when you got kicked out of Brakebills, what [...] happened? I mean, um, why did they kick you out?” It was a question that seemed kind of out of the blue, but it did have a purpose.
Marina raised an eyebrow. "Quite the topic change, Julia," she mused. But still, it was maybe better than discussing how she was miserable and coping (mostly failing). She adjusted her shoulders and leaned back in her chair, making a show of having to cast back her memories. "They kicked me out because I didn't follow the rules. I needed to prove I could do the most complicated rituals, unravel the most mysterious of artifacts."
She frowned for a moment. "I failed. I think." Shaking her head in irritation for not remembering the specifics, she continued. "Since I did something they had decided was forbidden, I got to experience the mind wipe, expulsion, then the fun of learning it all over again and fighting to the top of the hedge in New York. You know something about that already, and the rest of the story, I suppose."
“Do you remember what it was?” Julia pressed. “Did something, um, happen? Like an accident or something?” She knew they’d wiped her memory, but Marina had broken into Brakebills to steal back what they’d taken. She’d gotten her knowledge of what she’d learned back. Julia wanted to know what else she remembered, but it wasn’t just idle curiosity. She had a reason.
“Because whatever happened,” she explained, I think it damaged your Shade.”
Marina just stared at her for a moment, waiting for the inevitable 'ha ha I'm kidding' part to follow up that statement. When it didn't come, she squinted at Julia a bit and opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out at first. Then she tried again. "My Shade." She shook her head, because if that were the case, someone would have told her. Right? You don't just let someone run around with a damaged or even lost Shade, that's just cruel.
"I have my memories back, but there's still moments I don't remember. Like either they're permanently gone or I've blocked them out. I remember everything up to attempting the ritual, then being in medical, then the entire expulsion process and everything after." She examined her nails for a moment, as if they'd have the answer she was lacking. With a dry chuckle, she added, "It was those missing memories that I drew on to help you forget. Couldn't leave you with a hole, too, so I modified what you remembered."
Julia nodded. There was a part of her that wished those memories had stayed lost. Life certainly would have been simpler if they had. “I lost mine,” she told her. “After...” well, she didn’t elaborate on that. Marina had to know what she meant. “It was too tangled up with the fetus and it was damaged in the abortion. I think I felt that same hole in you when I hugged you.” She knew she probably should have told her sooner, but in all honesty a part of her hadn’t even been sure. That had been a weird night. The more she thought about it, though, the more it made sense.
"Are you okay?" asked Marina, deflecting away from the uncomfortable talk of her Shade being damaged. She didn't even know they could be damaged. Fuck, what did she do to herself? "Like, really okay?" It was easier for her to focus on Julia's problems than her own. Not like she could be fixed anyway. Might make the next few therapy sessions easier to get through, at least. Still, she cared for Julia - she'd never really had a friend and Julia was about as close as one could get. Even in Brakebills, she was the scarily smart kid that really just had the school version of associates. She studied too much to have friends. Then after. Well.
“More or less.” She smiled a little at Marina’s seemingly genuine concern. She suspected she was deflecting a little, trying to avoid talking about what Julia had just told her about her own shade, but she also thought she could read her well enough to know she meant it, too. It was well hidden most of the time, but Marina did have a heart, shade or no shade.
“I got my shade back,” she offered, without going into the details, “so I’m whole again. It was a bitch at first, dealing with everything that happened. When I lost my shade, I felt [...] free. Getting it back meant dealing with it all over again. There was this quest to unfuck magic. That was a nice distraction.”
Saying she was completely healed would be a lie. There were some scars there that would never heal, but Julia felt lucky. She was still damaged, but all in all, she actually was okay.
"I read about all of that," admitted Marina, though she wasn't sure if she should have. She absolutely hated having the specter of her death hovering over her all of the time. If you asked her, she'd blame that for her recurring foul moods. But now she knew it was not just that but also apparently a damaged Shade. It was just one more thing in a constant line of bullshit, honestly. Still, it felt a little invasive reading about other people's lives. She should have started and stopped with her own history, but it was difficult when it was right there in front of her.
"We're in luck, I guess. No chance of getting my Shade back in Atlantis, no chance of going home without dying. I can't just sit here and say 'I wish I had my Shade back.' So. I suppose I'll just have to live with having a bit of closure on what my problem is." She offered a genuine smile over to Julia after that. "Thanks for telling me. And I'm glad you're doing good here. At least one of us deserves a happy ending."
“Never say never,” Julia countered after nodding a quick thanks in acknowledgement of Marina’s kind words. She hadn’t been here that much longer than Marina had, but it was long enough to know that anything could happen in Atlantis. If a bunch of nubbins could get in and amp up everyone’s lusty feelings, why not someone’s lost shade? “I have a feeling just about anything is possible here.”