Aya (missbegotten) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-12-05 16:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, aidan, aidan x aya, aya |
Who: Aidan and Aya
Where: The O’Reilly House
When: Saturday afternoon, July 7
Less than twenty-four hours after breaking into Victor’s house, Aidan was in the barn, trying to replicate the water curse that had almost drowned him. He’d set a perimeter of salt to mimic the boundaries of the room, then attempted to curse a pocket knife in a similar fashion. The problem was that he didn’t know exactly what was cursed or how it had been disabled. Victor had walked into the room without issue–was that because it was his curse? Because he hadn’t been present when it was set off? Or because a water witch had no fear of drowning to begin with? Aidan had a hundred questions and no one to ask. It was like putting together a puzzle where the pieces were blank and all he knew was the end result.
After three failed attempts to even initiate the curse, Aidan began to pace, his mind attempting to catalog all the possible ways in which it was set up. It was too much to just think about. He needed a pen. And paper. And a drink. When he walked headlong into the salt barrier without taking it down, he fell flat on his ass and decided the list needed to be retrieved in reverse. A drink first, and then the list. That was the way to go.
Aya walked in through the barn's doorway from somewhere else entirely, her brows arching as she caught sight of Aidan on the ground. "Are you having fun?" she asked as her lips curved into a grin. He certainly didn't look like he was sitting there on purpose. It was easy to find him if he was near a door and even without one, she could always feel him tugging at her through their strange bond. She could feel all the magic buzzing in the barn like electricity and scent so she stayed right by the door, not wanting to walk into something awful.
Aidan’s head tilted back as he heard Aya enter and he laid there a moment more before sitting up. “Not right this second, no,” he said, climbing back to his feet. A wave of his hand broke the salt barrier and he stepped out this time without issue, walking over to the old fridge they kept in the barn. “It’s safe now, if you want to come in,” he said as he fished a beer out of the fridge. He was hankering for something harder, but he wanted to keep his mind clear enough to actually work on the puzzle, something he couldn’t do while drunk. “Want one?”
"It stinks of magic in here," Aya said but she still ventured a little farther inside, just to accept a beer, then found a nice spot to hop up on to sit there cross-legged. "The air is thick with it, what are you up to?" They'd gotten closer, Aya even liked him sometimes, but she still had her moments of not trusting him at all. He was a witch, of course, and could get sick enough of being tethered to her to take drastic measures to make it stop. He wasn't really the type to annihilate her or anything, but she wasn't human and she had no idea what breaking their bond would do to her. Was it a bit self centered to think everything he did had something to do with her? Probably, but Aya was nothing if not a narcissistic creature.
It had taken months to get there, but Aidan had gotten used to Aya coming and going as she pleased. She was like having a pet cat; sometimes she wanted attention, other times she was nowhere to be seen, but she always came back and he was never sure of her mood. She seemed in good humor at the moment, so he didn’t mind her hanging around, so long as she didn’t get in the way. “I’m trying to replicate a water-based curse so I can figure out how to break it,” he said, grabbing a second beer for her and bringing it over to where she’d perched. “So far I’m having trouble setting it up. I don’t work with water very often and this had a twist of illusion magic mixed in.”
Aya wrinkled her nose at that. She knew witches were all element based in some way but it never made much sense to her. In her mind all magic was sticky and off putting and all those elements seemed tainted with each other anyway. "Why?" she asked, the disdain clear in her voice and the way her lip curled when she spoke. She knew he was a witch and this was totally his thing but it still seemed like a waste of time to her - although, perhaps, breaking curses was a legit thing, she supposed and if anything, he'd made her a little more tolerant of magic and magic users in general but not by much. "Did someone curse you?"
“Yeah,” Aidan muttered. “And I don’t intend to let it happen again.” With her disdain for magic, it was unfortunate that Aya got stuck with him of all people, but Aidan suspected that was part of her trap. Unfortunately, it was far more complicated than he could ever imagine and he didn’t even know where to begin unraveling it. There was no way to test it, not like the water curse, and he wouldn’t risk harming her in an attempt to free her. It was inconvenient, but he could think of worse things than being tethered together indefinitely.
"Someone cursed you?" Aya repeated in a high pitched tone, her jaw dropping open in an exaggerated way even if her shock was genuine. "Who? What? How- Are you okay?" He looked okay but there was no telling what kind of magic might be clinging to him when it was all the same to her. "What happened?" She felt a weird mix of amusement and concern and it came through loud and clear in her voice, her widened eyes and the shocked smile on her lips. Someone cursed her witch, it was kinda hilarious if it wasn't serious, but it also annoyed her a little and definitely sparked her curiosity.
“I’m fine,” Aidan said with an embarrassed little laugh. “It was more like a trap than a curse, I guess. I’m just not used to calling spells traps, but that’s what this was. A curse used as a trap.” He stopped as he realized he was rambling, a rarity in itself. He’d been unable to stop thinking about the encounter since he got home, taking it apart piece by piece. There was so much about it that had caught him off his guard and he intended to fix that, if he could, though he was aware there was one major piece that was beyond his control. “If I tell you, you keep it to yourself? I don’t want the whole house hearing about my fuck up.”
Aya looked impish with mischief for a second because telling everyone about his fuckup did sound funny, but then she remembered she avoided Knox and Shayna-Mae and only ever talked to Max and Aidan. That was only one person to tell so... "I won't tell the whole house," she promised. "And maybe I can help! I've seen a lot of magic and I'm good with traps." She would even promise not to tell anyone it came to that and she had a feeling he wanted to tell her so he wouldn't care if she was lying. "How did you get out of it? What happened?"
Aidan gave Aya a good, long stare because he knew there had to be a loophole in there and, if there was, then she was going to exploit it. He just couldn’t decide if he cared. If he half drowned himself in the barn, they were likely to find out anyways. He’d just prefer they didn’t. “I broke into a place last night and I didn’t realize another witch lived there until it was too late,” he said, scrunching his nose up in annoyance. He blamed that on the number of witches living in Overlook, but knew that was his major slip-up—he’d walked into another witch’s territory unprepared. “The room I was in went into lockdown and started filling up with invisible water. The owner had to free me.”
"You broke into a witch's home and she let you go?" Aya asked skeptically. "And she was home? I could have told you that if you'd asked me first, dummy." She gave him a judgmental frown but she also understood wanting to do things alone. But a witch's house? She wouldn't have gone with him, not on her life, though she could have told him whether the house was occupied or not just by feeling its doors. Unless of course the witch had very specific wards up against the likes of her.
“You can do that?” Aidan asked, always curious about what Aya’s magic could do. Aidan supposed he could have used a spell to check the house, but there was nothing quick and easy and he wasn’t sure how household pets would have factored into the equation. Aya probably had a faster way, using some technique that was out of his range of capabilities, but she was right in thinking that he liked doing some things alone. “He was home. And annoyed, which is fair. Turns out he’s from one of the Six. He knew my family name.”
"But he let you go, after you broke into his house, so he's a softie," Aya said and pulled a little fidget toy out of the pocket of her jeans, both of which she'd very recently stolen. "You're lucky he didn't put you in a little bird statue," she added in a playfully childish voice as she started spinning the toy, liking the little noise it made. "So if he's a softie, you can probably just make friends with him and ask him to teach you the curse." Her expression said that wasn't as much fun and she knew it, but she was poking at him, curious and hungry for more details.
“Not a softie,” Aidan said with a little shake of his head. His hair fell in his face and he tucked it back behind his ears. “He threatened to drown me. And strip searched me to make sure I didn’t walk away with anything. Pretty sure he just wanted to avoid starting something between our families when he just moved to town.” He still hadn’t gotten around to researching which line Victor was connected to, but he would. He’d just prioritized the curse breaking first. Messing around with magic was much more his wheelhouse than poking around the library, looking for genealogical records. “Also? We don’t really teach people our spells, even when they’re our friends.”
Aya almost laughed at the strip searching, pressing her lips together and shaking her head as she fought off that urge somewhat unsuccessfully. She didn't really question the magic thing, she wouldn't teach anyone what she could do either, even if she could. It was a good thing, anyway. The witches were all powerful enough without teaching each other more magic. Divided was way better. "Did he enjoy the show?" she asked in a sing-song voice, more interested in this strange encounter than she was in magic lessons. "Maybe that's why he let you go." Doubtful, but not impossible. Or maybe the witch had something to hide and didn't want the police involved. Maybe his home was trapped because he had something shady or valuable in there. She could feel her curiosity ramping up but again, she didn't fuck with witches. Not anymore.
“No,” Aidan deadpanned. “There was no pole. No music. Definitely not my best performance.” It had been mildly humiliating, which was why he didn’t understand his preoccupation with it. Of all the things that had happened last night, it was that moment he kept coming back to, replaying it in his head over and over. He’d been pissed and vulnerable and it made his heart race just to recall it? Something there didn’t add up, but he wasn’t pressing hard enough to figure it out. He turned his focus back towards the magic, the need to prove himself driving him forward. “If I can figure out his trap, I’ll go back and take what I meant to take. He’ll know it was me, but that’s not the point.”
"Wow, you are so stupid," Aya marveled, but there was a touch of admiration to both her words and the look in her eyes because yeah, she got it. "What did you mean to take?" This sounded like a fun challenge and if it wasn't so wrapped up in magic she might even have offered to help. He probably wanted to do this on his own though so she didn't feel bad about not offering. Not that she would have in the first place... She just wanted to see what had Aidan so riled up, it had to be something good, maybe something shiny, and her magpie nature was pretty excited about that.
“Probably,” Aidan snorted, unable to disagree with her. It was stupid to repeat a failed crime, especially when he’d been caught and slapped on the wrist. But that was really all that had happened. If Victor had wanted to stop him from returning, he should have threatened to call the cops. “There’s this antique dagger. The scabbard is silver and crimson and the hilt is shaped like a snake’s head. When I picked it up, the snake fuckin’ bit me. I dropped it, set off the trap, and he took it back.” It was probably right where he’d initially found it because Victor seemed cocky enough to leave it right there in the open. He didn’t know if everything in the room was set to spring the trap, but the dagger was definitely a tempting piece of bait. Too tempting, in Aidan’s opinion. He’d hated to leave it behind.
The dagger sounded amazing, up until that part where Aidan revealed it was both magical and bitey and Aya felt a little torn between wanting the damn thing and wanting nothing to do with it. It sounded so pretty, antique, silver, crimson, the physical description was enough to put stars in her eyes. "You sound like a fucking masochist," she tittered. "You just wanna get bit again." She was curious about this witch now, but in a probably healthy way because she had no interest in actually meeting him. That didn't mean she couldn't take a look though. "Where does he live?" she asked, eyes glinting with mischief, even if she didn't actually plan on causing any.
“I don’t mind the biting,” Aidan shrugged. Was that weird? Probably, but the wound had been small enough to heal up on the fly. The flesh was still tender and would be without a salve, but it wasn’t a high priority for him at the moment. “If it takes a few bites for it to get to know me, I can handle it.” He narrowed his eyes as her questions became more pointed, hesitant to tell her any more than necessary. She could make things far more difficult for him if she wanted to, though Aidan didn’t think she had any interest in messing with another witch. “Overlook,” he said. “Along with half a dozen other witches, so don’t go poking around.” Was he being a hypocrite? Absolutely.
Aya wasn't afraid to call him out on it as she laughed. "Look who's talking," she said. "I'm not going anywhere near that place, but you are. Doesn't mean I can't take a peek. I don't have to go through a door to see what's beyond it." Familiars could be trickier to detect than humans, depending on their kind, so she wouldn't trust her sight a hundred percent with a witch she didn't know. There was no telling what kind of spells they could conjure up or what kind of dumb tricks they had up their sleeves.
It was tempting to ask Aya to make him a door and grant him a peek into the rest of the house, but that kind of spoiled the fun of breaking and entering. Aidan preferred to leave with a prize, but that wasn’t why he did it. It was the thrill of the action itself, the power to do so and not get caught. Sometimes doing it Aya’s way was fun, but in this case it felt like cheating. “Just don’t get caught,” he warned her, lips turning up. “Unless you wanna be strip searched, too.” He couldn’t imagine Aya being even half as compliant as he had been. Aidan knew he could have put up more of a fight, but he hadn’t known who he was dealing with. Now he suspected he could get away with so much more.
"I'm not going in," Aya reminded him with a roll of her eyes as she got to her feet again and strolled to the barn door. "I'm just taking a little looksie." Or a 'feelsie' if all the doors were closed; looking through the open ones might be too risky anyway because the witch might see her and she didn't like the idea at all. "Where is he?" she repeated, looking back at Aidan expectantly. "Don't make me check every door in Overlook and guess." That would be so like Aidan though. She teased him, he teased her, she only enjoyed the former.
“No,” Aidan said with a decisiveness that was usual for him. Most of the time he didn’t care, and even when he did all it took was twisting his arm a little before he’d give in. But for some reason, he wanted to hold onto this, and if Aya wanted to snoop, then he was going to be difficult about it. “Just leave it alone. If he senses you snooping, he could amp up his wards. I don’t intend to case the place.” All he wanted was the knife, to prove that he could get it… and maybe rub it in Victor’s face a little. He wondered how long it would take him to notice it was missing. That was the only downside to his plan; he’d love to see his face when he realized the dagger was gone.
"Awuh you're so boring!" Aya yelled at him and turned on her heel, watching him with narrowed eyes for a second before strolling closer to him, her expression softening. "You really want that knife, huh?" she asked, grabbing his hands in hers and bringing them up to her face. "Or is it something else? You're really stealing back your pride, aren't you?" She couldn't imagine the strip search hadn't chipped away at him and now he wanted to get back at the guy. There were a lot of ways to do that, but stealing his knife was definitely a good one.
Did he really want the knife? Yes. Because it was fascinating and unique, but mostly because it was a symbol of his failure. He had a very small, specific skill set and he prided himself at being good at it, however last night’s showing was a complete and utter flop. He might as well have been caught with his dick in his hand, and he needed to prove he could do better, to himself mainly, but also to Victor. He refused to that be his only experience with the O’Reilly name, with him. “Something like that,” Aidan admitted, his thumbs gently stroking her cheeks. “I know it’s stupid. He’ll know it’s me. But I need to prove that I can do it.”
Aya smiled at him, nodding in understanding. He wanted a bitey knife for his pride and while she wasn't a knife, she could bite. So she did, sinking her teeth into his finger enough to draw blood before darting back with a laugh. "Just getting you ready for things to come," she giggled though it was really more payback for him not wanting to tell her where the witch lived and at least fifty percent just for fun.
“Ow! Bitch!” Aidan snapped, jerking his hand back and immediately sticking his finger in his mouth. It was such a knee-jerk reaction, he didn’t think anything of it, and he glared at Aya as he removed his finger and shook his hand out, healing the surface wound as he did so. “Fuck, that hurt!” He knew it was revenge for not giving her what she wanted, but it still pissed him off. “Feel better now?”
"Yes," Aya laughed and she couldn't say why pissing him off was so funny, but it was, and he clearly needed the reminder that he already had a 'snake' at home. Not that she could blame him for wanting that dagger, she wanted to see it now too, though she might not be as ready to withstand its bites while it got to know her. "Show me what you've got so far," she said and folded her arms once she was right by the barn door. She didn't want to be anywhere near the magic but it was probably a good idea if someone was there to see that he didn't accidentally drown himself.
Aidan knew better than to show Aya any bit of sincere emotion, but the reminder still stung. He closed up as he backed away from her, moving to stand inside the square of salt once more. A brush of his hand and the boundary was closed, ready for him to try again. “I think the trigger was the snake biting me, but I have a hard time believing I was unlucky enough to pick up the one object in the room that would’ve set off the curse, so I don’t know. I’m not sure I have to have the trigger exactly right, so long as the rest of the parameters are correct. Or I know how to dispel it. I’m gonna try something different this time.” Aidan’s hand hovered over the pocket knife as he began to chant softly, attempting to replicate the curse. He could feel the magic build and attach itself to the object, but getting the exact same effects was tricky.
Under any other circumstances, magic use meant Aya was out. She could feel goosebumps rising on her skin and a slightly cringy feeling crawl up her back but this was Aidan's magic and she was kind of used to it by now. It just hit differently when it was a big and complicated curse than when it was just a natural flick of the wrist kind of trick to disarm traps. This one in particular didn't feel natural to him and she had to suppress the urge to ditch him as she watched and tried to see the effects rather than feel them. "It was a pretty powerful object," she said, already feeling the pull of her doorway magic, her subconscious not as set on staying as she was. "Maybe it was rigged so that you would pick it up."
“Maybe,” Aidan agreed. “Could be charmed to draw my attention over everything else.” It was an intriguing possibility, but not a detail that he had to figure out. The water curse was the problem and this time when he grabbed the knife he managed to actually inflict one upon himself. It wasn’t exactly like Victor’s in that there was no illusion—the space inside the salt box began to immediately fill with water. “Shit,” Aidan muttered. It was good in that he’d been successful, but now he had to figure out how to disable it, something he’d failed at last time. Aidan placed his hand over the dagger and began to attempt a reversal, becoming more and more frustrated when the water continued to rise. He thought he’d given himself plenty of space to work, but it was still smaller than Victor’s study and it felt like he was an inch deep in water in no time. “This fucking spell…”
Magic grossness aside, this actually looked really interesting, like one of those old school magicians doing escape tricks. Aya moved a little closer, and to the side, like she was circling to see better, only she didn't want to get too far from the door so it was only a couple of steps. "Hey, it worked," she chimed in cheerfully, but then he didn't look very happy about it. The more the water rose, the less happy he looked and Aya started feeling fretful again. "Are you... letting it go all the way up for dramatic effect or-?" she asked and fuck she hoped she didn't have to blip out of there and fetch his sister.
“This is what happened last night, except I couldn’t see the water,” Aidan told her, pausing to run his fingers through his hair. What exactly had Victor done? He’d been able to walk in the room without feeling the effects of the curse. Did that mean it should be inflicted on him instead of the space? Or was that because he hadn’t been there when it started? Or had he done something outside the room before entering? He had too many questions, no one to answer them, and the water was rising. Within minutes, it was passing his knees and on the way to his waist. The salt square he’d made was definitely too small. “I did stop myself from drowning, but… I might be under for a while before I figure this out.” He was wasting time talking to her, but he didn’t want her to freak out. Aya didn’t always seem to care for him, but he knew she didn’t want to see him die.
"This is your spell, just make it stop," Aya said, her words rushed and her voice high with agitation. No, she didn't want to see him die and at first that had been utterly because she didn't know what would happen to her if he did. These days she didn't want to see him die for more reasons than that but that wasn't something she found easy to admit even to herself so, self preservation it was. Maybe he was just fucking with her, considering how often she fucked with him it was warranted but that didn't mean it was fair. She wanted to disrupt the salt ring he'd made to see if that would help but mostly she didn't want to go anywhere near this stupid magic so she stayed put, crawling out of her skin with irritation and worry.
“That won’t help me solve it,” Aidan argued. He could disrupt the salt barrier and the magic would dissipate, but it wouldn’t work like that at Victor’s house. He hadn’t used salt to contain the spell; in fact, he’d been able to walk into the room while Aidan was still under it. Something else acted as the container and it had only attached itself to him. It made him wonder if it would have dropped the second he got out of the room, but he didn’t want to go back to find out. He needed to solve this here, where he had multiple opportunities to fuck up. Aidan picked up the knife, attempting a counter-curse that only made the water rise faster. He should have known better, but it was still annoying. With the water up to his chest, he began to try breaking the spell on himself instead. “I’ll be fine,” he told Aya between spells. He could sense her agitation, but he refused to quit until he got this right.
Aya didn't know for sure if he'd put some kind of a failsafe on his curse, if disrupting the circle would do anything or if the salt had just been a base to build on. It'd be so typical if he had no way out and she'd have to save him or something, it drove her insane. The wise thing to do was probably shut up and let him work but she was pacing again. "If you can't break it, can you at least get out?" she asked sharply and how long would it take a human - or a witch - to drown? She didn't have a great concept of how their whole biology worked, if it'd only take seconds she'd have to be quick to get Shayna Mae so she was already seeking her out in the house mentally, to save herself time.
“Yes,” Aidan insisted, his frustration starting to bleed through in the sharpness of his voice. “I haven’t set myself up to drown in the barn.” Yet, it was starting to look like that might be a concern, so he threw up an air bubble around his head, just as he’d done at Victor’s house. Just like last time, his nerves began to fray, making it harder to come up with a solution as the curse worked against him. Unlike last time, he had a way out—it would just be a waste of magic. Water was not his element and using himself as the source was going to exhaust him if he kept this up. “Fucking fuck,” he growled as the water climbed over his head and he flicked his wrist, disrupting the salt barrier. Water splashed out in a rush, turning the ground to mud and leaving Aidan soaked. He sighed heavily, running his fingers through his wet hair. “Well… that was a bust.”
Now that he was out of the magic bubble - and not in any mortal peril - this was actually really funny and Aya snickered and pointed at him. "You look like a drowned rat," she teased him and sidled back to the barn door, glad she hadn't gotten too close because she really didn't feel like getting splashed by his dumb magic water. It was cathartic to laugh at him; she hadn't liked feeling worried and laughing gave her some relief. Plus, it probably annoyed him but not so much that he'd hate her for it. "You're out of your element, witch," she murmured, still smirking even as her snickering subsided.
Aidan knew, logically, that he was probably going to fail many times before he could successfully break the curse, however that didn’t soften the blow to his ego that came with Aya’s teasing. Having an audience made things worse, especially when she was prone to taunting him. It didn’t matter that she was right. “I know,” he snapped, shaking the water off his hands. “You can leave if you’re not going to help.” He knew she wasn’t going to help. She was going to sit there and mock him, making it so much harder to actually figure out the puzzle. “I need to go into town,” he murmured.
He wasn't going anywhere like that, though Aya supposed he could conjure up a powerful gust of warm wind and dry himself or something - she really wasn't sure what all these witches could do or how it worked. "Why?" she asked instead of snarkily pointing it out to him because she was starting to learn where his limits were when it came to putting up with her shit. With anyone else, those limits didn't really matter, but Aidan was different so she was more inclined to help than keep pestering him. "Do you want me to take you there?"
Aidan could try himself slightly, though it wasn’t as effective as a water witch might be able to and he was already feeling drained. It made him tired just to wring the water from him so he wasn’t dripping. Allowing that much water to be pulled directly from him had been a bad idea. “I want to buy some water crystals. I can use them as a source so I don’t exhaust myself trying to solve this damn thing.” He didn’t have to tell her, but she was more likely to follow through with the offer if he did. “If you don’t mind…yeah, that’d be great.”
"Come with me," Aya told him with a bemused little smile as she waved him over. "You'll need dry clothes first." It was pretty obvious he wasn't doing well at drying himself and he did look exhausted. Luckily, with Aya he wouldn't have to go far, just a few steps to the doorway before he was in the bathroom via her magic doors. "You're a stubborn idiot," she added when he got closer, reaching out to trace his wet cheek with one finger. "But I can respect that." She gestured at the door in an invitation, letting him go through first. Once he was rested, dry and less frustrated, she could pick on him again but for now he was off the hook.