WHO: Marina Andrieski & Julia Wicker WHEN: Saturday, March 15th WHERE: Breakfast burritos and then around Vallo WHAT: Just two "friends" having a talk and trying to avoid feelings TRIGGERS: Mentions of character death, just the entirety of the Magicians as a whole, FEELINGS
Julia had stopped in for a cup of coffee before arriving early to meet Marina, but now she wondered if that had been the best idea, the caffeine only adding to her anxiety. She hadn't wanted to continue her conversation with Marina over the network, but she had no idea what to expect in meeting this alternate version of her friend in person, either. With the memories she had attached to the Marina from her timeline surfacing as soon as she'd received that first notification, things were bound to be strange, to put it mildly.
Of course, everything about Vallo had proven strange so far, though Julia's curiosity was a powerful force, distracting her from the worst of it. Like the fact that she was talking to Marina before Kady. Maybe it was unfair to rank them, but Marina wasn't her Marina.
Yeah. So. This was going to be strange and she tried to brace herself for whatever was about to unfold, her eyes darting toward the door whenever someone entered.
Marina wasn’t really sure where to land her emotions regarding this. Julia had become one of her closest friends in Texas. She felt the sting of having neither Tony or Julia from Texas. She was waiting for the day Holland showed up and didn’t remember her either. Or maybe Ethan. It was likely given her track record. It was why she’d forced herself to wait till it was time to show up for it. To compose herself enough to walk in with her usual calm demeanor.
It faltered just slightly when she saw Julia, but she quickly recovered. She smiled easy, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Julia.” She glanced around. “See you found it okay. We can stay or take our breakfast burritos to go.”
There were merits to both options, as Julia was afraid that if they left now she'd lose her nerve and yet upon actually seeing Marina, maybe wanted a less public setting to really talk to her. A bar may have been easier, but it was also eleven in the morning and they probably didn't need to throw alcohol into the equation, yet.
"Maybe we can eat here and then go somewhere else?" Julia asked. Though she wasn't planning on waiting to talk because she had so many questions to match up with the mess of emotions she was feeling at the moment. All of which were probably reflected in her eyes, but she didn't shy away from looking at Marina. Even if she was from a different timeline, it was good to see her alive.
"On second thought, to go is good. Have somewhere in mind?"
Marina was trying to grapple with the knowledge she had from being close to Julia for so long and not making it obvious that they knew each other so well. She could read Julia’s expressions pretty well, but she was never as guarded as she was with her expressions. It felt oddly invasive. The clockwork eye zoomed in to focus on Julia a little closer even if there was no real reason to. She just mentally wanted to be closer, so her eye zoomed in perhaps a bit too close, so she covered her eye briefly to let it reset itself, making it look more like she was adjusting her hair.
She’d been about to sit when Julia changed her mind. Backing up again, she considered the question. “The forest tends to be full of annoying shit. I go sometimes anyway. There’s some places worth visiting.” She tried to consider things Julia might like, knowing this place would remind her, in some ways of Fillory. She seemed to like it there.
“There’s the cliffs by the ocean if you don’t mind heights. Or just around the city. I can show you Lux and a few other places.”
"Bugs?" Julia asked, the corners of her mouth quirking up into a small smile. "Maybe we should eat here quickly and then go exploring." And save the conversation for after they left the restaurant. Maybe she was postponing the inevitable, or maybe she just couldn't make up her mind, but either way, she gestured for Marina to take a seat after all.
She didn't notice Marina paying extra attention to her with her clockwork eye, but the eye itself? That was definitely different. "Your eye…" she prompted, looking for an explanation.
“Well, once there were bugs that tried to murder everyone, yeah. Sometimes turkeys try to murder you there. Or really a lot of things. It’s usually fine and the DOA people that patrol tend to keep things safe, but other times it’s a lot of surprise attacks suddenly.” But you know. It was fine. She found an excuse to murder a lot of things and no one argued about it. It was the easiest way to deal with things you didn’t want to deal with.
She shrugged at the question, an easy neutrality to her expression. “Back in Texas there was a cruise ship. I didn’t want to crash and die, so I did what I could to help keep it up in the air. In return, it tried to turn me into a robot. Cyborg? Something. Anyway. The eye stuck around. It can come out, too and do its own thing, but I only really do that if I have to go in the back for something at Lux and need to keep an eye on things. Or if there’s something going on that I need to see all around myself for.” Tony had also started to turn into a robot. They’d both been that way. Julia had tried what she could to help us, but it wasn’t like she could really do a lot. Eventually they ended up back in Texas and things were fine. Except she still had a clockwork eye. At least it wasn’t cliche and the same eye as Margo or something weird like that.
But she was going to order her breakfast burrito before things got too serious.
"Good to know," Julia said, taking in the idea that things might try to kill her, which was only par for the course and not at all out of the ordinary so she didn't dwell too much on it. She still had magic, and increasingly powerful magic at that.
Listening to Marina's explanation of her eye was actually not the strangest thing she'd heard since arriving in Vallo, though admittedly Texas was a source of curiosity to her, if only because Marina knew a version of herself there. One that had apparently really been into Iron Man. She found it easiest to regard that as yet another alternate timeline, like Julia-41 or something.
They were ordering breakfast burritos before she could reply, though as Marina ordered Julia took the opportunity to steal a couple of glances at her. Even though she'd gone through this with Q, who she was trying not to think about, with Alice from 23, it was still an odd sensation to be seated across from someone so familiar and not at the same time. And when Marina caught her staring, she shrugged apologetically.
"Sorry, I think this may be weird for a while. But," she added quickly, "not a bad kind of weird?"
Marina was carefully aware of Julia watching her. She was doing her best not to think about it too much. “Yeah. It’s what made me assume we had the fun kind of tension in 40. Then it was about dying.” She shrugged. “A let down, honestly.” But she’d become less of a dick about it since she watched the show. She wanted to reassure her somehow, but she wasn’t sure she could do it without being a dick because she didn’t want to sound like she cared too much.
“The situation was always going to be fucked. Gods are bastards and we’re just...us.” A beat. “Except you’re a goddess, so that’s...you know…” But Marina wasn’t afraid of Julia. She wasn’t the sort to just kill people. She shrugged, glad that her burrito showed up so she could focus on eating instead.
"We could have had the fun kind of tension in 40," Julia pointed out. "Learning collaborative magic? That was a rush. Then you… she? Kicked me out for caring about…" Not thinking about Q clearly wasn't going to work, and she stopped the sentence short.
The pause did give her a natural opportunity to ask, "How much do you know? I let Margo fill me in on a lot." She was a goddess, yes. Reluctantly. She wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that she'd arrived here that way.
She snorted softly. “Yeah. But I get the feeling we wouldn’t really have.” And she ended up with Penny. He was still creepy. She wasn’t too keen to talk about the Unimpressive White Male either. But she knew Julia probably missed him. It seemed like...something she’d have cared about. Even if Marina still didn’t understand it. But she guessed that was one of those things.
“I know enough. I’m from ahead of you. You’re way back. Like…” She stopped herself from saying Season Three. “Before we met. I took over your Marina’s place in 40. It’s pretty whatever, but there was only me, Creepy RomCom Guy, and Henry alive in 23, so it was totally not worth staying.”
"Creepy RomCom Guy?" Julia asked, looking amused until she remembered what Margo had told her. "Oh. Yeah. That's one of those things that's weird to think about. Especially since 40 was with Kady." And Kady still wasn't talking to her.
"I heard you helped us all out later on though. More than once?" Julia had to smile at that, because she was simplifying things and it was Marina. She couldn't imagine this version was that much different than her own. She didn't know all of the details, but she could guess that Marina had gotten something out of it both times.
“Yeah. I only remember one of those times but...yeah.” She stared for a long moment at the table. It brought back the memories of shitty things she didn’t really want to think about. Watching Season 5 had probably been a stupid idea and she’d hated the entire experience except for a few moments. Like some of her fun lines. But for the most part, it was a giant shitstorm she wished she could forget. She could, but she wasn’t letting anyone fuck around with her brain or her memories again, so that was a no-go. “I know about the second. The danger of curiosity.” She shrugged, doing her best to quickly finish the burrito so they could go walking and she could have more distractions or at least different things to focus on and talk about.
She got Dewy’s out of the first thing and a broken heart out of the second. But she guessed she at least got to tell Anna to fuck off first. And with good reason. “Anyway. There’s probably more interesting things to discuss than that.”
Julia was also eager to finish up at the restaurant, though Marina did have good taste, and explore more of Vallo. Though she also noted the slight change in Marina's demeanor in talking about helping them out. Knowing her Marina as she did, she let it slide for the time being.
Instead, once they were outside and walking, she asked, "So how well did you know me in our world? And what about Texas?" That was interesting to her, at least.
“We didn’t really...see a lot of each other after you and Josh came to 23. Then I escaped into your world and the next time I saw you guys, you weren’t there and it was just the rest of the wonder team.” She shrugged slightly. “You showed up later, but I sort of ducked out because you know...murderous god-type things. Wasn’t trying to get killed. Then the next thing I knew, I got the Dewys and ended up in a prison and sent back to 23 with Creepy Romcom Guy and then we went to the timeline where magic doesn’t exist and eventually got back to 40.” She looked around, turning down a street after a moment.
“You and I lived together for a while in Texas. I had my safehouse. You needed somewhere to stay.” She waved it off. “Eventually there was this werewolf we lived with. He was the real deal and didn’t have the STD thing attached to it. That was awkward to find out about our world. Sounds gross. Still want to know how Josh didn’t have magic if creatures kept theirs. Sounds like a plot hole to me. Poor writing, honestly.” She shrugged. “Tony and I had to bring you back at some point when you turned into Kim, so that was...annoying.”
Julia could almost follow that when combined with everything Margo had told her, and then got the gist of Texas, amused at the mention of werewolves and still boggling that at least one version of Margo had voluntarily become one. Fortunately, not the version that was here. "So I've been friends with two different versions of you?" she asked with a faint smile. "That tracks. Though… you and I in my timeline were obviously more complicated."
Marina shrugged. Friends. She hated it, but she guessed she couldn’t really deny it. “You know I don’t...really do...friends.” But she’d try it anyway. If only to save face and avoid having to have two possible friends. She still refused to count Dorian. Even if he probably counted, too. She made a face at the thought. Ugh.
“And there’s complications everywhere. I died in one timeline. Everyone else died in mine.” She shrugged. “It’s bullshit either way.” She paused briefly, to point out one building. “That’s Lux. I work there sometimes. Mostly Lucifer’s girlfriend and I broke into his office and judged him over the network for having a shitty filing system. He’s a goat lover. So make sure to compliment him on his many and varied goat statues he’s collected over the months.” She smiled a little at that, a bit more of the usual Marina attitude shining through. “If you notice anything new, let me know. He’s always looking for new pieces for the club.” Lucifer was likely going to give her his strongest glare ever for that, but why should Julia question her? Except for all the other stuff. So maybe she’d throw some truths in there. “He’s also big into fancy clothes and looking his best at all times. Vanity and pride. Full of sins.” She laughed then, shaking her head before continuing to walk.
“Anyway. This place has the bonus point of not having any cruises and no one’s died, so there’s that.” She shrugged. “If you were interested in teaching, I’ve got an in with the head of the university. I could probably get you in there.” She didn’t say that they could co-teach Hedge Magic together because she didn’t want to sound desperate or pathetic. “Dorian is overly friendly and kind of weird, but I appreciate his business practice and I got this dragon’s tooth amulet from him.” She pulled it out from under her jacket. “It works about as well as the other amulet I had from home and I didn’t have to worry about it. There’s also a school for younger people, but...teenagers…”
"Yeah, okay," Julia said, smiling a little as Marina mentioned she didn't really do friends. That sure sounded a lot like they were friends in Texas. But she wasn't going to argue semantics.
."Lucifer as in … the actual Lucifer?" Not that it should have surprised her. At this point, she didn't think much could.
"I'm not sure what I would teach. The closest thing I had to a magical education was learning with you, and that wasn't exactly what you'd call formal. Everything I'm doing now isn't necessarily replicable and besides, I'm just making it up as I go." Even if it was cool, and she had started to realize that her powers were growing the more she helped other people. Julia wondered if that would continue here. "Thanks for the idea, though."
She skipped over the disbelief and straight into the fact that Lucifer was the Lucifer. “One and the same. He’s at least not highly annoying. Except for he’s more affectionate than I thought he’d be.” She made a face about it, remembering the time that he hugged her.
“Yeah. Brakebills weirdness.” It was still weird to think about it sometimes. “I teach Hedge Magic.” She was considering other things as well, but she wasn’t entirely positive about it. “There’s also a coven. I got an invite from this creepy blood coven, but they’re mostly harmless nerd goths. I haven’t really gone to the coven meetings or anything, but they have ties with a bunch of the other covens around here.”
"Huh, never would have thought of the devil as particularly affectionate," Julia replied with a shrug.
"What? You've skipped out on organizational meetings?" she asked, in mock surprise, then continued teasing. "I would have thought those would be your favorite."
A thought did give her pause, and she slowed a step without realizing it. "Are there any other… deities here?"
“Me either, but he’s weirdly annoying like that.” It probably had to do with whoever he was around. She hoped that she never got used to hugs because Eleanor couldn’t help herself and kept hugging her. That would be the tragedy of the year. Probably her life.
Marina shot Julia a look which she assumed she was used to from the other version of her at least. “You know me. I love hanging out with people.” Which wasn’t true, but somehow she just kept doing it. There was the snowglobe incident and basically every other incident.
She looked over at Julia when she asked about deities. “I think Thor and Loki? Hades. Persephone. Not from our world. Not sure past that.”
"You always seemed to like calling the shots around the right group of people," Julia pointed out, not reiterating the fact that she knew Marina could turn on those people in an instant.
Her breath hitched as Marina mentioned Persephone, and she exhaled slowly when she added not from our world. She may have accepted that the magic she had now, the god powers, had come from Reynard, but she hadn't been wrong to call out Our Lady Underground on consent.
"So what's with all the other types of magic here?" Julia asked. "Is it possible to learn it?" The question was somewhat related to her thoughts.
Marina noted the shift with Julia, but she was already hyper aware of her. She casually didn’t mention it so as not to be obvious about how closely she was paying attention. She’d watched so much of their life that she knew most of the show blended together, but she knew Persephone was a spot of concern. She was dead now, however. She wasn’t sure how helpful telling her that she was dead would be, though, so she didn’t.
“I’ve learned Harry Potter magic. Had a wand and everything. It was weird, but interesting. I stole a ton of books from the library. They’re in my penthouse. With all my stolen Brakebills books.” It wasn’t like Julia would be surprised by her stealing habits. “But so far it seems like learning magic is one of those things. Pretty much everything is open to being learned. I don’t think it’s the same for everyone but our magic’s less...tied down to things. Like we don’t need blood to do it. But Dorian does blood magic and other magic, so I don’t know if the ones that do blood magic elsewhere can’t do other magic, too. Never asked. Probably ask Bonnie. Or them. I don’t remember who they are except this one girl.”
Julia wasn't at all surprised at the stolen books. As a hedge, nothing was given to you, and every spell was worth something. She didn't fault Marina at all for enhancing her own library through questionable means. But she did note that it was the second time Marina had mentioned Dorian, and made a mental note to track down Bonnie. If Marina was using their names, they were important.
"You have a Harry Potter wand?" Or had. Past tense. Still, learning Harry Potter style magic? That was a magic nerd's dream come true, something both her and Q would have killed for… Right. Not worth dwelling on that right then.
“Had. It hasn’t come through yet. I assume it will. I got my apartment, my library, and my witch glass. So it’s only a matter of time. Probably. How much time? I don’t know.” It was Hawthorne with dragon-heart string which sort of made her amused by the fact that she had a dragon tooth amulet. She guessed she was just a dragon sort of girl somehow. She made a small ‘hmm’ noise at the thought of it before realizing she did. Oh well. She was sure there was something she could explain it away with or maybe just explain it truthfully.
“But there’s a lot of magic here. Necromancy, Herbology, Dueling, and so forth. It’s interesting at any rate. If Kady decides to stop ignoring you, maybe she’d be interested in battle magic lessons. But I’m not going to suggest it.” Mostly because she was aware of how Kady felt about her even if she wasn’t the same girl and she didn’t even know Kady.” She shrugged. “Then again, I don’t know if she’d be interested in it now. She hasn’t usurped me yet.”
"Things just show up?" Julia asked, trying to remember if Margo had mentioned that or not. "I know about the memories thing, which sounds unpleasant." She glanced over at Marina, wondering what she was thinking about just then, but didn't ask.
Instead, she frowned at the mention of Kady. "Yeah, I think I earned the silent treatment for a while, but I'm not even sure what point in time she's coming from." Either way, it stung to not have been able to talk to her best friend the last few days, with everything that was going on. Instead, Margo and Marina were having to substitute in, which Julia was grateful for but it wasn't the same.
“Yep. They just show up. So I assume I’ll get everything soon enough.” She shrugged slightly. It would be nice to have everything. She wasn’t sure she wanted the time traveling box, but a few Dewys or a magical battery would be nice in case she needed to do something bigger than she could do alone. But she was sure Julia would help if she asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to use up her favor on anything frivolous, but if there was something big she needed, she’d do it.
“She’ll get over it.” She knew this from watching five seasons of their stupid fucking show. She shrugged. “Maybe you can get the information from a source close to her that she doesn’t hate. Or I can get it if you have weird feelings about that sort of thing.” She didn’t figure it would matter that much whether she got it for herself or Marina got it for her. It’d probably still be seen as an invasion of privacy, but if Marina got it even if she told her NOT to and then told her out of the blue, then she could feel better about it. Which was probably not the right way to think about the situation. She frowned. Stupid Eleanor’s stupid Good Place-Bad Place show.
“Or you can wait for her to get over it, I guess.”
Julia wasn't sure what she'd want to show up, if anything. She could think of someone though, and the fact that Marina and Margo came from different points in time than her made her pause.
Literally. She stopped walking, considering that thought.
When Julia stopped walking, Marina stopped and she turned on her heel to look at her with one eyebrow raised. “What? I said you could wait.” She paused. “Or did you step in unicorn shit or something?”
"What?" Julia asked, not tracking the conversation. "Oh yeah, I'll wait." She wasn't going to piss Kady off more. But this had nothing to do with that.
"If people can show up from different points in time…" she started, looking at Marina with determination, willing herself to get the question out. "Could someone show up… before they died?"
That didn’t follow the train of thought that Marina was on, but she was able to catch up pretty quickly. “Oh you mean the Unimp- The…” She frowned. She knew his stupid name. “That guy? Your best friend or whatever.” Or her, but she figured that wasn’t what she meant. Almost no one meant her, which felt oddly hollow to think about, so she decided not to think about it anymore. “But yeah. There’s plenty of people that show up before they die. They have a club for it or whatever.” It was probably not a club. What was it again?
“Support group?”
"Quentin, yeah," Julia replied. "It still doesn't seem real, probably because I haven't actually lived through that?" She didn't know, she just knew thinking of him left her feeling uneasy, with the dread of knowing something was true with acceptance, and every dark and terrible feeling that went along with to follow.
But if Q could show up? Or Penny, for that matter. Their Penny, not some future one Julia was supposed to fall in love with and have a kid with. That was way too much to consider.
"Sorry," she said, shaking her head and bringing herself back to the present. "I'm still processing." Still? She hadn't really started.
“Yeah. Whatever. Your best friend kicked it and you haven’t had a healing sing-a-long to get through it and then done all the emotional shit.” She waved it off, not really thinking about how to explain how she knew about the sing-a-long thing. She could have probably mentioned that someone told her, but why would anyone have told her? “Or whatever you guys do when people you care about die.” Okay, it was probably not a great cover up.
“Living through shit or not living through it doesn’t keep it from being a bitch to know about.” She thought about the parts of watching herself in another part of her life. Blowing up the moon and then being a weird happy cult version of herself and then the confrontation with Anna. Her nose wrinkled about it, which she hoped read as being grossed out by having to talk about things than ‘she’d seen things she wished she didn’t have to’.
That was… a really weird way of putting it, Julia thought, but that was Marina so who really knew? But the rest of that she could follow, about it being a bitch to know about things. She looked at Marina, debating whether or not she should say anything. It was already weird enough hanging out with a version of Marina she didn't know, but who apparently knew her.
Why bring up the one she knew?
She debated it another minute, looking at Marina, before nodding. "Yeah, it sucks," she agreed. "But maybe not the best thing to think about right now." Or to drag her into. "What else can you show me?"
“Sure.” Marina was relieved she didn’t have to explain herself or figure out how to be a good...whatever to Julia in regards to her feelings. “I can show you this weird horror movie-themed bookstore that Eleanor works at. Or the other bars if you want to see more of them.” She paused, thinking about the various other places. “Both schools if you want to see the magic schools. Or Dorian’s store. I guess Bonnie’s store is here, too, but I haven’t been. I don’t want Sirius getting ideas about me wanting to best friends or whatever. He already’s made me go on a walk with him and his twins.” And that was...weird. “Not sure I can dissuade him anyway.”
What else was in this place? “There’s the ocean. Atlantis is here. You can apparently be turned into a mermaid or some weird fish or whatever there.” She’d never been because she wasn’t trying to let people know she was mildly interested in the idea of what she’d look like as a mermaid. She hoped she had a purple tail and a black into purple top or whatever. Seashells? She was NOT going to admit that out loud. Absolutely not. “Plenty of islands for exploration. I haven’t been to any of them, but all I can think about are creepy island movies where everyone dies, so you know...sounds dangerous to me.”
"Yeah, give me the full tour," Julia replied, smiling though it bordered on a smirk. For as much as Marina claimed to not do the friends thing, there were four names in place of descriptions, including a couple that had come up more than once in their conversation that day. Which meant maybe her name might fit on one of those lists at some point.
Sure, it was weird. Really weird. But so was every aspect of her life, what was one more thing?