Kady hated the past. Give her oreos, fast food and the sounds of the city any day. She’d been stuck on that ridiculous island for the first few days, hating every minute of it, and while getting to the mainland had been a bit better. There was still a lack of modern amenities and too many creatures to run into for her liking. Even the mosquitos were somehow more annoying this go around.
At least she’d found Julia, and Fen was around somewhere as well. Though it looked like Margo and Eliot had remained behind in the modern day. The lucky assholes. Why she’d agreed to heading out into the forest with Julia was beyond her though. She was pretty sure she’d been drunk off of whatever flavor of wine they’d managed to get hold of. It was the only reason she could come up with for traipsing through the thick undergrowth and swatting at mosquitoes.
They could have stayed in the city. Been eating some meat on a stick and drinking more wine, but no. Wandering through the woods was their current task.
“What are we looking for again?”
"Whatever it is that's been spooking the horses?" Julia asked. Honestly it felt like they were on some real life version of an NPC quest in the games James used to play for hours on end. Especially since the end result was more of the things they needed to get by in this ancient version of Vallo.
Julia hated it less than Kady did, but that hadn't stopped her from immediately hugging her best friend when they had been reunited in Civitas. They had just worked things out in normal Vallo and then this plot twist had happened, so that hug had been long overdue.
"You know what disturbs me the most?" she asked.
Kady felt she had every right to hate the place considering she’d randomly landed on that damn island with the one group and they hadn’t felt like letting them go. Being a captive was never fun and she hadn’t liked the idea of becoming someone’s servant. Not again.
Of course they were having to help look for something that had nothing to do with them. This better at least get them some coin to spend.
“There’s so much to pick from.”
"The people who are taking this all in stride like it's just the latest thing they have to deal with," Julia replied. "Because this shit happens so frequently or something. I thought finding out Fillory was real was crazy."
Honestly was this so different from the rest of their lives? Julia had to consider that fact given everything they'd been through. But back home some version of her had never been romantically involved with Iron Man so yes, the world jumping was stranger.
“You deal with crazy shit often enough and it becomes your normal.” That’s how lying had become so easy for Kady. Or closing herself off from others as best as she could. Doing it enough made it a habit and habits were hard to step out of.
“We’ve been attacked by fucking vulture creatures, the sky rained candy and we were all locked in weird time warps for food and clothes for a day.” She also lived in a house currently where a cloak had its own personality and a demon lived in the fridge. Nothing surprised her anymore.
"When you put it that way," Julia said, "what's one more trip to the woods to find whatever's lurking?" People here seemed a lot more distrustful of magic than they were in normal Vallo, but they also seemed inclined to turn a blind eye if you helped them out. It had actually worked out rather well for her, but she hadn't been on Kady's crazy island for days.
Not that she wouldn't prefer to be back in the cottage, with better alcohol and books. Though she kept meaning to check for any libraries here. "Hey, how's your magic working?" she asked, because that was one thing they hadn't discussed yet. Hopefully fully functional if they did indeed encounter something.
People distrusting magic was much more their norm. Or not believing in it at all. Going into a world where it was rampant had been jarring. Mostly because it worked differently than their own. The local witches didn’t seem to need to be drawing from pain to do it. A lot of the other Outlander ones didn’t either. Kady wasn’t even surprised that she’d gotten the short end of the stick on that. But her entire childhood had been one traumatic experience after another and adulthood wasn’t much better so drawing from inward pain was pretty easy.
“Seems to be at one hundred percent. No hiccups recently anyway.” Which was good considering the things present in the woods now seemed a lot more deadly.
“We could be trying out local food instead of traipsing through the woods.” Was that too much to ask for?
"Or we could be at a library," Julia replied. "You don't have to come with me. Turns out I'm still my indestructible self, probably." Considering they'd lost magic by killing a god, Julia didn't think she was completely invincible. But she should be fine with whatever was in the woods.
"Or when we get back we'll have even better food at our disposal because we've been out here." She shrugged though she didn't actually expect Kady to back out now. "And I'll owe you?"
Kady rolled her eyes. Like she was going to leave Julia to do this on her own. Upped power or not, it never hurt to have someone watching your back and Julia tended to do stupid things when she was on her own. They all did. It was kind of grating and completely expected by that point.
“Uh huh. Let’s just find whatever this thing is and get this over with.” The need to do the heroic shit was annoying and going to be all of their downfalls.
As if on cue, they were met with low growls, that at first seemed like they were coming from one direction, and then another.
And then another still. "I think whatever it is, they found us," Julia offered drily.
Of course it had. Kady wasn’t even surprised. At least they had gone out looking for whatever it was this time and she had full use of her magic. Both a big plus. Especially when three wolves leaped out of the woods at them. Normal wolves were already big enough but these things seemed to be even larger than most and Kady hated how Vallo seemed to like things bigger. It was basically the Texas of all alternate worlds. Bigger and badder.
At least the things didn’t talk.
Small favors.
She moved her hands, blasting one of them back and knocking it into a tree, letting Julia deal with one of the others.
Julia did the same thing, and had the same ease in disposing of it. When the two of them simultaneously hit the third, it felt like overkill and Julia laughed. "After those vultures, this seems anticlimactic." Though she hoped she hadn't just jinxed them.
Kady was not going to strangle Julia for saying that. She was not. Except it didn’t seem like they were jinxed. Nothing else came out of the woods at them. Maybe the past wasn’t that bad. “So what? We bring these bodies in and collect the reward?” Didn’t seem too bad of an option.
"Yeah, I guess," Julia shrugged, not having really thought that out. At least they had magic. And at least the wolves hadn't come back to life or something else crazy as Vallo seemed intent on throwing at them. But really this was feeling like a video game, and it was odd. Maybe she just wasn't used to the barter system when they'd arrived with no money and no deal to set them up with some along with a place to stay.
Though it was better to be in the city than the woods, and they were about to get paid nicely as long as their deal was met. Julia was pretty sure Kady might kill someone if not. And she was pretty sure she wouldn't stand in her way if it came to that.
"So this isn't exactly hard, but I hope we find a way back soon," Julia said. "Not sure this is the life I've always imagined for myself."
“Someone had better be working on the time travel shit.” Not her because that was not her forte, but there were enough magic whizes around that one of them had to be studying and figuring out what was going on. Kady planned to lay as low as possible. The city might have been better than the forest but she didn’t trust it much either. A place like that was full of thieves.
“Can you teleport us and them over to where we need to go?” Because she really didn’t want to try and carry the three dead wolves around.
* * *
"I guess there's benefits to being a goddess," Julia said, after they'd been paid for their troubles on their side quest into the woods. (With bonus pay for bringing in more than one wolf.) "Though it's unfair that like all these other forms of magic have some form of traveling just built in that's available to learn. Except maybe while we're here, it's possible to learn?"
She was going to try anyway, since her future away from Vallo seemed to include her losing this power and apparently memory updates could come at any point. It was better to be prepared. "Having magic that just exists and doesn't require personal tragedy also sounds like a plus."
“I’m not even surprised that we got the worst magic ever.” It seemed right in line with the rest of their lives for Kady. All the specializations, the pain, and everything else involved. Thirty-nine damn timelines where they all died or never existed in the first place.
“Others have been able to learn the different types of magic so I don’t see why it would be different for us.” Though, knowing their luck it probably would be. Maybe not though. Her magic had come back in bursts and she felt a little more tied to Vallo with it being 100%.
"Marina knows some Harry Potter spells," Julia said. "Learned them in Texas or something. I've been studying the theory involved." Partially because she was going to teach it, but partially because of course she was. She'd worked on a few different things with varying levels of success but there was definitely the potential to learn new magic in addition to what they knew from home.
"I just want to get away from the magic comes from pain bullshit. We've both had enough of that." All of them had, really.
Of course Marina knew Harry Potter spells. Kady wasn’t surprised that Julia was looking into that as well. She didn’t want to need to use a wand though. Wasn’t that something those kinds of witches used? She was pretty sure it went hand in hand. “I’m still working with Stephen. Learning what I can.”
His magic was different from her own. A lot more variables that she was still getting used to but Julia was right, getting away from the magic coming from pain bullshit was important. Because screw their world. “There’s a few others I’ve been learning from in the house too.” And just from the house itself. The Sanctum was ripe with magic.
"I'm glad you found that place," Julia said. She didn't really know how that had happened but it didn't really matter. Kady had her magic back and they were all but back to normal, which was what Julia had wanted all along. Even though she had recognized early on where Kady was coming from.
"There's so much magic inherent here, I think it's enough to power ours. I'm going to make it happen, either way." While learning as much as she could otherwise, because that's what she'd done since she'd learned magic was real, checking out every available source. "But you'll have to teach me what you learn."
She fell silent for a moment, before looking over at Kady. "How've you been doing, anyway?"
Kady shrugged. Talking about herself was never something she was going to be overly comfortable with, even with Julia. She was glad they had gotten back to a better version of their friendship, she’d missed it and Julia even when she was disappointed and mad with her. But Kady was happy not to be living at the cottage with all of its constant reminders. She hadn’t talked to Margo much or Fen, but neither of them mentioned Penny. And Kady knew what that meant.
She really doubted that he was still around. Ghost form or not. And that was something she wasn’t ready to internally deal with just yet.
“I’m good. Practicing magic. Exploring the city. You know, not this one. Figure I should decide on a job at some point.” Sooner rather than later. “You?”
Given that they hadn't really talked since their arrival, Julia was debating how much to say. Finally she decided on, "Oh you know. Showed up, heard about potential futures from Margo and Fen. Spent a week being depressed about it and making bad decisions." Like watching Q's death because her own curiosity and insatiable need to know really would kill her. "Then I decided to be more like you, and said fuck it. Margo and Fen don't even have the same future anyway. And Marina's from earlier on than them."
Which made her being upset about the show worse because what did she even know to be true?
"Our lives are fucked up enough already, no sense worrying about shit that might happen in the future." She was pretty sure Eliot got the same treatment when he arrived but was that the best thing to do?
"Anyway, I rather focus on what I can control." And not worry about whether or not she actually got with Penny from the 23rd timeline and what Kady would think about that, and definitely not about whether or not she really had a kid. Because that was not in her plans anytime soon.
Kady knew nothing of their supposed fucked up futures and had no desire to look into it. Considering how shit had already gone she couldn’t see anything actually getting any better. More like moving from one crappy situation to another and trying to make it seem a little nicer than what they once had. It was all bullshit and Vallo was a chance to shake it all off and start something new.
“Focusing on what you can control is usually the better option.” There were too many what ifs with the rest of them.
"Yeah," Julia agreed. "And I'm glad you're around for it." She gave Kady a nudge and then added, "Come on, let's go find more wine. I vaguely recall promising more of that if you went out hunting with me…"