iterumrp | Arrival Mingle

Entry tags:

Arrival Mingle

Who: Everyone.
What: The Chosen return or arrival in the City.
When: July 1st.
Where: The Districts of the City.
Anything Else? Feel free to make your own arrivals, or throw an arrival starter here! The party is open to all. As a reminder, language barriers are not an issue in the Tower.

The City hadn't changed at all in its time without the chosen. If anything, The City seemed a little dusty. The Chosen would find themselves waking in their assigned homes. Even if they were returning and had other homes. They would wake in their chosen home. For the most part, anyway, a few chosen had special ways of arriving.

The assigned housing varied depending on the district they were assigned according to their sin. However, everyone had a box, a welcome package awaiting them upon waking. Inside the box was an extra invitation inviting them to the tower if they so decided to come visit upon arrival.

The city was once again bustling with life. Cars, demons, and the people of the City moving as if time had never stopped. Business as usual for the returning Chosen.

The Tower

While it was not Aiden's district, he had talked the Duchess into opening up the ballroom, and Skiffell to provide food, that just didn't seem to end. The grand ballroom was filled with many delectable dishes, and a small band of demons playing big band music in the corner.

The doors were propped open with the music drifting out to help lull the chosen who decided to attend. A handwritten poster board outside the open doors displaying 'Welcome Chosen!' with about 10 smiley faces drawn on it. While normally parties at the tower demanded fancy dress, Aiden throwing a party meant that rule would not be abided. He didn't dig out the fancy threads for anyone. This was a different kind of party, put together by the lord of Leisurebrook.

While Aiden didn't plan to reveal himself as a magistrate, he did love to mingle with people and hear their stories. So he was there. He was napping at a round table off in a corner, his messy brown hair spilled over his crossed arms as he napped as if he didn't have a care in the world.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was possible that Sam wasn't anywhere near as observant as Avery (fuck that guy), but it didn't take Auspex or any supernatural ability to spot someone pull a fucking magician's wand out and suddenly make food levitate.

Um. Hello?

She'd been lingering along the walls, playing the disaffected youth that she was, but when she saw that, Sam dropped all pretenses and immediately crossed the room, her combat boots thumping.

"Okay, how the fuck did you do that?" she asked. No preamble, because what was the point? The rules of natural order or whatever were shot to hell. Might as well just be honest in her curiosity.

And it was curiosity, in all fairness. Not an accusation, not a fearful pronouncement. She was a scientist and her scientific mind was reeling so fast, it practically made her baby blues light up.

He's a bit surprised when someone walks up to him and just starts talking, but a quick look in her direction shows no trace of anger or fear, which can happen when a Muggle witnesses magic use. Though perhaps he'd been a bit rash in using it anyway, although at this point he doesn't much care what the Ministry thinks about anything.

"It's a simple levitation charm."

Simple. Levitation. Charm. Three words that really didn't belong in a sentence together. Sam was aware of magic, as a thing that existed. Mostly shit that the Crones and the Lance did with their blood. It wouldn't even surprise her if somehow they had spells for levitation. That said...

One, this dude was not a vampire.

Two, as far as she could tell, there had been no blood involved.

Three. He had a wand. A wand. Neither the Crones nor the Lance would be caught dead with that shit. They'd be laughed right out of their covenants, as far as she knew. So her questions were multiplying. Fast.

"Okay," she said slowly, the gears turning behind her eyes. "What's being charmed, the food or the gravity around it?"

"The...food." He's never really thought about how or why the magic works before, just knows how to do it. Theory and history had been more up Remus' alley than his and James'; they'd found the practice of magic more interesting than the theory. Which isn't to say that he didn't get good grades when he applied himself to the work. Just that essays weren't his thing.

The food itself. Possibly changing its density, somehow? Did that remain true when it was eaten though? Wouldn't that essentially be transforming matter into another type of matter? Was a flying burrito actually a burrito? Or just some strange combination of low-density gases?

"Huh."

It was all she could get out for a second or two without spiraling. Not her most sophisticated response, admittedly. But come on. Extenuating circumstances.

She had more than a few.

"Cool," she managed. "And the stick? Some kind of conduit?"

"It's a wand. There are wrist movements associated with the charms, which is what the wand is for." Though some people (himself included) can do magic without a wand, it's generally a requirement; he supposes it could be a conduit, just not explained in those terms.

He's also confused by this conversation, mainly her interest in the topic.

Wand. Okay, he was actually going with wand. She supposed the term and concept itself had to come from somewhere. Even if it felt kind of cheesy.

Who the hell was she to judge? She was a fucking vampire. True, she refused to use the word 'Kindred.' But even 'vampire' itself had connotations. Nothing to do about that.

And on the subject of vocab words...

"Are you a Mage?" she asked. Avery kept a file on Mages. He was absolutely convinced that they had to exist. So far, Sam had conceded the point that magic seemed strangely common in the multiverse. But she had yet to put a name to all of it.

"I'm a wizard." Though now that he thinks about it, he's not sure what the distinction is between the various words used to describe magic users. Someone just seems to have chosen that word at some point in the past, and the rest of the wizarding community went with it. Had that topic been covered somewhere in History of Magic? For what will probably be the only time in his life, he wishes he had paid more attention in that class.

She decided to give the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn't a Grand Wizard kind of wizard. If he was, then she would be obligated to kick his teeth out.

And she decided that that was somehow different from Mage, although she didn't know how, exactly.

Her eyebrows disappeared under the fringe of her wig. "All right," she said. "Wizard. Wizard with a wand. Who can make food float."

"I can do a lot more than make food float." Even some things that most can't, although that's not something he intends to bring up at the moment. That secret has kept him from being found more than once. "It just keeps me from having to go around the table."

Honestly, Sam wasn't sure if she had telekinesis if she would use it for something as trivial as that. On the one hand, it felt like a giant waste of power when it was easier to walk a few fucking steps. On the other hand, if she had telekinesis, she might want to use it for everything. Because it was telekinesis. And that was just kind of awesome.

None of her vampiric Disciplines were nearly as cool.

Most of them, she felt damn guilty when she used them. So she didn't. Until she had to. It was complicated and messy. And she didn't want to think about it.

"Are there...a lot of wizards in your world?"

"I don't know. That depends on what you mean by a lot." He's never really thought about it, because the existence of wizards has just been a fact of his entire life. He knows there are more Muggles than wizards, but as far as he's aware, no one has ever figured out percentages between the two. "England alone has thousands, and we're all around the world."

Sounded a little like Kindred. Probably better than Kindred, since most Kindred sucked. Sam, however, decided to keep that to herself.

She was beginning to suspect that she was the only one in this hellhole. Which made it slightly less hellish, hopefully. According to the math, a place with a population this small could probably only sustain two anyway.

One was plenty.

"Cool," she said. "I guess."

"You sound unimpressed." Which is fine with him. Magic and wizards may be all he knows, but he also knows they're outnumbered by Muggles. Too many people he knows are concerned with someone's magical status, and more than that the supposed purity of their blood, that it's refreshing to find someone who doesn't care about it at all. He's had enough of war and betrayal and the loss of friends.

She supposed she did. And that that was pretty fucking careless of her. Honestly, though, the importance of the Masquerade had been bordering on non-existent back home. She was failing to truly conjure up much of a good reason for it here.

Other than conditioning and habit, maybe.

And the possibility that someone might try to lop her head off with an axe or something. Fortunately, this guy didn't seem like the axe-lopping type.

"How should I react?" she asked, rocking slightly on the balls of her feet.

"I'm just used to being surrounded by people for whom that sort of thing not only matters, but how far back someone can trace magic in their family determines the quality of person." Which just seems like the easiest way to explain it.

It's honestly more than a little refreshing to see someone not caring a single bit.

"Yeah, I'm familiar with the type that cares about bloodlines and shit." She was a Ventrue, after all. And it was always awkward to sit in on those meetings, listening to Jericho yammer on for what felt like hours and hours, retracting the line of sire after sire after sire.

It was all bullshit.

Absolutely all of it.

And her expression conveyed exactly how much she felt it was bullshit.

"You know what I think matters? Not being a dick. I'm funny that way."

"Not really. I think that's a good place to start." All the bloodline business means nothing to him either. He knows how skilled he is at magic, but he also knows it has nothing to do with the purity of his blood or anyone else's. There are plenty of talented witches and wizards who didn't have a drop of magic in their family's blood. "No one who cares about that sort of thing is any fun anyway."

Fucking shit. He was writing a textbook description of Jericho.

Which only elevated him in Sam's esteem. Even if he was a little weird about how he took food from a buffet.

Since she deemed him worthy, Sam thrust forward one hand, the light twinkling off of her chipped, black nail polish. "Sam," she said bluntly. No point in bothering with last names, at this point.

If there's one thing Sirius Black knows, it's fun. And that his family is none of it. Not that that's the reason for the rift between them.

He reaches out to shake her hand. "Sirius."

She had a firm handshake, despite countless lectures about how she shouldn't, how a hunter could be anywhere, stalking her, waiting for her to slip up. Well, fuck that. Hunters weren't everywhere, but dickheads were and she knew what they said about a girl with a weak handshake.

Nope. Sam wasn't having any of that shit.

"Sirius," she said. "Like the constellation?"

This poor shmuck. That was a rough name. She wondered how many times someone asked 'are you being sirius right now?'

"Like the star, yes." Which he doesn't really mind, actually. Not as much as people might think. His name isn't that unusual by wizard standards.

'Are you being sirius right now?' had been James' favorite joke though...

Star. Right, right, right. Now that she thought about it, didn't they call it the 'dog star?' Oh, that just opened up a whole new realm of potentially mean, name-related teases, including the whole realm of doing things 'doggie style.'

Yeah, Sam had learned a lot in foster care. The most important lessons? Space Wars was the best movie trilogy of all time and name-related bullying was pretty much the most universal thing in the history of ever.

She kinda felt bad for this guy. But only kinda. He did have fucking magic, so that kind of had to compensate, she figured.

Samantha was Hebrew for 'God as heard,' so as far as ironic names went...she still won.

"So, uh, what other kinds of cool shit can do you, Sirius?" she asked, nodding slightly to his wand.

What else can he do? Plenty. It would probably be quicker to explain what he can't do.

"Various charms, which is what levitation is, potions, transfiguring one thing to another. Magic can do just about anything."

"Potions?"

No big surprise that's what caught her attention. As far as she was concerned, transfiguration was a myth and charms were just something you found in marshmallow cereal.

But potions? That was chemistry. And chemistry was only a half step away from biology. Which was pretty much where Sam lived so...

Yeah, she was going after what she could wrap her mind around.

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