diviningtime

[diviningtime]

"Okay, wow."

[diviningtime]

this is a reminder that i literally do not care if you reply in five minutes, five months, five years.  still owe me something and want to start something new? go for it.  still owe me something and want to answer memes or send memes instead? go for it.  just not jiving with it and want to do something with a different character? go for it.  need to disappear into the wilderness and scream at the sky for a few years? no problem.  you take any and all the time you need.  this is a hobby, it is for fun, it should not ever cause you stress.  you do what you want to do when you want to do it.  i will never be mad bc you drop something or it takes a year for you to answer it.  this is a collaborative hobby that we do for enjoyment and if it isn’t fun, if it isn’t sparking joy, do something else. you take care of you.  

[diviningtime]

Uncertain of what names she had written, or where those names had come from, having no awareness of just how they had come to her, or even how she'd written them, Lilia dreaded Dionysia asking any further questions. Even amongst witches, Lilia found her gifts could sometimes be judged. Even amongst other divination witches she was different; her memory of her visions not always clear, her out-of-sequence life making her seem spacey, even a little clueless.

Centuries of experience had made her a little wary, even with someone who had given her no reason to be guarded.

"A number?" Lilia asked with a frown, the question not what she'd expected. After all, not everything could be predicted. . "Why do you want a number?" How was that supposed to help with any indecision? Nevertheless, Lilia gave a small shrug as she conjured up a number. "Four."

Dionysia understood the sentiment. After all, this power she had, it had come with a grave price, one that she unwittingly and unwillingly had paid much to her grief. And centuries after, continued to watch everyone she had ever formed even a smidge of a bond with die.

She glanced around as she saw the electricity going haywire, surprised but not alarmed by it. She saw the names, smiling as she saw Lilia's as one of them. Her eyes lit up, gazing sweetly at the other witch then.

"Thank you so much for this. Do me another simple, quick favor if you could; help with my indecisiveness. I want you to pick a number. Any number between one and ten, whichever one sticks out to you." she told her.

[diviningtime]

"Threatening me? Why would anyone be threatening me? I read palms for crying out loud," Lilia protested. She had learned from experience centuries ago not to be obvious in her gifts. That real divinations drew too much attention and led to being chased out of villages, or worse; prompting an arrest warrant with the intention of drowning you in the river once they caught you. A shop offering psychic readings was a way to use the power she had in a way that seemed, well, fraudulent. Why would anyone, or anything, want to threaten her over that?

"No, I'm not alright, they broke my window!" Lilia gestured at the shattered mess, barely any glass left, her mind already filled with everything she was going to have to do to fix it. "Do you realise how much that's going to cost to replace?" she demanded, one hand on her hip, even as Prue was already running off outside, presumably trying to catch whoever had done this. Lilia privately wondered if they would have any credit cards she could take.

"They give warnings now?" she asked drily, scoffing a little. If someone wanted to kill her, why give a warning? None of this made any sense. Unless...unless it was about something she hadn't technically done yet but was, at the same time, already in the past.

"I can't leave; what about my window?" This area might not have a lot of crime, but having no glass in your window was just asking to be robbed. "Wait." Not explaining, Lilia disappeared briefly into the back and came out a moment later carrying a large piece of corkboard, as big as the window, struggling a little with the size and the weight.

"I kept this from when a storm broke the window two years ago," she explained, getting a little breathless with the effort. "Help me fix it in place."

“ The why would be relevant now. I'm more interested in *what* is after you, Ms Calderu. Has anyone been threatening you lately? ” Prue interjected, taking a look around the shop, but all that she saw was clairvoyant equipment, decorations meant to set the right mood.

Before she could ask another question a loud crack of glass breaking made her jump a little, but Prue immediately reached out for the older witch, pulling her close and shielded with her arm. The deflecting side of her telekinesis protected them from getting hurt from the shards.

“ Are you alright? ” She asked with worry, taking no injuries herself. “ Wait here. ” Knowing there was no time to waste, Prue ran out of the shop, someone who caused it couldn't be far. But scanning the surrounding she found no one suspicious, so after a moment she returned to the woman.

“ That was a warning... Alright I can't leave you here. My car's down the street, come on. ” And she won't take no for an answer.

[diviningtime]

Lilia pulled back a little in amusement, looking vaguely pleased at that particularly complimentary assessment.

"Huh. Well, ain't that high praise," she observed, a smile through her words as she looked at him. She wasn't aware she was seen in such high regard, but she'd definitely take it.

"Not that I want to ruin the 'bad ass all knowing vibe'," she continued, making finger quote marks as she said it. "But no one is ever good at everything Teen. And tea leaves...ugh." She rolled her eyes, shaking her head a little at the memory of the lesson. "My teacher was convinced I just wasn't making the effort, that I just needed to trust myself. But the reality? I just couldn't see in those images. If I saw something, it was the wrong something. A hand instead of a web. Or prosperity instead of poverty." She shook her head again, still exasperated at the lessons even centuries later.

"So if you can't float things," she concluded with a sympathetic look. "It's not the end of the world."

"Yeah, well, maybe The Road can take it back," He grumbled. He knew very well that The Road hadn't been what had given him that power, all the energy in his veins that made him shake. Honestly, he thought he'd given it away, filling Agatha up to the brim. Still, it washed back over him, refeuling the pools in his belly and out the gate with the need to vibrate out of his skin.

It sucked is what it did.

He looked up at her, the pout still on his face. "Lilia you have never given me the impression that you were bad at stuff. A little meshugas, sure, but you still had the whole..."

He waved a hand vaguely over her form. "Bad ass all knowing vibe."

[diviningtime]

When people saw Agatha Harkness, or even thought about her, they usually had only one thing come to mind; witch killer. She was the witch who killed other witches, deliberately, seeking it out. But no person was ever one thing, one element, and Lilia could See a great many more layers to her, the things she hid both from others and from herself.

Sometimes it was easier to see than others, a clarity coming to Lilia with an unavoidable sharpness, as Agatha's skill for hiding her thoughts and emotions fell away a little. Lilia had Seen the mask slip in her shop, when she had felt just how much Wanda's curse spell had affected her, the mark it had left behind.

"I don't mean The Road," she countered, surprised Agatha would even think that was an argument. She hadn't 'stepped up' here; she wouldn't have even taken them on The Road in the first place if the door hadn't appeared before she'd managed to steal their powers.

Although if Agatha's confidence that the door would not appear was because summoning The Road required a real coven, what did it mean if the entrance had opened for them after all?

Lilia scoffed at Agatha's attempt at both an insult and a distraction. "I'm not the one cheating because I'm scared of the trials," she countered.

@diviningtime: "you can either step up to it or not , that's up to you ." accepting.

LILIA'S WORDS STAB DEEPER THAN THEY SHOULD. it is enough to startle the fight out of her, if only for a moment: retort teetering on her tongue as the thorns prick her skin through tediously threaded runes. for all her touch - and - go fits, the older witch has a habit of being unnervingly sharp when she's present. agatha doesn't like it. maybe admires it, just a little. finally, a scoff elicits from the desert her throat has become. “ uh, i have, ” palms spread as if to unveil the path they tread, the silhouettes of stretching trees underneath the perpetual twilight: brow twitches whilst her eyes widen, as much of a duh! as any verbal proclamation. “ the road, as we stand. honestly, what else must i prove? ”

willfully obtuse. because whatever avenue lilia is attempting to open between them, agatha doesn't want a lick of it. nope, no emotional vulnerability here. she made sure to scrub the tear - stains mascara had trailed down her cheeks. her hands lower, a subtle tilt of head as something in crystalline hues harden. as if to make a point: the diviner won't pry into her anytime soon. “ you should worry more about keeping up, don't you think? before we start dropping like flies around here. ”

[diviningtime]

LILIA CALDERU | AGATHA ALL ALONG ↪ divination

[diviningtime]

Nine came even more quickly than Lilia had wanted to, partly because moments before she'd been somewhere else, another time completely. Looking around, trying to figure out just when she was again, she saw the van pull up at the exact second the clock hit nine o'clock. Well, no one could see Mina wasn't punctual.

Wearing something much more practical than the garb she'd won earlier as part of her appearance as 'Madame Calderu', Lilia put on her embroidered coat, it's age and origin something of a comfort, as well as being a barrier against an east coast bite in the evening.

"This is your van?" Lilia asked in a mixture of disbelief and barely masked horror as she looked at the colourful imagery that adorned it. It was one thing for this to be Mina's interest, and for her to embrace it, but if anyone saw her getting into this and spread the word, her number of customers would drop significantly. "This is so humiliating," she muttered to herself in complaint as she climbed in the van, nearly falling out a little as she pulled the door shut.

"Why are you talking about hunting?" she asked once she was in her seat. "I thought you wanted me to communicate with the ghost, not hunt it."

𝐋𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀 & 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀 @diviningtime

Mina had plenty of questions about how visions happened, and what had happened to Lilia, then. But instead, she assured her that she'd wait for her outside, reminded her to be there at 9, and then left the little shop with her backpack on her shoulders.

At 9 PM sharp, she was parked out front in her van. It was her pride and joy, she had painted it herself. It was covered in aliens and spaceships, obviously. Not exactly subtle, and not great if she ever had to hide her presence. But Mina wasn't a subtle girl. The van was packed with all sorts of things she used for her investigations: cameras, spirit boxes, motion sensors, EMF readers...

She waved at Lilia from the driver's seat, with the window rolled all the way down. "Ready to go hunt some ghosts?" she asked with a happy grin. It wasn't that she didn't take her job seriously -she did, but Mina was excited about working with a real, proper medium. Who could talk to ghosts and everything. Surely it would make things easier... right?

[diviningtime]

You wanna know what my personal ‘Lilia rant’ is? The way people always claim witch is a metaphor. Oh they’ve used witches in this show as a metaphor to represent femal struggle, oh when people say 'witch' it's just a word for a strong, independent woman, oh using the word coven is a metaphor represent the gay community, oh it’s to represent this thing or that thing.

Sometimes it’s just representing witches. Sometimes it’s just us. Sometimes when the word is being used or is being talked about, it's just about witches, about people who are connected to something the mainstream isn't, people who aren't part of, as Zelda would call it, 'the false god's propaganda machine'.

I'm not saying it can't be used as a metaphor for any of the above things, or that you personally can't see it as a metaphor for your own experiences; my issue is with the constancy of it within media/reviews/articles etc, how witches always have to represent something else instead of just ourselves, and it just feels like an erasure for the modern era. Oh can't hang you at the gallows or shove you in a barrel of tar or cut off your breasts and shove them in your mouth anymore, so we'll just dismiss you as metaphors and fiction.

And there is someone on tumblr who posted about how this show was such great representation for witches because they actually did research and really based the fiction in real witchcraft. So I'm glad there's at least one post out there feeling that way.

[diviningtime]

Lilia almost told him that every person who stepped into her shop had questions, that this wasn't any different, and he could just wait until opening hours like everyone else.

But something stopped her.

Frowning a little as she looked at him, Lilia stepped forward, getting herself a little closer. Most people were incredibly easy to read; she knew the kind of character they had, their personalities, the moment they walked through her door, sensing the motivations for the their visits. And whether they deserved a truthful answer or not.

But this boy was different; it was almost like a fog, as though his very core was confused, shrouded in something else.

Blinking a little, unable to understand what it was she was Seeing, Lilia eventually indicated for him to come towards the table.

"Fine," she allowed, reaching for the wall switch in order to put on the main light so she could actually see what she was reading. Whoever the boy was, he was going to have to do without the usual ambiance. "Please, sit." She gestured to the chair.

"But," she added as she took a seat herself, sliding the tap-to-pay forward. "Don't think those puppy dog eyes are going to get you out of paying."

Fifteen minutes had passed since Nick had parked his car outside of Lilia's shop. Time that had been wasted because he was suddenly anxious. He had met a handful of witches before, his own little coven making up a majority of them. They had taught him that psychics were typically witches in two out of ten cases. Nick was anxious about the prospect and his own muddled past.  What if she saw something awful? What if he had suffered great trauma? That would explain his murky memories. Finally, after gripping his steering wheel until his knuckles had gone white, Nick stepped out of his car. 

Nick's nervous smile would welcome Lilia as she stepped into the shop. "-really? Oh crap. I didn't realize; I'm sorry." Now he really regretted wasting so much time. But he wouldn't give up so easily. He had already stepped foot inside and would make it quick. "Would you stay open an extra ten minutes for me, please? I've got questions, and you might have answers." Nick insisted with a frown, giving Lilia a lethal pair of big, old puppy-dog eyes. 

[diviningtime]

Lilia watched the man speaking, trying to understand what exactly it was he was talking about. Had she asked about his mother? Or was it something else? What had prompted this conversation? Looking around, she took in where she was, what was happening, and why this person was in front of her, talking as if they were already acquainted.

They'd been talking about being witches, the things that were said about them, all the infernal rumour-mongering. Although just as Lilia felt she had grasped what was happening, catching up, something else was thrown in her direction.

"Help with what?"

          @diviningtime

               "My mum rose to prominence in the eighties as an active witch who also happened to be a groupie in the midst of the satanic panic who scared the fuck out of men because she wasn't gonna put up with their shit. Whatever can be said about her and us witches in general." There was a pause I'm sure I've heard it before." There was a moment of consideration in tying hair up into bun, but witch ended up just placing elastic on wrist. "So what do you need me to do to help?"

[diviningtime]

The uncertainty was holding the girl frozen, trapped between decisions, between choices, wanting answers while being unsure of what the question actually was.

"Ahead," Lilia repeated when the decision was finally made. Odd; she would have assumed the girl would need a reading for the past. There was so much coursing around her, so much pain and worry, experiences, tormenting her. Her past was so heavy, it was a wonder she could even walk to her future.

But, it wasn't Lilia's job to question a customer's request. If she did, she imagined she'd be getting a lot less money.

"You have a lot of worries," Lilia saw, gesturing with an arm to the table, indicating for the girl to take a seat. "Worries that are starting to become fears."

"Thank you."

It sounds like something the older woman has said a thousand times before, but still, she's nothing if not polite. She's nothing if not respectful to her elders. More often than not, they have the wisdom that the younger generation needs.

"Um---" The younger of the two gnaws on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "---ahead, ma'am. Yes, ahead, I believe."

The warm, inviting smile puts her at ease and it is exactly that smile that causes her to stop hovering and step inside. She's here to ask about Lamia. Of course she is. Ever the dutiful sister, this one. How could she not be here to ask about her monsterous relative? (How could she not be here to ask if she, too, is about to turn into a monster, too? That is, if she hasn't been, already.)

[diviningtime]

AGATHA ALL ALONG 1.06 Familiar By Thy Side

[diviningtime]

Had my blood test this morning, and did not look and was singing Defying Gravity in my head to ignore the pain of the needle in and out. She took 3 vials apparently (I wasn’t looking but I took my mum with me and she saw). My inner elbow is a bit sore and I’m getting the results on Monday, so thank you all for your kind words. Bit knackered from the day (met a friend after for her birthday) but I will be on later to write.

[diviningtime]

I see people saying that when Agatha is leaning close to Lilia and Lilia is side eyeing her and then looking away that it’s because Lilia is gay and is feeling attracted to Agatha. Now I am not saying you can’t headcanon Lilia is gay or bi or Demi or ace or anything else you want (personally I assume all characters in any media are bisexual unless stated otherwise), but that moment was clearly wariness around a known witch killer whom Lilia does not trust in the slightest. She was experiencing the very relatable of feeling of being uncomfortable when someone intense is right in your personal space, especially when you don't like or trust that person.

Like, I can't stop people saying it, and people can think what they want, I just, I don't know, I think I get generally irritated when everything is linked back to attraction (in any media or sexuality) because so often people make romance or attraction the focus and that causes you to lose the nuance of other feelings and experiences.

[diviningtime]

@hcrctic

She had Seen what she needed to do, what had to be done before other things were set in motion, things that would be out of control and make the potential situation so much worse. Since The Road everything had been so much clearer, no longer experiencing gaps so much as interceptions, her gifts allowing her to move through time, experiencing things as well as Seeing them.

And she'd Seen the Scarlet Witch. Alive. Relatively content. Here, in New York.

"Wanda," Lilia announced her arrival by calling out her name quietly as she approached. "My name is Lilia Calderu." She took a breath, readying herself for the conversation ahead,. "There's something I have to tell you. That you need to know."

[diviningtime]

Lilia could see the effect her words had, that she had prompted a memory which touched a pain deep inside him. You didn't need to be psychic, to read people, to know that what she had Seen was something terrible, a cruelty that still haunted the man even now. Lilia tried to see more, to find more details, but the vision was lost from her mind, fading, and instead she found herself looking down at a tarot card being held out to her.

"The Hierophant," she read aloud, taking the card off him. However, the moment her fingers touched the image, she could feel something dark and uncomfortable. An unhinged presence. There was violence and pain. Torture. The kind Lilia had known centuries ago, the kind intended to coax false confessions, that ended in death whether the victim spoke or not.

Feeling a little overwhelmed at the memories, the pain and grief, Lilia took a deep breath, shaking a little, as she determinedly fought off any threat of tears. Clearing her throat, she focused on answering the man's question.

"The Hierophant usually represents a person of tradition, a role in hierarchal organisations, social structures," Lilia explained. "It is often taken to mean that everyone has their role to play, that upholding those structures is what helps keep the peace. Harmony."

She held the card back out for him to take. "Very fitting," she admitted, considering what she had read of the man so far for herself. "Whoever it is you're looking for; they understand tarot. They might even read it."

Sterling smiled at her correction and nodded in acceptance. While he didn't know much about psychics he did know actual magic, actual witches, and actual powers existed. He'd experienced it all. He had come into this shop fully expecting either outcome, but even then he didn't expect Lilia's next words.

The Hanged Man.

He stood up a little straighter and his entire body tensed. Sterling was going to try and play it off and had fully intended to reply with "Actually, it's The Hierophant but good guess." until she spoke again. Only about three people knew the details of Mason's case even within SHIELD. This was no coincidence. This woman was legit. There was no playing around it now. However, he did feel very uncomfortable with this woman suddenly knowing classified details. The agent never expected the skills he found here would be so powerful or so specific right from the moment he walked in. He glanced over his shoulder, pondering leaving, but instead reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a tarot card.

As much as he didn't want her to possibly divine anymore classified intel, if it could get them closer to solving The Carver case and putting a Hydra agent in prison once and for all, he'd risk it. Just this once. Perhaps she'd make a good consultant for SHIELD.

"I received this in the mail a few days ago. I think it might be a threat from the same man who made my friend The Hanged Man." Offering no more information he handed Lilia the card. He'd checked it for prints, poisons, black light, or any further clues or harm to be absolutely sure it was alright for civilians to touch.

"What can you tell me about The Hierophant?"

Clearly, he had been labeled as such and if the carver were to take him he knew what would be scarred on his back forever. He knew the internet's definition and it fit rather accurately from what he could tell. He wasn't sure what more he was really looking for from Madam Calderu. A more in depth analysis? A reading? Reassurance? Still, the internet could only give him a cursory glance at the card's meaning. What he sought was an expert's knowledge and to leave no stone unturned even if she provided nothing new to the case.

Still, this had him intrigued.