diviningtime

[diviningtime]

Wanted to be on more than I was tonight. Which was basically five minutes. But after the chaos of yesterday and then starting my period today and lack of sleep the day before yesterday, this Saturday rushed by in a hazy exhausted blur and by the time I managed to log on it was already 1.30am.

Which is killer because my muse is chomping at the bit. I want to write things and chat and peruse the dash...but I should probably listen to the part of my brain that says I should sleep. So until tomorrow, folks!

[diviningtime]

"How does darkness kill someone?" Lilia asked, not fully understanding. Darkness could seep into you, eating at every glimpse of light you carried inside you, until you were a shell of the person you were, metaphorically dead if nothing else...but actual physical harm? Darkness was just a concept, even when witchcraft was involved.

Unless this was something beyond witchcraft.

"Sabrina came up with a plan?" Lilia asked, failing to hide her scepticism. The young teenage witch had a lot of good qualities, and had a lot of achievements she should be proud of, but coming up with solutions definitely wasn't one of them. "Did she share any details?" 'Spell of containment' sounded a bit too vague in Lilia's opinion.

Gathering her breath back, she stood up a little straighter, feeling the impact of the confrontation, and the fright of it, beginning to subside. She looked out the window, at the startling darkness, the power cut everywhere, and turned her gaze back to Zelda, brown eyes searching for confirmation.

"It's bigger than this one thing. More than just Darkness."

Zelda took a moment to collect herself, attempted to calm her own racing heart as she said a silent prayer of thanks to Hecate that the creature hadn't called her bluff or, worse, begun to taunt her with her fears as one had earlier. Hilda had come to her rescue then, and she was grateful to now be able to do the same for Lilia, who seemed almost as shaken as she had been.

She tensed as the lights flickered. Surely it wouldn't return so quickly, she thought before Lilia's chime in and relaxed somewhat. After this was all said and done she was going to end up smoking several packs, she just knew. If they survived, of course.

"Its an avatar of darkness in the form of a miner. They're all over town, smashing lights and cutting out power and.. well a few mortals have been killed already by these things," she began to explain, crossing her arms. "One appeared in the middle of the Academy. Nasty piece of work, preying on your fears to drain all the hope and light from within you. But Sabrina and Ambrose have come up with a plan for the coven to attempt a spell of containment. It seems we're the last and only defense against this darkness consuming and destroying everything."

[diviningtime]

"And they'd probably get it wrong anyway," Lilia added drily, thinking on her experiences, not just of her own gifts, but of other people, witches and other things, who could see beyond times and realities; the more you knew, the more information was available, the less clear it became.

"We don't really tend to advertise ourselves," Lilia admitted. "Witches haven't exactly been received well over the centuries; we're often the first choice of a scapegoat." Although society seemed to be turning to other things now; a new imagined danger in the form of immigrants and the trans community. Different target, same cruel story.

Smiling a little in quiet amusement at xer question, Lilia shook her head.

"Just because your heritage is in Wales doesn't mean you have to go there for answers. Fae exist everywhere, just like witches. But if you're looking for the right direction, the woods is probably a good place to start."

Nodding at her request, Lilia stood from her chair and went into her apartment, coming back with a tall glass of tap water a moment later. The glass was as mismatched as everything else in her living space, collected over decades and centuries. This one was circa 1985 and had kept pretty well.

"Here."

Em wondered what xe'd said, but it seemed like it was for Lilia's ears only, so xe didn't press. At least it was in a language that Lilia could understand.

"I don't think anybody has all the answers. If they did, they'd either be the most powerful person or completely insane. -Maybe both. Probably both."

Em frowned at the thought of that. Xer head was already full as it was- the thought of having all the information sounded like a nightmare.

"I don't really know anything about real witches, but I've always thought they were cool in concept. Do you have any idea where I could start looking? For information? I can't exactly afford to fly out to Wales to figure stuff out."

Xe slowly sat up, feeling a little woozy as xe became fully upright. Despite xer best efforts, xe made a little startled sound. Xe clutched the table's edge but thankfully stayed upright.

"May I please have a glass of water?"

Water cured everything, right?

[diviningtime]

Continued from here @purelyradiating

It was painful to watch. Physically painful. Lilia tried to resist frowning as deeply as she was at Susan's efforts, feeling the lines burrowing across her forehead, but this reading might be if not the worst attempt she'd witnessed, then certainly the most nonsensical.

"No card is good or bad, and when it's reversed--" Lilia cut herself off as she watched the card hover above the entirely wrong place. "The reading has an order, you can't just place the cards anywhere! And," she added pointedly, "you need to actually read them before you put them down."

[diviningtime]

"Lilia..."

[diviningtime]

Sometimes I think about all the loves Lilia has had and lost before she decided to close off that part of herself.

And that possibly the last time she was truly in love, and allowed herself to feel that and take all the risks it entails, was probably as far as the regency era, maybe even further. But that in her youth, in Sicily, she was full of that hope and romance, and now that part of her has been put aside for so long, that even the the memory of the loves she had almost grow distant and foggy. Except perhaps on those occasions when something, a food or scent, a particular kind of night or weather, prompts a vivid, technicolour memory.

And that, because she lives her life out of sequence, sometimes she's back in the time where she is with those loves, but she can't enjoy it because it's tainted with the knowledge of how it ends, or how they die, etc, and that this out-of-sequence moment is the cause of one of the gaps in her past that contributed to her losing those loves and shutting off that part of herself.

Basically, I think about all this sometimes and make myself very, very sad.

[diviningtime]

Well, the wireless keyboard fits quite neatly on top of my laptop and is working well. Guess I just have to see what the battery life is like now. Plus the keys are about the same place as my laptop ones so there's no adjustment for placement. So far so good!

So on with replies!

[diviningtime]

"You want to travel through time and try to change an order of things that has been decided by Death herself." Lilia looked at Vivienne with quiet disbelief. "How could you honestly think that wouldn't involve other people?" And wasn't it just absolutely typical that Lilia would have to be one of them. No matter how much she tried to hide away, to live the life of a hermit, unseen and unbothered, unthreatened, things-- other witches-- repeatedly dragged her back in.

"What you're attempting to do, however ill-advised, will be far-reaching if you achieve it. If," she added pointedly in emphasis. "I'm not saying coming here was a good decision, but at least you had half the common sense to ask for advice." She threw Vivienne a knowing and wry look. "The next question is whether you actually take it."

Lilia pursed her lips, inclining her head a little in admittance at the insular nature of the Warren line. The insular nature of that family was known around the very witch community they seemed to so frequently separate themselves from. Perhaps it was for the reason Vivienne suggested, to protect people, but Lilia thought the answer was a little more complicated than that. And, in some cases, more egotistic. There'd been a Warren in the 1750s that everyone had heard about, and who everyone had rolled their eyes at.

"Witches have been dying for centuries, killed, attacked, hunted; the Charmed Ones aren't the only ones who are that kind of target," Lilia told her sagely, speaking from experience as well as knowledge. "It's part of the territory." And one of the reasons it could be so damn difficult. Lilia let out a heavy sigh. "Death...comes for us all." It wasn't a comfort, but it was a reality.

Looking around at the shattered glass from the lampshade bulb, Lilia was privately more concerned with whether it was going to need rewiring than what had actually caused it. A simple broken light bulb she could replace, but fried wires required paying for an electrician.

"It wasn't a problem before they invented electricity," Lilia admitted, wrapping her enunciation around the word for emphasis before going to get the dustpan and brush. "Candles don't generally explode." And neither her visions or her energy manipulation had any effect on an open flame, not without direct intent.

"Because there is no linear flow of time," Lilia explained, doing her best to be patient, as she crouched down and began sweep up the glass fragments from the bulb. "Everything has already happened and none of it has. It's happening now and it's yet to happen at all." She paused mid-sweep, looking up at Vivi from where she was crouched. "It's hard to change something when it doesn't have a fixed existence." She returned to sweeping. "Not even clairvoyance helps with that."

Lilia remembered Seeing the death of her coven, the fever, the plague, warning them all, trying to change it, to use her out-of-sequence existence to prevent it, but nothing had worked. They'd died anyway.

"Magic isn't a fix-all," Lilia protested, a scoff of a laugh slipping through her words as she stood up. "Being a witch doesn't automatically mean that everything is possible. Even we have limits. The world has limits." If it didn't there'd be chaos, things would break down, dimensions, realms, worlds, all of it.

Taking Vivienne's palms in her hands, Lilia looked at both of them, turning her gaze from the right to the left, comparing the lines she read there. The past and the future, the internal and the external.

Unlike most other people, Vivienne's palms were an exact mirror of one another.

"You might have a chance..." she reasoned aloud as she continued to study the lines, her fingertips tracing the creases.

A new insight. An epiphany perhaps.

What if Lilia was right, what if she was indeed involved in the girl's life? It was no coincidence she was here right now. Maybe, just maybe, Vivi's journey won't start when she goes through the portal, maybe it had already started when she had been led to Lilia. That was a take Vivi hasn't considered, instead kept stubbornly thinking that this journey was hers alone and the people she'd meet along the way would be on the outside, not letting anyone into her bubble.

“ I'm sorry. I never meant to drag you into this mess, I didn't want to involve anyone, it's.. I overreacted, I'm sorry Lilia. ” With a sigh came a cruel reality that, no matter how prepared and self assured she would seem, this was still a trip to the unknown. Unpredictable. “ Does that mean.. coming to you was a good decision? ”

“ I don't know many other witches. ” Vivi pressed her lips together in more of a grimace than a smile. “ And the ones I did know got killed for getting too close to the Charmed Ones. Middle of a battlefield isn't exactly the place for a spell or potions witch.. I had a friend.. ” No, she pushed that thought away. Demons always searched for a way in, since the Warrens were too strong to crumble, a way in was through the people they cared about. “ Our insularity is probably for the better for all the witches in the vicinity, to stay away from us. ”

Such a waste of potential, Vivienne wasn't made to live in such exclusion. The girl was so eager to meet other witches, learn about their magic and discover new possibilities outside of their own family, which could as well serve as its own coven with how big it was. However, if these new witches would be in danger because of the Warrens, it was not worth the risk.

“ You're really hard to bargain with, you know that? ” Vivi shook her head in disbelief, small smirk tugging at the corner.

A pause. Something was happening. The energy rapidly increasing, something that Vivi herself hasn't started, but if it would grow to the extent of —

Abrupt outburst of energy when the current was too high to be contained made Vivi jump a little, this much power released in a blink of an eye. She watched the sparks falling, mouth agape, before turning to Lilia.

“ Your magic.. it radiates so strongly, alters the flow of energy. ” She spoke quietly, hint of admiration couldn't be denied. Lilia could color her impressed. It wasn't often that she saw other witches being able to resonate with energy, and especially not this way, whether it was intentional or just a release of power overload.

“ Why can't you? I mean, if you tried changing the past or the future, what would happen? ” A question pushed on her lips before giving it a bigger thought. But then again, even if she thought it through, she probably still would've asked. The need to know why wasn't it possibe was just too strong, it could wreck the whole plan.

Vivi had had enough of fighting with Lilia, deep inside she was starting to doubt herself, the plan, not the idea of it, but the execution. Was there a better way? The enthusiasm she came with, buzzing and boiling at its edges, slowly began to die down.

“ It gets me when someone says something's impossible. ” She explained calmly. “ I refuse to accept that, we have magic, for crying out loud. It just means we haven't found a way to do it yet. It's limits are where we let them to be. Grams always used to say that we're witches, that we can do anything.. For me, the question was never if, the question is how. ”

She looked up at Lilia, speaking directly while she locked her eyes on the witch. “ The risk it carries.. Lilia, I'm not stupid. Reckless, impatient, but not stupid. I'm aware that this is a one way journey, that I'll be all alone and sooner than later meet my end.. but if it works, then it's worth giving my life for. ” Her own life wasn't that valuable anyway. Vivi didn't want to stay in this time, live the life of an outcast in her own family.

Instead of another flood of questions, Vivi decided to remain silent this time. Her quick mouth caused enough problems already. If Lilia had any idea of what to try, Vivi would only listen, the least she could do was try to listen.

Without a word she held her hands out over the table, a few rings on her fingers, but nothing the school etiquette could complain about. The clothes however, that was something the school could have some objections.

[diviningtime]

Lilia had known there was something strange; whenever she looked at Sabrina it was as if she was seeing double. Or looking at the girl's reflection at the same time as looking at the girl herself. Perhaps she would have figured out why that was what she was Seeing if the whole idea wasn't absolutely insane! And if Sabrina hadn't been running off in the other direction every time she saw her.

"Agatha," Lilia protested, unable to believe she wanted to keep the whole thing a secret as if she were just hiding Sabrina's newest crush. "This isn't Sabrina sneaking out to a party, she is interfering with time and space. Not to mention the--" Lilia cut herself off before she could spiral into an entire list of everything that was wrong with this situation. "Of course Zelda needs to know," she insisted in disbelief. "Everybody does."

"There's two Sabrina's, and no neither of the aunts know, just me and Ambrose, so you can't say anything either alright." Hecate it felt good to finally get it off her chest. It was getting harder and harder to avoid the other woman. So yes Sabrina Lilia was that good with her gift. "You're going tell Zelda on us aren't you?" A fingernail goes between Agatha's teeth.

@diviningtime Gets a random thing because i'm doing a rewatch and we just got to the two sabrina's

[diviningtime]

Lilia scrunched her face in distaste at the films mentioned. Harry Potter; absurd fantasy, Hocus Pocus; portrayed witches as eating children, and The Craft might be single-handedly responsible for the masses of teen new age wannabes in pentagram necklaces and black eyeliner trying to summon gods with a black candle. They were as embarrassing as they were irritating.

"I'd stay away from media if you want an accurate portrayal of witches. Or aliens and gods for that matter," she added in allowance.

Sighing a little as she realised she might have to explain things. "Just because some humans believe we exist, doesn't mean they know anything about us, that they've gotten any part of it right," she told him. Most of it was born out of myths and propaganda.

"Witches don't eat children," she added after a pause, just in case the likes of Hocus Pocus had given him the wrong idea.

"Earth people," Percy shrugged. It had been three years, but they still managed to blow his freaking mind sometimes. When they first crashed into that water he had never imagined crossing paths with not just gods, but now witches and sorcerers, and all the other oddities. Hades, but even naming their children at birth rather than the way they did back home still put knots in his stomach. "Perseus had papers. I need them if I don't want to end up in Area 51, as the Earth people call it."

"I've seen the Craft. Hocus Pocus, Harry Potter seemed to be an important one so I watched that quickly. I have trouble reading," Percy said. "I'm open to suggestions on other movies you think should watch. But if it's anything like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I'm never speaking to you again."

He rolled a shoulder back and had to look away. That one still haunted him.

[diviningtime]

A smirk pulled at the corner of Lilia's mouth as a hint of a scoff slipped through her lips. The girl was still a child in most adult eyes, but for Lilia, looking through the lens of centuries, the girl was barely more than a toddler.

"Being an adult means accepting when people know more than you. And that just because something feels shitty doesn't mean that it isn't helping," she countered pointedly.

@diviningtime sent: " believe it or not, kiddo, i'm doing this for your own good. "

Meme: Gruff and confused parent prompts

"I ain’t a kid. I’m a whole ass adult.” Sure, that was the part she took exception to. It definitely wasn’t because kiddo is what her father called her. She wasn’t that sensitive, of course not. She was grown up…

“Exactly which part of this is for my own good? ‘Cause so far this feels pretty fuckin’ shitty.”

[diviningtime]

Lilia pulled an amused face, shrugging a little in allowance of the argument while not exactly agreeing with it. She'd had enough forewarning throughout the centuries and it rarely saved anyone. That was the hardest part of seeing what was coming; people refusing to listen, or the events happening anyway.

Smiling at the mention of Wikipedia, all too familiar with witches' doubts around palmistry, Lilia simply took Wanda's hand in hers and began to look at the lines. She pressed the skin a little, flattening here, scrunching there, to make things a little clearer.

And then frowned.

It was like the lines were moving within themselves, layers upon layers, multiple palms in one hand. Lilia blinked, shaking her head a little, hoping it would clear, but it didn't. She was Seeing more than just Wanda's palm now; she was Seeing every possible one.

"There are dozens of lives here," she said, her voice filled with the bewilderment of the realisation as she looked at Wanda "Maybe hundreds."

"Do you think I'd have such a terrible track record at keeping my life together if I'd had any sort of forewarning?" She joked weakly as she sipped her tea. Wanda loved her little tea and chats with Lilia, she'd started bringing any and all weird tea blends she could find for them to try, occasionally a nice bottle of red wine to split. Even though she, a red-blooded witch with prophetic tendencies, found it hard to believe Lilia's palm reading shtick.

She sighed and relented her left palm, unsure that she wanted a sneak preview of whatever came next. "I'll know if you just sped read my wikipedia page." She joked.

[diviningtime]

We're gonna get it

[diviningtime]

"It should make you feel better," Lilia told her honestly. "It doesn't matter where your thoughts land about Agatha, the two of them have a connection for some reason. Be glad she can't influence him the way she thought she might."

Lilia could understand Wanda's displeasure, any witch's displeasure really, when it came to Agatha Harkness, but The Road, real or not, had revealed some painful and tragic truths about all of them.

"Maybe he'll feel better knowing he isn't the only one searching for answers," Lilia suggested gently, sympathy in her brown eyes as she looked at the Scarlet Witch. "Sometimes that's all we need; to know we're not experiencing something alone."

"I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse." She muttered with an equally dry look, also only half-joking. To her mind, Agatha simply didn't deserve the sunlight of her son's company, and maybe he would realise that one day, but teenagers often had their own ideas about everything. Optimism that Wanda had long said goodbye to in her own heart. "He's his Father's son alright." She added, mainly to herself as she crossed her arms uncomfortably.

She listened to Lilia suggest that she had a duty to answer Billy's questions. "I cannot answer them, Lilia, I barely understand this for myself. What chance do I have in explaining it to him in a way that will satisfy those gaps?" She told Lilia, holding her hands out slightly to indicate what 'this' was.

[diviningtime]

I went from zero drafts to 12 literally overnight, haha. But managed to get them down to four, with them all currently queued. Not going to post anything tonight because I'd rather wait until finishing all the drafts first.

[diviningtime]

"I know what drachmas are," Lilia told him with the amused patience of an older person being thought ignorant by the younger. She actually knew more about Greece than most would expect; it and Sicily had more than a little cultural and historical overlap.

"Why do they want the apple?" she asked frankly. "If they're sending you somewhere that requires you to clean up wounds--" She heavily enunciated the words for emphasis. "--they should tell you why they want it. How do you know whatever it is that's guarding it isn't its rightful owner?" She raised her eyebrows in challenge. Just because a god said something didn't make it true.

"What? So Zeus owns the entire skies?" She rolled her eyes to the sky in question, shaking her head in irritation. "Unbelievable."

"Yeah. It's got about two hundred dollars, some drachmas, uh, greek money, I mean. It's got spare underwear and stuff to clean up wounds with. Things heroes need when they go questing." Percy explained. Not so much as going questing, to be fair it was more like being sent on a quest. "Well, there's some ... thing guarding a golden apple, and for some reason the gods want it back. So they're sending me."

Of course, Ladon was no typical dragon, but hell, if normal half-bloods did crap like this then who was he to stick out like a sore thumb? Percy looked at her, brow furrowing.

"I was claimed by Poseidon," He reminded her. "A child of Poseidon is not welcome in Zeus's domain, not without special permission. He'd smite me before the plane took off."

[diviningtime]

@blkhcrt sent: "Have the headaches started yet?"

"Headaches?" Lilia repeated, brown eyes widening in barely masked concern. "What headaches? What are you talking about? Why would--"

Lilia forced herself to stop, pursing her lips in an effort to control what was fast becoming just an escalating amount of furious questions. Don't rise to it, she reminded herself, and be calm.

She looked at Rio, one hand on her hip, head cocked slightly in frank query.

"What are you talking about?"