Princess Rosella of Daventry (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
primrosella) wrote2011-04-18 09:19 pm
primrosella) wrote2011-04-18 09:19 pm
Entry tags:
- a bit tied up at present,
- absence makes the heart go yonder,
- all the cool kids know magic,
- augh seriously wtf,
- bad memories,
- behold my mad skills,
- curiosity killed the princess,
- do you believe in magic,
- has a fever; needs more cowbell,
- i'm attacking the darkness!,
- la femme rosella,
- not that kind of girl kthx,
- oblivious rosella is oblivious,
- really need a hug kthx,
- score one for the good guys,
- so farfetched it's gotta be true,
- something wicked this way comes,
- stronger now than yesterday,
- the lady or the tiger,
- the perils of being rosella,
- too many questions,
- what is this i don't even
Quest 266
[It's quiet down by the lake, or as quiet as the outdoors really tends to get--of course there is the whisper of wind through the new spring leaves, the rustle of small animals in the grass, the faint quacking of ducks echoing over the water--when Rosella arrives and takes her seat on her usual rock near the shore. It's smooth and familiar by now, and comfortable in its own way, and she spends a long time regarding the view in silence before she finally speaks. She likes it out here because it's a good place to think, and more importantly it's a relatively private place to think out loud, where she doesn't feel quite so foolish voicing her thoughts because she can pretend she's saying them to a baby lake monster who may or may not be listening, anyway.]
I'm not sure what to do, you know.
[She leans back against the rock, fingers sweeping over its worn surface.]
I've tried everything I can think of by now. It's been months since I first found that magic icon, and more than a month since I started trying to practice with it. I know there's power in it, but I'm just...I'm not a magician. I've looked over the spellbook and I've tried my best to read what it's meant for, but I can't make it work. There's no set of steps to follow, not like I've done before. There's just...nothing.
[She sighs under her breath.]
And it wouldn't be so bad, except that I don't think all this is over. The...the trouble we've been having. You've noticed it, too, haven't you? Well, I suppose you might not have noticed the harpies, being underwater and all, but--the clock's still quiet, and things are still changing, and it's May in two weeks. May is always a bad month for us, you must remember that much. And nothing I do...
[She stops short, closing her eyes and shaking her head a little. This is the part she always hates to admit, that whenever there's trouble, nothing she does ever seems to be enough.]
They told me this sort of spell...it's not like the others I know. Those are tricks, useful tools, ways of defending myself if need be. And goodness knows my necklace came in handy when we went outside where the barrier used to be and got caught in the storm, but...it's not the same, just getting away. It's not the same as a sword...or even a gun. This sort of spell is for attacking, Ellington. It's a spell for a fight. And as much as I may hate the thought... [She sighs again.] It's May soon, and there's always trouble, and I want...
[She's quiet again, another long minute.]
...I want this. I want to be able to fight if I have to. I hate that I have to do it, but this isn't home. It's not the same. And I don't have years to practice with a sword or a gun, not the way so many other people have. But I have this. I could do this much.
[She laughs a little, under her breath. There's very little humor in it.]
If I could call down a storm like Alexander...I wonder, you know, if it would have taken him as long as it's taken me to puzzle this out. I still can't make sense of it, but he's a magician and I'm not. Blue used to wish someone were here to teach me, remember? But I never have, not really. It's always just been me, puzzling things out on my own. Maybe that makes me stubborn--no, I'm sure it makes me stubborn. But I am, and that's how it is.
[Minutes pass, and she says nothing. An audience might think she were waiting for an answer, but she's really not; she's only thinking again, quiet, mulling over possibilities. There's no doubt that the City changes people; goodness knows she's changed a great deal since the day she arrived. She's not that girl anymore. But is she one who would do things like this?
She gets up, reaching into a hidden pocket in her skirt for her magic wand. It's familiar and heavy in her hand, charged with potential she doesn't know how to use.]
I've traced it. I've drawn it. I've passed the wand over it. I've said every magic word I can think of and then some. I've commanded it, I've asked for it, I've begged for it, and I just...can't make it happen.
[She closes her eyes, absently holding the wand aloft as her voice trails off. She's stared at that wretched drawing so many times, she can see it in her mind's eye, every corner perfect. She can see it and she doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't know how to command it, and it's so frustrating, but nothing is coming to her. There's magic in the wand, there's magic in the drawing, but something is missing and without it...without it--
And then, of all things, her cell phone rings; it's an sound unfamiliar enough that it startles her, and suddenly, something--clicks.
For a split-second, the sigil in her mind's eye seems to burn with light, and then suddenly she's falling forward onto her hands--paws--heavy and agile and diamond claws sinking effortlessly through the dirt. She's been a big cat before, a lioness, but it was so long ago that the sudden explosion of sensory information catches her off guard; she can hear everything, her eyes are tracking movement she never would have noticed a moment ago, her whiskers are flicking in the wind as a whole new array of scents become apparent to her.
She feels powerful, of all things, as she looks down at the orange and black fur covering over her paws, and a moment later, it's gone.
In the blink of an eye, she's human again, a pretty girl in a sensible red dress lying down near the shore of a lake, and she's two parts rattled and two parts bewildered and one very tiny part hopeful, eager, determined, because something just happened and she doesn't know what it was, but it was something, something, and now there's a tiny, nagging part of her that knows she needs to figure out what just happened so that she can do it again.
It takes her a while to stand up again, more because she doesn't trust her legs at the moment than anything else, but eventually she makes it back to her feet and supports herself on her rock, staring out over the water as if looking for answers in the horizon.
Naturally, there are none to be found.]
~
[Accidental Video | Open Action]
[It's late afternoon, dwindling into early evening, that finds Rosella in the Turnabout Cafe, seated at a table near a window and carefully sipping at a hot drink. Oddly, there's a bit of dirt and mud on the skirt of her otherwise neat dress--not near the hems, where one might expect it from some casual walking, but further up and streaked around where her knees would fall, as though she'd been kneeling on it somewhere outdoors. To anyone who knows her merely in passing, she seems normal and content as she drinks her beverage; for the people who know her well, it's a bit more obvious that something has rattled her. It's something about the eyes, the shoulders--she's decidedly more fidgety than usual as she talks to herself, the words almost too low to hear.]
...who lived upon a barge; in fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large...
[She sips her drink, and looks out the window, and drums her fingers on the table as her lips keep moving, absently, repeating the lines of some rhyme or another she's nearly forgotten and trying valiantly to recall.]
[OOC: Please assume this is backdated a few hours! And so the Iconomancy plot marches on. The first part is a solo log and merely there for reference; the second part is open action for anyone who wants it, and Network for everyone else.]
I'm not sure what to do, you know.
[She leans back against the rock, fingers sweeping over its worn surface.]
I've tried everything I can think of by now. It's been months since I first found that magic icon, and more than a month since I started trying to practice with it. I know there's power in it, but I'm just...I'm not a magician. I've looked over the spellbook and I've tried my best to read what it's meant for, but I can't make it work. There's no set of steps to follow, not like I've done before. There's just...nothing.
[She sighs under her breath.]
And it wouldn't be so bad, except that I don't think all this is over. The...the trouble we've been having. You've noticed it, too, haven't you? Well, I suppose you might not have noticed the harpies, being underwater and all, but--the clock's still quiet, and things are still changing, and it's May in two weeks. May is always a bad month for us, you must remember that much. And nothing I do...
[She stops short, closing her eyes and shaking her head a little. This is the part she always hates to admit, that whenever there's trouble, nothing she does ever seems to be enough.]
They told me this sort of spell...it's not like the others I know. Those are tricks, useful tools, ways of defending myself if need be. And goodness knows my necklace came in handy when we went outside where the barrier used to be and got caught in the storm, but...it's not the same, just getting away. It's not the same as a sword...or even a gun. This sort of spell is for attacking, Ellington. It's a spell for a fight. And as much as I may hate the thought... [She sighs again.] It's May soon, and there's always trouble, and I want...
[She's quiet again, another long minute.]
...I want this. I want to be able to fight if I have to. I hate that I have to do it, but this isn't home. It's not the same. And I don't have years to practice with a sword or a gun, not the way so many other people have. But I have this. I could do this much.
[She laughs a little, under her breath. There's very little humor in it.]
If I could call down a storm like Alexander...I wonder, you know, if it would have taken him as long as it's taken me to puzzle this out. I still can't make sense of it, but he's a magician and I'm not. Blue used to wish someone were here to teach me, remember? But I never have, not really. It's always just been me, puzzling things out on my own. Maybe that makes me stubborn--no, I'm sure it makes me stubborn. But I am, and that's how it is.
[Minutes pass, and she says nothing. An audience might think she were waiting for an answer, but she's really not; she's only thinking again, quiet, mulling over possibilities. There's no doubt that the City changes people; goodness knows she's changed a great deal since the day she arrived. She's not that girl anymore. But is she one who would do things like this?
She gets up, reaching into a hidden pocket in her skirt for her magic wand. It's familiar and heavy in her hand, charged with potential she doesn't know how to use.]
I've traced it. I've drawn it. I've passed the wand over it. I've said every magic word I can think of and then some. I've commanded it, I've asked for it, I've begged for it, and I just...can't make it happen.
[She closes her eyes, absently holding the wand aloft as her voice trails off. She's stared at that wretched drawing so many times, she can see it in her mind's eye, every corner perfect. She can see it and she doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't know how to command it, and it's so frustrating, but nothing is coming to her. There's magic in the wand, there's magic in the drawing, but something is missing and without it...without it--
And then, of all things, her cell phone rings; it's an sound unfamiliar enough that it startles her, and suddenly, something--clicks.
For a split-second, the sigil in her mind's eye seems to burn with light, and then suddenly she's falling forward onto her hands--paws--heavy and agile and diamond claws sinking effortlessly through the dirt. She's been a big cat before, a lioness, but it was so long ago that the sudden explosion of sensory information catches her off guard; she can hear everything, her eyes are tracking movement she never would have noticed a moment ago, her whiskers are flicking in the wind as a whole new array of scents become apparent to her.
She feels powerful, of all things, as she looks down at the orange and black fur covering over her paws, and a moment later, it's gone.
In the blink of an eye, she's human again, a pretty girl in a sensible red dress lying down near the shore of a lake, and she's two parts rattled and two parts bewildered and one very tiny part hopeful, eager, determined, because something just happened and she doesn't know what it was, but it was something, something, and now there's a tiny, nagging part of her that knows she needs to figure out what just happened so that she can do it again.
It takes her a while to stand up again, more because she doesn't trust her legs at the moment than anything else, but eventually she makes it back to her feet and supports herself on her rock, staring out over the water as if looking for answers in the horizon.
Naturally, there are none to be found.]
[Accidental Video | Open Action]
[It's late afternoon, dwindling into early evening, that finds Rosella in the Turnabout Cafe, seated at a table near a window and carefully sipping at a hot drink. Oddly, there's a bit of dirt and mud on the skirt of her otherwise neat dress--not near the hems, where one might expect it from some casual walking, but further up and streaked around where her knees would fall, as though she'd been kneeling on it somewhere outdoors. To anyone who knows her merely in passing, she seems normal and content as she drinks her beverage; for the people who know her well, it's a bit more obvious that something has rattled her. It's something about the eyes, the shoulders--she's decidedly more fidgety than usual as she talks to herself, the words almost too low to hear.]
...who lived upon a barge; in fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large...
[She sips her drink, and looks out the window, and drums her fingers on the table as her lips keep moving, absently, repeating the lines of some rhyme or another she's nearly forgotten and trying valiantly to recall.]
[OOC: Please assume this is backdated a few hours! And so the Iconomancy plot marches on. The first part is a solo log and merely there for reference; the second part is open action for anyone who wants it, and Network for everyone else.]