ourladytrees | the magician and the sorcerer

[ Terminology and names are important. Just chalk it down to any moment he's corrected others about himself: he's a sorcerer, not a wizard; he's a doctor, not a mister. So he simply nods and mentally jots it down for future reference. ]

Doctor Stephen Strange. At your service, Julia, [ he introduces himself, but doesn't reach out for a handshake, his hands instead still folded into the depths of the lcoak.

He could have cast a divination spell and wrung all the relevant information out of her skull more quickly, but the others have had to remind him that it's far more polite to ask. To talk it through. So, Strange lifts a hand and spins it in midair, carving out another portal; on the other side, she can see a comfortable sitting room resembling a Victorian parlour, all squashy armchairs and a fireplace and overcrowded bookcases. ]

Step on into my office, and you can tell me about your troubles.

[ 'My office', as if he's still a consulting physician— but in a way, isn't that still true? ]

[ Names are important, that's certainly something they agree on. By virtue of her lack of formal training, she's technically a hedge witch, but hedges are still magicians and she claimed that title as her own along time ago. There's nothing wrong with being a hedge but the social hierarchy of the magical world likes to say otherwise, which never ceases to infuriate her.

So, she makes note of his own title, some half-forgotten memory struggling to rise as she turns his name over in her mind. He'd been in the news recently? She'd been a little preoccupied with being hunted and hunting down a god, plus the whole loss of magic, but she's certain she's heard of him before.

And then he does that portal thing again. The grin that spreads across her face brightens every part of her as hope buoys her spirit. This might work. Slipping her hands into her coat's pockets, she doesn't hesitate to step forward, her heeled boots clicking across the foyer and into the 'office' as she moves through the portal. That crackle of magic is there, sparking against her senses, and she turns back as he comes through himself. ]

So is this in some sort of pocket dimension or something, or are we still in the building and you just like showing off?

[ Okay, she can't help but let a little bit of her usual sass slip through. It's more of a gentle teasing than anything, certainly not the cruel mocking she was capable of without her Shade, and she truly doesn't mean anything negative by it. She's the one who was blowing magical smoke rings at a party a few weeks ago to 'show off' and give someone hope for the future, so she doesn't really have a whole lot of room to talk. ]

[ Strange hides his laugh in a cough. Normally Wong is the only one who catches onto it so quickly and, more importantly, also has the nerve to point it out and skewer Strange's inherent sense of flamboyance. He likes to show off with his abilities, particularly after losing the title of Sorcerer Supreme. And particularly when his guest is a good-looking woman, so sue him. ]

We're in another corner of the building. [ A twinkle in his blue eyes. ] I'm showing off. It's the little things, sometimes.

[ As if to reinforce the point, he snaps his fingers and the fireplace roars to life by itself, as he settles down in one of the armchairs. Leaning backwards and an elbow against the arm of the chair, chin tipped in hand, observing Julia across the space of the comfortable room. ]

But in fairness, the Sanctum Sanctorum tends to rearrange itself on a whim and occasionally the stairwells lead to places you wouldn't expect. It's just faster and easier to portal.

Edited 2022-06-21 05:36 (UTC)

[ She's pretty sure that was a laugh he tried to hide, and she'd bet money on it after seeing that look in his eye. He was amused that she called him out on showing off — that certainly bodes well, considering holding back her commentary has never been her strong suit.

Selecting an armchair opposite his, she gracefully settles into it with her elbow on the arm as well. The pose gives her easy leverage to glance around the room in open curiosity. ]

So this place is basically Hogwarts Castle. [ Ten seconds is all she can manage before her fangirl-like excitement slips out. ] That's so cool. How many people live here?

[ Yes, they were supposed to be talking about her problems, but she can't help it. When she's curious, the thirst for knowledge simply will not be quenched. Not until she has her answers anyway... which explains what she's doing here in the first place. ]

[ Grudgingly, because Strange hates to be compared to Harry Potter shit but dammit, it's apt: ] Yes. Sort of. Don't stop and look at any of the portraits if you can avoid it, though; if they move, then you really don't want to meet their eye.

[ He doesn't actually sound flippant when he delivers that piece of advice; it might be a genuine warning, after one too many novices had been swallowed up into the paintings. Julia's wide-eyed astonishment and excitement is contagious, though, and he remembers then what it had been like. Starry-eyed, mindblown. Stephen had tried too hard at the time to seem cool and blasé and unaffected, but the whole time, he'd felt his awe almost overwhelming him.

To answer her question, he doesn't count it off on his fingers, but he does tip his head as he tries to tally them up: ]

We're smaller than Hong Kong or London. So it's only Wong— that's the Sorcerer Supreme— [ ugh, credit where well-deserved credit is due, ] and myself full-time. There's currently three other masters which cycle in and out, and about five apprentices, but they're on loan to headquarters at the moment. Finishing up their training with the Brakebills exchange cohort.

[ The Masters of Mystic Arts hadn't been eager to parley with the Dean of the college, decades ago, but the proximity of the New York Sanctum to the upstate campus meant they were bound to run headfirst into each other. Leylines tangled and knotted; magician graduates accidentally threw interference into the sorcerers' spells when they strayed too close; and all in all, it meant the two institutions had to roll up their sleeves and shake hands eventually and cut a kind of deal. And so Kamar-Taj had been pitched as a destination for exchange students and vice versa: spend a majestic semester in faraway, foreign Nepal! try to learn portal magic! (it's far warmer and more pleasant than Brakebills South!) ]

I take it you haven't visited any of our nexuses before?

[ Don't look at scary moving portraits, check. Slightly terrifying message received. For once, her self-preservation instinct overpowers her curiosity and she doesn't need to know what exactly happens to the people who don't heed that warning.

If only the sorcerer could have seen Julia when she first realized that Fillory was a real place she could visit. Over a decade of idolizing a fictional world, of living and breathing the adventures of the Chatwins, only to suddenly learn it was a place that actually existed? She'd just about lost her mind. And then she'd gone there... Well, that journey hadn't ended as well as it started, but that doesn't need to be part of the story.

Listening to his explanation of the Sanctum, she finds all of it fascinating. It's a bit like Brakebills, but not entirely — more like if Brakebills was a boarding house, maybe. She was about to as more questions when he mentions the exchange cohort and once again she feels that pang of emotion for all she'd endured and lost in this timeline. Would she have been part of the cohort if things had gone as they were supposed to? ]

No, I only just recently learned of their existence. It wasn't a topic that came up with the Hedges beyond a general warning to stay clear of this part of the city.

[ Maybe if she'd looked into it more back then... But she'd been deep in her magic addiction by that point and it'd been hard to see beyond her next fix. ]

Ah.

[ Strange straightens slightly then: composed posture, shoulders back, trying to look a bit more official. So she's a hedge witch. A pejorative, but one which they often took to wearing proudly. The curiosity is there, needling just behind his eyes: he wonders about that constellation of blue stars, and he wonders how many she has. What level of practicioner he's dealing with here.

He's come across them often enough in the last few years, paths crossing whenever he wound up having to head out and help smooth over a spell gone amok. The Hedges could be reckless, ambitious. (And isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, Stephen?) They also took care of their own, though, so perhaps he wasn't summoned out to deal with them anywhere near as often as it could've been. All things considered. ]

A wise warning. Spell boundaries can work themselves into knots if the sorcerers work too closely to a safehouse, and if either of us doesn't account for thaumic surges in the vicinity.

[ And you're not trained, he thinks, but he bites back that instinctive bit of arrogance. He'd leapt into his first perilous situation half-trained and half-cocked himself, after all: everyone else at the Sanctum had been dead. ]

So what brings a hedge to my doorstep, Julia?

[ Julia notices the slight change in him immediately, a shift in the way he holds himself, something in the atmosphere sliding into a new alignment. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what caused it — she mentions the hedges and suddenly he's acting differently? She prickles at the assumed judgment, that ingrained prejudice against those without formal instruction bothering her in a way little else does. He probably doesn't have a goddamn clue what life is like for them and still, he's judging them just like everyone else.

Each word he speaks after that pushes her buttons harder, irritation and anger churning within her. Maybe she's projecting too much, remembering every time someone underestimated her and putting those emotions on him, but by the time he asks his question, she's damn close to punching him. ]

A magician came to your doorstep because magic is completely fucked. [ Her tone becomes a fraction less acerbic, but only just. ] For us, at least. It's pretty clear that whatever you tap into hasn't been affected by the Old Gods and their bullshit.

But you just said—

[ Baffled, for a second — of course he doesn't miss that flicker of white-hot rage, and it even sparks in her aura like a matchstick flare of irritated red — but then the sorcerer smooths out his own expression, and lets it go. Alright. She's allowed to say the word and he can't. That actually makes a kind of sense. So he ducks his head apologetically. ]

Sorry. Tell me more. Define "completely fucked"?

[ Well, he gets points for apologizing, at least. Most men wouldn't dream of backing down that quickly. Julia could easily list a dozen who would have dug their heels in and started a full argument over the issue, insisting they were right regardless of whatever she might say. So the fact that apologizes and gets right to business — it cools that rage in her pretty effectively. ]

I mean it's gone. Magic has been shut off in this world and all the others that we know of, and we haven't been able to find a way to turn it back on. The Old Gods are pissed at us and so magic has just ceased to function for everyone.

[ She shifts uncomfortably in her chair, looking almost nervous and a little bit... scared. ]

Except me.

[ His eyebrows practically climb into his hair. ]

It's gone?

[ he asks, incredulous, with the same tone of voice you might use for what do you mean, the sun is gone? Magic just doesn't go away. It's everywhere, in everything, in each beating heart and plants photosynthesising and cells dividing. It's the logic underpinning all the systems of the universe. It's without limit.

But not all magic is the same as the rest, he reminds himself. The multiversal energies he taps into are different from Wanda's chaos magic, which in turn are different from the Asgardians' spells. So Strange has already shot to his feet and he's crossing the room to go rifling through the drawers of a massive oaken desk at the back of the room, searching for some equipment. When Julia drops in those last two words, though, then he goes motionless. Perplexed, again. ]

Don't you use the same magic as your other magicians?

[ Okay, he definitely hadn't known about it then. That's... comforting? But also not. Something about his whole vibe had given her the impression that he's the type to have his finger on the pulse of most things magical, so if none of this has been on his radar...

Well, it means that she was right that he uses a different source of magic than she does. There's no other explanation for how he can still be doing all of this when Brakebills has practically ceased to function. Their society has started crumbling and he's just carrying on like life is still normal, because for him it is. Her opinion of him changes when he jumps into action, though — it's not his problem but for whatever reason, he's ready to get involved. That says a lot about who he is as a person. ]

Yeah, I do. [ She struggles to explain for a moment. ] I think... I can't do a lot with it, nothing like I used to, so I think it might be a smudge, some residue from a god. One of them gave me my Shade back recently and all of this went down not long after that.

[ Strange goes back to rummaging. There's so many tangential questions he already wants to ask out of sheer curiosity ("you lost your Shade? more importantly, you got your Shade back from a god?" — his own Shade is locked down and tethered to his body with uncountable arcane wards, to be on the safe side), but he can't afford the distraction. He sticks to the problem at hand, with his usual laser focus.

And he finally finds what he was looking for in the desk. He pulls out a monocle, an old subway map of New York, and a standard scrying object: a crystal on the end of a chain. He arranges them on the tabletop (all at neat angles and lines, like a surgeon setting out his tools), then beckons Julia to join him by the table. He holds up the monocle and tries to squint at her through it. ]

Try a spell for me.

[ Open your mouth, say ah. ]

[ It strikes her how similar the tools are to what magicians would use in this situation. Instead of pieces of colored glass, he squints through a monocle, but she doesn't have to ask to know that the theory behind it is the same. Observation of the inner workings and flow of magic in order to diagnose any potential problems.

Taking a deep breath, she sits up straight and perches at the edge of the chair, rubbing the tips of her fingers together as if increasing circulation might actually do anything to affect the behavior of whatever spark of magic she's still carrying. She can feel it within her, like a single thread that has the potential to become an intricate pattern but can't quite seem to figure out how.

The first spell she tries produces no results. With her attempt at creating a flame having failed, she instead reaches into her pocket and retrieves a lighter, flicking the flame into life before trying another spell. This one works, her intricate finger movements convincing the flame to dislodge from the lighter and float in front of her face. It stays there for a moment before growing slightly, unfurling into a palm-sized orange and yellow flower, and then flickering out of existence.

With a helpless shrug of her shoulders, she explains ]

Results are inconsistent.

[ Strange surveys her efforts through the monocle. He could've done it with his third eye alone, but it's just a little easier with a conduit: it makes the magic flare brighter in his vision, the colours more saturated, easier to read. And it's...

Not the same kind of magic as all the other magicians he's met before. He can't put his finger on what's different about hers, couldn't describe it to any onlooker, but it tastes different. (The smell of crisp dew on the loam of a forest floor, ancient woodsy earth, tree bark—)

And it is, indeed, sputtering feebly where it shouldn't be. A tiny spark cradled between Julia's hands, when she should be a forest fire. ]

Hm.

[ Which isn't a very illuminating comment, all things told. But he sets the monocle down, then reaches for the crystal instead: lets it sway aimless circles over the subway map on the table, circling and circling and not being tugged in any particular direction at all, while Strange's mouth purses tighter and tighter.

The crystal should be pinging all over the place. It should be drawn to the Hedge safehouses on the map like a magnet, all those loci of magical energies and talents. If the map extended further north, Brakebills should be lit up like a goddamn sun, but he wonders if it would even show. ]

And this is happening at the school too? With all the students and teachers as well?

[ Hm? For a supposed expert, that isn't very reassuring. She watches him use the crystal, not entirely sure what he's scrying for, but it's pretty plain to see he's not getting the desired results. It's his question that throws her, though, her thoughts derailing for a moment as she realizes that he really hasn't grasped the full situation yet.

With a heavy sigh, she stands and crosses her arms, an air of something almost like defeat surrounding her. Almost because she's not ready to give up yet. ]

Doctor Strange, you aren't getting it. This isn't just New York. There's no magic anywhere on this world. It's been two months and every magician everywhere has been trying to figure this out.

And it's not just this world. There's no magic on the other worlds, the Neitherlands, the Libraries. The Old Gods sent their Plumber to shut off the Wellspring and now we've been cut off completely.

[ Strange had been on the verge of cutting in, interjecting something — If this is happening, then why haven't I heard of it sooner? — but his mouth snaps shut again as Julia explains further. Which also probably explains why it hasn't landed on his doorstep until now. No magic means no messengers sent through the astral plane; no telepathic telegrams or magical messages winging their way into his dreams. Everyone in that entire ecosystem cut off, and rendered back to... well, phonecalls. Walking here and simply ringing his doorbell like a mundane civilian.

Also, Dean Fogg would probably chew off his own foot before he turned to Doctor Strange for help. Pride cometh, etc.

He's never felt more grateful for the source of his own organisation's magic, their own untouched wellspring. This so easily could've been him, if the sorcerers had followed a different academic regimen. ]

Ah. Well, that's a... greater issue than I thought. I have a few contacts I was thinking I could pursue, but I'm less able to call up the Old Gods and lodge a complaint with their manager.

Do you know why they did it? This is the nuclear option. I haven't heard of this happening before.

[ He was going to ask it eventually, she knew that when she'd decided to come here, but the guilt still slams into her like a ton of bricks. They'd done the right thing; even after going over it a thousand times, she can't see any way it could have ended differently, but that doesn't help when everyone around her is suffering. It was magic or Fillory and they'd made their choice.

She looks down at her shoes, her hair falling forward to offer her a moment to hide before she stands tall again and faces the problem head-on. Julia Wicker doesn't run from her problems, she hunts them down and forces them into a fight to the death. ]

They did it because of us. Me and my friends. We killed a god and his parents are punishing us.

[ Because gods are dicks and the Old Gods are the worst of the bunch. She has yet to meet a god who is truly good and worthy of their divine power. ]

[ He stares at her.

And then, in probably a most unexpected response: Stephen Strange bursts out laughing in sheer startled surprise. It's a bark of surprised laughter before he's able to reel it back in. ]

Whatever I was expecting to hear, it wasn't that.

[ He doesn't sound judgmental or angry. It's the phrasing of his parents are punishing us, he thinks. Like the kids have been grounded. Bad humans; bad. But if they'd killed a god, he's assuming they must have had a good reason. ]

I promise, I'm not trying to be flippant. Godkilling gets around. Well. Christ.

[ He sets the tools of his trade aside and moves back to his own chair, settles back into it with his elbows against the arm, fingers steepled. ]

To be frank, Julia, I'm not sure if I can reopen those pipes for you. I'm not a Plumber. I don't even connect to your Wellspring, so resuscitating it wouldn't be my area of expertise. I can talk to some diviners and they can try to appeal to the Old Gods for a reversal, but that doesn't sound likely either, if they're as pissed as you say. I can keep looking into it, though, and I can reach out to some older magicians of my acquaintance to hear what they've tried.

And we can take a closer look at your own magic, too, if you like. Try to discern a bit more where it's coming from. If it really is just a residue — or if perhaps it's a door, and we can kick it open wider.

[ It's true, she really hadn't been expecting that reaction. Skepticism, outrage, anything in between... but not that. And, really, it's kind of understandable. If she were anyone on the outside of this situation, she'd not entirely sure how she'd have taken it either.

Julia stays standing while he speaks, slowly walking in a small pacing circle and looking at nothing in particular. Her intentions for coming here haven't been stated, so of course, he'd assume she'd come here for help with the big Problem, but she already knows that they're going to have to deal with their fucked up circumstances on their own. They broke it so they're going to have to fix it.

But as for the other thing... ]

That's actually why I'm here. We're dealing with the shit we caused, but this— [ She gestures to herself as she drops back into her chair. ] I need to understand this. People are losing it out there, they're getting desperate and giving up. If I could give them hope, if I could get them to hang on a little longer while we fix the mess we made, then I have to try.

[ If this isn't the reason she has this spark, then what is? What could be bigger or more important than giving people a reason to wake up in the morning? Witnessing Josh's joy at her stupid smoke ring trick had been enough to convince her to push past her own reservations and seek out other types of magic users and so here she is, hoping he can help her the way no one else has been able to. ]

[ He nods, listening and agreeing. There's a kind of abstracted attentiveness and intention to Doctor Strange, she'll be realising: he turns those blue eyes and his full, razor-sharp attention onto you when you're describing a tantalising problem, one which piques his genuine interest. He could get bored and distracted and antsy, of course, if someone seemed to be wasting his time— but this isn't that. Not at all. She's brought him a doozy. ]

How much time do you have? Because this seems like a bit more than a three-pipe problem.

[ It's going to take a while. This isn't something they can probe and diagnose over the span of a single afternoon. So there's another glimmer of twinkling humour when he adds: ]

How do you feel about living at Hogwarts?

[ Julia never does things by halves, she always throws her all behind something and gives 200%, so it figures that it would be a doozy of a problem that would send her to this place and this particular sorcerer. And maybe something in the universe is finally giving her a break because she can see it in his eyes — he's going to help her, possibly because curiosity won't let him refuse.

The Sherlock Holmes reference makes her smile, a little thing that curls into the corners of her lips, but it's his invitation that leaves her grinning like a kid at Christmas. Maybe it's wrong to find a measure of joy when the rest of the world is fucked but after everything she's been through, she's damn well going to take it. ]

Well, it's not like I have classes to get to. Brakebills didn't take me.

[ They were supposed to. She was meant to be there but Jane Chatwin had made a different call. Maybe it had been the right one — Julia had certainly grown stronger as intended. Still, she wouldn't wish her journey on her worst enemy. ]

They didn't? [ Whyever not? Strange thinks, but bites back the question and mentally jots it down, saving it for later, for another day and when he hasn't already been interrogating this poor young woman about magic. They'll inevitably have time for other personal chats, between all the basic magic exercises and her probably getting frustrated enough with a sling ring to throw it across the room. So instead, he pronounces, ] Their loss.

[ And rather than get up and walk back to the desk, he gestures a flick of a hand at it, and a small charm floats over. (Yes, still showing off.) When he lands it in her hand, it turns out to be an old NYC subway token. Evidently enchanted: it sits contentedly warm in her palm as if it's been sitting in the sun for hours. ]

The doors let you in today — I'm still not sure why, I'm going to have to take a look at them too — but this will make sure they always do. Think of it as a house key. There's endless guest rooms, and I mean that literally, a new one spawns every time the townhouse takes in a new visitor, we can go find one later. As mentioned, the apprentices are away anyway, so you'll have run of the place whenever we're not working together — you've brought me quite the mystery, Julia, so I'm looking forward to figuring it out. Wong will probably stick you on laundry duty, though, sorry.

Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum.

[ Maybe it's a lot, to invite a woman to move in after fifteen minutes of talking to her. But it's more like taking in a boarder to a very mysterious, very eldritch bed-and-breakfast. A visiting resident academic, here to work on a project together. A colleague, maybe. It'll be nice to have someone around who isn't Wong, just for some variety. ]

[ Their loss. He probably doesn't have any idea how it means for him to say that. It's probably just a throwaway comment, he probably doesn't actually mean anything by it, but still.

Closing her fingers around the charmed coin, she tries not to think of how strongly it reminds her of the stone she'd worn for weeks not that long ago. A charm to hide her from a god, one she'd received just before destroying the forest of sentient trees in Fillory. She'd been Shadeless then, selfish and caring only about herself. It had taken a lot of effort to learn to live without her Shade and be a halfway decent person again. ]

Thank you. I really mean that. Even if nothing comes of this, I appreciate it.

[ Thank you for being the type of person who can't turn down a good mystery. She recognizes that trait in him; it's like looking in a mirror. Whether it's diving into stacks of books or endless hours of practice, she has a feeling that they'll work well together. And, if she's honest, she's looking forward to it. ]

So where do we start?

[ Where do they start? He wants to roll up his sleeves, dig his fingers into the mystery, pry it open. So Strange pauses to consider for a moment, fingertips still pressed thoughtfully against each other. ]

I'm curious how your talents would look trying to tap into another source of magic which isn't quite so dried-up. Ours, for example.

[ So he twists his hand, turns his palm up, and suddenly there's a two-fingered ring sitting there where it wasn't before. He tosses it to her gently, underhand. It's not his own custom sling ring — the man knows better than to hand over such an important piece of equipment to a veritable stranger — but it's a beginner's version, and he'll be able to shunt it back into a pocket dimension if it seems like she's about to try escaping with it. Still. He likes to think he has a pretty good gauge on people, and Julia feels genuine. ]

Put this on your left hand, the index finger and middle finger. Hold your hands aloft and trace your right hand in an anticlockwise circular pattern, while focusing on a destination somewhere else in the city. Visualise it. Picture it. It's like you're carving a circle out of reality.

It doesn't always work immediately, [ he adds like an olive branch, because sometimes his pride still stings remembering almost freezing to death on Mount Everest, ] but I just want to see how it feels when you're trying to tap into it.

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