ourladytrees | the magician and the sorcerer

[ 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.

[ It's a good idea, trying to tap into his source of magic instead of just repeating the same failed experiments she's been trying for weeks. The sling ring feels strange in her hands, stranger still when she wears it as instructed, but she tries to look past that and focus her concentration on how it makes her feel. As far as she can tell, it isn't creating magic so much as facilitating it — it's a tool rather than a power source. It's not what she's used to, but magic is magic and she's not giving up.

Moving away from the chairs, she holds her hands up, concentrating on the place she knows best in the city: her apartment. She can see the green couch and mismatched coffee and end tables, the shelves haphazardly stacked with leaning rows of books and records, the kitchen that she rarely uses for actual cooking...

Something tugs at a string in her soul, the sensation different from when she usually uses magic. It's impossible to describe, and as soon as she tries to grasp hold of it while tracing her hand through the air, it slips right through her fingers without even a spark.

Shit.

Julia takes a deep breath, shifts her stance, and tries again. Wearing a frown of concentration, she tries to cling to that strange thread, then to simply cradle it within her like a baby bird. That third attempt finally produces a few sparks reminiscent of the portal she'd seen him use earlier, but it falls far short of carving a circle out of reality. ]

I can feel it but it's— It's different. It's like when I had to retrain my brain to understand magic but worse because I've already done that once before.

[ She's frustrated, to be sure, but also determined. It's working, just not fast enough for her liking. ]

[ Strange has to bite back a smile, because he knows and recognises that frustrated impatience so, so well. That had been him, hadn't it? Rushing and skipping all the steps because he hadn't the patience to wait. Today, he's wound up back on his feet again, circling the room and watching Julia's movements as she tries to summon the portal. He nods thoughtfully, observing. ]

Consider this, however: a few sparks is better than any novice gets on their first-ever try. Normally that takes weeks.

[ Watching her manage those sparks, it does have the same magic signature as any of the other Masters of the Mystic Arts. Nothing horrifically different about it (or at least, which he can sense yet), which is interesting. He can feel the aftermath of the spell fizzing in the air, too; a faint crisp aura/smell/something, like someone sparked a match before it blew out. ]

It's like learning another language. It's going to be frustrating when the grammar doesn't work the same way as the one you already learned and knew. The words will look and sound the same, sometimes, but then be entirely different and alien other times. You'll probably fall back on muscle memory and then get annoyed.

But you'll also be faster at learning a second language, because you know how the rules work. The neural pathways in your brain, [ he gestures at her head, ] are going to be quicker at picking up a system, since you've already done this before. Did you just say you retrained your brain to understand magic?

[ Maybe that title of his was apt. Sometimes, he still sounds so much more like a doctor than a sorcerer. ]

[ Hearing that she was weeks ahead of a normal novice is only moderately comforting. Julia doesn't do slow — she dives headfirst into learning and doesn't come back out until she's mastered five things more than she'd intended. Magic is in her blood, it's who she is, so for it to be this hard again—

She shakes her hands, loosening her fingers and trying to cool her irritation with steady breathing. It helps, but only a little. ]

Our magic is as much math and science as it is wonder. We have to do complex calculations before even attempting a spell because everything can to go to shit if we factor in the wrong circumstances. The position of the moon and specific constellations, time of year, elevation... A dozen things and if even one is off, it can mess up the whole spell.

[ Running her right hand through her hair, she visibly struggles a bit with the next part. ]

Internal circumstances matter just as much. So when I lost my Shade... I had to rethink everything. Magic comes from pain and without my Shade, I wasn't in pain anymore.

[ Contemplatively: ] You know, that's one of the things I've always disagreed with Fogg and the Brakebills crew about. Magic shouldn't have to come from pain, and if it does, then I think there's something dreadfully wrong in how the whole system's been set up. It's supposed to help.

[ There's a small thread of irritation laced in all of Strange's words, getting a little agitated. His hand starts to quaver, the fingers trembling; he folds it back under his cloak, arms crossed, tucked away out of sight. Musters his composure back together. ]

But our systems can be similar. I once fucked up a spell because I tried changing too many of the parameters on the fly. [ God, that had been bad. He's been trying to be a bit more patient and cautious ever since that particular screwup. ] So I can see how something as integral as that would've thrown everything off.

[ Okay, there's the Shade thing again. He'd already decided to not ask about it and to leave his curiosity on this front for later, for when they know each other better. Don't ask her about how she lost her Shade. Don't ask the perfectly-pleasant woman how she became soulless. ]

... How did you lose your Shade?

[ It might have been her imagination, but Julia swears something was up with his hands before he hid them. The ever-curious part of her wants to ask, mostly out of concern, but hiding his hands makes it pretty clear that he doesn't want her to ask about it. So, she won't.

But she's apparently not the only one who's prone to asking questions. ]

I, uh...

[ They've only just met and she's trusting him with a lot, but the exact details of her situation are a bit too much for someone she barely knows. She's not ready to be seen as a victim, to have him think her broken. But it's a valid question that deserves some sort of explanation, given how it might be part of whatever the hell is going on with her.

Crossing her arms, she can't help but look as small as she feels in that moment. ]

I had a medical procedure that went wrong. They removed something and clipped my soul in the process.

[ An arched eyebrow, his voice droll: ] Sounds like due cause for a medical malpractice lawsuit. Magi-medical malpractice, even.

[ Doctor Strange is patently, absolutely incapable of reining in his sarcasm, his kneejerk reach for humour as a defense mechanism. But he does at least try to backtrack, softening his words, casting them back to something more somber: ]

And I'm serious about the malpractice, actually. That's a grievous thing to go wrong. I'm sorry. I'm guessing they weren't able to help you get it back, since you said a... god did so later?

[ Fuck if that sarcastic humor isn't exactly what she needs right now. She could have easily gotten lost in the pain of those months before the procedure, and the pain of adjusting to having her Shade back, but with just a few words, he manages to give her a ladder out of that dark pit that so often threatens to swallow her whole. ]

There wasn't anything that anyone could do. Once a Shade is gone, it's... [ She turns away from him, resuming her slow circular pacing from earlier. ] There was a chance. We went to the Underworld and found where the Shades are housed. But we could only bring back one and a friend needed hers more. I'd learned to live without mine by then.

[ Her fingers fiddle with the sling ring as she moves, leaving out large portions of the story she isn't ready to share yet. ]

Our Lady Underground gave me my Shade back when I did something for her. It's her house they live in in the Underworld — her home with Hades.

[ He notices that detail. That they had a choice, and she chose to help her friend instead. It's— interesting. Doctor Stephen Strange had been horrifically selfish once upon a time, but his time spent as the Sorcerer Supreme has rewired those priorities; made him more altruistic, more self-sacrificial; and as a result, more admiring when other people are able to do the same. He doesn't remark on it, however. ]

I've never actually crossed paths with Hades or Persephone. Norse gods, yes— [ he'd tossed Loki into a spatial loop without any regrets, ] but not the Greek pantheon yet.

[ Strange's voice is musing, contemplative, even as he stands on his half of the room with his arms still folded, surveying Julia where she's paused in her portal exercises. He'd started off this train of thought because of his incorrigible curiosity, and because it seemed like it might be relevant — but now it's less an interrogation, more a conversation. Perhaps some of it is still relevant, but now he's just learning more about her. ]

You know, I thought I had the market cornered on bizarre experiences, but you've experienced some astounding things.

[ Norse gods. Right, those are a thing too, though she remembers something about them technically being aliens... It makes her wonder how many other pantheons are like that, being they simply didn't understand and so saw as deities, and how many actually do have the power to create worlds. And end them, because gods are dicks. ]

What, don't most magicians travel to other worlds and deal with gods on a regular basis? I thought it was just a rite of passage. Or some kind of hazing.

[ Her own sarcastic humor comes out in full force as she relaxes again, shoulders loosening and tension easing out of her expression. They'd gotten around the landmine they'd danced perilously close to and now things felt... easier. He hadn't pushed for details and she trusts him a little more because of it. ]

Oh, no, it's actually a very elite club for people like us. There's laminated membership cards and everything. I'll get one printed up for you.

[ That sarcasm from her is like a breath of fresh air, too: a familiar thread, a language he understands and speaks constantly. It's a nice change of pace from Wong, who sometimes bats back, but most of the time just delivers a deadpan stare and doesn't even give Stephen the satisfaction of a reaction.

She's been fidgeting with the sling ring, and he considers asking her to try those sparks again — but after a pause, mulling over the possibilities, Strange clears his throat. ]

To the matter at hand... I'm going to have you keep working with that sling ring over time, but first, I'd like to look into your aura as well. Just to get some more information. Would that be alright?

[ The idea of membership cards makes her smile — and laminated, at that. She almost proposes that they vote to upgrade to membership jackets at the next meeting, but given the fancy cloak (which is still doing its own very cool thing), he doesn't really seem like a jacket kind of guy.

It is nice to know that they'll get along if this conversation is anything to go by. Who knows how long they'll be working together. It could be days or weeks... She tries not to consider the possibility of it taking months. She's not sure they have months to spare.

Julia goes still, finally ceasing that fidgeting, and considers the request. After a moment, though, she nods. ]

Yeah, that's fine. Thanks for asking.

[ It feels like the first time in a long time that someone has actually acknowledged her autonomy like this. Another point for Doctor Stephen Strange. ]

[ Having experienced the Ancient One taking his consciousness and then flinging it out into the cosmos without warning, initiating an actual brain-melting existential mindfuck on Strange's part— no, he's not eager to inflict it on someone else. So instead he asks permission, and then walks forward until he's standing right in front of Julia: a bit too close for comfort, standing right inside her personal bubble, but when needs must. ]

This might feel a little... strange, [ he says, not really intending the pun, and then he raises his hand. (She catches a glimpse of a bent and crooked hand, scars running up and down each finger.) He presses his thumb to the exact center of her forehead. Closes his own eyes, and opens his external consciousness to the universe and to that beating light of sentence right in front of him.

And he peers in. ]

[ That glimpse of his hand is enough to send a dozen questions skittering through her mind, chased by concern and grief for whatever he went through to bring them to that condition. That pain for him is so profound that it chases away the urge to actually ask those questions—

And then everything is shoved out of her mind by the strange feeling of him looking into and through her.

Julia is a perfectionist. She is passionate and caring, driven and kind. Her need to do good has slowly been overtaking everything else in her life. Her mind is ordered like a library, a card catalog organizing every bit of knowledge she's ever acquired. But despite all of this, her aura is a fucking mess.

There is blue at the edges, a hue trying to wrap around the other colors and obscure the less savory ones with her need to help others, but it doesn't get far before being consumed by the dark brownish yellow that she's carried with her for years. She has and always will be a student, hungry for learning and understanding, a seeker of knowledge who will never be satisfied no matter how much she consumes. An orange-yellow bleeds into the brown, signs of the superior intellect that is required of all magicians in order to practice their particular brand of magic, and there are angry patches of muddied red that are beginning to dim.

Perhaps most prominently visible, however, is the dark grey signaling the fear that has been her constant companion for too many months. It looks like an angry sky right before a fierce storm rages, and here and there are spots of white that were once bright but have now mostly faded, and smudges of black for the god that caused her that pain.

But if Stephen looks close enough, he will also notice the flecks of gold beginning to take root and spread, tiny pools forming from the divine seed that has begun to grow without Julia's knowledge. It will continue to grow, whether she likes it or not because Julia Wicker is a good person who has been given power she will use for good. And it is that goodness that will tame her chaotically ordered hedge witch magic into something as smooth and solid as a stone on a beach. ]

Edited (words are hard) 2022-06-26 03:59 (UTC)

[ As Strange peruses Julia's spirit, he can't help but think how familiar it is at first glance: all that orderly categorisation, the knowledge segmentation, that desperate drive to know more. His reading of her leads to a faint feeling like he's flipping through that card catalog, page after page after page, taking her measure, and there's the feeling of a presence in her skull and some incomprehensible sensations that come with it. A bit like he's touching parts of her neocortex and the sensory input is pinging like she's having a stroke: the smell of crisp antiseptic, old weathered pages, fresh-brewed tea, a combination which is apparently wholly Stephen-like.

And he takes in all the riotous chaos of colours, with a ripple of surprise. Most people have two or three, maybe four colours most prevalent in their psychic landscape. Julia's, on the other hand, looks like someone upended multiple buckets of paint into a stewing whirlpool. It's a lot. She's clearly got a lot going on. Strange's consciousness drifts through it all like he's floating on an ethereal current, just taking it all in.

Those flecks of gold. Now, that's interesting. That seems pertinent. Strange exerts some energy and floats closer, scrutinising them like he's picking out a small Easter egg in a greater landscape painting: observing how the colour is growing, spreading, glowing. At least it's not an infection or a rot and doesn't seem inherently bad, at least.

He detaches and comes back to himself with a gasp, an indrawn breath, eyes opening again. When he looks at Julia's face, he can still see that swirl of colours around her, like the afterimage of light burning his retinas. As he blinks to clear his vision, he says: ]

You weren't wrong about that divine residue, I think. It might be helping your magic.

[ He won't say anything about the glimpse he caught of the dark shadows shot through it all, that grey and black swirling through her like mud, like oil, like a tarnish. Everybody's damage is their own. (And to that end, he folds his hands back under his cloak, the scrying complete.) ]

[ It's the oddest sensation to feel him almost rifling through her mind, like a ghost drifting through the hallways of an empty house. He's not necessarily peeking behind locked doors but she can still tell he's there. And then there are the smells, the weirdest combination of things that immediately strike her as him.

It ends and she feels as strange without him in her mind as she did with him in it. That's not something she could ever explain, the emptiness of losing his presence when she'd never known the void was there before. It just is and she accepts it.

What isn't so easy to accept is his 'diagnosis' — she goes very still, almost as if she's been frozen in time, and for a moment it's actually hard to breathe. She has to fight against the flashback that tries to overtake her thoughts, her hands tightening into fists. One ragged, shallow breath, two, three, and then bitterly: ]

Great. I guess that probably means I can't rid of it.

Never say never, [ Strange says, ruminating. ] I know I don't know much about your circumstances, but wouldn't it be best to make use of whatever advantages it gives you?

[ Use what you can. Improvise. Wring every last silver lining out of a terrible circumstance. He had a brutally pragmatic approach to life sometimes. ]

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