neriumoleander: (Witch)
neriumoleander ([personal profile] neriumoleander) wrote2014-09-24 07:52 pm

On the Pond (Joel, Open)

About a half mile from Grimhilde Manor, beyond the land and in a thicket of overgrown trees, there lies a deep pond. It teems with life. Shimmers with magic and the surface is particularly exquisite under the full moon. It has been Nerium's place, since she was a child. Lonely and wandering her woods, she found the fish and frogs there not to be potion ingredients, but charming companions. Today there is another world there. Ruled by a family of mischievous water nymphs borne of a spell of Nerium's long ago. Magic breeds magic and soon the pond was home to grindylows, ashrays, bunyip, and kappas - even miniature hippocamps. They regard Nerium as a goddess. For her, they are her closest friends - along with the ravens and other creatures of the manor. 



She often floats a canoe to the center to think or reflect on a new spell. Today she is there with a book in hand, and several others resting at the floor of the canoe. She is a bookseller now, during Rose's occasional stints at The Quill, and she must make her role believable. So she's gathered an assortment of books, those highly recommended and sought after. Others considered classics. 

Nerium is unsure how she feels about this boy wizard. He who survived a curse from the the great dark lord. 

"It is in poor taste to attack a child. But his wrong is seeking power for purely selfish gain. One will always be corrupted by the great dark forces if they are not dealt with accordingly. Sacrifice and worship." The water nymphs lean against the side of her boat, ever a captive audience. "Though this so-called hero is insufferable. Who cares of sport when there is magic to learn? Certainly all his brilliance comes from his female friend."

Perhaps Nerium likes the bushy-haired girl. Even if she was born of humans. Her power is the same.  
just_another: (011)

[personal profile] just_another 2014-10-19 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, that's what I mean. You know it and the rest of us... we take for granted what we're given. We don't think about where it comes from." Although he's been doing more of that lately, considering where his powers are from and why some of them are so unlike those of his parents. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Or maybe it should matter, maybe that's what Nerium is saying. If he understood it better, maybe it wouldn't so often surprise him.

At her question, though, he shakes his head, smiling. "Sometimes people in this town... well, they're not always very accepting of things they think of as different." He means her, but he means himself, too, an outsider, a Canadian, someone displaced from his home and sent here to hide. He means Spencer, the way people still treat him, the names some people call him, the vandalism. He means that he understands in a way.

"I thought maybe... I thought... It's a social call," he says, looking at her. "I don't agree with most of what you said the other night, but I like you all the same."