goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"...We are gonna get so many hits and a lot of catcalling in the comments." But it might be worth it. Might. He had told her to ignore comments on most posts online.

"If it works out." And it could. But one never could tell with humans.

"It'll work out." It will. It can't not.

And there's that positive attitude that had been making more of a resurgence as of late. "Then you had best get to it. After your studies are done, so that the bookwork does not distract you."

"Sure thing, boss." Trips off the tongue without much thought, and sure he may be the master here but he never really feels much like it. Better to take direction from the demon that knows how to get shit done.

And she does. If all that ambition is good for nothing else, she knows how to plan, how to achieve a goal. The videos were but one part of a greater whole, and between classes, videos and a steady string of dates ending with exceedingly late nights, York at least seems to be coming out of his shell.

The weather shifts in the space of that same month. If Carolina spends more time watching thunderstorms through the windows over researching modern society, York isn't usually awake to see it. But her frowns grow stronger, and one morning, she's seated and leafing through one of the older references books York was studying for grimoire studies, tail twitching.

The fact she is seated on the ceiling seems irrelevant.

Ceiling sitting isn't as strange to him as it could be, as it should be- but the frowning and tail twitching? Never ended well. Something was up.

And it wasn't just Carolina.

Lounging on the sofa while he goes over the latest questions he needs to work on for his videos, he pauses to peer up at her. "What's eating you?"

There's a glance up - down, from York's perspective, before one wing, then the other, unfurl and she twists in the air. Unseats herself so that she can roll sideways, and drop down to the floor level.

"We may have been looking in the wrong direction for responsibility." Her words are blunt, but her expression is very serious. "The spells restraining me are not, they are reinforcing internal protections. And apparently, have added me to them. To yours."

And she has no doubt he is NOT the one responsible for the original casting either. "Have any of your family been here before?"

"Responsibility of...oh. That?" Well it makes him feel a little better to know he hadn't inadvertently bound her to the apartment. Dick move. It does, however, kinda make him wonder a little at who or what did the thing.

"Uh...My aunt came by with a care package last year? I had a bad day-" He had an episode, called home for some kind of familiarity- got her instead. "She came by as soon as she could. It was nice. Made tea, played some music from when I was a kid, brought cookies- that kinda stuff."

He'd passed out on the sofa with his head in her lap like he was five again. It'd been what he needed.

An aunt. "Of your maternal line?" That one had come here, had made a point to provide him with comfort and security, said a great deal where he would otherwise not.

"Mom's older sister, yeah." Oh- wait. That meant magic shit happened. "...What do you think she did?"

"It is hard to say. I do not know the branch of your magic well, and your own lack of training from your family means that secrets remain secret. For now." But not forever. Carolina, at least, can live that long. "They place protections here to keep you safe. You found that things did not grow so dire again after she left, yes?"

"...My aunt used magic while I was asleep on the sofa to prevent me from having episodes here?" COuldn't be something like that entirely- he still dreamt poorly. Night terrors. Still ha the odd episode but-

He hadn't had to call home just to remember that this was real. Not in a long, long while. "Shit. She's good."

"There is only so much any one spell can do," as both his lessons had stated and her own lectures when forcing him to meditate had reminded him often. "And some traumas leave scars on the soul, they need time to heal. Or be reopened. She IS good, to at least manage this much." Soothing and security could be far harder to create for.

And she was now part of that..protection? Carolina was still not entirely certain what to think of that.

"And you think whatever she did, whatever she laid out while she was here...bound you to the apartment?" To offer more protection? Wouldn't it...protect him from doing stupid shit like summoning a demon?

He'll have to call again. Ask some subtle questions. Maybe.

"I think blood bound me," because it was strong, stronger than just magic alone. There were reasons that their history had rituals involving such, right up to human sacrifices. "And blood calls to blood, her magic and yours. It reacted to what you did."

And that it allowed his actions to tie into the spells of another? Suggested either they expected him to regain power (unlikely) or he was stronger than the one that laid the original spell in the first place.

"...on one hand I'd like to think I'd notice if my Aunt bled while she was here. On the other-" He remembers that burning of the ketchup thing Carolina had done that first morning. Also his memory of the day was a little fuzzy. Comfortable, yeah, but fuzzy. "That does explain things."

He'd cut out a large portion of what he could be looking into due to the assumption that no one had ever cast in this place before him. Huh.

"Yours, not hers," she sighs, flipping her wings about her as the book is deposited onto his lap, draping them securely and crossing her arms after doing so. "Had a different blood spell been cast here, I would have sensed it."

"Explains more than it does not. But in due time, perhaps it is something we can work on." Spells can be changed, or broken. She would prefer the former over the latter, given it was done to aid him. And at least he seems well.

"...I definitely don't remember blee- oh." Right. "I um. Used to have a coffee table with a glass top. During my episode I kinda. Fell through it. Cut my hand. NOt too bad but it was annoying. She could've gone right over that and I wouldn't have known."

"You would simply assume she had helped mop things up, helped rewrap whatever bandages used for securing your wound." There's a nod. It makes sense. And how could he have known? He'd been without magic for a long long time.

"Does it anger you? To know what they have done here?"

"...Not really? It was done out of a place of love. Or I'd hope, at any rate." Sure he'd have liked to know but- making his own home more secure for him? Not something he's gonna bitch about. "I thought I was done with secret bullshit when I got out of the military, though. Not a fan."

"All families have some form of secret," there's a shrug. Carolina at least seems unsurprised. "But it would seem the time approaches where you may need to ask them why they kept this from you."

A beat. "Your mother left another voicemail, by the way."

"...aboooout?" He thought he'd called her back? Or did he dream doing that, he does that sometimes.

There's a shrug of her shoulders. "I did not presume to listen. Besides, I was researching." Hence the book she dropped on him.

The book he's now looking at, flipping through to find where she'd been reading. "Is the message what brought this on- or the book?"

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