why is it you always get to sit in the shade

[blackstarred]

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[witchaffinity]

( Climbing over Kieran's brother, he settles next to Julian, crossing his legs, giving her access to his back so she can sit against him. He then places one hand on Julian's chest. )

[regentem]

Kieran settles in the indicated spot next to him, reaching out and placing a hand on her brother's shoulder before nodding to Davina.

Davina nods in return, before reaching across for Freya's hands. Once they connect, they begin to chant and the three of them sink further into the spell.]

[tuumest]

( Sinking is a good word for it. Not only do Kieran and Kol sink into the spell, but Freya, too.

The three of them stand in front of the Connor's childhood home. The diminishing sunlight and orange and pink sky is indicative of it being dusk.

Kieran, make a spot check.

Meanwhile, outside of the spell, Davina's chanting cuts off as the spell cuts off her connection, jettisoning her backward. Very few spells have that kind of active capability, she can note. But, she is awake, if dealing with a brief moment of vertigo as her senses return to her. )

[transientem]

[Kieran blinks as the city comes into view, a familiar place even if she hasn't been home in a long time. There's a small sigh of relief when she sees the familiar sky, before she glances over and frowns at Freya.]

You're not supposed to be here.

[Freya makes a face. "No, I'm not. Something must have gone wrong with the tether."]

[witchaffinity]

Perhaps the spell prefers its' family affairs.

( Family saving family.

Kol is not familiar with his surroundings but he can see they mean something to Kieran.

With an (18), Kieran sees a few things. While this is her childhood homes, the other homes around it do not match that neighborhood's. It's wrong compared to what she remembers. And this isn't just her home, it's her home at a period of time. The door is painted black, not yellow, which means her father hasn't died yet. The abandoned bike, the porch swing that breaks a week later, the broken upstairs window from a pickup game of baseball in the street neighbor kids played the day before.

This is a significant day to her and her brother.

She knows the back door should be wide open because neither her brother nor her closed it behind them when they got home, not for a few hours anyway. He made her eat something. Sat with her in silence if she wanted to talk.

Their dad's favorite record played until it scratched and Julian finally turned it off.

As far as she knows, that record player has never been used again.

As for the other buildings, she doesn't recognize them. )

Is that common, being trapped inside? ( He glances around them. ) Where's Davina?

[transientem]

["Maybe she managed to withstand the pull of the spell? I don't know. It's an old spell, we might have misjudged the power it still held."

As Freya and Kol discuss the mechanics, Kieran is making her way towards the yard, looking over the old relics of what her life used to be. She runs her fingers over the handle bar of the bike when she gets close enough, tipping it back so she can see the sparkling unicorn stickers that she had slapped over her brother's hand-me-down bike in order to make it more her own. Remnants of the girl she used to be. She knows she lost some of that sparkle, whether she wanted to or not.

She knows what day this is, when her world turned sharply off it's access. She doesn't particularly want to relive it, but she's here to get Julian out, which means she needs to be able to face it.

She heads up the stairs to the front door, pushing it open a little wider and poking her head inside.]

Jules?

[witchaffinity]

( Mechanics keep them talking, as Kol assumes that the spell, old or not, is clearly capable of taking Freya with it, it's got Julian in its' thrall.

The front room is as she remembers it that day, the record player still on, the hoarse, scratchy sound emitted from the needle. The den is to her left, dining room to her right, stairs go straight up and beyond the stairs is the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, and door to the basement. )

[transientem]

[She stops the record player, resetting it back to it's static state. She takes a deep breath of the inside of the house, smelling like cracked leather and dust. She hasn't been home in so long, chasing after a cure she may never find.

She scans her options, trying to figure out where he would hide. What loop would he be trapped in that would cause the most pain. Part of her just wants to go to her father's bedroom, find one of his big heavy flannels and hide in them for a little while. She used to do that after he died. It felt like he was still there, holding her, and not that she and Julian are completely alone. But that seems to be too easy, so she slowly steps forward, glancing in the entrances of each of the rooms before she gets to the stairs.]

[witchaffinity]

( He is not in any of the rooms.

The smell of burnt pancakes pervade the downstairs. Julian tried making them that night, but he was never the family cook. That was their father. He never learned. Part of the reason why she worried for her brother. He is actually incapable of feeding himself. But, he and his microwave are big fans. He used her Green Chef subscription for a little while. And when he'd met up with part of the Underground, they all shared cooking and food and meals.

As she climbs the stairs, she can hear the faint sound of a bath being ran from their shared bathroom. The door to her room is open, the door to her brother's is not, likewise their parents. The string to their attic hangs, wind from an open window blowing.

Kol realizes his girlfriend has gone inside. )

Kieran?

( A hand on his sister's shoulder, he follows. )

[transientem]

Upstairs.

[Kol will be able to hear her - Original vampire and all - and she heads towards her bedroom door, deciding to look in the obvious place first. It, too, holds remnants of the girls she used to be. Horse posters and boy band centerfolds printed off of the middle school printer.

It might be embarrassing, given how much of a cool girl she tries to be, but part of her misses it.

And yes, she has a Pokemon bedspread, what of it? Charizard is the best.]

[witchaffinity]

( The water to the bathtub turns off inside the closed bathroom door.

Kol takes the stairs two at a time to join her in -- her time capsule. )

Did you find - This is your...

[transientem]

I don't want to hear one word about Charizard or One Direction.

[She holds up a finger and tosses him a teasing smirk, before moving towards the bathroom door. She knocks lightly, before pressing her ear to the door to see what she can hear (20).]

Jules, you in there?

[tuumest]

( You won't hear one word from Kol. Pokemon skipped him. (He liked Magic: The Gathering.) In the 90's, anyway. And he gets the appeal of the boy band phenomenon. He pretended to be a member of O-Town once - and S-Club 7.

From inside the bathroom, Kieran hears a splash: the exact sound of Julian jumping out of the bath he'd drawn. Soaking wet from the neck down, holding a towel together with one hand, Julian answers the door carefully so the knocker (he knows his sister's voice anywhere) doesn't fall forward. )

Kier?

[transientem]

Hey, dumbass. Want to get dressed and come talk to me about the idiotic shit you've been doing lately?

[As calm as she seems like she's being, Julian would know that as her unhappy voice. Because she is quite unhappy, that this is how they're seeing each other again.]

The clothing is the part that's optional. The answers are not. Just so we're clear.

[regentem]

[Davina gets thrown back against the wall with a groan - it's been a while since she's felt that kind of backlash from a spell. She blinks as the dots begin to clear and when she sees Freya collapsed in next to everyone else, she scrambles forward.]

Shit.

[tuumest]

( Late, literally with Starbucks and a bag of pastries, in strolls H, the key card electronically sounding as he lets himself into the room. He stops, surveys the scene, takes a full ninety degree turn to face Davina.

"It kept her, didn't it?" )

[regentem]

[Davina blinks at the question, trying to figure out which her he means while also righting herself from the blowback.]

Kieran or Freya?

[tuumest]

( "Freya. Your plan was to send in Kol and Kieran, right? Not. Freya."

He sets the pastry delights on the table. )

[regentem]

Yeah. There was some kind of backlash. Threw me into the wall.

[She goes over and checks Freya's vitals, just to be on the safe side.]

Heart's still beating, so I'm guessing she got sucked in too.

[tuumest]

( "Well, there are things we could try. It's magic sealing them inside there, magic that was shared with no place to go. Theoretically..." He starts, trying to jumpstart any ideas she might be having. )

[regentem]

If we pop it like a magical balloon, what'll that do to Julian?

[Because if this is the backlash they get trying to sneak in the door, what would that rush of magic leaving do to Kieran's brother?]

[tuumest]

( "Admittedly, everything is dangerous. Your best bet is to put the magic somewhere. You don't want it eeking out - who knows what that will do, but you could transfer it. Or, transplant. Transfuse?" )

[regentem]

[Transfuse? Transfuse into what? It's not as though they have anything that could appropriately act as a magical vessel. If they were outside maybe she could send it down into the ground but ...

... As Scott comes out the door, she spots a potted plant on one of the decorative tables.]

Scott, bring me that plant.

[tuumest]

( It's hard to not be obvious about what he really wants and how to get her there. He has all the time in the world having been broken of his word, so he steps aside as Scott does what Davina asks, confused but ready to play along.

He pauses once he comes into the room.

H just watches, curious. )

[regentem]

[She hasn't done this kind of representational magic in a while. But it's one of those spells that she learned how to do early. Use the earth to ground the magic, give it a place to go, like a lightning rod does for a lightning strike.

She closes her eyes, focuses and starts to chant, attempting to channel some of the magic from one thing to another (5), but she is one witch and the original caster is a bit out of her league.]