Deconstructing A Curse [Open]

[bewitchinghaze]

 It's been three days since Val dragged Lou home from the police station and found the cursed plant by her bedside. Three days of trying to figure out what kind of plant it was, exactly. She's at the end of her rope with the goddamn menace, and that feeling of uselessness brought on by Yura's visit, and the news of her grandmother's passing, has reached its peak. It's time for drastic measures.

She tosses her mage kit onto her shoulder and writes a quick note to Riley, pinning it on the fridge to let her know where she is. Gathering the plant into her arms, she heads out in the the woods behind the house. She knows of a clearing surrounded by hawthorns (known for their magic enhancing abilities) and various wild flowers that will help contain negative magics so she heads straight there.

Setting the plant down in the middle of everything, she lays a circle of herbs around the edge of the clearing and calls up a bubble of magic to contain her workings. Everything set, she sits tailor style in the middle of the clearing and begins to clear her mind and falls into her magic. The green fire at the centre of her is blazing in response to her surroundings and ready to dig itself into this curse. Val lets a vine of it reach into the slimy feeling black magic around the plant, searching for the chinks in the curse. She sorts through the different bits and pieces of magics, tugging away a curse for hallucinations, another for distrust... Finally reaching the centre of it all and the toughest bit of magic, she shoves a blaze of her magic at it.

The backlash is spectacular. She's physically knocked back from the plant, the release of the curse exploding it, and the pot its in, sending sharp shards of pottery to slice cuts into her cheek and arms. Hitting the ground, she has a brief moment to think 'Fuck' and 'I hope someone finds that fucking note' before she blacks out.

Comments

[jiyunnies]

Riley wakes up late in the day, her first day off in a long time. She thinks it's a bit odd that Val didn't wake her up bright and early, but then her sister knows how overworked Riley's been over the past few weeks and given their recent news, she figures her sister probably wanted to let her rest for once. She stretches, pads into the kitchen and grabs a bagel, stuffing it into her mouth as she reads the note on the fridge. Just Riley and Flavia for a few hours then.

She's busy opening a can of soft cat food for Flavia, the cat stretching lazily across the kitchen counter as she waits for her treat, when Riley suddenly feels a pain against her cheek as the wind gets knocked out of her. She falls back onto her butt, Flavia jumping down to make sure she's okay. "Oh shit." Riley's back on her feet in a moment, catching her breath as she grabs her bag and rushes out the door.

In a few minutes, she finds the clearing the sisters have used plenty of times for various spells and practicing. She finds Val on her back, knocked out. "Soo-Yun! Soo-Yun, wake up." Riley pats her sister's cheek, sending a glow of magic into her.

[bewitchinghaze]

The feeling of Riley's magic touching her own pulls Val out of the darkness of unconsciousness quickly. She sits up fast and winces, her head absolutely pounding. "Unnie! Oh thank god," she breathes, reaching up to touch the cut on her cheek with a grimace as the sting finally hits. "I thought I was going to be there forever."

[jiyunnies]

Riley pushes Val back down onto the ground gently. "Ya, lay down for a moment. Let your head rest."

"You scared the crap out of me," she says, touching her own face. "I felt the explosion from the house. What the hell are you doing out here?"

[bewitchinghaze]

She lets out an irritable grumble but lays back down, feeling the pounding in her head lessen slightly.

"Sorry... Lou had a cursed plant in her room. It's why she was acting so weird at the police station, remember? I was trying to remove the curse and track who it came from. It, uh... Well, it worked for the most part," she snorts. "The curse is gone. I have no idea who sent it though and the backlash was ridiculous."

[jiyunnies]

She runs a hand over Val's head, easing the pain as much as she can. She chews her lip, remembering the way Val and Moira described Lou's behaviour that day. "That makes sense. It did seem really out of character for her."

"Stop squirming, I'm fixing your pretty face." Riley touches a finger to her cheek, focusing a tiny orb of healing magic on Val's skin. "So if it backfired this strongly, someone definitely didn't want to be found."

[bewitchinghaze]

Val winces at the sting of her skin knitting back together, just a small red line marking the place where she'd been cute.

"Definitely not. The question is, who would want to hurt Lou so badly? She was outright raving and getting mad at me, of all people," she frowns, glaring up at the sunlight that filtered through the hawthorn leaves.

[jiyunnies]

"What about her old cases? Anyone bitter about a sentencing? I mean, a judge has to make a lot of enemies throughout their career." She eyes the plant, reaching a hand out to smooth Val's hair. "If someone's gone through this much trouble to terrorize, Lou, they have to be bad."

[bewitchinghaze]

"I don't know... Maybe. There's some stuff in her past too. I helped her out with thing I can't... really talk about but," she bites her lip with a frown. "It might be connected."

[jiyunnies]

Riley looks a bit worried. "Anything you can do to find out if it was the same person?"

[bewitchinghaze]

"I don't know... I'd have to ask Lou some more questions, but she's gone missing," she says, before groaning. "This is not going well at all."

[jiyunnies]

"She's gone missing? Like, Corrine Flynn kind of missing?"

[bewitchinghaze]

Val shakes her head and winces as it feels like her brain smacks against the side of her skull. "She left a note for her parents, apparently. But knowing how she was just a few days ago... It doesn't feel right, unnie. I'm worried."

[jiyunnies]

"That doesn't sound like Lou..." She lifts a hand and soothes Val's hair again, this time sending a wave of relief into her head. "Do you think she's in trouble?

[weatherornot]

Genevieve had never been in a place like Siren Cove before. Hell, she'd never been out of Louisiana before so all the forest and rocky shoreline in places was somewhat fascinating. She wouldn't have thought she was the kind of person to go for hikes but she actually liked it. She'd even invested some of her meager savings in a pair of decent running shoes that made navigating the forest easier. It was kind of nice to stumble upon an interesting spot here and there for some quiet contemplation. She never knew what she would find in the area surrounding the town.

What she did not expect to find though was a body. That was her first thought, that she'd stumbled upon someone that was dead. Which was why she almost just turned and walked away because she did not need that kind of trouble. But if the girl wasn't dead...

Kneeling over the body she reached out and put a hand to the girl's neck to feel a pulse there and breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, now things got a bit complicated.

"Okay," she said. "Beautiful girl unconscious in the woods. Am I supposed to kiss you to wake you up or something? Or just call 911."

[bewitchinghaze]

Val lets out a soft groan of pain as she starts to crawl back into consciousness. Her head feels like someone took a jackhammer to it and the cut on her cheek stings like a son of a bitch.

She peels an eye open slowly, even the dappled light, dim as it is, hurts her head. "Riley?" she manages to mumble out, squinting at the figure above her. Normally, she'd use their magical bond to tell if it was her sister but her current predicament seemed to have drained them near to completion.

[weatherornot]

When the girl gave a bit of a moan, Genevieve almost jumped. She hadn't even done CPR or anything and the girl was suddenly coming around, which was probably good. That meant she probably wasn't seriously injured and hopefully she wouldn't blame Genevieve for whatever had happened.

"Nope, not Riley," she said, reaching out to brush some hair away from the girl's face, mostly to have something to do with her hands as she knelt next to the girl. "I'm Genevieve. You didn't eat an apple an old woman gave you, did you?"

[bewitchinghaze]

"No apples..." she groans. "Just bad magic. 'M Val."

Not wanting to worry her, she starts to sit up, only to have an intense rushing feeling swamp her and drag her back into unconsciousness. The way her head hits the ground as she falls back is probably not going to help much with the headache she's bound to have when all is said and done.

[weatherornot]

Oh shit, it looked like the girl's head might have bounced when it hit the ground, which was seriously not good at all. Or maybe that was just Genevieve overreacting to have the girl pass out.

"Come on, Val," she said, lightly patting the girl's cheeks, because that's clearly what you did to someone that had passed out. "This was starting out as a beautiful Disney story only with lesbians and then you passed out again. Come on, wake up."

[bewitchinghaze]

She can tell she's still alive and breathing. That's good, at least. Her eyes refuse to open and her voice doesn't seem to want to work. She can hear the girl's voice, muffled but nearby, and she wants to reassure her that she's totally fine (even if she isn't.)

The feeling of patting on Val's cheeks pulls her a little further out of the black. She manages to make a quiet noise, sounding like a teenager who refuses to get out of bed in the morning.

[weatherornot]

Okay, that was something. There was the sort of noises that Genevieve made when she'd drank way, way too much the night before and had to get up before noon for some reason. Which meant that she was probably feeling super miserable. She gave the other girl a gentle shake, not wanting to disturb her too much.

"If you don't wake up I'm going to have to slap you harder," she pleaded. "And I don't think either of us wants that."

[bewitchinghaze]

The comment about the slap manages to make it through the blackness of exhaustion and she fights to pry her eyes back open.

"No... slapping," she growls out, her mouth feeling thick with sleep. God. The backlash from this is as bad as any hangover she's ever had before. "In my bag... Bottle labelled "Wakebloom". Get it for me?"

[weatherornot]

"Oh good, oh good, you're conscious," she said, sighing in relief. At least now if someone else wandered around it wouldn't look so bad. Of course, now if she just left the girl it would look really bad to the girl. Looking carefully through the girl's bag, she knew it wasn't good to go poking around in a witches bag. Finding the Wakebloom she pulled it out.

"Alright, Sleeping Beauty, drink up."

[bewitchinghaze]

"God no!" she laughs weakly, eyes threatening to slide shut. She reaches up and takes the vial, taking a large whiff of it. A second later, she's sitting straight up and coughing so hard her eyes are watering. "Wakebloom is for smelling, not drinking. I'm pretty sure you can wake the dead with it. Thanks, by the way."

[weatherornot]

"Well, you're awake and that's what counts," Genevieve said with a sigh of relief. So maybe it would have been awesome to wake her with a kiss or something, but this was probably for the best. Especially with all the coughing and the watery eyes.

"And no problem. I swear I had nothing to do with whatever made you pass out though. I was just hiking and found you."

[bewitchinghaze]

Val snorts, wiping at her eyes with a sleeve. "Don't worry. It was this stupid plant," she explains, kicking the now blackened and burnt looking flower over. "Stupid thing had a hell of a curse on it. Didn't like me trying to take it off and hunt down the curse maker."