Klaus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wholeworldoutthere) wrote2012-11-28 04:21 pm
wholeworldoutthere) wrote2012-11-28 04:21 pm
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Meeting the swamp witch - October 31
It was not difficult to hear about the witch that lives a few hours inland, even without glamours. The common people of Port Royal are full of tales they are just waiting to tell, and this is just one of them. Klaus secured them a pair of horses, and as soon as dusk fell, Caroline and he rode out in the direction he had been told she lived.
A few hours later, and Klaus is starting to wonder if they were given the right direction at all. They've asked a few more people they encountered on the road, some who clearly did not know what they meant, others that thought them mad to seek out a witch, and only a couple that told them that it was farther this way.
They reach a crossroads and Klaus stops his horse, looking around and wishing that somebody would come along, but there isn't anyone. "Got a favourite direction, love?"
Caroline wasn't exactly skilled when it came to riding horses, but she could manage enough-- summer camp was enough of a lesson that she got on the horse, and she wasn't really the sort of ask for help once she'd decided she knew what she wanted to do. Still, it's been a couple of hours, and even though she's a vampire and even though she's strong enough to normally lift the horse itself, she's less than thrilled. Sure, she healed fast, but that didn't stop it from hurting-- and she'd not eaten because it wasn't like there were blood banks here.
She should have thought about it, but, shocker, she didn't. She reins in the horse, and her eyes flick up to the nearly full moon that's been rising for the last hour or so. "That way," she says shortly, and maybe she's a little short, but she forces herself to take a deep breath even as she urges her horse forward. "I guess I've just got a feeling, you know?" She looks over at him, her voice lowering. "What if we can't find her?" There hadn't been houses so much, and she'd already sort of gone through the whole 'appearing in the daylight' thing and it wasn't something she wanted to repeat.
Klaus has no trouble trusting Caroline's instinct. He would have trusted his own, but the full moon is out and much as it does not control the wolf in him, it still calls to him and messes with any hunch he might have had regarding direction. "We still have a few hours before dawn," he answers easily. "We'll find her, and if we don't I'll find us somewhere to spend the day." Like he had in Port Royal, although he would be less picky here where it comes to comfort and luxury.
He sees the figure by the side of the road before his horse does, neighing in fright as it tries to turn around and go, but Klaus is good with horses, and a lot stronger than it: he wants it to stop, and it does, although it clearly isn't happy about it.
De horse ain't happy to see her and she knows it be because animals think in different ways than humans and sometimes be smarter in ways. Dere's somethin' goin' on in Port Royal tonight with de moon and de ship come to port and Tia Dalma knows it's ta do with de Pearl and de cursed crew. Humans don't need to be messin' wit things they cannot ken but nobody ever learned dat lesson de easy way.
"You souls lost on de way to da port? Nothin' but trouble dis way. I was leavin'."
Caroline smiles, looking down at the woman by the side of the road. She's wearing a Fancy Dress - a Fancy Dress that was full on fancy, and it was the sort of thing that she loved, that she really really wanted to look that way. To be that way, sort of, it was a little fairy princess even if she knew that wasn't really a thing, even if fairy tales stopped being true a long time ago. Still, though, when she talks, Caroline's smile sort of... fades. "What sort of trouble?" She glanced over at Klaus, her brows high in a question, saying What should we say? without any words.
"We're more the sort to go looking for trouble," Klaus says, like he would tell any other witch, because of his horse - the horse knows what she is. Clever animal, and he dismounts, even if he doesn't let go of the reins. The horse has settled some, but it might still gallop off if he lets go. "Not their kind of trouble," he adds, meaning whatever is going on in town right now, and walking a few steps forward, enough to put him in front of his horse, and that much closer to the witch. She has the look of one, too, and he wishes that his senses were as good as they used to be. He can't smell a witch, per se, but he's always been perceptive - until the bloody nanites. "Do you know what we are?"
He's not usually one to go for the direct approach when he can help it, but with witches, he's found that it was always the best road.
"You smell off," she decides, not too sure what's come up on her and not wantin' to show her hand too quick. "You got de smell of magic on yous somehow but not magic I know. Just a simple swamp witch, nothing more."
Lies, but until she knows what they be, she don't want to go an' reveal everything about her. Dere's some things nobody needs to know. "What are you, then?"
Caroline glances at Klaus, and she doesn't know if they should tell the truth or not, but then she realises that it's going to be pretty hard to get a ring that works right if she doesn't know that they're actually vampires. She also dismounts - clumsier than Klaus, her hand tightly wound in the reins to keep the spooked horse relatively still. "Vampires," she said after a pause, "Except not bad ones. I don't eat from people." She doesn't really talk about Klaus' habits, because she won't let herself think about Klaus' habits.
That's one way to play it, Klaus figures when Caroline answers before he can, and he'll let her try it. If it doesn't work, he can always resort to threats as needed. "We were out looking for you," Klaus adds, neatly bypassing any mention of his own diet. "She needs a little something to walk in the daylight."
"You need a charm, then, to block da sun. I think I can do that." More than that, but Tia Dalma thinks she needs ta hear more about dese vampires before she goes and helps one.
"Need ta know what harms you so I know what ta use in da spell."
Caroline hedged when she explained, her smile bright and friendly. Not the best liar in the world, but she was pretty good at lies by omission. "Sunlight," she said with a half shrug. "Obviously. And fire, and the obvious." And she'd let the woman figure out what the obvious to that was, because she knew that when Bonnie made her ring, she hadn't needed a litany of all the things that caused her harm, and she wasn't about to hand over the proverbial keys to the kingdom.
"Something against sunshine will be good enough," Klaus cut in, just in case Caroline had in mind to say anything more. "We can pay you." Of course he'd lifted gold out of the coffers of the house he had, well, procured for them.
"More in da world than gold," Tia Dalma says cautiously. While she's more than happy ta do this thing for da money, she thinks it's best she gets something else in return too. She always wants ta be on the top of things.
"But gold will do. Do ya have a ring for me ta charm or should I use one of my own?"
Caroline blinked, and then looked down at her hands. "I have a ring," she said, twisting it off of her finger - it was simple, a gold ring with a purple stone. "Would this work?" She didn't know if the stone was real or not, if it mattered, if this lady would do what Bonnie did. She was not as smooth with this as Klaus was, and she glanced at him, her brows furrowing for a second before she flashed a smile that she hoped was very See? I'm not a bad guy, and you totally want to help me.
Klaus frowns when the witch directly speaks of a ring; too much of a coincidence. Usually, he would have trusted that she couldn't have glimpsed that in his head, but since the nanites, his mental abilities have been a lot less present, so he supposes that it wasn't necessarily something she'd got from Caroline. Still, it's a good reminder that he needs to teach Caroline about all of this, since he suspects that she has no idea about the range of her powers, diminished though they have been. But he keeps silent for now, and just watches the witch, rather than answer Caroline's look his way.
"It'll do," she says, pocketing the ring and nodding back up toward the road. She'll invite dem in and give dem some trust so maybe she'll get theirs.
"Won't take long ta do what you want. Come back in a few days, I'll have it."
"A few days?" Caroline can't really stop how her voice goes up an octave. "No. You don't understand. We can't just wait a few days. It- I mean, thank you, thank you for making it, and that's great and all, but isn't there any chance you could make it faster? We have more money. Does that matter?" She raises her brows high, and then turned to look at Klaus, and it's clear from her expression - Please. Not that long. She couldn't have it in her grasp, and just have it slip through her fingers.
"What my friend means is," Klaus says, keeping his eyes on the witch, "we don't know when we might get called away, and we'd greatly appreciate it if you could hurry this up as much as possible." He'll have to have a word with Caroline about not appearing desperate, but for now he must make do.
"Can't rush de magic," Tia Dalma says simply. "A few days is as fast as I can promise."
"Is it doable in two days?" Klaus asks, because from the length of their previous stays in random worlds, two days ought to be safe, and hopefully even allow Caroline to have a little time to enjoy the ring. The true 'hopefully,' of course, is that the ring's magic will hold even on other worlds.
"Two days? Yeah, two days can be done," Tia Dalma agrees. It's workin' faster than she likes but it's not impossible. Nothing is, when she wants it. "Meet here in two days?"
"Okay," Caroline said, even though everything in her sort of was scrabbling at the walls, saying No way, I need this right now. "So, right. Two days, right here. We'll be here." She smiled, and then looked back over her shoulder at Klaus, hoping that she'd said the right thing, because seriously, she was really on edge about this not happening, somehow.
Klaus's horse is still spooked, so he hands the reins over to Caroline before he approaches the witch, taking a purse out of his coat pocket. "Here. You'll get twice that when you deliver. After we've made sure it works."
A few hours later, and Klaus is starting to wonder if they were given the right direction at all. They've asked a few more people they encountered on the road, some who clearly did not know what they meant, others that thought them mad to seek out a witch, and only a couple that told them that it was farther this way.
They reach a crossroads and Klaus stops his horse, looking around and wishing that somebody would come along, but there isn't anyone. "Got a favourite direction, love?"
Caroline wasn't exactly skilled when it came to riding horses, but she could manage enough-- summer camp was enough of a lesson that she got on the horse, and she wasn't really the sort of ask for help once she'd decided she knew what she wanted to do. Still, it's been a couple of hours, and even though she's a vampire and even though she's strong enough to normally lift the horse itself, she's less than thrilled. Sure, she healed fast, but that didn't stop it from hurting-- and she'd not eaten because it wasn't like there were blood banks here.
She should have thought about it, but, shocker, she didn't. She reins in the horse, and her eyes flick up to the nearly full moon that's been rising for the last hour or so. "That way," she says shortly, and maybe she's a little short, but she forces herself to take a deep breath even as she urges her horse forward. "I guess I've just got a feeling, you know?" She looks over at him, her voice lowering. "What if we can't find her?" There hadn't been houses so much, and she'd already sort of gone through the whole 'appearing in the daylight' thing and it wasn't something she wanted to repeat.
Klaus has no trouble trusting Caroline's instinct. He would have trusted his own, but the full moon is out and much as it does not control the wolf in him, it still calls to him and messes with any hunch he might have had regarding direction. "We still have a few hours before dawn," he answers easily. "We'll find her, and if we don't I'll find us somewhere to spend the day." Like he had in Port Royal, although he would be less picky here where it comes to comfort and luxury.
He sees the figure by the side of the road before his horse does, neighing in fright as it tries to turn around and go, but Klaus is good with horses, and a lot stronger than it: he wants it to stop, and it does, although it clearly isn't happy about it.
De horse ain't happy to see her and she knows it be because animals think in different ways than humans and sometimes be smarter in ways. Dere's somethin' goin' on in Port Royal tonight with de moon and de ship come to port and Tia Dalma knows it's ta do with de Pearl and de cursed crew. Humans don't need to be messin' wit things they cannot ken but nobody ever learned dat lesson de easy way.
"You souls lost on de way to da port? Nothin' but trouble dis way. I was leavin'."
Caroline smiles, looking down at the woman by the side of the road. She's wearing a Fancy Dress - a Fancy Dress that was full on fancy, and it was the sort of thing that she loved, that she really really wanted to look that way. To be that way, sort of, it was a little fairy princess even if she knew that wasn't really a thing, even if fairy tales stopped being true a long time ago. Still, though, when she talks, Caroline's smile sort of... fades. "What sort of trouble?" She glanced over at Klaus, her brows high in a question, saying What should we say? without any words.
"We're more the sort to go looking for trouble," Klaus says, like he would tell any other witch, because of his horse - the horse knows what she is. Clever animal, and he dismounts, even if he doesn't let go of the reins. The horse has settled some, but it might still gallop off if he lets go. "Not their kind of trouble," he adds, meaning whatever is going on in town right now, and walking a few steps forward, enough to put him in front of his horse, and that much closer to the witch. She has the look of one, too, and he wishes that his senses were as good as they used to be. He can't smell a witch, per se, but he's always been perceptive - until the bloody nanites. "Do you know what we are?"
He's not usually one to go for the direct approach when he can help it, but with witches, he's found that it was always the best road.
"You smell off," she decides, not too sure what's come up on her and not wantin' to show her hand too quick. "You got de smell of magic on yous somehow but not magic I know. Just a simple swamp witch, nothing more."
Lies, but until she knows what they be, she don't want to go an' reveal everything about her. Dere's some things nobody needs to know. "What are you, then?"
Caroline glances at Klaus, and she doesn't know if they should tell the truth or not, but then she realises that it's going to be pretty hard to get a ring that works right if she doesn't know that they're actually vampires. She also dismounts - clumsier than Klaus, her hand tightly wound in the reins to keep the spooked horse relatively still. "Vampires," she said after a pause, "Except not bad ones. I don't eat from people." She doesn't really talk about Klaus' habits, because she won't let herself think about Klaus' habits.
That's one way to play it, Klaus figures when Caroline answers before he can, and he'll let her try it. If it doesn't work, he can always resort to threats as needed. "We were out looking for you," Klaus adds, neatly bypassing any mention of his own diet. "She needs a little something to walk in the daylight."
"You need a charm, then, to block da sun. I think I can do that." More than that, but Tia Dalma thinks she needs ta hear more about dese vampires before she goes and helps one.
"Need ta know what harms you so I know what ta use in da spell."
Caroline hedged when she explained, her smile bright and friendly. Not the best liar in the world, but she was pretty good at lies by omission. "Sunlight," she said with a half shrug. "Obviously. And fire, and the obvious." And she'd let the woman figure out what the obvious to that was, because she knew that when Bonnie made her ring, she hadn't needed a litany of all the things that caused her harm, and she wasn't about to hand over the proverbial keys to the kingdom.
"Something against sunshine will be good enough," Klaus cut in, just in case Caroline had in mind to say anything more. "We can pay you." Of course he'd lifted gold out of the coffers of the house he had, well, procured for them.
"More in da world than gold," Tia Dalma says cautiously. While she's more than happy ta do this thing for da money, she thinks it's best she gets something else in return too. She always wants ta be on the top of things.
"But gold will do. Do ya have a ring for me ta charm or should I use one of my own?"
Caroline blinked, and then looked down at her hands. "I have a ring," she said, twisting it off of her finger - it was simple, a gold ring with a purple stone. "Would this work?" She didn't know if the stone was real or not, if it mattered, if this lady would do what Bonnie did. She was not as smooth with this as Klaus was, and she glanced at him, her brows furrowing for a second before she flashed a smile that she hoped was very See? I'm not a bad guy, and you totally want to help me.
Klaus frowns when the witch directly speaks of a ring; too much of a coincidence. Usually, he would have trusted that she couldn't have glimpsed that in his head, but since the nanites, his mental abilities have been a lot less present, so he supposes that it wasn't necessarily something she'd got from Caroline. Still, it's a good reminder that he needs to teach Caroline about all of this, since he suspects that she has no idea about the range of her powers, diminished though they have been. But he keeps silent for now, and just watches the witch, rather than answer Caroline's look his way.
"It'll do," she says, pocketing the ring and nodding back up toward the road. She'll invite dem in and give dem some trust so maybe she'll get theirs.
"Won't take long ta do what you want. Come back in a few days, I'll have it."
"A few days?" Caroline can't really stop how her voice goes up an octave. "No. You don't understand. We can't just wait a few days. It- I mean, thank you, thank you for making it, and that's great and all, but isn't there any chance you could make it faster? We have more money. Does that matter?" She raises her brows high, and then turned to look at Klaus, and it's clear from her expression - Please. Not that long. She couldn't have it in her grasp, and just have it slip through her fingers.
"What my friend means is," Klaus says, keeping his eyes on the witch, "we don't know when we might get called away, and we'd greatly appreciate it if you could hurry this up as much as possible." He'll have to have a word with Caroline about not appearing desperate, but for now he must make do.
"Can't rush de magic," Tia Dalma says simply. "A few days is as fast as I can promise."
"Is it doable in two days?" Klaus asks, because from the length of their previous stays in random worlds, two days ought to be safe, and hopefully even allow Caroline to have a little time to enjoy the ring. The true 'hopefully,' of course, is that the ring's magic will hold even on other worlds.
"Two days? Yeah, two days can be done," Tia Dalma agrees. It's workin' faster than she likes but it's not impossible. Nothing is, when she wants it. "Meet here in two days?"
"Okay," Caroline said, even though everything in her sort of was scrabbling at the walls, saying No way, I need this right now. "So, right. Two days, right here. We'll be here." She smiled, and then looked back over her shoulder at Klaus, hoping that she'd said the right thing, because seriously, she was really on edge about this not happening, somehow.
Klaus's horse is still spooked, so he hands the reins over to Caroline before he approaches the witch, taking a purse out of his coat pocket. "Here. You'll get twice that when you deliver. After we've made sure it works."