JOHANNA BAI
Vampire
Posts: 63
Age:
731
Occupation:
Geography Professor at Whitmore
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Magnus Dane
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 5, 2024 18:42:09 GMT
|
Post by JOHANNA BAI on Jun 2, 2024 16:50:57 GMT
Music crashed down around her the moment the door swung shut behind her. Jo ducked her head, threading her way through the early evening crowd. Tastes changed as the centuries moved on, and, Lord, she’d embraced most of the modern conveniences, but that sort of music wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t relaxing, especially not when your nerves were already raw. Then you wanted something soft, ethereal melodies, pure notes. Strong, callous hands that had always drawn her eye working their way over lute strings.
The people already crowding onto the dance floor had no clue about what had happened to the man who owned this place. They hadn’t watched Hector’s quick, violent tumble from grace, or the grief his illness had brought on. They hadn’t watched those who cared for him slowly start to sag under the weight of this tragedy. It was a relief when she finally reached the other side of the dance floor and scurried through the door.
Coming here had to feel strange for Magnus. Did he expect to see Linc behind the bar downstairs when he walked in? Could he still feel Hector’s presence in his office? When she had left Kaegan and her boys, when she’d left Magnus, memories had rushed in with practically every breath. The only way she had been able to carry on was to avoid looking back, like she could outrun her grief eventually. Perhaps for Magnus being so close to reminders of Linc and Magnus helped him to hang on to the hope that they would get them both back. Tightening her grip on the bag she carried, jo tried to hold onto her own hope for that.
For weeks they’d all been trying to find a cure for the virus that was burning through the supernatural community in town. As a human she had seen the damage they could do. You lived in fear when they started to spread from settlement to settlement. When her boys or Kaegan had been sick she would stay up for days with them, using the herbs her mother had taught her about to fight off their fevers. Praying to a God she hadn’t entirely believed in not to take them from her. She hadn’t returned to church now either, but those silent words were whispered. Don’t take them. He’s lost enough already. Perhaps Hector had earned some bad karma over the years, but she refused to believe any of them had deserved this.
Jo had retreated to Whitmore’s library after her last class of the day. Between them Cassie and Lawrence – less ready to let Hector die now that his emotions were turned back on – were searching through every grimoire they could lay their hands on, trying to find a supernatural cure. Using her centuries of research experience, she had turned to the history books instead. Centuries of plagues had to have left behind some clues about how to stop this. Anything that had looked promising had been checked out. A quick stop at home – the one that felt strangely empty without Linc there – had added dinner to the bag. Bread she’d baked before work that morning, the beef and barley soup she’d left simmering in the slow cooker. As though Magnus was the one on his sick bed, she would make sure he ate instead of sinking into a purely liquid diet of liquor and blood.
Knocking on Hector’s office door, she still half expected his voice to ring out instead of Magnus’. When his came, she slipped into the office, a soft smile on her face. ”It’s just me,” Jo murmured reassuringly. Carefully, she set the bag down in the visitor’s chair, then rounded the desk. ”Hi.” Catching his face in her hands, she kissed him tenderly, first on his forehead, like a mother checking for a fever, then her mouth found his.
Jo settled her hips against the desk as she drew back. Her hands stayed on his cheeks, her thumbs tracing lightly over them, the dark gold of his hair brushing her fingertips where they rested against his neck. She studied his face, checking, as she did daily now, for some sign that the virus had taken hold in him the same way it had Hector and Linc. Centuries ago she’d watched a far more human sickness take hold in him, his cheeks and eyes growing bright with fever. Thankfully this time she found nothing.
”I wasn’t sure when you would be home, so I figured I’d come to you.” Offering what comfort she could. Glancing at the desk, Jo tried to make sense of what she’d interrupted. ”How is it going?” She wasn’t about to ask if there was any news. If there was she would have heard about it already.
|
|
MAGNUS DAYNE
Vampire
Posts: 95
Played by:
Julia
"You waste time trying to get people to love you, you'll end up the most popular dead man in town."
Last seen Nov 17, 2024 15:53:50 GMT
|
Post by MAGNUS DAYNE on Jul 18, 2024 0:28:59 GMT
 ━ evil notions come free ━
He leaned away from the largest book and sighed heavily, thinking of their faces in the moments before he stabbed them. Both had been angry, looking to hurt, but he’d seen a flicker of humanity in the end. Maybe he’d imagined it just to torture himself.
At the sound of someone knocking on the office door, Magnus sucked in a breath as if to bring himself back to reality. “Come in,” He called out, expecting Kit or Luc to fill the doorway, but, when he turned, he was met with Jo’s beautiful face.
A slow smile crept onto Magnus’ lips, growing with her proximity. “Hi,” He echoed, relaxing into her touch, her lips, finding a calm wash over him as Jo greeted him. He didn’t bother to respond to her comment, instead he simply melted into her━because it didn’t matter now. He didn’t have to keep glancing at the time and warring with himself over who he should pick. Leaving earlier than he wanted to get home to Jo, or continuing to search for Hector and Linc’s salvation.
”It’s alright.” Magnus said with a sigh. It wasn’t a lie━he wasn’t completely lost, and he wasn’t much closer to an answer, either. “These books are testin’ my Latin. My mum would be appalled.” He joked, chuckling lightly, loving that he could share something like that with Jo because she was the only other person still alive who had known his mother.
“Would ya like to ‘elp?” He asked with a smile, motioning to the book, his other hand set on her hip. “‘Nother pair of eyes might do it. Feel like mine are set to fall right out my ‘ead.” Johanna could hopefully read it as well, lending him another person to take the workload, getting them through it three times as fast.
JOHANNA BAI |  |
|
JOHANNA BAI
Vampire
Posts: 63
Age:
731
Occupation:
Geography Professor at Whitmore
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Magnus Dane
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 5, 2024 18:42:09 GMT
|
Post by JOHANNA BAI on Aug 22, 2024 18:26:18 GMT
Seeing that smile ease over Magnus’ face was as reassuring as the clarity in his eyes. He was well, physically at least. Beneath the surface, emotionally, it had to be a different matter. Like the depths of the ocean beneath the warm wash of a clear summer day, pressure at the depths strong enough to crush anything that sank that deep. Unspoken fears that perhaps there was no cure for just waiting to well up.
It had been the same every time Magnus had gone away with Edward, or on his behalf. If it had happened now there would have been ways to communicate, emails and phone calls sent back from home to reassure loved ones. Then most couldn’t even read, let alone write. The occasional message was delivered verbally, but she had always seen the way Magnus’ absence weighed on Kaegan. Jo had felt her own relief rush through her when Edward and his entourage would arrive back. He was home and safe, and eventually Magnus would be back by their fire, telling them of all that had happened while he was gone. She would study him in that flickering light, the same way she did tonight, for the scars battle had left on him.
The finer details had softened in the seven hundred years that had separated them since she had faked her death. On the road, and much, much later Jo would close her eyes and try to bring them each to mind. The smell of the forge on Kaegan when he returned home each night. The way her sons’ faces would light up as they smiled, the hints of their father she could see in each of them. The comforting feeling of Ananda’s presence. The wind whipping through her hair as North Wind carried her so fast across the land that no one could catch her. Magnus’ hands on the hilt of his sword, those bright blue eyes that seemed to reflect the soft summer sky.
Sitting in the back of his car that first night, chilled and shocked, she had tried to reconcile her memories with the man beside her. He was still there beneath the layers seven hundred years of life had added. Jo’s fingers squeezed the back of his neck lightly in support at his sigh. The layers weighing on him now seemed to thin for a moment, taking her back to when she had been little more than a girl in an unfamiliar land.
Jo smiled warmly at the memory of Magnus’ mother. She tried not to bring up Kaegan too often as though the memory of the man who had once connected them could open up a waterfall of grief and sadness that would somehow wash away what had grown between them. This was a different remind of the past though. Something as warm and comforting as Magnus’ arms settling around her that first night. ”Venia, not venis,” Jo murmured, clucking her tongue before she chuckled lightly. ”I lost count of how many times she told me.” She had been fond of Magnus’ mother, and his father – his tutelage in the kitchens had been invaluable. Between them and Kaegan’s family, the desperate ache for her own had been softened.
”She would have been so proud of you,” she said softly, brushing her thumb lightly over the shell of Magnus’ ear before her hand settled to his shoulder. ”Seeing all that you’ve done and the sort of father you are.” A father and friend that would work himself to the bone to save those he loved.
Looking back up from the heavy books on the desk, Jo offered him a smile. ”I’d love to.” She rose, turning around to study the books, in the end reaching for one Magnus directed her towards. ”Are you hungry?” she asked, gesturing towards the bag she had brought with her. ”It’s beef and barley soup and some fresh bread.” With all of his focus on the search, she wasn’t sure how much of it had been left for his own needs. It was easy to forget when every breath, every waking thought was fixed upon helping someone you loved.
The bags were set on the corner of the desk, well away from what appeared to be grimoires, the visitor’s chair drawn close, leaving enough room for each of them to work. ”I’ve been checking Whitmore’s library for anything that might help,” Jo murmured, settling with the book before her. ”This is different, I know, but humans have been fighting plagues for centuries. It doesn’t seem as though isolation could do anything for them.” From what she’d seen neither Hector or Linc had been fighting it off, they’d just gotten worse over time. ”Do you think there would be some sort of magical vaccine in them? A herb … some foul tasting tea to chase it from their systems.” She smiled fondly, remembering how glad she’d been when Magnus, Kaegan and the boys recovered enough to complain about the medicines she pressed on them.
|
|
