revenance_rpg | The Witching Hour

Entry tags:

The Witching Hour

Characters: Granny Weatherwax and whoever she runs into
Content: Traverse gains a witch
Location (including world): First District, Traverse Town
Time of Day: Afternoon (such as it is)
Warnings: None

[Granny was no stranger to dreams. Anyone had ‘em, from the entirely mundane and embarrassing sort of dreams* to the sorts of dreams that set people on a path and kept ‘em following it. Those were the dangerous ones, if you didn’t keep an eye out for the warning signs. The mad could dream, and the dangerously sane too. She was not, however, particularly familiar with dreams like this one**, and couldn’t be having with this sort of thing anyway. Dreams were all well and good, but there was no call to have animals with puffballs stuck to their heads and bat wings. It was against the natural order of things. Even the idea of creating something out of bits and pieces of things was something she couldn’t really be having with.

Accordingly it took some time before she finally admitted that maybe she could put up with another hanger-on she’d never wanted, ridiculously colored though the things seemed to be. Dream though it was there was a difference between accepting that fact and bending to the ludicrous rules of this dream. Besides, she was perfectly capable of defending herself. She’d simply decided she might as well see what all the fuss had been about. It certainly wasn’t anything to do with curiosity and anyone who thought otherwise didn’t have the slightest idea what they were talking about.

It wasn’t like she needed a lizard anyway, even if it was traveling with her. Thus, she payed it no real mind as she set about seeing what she could make of the town. It might have been no dream she knew, but that was absolutely no call to not assume there was a perfectly good reason for her being there. It was just a matter of figuring out what it was.

* Which she quite adamantly did not have, thank you very much.
** Not that she would have admitted to such. Her pride would never have allowed it.]

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Even was slowly becoming resigned to the fact that his Pricklemane was excessively social and had no sense of self-preservation. As a result, it went haring off after any strange - or familiar - person who crossed its path, and couldn't be relied upon to come back safely unless he followed it. Even wondered if it was getting into trouble on purpose, so he would have no choice but fetch it. If such was its goal, it was far cleverer than he had thought.

Regardless, his only response to its sudden burst of enthused squeaking was to carefully finish tucking his (painfully small) stock of newly-purchased potion ingredients into his pockets, before following the noise.

"What looming specter did you find this - Oh." Well, at least it wasn't accosting someone he already knew he loathed. That qualified as an improvement.

Granny, somewhat regrettably, didn't precisely share Even's thoughts on the matter. It was already bad enough that she was in some ridiculous dream with an animal that had no right to even be allowed following behind her. She didn't need to be accosted by another one besides*. Not that this stopped her Hebby Rep** from offering a chittering greeting to the Pricklemane all the same. Though Granny had her doubts about most of the things to be found in Traverse Town, the Dream Eater shared absolutely none of them, and for perfectly good reasons, chief among them the fact that it had first come into being there and so had no complaints about it.

Granny, on the other hand, was more interested - for certain narrow definitions of the term - in the person following along close on the heels of the other Dream Eater.

"That all you got to say?" she asked, looking down her nose at Even.

*Regardless of how interesting it might have been to notice they weren't all lizards.
**A name she couldn't have been having with if she'd known it.

That was not, unsurprisingly, all Even had to say. He was beginning to get quite tired of people treating his first statement like it was his only one. What, have these people never met him?

Okay, so this one hadn't. But still.

He looked down his nose right back. "Of course not. I presume you aren't someone to whom I've spoken previously, but instead a recent arrival or person who for some reason hasn't made themself known. Who are you?"

Recent arrival would have been the most accurate, but damned if Granny was going to admit it. She was mentally off-kilter enough as it was,* and there was no call in making things worse. Besides, she'd made a life of assuming roughly how conversations would go and she certainly wasn't going to stop now.

(It should, of course, be noted that she'd only rarely run into people like Even, but that was no call to change what was otherwise a perfectly workable set of assumptions.)

"You calls me Mistress Weatherwax," she answered, without so much as breaking stride.** It wasn't in her nature to back down, and if Even was going to look down his nose at her she certainly wasn't going to stop doing likewise.

*Not that most would have been able to tell.
**Metaphorically speaking. Gazes can't be said to stride anywhere, barring highly unusual accidents.

Edited 2012-10-28 19:14 (UTC)

Well, now it was a matter of pride. Even glared at her. He was the one who knew vaguely where he was and what he was doing, blast it! She should respect that!

"Is that a title with a specific referent, or is it merely customary where you come from?"

It was at this point that Granny had options. Or rather, she had options in theory. While she could stoop to Even's level and return the glare, it was quite simply not done. Of course, she wasn't simply going to let the glare pass unnoticed. That would simply be not done, and would be all but criminal besides.

More to the point, while her first attempt at headology hadn't working quite as she'd expected, it had clearly had some effect. Thus, there was no need to alter what was clearly a perfectly serviceable answer to the problem.

"It's what you calls me," she answered, as her own stare simply slid distinctly up the scale of glares to the point of near-haughtiness. Just because Even happened to know more about the city* was no call to let him get away with glaring at her. Her of all people. She wasn't wearing her hat for fun, after all.

*A point she didn't mean to address.

An astute observer might note that Even was becoming increasingly discomfited by the Stare, though not yet so much so that he was willing to concede the field. It probably helped that he was unaware of the significance of The Hat.

"And other than someone who's very emphatic about modes of address, who are you?"

If absolutely nothing else, Granny was astute to the point of being almost uncomfortably so for the other person involved. As such, it was entirely too easy to note that her stare was begin to affect him. Naturally, then, it was simply a matter of continuing to hold her course unabated, something she was quite willing to do for as long as necessary.

"You sees this hat?" she answered, in tones that made it quite clear that the question was really only a question by a technicality. "I ain't wearin' it to keep my head warm."

"Ye-es, I see - why are we talking about the reasons behind your haberdashery choices?" Even said, genuinely bewildered. He was trying to get his Pricklemane to stop gamboling around strangers' feet and get back to work, not end up in bizarre discussions with uncommunicative strangers, and he wasn't entirely sure how he had gotten from one to the other.

His glare increased marginally. It seemed that she was Wasting His Time.

To Granny, the jump in topics was all but crystal clear. It should have come as no surprise, then, the fact that her conversational gambit did not yield the expected result was met with no small amount of irritation and, more noticeably, a marked increase in the intensity of her stare.

"Means I'm a witch," Granny answered, in the sort of tones that said she considered this to be a point she shouldn't have needed to explain.

Edited 2012-11-08 04:22 (UTC)

The stare was somewhat disrupted as Even was too confused to register it fully. Quickly enough, however, he recovered himself. His eyes dropped minutely, not enough to cease glaring, but a sign of discomfiture.

"Well, I'm sure that's - actually, I am sure it's very nice for you. Are you a going-to-try-putting-us-into-comas witch, in which case I think you may be a little late, or some other kind?"

As far as Granny was concerned, the fact that he was beginning to show discomfort was good. Not enough perhaps, but enough that she would take the progress for what it was.

Not that she was going to at all decrease the intensity of glare. That would be given in and if there was one thing a Weatherwax didn't hold with it was the idea of giving in. She wasn't much inclined to answer Even's question either. Whether she was or wasn't the sort of witch to put people into comas* was a question she'd leave to him. Instead, she let her glare care a simple message: was the question one he really wanted the answer to?

*She wasn't, but not precisely by choice.

Edited 2012-11-20 02:41 (UTC)

When it came to Even and questions a reasonable person might not want the answer to, his response was extremely reliable. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized her for tell-tale signs, such as ravens, magic mirrors, or people's organs in a basket.

"That was a question," he pointed out, in case she was somehow unaware.

Given Granny's general distrust of not only mirrors but also reflective surfaces, Even would find nothing that could even be remotely considered a magic mirror. Similarly, there was nothing that could be considered to be an animal following her, with the exception of her Hebby Rep. As to the question of organs, a simple glance was all it would be likely to take to scrap that idea.

Either way, she was not amused in the last about Even's comment. She knew what it had been. She'd simply opted to not address it, or at least, not until Even had all but forced her hand. "I knows what a question is."

Under the external pressure of the Stare (and, Even being Even, internal pressure as well), Even's calm, such as it was, finally cracked. "Then do you suppose that you just might, possibly, manage to, oh, answer it?!"

Or volunteer any information, or ask questions of her own. He really wasn't picky.

"I might," Granny admitted, after a further moment of silence. "If I sees a reason to."

Unfortunately for the state of Even's temper, a single person being sharp with her was unlikely to be enough of a reason to answer the question. It didn't matter that it was of particular importance by his estimation of things. She was who she was, and if he couldn't see his way through to the proper understanding of things, it wasn't her fault.

She didn't see much point in asking questions either, so Even was sadly out of luck on that point as well. No sense asking if she'd just as likely find out herself, given time.

Noctis, unlike many Spirits, had his mistress's full blessing in seeking out new arrivals; how else was she meant to track them all down, after all? She did like to at least see what sorts of people she shared this place with...not to mention, perhaps one day there would be a pony and not a human.

The technicolor bat swooped in from around a corner, flitting in neat circles around Granny and her Hebby Rep and squeaking loudly. Luna followed a few seconds behind, head lowered and looking somewhat downcast. Upon seeing Granny, she frowned a little, but quickly banished the expression and perked herself up nonetheless. "Good evening to thee."

Granny had seen a lot of things, in her long life. None of them entirely prepared her for what was following the latest entry in animals-that-probably-shouldn't-exist.* She'd seen unicorns, once, and that was something she would have much rather not need to deal with again. But this... this was more like a child's dream of a unicorn, all soft-edged and tame. Besides, no sensible horse would bother wearing wings. It simply wasn't done.

(That this was a dream and thus not entirely susceptible to a more normal sort of logic was something that Granny absolutely refused to address.)

"And to you."

*Her own Dream Eater, naturally, chittered its own response to the bat.

Luna extended one wing slightly, and Noctis chirped once more before circling around to land on her back. "We hath not seen thee before. Art thou new arrived?" she asked, tilting her head at Granny. This must be an older human, she thought; hopefully she had some weapons or magic of her own. At least she had one of the fire-breathing lizard Spirits, if nothing else.

"We art Princess Luna, of Equestria. We hath been here...several weeks, by general estimate." She sighed, ears back. "'Tis difficult for us to tell when the moon doth not move."

Newly arrived, yes. Actually about to admit to that point and in so doing admit to any number of things she had no intent to admitting to herself, much less a stranger (who wasn't even human at that)? Not quite so much. Instead, she turned her attention to the rest of Princess* Luna's comment. The moon in the Discworld wasn't necessarily the easiest to track across the night sky, but it was at least there when you expected it to be.

"Of course it moves," Granny answered, with a surety that spoke to long years of sounding like she knew exactly what she was on about. "You just probably ain't looking hard enough."

*A title she wasn't sold on, to be honest. Who'd ever heard of unicorns having leaders?

Luna raised an eyebrow, her ears going back. The woman had no way to know who she was; she had no rational reason to be offended. Still, she sounded a little put out. "We hath brought night to Equestria for thousands of years. We can tell when a moon is moving, and that one hath not budged for weeks."

She tossed her head, jabbing her horn at the sky with a short flash of light; not a true attempt at moving the moon, but somewhat close to how she would begin. "Nor can we move it ourselves. We suspect 'tis because there is no sun to take its place." The princess shifted her weight uneasily, looking up at the stars. "And yet the locals care not. They think it ordinary."

Unicorns bring night to some ridiculously named country. Now Granny really had heard everything. Unsurprisingly, it was exactly the sort of thing she couldn't be having with at all.*

"Then it ain't a moon, is it?" Granny answered in tones that suggested that she wasn't about to swayed from her decision, regardless of whatever sort of magic Luna was up to. With flash like that it was wizard magic anyway, and there wasn't any point in trusting to wizards to get up to anything good. Even - and especially - if the wizard wasn't even human besides.

*And she be having a discussion with someone** about letting their dreams go about getting into other people's heads.
**Probably Magrat, if she had any guess.

Luna...blinked, and turned to look up at the moon again. Well, that would explain why she hadn't been able to budge it, though she'd been having just as much trouble with the stars. But it was clearly a moon, wasn't it? If anypony should know a moon, it ought to be her.

She turned back to Granny, head tilted slightly. "What dost thou suppose it might be, then?" This was the land of dreams; there was no reason things should really be as they appeared. Mayhaps she was mistaken, or being tricked somehow. She'd put her bits on the latter if the old woman was indeed correct. "Surely no mere illusion could persist for so long, and the others appear to perceive it as we do."

What it was - or wasn't - was none of Granny's concern. It didn't much matter, when the whole damn thing was a dream and an uncommonly bizarre one at that. For all she knew, it might not even really be Discworld and who knew what rules might be anywhere else. Not, of course, that she was going to admit to even that. Uncertainty was hardly something she was going to admit.

"Somethin' that ain't a moon," she answered with a distinct and pronounced sense of surety. "If you wants to know more than that, you can go look yourself."

Sparky noticed the woman first, and quickly alerted York that there was someone new and interesting to meet. York frowned to himself and headed over right away; most of the people here seemed pretty surprisingly able to take care of themselves, but he wasn't as sure about an old lady walking around with all the nightmares attacking. It'd be nice to say hi and make sure that she could handle herself.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," he said. Sparky headed over to say hello to the other hebby repp, bouncing with enthusiasm.

Well, this one at least had the sense to be polite. Granny couldn't say she much approved of the rest of what she saw*, but it was better than she gotten so far. Even if her own lizard did insist on offering its own hello in turn.

(There was, of course, a slight internal debate about whether 'ma'am' was an acceptable replacement to the more familiar 'mistress,' but in light of the fact that it was at least relatively close, she figured she could let it pass this once.)

"And to you," she answered, utterly unconcerned about the fact that it didn't look like afternoon and in the sort of tones that implied that she was mostly answering for the sake of social niceties, such as they were.

*Not much, given the armor that got in the way, but she disapproved of that too, just to be on the safe side.

Okay, and he now faced the challenge of asking if she was fine on her own without being insulting. "I don't think we've met, are you new to the town? I'm York; it's good to see a new face around here." Maybe edging into it slowly was for the best. Feel her out.

Under general circumstances, York's idea was a good one. Most new arrivals were more than willing to meet a relatively friendly face, or had one of several questions* that they figured needed to be answered. This general pattern crumbled in the face of Granny's surety of self, and general disinclination to ask anything that resembled a question.

"We ain't met," she answered, looking York in the eyes** and fixing him with the full force of her best look of disapproval.

*Of varying importance.
**Or at least where she assumed his eyes were.

She sort of reminded him of his Nana, actually. That was pretty terrifying. He felt D stir in the back of his mind and a definite sense of refusing to deal with this, thank you, so don't ask.

Well, there was nothing for it but to jump in. "Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am?"

It was probably for the best that York was the only one Granny had to deal with. She'd certainly seen a lot of things in her long life, but that didn't mean she was going to be having with the idea of any sort of AI, regardless of how helpful it was supposed to be.* As such, there was only flicker's worth of silence before she answered the question.

"You can take off that helmet, for one. 'Taint right, goin' about hidin' one's face like that."

*What was the point of having an artificial intelligence when a real one worked just fine?

York pulled off the helmet and tried to make his hair behave a bit. He'd given up on gel a long while ago so it was in a sort of perpetually messy state these days. Hopefully his eye wouldn't put her off; probably not, she seemed like a tough old bird. That didn't mean she could handle Nightmares, though.

Given that Granny had dealt the sight of a battered old tomcat suddenly turned human, a missing eye was hardly about to startle her. Instead, she simply nodded to herself. She wasn't about to admit to the fact, but it was certainly a good deal easier to look York in the eye this way.

(Which was, she had to admit, probably the point, but damned if she was going to let York know that.)

"Better."

York smiled; she really reminded him of some of the older ladies he'd known. Which meant she probably wouldn't approve of the smile, and hopefully he wasn't in for a lecture about what he was smiling about.

"Do you have a place to stay, ma'am?"

She didn't approve. There wasn't any call to go smiling at people you'd just met, especially when just about the world seemed to have taken a turn around the far end of the bend. Certainly not when no one seemed have any inclination to understand the meaning of what she was wearing.

"That ain't you thinkin' about offerin' help I hears, is it?"

"I thought you might want directions to the hotel." And help getting there. Well, she definitely didn't want help getting there, but she might need it. "I'm heading there myself."

Requiring directions would mean needing to admit to being lost in the first place. Unfortunately, this ran into problems when compared to the fact that Granny was never lost. Being lost required vulnerability, and that was something Granny couldn't abide by in anyone, least of all herself.

"Then you ain't thought enough, boy."

York nodded to the woman; clearly she wasn't going to budge an inch, so he'd have to look out for her. "I'll be heading on to the hotel then, ma'am. I hope you have a good evening."

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The Witching Hour

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