asgardmeridiem | MARCH INTRO MINGLE

Entry tags:

MARCH INTRO MINGLE

Who: Newbies and anyone who wishes to greet them!
What: Getting used to the city
When: Days 411 and forward.
Where: Anywhere in town!
Rating: PG-13 tops! If it gets worse, move to a private log please.

[Please include your location and the IC day (ex. Day 411 - this can be found in the schedule) in your top-level comment or your subject line when starting a thread! It can be any welcome hall, major attraction, or just out an about in any district. For newbies making a top-level thread, you may include your character's name/canon/house in your subject line if you'd like, to make housemates easy to find! :) If a God is needed or wanted, please ping the mods and depending on availability we might be able to throw them in where asked.

Also, keep an eye on the event schedule for February! If you're ICly introing during an event, make sure you take that into account. Thank you!

Have fun!]

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She can tell that there's more he isn't telling her, but only because she's the mother of a teenage boy, who was friends with other teenage boys. Harry isn't lying, per se, but he's definitely concealing something - the evidence is clear in tone, the way he holds himself.

The street isn't the sort of venue she'd normally choose for discussing this sort of thing, though, and Narcissa glances around breifly before returning her grey-blue gaze (similar to Sirius'; there is a family resemblance, if Harry cares to look, in the line of cheek and nose, the shape of the eye... Blacks do tend to breed true) to the boy she'd saved.

"I've some experience in that very thing," she says, quietly. "Perhaps you'd be so good as to warn me of anything too untoward."

Especially since she has no magic. Nobody has magic. Merlin on a bicycle, that's going to drive her absolutely crazy.

"It's hard to find patterns to it all, unfortunately, but if you'd like to avoid matters, I recommend you take trips elsewhere. Those trips ... often occur when something bad is about to happen here." Both times, in fact, something terrible has followed. Harry is still glad that so many people went to Vanaheim that one time. That meant fewer people were present that he could have killed. It still couldn't have been easy for them to return.

"Otherwise, it's difficult to avoid much of anything," he says. "But Thiazi has attacked us through our bracelets. So if you're willing to go grey, it's an option." Harry remembers that, vaguely. Vaguely, because that was a vague time of his life.

A frustrating part of his life.

It's almost too much information to absorb, especially on arrival in a place where she's still vacillating on a decision regarding reality.

"You're not making any sense when you give information without context," she tells him, further worry for the entire situation colouring her tone. "Go grey, meaning what? And if we can take trips, why can we not simply go home?"

She knows she won't like the answers, but they questions need to be asked. Narcissa can't make any sort of decisions regarding appropriate safety measures with incomplete information, and if Harry knows things, he should bloody well tell her.

He's not surprised. A lot of the lingo is hard to pick up on, even with what Loki provides. Harry realizes he should have checked to see if she watched that, but he doubts it would help. As he'd recently discussed with Sophie, there's a great deal of information that isn't provided in Loki's message. That information would be especially useful at this time.

"Our souls are ... protected, I think, by some kind of magic that keeps us colorful. The bracelets are a part of that, but if we take them off for too long and are removed from them, we go grey." There's a beat. "It's not the most pleasant of experiences, but it happens." He chooses to leave out that it happened to Malfoy once.

"As for trips, they're only to other parts of this world."

"...this place only grows more pleasant with every passing moment."

Her mouth forms a tight line; she hadn't intended to snap that with quite so much vitriol, but recent experiences have left her emotionally vulnerable, not to mention in some physical pain, and her words are all she has left to fight with.

Straightening her shoulders, Narcissa forces herself to assume a pleasant expression, or at least one not quite so angry. There's no point yelling at the boy for passing on the information she'd asked him for.

"The colours are significant to the gods who chose us, I gather..." And she supposes that some ideal of working together is going to be the way to save this blighted city. She lifts her wrist to examine her bracelet more closely, not bothering to hide Freya's jewel from him. There's no magic to glamour it anyway, so there's no point at all in subterfuge. He'd find out anyway.

"I rather fancy staying alive, don't you?"

"This time, yeah, I'd like to avoid that." The hint to that being that Harry never expected to be alive. He knows full well that she saw what happened with the spell, that for all terms and purposes, he should have been dead, but he wasn't. He has no desire to explain that to her in further detail, but that's the basics of what she needs to understand in his eyes.

"Though death is tricky here. You can come back." It's an important factor for her to know, especially if she finds out about her son dying. "And after you do, you're fine, usually. But sometimes you aren't." And when you aren't, it's complicated, but he doesn't add that. Harry doesn't know how it gets. "You can die ... a certain amount of times, but I'm not sure what the final number is." And he's not insisting that she find out.

In fact, that's the last thing he'd want.

Nor should he be alive, but here he is, and if there's something about him that even the Dark Lord can't defeat, Narcissa would be a fool to do anything other than court his... well, if not his favour, then at least his acceptance of her presence. It helped that she'd prevented a second blast of the Killing Curse by telling that lie, and the pain still lingering in her ribs is sympathetic to what he must have suffered under the resultant Crucio. Her eyes tell him she understands.

"I would think you've done more than your fair quota of dying for quite some time, Mister Potter."

For a good hundred or more years, she'd say.

It's strange, though, to see him this close again in such a short space of time. Her fingers itch to tidy his hair, straighten his shoulders, neaten his clothes. He's only a boy, younger than her own, and she-- she'd saved him, to save her own. The parallels between her actions and those of his own mother's are there, if shaky, and she wonders how things might have been different if this boy had had a proper wizarding upbringing, and not the Muggle one he'd suffered through.

Her hands remain at her sides. She's already clutched at him once.

Some part of him agrees, though he doesn't say it. That's not the reality of the situation. The reality here is that people die rather frequently, and Harry worries. What happens if Hel is the next to fall into a sleep? It's a thought that occurs to him now, and he glances away, realizing that it's a troubling one. He isn't going to vocalize it—not to her, at least, but to someone else. Hermione, maybe. Or he'll go to one of the gods directly.

"But we're at war," he reminds her. "Once again. And things happen. I'm only another traveller here. Nothing more than that." In some way, Harry realizes that he could have capitalized on the situation here, on the chance to be anyone but Harry Potter. He could have insisted upon a life without a war, a life without fighting.

But then he wouldn't be himself.

"I'm all too aware."

There's more that he's not telling her, but there are other ways to get information. Narcissa is not labouring under any illusions that Harry will immediately trust and open up to her; she certainly wouldn't, not after the life he's had and the experiences he's been forced through. She wouldn't wish that on anyone, least of all a child.

"But you're more than a traveller - we all are. Else why take us to begin with?"

"It's better not to assign importance to why we're here," he says after a moment. "The choice with their spell is random. They bring in people who wouldn't help." Tom Riddle being the one who comes to mind, but he's gone, and thus, Harry chooses not to tell her. She might find out from someone else, but it's not something he necessarily sees the need to make her worry about. "And when we leave—that's random, too."

Some part of him wishes there was a reason, wishes there was a choice. Harry wishes his choice to remain had been one honored than by random chance, but it hadn't gone that way.

Her gaze hardens.

"I see. I don't pretend to know why I'm here, Mister Potter, but I assure you, I will do everything in my power to keep my son safe."

A twinge in her ribs tightens the corners of her mouth. The Dark Lord's aim was true, though he'd been distracted enough by the apparent death of the boy in front of her to not cast anything serious her way.

"If that means another war, then so be it."

"Well, I wouldn't recommend going to war against the gods. That'll be tricky." Tricky, really, rather than bad. Harry doesn't want anyone to fight the gods, but he has a feeling she's not going to be happy soon enough with everything that Malfoy has gone through. And that's not even counting his own ... accident. Or accidents. He doesn't know how many there have been.

"I hadn't intended to tackle any deities, but your concern is noted." Her lips quirk in amusement, letting him see a hint of the lovely woman behind her tired and worried countenance.

"...am I keeping you from anything?"

He's been more than attentive, which is... not worrying, necessarily, but worth noting.

"No, but um ... you should probably look for your son. Without me." After all, Harry can only imagine how it would go if he showed up there with her. The times when Malfoy is unnecessarily illogical and jealous are Harry's least favorite ones.

He gets those traits from both his parents, though Narcissa has learnt to mute hers in company.

"I am more than aware that the two of you aren't friends, Mister Potter," she says, dryly. His concern is, nonetheless, appreciated. "But I would like to speak with him without external... pressures."

"Right," he says awkwardly. "I'll leave you to find him, then. But I'll be contacting you later for a meeting. It'll be important that we're all on the same page." He leaves out that it's technically the Order of the Phoenix, Asgard-Style. But that's exactly what it is.

Lovely. Here a mere handful of hours and already dragged into committees. Narcissa offers a smile that is slightly less tight than those she'll offer to perfect strangers, and only because she's just saved this boy's life. There's a hint of responsibility in there, and it can't be ignored.

"Your nobility may be your undoing," she points out. "I doubt your choice will be met with open arms."

But it's not a no.

"They'll have to learn that things are different here," Harry begins. "And that they're different back home, honestly." He already knows that the world they live in is a distinctly different one after Voldemort's true fall. He knows that, and he has a feeling she does, too.

"They'll have to accept it."

"...I do like how you cover ruthless determination with optimism, Mister Potter," she says, tilting her head slightly as she gives him a searching look. "But I'm sure you'll understand that I'll be reserving judgement for a little while longer."

Fingers that itch to fix that mop of hair instead grip the edge of her skirt where the hidden pocket that usually houses her wand is. It's empty, not that it apparently matters, here.

Nodding, her posture shifts to something more aloof; their conversation is complete.

"Good afternoon, Mister Potter."

Half-blood, and beneath her, but a child, and one she saved. Worth the manners, she thinks.

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MARCH INTRO MINGLE

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