auryn

It's been a long day and it sits, restless, in Auryn's blood, waiting for a spark to set it off. It's raining, again; barely scraping 60 for however many days in a row. The asphalt's complaining about the late thaw and so are Auryn's neck and shoulders, reminding him that he was once a southern boy and he's at weird angles all day working on cars.

(Lately, it seems, Auryn can't even just shut up and get his work done. He's glad enough he hasn't been fired, after his and Davin's confrontation in Quill. He's happy not to make small talk -- he's usually taciturn and focused and he prefers it that way. But today he found himself explaining that yes, he does, actually, understand what "the only one who touches my car" means, and no, he doesn't know who the man with the sports car is, but Davin isn't available and he can schedule an appointment or Auryn can do the work himself right now. He'd gotten the keys, eventually, along with a death threat if there's so much as a rearview adjustment out of place.)

It's a good couple miles back to his little house in the woods, and he's tired and grumpy when he gets back there. It only darkens when he sees, just shy of his usual turn into the road, a tree splintered at the base and fallen across his path, accompanied by thick gouges in the mud, now filled with water, where a Jeep or maybe an ATV made a poor decision about where to infiltrate.

He takes a step into the flooded path to reach the tree, still hanging on on one side, and just crouches with his hand on it for a moment. There's nothing he can do, though: the damage has been done. All of a sudden he's just angry, angry at his own ineffectiveness and passivity, angry at other people and their arrogance, angry at how alone he feels in a place that was supposed to be some Holy Grail of witch communities. He balls up the fury painfully and pushes it out, lifting the tree and the water up out of the tracks to hover and throwing it all with force with a frustrated shout, coming down with a hard thud and bouncing a few feet away down the empty road.

The sudden whine of a siren, makes him freeze. ( cut for length, cw for police interaction )
"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

"Not in this town." He gestures at the back of the car. "Auryn Connor, you're being arrested for open and public display of magic and destruction of public property, with failure to pay previous civil fines. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say -- and have said -- can and will be used against you. You have the right to appropriate representation..."
His voice fades dully as Auryn lets his head sink against the cruiser. This is not how he had planned his evening.

[OOC: Dated to this evening! Spot Auryn being brought in, be the employee who processes him or talk to him at the police station, run into him after he's released...]

Auryn takes a few days to settle in. To get a roof, however fleeting, over his head; unpack, cast some basic wards over the space he's claimed as his own. To soak up the feel and the history in even the timber and architecture of this town. But it's been an intent road that led him here, unlike some of the other places he's visited in his life.

It doesn't take him a long time to start hearing names he recognizes, to start hearing the way they're said by one or another person. It doesn't take much effort to inquire -- tourist-like and all naivete and wide eyes -- as to the rumors about this town, to drop names he's had pressed into his mind by witches that sent him on his way here. Names like Coombs and Grimhilde, to say things like "curses" and "evil" and to see what people say when they're asked about the truth. It takes even less effort to let them talk, wind stories and tales and histories that build on each other. A question here, an encouragement there. There isn't a trick to it except saying very little about himself.

Some tense at the question, or blow the whole thing off, and he notes that too.

The truth is, as usual, what you make of it. But there are overlaps, and directions that repeat themselves. And it's that, and needing some solitude, that finds Auryn wandering purposefully into the woods north by northeast.

It's been unseasonably warm, grey and damp these last few days, and the gabardine jacket he's wearing over a hoodie, dark jeans tucked into boots is almost too warm as he carefully traces his way up following the trace of trees. He lets himself adjust as the lack of town noise gives in to dense, more subtle cues: birds taking off from trees, the whisper of bare branches against a gray sky, or the shuffle of evergreen: the subtle presence of a fox or stray dog alerting itself in the back of his mind and the dense feel of the magic in the air around here.

He's wandering without thinking, intentionally putting thought out of his head, so much so that when he realizes it's gotten colder, darker, he can't tell how quickly that happened. He raises his head at the sudden distinct silence and stills himself for a moment. A murder of crows -- or ravens? -- takes off from a far off tree and circles, and he turns toward their watching place, holding his right hand open and passive to them before following curiously.

[Open! Auryn's in search of Grimhilde Manor, but choose your own adventure. Does he find it? Does someone else find him first? Feel free to bump into him in the woods, or maybe he get s turned around in a giant circle by the ravens and ends up back in town. A great time to meet him.]

[Updated 4/2015]: Auryn has built himself a tiny home in the woods south of Grimhilde Manor and east of the old Attwater chapel, about a total of 200-300 square feet. It's narrow and tall, having a larger first floor and a half second story and looks a bit like this:



(Except it doesn't have the lighter porch, and that top floor is a bit further out and is supported by a living tree.)

It's minimal and off-the-grid on the inside, with a wood stove, a bizarrely complex water filtration system rigged up and made safer with a bit of magic, and quite a few windows, mainly facing south and east for optimal light. Except for the plumbing, it's pretty much hand built and took him all winter and part of the spring 24-7 to finish.

It's warded heavily to make it extremely hard to notice if Auryn hasn't invited you in. The wards won't harm anyone, but passersby will tend to sort of...slide off the area and may not be able to see the house if staring right at it.