Absit Omen RPG

Waverly was fifteen, the adopted biracial daughter of an interracial lesbian couple. She was taller than most of the boys. She took up space, she stuck out. Auror mother, werewolf hunter other-mother. At this age, she was at war with herself, pulled between the sometimes opposed defiant self-love and the urgent need to fit in. Beautiful and strange. And now this.

The smell of the hospital made Waverley light-headed. On the long walk, Zora had been filling the air between them with choppy reassurances and recovery outlooks and warnings about what she'd see. Bitten up by a werewolf, but she's still your mum. Everything will be fine. Nasty on the leg, but Healer Marrowbone's optimistic. They've got her on a lot of potions. She's feeling well enough, but something about a long road and big changes and all of that.

"Mum..." Waverly choked on the sudden, violent frown. Her mum was crying, something Waverly didn't remember ever seeing her do. Tears, sure, the way the eyes well up when you laugh too hard or have to pull a shard of glass from the bottom of the foot, from a broken bottle on the sandy beach. Maybe she'd spied a bit of joyful moisture in Ollivanders four years ago when she'd first waved her very own wand.

But no, her mum was small and pale and sick and afraid in hospital bed and it was bone-cold and frightening. Waverly swallowed and approached, unsure of what to do. Should she cry? Was she allowed to touch her? There were no dramatic gashes across the face like werewolves from comic books and stage playbills.

"It's alright, love, giver her hug. See? She's alright," encouraged the mediwitch. "Just mind the leg."

With a big exhale, grateful for the instructions on how to mourn a mother, bent over the bed and wrapped her arms around her mum.

"You're okay?" she asked into her hair, her voice still thick and stuck.

Waverly almost thought she'd said something wrong, but wasn't bothered. She could be like that, caustic without cause; she expected others to be the same. She shared the joint again with Virgil and noted that the filler song was coming to an end.

Rather than linger on this Abby person, who was probably very lovely, Waverly wanted to move on with their caper. The gillyweed was feeling nice in her head, and there was an angle to cover.

"Ready for round two?" she asked Virgil.

The drowsy prince liked to be mysterious and he looked good in it, so Waverly didn't move to tease him. But she also didn't ask for more.

"There's that one girl." There was a squib, Waverly remembered, that ran in circles adjacent to hers. Waverly didn't know much about her other than she thought she worked at the Ministry in some non-magical capacity. "The blonde who went with Schlagenweit."

She seemed wallflowery.

Waverly absolutely cackled at Virgil's 'war' comment and she saw now how silly her conjecture was, how absurd a picture it would be. He was right, of course. Her mum dressed in whatever had the most pockets, god have mercy on her fashion sense.

Wav sorted out the gillyweed and shared it. Now that the first half of the interview was done, she was feeling more confident and able to relax. Any nerves Waverly kept were kept secret. She hated to admit anything bothered her in the moment or in anticipation. It was difficult, caring about something. She'd stumbled into it.

"Oh, the Ministry vampire. Hadn't thought of him."

Waverly was skeptical at first thought, wanting an outside perspective of the institution, wary of revealing herself.

"Oh, are you not the Ministry lot now?" she prodded. She thought of a poster she'd seen, a manic grinning cat reminding all who passed by they were not immune. "How's that work?"

Wav could always put on another record.

"The Ministry? Oof," Waverly let out a puff of air. Her mothers would recognize her voice in an instant. "I hope not."

Like not, though. They went to bed with the elderly and if they were up late, they were working. Regardless, she wasn't really ready to be found out. She had no idea how Queen G would react to her commandeering these wireless wave's.

"I need a vampire next," she said cool and dangerous. She didn't ask if Virgil knew any - she knew he did. She did as well, but was far too smart to consider returning to Hookers after Terry's warning (though Virgil had erased the worst of it).

"Kelp?" She had gillyweed in her bag.

"That would be random," she said returning to people on Level Four listening in. "I'm trying to imagine that, chaps in suits and vests huddled around a box."

Written by Nuri and Niobe

"Good," Waverly mimicked Virgil with a wolfy grin. The track ended, Waverly turned some dials and let dead air hang for a few long seconds. Then she began without preamble.

"While we wait on the Wizengamot to make the call on voluntary vampire bites," Waverly began with a little smile on her voice, a trace of awareness that tonight she had at least one listener, an audience to her purring wireless persona. "I'm going to do what the Daily Prophet and Ministry won't dare - have a chat with someone who's actually gone to the teeth. What's the word, Edward?"

—

“The word is pleasure, darling!” Virgil’s mouth widened with amusement as he heard Edward’s voice conveying the gentle enthusiasm he intended, a slight hint of camp. “That’s what drew me into the whole affair.”

Oh, this was fun. It was a break from the current style of Shakespeare at Stardust. A taster, a game.

“The Ministry and papers don’t want to talk the nitty gritty details,” he sniffed in disdain, “simply because it involves pleasure.”

—

Something Waverly's stomach (and other places) fluttered; she knew exactly what 'Edward' meant. Her smile was on her voice when she responded.

"For the virgins: what was it like?"

—

He already knew he would hate Edward if such a person existed in real life. How nauseating! Virgil ran a hand through his hair and made a thinking sound, almost a sigh, as he considered his words.

“Like scratching an itch you didn’t know you had?” he frowned a little to himself. “That deep, sensual satisfaction, but it just…”

The blond made a seeking gesture, realised quickly this was the Wireless, and finished: “It Just. Doesn’t. Stop. Keeps pulling you down, rather, if you understand me.”

—

"I feel you, I feel you," Waverly agreed with furrowed brows. It was interesting seeing Virgil so deftly adopt a persona, and doing it off stage.

"It hurts, but…" she prompted.

—

She was good. Virgil uncrossed his legs and slipped off his shoes so that he could fold himself comfortably onto the chair.

“It hurts,” he picked up her cue in a slow, deliberate way, “but once you, um, overcome that initial pain it becomes a pleasurable pain. You’re just too distracted by the… the dimension of pleasure.”

Virgil didn’t want to say exactly how it made him feel - how, for him anyway, it was almost a sexual pleasure, a euphoria that emanated from somewhere within him and not just the bite.

He licked his lips. “And it sticks with you. There is such an afterglow, darling.”[/i]

That he only knew from his reading and conversations with Ceph. Virgil’s afterglow hadn’t been something to brag about.

—

"Darling," Waverly repeated playfully. She was conscious of avoiding the stiffness they were all used to, which was so strictly enforced in print and on air.

It was easy for her to resist talking about herself, but the temptation was growing. She knew that afterglow. She wanted to reflect and amplify how Virgil was putting it all into words. She took a breath and continued.

"So are these people who go off and get bit? What are they looking for? What were you looking for?"

Waverly had gone because Virgil had gone.[1]

—

Curiousity and a lack of self-preservation, said a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Yavin. But that wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear over the Wireless, so he clicked his tongue thoughtfully instead.

“Moi?” Virgil stalled. “Just looking for a thrill, a connection with something… I mean, someone different.”

He was straight up lying of course. If someone from Hooker’s was listening, at least they wouldn’t be able to mark him out. It would be too much to say he hadn’t been looking for anything particular.

Virgil had simply been collateral in a card game. Curiosity had brought him there but not as a customer.

“Really, aren’t we all looking for ways to break the tedium, to meet new people…?” he raised his eyebrows as he trailed off innocently.

—

"Mmm, one hundred," Waverly replied emphatically.

She marked Virgil's way around the truth but had no objection. His anonymity could go as far as he liked - they both knew the risks involved here. Besides, his answer was gripping enough.

"What about them, thems that bite? Do you think they get anything out of it, other than a snack?"

—

Them.

For a brief moment, he pictured Hooker. Terrence Hooker, taunting and playing and calling the shots, breathing into his neck.

“I think it’s fun for them, playing with their food.” Virgil didn’t look at Waverly but at a point just past her, his wan eyebrows lowered in genuine thought.

He remembered how Vaillancourt had cornered him in the lift[2] at the Ministry, told him not to hide the twin scars of pride.

“Yes,” emphatic now, with a better hint of Edward in his voice. “That’s it. A little thrill… that’s what it is for us, so why not for them?”

Virgil smiled a dark smile. “Maybe we’re not so different from one another.”

–

"We're all just looking for some kind of connection," Waverly said, her tone reflecting Virgil's shift to the more serious. She decided to lean closer to that, the taboo of it.

She paused only for a moment. "Can't deny the difference in, like, power. It's all based on trust that they won't take more than offered. Is that the thrill, oh, this could be it for me. It's Saturday night, bored as hell, gillyweed won't do, Fates take me?"

—

He laughed, delighted, a laugh only heard by those close to him - scarcely disguised by Edward’s voice. Virgil found himself leaning forward against the table, chin resting on his knuckles. It was fun, this.

“I don’t know about that… it’s only a fleeting power…” he trailed off thoughtfully and pushed out his lip.

Working at the Ministry, being subject to its atmosphere and endless political bickering, brought other perspectives to mind.

“Life or death, darling, but what’s the life of a vampire who has killed?” Virgil posed the question archly. “If they’re discovered, well, a life on the run isn’t it? First a sexy thrill, suddenly a monster to be hunted.”

—

"Can't ignore that," Waverly acknowledged. There was that. It was an interesting analysis from her politially-connected friend.

Then she made a small transition in her tone. "Break time, I think. When me chum Edward and I come back, how legalisation will change everything. Or nothing at all. Don't go away."

Waverly flipped some switches and set a needle onto vinyl, the breathy Bloodlet by Munroe.

When they were safely on a cold mic, a big smile spread across the normally stoic Waverly's face and she threw her arms up in a big stretch.

"Fuck me, you're brilliant," she gushed. "We are pulling this off. I can't believe it. We can take as long as we want."

Waverly was utterly thrilled.

1.	28 Jan 2012 - Red Lights into Paradise [M]
2.	8th Dec 2011 - Close Encounter of Another Kind

Waverly laughed at Virgil's energy and his glancing blow at a straight version of himself; he didn't dare linger there long.  He was an actor and Waverly knew he'd be able to pull it off. But at what cost?

"Don't be nervous," she said, noticing his fidgeting. "This is an experiment."

A rare moment of nerves from her cool friend. For Wav the stakes were low. The station was her secret sandbox, a whisper in an echoless darkness.

Waverly went over how this would work as she set up and tested the voice disguiser. They'd already discussed some of the particulars when Wav had brought up the interview idea, how they'd keep it anonymous like the rest of the station's content, how Wav wanted people to hear underrepresented voices. Virgil ticked a box or two there. That, and he was willing. He had vampire experience and he was dating the head of Beings. Both were more than enough reason to keep this anonymous.

"I'll set us up with an intro, just what the legislation is." She had some articles clipped. The Daily Prophet had coverage, and Witch Weekly had done some as well. She'd also found some bills around Diagon bleating opinions, papered over public service posters for the vampire blood bank.

"I'll let you introduce yourself, whatever you want to say. Then we'll just, you know, shoot the shit. I'll ask questions. Answer however you want."

Waverly had put on a few tracks while they got set up, that way if anyone did tune in, they'd know she was on the air and keep their wireless dialed in. They had about a minute left until the current song ended (muggle sensation Cab Calloway, old jazz music one of Waverly's latest interests).

"Good?"

She felt a flutter of excitement and couldn't keep a smile off her face.

10 Aug 2012
Friday at 11pm
Witch Weekly Headquarters, the basement

The tiny recording studio forgotten in the basement of Witch Weekly had been slowly tidied. It still had a mouse-hole vibe to it, the entrance to the room nearly obcsured by boxes, cobwebs still in the low rafters, and posters covering much of the glass. The little red light meant to indicate someone was love on air was still perpetually doused even though the studio had been active a couple of times a week, in the wee hours, for months.

It was all the anonymous Waverly Roh-Ballentyne's doing. She'd thrown herself into the clandestine broadcast, hijacking without permission the equipment and radio wave. She played what she wanted, she said what she wanted, even replaying archived programmes from the 1970s - the prescient ones.

Only one or two close friends knew she was doing this, what was keeping her up nights. This new obsession had replaced old ones, the kind of obsessions that had gotten her nicked by Magical Law Patrol or warned by vampires. Her wireless station had its own risks - she'd not asked anyone permission - and that kept her heart beating.

Tonight, late, she had Virgil Carstairs with her. Her very first guest. The studio was lit by a single desk lamp. She was fiddling with dials on an old voice disguiser which looked straight from the 1970s with its Eames contours . A large old microphone sat between them, to be shared.

"Who do you want to sound like," she asked Virgil squinting at the options on a dial. She'd never used it before. "There's Emma, Edward, Claire, Simon…"

They were here to talk about the Ministry moving towards legalising vampire bites, the nibbles on volunteers. The coverage had been in the papers for a few months now.[1] It was a topic in which both Waverly and Virgil had much invested, though they'd both had the good sense to give the entire scene space.

1.	14 July 2012 - Legalisation of Consensual Vampire Feedings

The unsanctioned wireless program had been operating quietly from the basement of Witch Weekly headquarters in Diagon Alley, keeping mostly vampire hours. Waverly broadcast a few nights a week. She played a lot of music, aired a few old shows she found dusty in tins, and sometimes she said what she was thinking out into the empty dark. She had no idea if anyone listened, but that was part of the thrill. Was this a confessional, or was somebody out there? Either way, she never gave herself a name, or even a tag. She just said what was on her mind, protected by anonymity.

A record by Send No Crows ended. Waverly let the needle drag on the record for a few rotations before filling the silence.

Get this, dear listeners: there's something new and shady in Diagon Alley. You remember Calaveras with its anachronistic fetish of black velvet, underlit bartops, and the buy-more-than-drinks reputation. It's a great place for a date if you like your steak rare and something headier than a cigarette. Well, used to be.

Calaveras has a new owner, better lighting, and, uh, fucking questionable taste in fancy dress night themes.[1] They're calling it Full Moon Festivities. If you're one of the majority here, someone lucky enough not to be a werewolf, and you're sad society doesn't favor you quite enough, this might scratch that itch you have to be snide and tight about a marginalized community the one night of the month they can't smack you for it.

Are all your girls' nights ruined by pitiful werewolves hanging around? Come to Calaveras when they're all going through it! There are probably cringey cocktail specials with shite puns to do with moons and dogs.

Or could be you have a thing for wix with badges and extra-judicial carte blanche to detain anyone who seems werewolfy. Come pull an off-duty werewolf hunter.

Anyway, someone do us a favor and set this place on Fiend Fyre.

Waverly let it hang there a moment. Then she put on another record, a muggle band from the 1940s New Orleans, a tune cheerfully horny with a strong up-down beat.

1.	31 March 2012 - Full Moon Festivities, Witch Weekly Advertisement

Revamp

Character Name: Waverly
Character Biography: https://absitomen.com/index.php?topic=20295.0

Sections Changed: I want to add Waverly's adoption story.

Requested Changes:
Zora and Iona wanted to raise a daughter and after much thought began considering adoption. The norm they'd both be familiar with is adopting within the magical community. They quietly shared this with their close friends and some family, including Athena Marrowbone at St. Mungo's.

In 1995, Athena came to them with the story of a patient in St. Mungo's, twenty-two year-old Clio Twelvetrees. Clio was a witch: pregnant, struggling with a curse-induced mental illness. She wasn't on good terms with her family, and was not in a relationship with the father. St. Mungo's midwives had begun to pressure her into placing her baby for adoption, unethically taking advantage of her wavering lucidity.

Zora and Iona, unwise in this process were unaware of this when they signed the adoption agreement. Clio's signature was there - what else did they need to know?

A baby girl was born on February 1st and Zora and Iona named her Waverly. The adoption record was sealed as was common in the system at the time.

Clio was in and out of St. Mungo's for several years and is now in a permanent in-patient care in a group home near Ottery St. Catchpole.

Why do you wish to change these area(s):


Other characters this may affect:
Iona and Zora.
I ran this by Mel, and we're good to go.

20 Mar 2012
The Vernal Equinox
Tuesday @ 10pm
Hufflepuff Girls' Dormitory

A voice came through the wireless, a mixed accent of a youthful Brit with a bit of north and a bit of south. So many young people were like this these days, learning more from their peers than their parents and their scants and lilts told that tale. So the voice on the wireless was new in many ways indeed. A few of the Hufflepuff girls had found the station recently, tuning the dial in between regular stations and finding this unique thing that hadn't been there before. The host seemed mature to them, but not aged - that wisdom of a girl just a bit older than yourself. She was conscious in a good way, speaking softly and annunciating well. Not too stuffy, but someone who knew she was on radio.  In total over the last two weeks, the Hufflepuff girls had heard, what, no more than five or six hours of the show which never said its name or her own.

"... like a goth Dickensian street urchin," came through Waverly's voice. She was introducing a brand new record she'd cut herself after discovering someone new. "She charmed them all without deceiving them, just making their coins a bit looser so they more easily honored their ears. She was small behind the guitar but played it well. I don't think she needed a spell to sing as loud and clear as she did. Anyway, here's Nemo."

Waverly silenced her microphone down there in the old studio in the old Witch Weekly headquarters in London and played the record which had no label, only a bit of marker saying the musician's name and date.

The song was odd to Zeta Pepper and she couldn't help but laugh nervously as so many did when they encountered something strange or challenging. It sounded so hokey at first, twangy like a cowboy song, but after a bit Zeta realized it was a little sad and a little mad. Whoever the singer was, she hit the strings with surprisingly strong hands. She was singing about about a man who'd killed his wife in a fit of rage and the man regretted it all, but the singer had no sympathy for him.

The track ended and the girls realized they'd stopped talking. The waited for long seconds to hear Waverly's voice again.

"If you see her around London, put a sickle in her hat and say hello for me. Next up I've got Tove the Sorcerer, Wandsnap Armageddon, Florence and the Machine, and Send No Crows."

Waverly's promised records played on a theme of taking no shit or rising above or rejecting nostalgia.

Open or snapshot - whatever moves you.

11 March 2012
11pm, Monday
  Witch Weeky Headquarters, storage room

It had taken another few days for Waverly to find time to revisit the overgrown clutter of the former recording studio among the storage rooms of Witch Weekly. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it, but it was too early to start asking questions. She didn't yet know what it all meant or what she wanted to do. It felt like love letters in a chest, it felt like dusting off a gravestone, it felt like a secret. Waverly turned over her wrist to check her watch and was surprised by the time. She'd been listening to the old recordings for hours; the only people left upstairs would be those sorry souls scrambling for deadlines.

Just one more, she thought, flicking through the stack of records. Beside her, yet untouched, was a cobby old microphone with three W's nested and intertwined.

5 March 2012
7pm, Monday
  Witch Weeky Headquarters, storage room

Waverly had woken up Saturday morning with a strange lightness as if the dreariness of March welcomed her. This after weeks of feeling glued to the pavement, anxious and craving the warmth of home and bed. She couldn't say why. Virgil had come over Friday night, they'd had some wine and a smoke.[1] Then, on Sunday, like a light coming on, Waverly had told her mothers that she was moving back into her flat with Gabby Dagon.

Tonight, she was supposed to be meeting Tam at Calaveras, but instead she was lingering at her job at Witch Weekly, excavating in a storage room. Interning wasn't all lattes and interviews, after all. It came with its fair share of tidying up and, today, organizational tasks everyone else had put off. It was ultimately a fruitless endeavor, but the hours had become fleeting when Waverly discovered crates of old wireless program recordings.

They cracked and hissed as they came through scratchy from the big reel-player's sound horn.

" ... the latest in footwear ... stumbling like an Inferus ... extraordinary debut..."
" ... a blazing success, having struck out on her own defying the norms of the day ... "
" ... then follow up with an entire row of alternating knits and purls to complete the stockinette section ...
" ... we asked her what it's like to wear an Aurors robe and care for four growing children ...
" ... tell him he'd better get on because, and I'll tell you, I'd never put up with that higgledy-piggledy..."
" ... and this muggle Margaret Thatcher. If Minister Bagnold really believes what she says she's about, she'll make it clear that ..."

The recordings dated as far back as the 1930s and into the 1980s - Waverly wasn't able to find anything more recent than that. The topics ranged all over. There was Knit Picking hosted by Nettie Weaverwelle, an hour-long stitch-by-stitch guide through a knitting project; Cambridgeshire Coven, a political talk show; The Life Between was a serial drama about a witch who marries a muggle; and a call-in advice column program called Speakeasy by sisters Dominique and Jacqueline La Croix. There, too, were fashion reviews, celebrity gossip, and even a newscast. Some of it was exactly what you'd think of a ladies' magazine, focused on being the perfect wife and mother, and from what Waverly could tell it was clearly meant for White listeners. But she was surprised to find the programming seemed keenly aware there weren't any wizards listening. It felt less like witches' issues were being talked about and more like witches were talking to each other, at times totally unguarded. They didn't seem squeamish about addressing the women's lib of the '70s or the squib movement of the '80s. Waverly felt like she'd uncovered buried treasure and couldn't understand why she'd never heard Witch Weekly Wireless.

At some point in Waverly's excavation she realized this wasn't a storage room at all. Beneath all the crates, there was a recording studio.

1.	2 Mar 2012 - Find Me Sleeping, where Virgil erased with Waverly's permission the memory of Terrence Hooker biting her.

Waverly closed her eyes and did as Virgil bade her. She slipped into the cold bright silence of the pool. There was something powerful about being given permission to forget and dream of something else. Waverly's dreamy brain needed no further coaxing now that the deal had been struck, she could go anywhere and be unpursued.

If one were to write it, one might expect something glowing and warm and pastoral. Flickering pixie lights, wet moonlight, windblown window curtains, maybe. But Waverly dreamed of the Wizarding Wireless Network and arguing with Genevieve Garcia-Gamp at Witch Weekly. Busy hallways, looming deadlines, a troupe of theatricals, musical typewriters, a cat who gave birth to a litter of birds. A dream with literally nothing haunting about it.

Waverly turned around when Virgil spoke. As suddenly and as loudly as a blink, the surface tension of the dream broke. He'd been gentle in the way Virgil always seemed to be, but this time Waverly didn't try to push him out. He'd been invited this time and from the way the world around her had begun to change, he was already getting settled. It was cold being awake in here. It was odd seeing the dreamscape's incompleteness.

Here in her dream it was a lot harder to hide how much she was hurting and how afraid she was. Her neck began to bleed from two bright holes and her hand twisted ugly so she held it against her heart. She was crying without sound, just tears down her cheek like a poem.

"Just take it," she said her mouth not moving quite in time with the words. "I don't want this anymore. Just take it. I don't want this anymore."

Her desire echoed and faded a few more times, and her intention never hesitated. Headlong again she went.