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[Jun. 10th, 2005|08:46 pm] |
Esk was in the library, pouring through books, when a sudden and familiar pain gripped him in the stomach, and he sprinted back to his room, where, instead of retching, he just doubled up, lying in the foetal position on his bed, as his body seems to be folding in on itself..
...and then comes the noise. The sudden noise of a thousand minds swarming into his. He'd tried so hard to touch everything, that he'd let his defences down, opened it out to everything. Even the wood of the bed had memories and emotions to pour into his head. It's deafening.
He lies there, in physical and emotional pain, for what seems like hours. |
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[Jun. 4th, 2005|08:42 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| |  sick | ] | Eska reaches her room in a hurry and staggers into the bathroom, sinking to her knees and undoing her suddenly very tight belt. She retches into the toilet bowl for about five solid minutes.
Her innards - her entire body feels like it's being torn apart. her robes are soaked in sweat and no longer seem to fit anymore. Her internal orgains seem to be tearing themselves inside out, and her face is burning.
After a while the pain subsides, although everythign feels wrong. She's not sure what it is until she looks in the mirror...
...and screams. |
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| Name meaning meme... |
[May. 26th, 2005|10:54 am] |
Eskarina
Creative, versatile and imaginative you appreciate beauty in all forms. You have great inner strength and courage and have the ability to accept large responsibilities or challenging situations with patience and humility. Others admire these qualities and follow your lead. You are honest, discerning and self-disciplined and need to have a peaceful environment. Putting others before self your talents are used to make life better for everyone.
Smith
Blacksmith : English
With your charismatic personality and persuasive powers you naturally attract all the good things in life which you could want. Kind, generous and sincere you are a good friend and partner with strong attachments to home and family. You are ambitious and have sound business acumen, this together with a natural love of life ensures that you enjoy success financially and in your relationships.
....wow.
From here |
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[May. 12th, 2005|02:20 pm] |
One key trait of Lancre witches - and what ever else she may be, Eska has always been a Lancre witch - is their bloody mindedness with regards to doing a job they said they'd do no matter how bad they turn out to be at it.
Another thing about Lancre witches is they don't tend to bake. At least not unless they turn a certain way, and then it's not bread products that ends up in their ovens. Bread and cakes generally get baked for them by women in the village, believing that putting an extra tin in the oven is preferable to needing the assistance of a witch who hasn't received anything from you for a while. Wizards never bake at all. That's what Mrs. Whitlow and her team of workers in the kitchen are for.
In fact, Eska's only venture into baking so far was in her heady adolescence, still trying to fit in with her fellow students, when she'd suggested that the properties of certain herbs in the University garden might make an interesting take on a traditional cup cake recipe. After the cup cakes grew teeth and started eating each other, none of the students had felt like eating them.
So now, the witch-wizard is standing, covered in flour, in one of the disused magic artefacts laboratories, glaring at the third thing today to have come out of the small kiln that hasn't been used since the Potters' Guild started producing magic resistant crucibles.
This one at least, is vaguely cake-like, although the deep sunken hole in the middle, the stone like texture and the fact that Eska had to use both hands and bend at the knees just to lift it, suggests that it's not much more edible than the one that exploded or the one that had sprouted tentacles.
So now Eska just glares at the cake, and the cake at least has the decency not to glare back. She wipes cake mix off the page of the book she had been using and consults her notes again. It's not like she'd even altered the recipe. Eskarina Smith, first woman to graduate Unseen University, first person to combine the polar disciplines of witchcraft and wizardry, who has befriended gods and the undisputed expert of the entire Disc on particle physics and electricity, has been defeated by butter, sugar, eggs and flour.
This might take some time. |
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| [OOC: An idea for Other!Esk |
[Mar. 6th, 2005|03:55 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| | creative | ] |
| [ | listening to: |
| | Californication - The Red Hot Chilli Peppers | ] | I might need to reread the books for the canon I'm working her into: try and figure out where she fits...
Esk in Otherways.
Drum Billet never showed up in Bad Ass. He left his staff to another boy, and Eskarina never became a wizard.
However, wizard or no, she's still the eighth child of an eighth son, and is still naturally magical. She went into training with Granny Weatherwax, and when Goodie Whemper, maysherestinpeace, passed on, she moved into her empty cottage. Although the same age as Milli!Esk, she has fifteen years of Discworld canon on her, because of her involvement with sending Lancre into the future.
Magrat Garlick married Verence II and became Queen of Lancre, but she was never a Witch.
Eskarina was the third witch in the coven of Lancre, but fulfilled the role differently. She's not wet like Magrat, and developed a strong personality that could stand up to Granny and Nanny. She makes the tea only because it suits her to make the tea. She is confident, clever and very much not silly.
Wizard!Esk is a strange mixture of socially awkward and streetwise. She is sexually naive and probably gay. Other!Esk has never been to Ankh Morpork, but knows country people well. She is entirely comfortable with her sexuality and, thanks to Nanny's influence, is not afraid to use it as a weapon. Alhtough she prefers girls, the only reason she is still the official 'maiden' of the trio is because her very good knowledge of herbs and ability to count has prevented her becoming the 'mother'.
Because she does know herbs. Her cottage traditionally belongs to research witches, and Eska is no exception. Just like Milli!Esk, she has a distaste for headology, but knows when it's useful. She's mastered a great deal of herbology and is a talented Borrower. She has all Milli!Esk's witchiness, but it is not counteracted by her wizarding geekitude. There'll be no long conversations about the nature of magic for this witch.
Needless to say, when Eska was sent to the Ball in Genoa, there was no need for Granny to instill self confidence in her. What she and human!Greebo got up to is anyone's guess.
She'll introduce herself as Mrs Smith. Don't ask about Mr. Smith. |
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[Feb. 19th, 2005|06:11 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| |  exhausted | ] | It's good to be home.
Eska had thought the exact thought as she doubled up coughing having breathed far too deeply on her return to Ankh Morpork. There's no filthy smog like Ankh Morpork filthy smog.
True to her suspicions, despite spending about two weeks in Milliways, no time at all had passed in Ankh Morpork, which meant she still had to take a second year practical levitation class, and go for a meeting with her supervisor.
So she did. She took the class, and went to her meeting, during which she talked about everything she'd learned about in Milliways while old Windle Poons took his mid morning nap.
She'd had the afternoon off, and gone out into the city, drinking at the Drum, confusing young Detritus the splatter, and even eating one of Throat's sausages inna bun. Well, part of one.
Tomorrow she plans to go for a flight over the Sto Plains with the hawk, but now she's looking forward to having a well deserved sleep.
She's just about to do so, when there's a desparate knock on the door, which she opens to reveal young Stacey from downstairs.
"You gotta come, Mistress, it's our Eddie..." she pants.
Esk sighs, reaches for her witch's hat and follows her.
It's good to be home. |
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[Jan. 31st, 2005|08:14 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| |  thoughtful | ] | Esk drags her trunk up to her room, grateful at least that the additional magic in Milliways allows her to levitate it just enough to negate friction. She unlocks her door and looks around: it's certainly a lot cleaner than her room at the univeristy, and a little bit bigger as well.
She opens the window and isn't surprised when the hawk from home swoops in. The raw magic around the University has had adverse effects on it, she thinks, as she fishes out the skull from her trunk and places it on the desk for it to perch on.
She then unpacks her robes, and three wizarding hats: one magenta, one pastel blue, and one royal blue. Then, at the bottom, her dress.
She doesn't wear it very often, only for expected circumstances where a witch is definitely expected. It is long, modest, and excessively tailored, with a high neck and tailored sleeves that are more often then not rolled up above the elbows as the situation requires. It's black silk, of the expensive variety that is more commonly used by Assassins, and was a present after she provided some medicines for the kitchen staff at the Assassin's Guild*. It's also well worn and getting a bit threadbare, but Esk takes good care of it.
She shakes it out and hangs it up, carefully, placing her black witches hat on top of it. All ready to go.
*Who really should have known better to tuck into leftovers |
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[Jan. 26th, 2005|04:04 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| | contemplative | ] | Esk sits at her desk, watching as the hawk works its way through some fresh vole she's brought it from the Bar. It's been in and out of her window ever since she used it to fly to Lancre, and it seems to now have taken up residence on an old skull she uses as a paperweight. She's beginning to like him: he's at least an improvement over the bloody ravens: at least he doesn't try to talk.
Her room is now strewn with books covering subjects from subatomic particles through to mimetic theory. Halfway through, she had realised that this theory was building on something that didn't properly exist on the Disc, so she had gone back to the Library with more bananas to ask about Natural Selection. She is now working her way simultaneously through The Origin of Species and The Selfish Gene.
But she's really thinking about Liam's words earlier - about the risks she had taken. Of course, he was talking about his own quest - which Esk doesn't know the details of - but she had risked a helluva lot when looking for Lancre. If her staff hadn't rescued her - she steals another look at the hawk, which is munching down on the vole happily. This was the second time she'd almost been lost like that. She loved Borrowing, but she had been reckless. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to mix witchcraft with wizardry. Maybe she shuldn't be trying to mix magics at all.
Her mind wanders back to when she was ( younger... ) |
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| [OOC: Hmmm] |
[Jan. 22nd, 2005|01:18 pm] |
| [ | feeling: |
| |  scared | ] |
| [ | listening to: |
| | Paradise by the Dashboard Light - Meatloaf | ] |
I'm worried about the troll-lovin' I'll tell you that now. |
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[Jan. 22nd, 2005|01:18 pm] |
True to her suspicions, despite the long conversations, food and sleep she's had in Milliways, Esk returns to the university only a few minutes after she had left. The hawk she had so abused is still lying unconscious on her bed, and she gently lifts it onto a pillow, checking its breathing as she does so. It doesn't seem too badly off, she thinks, and that cheers her slightly. She carries the pillow to the windowsill and fetches a saucerful of water and a piece of sausage from the kitchens. She sets them down by the hawk and sits at her desk in front of it, resting her head on her arms and watching it.
She makes a mental list of things she can follow up, things that make her feel less useless.
( thinking )
Esk feels better, now. She has plans. |
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