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Friends in Low Places - Printable Version

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Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

March 3rd, 1890 — The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley
@'Zelda Fisk'

Most friendships curated throughout Jo's time in Hogwart's had withered away through time. International letters were costly, and when the best news her old friends had to share were of marriages and children...well, she lost interest rapidly. The Smith's were procreating as though they had some mass desire to repopulate the world, and as such Jo required no further connections to children. The bizarre names her siblings chose (again, Jo bemoaned the choice of 'Lawyer') were hard enough to remember on their own.

Zelda, however, hadn't married or procreated yet. If anything, the former Hufflepuff most resembled Jo without the wanderlust. Theirs was a friendship maintained with a steady flow of letters (and beer when the occasion arose). Not to mention Zelda was a good sounding board when Jo was stumped by a certain find. Working in the department of mysteries had it's perks, she supposed.

"Dear lord, what happened to you?" Jo demanded as she fell into the booth Zelda was occupying. The girl looked afright - hair a mess, ink stained fingers. Jo knew her friend to be a dedicated worker (yet another reason to maintain their friendship) but this was just excessive.

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 18, 2020

Jo was back, and Zelda was happy to be seeing her, although she was exhausted and probably ought to have gone to sleep. She had a pint of beer in front of her and had ordered a soup from the bartender in an attempt to bolster her system, but was otherwise utterly slumped in the booth when Jo slid in across from her.

"I'm trying to break a curse," she explained, "And it turns out that some curses are hard. Y'know?"


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

Instantly, Jo thought of Captain Darrow and his struggles with the ministry. Two months of waiting and there hadn't been much progress made (that she was aware of) and some horrid official had informed him that he might be infected. Which, Jo fully believed was absolute bullshit but she wasn't a cursebreaker. Nor was she about to insult her friend's employer when her friend was in such a state.

"Yeah. They are." She said simply. "What's the curse? Maybe I can help."

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 18, 2020

"Pictish, like everything else that's terrible these days," Zelda said with a roll of her eyes. She took a sip of her beer. There were some restrictions about what she could say on this, but Pictish was broad enough. "It's seeped into the structure around it, and I know where it's rooted, but even containing it has taken me forever." She thought that she finally had it so that it would stop trying to spread further on the boat - but even that was tentative. Now she had to try to break it.


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

Pictish. Well, that was a magic she had exactly zero experience with. Did anyone outside of Hogwart's even study Pictish anymore? There was so little material on them that it was nigh impossible to know much at all. In school they had merely glossed over the topic.

Jo frowned and tapped her fingers on her glass. "Pictish?" She repeated. "I didn't even know there were many relics left from them." Breaking that was risky and held little guarantees. Hell, Zelda was probably at risk every time she stepped aboard the ship. "And the source has been dealt with?" The structure could be situated in time, but the source was the greater concern. Or, at least Jo thought anyway.

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 18, 2020

"The source is above my paygrade, but it's out of the building," Zelda said with a nod. "And they have some relics stashed away - I think the working theory is they came from a hoard - but the language is gone And that's what makes things so hard." Egyptian objects, they knew the language, Latin too, and ancient Gaelic someone could work backwards. But Pictish? The Picts were so long in the ground that people mostly forgot their civilization had ever existed.


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

"Above your paygrade?" Jo demanded quickly. Zelda was working with the curse on a daily basis and wasn't able to study the relic causing it?! How in God's name did that make any sense? "How do you expect to break it without examining the source?" She pressed, eyebrows furrowed together. "Pictish is difficult to begin with, and you can't even examine it for any sort of markings? Bullshit."

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 18, 2020

Zelda snorted. "I get other people's notes," she said, "I never said that they were making it easy on me. Honestly, I think some people would prefer I just give up and destroy the structure, which would be easier, but you know me - I'm stubborn." Jo was more likely to get it than anyone else she knew, having been in the same Ancient Studies classes and having similar tendencies.


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

Having worked in the field for four years, Jo found she distrusted other's notes more than she distrusted married men. Each individual - including herself - always missed something. Some random nick or strange scratch. Something she would've written off as a result of weathering proved to be the key to solving the puzzle by someone else. "Other people'a notes." She scoffed and took a long drink of her beer. Fuck other people's notes.

This was likely why she could never hold a ministry position.

"Bloody ministry politics, I swear. The backwards policies and procedures is ridiculous. You know, I have a friend who's been waiting two months for his ship back? Do you think they're even doing anything?" Jo ranted, hands flying wildly as she did. Captain Darrow had to fucking furlough his crew and the ministry didn't deem it fucking necessary to allow Zelda access to the very item that might solve the puzzle. "Not you, of course. I know how you work." She said in way of an apology. Zelda's exhausted state was proof enough of her work ethics. "Just utter bullshit."

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 18, 2020

Zelda was in the middle of sipping her beer when Jo mentioned the ship, and choked on her beer. She coughed twice. "Darrow?" she asked, "That's the project that's kicking my arse, Jo." So this was a little awkward; she really wanted to know how Jo knew him, but did not want to reveal anything about her own history with him. "I know he got caught in the paperwork whirligig, but - the curse is me."

So what had Alfred been saying about her?


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 18, 2020

"Oh, fuck." Jo muttered. She had basically just ripped into one of her oldest friend's work and didn't even know it. "Sorry. I didn't know it was your project." This was why she hadn't wanted to say anything about the ministry at all. Of course her big mouth would find a way to insult Zelda.

Jo took another long drink of her beer, if only to stall for a moment. Not only had she insulted Zelda, but she had just risked Captain Darrow's reputation by announcing his connection to her. Jo cared little what people thought of her, but he definitely did. And she respected him enough to respect that.

"He complained about having to repeat the story to every official." She offered as a mild explanation. "And he was stressed about having to furlough his crew." They hadn't talked about it much at her last visit, seeing how Jo was too fascinated by his nautical charts and tattoos to focus on his ship too much. Even so, she could tell it was weighing on him.

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 19, 2020

"Yeah," Zelda said lamely. There were a lot of things she could say about J. Alfred Darrow, but there were not a lot she could say in public - and if she found out that he had specifically been talking about her, it was going to be hard for her not to just destroy the Voyager and call it a day.

"But that's enough about that," Zelda said. She took another sip of her beer. "What have you been up to since you got back?" There, ball out of her court - things could be easier, now.


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 19, 2020

Was there some sort of history between Zelda and Captain Darrow that Jo didn't know? Was what Jo had marked as mere coincidence something interesting? Her own interest in him stopped at a friendship (with or without the occasional tryst in the sheets as he allowed). But why else would Zelda seem as uncomfortable as she did? Hm. How odd.

"Working retail, believe it or not." Jo despised working at the antique shop. The days ticked by one eternally long second at a time. Hopefully, though, Mars would soon be able to return full time. And then Jo would be allowed to leave. "I'm staffing Heavenly Antiques most days for Mars. I'm so bored."

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 19, 2020

"Oh, that sounds terrible," Zelda said. She wrinkled her nose. "If you're going to be stuck here, you have got to find something less awful to do."

Well, clearly it wouldn't be working at the Ministry. Was there not one part of her life that Alfred could just leave alone?


RE: Friends in Low Places - Jupiter Smith - March 19, 2020

"It is." Jo groaned and took a gulp of her beer. Alcohol always solved the problem, right? At the very least it made the problem easier to handle. "Are you permitted to divulge information about the curse? I know of a few cursebreakers I can contact for assistance if you need."

RE: Friends in Low Places - Zelda Darrow - March 19, 2020

Zelda had really thought they were done with this; she tapped her index finger against the side of her glass. "I don't need help," she said.