Laurette de la Croix

"No, there is no way to bar people from entering Swynlake. If you believe that this person represents some sort of threat to you, I can direct you to a solicitor here in town who can help you begin the restraining order process."

"But that's the thing, I just said I don't think I can get one. It's-- ugh, they're my parents! My maman left to travel the world and spread her gift with no budding sorceress to hold her back and my father... he's a good for nothing mess of a man. You don't want him here, I promise. What if I thought they would be detriments to Swynlake?"

But at the small buzz from Shera letting him know that someone was heading back, he knew that hope had been in vain.

As they stepped into the room, he straightened up from where he'd been working. "Good afternoon. What can I help you with?"

Her parents wanted to soft launch their attendance of her graduation. It made her sick to think that either of them would care to see her successes in person. They didn't get to see her graduate or fly the coop when they flew it first. Since when did the chickens get to swoop in and celebrate like they did something for the chick they abandoned?!

"Hi, Officer! This is maybe a dumb question, but can you like... bar people from entering Swynlake? Would I need a restraining order? Because I don't think I can get that, but I don't want them here."

She wonders how many other families have multiple reunions a year. Was it that her family was simply so close? Majke didn't feel close to them. She felt like she watched them from the outside, wondering what being in that circle would be like again but knowing that it was yearning for something she would ultimately not want.

"I would think it's the environment. I'm not close to them, really. Haven't been for years. Or, maybe, I never was."

It was almost funny how the next card turned was the moon, Laurette always thought the elder witch had a sort of gloomy lunar energy. Feminine, powerful, mysterious.

"While that gathering sounds like a lot of fun, I believe you're worried that you may not fit into it. The moon, I get the feeling, is you... There's fear here, and distance. Do you want to be welcomed to this event? Or... I guess, do you fear that you'll always be orbiting around your family and never on solid ground with them?"

"Martin!" She chimed along with the door. The shop owner was fiddling with something behind the counter. "You're just who I was looking for."

It was true, Laurette had her spiel prepared and her folder in hand. Being a business major was super boring, but it came in handy when you were planning for a business. "Do you have a minute?"

Family was difficult. Laurette... well, Majke won't dwell on what it might mean to Laurette.

The cards had been a gift to herself from Italy. Majke wandered the stalls of a well-hidden hole-in-the-wall magic shop. Yes, it looked gimmicky from the outside, but Majke knew better than to write off anything place that gave off such an energy.

The gilded edges had caught her eye, but her first reading -- the three of cups -- really did entice her.

"That sounds perfect," Majke says, watching as Laurette deftly worked with the cards. They suited Laurette. She could tell when Laurette touched them.

"Aware, but the refresher is appreciated. Now, what would you need from me, Dear Laurette?"

Before she even began she could feel the card burning to be pulled, the same with the next as she spoke. She ran her finger across the spread to the one on the far end but sought further understanding of the center before pulling it.

"Well, what are you celebrating?" It was an intuitive question based on the first card pulled, Laurette knew Magica could also read what was revealed. "Is what you're supposed to be celebrating a source of..." she paused to find the right word, "discomfort? For you? Or is it the environment your family creates that makes you restless?"

"Oh, of course I didn't have to, but perhaps I felt generous." She shrugs, as if she doesn't care. She cares a lot, though. She smiles at Laurette's own enthusiasm and kindness. This girl could go far one day, Majke had always thought. She was driven and ambitious, and most important, observant. Knowing, in Majke's limited experience, could be half a diviner's battle.

"I'm visiting family soon," Majke explains, a difficult discussion in itself. "And I was wondering if there were any warnings you could offer me. Any troubles you could forsee."

"They're gorgeous, Magica! Thank you. My current set's charm has been slowly fading and I haven't had time to get them recharmed, so the corners are getting a bit raggedy. I really appreciate it." She gushed as she shuffled through the deck sat on her table.

The designs were foiled and glinted in the dim lighting. The High Priestess card notably had a red headed witch with a third eye, it made Laurette feel warm with affection and hopeful.

In one smooth motion, her swiped her hand over the spread deck and flipped them over in a domino cascade. Sighing, as she had family problems of her own she recognized the shade of blue that wafted off the light witch at the mention of a reunion. The kind of blue only family could inflict.

"For that, I think a variation of a love cross spread could get you some guidance there." Laurette spoke as she consolidated the cards into a deck again and began to shuffle. "You're aware of the spread, I assume. One card will be in the center, the main issue that will arise, and then four branching off that can elaborate on it and offer more warnings or guidance to navigate the conflict. Does that sound okay?"

She also knew Laurette was the insightful sort, so really, Magica was easily won over, no matter how much that could spell out trouble for Magica and her secrets down the road.

Magica gratefully took the chair offered to her, giving Laurette a delighted look. Folding her hands on her lap to distract herself from the small weight in her pocket.

"Truthfully, my business here is two-fold. I actually had something I wanted to gift you. And then I had a question regarding a trip I'm taking in a few weeks."

She smiles, tilts her head.

"Which would you like to start with?"

The fortune teller got her head back on straight, remembering this was a business after all and sat back in her chair. "You didn't have to get me anything! I'm more than happy to answer your question without any gifts or payments. We're friends after all!"

At least, Laurette would consider anyone downstairs her friend. Even Mim after Paris and helping her secure this spot for her fortune telling. Maybe the transmutation witch thought little of Laurette, but that didn't stop her from being kind.

"What's your question?"

Since Tiana's was no longer a gathering ground, Majke had to content herself with this: sitting around the Rock Shoppe during the winter lull, messing with physical reagents rather than emotionally manipulated ones.

It's fine, though. At least there was company at times. Such as... Laurette. Who she had been seeing hone her craft for a few weeks now. Of course, she had always been doing this, but Majke noticed more acutely recently.

Majke wasn't exactly a Christmas person, but she did believe in gift giving, and Laurette was someone Majke figured might deserve a belated present.

So it was that on her lunch break, Majke ascended the stairs to the second level to see Laurette. The girl was bright and beautiful as ever, Majke noted. Their relationship began out of recognition in a dream, though Majke had long since let that false-relationship rest.

She preferred realtity, anyways.

"Laurette," Majke says, with a polite smile, "hi. Would you happen to have time for a client on her lunch break? 

She looked up at the dark haired beauty, always demure. "Magica! Of course, anything you want. What's on your mind?"

Laurette stood to offer the other witch a chair. In her waking moments and in fond dreams, she found herself quite attached to Magica from downstairs. The redhead got the sense that the woman downplayed her abilities to everyone, but especially herself. That always intrigued her and her penchant for premonition.

The sorceress was constantly changing the reagents floating off her and nothing made an individual more interesting to Laurette. Was she doing it on purpose or purely subconsciously? How much did Magica lie and how much of it was to herself?

"Cover jobs, inconsistent jobs." Paulette pointed out, before pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing. "Laurette, look."

Paulette closed her eyes, took a breath, and opened them ready to try this again.

"It is, because you're such a hypocrite! You forced me to go to uni, and told me to not be like you. So if you really thought there was nothing wrong with this, why couldn't I do it? Hm? Do you really like selling yourself so much that you had to hide it?"

Paulette actually was going to delete herself. How could she be so stupid and leave that book out!?

Still. Laurette was 21, she was old enough for Paulette to tell her the truth about why they were financially stable. She just wished it had been her choice.

Paulette took a deep breath and sat down on her bed, running her fingers through her hair as she worked up an explanation.

"Not always. Sugaring isn't always about sex. A lot of wealthy single men just want a pretty woman on their arm for an event, I do a lot of that." Paulette said.

She didn't know how her sister could be so casual about it. Sure, the signs were there, but that didn't mean Laurette didn't choose to look the other way. Paulette would go to fancy parties out of town with men Laurette didn't know to come around. They always had nice things even when their father went through tough times.

Laurette saw the signs and she ignored them.

There was still this plausible deniability in her mind. If they never spoke of it, it never happened. Paulette was ruining everything.

"Don't! Don't act like I should have known, like you didn't hide it from all of us all this time! Y-You had two good jobs. Why would I have thought anything like this was possible?" Laurette refused to sit down, instead choosing to pace and lament.

It was hard to believe that her big argument with Paulette was nearly three years ago. In hindsight, she could see her sister was right. The sorceress was much more prepared to run a business now that she was finishing her degree in it... but she wasn't going to tell her sister that.

She was doing her monthly switch around from her dorm room things and her bedroom things; clothes, hobbies she forgot about, trinkets she missed having around. Paulette wasn't home yet, but should be at the flat after her shift any minute. So when Laurette saw the little black notebook on the side table, she deemed it safe enough to take a quick peek.

Her eyes widened reading the numbers and names scrawled undeniably in her sister's hand. A twister formed in Laurette, her stomach dropped into the tornado and left her head to spin alone. Some of these names were... men she knew of. Part of her immediately knew what this was, the other part didn't want to believe it. She flipped through and saw dates as far back as when they were in France... Laurette snapped the book shut as she heard the front door open.

"What is this?!" Incredulously, she shook the book in front of her, tossing it like an accusation at her sister. "Are you fucking men for money?!"

Still, she thought that a smile could go a long way, so she tried to be cheery about it when she went to meet Willow and Laurette in the common room to learn about how to take care of the plants. "Hi!" Giselle said when she saw the other two. "Willow, I'm so sorry about all of this. I do hope it turns out in the end! I'm sure it will."

(She missed her dads. She missed her family and her cousins. She missed the red grass and the jutting pillars of ivory rising overhead. She missed the clouds and the sharp taste of demonic magic on the back of her tongue. She missed home.)

Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do now about her rooming. The announcement had come too late and all the people she had tried to contact for help wouldn't be back in office until after the holidays, so she had to move out. It was fine! She had plenty of friends willing to let her sleep on their couches until she got her life figured out, and she knew how not to be a burden. She just had to get all of her business in order before she left. And that included getting her plants settled.

Willow met Giselle's smile with her own, though it was strained at the corners. Exhaustion and Grief were draped over her shoulders like a mantle, but luckily only Laurette could possibly see it. Unfortunately, everyone could see how puffy and red Willow's eyes were.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I'm going to be able to graduate and finish my degree, and that's the important part. I can figure everything else out as I go along." She looked at the two. "Thank you both for offering to help with this. I know it's a lot to dump on you right before the holidays."

The witch smiled at Giselle, a very nice girl, who had just joined them. "Yes, Willow. I think it will work out in the end. Just... might be a little bumpy for now."

Laurette scooted from her spot on the worn in dorm chair and settled in closer to the other girls. "And you have lots of friends who are going to help you, so you don't have to worry about it all so much. Like these, we don't mind tending to them while you're away. Right, Giselle?"

"How complicated is it reading into the future anyway?" Shang asked, because he figured it was probably a fair question. "How much is it probable versus a possible direction the future could go in?"

It brought a slight downturn to her smile. Instead of diving right in, the witch looked to Shang. "It can be very convoluted, even with the gift.

Depending on the fortitude of the subject, the timing, the butterfly effect... it is all variable. I can see potential futures, the one in motion, and sometimes the subject wishes so hard for something it's all I can see."

She turned over the first card; the present. The Three of Swords.

"You're in a current conflict, there's grief and loss. Confusion. I see a man..." Her vision faded with the brightness of her eyes as Laurette sank deeper into Shang's turmoil. The image of the man shifted and vanished, leaving Laurette feeling as if her heart had been pierced. "He's, he's gone. You feel... betrayed, there's secrets and a lot of hurt. The blade is gone but the wound is still open, Shang."

The strawberry haired witch blinked rapidly and set the card down, ready to talk through the revelation with the man before moving forward.

"Some answers to... the messiness of my present I guess. There are things going on in my life now that make no sense. Or... I guess there are a lot of secrets being revealed to me and I need to make more sense of them. Or to know if..."

It felt like a silly question he had. But at the same time, he wanted to know if this was just his lot in life. "If it is always going to be like this or if things will improve in the future?"

"I'm going to do a three card spread for you. Normally these represent the past, present, and future. However, these will be your present, the near future, and your distant future. Please pull the cards that feel right to you and then place them face down in the middle of the table."

The witch spread the cards in a fan out towards Shang for him to choose.