adlantisag | IC CONTACT

[ Sieglinde is as used to being refused as Kida is. It's a steep learning curve for both of them, and Kida tries to hold off frustration when the magic shield bursts between them, sending Sieglinde to the floor and Kida rocking back on her heels. It's hurtful, almost, to be refused so.

There's a stretch of furious silence broken only by the scratching of Sieglinde's sleeve against the chalk and the wood. Kida feels confusion, frustration, unable to name what's gotten a hold of her little 'charge', and unsure where to start. This must be tied to the false village she'd grown up in.

It wasn't true at all. The village, or the Green Witch, or the ultimate magic or the werewolves--

She was called in to help, but what can she do, really?

Masamune cuts in, his voice steady despite the rising emotion in the room, and her relief is palpable. She kneels this time--putting herself just at Sieglinde's level. ]

Let us help, Sieglinde.

[Why wouldn't they just leave her alone? Why did they keep getting in her way? Sieglinde mindlessly tried to wriggle out of Masamune's hold once it registered (once he stopped her movement), her second attempt at the shield spell fizzling out half-formed.

She couldn't focus- not when Masamune was talking like that, when Kida was talking like that. ALASTAIR's spells worked from will and concentration alone, but she had trained herself to concentrate with spells, like she'd been raised-

Like she'd been raised to possess a singular focus. To be the Green Witch, not a normal girl-]

You can't! Stop saying that!

[Why did everyone keep saying that? Why did people expect her to be that, here? A normal girl, who relied on others for everything- How was she supposed to be normal after all that?

Sieglinde kept struggling futilely to get free, unable to break free easily from the narrow vision that came upon her, blocked out everything else in the midst of this sort of fit, the single-minded, dogged obsession towards learning that had been bred into her by an equally obsessive mother.]

I'm the only one who can know it-

[She still struggled to keep erasing what she'd done so that the image couldn't be copied or even understood, trying to dig her misshapen heels into the floorboards to try and lever out of Masamune's hold and reach further.]

I'm the only one who can fix it, and I haven't made any progress at all, let me go-

[Funny, the little reminders that can set off a thing, her voice broken into a wretched, pleading sob.]

That's probably true... [ Masamune answers her, loud enough for her to hear but not to be mistaken as harsh. ] ...but... do you really think in this state you can make any progress at all? [ he doesn't let go, pulling her a little closer now with her still struggling. ]

Your obsession is blinding you. Even someone like you will reap nothing like this no matter how hard you try.

[ Sieglinde is whipping herself up in a frenzy now, lashing with arms and with voice. Even Masamune's steady voice has difficulty cutting through to her.

Kida watches; she's never had to deal with a child flying into a tantrum--isn't it? where there is no more rationality, when the mind is lost to uncontrollable emotion--like this before. Sieglinde strains against Masamune's hold like a thrashing animal, skirts flying about her. Her words are cutting, full of a pompous arrogance that doesn't suit the sweet girl Kida knows, that doesn't suit a child at all.

Kida's brows knit together, and she draws herself back up. She looks at Masamune, raises a pacifying hand towards him. ]

Let her go.

[ 'Blinding' is the right word. Words won't cut through obsession, though she admires Masamune's nobility in the attempt. Words, she thinks, aren't what Sieglinde needs right now. ]

[ it's true it doesn't seem to be getting through to her and that is disheartening for him because he can do little else. Masamune can't be draw emotionally in by a child like this and while he's done his fair share of knocking sense into others literally and figuratively... no matter how close he might view them it is times like these where the line makes itself known quite harshly and tells him they aren't close enough to matter and thus not close at all. And he can't react on someone else's ways without that implicit connection. It's poor of him, perhaps, that he is unwilling to put himself out there, but it's the only way that works for him as a leader.

Masamune lets her go as told, setting her down just gently as he picked her up as if the thrashing has no effect on him. Truly, it really does not. He's had an excellent teacher when it comes to such things.

Of course, he doesn't expect kida to be giving in to the girl's ways, so he feels no need to really question or linger, turning his attention to some of the papers scattered immediately to preoccupy himself and keep his own emotions in check.

He refuses to be drawn in but this is also a problem that is going to need to be dealt with. ]

[ He does as instructed, and she can see him pull away, his body language closing off. Her mouth pulls down at the corners; let Masamune have whatever gives him peace of mind, then.

Kida draws herself up, stepping over to Sieglinde and gripping the girl by the arm. Her hand comes up. ]

Enough, child.

[ And comes down, landing firmly on Sieglinde's cheek. The smack fills the space, shatters other sounds. Kida feels no shame, only a kind of regret, that she allowed this to get so bad in the first place.

She doesn't let Sieglinde crumple. Her hand at the girl's arm stays put, holds her up, keeps her stable. The other comes back down to caress the reddened cheek, turning Sieglinde's face so they can look each other in the eye. ]

Alish, kagit gamos.

[ 'Child, look at me,' she says, coming back down on her knees, brows still furrowed. ]

That is enough, now. Easy.

[The crack of hand against cheek leaves her ears ringing, deafening loud not for the actual force of the smack but by the fact that it was a sound she'd never heard before. In all her life none of her servants had ever struck her, even lightly, even when discipline was needed, because that was part of her mother's plan. Create a whimsical and fickle child, one not bound by society's rules, with the lordly way of thinking that she be allowed to do exactly as she wished without needing justify it, that she be motivated by an unquenchable need for knowledge and not be bound by the expectations of polite society.

No one had ever raised a hand to her- not ever. She'd never even been hurt beyond the notable exception of her bound feet, too carefully watched over and lacking the ability to play that would result in your normal childhood scrapes and breaks.

Sieglinde's sobs quiet immediately, tears still on her red cheek, body stiffening up in abject shock over what had just happened, unable to really even comprehend it for a moment.

But she was definitely looking at Kida.]

[ The moment is tense. Kida's expression is one of intense focus, boring down on Sieglinde like a physical weight. ]

No more shouting, no more kicking. [ Her tone is firm. ] Do not worry me so.

[ Her hand falls from Sieglinde's face to her shoulder, matching the other hand that rises. It's a warm, stable weight. Some of the pressure eases off now that the air is calmer, and she sighs. ]

Little one...

[ Whatever happened to Sieglinde in that village, Kida can't begin to guess. The markings on the floor must be an indication, but of what, she isn't sure. Magic? But hadn't that been false? If not magic, then what?

My mother planned all of it. An "education project" to make sure I finished the work she and my father started. That's all it was.

The words ring in her head and it's enough to drive her mad with rage, the want to find this abhorrent woman and shred her to pieces, feed her to the sharks--but Sieglinde is here, now, small and trembling under her hands. ]

You are no longer alone, now. [ But does she know it, truly? ] Whatever upsets you so--you must speak it, or you will only harm yourself.

[Look at Kida. Don't kick. Don't shout. Don't worry them.

Her cheek stung. Sieglinde limply moved a hand to touch it, mouth hanging open slightly before her lip began to tremble again and her body seemed to remember she was supposed to be crying, the tears beginning to roll down her face again.]

I can't-

[She shook her head, undone hair flying everywhere, stumbling over words that were at least slightly more intelligible than the manic state she'd been in before.]

The ultimate magic can only hurt people- I have to find a cure-

[And what had she been doing? Making friends, and learning how to behave at tea, and playing with a skull-faced dog, and trying to find the sun of a world she never should have come to-]

I forgot-

[Not... truly, but. She'd lost sight of what her priorities should be. This was her correcting them.]

[ It's painful to watch Sieglinde like this, crumpling like paper beneath a waterfall. She's intelligible now, back in her own mind. Now, words will matter. ]

Whatever you were made to do--[ because she was made to do it, possessing of not enough self-reflection to know otherwise ]--having done evil does not make you evil.

[ It's an important distinction, and one key to forgiveness. Kida cups that wet face, thumbs away the trace of tears. She can't help it; Sieglinde is so small, shaking, Kida pulls her in, wraps her up in her arms. She kisses the crown of Sieglinde's head, letting the girl rest against her front. ]

You have been wronged, little one. A trap was laid for you. You have been a pawn, and the evil is not yours to bear.

[ Which isn't to say it cannot or must not be repaired. But whatever malice was wrought, it's obviously nothing a child can bear alone. Sieglinde should be having tea-parties, and laughing, and running her experiments. She deserves a childhood, bruised though it is now. ]

You are so brilliant, I know you will find a solution--in time. But if you destroy yourself in the pursuit, there will be no cure.

[ She'd said something like that to Masamune, not so long ago, phrased differently. All men falter. It is the nature of battle to be injured. But you left us with no choice, with no chance to help you. There is no shame in needing aid. None stand alone, and those who do crumble in the end. She's lived long enough to know that much. ]

I am here for you. [ Her eyes lift to Masamune. ] We are both here for you.

[She wanted to believe that- even if her first instinct upon discovering what it was she had done was to look up at the barrel of a gun and not care if it went off, if it meant she could disappear and run from the most painful of truths. That what she'd done hadn't been for the sake of her villagers, hadn't been something that would save... But something that could only destroy.

Hates that it's true, what Kida says, that she'd been a pawn, because it meant she'd been that blind, that trusting, that foolish as to have believed it all. That having her feet broken was for her own good, that the outside world rejected them for their witch blood, that the werewolves were their only hope, that she had a duty to her ancestors. All feelings she'd once had pride in, now turned to the most wretched of shames and guilt.

Leaving her only with SuLIN, with the poisonous gas she created. Leaving her only with the knowledge that if she didn't devote her life to fixing that mistake... It's a life she'd rather not have at all. A life with no cure for what she'd done was too terrible to consider, and though that manic part of her rejected what she was being told- that it would be alright to pace herself, that it was alright to have forgotten for a while... She wishes that were true. Wants it to be.

Wants to be forgiven. Wants to believe that no matter how abnormal her life had become... Maybe she could do things like a normal girl, just a little...

As Kida cradled her face, wiped tears from the cheek that still stung, Sieglinde hiccuped, once, twice, before she dissolved into sobs, the shameless years of the young when seized by emotions too powerful to try and hide their faces away, bawling noisily into Kida's chest.

Reaching blindly behind her to grab Masamune, too.]

[ none of this really makes sense to him but he's not wholly unfamiliar with magic circles, as much as he continues to claim ignorance and disregard magic as a thing. These are fake, of course, he assumes, but he doubts her mother just happened to also creativity design sigils in her spare time when being crazy had nothing "productive" to accomplish. So, he would assume they mean something all the same...

But, that's the extent of his knowledge. Magic circles are used to summon demons and other crazy bad vibe black magic. Similar things can appear to users in his world as part of a special attack skill but they are not premeditated.

...Well, it's something to keep in mind.

Masamune is only half-listening (he doesn't like any of this situation, especially not watching a child tantrum and lash out at the ones trying to help them—it's a little bit guilt inducing), but while his focus is more towards the drawings, he has enough to be able to glance toward Kida when she looks at him and says such things to Sieglinde.

(--enough that he didn't miss the parallel of words, either--)

It's only when the girl caves and ends up crying against Kida (like a kid should be able to do, to have someone to protect them and help lift them back up when they fall) that he notices her reaching actions. At first, he only takes it as a gesture accompanying her state but that misunderstanding disappears quickly.

...ah. He's given her plenty of hugs in the moments spent together, but Masamune has decided when and where to initiate almost all of them. But, here...

And Kida is also in the mix, which makes it a little different as well. Someone looking for comfort through touch, he's not really sure he can give it on demand.

He'll try, anyway, though. He reaches out to take one of Sieglinde's small hands in his own when he's close enough, only pausing to set down the papers without scattering them uselessly. That taken care of, though, he lets go to move behind Kida directly so that he can bring his arms around both girls to bring them closer in an embrace, too.

He's just... really glad Kida knew what to do here. Hopefully this is progress... or at least a small measure of real comfort for both Sieglinde and Kida. That he'll be there for Sieglinde, that he'll not let Kida down a second time on a matter involving the heart. ]

[ She isn't aware of what Sieglinde is reaching for until Masamune wraps her up in his arms. He's a strong, stable warmth, and she leans into him, letting the excess emotion drain away. He's good for that; it's ironic that she finds his presence so calming when he's hardly a calm person.

She didn't know what to do so much as improvise based on the little she does knows Sieglinde was hurting, and she needed to get through. The rest fell into place.

Patting Sieglinde's back, she lets the girl cry herself dry. What else is there to do? She's not so devoid of compassion that she'd force her to stiffness in the name of false 'strength', no matter how upsetting seeing her cry like this is. Kida knows it's natural, to mourn a life lost, and doubly necessary not to bottle up these feelings so young. Sieglinde deserves to express herself, fully.

It's long moment before Seiglinde's calm again. It feels...domestic, but right, somehow, Masamune and Sieglinde's warmth cocooning her. She drops a fleeting kiss to the crown o Sieglinde's head as the girl hiccups. ]

There. Would you like some tea, little one?

[ That should occupy all three of them for a good moment--and give them a chance to clear their heads. ]

[It takes some time for her to exhaust herself, but though she's not conscious of it then, it was far better a thing to do here, between two people who actually cared about her. It's the first time in her life, actually-

Two whole people who cared about her. Actually cared.

Enough to slap some sense into her yet stay to see her through it- the crash that came after a manic high.

It was so silly- tea. But. It was something to do, something to go on to, to make her pick herself up and try to wipe her face with her sleeves, sniffling to try and stop her nose from running as she nodded.]

- I'll clean up.

[The urgency of hiding, though- that's not fully gone, even if she's more drained now, more calm. Once she pulls herself up she tries to go back to it, cleaning the chalk "magic circles" from the floor, gathering the papers.]

[ Masamune is grateful when everything seems to calm down, and while he says nothing at first merely letting go when the two go to move he is... surprisingly quick to catch Sieglinde's arm to prevent her from wiping tears and snot all over the sleeve of her dress. Instead, after glancing down at her a moment, he crouches down in front of her to pull out a small handkerchief and use it to gently wipe at her tears before ending with placing it over her nose after getting any already fallen mucus. Still not saying anything, he's just going to look at her expectantly, only slightly exasperated should she not take the hint to blow her nose. Which, in that case, he will pinch her small nose to give an obvious hint. Come on, girl, tea drinking with snot sleeves is no good. Don't give Sebastian things to dead eye more than the chalk mess already, yeah?

when she does do what he expects to his satisfaction is when he lets her go to start cleaning up. Glancing back to her pet, the creature seems alert enough to take the hint and runs to pick up the stack of papers Masamune had been creating in half picking up half looking at, rushing back to Sieglinde with them to over the stack excitedly to her, tail wagging. It is so happy to potentially help because he wanted to make his master happy too... obviously. It will help with this cleaning up.

HVing risen to his feet with Isengrim running by, Masamune turns to leave the room and head for the kitchen to give Sieglinde her cool down time.

Well, that and to go bang his head on the nearest cabinet that has any tea sets rather than open it as intended.

Children are so tough?? Especially girls wow?? Note to self any female heirs he produces will go to their mother for everything. It's safer that way?! (Intense mom daughter interactions just witnessed , males have no place in that world of danger. They aren't strong enough to survive if caught in the middle.

(There is one other reason he left, too, that he did not wish to linger with just in case... but she is now three papers short of what she had on that floor originally for her circle originally). ]

[ Watching him tend to Sieglinde like that makes her feel--warm, somehow, and while the two are preoccupied she moves to grab a rag and a broom. Cleaning isn't high on her list of skills, but she can give the floor a quick sweep so that Sebastian doesn't choke coming in. It does the trick of marring large swaths of the circle, though it creates more clouds of dust than anything. It'll need to be the rag, seems like.

She doesn't stop Sieglinde from helping, and Isengrim's enthusiasm makes the corners of her mouth turn up; the task is mindless and helps them both wind down. She does keep them from lingering once the circle is mostly gone, however, papers still strewn haphazardly--"Sebastian can do the rest", she promises, leading Sieglinde back from the kitchen where Masamune has already set the kettle to boil. Her eyes linger over him, the line of his back as he stands over the tea leaves. It's not the first time she's seen him at work in the kitchen; why does it feel more attractive now?

It's strange, the affection that fills her, because she's only ever had her father to look to--but watching them both, these two friends she's made, she can't help but feel satisfied. As Sieglinde sits in one of the chairs, Kida moves behind her, absently unbinding that long hair. It isn't table-appropriate, but it's part of the vocabulary of calming gestures that would appease Kida herself when she was a child. A way of taking Sieglinde out of 'uniform' and into a more relaxed space of mind. ]

[Her sleeves saved from the brink of a snotty ruin by Masamune's last minute interference, Sieglinde looked up at him over the handkerchief with watery, red eyes, flinching when he tweaked her nose and only then obliging. The wag of Isengrim's tail was the next to distract her from the pull of the downward spiral that inevitably followed a manic high of creativity, and she took the papers the canine seemed more than pleased to play modified fetch with, and be rewarded in scratches- which made a peculiar raspy sound, nail on the bone of its exposed skull. She leans heavily on Kida to make it into the other room, having left her crutches behind there hours ago, quietly clambering into her seat.

The silhouette of Masamune's back in the kitchen. The soothing feel of Kida's fingers weaving through the long, heavy fall of her unbound hair. Isengrim settling beneath her tiny feet, panting happily.

Without quite being able to identify why, not knowing enough of what family was supposed to actually feel like to put her finger on the feeling, tears beaded up in the corner of her eyes again, hanging her head in shame for having worried them, for giving into the dark, twisted sort of desperation that lurked in her heart. Her hands fisted slightly in her skirts, she sniffed...

But her feet kicked slightly, and her lips turned up slightly in the corners.

"Family".]

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