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reality_crossroads

Ariana's still a little uncertain about being by the Sign. Even though she's actually been here for a long time, it's the first time she's dared to ask a question. Her friend Edain isn't too far away... she still never goes out in public alone.

Her fingers play with the necklace she wears - a simple crystal on a thin chain, though close observation might reveal it seems to be glowing very slightly - as she asks, "Are there any others who live here, in this place, instead of the other worlds it touches?"

Current Mood: curious

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

a_family_secret

"You're welcome," Ariana says, and curtsys like Edain taught her. "I like to think this is a good place, and it likes people to be happy."

From:

thelightontheedgeofsleep

Better than the Bazaar, then, certainly. Better than anywhere near my home, in fact. The Neath is . . . very much less than kind, for all that it can be beautiful.

From:

a_family_secret

"That's sad. I think places should try to be nice to their people. Otherwise people won't like being there, and then no one is happy."

From:

thelightontheedgeofsleep

The Bazaar is far too wrapped up in its own troubles to be of help to anyone. Rather the opposite, really.

Not that I'm much better, by most people's standards, but a reckoning will not be postponed indefinitely. I will find them all, all the betrayers and the liars and the ones who deny me, and they will die. I will bring them low, I swear it.

From:

a_family_secret

And Ariana nods. She understands that far better than she wishes she did. "No, it won't. Sooner or later, things get loose and bad things happen..." She trails off for a moment, thinking back.

Mother had been determined that if she wouldn't be a witch, she'd couldn't ever be anything else either... she had to be hidden and shut away because she was 'not well'. Ariana had seen the resentment Kendra pretended not to have - blaming her because Father had left. Because he'd hurt those Muggle boys. It's not like she wanted him to do that. She knew they were right to be afraid. After all, if there wasn't anything to be afraid of, her mother wouldn't have ended up dead. If she weren't a monster, they wouldn't have kept her confined like one. It's only in this place that she has a chance to be anything else. It's her magic that's bad and wrong, and here she can be rid of it.

"They kept me locked away at home, because they knew it was bad... even when they lied to me and said it wasn't. And after Mother died..." That Gellert boy wanted Albus to come with him and wanted to just bring her... take her everywhere... she didn't like being locked away, but exposing even more people to the monster was even worse. And Albus's looks at her because he felt it was her fault he couldn't go... that he had to stay and keep her locked up. And everyone was yelling, and she'd just had enough... "I came here. Because I don't want to be a monster. And I don't want to be a witch. And here they can't make me. Here it can all go away..."

From:

thelightontheedgeofsleep

I look forward to it. Bad things have already happened to me, after all. For I hungered and they gave me the pelts of trees; for I was thirsty and they gave me only ink. I was drowning and they added knives, I was stabbed and they added drowning. I died so terribly that I came out the other side of death and now I can never die.

From:

a_family_secret

"They shouldn't have done that," Ariana says, almost looking like she'd give Mr. Eaten a pat on the... beak?... if she weren't too shy for that. "Bad things balance out."

Father hurt those boys, so he was taken away... because he didn't know it already balanced out. That they'd only done what they did because they knew a Bad Thing when they saw it. Mother tried to lock her away, tried to force her to use the Bad Thing her magic was, and, well... that hadn't gone well for her. And Albus resented her like she was a millstone holding him down and keeping him from running away with that boy, and Abe needed to go back to school... so she left.

"Bad things make more bad things until they're all even. But... when they are, then this is a safe place for after. Because if you never die, there will be an after."

From:

thelightontheedgeofsleep

There will be a reckoning. After that I hope that I may sleep. It's been so long, and I am tired.

But if I can't, this seems like a good place to rest.

From:

a_family_secret

"Forever would make anyone tired. I hope you can rest, when everything is balanced. Maybe this place will let you, even if you can where you came from. It lets me not be a witch. Maybe someday I'll leave here and go to where Edain came from, but it's still gone for now. They won't try to make me do that there either."