[ They'd been friends before and should they have ever come away normally? Would have remained friends after. It simply was the way of things. ]
He was my first friend in the Spire. And my first kiss. My first love, I suppose, though we are not supposed to have them. Strong emotion makes us vulnerable, having lovers gives desire demons a foothold in our dreams. Have you heard of what a mage's harrowing might be? It is a test- though we know precious little of what it entails until we experience it for ourselves. We only know that you pass and become a mage rather than an apprentice, you fail and you die, or you might choose to be made Tranquil.
Robert was a year older than me and we never knew when we would be tested- but there is a range of ages when it seems most likely. I was confident in him, in myself, I knew we would both come through without anything to fear. I was tested, I faced the demon they called for me in the Fade, and I was made a mage. When I came out I tried to find him to explain but I could not. He wasn't in the rooms or the library or the study halls...
When I was taken to my harrowing he made a choice. He was too afraid to take the test himself. The next time I saw him was a few days later shelving books in the library. He...do you know what it is, to be made Tranquil?
Ruby exhales a breath, partly because of Peter and Robert and similarities between them, partly because she has some feelings about these harrowings that she's pretty sure aren't necessarily the point. She has to bite the inside of her cheek and remind herself, and yet she can't help the horrified catch of her breath when Adelaide explains it.
Locking people up with demons in the Fade? It wasn't right. And while it doesn't shock her that Adelaide was prepared (she knows she did, obviously, but the preparation thing is key) it doesn't make it right.
She tries to imagine if someone breathed of testing Emma's magic that way, even as a grown woman, and how her parents would react.
She doesn't means to say it, but-- ) That's... cruel.
( Quiet and appalled and bewildered, really. )
Anders explained tranquility to me, but...
God. ( To see it happen to someone you loved - imagining it happen to Emma or Snow or David was agonising enough, but your love? Imagining Peter didn't count. She's sure it'd be better than being torn apart, but by how much?
At least Robert had chosen. And Ruby honestly thinks that if she'd had such a choice, she might have taken it, too. )
To prove we are not a danger to ourselves and others, we endured that test. It is better or worse depending upon the Circle- but it would never be quite so bad in the Spire. I managed to ask him, then- Just the once before I left him and did not speak with him for the better part of a month. It hurt too much to see him but he said-
He'd been afraid because he did not know what it was. He did not know if he could prepare for it, if he could face it. Because we are not meant to know, ow are we to ever prepare? I...lost some time. Feeling poorly. Grieving a man not dead. Drinking.
[ Oh how much she has changed now, in her grief and her wisdom. ]
My attention started to slip, my mentors noticed- one commented that I was doing poorly and they expected better of me now that I was a mage. That I ought not rest on my laurels. Between Robert's choice and his reason, that comment? I swore none should be so afraid as to choose Tranquility out of fear. And...I taught. What I had gone through, I asked others for their stories. Quiet lessons where we could not be found, I taught apprentices what they might expect. What they might face. I prepared them as I and Robert had not and while I was not able to teach all of them or make certain it did them much good- word spread and none went so ignorant into their harrowing. None chose Tranquility out of fear for what they might face.
I thought if this one thing that I did could change so much for the better- why not teach more things? Why not do more with magic than what we are taught?
The truest definition of hell. Oh how the cinnamon hater must laugh...
Part of her wonders how they got on this path, what she said to spark this - talking about Adelaide being remarkable, or something like that, and idly she wonders if this was meant to convince her otherwise, somehow.
It hasn't.
Ruby is quiet for a few moments, as she had been for so much of this. She can see her breath in the air, can feel the shift of snow underfoot even as she stands still, is aware that no flowers are growing for now. )
You know, ( she starts, and Ruby is surprised by how raw she sounds, ) You didn't run.
You could have hidden from it. From what happened, or ran. Not literally, I know, but you could have.
( Ruby ran. )
What happened to him is awful. And what they put all of you through? I can't-- it's inhumane. To let people agonise over what they are and what they might have to do, I can't even imagine being willing to do that to another person.
( Nerves have been hit that she didn't expect, and she feels raw and unfocused, and she's sitting down before she really processes. )
Adelaide, your teaching might be the most important thing in the world to so many people. Having someone teach you... to show you that you don't have to be afraid? That's a bigger gift than most people could ever hope for.
I did. For a few weeks. It was...easier to wallow than to act. I was seventeen- everything feels like the end of the world when you are that young. I know it ended mine when I saw his face with the brand.
[ Even now she wonders if he survived. The Spire had been blood and chaos, screaming in the halls, the sound of thunder and steel echoing forever. ]
It is- it was the Chantry's tradition. It is the first way they found to test us, I suppose. I have never found a satisfactory answer for why something else, anything else, was considered appropriate. Being Harrowed does not stop a mage from possession or prevent abominations. Months ago one of the mages here, a young man named Lauren, was possessed in his sleep and woke as an Abomination. It- we fought. He had to be killed, he was no longer in control of himself. People died. He had been harrowed. It is not a foolproof test.
So we have tried something new, here. Developed a different test, training, something that does not leave a mage so alone, something that does not leave them so vulnerable. We are to stand alone against the demons in our dreams and in our lives- yes. But we need not be so isolated when we wake. I only knew I never wanted to see anyone choose as Robert did. That I never wanted to see my students become like Lauren. There is much to fear in being a mage- but we need not do so because we think ourselves monsters.
If the world is our oyster where are our pearls 8(
Weeks isn't... everyone needs to grieve. They need time. Weeks are human.
( Months? Months and years for all her own running, really. That was less kindly looked upon, surely. Years of resenting the Wolf, even when she knew it was part of her and she loved to run. . )
I'm sorry about Robert. And about Lauren. I...
( I wish I'd had someone like you.
Someone who thought life was important, that people should be safe. That hadn't wanted to make her choose betweem being human and being the Wolf. Magic was terrifying, and yet it was as much as part of someone as their breath.
Granny thought she could only be human, Anita thought she could only be the Wolf, pack before humanity. Snow had believed she could be both, but she hadn't known how to help Red, and David knew who she was, but both of them had forgotten her.
We do not need to be isolated when we wake.
For a brief moment, Ruby thinks she may never have felt so alone as she does right now, sitting in the snow and listening to a woman from another world relay aches that feel so familiar that they could have been carved from her own chest.
There is the sound of a shaky breath. )
You're a great teacher, Adelaide.
( She hates how rough her voice sounds, despite her effort to sound cheery.)
I think everything you've done will help a lot of people. And... I think they'll find it easier to be braver, for it. And they'll be safer.
He made a choice he can't ever take back. Lauren...I do not know what took him, then. He seemed so angry, so afraid. I cannot undo what has been done.
[ But she can attempt to build something better so such things cannot happen again. More than not finding sleep restful- she cannot dawdle in the time she has, the works she does. It must matter.
It does matter.
She is silent for a long moment, swallowing wine and bitter memory both as she listens for something, anything of Ruby's to turn the mood. That soft breath cuts her- the weight should not be what she'd spoken of. Not when Ruby wished something lighter, easier. ]
( Not blunt or terse; bright, eager, the way she always tries to be. But if Adelaide were there looking at her then the painful waver at the corner of her mouth would be obvious, the shine in her eyes would give her away and Ruby would have to look anywhere else because she's always giving too much away with her face.
It doesn't leave her voice totally convincing when she feels so much.
A breath of laughter, self mocking. Take two: less waver, still too raw. ) I'm fine. Don't worry about me.
( A bit desperately, only her eagerness to talk about not her and not so much in her tone, )
I think I'm definitely too much of a pain jn the ass to qualify as a honey wolf, though.
( Breathe. ) The working on a better future thing seems pretty great.
[ She doesn't believe it. Can't believe it- as much as Ruby may resent that such things she says remain suspect, Adelaide cannot take her at her word when she sounds like that. Not after she so graciously informed her that she did not need to attempt to save her life.
It's okay. You don't have to.
A weary sort of sorrow that sticks to one's soul and drags them down. Adelaide keeps an ear out for that tone, tries to engage in playful banter, in nonsense, in sharing her own hurts as though that might make Ruby's less...
It does not seem to have helped, this time. ]
Do you get to choose your nicknames now? No? I thought not. You remain my honey'd wolf until I think of something better.
Mon Loup Rouge, Ah, no. It does not have the same ring to it.
[ Honey wolf it shall remain.
Quietly, gently, she murmurs between sips of wine. ]
I shall always worry when you are away, Red. I get the feeling you do not have many back home that might do the same. Allow me to make up the difference.
( Well, talk about a way to knock the air out of her. Her reply takes a few moments, an in and out of breath, a cycle of thoughts and of muscles firing for the simple action of curling her fingers in toward her palm.
She considers the gloss and shine for a moment longer before she considers what Adelaide just told her and concluding that it'd be exceptionally cheap of her. That it'd be a lie when Adelaide was just open about something so painful. )
I used to. Snow and Charming and everyone. We were a team. And... then it seemed like I slowly became less and less... They had-- there was a lot going on. Important stuff was happening and there was evil to fight and all.
It's just--
I used to be one of the people they counted on. And I guess they got... they got people who were more relevant to what they needed.
( Hook and Regina and Belle and Robin. Others, maybe. She can't say it doesn't sting. )
But um, there's that whole lone wolf thing I'm working on, so you don't need to worry that much.
( Even if it means a lot. Even if it means a lot that she even thought it.
Wolves, from what I understand of them, do best in a pack. Even one of two.
[ She cannot offer them much, these rifters. She cannot promise them a way home, she cannot give them anything familiar or solid in this world. All she can do is offer her support. Offer an ear. And for those that have earned her regard and trust, for those that she has come to call friends and for which she has come to care?
She can offer small things. Little promises that are easy to keep. Tiny comforts and gestures that feel as though they ought to hold more weight. ]
In their absence, I shall worry for you.
[ Someone must. It might as well be someone that will be able to help after the worry is over. ]
[ People do better with people. Even if it is only but one other person- they do better with connections. Ruby is only digging this hole in deeper- admitting defeat graciously is the last bastion of hope for her. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dammit now i want cereal
[ They'd been friends before and should they have ever come away normally? Would have remained friends after. It simply was the way of things. ]
He was my first friend in the Spire. And my first kiss. My first love, I suppose, though we are not supposed to have them. Strong emotion makes us vulnerable, having lovers gives desire demons a foothold in our dreams. Have you heard of what a mage's harrowing might be? It is a test- though we know precious little of what it entails until we experience it for ourselves. We only know that you pass and become a mage rather than an apprentice, you fail and you die, or you might choose to be made Tranquil.
Robert was a year older than me and we never knew when we would be tested- but there is a range of ages when it seems most likely. I was confident in him, in myself, I knew we would both come through without anything to fear. I was tested, I faced the demon they called for me in the Fade, and I was made a mage. When I came out I tried to find him to explain but I could not. He wasn't in the rooms or the library or the study halls...
When I was taken to my harrowing he made a choice. He was too afraid to take the test himself. The next time I saw him was a few days later shelving books in the library. He...do you know what it is, to be made Tranquil?
Me too ugh what is this hell
Ruby exhales a breath, partly because of Peter and Robert and similarities between them, partly because she has some feelings about these harrowings that she's pretty sure aren't necessarily the point. She has to bite the inside of her cheek and remind herself, and yet she can't help the horrified catch of her breath when Adelaide explains it.
Locking people up with demons in the Fade? It wasn't right. And while it doesn't shock her that Adelaide was prepared (she knows she did, obviously, but the preparation thing is key) it doesn't make it right.
She tries to imagine if someone breathed of testing Emma's magic that way, even as a grown woman, and how her parents would react.
She doesn't means to say it, but-- ) That's... cruel.
( Quiet and appalled and bewildered, really. )
Anders explained tranquility to me, but...
God. ( To see it happen to someone you loved - imagining it happen to Emma or Snow or David was agonising enough, but your love? Imagining Peter didn't count. She's sure it'd be better than being torn apart, but by how much?
At least Robert had chosen. And Ruby honestly thinks that if she'd had such a choice, she might have taken it, too. )
Adelaide, I'm sorry.
cinnamon cereal free hell
He'd been afraid because he did not know what it was. He did not know if he could prepare for it, if he could face it. Because we are not meant to know, ow are we to ever prepare? I...lost some time. Feeling poorly. Grieving a man not dead. Drinking.
[ Oh how much she has changed now, in her grief and her wisdom. ]
My attention started to slip, my mentors noticed- one commented that I was doing poorly and they expected better of me now that I was a mage. That I ought not rest on my laurels. Between Robert's choice and his reason, that comment? I swore none should be so afraid as to choose Tranquility out of fear. And...I taught. What I had gone through, I asked others for their stories. Quiet lessons where we could not be found, I taught apprentices what they might expect. What they might face. I prepared them as I and Robert had not and while I was not able to teach all of them or make certain it did them much good- word spread and none went so ignorant into their harrowing. None chose Tranquility out of fear for what they might face.
I thought if this one thing that I did could change so much for the better- why not teach more things? Why not do more with magic than what we are taught?
The truest definition of hell. Oh how the cinnamon hater must laugh...
Part of her wonders how they got on this path, what she said to spark this - talking about Adelaide being remarkable, or something like that, and idly she wonders if this was meant to convince her otherwise, somehow.
It hasn't.
Ruby is quiet for a few moments, as she had been for so much of this. She can see her breath in the air, can feel the shift of snow underfoot even as she stands still, is aware that no flowers are growing for now. )
You know, ( she starts, and Ruby is surprised by how raw she sounds, ) You didn't run.
You could have hidden from it. From what happened, or ran. Not literally, I know, but you could have.
( Ruby ran. )
What happened to him is awful. And what they put all of you through? I can't-- it's inhumane. To let people agonise over what they are and what they might have to do, I can't even imagine being willing to do that to another person.
( Nerves have been hit that she didn't expect, and she feels raw and unfocused, and she's sitting down before she really processes. )
Adelaide, your teaching might be the most important thing in the world to so many people. Having someone teach you... to show you that you don't have to be afraid? That's a bigger gift than most people could ever hope for.
I long for glorious cinnamon pearls t-t
[ Even now she wonders if he survived. The Spire had been blood and chaos, screaming in the halls, the sound of thunder and steel echoing forever. ]
It is- it was the Chantry's tradition. It is the first way they found to test us, I suppose. I have never found a satisfactory answer for why something else, anything else, was considered appropriate. Being Harrowed does not stop a mage from possession or prevent abominations. Months ago one of the mages here, a young man named Lauren, was possessed in his sleep and woke as an Abomination. It- we fought. He had to be killed, he was no longer in control of himself. People died. He had been harrowed. It is not a foolproof test.
So we have tried something new, here. Developed a different test, training, something that does not leave a mage so alone, something that does not leave them so vulnerable. We are to stand alone against the demons in our dreams and in our lives- yes. But we need not be so isolated when we wake. I only knew I never wanted to see anyone choose as Robert did. That I never wanted to see my students become like Lauren. There is much to fear in being a mage- but we need not do so because we think ourselves monsters.
If the world is our oyster where are our pearls 8(
( Months? Months and years for all her own running, really. That was less kindly looked upon, surely. Years of resenting the Wolf, even when she knew it was part of her and she loved to run. . )
I'm sorry about Robert. And about Lauren. I...
( I wish I'd had someone like you.
Someone who thought life was important, that people should be safe. That hadn't wanted to make her choose betweem being human and being the Wolf. Magic was terrifying, and yet it was as much as part of someone as their breath.
Granny thought she could only be human, Anita thought she could only be the Wolf, pack before humanity. Snow had believed she could be both, but she hadn't known how to help Red, and David knew who she was, but both of them had forgotten her.
We do not need to be isolated when we wake.
For a brief moment, Ruby thinks she may never have felt so alone as she does right now, sitting in the snow and listening to a woman from another world relay aches that feel so familiar that they could have been carved from her own chest.
There is the sound of a shaky breath. )
You're a great teacher, Adelaide.
( She hates how rough her voice sounds, despite her effort to sound cheery.)
I think everything you've done will help a lot of people. And... I think they'll find it easier to be braver, for it. And they'll be safer.
hidden in the sea of shame and milk. Milky shame.
[ But she can attempt to build something better so such things cannot happen again. More than not finding sleep restful- she cannot dawdle in the time she has, the works she does. It must matter.
It does matter.
She is silent for a long moment, swallowing wine and bitter memory both as she listens for something, anything of Ruby's to turn the mood. That soft breath cuts her- the weight should not be what she'd spoken of. Not when Ruby wished something lighter, easier. ]
...are you all right, Miel Loup?
Legendairy shame D8
( Not blunt or terse; bright, eager, the way she always tries to be. But if Adelaide were there looking at her then the painful waver at the corner of her mouth would be obvious, the shine in her eyes would give her away and Ruby would have to look anywhere else because she's always giving too much away with her face.
It doesn't leave her voice totally convincing when she feels so much.
A breath of laughter, self mocking. Take two: less waver, still too raw. ) I'm fine. Don't worry about me.
( A bit desperately, only her eagerness to talk about not her and not so much in her tone, )
I think I'm definitely too much of a pain jn the ass to qualify as a honey wolf, though.
( Breathe. ) The working on a better future thing seems pretty great.
1000 years shame
[ She doesn't believe it. Can't believe it- as much as Ruby may resent that such things she says remain suspect, Adelaide cannot take her at her word when she sounds like that. Not after she so graciously informed her that she did not need to attempt to save her life.
It's okay. You don't have to.
A weary sort of sorrow that sticks to one's soul and drags them down. Adelaide keeps an ear out for that tone, tries to engage in playful banter, in nonsense, in sharing her own hurts as though that might make Ruby's less...
It does not seem to have helped, this time. ]
Do you get to choose your nicknames now? No? I thought not. You remain my honey'd wolf until I think of something better.
Re: 1000 years shame
Well, Captain, I did just say I'm annoying. Trying to change my nickname seems like an appropriately annoying thing to do.
( She huffs out a quiet breath to blow an errant strand of hair out of her face. )
I mean, honey wolf makes me sound far too adorable.
( this is safer territory, at least. )
no subject
[ Honey wolf it shall remain.
Quietly, gently, she murmurs between sips of wine. ]
I shall always worry when you are away, Red. I get the feeling you do not have many back home that might do the same. Allow me to make up the difference.
[ A beat. ]
And you are quite adorable, in your own way.
no subject
( Well, talk about a way to knock the air out of her. Her reply takes a few moments, an in and out of breath, a cycle of thoughts and of muscles firing for the simple action of curling her fingers in toward her palm.
She considers the gloss and shine for a moment longer before she considers what Adelaide just told her and concluding that it'd be exceptionally cheap of her. That it'd be a lie when Adelaide was just open about something so painful. )
I used to. Snow and Charming and everyone. We were a team. And... then it seemed like I slowly became less and less... They had-- there was a lot going on. Important stuff was happening and there was evil to fight and all.
It's just--
I used to be one of the people they counted on. And I guess they got... they got people who were more relevant to what they needed.
( Hook and Regina and Belle and Robin. Others, maybe.
She can't say it doesn't sting. )
But um, there's that whole lone wolf thing I'm working on, so you don't need to worry that much.
( Even if it means a lot. Even if it means a lot that she even thought it.
Annnnd cue embarrassed laughter. )
Now you're just making fun of me.
no subject
[ She cannot offer them much, these rifters. She cannot promise them a way home, she cannot give them anything familiar or solid in this world. All she can do is offer her support. Offer an ear. And for those that have earned her regard and trust, for those that she has come to call friends and for which she has come to care?
She can offer small things. Little promises that are easy to keep. Tiny comforts and gestures that feel as though they ought to hold more weight. ]
In their absence, I shall worry for you.
[ Someone must. It might as well be someone that will be able to help after the worry is over. ]
I would never.
no subject
( You know, what a mess.
But she can't say the thought doesn't make her feel a little better, a little less desolate. )
Okay. But I'll worry about you, too, that's the rule on how that works.
( ugh she is scandalised. )
You would. Captain, I'm hurt.
no subject
[ People do better with people. Even if it is only but one other person- they do better with connections. Ruby is only digging this hole in deeper- admitting defeat graciously is the last bastion of hope for her. ]
I think I can accept that.
[ A soft snort of laughter. ]
I am complimenting you, why is this hurtful?
no subject
( Red no, Red shhh.
She grins to herself, a half-hearted effort to keep the smile out of her voice.)
Because! I'm definitely not adorable. Calling me adorable when I'm not is just mean. Salt in the wound.
no subject
[ Ruby ought to know this by now. ]
What are you then, if not adorable, mm?
no subject
( :D
Huh, a hum. )
Terrible.
no subject
[ She says with a laugh. ]
No, no you are not terrible.
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( is Adelaide sure about the no terrible thing? Really sure?)
How about... obnoxious? Flighty? Headstrong?
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Maybe we'll have to agree to disagree.
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