Elizabeth Amberly stood at one of the room's windows, staring out at a gray sky as it threatened rain. She felt at odds this morning - restless. If she had been a younger woman, she would have been fighting the urge to pace. At her age, though, she was more inclined to conserve her energy for when it was needed, rather than waste it on unnecessary things like walking back and forth across a room fretting about things beyond her ken.
She'd thought about retiring, sometimes, but the girls... well, she did love teaching. It wasn't such a bad thing, to continue working, when it was something she loved. Sometimes her joints protested, but her mind was still as clear and sharp as ever. A few more years, then. She would see what they would bring.
There was a faint chime behind her, and Mrs. Amberly drew her attention away from the clouds and back to her desk. The kettle was hot - now, that was something lovely, a kettle that could just be plugged in to the socket, with no need to go down to the cafeteria every time. She bustled about, debating the teapot - well, the girls would be here soon, wouldn't they? Best to put a bit extra in. They might want a cup after walking through the mist from the student dormitories.
She sat down in her desk chair, smiling faintly as she debated whether the resultant creak had been the chair or her bones, and waited for the tea and the storm to brew.
----
[oc - this thread is for our "girls should have the right to choose whether or not they fight" group. The other group will be on a separate thread, up soon!]
Akari slouched into the room, hood pulled over her head, lollipop sticking haphazardly out of the side of her mouth. She settled in a chair in the back corner of the room, taking a second to glance out the window at the roiling sky, then gave a quick nod to Ms. Amberly.
"Hey," she said simply, sitting back in the chair and rummaging through her bag for her folder. Single folder - it had everything from every class in it, and even this early into the year it was already starting to look a little overstuffed. Akari smoothed out the crumpled edges of some of the papers trying to escape, then folded her hands behind her head, waiting for the others to enter.
She had been - as always - fashionably early.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
Kikyo had braved the walk across the courtyard today armed with an umbrella and her trusty camera. The sky felt heavy today, close enough that she could just reach up and touch it though even if she did stand on her tip-toes she wasn’t really tall enough was she? Still, gloomy as they were, they were still pretty weren’t they? Swirls of gray and black, shifting as they rolled across the sky. She brought her camera up and captured a formation of clouds that hovered above the school building, it was a nice shot.
A gust of wind carrying with it the damp threat of rain sent Kikyo hurrying across the courtyard, camera clutched protectively to her chest. Once safely inside Kikyo relaxed and put her umbrella away in her school bag before hurrying her way to the class she has been instructed to go to, which only involved a single wrong turn. What a nice day today was. She poked her head into the classroom, a smile quickly finding her lips at the sight of Akari sitting in the back of the room.
“Hello, it is nice to meet you.” She said dipping her head in the direction of the teacher before she entered the room. She picked her way through the rows of desk, setting her bag down on the one next to Akari before taking her seat.
“Ah, something smells good.” She said, sniffing at the air.
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
"Good morning, girls." Akari had been quite early, and Mrs. Amberly had given her a polite nod when she had come in, but carried about with the tea things rather than engaging directly. She didn't know exactly what to say to the children about all of this, and whatever it ended up being, she certainly didn't want to have to say it more thanonce. Kikyo arrived a bit later with her camera - all of the teachers had been told about that, of course. If the girl found comfort in it... well, sometimes, in this world, there was little enough to find comfort in. Mrs. Amberly wondered about how Kikyo would take all of this, especially...
...Well, there was no sense in getting ahead of themselves, was there? And the tea was ready.
"Would you like some tea? I'm afraid we have much to prepare for, starting with... oh, what to start with? It's been so long, but... no, never mind that, girls. It will be all right, somehow. Come, pull your chairs up and have some tea... and tell me how much you know about the school."
Akari grinned as Kikyo sat down next to her, scooting her chair a little closer.
"Hey, Ki-chan. Any new pictures?"
The smell of tea filled the room, the rain pattered against the window outside. It was a pretty comfortable day, all things considered. The sorta day you just wanted to stay inside and relax. Stifling a yawn, she turned her eyes to the front of the room as the teacher began to speak.
"Tea'd be nice. Got sugar?"
First time a teacher'd ever offered her tea in class. Back at her high school, they'd sometimes pass out candies to students that got perfect scores on tests, but Akari'd never done well enough to get one. It was - a nice change.
Now - a question. What they knew about the school?
"It's a school?" Akari offered, then tugged at the unbuttoned collar of her blouse.
"Fancy school," she corrected, "and it's got a lot of history or something."
It's where they send kids who don't have powers so they can pretend they're still important.
Akari didn't say that out loud, not around Kikyo, but she certainly thought it.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
“Yeah! There’s this abandoned nest under a drainage pipe on the gym building that I saw this morning.” Kikyo said her expression brightening as she leaned in Akari’s direction. She tapped quickly through several different shots, a blurry one of several girls hiding under the overhang of the dorm building, one of heavy clouds hanging close over a clock tower, another of a crushed juice can sitting on a bench before she finally arrived at one of a bristling nest resting neatly in the crook of a drainage pipe.
She placed her camera down as the teacher greeted them, was the supplementary lesson just the two of them? She was offering tea so they didn’t seem to be in trouble, right?
“If it isn’t any trouble tea sounds nice, it was a little cold outside.” Kikyo said, scooting forward in her seat. She tilted her head slightly to one side at the teacher’s question. It seemed like a rather odd one, had she misheard something then? But it seemed that Akari was answering the question that Kikyo thought that she had heard asked.
“There was a story that one of our classmates told during orientation, about a girl meeting a witch in the woods?” Kikyo offered up next. “Other than that, just that it’s an old, distinguished school.”
With some very strange soda in the break room that was perhaps unicorn blood.
Probably best not to mention that.
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
"Mm." Mrs. Amberly was soberly quiet for a moment, setting teacups in front of each of them in silence, and a slightly chipped sugar bowl between the children, preferring her own tea unsweetened. "So, that story is still around, then, in some form." She lifted her own cup, blowing a wisp of steam. "Well. I suppose, at least, we shall not have to start at the beginning."
Her eyes closed for a moment, then opened once more, unfocused, staring through the steam of the teacup as if there might be ghosts hidden inside of it. "The Jade Seal Academy was founded one hundred thirteen years ago, by Aoife Connor." This was likely not news to them, at least, had they been paying any attention to anything at all. The founder's name was on plaques all over the grounds, after all. "It was at a time when several academies for magical girls had begun to spring up, and Ms. Connor felt that girls without that magical spark needed their own prestigious school as well. This is what you've been told so far."
Mrs. Amberly sipped on her tea. It burned her tongue, but she refused to grimace. "What I do not think you girls have yet been told is that, before she founded the school, Aoife was a magical girl herself. She may have saved the world once or twice - they all do - but Aoife was somewhat of a special case. You see, she was not... normally... a magical girl. Something happened to her, when she was about her age, and the Jade Seal Academy was founded to help protect people from Aoife's fate."
Akari slid the sugar bowl towards her, taking the tongs and slipping one - two - three - four - five cubes into her cup. She almost took a sixth, for good measure, then thought against it, passing the bowl over to Kikyo and picking up her cup to blow on it a bit.
"Hot," she said cautiously, glancing at Kikyo. "Careful."
As Mrs. Alberly talked, however, her mind shifted from how hot the tea was, from the tea as a whole, to the words of the teacher's story. Not a magical girl from birth? Turned into one, in some way? And this school - here to protect people from that?
"So it doesn't have to be a choice," she said, leaning in a little too quickly and spilling a drop of tea onto the desk. "People that want it can have it? And people that don't want it - well, if anyone who wants to help can, that's less pressure on them to risk things, right? Why would you want to protect people from that? Is it random? Is it dangerous? How does it work?"
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
“Thank you,” Kikiyo said, accepting the cup of tea from Mrs Amberly. She was lost for a moment watching the steam as it drifted up from the little cup, her brief fascination coming to an end as Akari passed the sugar bowl to her. Kikyo plucked up the tongs, she dropped two cubes in at first and after a brief deliberation she decided to add a third to the cup. She lifted her cup to her lips to taste if it needed another cube but stopped as Akari spoke.
“Hot, careful.” She said, Kikyo glanced in Akari’s direction with a sheepish smile before she blew a puff of air across the top of the tea causing the seam to dance in it’s funny way. She added a few more careful puffs for good measure, she didn’t want to be careless and burn her tongue after all, before she returned the cup to her lips and took a sip.
She returned her cup to its saucer as Mrs Amberly addressed them again, and she listened as she picked up a fourth cube of sugar to add to her tea. The founder of the school had been a magical girl, but not from birth? Was that really something that was possible? Kikyo felt her brow scrunch at the thought, so she took another sip of tea (after giving it a cooling blow of air). That seemed weird too, didn’t it, the school needing to protect others from the same fate? But Kaya’s story was pretty clear, wasn't it?
“Is it about the uh,” Kikyo started as Akari finished her questions. She paused a moment, running her thumb along the cup’s handle as the steam drifted, “the story we heard, it, um, mentioned that there was always a price.” She finished after collecting her words.
Oh, but it was good to see young minds with so many questions. Mrs. Amberly couldn't help but smile at Akari's constant stream of inquiries as the girl tried to figure out what could have happened and why and how. Perhaps she'd recommend the young lady for her senior year etymology class later on... but the girls were so young yet, and she supposed that would have to wait a few years.
So young, and yet with such pressing matters at hand. Kikyo was more prone to listening at first, or at least to letting others take the lead - but she wasn't stupid, even if she was processing things a little more slowly. There was nothing wrong with a spot of patience, after all. And Kikyo... Kikyo was thinking about things, too, wasn't she? Perhaps about things that she should not have had to think about.
"Yes, girls," Mrs. Amberly said quietly, choosing to respond to Kikyo first. "It's about the price." She placed her teacup down once more, standing and walking carefully over to a cabinet, drawing out a silver key from a pocket and unlocking it, taking down a small leatherbound book - no, not even a book: a journal, something written in, something very, very old.
"I don't take this out very often. Miss Aoife's story - her real story - is not for children. And yes, I know you think yourself quite grown up, but I am seventy-six years old, and I assure you, you are all children. Even many of your teachers, if I may say so." It was said with a smile, and apparently she might say so after all. She held the journal carefully - almost reverently - and returned to the table.
"Now, I must say that for most magical girls, it is somewhat different. Powers simply appear - or do not - by the time a young lady is about thirteen. What you know to be true is true, in... almost all cases. But Miss Aoife is not most cases. From what we know, her powers did not come naturally at all. Rather, she... bargained for them. And I do not think that Miss Aoife received the better end of the bargain - nor even a fair bargain at all."
She seated herself primly once more, the journal atop the desk, picking up instead the teacup once more. It was cool enough now to drink, which she did, slowly, as if it would delay the moment. Eventually, though, she could not put it off, and returned the cup to its saucer, and her hand to the journal. It fell open beneath her wrinkled fingertips, to a page no doubt often perused.
"'It tears at me every time. I do not know if it is like this for the others, but the transformation - my transformation - is agony. I have cut myself with a knife to compare it-' - Please do not try this, girls - 'And it is nothing. No burn nor hurt nor break can match the transformation. Yet I do it - again, again, again - because the only thing more painful than the transformation is not to transform. At first I could go some weeks without it, but the longer I live, the time diminishes. I fear there will be a time when I can be neither my human self nor my transformed self - when I am nothing more than a cycle of agonies. I curse her, sometimes, but I feel that she enjoys my curses as much as my pain.'"
The tea sat forgotten on the desk. Akari, typically lazing in the back, half-listening, responding in single words and, if the situation merited it, the occasional truncated phrase, was completely enrapt. She leaned a bit more over the desk, trying to catch the words in the journal alongside Mrs. Amberly's reading. A bargain for powers? A massive cost. Suffering, again and again, just for a chance to save people, living a life so terrible she decided to hide whatever thing - no, person? Creature? Entity?
A vision of a bright green seal popped into Akari's head, but that was idiotic. Seal as in seal away. Something was sealed away, something that enjoyed Aoife's pain.
Pain she took on to be a magical girl.
Pain she took on to save others.
"I wanna know what she did." Her voice came stern, resolute. "What she hid. There's a - a chance to have a choice, out there, and Aoife decided nobody else'd get it. Like, I get why she would, but there's a choice to be able to help people. It isn't black and white. I wanna know how she did it."
“Pain for power?” Kikyo’s brow scrunched as she considered her tea. That was… there was something deeply unsettling in what Mrs Amberly was saying. She could feel her heart flutter against her chest and it made her shift in her seat. She brought her cup up to her lips while the other two talked and took a sip, but she couldn’t really taste her tea. She returned it to the saucer with that odd little click porcelain makes. She could see Akari leaning intently as Mrs Amberly read, it was strange to see her take such an intense interest in anything that’s happening in a classroom. Kikyo’s gaze moved between Mrs Amberly and her friend, the scrunch of her brow lingering in place.
This thing, whatever it was that Miss Aiofe had made her deal with, it wanted. Kikyo didn’t know the words she wanted, but that deep feeling of wrongness seemed as good a guide as any. Addiction, it sounds like Miss Aiofe was addicted to that feeling of being… needed?
“It was using her.” Kikyo said she was quieter than Akari. “Using her desire to help… or um, feel helpful like a drug.”
Was it feeding on her pain? Her hate? There were monsters out there but could they really get so much from making another person unhappy by granting their wish? Her hand moved mechanically as she picked up another sugar cube.
“I don’t think messing with something like that… it doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
Mrs. Amberly sipped at her tea and listened to the girls dissecting the tale so far. Akari seemed entirely enrapt, maybe... a bit much? Had she been the right choice for all of this? It was hard to say... but Mrs. Amberly couldn't help but feel, more and more, like there needed to be a choice. Kikyo... Kikyo had the right of it, but she just wasn't a very strong personality. And Akari seemed entirely the other way around.
Perhaps... perhaps together, something could be accomplished. It was truly amazing what people could do together, even if they couldn't do it alone. She would just have to trust the children, and see if perhaps they could... if perhaps they were the ones.
Someone had to be, after all this time.
She set her cup down, only a half inch of tea left in the bottom of it. "We don't know who it was that Aoife received her powers from. She never made it quite clear, in all her writings - perhaps she wasn't able to. Some say a witch, others a demon, others something we can't possibly understand. Whatever - whoever - it was, though, Aoife made it very clear that there was a cost involved - one she hadn't expected, one that she wished she hadn't had to pay. She later speaks in her journal of wishing for a rescuer, and later still of realizing that no one can save her but herself. It's a sad fate. She worked her whole life trying to save herself, and I don't think she ever managed it. It is my belief, though, that she was able to leave behind enough that perhaps others could be saved, if someone were willing to save them."
Kikyo blew a puff of air through the faint trail of steam as Mrs Amberly talked, watching the trail of white quiver and shake. She thought back to the story Kaya had told on their first day, how the weird parts had made it not quite a horror story but something that had been close enough to one. Was it a story that Miss Aiofe had originally told that had gotten a little distorted over the years? Some attempt to try to help others make a different choice? Kikyo’s gaze moved to Akari as she tried to read the excitement on her friend’s face. She had always said that she wasn’t jealous of her younger sister, but Kikyo didn’t know. She knew what it was like to have a sibling who could do things you couldn’t dream of, how fun it was to support them and how easy it was to fantasize about what it would be like to be someone like them.
The mention of helping people from suffering the same fate pulled Kikyo back to Mrs Amberly.
“Is that something we could help do?” Kikyo asked, before she really thought much about it. She wasn’t sure why but she felt her ears get hot as her gaze dropped back to her camera. “I mean, um, did Miss Aiofe find something that could help other people?”
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
Akari shifted back, a little, looking somewhat crestfallen. Great - so there wasn't some proven way. Whatever happened, it was random, a freak accident, and even the teachers didn't know how to replicate it. She rocked her tea cup, sloshing it around, glancing at the raindrops trailing their way down the outside window.
But - there was a hope, there, right? Something Aoife had left behind. Maybe that'd lead to whatever had 'cursed' her, too.
"What she said," Akari tacked on. "What'd she leave? What do you want us to do?"
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!