fandomhigh | Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

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detention

Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

Another bright, shining, and pink day had begun for the ~~prisoners~~ guests being held in detention, and while the morning started off the same as the day before, there was a strange sort of feeling in the air once people began waking up. A kind of... musical feeling, in fact.

Umbridge might have taken over the island, but the island still had a mind of her own, thank you very much.

[No, the barriers of detention cannot save you from Once More With Fandom Day! The OCD is up, so have at it!]

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There was the steady sound of heels clicking down the hallway, which only ceased as whomever it was visiting reached the door to detention and said something to the guards.

A moment later, in walked Emma Grace Frost.

"Right, let's get this over with. Show of hands, now; who's willing to stop throwing a temper tantrum and come upstairs and promise to behave?"

Jonothon didn't say anything, and didn't so much as twitch to raise his hand.

He'd continue having his tantrum, Miss Frost. And if he ever got out of this hellhole, there wasn't a snowball's chance that he'd head back to that bloody school again.

He didn't need your salvation, Emma, here or anywhere else. He didn't want it.

Edited 2012-07-24 16:17 (UTC)

"Yes, Mr. Starsmore, we all know how you feel about 'The Man,'" Emma said crisply, giving him a bored glance. "The fact of the matter is you wouldn't be allowed back to the school because you're past the age where you can be taught. So don't worry your pretty little head about that, and do point all that rage where it belongs."

"At yourself, for not gaining control of your abilities in the first place."

//I'll get right on top of that,// Jono replied, his tone flat. //Though I'd rather be down here without an ounce of control than up there, dancing to the beat of her drum.//

See how many more years they could keep him down here, then. Once his powers had burned away the rest of him, leaving just fire and bones, perhaps then he'd bother to regret his choices. Perhaps not.

//What does it matter to you whether we're down here throwing our lives away, anyhow? There are shields up, you shouldn't even be able to hear us brooding down here, from up above.//

"Because it's a waste," Emma answered in the same cold, bored tone. "Indefinite detention without a chance to make a change, or understand what you're missing, doesn't work. Of course, the broken ones come out once they've fallen apart, but it's still a waste of potential and resources."

"And I dislike seeing potential wasted."

//And what point is there, making a change, if it's a change that she'd like to see? No, better I'm down here, of no use at all, than up there with my mind washed clean, herding innocents about like cattle.//

It... probably helped that Jono still didn't figure he had a hell of a lot of potential. Aside from blowing things up, which he'd proven fairly adept at, and surviving the blast when he happened to take himself out with those things.

I'll watch the stars go out

Rinoa stopped singing abruptly as her eyes focused on Emma. Not the one who came here and hurt her. Safe?

Nothing was safe. If nothing was safe, then it didn't matter what safe was.

Did it? Didn't it?

"I want my magic back," she said, quietly. She was tired, and hurt, and almost past the point of caring about anything else.

Finally.

"I don't blame you," Emma said, softening her voice and going over to kneel beside the other girl, ignoring the filth on her pristine white pants. "If they took my power, I'd want it back too."

"What's your name, darling?"

See, this wasn't so bad. This girl was nice and soft and not the mean one, who came down here to taunt them and show them pictures of the dead.

"Rinoa," she said, hesitant, yet eager to please her new friend. Maybe it didn't have to be like this? Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. "They ... they put a wall in my head so ... so I can't get to it. But I can't stop trying. It hurts."

Fuck. If Raven had broken something in her mind beyond repair, Emma was going to throttle the psycho little empath.

Amateur.

"Rinoa, I'm going try and make the wall hurt a little less, but it will funny for a moment," Emma soothed. On one hand, finally, she could help someone in her own way. On the other, this was very delicate. She was delicate. "Fuzzy, a bit. Can you tell me about your magic?"

"I'm a Sorceress," Rinoa said, and somehow, those three words effected a change in her. Her back was straighter, and her voice stronger; she sounded a little less like a scared child and a little more like a queen. "I received my powers from Edea, who cast them off while near death and fighting possession. Some people can receive the powers and others can't. Daughters of Hyne."

She was getting off-topic, and this was important. She used what dignity she had to pull herself together and focus.

"It's who I am," she explained. "I am magic. There's so much that I once had trouble controlling it. And now it's gone. But it can't ever really go away, because it's me. So there's ... a wall. To keep it away. It aches. It misses me. And I try to push through the wall, because if I can get through it everything will be okay again. I'll be me and I won't be here and I'll make them all sorry."

Okay, maybe she wasn't as sane as when she'd first come here. Who was?

"But when I try too hard, my nose bleeds and my vision gets ... swimmy."

The magic was strong; the body was weak. This body was failing her.

Shit. Emma really wished Rinoa hadn't said that part about 'making them all sorry.'

"Rinoa, they won't let me take you out of here if you say you want to hurt people," Emma pointed out. "Uncontrolled magic is scary, and there's lots of young kids out there who might get hurt if it all burst out at once."

"But let's start with what I can fix right now. The magic is making you sick, trying to get out, so we're going to find a way to make it not hurt so much," she continued. "Did anyone ever teach you meditation?"

"But ... what about the girl in pink?" she asked. "She shows me things and makes me think they're real. I want to show her what pain is really like."

Boulders falling from the sky, and landing on her face. That was a good start.

The question. That was important to focus on. Come on, Rinoa, think.

"Edea," she said. "Edea tried. I'm not good at meditating. My thoughts wander. And now I can't think about anything. I just push on the wall and it won't give."

Normal people would stop pushing. But then they didn't feel that deep, frantic need.

"Raven is lunatic," Emma replied matter-of-factly. "Next time she starts up, just poke at her Mommy Issues a bit if you want a rise out of her."

Mean, Emma.

"Why don't we think about the wall? Only we'll make it Our Wall." Emma's voice fell into the sing-song quality she used with baby-psis, to help them slip into the transition more easily. "It's a tall, stone wall, like in the Secret Garden. Did you ever read that? But it's tall, impossibly tall, but old. You can see the rose trees inside starting to spill over the top, and bits of vine starting to creep through the cracks. The magic is in there, sleeping, growing, waiting for when your body is strong enough to turn the key. It will wait for you, because it was meant to wait for you."

A little subconscious push, there, to try and help her keep the power at bay awhile longer.

"All around the walled garden are paths, through different parts of other gardens. Any time you start getting frustrated, or things hurt, or even when you're bored, I want you to explore the other gardens. I want you to make them yourself, imagine each plant in detail, and make a place away from detention. Can you do that for me?"

Rinoa hadn't read the Secret Garden. Now she wanted to. She missed books. She missed libraries. She missed the smell of musty pages in cobweb-filled aisles.

So Rinoa was going to see the wall in her mind. Stones. The rose trees. The warm, safe feeling. The itch, the need was dimming; she still craved the other part of herself, on the other side of the wall, but now, but now the pressure had dimmed. Maybe her magic was sleeping. She didn't want to wake it.

"C-can I have a field?" she asked. "A field with flowers, where Squall promised me he'd wait. And Angelo's running, and playing ..."

She could see it. It was almost as real as when Sookie drew it for her.

"One path leads to a field so large, you can't see it end, only the horizon," Emma promised. "There's a cold spring, too, so you never get thirsty or hot."

Rinoa's eyes were closed, and she was there. She could see her field, just behind a door. The door was open. It would stay open. The paths were safe to explore and wander through. Angelo would barge through the doors and bark at things and be her wonderful sunny self.

Angelo had to be alive, because the world without Angelo was too horrible to imagine. Angelo was just an innocent bundle of joy. Bad things shouldn't happen to those.

"Thank you," she said softly. From her, the her that was still able to think, to someone who was kind when she didn't need to be. Who may have just saved what was left of Rinoa's mind.

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Detention, Depths of the Castle, Tuesday

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