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[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Evening, 16 Loshis 2719
An Unused Classroom, Brunnhold

Fionn apologized for showing her his back. He could have just told her, Madeleine thought, indignantly. He hadn’t needed to show her that – that awful – his, she thought, abruptly, with a strange cold shock that shivered down her spine. It wasn’t a drawing or a description in a book or a play; it wasn’t something she had read about in history class. It was his back; it was Fionn’s back. Madeleine felt even sicker than before as it sank in, slowly.

He hadn’t needed to show her, all the same, she thought, defiant. He hadn’t needed to make her see it. Madeleine didn’t think she’d ever forget it. Did it hurt? It looked like it would hurt, all the time. Scabs didn’t, usually, did they? Madeleine tried to think; she had skinned her knees, of course, or her elbows. They just itched, didn’t they? Scabs?

And when – when it was happening?

Madeleine was still crying. She couldn’t think about it anymore. She couldn’t. Fionn agreed that he had been cruel; he apologized again. His face was bright red now, and the dim light only made it look worse. Madeleine sniffled, her nose running, her whole face wet with tears. She had said what she had to, then; she thought he would leave, now. She didn’t want to talk to him anymore; she didn’t want to know what else he might say.

But Fionn didn’t leave. Madeleine stared at him as he thanked her for not blaming him, frowning, her small face set. She sniffled again, loudly, tears still trickling slowly down her cheeks. It was his fault. Wasn’t it? Not being a passive, of course, he couldn’t help that, the poor thing, but – he must have done – done something. But Madeleie couldn’t think of anything which would be bad enough to deserve… she couldn’t think too much about it. Her stomach ached; she felt very sick, as she often did after she cried, a funny feeling like she’d swallowed too much snot. She sniffled again.

Fionn was talking about casting again. He wouldn’t let it go. Madeleine sniffled, and she looked down, guiltily, when Fionn said if it wasn’t a secret she wouldn’t be working alone in the dark. She rubbed at her eyes with her hand.

Fionn asked who’d believe him. It didn’t matter very much to her if he didn’t think he’d be believed; he couldn’t know, could he? And anyway he’d promised. Fionn didn’t have any handkerchiefs; there was snot on her face, and Madeleine stared at him. She glanced down at her notebook, but she couldn’t bring herself to rip a page free. The handkerchief he’d given her was in a miserable ball on the desk. She just stared at him when he said he’d offer her his shirt.

Madeleine took a deep breath, and sniffled as best as she could. She sighed, miserably, and wiped her face on her sleeve, making a face. It was terribly gross; she felt like a little child. She rubbed her face with her hand. There was blue shivering all through her field. Madeleine sighed, feeling it hovering in the air around her. She closed her eyes; she couldn’t have said how, exactly, but she – it drained away, although she still felt sad, somewhere in her chest. Madeleine wiped her eyes on her sleeve again.

He had promised already, Madeleine thought, miserably. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone anything,” Madeleine pointed out, looking across the dark classroom at the passive. She sighed, then. “It’s all right,” Madeleine mumbled. “Everyone breaks promises anyway.” She sniffled again. She had stopped crying, at least, but she felt gross and awful; her whole face hurt, and her stomach felt sick, and her chest hurt too.

“I will think about it,” Madeleine said, abruptly. She drew herself up, straightening; her chin lifted, her spine settling into alignment. She stared at Fionn, and there was a little frown on her face, but she was thinking, too, not only sad. “It isn’t that it’s a bad idea. I don’t want to brail, and I might if it – hurts,” Madeleine swallowed, hard, her throat tight. “I have – I have more practicing to do, and I…” she didn’t feel as tired, Madeleine realized, although there was still a funny ache inside her, somewhere she couldn’t quite place, like the way it had hurt when her field developed. She looked down at her feet, swallowing hard.

“Maybe I can find a spell circle,” Madeleine said, after a moment, peeking up at Fionn. She frowned. “Something to…” she bit her lip. “If I could keep the effects in a certain range,” Madeleine said, slowly. Abruptly, the little golly sat back down at her notebook; she flipped back, her eyes widening. She looked up at Fionn, then back down, and grabbed a pencil from her bag.

“If I – ” Madeleine drew a careful star in the upper right hand corner of the page she’d found, staring intently at the diagram in the middle of it. “I-I don’t know very much about spell circles, but – the interaction should – ” she turned the page back once, her eyes skittering over equations. Her face didn’t quite light up, but there was a distinct lightening, and she looked up at Fionn, wide-eyed, something like joy peeking through swollen puffy eyes and tear tracks.

“Maybe,” Madeleine said, abruptly. She closed her notebook, still sitting, trembling, her mind racing. “I promise to try.” She said, firmly, looking across the room at Fionn.

[Fionn]

Loshis 16, 2719 | Late Evening
An Unused Classroom, Brunnhold

.

He’d thought her good humour a pleasant sight to behold but when she cried… gods, there was nothing more awful. It was unfortunate that this was the expression that he had gotten to see most often, the one that he had managed to produce in her the most. Some people looked… not exactly pretty when they sobbed but they did manage to appear strangely vivacious, and a rare few managed to look resplendent; Madeleine wasn’t one of those people. The galdor was possibly one of the ugliest criers that Fionn had ever encountered or perhaps it only seemed that way because he’d caused it. It was a horrible thing and he was wholly responsible. What he felt wasn’t mere empathy but also guilt, deep guilt because he was up to his neck in it. If he saw her cry for any other reason, he might feel sorry for her but knowing that he was the cause… that made it worse for the young man to bear. It was what set his insides squirming, made his face burn with shame and worst of all, formed a lump in his throat that with a bit of persuasion could become tears as well.

The teenager wished that he could scrub that repugnant emotion from her face, perhaps more for the sake of his own conscience than to end her suffering. Making this girl cry — even on multiple occasions — was a minor thing in the grand scheme of his life, especially in light of some of the things that he’d done but it still gave him something else to regret, one more transgression that couldn’t be washed from his soul. He could only look on as if from a distance as events slipped beyond his control as more sand trickled down the hourglass of his life where he couldn’t touch it.

However, there were still some things that he had control over, things that he could alter before they slid past the point of no return.

“No, I’m not going to tell anyone, I just meant- No one would listen to me if I said anything because of what I am so whether I told or not, your secret would be quite safe regardless of my promise,” he pointed out, huffing in frustration. Instead of clarifying that he’d keep his word, the middle Madden seemed to be devaluing it — the last thing he wanted to do. For someone who had spent a ridiculous amount of his life lying and had few qualms about doing so, he didn’t like to make a false oath.

“I just- It wouldn’t matter either way but I will keep my word. I… I don’t like to break promises so I-I-I don’t make them lightly.”

The warmth that had burned in his cheeks cooled now, protuberance in his throat bobbing up and down violently, seeming to wobble there as his gaze became downcast. If he’d had a field, it would have been in the melancholic part of the monic spectrum.

The boy had thought of promises that he’d been forced to break, ones pertaining to Lars. The impossible choice he’d been forced to make that had almost cost his former roommate his life at Fionn’s hands, shattering the honour of his word in the process, had obviously left its mark on the youth’s heart and psyche. The mark of that decision would never leave him but it wasn’t just that broken vow that weighed on him now but others he’d made since. He hadn’t talked to the Hessean in weeks, had gone out of his way to avoid him since before his birthday, and it wasn’t for the man’s own good, wasn’t part of the promises he’d made to look after him, the ones he’d made not to hurt him again. No, he’d been avoiding him so that he could look after his own hide. Selfish as always, but he didn’t have the excuse of needing to be that way to survive, not now.

Maddie would no doubt see the shadow cast by his dour mood but the teenager was quick to bury it, shoving those thoughts and their implications into some dark, dank corner of his mind where they could be forgotten and ideally rot. His mood didn’t brighten — this certainly wasn’t an occasion for mirth after all — but it did lighten, the teenager not burdened as acutely as before. He could certainly breathe without each inhalation hitching minutely as he teetered on the edge of tears.

“It’s not like it’s life and death but it’s… it’s important to me… that you don’t think I’d go back on my word,” the youth reiterated. Brown eyes regarded her solemnly. At the same time, he was able to consider her critically and it was clear that something had shifted within her, her demeanour reflecting an inward change. And then abruptly, she went into a state of mind where Fionn didn’t really have much bearing on anything. As the wheels turned in her head, the mechanisms of her mind clicking away, the passive became somewhat distant for her. Oh, she could definitely still see him and appeared to be reacting to him to a degree but she was clearly full of thoughts on magic and casting, reaching a certain joy that the servant recognised.

No doubt this was how he looked when he talked about anything that truly interested him. That he might not understand what she was muttering about evidently didn’t cross her mind.

A nervous, uncertain smile flitted across his lips as she glanced up from her notebook, transported to some plane where arcane mysteries were unravelling before her in patterns that she could read. It clearly excited her, brightening the student’s disposition, and the middle Madden was glad. He didn’t know what it was that he’d said exactly but it had done some good. Unfortunately, it didn’t make him feel as good as it should have, despite the fact that she seemed not only to accept his idea but praise it a little. This was what he’d wanted — a victory — but it was a hollow one.

“Well, I… hope it works out for you. Goes well and… yeah,” he responded awkwardly, hands slipping into his pockets as he took a step back, turning slowly on one foot as if preparing to leave. However, he continued his pivot until he was facing her once more, adjusting his feet accordingly so that he didn’t grow unbalanced.

“You are brave, you know. You’re taking risks and it’s good. Just uh… don’t take the wrong ones, I guess. Or rather the really foolish ones. With magic that’s- Well, you can never be too careful where magic is concerned, I guess,” Fionn admitted quietly. He rubbed at the back of his neck, hands free from his pockets as he took a shallow bow and returned them to their habitual resting place.

“Goodbye and good luck, Miss Gosselin.”

[Madeleine Gosselin]

Late Evening, 16 Loshis 2719
An Unused Classroom, Brunnhold

Nobody would listen to him, Fionn pointed out, if he tried to tell. Madeleine hadn’t thought of that; she didn’t know what to make of it. Surely, she thought, if he went to a matron or a patron, and he told them he had seen Madeleine Gosselin doing unsupervised magic alone in a classroom at night, that she had done magic in front of him alone in a classroom at night, then they would –

Madeleine’s imagination failed her there. Wouldn’t they believe him? She tried, suddenly, to think it through – to really think. They would believe him, she thought. They’d ask her, Madeleine realized. They’d call her into an office, maybe, and somebody would sit her down, she thought – Madeleine had never been in trouble and wasn’t exactly sure how it worked – and ask her, in what she imagined would be a stern voice, serious and scary, if she had been doing magic alone at night.

And then?

Madeleine watched Fionn across the room, and she knew she was frowning. If she said no? It was true, of course, she had been, but she could – she could lie, and if she lied, and she said no… nobody would believe him, Madeleine thought. She could tell them that she had met him in Professor Keyes’s office, and he had stared at her awfully – Madeleine wasn’t entirely sure why staring was bad, but it was a thing that men did in books, sometimes, which was remarked upon unfavorably – and she wasn’t sure, but she thought… they would believe her. She was a galdor, and he was –

Madeleine thought of the marks on Fionn’s back, and she felt a little sick again. Even though it was true, Madeleine thought. She felt a prickle of unease; she didn’t know what to make of it. It isn’t fair, she wanted to say, suddenly; it isn’t fair. But it hadn’t gone very well, last time, and she thought it would only upset him; she thought – Madeleine thought, slowly, that there was a good deal she didn’t understand. There was a good deal she wasn’t sure if she wanted to understand.

“I believe you,” Madeleine said, when Fionn finished, when he told it was important that she didn’t think he’d go back on his word. She didn’t know what else to say, and she was frowning a little still, looking at him. “I don’t – I don’t think you would, anymore.” She said, as solemn as he had been.

And then there was magic to think about, magic and physics and dancing, three of the best things that Madeleine could think of, and that was better than these strange, uneasy thoughts. And Fionn called her brave, and Madeleine stared at him, and felt red creeping into her cheeks, and hoped he couldn’t see it in the dim light cast by the lantern on the desk.

“Goodbye, Fionn,” Madeleine said, quietly. She shifted, and then abruptly she stood up, and she bowed too, looking wide-eyed at him, and watched him start to go. You can call me Madeleine, she wanted to say, only she didn’t, because it would be very scandalous, wouldn’t it? If he called her Madeleine? Only, she’d just called him Fionn, so wasn’t that… “I mean – Mr. Madden,” Madeleine said, frowning a little. She stuck to it, then, watching until the blond passive had left.

Madeleine looked back down at her notebook, at the scale and the weights. Some of the tiredness aching in her limbs had gone; she didn’t feel as bad as she had before. She started to close the notebook, and then, instead, she sat back down, and turned back to the spell she had so carefully written down.

Madeleine took a deep breath, slow and careful; she took a second weight off the lighter side of the scale, and fixed her gaze on the heavier one, and began to cast. She chanted, slowly and evenly; she felt the etheric shift of her field all around her, hesitant at first, and then smooth and even, and heavy. It settled over her; the scales shifted, and the two sides came even.

Madeleine held it, then; she held, the upkeep singing through her. She held, and then she realized she had held her breath as well, and it all came out in a whoosh, and the scales shifted and settled down, uneven once more. Madeleine giggled, wide-eyed and amazed. The joy of it lasted; it followed her through packing her things up, through tiptoeing down dark halls and around quiet corners, through washing her face and brushing her teeth and braiding her hair for bed. It followed her all the way into bed, curled up with her head against the pillow. There was more to think about; there was, Madeleine understood, much to think about. But the joy lingered, and Madeleine felt the fading glow of it even as she drifted off to sleep, happy and easy.

Rolls

Gravity spell: SidekickBOTToday at 2:39 PM
@moralhazard: 1d6 = (4) = 4