ataraxionlogs | open-ish | i'm just trying to find my way to you

( well, that would be rude.

... not that ilde is incapable of such rudeness, but the lesson of 'don't blatantly display aggressive magic as a first resort, you don't know who's going to witness it and kill your family' is one that once-learned is rarely forgotten. self-preservation taught her restraint where just 'it's morally wrong to force people to do what you want because you feel like it' probably wouldn't have.

she - smiles, instead, a bit tentative. more specifically to soothe than because she's so friendly: )

No- hey, it's fine. I'm just fucking around. Look, she thinks it's fine, too--

( the widens its eyes and nods terribly solemnly, and for a moment they're perfectly in concert. then ilde breaks off and laughs, )

I'm sorry, that was probably creepy.

Uhhh.

[ Emma leans back. Well, since she pointed it out, it’s probably okay to agree, right? Tilting her head in acknowledgment, reluctant though it may be, she nods and forces herself to take a few steps closer. ]

Little bit.

[ She crouches, squinting at the image. ]

How’d you do that?

( she dispels the illusion with a thought - or the absence of one, in a manner of speaking - and a moment later lets go of the water, as well. it drops back into the stream as if she'd never tampered with it in the first place, and she shrugs-- )

It's nothing too complex. I know what I look like. I just... ( this is the downside of not being properly taught how to do anything; she lacks the language to explain it, later. ) Illusions are easy.

[ Of course she’d say so. A dry sort of smile crosses Emma’s face, the kind that says her experience is something different. The same smile she drums up when people talk about their families. She hasn’t been around magic her whole life: it’s this whole, enormous part of her that she’s just barely beginning to understand. Nothing about it is easy. ]

More complex than I’ve worked out how to do.

( off emma's expression, ilde laughs - not unkindly. wry, more; knowing. she only has a few years advantage on emma, and the freedom to explore and discuss it in safety is a new thing, as opposed to hoping like hell she's not doing it too wrong. instinct guides most of what she gets right. )

Well, you ask me to cast a spell or something, it's going to turn out a little differently. Don't give me too much credit, here, I'm making it up as I go along.

Is that how it usually goes where you're from?

[ Not by the sound of it, but Emma feels the need to clarify. ]

( a slightly awkward shrug - this is something that's come up more and more, lately, and she's had to suck it up and get used to talking straightforwardly about old family scandals that even now her father's loyalty to his adopted parents makes him really wish she wouldn't talk about. )

We were adopted out of the family, so-- I think most people pick it up from their parents.

[ Her gaze drops instantly. ]

Guess I wouldn’t know either way.

[ Even if she had grown up with her parents, she knows, she still wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn magic from them: they didn’t know how to use it, or even have magic inside of them. And yet, it’s hard not to take that as a harsh reminder of what she missed out on. ]

Neither would I. ( ilde's father hasn't got a fucking clue - he's more powerful than she is, but far less knowledgeable. it's a willful ignorance, now, but it wasn't always; he believed that they were human for much longer than she did. )

I honestly don't know how it usually goes, to be honest. I'd guess that's how, that makes sense.

[ For her, maybe. ]

Don’t take this the wrong way, but … What are you?

[ Because as she understands it, most people don’t come by magic naturally. They have to learn it. It’s not just one more thing that every parent teaches their kid, after potty-training and the value of hard work. ]

( wryly, ) Frankly, I'm just pleased I know the answer.

( #magicmakesurlifeweird )

My great-great-grandfather was a rhinelord - a kind of Germanic fresh water fairy. Sort of like a mermaid or a siren, but not the same as. So I'm a rhinemaiden. A river nymph.

( ilde does magic because she is magic. there are elements of it that require the kind of learning emma is thinking of - ilde isn't going to turn into a true fae sorceress by inclination - but other things that humans would have to learn are instinctive to her in the same way she learned how to walk and doesn't have to think about breathing all the time. it's her nature. )

Edited 2014-09-16 05:34 (UTC)

A … fairy?

[ She grimaces. Not that fairy’s bad, but rather that she a.) didn’t know fairies were popping out children, b.) realizes that’s pretty much one of the weirdest answers she could have gotten. ]

So, not the kind with the … dust, and the— [ She waves vaguely to indicate a wand. ]

( slightly entertained, in spite of herself-- )

Hang on.

( illusions, remember? ilde can just show her what aelfraed looks like; it takes concentration, especially because she's only ever seen him on video and she is sort of ballparking his height compared to gervase's, but...

aelfraed stands easily over six foot tall, athletically muscular, dark-haired. dark-eyed, too, blue-black and solidly coloured; his hair, loose, obscures the details but where you might expect ears to poke out, there are none. his skin gleams like mother of pearl, and his clothes - outmoded by more than decades but terribly fine - are damp enough to define a figure you don't generally associate with dancing magical fairies.

but maybe one that explains the popping out babies thing.

his expression, mildly incredulous and slightly superior, is just mostly what his face does in gervase's videos. oh my god why are my progeny so stupid. oh my god why do my progeny keep fucking witches. why are you talking to me about 'mules', gervase, obviously my children will be FERTILE AND STRONG, i care not for your 'genetics' and 'species compatibility'!! )

[ Leaning back slightly as the illusion takes full form and size, Emma’s eyebrows raise in a way like wow yeah that explains literally everything. Her jaw slackens slightly, but she catches on quick enough to shut it, no longer gaping like a fish. After a beat, she nods. ]

So definitely not the dust kind.

( what can she say, good genes. no wonder her father's such a successful ho.

...yep. ilde dispels the illusion, with a little quirk of a grin. )

Probably impractical underwater.

I thought you said nymph, not mermaid.

[ Just trying to figure out the distinctions here ok. ]

Okay, so mermaids and sirens are salt water. Sea creatures. Nymphs, rhinemaidens - kind of like the equivalent for fresh water. You don't get nymphs in the sea and you don't get mermaids in a lake.

( a pause. )

I don't know how similar, exactly, there are probably more differences than just where we're made for, but I know a lot of the same things hold true.

Like different species of fish. [ She squints a little because it's strange to compare people to that, but it does make sense. She nods. ] So ... What about the Lady of the Lake? That kind of thing? [ Because she was In The Book which means she's Something. ]

Kind of like. ( it's funny because it's true. and, you know, both ilde and mermaids sometimes have tails, it's a thing. ) I'd guess someone like that might be more...some kind of spirit? I don't know, I'm--

( very wry: ) I'm a little new to this. Still.

Really?

[ She makes no attempt to hide her surprise; after all, new or not, this woman seems to know a great deal more about all of this magic stuff than Emma does. Then again, that could just as easily be a willingness to learn rather than a difference in exposure period. ]

Seven years ago, I didn't believe in fairies, ( a little dryly. boy was that some kind of irony, in retrospect. )

One year ago, I didn’t even believe in magic.

[ Sometimes, she’s still not sure she does. ]

You’ve got a long definition of ‘new.’ How the hell does a fairy stop believing in themselves?

[ Tink comes to mind, of course, but not believing IN herself is different than thinking her own species didn't exist. ]

Like I said - my father was adopted out of the family. We're descended from Mr Haughty, there, but through a relationship he had with a human woman. I didn't have to 'stop' believing in something I never knew. Given I only found out because the world became one great slow-moving clusterfuck--

( a grimace. )

It's easy to still be new to something when you've got fuck all to go on besides whatever you can figure out for yourself without drawing attention, that's all.

[ She opens her mouth like she’s ready to be shocked that no one told her or raised her like a fucking fairy, except—

A relationship he had with a human woman. Emma’s eyes shut and she borderline grimaces. Neal had managed to go eleven years without meeting Henry: if Emma had her way, he’d have gone even longer. It’s pretty easy for men to just bail out or never know about something like that. ]

Sorry to hear it.

( ilde's great-grandparents had priorities, and their priorities were more about maintaining the respectable position of their family and less about someone telling the inconvenient baby they had to get rid of about his heritage. unfortunately, all of the people involved in that are now dead and gone and there's no satisfaction to be had in picking it apart - ilde tries to be grateful for the fact she ever got to know her father's biological family even a little, for knowing that aelfraed would have been with them if he could have been and that he might still live, might be somewhere she could find him.

in isolation in the south of france, that's a little difficult. still, she does try. )

She was married, ( with a shrug. ) It wasn't difficult for her to keep her, um, indiscretion apart from where she wanted her family to be. But my grandmother and my uncle-- they had contact with him, and that's where I eventually got the details from, from them.

It is what it is, you know? You make the best of things.

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