polydeukes | penance } { ic inbox

[He's gotten the authorization to have their family room together. It was entirely too easy, and left him unsure about whether he'll owe the devil any favors when this is over. And though it should be good news, it's reached him while he was coming down from his stint in the hall of mirrors. And with that came the crushing guilt that's worse than the usual sort of hangover.

He comes to her room, knocking politely on her doorframe. ]

... I understand if you don't want to talk to me right now.

[Josie is also coming down from her own mirror adventure, and she's honestly not feeling much better. But her time with her father is the one time her dark magic hadn't come into play.

She's not sure she should be grateful or not. She's sure it would have probably been much worse in the end.

She looks up when he comes in, and yeah, she may still be a little upset, but she tries to school it behind a mask of calm.]

Depends. How much of it was the mirrors and how much of it was you, and the mirrors just happened to bring it out of you?

[The look on her face is already heartbreaking. Her warmth isn't there. He probably doesn't reserve it right now.]

Some parts were more me than other parts. We can have a conversation about it, if you want.

[She considers, before nodding, inching back on the bed to give him room to sit down. He's going to have to talk first, because she wants to hear an explanation first, but she's listening, for whatever that's worth.]

[He settles in the space she offers him, and doesn't attempt to reach for her to steal more than she's willing to give.]

I want you to know that I would never hurt your mother. Even when I was teaching your Uncle Jeremy how to avoid the ribcage when he was on the offensive, I've always known that most vampires are responsible enough not to cause trouble. [So maybe "always" is a stretch, but it should count as long as it covers the time she's been alive.]

[She believes him, at least about Caroline. She thinks the last one is a little bit of a stretch, given the dark object he kept in the basement and sending kids to prison worlds, but she has a feeling they're getting there.]

That was a lot of anger, Dad.

[He nods.]

That anger had some magical help. You remember learning about the Original Witch?

[Now is probably not the time for a pop quiz. And yet it's happening anyway. Habit.]

[She nods, because of course she remembers.]

Hope's grandmother, right?

[He nods, confirming.] There was a time when she thought she might undo the existence of vampires by creating a hunter singularly focused on their destruction. I ended up mixed up in that. But it was a long time ago, and it's over now.

[She nods. She's not sure she wants to dig into that more, because if that's what it turned her father into, she doesn't want to dig into it anymore. At the same time, there's a big question she has. Not one she's sure she wants answered, but she feels like she needs to know.]

Dad ... how did the sandclock break?

[That one's somehow harder to answer. He edges a bit closer on the bed, just barely biting back the urge to take her hands.]

You found a way to help people, but you needed extra power to do it. There wasn't time to make a better choice. You did what you thought you had to do. It was the wrong thing, but for the right reasons.

[As he dances around what she's done without actually telling her anything.]

[There's a half-laugh, almost a bitter sound, because isn't that the story of her life lately. Wrong choices for good reasons digging her into a bigger and bigger hole.]

Of course it was. That's all I can seem to do lately.

And it can be undone. Whatever happens, you'll always have us to lean on. We take care of you.

[And now he's reaching over to pull her into a hug whether she wants one or not.]

I would never let you stay unfixed. You know that.

Yeah. I know.

[No, she'll take it. Dad hugs are always good, no matter how upset she is with him. But at the same time, she also knows that there's a secret she probably shouldn't still keep.]

There's ... something you should probably know."

You can tell me anything.

[He doesn't imagine that she's got much in the way of secrets he doesn't know about anyway. He's far enough ahead of her, and she hasn't been here long enough to have anything tucked away since she's arrived. Right?]

[And well ... she doesn't exactly say anything. Instead, she gets up from the bed, moves over to her closet and pushes her clothes to the side. Then, it's fairly easy to see ...

... the sandclock sitting on her closet floor.

So now you're all caught up, Dad.]

[His face falls as she unveils the dark hourglass.]

How cracked is it?

[This is a problem they don't need. Josie could do a lot of damage here.]

Not more than when we sent it away.

[At least ... there's that.]

But I don't know how long it will last. Especially here. I mean, I'm guessing that it got brought here for a reason.

Enough people use magic here. We'll put together a council and see if there's anything that can be done about it. Maybe we can even give it away to someone else. There's enough dark magic here that it shouldn't shift the balance.

[She wrinkles her nose.]

I don't think it's that easy. If we break the clock doesn't it just rebound into me anyway?

Normally it would, but we've never had this many experienced users to ask. We know how magic from our world might act, but maybe there's a loophole in the magic from somewhere else. There could be options we haven't tried here.

Can we trust them?

[Because that's the other big important question. She doesn't want them to take her dark magic bomb and use it to do terrible things under the guise of trying to help her.]

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