"...Alright. I am going to tell you a few things. Most are not deadly secrets. The last one is, and I must, I am afraid, ask you to keep it close to your heart, as close as your own private nightmares."
Erin reaches for the matches and strikes one; she dances it between her fingers, the small flame flickering but never quite going out, letting out the oddly pleasant yet unpleasant scent of sulfur.
"One: I am not mentally well. I will likely die having never fully recovered, if recovery is even the right word. In times of great stress, great change...I will see things differently. Hear them, differently. And while my reactions will make sense to me, the reality I will be living in will not be this one. For this reason I have entrusted four people close to me with the secrets of my destruction, a secret I will now offer you."
Another, steadying breath. The match flickers and waves its tiny flame.
"Two: all of my people's magics can be undone by iron. Not steel, not iron alloys, but the dirty and honest iron ripped from the earth or which has fallen from the sky, either raw or forged as it is. My great strength cannot bend or break it, my most powerful defenses cannot halt it. When I'm shapeshifted, it cuts the goblin skin from me and forces me back into my natural body."
"...And three, my personal secret, the curse laid on me by being who I am: the stone jade, which repels evil, burns me at the touch. It cuts through my magic like iron does, poisons my blood, and boils away my flesh. Johnny Summer, Honoria Crabb, Ossie Wuthridge, and Giles possess this knowledge. It is now also in your keeping. I gave it to them in the hopes that if I have a bad episode, or run out of my own control, the touch of jade might terrify me back into my right mind. If it can't, it's the fastest way to kill me."
Whatever Helena was expecting, it's not this. This open pouring out of vulnerability, of exactly how to counter her - it's more than she would have expected, and though neither of them can see her face, the stunned silence probably says enough. Helena swallows down why would you tell me this much and instead takes a deep breath instead. That's a lot to take in over two sips of orange juice.
She could have held back, but she didn't. Could have left it at that people knew how to destroy her, and Helena would have thought it enough, and left it there. But instead, in response to a lack of trust, she gave out more of her own. People don't...do that. Not around her. It's not something she foresaw in this discussion, and so instead she has to gather her thoughts on the fly.
What comes out instead of something practiced is something soft, honest.
"Thank you, for telling me all of this. Not a hint of it will I share with anyone, or so help me."
What comes next? She doesn't know. But...
"Do you want to come back?"
To the cabin, she means. If she decides to stay with her girlfriend, Helena won't blame her. But she wants it to be Erin's choice as much as anything else.
"I would like to," Erin murmurs, without hesitation. "I'd like to sleep in the bed my friend made with her own hands, out of thoughtless kindness. I'd like a door I can lock when the world is simply too much, so I can read or cry or just roll the dice on a nap. And..."
"...I'd like to keep being your friend, Helena. If you'll have me."
She blows the match out before the flame can burn her, and drops it in the ashtray.
She doesn't want to be touched without warning, Helena knows. So when she extends her hand on the table, palm up, it's a deliberate thing. An offer, if she wants it, for the reassurance that chosen touch can bring. Reaching out towards her, so that she's not the one that has to put in all the effort.
It's as easy as choosing to walk back, to where there are clothes not steeped in the smoke of stress and misery, to where her bed has been neatly kept, to let a very long day wind down. The shrapnel's been extracted from the wound, now what it needs is care and time.
There's a lot Helena doesn't know, won't know, unless it's given out or thrust into her lap. But that's all right - she's still learning the shape of this particular thing. It has softer edges than she first thought it did.
It's a long moment of wrangling immediate, irrelevant thoughts that try to distract Erin from the reality of Helena's choice; Erin should put the juice away, she needs to get her sculpture from Crabb's room, Helena doesn't have the full story -
(It doesn't matter, Peters. Suck it up.)
She reaches out, and takes her roommate's hand with a shy smile.
"Alright," Erin murmurs softly. "...I can do the laundry in the morning."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Erin reaches for the matches and strikes one; she dances it between her fingers, the small flame flickering but never quite going out, letting out the oddly pleasant yet unpleasant scent of sulfur.
"One: I am not mentally well. I will likely die having never fully recovered, if recovery is even the right word. In times of great stress, great change...I will see things differently. Hear them, differently. And while my reactions will make sense to me, the reality I will be living in will not be this one. For this reason I have entrusted four people close to me with the secrets of my destruction, a secret I will now offer you."
Another, steadying breath. The match flickers and waves its tiny flame.
"Two: all of my people's magics can be undone by iron. Not steel, not iron alloys, but the dirty and honest iron ripped from the earth or which has fallen from the sky, either raw or forged as it is. My great strength cannot bend or break it, my most powerful defenses cannot halt it. When I'm shapeshifted, it cuts the goblin skin from me and forces me back into my natural body."
"...And three, my personal secret, the curse laid on me by being who I am: the stone jade, which repels evil, burns me at the touch. It cuts through my magic like iron does, poisons my blood, and boils away my flesh. Johnny Summer, Honoria Crabb, Ossie Wuthridge, and Giles possess this knowledge. It is now also in your keeping. I gave it to them in the hopes that if I have a bad episode, or run out of my own control, the touch of jade might terrify me back into my right mind. If it can't, it's the fastest way to kill me."
no subject
She could have held back, but she didn't. Could have left it at that people knew how to destroy her, and Helena would have thought it enough, and left it there. But instead, in response to a lack of trust, she gave out more of her own. People don't...do that. Not around her. It's not something she foresaw in this discussion, and so instead she has to gather her thoughts on the fly.
What comes out instead of something practiced is something soft, honest.
"Thank you, for telling me all of this. Not a hint of it will I share with anyone, or so help me."
What comes next? She doesn't know. But...
"Do you want to come back?"
To the cabin, she means. If she decides to stay with her girlfriend, Helena won't blame her. But she wants it to be Erin's choice as much as anything else.
no subject
"...I'd like to keep being your friend, Helena. If you'll have me."
She blows the match out before the flame can burn her, and drops it in the ashtray.
no subject
She doesn't want to be touched without warning, Helena knows. So when she extends her hand on the table, palm up, it's a deliberate thing. An offer, if she wants it, for the reassurance that chosen touch can bring. Reaching out towards her, so that she's not the one that has to put in all the effort.
It's as easy as choosing to walk back, to where there are clothes not steeped in the smoke of stress and misery, to where her bed has been neatly kept, to let a very long day wind down. The shrapnel's been extracted from the wound, now what it needs is care and time.
There's a lot Helena doesn't know, won't know, unless it's given out or thrust into her lap. But that's all right - she's still learning the shape of this particular thing. It has softer edges than she first thought it did.
no subject
(It doesn't matter, Peters. Suck it up.)
She reaches out, and takes her roommate's hand with a shy smile.
"Alright," Erin murmurs softly. "...I can do the laundry in the morning."
Things...
Might just be okay.
Wouldn't that be new?