Мороз и солнце; день чудесный!

[balancedlight]

Who: Svetlana and Open!
What: October Catchall + House Calls. Feel free to get with me if you think your character would like a little check in from Doctor Nazarova
When: October
Where: Milton, usually, but a peek into Lakeside

Content Warnings: Nothing yet!

Comments

[balancedlight]

She flushes a deep red. "Well, I don't know what it all means with us here. We're from different worlds! But it - doesn't do anyone any good to spend the time being miserable."

[desperate_times_right]

“Do you think… if we get the choice, do you wanna go back?” Chloe does, but some of her friends don't.

[balancedlight]

She immediately shakes her head. "No. No, back there I am - " She looks to Chloe and then back to her hands. "I'm going to rewrite reality. And it will cost me my soul."

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe is reminded abruptly of the other thing Sveta had said when she’d been ill, that stuff about Light and Dark that she had dismissed out of hand.

“What? Why?”

[balancedlight]

She's told so many people now that it feels strange that Chloe doesn't know. "Sit with me. I think there is a truth about me that you should know."

[desperate_times_right]

It shouldn't feel weird to have these talks anymore, since she’d had so many by now, but it still kind of does.

Chloe pulls up a chair. “What is it?”

[balancedlight]

"I am - an Other." She hums a little. "That's the only translation that I can give you. I am not human. I was, or a I thought I was, for most of my life, but I found out that wasn't true only a few months ago."

[desperate_times_right]

“That must have been a shock.” It doesn't sound like she’d been transformed. How destabilizing, to learn that you'd never truly known your own nature. “I suppose your abilities are limited here like anyone else’s. It makes you do things against your will?”

[balancedlight]

"It does, to those who aren't trained. And I was - never trained. I wasn't caught. I was angry at - " She smiles, a little sheepish. "At myself. I hated myself and I cursed myself. All humans can curse each other. Words are powerful, intentions even more so, and it can cause someone to step in a puddle on the way to work or spill their coffee. But I am a sorceress. And so my curse, my hatred of myself, grew larger and larger until it nearly consumed the entire city of Moscow."

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe feels a bit ashamed of being jealous of Svetlana on occasion, assuming a sunny disposition was indicative of an easy life.

“And if you go back, it’ll get worse? I never would have guessed you felt that way. Sorry.”

[balancedlight]

"I have to save the Balance," she says with a sigh. "Between Light and Dark. Good and evil."

She takes a piece of chalk from her pockets, but holds it reverently. "This chalk can rewrite fate. Or - I can make it rewrite fate."

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe looks at the piece of chalk and considers this. It looks like a piece of junk but she's seen weirder magic.

“And if you go home, you'll have to do it? Even if you don't want to?”

[balancedlight]

She nods. "If I do not, then the world may end."

[desperate_times_right]

This is all way more fraught than Chloe had imagined. “Will it have some kind of effect on you, too?”

[balancedlight]

She nods. "Yes. It - will cost me my soul."

[desperate_times_right]

“No.” What a horrible thing. For the crime of hating yourself! “That's not fair. I can see why you don't want to go back.”

[balancedlight]

"It's complicated," she tells her. "I cursed myself and - they helped me. The city was fixed, but I was a sorceress. Am...a sorceress. We live by what is called the Truce. The forces of Light and the forces of Darkness police each other to maintain balance in the world so that humans do not know of us. I can use this great power to restore the balance, but it comes at a cost."

[desperate_times_right]

“Would it really be so bad? If we found out?” Chloe probably knows the answer to this, considering what seems to happen in her world whenever the wrong maniac has a brush with the supernatural, but whatever! Svetlana is her friend.

[balancedlight]

"I don't know. There are so many people, smarter and older than me, who made this decision. I've studied the lore and - everything else." But there's only so much she can know.

[desperate_times_right]

“It's not fair to you. For them to ask that of you.” Being sacrificed and choosing to make a sacrifice aren't the same thing.

[balancedlight]

"It's why I won't go back," she says stubbornly, as if she really has a choice.

[desperate_times_right]

“Good,” Chloe says vehemently. At least she doesn't have to find a way to talk her friend out of a stupid sacrifice like she always does at home. “Did that chalk come to you like my pin? A reminder?”

[balancedlight]

She nods, sadly. "A reminder of my duties at home."

[desperate_times_right]

“Would anything bad happen if you broke it?” Maybe they should just destroy it before she gets dragged back there.

[balancedlight]

She smiles, laughing a little at what Boris' face would look like if she did.

"I can," she says with a shy smile. "It is just - chalk."