277 Choices

[Gwathdraug]

As the beastial helmet turned its gaze upon Eryl the gaps in its armour where a face should have been was pitch black with shadow.

“I will impart to you what our deal will be Eryl Maelgwyn.” The phantasmal avatar spoke with a distorted version of Riley's voice. Every word echoed with the muffled sounds of roars and the crash of metal on metal and flesh on flesh. “I will 'Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war', and you - you will bleed until you are dry.”

Riley was still as she looked at the Maelgwyn across from her. She firmly kept The Wolf out of her smile as she leaned forward and swirled her spoon through the remnants of her ice cream. "Do you want specifics? I won't lie to you, but I won't burden you with who I am without you thinking it over first."

[Kokuten]

It was probably the first time Drysi had dropped her guard completely around Riley, as her unnaturally green eyes widened with the desire to know more. She had already banished Alexei from her mind to the mystery that sat across from her. There was a small voice inside her that told her that this story may not be as fun as her mind wanted to it to believe, but her heart of hearts wanted to know more. Riley had that confident smile, the flourish of the spoon, the theater of the movements that Drysi couldn't fully appreciate because of her razor focus on something juicy.

In her mind, she felt like she gave it plenty of thought, but her little triclopsi brain had sparked mere milliseconds in the real world. Drysi's immediate answer was, "Yeah!"

Realizing how that might have sounded, she settled back into her bench and cleared her throat. "Mhm, yes. Yes, I would."

[Gwathdraug]

Riley gathered some of the condensation off the side of her ice cream bowl and used it to draw a circle on the table. From up out of it the the illusion of a woman rose. She had dark shoulder length hair and was dressed conservatively in a high necked robe that covered almost all of her body from sight. On her brow was the third eye of a sitas triclops. "This is Eryl Maelgwyn. You may have seen her help out at the school before." The stage magician paused and her eyes seemed distant. Her smile was a small, fragile thing. "She's a friend."

The image shifted as if it was overcome by static and reformed into the same woman but as a teen. Her robes were of a much older cut and a pair of glasses were on her face. "When we met she must have been a year or so younger than you. I was even younger." Riley leaned back and put her hands into her pockets before staring up at the ceiling. Shaking her head she cleared her throat and looked Drysi in the eyes. "She'd been betrayed and imprisoned for generations alone. To get her freedom she just needed to kill my brother."

Riley's pupils shifted to become slits and the green of her iris was purged of colour until they were silver and the glow returned to them. No steam left her mouth as she held herself just on the edge of control. "I wrote it into my soul that I would see her a corpse. It is still there. It will always be there. When I am alone- when I can't sleep- I see what I haven't done. The promise I will always break."

[Kokuten]

Despite the grim message that lay within Riley’s story; Drysi was entranced by the scene laid out before her, thinking only one thing:

THAT’S SO COOL.

It was even cooler that it was a triclops. She didn’t remember having an aunt named Eryl, but she thought she may have seen someone who looked like her on the grounds. Drysi determined to ask Mr. Flynn about the other Ms. Maelgwyn to see if he knew who she was. She rested a chin on hands that clasped the edge of the table to look more closely at the strangely blonde triclops, one that looked eerily like a sitas version of herself.

Then the magic began to wear off, and she realized that this story was true. It wasn’t an article in M4GE, it was an account from the real deal. Eryl Maelgwyn was a real person who wronged Riley Alstad, and Ms. Alstad had sworn to destroy Eryl wholly and completely for what she intended to do.

“But… But you’re friends now; she must be a good person, right?” Drysi uneasily tackled this train of thought, “I–... The person I –... The person I don’t– … They’ve already done some terrible things. I would be…–”

Justified.

“-- I – I would be…”

In the right.

“He’s— They’re different. They’re a monster. She’s–... She’s a nice lass, isn’t she? Otherwise you– You wouldn’ forgive her, would ya?”

[Gwathdraug]

"No one is a monster. Not in the way we like to think - that what they do is innate, that their actions are unthinking. Everyone has followed a path to where they are." Riley ran a hand through her hair. "Everyone makes choices and some of those choices are - must be - to stop other people. Hate can get you to that choice and can get you through it, but if it is what carries you to every choice you'll always need a new target."

Riley smiled wanly. "I can be friends with Eryl because we are more than what we feel and more than what we carry. I made a choice that means I cannot forgive her, and I cannot forget her. It was the wrong choice." The stage magician brought a hand up and made it into a fist, and her smile widened. "The people who care about me have made me stronger than my mistakes though. So, i can want Eryl to be happy and I can be in her life and mean it because I am more than that rage."

The stage magician let her hand relax and she went back to swirling her spoon through the melted ice cream. "That rage saved Percy's life, and I don't know if I could have fought as I needed to with less. But-" Riley paused and made sure she caught Drysi's gaze. "-if I had been left alone with it it could have killed me and that would have broken him. When we stop someone all emotions are on the board, but there must be enough of us that no matter what we spend we get back home."

Riley leaned back again and looked up at the ceiling. This time when she spoke her eyes stayed there. "The truth is I wasn't strong enough to be in that fight. Of course not-" The woman laughed gently. "-I was eleven. But, whether I should have been there or not wasn't the choice." Pulling her gaze back down the stage magician rapped her knuckles against her thigh. "These decisions leave scars though. We don't want that for you kids. We want to see you smile."

[Kokuten]

Drysi slapped her hands on the table.

"But that's not fair," the triclops, enamored with the story, was more than stirred by its message. "You... You all... None of you had a choice! You don't get to fix it! W-what's w-worse..."

The girl's eyes began to wick tears from their edges as she worked up into a fervor. "What's worse is that you all are still sufferin'! You all still have to live with it. Mr. Flynn took me in, even though I'm a foul-mouthed mule, and you invited me out to ice cream to help me through my issues, even though you barely know me! B-but no one's doin' that for you! Are they?"

Now, she had begun crying earnestly, buy she spoke lucidly through the emotion, "I don't want wounds for the rest of my life, but I don't want to pretend Alexei hasn't hurt people. I don't want to be a passive partcipant in what's to come, I want to protect the things I've been given."

She wiped her eyes and nose with her sleeve, "But, moreover I want to heal the scars of the people who've given up themselves to protect us. I don't want my happy future unless you're all in it!"

[Gwathdraug]

Riley laughed. It wasn't a malicious sound and the stage magician did her best to try and cut herself off but the laughter still rolled out. "Hey-no- I'm sorry- it-" The woman held up a hand for a moment and gathered herself. "I'm not laughing at you." Riley shook her head. "It is good to see you not bottled up."

The short haired woman smiled. "As for seeing things as not fair - that's how we pass the world on. Worse when we look back, and better when we look forward. We fought alone and too young and that's what we've been trying to fix. The things you'll see that are unfair will go further than we can think of - but that's how you'll all pass on something better than what we handed over." Riley leaned back and crossed her arms, but her grin was bigger than ever. "Just like we can't push you for how you've been hurt you can't push on our scars and see them go away, but-" Riley twisted her hand and lifted her index finger without changing her posture. "-but, we'll be there to watch you make good of things we couldn't even dream of."

"You see our world reflected in all of us and it seems bad, but we had choices - there were choices that would have had you walk into the same world - but we made what we did stick and there's pride in that."

[Kokuten]

Ms. Alstad's words seemed to ameliorate Drysi's temper, and her tears. She didn't want to accept everything that the woman was saying. There was something in her that made her feel undeserving.

"Maybe this is me," the triclops said suddenly, blinking away more tears like the weepy lass she was, "I've been struggling to feel any certain way since the poss-... the kidnapping. Like, anything I might be thinking is just left over from the awful habits gram burned into my brain. Bein' rude. Bein' mean. Bein' unable to trust."

Drysi scooped another bittersweet glob of ice cream in her mouth. "But something I never felt before… was love. Ugh, that's so cringe… But… It's love. Lovin' so much it hurts. I love Willow, like anyone can love someone, but I love this place y've'all given to us, too. But, for me, it's not enough that you've sacrificed for us. I can't be idle. I won't be."

Then, she pointed the spoon at Riley, still shedding tears, "Just you wait, Ms. Alstad."

Again, another scoop, this one with the last of the ice cream.

"One day, I… we will make sure you all don't have to make those choices no more."