[Here comes Misty with a message she's been mulling over for a month. A week ago, it would have taken a different form; now, though, part of the choice of it all has been made for her, by the Barge or the Admiral or whatever other mysterious force is responsible for disappearances.
There's no uncertainty in her voice, the way there would have been before Hannah's departure. Now there's just wistfulness.]
[ She has to think about that for a second, but she has a great capacity for holding other lives and remembering their secrets. It's a little bit like magic, recalling into the right tome for the right gesture, the right words, the right blood. ]
Frog princess. No. She wouldn't know me, and I wasn't feeling spiteful enough to try scaring it into her.
[ The scrape of a chair as she leans back thoughtfully. ]
The outsider that we all terrorized has just as much to lose?
Maybe you're right. You know, that's how my grandmother met my grandfather. He got lost in the woods, and Momma Reynolds found him. Kept him in the dark basement in a cage across from the harpy until he was willing to be quiet and play betrothed for Grandma Bethle.
Or there's Acacia. My aunt scoped her out and then had her kidnapped in the night. Hazed her and tortured her just a little until she agreed to marry my uncle. She could go along with it or get chopped up and eaten. She and Uncle Lehi had three kids by the time they all died.
Lamia, Parkin, Tomer.
[ It is plausible that Qetzi is just being a dickhead at this juncture. But also in a way that mostly hurts herself. ]
I did! A little. She wasn't here long. I don't think she blamed us, but--
[But Qetzi also isn't wrong, at least not entirely.]
Everything was happening very fast for all of us, at that particular point in time. Adrenaline was high. And I think we Stockholm Syndrome'd her, just a bit.
That particular point in time... When we divested ourselves of the last vestiges of the outside world's authority.
[ Cassie had wanted Ben dead the entire time. Qetzi's opinion about the coach is a little different. Maybe because her own father is a gay man trapped in the terrible machinations of a bunch of fucked women and girls. ]
Isn't that interesting. That's when we didn't want to leave anymore.
[ Cassie had never wanted to go back. Qetzi on the outside thinks about Shauna's increasing control over the group... The power that it breathed into her. ]
[That's when you didn't want to leave anymore, Misty thinks. That's when Shauna hadn't wanted to leave anymore. Lottie's turning point had been before that. But Misty, Natalie, and Hannah - they had made a different choice.]
How much do you still think about it? I know it was just a flood, but--
Maybe it's silly of me to think you think about it at all.
[ It's true. It would only be fair. Qetzi is contemplative and silent for a moment. ]
Sapphira is the eldest. My mother had her when she was a teenager. It was terrible, and Sapphira wishes she had never been born. She is to be Hill Mother after my aunt, but she wants to burn the House down. My aunt thinks that she can break my sister before it comes to that. Aunt Adina is very cruel. And Sapphira is... spiteful. Maybe spiteful enough to survive that.
Sapphira and the twins are ten years older.
My sister Kandake is the youngest. We grew up together; we share a father. She's...
[ An exhale. ]
Got a big heart. She wants the House so that she can protect our mother. She wants a family where we have more friendly ties with the outside world. She wants to meet new people. She's idealistic and ambitious and funny. She's the ray of sunshine in a family of miserable goths. But she's still one of us.
If Sapphira and the twins are ten years older, aren't they... triplets?
[This is far from the most important question she could ask, nor is it the only one she has. But she finds herself wanting a complete picture of the shape of Qetzi's family. If she can't picture their faces, then she at least can picture their temporal relationships to each other.]
My mother was used for breeding by Adina. Against her will. The twin's father... got wind of this as my aunt was 'courting' him. His stipulation for the twins was that my mother would be untouched for ten years.
And when those ten years were up... Adina forced my father into this as well.
[Fucking yikes. It's not that Misty can't handle it - she doesn't gasp or shrink away, either physically or metaphorically. But Qetzi's instincts had been right. It is more than she'd been expecting.]
Have you thought about getting rid of Aunt Adina?
[She won't say 'kill'; after all, she's a warden now, and murder doesn't have to be a go-to solution.
Maybe it could still be a last-ditch one, though.]
[ Qetzi feels a bit numb having said it. When has she ever needed to say that aloud before? The 5 siblings sometimes whispered and hissed about such things among themselves, but never with an outsider. Never. It honestly takes her a moment to hear Misty's question. ]
She is Hill Mother. We all share the magic, and the Hill amplifies us, and Adina drinks deepest.
Well, she did. Her son drinks deepest now, and she is dead, and so is my mother and everyone else.
[ Sometimes, often even, it is easier to be furious with Haran than it is to think deeply on what life was like before he incinerated her family with hellfire. ]
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audio
There's no uncertainty in her voice, the way there would have been before Hannah's departure. Now there's just wistfulness.]
Did you talk to Hannah while she was here?
Re: audio
Frog princess. No. She wouldn't know me, and I wasn't feeling spiteful enough to try scaring it into her.
[ The scrape of a chair as she leans back thoughtfully. ]
Did she worry you?
audio
[God, how to put this. A few years ago it would have been pure nostalgia, but now...]
Bittersweet.
Why would she have worried me?
Re: audio
audio
Re: audio
Maybe you're right. You know, that's how my grandmother met my grandfather. He got lost in the woods, and Momma Reynolds found him. Kept him in the dark basement in a cage across from the harpy until he was willing to be quiet and play betrothed for Grandma Bethle.
audio
Re: audio
Lamia, Parkin, Tomer.
[ It is plausible that Qetzi is just being a dickhead at this juncture. But also in a way that mostly hurts herself. ]
Did you talk to her, Misty?
audio
[But Qetzi also isn't wrong, at least not entirely.]
Everything was happening very fast for all of us, at that particular point in time. Adrenaline was high. And I think we Stockholm Syndrome'd her, just a bit.
Re: audio
[ Cassie had wanted Ben dead the entire time. Qetzi's opinion about the coach is a little different. Maybe because her own father is a gay man trapped in the terrible machinations of a bunch of fucked women and girls. ]
Isn't that interesting. That's when we didn't want to leave anymore.
[ Cassie had never wanted to go back. Qetzi on the outside thinks about Shauna's increasing control over the group... The power that it breathed into her. ]
audio
How much do you still think about it? I know it was just a flood, but--
Maybe it's silly of me to think you think about it at all.
Re: audio
Some of you we would have eaten. But some of you we would have kept.
audio
[She's tempted to say in exchange; tempted to say it would be only fair. But instead she leaves it at that.]
Re: audio
Sapphira is the eldest. My mother had her when she was a teenager. It was terrible, and Sapphira wishes she had never been born. She is to be Hill Mother after my aunt, but she wants to burn the House down. My aunt thinks that she can break my sister before it comes to that. Aunt Adina is very cruel. And Sapphira is... spiteful. Maybe spiteful enough to survive that.
Sapphira and the twins are ten years older.
My sister Kandake is the youngest. We grew up together; we share a father. She's...
[ An exhale. ]
Got a big heart. She wants the House so that she can protect our mother. She wants a family where we have more friendly ties with the outside world. She wants to meet new people. She's idealistic and ambitious and funny. She's the ray of sunshine in a family of miserable goths. But she's still one of us.
audio
[This is far from the most important question she could ask, nor is it the only one she has. But she finds herself wanting a complete picture of the shape of Qetzi's family. If she can't picture their faces, then she at least can picture their temporal relationships to each other.]
Re: audio
There are things about this that you don't want to know. I'll answer you, but I'm warning you that my mother's treatment is... unforgivable.
audio
[She doesn't sound offended, but there's a steely certainty to her tone.]
Re: audio cw: breeding, nonconsensual
My mother was used for breeding by Adina. Against her will. The twin's father... got wind of this as my aunt was 'courting' him. His stipulation for the twins was that my mother would be untouched for ten years.
And when those ten years were up... Adina forced my father into this as well.
[ All of Eden Morrison's children know this. ]
audio
Have you thought about getting rid of Aunt Adina?
[She won't say 'kill'; after all, she's a warden now, and murder doesn't have to be a go-to solution.
Maybe it could still be a last-ditch one, though.]
Re: audio
She is Hill Mother. We all share the magic, and the Hill amplifies us, and Adina drinks deepest.
Well, she did. Her son drinks deepest now, and she is dead, and so is my mother and everyone else.
[ Sometimes, often even, it is easier to be furious with Haran than it is to think deeply on what life was like before he incinerated her family with hellfire. ]
audio
What does one even say to that?]
I'm sorry, Qetzi'ah. And... I'm sorry that the flood made you relive it, or something like it, in a different kind of life.
Re: audio
I suppose... I'm sorry you didn't make it to the tournament.
audio
It's not like I would have played in it.
Re: audio
[ But she knows... that the woods felt compelling. ]
It is what it is. And neither of us wish it on anyone else.