Completed Growing Pains

[Esme]

"You mean this afternoon?" Damn, girl, keep up. It was dark.

Luna's Mother might have once told her there was no such thing as a stupid question, but every once of Esme's expression radiated otherwise.

She let her off the hook though, leaning forward to turn the sticks. "I stole your magic. Well. The energy it gave off. Yeah. It feels strange. Better than you lighting up the place again." Or blowing her head off.

She resisted the urge to touch the warm source of power under her shirt line. Some things were better kept secret.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

"Magic..." she breathed, hints of uncertainty and a subtle undertone of fear in her voice. Magic... It couldn't be true, though. Could it? She had never learned any, and from what little she knew on the subject - not much - it wasn't possible unless you had learned to use it.

Right?

Uneasy, she said as much. "That's silly. I...I've never been trained. I never learned any magic. How can I have something like that?" Stubborn refusal to believe that she could be capable of such destruction. She was just a farm girl, after all. Not a sorceress, not some mythical thing from stories. Not even something as mundane as the village healer. She had never shown the slightest capability before that night. "How could I suddenly be capable of that?" Her tone was of stark disbelief.

 

[Esme]

Another delicate shrug.

"I don't know your life story. I just know how I found you. You did magic, end of story. Stop being stupid about it and just accept it."

"Giving me a headache," she added with a grumble, brows furrowed at the fire. Esme had her mind firmly shut to the girl's emotions, that wasn't the problem. It was the questions. And that tone.

Nothing left her more unsettled than that damn tone. She turned the rabbit and glanced up, giving Luna a sharp look to stop said tone from emerging again.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

She looked away, unable to meet the strangers eyes. You cannot change how the world is by thinking it, her mother had told her once. Have to accept things as they are, and spending days - weeks - denying what she knew to be truth, at least in her soul, would help no one. The how, the why...those were questions she could find answers to, perhaps.

Luna took a deep breath. "So...now what? What do I do now?" Lost. But not broken, not yet.

 

[Esme]

"Um."

No one had ever asked her that before. It was a touch weird. Alright, it was very weird. She gave another shrug, deferring the tone of authority off to the air around her once again.

"Eat? ...Sleep? I guess go to what family you got and try not to blow something up along the way? I don't know, it's your life. Do what you want."

Duh.

She pulled a small piece of meet from a stick, blowing on it and peeling it open to check for doneness.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

She looked up, looking at this strange woman across the fire from her. An outsider, someone from beyond this quiet corner of the world. Somewhere out in the wilderness a wolf cried to the heavens, and was answered by a chorus of howls and yips that rose and fell like a wave.

"Who are you?" She asked, voice quiet. Something moved in the night beyond their fire, twigs breaking. Silence closed over the sudden sound, nearly deafening in its completeness. "You...you drag me out here, where ever here is, just to turn me loose? Why?"

 

[Esme]

Esmeralda blinked, her fingers dropping from her lips, taking the thread of meat forgotten with them.

The woman's words had her reeling. A defensive urge bubbled up in her chest. She smushed it back, not entirely sure where it came from. She struggled for a moment. The cool wind ruffled her frizzy curls, half obscuring her features in the darkness of night.

No easy answer came. Esme frowned, nothing short of annoyed. "I did not 'drag' you. And I'm not 'turning you lose'. I stopped you from harming me. And I'm-... giving you food so ... the wolves don't eat you."

There was nothing convincing in her tone, a wordless 'question mark?' following the end of her assessment.

"If you don't like it," she challenged, gesturing towards the snapping brush line. "You can just leave."

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

The furelight danced in her eyes, crimson tongues with white hearts flickering to and fro. She cocked her head to one side, one corner of her mouth twitching towards a grin.

"You certainly didnt ask, though." She plucked a part of a hindquarters off one of rabbits on a spit, and popped the steaming morsel into her mouth. The animal tastes of wild game, rich in it's own way. She paused a moment. "I do not buy that," she said in all seriousness. She debated throwing the stranger's own line back at her, to stop being stupid and accept it, or something similar, but did not.

"If I leave, it will be in the morning. Unless you are telling me to get lost?" Her voice betrayed some of her insecurity, though it had nothing to do with wolves.

 

[Esme]

Esmeralda snorted in her face, staring at the girl with those intense, expressionless eyes. This held for an uncomfortably long moment, like a mother forcing their child to calm down through will power alone.

"If you have a problem with me, you can leave. The pile of ash I found you in is a thirty minute walk that way." She pointed to their right, her eyes not leaving Luna's own. "Otherwise, you can say thank you and be glad I don't smack you over the temple to shut you up. Were you even raised with manners?"


Waaait a minute. Waaaaaaaaaaaait a minute. She sounded like her uncle. Holy hell. A slight cringe reached the corner of her expression, an ever so slight twinge.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

Curious. This stranger evaded her unspoken question, but in truth Luna did not know what to make of that.

She drew herself up, though, at the stranger's tone. Scolding her like she was some kind of...of child! "Sounds like you were the one raised without manners," she snapped,and then immediately regretted it. Her cheeks practically radiated the fire of shame for letting her anger get the better of her.

"I'm...I'm sorry. I did not..." she trailed off, eyes averted.

 

[Esme]

A brow was raised as the woman stood and chastised her back. The subsequent apology had her rolling her eyes. She gave a heavy sigh and shook her head, turning back to the meat and plucking a whole stick off the fire before the best of the juices were cooked off.

"Just... sit down and eat. Itookyourstrengthtokeepyouout. You need it." The poor imitation of an peace offering was mumbled out, a caress less gesture given to the remaining rabbit before Esme considered the topic well and dropped. She took a massive, steaming bite, preventing any further chatter. Cause you know. Manners.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

She looked to the rabbit, avoiding the others eyes, and then took it without a word. The meat was not entirely dry, which was a blessing. She preferred her rabbit in a stew, but that was just not going to happen out here under the stars.

The flavor seemed to dull, however, in the silence. Memory was waiting for her there, that of what she lost. It seemed so strange to her; her mother was just days dead, and but for a random moment here and there, she had not mourned in truth, and didnt feel the crushing burden of sorrow and guilt as keenly as she might have expected.

It was her mother's blood on her hands, she was sure of it. If only she could remember all of that evening.

Instead of dwelling on all of that, she instead looked on the other. No given name, just a woman alone in the wilds. Acerbic nature, curt to the point of rudeness. She reminded Luna of a few out in the wild on remote farms.

She regarded the woman silently, trying to puzzle out the enigma.

 

[Esme]

Esme ate silently, deeply appreciative that the woman seemed to know how to be still. It wasn't that chatter was a bad thing. Esme loved people watching in the cities just as much as she enjoyed the solitude of the forests. It was just, well ... she use to talk a lot too.

Something about that made her want to smack the girl upside her head until she broke out of it. She frowned into her meal, regarding the woman in turn.

Finally, once full and warm and relieved of the pressure, Esme spoke on her own.

"You must have other family you can go to." It was a statement, unwilling to hear anything else. That would complicate matters. For Luna. Not her, of course.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

She shook her head in negation to the statement. "No, I do not. My parents never mentioned any, anyway." The people in the village had remarked, when no one thought they could hear it, that her parents were....strange. And Luna knew for fact that they were not from around these parts, and had only been there for maybe thirty years or so.

"My name is Luna, by the way. I...don't think I've said yet," she added.

 

[Esme]

Esme only frowned more, taking a painstaking moment to chew through a whole bite before allowing "Esme," to slip out.

Another long, purposeful bite of rabbit was chewed through.

"Well you at least have gone to a city before, right?" A small edge of agitation was in her tone, coming a place that Luna would know nothing about.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

"A city?" Her puzzled expression indicated the answer better than any spoken word could. "Pa always spoke of them, but I cannot believe so many people could be in one place," she said, earnestly.


She picked at the remains of her meal, thoughts circling around the idea of a city - a village, only many times larger. She didn't even know where one was, or how far away.

"Why do you ask?"

 

[Esme]

Esme let out an audible groan, internally cursing out the woman's parents.

"No reason," she lied, rubbing her hands off on her pants and pushing at a tender spot on her temple. Good luck surviving out there. Gods-- how could she really be okay with how much of a lump she was shaping up to be?

"Why don't you have a husband?" She asked with that same agitation.

"You're more than old enough. You're skilless, uneducated. How were you planning to survive out there once your parents died?"

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

"I will find a husband," she shot back. A touch too defensive, and maybe a little hurt as well. Esme had struck a nerve of some kind, though Luna didn't appear to be ready to go into more details.

It was not entirely true, but enough of it was. There had been someone, but..

Red stained her cheeks, either in embarrassment or anger, or perhaps a mixture of both.

"I am not completely unskilled," she replied stiffly. "I know how to hunt, how to perform duties around the farm." But you can't do that alone. Deep hurt there, scab ripped away callously by the woman across the fire.

 

[Esme]

"How to blow up buildings, murder everyone in a 100 foot radius," she followed up, listing the faults half under her breath.

She shook her head, picking at her nails as she sat in anger of the situation before her. She was so not invested. No at all. This wasn't her problem. This was so frustrating to witness!

"You need to find another town. And you need to not do that again."

Best advice, hands down. What would Luna do without her?

Probs starve inside rubble, actually ...

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

"How do I not do that?" There was a touch of bewilderment there. "I did not do anything that time!"

She could handle the wilds, maybe even rebuild the farm, try to survive as best she could. She had it in her to make the best of a bad situation - likely, the village would provide her aid.

But...

None of that mattered if this mysterious affliction, this strange 'magic' that had come upon her suddenly and without warning, continued to happen. More troubling, beyond her control. It was like a drawn bow, but spinning with her eyes closed, loosing at random.

How could she have any stability in her life while that raged? Who would have anything to do with her, then?

No one.

"I do not understand this...this magic that I suddenly seem to possess," she said, sounding more than a little lost.

 

[Esme]

"Clearly."

Esme seemed to fume for a moment more before rolling her eyes and expanding on the topic for the first time. "Go... find another mage or something. A mentor, old guys love doing that kinda shit. Learn to not blow up things when upset and-- I dunno. Go back to mucking stalls or whatever it is you can do. Don't just sit and sulk inside a charred structure for days on end-- really, what the hell was that even about? The wolves were gonna get ya."

I mean come on. Where's your will to live!

Esme pointedly ignored any correlation of her own past to the woman's current own.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

"Moping?" She seemed puzzled for a moment. "Sorrow, yes. But..."

She tried to gather fragmented images, pieces of broken memory. They simply slipped through her fingers, There was something there that she was not remembering, and it was important.

"Why can I not remember," she muttered angrily. She shook her head violently, as if that would change anything. "I do not know anything of the world beyond this valley," she continued in a more normal tone. "I do not know anything of magic or mages, either."

An image. A face, dark of skin, what could be seen, and a gravely voice dispassionate in the delivery of its promise. Did you think we would forget, Nathan? Our reach is long, and memory longer. You and your family shall pay for your insolence.

Luna'a face went blank as the fragment of memory came to her, and went.

 

[Esme]

"Well go find one," she quipped, almost forceful in her solution. She stood, grabbing the animal hides holding the innards and moving to take them well outside their camp to bury them properly from animal noses.

"Probably a spell keeping you dumb too," she grumbled, not really meant to be heard, though she did believe there was validity to her assessment. A curse. Magic. A spell somewhere. Was usually why mages suddenly appeared with a bang.

Not her problem.

She left Luna to that assessment, completing that task on her own time before returning back to the campfire. She grabbed more wood and added it in, keeping the fire strong.

 

[Luna Griffinsbane]

She didnt reply to Esme's last retort before taking the trash to be disposed of properly. She sat and thought, trying to choose a path to follow. The time of waiting was over.

And yet...

And yet, she couldn't shake that something more important was going on, here. That face and not really remembered words...

She rose from her seat, and looked around. Starlight was paling as the moon rose, casting the world into sharply contrasting light and dark. The line of the mountains gave her a more or less precise fix on where she was.

She had been taken from her home. She had to go back, and she left to travel by moonlight without saying a word. It was clear that Esme didnt want the burden, either way.

Luna could take care of herself. With a look of determination, she set off.

 

[Esme]

Luna left without saying a word, so that was exactly what she got in turn. Esme watched her go, expressionless and composed as the woman's figure disappeared back into the dusky treeline.

True to her word, Esme didn't keep her there. She didn't force knowledge down her ignorant throat or make her train for control until the depths of unconsciousness overtook her.

Esme left her be. Luna didn't know how much of a gift that was.

Esme had given a hand, however small. And what the woman chose to do with it was not of her concern.They had been two strangers crossing paths, and that didn't bother her.

Just don't go die. What a waste of effort it would be if Luna just went and died.