Mingle: For a limited time only...

[hearsthesea]

Who: Everyone!
Where: Anywhere on the hub
When: Days 134-139
Open/Closed: Open mingle goooo!

[Copper, lizards, and vines - oh my! With the recent installation of 9S and co.'s scanning equipment and the also recent, significantly wetter rainstorms there's quite a lot to check out on the island right now. Plus, the monitor robot still needs a name. You're not going to leave them nameless forever, are you?

Too bad Genette's put out word that everyone's about to be moving location soon. That means these are the last days the coven has for a little while to get everything in order, whether it's to take things to the next destination or to leave them behind. Get your bags packed and your huts cleaned, everyone!]

Comments

[soulcomet]

Right. Well, even more technically, that's where my soul is.

[there was no other way to say it but bluntly.]

[rootandbranch]

Oh.

[Geir isn't... entirely sure from which direction this is a problem for Madoka. he can certainly see a lot of different ways that could be upsetting, but he doesn't want to assume?

he tilts his head to gaze at her sidelong and ventures:]

Um, it's not a problem for you if it falls off, is it? Or is there some way to keep it on...?

[aside from any other considerations that he might not understand as well, first and foremost, he doesn't want this to be a dangerous situation for Madoka.]

[soulcomet]

It's okay, I take really good care of it. But yes, it is a bit of a problem if I get separated from it.

[they had tested it on Aimintas. after about a football field's length away from the soul gem, the connection to who she is is stretched too thin, and her body simply ceases to function.]

But, I guess what I'm trying to say is, my magic source and my soul are the same thing — and it's not really infinite, I guess? [she can't demonstrate right now that it's a finite resource. that, when she does fight, a piece of her is corrupted.]

That's sort of what I had been struggling with earlier — knowing what I do about it, should I keep using it, or should I try to fix it?

[rootandbranch]

You're using yourself up to use your magic.

[that does put her dilemma from earlier into a new, much less hypothetical context. Geir's first reaction is dismay and defensiveness: of course she should fix it! but that's his reaction as a friend, as someone worried about Madoka, and Geir can recognize that. his real thoughts on the matter are somewhat more complex, and he needs to consider them. he may come to the same conclusion in the end, but it doesn't necessarily mean he should rush there.]

This... isn't the magic you got from Qri, right? That doesn't work the same way?

[soulcomet]

Right — this is the magic that I used back home. Aside from the limitation on it, my healing magic doesn't have any side effects that I know of.

[said as she fiddles with the ring on her finger, thoughtful. she likes to think she's made her decision by now, but she wants to hear what Geir has to say about it, too.]

[rootandbranch]

[Geir wants to hear what led Madoka to her decision too. he's not going to dismiss what she says about it. so his next question is the logical one that anyone would ask, in his opinion; the bluntness of it is pure Geir, a creature who still struggles to find any other way to ask things.]

You know from Qri that there are other sources of power. What about this one outweighs going and finding other ways to help? Why is this special?

[soulcomet]

[it's not an unfair question, and she doesn't seem bothered by it.]

Because it's a very personal thing, I think. When a magical girl makes a contract back home, she agrees to fight in exchange for a wish — she's choosing to trade having a normal life for something she really wants to come true.

[she didn't know what the consequences really were, though — a magical girl rarely does. or, maybe she did? memories are another rather sore subject, but that's something she's keeping much more closely guarded.]

You could say that becoming a magical girl is something that someone does out of hope.

[rootandbranch]

[Geir turns his head to look at Madoka properly, resting his chin on his foreleg to do it. he doesn't know what a magical girl is, but he understands contracts, and he understands the power of perception. Madoka framed the question one way when she asked it before, but it wasn't actually what was on her mind. maybe she didn't realize it at the time.]

So to you, giving up your contract is giving up hope. Even if you did something else later, that helped people just as much.

This isn't really a decision about helping people after all. This is a decision about keeping pacts, and how you feel about yours.

[soulcomet]

Is it? [she hadn't, admittedly, looked at it from that angle, but she always viewed her contract as her decision to leave behind a flawed version of herself — a weak-willed, timid girl who always found herself relying on others for help, and never having anything of value to offer.]

[having the strength to do good for the world was the hope she put into her contract, so much so that the wish she actually was barely even relevant. in Madoka's view, giving that up, even if she found other ways to help, would be inviting that timid girl she's terrified of becoming back in.]

[Geir seems to have a good point.]

You might be right. I just ... I really don't see how I could give it up, even if I found an alternative.

[rootandbranch]

You don't feel like your life or the things you could do would mean anything, without that hope? You wouldn't want to live that way?

[it's a brutal question, but it's asked with a strange gentle sympathy, not accusation. Geir has a pact he feels like that about, too. strangely, he feels more empathy and understanding for Madoka's decision in this moment than he has for a lot of things he's witnessed in the coven thus far.]

[soulcomet]

... I don't know. I just know I would hate to go back to the way I was.

[but it's not a decision for her so much as it is an inevitability. all magical girls who give up on the hope they started with are slated to die as a result — it's the very nature of the soul gems themselves.]

[and she has died a hundred deaths under those rules.]

["The balance between hope and despair — it keeps itself at zero ... Someone has to be cursed to balance out a wish for someone else's happiness. That's how we magical girls work."]

[rootandbranch]

[Geir doodles nervous little patterns in the sand with the tips of his foreclaws, the ones not currently supporting his chin. he doesn't really know what to say.]

...I sort of understand, I think. But I don't like it. Oh, is this how people feel when I'm telling them about stuff...? I don't like it at all.

[that last comment, low and plaintive and under his breath, is almost more for himself than for Madoka.]

[soulcomet]

... I'm sorry, Geir.

[rootandbranch]

[that recalls Geir to himself. he looks at Madoka with concern.]

Noooooo... don't be sorry. I wanted to know!

But, do you really know you would just go back? Or is just that you don't want to take the chance...

[soulcomet]

It's not really something I'm willing to take a chance on, no.

But ... it's all right. I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided that I'm okay with this.

[rootandbranch]

...

[unhappily:]

I feel like I should talk about it more, because it sounds a little like you don't have confidence in yourself? And that seems... wrong. But I don't know if I can. There's a pact I'd do anything for, too.

[soulcomet]

[she has no idea what to say to that. as far as she can remember, everything she and her friends have ever done has been in the name of good and justice, and they have been incredibly successful on all fronts. there were no caveats, no major ones, anyway — it was all just a wish in exchange for helping keep their city safe.]

[everything has been challenged here, including, and especially, her confidence.]

[so she just sits there silently, her eyes maybe welling up with tears.]

[rootandbranch]

...you're crying...

[...Geir isn't exactly sure what's made Madoka cry, or if it's him, but either way, he wants to comfort her. he puts his chin on her knees to bump his huge stupid nose into her chest, concern-purring very low in the back of his throat. it's the best he knows how to do to make someone feel better. earnestly:]

Madoka, you're brave, and good, and this sounds really hard. I didn't mean to make you cry.

[soulcomet]

Oh, it's nothing you did, Geir. [her eyes are still watery, but she does give his huge stupid nose a pat.]

I guess it's just ... whenever I feel like I know what I'm doing and what I want, the more I realize that I don't actually know anything at all.

[rootandbranch]

[Geir sighs an ENORMOUS SIGH, ruffling Madoka's hair with the whoosh of it. his huge stupid nose is very soft to the touch, for something scaled.]

I never feel like I know anything. Maybe that's easier?

...I just think that whoever you were before must have been amazing too. Because that's where you come from, and you're great...

[soulcomet]

... You really think so?

[she's not incredulous because she thinks Geir would lie to her. it's just not something she believes herself, not really.]

[rootandbranch]

Yeah, of course! Maybe it's not the same for humans, but I was really little when I'm born, and now I'm much bigger. So it makes sense that you're different than you used to be. I dunno if I'd go back either, but it wasn't... bad.

[if you can only be the kind of person you want to be if you're going to die, that seems... wrong to him, somehow. it's not a concept he can really articulate right now, but there's no way Madoka before she made her deal somehow deserved to die rather than continue existing as herself.]

[soulcomet]

[karma's sort of a funny thing, when it comes to Madoka Kaname. the only way to cheat death was to remove it — and herself, by use of a paradox — from the equation entirely.]

I guess ... even if I wanted to go back, I'm not sure how I would do it.

[rootandbranch]

...

[Geir looks up at the stars showing themselves brightly over the ocean. when he speaks, his words come slowly.]

I think that Qri did something she may not have even understood when she brought us all here. Or, maybe she did. It's something I want to ask her.

[soulcomet]

What do you mean?