We need to talk about your daughter. ( there's a pause as he hesitates, holding his breath before letting out a slow exhale. this isn't news he relishes sharing for a multitude of reasons, chief of all the danger, but also the weight and worry it lays on caroline's shoulders. ) Josette's been using black magic.
[ Hell is chaos: who knew. Hardly a surprise. Nothing's been great lately. Having her family in one single unit is the best of it all.
Caroline tenses as Klaus starts, forehead creasing, mom mode rising on full and total alert. Her thoughts bounce between which of her kids this could be about. Klaus' cadence is more than enough for her to know whatever it is, it's not good.
Her breath noticeably catches, gasp rising and falling out. Time stills for several moments, an unconscious pause passing. ] How do you know?
[ Not accusatory. Direct. It's the first question that spills from her lips, the desire and near desperation for truth being stronger than anything else. ]
Edited (literally just an icon change since I bought icon time ;;) 2020-06-27 07:18 (UTC)
( life is chaos. there are very few parallels in this place that klaus does not suffer with intimate knowledge. with power has always ushered this: terror and trouble. he does not and cannot regret his own, because it's saved him and his family. that is the way of their world; it's the way of this world.
when he died, he hoped for better. but growing pains are an inevitable consequence of having exceptional daughters, aren't they? she taught him that once. she lent him the support to understand it.
he knows what she needs, because caroline always needs everything. the facts, the full picture, the details. he doesn't hesitate. )
Because she told me. ( not everything, but enough to piece the larger puzzle together. ) She claims good intentions and feels remorse for what harm she has caused, and I believe her. But whatever and whoever she became in that maze was full of viciousness and resentment. A cry for help. She's not all right.
[ Caroline breathes, listening to Klaus, clearly trying to absorb this all while working to steady herself. ]
She told you, but not me. [ It's blurted out, no need to preface her disappointment. Balanced as she is, compared to years ago, there are certain people, when she's around, that she falls to more base instincts. If you can't just say what's on your heart to certain folks, what's the point?
She swallows, a sigh with a soft trembling following. ] Why would she tell me, when she knows I'd be mad. [ It's true. Foresight rarely accompanies moments like this; and, Caroline has (and will continue to) gone off at friends and loved ones for engaging in dumb, dark activities.
That's not how she'd want to react to anything her daughters did, but she's imperfect, too.
Another little sigh, this time from rounded lips. ] I'll help her. I know...I believe she'll listen. I just...gotta approach it right.
[ A beat. A sigh. A knitting of her brows. ] Did it feel like darkness from home...or something from here? She's, I...I haven't felt like there's been anything that came with her from home, that I recognize. But, maybe I just didn't want to see it.
[ Maybe the maze's effect is to blame for what's transpired, what's started to bite at Josie's will. Caroline is all to familiar with events that have effects like that, suddenly sweeping out of nowhere. But, she has to ask, knowing Klaus is already more familiar with this than herself. She wants to be informed, even as her heart aches for her daughter. ]
[The member of her family who doesn't know about her dark side at the moment is her mom.
Alaric's already lived through it and he knows about the sandclock in her closet. Lizzie saw glimpses in the maze and Josie's still trying to get that trust back. She knows she can't just brush it off as much as she would like to, claim that it was just the maze messing with her, but she knows that its' waiting for her in the future.
She's a time bomb. She probably should tell her mom about it.
Too bad Klaus beat her to the punch.
She comes out of her room, bag in hand, completely unaware of the fact that Klaus has ratted her out. She flashes her a smile and sets the laundry bag down gently.]
Hey, Mom. I was going to do some laundry. Do you have anything you want me to take down?
[ Caroline's heart sank when Klaus revealed Josie's entanglements with dark magic. Watching how it all affected Bonnie, how stubborn her best friend had been through it all, rose up to join in with the rest of her quiet storm of unstable emotions.
She has her kids, her babies, there. Ric. They're all in a place together. Knowing very deeply what it feels like to be a teenage girl, so many of her years of life having felt repetitive due to not aging (stuck in a gap year, forever), she willfully keeps herself from lording over her daughters. It was easy to be more of a helicopter mom when they were kiddos: parenting siphoner twins necessitates a bit of excessive presence, all considering what chaos could ensue. Reins are meant to be loosened as a kid ages into adolescence, then teenage years, gradually and with purpose. You have to give your kids wings to fly.
Having her girls so close, though, she'd thought she was more in the loop about the major stuff. That they'd come to her when they knew they needed to.
She draws a breath in, smiling back at Josie, eyes flitting to the laundry bag. Her conversation with Klaus has only occurred that day: this isn't a situation Caroline is willing to put off.
She nods her head toward the dining room table, tea already steeping in cups, kettle of water still on the stove. ] Actually, is it okay if we put that on pause, just for a bit? I'd like to sit with you for a few minutes. There's...something I really need to talk to you about.
[ Pushing Josie away is not on the agenda. But. She's been around this teenage version of her daughter for enough time to know her willingness to talk, to connect, to empathize. It's clear there's something left unsaid, as of yet, on her features, but she isn't upset. Her eyes are a little sad, if only because she's seen and heard of the effects of dark magic.
She's already at the table, hand on the back of one of the chairs, ready to sit when Josie decides whether she'll join her or not. ]
Edited (an icon change cause I bought icon time ;;) 2020-06-27 07:19 (UTC)
Josie almost doesn't want to sit down because she's not sure what she's in trouble for, but she also knows she just can't say no. She glances over her shoulder, gauging her means of escape before nodding and putting the bag down, before making her way to the table.]
[ It should be easier to speak openly with a teenage version of her daughter rather than impose and enforce behaviors on a kiddo with a maternal loving tongue, right? Well, Caroline's about to find out!
She smiles at Josie, soft and warm, lovingly and encouragingly as she sits down. Her eyes don't drift, focusing on her daughter alone. ] I wanna cut right to it, Josie. I found out you're using black magic. And -- I'm not...mad. [ Insert: just disappointed? No, no that's not what Caroline means, but kids don't need much push to fill in blanks as to what they'd feel might come next. She lifts a hand up, palm first before her fingers curl in, making a loose sort of claw until she brings her other hand toward it and folds them together. ]
Really. I promise, I don't wanna scold or make you feel like I am, because I'm not. I. I just wanna help, Josie. And I can. I promise that, too. I know I can. You just need to tell me what's happened. How this happened. [ She starts to reach over, hand clearly angling toward going to rest on or hold Josie's. ] I'm here for you, always, no matter what. You don't have to hide anything from me.
[Her first question is almost "Who told you?" but she can hazard a guess. Between her dad and Klaus, she's sure that one of them spilled the beans. And maybe on some level they were right to but hell if Josie even knows where to start.
She knows Caroline is just trying to help. She takes a deep breath and ... starts from the beginning.]
So ... the Honor Council voted Dad out as headmaster because of some stuff that happened that got a lot of people hurt and he was partially involved. So you hired a new headmaster, Professor Vardemus. Only problem was he wasn't the actual Vardemus, he was an imposter and he started ... he took an interest in me, magically speaking.
[She trusted him because he was her teacher and that was so stupid of her because she knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. It's not all Ryan Clarke's fault as much as she may like to blame him, Josie still made those choices. She wanted to feel special. She wanted to feel ... superior. She let him convince her it was right, and she honestly didn't need much prodding.
And from there ... everything else falls out of her before she can stop it.]
It started out with small stuff, and he had this thing called a mora miserium that would help take away the side effects so Lizzie and I weren't feeling so sick. I didn't really think much of it, and once I realized what he was doing, I tried to stop, but then Lizzie got possessed by an oni and she wanted me to kill her so that it would kill the demon too, and I wasn't going to do that. It was Lizzie. So instead I siphoned all the dark magic from the enchanted sword and just ... blasted her with it to kill the demon and it worked. Lizzie was fine.
[And she was so sick, but everything went in the mora miserium so it was fine. At least for then.]
Then we found out that whatever spell I blasted her with ... it jump-started her memories of Hope who had erased herself when she jumped into Malivore to save us all, and I still had some of the dark magic so I went to Hope's aunt, Freya to help me figure it out, and then I cast the spell so we all remembered her again.
[She talked to Caroline about it, before she did it, but she might have left out the massive amount of dark magic that was involved.]
We thought that as long as the dark magic stayed in the sandclock it would be fine, but then it started to crack ...
[And she's just ... going to give you a beat to finish taking that all in.]
[ Caroline purposefully side-stepped ratting Klaus out, even with the knowledge that Josie may press anyone who could've shared these details. She doesn't want to deliver a killing blow to the messenger, and instead prefers to hit at the core of what's going on. Circling back to not blaming someone who only wants to help will come up later, when it's relevant. Their focus should be entirely on Josie right now.
And, that's just what's delivered. As Josie starts, it's glaringly clear that she needs to get so much out. Off her chest, or at least out into the open to be managed in any other way than as a solo mission.
Caroline's heart aches as Josie presses on, squeezing her hand gently here and there, not abashed if the contact ends. This subject matter, a retelling of dark histories, recent weeks and months, may come with the want for Josie to shrink in a bit more toward herself. Or, move around, shift in place. Caroline has no judgment, only laser focused eyes as she files away each detail, working to assess them as she goes.
Alaric, voted out. Vardemus, sounding like a Hogwarts temporary villain for a book's length. A villain with so much of an impact on her family, though. A regular Voldemort, really.
Mora miserium. Oni. Her eyes darken at the thought of Lizzie being possessed, of asking for death, of Josie having to siphon dark magic to use as a tool. It must be part of what Klaus meant when Josie told him she felt like she's had the best of intentions.
Malivore. Fuck if she knows what that is. Freya, though, she recognizes. Josie: a savior again, returning memories, clearly gone (somehow, someway; but the specifics of that don't 100% apply to the situation at hand.) She can't ramble, won't fly into a flurry, for more details. She files away those thoughts, thinking she could garner more information about it all from Ric. Or, Lizzie, even. At least about why Hope was forgotten.
Sandclock.
Josie finishes, and Caroline can't help how her eyes widen a little before she breathes out slowly. She doesn't reply right away, moving to pour some tea instead, pushing a saucer of it over to her daughter. It's just tea: nothing special, but warmth generally helps relax.
She starts to pour another, for herself. ] I know how quickly everything can fall apart. That's been the story of my life since Katherine all but forced me into turning. And I've seen how black magic has its way on witches. Aunt Bonnie. [ The kettle is set down. ] There are always loopholes, always paths we can take, even when it seems like all hope is lost. It's not, okay? I know it feels like it might be, baby, but it's not. I would never let you or Lizzie -- [ she gets choked up for a moment, tries to push the emotion away, tears rising in her eyes -- she's the mama bear of two little girls, she can't help but being emotional when they're hurting ] -- I won't stop until I find a way to make it better for you.
It's haunting you here, right? The magic. Or the effects of it. You're...you're not using any of those spells, here, are you? [ She has to ask, hating how accusatory it is. Not certain that she should directly ask about the sandclock, but jotting away that Josie ended with its existence... ] You stopped. And used them only when you had to?
[... After she realized how much damage she was doing and hurt people who didn't need to be hurt. But that isn't the only problem.]
But, uh ... hold on.
[She gets up after a moment, making her way back into her room. After some rustling in her closet she returns, mora miserium in hand, and places it down on the coffee table.]
The problem is ... it came to Hell with me. And I don't know how long it's going to hold.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voice.
no subject
Caroline tenses as Klaus starts, forehead creasing, mom mode rising on full and total alert. Her thoughts bounce between which of her kids this could be about. Klaus' cadence is more than enough for her to know whatever it is, it's not good.
Her breath noticeably catches, gasp rising and falling out. Time stills for several moments, an unconscious pause passing. ] How do you know?
[ Not accusatory. Direct. It's the first question that spills from her lips, the desire and near desperation for truth being stronger than anything else. ]
no subject
when he died, he hoped for better. but growing pains are an inevitable consequence of having exceptional daughters, aren't they? she taught him that once. she lent him the support to understand it.
he knows what she needs, because caroline always needs everything. the facts, the full picture, the details. he doesn't hesitate. )
Because she told me. ( not everything, but enough to piece the larger puzzle together. ) She claims good intentions and feels remorse for what harm she has caused, and I believe her. But whatever and whoever she became in that maze was full of viciousness and resentment. A cry for help. She's not all right.
no subject
She told you, but not me. [ It's blurted out, no need to preface her disappointment. Balanced as she is, compared to years ago, there are certain people, when she's around, that she falls to more base instincts. If you can't just say what's on your heart to certain folks, what's the point?
She swallows, a sigh with a soft trembling following. ] Why would she tell me, when she knows I'd be mad. [ It's true. Foresight rarely accompanies moments like this; and, Caroline has (and will continue to) gone off at friends and loved ones for engaging in dumb, dark activities.
That's not how she'd want to react to anything her daughters did, but she's imperfect, too.
Another little sigh, this time from rounded lips. ] I'll help her. I know...I believe she'll listen. I just...gotta approach it right.
[ A beat. A sigh. A knitting of her brows. ] Did it feel like darkness from home...or something from here? She's, I...I haven't felt like there's been anything that came with her from home, that I recognize. But, maybe I just didn't want to see it.
[ Maybe the maze's effect is to blame for what's transpired, what's started to bite at Josie's will. Caroline is all to familiar with events that have effects like that, suddenly sweeping out of nowhere. But, she has to ask, knowing Klaus is already more familiar with this than herself. She wants to be informed, even as her heart aches for her daughter. ]
action | sometime post carnival?
Alaric's already lived through it and he knows about the sandclock in her closet. Lizzie saw glimpses in the maze and Josie's still trying to get that trust back. She knows she can't just brush it off as much as she would like to, claim that it was just the maze messing with her, but she knows that its' waiting for her in the future.
She's a time bomb. She probably should tell her mom about it.
Too bad Klaus beat her to the punch.
She comes out of her room, bag in hand, completely unaware of the fact that Klaus has ratted her out. She flashes her a smile and sets the laundry bag down gently.]
Hey, Mom. I was going to do some laundry. Do you have anything you want me to take down?
no subject
She has her kids, her babies, there. Ric. They're all in a place together. Knowing very deeply what it feels like to be a teenage girl, so many of her years of life having felt repetitive due to not aging (stuck in a gap year, forever), she willfully keeps herself from lording over her daughters. It was easy to be more of a helicopter mom when they were kiddos: parenting siphoner twins necessitates a bit of excessive presence, all considering what chaos could ensue. Reins are meant to be loosened as a kid ages into adolescence, then teenage years, gradually and with purpose. You have to give your kids wings to fly.
Having her girls so close, though, she'd thought she was more in the loop about the major stuff. That they'd come to her when they knew they needed to.
She draws a breath in, smiling back at Josie, eyes flitting to the laundry bag. Her conversation with Klaus has only occurred that day: this isn't a situation Caroline is willing to put off.
She nods her head toward the dining room table, tea already steeping in cups, kettle of water still on the stove. ] Actually, is it okay if we put that on pause, just for a bit? I'd like to sit with you for a few minutes. There's...something I really need to talk to you about.
[ Pushing Josie away is not on the agenda. But. She's been around this teenage version of her daughter for enough time to know her willingness to talk, to connect, to empathize. It's clear there's something left unsaid, as of yet, on her features, but she isn't upset. Her eyes are a little sad, if only because she's seen and heard of the effects of dark magic.
She's already at the table, hand on the back of one of the chairs, ready to sit when Josie decides whether she'll join her or not. ]
no subject
Josie almost doesn't want to sit down because she's not sure what she's in trouble for, but she also knows she just can't say no. She glances over her shoulder, gauging her means of escape before nodding and putting the bag down, before making her way to the table.]
Yeah, sure. What's up?
no subject
She smiles at Josie, soft and warm, lovingly and encouragingly as she sits down. Her eyes don't drift, focusing on her daughter alone. ] I wanna cut right to it, Josie. I found out you're using black magic. And -- I'm not...mad. [ Insert: just disappointed? No, no that's not what Caroline means, but kids don't need much push to fill in blanks as to what they'd feel might come next. She lifts a hand up, palm first before her fingers curl in, making a loose sort of claw until she brings her other hand toward it and folds them together. ]
Really. I promise, I don't wanna scold or make you feel like I am, because I'm not. I. I just wanna help, Josie. And I can. I promise that, too. I know I can. You just need to tell me what's happened. How this happened. [ She starts to reach over, hand clearly angling toward going to rest on or hold Josie's. ] I'm here for you, always, no matter what. You don't have to hide anything from me.
no subject
She knows Caroline is just trying to help. She takes a deep breath and ... starts from the beginning.]
So ... the Honor Council voted Dad out as headmaster because of some stuff that happened that got a lot of people hurt and he was partially involved. So you hired a new headmaster, Professor Vardemus. Only problem was he wasn't the actual Vardemus, he was an imposter and he started ... he took an interest in me, magically speaking.
[She trusted him because he was her teacher and that was so stupid of her because she knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. It's not all Ryan Clarke's fault as much as she may like to blame him, Josie still made those choices. She wanted to feel special. She wanted to feel ... superior. She let him convince her it was right, and she honestly didn't need much prodding.
And from there ... everything else falls out of her before she can stop it.]
It started out with small stuff, and he had this thing called a mora miserium that would help take away the side effects so Lizzie and I weren't feeling so sick. I didn't really think much of it, and once I realized what he was doing, I tried to stop, but then Lizzie got possessed by an oni and she wanted me to kill her so that it would kill the demon too, and I wasn't going to do that. It was Lizzie. So instead I siphoned all the dark magic from the enchanted sword and just ... blasted her with it to kill the demon and it worked. Lizzie was fine.
[And she was so sick, but everything went in the mora miserium so it was fine. At least for then.]
Then we found out that whatever spell I blasted her with ... it jump-started her memories of Hope who had erased herself when she jumped into Malivore to save us all, and I still had some of the dark magic so I went to Hope's aunt, Freya to help me figure it out, and then I cast the spell so we all remembered her again.
[She talked to Caroline about it, before she did it, but she might have left out the massive amount of dark magic that was involved.]
We thought that as long as the dark magic stayed in the sandclock it would be fine, but then it started to crack ...
[And she's just ... going to give you a beat to finish taking that all in.]
no subject
And, that's just what's delivered. As Josie starts, it's glaringly clear that she needs to get so much out. Off her chest, or at least out into the open to be managed in any other way than as a solo mission.
Caroline's heart aches as Josie presses on, squeezing her hand gently here and there, not abashed if the contact ends. This subject matter, a retelling of dark histories, recent weeks and months, may come with the want for Josie to shrink in a bit more toward herself. Or, move around, shift in place. Caroline has no judgment, only laser focused eyes as she files away each detail, working to assess them as she goes.
Alaric, voted out. Vardemus, sounding like a Hogwarts temporary villain for a book's length. A villain with so much of an impact on her family, though. A regular Voldemort, really.
Mora miserium. Oni. Her eyes darken at the thought of Lizzie being possessed, of asking for death, of Josie having to siphon dark magic to use as a tool. It must be part of what Klaus meant when Josie told him she felt like she's had the best of intentions.
Malivore. Fuck if she knows what that is. Freya, though, she recognizes. Josie: a savior again, returning memories, clearly gone (somehow, someway; but the specifics of that don't 100% apply to the situation at hand.) She can't ramble, won't fly into a flurry, for more details. She files away those thoughts, thinking she could garner more information about it all from Ric. Or, Lizzie, even. At least about why Hope was forgotten.
Sandclock.
Josie finishes, and Caroline can't help how her eyes widen a little before she breathes out slowly. She doesn't reply right away, moving to pour some tea instead, pushing a saucer of it over to her daughter. It's just tea: nothing special, but warmth generally helps relax.
She starts to pour another, for herself. ] I know how quickly everything can fall apart. That's been the story of my life since Katherine all but forced me into turning. And I've seen how black magic has its way on witches. Aunt Bonnie. [ The kettle is set down. ] There are always loopholes, always paths we can take, even when it seems like all hope is lost. It's not, okay? I know it feels like it might be, baby, but it's not. I would never let you or Lizzie -- [ she gets choked up for a moment, tries to push the emotion away, tears rising in her eyes -- she's the mama bear of two little girls, she can't help but being emotional when they're hurting ] -- I won't stop until I find a way to make it better for you.
It's haunting you here, right? The magic. Or the effects of it. You're...you're not using any of those spells, here, are you? [ She has to ask, hating how accusatory it is. Not certain that she should directly ask about the sandclock, but jotting away that Josie ended with its existence... ] You stopped. And used them only when you had to?
no subject
[... After she realized how much damage she was doing and hurt people who didn't need to be hurt. But that isn't the only problem.]
But, uh ... hold on.
[She gets up after a moment, making her way back into her room. After some rustling in her closet she returns, mora miserium in hand, and places it down on the coffee table.]
The problem is ... it came to Hell with me. And I don't know how long it's going to hold.