[ 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}
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.