From the Vast

Chapter 5: Trust

Content Warning: Mentions of Child Abuse

Aria and Autumn were completely blindsided by the girl's sudden realization of her circumstances not being what she was told they were, frozen in place as they tried to think through what to do or say, the terror flowing from the girl seeming like it only ever grew by the moment. The Gardevoir wanted to first and foremost reassure the girl that she was safe and that there was nothing here to fear, but of course, their village's safety in large part depended on the girl getting kept in the dark about everything going on around her, and this wasn't a duty she couldn't just ignore.

The two forces clashed inside the tall psychic as the room stayed at an impasse, the Indeedee not wanting to accidentally do something wrong and endanger everyone here, her caring nature having to be forcibly and painfully overruled. With every passing moment, the atmosphere inside the room thickened, Anne's thoughts darting around the place, looking for someplace out before inevitably reminding herself that she was blind, injured and that there was a psychic in the room, the realization making her shrink further into the bed every time. What is that woman gonna use that Indeedee for-

"^Anne. You...^"

In every clash, however, one side will inevitably come out on top.

"^...you are in the middle of the Lillywood forest. We found you after you've suffered your accident, and took you in to patch you up. You are safe here, I promise.^"

Autumn stared completely dumbfounded at her daughter in law at giving out their secret like that, her shock clear enough for the Gardevoir to notice and respond to covertly without looking away from the girl-

"^At this rate she'll have needed her memories cleaned anyway, the least we can do is make sure she feels safe here.^"

Aria knew full well her justification was a flimsy excuse, one that wouldn't pass muster if she were to hear it from anyone else. Regardless of what the child on the bed a few meters away from her had done, they were injured, blind, and utterly terrified, her voice, age so similar to Cadence's at times that the mother within her couldn't resist the desire to comfort Anne any more, though her stoic expression gave little of that way.

Before the Indeedee could argue or even acknowledge that justification, the girl spoke first, utterly dumbfounded by what she'd just heard-

"~W-what do you- is th-this a cabin or-~"

A harrowing thought that had crept up onto the girl's mind had finally forced her to take another look at her """nurse""", eyes squinting harder than ever, mind sufficiently wiped of any idea of what she ought to be looking at to finally realize what it actually was that she was currently feebly trying to stare down. No amount of excess disposable scrubs could ever result in a look like that, why would anybody be wearing red eye protection glasses like that when facing patients, that wasn't just some red patch sewn onto the outfit-

The realization hit the girl hard, vague and cloudy fear and unknown taking shape into a very concrete fear of something very known, her body freezing with a single pitiful whimper before did the only thing she could do in that moment, laying down and pulling the covers onto her head, freezing soon giving way to hyperventilating.

"^I'll take care of this mom, just make sure nobody disturbs us.^"

"^Please be careful Aria.^"

"^I will.^"

With Autumn gone, the Indeedee taking post immediately outside and putting up a Safeguard to keep out most of the outside noise, the room now had only the terrified human and the Gardevoir she was so utterly afraid of, their mental link letting the latter see just what exactly was writhing below the girl's skullcap. Aria recognized some of the girl's fears all to well- fear of death, distrust of psychics as a whole taken to an extreme, acute awareness of just how powerful the wild mon in the same room as her was, contrasting her current powerlessness. The knowledge that, if it so desired, that Gardevoir could've probably killed her a dozen different ways before she even had a chance to scream, including some particularly disturbing ones Aria had never even conceived of before.