No. They did not have any garlic bread.
After that was established, the herbalist – who's name she told them is Desdemona Palatine – had Todo carry Corb to a table so she could examine him and assess what needs to be done to help him recover. Reela has kept her eye on Todo more than anything, as he has been at his brother's side the whole time. As much as those two bicker and fight, Reela knows that Todo would do anything for Corb.
It makes Reela wonder what having siblings must be like. The closest thing she's had to a sibling is Hope, but they're a whole ten years younger than her, so it's hard to have fun with them like she would with Corb and Todo. She has to be a 'good role model' for them, or whatever Regan was talking about while both she and Cree chose to ignore him and proceeded to be menaces to society.
But maybe that's something of what having a younger sibling is like. A small human you have to behave around, otherwise you're irresponsible. But twins are clearly a different experience.
When Reela was eight, Corb and Todo were hesitant to be friends with her. Corb more than Todo, mostly out of doubt that she would be able to keep up with them. At first, she did struggle a bit with the constant roughhousing, but after Cree started training her, she was actually able to hold her own and prove herself durable – and stupid – enough to hang out with the centaur boys.
Desdemona pokes Corb's unconscious face and shrugs. "Probably dead," she says carelessly. "I ain't no Life Mar. I can do funky things with plants in bottles but if you're looking for the fancy stuff, you came to the wrong place. Try the Dev'al... whatever the fuck it's called," she says.
Reela tilts her head at the old woman. "The Dev'al Ordon's been gone for ten years," she states from where she's walking around the edge of the room, eyeing the bookshelves and keeping a watch on Toya after she caught the fox trying to steal a potion from a shelf.
The old woman lifts her head a little. "Those dumb fucks," she sighs, and the frog, who is sitting on Corb's chest, lets out a croak at Desdemona. She tilts her head and looks down at Corb again. "Oh, he's a centaur? Well, shit. That makes things easier," she says and Todo sighs and shakes his head.
"I told you that already," he deadpans. "Again, we're brothers."
Desdemona shrugs again. "Look, I'm not gonna assume. Maybe you're half-brothers or something. You ever seen a half-centaur? I haven't, but I imagine they'd be fucking weird. I have seen a half-merfolk though. Freaks of nature, them," she says.
Reela just watches the old woman with curious eyes. She can tell that Todo is also able to sense it, the magic, but he's too focused on Corb to pay it much mind. But Reela can tell that this old woman has some powerful magic. She's already said that she's not a Life Mar, so it must be something else. Maybe Summoning? That would explain the weird tongue door. But it's strange for a Summoning Mar to turn to alchemy, but it's not hard to figure out that this woman isn't all there.
Desdemona flicks her wrist to the frog. "Ganon, gather the ingredients for a lofty health poultice, this big boy's gonna be a doozy," she says and the frog croaks again before hopping down to the floor and starts going around the various shelves scattered around the large room. The most beautiful thing Reela has ever witnessed is the sight of Toya vigorously fighting a frog over the possession of a glowing stick that hums violently when shaken.
"As for you two," she turns and points her cane over at Reela and then at Todo. "Feel free to make yourselves at home. Just don't touch anything. Or go anywhere. If you're hungry, I can have Ganon run to the tavern later, just write down your orders on a sticky note and slap it to him. He'll get the gist," she says and shuffles over to the stone table to start clearing her alchemy station as the frog – Ganon, apparently – brings her one ingredient at a time.
"And you, girly," Desdemona says without lifting her head as she focuses on adding the ingredients to the various parts of her setup. Alchemy is way above Reela. She thinks there's something called a 'mortar and pestle' involved? Is that what it's called? The one that you grind? She can only remember the 'grind' part because it makes her giggle.
Reela tilts her head at the old woman. "Me?"
"Yes, you. I have some questions for you once I'm done stabilizing your little pony. I'll consider that payment for your inconvenience on my day," she states, and Todo cocks a brow at her.
"You brought us in," he points out. "You didn't have to help us."
The old woman groans. "Yes, but girly over there felt all weird to me so I was curious. So, I want to talk about that later," she says and the frog hops up on the table to croak at her, and she scoffs before aggressively patting him on the head. "Yes, I know why she's weird, but it's rude to call it out, you little toadstool," she snaps. "Ignore my ex-husband, Ganon. Just give him things to do and let him go about his day," she says and Ganon croaks again before hopping off the table to go back to gathering ingredients.
Reela cocks a brow. "The frog is your...?" she stops herself and shakes her head. "Never mind. But what do you mean I 'feel weird'?" she asks and the woman sighs.
"I'll explain later. You know, after I'm done saving your almost dead friend," Desdemona grumbles.
Reela glances over at Todo and he merely shrugs his own confusion before he returns his focus to Corb, whose hand he hasn't let go of since bringing him to the table. With nothing else to do but wait, Reela finds a sticky note to write down what food she wants and gives it to Toya, telling the fox to stick it to the frog when he's least expecting.
So she spends most of her afternoon watching Toya hunt a frog with a sticky note of her food order.
She doesn't know what drugs she ended up consuming between now and this morning, but she's gotta tell her dad about it so he can find her some more. What are dads for if not to be non-profit drug dealers?
After a couple hours, Todo was about ready to pass out on the floor next to Corb so Desdemona told him he could go sleep in one of her guest rooms, assuming he can find it. Apparently even she doesn't know the layout of her own house.
That, or she just never has guests. Maybe both.
Reela is still trying to figure this woman out. She can't tell if she's an Adaliaen or not. Her hair is almost white, but a bit more on the light grey side from what she can tell. She can't see her ears since most of her head is covered by her dark hood, and she hasn't seen what color her eyes are. She's guessing either Half-Adaliaen or human. Or maybe half-dwarf with how short she is. But all of that is secondary to trying to figure out what her magic is. She's still betting on Summoning, but she can't be sure.
Not wanting to scramble her brain, Reela just focuses on eating her spaghetti with Toya on the floor in the corner until eventually, Desdemona approaches her.
Reela slurps up a noodle and lifts her head curiously. "Well?" she asks.
"I gave your buddy the poultice and now we just gotta let it set. He'll be fine, but the brain damage is irreversible I'm afraid," Desdemona explains and Reela sighs.
"Damn. So much for that vain hope," she chuckles and stands up, and Toya instantly places her paws on the plate of spaghetti and pulls it over to herself to start relentlessly consuming every last noodle until she is covered in meat sauce which looks like blood on her light blonde coat.
Desdemona hits her cane on the ground. "Now, are you ready to talk or are you gonna run away like most kids do when their elders speak?" she deadpans and even though Reela can't see her eyes under her hood, she gets the sense that she's getting mean mugged by this old lady.
Reela shrugs. "I mean, sure? I don't really have anything better to do I suppose," she says.
"Well, I'm pretty sure there's a pool somewhere in this house, but I can't remember where. Lemme know if you find it," Desdemona shrugs and turns around to start shuffling towards an open table. The frog hops over and sits on the table and the old woman pulls out a chair. She hits it with her cane before she pulls out a second and sits down.
"So kid, tell me," she starts as Reela takes her seat across from her. Desdemona leans forward a bit and tilts her head. "How long have you had it?"
Reela cocks a brow and leans her head back. "Had what?"
Desdemona snickers and it ends in a sigh. "C'mon, kid. You know what I'm talking about," she nods slowly. "Your magic. I know you weren't born with it."
Her magic? How could this woman possibly recognize what kind of magic she has? Tene-Medeis is the only type of magic that people aren't born with, or at least as far as she knows. No clue what happens when someone with Dark Magic has a child. Does the kid have it too?
Reela shrugs carelessly. "I mean... I've had it for ten years now. Why? Do you... know anything about it?" she asks and the woman laughs while shaking her head.
"Kid, I know more about it than you and your father ever will."
Reela's eyes widen and she straightens her back. "You... You know Regan? How?" she asks. Could this woman be her lead? She seems crazy though, so who knows. But if she knows Regan somehow, it's still a possibility.
"I know of him, but I've never actually met him," Desdemona shrugs and sets her cane on the table. "I do, however, know his sister. Little fucking menace that one."
Unlike her reaction to learning this woman knows about Regan, Reela smiles this time. She doesn't see Auntie Jules very often. Like, once every couple years 'not very often.' She doesn't know what she spends all her time doing out in the world. As far as she's aware, it's nothing.
Jules just likes an adventure, so she follows any she can find. Now that the barriers are down and there's no conglomerate dictating what people are allowed to do, Jules has found more than her share of new opportunities out there. It's something Reela has always admired about her. She's not bound to anyone or anything and she just goes where she wants and does what she wants.
Growing up, Reela often wondered what that life would be like. But she knows that it wouldn't be for her. She's too attached to her dads and her life in Sage. And besides, her dads would never sleep at night knowing she was out in the world where they couldn't find her or protect her.
"So, Jules told you about Regan's magic and about me?" Reela asks.
Desdemona nods once. "Yes. But she didn't need to tell me about yours for me to sense it when you were at the door. But from what I can tell, it's all so..." she purses her lips in thought. "Untrained? I guess that's what I'm getting from your aura. It's uncontrolled. Like a reusable bomb that just kinda explodes whenever the fuck it wants," she says and Reela just nods slowly as she listens. "From what Jules told me, your dad's been teaching you how to control it for years. So," she motions to Reela. "Why can't you control it seemingly at-fucking-all?"
Reela huffs and slumps in her chair. Gee, she wonders why.
"Because he didn't teach me anything useful," she mutters. "I didn't get it. And honestly, he didn't get it either."
"How? How didn't he get it?" Desdemona asks. Reela notes that she's only asking about Regan's understanding and not hers.
"Because..." Reela stops to think. She honestly doesn't know exactly how Regan didn't understand. All she knows is that every time he tried talking to her about her magic, it felt like he was talking about the wrong kind. Certain parts were right, like how her eyes go black and she sees darkness when it's in effect, but not how it takes effect. Not what it does.
Reela meekly shrugs. She never likes discussing this stuff. It just reminds her of how far apart she and Regan had drifted since he never got it when she said she didn't understand what he was trying to tell her. Neither of them understood. And she tried so fucking hard, but she couldn't.
"He always insisted... I needed to ignore the 'voices' that tell me to do bad things. But..."
"But you don't hear any voices, do you?" Desdemona finishes for her and Reela's head lifts a little as her curiosity piques. "Tell me, what do you hear? Or see? Or... whatever the fuck it might be?"
'Whatever it might be'? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? She gets angry, her magic gets angry, she sees things that make her more angry and suddenly she's a 'murderer' or whatever.
"I guess I—"
"No!" Desdemona takes her cane and whacks Reela on the head and she yelps, rubbing her head as the old woman holds her cane in her lap. "No guessing. You can't guess this because only you know the answer. What does the Dark do to make you lose control?"
'The Dark.' She thought only the people who have Tene-Medeis know what the magic entity itself is called. Maybe Jules told her.
Or maybe that explains why Reela can sense strong magic on this old woman.
Reela slowly tilts her head and studies the woman through narrowed eyes. "I... see things. Faces. When my vision goes dark, people turn into... monsters. Things that would make me afraid and do anything to stay alive..." she explains without breaking her stare from the old woman, who nods again.
"So, you see things that you wouldn't feel bad killing because it looks inhuman. That's... a pretty good way to convince an eight-year-old to kill people," Desdemona says.
Reela looks the woman over. She still can't see her face, which only makes her more suspicious. Is Desdemona trying to hide her face? Her eyes? What if she's just like Reela and needs to cover her eyes to remove the risk of seeing things that aren't real?
"You... have Tene-Medeis. Don't you?" she asks and the woman chuckles, but sighs.
"Fucking clearly," she states. "But... I can't really use it anymore." She finally lifts her head to show Reela that her eyes are covered with black wrapping and she has black streams staining her cheeks. Like she cried tears of ink and it permanently painted her wrinkled skin.
Reela's eyes soften. "What... happened?" she asks carefully and the woman simply snorts.
"What do you think?" she shrugs. "I cut out my own eyes!" she states proudly.
Reela leans back again. "Wait... You're blind? Then how have you been..." she trails off when Desdemona hits the table and the frog hops over to let out a croak.
"Ganon's my seeing eye frog. When he died, his last words were that he wanted a divorce so to spite the fucker, I soul-trapped him and stuffed him in a frog!" she laughs and pats him on the head and he croaks again. "Didn't realize he'd still have his Summoning Magic, but hey. I'm not complaining!"
She stuffed her husband's soul in a frog.
Naturally.
"Anyway..." Reela clears her throat. "What... was the Dark for you? Did you see monsters too?" she asks and leans forward in her chair as she awaits the answer. If Desdemona actually knows a lot about Tene-Medeis, then maybe Reela can finally get some real help in learning how to control it.
Desdemona shakes her head. "No, not exactly. You see, that's the thing about the Dark. It's different for literally fucking everyone. Two people might have very similar types, but there's always at least one detail that makes it unique. For me, I saw the souls of the dead. They were really fucking annoying and always telling me what to do, so naturally, bye-bye eyes!" she cackles. "Fuck you, demon bullshit!"
Reela sighs and looks down. "I'm... not going to have to cut out my eyes, am I?"
The old woman shrugs. "I mean, it's on the table. I know it's not for everyone so I'm not gonna peer-pressure you," she says. "But there are means of learning how to control it in other ways. From what it sounds like, your father hears voices that tells him what he should do. He learned how to ignore it, but still be aware of it. Because essentially, the one thing that all types of the Dark have in common is that like it or not, it's a part of you now," she starts and waves her hand towards Ganon. The frog croaks and hops off the table, scurrying off to the back of the room where Reela can't see him.
Desdemona sighs. "You gotta learn to live with it. Understand that it wants to make you do some fucked up shit. Your father ignored the voices, but he didn't deny what they told him. If the voices wanted him to kill someone, he would understand that it had a reason to want that. He considers that reason and decides what to do for himself. But he doesn't need to just let the voices control him," she explains and a blue light appears on the table, and suddenly in front of them are two cups of tea that Desdemona instantly picks up and takes a sip.
She sets the cup down with a sigh. "Kid, you said your dad never understood what the Dark was for you. He automatically assumed it was the same as his and tried to teach you what he knew because he learned how to control it. From what I've heard from Jules, it sounds like he was almost desperate for you to learn too," she nods to Reela. "Do you have any idea why?"
Reela looks down and shakes her head. "I mean..." she sighs before grabbing the second cup and taking a sip of tea. She doesn't know. For the longest time, she just assumed it was because Regan didn't trust her to control it on her own, but looking back, maybe he did seem a little desperate.
When did that start? What would have made him desperate to control her magic?
She closes her eyes as she tries to think, but the answer comes to her immediately.
(She remembered waking up on the ground. She smelled smoke and there were fires burning around her. She didn't know what was happening.
Was it a pirate ship she was on? She can't remember.
She heard a gunshot and a cry of pain from Regan. He was bleeding on the floor next to her.
She looked up at the person who shot him, but it suddenly wasn't a person anymore. The next few moments were all a blur to her. She remembered red. She remembered her fingers warming up and her arms tightening as she fought.
Then everything was calm. She could see again.
She just remembered seeing the monster that shot Regan, and the next thing she knew everything was fine. Her hands were dripping with blood. She didn't look at the monster again. She just looked at Regan.
All she cared about was that he was safe. But she saw that look in his eyes. She didn't understand it back then. She didn't understand what she did.
He was afraid of her but she didn't know why. Not for the longest time.)
Not until now.
"I... tore a man's throat out with my bare hands in front of him when I was eight..." she shudders. How the fuck could she forget something like that? She often remembered Regan referring to the 'incident on the Firefly' but she never knew what he was talking about. What was the Firefly? What incident?
That was it.
Desdemona leans back and coughs awkwardly. "Wow. Over-fucking-achiever over here! And here I thought my first experience was bad when my ex-boyfriend's ghost convinced me to bite my current boyfriend's dick off. Don't regret it, but still messy. But you, young lady, win!" she gives her golf claps before taking another long sip of tea.
Reela opens her eyes but still just stares at the ground. "So... Regan was paranoid that I would do that again?" she slowly shakes her head. "But... I was just protecting him. That man would've killed him had I not done something," she states and also takes another sip of tea. She sets the cup down, and instantly takes another drink as Desdemona starts talking.
"Well, that might be how you remember it, but was that really what happened?" she raises. "How much danger was he really in? Would he actually have died had you – an eight-year-old girl – not stepped in and brutally murdered the person that hurt him?"
Reela scoffs. "Of course! Regan was like a wounded, baby deer! Like Bambi!" she says, then stops to purse her lips and look away. "Fuck, now I'm thinking about Bambi..." she sniffles and blinks back tears.
"Kid..." Desdemona sighs. "Is it possible that all of that chaos happening around you – to a child – might have seemed more stressful than it really was?" she asks which gets Reela to thankfully stop thinking about Bambi to now contemplate the question of why she murdered a man.
She guesses it's possible. But Regan had been shot. What else could have happened next other than Regan dying? Though, she supposes she does remember a lot of talk back then about Regan being the 'Lost Descendant' which made him valuable to the Imperium, or something. Would the Imperium have really killed him?
Reela sighs and holds her hand to her forehead. "...They were trying to take him alive," she realizes and throws her hands up. "Of course they were trying to take him alive! They took Edith and Naomi! Why not him?!"
Of course she made Regan paranoid. She ripped a man's throat out who wasn't actually going to kill anybody. He may not have been innocent, but he wasn't as dangerous as the Dark made him seem.
"Fucking hell, why am I so stupid?" she growls and hits her head on the table.
"Probably because you beat your head into tables," Desdemona shrugs and sips her tea. "From what it sounds like, your magic does more than make you see things. To me, it sounds like it makes you lose sense of situations. Has there been any other time the Dark took control and possibly made a situation more stressful than it may have actually been? Anything recent that you can remember more clearly?"
Reela doesn't lift her head from the table as she tries to think again. Well, in terms of recent events they're all really stupid, so she guesses take your pick. The first one that comes to mind is from when she met Avinalyn.
In the cell, she realizes they never actually set anything on fire. They heated metal, but how would that have caused the smoke to fill the cell? Was she imagining the smoke? If she was, then why were they telling her to breathe if not to make her faint quicker?
She remembered after she jumped off the fucking mountain because her magic is overdramatic as all fucking hell, Avinalyn caught her. When she looked up at them, they looked twisted. Monstrous. She felt in her heart that if they reached her, they would kill her.
But would they have? They did say that they weren't trying to hurt her. And she can't remember very clearly because again, she just jumped off a mountain, but once the Dark was no longer in control - the moment before she let go - she might have seen Avinalyn looking actually... worried?
No, that can't be right. They're an asshole.
"I guess I might've... overreacted back in Lithonilynn..." she shrugs and lifts her head from the table, but leans her cheek into her hand. "Why the fuck did I grab scalding hot chains?" she huffs at herself. "Why the fuck did I think falling off a mountain was a good idea?"
"Maybe because you're stupid," Desdemona guesses. "Or maybe because that's how your magic tricks you into letting it control you. Maybe what you see is just a part of it. It could be more than that. Maybe you hear things that no one said. Maybe you feel more adrenaline than is necessary for the situation. Keeping all of this in mind, tell me, kid," she taps Reela in the center of her forehead. "What do you think gives the Dark power over you?"
Reela stares down at her cup and ignores the fact that this blind old lady actually just poked her chin and not her forehead. In both of those situations she just remembered, the one thing she thinks she can recall that makes them similar is that she was scared of something.
No, not just something. Everything, but she never could tell what. The idea of something or maybe whatever she was seeing. But she was scared. Back on the Firefly, she was scared of losing Regan when he wasn't actually in danger of getting killed. With Avinalyn, she was scared that they would hurt her but they never actually did.
Is that what Avinalyn meant when they said that any harm they caused her was because she provoked them to do it? The only times she can actually remember Avinalyn hurting her back at the dungeon was when they heated up her knife to get her to drop it. Then, she bashed their face with her head while they were holding her, which made them burn her shoulder. She hurt herself by grabbing the chains, which they were trying to pull her away from.
"The Dark makes me afraid," she breathes out. "When I spar with my dad, I sometimes see him as someone who abused me... When I argue with Regan it's like I can hardly hear his voice, like I'm screaming at someone who's not even there..." she trails off and her eyes slowly grow wider as Desdemona nods.
"And from what you told me about the incident when you were eight, you were afraid of losing Regan, weren't you?" she says. "Maybe that's why the Dark makes it so you can't hear him."
Reela stands up but holds the edge of the table with white knuckles while her other hand covers her mouth. Her vision is blurred and tears fall from her eyes, rolling down the back of her hand as she begins to silently weep to herself.
She can't believe how stupid she's been.
This whole fucking time. Ten fucking years to make her finally realize what was going on.
'Regan never listened to her.'
'Regan never understood.'
'Regan never cared.'
The Dark made her hate him by making it so that she could never hear him say the things she's been waiting all these years to hear. Maybe he was paranoid and didn't understand. Maybe he did think the Dark was to blame when she cried. Maybe all of that is true.
But she never heard him say that she was a trophy.
Why did she keep talking?
The Dark wanted her to think he was just using her for political gain. But he didn't say anything. Now she remembers. All of his 'excuses' were him trying to tell her that it wasn't true, but she was the one who wouldn't listen. She was the one who saw him as her enemy.
She just screamed at him and hit him and pushed him away.
All for something he didn't actually do.
And she almost gave up on him.