Gossiping (Afina)

[Anastasia]

Crystal stares at Afina, unseen due to the angle. She goes quiet, the two working in solitude as they begin the harvest. As they finish, Crystal breaks the silence to murmur, "I'll inquire into it, discreetly," she says, so softly as to perhaps be a phantasm, a trick of the wind.

Once done, Crystal flutters up, "That's a good start to it."

[Ebiris]

"Do nothing of the sort," Afina says, turning towards Crystal. "I've already said too much. Just leave it alone, nothing good can come of delving into these matters."

[Anastasia]

Crystal stiffens, straightening in the air, but stands her ground. "If you're implying what I think you're implying, it's my duty to look into it."

[Ebiris]

Where was that attitude back on Lifasa? But no, such thoughts are unreasonable and Afina shelves them. "What happened between her Majesty and I in the past can stay there. She's suffered terribly and I won't do anything to threaten her happiness or her new outlook on life, regardless of my feelings. Let this go Crystal, it's all history and no longer anybody's concern," she says, standing up on the windowsill and facing the other pixie.

[Anastasia]

"...oh." Crystal stops, and then in a small voice, "You aren't implying what I thought you were implying."

[Ebiris]

"What... did you think I was implying?" Afina asks in morbid curiosity.

[Anastasia]

"That Moore was somehow using means to enthrall Queen Ilsenine," Crystal replies, still in that deathly quiet voice. Her face is pale and she looks away, "I see I completely misunderstood the matters before me, in quite an explicit and terrible way."

[Ebiris]

"Where did you get that from what I said?" Afina asks, mind boggling at how Crystal could so misread things. "And if he was he'd already be dead."

Never mind that Ilsenine is quite the old hand at enthralling others herself.

[Anastasia]

"By being as insightful as an old log," Crystal retorts, closing her eyes and facepalming, sinking down to the ground with her head buried in her hands. "Were you and Her Majesty..." she looks up, curling two fingers around one another.

[Ebiris]

"No," Afina rolls her eyes expressively, sitting back down with her legs dangling over the side of the windowsill. "I'll tell you if only to keep you from blundering into any other conclusions. Her Majesty has long been a very intimate part of my life but not in the way you imagine. She was jealous of my attention - it wouldn't do for her premier assassin to suffer distraction or a soft heart, so she took care to instruct me in how love was a weakness."

She sighs a little here, wishing she'd been stronger in the past, that she could have done things differently. But Ilsenine's force of personality could not be denied by the submissive and overawed pixie Afina once was. "I'm not an idiot," she states for the record, knowing the judgement that will come from her confession. "When I was younger I was the sort of sappy romantic you'd like me to be now. And every time I fell in love it would soon come out that my lover was an enemy, a traitor, a threat. And I was Ilsenine's preferred weapon for dealing with such things. And afterwards she'd comfort me, reassure me that I'd made the right choice and still had her full confidence... and so I hardened my heart, and chose loyalty over love time after time until it stopped being a choice, until love didn't exist in my heart any longer."

She's said enough, she doesn't need to paint a picture. Fixing her heterochromatic eyes on Crystal she concludes, "That is why it bothers me to see our Queen swooning around like a delicate maiden, in the full bloom of love that she so carefully snuffed out in me. But I won't do anything about it - like I said, she's suffered far more than I and if this gives her happiness, if this means she won't ever turn another starstruck entertainer into her tool of murder, then it's all to the good as far as I care."

[Anastasia]

Crystal flutters over to the windowsill, joining Afina as she tells the tale. She doesn't reply at first, just looking out at Aurora and Water beyond it. "It's like the tides, changing between high and low tide no matter our wishes. Perhaps..." Crystal trails off, closing her eyes to sigh, "Perhaps this is the proof she was wrong, Afina. Your Ilsenine of the past does not sound like a good soul, but a manipulator, a cold queen more suited to the Unseelie. "

As Water endlessly churns outside, flowing over Aurora's boundaries, "Don't let it bother you, Afina. As much as we are fey and not meant to be tied to good and evil, we are still part of this world. After confrontation with true evil, perhaps Ilsenine has learned to look to the good we call on as our allies. When exposed to the full depths of wickedness, is it any surprise she has steered a course away from the woman you knew?"

Now Crystal turns, going to meet Afina's eyes. "Did I not recently say that love was important? That after what happened to her, should there be any shock that she seeks its anathema, the purity of what opposes Baator now and forever? No, do not let it bother you. Accept it and quietly rejoice, for it may be a sign of growth and healing."

[Ebiris]

Well at least she hasn't gone haring off to avenge Afina's honour or something. Though admittedly some righteous indignation on her behalf would have been gratifying, it's not productive. "I imagine she didn't care to meddle as closely in the private lives of her knights," she says to explain Crystal's unfamiliarity with the Queen Afina knew so well.

"Anyway her Majesty still has my loyalty where it matters, and I do prefer her as she is now. I shan't ever tell her so for it's tantamount to thanking Hell for torturing her, but there it is." Crystal was there when she went to Celestia and spoke of how much greater she's become herself since the fall of Lifasa but she wouldn't ever thank Hell for it, the same concept basically applies. Really a lot of it was having time out of Ilsenine's shadow to grow back into herself again.

[Anastasia]

"Quite," Crystal says, "I was also preoccupied by my fellowship with the Court of Stars." She listens to the rest after, "Then I have but one question: If Ilsenine's heart has thawed and you admit you prefer her this way...why do you not seek to unthaw your own, Afina?"

[Ebiris]

Afina tilts her head back to look up at the ceiling. "I do acknowledge the ulterior motive that sharing this would impress on you that I'm not just being difficult for fun when I spurn your romantic overtures," she confesses. "But don't discount on how thawed my heart has become. If Ilsenine tried to command me as she once did, if she ordered me to kill you I like to think I'd refuse. It might not be the romantic love you want to see, but it's there."

[Anastasia]

"Thank you," Crystal smiles, a hint of sardonic amusement in her voice. "By your standards, I'm a blush and a wedding dress away from being your bride." Shaking her head and laughing a little, "All that aside, if you do care about her, do something. Perhaps you can make her blush like Moore does."