[ What Zelda is talking about sends a warm twinge of bittersweetness through Alice, makes her feel like the world has slowed to a crawl and she's getting to see all the details for the first time.
This is what it's like when someone forgives you, truly, sincerely. No one has ever done that for Alice, not without giving her hell first. From the moment she betrayed her friends in Castle Blackspire, she'd believed she deserved every bit of hatred and vitriol directed at her. She'd imagined some distant day when they would decide that she'd proven herself. When she'd gone to Modesto, she'd imagined a brand new life, a lie where she was a blank slate, and not the marred wreck of a person (or perhaps monster) she really was.
Zelda, for all her devotion to a cause that almost choked the magic out of their world... somehow, Zelda knows what it's like to be in Alice's shoes. That must be it, because only someone who's been there understands the desperate ache of hopelessness, of believing you truly deserve only suffering.
"You're not the only person that has done terrible things with magic." What the hell has Zelda seen in her long, long life? It doesn't really matter, though, does it, because they're both here now, and they both see the person the other is now, not who they used to be. Alice doesn't hold a grudge against Zelda for what happened after Castle Blackspire. She understands, in a way. She knows how mistakes of that magnitude are made. They both know how not to be because of how they were, and they forgive each other for that past. The difference is that Zelda is worlds more graceful about it than Alice is. Maybe that comes with age, or with mastery.
She has to clear her throat, discrete and quiet, and blinl a few times to get her focus back and her tear situation under control. Then, breathing deeply, she nods and puts her hands together in front of her, at a loss for what to do all over again, out of place, out of everything. ]
I... don't know what to say. [ Said very softly, head tilted a little bit down. ] I'll live up to it. My potential. I lost all the knowledge and power I had as a niffin, but I can still cast. I can... If nothing else, I'm a good student.
[ It'll take some getting used to, this being truly forgiven thing, but it's already something Alice likes too much to want to let go. It'll be okay. Somehow, it'll be okay. ]
( if they were the goals. and coming from a master magician who never let anyone know how powerful she really was, how much she knew? people assumed a lot, she let them, let them overlook her and believe that she was just a librarian. but zelda observed, learned, read... she'd built so much. and she was the one still standing, for better or worse about it )
And in some ways isn't building that now better, to find what you want, to explore it?
( because a human rather than a niffin would learn very differently, would explore differently. and this wasn't meant to shame or refer to what the niffin may have done but to try and bring some light and hope to the fact that she'd have to learn a lot again. it was her adventure now )
You have an entire library, worlds of knowledge. And whilst you had many resources before... you have even more now.
[ Even more knowledge, and now, her own library card.
This is a lot. The realization comes and goes like waves on the sand. Alice nods at Zelda, her mentor. This is all strange, but also... it feels right. ]
And time. I never had this much time before.
[ A flicker of a smile, wry and hopeful. They can joke around together, right? Neither of them is that tightly wound, that they can't make jokes? ]
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This is what it's like when someone forgives you, truly, sincerely. No one has ever done that for Alice, not without giving her hell first. From the moment she betrayed her friends in Castle Blackspire, she'd believed she deserved every bit of hatred and vitriol directed at her. She'd imagined some distant day when they would decide that she'd proven herself. When she'd gone to Modesto, she'd imagined a brand new life, a lie where she was a blank slate, and not the marred wreck of a person (or perhaps monster) she really was.
Zelda, for all her devotion to a cause that almost choked the magic out of their world... somehow, Zelda knows what it's like to be in Alice's shoes. That must be it, because only someone who's been there understands the desperate ache of hopelessness, of believing you truly deserve only suffering.
"You're not the only person that has done terrible things with magic." What the hell has Zelda seen in her long, long life? It doesn't really matter, though, does it, because they're both here now, and they both see the person the other is now, not who they used to be. Alice doesn't hold a grudge against Zelda for what happened after Castle Blackspire. She understands, in a way. She knows how mistakes of that magnitude are made. They both know how not to be because of how they were, and they forgive each other for that past. The difference is that Zelda is worlds more graceful about it than Alice is. Maybe that comes with age, or with mastery.
She has to clear her throat, discrete and quiet, and blinl a few times to get her focus back and her tear situation under control. Then, breathing deeply, she nods and puts her hands together in front of her, at a loss for what to do all over again, out of place, out of everything. ]
I... don't know what to say. [ Said very softly, head tilted a little bit down. ] I'll live up to it. My potential. I lost all the knowledge and power I had as a niffin, but I can still cast. I can... If nothing else, I'm a good student.
[ It'll take some getting used to, this being truly forgiven thing, but it's already something Alice likes too much to want to let go. It'll be okay. Somehow, it'll be okay. ]
no subject
( if they were the goals. and coming from a master magician who never let anyone know how powerful she really was, how much she knew? people assumed a lot, she let them, let them overlook her and believe that she was just a librarian. but zelda observed, learned, read... she'd built so much. and she was the one still standing, for better or worse about it )
And in some ways isn't building that now better, to find what you want, to explore it?
( because a human rather than a niffin would learn very differently, would explore differently. and this wasn't meant to shame or refer to what the niffin may have done but to try and bring some light and hope to the fact that she'd have to learn a lot again. it was her adventure now )
You have an entire library, worlds of knowledge. And whilst you had many resources before... you have even more now.
no subject
This is a lot. The realization comes and goes like waves on the sand. Alice nods at Zelda, her mentor. This is all strange, but also... it feels right. ]
And time. I never had this much time before.
[ A flicker of a smile, wry and hopeful. They can joke around together, right? Neither of them is that tightly wound, that they can't make jokes? ]