It's been a year since Chryse's Arts were opened, but she cannot be said to have settled in to the covenant - indeed, if anything, she's become increasingly withdrawn and unpredictable over that time. All too often, she's woken screaming in the night, and during the day time she's slow and stupid with fatigue. She's also isolated - the only other children at the covenant are Petrus' apprentices, who give her a wide berth, and her attitude to Viola is a strange mixture of clinginess and a wariness which even the Parma doesn't seem to dispel.
[OOC: let me know what, if any, measures Viola has taken in response to this, but I am going to assume that nothing she's so far been willing to implement has effected more than temporary relief.]
Matters come to a head when a messenger from the local village arrives insisting that they come and collect their witch child now, before she damages any more of their boats. Following up, it becomes apparent that Chryse had run away in an attempt to find her mother, but had only got as far as the harbour when the villagers' refusal to allow her to take one of their vessals had resulted in a full fledged turbulance.
Viola has been as maternal as possible (any child who wakes up screaming in the night definitely deserves immediate comforting), though she always keeps in mind that Chryse is going to need to learn independence....Being a maga is not a sheltered existence, especially on the edge of the Order here.
Let's gather up the most sociable and charismatic shield grogs we can, and head down to the village.
Arriving at the village, you find that all of the rigging on one of the fishing boats has been transformed into brambles. Chryse is sitting on the ground, crying - she appears to have a red mark on the side of her face, and occasionaly phrases muttered to herself in greek are mixed into the sobs. She's being watched warily by several villagers - one man appears to have bloody scratches on his hands and arms.
Viola will ask the grogs to talk to the villagers, and promise whatever help is necessary to make repairs. In the meantime, she'll go comfort Chryse and see if we can calm her down.
Chryse takes some time to calm down, but gets mostly there eventually - she's still clearly fairly fragile. Her upset is partially caused by the villagers having panicked and hit her when she had a Turbulence, but also out of distress from the failure of her story - apparently the villagers should have given her a boat, and then she'd have sailed away and found her mother, and lived happily ever after with her.
The grogs, meanwhile, are largely successful in their own discussions with the villagers (the covenant will be paying for new rigging, and loss of time spent fishing), but they're quite firm that please can you take that crazy girl with you and not let her come back.
Let's do so, post haste. Then Viola is going to have to figure out a way to convince Chryse that messing with evil fae is a bad idea, even evil fae that gave birth to her. Where is what's-her-name the singer, anyway? Viola bets she might be persuasive, if random.
You take Chryse back, and ask Ipek to speak to her. Possibly it even works. At least, a few days later Viola notices that Chryse is looking a lot happier...
[I've been checking for the new post notification in this thread over and over, and somehow missed it. Ugh.]
Well...that's...good. Once Chryse has calmed down, Viola will attempt to engage in a good parental talk about her mother.Viola is not sure how to approach this, since the faerie lord who fathered her was perfectly nice, while her own human mother spent enough time around the fae and their oddities not to be bothered by something like the Gift. She left home and apprenticed to the Order voluntarily, and occasionally visits her parents, so this is all foreign to her, though she's certainly heard of other Merinita with stories not unlike Chryse's.
Eventually Chryse is going to have to see the world differently than she does now, and perhaps giving her some control over her magic will help by giving her more of a sense of agency. Viola is better at manipulating adults than children, but she suspects that competing with Chryse's mother for filial affection won't end well, which leaves developing indenpedence in Chryse as the most viable path.
So...during this parental discussion, let's make a point of asking Chryse what she'd like to be able to do with magic.
This time mentioning Chryse's mother does not set off a flood of tears, although there are points when Chryse looks a little worried or confused.
"When she planted something, it always grew. She used to show me all the flowers, even ones no one else in the village could find. She used to braid them into my hair, so no-one realised there were more of them growing there and got jealous. Except Sophia, but she was just a stupid drakoi child and no-one paid any attention to her unless she broke something."
She glances off to the side for a few moments, apparently concentrating on something.
When asked about her magical interests:
"Can I make people calm down? And be happy always? And make my own flowers?"
Viola thinks a few moments on these questions before replying.
"Yes....Well,there can be different ways you can calm people, yes? Maybe soothe their minds yourself with magic, or maybe show them pretty flowers. Always be happy? Well, no one is happy every bit of time, but happier and calmer, yes, you can. Flowers...flowers are my specialty. I usually shape them, not make them, but maybe you can make them?"