(no subject)

[majestyofthethrone]

How do you keep faith, here? How do you remember that God wants...how do you keep some kind of faith, keep from losing your mind with the things that happen to us?

My whole life I've heard God; all I had to do was listen and there He was, like music, like a symphony, and even when I was at the height of being terrified, there He was just working the notes of this great symphony. But then I followed that music, I followed Grigori, and I did something and now I can't hear anything, for the first time I've lost God and I just want Him back-

What if I did was unforgivable? What if saving another person isn't enough? What if what I did has stained my soul?

How do I keep believing that God loves me when I can't hear Him anymore?

How do you keep faith?

Comments

voice;

[doggedly]

[Immediately skipping text and circular questions; this shit is too real for any of that--]

Where are you?

text;

[majestyofthethrone]

In the music room, I came back and I've been there since, I haven't left, really, just to occasionally get food, but I'm afraid if I leave the piano I won't be able to find my way back.

voice;

[doggedly]

I'll be right there. Twenty seconds.

text;

[majestyofthethrone]

Okay.

[doggedly]

[And, in just about twenty seconds (or three days), there's the loud crack of Apparation out in the corridor, followed quickly by a knock at the door of the music room.

Outside, Sirius stands back, waiting for the door to open, tapping his wand against his leg.]

[majestyofthethrone]

[She opens the door, and it's clear she's been having it rough, because she looks like a bit of a mess - her mouth is bitten, her eyes are red, but she just looks up at him for a second before she's reaching up to hug him.]

[doggedly]

[He accepts that embrace without hesitating, puts his arms around her and holds her close--because whatever happened to her out there has lasted in a way that maybe it shouldn't have, stuck in her head somehow.

It has to be something that happened to her in the ship. That's the only explanation for it. With everything he knows about Sera, there's still a great deal of her that remains mysterious. Whether it's because she's not saying or because he hasn't asked the right questions, that's an unknown, but there is something. But this? This is the ship. It has to be.

After a moment, he steps back, just a little--not enough to step out of that embrace, but enough to get a little distance--]

Let's go in the room. C'mon.

[majestyofthethrone]

[She nods a bit, lets him lead her. It easy - she offers no resistance, and she pulls the door closed behind her. It's been a long few days, with the silence making her crazy the way the music never had. She thinks maybe she might have knocked her piano out of tune, but she can't tell if the music sounds strange because it's so quiet, or because she's been mistreating her instruments.

The inside of the room is messier than usual, with a corner where she's clearly been sleeping, like a nest. She looks and grabs her slate from the music stand on the piano, and reaches into her pocket for some chalk, but she doesn't write anything down. She just stands there for a moment, silent, hand against the green surface of her chalkboard.]

[doggedly]

[The nest resembles the one she'd constructed in her room, all those blankets and pillows. That, at least, is familiar, like some bit of it was just transported here to a different room. The way she doesn't write anything is-- less familiar. This silence is a little weird, even if that's strange to think when dealing with someone who writes out all her responses, who communicates only in expressions and gestures.

Sirius studies Sera a moment, then reaches out to grip at the hand that's poised to write.]

You don't have to.

[Write anything, he means. He lets go of her hand in case she wants to, but. The sentiment is there.]

[majestyofthethrone]

[She keeps looking at the slate and then she drops it - it's sturdy, thankfully, so it doesn't break when it hits the floor - and she raises her hands to her face, the heels of her hands against her eyes and opens her mouth.

There's no sound. There's never any sound, and it's finally getting to her, the pervasive, invasive silence, that feeling of loneliness because she can't even blurt out what she wants to say, she can't even just let the ramble come out of her mouth. But she's crying again, and he presses the top of her head against Sirius' chest, like she's asking him to hold her.

She hates being this way. She's been told before that she's crazy, and part of her has always known it - that hosting God has made her lose her mind a little - but this is the first time she's felt it, the first time she's felt wrong and different in a way that she can't re-imagine into being part of something bigger than herself.]

[doggedly]

[He grabs for her arms, when she drops her slate, with the intention of steadying her--and then she's pressing against him and he has to shift that grip, put his arms around her instead and hold her that way. It's better anyways, an envelopment more than just a grip--but it's also all that he can do.

It's rare that he feels so useless, and he doesn't like it now that he's feeling it. What exactly is he thinking that he ought to be able to do?--but even as he's thinking that question, he knows that there's no answer, not really, because he doesn't know what's actually going on with her. It's like trying to read a book that's half in Troll, with another quarter of the pages ripped out.]

[majestyofthethrone]

[It takes a while, and she just moves closer, she just lets him hold her for a long time, but finally the sobs stop, finally she calms down, finally she moves his hands so that she can bend over and pick up her slate and write again.]

I think I'm crazy.

[She almost doesn't hold it up. Instead she passes it over to him, carefully.]

[doggedly]

[He lets her go, when she pulls away, and he takes the slate to see what she's written--and then he looks around at her quickly, sharply, just as he might if she'd said those words aloud.]

You're not.

[majestyofthethrone]

[She shakes her head again, huffing out a breath.]

There's a power in me and I don't know what it is or how to control it.

[Maybe she's thankful he said she's not. But she's not sure she believes it, either. She thinks - she's pretty sure - that she's completely insane, and that everyone around her doesn't notice because the silence protects her in some way. It keeps her from babbling.]

[doggedly]

[This is really more than he can remember her saying (well, "saying") about anything of the sort, and he stares at her words a second before he looks up at her.

But there is something, isn't there. Something that goes beyond math or music, something deeper. Once, maybe, he caught some hint of it--but better to forget that than linger over it.]

What power?

[majestyofthethrone]

[She never talks about it with him. Her relationship with Sirius was always just supposed to be fun and quiet and funny, not about the things that go on in her head.

But things change. She's been with him for more than a year. She's fallen - she suspects - in love with him, somehow, in the only way she can.

And maybe that means more trust.]

I think it has to do with why I can't speak. I think that...there's something about my voice.

[doggedly]

[He looks right at her as soon as he's read those words--doesn't even finish reading the last sentence before he's asking:]

Something like what?

[majestyofthethrone]

[She just looks at her hand for a moment.]

Something big.

When I scream, things change.

[doggedly]

[But you can't scream, he nearly says it, and then realises that might actually be something of the point.]

What-- happens, exactly? What changes?

[The first thing he thinks of are banshees, thanks to that wizarding education of his. But that can't be what she means.]

[majestyofthethrone]

[She looks a little cagey, for a moment. She's never had to explain this, and it's not exactly something easy for her to describe. She looks away for a moment.

And then she takes a breath and writes an answer.]

Just. Things. The way the world is.

[doggedly]

[Someone else might question the vagueness of that. It's very little explanation. But there are things that have no sounder explanation. Often they're things to be wary of.]

So-- that's what happened? Something changed?

[majestyofthethrone]

[She nods. A lot of things changed. She can feel it in her skull, the shifting of the world, the shifting of the universe, a softening, a weakening of the music in creation, if she could only just hear it again.

She knew it changed something when whatever that thing was got stunned, when the boy's attention snapped to her like her scream did something.]

I changed creation, Sirius. I did it.

[doggedly]

[He can accept a lot, without question. But that declaration is so broad, so-- undefined. Changed creation, changed the creation of what, is what he thinks, first, because he was raised on transfiguration and those changes of creation--

But that isn't what she means. He doesn't know what she means.]

What happened?

[majestyofthethrone]

[She takes a moment. He does magic, he changes things from one second to the next, but she isn't like him, she's not magic, she's different and strange.]

I think I made something die. Without touching it. Then I stabbed it to make sure.

[She looks terrified, like she hates that she did it, like she's afraid he'll be afraid of her, too.]

[doggedly]

[Without touching it. He studies her--warily, not out of fear, but more out of uncertainty.]

In-- the corridors, you mean.