wrfmlogsarchive | a strange sense of loyalty

Who: Margaret and Song
What: Guess who's out looking for trouble again...
Where: Twilight Town
When: Monday, May 3

Margaret had found a tiny cramped hotel room to stay in. She looked thinner than usual, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.

The shreds of Song's hair had been trimmed to a cut that came barely past her jaw. She had recovered, at least outwardly, from the loss of Radiant Garden, but she was rather brief with niceties. "I need your help with something."

Margaret nodded. "That somehow doesn't surprise me."

Song almost smiles. "A spell. I'm hoping you still know how to do it... but you won't like it, and I don't think you're going to agree right away, just give me a chance to explain..." She was getting a little ahead of herself, perhaps, but she'd had too much time to plan for this confrontation.

"Go on."

She pulled her necklace out from under her shirt and held up one of the rings. There were currently three on the chain, though not the original three it had held. One of those was with Josiah, and the one that replaced it was the apple blossom ring that had been meant for Xemnas, now hanging beside its twin.
The third was the opal, still nicknamed Firefrost after a magic stone in an old story, and it was that which she held.
"I need this to become like Ryuu's book."

Margaret's eyes widened. "I don't think you know what you're asking."

Song raised her eyebrows in response. "I've thought about this longer than you know."

"If you considered it a hundred years, you still would not understand what you are asking." Margaret looked Song tiredly. "Why would you ever want to horrible a thing?"

She didn't quite meet Margaret's eyes. "I told Chase it was for me, at least partially. That I need more time to master magic in my own way. To solve these mysteries of mine." she waved a hand vaguely, as if gesturing to said mysteries. "It would be true, but I don't want it just for that. It's for Josiah."

"True love is all very well," Margaret said softly. "But doing what you seek to do might very well destroy it. There are other paths to immortality. Follow one of them."

"It's not for true love." The muscles of her face were tense now, like she was trying not to scowl. "I'm not foolish enough to think I can make it last forever. I learned that lesson. No, I want this because I'm his friend. And I love him for that before I ever thought I might be in love with him." Now she did look into Margaret's eyes. "He's going to need a friend when everyone else withers and dies."

"Things live and they die. You enjoy them while they are there and accept their loss when they are gone. Anyone who is immortal must learn to accept this, whether one friend stays agelss with them or not. It would not be worth the sacrifice you would be making."

"He's making that same sacrifice, and he really didn't know what he was chosing. At least I do."

"No," Margaret said firmly. "It is not the same thing. You do not understand the nature of a phylactery."

"So give me another way. Or if you don't have one, then explain to me this undesireable nature and I'll find a way to change it."

Margaret explained, "to create a phylactery is to permanently lose a part of yourself. And it does not always work perfectly, more or less than you intend may go into the phylactery. You may not understand all that a part of you is when you seal it away. And then, it is too late, that part of you is gone forever, and the person you are is changed forever."

Song nodded patiently, apparently unperturbed. "That sounds about right. So, could there me a way to connect with the piece of you that is separated, even if it resides in an outside object?"
If there was one thing she'd learned during the last near-three years, it was that nothing is impossible. If she set her mind on something, she would never really stop trying.

"Then it would not grant you immortality," Margaret replied. "It is in locking away a part of yourself beyond time that a phylactery's power lies. Indeed, I find it quite likely that now that Aaron walks and breathes a mortal, your Ryuu is not so immortal as she had intended. But I cannot know. I do know that my own life is limited. The other part of me is too dangerous and one day must surely be destroyed. You are my friend, Song, and I would not have you lose a part of yourself. Here is my advice: go to Olympus and see if you can persuade a god to give you ambrosia, go to the Star Market and see if anyone can sell you life undying, go where you must and ask who you must, make it a new quest. But do nothing that destroys or locks away a part of your own heart. You have already lost yourself too many times, I do not know if you could find your way back again."

The only signs that suggested Song may have been turned away from this particular path was that her posture sagged slghtly and her gaze shifted away and down. Her stubbornness remained in the set of her jaw, however.
"...The Greek gods and the Market may ask for more than I can give, but I'll try. If none of that works, and I find nothing else, I will come back to this. With or without your help, I'll try. I'd much rather have help, though, because I'm more likely to screw it up alone." She actually grinned, slightly. "I would do it, though. Just for the chance that it will be alright."

"If you find no other answers, I am at least willing to discuss if further." Margaret sighed.

That seemed to satisfy Song, because she grinned more fully, and there was kindness and gratefullness in her eyes.
"Meanwhile, do you have any clue I can work with to deal with your creepy side without killing you?"

Margaret frowns, then shakes her head. "I was meant to be the phylactery, and I cannot seem to muster the strength to keep her locked away. I am only as I am now, I think, because she chooses to allow it."

"We'll see," Song said. "You know I'll do what I can." She was much more cheerful ending this meeting than she'd been at the start. She already had a new plan. Ambrosia and Star Market spells seemed unlikely, but she knew a potential guide to the Fountain of Youth. And he was coming back... eventually.