chasingtwisters | And it's my whole heart, deemed and delivered a crime. [Open]

The closer she gets to her due date, the more obviously uncomfortable Marina becomes. Currently, she's roughly the size of a yoga ball around her stomach; she waddles like a duck whenever she has to walk anywhere, and staying upright on her own two feet feels like a task out of Greek mythology. The summer heat doesn't help, of course; it bears down on her like God's own judgement, making her skin crawl with unease and sweat both. The fear increases, too. She doesn't know how to be anyone's mother; she doesn't even know if her life is what she's thought it to be this whole time.

She doesn't like admitting that the people in this town who apparently recognize her have caused doubt to creep inside her mind. But gathered like insects, all sorts of doubts crowd in her thoughts, adding to the chaos of her overly pregnant body. She couldn't even stay in the Quill, with all of the buzzing in her head.

So she's hear on the beach, near the water. The water calls to her, like a long lost relative. She feels an unspoken pull towards it, as though she were part of the tide itself. She doesn't question it; she meanders across the shore, letting her bare feet savor the cool, salt water licking against it. Even in spite of her pregnancy and worries, she feels calmer. Less prone to bucking away from Siren Cove like a skittish colt.

She smiles, lifting her arms up to the sky in a moment of relief when she feels a sudden splash of coldness across herself. She blinks, and looks down to find that she's gotten water on herself. But how?

That's when she catches sight of her hands, and the cerulean sparks flying from them.

"What the actual fuck?" She gapes, nearly stumbling over her own to feet as she tries to make sense of what she's seeing.

[OOC: Find Moira at the edge of the water, freaking the hell out over her own magic, which she's just beginning to discover again. Her memory still isn't back yet, but she's beginning to realize that her memory is not what it ought to be. Not a bad time to meet her, actually. Open to all!]

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Amelie had heard that her sister was back in town, although pretending not to be her sister. She hadn't gone to see her. It's not the first time Moira has run off, and last time she had, she'd torn the family apart. Amelie has had enough fighting with Aoife over the past couple months to last her a lifetime; the last thing she wanted to do was go and get into a fight with her other sister as well. Amelie's always been good at avoiding things, at not letting anything that wasn't perfect affect her. It's a trait she learned from Violet, one she hasn't been particularly keen on getting rid of.

Still, things with Aoife now are mostly okay, even if she's never going to accept Daniel, and she does miss Moira. They haven't felt like a family in forever.

Moira is down by the sea when Amelie finds her, and she can feel herself smiling. Maybe she's already decided to forget about this Marina nonsense and be their sister again. She's watching her as she heads down the beach, the wind whipping her hair around. Amelie sees the spark of magic, feels her heart leap - this is Moira, she's back - until suddenly Moira's face turns dark and confused and all of Amelie's hopes dash.

"It's magic," she says when she reaches her sister, bluntly. "Welcome home."

"Let me guess," Marina says, turning her hands over, slowly, as though that might rid them of the sparks flying from them. Beneath her, the water laps at her ankles, like an overly eager dog. She frowns, though she also can't deny that she enjoys this. A sense of calm flows through her, the more she makes the water move around her. "This is part of who I am too? I've always had magic?"

She turns to find herself facing a woman whose face strikes her instantly; like Aoife before her, there is a familiarity to this woman Marina can't shake. She supposes she must be another, supposed sister.

"So which one are you?" She says, looking her over. "Alice, maybe? You look like an Alice."

Even as she says it, she knows its wrong. Her frown deepens. Flashes of images burst throughout her thoughts. She's seen her before. She knows it.

Even when she apparently has no idea who she is, the control that Moira has over the water, over the magic, is perfect. She's always been a natural, a million times moreso than Amelie, and she can't help but stare at the way the magic moves so gracefully and easily through Moira's touch.

"You've always been good at it," she says, and it comes out maybe a bit more envious than she wanted it to, so she covers it up with a smile. "Mom and Dad were always so proud." The fact that Moira doesn't even start with the insistence that she doesn't know Amelie means she's been through this lots of times before. Amelie is willing to guess she's had to play this charade with half the town by now, and she's glad they can cut straight to the chase.

"I know you don't know who I am," she starts with a shrug, kicking off her sandals so that she can dig her toes into the soft sand. She does her best to pull her magic forward, responding to the sparks flowing around Moira, and when she calls her Alice she looks up with a grin. "Amelie. When we were kids you used to try to teach me how to use magic properly." She flicks her fingers, feels a rush of relief when a small spark of her own joins her sister's.

She keeps moving her hands around her in circles, unsure if she's trying to rid herself of whatever spell seems to be spilling forth from her hands or encouraging the magic running through her. The movement of the water encircling her is proving as soothing as a cup of tea.

She raises an eyebrow at the other woman's tone. "I'm supposed to be a witchy scholar, then?" She asks, her own tone amused at the thought. She's always been just good enough at what she can remember of her life in Boston. She frowns; if she thinks too much on it, she really can't recall her life in Boston. She tries to ignore the implications of that. "Sounds like the title of some melodramatic genre novel."

"Amelie," Marina repeats, almost starting when she sees the sparks flying from the other woman's fingers. She watches as the sparks join together, a strange sensation unfolding within her. She knows this woman. She doesn't know what she's supposed to feel. "I...wow. Not something you see everyday, then."

"No, no, the melodramatic parts are saved for me and Aoife. You're much more reasonable." This feels so wrong, trying to explain to her sister that she is her sister, trying to explain the family dynamics. She shoves her hands into her pockets and immediately feels the magic die off. Moira's hands are still covered in tiny sparks and she wonders whether she knows how to turn it off, whether she has any control now at all.

"Have you considered..." she's walking on dangerous ground here, and she chooses her words carefully. She doesn't want her to run. "If everyone in this town is telling you you're someone you don't remember, isn't it possible that maybe we're not all lying? If magic did this to you... Magic could undo it." Not Amelie, this is out of her league by far. But maybe Aoife, maybe Alodia.

"I don't know," Marina says, a teasing smile playing at her lips. It feels all too easy to fall into banter with this woman, which both proves reassuring and unnerves her. All of these sensations swirling around inside her, like the water around her; it's enough to nearly drag her under. "These past few weeks have taught me that I've got a penchant for the drama, or something like that."

She sighs at the woman's words, though she knows she means well. They just happen to mirror her exact thoughts, and rather than assure Marina, they only raise more doubts and questions in her head.

"I've thought about it," she says after a moment in thought. "I can't say I'm fond of the idea of my life being a lie."

She's smiling, so that's a good sign. She doesn't look like she's going to call the cops on Amelie any time soon. Although, if they did, she's pretty sure James Thornton would be on her side for the first time in their lives. "Well, sometimes. You did run off to Europe, after all."

Amelie swings her sandals in her fingers, feeling the water rush over her feet and feeling strangely relaxed in the face of everything. Moira has always had a calming effect on her, a way of making her stop and listen, and she supposes that hasn't changed even when Moira doesn't remember it. "Mmm," she muses, nodding, "that's fair. But isn't it better to know, one way or the other?"

Marina wouldn't call the cops on this woman, she realizes abruptly. The more time she spends in her presence, the more familiar she becomes with this woman who calls herself Amelie and her sister. It's a thought as comforting as it is frightening. "I was in Europe for business. I didn't run off," she says, her voice flat. Even in spite of her tone, there's an obvious uncertainty to her words.

"Is there a way to know for sure?" She asks, suddenly tempted by the very notion. She knows she can't expect every answer to every single question that she has, but if she could at least figure out some part of herself, well. That would be a start.

Amelie shrugs. This is the sort of thing they haven't really tested before, surprisingly. It's almost like in this town it's something they should have come across before, but she doesn't know anyone who's mastered a spell to fix memory loss. Maybe she should ask Aoife's friend Joel, maybe Les Parker.

"I don't know," she says honestly. "This is kind of the first time I've had a sister apparently contract magical amnesia." She's trying to make light of it, because it's easier than dealing with the fact that her sister doesn't know she's her sister, that she's about to have a niece or nephew who may never know that she's family.

"Magical amnesia," she repeats, blinking and shaking her head. Trying to wrap her head around it, even as she cracks a grin. "So I guess there's a magical term for everything, yeah?"

She glances back out at the water. Something about the vastness of the ocean is calming to her. Soothing. Like a balm. She wonders, for a moment, if it might help.

And it's my whole heart, deemed and delivered a crime. [Open]

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