I am teaching myself how to be free. [Open]

[chasingtwisters]

It's early in the morning when Marina settles herself just on the edge of the water, letting her bare feet rest in the dampened sand where the water comes and goes. The sun is staggering out of the night and int the sky, casting the beach around her into an eerie glow. She has a book by her side, thick and heavy as any college textbook, except obviously older, with rips and tears all over the seams and pages. She has a topaz from one of the necklaces she owns curled protectively in her fist, and she wears a necklace made of lavender and mint leaves. Even if this doesn't work out, she muses, smirking, at least she'll smell pretty.

She found the spell Friday night, in her research. According to what she now knows of Moira Coombs, she ought to be able to pull this off, without any danger to the baby. Her hand with the topaz comes to rest on her swollen belly, thoughtful. I'm doing this for you, she thinks, because it's true. She doesn't know that she herself wants to entirely remember; but she owes her unborn child the truth, and, if she really is Moira Coombs, she owes it to Moira's sisters to remember, too.

She sighs, willing herself to relax. She drank the same chai tea Rian had before he'd read her hands to help her concentrate; now she just needs to do it, already. The instructions are easy enough to follow: raising her fist with the topaz, she holds it out over the water as she begins to read the words to the spell, written in a mixture of English and French, which comes to her from her high school French lessons.

The words blend musically into the air around her; the tide begins to pick up around her feet, whirling around her like a miniature whirlpool. She chants the incantation, repeating it the three times required, as warmth begins to cackle and pop within her, like fireworks. In the same vein, light begins to spark from her, and she worries briefly that she might, in fact, catch fire in doing this.

When she finishes the spell, she casts the topaz into the water. As soon as she does so, the water explodes, cascading around her and soaking her to the bone, though she does not feel the cold. She trembles all over as images and words spill out from all the cracks in her thoughts: her father teaching her how to swim on her fifth birthday, her twin sisters and her running together over the local playground, and her mother, when once she thought she cared about her. Moira manages one last gasp of air before the world fades to black and she falls back into the sand.

She awakens to the sun fully in the sky, and the chipper sounds of sea gulls circling around her, wondering if she has food. For her part, Moira feels groggy and unsteady, as though suffering from a hangover. She winces at the brightness and focuses hard on not losing what little she has in her stomach at the moment. And then it hits her, all at once. She's Moira Coombs; she got engaged in Europe, and she's about to become someone's mother.

And she's home, back in Siren Cove.

"Fuck!" She yells, still on her back on the sand, unsure if she has the strength to pick herself back up.

[OOC: Moira remembers! The spell itself takes place early in the morning, around four or five am. Moira herself waking up is set to 9 am. Feel free to have seen her perform the spell, or come across her still lying prone in the sand. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get Moira's shit together, but she's finally herself again! Any questions or concerns, just let me know!]

Comments

[aoife_coombs]

"I thought you did it because of water. We - us - the family, we have plenty of connections to water. Isn't it Latin, of something? But we call our little harbour marina as well, sometimes.." Already she's stuttering and stammering like any word can be the one to get a sigh or rolling eyes.

"Your place at the motel? Oh, no, of course not. Your little cottage. It's still in your name, of course. That's - that makes sense." Aoife gathers a wisp of wind around her shoulders, trying to relax. This is her sister, no matter what. "You missed a lot of things."

[chasingtwisters]

"Well, yeah. Because of the water and it made me sound more...magical, I guess," she says with a shrug. "Moira wasn't cool enough for me." It's easy enough to fall back into routine banter with Aoife. As though Moira hadn't left them all for Europe.

"I sealed it magically before I left," Moira says. "But you and Amelie should have been able to access it, if you needed anything. I just kept it from falling into anyone else's hands."

"I can only imagine," she remarks. "So what are the big ones that I've missed?"

[aoife_coombs]

"I never really felt comfortable entering there." Maybe it was because their mother had been so very against it. A cottage for a Coombs, Moira leaving the family mansion because she wanted her own space, away from their mother's opinions. Had Aoife ever had an opinion that hadn't been shaped by her mother? Was she weak, as well as dumb? "I wouldn't have thought of it either. Amelie, maybe. I'm just glad that she's considering coming back home, instead of staying at ..probably that Thornton's place. She's seeing Daniel, the youngest one. The artist." It still smarts when she says it out loud, but maybe more because she put herself over Aoife, instead of lust over the family name?

"Nerium, Auryn, and I raised a magic sealed version of Siren Cove. I just wanted more room to live, but she - it didn't went as expected, of course. I'm sorry. Ever since finding Thor, it's so much more pleasing to use magic. Joel had a baby. With his husband. Through adoption, of course." She sucks in her bottom lip. "Maybe that's the most of it."

[chasingtwisters]

"Oh." Moira says, hurt more than she'd like to admit by Aoife saying such a thing. Not that she can really be surprised; her relationship with her sisters, especially Aoife, has been strained, at the best of times. No wonder her sister didn't feel comfortable going to her home, even when Moira herself was away. "Oh, really? Amelie's dating a Thornton? I'm sure the gossip mill in this town is pleased as punch," she remarks. "As long as she's happy, that's all that matters to me." Clearly, judging from her tone, Aoife doesn't feel the same way.

"A magic sealed version of Siren Cove?" Moira pauses at that, her eyebrows arching as she takes that piece of news in. "And what did that entail, exactly?"

"Thor," she hesitates, suddenly remembering something Aoife told her as Marina about her dog. "Did you really get him from one of our dead relatives?"

[aoife_coombs]

"It very much is", she replies primly. "Pleased as punch. Amelie isn't as much because I'm not - I can't really support it. But I can't - we can't be without each other either, so we make do. I don't trust this Daniel, even though he doesn't seem to be as angry as his oldest brother. As long as she stays safe. And happy.It's a - subject.

Thor rolls over on his back, seemingly bored but his pricked up ears telling Aoife that he's still here for her. "It was a lot of fairy tale clichés, instead of everyone being more comfortable with magic." It was like admitting to stealing from the candy jar. "No-one got hurt, Moira."

She's unsure if she wants to share that story. Maybe Moira has been communicating with Windvane Coombs for the past years, making Aoife just the lesser option when her older sister wasn't around. "The necromancing witch showed up with him. The sullen girl."

[chasingtwisters]

Moira raises an eyebrow when Aoife hints at discord between herself and Amelie. For as long as Moira can remember, the twins have been inseparable from each other; Amelie's relationship with Daniel must be serious, then. "You make do? Like a compromise?" She asks, because she can hardly believe it, herself. Compromise generally doesn't run in the Coombs' genes, from her own experience. "Daniel's the artist one, right? I don't think anyone could be grumpier in that family than James." She shakes her head, still trying to process everything. She really has missed a hell of a lot in her time away from Siren Cove.

"Fairy tale cliches? Jesus," Moira says. She can't decide if she's sad she missed such shenanigans. God only knows what she would have wound up turning into, stuck in some sort of bad fairy tale. "I don't know this Auryn witch, but still. Nerium, Aoife? She's dangerous. You might as well have been playing with fire."

[aoife_coombs]

"She refuses to admit that this entire relationship idea is silly. Even if he wouldn't sell her out to get into the good graces of his horrible father, he has a history he can't escape. They have never noticed each other, but when the Coombs family is unstable, there's love, suddenly?"

Aoife removes the anger from her voice, remembers where she is and who's her company. "She won't give up on me, she won't give up on him. We don't discuss him, I never ever visit the Thornton house again just so the patriarch can make fun of us ..that is how it is. Right now."

Her voice turns even flatter when she has to reply to the rightful allegations Moira doles out. "I love playing with fire. Getting Thor was like losing every 'No' and 'Not like that' I've heard since I was eight. There's never enough magic right now, and I need it so much more right now. There's not much else. But yes, it was very dumb of me. Magic doesn't allow itself to be enslaved."

[chasingtwisters]

Oh Jesus, Moira thinks. Aoife seems to simmer with anger, and she can suddenly see why her younger sister sought refuge with Nerium, queen of all things dark and angry. In Moira's time away from Siren Cove, she's forgotten her sister's tendency towards the bias of the rivalry. Though there is also obviously, sisterly concern in the words that she speaks, Moira only grows more worried the more that Aoife carries on.

"Aoife," she begins, keeping her voice as neutral as she can. "Have you thought that maybe Amelie really cares for Daniel? If she's serious about this relationship, of course she's not going to think of it as silly. The whole rivalry itself is ridiculous, for that matter."

"And you can't keep on going like this, either," she points out. "Sooner or later, this shit always has a way of blowing over. Or blowing up."

"I'm not saying Thor is bad," she replies. "Actually, I think Thor is really great, and I'm glad you have each other. But Nerium. She's from a family with an even darker history than our own. Just...be careful, alright?"

[aoife_coombs]

"Our family history isn't dark!" Thor growls to underline her words, and Aoife pushes him away before he will do something stupid. She's not going to do something stupid, this is a conversation with her oldest sister she really needs to have. She's older now, she went through things, now she needs to be able to stand up to her sister without feeling like she's ripping herself apart.

"Amelie cares easily, it distracts her from thinking about herself. She still sees herself as a worthless witch, Moira, and no-one can or will help her. I'm not a teacher, but I so very much want for her to find her talents again. Every rune she scratches, she mutters about how useless it is. I know we're told too old to play with three, but I - she deserves to feel the completeness of magic. We all do, and mother kept us binded much too long."

Aoife sets her jaw. "I won't be binded anymore. By anyone or anything. It only -" No, she's not going to think of Isaiah. "When are you eh - expected to go into labor?"

[chasingtwisters]

"Not dark?" Moira lets out a snort at that. "Our mother alone killed more people than I count. She nearly killed our cousin. Not to mention, our various ancestors raging against the Thorntons and the town because of this stupid rivalry. Aoife, how can you not see how awful our family history is? It's one of the reasons I had to get away," she admits, pushing a hand through her hair. "Sometimes I still think there's a chance I could snap. Go over the edge. And I hate it more than I can say." She doesn't say she would rather be dead than wind up like their mother, but the intention of the words remains all the same.

"She can still love someone and think about herself, you know," Moira points out. "The two aren't mutually exclusive." She can feel a headache coming on, and she tries not to obviously flinch. "If she wants, if you both want, I can try and help with the magic. I don't know how much good I could do, but it's worth a shot, right?"

She wonders at how tense Aoife sounds. How upset. Clearly, Moira thinks, there's something more going on with her sister.

"The end of July," she says. "I'm hoping she comes out sooner. Pregnancy during the summer is hell."

[aoife_coombs]

"You always thought that. It probably started out as some puberty rebel thing and you just stuck with it", Aoife points out, suddenly so tired because of how quickly they slip into their old roles again. " I have worked through so many of our stories and the Coombs witches are not the villains of this piece. Not always, and definitely not ..there were several good blood lines", she finishes, weakly as ever. There have been a lot of changes, but Aoife can't completely let go of the comfort her family history gives her. Not yet. "We are characters, not collections of magic. Our surroundings will push us. If father would-" Her face crumples, but she catches herself before Moira will blame her for trying to solemnly claim him as a parent again. Amelie always got that idea from her.

"You should take it up with Amelie. Let her see that you are there for her, that you care for her. It's up to her, but I know the peace of being complete will make her feel better." It's what Aoife wishes for.

The pregnancy comment is nothing she can handle. Moira could have just not gotten pregnant.