Car Underwater [Emy]

Adrian Hexe Grimm

A little aways, Adrian was having her sort of moral dilemma. Maybe on some level she had hoped that going to Manta Carlos would solve all of the emotional baggage she had brought with her but after a year of being on the island, she was starting to conclude that it was hopeless. For all of the magic and powers that saturated the place, a school was still just a school. People would still be people. And her sister would always be herself.

Or maybe that was just what Adrian hoped. Aurélie really had changed on the island, but not in the way she had wanted. Ever since her older sister had murdered that kitsune princess, her presence had become quieter on Manta Carlos. Not because Aurélie had decided to go peacefully. It was because she had started to actively carry out an eradication of nonhumans on the outside. Getting them before they came to Manta Carlos, that was the plan now.

Adrian had not used her powers for quite some time. With their limited range, she was now useless to her sister in that regard. She supposed that she should have been relieved but the point of the matter was that Aurélie was still doing as she pleased and Adrian was still hesitating on what course of action to take. Maybe, if she had somebody to talk to, they could convince her to take a stand for once. But in the year she had spent at Starlight, she must have played her part too zealously. Having come to the island with no allies, she still found herself without any.

Well, that was all right, she supposed. It was easier just to go down the path she had made for herself. It was simpler, and she thought that the end was more clear. It wouldn't be the prettiest ending to a story but life wasn't pretty and it could have been so much worse. She would stay by Aurélie's side, then, and no more of this ridiculous hesitation.

The world felt so much clearer with that decision, like a mist had been lifted from her mind. For the first time in a while, she really felt like she had a moment of peace from both the world as well as her own conscience. At least until she heard somebody else's slurred speech from further down the lakeside.

Turning in that direction instinctively, the young lady was ready to write it off as a typical drunkard's scenario until she saw something flash in the darkness. Immediately alarmed, she came closer, only to hear his words.

Despite everything, Adrian was not the sort to let somebody just commit suicide in front of her. "I would put down the knife if I were you," she said loudly. "That seems like a rather rash thing to do."

Adrian Hexe Grimm

Most of the time, Adrian was simply quiet. It was rare that she was truly at a loss for words but this situation had thrust her squarely into that position. This man was not making any sense in the least, as expected of somebody drunk. But she thought that alcohol was supposed to loosen lips, not dissolve somebody into a gibbering wreck. That sort of thing seemed like something that could only be found in the movies. Though, it was true as well that due to her upbringing, Adrian was seldom around people who were well and truly in over their heads in this regard.

"Just how much did you drink?" Maybe there were more appropriate ways to handle the situation but none of them were readily apparent to the young lady. She came closer to where the man lay on the ground, exercising as much caution as she thought she should.

"I sincerely doubt that it would be the end of it," she told him. "Considering where we are and who frequents the area, I think that it is fairly safe to say that the existence of an afterlife has been confirmed. Possibly several. I think that it would be hard to ignore that."

Although, Adrian herself had forgotten the fact that drunk or not, she should most definitely not be speaking to an unidentified stranger. It had been months since she had been involved in any real trouble on the island and the experience had turned her somewhat lax.

But she did think that he was quite touched in the head. Talking of having to do something as foolish as this, that seemed insane to her. And she completely overlooked the fact that feelings of having to do something were very much integrated into her own nature.

Adrian Hexe Grimm

She felt a twinge of something in her heart seeing the young man there, something that must have been borderline pity because the sentiment kept her rooted to that spot. Every logical thought in her head told her to walk away, that she had no business dealing with this person. That the best reaction to this might actually be to pick up the phone and dial Aurélie of all people. Aurélie who could spin a story at a moment's notice and draw people to herself like a spider. Aurélie who was actually capable of defending herself if something went wrong.

Adrian stayed where she was. When it was offered to her, she plucked the mostly empty bottle of alcohol from the young man's hand and frowned. Sniffing it briefly, she found it to be a cheap variety, not surprising considering that he was probably a student at the Academy. It was actually against her personal code to drink alcohol unless it was absolutely necessary, but she figured that he had enough of it for the time and she might as well hold on to it to prevent him from having anymore.

"You cannot possibly mean that," Adrian chided him severely. "That would be the alcohol speaking for you. And unless you have sold your soul already, I honestly doubt that it has been ruined." It was a philosophy that she clung desperately to because she was certain that if a soul flourished and deteriorated based off of personal actions, no person in her family save perhaps her father would be clean. No, no. Judgement would have to be reserved for the very end and so as long as she lived and breathed, there were opportunities for. For something more right.

"Things will always become worse but they also have this tendency to right themselves eventually." A little at a loss, she looked around to see if there could possibly be anybody else around at this hour. It seemed to be just the two of them. "This is a rather poor way to go, is it not? Drunk by the edge of the lake and fumbling with a knife. Is this really how it has to happen?"

Adrian Hexe Grimm

The direction that the conversation had turned to took the young lady by surprise. Suddenly instead of it being about her talking down a suicidal drunk, it was about a suicidal drunk who was flirting with her while about to do himself in. "You are mad," she told him, too astonished to prevent her tone from rising into something like a question. "You are absolutely out of your mind!"

But then a different sort of revelation brushed against her mind and she looked at the situation with a changed pair of eyes. The two of them, they were so far away, too far away for her to actually do anything. So against her better judgment and feeling completely lost, Adrian stepped into the lake. As the little waves splashed against her ankles, soaking through her socks and shoes, she shivered but the thought to turn right back around or to kick them off never crossed her mind.

It was summer but the lake was still too cold. Though her sister might have favored such elements like ice and water, Adrian had always simultaneously preferred both darkness and fire, like stars shining in the night. Yet even though in the darkness of the lake, she could see no stars reflected there, she could not bring herself to look up at the sky. They were there, she knew, but she did not look for them tonight. Instead, Adrian settled on this uneasy reconciliation of herself and her sister. Darkness instead of ice, water instead of fire. Had circumstances been different, she would not have had to settle for such a poor arrangement that could not withstand the pressure of separation, nor the suggestion of strangers.

The lake made quiet sounds as the water accommodated her movements. At last, she stood opposite of that young man, as deep in the water as he was. The fact that he was holding the knife again registered dimly in her mind. Language, too abruptly became a barrier has German and French froze her understanding of English. (There was, perhaps, a limit to how many kinds of mind manipulation that a person could be subjected to before they simply lost the ability to fight even the most mild of effects. But that was a thought for another time, one which Adrian would never have.)

She opened her mouth, stammering quietly as she struggled to get words out. "D-don't," she said, without knowing exactly what she was warning him against. Knife, danger, something about the lake.

The waters were leeching away her warmth but it was hard to forget that on a good day, she had often seen them as a quiet sort of companion. When the light glinted off the surface, Adrian could dip her fingers into water and pluck the world from their depths. But to do so, she always needed to distort the reflections that the water held and even then, she could never disappear herself into it. Too risky to try; knowledge of being able or unable to was not worth her life.

That night, the lake held no reflections and even without trying, Adrian would disappear into it anyways.

Adrian Hexe Grimm

Even as she shivered in the lake, the young lady could still feel sweat beginning to form on the back of her neck. Then the distance between him and her had grown again into something unacceptable. He was too deep in and she was only in shallow waters. The chill of the lake was freezing her thoughts into a single minded goal. Adrian had to reach him. The knife had to go, too. And passed that, her mind was at a blank slate. But everything had to be done one step at a time. So she took a few more steps forward.

Her English did not return to her. That fluency in language which aristocrats prided themselves upon, it had dwindled into the black waters. They say in Beowulf that after the victory feast of Grendel's death, his mother came up from cold waters and snatched away King Hrothgar's closest adviser as revenge. Her mind made the vague connection between loss of knowledge and the lake, one which she ignored.

She came to the man's side, deeper in the water. He could clearly see her from where she stood and her hands made a hesitant grab for that knife. In her mind, she was still saying, Don't. Don't use the knife.

In legends like Beowulf, she knew that the hero always emerged victorious, whatever the cost. But Adrian was not a hero. She had always been the villain of another story.