Private Sometimes You Need Your Butt Kicked

Good, Andrasta wasn't really in the mood for fighting anymore. She grinned a little and sat down next to Dalia, victorious.

It sounded like Dalia knew about some horrible things Anathema had done. She wanted to say she wouldn't be freaked out, that she had probably collected even worse memories from some of her past lives - but maybe there was something Anathema did that could still freak her out.

"Well. It'd have to be pretty bad to freak me out. My past lives did some pretty bad stuff. Plus I'm the toughest girl on the island, so, do your worst."

Andrasta was shocked. She didn't realize that Anathema might have done something to one of their classmates. She was used to these types of things being in distant places or distant times. Far away, where it didn't affect her. Just like the memories Dalia inherited from her mom. Andrasta was used to being insulated from the horror of these things. This was different.

She took a breath, staying quiet, processing.

"You know I'm not gonna tell anyone." She didn't want to let Dalia be worried about that. "And... You said you were freaked out about that happening, right? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's how a good person's supposed to feel about something like that." A good person like Dalia. Or, hopefully, like herself.

Andrasta thought back to some of the darker memories she'd seen flashing vividly in her mind. Dalia used to have that kind of thing too, but maybe that was easier for her because it was a different person. Dalia had actually done these things, technically.

She didn't know what the right thing to say would be, so she bought some time by giving Dalia another hug. She looked like she needed one pretty badly, hugging herself like that.

"So, are you kinda... scared of yourself? Because you're worried you might do something bad?"

There were a lot of things that Andrasta really didn't understand about what Dalia was going through. Maybe some of her past lives could understand parts of that, but Andrasta couldn't.

"Well... we can kinda relate 'cause of us both being pretty weird." Between that and the memories of other people's lives where they did horrible things to people, they had some common ground, she guessed. "Weird kid solidarity," she added, flaunting one of her new favorite big words.