Nightingale PV Rowan Bane Finished

Filii domini impiarum animarum.

Cel's chin dipped in affirmation at Rowan's verbal repeat of her name, hesitating just slightly before doing so, for she was aware that the word was not uttered in inquiry. She accepted the proffered water gratefully—tilting her head back to waterfall from the bottle without touching it, hair blocking the light filtering in through the windows momentarily until she brought the bottle upright again. Maybe he hadn't touched the bottle yet, but there was always a chance, and germaphobes didn't take chances. Besides, maybe he would appreciate it, too? This was a practice the girl performed with her own family members, even; idly Cel hoped that she would not be judged for it. She handed it back with a nod of thanks, although the girl chose not to deign vocalizing any of her gratitude. Should she have? No, no, too late for that now; it would seem awkward. And Svana would probably kill her, had she been present to see her stepdaughter's action—or lack of such, at any rate.

Cool water soothed her throat, although it would be a while before her stressed larynx was completely back to normal. In reality, this was an experience she was accustomed to, which was not good, but that didn't mean it wasn't something the young Ravenclaw should have avoided. What could she say? She was competitive by nature. Most likely, she gave no regrets. And no harm done, anyway.

In the slight pause her thoughts meandered away from the present, errantly worrying if she'd said something wrong, as usual, wondering if his silence might be because of his own thinking or because of something she'd done wrong. But Cel placed the little orb down on the side of the piano, stopping for a few seconds to assure herself that the orb would not fall and break after it left her view, and twisted back to face Rowan again, fabric winding around her torso as her clothes rippled with her own motion.

When he did speak again, what she felt just momentarily could best be described as miffed. A child of the damned, eh? He might as well have called her a bastard. But then she thought back to her own history, to her own family, and honestly, she couldn't really argue. Even if the real caudex had been her stepfather, not her blood father... well, people were kind of stupid, weren't they?

Wait. "What?"

Exactly how had Rowan figured that out? Sure, maybe if he was a Pureblood and such he might have known, but she'd never seen him before, and Dorian had quite adamantly made it a rule that whatever Pureblood family that the dramatic story was leaked to would have to receive the information while she was present in flesh. They hadn't wanted drama, wanted this to become such a public affair, as the Fawley-Rowle Soap Opera had, as she liked to call it in her head. And even if it had been spread through gossip, precisely what everyone had been instructed not to do and what everyone probably had already done, the words didn't match up. "I have heard you before." No, no. He couldn't have. Could he?

"And... how would that have happened?"

Wait, no. No, no, no, no. Her brain regretted her own inquiry seconds, entire seconds, after the last word left her tongue. That was a bad idea. Why didn't she put two and two together before? This must have happened before England. This must have happened before her mother became a ghost. This was... not a good thing to be thinking about. But too late. The question had been asked, and an answer was surely forthcoming, and it was better to simply let the flashback hit her now instead of going through the agony of remembering the details later. Or maybe it wasn't, because later would be in the familiar company of her dorm. But no. Too late. Too late.

Filii domini impiarum animarum = Child of the Damned
Caudex = Stump, an insult similar to 'blockhead'

“SHE HAS RUINED- EVERYTHING FOR ME!”

”Get out of my house. The babe is sleeping.”

”I WANT HER- GONE!”

A curse- or jinx or something was yelled. From his mother. The sound of air rushing out of someone’s lungs followed. Then silence. The sharp click of elegant heels on marble broke it. 

Rowan was holding his breath, afraid of making a single peep.

“Come to this home again, and I will finish the duel I have started.” 

Soft crying reached his ears.

“You would recognise me better with jewellery on. Rings. Earrings. Little gems all over the shell of my ear.” 

Rowan removed the crown of flowers, pulling his hair back. It used to be longer- yes- but he could still do the slick back look he had worn constantly as a child. The crown had come later after his mother had passed. 

She most likely wouldn’t recognise him, but he had to try. 

Rowan fished the chain from inside of his robes, taking the many rings off. The transformation was swift, but effective. He looked very close to his younger self. If she remembered him whatsoever, now would be the time. 

“Your father- when you were very young- came to our house, claiming a wife bore a child that was not his own. You visited days before with your mother. You saw me then. My mother called you... enfant des damnés... child of the damned. She did not want to get involved in your family affairs.”

Only then did he realise her expression. His mistake was apparent to himself then.
And not only her expression. 
That had been the first memory of his mother in awhile. Tears welled in his eyes. Another mistake. He had shown emotion infront of this girl  

Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.

Absconded, left, escaped and disappeared. Those words were what her stepfather was now, if he could even be called her stepfather anymore. She tilted her head, trying to see him another way, already feeling the faint harbinger of panic beginning to seep its roots into her mind. A jewel-encrusted boy. Face a little younger. Hair a little longer. She had... she had to stop... "He's not my father," the girl managed to get out, acerbic as the bitterest vinegar, before the darkness claimed her.

She'd thought... that he looked like a diamond.

A faceted, glimmering diamond. A brummagem, she could have called him, if she'd known the word back then. Too much light, too many sides, too much show. Pretty, of course, but she found the crystalline arrangement of carbon strands much more beautiful than the flashing streams of light ricocheting around with every movement. They were over-cut to her. An uncut diamond was much better in her eyes, carrying a more raw, natural grace, glimmer and whisper far different from sparkle and shout.

"Now, Celynne, staring is quite rude. Leave the young man be." The little girl dropped her fractured, unbalanced gaze, half-plaited hair falling around her shoulders as she turned away from the strange people, trying to hide. Her hands fiddled with the stiff fabric of her dress. It was a pretty piece of fabric, dainty and elegant, but the fabric scratched her shoulders, irritated her legs, and was generally not agreeable. But her father had insisted, saying that she needed to dress nicely, and that this was a nice dress. Cel knew better than to argue any further.

Exactly why she was there, she had no idea. She wasn't even sure that her mother knew, but her mother hadn't been out of her room in weeks, and Cel herself was rarely allowed by her father to see her. He said she needed rest. Was she really so bothersome? But she shrugged her doubt off; after all, it made sense to her, even if she didn't like it. Her mother was just sick. She'd get better, right? There was still the matter of why she was there. Who were these people? Why did her father want to meet them? Why couldn't her mother come too? "We're going to see the Banes," her father had told her. "Your mother is tired, okay? She doesn't need to know. It will make her more tired." But the girl stayed silent, questions swimming in circles around her mind.

Cel gasped as her mind surfaced, eyes flying wide open again, light wrenching her mind back to the present. For a moment, her thoughts blurred, dancing on the edge of a knife between present and past. The pale dress... the strange people... her mother... suddenly she cleared, the relash fading, eyes focusing again. They cast about the room in a wild search for something to hold onto. The orb by her side. The piano behind her. The boy in front of—

Ah... faex.

As soon as the eyes went unfocused, and her expression changed, Rowan knew what was happening. He had experienced the same things many times over. Too many times. His symptoms just usually included tears in the list. 

Rowan stripped the jewels from his skin once more. He was no longer the snobbish, manipulative, empty boy. He would never be him again. His hair went down again, the crown forgotten as he instead went to take her hands. The contact would probably be unwanted, but she would need something to ground her to reality. It would snap her into focus faster, infact, if she had anger to come back to. 

“Hey, hey, none of that. Celynne, Come back. Come back.” 

He leaned forward a little, rolling just a bit closer. He tapped the orb, figuring out quickly how it worked. A calm melody filled the space. Something to fill the empty space as he waited for her to come back.

Which didn’t end up being long. 

“It’s alright. I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to trigger that. Please. Get mad at me. I deserve that and more for making you see... whatever you saw.. triggering that event. The flash back. Whatever you choose to call it.” 

It was true. He knew how it felt to have such an event. He would hate anyone who triggered such things. Though now that he thought about it, Riley triggered them sometimes, but he didn’t hate him for that. Odd.

E cantu dignoscitur avis.

Recognize the bird by its song. Cel shook her head slightly to clear it further, then flinched away from Rowan even as he spoke, slender pianists' fingers yanking abruptly out of his grip. Her sharp exhale seemed loud and disruptive to her in contrast to the boy's softer words, but she couldn't help the breath driven out of her lungs as the pain began hitting her in waves, agony beginning to dig its talons into the darkest crevices of her mind. The young Ravenclaw pulled her knees up to her chest, hands instinctively shooting up to her temple, robes pooling around her slight form.

Managing to crack open an eyelid and look up a couple of centimeters, she shook her head slightly, realizing what Rowan was apologizing for. "It's not... what you think it is," the girl gritted out. No, this wouldn't do. A real explanation was due. The headache could wait, or she would make it. It wavered slightly then, pulling back for just enough space to form, well, coherent thoughts—mental magic was strange, to change under will like it did.

Cel took a deep breath, raising her gaze, testing her limits as she peered out from under a cover of dark hair. "My flashback is not like the ones you might usually see. ...this is of magical origin. Of an obliviation." But of course her family had chosen to stay quiet about that. Perhaps she seethed now, wishing that they hadn't unanimously and enthusiastically agreed to keep the events of the Gray Household out of the public of Purebloods, what with all the drama surrounding the Fawleys already, but she deep down she knew she didn't regret it—knew for sure that her adamant decision was a good one.

Still, in the world of Purebloods, gossip and hearsay spread like wildfire from ear to ear, from whisper to whisper. Some rumors ought to have survived, and survive they did, for the cryptic stories woven around the fourth member of the family had grown into a variety of contemplations so multifarious that each contradicted the other in entirely preposterous ways. In truth, nobody knew what to believe, only knew that their questions would most likely not be answered until the family, the entire family, was ready. And that included the new daughter herself, like it or not. Rowan was a Pureblood, that much she was certain about. But how much would he recognize from the name Gray? How much or how little had the stories truly spread? This was why gossip was a dangerous thing.

"Perhaps you would comprehend if I offered you a surname Gray," the girl murmured in suggestion, just loud enough to be heard, halfway tipping into the zone of inaudible. This could go both ways—it all depended on how much the stories had evolved and how much fame they had earned over the past few months. Hopefully not much, but also hopefully enough so she wouldn't have to start from the beginning. Rrrghh. This was too complicated to deal with at the same time as a headache.

“I... don't know. It has not come up much, aside from the fact that the name is linked to pure wizarding blood."

He cocks his head to the side, trying his best to wrack his mind for the name. Rowan recognised it, he knew that. But aside from that? Not much. 

The girl looked to be struggling. He didn’t want to contribute more to that. Rowan rolled back a little from her as he thought. 

After a few minutes, he was forced to give up. He shook his head slightly.

“I’m sorry. My parents took me to functions and many many dinner parties but I believe they... they kept that information away from me, if I had a chance of remembering anything about your visit. Does Bane ring a bell for you?”

His family was old. Maybe one of the oldest out there. Constricting, as most purebloods are. Though in the recent years, there had been a spike of rebellion. His father was not apart of the spike.

His aunts and uncles, were. His father got the house when grandmother and grandfather died because of this. Paintings had been removed as needed from the halls. And added, as needed. Rowan was most likely not going to last long in his fathers household when he knew of the boy he had grown into. 

Nimium altercando veritas amittitur.

Bane. Bane, bane, bane. Ugh, who knew that Svana's insistence at reading over Pureblood branches might come in handy someday? Or maybe it wasn't that useful, after all, because the only thing that she remembered about it was that it existed. In a book. About Purebloods. ...somewhere. "There's... not much I can recall," Cel confessed, shaking her head a little. "I'm, uh, a bit new to the Pureblood world." It wasn't until after she had finished saying the words that she realized how strange that might sound, how absolutely nonsensical it might seem to one who hadn't known the story behind her existence.

So they'd been thorough in their tightness of information, or Rowan's parents were simply not the most informative. No matter; she would simply have to explain by herself. Perhaps it would be better, too, to understand from a firsthand point of view than from rumors passed around like a dirty nickel from hand to hand. First, though, she needed to... the headache. Yes. That was what she needed to focus on. "I realize that may sound strange," she began, wincing a little as a fresh wave of pain washed over her then receded again, then proceeded, "but I can explain more—maybe... if I could, if you could maybe help me, get to the Hospital Wing." Maybe on the way, too, if she had the strength and he decided to help instead of fleeing in the face of strangeness, but she was first uncertain of what his choice would be, and second not sure if she had the strength.

She'd make the strength, deodamnatus.

Over the summer, Dorian had insisted to his parents that Cel needed extra help to deal with her pain, at least until the obliviation wore off, which they were not entirely certain or informed of. Nobody was, really. They had been refused at first, with her brother a bit too headstrong and herself a little too timid, but the parents had relented after presented with Parker's affirmative word as well. In good time, too, because by the time that adequate amounts and effects of potions had been brewed and stored, Cel had been off to school, tonic dropped off in the Hospital Wing. She'd tried not to rely on it too much, but there were times when it was necessary. This was such a time.

Now, the Hospital Wing was only one floor down. On nights when the headache happened under the stars, a couple of her dormmates were enough to make the trek down a tower and just way too many flights of stairs to her salvation. Just one other person, even one in a wheelchair, would likely be more than enough to help her down just one flight without too much trouble, if not for support then simply for distraction or a goal. How funny it was, to have to explain herself to a person she had just met a couple of minutes ago, but he seemed a decent person. By that we mean, of course, a decent friend, because people ship other people too much regardless of said other peoples' sexuality.

"It started with my father," Cel offered as a beginning of a long, too long story. "And—and my mother, Natalia Selwyn. Perhaps... maybe Selwyn would be a more clear name to you?" Her voice no longer shook as she mentioned her mother, but with it came the wistful heartbreak she felt when the ghost's hand passed through her forehead as she attempted to brush a strand of hair from her daughter's face, when that daughter could not embrace her mother. Such tragedy. But Natalia was a Selwyn, and Selwyns were well-known. And so would be... well, her death, four years ago.

“I have heard stranger. Though know I prefer not to speak of the dead, so if it is not critical to the story, I would like to skip over that part. And if it is, speed through it. Dead mothers, dead wives... You’re not the only one with a number of dead relatives.”

He took a hold of her arm, gently guiding her down to the halls. In the opposite direction of the stairs, if I may add. Though Rowan could not navigate stairs. And not only that, but his route, that did not require stairs, was much faster. Most of his ramps led to the hospital wing one way or another. Which was odd. Maybe there was a professor at one point with a wheelchair. Or maybe they just thought ahead and made the routes to the place where people would use it most. 

Anyhow. It would be easier to go this way then fighting with the stairs. 

Rowan knew about the dead woman though. Granted, it was mostly the fact that she had been a mother, and she was now dead, but he also knew vaguely of the fact that she had been involved with something she shouldn’t have.

Non compos mentis.

The girl looked away just slightly as Rowan replied, stating his similarity. Was she going to cry? No, no, she was not going to cry. Having a flashback in front of an almost-complete-stranger was troublesome enough. But she was going to take a moment to let out a long breath, wait for the prickling sensation behind her eyes and her nose to fade away, and clear her throat. Cel turned back, collecting herself, and nodded, agreeing. 

They had entered the halls at this point, Cel following with unhurried footsteps. For a moment their path confused her—the Hospital Wing was a floor below them; shouldn't they be going toward the stairs?—but a split second later she understood, eyes widening just imperceptibly in the way they did whenever she made a realization. Hogwarts provided accommodations for everyone, she supposed, but whatever house he was in, she'd never seen him in Ravenclaw, and if he knew where the Common Room was, he'd probably be glad that he wasn't in Ravenclaw too.

Wherever they were going, though, it wasn't in a direction that the young Ravenclaw was familiar with, so she kept her pace a leisure step behind him. Talking or otherwise interacting with someone else always helped distract her from the pain, though: no time like the present to tell her story, gossip be damned. "It started with my... father," she began in barely more than a whisper. Father was the word, but it felt strange and tin-like in her mouth. The closest thing to a father she had really known would be more Parker than Rasmus, as much as he tried, and certainly not Asher himself. "He left my brother's mother, Nia Feld, when he found out she was pregnant, got depressed, and then got my mother pregnant with me, though he didn't know at the time that she was already married. To my stepfather, not my actual father; that was who you saw, Asher Flores. My mother was sick ever since I was born, and." The girl blinked a few times, breathed a couple of deep breaths.

The summary that she was giving was shortened and not the most detailed, but it would get the main point across. Nobody needed to hear a finely painted, heartfelt story right now. Clean and clear, that was what she needed, not any of this emotional crap, but it was still hard. "Sorry. And. And she passed when I turned seven, and my stepfather—"

Her mother was dead. The thought repeated itself in her mind, over and over, as if to pound the understanding of the thought into her brain. Truthfully, she understood. She understood perfectly, in such a way that young seven-year-olds should not: Celynne knew that her mother was no more, that she would not be in the house to greet her tomorrow morning, that she would never see her face again till death, and perhaps not after that either.

Yet what seven-year-olds really should not understand is the cause of the death on life-- and that was what she understood so clearly. In a dull pitch of thought, like a robot’s strings of numbers, she drilled over what her mother’s death might mean: Her father, the icon of hate and coldness to her, would be devastated-- for though he never cared for her, she knew he loved her mother so. And she knew that her birthday had come and passed, so she was seven now, and she quietly, sorrowfully, thought of what bad luck had brought her mother through the gates of death on her birthday.

A tear escaped the corner of her eye as she slid against the wall from her standing position to kneel, a numbness filling her to take away the despair. Numb, unfeeling… thoughtless...All of this she had seen before, known before. Go back. Go back.

Some barrier in her mind crackled and broke, racing through time unnaturally.

...dropped to the ground, folding in on herself to escape her father’s glare. The words he uttered sparked a wondering, a thinking, in the back of her mind, a seed that cracked open to begin to grow-- but now was not the time to water that seed-- her father had just given her a death threat. Death, the highest form of duress...

...reached the door, she spun again, eyes wide, to stare down the hall that she had grown familiar with in the seven years of life she had sustained, a last farewell to the manor. Eyes darting about, Cel’s hand flung out to twist the doorknob, rip the dagger that hung off the wall-- her mother’s dagger-- and began to bolt out the double doors backwards, moonlight illuminating her path in the white droplets of crystal rain... something hit her in the back, hard...

She was back.

Cel gasped in a breath, almost falling to the ground  as space warped around her vision again, one hand supporting herself on the wall as she caught her breath. Her mind, playing tricks on her again; that was what this was. She closed her eyes, stilling herself, willing her tachycardia to go down. "I'm—sorry... just... give me a moment."

Non compos mentis = No sound in mind

The girl- Celynne looked like she was going to topple over in an instant. Rowan quickly stopped and flung an arm out infront of her, to keep her from falling forward. Though before she could do that, she leaned against the wall. Rowan released a breath as he rolled to a stop infront of her, giving Celynne time to recover, and himself time to process. 

As he went over the information again in his head, he took his bag into his lap, rummaging through the tonics and potions he had on hand. Sleep, sleep, sleep, pain... 

“Take your time. It’s alright. You’ll be fine. Just breathe.” 

He had his own spinal pain. Screwed up spells and pinched nerves and fused bones, you name it, whatever. But there was a bundle of pain and madness at the small of his back, that kept him from walking, and to add insult to injury, it occasionally decided to flare up and make it feel like a knife was being shoved through his gut as the blade shattered, sending shards of pain through his stomach, back, and lungs. If he didn’t have the pain tonic on hand, he could just stop breathing all together as his mind went into shock, which was quality content. 

So Celynne was a bastard’s child. He knew that much so far. Mother died, leading to the father to hate the child. All of this around seven. He already related to much to this story. 

His own mother passed when he was Nine, and he was left to take care of her while she was tumbling down that path, as his Father was sick as well. 

Waterbottle. Pain killer tonic. Only at the last moment did he decide this was not the best route. She wanted the hospital wing for a reason. So he would get her there. He slung the bag back over his chair. 

“Alright Celynne. We’re almost there. I need you to get up. Now. I’ll give you water, but we need to keep going.”