[This time, the accompanying illusions Jaskier calls up stir something in her. Nadine doesn't let it show, in her face or her voice, even when the image becomes a dark man with burning eyes. How accurate it is.
She doesn't react to his question, either, aside from, tipping up her wine goblet for a hearty swig.]
I'm pretty sure. That's not how it works where I come from. Or maybe it does. Maybe she would have become a demon, eventually.
[The thought has occurred to her more than once, certainly since that conversation with Flagg in the market. All his talk of the price of his powers, how she could become something akin to him. Maybe he'd planned for that.]
Last story. Once upon a time there was a little girl who's mother died when she was a baby. She couldn't even remember her. But when she was six, her father married someone new. He thought it would be good, for the little girl to have a mother.
Only his new wife was no mother. She didn't like children, and hated the little girl, and she had secrets neither ever would have guessed. She was very cruel to the little girl, but hid it from the girl's father, and used magic to blind him to her truth. And he didn't believe the girl, and just thought she was acting out and wasn't used to having to share him.
And then the girl's father died, and she was left all alone with this cruel and terrible woman and the dark, secret powers she had. Even when she got older, she was only allowed to leave the house to work, to support her cruel step-mother. She wasn't allowed to have friends or a life of her own. And because of her step-mother's magic, there was nothing she could do. She didn't even know how to make a friend or live her own life. She'd think about fighting back, about running away, about doing something.
But she never could. She suffered and wept and lived with cruelty and abuse every day, hiding it as best she could. All her life, that was all she knew.
no subject
She doesn't react to his question, either, aside from, tipping up her wine goblet for a hearty swig.]
I'm pretty sure. That's not how it works where I come from. Or maybe it does. Maybe she would have become a demon, eventually.
[The thought has occurred to her more than once, certainly since that conversation with Flagg in the market. All his talk of the price of his powers, how she could become something akin to him. Maybe he'd planned for that.]
Last story. Once upon a time there was a little girl who's mother died when she was a baby. She couldn't even remember her. But when she was six, her father married someone new. He thought it would be good, for the little girl to have a mother.
Only his new wife was no mother. She didn't like children, and hated the little girl, and she had secrets neither ever would have guessed. She was very cruel to the little girl, but hid it from the girl's father, and used magic to blind him to her truth. And he didn't believe the girl, and just thought she was acting out and wasn't used to having to share him.
And then the girl's father died, and she was left all alone with this cruel and terrible woman and the dark, secret powers she had. Even when she got older, she was only allowed to leave the house to work, to support her cruel step-mother. She wasn't allowed to have friends or a life of her own. And because of her step-mother's magic, there was nothing she could do. She didn't even know how to make a friend or live her own life. She'd think about fighting back, about running away, about doing something.
But she never could. She suffered and wept and lived with cruelty and abuse every day, hiding it as best she could. All her life, that was all she knew.
Until the world ended.