Re: Ties that bind (Richard and Senium)

[Senium Nex]

Senium almost felt like she was spiralling into another cycle of depression, she heard what Richard said to her and she couldn't help but think that it meant he was annoyed with her, and that she had been stupid, which she had, but she had just begun to get over what she had done. When he inferred that she didn't really care about him because she hadn't told him Senium blinked as if she had been slapped and walked away from Richard, gripping her wrists tight so they stung and re-opened.

"Because I'm obviously stupid and I don't think about things like that." she said quietly "There will be no other answer that you will except other than I was stupid and made a mistake, so I shall just say that to you Master Romain so that you will be content."

Frowning at the doll, Senium moved one of her hands from her wrists and pressed it to the dolls wooden joints, she watched the blood trickle slowly down and began to feel slightly dizzy from re-opening the wounds once more, she had forgotten how much they bled.

Senium gestured to the doll with a small smile;

"I'm going to become made of wood. I will never be able to have children. I wont even have a heart, what normality is there in store for me in the future? I will live, and be content, but I wont be human...I'll be inanimate, a simple wooden doll."

[Richard Romain]

Richard knew that it wasn't a good idea to depress Senium when she was already quite clearly depressed but he couldn't help it. It was madness. That she could talk about seeing him as a father figure one minute and then have it revealed that she'd tried to kill herself without so much as a word to him, leaving him unable to help her. When she stepped away from him, Richard sighed a little bit,

"I'm sorry I'm being short with you Senium... It's just..." he paused when she called him Master Romain again. Was she reverting? Was she going back to viewing him only as her master? He looked down, "I don't know how you could want to leave when there are people who care about you."

He winced a little bit when Senium's joints began to bleed again. She was not getting any better, he knew this, they both knew it. And what she said about the puppet was true. She wouldn't technically be considered human anymore. He touched the doll gently,

"Is it better to last as something unchanging or to die through change that is harmful?" he asked her quietly before looking at her, "I can make you something very similar to this doll... but made of flesh and blood. I can slowly replace your diseased parts with fresh tissue. You could be normal."

[Senium Nex]

Senium blinked a little and she looked at her master as if he was the strangest thing in this universe, he could stand there and say that as much as he wanted because he did not know how she felt, he could stand there and be the adult and tell her the child what to do, just like everyone else had tried to do to her, but she would be the one who knew how it felt.

"How can I? Live for a couple of days in my condition. Then tell me how can I." she said coldly, looking at the doll that she was to become, to inhuman concoction of wood and varnish.

Raising an eyebrow, Senium looked at Richard and decided that he was just trying to be difficult and make her upset, she didn't want him to be like this, so if he was going to continue then she was going to have to ask him to go home, and she would stay here, and not return to Hogwarts.

"Don't you think we've tried that already? You aren't the only alchemist that I know." she whispered, her mind being cast back to the real reason why her Grandpapa had no legs, and the reason why she now knew that what Richard was suggesting wouldn't work.

"I know you think I'm just a child, but I know everything there is to know about what's the matter with me. If this process of transferral fails, I'll die, if I stay in this body I'll die, when I need to change into a different puppet when I'm older, I could die still..." she said quietly.

[Richard Romain]

Richard could tell that she wasn't really up for hearing this from him. He could tell that she didn't expect him to know her pain. To know any kind of pain or any kind of entrapment anything like hers. And she'd be wrong. Richard knew exactly what kind of pain went into thinking about suicide,

"Everyday of life is a gift Senium. You're my little sister figure and I want you to think that. I want you to go into each day wanting and hoping for it to be good." he told her quietly before shaking his head, "I don't know what it feels like not to be able to move your body at all. But I know the kind of pain that it takes to contemplate suicide. And believe me... it goes away if you just work hard and keep your chin up."

When Senium told him that he wasn't the only alchemist that she knew he had to resisted interrupting with the fact that he was the only alchemist alive who had a philosopher's stone. He wanted to help her and the stone could help but not even Senium could know that it existed. It would put his family in too much danger,

"I might not be the only alchemist you know but I'm the best." he told her without a hint of a boast. It wasn't pride, it was a simple statement, "At least allow me to work on a project of my own for you... when it's finished you are free to reject it if you choose."

"I know you're informed Senium, you're far smarter than I was when I was your age." he sighed and nodded, "Soul magic is a very tricky thing. I've only done it once and it is not without risks. But with those spells there is a chance at the very least. A chance to have some kind of a life over no life at all."

[Senium Nex]

Senium stood there and just listened to Richard when he talked to her, he was just like everyone else, lecturing her, telling her what she must do, telling her that she was wrong, when all she wanted was for someone to tell her that she was right, to tell her that everything was going to be alright in a way that didn't make her look stupid and childish.

She had thought that if anyone would have been able to do this it would have been Richard, but it didn't seem like this was going to be the case.

Staying silent for a while, she merely pressed more on the cuts on her wrist, not caring for the pain as the tears built up in her eyes, she didn't care about what Richard thought of her any more, she didn't want to go back to Hogwarts, she didn't want this stupid apprenticeship.

"Okay, I'm wrong then, like I always am." she said quietly "Of course you're right, your problems were worse than mine and I'm just being a whining child, I'm so terrible, perhaps I should just stay here and not return to Hogwarts, to stop people from hearing my stupid voice saying it's stupid wrong things." she glared at the floor, her voice low and tinged with anger as her depression mounted on top of her.

"I thought you were going to help me, but you're like all the others, you don't understand, you don't want to think I'm right."

[Richard Romain]

Richard had been a teacher long enough to know when someone was shutting off and disconnecting from a conversation. At this point he could literally say anything and it most likely wouldn't even register to Senium. The conversation was over now because she said it was over. He resisted the urge to sigh. He really did care about her but the way Senium was acting you'd think that she was the person who had everything the worst way possible, that absolutely nothing good happened in her life.

He watched as she pressed against the cuts in her wrists. She really didn't seem to care that seeing her in such pain, seeing the blood run down her hands, was killing him. He blamed himself for not being able to stop her from doing it,

"I didn't say you were wrong Senium. The words never left my mouth." he told her quietly, "And I really don't think comparing our childhoods is what either of us really wants. I don't think shutting down my attempts at talking you through this are going to help either."

Richard couldn't take it anymore. She wanted him to try and accept that suicide might just be the best option for her? He couldn't accept that! He couldn't accept something with a 100% chance of her dying as any kind of option. He couldn't lose another sister or another daughter,

"I don't want to think that suicide might be a better option, or a way out, because I don't want to have to bury another little sister, who's death I could have prevented!" he cried out, tears in his eyes now, "I don't want to accept it because I don't want to send another daughter down into the cold ground with my unborn child..."

[Senium Nex]

Senium listened to what Richard was saying, she didn't speak because she didn't think there was anything that needed to be said, but when she heard him beginning to shout at her, at bringing up the deaths of the people who had been close to him, Senium was close to snapping and she was the most angry she thought that she had ever been in her whole life.

Picking up a crafting knife she placed it on her chest right next to her heart and she looked into Richard's eyes, she didn't think that a man like him would be so stupid as to make the situation worse;

"There we go again. Senium's being over dramatic, you're so much worse off than I, I should just grow up and stop feeling so sorry for myself is that right?" she asked "Maybe I should just get it over with now so that I don't get my hopes up and then die anyway?"

Now all but screaming at Richard she pointed the knife harder into her chest;

"You know why my Grandad doesn't want to speak to you? Because my parents were killed because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU. You Ministry TRACKERS! You killed them!" she screamed, now not caring what she said "I don't care any more Master Romain, you think whatever you want to think, don't accept what I say, don't try to help me, either way I'll still die."

[Richard Romain]

Richard gritted his teeth a little bit. Senium just wasn't budging. Only her pain seemed to matter and no one was able to relate to her because no one had suffered as she had suffered. He could see that she was angry at him now, positively livid, and maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she needed to let it out as anger. When she took the knife up and held it to her chest, Richard paused and didn't move for a second,

"It's not a competition Senium I'm just trying to tell you how I would be effected if you did decide to kill yourself. I'm not saying that at all Senium." when she mentioned not getting her hopes up, and dying now, his eyes widened, "Senium... no! Please no! Think about what it would do to the people who care about you!"

When she came out with the reason why her parents were dead, because of people like what he used to be up until a few months ago, he recoiled as if physically attacked. But he hadn't killed her parents,

"I'm not a ministry tracker anymore... and I was not responsible for your parent's deaths. I never went near them Senium how could I have killed them?" he tried to reason with her before he gather up his magic in his right hand and waved it quickly. The craft knife failed to vanished from Senium's hands, "I think that you should try and give life a chance... what's so wrong about that? What's so wrong about at least trying to live Senium?"

[Senium Nex]

Senium looked at Richard and she frowned at him, she didn't think that this man understood her at all, he was trying to make her see reason when she didn't want to see reason, she wanted someone to tell her that she was right, that she was in a lot of pain but that they would be there for her, not wanting her to do things, not trying to control her.

"Do you really think in this mindset I'm thinking about what people will think when I'm gone?" she asked her eyes blinking back tears as her arm stiffened in the position that she was holding the knife in "I just want someone to stop telling me what to do, to tell me I'm right, to stop telling me their problems and focus on mine, I thought you cared enough to do that."

Frowning even more, Senium shook her head and she looked deep into Richard's eyes; "I didn't say you did it, I said people like you did it, I said people who couldn't even do their jobs properly did this to them, we weren't even German, how can you get that wrong?" she asked.

Senium picked up a peice of wood and turned it into a sharp razor like strip of metal; "I've given life 12 years of a chance to get better and all it's done is got worse, and nobody is helping me, why should I give any more?" she asked him, genuinely looking for an answer "I'm a failure at everything I've tried..." Senium whispered.

Holding the piece of metal tightly in her hand it cut into her and made her flesh bleed a little.

[Richard Romain]

Richard was beginning to get rather desperate now. Senium wasn't making any sense. She wanted him to try and sympathise with her. He understood that. She wanted him to try and tell her that she was right and that he'd be there for her. That part was a bit hard when she seemed so hell bent of killing herself,

"I am focusing on you Senium!" he told her desperately, "But do we really have to do this when you're three inches from killing yourself? I care about you and that means I don't want you to be in this much pain. But how can I focus on your problems and help you with them if you're holding a knife to yourself?"

Richard sighed a little bit. He was guilty by association it would seem and if he was honest then he agreed. Richard had been late to work the day that the Nexs had been killed. If he had been on time he would have been able to sort them correctly but he had trusted his fellow employees to actually do their jobs,

"I don't know how they got it wrong." he scowled a little bit, "The report said the guard thought he heard them speaking in German. Ignorant English scum couldn't tell the difference between Russian and German apparently."

The transfiguration specialist in him was impressed in the wandless transfiguration but the man in him was appalled that she would use her talents in the area to threaten her own life,

"I can't tell you for sure Senium... no one can. Because no one can reliably tell the future." he told her quietly, "But there's always tomorrow. And with it the promise of a new start Senium... or at least that's what I think."

He shook his head and slowly began to reach out for the piece of metal,

"You're not a failure Senium... you're the single most talented student I've ever taught."

[Senium Nex]

Richard seemed to be getting a little bit desperate, she could hear it in his voice and she realised what she was doing, placing the knife down on the surface nearest her she all but ran into Richard's arms, her limbs seemingly forgetting to be stiff for one moment in time so that she could be near her father.

Or the man that she hoped would still be her father once she was done with apologising for acting like such a spoilt brat to him.

"I'm sorry Richard, I'm sorry Papa I didn't mean to make you upset I just get so sad sometimes I don't know what to do, and then I just seem to get sadder and sadder until I get more and more close to doing something stupid like just now."

When Richard seemed to say that her parents were killed just because of the language they were speaking, Senium squeaked a little bit in sadness and she couldn't help but nuzzle her head into Richards chest a little bit; "I can't believe that it was because of something so small, they couldn't even be bothered to check with someone else..."

Sniffling a little, Senium reached up and kissed Richard's cheek; "You don't know how bad I was..."

[Richard Romain]

When Senium placed the knife down he sighed in relief and opened his arms for her as he fell to one knee to better hug her close to him. He held her close to him and cried a little bit as she hugged him just as desperately as he was hugging her. He was just so happy that she wasn't going to try and kill herself right now,

"It's okay Mein kleines Mädchen... papa is here for you." he reassured her quietly, "I'm here to help you Seni. I will help you in anyway I can because I want you to be happy."

The way that her parents were killed, and the reason for it, was not something to ever be proud of. They'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and died because of some stupid English wizard's ignorance of other people's cultures. He hugged Senium tighter to him as she nuzzled into him,

"It should never have happened... they didn't deserve to die, especially not because some kid had skipped out on the languages part of the training." he agreed with a sigh, "I was running late that day due to it being the last lesson of term... I wasn't there to try and stop it."

He played with Senium's hair and shook his head a little bit, "No I don't know how bad it was... only you know how bad it was."

[Senium Nex]

Senium was glad to feel Richard's arms around her, it was so nice to feel as if there was someone there for her to help her feel better about all of these things, she was so happy when he was able to call her his little girl again, it felt so nice to have a Papa once more, even though it made her miss her old papa even more with each passing second.

"I feel so happy to have you as my Papa Richard, I want you to be able to be proud of me, and I will promise to tell you whenever I am feeling sad so that you can help me." she said with a small smile.

She didn't really like to be able to talk about her parents so freely, it was something that was still very fragile for her, but she supposed that it might do her good to be able to talk about it, to get everything off her chest, and what had happened when she had tried to be attacked herself.

"I was a bad girl...I did something that I shouldn't have done, when they came for me I did something that you wouldn't be proud of me for doing, I've done things that I couldn't control but they happened anyway...they...I don't want them to happen again."

Of course she was referring to the killing of one of the aurors via accidental transfiguration, and the damage done to her Grandpapa at a later date.

[Richard Romain]

Richard had to admit that holding Senium made him feel what he imagined it felt like to be a father, to be a father who was proud of his children. A father who loved his child and wanted nothing more than their happiness. He smiled a little bit,

"You've already made me proud my little Seni. Just by being who you are." he assured her with a slightly larger smile before nodding, "Thank you, I want to be here for you when you do feel sad."

He could tell that talking about her parents was something of a sore spot for Senium but he would be here if she decided to share more with him. When she said that she'd been a bad girl he couldn't help the curiousity,

"Why would you think you were a bad girl Seni? If you want to tell me of course." he asked her gently before stroking her cheek gently, "Nothing you've done could ever make me any less proud of you Seni. As for not controlling things... are you talking about accidental magic?"

[Senium Nex]

Seeing Richard now smiling made Senium a lot happier with herself, it was something that she wished that she would be able to see all of the time, it made her happy, hopefully she was going to be able to make him happier by acting the way that she should do, and telling Richard more about her, opening up more about her feelings to him, which seemed to make him happy.

"I hope that I will be able to make you more and more happy with me as we continue our friendship Richard, after all I'm your apprentice and I need to be able to make sure that you're pleased with me as a person as well as my progress."

Senium felt Richard stroking her cheek and it made her feel very safe, and like he wouldn't be mean to her for what she had thought and what she had managed to do when she was younger, it was not a proud moment and it still made her blood run cold a little bit.

"I...when the man was coming for me, coming to hurt me, I...I didn't mean to but I transfigured him into a puppet and I didn't know how to get him back to normal so...so I just left him there and I don't know what happened to him after that." she cried lightly "I'm so bad for doing that."

[Richard Romain]

Richard chuckled a little bit when Senium seemed to grow happier just from his own smile. It seemed that their happiness was tied into each other at the moment so when he was happy she was happy too. If that wasn't a reason to be happy and bright and friendly then he didn't know what was. He played with her hair idly,

"Ah my little Seni the friendship that you and I share is something that I deeply cherish. I will do everything that I can to make sure that the friendship never dies down." he told her before smiling a little bit more, "Good point. And I'm very pleased with both areas!"

He continued to stroke her cheek. No matter what she'd done that she thought was so terrible, he knew that it wasn't anything that would make him any less proud of her. When she told him what had happened he blinked a few times before smiling reassuringly,

"It was in self-defence and was a case of accidental magic Seni, there's nothing for you to be ashamed of. Nothing at all. In fact..." he smiled a little bit, "I happen to know the man was fine because I changed him back into a man personally. You didn't hurt him at all, just neutralised him so that he couldn't hurt you."

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