Ikenga lacks it, too, and so they're both a little helpless here. Her mentor lifts her smartwatch as a voice begins to speak - Arielle, chirping angrily in High Speech, her voice resonant. "Who are you? Where is this place?"

"Arielle? Honey, I can't understand you, wh-what's happened to you?" Rachelle asks, terrified. "What's wi-with the wing?"

So panicked is she that she nearly stumbles, but holds the imago tight. The quality of the call drops as she hears all the little noises around the phone.

"What? Who... V-Val? What's happened...? Why am I like this?"

"Arielle? You're scaring me. How did... Valerie, what...?"

"Quiet, if you value your life," Ikenga barks in a note of command. That's very unlike her, but she's good at faking it. It shuts Rachelle up right quick.

"I... yeah, I do. Rachelle..."

The girl in question catches her breath. Even in High Speech she can understand her name a little.

"I miss you, Val. I hate looking in the mirror and knowing you look so different now. I couldn't move out with you and see that, it was killing me, but it never gets any better, and I just feel so empty."

She sounds dazed, even delirious.

"It's my fault," she cries.

"Honey?" Rachelle says softly. The phone is set on the ground. "It's okay... I'm here..."

"I'm jealous of Ethan for taking your time. It was my fault, I called it, I was so angry."

"You don't get it, you don't..."

She hears her sniffling and crying, and Rachelle's voice comes on. "The, uhm... the wing is gone, and the.. the weirdness with her skin and stuff."

She sounds very reluctant to be there, but Arielle is sobbing into her.

Ikenga settles back, letting out a huge sigh.

"Rachelle, I'm a friend who knows about the weirdness. Thank you for being there for her. I know you're scared, but hang tight, we'll come get you." She glances at Wire. "I guess celebrations will wait a bit," she says, apologetically - for Arielle, not the celebrations mostly. "We'll see to your sister."

-----GM-----
---------------------
They don't wait long. Ikenga basically carries her back down the mountain, which is always a little embarrasing, but in light of the circumstances she can't really object. Traffic is even more agonizing the first time around, with her sister waiting for her. Every mile eats away at her, worrying after her heart.

Arielle must have told the paramedics to buzz off and walked away from the scene, because she and a very nervous Rachelle are sitting in the shade of a tree in a tiny park. They aren't touching. Arielle is sitting with her legs up, arms around them, her long hair stirring in the breeze and her face in her legs.

-----Valerie-----
Valerie, once Ikenga sets her chair down, is quick to wheel herself out and make her way over to them. Seeing Arielle like that... strong, strong Ari... It's heart wrenching.

-----GM-----
Ikenga is, of course, super apologetic about knowing their sympathetic names now.

Arielle can punch through a brick wall with the help of Life magic - but there's a vulnerability to her that she never guessed at... or at least, never fully realized.

Rachelle gets to her feet, eyes worried.

"...what's going on?"

-----Valerie-----
If she's fine with anyone for knowing their names, it's Ikenga. She trusts her.

"Ari..." She stops near her, taking one of her sister's hands in her own. She knew she had guilt from the accident thing. She didn't think it was this deep seated, or still so fresh.

-----GM-----
Ikenga pulls the girl aside, giving the twins space.

Arielle looks up at her sister's face, so like her own. The sight of her in her wheelchair hurts her more than usual - gods, she seemed so much better two nights ago when they talked about Grease.

Except... now that she remembers, she saw her staring after her as she pulled Ethan into bed with her.

Guilt burns in her eyes and she glances down.

-----Valerie-----
She prevents it - reaching out to take her chin and turn it right back up to meet her eyes. "You haven't lost me," she insists.

This is their childhood all over again. Valerie does things, Ari follows and looks happy, but suffers silently...

-----GM-----
"I lied," she murmurs. "I invited the creature in. I knew it would hurt you. I was so jealous. I never knew how bad it would get."

-----Valerie-----
...that stings, but they were dumb kids. She can't really hold her against that. "You're letting it eat you." She pulls herself out of her wheelchair, to crawl in onto the ground next to her. "Obviously I wish you hadn't, but kids have a habit of having poor judgement."

-----GM-----
*roots of the tree

-----GM-----


-----GM-----
Arielle pulls her in and hugs her tightly, burying her face in her side.

-----GM-----
"I don't know what's wrong with me."

-----Valerie-----
She wraps her arms about her, rocking her gently. "Our souls are connected a lot more obviously than we thought. We knew we were a pair, but I didn't expect my initiation to just... ripple through space and afflict you. I'm sorry.

"For the rest... I think it's high time we look deeper. I thought it a curiosity at first, a legacy of mom's and a sign of our connection. ..but it's obviously affecting you a lot more than I ever imagined, and negatively."

-----GM-----
"I didn't take your Legacy, but I felt it," she mumbles. "I felt you change and it hurt."

-----GM-----
"Every change hurts."

-----GM-----
She exhales

-----GM-----
"We need to find out what we are."

-----Valerie-----
"Yeah... I was going to look for Lethe in the astral. ...it'd be a good opportunity to follow mom's path."

-----GM-----
"if... if we're the same soul, how can we even have a legacy that's different, I don't understand. It seems like whenever I grow you grow, my powers have grown in lock step with you too."

-----GM-----
"We master the practices almost simultaneously, just - in different ones, it doesn't make sense."

-----GM-----
"And the strength of our knowledge, our souls..."

-----GM-----
She takes a deep breath.

-----GM-----
"Is that why I hurt like this? Do I..."

-----GM-----
"God, do I want to be you?"

-----Valerie-----
She frowns at that implications. She isn't really sure how to answer that, honestly... They have both grown together, but grown separately. It's... weird.

"I.. don't think so. Because if so, you'd be into tinkering and youtubing and let's plays, not biology and animal life and stuff. I can't explain how we're so alike yet different... I don't think we are of one soul. Or, at least, what we have in us is different enough despite coming from the same source. It's conjecture, but I'm trying to fill in the blanks.

"...there's really only one way to know, and that's to find out what mom found out, and what she did about it."

-----Valerie-----
"But you're your own person, even as alike as we are. I know that."

-----GM-----
She takes a deep breath, concentrating.

"Let's - take the idea that we're a Supernal being seriously."

-----GM-----
"Supernal Beings have their primary Arcana, according to their Realm."

-----GM-----
"But they also have other arcana."

-----Valerie-----
"Right." She nods. "Force, prime, matter and life spread between us."

-----GM-----
"You're pretty heavy in Matter, but I'm heavy into Life..." She sighs. "I dunno, it's conjecture. We need to know more."

-----GM-----
"I dunno. You seem to have learned how to be independent."

-----GM-----
"I'm just struggling."

-----GM-----
She sighs and takes a breath.

-----GM-----
"I love you, sis. I don't know how I'm getting through this, but I... I'll find a way."

-----GM-----
"With your help."

-----Valerie-----
She gives her a squeeze. "Wearing that mask must be tiring. If you ever need to take it off, find me, okay? And let loose. And we'll go from there until we know what's going on, and we're better off for it."

-----GM-----
"I'm not doing a fusion dance and blending with you. That would be weird. Just saying."

-----Valerie-----
"I wouldn't entertain the option. If somehow we find that some ... split left a gap and that's why you're hurting, then we find a way to fill it, straight up. I want Arielle my sister, and there's no other option."

-----GM-----
She squeezes her hands.

-----GM-----
"...I'll try to be less - obsessively jealous about you."

-----GM-----
"I wonder if I can afford to continue with my own legacy," she murmurs

-----Valerie-----
"If you feel a bout of it come up, talk to me anyway. I'd rather hear it and bear it than to know you're swallowing it and then suffering for it later when it all comes rushing out.

"..and it might be worth getting a Spirit adept to take a look at us. Besides giving us hint, it would let us see if there was damage in the process."

-----GM-----
"Prime would probably be more useful. Then again, there's more than one soul part, isn't there?"

-----GM-----
"My master insisted so anyway."

-----Valerie-----
"Well, an adept at looking at souls."

-----Valerie-----
"Maybe Lakshmi knows someone."

-----GM-----
She pulls back, brushing her eyes and sighing

-----GM-----
"Yeah."

-----GM-----
"Guess we'll find out tonight, huh?"

-----GM-----
"She's coming for dinner and all. And you gotta pick Ashlyn up."

-----GM-----
"...well, us. I kinda don't want to be parted right now."

-----GM-----
She glances over at Rachelle. "...I should probably talk to her."

-----Valerie-----
"I'll come with. Unless you'd prefer not. It's up to you ...she's a sleepwalker, clearly."

-----GM-----
"She wasn't before, i checked. Guess I shook her a bit."

-----Valerie-----
"Yeah, it was a significant show of power, then again." She smiles at her. "Think she's owed some explanations now that she can understand them."

-----GM-----
Arielle nods. "At the very least."

-----GM-----
She slides her arms under Val and helps her up.

-----GM-----
Holding her close for a moment.

-----GM-----
Valerie weighs a lot less than her sister - mostly because Arielle is like zero body fat

-----Valerie-----
She holds onto her tightly, slowly coming up to her feet with a slight wince. ..whew, twice in a day. This'll be her exercise.

-----GM-----
Or enough to be just a little soft anyway

-----GM-----
Rachelle looks back at them as they approach, one on two feet, the other in her chair.

-----GM-----
"...Ikenga explained a bit, but I want to hear it from you."

-----GM-----
"I'm a mage," Arielle says simply. "So is Valerie - that's a lot of baggage in a single word. We draw magic down from a divine realm and channel it into the Earth." She frowns at her sister. "Val and I might be - a little more, too, but we don't really know. We're connected in some deep twinny-way. I'm sorry, Rachelle, but I couldn't tell you before. Until... a few minutes ago, if I had, you couldn't have believed me. Even showing you, you would have forgotten, because you were under a curse, a Sleeping Curse, like so much of humanity."

-----GM-----
"The scars aren't a decorative thing we did, we were struck by lightning before and it Awakened us to our power."

-----GM-----
"And... well, I can't really describe what happened earlier easily, but suffice to say that Valerie was undergoing a process that changed her soul, and it affected me too, because we're - kind of one soul in two parts."

-----GM-----
"Or at least we share part of it."

-----GM-----
Rachelle rubs her face and Ari sighs, tugging on her hair

-----GM-----
"I'm sorry."

-----GM-----
"I'm sorry I scared you. I was out of it."

-----GM-----
"I didn't know who I was or where I was for a moment, and..."

-----GM-----
"Yeah."

-----GM-----
"I don't know if I can deal with this," Rachelle admits, hands fluttering as she rubs her face. "God, did everyone know? Ethan, too?"

Ikenga purses her lips. "I should probably have stoppered my ears."

-----GM-----
"Well, I won't misuse it, or will try not to."

-----Valerie-----
"It's a bit late for that," she asides to Ikenga. "We trust you, though." She smiles at her, but then turns back to Rachelle. "I'm sorry, Rachelle. That's not how we ever want to introduce someone to this kind of thing.

"I know you're not doubting that it's real, because you saw her with a literal golden wing of light, but, well, it's not just 'here' or 'a bit.' It's the entire world, it's what it's made of, with a long, twisted history. ...It changed my life for the better, though, and the woman you'd have met without it would have been a far different Valerie."

-----Valerie-----
"And not for the better," she clarifies.

-----GM-----
Arielle takes Rachelle's hands, holding them. She's so strong, but she can be so delicate, too.

"Why'd you stay?" she murmurs.

"Do you need to ask that? You were... hurting and scared, even if you were terrifying."
Rachelle glances over at Valerie, conflicted. "You had this whole part of your life that you didn't share..."

"Couldn't. I can now. You can learn about everything I do, how the world isn't what you think it is," Arielle murmurs insistently. "Right now, there's a spell on my sister's back. In a matter of weeks, she'll be on her feet again, getting her ass kicked by me to get back in shape."

-----GM-----
"Before? She wasn't just unable to walk."

-----GM-----
"She was dying."

-----GM-----
"Complete nervous degeneration, but now we're healing her."

-----GM-----
"That's just one of so many amazing things... I'd love to share it with you. You were there for me when I was hurt and scared..."

-----GM-----
Rachelle takes a deep breath. And, gently, she kisses Arielle's cheek and steps back

-----GM-----
"...I need some time."

-----GM-----
Arielle's hands close in the air and she nods.

-----GM-----
"...okay."

-----GM-----
"I'm sorry."

-----Valerie-----
She reaches up to take one of Ari's hands, looking up sadly at Rachelle. She doesn't want to tell Ari that she'll turn around, because she doesn't know. It's a big change. ..she hopes the romance trounces it, though. They looked nice together.

..that won't help her jealousy issues, either. This was supposed to be a joyous day... damnit.

-----GM-----
Rachelle looks at them, uncertain and worried.
Ikenga glances at them, and goes to her.

"I can give you a hotline to call and ask more questions. Judgement free, no obligations."

"...a magic hotline, seriously?"

-----GM-----
"You laugh, but it's a thing. We've tried to get one of Wire's new friends to call it but no success."

-----Valerie-----
"She's kind of troubled."

-----GM-----
She accepts a business card from Rachelle and, before her eyes, shapes words onto it, permanent and lasting.

-----GM-----
"Here - I know it's frightening and intimdiating. My little girl's a Sleepwalker. Give it a try, talk it out with someone."

-----GM-----
Rachelle hesitates before taking it, turning it over.

-----GM-----
"...thank you."
She glances at Arielle again, and goes, slinging her jacket over her shoulder.

-----GM-----
Ikenga gives the upright twin a shoulder squeeze

-----GM-----
"Be patient."

-----GM-----
"Yeah,' Arielle sucks in a breath

-----GM-----
She squeezes Val's hand, and manages a slight smile

-----GM-----
"...we should hurry, your friend will probably be landing in like an hour and we need to beat traffic."

-----Valerie-----
"She likes you, or she wouldn't have stayed, and waited with you. Or taken the card, for that matter," she reasons. "Oh, yeah, yeah." She nods her head. Doing stuff is good. Keeps the hurt at bay. "Yeah, I'm good to go."

-----GM-----
"C'mon, my car's this way... Ikenga, I'd invite you over, but we're kind of setting up a thing with Lakshmi and our dad - "

"Seriously?" Ikenga raises her eyebrows. "Oh, that would be worth paying money to see. Don't worry, I won't interfere - I'll just steal my adorable apprentice tomorrow morning for a proper celebration."

-----Valerie-----
"I can work with that." She smiles up at her. "...thank you, though. For the initiation, for the drive, and the help just now. And, really, for everything you've done for me, and us."

-----GM-----
She bends down and gives her a big hug

-----GM-----
"I like working with you, Wire, you're charming and brilliant."

-----Valerie-----
"Aw, I'm blushing." She hugs her back, squeezing her.

-----GM-----
"Good night, you two."

"Good night."
------------

Valerie isn't quite sure what Arielle needs now. Her gut reaction is that she needs to find her niche, her own path, and follow it to be fulfilled. But there's obviously more to it than that... This jealousy; it's deep set, it's cloying.

It's magically sourced.

If she could just know what process mom followed, then maybe they can perfect it together. Iron out those remaining few kinks and let Arielle have peace of mind and get to do her thing without looking back at Val like she has all those years. ...what baggage does Val have that she isn't aware of? Her entire life has orbited her spinal cord, but if Arielle is so damaged, then surely there has to be something about her too.

For now, though, Valerie isn't sure how to keep Ari engaged. It's not like sympathy or pity would be the way to go, and diving into what Val's done or will be up to seems like it'd just exacerbate the problem. She's never seen her like this and she doesn't know how to react.

The wait is kind of nerve wracking. Everything's kind of piled up, but at least Ashlyn will be with her, where there's no emotional abuse, manipulation, and no questions about rape implications.

Val beams at seeing her approach, then leans over as far as she can without falling out of her chair and pulls her into that embrace. She gives her a tight squeeze. "You can rest now," she promises in a murmur. "Sleep in as long as you need to."

"My bed is available for the conquering," she promises. "And there's food in the fridge you can cook with, or warm up - I make meals in bulk."

Val then shares a glance with Arielle. "There was a ..complication. It was pretty intense, and something I'll be looking into. But yeah, I'm a Forge Master now, and will get to learn to really make cool stuff a lot easier than before."

Val spends a few moments to double check food level in the fridge to make a mental list of what she'll need to stock up on, draws the curtains to keep it dark in here for Ashlyn to sleep into, and leaves her a note indicating she'll be back later tonight, provided she's awake by then.

Valerie then gets to bask in the smell of deliciousness wafting up in the air. Oh, my. Her dad has no idea of how angelic, turns out. "Hey, dad," she chimes in, rolling on inside once she passes the threshold of the door. "That smells incredible."

A bit of a sly grin comes to her lips at what they're trying to do tonight. This'll be fun to witness.

"It is a bit risky! But hey, if you do pull it off, she'll appreciate the effort." Val giggles. "I'll eat her bowl if not. Your curry is great." She parks her chair outside the kitchen where he's working.

"Wait, what? Really?" She holds her arm out to have a look at it.

Hey now... Skin looking kind of sexy. It came on so progressively that she hadn't noticed she'd turned from a ghost to something far less pasty.

"I'll bring him around, I promise. It's just... been kind of busy and everything. I'll be sure to talk to him and get some availability." She smiles. "And you better be nice when I do. He's a fine young man."

Val wants to, as well... To tell her where mom had been going and what she was and what they are and... Well, for now, he's stuck, sleeping, until they can find a way to sleepwalk him. ...or awaken him. That'd be the ideal, as far as Val is concerned.

She peeks up at the clock. Punctual! "I'll get it," she announces, turning her wheelchair about, tank-style, to then roll down the hall to tug the door open.

"We were gnawing our nails in anticipation," she kids and smiles. "You are, like... literally right on time." She wheels back to let her inside, motioning to her and guiding her to where dad is sitting with Arielle.

"So, dad! I want to present you the chairlady of me and Ari's culture and scholarly pursuits club." She makes a 'tada' motion with her hands, unable to erase the big, wide, 'this is a conspiracy and you fell for it' smile off of her face.