@Ugolino
Mari looks at Claire, clinging to her spear and hears the hitch in her voice.
"Of course you can. I know my folks won't care and if they do I can pass it off as you not wanting to be alone." She leans over and hugs her smaller friend across the shoulders. "You want I should come in with you while you get stuff?"
Claire leans into the hug, dismissing the spear. She honestly has to think about Mari's offer for a moment, hemming and hawing before coming to a decision.
"Um...ah...it's okay. I think. Just need to change
because of the blood...I'll be over in a bit..."
She stays in the hug for a good ten seconds or so, then lets go.
"Okay. See you soon. Thanks though, Mari...I kinda needed that..." She smiles weakly at her friend, waves, then strolls towards her house.
She pauses for a second at the doorway. Maybe it'd be better if she just hopped in through the window instead? It'd be faster- by a few seconds- and now that she thinks about it, it's kinda obvious to anyone that might be looking outside that she's not exactly dressed for anything but a cosplay contest...
A nervous glance down the street. Nope, looks all clear...
And she doesn't remember if the upstairs windows were bolted or not anyway. She...thinks she might have left her room's window unlocked after her last nighttime hunt? She should probably start doing that if she didn't.
...Come to think of it, she could have been inside and safely out of sight by now if she hadn't stopped to think about all this.
Claire unlocks the front door and steps inside, cloak rustling around her feet. No one's there. If her parents'd been home after all, she has no idea how she'd have explained things...but they aren't. She's actually glad for once that they're busy all the time.
"H-Hello?" She calls anyway, just to be sure. No reply.
Satisfied that she's alone, Claire grabs a change of clothes and heads into the upstairs bathroom, and finally lets her transformation drop again- though she can't help but reflexively glance around first, just to make sure. She knows she's safe now, but she still can't help it. That gnawing fear hasn't gone away after the...fight. Yeah, the fight. She swallows, then focuses on something else. The mirror.
The girl in the mirror looks...out of it. Tired. Bedraggled- like she's thrown been through a hurricane. Claire's hair- the hair she'd spent her morning doing up- is a tangled mess with just the two ornaments Mari'd given her incongruously shiny and pristine from where they're embedded between knots.
Her outfit- the one she'd picked out for her first day of school- is streaked with dirty red-brown. She can see the hole in it. Dried blood, part of her dimly notes. Have to make sure not to get that anywhere her parents might notice. She saw that in a movie once... She looks like she's someone who's nearly been murdered...probably because she'd nearly been murdered. By
another magical girl.
...She's shaking again, she realizes. When had that started? She hadn't even noticed. Her breathing's shallow. Fast. She blinks through tears, staring blindly at the starkly white wall tiles without seeing them.
She'd nearly died earlier. No one was going to help her. No one would even have noticed until it was too late, not even Mari. If it hadn't been for Stormwind...
Her legs seem to wobble, and she slumps against the bathtub, starting at the far wall. She's a coward. Kyubey...Kyubey'd made a mistake picking her. She's sure of that now- first, her mistake at the school and now this.
She's not heroic like Mari or Stormwind. She's not sure she can do any of this again, not if it involves...running into girls like that. Getting hurt like that- nearly
dying like that- again.
But what if she doesn't keep being a magical girl? What if she's a coward? What if she tells Kyubey she wants to quit and for him to take the magic back so she won't have to worry about girls like that attacking her for grief seeds-of all things?
She doesn't really want to lose the magic, though...even if she already got her wish and she's messed up with it more than she's willing to admit to Kyubey. More than that, she's certain Mari wouldn't do the same, even if Claire did- and without magic, what if those girls go after Mari again, or
her for revenge?
She's too scared to give up her magic, but she's just as scared of what'd happen if she did. She has no idea what to do- she just never wants to have to go through this again. Her two witch hunts were bad enough at times, but this...
Quietly, alone, Claire breaks down and sobs.
Eventually, she stops- her crying dies down to ugly, wet sniffles and she wipes her puffy eyes clear with one stained sleeve- it's not like she can keep this outfit after this after this, after all. She shakily pulls herself up to her feet, and gets to work.
She does have a plan. Sort of.
Get changed. Clean up. Hide the stuff that'd lead to questions. Claire's actually hoping for once that her parents are going to be too busy tonight to notice anything. They usually
are these days, but still.
The clothes have to go. If her parents or anyone else sees the blood on them...For now, they're going in a plastic bag and that bag's going somewhere out of sight. She'll hide it for now, and toss it the next time she's out in a barrier...or just zap it until there's nothing left but ash.
When she's done, she looks in the mirror. She tries to smile- she's changed into clean clothes, and her hair's now in a simple- for her- ponytail. Mari's ornaments are carefully tucked away into her bag- in the pocket where she'd left her soul gem this morning. The expression doesn't quite make it to her reflection's- still slightly puffy- eyes, and her smile definitely looks more than a little strained.
"It's okay." She tells herself, then winces. Even to her own ears, that had sounded unconvincing. "It's going to be okay?" She corrects herself, then sighs. She's wasting time...Mari's probably wondering where she is.
She heads back downstairs, and is about to leave when she sees the answering machine light flashing.
...There's a message from the school. About what'd happened today.
Claire stares at the blinking light after it plays, hesitates, then jabs the delete button. Then she heads for the door. Mari's waiting for her.
.
