On the Brink
7th of July 2006 A.D.
Like usual with mom most of what she says makes perfect sense. Keep your grades up, sure you might need them as camouflage if nothing else. If you want a job and a life in the ordinary world you are going to need a school record and 'high school screw up' will not look good on that no matter what else you can do. Listen to dad... well duh he knows more than you do about spooky stuff and your only other alternative for advice is the demon in your head. Good advice no doubt, but you are not sure it would be good for doing good things. But the other stuff...
Spent 1 Essence
"I'm not going to actively look for trouble," you temporize. You can already see her eyes narrow before you even get to the 'but'. When you had been younger now was about the time when you would just swallow the word and just go along with whatever mom thought was right. I am not a little girl anymore. "
But I'm also not going to sit tight if I see something rotten going on. I'm going to learn what I can from Dad, I'll strive to be better, and I'll do everything I can to be as safe as possible if I
do have to take any risks, but I can't promise I'll
never take any. I don't think the world works that way."
"Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter," she enunciates dangerously. Sometimes you think she just gave you this many manes so she could do
that. "I didn't ask you how the world works. I can judge that for myself. I lived in it twice as long as you. I asked if you understood the rules you should follow. You are not a superhero out of your brother's comic books and you certainly aren't a Knight of the Cross..."
That
hurts, a part of you knows it's because she is hurting too because she is worried, but right now what you hear loud and clear among all the things that you are not is the thing you are, a villain, a monster. Fine then that is what you'll show her! "A part of me is a lot older than seventeen, a lot older than you, older maybe than all the history of man!"
A baleful marks sputters on your brow only to be put out by a flexing of your will. You don't want to
scare your mother... you just want her to understand.
But she has dug in her heels, you can read that clear as day on her face, it was her way or the highway. "You won't be going off and looking for trouble when your dad's not home and since I can't trust you to do that you are grounded starting now."
You had chosen 'highway' once before and even if there was no Nelson this time you knew some people with their own apartments. It wouldn't be that hard to get some money to pay them. "Grounded? Because that worked so well..."
"Molly," your dad snaps, but that is not what stops you, even if it's so uncommon for him to raise his voice. It's the look in his eye. He had just come home and you were arguing again, but you weren't arguing over nothing. This... this is your life and what you can do with it.
"Charity, you cannot ask someone to do nothing in the face of evil if they have the power to do so, you are doing her a disfavor and yourself," he says, sure of his words even as he is worried about how she would take it.
"You weren't there." Your mom's hand tightens into a fist around the tablecloth as though she is trying to instinctively grab on to something. "You didn't see her on that tree."
"I saw her fight, I heard the reason she did it," dad replies, all true, but sometimes the truth isn't enough to make things right.
"Mom," you say softly, struggling against all the cutting words that that come so easily to mind. "You are right, I am not a superhero, but I might be one of those things that superheroes were inspired by. The heroes of the really old days, when 'hero' just meant great and not good. Theseus and Jason, Ariadne and Medea, Orpehus and Ishtar. This power I took willingly and with my eyes open won't let me hide away and the people and the things out there, the ones who know they aren't just going to let me be and only show up when dad is with me to make everything safer. If I am the kind of person to look at someone getting hurt, getting killed where I can stop them and turn away then I am not good, but this..." you point to the lambent flame on your forehead. "Is still going to make me great. I don't want to be that."
"And I don't want to bury you even if you were to die a hero," she answers, furiously blinking away tears. "You don't know what's out there and by the time you find out,
really find out it will be too late because every twisted thing out there, man or demon or in between is going to want you dead or worse. I'm not asking you to hide in the safe room and never come out. I'm asking you to please be careful of yourself."
What do you do?
[] Agree after all
[] You can't... you just can't... leave.
OOC: Well I was not expecting Charity to outright win social combat here, but such were the rolls. The win condition was for you and Michael do get five successes on her total before she did the same. 
