Right, so here's my preferred theory over what we can do about a grief seed right now.
A very long time ago, when we killed the Hildegard witch, we did a number of experiments to communicate to the active witch before we finally put her out of her misery:
You stalk around the bundle of neurons, the core of the Witch, examining it with both your eyes and your magical senses. To your eyes, it's just a quivering lace of yellowish-green nerves, twitching spasmodically despite the fact that it has no muscle. To your other senses...
It's Hildegard. It is fundamentally the Witch, the tiniest mass of coherent Grief, slowly, constantly everting more Grief, stripped bare of the trappings of its form. Insofar as you can tell, this is the nexus around which a Grief Seed forms, the tiny wellspring of Grief you find in a Soul Gem. You can feel it stuggling to draw in more Grief from the Barrier, presumably to reform and fight back.
You nudge it with your Grief manipulation, trying to elicit a reaction from it. Sudden, it twitc-
Despair lances through your mind, a powerful, sledgehammer blow that rips right through you. Useless. Why did you ever imagine you could help? Now Mami and Homura are looking to you, and you're going to fail an-
You scream, and break it off, staggering back a step and dropping to a knee with a wet squelching noise, supporting yourself on your hammer. Harsh breaths whoosh out of you in fast gasps, your mouth dry and heart thundering in a way that it hasn't since the beginning of this fight.
That... was... something.
With trembling fingers, you cleanse your own Soul Gem, siphoning the Grief off in thick, ropy streamers that you add to your wings. You don't have to look to tell that there's far more corruption in there than there's ever been to date.
You shakily rise to your feet, leaning heavily on your warhammer, the head of which sinks into the floor with a fleshy squelch as you put your weight on it. You stare at the Witch.
It... it makes sense, you suppose. A Witch is formed of a puella magi in the deepest, darkest pits of despair, and there'd be little to move it from there.
You... probably don't want to actually try prodding that further, you decide, and you steel yourself to try something else.
Maybe if you tried removing the Grief from it and replace it with magic? If a Witch is powered by Grief and a puella magi of, well, magic... Well, it's worth a shot, you figure, reaching out with shaky fingers-
No. No, you're going to rest a few more minutes first. Echoes of that yawning abyss that you were teetering over still reverberate through you.
You look down at the remains of Hildegard, absently siphoning the small amount of Grief it's generated in the meantime while you were expecting. At your behest, your sphere of Grief splits in half at the equator, and swoops to scoop up the stringy mass of the Witch. Your right thumb twitches, instinctively feeling like you should be mashing a button to ensure the proper containment of the Witch.
... well, it's not like it's actually struggling. You have some stringy stuff that is the Witch Hildegard contained in a sphere of Grief.
Nothing's happening. Maybe if you tried to feed it some magic? You spin out a bit of magic, very carefully poking it at the Witch. To your other senses, the Witch goes berserk, tiny spikes of Grief bubbling off the squirming bundle.
You flinch. No. Not again.
Your hands clench into a fist, and the sphere implodes, smashing the physical form of Hildegard into a pulp.
And-
With your sense focused as they are, you can feel Hildegard go quiescent, and a protective shall - the Grief Seed forming around it. The Barrier wavers, dissolving with the defeat of its Witch into its constituent Grief, rushing inwards in a torrent that pours endlessly into the Grief Seed. You release the Grief that forms your wings to go with it.
You're everted back into reality without ceremony, standing on the roof, with the Grief Seed near you, still encased in the sphere of Grief.
With a gesture, you move the sphere closer to you and let it crumble back into marbles, the Grief Seed falling into your outstretched hand. You hold it up to the light, squinting at it. It's... Grief. Very compressed Grief, into a tiny, inky black sphere embraced in filigree, and at the very center...
Hildegard.
You sigh.
I want to point out specifically that:
- The witch was active, not grief-seeded.
- We tried grief manipulation, which caused grief feedback.
- We
also tried poking the witch with magic (
not grief manipulation), which caused the witch to panic / freak out, but didn't go so far as to feedback in that instance.
There's a bunch of other information in those updates and they're worth a re-read
from the start, but those are the important points.
What had me digging back to
Hildegard was our recent practice of combination magic with Mami. We now know that someone else's magic has an intensely personal feel. It
might be possible to ease a witch into reacting positively by using magic of someone they're familiar with and trust. After all, from what we know now, there is
zero mistaking the magical feel of someone you know. The magic of someone you don't know would be foreign, and the magic of someone who killed you while you were a witch might even have purely negative associations, but someone known in life would be unmistakable. I would hope that extends to a witch or grief seed too. Supplemental evidence: Sayaka's witch reacted to Kyoko in canon.
Here is some more experimentation we did, this time on grief seeds:
"Alright, then," you say, pulling Hildegarde's seed out from your pocket and holding it up. Transforming with a flash of light, you dig deep into the Grief Seed, and begin to draw the Grief out.
It comes free in thick, ropy streamers that flood into the air in an unending torrent. Grief floods the air, and you form it into your familiar wings of corruption, arcing high over the rose bushes and spreading wider and wider. Kirika looks faintly scared, but reassured by Oriko still standing there, seemingly unconcerned.
... well, if the precog isn't worried...
A lot of Grief goes into a single seed, you muse as you decide that the wings are getting ridiculous at a twenty meter wingspan - twenty meters of roiling, rippling corruption. Instead, you start coalescing the Grief into spheres - less marbles and more basketballs, accreting rapidly by the dozen.
"Excuse me, I will be back in a moment," Oriko notes, walking back into the house, leaving Kirika to divide her attention between peering back for Oriko and staring at what you're doing.
For some reason, you feel that there should be wind blowing to ruffle your hair and coat dramatically, but the weather remains obdurately uncooperative and there's not even the faintest hint of a breeze. It's even cool enough that you can't say that sweat is beading on your brow as you concentrate.
A clunking noise has you turning to look, and you find that Oriko's dragging an empty cat carrier over.
... huh.
After what feels like hours, you feel the massive river of Grief begin to dry up, slowly petering out over the next few minutes. All that's left in there is a quiescent Hildegard. And you try to remove that, too.
... it doesn't move. Your magical fingers simply slide right off a target that doesn't... quite seem to respond to your prodding. You go slightly cross-eyed - it feels like you're less trying to remove the filling from a doughnut, and more like you're trying to remove the concept of a doughnut from the doughnut. You give up on it after trying for a few more moments.
You look around. Depending from your shoulders are ten meter long swathes of the night sky of an alien world carved into reality., your wings, larger than you've ever made before. You might actually be able to fly with these. The air is thick with hundreds of basketball sized balls of Grief, drifting aimlessly about in the air and bumping into each other with dull clacks. In your hand is a Grief Seed -maybe it's just a Seed now since there isn't any Grief inside?- unlike any other you've seen, clear crystal with a single inky black spot in the exact center instead of midnight black obsidian.
"I... don't know," you respond, looking blankly between the two Grief Seeds - Aurora's, horribly overfilled and throbbing menacingly, Hildegard's, somehow emptier than it should be. "I didn't even touch that one, honest!"
Mami frowns. "Then why is it so overfilled? It's dangerous."
"Hmm... does Grief transfer between Grief Seeds when you touch them together?" you ask curiously. "It doesn't, right?"
"It doesn't," Mami tells you.
"Why does this Grief Seed look like that?" Homura asks, pointing at Hildegard's Grief Seed, in its smoky, rather than obsidian black, glory. The black haired girl is frowning at the odd looking Grief Seed - you suppose she would have seen plenty of about-to-hatch Grief Seeds, but this, on the other hand, would be the first half-empty one she's come across.
"I extracted some Grief from it to make my wings," you reply. "Speaking of which, um, let me try something?"
Without waiting for an answer, you hurriedly put Hildegard's Seed aside for a moment, and yank at the Grief in Aurora's. The Grief comes free almost sulkily, heavy, ropy streamers oozing from the Grief Seed. It almost feels like the Witch is trying to hang on to the Grief, but you counter that easily.
You observe Aurora's Grief Seed closely as the Grief flows away - you can feel an impression of the Witch again, the blues and blacks and marble of the Barrier trying to reform - the Witch was definitely trying to hatch again. There's a sensation of... hunger, predation maybe?
Hildegard, by contrast, is simply... quiet, the Grief sitting immobile within the Grief Seed. You wonder, and hope that perhaps it's turning back into a Soul Gem. Maybe, maybe not - nothing seems to be happening right now.
You look consideringly at the masses of Grief around you, absently picking up the process of refilling Aurora's Seed again. You pull a string out of Grief and pluck at it - it makes a dull thwacking noise. A twist of your will, and you pluck it again. This time, it twangs musically - but it doesn't feel like a Witch.
Hmm.
You seem to have some control over Grief as it is, but it only goes so far as Grief. But you can also... transmute it into different forms with different properties. Interesting.
You stop filling Aurora's Seed when it's half full. Holding it by its point, you tap it to Irene's Grief Seed.
Irene tears Grief from Aurora, a substantial portion vacuumed from one Grief Seed to the other in an instant, and you hastily jerk them apart. You bring your powers to bear, and confiscate the 'stolen' Grief from Irene, returning it to its unused state.
... huh.
That... was interesting, too.
You squint at Hildegarde, inspecting it by sight and magical and Grief senses. To your eyes, it's just a Grief Seed, albeit one that's clear crystal as opposed to the usual midnight black.
To your Grief senses, Hildegarde is... sleeping, dormant. No activity at all. A far cry from a normal Grief Seed, slowly bubbling fonts of Grief ftom which you can still sense the predatory hunger of the Witch.
"Oh! It's English class now," Mami says.
"Ah, you should have no problem, then!" you say, smiling. You look at your own Soul Gem, smile disappearing. Your own Witch... ugh. You spread your senses, looking at the silvery Gem.
Dedolere.
Just Seeing the name is like having icy fingers run down your spine, someone walking over your grave. A quiet, slumbering presence lying quiescent within the crackling storm of magic that is your Soul Gem, slowly everting Grief into your Soul Gem.
You look back at the Soul Gem held in your hand, and then the Seed, help up by its point in your other hand. Is there anything missing? You inspect both with your Grief senses and your puella magi senses. Nothing really noticeably missing on the latter... and nothing really in your Grief senses, either.
Hmmm. That's sort of interesting, you guess, insofar as it implies that nothing... really changes much? Which means there's yet hope, you think? Well. It's never wrong to hope, to paraphrase a certain pinkette.
That does mean... perhaps you could try healing the Grief Seed? On the basis that there's something wrong with it and you can fix it?
You set the Grief Seed down, the spiky little ball balancing with equinamity on the tip of your kneecap, and reaffix your Soul Gem to your coat. That done, you grab the Grief Seed again, and summon the silvery glow of healing magic to your other hand.
You take a breath, and press your glowing hand to the Grief Seed. The magic... slides off, finding no purchase.
Hmmm.
You dismiss the magic from your hand, cupping your chin and staring at the Grief Seed thoughtfully. Not entirely unexpected, you guess? There's nothing to heal, per se, or rather, no flesh. You're not convinced it can't be done. Just... you're not sure you're going the right way about it, either.
You chuff out a sigh as you tuck Hildegarde away, back into your pocket. Annoying. You kick the floor idly, and spin yourself in your chair a few times, thinking.
You contemplate Hildegarde's Grief Seed for a moment. That's right, there was a test you meant to do, but you forgot to, didn't you? You remember how you awaken puella magi who were knocked out, a spark of magic, pulsed through your fingers to shock someone back to wakefulness.
You lay your fingertips agaisnt the clear Seed, and jolt it with magic.
The magic flickers out as you'd expected, fizzling in the air before decohering. It mostly seems to skim off the surface of Hildegarde's Seed, to no real effect on the Seed.
Hmmm. You rock back in the chair, trying another flare of magic as the chair spins slowly about. The magic doesn't really seem to penetrate very far into the Seed, mostly vanishing before it gets very far in. Hildegarde herself, itself, doesn't seem to react to the little sparks of magic, either.
Not very helpful.
You sigh, kicking your legs out.
Ugh, this isn't really working.
Maybe another tack?
You're reluctant to get up from your nice spinny chair, and a spare thought has a few Grief marbles zooming over to you with a small rock. The rock drops into your hand, and you smirk as you slip Hildegarde away again. Convenient.
Salient points:
- An active soul gem's "witch" part is "quiescent" rather than "hungry", but also slowly leaks grief unlikely a clear seed's. Note that it's
possible the slow leak is just the cost of us using our magic, for example, for maintaining our body.
- A grief seed with a "hungry" core will attract grief extremely strongly. I don't think it's a coincidence that "hungry" was used to describe active cores. The only contradictory piece of information is that a clear seed that isn't hungry still functions in taking grief from a soul gem. But it seems to me that clear seeds have no particular
purpose to holding on to grief, while active seeds want grief for the particular purpose of going active again and hungry trumps not hungry in terms of pull.
- I think this came up in discussion at the time, but the difference between Sabrina's active soul gem and the inactive clear seed seemed to be the presence and use of magic. That however discounts things that Sabrina can't see.
- Magic caused no reaction to a clear seed. However, that's not quite the same thing as no effect. I'll note that our magic did go in, it just vanishes inside, and well, we were using a short spark of magic
anyway. That tells me nothing really other than we need to try this again some time. It does show that we won't get an immediate reaction to magic using a clear seed, while we could get an immediate reaction using an active one.
- As an aside, I'm pretty sure from the reread that the reason Sabrina has a strong instinctive revulsion in a witch's barrier is because it's a violation of her wish. Grief that's not under her control.
I'm not going to draw any conclusions here. I don't have a one way we can get the person back from a grief seed. I do think that it's obvious that we have avenues we can explore from, based on what I've outlined above. In particular, I want to emphasize the importance of the nature of magic. We know that witches
can feel magic. We know what magic feels like. Taking advantage of the personal feel of magic is an important step
if it can cause a positive reaction. It won't solve things on its own, it likely can't, but it will give direction. I feel we do have all the pieces we need, we just don't know what the finished puzzle looks like.
tl;dr
- Magic has an intensely personal feel.
- We know for certain that witches react to magic.
- Using the magic of someone personally close to the witch gives us the best chance of reaching a witch or grief seed in a positive way.
I'm not saying we should sell Anri on this, that would be waaaaaay too much. But maybe giving us a bit more direction would help us in selling hope in general.
