xp_logs | The Winding Way: Finale - Saturday night, just outside Berlin

OOC note: Posting early as I'll be out later tonight and won't be able to.

*

The defeated Margali is hauled back to the Szardos camp, defiant to the end.

There was a distinctly familiar sulky look on the blonde witch's features, echoing the expression Jimiane had held when she'd been caught at the brownstone. Like mother, like daughter. Pinioned between Wanda and Doug, her arms securely held so there was no possibility of even the slightest hand gesture without causing herself pain, Margali was doing her best to maintain a stony glare, but it definitely had something of a sulky pout to it.

The door of the caravan before them opened, and Stefan came out, followed by Jimaine. He didn't need to say anything - the grave look on his face said it all. She's fading fast.

Wanda squeezed Margali's arm tightly in her hand and she didn't shift her gaze away when what should have been Amanda's eyes swung around to glare at her. "Undo it," she said tightly, voice still sounding strange to her ears. "Undo this blasted spell while your body, and Amanda, are still alive. This is wrong and unnatural, Margali, and you know it."

"What would you know?" Margali hissed, avoiding looking at Stefan. "To be a prisoner in your own body, with even your own mind failing you, watching yourself and your people decline because they've lost what's theirs... She took my daughter. I am merely reclaiming her. Her and the power of my clan."

Bending her head to Margali's ear, Wanda hissed softly enough that her voice didn't carry far, "~Do you forget who I really am, beyond this body that you stuck me in? Leadership has been passed through my family for generations and I have watched my family struggle as well. Do not play that card with me, Margali, and start realizing that this situation came because of your selfishness and no other.~" In her anger, she knew her fingers were digging hard enough to leave bruises but she would apologize to Amanda after they got her out of the ailing body.

Margali's face tightened, the only indication of the pain she felt, and she refused to respond. Refused to reveal what was going on in her mind. "Torture me, if you will. Every injury you visit on me, you visit on your precious 'Amanda'," she said instead. "It won't get you what you want."

"You should learn to keep your accusations straight. If we are the horrible monsters that Jimiane believes, then you should know it does not matter. And if you truly believe that reminding us that we've been forced to hurt Amanda's body, then we cannot be those horrible monsters, can we?" Marie-Ange ticked off points on her fingers with a scowl. "We did not switch anyone's bodies, we did not steal things and accuse anyone else, we did not use a young girl in a trick. You knew we would catch her!"

"Not to mention there's plenty of painful things that can be done to a body that don't leave a mark, or any kind of lasting injury," Doug stated flatly and coldly, the fingers of his free hand digging under the point of her jaw. "Pressure points are fabulous things," he murmured conversationally. "As is the level of pain the human body can tolerate."

"We also know plenty of telepaths," Mark added, perched on a tree branch overhead. "You don't do what we want, and we don't have to hurt Amanda's body. We can go straight to your mind, you cow. For your benefit, I'd reverse what you did to all of us. Preferably nowish." It came as a surprise to himself to threaten anyone thusly. He'd never even considered violating anyone's mind prior to this. Maybe he was picking up after Remy too much.

Margali's expression went flat. "And how much time would that take?" she asked, pulling as much as she could away from Doug's fingers, despite the pain in her arms. "Can you afford to take the risk of her dying in the meantime?"

"Enough, please." Stefan stepped forward but his eyes never left Margali's stolen face. "~Mother, hasn't this gone on long enough?~" he asked quietly, stopping in front of her. He didn't look at the two restraining her, simply reached up to cup her cheek. "~My sister was stolen a very long time ago and when she came back, maybe she did not make the greatest choices in the world. But who amongst us has? It does not make her not family. I do not want to lose you but I cannot stand to watch us lose her again when we have the ability to prevent that this time. We need to be a family again.~"

Kurt stepped to his side, shoulder to shoulder. "~I do not ask to be taken back into the clan. I know I have made mistakes too, and I stand by them. But Margali, please... do not do this.~"

"~That girl who came to us... that is not my daughter. It was a trick, a false hope. My daughter died at the hand of that monster.~" But Margali's voice lacked the conviction of earlier. "~He consumed her soul and left this stranger in her place.~"

"~Children grow up and must learn to make their own way in life,~" Doug told Margali, pressing the point. "~You cannot keep her a young child forever. She has grown beyond that time, and while the things that were done to her,~" his mouth worked as if to spit at even the oblique mention of Rack, "~she is not a monster. She is a good person, whom all of us care about very deeply.~"

"She did not care for her family, when she came to us again. She needed help, and went to the darkness instead. Tainted the family's gift..." It didn't sound right, even to her - with the fog of unconsciousness lifting from her mind, her power spent in the fight, Margali was starting to think clearly for the first time in months. Possibly even a year or two. In this body, things that had seemed so clear no longer made sense. "I must protect my family, my clan."

"~This is not the way~", Kurt said, pleading. "~The family do not want this. Stefan does not, Jimaine did not know or she would not have helped you. Is that not right, Jimi?~"

The girl stepped forward from the back of the crowd, tremulous but willing. "~He's right, Mother. This is wrong.~"

"This is ridiculous." A bamf, and Mark appeared mere inches from Margali. "This is not your decision to make. That is not your body, it is not your power, it has nothing to do with you. This is Amanda. This is her body, her power, her self that you are destroying. You're so concerned about your birthright that you'd lure and kill a human being for it? You're no better than any demon. Which kinda makes you more of a hazard to the magic than Amanda ever was, doesn't it?"

Margali opened her mouth to retort, snapped it shut again. A look far older and wearier than Amanda had ever worn crossed her face. "And do you know what it's like?" she said softly. "To feel your body fail, your mind slip away? To forget the names of loved ones and know that one day they'll be nursing you like a baby, feeding you, changing you, wiping up your bodily spills?" She sagged a little in Wanda and Doug's holds. "And then to have the chance to live again? No, none of you would understand. You are all young and powerful, your lives ahead of you. Age is a distant thing."

"You had your youth once. Is it fair to deny Amanda hers, or her chance to grow old?" Marie-Ange asked quietly. "I think we understand more than you realize, and if we were to explain, you would still not believe us. Amanda has scars, you must have seen them. Do you really think she is not aware of how close death could be, even if age is distant?"

Margali looked over at Jimaine, seeing the pleading look there. Stefan and Kurt, just as desperate. ~This is wrong.~

"Very well," she said heavily. "I will do as you ask. I will restore all to their rightful places. Please, let me go."

Catching Doug's eye over the blonde hair, Wanda shrugged one shoulder and then let go, taking a small step backwards. She was willing to take Margali at her word but she had no issues with staying within punching distance if the witch decided that spellcasting and running was actually still in her favor.

Doug took a mirroring step back, watching Margali's motions and expression like a hawk. Her assurances that she would reverse the body-swapping spell was only good for so much trust considering the things she had already done.

Margali winced as her arms were released, massaging feeling back into them. Looking down at her hands, she turned them over, flexing the fingers slightly. So much life. The gadjo were watching her suspiciously, but she ignored them, turning instead to Kurt, the worried expression on his face familiar even if the features were not. "~I'll need to be with her, in the same room,~" she said, motioning towards the caravan that had been her home for almost sixty years. "~If I am to have a guard, I would rather it be you.~"

Kurt nodded, taking a step towards the battered caravan. "~We cannot let it be alone, you understand. But I will be with you.~" He turned to the others, knowing Mark and Marie-Ange, at least, wouldn't have understood, and explained. "She will undo it, but it is to be she, Amanda and I in the room. No one else."

"As long as the spell reaches us as well," Wanda replied dryly, tugging Mark's pants up with an odd look on her face, "then I do not care if she decides to do it naked and hanging upside from a tree. Now would be a fantastic time."

Margali nodded, and headed up the caravan steps, Kurt close beside her. The door closed behind them with a most emphatic click.

There was a long moment of silence. Nothing happened. Then, just as doubt was beginning to set in, blinding white light erupted from every window and crack of the caravan, followed by a rushing wind. Anything that was loose was caught up in the unnatural breeze, clothes flapping and hair tossed around.

And then, all was still.

Followed by a loud string of jubilant curses from Mark's mouth. Mark's mouth, not Kurt's. "Thank you, Jebus," he intoned solemnly, hands running along his arms, his chest, his legs, making sure that he was really him and not anyone else.

The door opened to the caravan and Wanda slipped out, grinning widely. "Mark, you have a glorious ass but, really, I am glad to have mine back. All the proportions are right again!"

Kurt had already started running before the door opened, and was halfway up the steps in a single jump before Wanda spoke. "It worked! And for Amanda?" The door closed behind him before anyone could answer, Kurt obviously finding the answer out for himself.

Doug wanted badly to storm up the stairs and see for himself that Amanda was indeed okay, but he understood Kurt wanting to keep things private. And judging from the exclamations he could hear from Kurt, she was indeed returned to herself.

"What are all of you waiting for? " Marie-Ange wasn't about to herself - it wasn't her place, here. But she made little shoo'ing motions at Wanda. "Before Kurt forgets to tell us and makes us wait!" She certainly hoped he wouldn't. He might've been angry, but she thought he was better natured then to make them wait and worry just because he was upset.

The door opened, and Amanda herself appeared, coming slowly down the steps. She glanced at her friends, gave them a little thumbs up, but there was something somber in her expression as she beckoned to Stefan and Jimaine, and spoke with them quietly for a few moments.

"I've got to go back in for a minute," she told the others somewhat apologetically. "Margali, she... she hasn't got long." There was a noise of denial from Jimaine, and Stefan laid his hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "She wants her family. All of us."

There's always a price for power. And room for forgiveness.

After the light of Margali's spell, the caravan seemed almost dark by comparison. The blonde girl swayed on her feet, then opened her eyes and looked at Wanda. "Did it work?" she asked anxiously, the voice unmistakably Amanda's.

The older woman stumbled a little bit and cracked open an eye before smiling brightly. "Oh, it is good to be me. And welcome back, yourself." There was a murmur of anxious voices outside and Wanda tilted her head. "I think I need to make sure the others are doing fine, though." Still trying to get her 'land legs' back, she made her way slowly out of the caravan.

Kurt was already halfway up the steps, taking three at a time without even thinking to teleport - at the speed he was going, it wouldn't have saved a lot of time.

"Hey, Blue, it's all right," Amanda reassured him as he came in, looking a little wild-eyed. "She did it." She wobbled slightly as she tried to get her bearings after the long immobility. She ached all over - wincing, she brushed the bruise on her jaw.

Kurt reached to steady her, noticing the swaying and not sure how strong she was now. "I hoped she would. Especially after the family said their part."

Amanda nodded, looking down at the woman lying on the bed. Margali had always seemed to loom large in her mind's eye - now she looked shrunken and drained, and terribly, terribly old and she was reminded of Alison, drained by Selene to the point of old age. Shivering a little, she reached out to touch the old woman's hand. "Margali?" she asked softly, not sure if she wanted an answer, since she didn't know how she'd react. "Are you all right?"

Margali's hand twitched ever-so-slightly, and her eyes opened. "~I did you wrong,~" she croaked, voice barely audible over the rattle of breath in and out of her lungs. "~Both of you.~" Her eyes moved to take in Kurt, standing by Amanda's side.

Kurt took his attention from his sister now, following her gaze, and he dropped to his knees by the bed and reached for Margali's hands. "~Mother, do not... you need to rest.~"

"~Rest will not help me now,~" she said almost impatiently, and the rise in her tone set off a coughing fit. When she stopped, she squeezed Kurt's hands, enveloping her own. "~What was done... must be undone, and I am dying. You are Szardos, Kurt.~" A tear, all the more shocking for the fact it came from Margali, who had never cried in Kurt's presence before, slid into the wrinkles of her cheek. "~Forgive me, my son.~"

"~You have never needed my forgiveness. But if you want it, it is yours.~" His eyes were bright, though the tears weren't falling yet.

"~Always so quick to mercy... you are Ivan's son, Kurt. He would have been so proud of you.~" Her gaze moved to Amanda, standing still beside the low bed she'd so recently occupied in her mother's body. "~Both of you. I cannot ask your forgiveness, not for what I did. I made a foolish bargain, let jealousy cloud my judgement and I hurt you. Hurt you, who had already been so wronged." The rattle was obviously worsening, the effort to speak costing her. "~Your father would not have let this happen. When he died... part of of me died also. I shall be glad to join him again.~" The tears were running freely now. "~I wish you well, Amanda Sefton. Take care of your brother, yes?~"

Amanda's face twisted a little, and she nodded, not trusting herself to speak at first. "~I will,~" she managed, voice sounding strangled.

Margali nodded, accepting, and her face seemed to relax somewhat, the strain leaving it. "~Fetch Stefan. The clan... it will be his, when I am gone. And Jimaine. I would say goodbye to her.~" Amanda nodded again, and slipped out of the caravan to do as Margali asked. The woman squeezed Kurt's hand again, feebly. "~And you, you will look after them? Care for your brother and sisters, as I could not?~"

"~I will~", he promised. "~To the best of my power. But Mother, you cannot talk so, you..." His voice died, as he faced what she so clearly already knew. "~Not yet!~"

"~It is how it is, Kurt. And I am grateful, truth be told. To live much longer in this shell, after such freedom...~" Regret and longing warred in her voice. "~Youth is a very precious thing, Kurt. Do not waste yours. Live. Love. Don't bind yourself only to duty, or you will find one day that duty is all you have, and it is a very heavy burden.~"

He nodded, jerkily, and now he was weeping openly. "~I will do as you say, Mother, if I can. But I have loved already, if not as you mean. The others are coming. If it is time, then...~"

True enough, there were footsteps on the short flight of steps leading to the door, and it opened, revealing Amanda, Jimaine white-faced and trembling by her side, Stefan behind, grave and serious. Before anyone could speak, Jimaine had moved to her mother's side, flinging herself down beside Kurt and burying her face in the colourful knitted quilt covering her mother's form.

"~Gently, little sister~", Kurt told her, wrapping an arm around the young girl in an attempt at some consolation. "~And do not cry.~" The last words were weak, given his own tears, but he had to say something.

Jimaine didn't look up, and seemed to be trying to cling to both her mother and brother at the same time.

"~Jimi, Jimi...~" Margali's voice was tender, more tender than the older three had heard for a long time (and in Amanda's case, ever) and she pulled one hand from Kurt's, raising it to the blonde head beside her. "~My little girl. Forgive me, for using your love for your mother against your sister. I only thought I was doing right by you and the clan, but I was wrong.~"

"~I'd do it again if you asked!~" she burst out, lifting her head finally. "~If you stayed.~" She was less able than her brothers to accept what was happening, being so much younger, and her voice cracked like a wounded child's now. "~Don't leave me.~"

"~I must, child. This body is old and worn out, and it won't be long before my mind fails completely and I forget those dearest to me.~" Margali's hand moved to Jimiane's cheek, wiping the tears away. "~You are a woman of the Szardos clan. Be strong, for me. Help Stefan, look after Meggan.~" A small smile creased her face. "~Have a good life, for me and your father.~"

"~...I'll be strong~", she said eventually, almost inaudible. "~Like you taught me.~"

"~Be strong, and be happy.~" Brushing her hand over Jimaine's head once more, Margali looked to Stefan. "~It is as we have spoken, my son. It is time for you to take your place as leader.~"

Quietly, Stefan made his way to the edge of the bed, kneeling as well. "~This was never an easy tradition,~" he said quietly, a hand reaching up to smooth his mother's hair down. "~But if you are willing to see the leadership passed into my hands, then I will gladly take the burden from you. If you can rest easy with that knowledge, then I will know I have done the right thing."

"~Always so strong...~" Margali's smile faltered and she clutched at his hand. "~It has not been easy for you, Stefan, and that will not change. But I have faith in you. You will take care of our people.~" She took a tembling breath, let it out in a cough, and went on. "~You are leader now, Stefan. This charge I place into your hands.~"

As Stefan rose and moved back, a degree of uncertainty feel upon the small group gathered around the dying woman's bedside. So far tradition had driven things, ancient rituals given them the comfort of structure, but now those were done with. Except one... Margali, now visibly weaker than she'd been before, struggled to push herself a little more upright on her pillows, gestured at a wooden box, sitting on the shelf opposite.

"~One... last... duty," she croaked, chest heaving with the effort. "~There must be a Draborni , to look to the clan.~" Kurt handed her the box, and it became clear as she fumbled for it that her eyesight was going as well. "~Gemile, where are you? Where is my daughter?~"

Amanda started, mouth framing a negative even as her brain caught up and silenced her. This wasn't for her, she hadn't earned it, didn't have the ties to the clan she'd need. She looked at Jimaine, face tear-stained and blotchy, the same as hers got when she cried, and her hair catching the light, and made her decision. Amanda rose, taking the younger girl's arm.

Jimaine looked at her in blank confusion, standing automatically as Amanda did. Then she looked to her mother, and something dawned... but there was still puzzlement in her eyes when she looked back at Amanda. "Why?" she asked under her breath. "After what I did, after it all..."

"Because you deserve it," Amanda replied, just as quietly. "You're more Szardos than I'll ever be, and you'll do what's right." She gave her younger sister a small smile. "You pretended to be me pretty well back in New York. Got it in you to do it again?"

Kurt was watching with undisguised approval and pride as Jimaine nodded hesitantly. "I... I think so." And she stepped forward to the bedside. "~I'm here, Mother.~"

Amanda nodded and stepped back, impressed. Jimi was even managing the slight accent to Amanda's Romani, the result of not speaking it her entire life. Margali patted the bedclothes beside her, indicating she should sit. "~Ours is a long line of witches, Gemile. Power handed down, from mother to daughter. Today I give you your birthright, when I would have stolen it from you.~" She fumbled the box open, groped around inside and pulled out a chain, a gold coin hanging from it, catching the dim light of the lamps. "~Hold out your hand, daughter.~"

Jimaine lowered herself to the bed, barely breathing, eyes fixed on the coin. All these years, she'd wanted this, resented her lost sister for having it, and now Gemile was just giving it to her? Although... perhaps it was fair, at that. Gemile had power of her own, and like she'd said, Jimiane was the one who truly belonged to the clan. She held out her hand in silence.

Margali lay the coin in Jimiane's hand, closing the girl's fingers over it and laying her own hand over the top. "~The power is the clan's. Serve it well,~" she said, breathing laboured. There were no lights, no overt signs of power use, but as Margali pulled her hand back, there was something gone from her, a certain vitality. She looked around her assembled children, fixing fading vision on each one in turn, Amanda last of all. "~Thank you,~" she murmured, before closing her eyes. Four or five rasping breaths later, and she was gone.

The vitality Margali had lost had, almost visibly, transferred to Jimaine - the girl was all but glowing, and it was only a little dimmed as she stared down at her mother's body. Kurt was kneeling where he'd been all along, head bent and tears falling on the blankets.

Stefan moved to join the pair at the bed, his own pain evident beneath the stoic mask he'd had to wear so much over the past year, and he placed his hand on Kurt's shoulder, the other on Jimaine's. Amanda hung back, emotions warring within. Margali had caused her so much pain, so much hardship, but that time of living in her body, seeing through her eyes... Silently, she crossed the small space between her grieving siblings and herself, slipping her arm around Stefan's waist, and he looked down at her with the slightest hint of a smile.

It was Stefan who began the song first, the traditional farewell to the departed, his bass voice rumbling in his chest. Jimi joined in next, her alto trembling with grief but true. Amanda hesitated, knowing unlike her siblings she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, as Manuel had once said, unsure of the words, but falteringly she made out the tune as best she could.

Kurt's voice rose to join them, the tenor a little wobbly but strong for all that. And from outside the caravan, one by one, other voices joined in, until the family was singing at the heart of a choir.