"Your most important survival skill is asking for help."
THIS, it makes me so damn pissed off when parents try and normalize that asking for help is a taboo thing!
Sometimes we don't think we even need help. We believe we can use our existing skills in a way that makes it look like we can solve the problem on our own, and because that seems easier than asking for help, we take that route.
Don't.
If you don't know the EXACT consequences of doing it this new way that you just came up with on the spot, do not proceed.
Every lab disaster I have had to call in professional mitigation to deal with started with "oops, I'll just sweep that up and no-one will know" or "I can just wash it off with water, I'll be fine".
I been thinking of roleswapping Innia amd Coco as an AU, and the thought of Innia having such a questionable background. Like whatever happened to her, despite Galga and Alwert being who find her and given permission to foster her, the reveal of her hand forces her to be brought to Qifrey; Bela believes that Qifrey would be the only one able to understand and maybe bring Innia comfort and maybe finally soothe Qifrey. But instead he just sends Qifrey on an even worse spiral because Innia is closer to a lead than Coco is... But Innia is less agreeable than Coco.
Meanwhile Coco was left with her mother frozen for days, just sitting there shell-shocked. Only for Restys to see her and feel a bit of charitability, so he sits with her until Coco sobs and tells him everything. So he decided to take her in because it gives him a chance to work on if one could cure something like petrification and Coco seems to be a good student to have. She's friend and trusts him right now whole heartedly.
For one so attuned to the plights of others, you must see it too. The struggle to help. The impossibility to heal. So many thanks tainted by what you know you could have done, but have been forbidden to do. What drives your ambition toward that brighter world? — 👁️🗨️ ( @lidless-eye )
If you're trying to imply why I don't do forbidden magic, it's because all I've seen it do is cause harm! I would never don a brimmed cap after all they've done to my friends!
Luluci is gonna be the one that figures out what is going on with Qifrey
Walk with me here.
She is the one who helps Custas with his wounds and takes him to the hospital
She also made sure that he was given a seal chair for mobility and is kept up to date with Custas
She also makes sure that Custas is healthy before investigating if he saw magic being drawn..... which we know is what he figures out from the brimmed caps
She was dispatched to the second test when Alaira didn't reach out and was met with a missing kid, a missing proctor and a bloodied Qifrey. Of course, Qifrey being a part of the test, which he wasn't supposed to be, made her even more suspicious, ESPECIALLY when Olruggio tried to be like we aren't going to the Great Hall.
She also learns that Qifrey didn't tell Coco that witches are forbidden from studying medicine, telling her that it is a fundamental lesson in magic history.
Cut forward 20ish chapters and suddenly Custas' seal chair is getting returned, and her first comment is, "its good to know he made a full recovery." To which the doctor says umm no he didn't need it because of the nice witches he met.
And who are those nice witches? Coco and Custas.
So now she's suspicious and has connected that Coco, who didn't know that medicine is forbidden, is helping someone who was under investigation FOR WHEN he gets better and now has run away from the tracking sigil that was on his sealchair.
Cut to her chapter in the Silver Eve arc and she is told (along with Easthies) that someone is walking around with a spell on his chest. And who is that.... Dagda
And who is that.... Dagda. The man who told Luluci to take care of Custas all the way at the beginning.
Then she gets told that her friend and coworker got all of his memories erased and Atwert says the Galga heard minstrels singing, mentioning the staircase river.
That puts her on alert because she immediately connects that whatever happened to Galga has to do with Custas and Dagda, and yet she doesn't tell Easthies.
And then shit goes down... she finds Tartah.... one of the two that helped Custas.
And then there's Dagda who saves her from the leech out of nowhere, connecting that he was there when Galga lost his memories to a Brimmed Cap.
Especially when she hears that Custas was up in the sky... and if she connects the dots then she will realize that Custas might know about magic and needs to erase his memories.
Dagda runs out, knowing how dangerous the situation is and how the knights will treat Custas, but Luluci is already on the hunt and follows him. Leaving the girls in the outsiders hands with Tartah and Mr Nolnoa.
And then she finds a brimmed cap, who she believes is behind all of this leech stuff, and finds a brimmed cap trying to get Jujy to use forbidden magic. She gets immediately confused because Custas was not a witch, or a brimmed cap before so how in the world does she go from here.
And then Custas tells yells about how Galga attacked Dagda, making her put the pieces together.
They fight and all but get stopped by Coco and Qifrey, and Coco gets through to everyone that they are going after the wrong thing.
Coco gets Luluci's attention, telling her that saving people are what witches do and this puts him on the pointed cap side, he was taught the wrong way.
At finding out the it was Custas the whole time she doesn't know what to do and Dagda asks her to lay down her weapon, and she almost does, but Beldaruit tells her to apprehend them to keep the Pact.
Coco and Beldaruit have it out, and Luluci is listening in the whole time. Coco tells them that counterclock magic isnt forbidden because memory erasure is just another type of counterclock magic which makes Luluci pause and allows Custas to show Jujy how to save Hiehart.
Now she is starting to see a connection between Coco, Custas, and Dagda with the Brimmed Caps. Not that Coco is on their side but knows how to bend the rules in the way the pointed caps think.
She also overhears EVERYTHING that goes on between Coco, Beladruit and Captain Vinanna, including about what happened with Engendale until Beldaruit crushes the window way allowing her to hear everything.
Which means she doesn't hear about Qifrey defeating Engendale... but that is a separate thing.
But now we get her starting to defect and realize what she has known her whole life might be a lie. Which is right around the time that Custas starts to start feeling better and relief... starting up the silverwood.
She's starting to get suspicious and brings everyone to the medical spire, finding Coco to try to get some answers but Luluci gets stopped by Dagda who can tell the Coco is BUSY
She stays with everyone until Easthies comes around trying to wipe everyone and gets told by her commanding officer that she is either with him and the knights or she is getting erased.
This is when I think she starts to fully defect and wonder what the hell is going on. Everything that the Wises have put together has made sense but he is right, its against the pact. Ofc Easthies gets knocked out and she realizes that she as a witch has done NOTHING but hurt people today as she has just tried to silence the kids over and over again before hearing them out.
Fast forward, the leech is gone, everyone is saved but Dagda and Custas are still in the medical spire with Luluci. Dagda brings up how people are treating them so much better ever since Custas got a cap and he asks her if there really is a reason behind who gets to be witches.
He shows her that he was the one with the counterclock tattoo on him and she immediately goes to for her spear, but he tells her not to bother cause he isn't coming back again, telling her to watch over Custas when he's gone.
Custas wakes up and feels relief in the way he wakes up in Dagda's arms and IMMEDIATELY the tree explodes.
Now she knows the myths, all witches do, that silverwoods only sprout in animals when they feel calm, they don't grow in humans. But now she has seen right in front of her that isn't true.
Suddenly Coco comes through the branches and she tries to tell her but Coco goes, yeah I know its Custas, and she is holding a book IN QIFREYS HANDWRITING about how to fix it, something that Coco should not even know as a beginner witch
When asked how she got it, she deflects and Dagda takes the book saying that they wont need it because Dagda is dying. Luluci is HORRIFIED at this, learning that Silverwoods can grow in humans, how the counterclock spell works on a literal corpse, and how tf Coco knows about all of this.
She stays with Custas and Dagda throughout all of this. We dont see the after affects of what happens, but now, after the tree goes away, Luluci is with a dead Dagda and Custas is nowhere to be found (as he was taken by Restys)
Then we have all the Qifrey and Olruggio chapters... but then we get to chapter 97....
Luluci is back in the Great Hall and everyone is dealing with the consequences of their actions. Where she is told that Easthies is not a Deputy anymore, not because of what he did, but because he went against Vinanna.
She is told what he did was in the right and now basically everything that she allowed under Vinanna (before memory erasure) and Beldaruits word was WRONG. Vinanna tells her something was amiss that night and when Luluci asks what, she gets told that its on a need to know basis.
Shes starting to feel that everything isnt what it seems and maybe things arent right. And the higher ups are keeping a huge secret.
Soooooo.... this leads me to believe she is going to start investigating things.
Starting first with where Custas went. Presumedly, someone in the knights moralis has his cap, which can be used to find him. She eventually finds him but notices brimmed caps everywhere and says I'm not going in alone.
Or she is told to investigate where Tartah went, which leads her to the same place.
Either way the last person who saw either of them was Coco, which will lead Luluci right to the atelier. My guess is she goes to talk to Coco and Qifrey tells her absolutely not. Putting her back to square one, until she remembers a certain book with the full memory wipe spell.
She throws that into the orb and it points her to Qifrey and she puts everything together, finding out that he is also a silverwood host.
Now this could go two ways. If he finds out that she knows, her memory is getting erased. But if he doesnt, she is going to start investigating and put a HUGE hole in the brimmed caps plot to create a symbiosis between humans and the silverwood.
Let me know what you think. This came to me one day and I wanted to put together the info!
I feel like in some AUs, we should play with the idea of Coco resenting Innia more. Like not only do they have tension and a sort of dislike of each other, but then her two close friends basically form a trio with her, a trio that she used to be apart of no less??
Coco and Tartah never fully repair in a way that makes sense to others or sometimes themselves. Their interactions are both friendly and a smidge tense, with underlying words that neither will just come out and say. Coco never yelled at him, though it was well in her right to and Tartah never exactly apologizes despite needing to.
Instead, Coco gets small gifts carved for her left at the atelier she shares with Tetia, or small herbal kits and notes chatising her for how sickly she gets. And reminders to take a break that she laughs and keeps on her desk. Instead, Tartah was confonted with a cloak shoved around his shoulders and Coco insisting she made it because his was looking to tattered and it crossed her mind when she last saw him... Despite that cloak having been made for years now. He wears it primarily now, since the spell she inscribed is pretty useful. But he would have always worn it no matter what.
Both "I am sorry", and "I know you are." are never spoken; its silent between them, but they seem to found a way back to a bond that works for both of them. Coco can't fully forgive Tartah and Tartah doesn't want her to but they both would rather see the other than stay at odds forever.
discoholicmusic
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
