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Regulus Black (toilandhazard) wrote in flippedrpg,
@ 2012-11-05 17:41:00

Entry tags:

ch: unwind: narcissa black, ch: unwind: regulus black, p: annalisa, p: kaitlin

Who: Regulus & Narcissa^unwind
What: Walking around the island
When: The afternoonish?
Where: Around the island

Regulus was uneasy. He knew his brother's temper well enough despite not having been around him since he ran away. He knew better than to stay close by or go somewhere where he'd run into his brother, which meant going around on the island. Before that, of course, he'd made a point to say he was going to be there so Sirius could avoid him. Hopefully avoidance would be his choice instead of hunting him down.

There were a lot of things that he could have told Sirius and he could have tried admitting that he'd been wrong about certain things, but he couldn't. Not to his Sirius. Apparently he could to another Sirius...but that Sirius was much more calm and much less rude to him about things. That Sirius said he loved him. No matter how vehemently Regulus would deny it, that was the one thing he'd wanted to hear for years, but it still didn't feel real and he still couldn't return the sentiment. The words got stuck in his throat and his fingers refused to write them. Not when he was certain the moment he said them, Sirius would retract his statement.

It also didn't help that he was certain his parents would show up any minute now and then he'd have to be on his best behaviour all over again and even if he'd made progress, it would be destroyed because they would expect him to be the same and he would be the same. He wasn't brave like Sirius and he wasn't reckless like Sirius. He didn't know how to exist without his family around.

Narcissa understood him more than most of the others. She knew what it was like. They'd both been set for unwinding from the beginning and yet they both never were unwound...at least, he'd survived so far. He still had another year to go before he was really safe and hopefully with a wife and child they wouldn't give him up so easily. Perhaps his first child would be a girl and then they couldn't unwind him because they'd still need an heir. Yes. Perhaps that would happen. He would be okay with that.

Everything here felt so much more complicated than before. He was virtually alone...with just Narcissa. There were no parents to look after them and no one to make sure they did as they were supposed to...but that didn't mean they shouldn't.

He was properly layered...because he didn't like the idea of getting sunburn. He'd put suncream on his face all the same to be safe. At least the shade was a comfortable temperature.

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he looked over at Narcissa and smiled a little. "Are you alright? Yesterday was...unfortunate."

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willtolive
2012-11-05 11:28 pm UTC (link)

For her part, Narcissa had outwardly made her position more clear than she had yet upon arriving in this compound, and yet still felt entirely conflicted on the inside. The main thing that felt certain to her at the moment was that her loyalties here lay first and foremost with Regulus, who was the last of her real and true family. She felt no regret for having cut ties with Andromeda and Sirius for his sake, even if she had done so by being crueler than was probably strictly necessary. They had been cruel, though-- calling her little cousin a murderer and betraying her confidence-- and she had wanted to infuriate them just as much as they infuriated her. In that, she had most certainly succeeded.

There was a certain amount of freedom afforded by not maintaining ties that she did not entirely believe in, as well. She had not trusted Andromeda's loyalty in the slightest, not after what she'd confessed upon her arrival. She had in fact felt warmer towards Sirius, until he had been so mean to his younger brother. Better that his hatred be directed towards her, or at least towards them both, so that Regulus did not feel alone.

She had also gained a bit of respect from Rodolphus as a side effect, spoken to a much more rational version of Sirius and met one of his daughters, and had an interesting and informative brush with Greta Grindelwald. This place was, in a word, rather a mess-- and even as someone who prided herself on her self-control, she nevertheless found it overwhelming at times. But she remained calm and collected on the outside, refusing to let even an ounce of it show on her face.

To Regulus, however, she had been unfailingly honest in everything. She had been honest with Rodolphus and Arayna as well, but there were some things that people from other worlds-- who had never heard of unwinding, much less been raised to believe in it-- simply could not understand. She felt loyalty even stronger to Regulus for the fact that he truly understood her.

"Truthfully, I am conflicted," she said. "I find myself getting very defensive and angry when others criticize unwinding and our parents' use of it, even though I do not entirely disagree with them. But that is the heart of the problem for me, I suppose. It takes a strong belief in the honor of unwinding in order to be willing to go through it myself, and the fact that I could not maintain that belief made it impossible for me to ignore my survival instincts."

Was it strange to feel regret for the fact that she had not sacrificed herself? Before arriving here, she'd truly believed that she could be of more worth to her family by living, but that she simply had to manipulate her circumstances somewhat to help them see it as well. But the things that she had said to Andromeda and Sirius-- if that was how her parents truly felt, that they simply wanted some worth to come from a child that was otherwise worthless to them, then perhaps they had actually believed in her after all. And that possibility made her feel rather terrible.

But she should not be so selfish as to only consider her own feelings. "What about you, are you alright?"

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toilandhazard
2012-11-05 11:46 pm UTC (link)

Regulus listened quietly as Narcissa spoke. For him, Narcissa was the person that he trusted the most here. He was still on the fence about the other Sirius, but he'd taken a leap of faith and spoken to him about something he couldn't speak to his own brother about. It was difficult when being confronted constantly with negative responses and the fact that it made him want to lash out and hurt his brother in return. He couldn't truthfully say that he didn't say things with the intent to hurt his brother. He did. At first it was to impress his parents and his family but then it became habit.

"The other Sirius said something that I'd never really thought of," he said quietly. "Only that doesn't help me feel better about anything. I'm profiting off the death of other people's family to keep my own." He'd known it...in a way but he'd never spent time thinking about what it all really meant because it was easier not to think about what his job meant. It was easier to think of it simply as handling magic.

"Everything's still so complicated. Sirius..." He paused, fidgeting just a little with the shirt he was wearing, a style far more muggle than he was used to. "Not mine. The other one. He said he loved me. Loves me. Loved Mother. He stayed." Regulus knew his expression was far less put together than it usually was.

"I...don't know how to comprehend that. He left and...how can anyone be certain that this Sirius will stay? He said he wouldn't but I-" He cut himself off, allowing himself to look around him. "I don't know how to trust him. And I don't know how to deal with the idea that I know he's still disappointed in me...despite what he said about still loving me. That is worse than being angry with me and hating me."

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willtolive
2012-11-07 12:06 am UTC (link)

Narcissa processed that, quietly. "Isn't that the real point of unwinding, though?" she said after a moment. "That people sacrifice their magic and their lives in order to benefit everyone else, society as a whole. And those that are otherwise useless to their families or to society are actually managing to do some good for other people."

That was how she was starting to look at it, anyway. She had never actually thought about the second part until arriving here; until she had said it to Sirius and Andromeda. But it made a lot of sense, and it explained why so many other useless types-- werewolves, orphans-- shared the same fate as a tithe like her.

It didn't change the fact that she preferred to live rather than share that fate. But she had, at least, reached a semi-satisfactory explanation in her own mind for why her parents and her aunt and uncle had made their choices the way they had. It was one thing to be confused by her own beliefs about unwinding, but it was yet another to feel betrayed and misled by the people who had led her to believe them.

"He did seem more reasonable and loyal than the Sirius we had at home," she said, putting a comforting hand on Regulus's shoulder. It was alright that he couldn't maintain his composure as much around her. She felt genuinely protective of him, and had no intention of betraying his trust. "But it's completely understandable that you don't trust him. We can never really understand the beliefs and motivations of people in other worlds. And he doesn't fully understand you, either."

She completely understood what he meant about the feeling of others being disappointed in him, because she had thoroughly disliked the way Andromeda had treated her after her confession. She preferred the anger and hate, because at least it was certain. Disappointment was difficult to trust, because it could lead to more pain later on, or it might not. Uncertainty and confusion were hardest of all, and Narcissa still felt quite a bit better for having drawn clear lines between herself and the people she did not entirely trust.

"Regulus... you know I was never going to leave entirely, right?" she said. "I was always going to come back to the family. If I hadn't thought I could return, I never would have left in the first place. And if I'd been found out, or if they'd still wanted me unwound when I'd returned, I think-- I think I would still have done it anyway. Because I would, truthfully, prefer to die for my family than to lose them or leave them behind. I just thought I might be able to live and be loyal to them, all at once."

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toilandhazard
2012-11-07 12:24 am UTC (link)

"I know that's the point..." But Regulus had never wanted to take away people's family when they didn't want to be taken. He didn't know Ted Tonks and he felt some anger toward him for being so stupid and making Andromeda react so stupidly. He wouldn't have been pleased with her decision even after the fact but the point would still be that she wasn't dead and wasn't blaming them and their family for her death. She made the choices that got her into the situation she was put in. He still didn't understand what love had to do with anything. Love was not guaranteed in marriage and to expect it to be so was frivolous and silly. Sacrifices were made and he'd made them willingly which confused him as to why others couldn't.

Still, he understood Narcissa's actions. Not wanting to be dead and, in a way, betraying her family to keep herself from dying seemed like a natural response considering her reasoning behind it. They'd been raised to believe that it was an honour. Once it stopped being an "honour" it was bound to be more difficult to keep seeing the same way. His own betrayal was much more personal...and it wasn't betraying his family. Not the ones he was staying with.

"Yes. He does." And that was why it was dangerous to trust him. Because he seemed to be everything he'd wanted but nothing was ever what you wanted, so somewhere in there, he had to be lying. Regulus knew that it wasn't easy to trust a person when they didn't trust you, which could affect whatever it was that they had right now, but he didn't know how to trust Sirius. Not entirely. Not with his feelings. "Chances are he'll leave when he does understand me. I don't see it ending any other way. He always leaves, so why shouldn't he now?"

He nodded. "Yes. I understand. Even when Andromeda threw the knowledge of your choice in my face to throw me off, I understood. You came back to us. You didn't stay away." He frowned a little. "You didn't throw us away." Sirius had thrown him away without a second thought. That was the way he saw it. Narcissa hadn't really left him and she was there now and she'd gone out of her way to make sure he didn't feel alone. It was perhaps a bit selfish of him to wave off her betrayal and ignore it, but he couldn't lose Narcissa, too. He couldn't lose the only person who understood how he felt.

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willtolive
2012-11-07 02:28 am UTC (link)

"But it's more complicated than that," Narcissa finished for him. "I know." She knew all too well. She wanted her beliefs about unwinding to fit into a tidy little understandable box with clear boundaries of where she agreed and where she disagreed, but they didn't. They were all over the place. She would defend hers and Regulus's right to make choices to avoid being unwound in one breath, and get incredibly angry with someone criticizing the practice of unwinding in the next. Nothing about it was simple.

And it had made it really hard to be here, because no one understood her and her beliefs seemed to be constantly under siege. She felt much calmer now that Regulus was here, even though her beliefs were still just as confusing and she was just as besieged as before (if not moreso). Loyalties, in her mind, made everything simpler. Because ultimately it didn't matter what she thought about unwinding; her dedication to her family took precedence over everything else.

"If anything," she said, "I feel that my choice proves it is possible to survive unwinding without throwing away the people you care about. It's possible to come back. But they had reasons other than survival for what they did. Selfish reasons." Surviving was selfish too, but far less selfish than throwing a hissy fit over not being able to marry who you wanted or needing to protect someone that they had chosen more than their family. "And even if they stayed, they would have sat back and allowed us to go through with being unwound. It only became problematic for them when it was their selfish choices and their lives on the line."

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toilandhazard
2012-11-07 02:42 am UTC (link)

The more time Regulus spent with Narcissa, the better he felt...but the more conflicted everything really seemed. He'd thought about it before, acknowledged that his feelings were probably selfishly driven, but then he'd ignored them. He ignored them because he was sure that he'd go mad if he thought about it too much. What use would he be if he turned mad, if he turned into his mother. He didn't want to be bitter and angry all the time. It seemed he'd already started on that path, though.

Being called the same as a murderer wasn't fair as far as he was concerned. In other worlds, he did torture people and harm them and he probably was a murderer...but in this world he wasn't. That was the way he saw it. He didn't think he or Narcissa should be judged for familial loyalty and for their own sacrifices, but on the other side, he understood why Sirius was hurt. This world was forcing him to see everything for the conflicted mess it was.

"Sirius said he was happy at the idea that I got to live...but I don't think either of them realise why we were okay with it before. I was fine..." Until your story about unwinding and then I was terrified. But he wouldn't bring that up. Ever since then, it was something to be feared. Still, if he'd been asked to do it, he would have gone with his head held high and dealt with it because his family was important. "They wouldn't have missed us." Which may not have been true, but with the way things were these days, that's how it felt.

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