When Rosalind had asked Regina for a moment alone after the mediation was over and a compromise had been reached between their side and the Vorerra's lawyers, Regina hadn't hesitated in offering to take Rosalind to her office for privacy. She didn't know what it was about young witches that had her softer than normal, but a maternal protectiveness had been in every moment of her defense of Rosalind against the trumped up accusations that the other side had slung at her.
"Excuse the mess," Regina said. "I have about three other cases going on currently and my assistant just went on maternity leave. " She shifted the case files that were on her desk to a spare chair in an effort to make the mess on her desk a little more manageable. It did very little to declutter the area, but it was a slight bit better than before.
Offering the other empty chair in front of her desk to Rosalind, she sat on her own chair after taking off her suit jacket. "What did you want to talk about, dear?"
The past couple of weeks had been a whirlwind of emotions. Confusion, anger, hurt, determination. The amount of times she’d wondered if she’d made the wrong call was too many to count not. What if she had just let it go? Was protecting a Phoenix worth all of this? Now that there was a light at the end and she was fairly confident Vorerra was about to have their asses handed to them in court by Regina, she’d eventually be able to say yes. But it was touch and go for a while. The cruelty and greed in people was sometimes so overwhelming, it seemed like curling up in bed and staying there would be the smarter choice.
Roz had watched Regina through this entire process. From the way she carried herself, to the way she spoke about the case, to the way she handled the lawyers employed by the Vorerra coven with unyielding furiosity and confidence. Roz hoped to have a fraction of that type of inner fire someday.
“How do you deal with people?” Roz finally asked, before shaking her head. No, that had come out wrong. Or maybe it hadn’t, because Roz’s frustration level and adrenaline was still spiked. “I mean, does being a lawyer help you deal with the astronomical amount of horrible people and injustices in existence?” Big question, but there were big emotions she was trying to figure out how to deal with.
She had initially assumed that Roz had wanted to talk about the particulars of her case, of what came next and who they were going to talk to, to get her the help she needed to hone her abilities. So to hear Rosalind ask about how she kept from murdering people on the daily, well, she paused for a long moment to consider her answer.
Eventually, she said, “Honestly? I don’t. I get to be blunt and mean to people because a lawyer doesn’t have to sugar coat shit. The people who come to me either truly need help because of some asshole or are the asshole themselves, so I have someone to channel all my annoyances at. I put it into defeating them in court or mediation and that’s how I manage it. I also don’t give enough of a shit about many people to worry about injustices as a whole. I worry about what’s in front of me, not what I can’t control.”
Not at all what Roz had been expecting as an answer. But it was an honest one, which was something she could respect. In some ways Regina almost reminded her a little bit of Prudence, though likely with more insight and experience.
“This whole thing has sucked. More than most things I’ve dealt with.” Hell, Lucifer, the Eldritch Terrors, they’d all been celestial or ancient evil entities. It wasn’t difficult to understand that they were just evil. It wasn’t hard to accept. But when it was people? Just ordinary people who chose to do terrible things? Roz wasn’t that naive, she knew they were out there, but it was more difficult to process.
“To the point that I almost regret doing it. But I still think keeping that phoenix safe was worth it.” She could only imagine the future it would have had otherwise if Vorerra had taken it. It would have been used for profit and power. It would be a commodity, instead of a living creature. “But usually when I take on something that I know is wrong I have...some way of addressing it. Sexist school principals to Eldritch Terrors. There’s always been a way for me to fight back somehow because I didn’t really have to worry about dealing with the law.” The law didn’t care that a school pandered to male jocks only, and the law didn’t know anything about the amount of times that the world had almost ended in her world. “But Vorerra changed the playing field on me when they realized outside the law wasn’t going to work for them.”
Roz frowned, looking down at her hands. She wasn’t sure where she was going with this. Maybe it was just her emotions controlling her. Maybe it was, but she owned it to herself to explore that first, to see if it went anywhere. “What made you become a lawyer?”
“Sometimes being the good guy isn’t worth it,” Regina said honestly, because it wasn’t. What did it get her? Lovers that were dead and a life full of losing people she cared about. She was lucky she had managed to hold onto Henry and Bonnie this long, but she was just waiting for the notification to pop up on the network telling her that they were gone too.
Softer though, she added, “But for what it’s worth in this case? I think you did the right thing. You’re helping keep a rare magical creature out of their hands and the only consequence you’re facing is that you get more individualized training for your abilities. Some would say you’re coming out on top.” Sure, they still had to actually prove that the phoenix was better off in the Sanctuary in court, but Regina was already working some angles, calling in some experts. She was confident they were going to beat the Vorerra and their faux concern over the well being of this bird.
As for Roz’s question…”Honestly? It’s a fake degree. Gave myself the knowledge and skills when I created new personas for everyone I cursed in my homeworld so that I would have the right skills for the position I had given myself over the new world we were going to live in.” Tapping the side of her head, she explained, “And since I had all that knowledge in my head and a pretty decent grasp on magic, I thought I’d put it to use here. I needed money, this is a cash cow operation, and there were already too many bakers in the kitchen here to restart the restaurant/bakery I ran in the previous world I was in.” Her smile was absolutely wicked. “I hope you weren’t expecting a sugar coated answer.”
She couldn’t agree with that. Roz learned that being on team good guy was sometimes just as messy as team bad guy, but she also believed, or knew at this point, that there was something out there taking measure of how people lived their lives. Plus doing the wrong thing just made her feel like shit.
Doing the right thing made her feel like shit for external reasons, but at her core she knew the bad feelings wasn’t coming from her own choices. They were coming from the choices of others. Vorerra, specifically.
A small smile pulled at the corner of her lip at the mention of the consequences she was facing. It was a masterful move on Regina’s part. The only thing she had to do was keep working at getting better with her powers. It was hardly a punishment at all. It had all worked out in the end. She’d even kept her position as head girl, despite Margeaux’s attempt to take that from her.
“I wasn’t.” she said with a shake of her head. “Just an honest one, even if it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Which I’m starting to think is the baseline for you.” Regina was not someone could predict an answer from. At least Roz couldn’t so far.
“Applications for university will be due in a matter of a couple of months. High school does a lot of ridiculous things, including expecting people to know what they want to do with their life at 17. The only thing I know for sure is what I don’t want to do. But law? Maybe. It could just be that I’m still furious over the whole thing. But I owe it to myself to see if it’s something I could study.”
Expecting the unexpected with Regina was a lesson those that were close to her learned fairly quickly. Her whims changed in a matter of seconds and she indulged them more often than not. Roz would quickly wise up to that, if she spent more time with Regina.
“The beautiful thing about university is that you can change your major at any time. Focus on your core classes at first and get those done so you have more time to figure out what you want to specialize in,” Regina advised, as if she had gone to a proper university. But she had seen enough of Bonnie in school, prepped enough to know what Henry might face, to know this much.
“However...if you’re interested in law, we do have an intern program here for high school students. I can get you some material on it so you can see if that’s something that might interest you? It’s a little late in the game, but there’s still a spot left if you want it.”
She was probably right, though Roz had always been more goal oriented. Figure out what you wanted to do and then go after it. But maybe the best idea would be to let go of that and figure it out when she got there.
But the intern program did sound interesting. It would be a way to see if this interest that suddenly had her attention was something she was truly interested in, or it was her emotions fueling things. Roz leaned forward in her seat, interest perked. “Late in the game seems to be where I’m always starting off.” she said matter-of-factly. “I’d be interested in the material. I’ll review it quickly and make my choice right away.”
Regina smiled wide and stood. “Alright, let me go grab the packet and we’ll get you back to Strange after. And hey, today was a victory. I know it doesn’t quite feel like that, but it was, dear. This is going to come back to haunt them later, so enjoy that thought until it happens.”