Tabbitha was nervous. To be fair, Tabbitha was always some kind of nervous, but she hated the fact that it got in the way of important things. She'd get so terrified of tests that the flood of nerves would turn her stomach inside-out (figuratively - such clarifications were necessary in a world of powerful magic) and she'd do even worse on the tests just because she was trying not to throw up in the middle of class. Though, that actually made her a bit more socially useful - she'd found out, with Rosa's help, some anti-nausea spells, and that helped fellow students who were either sick or similarly beset with nerves make it through their days.
It was nice to be useful. She wasn't exactly used to it - being as lanky and awkward as she was, she was used to just getting in the way, but Rosaline and Elza always made her feel like she belonged. She could actually protect Elza, rather than being the one protected, and Rosaline? Rosaline always had a place for her, and that meant that Tabbitha had a home. She'd never explicitly told anyone other than her journal, but she felt more safe awake and under Rosaline's directions than dozing off under three layers of heavy blankets in her bed.
And now, despite how scary the situation was, and despite how scary some of the potential implications were, she felt useful to Rosaline, and so, she faced the scenario with as much courage as she could muster. Which wasn't much, but still.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Tessawyn asked, crossing her arms in the living room. She towered over Tabbitha, a feeling that, since hitting her growth spurt, she'd thought was behind her, but Tessawyn was huge. Not just in height, but in width, muscled to the point that Tabbitha thought she could probably kill a demon without the use of Angelic magic. Just a sharp punch to the throat and its head might fly off.
Tabbitha had asked her, awkwardly, after magic class, if they could talk one-on-one back at the apartment. A sharp glare from Rosaline and a less sharp, but still pointy glare from Rachel had chased Maxwell off, presumably to hang out with Gabriel and the still-despondent, as far as their research had yielded, Alexander, and so, Tabbitha had, ostensibly, the moment alone with her Guardian to ask her whatever she wanted.
Really, she wasn't alone - Rachel had sensed that this was too personal for her to get involved with, and thus buzzed off, but Rosaline, thankfully, was waiting just outside, having waited for a signal from Tabbitha. She sent the slightest pulse through the air - S.O.S., in the historic tradition - and at it, Rosaline had leapt out of her room and positioned herself in the hallway outside of Tabbitha's apartment, listening in. It made Tabbitha feel safer than she otherwise would have, and frankly, she wasn't sure if she could have responded to Tessawyn without knowing Rosaline was there, waiting for her.
Tabbitha swallowed nervously. "It's about one of my classmates."
Tessawyn folded her arms - flexing unconsciously as she did so. "Yeah? How serious is it?"
Tabbitha didn't have a good answer to this - on the one hand, by her standards, the answer was "Very", seeing as it involved Elza, and considering that every life was incredibly important. On the other hand, she had no idea how Tessawyn valued things in the world. She seemed kind, but she was an Angel - the experience of someone who was what they would all inevitably become was, well, beyond the pale. It was impossible to have a correct answer, and so...
"Serious, I think? Like, it's scary, and..." Tabbitha trailed off.
Tessawyn put a firm, meaty hand on Tab's shoulder. "I'm getting the sense that you're scared." Not wrong, Tabbitha thought. "I'm going to make some tea, we're going to drink it together, and we're going to talk this out. Sound good to you?"
Tabbitha nodded, and sat down on the couch in the living room as Tessawyn began preparing their tea. She'd maintained quite a collection of blends, though Tabbitha didn't know much about that.
"I, uh..." Tabbitha protested. She didn't know what to say.
"Yes?" Tessawyn said, superheating the water with a quarter of a thought, and then using several more to pull back that heat to something more reasonable.
Tabbitha was starting to feel ill. Alone. She hated the feeling of being alone. It made her feel incomplete, instilling the same kind of fundamental wrongness she imagined if someone woke up missing a kidney or two. She was, like humans since time immemorial, a social animal, and thus, she needed someone, something-
Rosaline was outside, and she felt Tabbitha's panic in her bones.
Tabbitha, for her part, felt slightly assuaged by feeling Rosaline feeling this.
Tessawyn turned to Tabbitha, stopping her brewing. "She can come in, you know. Your friend, I mean."
Tabbitha blunk, and hearing Tessawyn, Rosaline burst through the door, sending it rebounding against the rubberized and sprung doorstopper, barely keeping it from smacking her in the face on its return.
"Come on in," Tessawyn called. "Do you take your tea with cream or sugar?"
Rosaline stalked her way inside, suspicious even as she closed the door quietly behind her.
"Both," Tabbitha answered.
Tessawyn looked at her, as Rosaline peeked her way around the corner of their little entrance hall. "Yes, but I still need to know her preferences."
"That's what I meant," Tab said. "I mean, same for me, but..."
"Ah," Tessawyn said. "And you can stop staring at me," she said to Rosaline. "I know I'm a little scary, but you've got nothing to fear. Tabbitha likes you, and that's enough of a voucher for me. Take a seat next to her on the couch."
Rosaline blushed. She'd like to think that she had even the slightest bit of command of the situation, but evidently, she had none. And Tabbitha was smiling at her, a little haphazardly and crookedly, as always, but her hand had found its way, consciously or subconsciously, to the place where Rosaline should be sitting next to Tab, and Tab patted the cushion beside her. That was too much for Rosaline, and she obediently sat next to her.
"You know," Tessawyn said, fiddling with various tea-related implements, "You can't sneak up on an Angel. In general, not yet, and in specific, not on one of my level without superlative skill and training. I appreciate the ambition," she said, pouring tea that should, if prepared naturally, have not been possible, into mugs for the three of them, "but you really need to recognize the limits of your abilities."
Tessawyn, while she could have just levitated their cups via a bit of magical exertion, chose to carry a saucer and mug in each hand, and balanced a third saucer, holding a mug, between her teeth, offering the first two to Rosa and Tab, before taking the third from her teeth and sitting down across from them in a lounge chair.
"So," she said, taking a sip and sighing pleasantly, "What brings you here today?"
"Well, um," Tabbitha began, but trailed off, passing the conversational baton to Rosaline.
"A friend of ours, uh," she said, but as Rosaline did, words seemed to slip past her. It was difficult enough bringing up these concerns to their peers. It was another thing entirely to bring it up to their superiors. Every ounce and inch of her being wanted to force herself to be strong, because she knew that if she wasn't, the task would default to Tabbitha, and she hated the idea of imposing on her-
"She's been avoiding us lately," Tabbitha said, firmly. Rosaline blinked.
"Yeah?" Tessawyn said, taking another sip. "Does it seem like a problem with your relationship with her, or with her personal life?" Tabbitha opened her mouth to respond, but Tessawyn interrupted her. "And importantly, does this seem like something that will resolve itself in due time? In other words, are you coming to me for comfort and emotional consolation, or are you worried that the situation will not return to normal, and you're looking for me to provide a course of action?"
"We, uh," Tabbitha said, and looked to Rosaline. She didn't know just what Tabbitha was about to say, but she nodded anyway. "We don't know," Tabbitha said, and Rosaline was vindicated.
Tessawyn set down her cup, and stroked her chin. It was impossible not to notice just how huge she was, a pillar of strength and power stabbing its way into the world. Tessawyn reminded Rosaline of what she imagined Tabbitha would become when she overcame her insecurities, and just looking at her made Rosaline's eyes go wide. She was a spectacle of both beauty and terror.
"Who is this that you're worried about, anyway?"
Tab and Rosa looked to each other, and Tessawyn picked up on their mutual panic, waving them both off. "Okay, okay, you don't have to tell me."
"We don't want to get her in trouble," Tabbitha explained.
"Of course," Tessawyn said. "It'd make it a bit easier for me, but I understand. I kept secrets as a student, too. But, to be entirely honest, I can't help you much unless you give me something to work with. It doesn't have to be direct. It doesn't even have to be truthful. I just need an emotional impression of your concerns and the situation to build off of. I can't give you a guarantee that my advice will be correct, but I'll do my best, okay?"
Tessawyn smiled, and the three of them sipped their tea in unison. There was something about a figure of authority taking a sip across from you that made you feel the need to follow suit.
"Okay," Tabbitha and Rosaline said, at the same time. They looked at each other, then quickly away, then back to each other, and somewhere in the exchange Rosa passed the impetus to Tab.
"Our friend has been skipping out on dinner every night," Tabbitha said. Her voice was steady and direct - something that made Rosa feel proud. "She usually eats with us, but she's been leaving the dining hall as soon as she gets food each night for over a month now."
Tessawyn gave that sort of preliminary motion that indicates that you wish to talk, but, whether it was from a lack of recognition or a suddenly headstrong nature, Tabbitha bowled over her. "We've talked to her Pair, we've talked to some of his friends, and we've come up with nothing. None of them have seen where she goes. We think her Pair saw where she runs off to, but once he found out, he stopped talking to us."
Tessawyn nodded sagely. "That's some good investigative work you've been doing. Have you talked to her other friends? Well, if she has other friends."
Now, Rosaline got to chime in. "She doesn't have many. There's one other person she spends a lot of time with, but it's more of a rivalry than a friendship, if that makes sense."
Tessawyn smiled. "Yeah, I had a few of those..." she said, trailing off. "So, I'm guessing you want to know what to do, right?"
Tabbitha's eyes lit up, but Rosaline kept her hopes tamped down. While it would be incredible for Tessawyn to just give them the right way to solve this, it would be too positive, too good to actually happen.
"Yes!" Tabbitha said.
"Well, no such luck," Tessawyn said, and Tabbitha sunk back into the couch like a deflating balloon. "I can give you some advice, at least. I can tell you how a similar situation played out back when I was a student - incidentally, with one of my friends."
Tabbitha and Rosaline leaned forward in rapt attention.
"She was having secret meetings with other students," Tessawyn whispered. "Honestly, I probably shouldn't tell you much about it, since it was a bad situation. But she, in essence, formed a club to discuss ideas that would never be viable to talk about in a public setting. Objectively, the intellectual curiosity of it was admirable, but... Well..." Tessawyn trailed off, and looked at the floor for a while. "Just... tell me if you think that's what's going on, okay?"
Tabbitha looked at her, confused. "But what happened?"
Tessawyn sighed sadly. "I don't want you to have that in your head. Just trust me - tell me if you've got suspicions. Nothing like that should happen again."
Rosaline frowned. "What do you-"
"Never," Tessawyn said, seriously. "And that's enough of that for me. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"Shit," Rosaline said later, once they were alone again, and Tabbitha winced. It never felt good to swear in front of her, but in the moment, she couldn't help herself. "You know what we need to do now, right?"
Tabbitha nodded. "Yeah..."
"We need to corner Elza on this."