create wings out of fire

In that moment, Tabitha felt as though her time on earth was over and she was more than ready to ascend to heaven just to leave all this behind. Not even feeling like her existence weighed her, but her feeling of exhaustion had reached that level, if that even made any sense. She just felt like holding his face in her hands and shaking it while she screamed: ’ARE YOU REALLY NOT GETTING WHAT I’M TELLING YOU, YOU STUBBORN LITTLE MAN!?’, but instead, and as per usual, she sighed, looked down, and only looked at him when she felt ready to offer a little smile as if his words had truly helped her. If this was Karma, she didn’t want to risk it and have something bad happen in the midst of her job just for becoming rude to him. “… you know? There’s this thing called empathy. I guess not all of us out there feel it, but that’s fine. That’s fine, I guess. Have you ever tried that though?” She was just asking that the same way he had asked if she had ever tried Felix Felicis. No bad intention, just the same lack of human expression as him.

Brent lacked empathy. He was aware enough of himself to know that when it came to matters of feeling and emotion, he was out of tune. Individuals tended to only intrigue him on a baser level and he had few emotional connections to anyone. Those that he did have were genuine, but otherwise, he was a critical man with a sharp tongue and intellect but not much of a warm heart. He only came up with logical solutions or angles for Tabitha to consider and, in his perspective, that was him helping even if it wasn’t truly much in the way of advice. “I have been told that I have a cold heart,” he retorted dryly and matter-of-factually, unaffected by the proclamation. “And I am merely suggesting alternatives for you because I am not much one who believes in things being set in stone or concrete so I believe that you can change your luck as you call it if you wish to, if you put your mind to it. I don’t think empathy is something one can just choose to practice at will. As I understand it, it is something that comes more naturally from a want of understanding a person’s emotions.” 

She shrugged, toying with a grin that turned the corners of her mouth upwards. It was always welcome to hear someone bring muggle ideology and history into a conversation about magic, to compare the two for they were so alike. It reminded her of her mum, her grandparents, and that brought a deep ache into the hollow of her chest.  “There should be a course at Hogwarts for debates just like this one, how interesting would that be?”

Interesting, yes. But accepted? No. Brent knew muggle philosophy and theory as well as he knew magical, but the current environment did not want their merger and Brent was willing to abide by that. “I imagine that the debate would be rather one-sided. Unless a student has a muggle upbringing, they are not likely to know anything of Newton or Locke or Nietzsche or the rest of them.” 

“See, doing what you’re supposed to do is what gets you paid. To make friends you need other sorts of qualities. Qualities I don’t possess, and sure I get food on my table and a nice place to live in but other than that I’m a rather lonely individual, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. So anyway, I’ve just learned to live like this since there’s not much else for me to do.” She claimed, shoving her hands inside the pockets of her jacket. “Let me see… I lose my things on a daily basis, no matter how early I get out of home to go somewhere I always manage to get lost, miss transportation, get wet, dirty, you name it. I can’t be around cauldrons because I will most likely do something that will end up with the content spilling out or… Once I merely walked past one and it broke. It. broke.”

Brent wasn’t out to make friends, so perhaps that is why he merely rose an eyebrow in response to her troubles. He’d only had a couple of friends and he could count on one hand the number of people that he trusted. “If you don’t have those qualities, then what do you expect to happen? You can’t just gain them overnight, unless you plan on being someone other than yourself.” And, to Brent, there was nothing worse than suppressing one’s true self. Those that wore masks he could never respect. “Have you ever tried Felix Felicis then? I certainly wouldn’t recommend constantly digesting the potion in order to make your life easier, as it’s only a short term solution, but perhaps in the meantime you could learn to be more graceful. Or you could plan ahead, be more organized, pay closer attention to what you are doing and perhaps your fortune will turn around.”

“It’s kind of hard to believe someone can just naturally be fucked over by life because it just so happened it had to be them. My father said he had some people he was in some deep shit with, so he just assumed it was something they’d done. That’s within range of possibility, right?” She asked, partially bored with the conversation since she knew, and had known for a long time, that no matter what she did, she was screwed for life unless someone knew how to help her and so far, no one had been able to. “I’m twenty-six and I’ve spent more than half that time trying to do something about it. So far, no surprise, no such luck and you’d think I would’ve found someone at the Hospital to help me out but nah. Last welcomewitch was nicer to hang out with, or at least to look at, or so I’ve been told.”

"Perhaps they did cast something on you then, but everyone has their own lot in life, or so I have come to find. It’s all what you make of it and how you choose to use your resources, but that’s within the realm of possibility, yes. Though I am also not sure what kind of bad luck it is that you are even referring to.” What others saw as bad luck, Brent often saw as happenstance or opportunity for betterment. “I’m not sure St. Mungo has the facilities to help with that kind of problem unless it truly is the result of some kind of jinx or hex. Yet, I do fail to see what appearances have to do with anything. So long as you are performing the tasks and responsibilities assigned to your job position, it shouldn’t matter.”

      “I think I follow,” Barbara mused, scooping up another spoon of ice cream from the tub and quietly savouring it as she perched on the counter. “Do you think you can ever reverse it, though? I mean, some people spend their whole lives trying to repent for their actions, and I’d like to believe, but…  if your soul is actually TORN APART, then I don’t know. Have you ever studied that?“

Redemption. Was it truly attainable? Brent leaned against the counter, elbows resting on the bar as he pursed his lips. “I don’t think physically, no, that your soul can stitch back together. It’s a topic that’s more fit for Unspeakables to study as I can only theorize, but I think when a part of the fabric of your being is lost, it can’t be regained. That does not mean that a person cannot redeem themselves in the eyes of others by their later actions and find comfort in that, but that piece of them is forever damned. I can’t be too certain, however, on how that affects a being while they are alive. I’m not sure if you feel your soul.”

“No, yeah, I get that part, but what if I haven’t done anything that would grant me a reaction? What if I simply am a tiny ball of bad luck ever since I can remember? I shit you not, my family thinks being this clumsy and unlucky was a curse and I swear I’m starting to believe it. Being Welcomewitch at St. Mungo has been the safest place I’ve ever worked as. Not to mention, it really has been the only job I’ve ever had. What you’re explaining to me sounds like Karma and I don’t think, other than being a general asshole, that I’ve done anything to gather me this life.”

"While luck does have something to do with magic, obviously, since we can produce it in liquid form, I would think that those are separate matters. Your attitude isn’t a reflect of you pushing the boundaries and laws of nature, and unless they themselves have devised this curse, I don’t think that’s very probably. You could just naturally be that misfortune, though if I were you I’d spend more time trying to do something about it rather than just accepting it. Start by taking advantage of your position at St. Mungo.”

“–What are you on about this time?”

Brent repeated himself, slower this time. “The first law of magic. Surely you learned it since it was a required course your first year.”