#haaapplication

The visiting chamber that they've herded her into is furnished just enough to accommodate three, and maybe they think the close quarters will keep her in check from inviting any larger guests, not seeming to realize that she's lived here for three years just fine without their help. What's worse is that they couldn't be any more obvious about how they've surrounded the perimeter of the shoddy chapel with the rest of their numbers.

The pair of knights they've sent in haven't let Hapi out of their sight since they walked in. She leans back on the seat for two, helping herself to the elbow room as she gets an earful of their questions. The chair across from her seats a man who's got a few shinier baubles on his armor than the rest of the unit, including that of the gangly young squire standing beside him, which must make said unit his.

She can't tell if she's especially shocked to have been sought out by a bunch of important people. A bumpkin like her wouldn't know their coat of arms from any other graffiti, but they’d called themselves the Knight of Seiros. To begin with, what exactly made her so worth finding?

But ever since nine year-old Hapi set foot outside her parents' village, stupid child hooked on wanderlust that she was, everybody who's found her since has wanted something. The first person to cage her had demanded the most so far—eight years of her life she'll never get back—but Hapi is ready as she'll ever be to see if this Church's orders are about to beat that woman’s.

“—I guess it does sound pretty bad. I got fed, though. A roof over my head.” Idly, she rolls said head backwards, letting her gaze land on the ceiling's lattice. “Leaked even less than this one.”

From the disparity in their postures, it’s clear that the head knight cares far more about propriety than she does. Steel boots flat on the ground, ankles uncrossed, back straight and thick as a cedar's trunk. Beside him, though, the greenhorn squire has the pluck to interject:

"But, you were still experimented on!"

Hapi is stretching, arms lingering above her head for a few moments. For another one, it looks like she's about to yawn, and she can hear their breaths catch.

“So what?” But instead, she picks back up where the squire had left off. “Aren't you gonna carry out your own ‘procedures’ for all that stuff you're telling me about, too?”

Call it procedures, call it experimentation. It's all the same. They all want to use magic on her and see how her blood reacts. “Bet your boss won't let me walk if I change my mind, though. I wouldn't make it halfway to the next village before you made me a jailbird again.”

Meaning Hapi could just forget about finding a second secluded church to live out the rest of whatever life she had in peace.

“You don't trust us,” the knight tries to say delicately, “nor anyone else, for that matter.”

“Getting kidnapped kind of does that to you. What, you don’t have any issues?”

“I can understand where you're coming from—”

Hapi almost thinks about sighing at the man right then and there to make a point. It'd make things far easier.

“—but you'll never get anywhere better in life like that. Are you happy with staying alone? With never being able to return to your village?”

And minutely as it does, that much does snag Hapi’s attention. She thought she was speaking to a knight, not a preacher.

She shifts in her seat to something that passes off as a little more proper, but she still slants against the armrest to prop her chin on a palm. Rose-colored eyes stare impassively at the older man.

“Yeah, so... here's the thing. What's ‘better’ to you?” She asks. Without waiting for his answer, she starts examining the nails of her free hand. “Getting promoted to a super-knight? Starting a big family and growing old together? I don't need all that. I'd either just want this curse gone, or be left alone.”

If the Church can't provide her one or the other, they're useless. All of these burly knights, dispatched for one girl when they could be out there handling real problems. Returning lost children to their families. Feeding the needy. Saving the world or whatever it was they thought they were signing up for when they were all the same age as the squire in front of her—it takes a chump to be a hero, but a special kind of stupid if you're gunning for Church's Chump. A bit belatedly, Hapi notices that the boy is peering at her more intently than earlier.

“Looking for scars?" Maybe they're not totally stupid. Dark magic is a nasty thing. It gives and takes, no matter how willing the participant. That destruction in tandem with all the familiarity might be why Hapi uses it herself—and she’s good at it, too. Who'd want someone like that running around unchecked? “I don't have any where you can see them.”

Dark magic knows her body better than anyone ever will. When Hapi turns her full gaze to the squire, he stiffens at its candor. There's nothing particularly scant about the cuts of her clothes, but they're still generous enough to make most people think there'd be something on display to show for the hurt.

“If you’re still curious, you’re out of luck. I'm not in that kind of business.” The remark is just off-color enough to flood the squire’s face with it.

“N-no, I—” But knowing he's lost to her tongue, he resigns himself to keeping his paws in front of him and turning obediently to his master.

The older knight doesn't humor Hapi’s brazenness at all. He pinches his nose and draws out a sigh, dangling the luxury right before her nose without even realizing. Humans take so much for granted.

“Look, I can tell you're a smart girl.” Oh, great. He must think she’s just so starved for praise. "Spells and curses aside, you wouldn't have made it this far on your own if you weren’t."

She wouldn't have, no. That same intuition is exactly why she’s long suspected that the blades on their belts have already decided how this meeting would go from the start. It was fun for a second or two, but Hapi feels her interest waning in record time.

“A little skepticism is healthy,” the knight continues, “but at your age, so’s relying on others a little more. The Church has dealt in holy magic for generations. You don't know for sure that it can't cure you, do you?”

No, she doesn't. He got her there.

But at this rate, she really doesn’t think she can take any more of the man’s life coaching. So without further ado, Hapi finally stands with another lazy stretch.

She’d only wanted to make these Church people squirm a little—give them another story to tell with all the other ones that must be floating out there about her, a strange girl who makes monsters appear when she breathes the wrong way. She wasn't really going to give them a hard time, illusion of choice or not.

“All right, all right. Enough preaching. You promised you'd protect me, right?” And knights have a better chance at keeping their word than strange women in the forest. “Let's just go.”

Because ultimately, he’s right. Hapi doesn't know if this Church of Seiros has the means to find a cure for her curse. There's just as little to suggest that they don't as there is to suggest that they do.

She knows she can't find out until she leaves this place, too—because like it or not, there really are some things she can’t achieve alone.

By the time everyone's saddled up and ready to go, there isn’t much to load into the carriage, but Hapi watches the squire from before place some bread with her clothes. An olive branch, maybe. She couldn't care less either way, but she won't say no to a snack.

“I’m sure this goes without saying, but while we’re on the road—”

“Keep your expectations in check and I'll do the same with my sighing. Like I've been doing before you came along,” she punts in just because she can. “‘Kay?”

She thinks that this has to be the most she's talked in one day for years. It almost makes her sigh.

“I'm beat. If that's all, I'm taking a nap in the back.”

—

Burrow Street is darker than any other place she's been.

When Hapi gets dumped there, it's done with the lesson that what she doesn’t know will hurt her later. Just because they hadn't found a cure, after they offered to help, she'd have to stay in hiding for the rest of her life. 

It was for the greater good, they'd said. They were protecting people on the surface, they'd said. But she knew right away that as far as the charitable church was concerned—

“‘Better you than me’, right?”