Impetus

Pat: "Hey, can we talk? There's some things I need to go over."
Penny: "Of course! Let me sit down.... aaaaaand go!"
Pat: "I've been doing some thinking. For me, since I've met you, life doesn't follow the same rules anymore. So how I approach life, it isn't, it's not working for me anymore."
Penny: "What's so different since you met me?"
Pat: "Well, for starters, magic. It doesn't make any sense, so I've been ignoring it, and hating it a little bit. But at the same time it's actually kind of amazing and I haven't been acknowledging that."
Penny: "No, television is amazing. Magic is just kind of there."
Pat: "See, you're used to this stuff. Beyond magic beign a thing, there is the fact a place like the Hedge exists. It's like the DMZ of Crazy. It's all sorts of fucked up, with nothing following any rules, moreso than any magic I've seen anyone do. It's also damned dangerous in there, but admittedly I like the danger. It stresses me out when you go in there, but when I'm in there my adrenaline gets going. I get to use all the skills I've been trained in and the ones I've been programmed with."
Penny: "You do happen to kick all sorts of ass, honey."
Pat: "Right, thank you. The Thorns though, those are kind of terrifying. I, uh, apparently don't have much of a soul... I'd rather not lose what I do have and they are a constant risk. And worst of all are the Fae. They remind me why I was afraid of the dark when I was little. But those Goblins have been damned useful, and the ones that aren't, like those bird-goblins, are hardly threatening."
Penny: "You still should have shot one more of them. Coercion is useless without backing it up."
Pat: "Me and you are gonna need to have another talk about that later.. But back to my point. I've come to realize that when I was a kid I wanted to go to a magical school where they teach magic and there's monsters around every corner. And now I sort of am and I've been refusing to enjoy it. That way lies madness, not doing what you love. And then there is the whole not strictly being human anymore. Or never being human."
Penny: "Nobody would be able to say you aren't human without magic."
Pat: "Well, yea I look human and all but-"
Penny: "No. That's not what I mean. Person. You've lived your whole life with people treating you as a person because you are one. Not a toy pretending. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time. And everyone has thought of you as a person all of the time. Maybe now with magic, people will say differently, but they are confusing being able to see what you are with who you are and they are stupid."
Pat: "I-Alright. You're right. Thank your that... You know, I never told you, but I did see my tin body a few years before I met you."
Penny: "How? Did you meet another Changeling? Tell me her name."
Pat: "No, no. No. No. It was when I lost my leg. I've only realized this recently, I had the nightmare again the other night, and parts of it make more sense now with what I know. Right after the explosion, I was in shock. I'd lost of a lot of blood, had a concussion, and my ears were ringing, so it was a surreal chaos. I didn't even know my leg was gone until I tried standing up, I wasn't even feeling the pain yet. I panicked and crawled around trying to find it, hoping they could sew it back on. And I did find it, I didn't know it then, but there it was in front of me. I found a boot, an awful lot like mine, with a melted column of metal sticking up out of it. Which I ignored, because I was looking for a leg, not a bunch of slag and eventually I passed out. Then it was the prosthetic and physical therapy for me."
Penny: "Do you think they could have put it back on if you had realized?"
Pat: "Not a chance. But that brings up the fact that I do have a new leg now. For years I had to get used to the mundane limitations of a prosthetic and now we come and live at Hogwarts Inn for a little while and I get a fully functioning one. It hurt everyday wearing that fake one and I let myself get used to that. And now, i don't have to let myself get used to anything of the sort ever again."
Penny: "Wizards."
Pat: "What?"
Penny: "Hogwarts is for wizards. We're fairytales. "
Pat: "Whatever. The thing is, before we met I was ignorant and that was a sort of bliss. Now I'm not, and I need to replace that bliss. I've spent too much time fighting the flow because I'm a soldier at my core, and while I want to fight, I don't want to fight all this. I've been super stressed because I've been looking at everything going on as sort of a karma for getting you. And you're more than worth all of it, but I don't have to treat all of it as negative karma, I can choose to put myself ahead. If I enjoy some of this stuff it'll stop being a burden. So first I'm going to practice my magic spells some more. The n, even if it is like a Dali painting, I want to go into the Hedge again. Explore it."
Penny: "Contracts. You're still thinking wizards. What Uncle Jericho does is spells, we do Contracts."
Pat: "Stop that. The point of all this is that its about what I want and what I want is to enjoy myself and be with you. So I want to join the Spring Court."
Penny: "Ooooh! This is great! I'll be sure to tell Queen Rose the good news! But more importantly, I'm happy you've decided to be happy. I don't want to leave here, but if you kept being miserable, I would have packed up and moved out as soon as you asked."
Pat: "Thank's for listening. I love you."
Penny: "I love you too. I will listen to you every day for all of my days."
Characters involved in this Chronicle: Pat Takahashi, Penny
Category:Fiction