"Ask away, then."

She glances at El. "...Do we wanna split up and ask questions separately? Or - just, all together?"

"...Separate might be better."

Squeeze. To their alts: "We were thinking El could ask Ruby things and I could ask Ellie things... At first at least?"

"Makes sense to me."

She (slightly reluctantly) untangles from her sister and stands. "Splitting into different bedrooms works best, probably."

"After you, then."

She gives her sister a smile then heads into her and El's bedroom, perching a bit nervously on the bed.

"...I am actually unsure where to start..."

"Well," Ellie says, leaning against the wall, "are you thinking about perspective, or, ah, technicalities?"

"Kind of both? I'm - okay so El and I got into this recursive loop of 'I just want you to be happy,' and El's decided as the older sister she gets to demand I have preferences first, except... I'm... Not actually sure what things there are to have preferences about... I'm aware of reproductive anatomy details, it's not like I don't know what sex is, but I'm unsure biology knowledge is very applicable here... And I - don't know what I want enough to articulate preferences cold? And basically the only thing we've settled on is we like kissing because that's the only preference I could think of..."

"Hmmm... Well. You've noticed Ruby's collar, right?"

"Yeah. I have some? Guesses what that's about..."

"Back when we were starting out. Ruby was, mm, not sure about committing to just one person, and I- wanted that. Or something like it. So... We talked it out, and found a compromise. Ruby discovered she likes it when I take charge, playing a pet for me. She can do whatever she wants with other people, but that part of her is just for me. I got her that collar to remind us both of that. I don't think you and El are going to need the same sort of thing, with your particular situation, but you might think about you being her pet. On your knees, responsive to her whim..."

She - freezes.

It's maybe not a good sort of freeze.

She's actually not sure but her brain sure did just go offline and plausibly have a brief flashback except she's not sure because she's disconnected from her body and wow it's been like a whole year since the last time this happened - and her thoughts are maybe looping a little bit -

She takes a deep breath. Tries to take more. Having a panic attack here would be silly. So she won't. Easy.

"Or not, perhaps. Bellona? Are you all right?"

"Fine," she makes her mouth say. Probably. Hopefully. It is her mouth, right? "I'm being silly. Should be over it." Maybe that doesn't make sense and she normally just Does Not Talk About It because if she never talks about it she won't have panic attacks and this is clearly excellent logic. But that means she actually has no idea how to explain it to anyone in short words that don't alarm people or make them think something that's a big deal happened. Because it didn't.

"No, I don't think that's how it works. Do you want a hug, or do you want me to get El? Or Ruby?"

"Not El," she says, quickly, with a vehemence that surprises her. "I - hug?"

Firm hug.

That makes her feel more like she actually exists in her body. It helps. A lot. Her thoughts feel less - spilling swirling.

"...Sorry," she mumbles. "I... Haven't done that in a year... Wasn't expecting it..."

Why is she having the urge to tell Ellie what happened. That's - she doesn't talk about it -

"Shh." Ellie pats her back. "Clearly I stepped in something."

"...Yeah kinda."

"It was - years ago anyways, and not El's fault, so it - shouldn't be a big deal still - "

She clings a bit more to Ellie.

"Hey. Not thinking about something doesn't make it not have happened."

"If you want to explain, I'll listen. Or not, that's okay too, but I feel like this is going to happen again."

She nods a little bit.

"So - when I was nine, we... Tried to resurrect someone with alchemy, and - succeeded, but my body got basically disintegrated in the backlash even though the actual thing was more complicated, and El reacted fast enough to bind my soul to some armor - I was still alive but I couldn't feel anything - that's not actually relevant, it just sucked kinda differently, I - "

She takes a deep breath. "Like - two years later we got. Thrown into another world. And we didn't have the interdimensional array yet, so we couldn't get back, so we made the best of it - they had like medieval technology, so we introduced ours and got really rich doing that, and - "

"We were there for a bit. And it was fine, we were worried about the people we'd left behind but - not too much, and we were together. But - there was - El found something. It was - an evil piece of magic jewelry and it mind controlled her and made her obsessed with it, and I didn't know she'd found it or what it was or what was going on, but it made her mad at me so she pushed me away - and that hurt but it wasn't that bad, I just got really depressed - and it wasn't like she was beating me or anything, she only shoved me a couple times - "

"But then she - changed what she was doing, and - said she was sorry about pushing me away, and wanted to still be sisters, but - she still had the ring - and she started. Acting weird. And - pushing me to be obedient and - stuff - and being sometimes really nice and sometimes really mean, and - "

"Eventually I figured out something was wrong and I found the ring and figured it was magic - it couldn't catch me with mind control, so I took it to a friend who recognized it and told me how to destroy it, I couldn't with alchemy so I had to - go into this land controlled by the guy we were at war with, and sneak past his lines and throw it in a volcano, and that shouldn't have sucked so much, it wasn't like I could get tired, but it - was - "

Shiver.

"And when I got out El was really sorry, and some of the powerful magic people on our side gave us what we needed to trade for our full bodies back, because they didn't need their magic items anymore. So I had a body again and El wasn't hurting me anymore and we had the interdimensional array and it was fine."

"...It should've been fine."

Voice really small: "...I still don't know how much it was mind controlling her."

"That's terrible and I'm very sorry it happened to you."