(no subject)
I keep running over the events of this morning through my mind, wondering if, or when, I should have done things differently.
Should I have made my presence known? Not allowed them to cast the spell?
What I said to them was true enough: they didn't protect themselves from observation by outside parties. What I didn't tell them was that I did - to the small amount I could remember off by heart.
It's been a very long time since I've used magic casually, spontaneously. A very long time, not nearly long enough.
Far too long.
I don't know whether to feel grateful that I'm no longer completely and utterly alone here. Ever since I arrived in this strange country, I've been alone in my knowledge, not only of the Hellmouth and what goes on around it, but also of myself. On a day-to-day basis, I have to conceal so much of who and what I am that it seems more like a lie than truth.
There have been more than a few moments when I wanted to reach even further back into the magical repertoire I've tried to forget by more conventional means (~not that I learned it, merely most of the practising~), and simply wipe the memory of the events of this morning from their minds, because I fear for them.
The moment I caught myself asking whether or not it would be wrong, since I was doing it to protect them, I knew that it would be. Ironic, that - amusing in its own black and bitter sort of way.
But I'm not the one to drink that sort of humour like my tea.
Should I have made my presence known? Not allowed them to cast the spell?
What I said to them was true enough: they didn't protect themselves from observation by outside parties. What I didn't tell them was that I did - to the small amount I could remember off by heart.
It's been a very long time since I've used magic casually, spontaneously. A very long time, not nearly long enough.
Far too long.
I don't know whether to feel grateful that I'm no longer completely and utterly alone here. Ever since I arrived in this strange country, I've been alone in my knowledge, not only of the Hellmouth and what goes on around it, but also of myself. On a day-to-day basis, I have to conceal so much of who and what I am that it seems more like a lie than truth.
There have been more than a few moments when I wanted to reach even further back into the magical repertoire I've tried to forget by more conventional means (~not that I learned it, merely most of the practising~), and simply wipe the memory of the events of this morning from their minds, because I fear for them.
The moment I caught myself asking whether or not it would be wrong, since I was doing it to protect them, I knew that it would be. Ironic, that - amusing in its own black and bitter sort of way.
But I'm not the one to drink that sort of humour like my tea.