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ERIKA'S GARDEN - AFTERNOON
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Xochicoatl is working in the garden while Erika is out to speak with Louma and Nesseth, to let the two know she is safe. She has a steady hand as she tends to some shrubbery, clipping away excess growth and picking out the berries, just something she can do to help out.
Erika walks back into the garden... not quite fuming, but clearly not feeling the greatest either. The okapi takes a deep breath before pushing couple of the branches aside as she enters the garden proper: "Hey, Xochicoatl..." Unsure how to begin this conversation, she opts to not, really.
Xochicoatl pulls back the trimmers, slithering towards the sound of Erika's voice. "Ah! You have returned!" She glances behind Erika, having half-expected Louma or Nesseth or both to accompany her. "And... alone? Things went alright, yes?"
Erika starts to talk, then pauses. She takes a deep breath: "It... well, it went. For the moment, it's just us. But I have, uh... news, I guess, you could call it." The okapi is nervous, unsure, and notably not-cheery.
Xochicoatl tilts her head. "News? This is not good news, from the look upon your face?"
Erika winces, then motions at the back porch steps before finding her own way there to sit down: "It's... well, I am not sure what kind of news it is. Troubling, I guess I would use as a word." She sighs, giving Xochicoatl an encouraging smile: "B-but I will do my best to explain, and be on your side on this."
Xochicoatl takes a moment to slither up the steps, winding her tail up beneath her as she settles down. Her face falls, "Oh... my side? I do not understand, no. This is because of something Nesseth wished to say to me?"
Erika deflates a bit, shrugging: "There's really no sugarcoating it... Nesseth and Louma tried to save you by not telling the whole story. I'm not sure if they were right, but... I can't lie to you." She takes another deep breath, attempting to gather herself: "...I just want to make sure, t-that despite what I am about to say, I want to be with you, help you make whatever you feel is the right choice, yes?"
Xochicoatl is silent a moment, but nods her head. "I cannot make any choice if I do not know the truth, yes? Especially if this involves this 'other me' you spoke of. I wish to help."
Erika nods: "Yes, that's what I figure. So." She glances at the coatl: "The 'other you', is the one of this... reality, timeline... 'our' Xochi, if you will. While you are a... visitor, kind of created by the anomaly that caused all this." She smiles: "Doesn't mean you're not just as important, though."
Xochicoatl curls up slightly as she tenses, "I... do not... the 'magic'? I was 'magicked' here? This is why I do not remember how I came, yes?" She manages to smile back at Erika. "I... that is appreciated, yes. I am not sure I understand what you mean by all of this. The 'other me' is... is the one who truly belongs here, then?"
Erika nods, smiling sadly: "She is... t-trapped, I think. Stuck in an awful place until we do something. But the thing is... w-while we do not know if you need to literally take her place, at the very least you need to give... something of yourself... herself... to make the change happen." She lifts a hand to hear forehead: "H-honestly it gives me headache, and I wish there was some other way we're just not seeing..." She sniffs, closing her eyes.
Xochicoatl recoils slight, "An awful place... to save her, I would need to... give something? What? It... it makes it sound as if I must surrender my freedom?"
Erika winces, slightly deflating: "...or worse. Give... yourself. To the uh... nightmare, or whatever that is holding up Xochi... well, the other Xochi." She shakes her head: "Just thinking about it, I can't ask it of you."
Xochicoatl folds her hands in front of her and lowers her head. "This is what they would not tell me... Nesseth knew, yes? And Louma's lies... she has made no attempt to contact others about me, because she knows I do not belong here. It was not because they wished to protect me... they wish to bring back the other me..."
Erika frowns, but then just nods: "...that's what I gather, yes."
Xochicoatl sighs, then gets up from the porch and slithers forward, glancing out towards the garden. She raises a hand, but then slowly lowers it. "All I want is the freedom to do what I desire. I thought.. I thought maybe one day I would become Queen, and then I would have that freedom. To do what I please and go where I wish. Captain Louma taught me to fly, after those who held me captive would have denied it to me." She turns back to Erika, "What is she like? This other me?"
Erika pauses, then smiles: "Much like you. Older, having spent more time in captivity... spent a lot of time regretting what she could not get, in essence what you now have. Loves gardening, like... you, really. Is pretty... poetic, I guess? Kinda dreamy."
Xochicoatl glances away as she listens to Erika's words. "She was held captive longer... And now she is captive again."
Erika sighs: "That's the gist of it, far as I can tell."
Xochicoatl slithers away a moment, and her wings unfurl, almost as if she would take off and fly away, but then the feathers settle back down and fold in against her back. "No one deserves such a fate, Erika... I... I will still help, however I can. Though I do not know what to do."
Erika tilts her head: "Even if... even if you might mean the end for you?" She swallows: "I-it might come to that. We do not know, but we hope we can find enough details on the ritual to... to... s-something." She deflates again, not really wanting this end result at all.
Xochicoatl nods solemnly. "It is a strange feeling... but I suspect she would do the same for me." She slithers back towards Erika, "I... have been a prisoner my whole life. So was she, yes? Longer, even. She deserves freedom."
Erika sniffs, then gives Xochicoatl a pretty weak smile: "W-well... i-if you are sure, I will help you." She doesn't dare admit this was what she was aiming for in this conversation, even if she also so very heavily disagrees with said goal. "W-whatever it takes... we'll make through this, yes?"
Xochicoatl smiles back, "Yes. Do not worry, Erika. I have no intention of being made prisoner ever again. I shall help you and the others bring your Xochi back. And then I shall find my own way, yes?"
Erika smiles a bit brighter: "Well... here's hoping, then. We'll find a way."
Xochicoatl: "Captain Louma has already given me one tool." She flaps her wings. "And the other me escaped to come her, yes? This gives me hope, Erika."
Erika nods: "Well, I try to always hold to hope. You are right... there is a way through this." She's not sure at the moment she's quite buying her own optimism, but sure as heck isn't going to say that out loud.
Xochicoatl nods, puffing herself up on those hopes as well, even if she's unsure what she's agreeing to do, she does know it's the right thing, and that's enough. "I shall pray for guidance, and maybe I shall hear the ancestors once again, now that I understand that they are not truly mine here."
Erika gives a weak shrug: "Makes as much as sense as anything so far." She sighs, looking aside: "I just hope... well, I hope."
Xochicoatl nods, but frowns slightly, "Err... so... what next?"
Erika frowns: "I am unsure... figure out what the ritual to reverse this might entail... then do it, hope for the best? I'm not really of much use here beyond... well, being here, I guess."
Xochicoatl frowns further, moving closer to pull Erika into a hug, "You... have been nothing but kind to me. You have told me the truth, no matter how frightening and grim it may be... I... I still do not understand this all... but... I will do what is right. I... I am sorry."
Erika hugs Xochicoatl, sniffing a bit: "I'm sorry I'm not of more actual use. But... I'll be here."
Xochicoatl hugs, sniffling as well. "Being here is... a great deal more than you might think."
Erika smiles weakly: "W-well, i-it's what I do."
Xochicoatl does not let go of the hug. "Then... in the meantime, until we learn more of this... ritual... w-we should do something? Yes? As friends...?"
Erika smiles: "I think that would be good. Find food, or just walk about the town... distract ourselves, y-yeah?"
Xochicoatl nods. "A walk... food along the way if we want?" She finally releases the hug, wiping the tears from her eyes as she considers just how good her otherselves friends are.
Erika lets out a slightly nervous laugh: "We can do that!" She sniffs: "I-it's all uncertain, but like... ice cream is pretty certain to be good, right?"
Xochicoatl laughs, "Most certainly! Every ice cream I have ever had has been good, yes."
Erika smirks: "There's no bad ice cream, only bad tastes." She gets up, wiping the corner of her eye as she does. Maybe this might still turn up alright?
Xochicoatl bows to Erika, "Then lead the way. I... do not know where to get ice cream other than Captain Louma's freeze box."
Erika giggles: "That might be an exhaustible supply in the long run. There's several vendors, just gotta know where they are..." She leads Xochicoatl out of the garden, on a noble quest to heavily distract the two from the important task at hand, to be dealt with later.