diamond

Brilliant under pressure

sharper than a knife

Otakar had followed her all the way home. And Ella knew that she didn’t need him to be there. She knew that she was more than capable of taking care of herself when she got in the house, but she knew that she was going to have to figure that out. He was going to keep following her until she dismissed him, and she knew it. Strýc should really have just called them off. But she knew that they couldn’t leave. The borders were still closed, and she wasn’t sure that they would have gone even if Matka had sent them. Not with whatever threat it was that this epidemic had implied.

Her strýc had plenty of ideas about who needed protecting, and who didn’t, and Ella was well aware of why it was that she was on the top of that list. They had been sent to protect her, and she knew that Matka had been powerless to say no. Because Ella had been sick. She had been unconscious, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t go back and change time. But if she could she would have gone back and told her matka to refuse them. She would have gone back and told him that that wasn’t necessary. That she didn’t need to worry. She was going to be fine. She was going to wake up. And it was all going to be okay.

Only… Nothing was really okay.

Ella knew that. And she knew that living life like it was, was just a lie. She knew that it was more complicated than that. She knew that she was going to have to try nad figure out who she was, and what she was doing. She knew that it was all a bit more complicated than that. And Ella wasn’t sure that there were answers to be found about what was happening. But what she did know, was that things were going to continue to go on around them. Lady Flint, the one that wasn’t about to be her sister’s mother-in-law, was pregnant. And she had done that. Ella had made sure that she had gotten pregnant.

In vitro was not something that the hospitals were doing. But she had gotten permission, and she was doing it. And she was doing a research project about it at Bangor. She was doing well. She was doing everything that she was supposed to be doing, and Ella thought that that was good enough. That that was exactly what was expected of her right now. She wasn’t supposed to be anything more than what she was, and she thought that there was something nice about that. No one was expecting more than that out of her. No one except Delilah…

She had made her best friend a promise, when she had moved her into the guest suite in the basement. The entire downstairs was now Delilah’s, and Ella knew that she had made her a promise when she had brought her in here. She had told her that she would try. That she would do something. It had been a challenge. A reminder to Delilah to pull her head out of her arse. And a reminder to Ella that there were people that counted on her. She had moved her in here, and she didn’t plan on moving her back out again until she knew that she was ready.

Until she knew that she was safe. That was the big thing. But Ella headed downstairs after waving Otakar away. He would find Vlasta, and they would probably have the time of their lives talking about their bossy princesses. She didn’t honestly believe that they did that, there had to be better things to talk about at night than her and Matka. But she was glad that he had gone home for the night anyway. “Hey stranger.” Ella dropped down on the couch in the basement next to Delilah and all of her notes. Her own work landing in her lap with a quiet thud. “Have you made any breakthroughs without me today?”

She had had to go to Mungo’s for the majority of the day, birthing mums didn’t care that it was Saturday, or that labor had taken all day. And Ella didn’t care that she had been there the whole time. This was the life that she had chosen, and she would do it all over again tomorrow if someone else on her patient list went into labor. Still, she was a little envious that Delilah had gotten to work all day, and she hadn’t had all that much time to sit down, let alone to work on her notes.

Delilah Verity Graves • 784 • eleánora's outfit

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diamond

Brilliant under pressure

sharper than a knife

Delilah had really lost her way for awhile. Months had been lost to the Epidemic--the first one to the symptoms of the sickness, the second one was not a physical illness, but a mental breakdown. She'd lost her will to live without her ability to perform magic. She had felt like she lost herself. After giving everything to her career, she felt like she had nothing else to keep going with. Her parents were absent. Her brother had never been close to her. She had been filled with resentment for her mother and Aunt Liv, because they still had their magic. They did not need their magic, not like she did...but they still had it--and it had made her so angry. It still did, but she was doing better with processing those emotions. Therapy helped somewhat.

But it was Eleánora that really helped the most. Ella had pulled her out of her wallowing. Her best friend had lost so much, literally her child, but the miraculously strong woman had shown up at her flat and kicked her arse--proverbially, of course. Ella had pulled her out of the filthy flat and moved her to MacGuffin Hall. She'd given her the inspiration to find a place to continue her career--it was different (though similar). And, of course, she was excelling. She topped the class at Gráinneog--and was competitive at Bangor, as well. Her true fulfillment came from the research she engaged in at Dubhe Merak.

She had made a name for herself despite her age as a potioneer--she would make a name for herself now as a researcher. Delilah Graves had big goals and no shortage of faith in herself. If someone could bring this sickness down on them--and she did wholly believe the theory that the epidemic had been manufactured--then it could be reverse engineered. It could be solved....and why couldn't she be the one to solve it? Her mind was sharp. She did not lack curiosity or drive. Ability and willingness to work were both present in her. She could  do it...Delilah just had to figure it out. 

Something she had not done yet, unfortunately. She read muggle medical books, researched illness outbreaks, biowarfare, and naturally occurring disease immunity and vaccinations. The information spun off threads of thought in her mind--some fizzled out, others lingered in the back of her consciousness awaiting another tidbit of information to push them forward. She was gifted in holding many tangential peripheral lines of thinking all at once. Brewing many different potions all at the same time had required the ability to keep very detailed specifics in her head all at once.

But no matter how many thoughts she could hold active in her mind, Delilah was still missing something. They had just began discussions of genetics at Gráinneog...and with each lesson she felt, as did several other students she studied with, that genetics could somehow play into the illness. They had been introduced to the idea that many human traits, such as height and blood sugar, show a similar pattern through generations of humans. The traits, like a name, are inherited. The basic laws of inheritance revealed how a genetic trait of interest or a disorder could be passed from generation to generation--like magic, or in the instance of squibs, the lack there of. So, if magic and the ability to control it was a genetic trait, could someone's genome be modified after birth to change that trait? The possibility was far beyond what they were learning at Gráinneog in Biochemistry & Genetics.

So, Delilah had spent the day wading through the advanced genetics books she could find. She had started with Advanced Genetic Analysis: Finding Meaning in a Genome--and eventually fell down the rabbit hole of Epigenomics. This basically encompassed the processes that lead to heritable changes in gene expression without changes in the DNA sequence itself. She was deeply focused on processing some very technical, jargon filled white papers when her best friend dropped down beside her on the couch.

“Ella,” Delilah gasped the other witch's name in a bit of surprise. Time had gotten away from her and she had not heard the princess come into the room. To her friend's question, the Graves lifted her shoulders in a  shrug. "Well, maybe?" She said. A bit of excitement flashed on her face as she turned around on the couch, her legs were crossed tucked under herself and she pulled some notes out from between them, to discard them onto the table in front of her. 

"So, I started out revising for my Bio/Gen test--but you know me--finding answers to questions is a lot more interesting than revision. So-- you know I've talked to you before about the whole  human genome and DNA muggle science stuff." Obviously Ella had a good grasp on that considering her interest in the magical IVF. Delilah knew the other witch had a solid understanding to start this conversation on, but to make it easier to follow, she still laid out a foundation: "Cells have DNA--and they duplicate that DNA. Right? That's well undersood. So, there are is the epigenome--which is the set of chemical modifications to the DNA and DNA-associated proteins in the cell, which alter gene expression, and are heritable.  Like we know and understand that the modifications occur as a natural process of development and tissue differentiation, and it is understood that they can be altered in response to environmental exposures or disease."

"I have been reading about muggle cancer. It can target the genome directly--or it can target the epigenome. It is understood that changes in the epigenome can switch on or off genes involved in cell growth or the immune response. Now, if magic is genetic--which is clearly seems to be--do you see where I am going?" Delilah did not understand the exact way someone might do something like what she was thinking, but she had started to wonder if it was possible. It was very difficult to change a genome, but if you could change the chemicals that were used to guide DNA replication--then you could force certain genes off. 

@ellanora • 1017 • delilah's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

DIAMOND

brilliant under pressure

sharper than a knife

Everything had changed, and she knew that. Ella knew that everything had changed, and she knew that she was giongto have to prove herself as a healer if she wanted to make a name for herself after what had happened. People continued to look at her with looks of pity, and sadness, and she didn’t want them to. She didn’t want to keep thinking about what she had lost. She had gone from the picking, and the teasing of being ‘Healer Princess’ to this. And she would have gone back to being ‘Healer Princess’ any day. She had lost a child, and she wasn’t making light of that, but she hadn’t been the only one.

She had had plenty of mums lose babies in the epidemic. She had had Penny Weasley lose one, and keep the other, and somehow, she thought that that was going to be harder. To see the son that they had kept every day and know that he should have had a brother. To know that she hadn’t been strong enough to save them both. Because that was certainly how Ella felt. That she hadn’t been strong enough. That she hadn’t been good enough, to save her baby. Her body had made a choice, her, or the child, and it had chosen her.

A child could be replaced. That was what she had heard so many times growing up. She had heard it from her Dědeček’s mouth time and again. Directed at Matka, when he hadn’t known that she would hear. She had heard them from Andrew… That had been the hardest to understand. Why he would say such a thing. A child, his own children, should never have been replaced. But she had heard the words nonetheless. She had heard them, when none of her siblings had. She had heard everything… Girls. They were girls. Philip was the one that really mattered.

Philip and Thea… But that was for an entirely different reason. One that he hadn’t really known, and one that no one had ever bothered to explain to him. She didn’t think that anyone was going to worry about that now. He wasn’t around to feel anything now, and she didn’t think that her siblings needed to worry about why they were different. About why they mattered more. She wasn’t going to be the one that told them that. In fact, Ella didn’t think about Andrew hardly at all if she could help it. It wouldn’t do her any good. She was Matka’s dcera. That was what mattered. Not him. He had never mattered to her. Not the way that he had to the rest of them.

She knew that made her sound heartless, and cold. But Ella had known too much her entire life to truly care for any adult in her life besides her matka. She had had too many poor experiences. And the one other person that she had allowed herself to care about, had been taken away. She had been hit by a bus, and then Ares had taken Orion away, and Ella didn’t want to think about that either. There were too many things that she just didn’t want to deal with. Too many things that it was easier to just push to the side.

There were bigger problems in the world right now than her own. They had lost magic, and they weren’t making any headway in getting it back. She knew that there was always the chance that they never would. And that thought scared her more than anything. Would they be trapped here forever? Would she never see Prague again? It had been years, but she knew that she would go back in time. She knew that she had to. Ella belonged there. So did Matka. They would have to go back eventually.

Sooner than eventually, if she were being honest with herself, but Ella didn’t think that she was ready to face that. She didn’t think that any of them were ready to face that. She had no grasp of how it would look, of what their husbands were going to think. Because announcing that they were going home would mean drastic changes for everyone, and she wasn’t sure that they were there yet. She wasn’t sure that she even wanted to think about it. Would he consent? Would he come with her? He loved her… That she knew, but would that last?

Ella didn’t think that it was worth thinking about now. Not when there were so many other issues to work out first. They couldn’t leave now if they wanted to. Sitting down next to her best friend, she was glad to see that she was working. Having her here, and having her back doing something that she loved, even if it was a different something than before, was good. She wanted that. She wanted her to be okay. Because Ella knew that when she left, there was always going to be the chance that she was leaving Delilah behind too. She couldn’t ask her best friend to move countries with her… Even to take care of her.

As she launched into her theory, Ella listened patiently. She understood the concepts, of course, but cancer? Was this like cancer? “You think it’s possible that someone created a way to alter the epigenome? That they are blocking the expression of a gene that allows us to tap into our magic…” She thought it over. “It makes sense, though I wonder why it doesn’t affect everything?” Her thoughts drifted to her own enhanced abilities, and Matka’s fire. Even if she hadn’t lost her magic, there were others out there that had control of elements. “Or everyone… If it’s genetic, a close genetic match should have been more tolerant, if not spared as well.” Why Constance? Why not her?

@ lilah • 974 • eleánora's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

diamond

Brilliant under pressure

sharper than a knife

Delilah certainly did not have all or maybe even any of the answers. But she was asking questions--and she was searching. She had slipped for too long, dropping into the comfortable darkness instead of fighting up the hard new path that life had laid out for her. The days of self-pity and mornings of waking up in an unfamiliar bed were over. The lack of sex was something of a problem, but she had learned from a few of the heavier users of muggle technology about something called Tinder. She was planning to make a profile. Then she wouldn't have to go to a pub to find a hook-up. She could just swipe left...or was it right? She'd have to check on that one.

That was for later. Now, she was laying out the theory she had been concocting over the last few hours. Merlin, what time even was it? Eleánora being back from St. M's meant it had to be late. Her stomach took advantage of her mind's pausing the constant stream of thoughts to consider the hour  to remind her she was quite hungry. The croissant she had taken with black coffee since the sugar could not be trusted when the sun was crawling up over the horizon was long gone. Working for so long at the hospital, it was just too easy to skip meals and not even think about it. She had no aversion to food and definitely didn't have body image issues. She just got busy. Maybe Ella would be hungry, too.

The witch was poking holes in Delilah's theory and what she had to say was something that Ella had been thinking about. "I don't have an explanation for that. Maybe this whole theory is completely off base. It doesn't explain  how that you and I could be fucked while our mothers and siblings can still cast no problem." Why was Odelia fine and she wasn't? Why had Eleánora lost so much while Anička had remained healthy? And she wasn't even going to think about Constance or Owen. Because she was more than a little bit angry at both of them. The level of frustration fluctuated, and it was at its lowest when she didn't think about it. So, she tried her very best not to think about it.

It wasn't their faults that she was sick. It was someone's though. It had to be. Someone had to craft this, because it being natural made no sense. It was too efficient. Far too efficient. That thought brought more words off her tongue: "But it just fits the idea of the epidemic being a weapon. This would be something that a talented and crazy enough geneticist could pull off. Maybe...Probably." It did not explain why they would, but she wasn't wasting time thinking about why. The why didn't really matter--not to her, not to researching a way to beat this thing--only the how mattered. That was it. Just how. If they knew how had this had happened to them, they could reverse it or counter it. They could fix themselves. 

princezna • 538 • delilah's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

DIAMOND

brilliant under pressure

sharper than a knife

Ella knew that she was still lost. She knew that talking to Elliot resulted in someone getting upset about it, and she never really knew which one of them it was going to get to first. It depended on which way the whole thing went. Who got upset, and why? But they were in that together. They were the only ones that could understand what it was that they had lost. A child. They had lost a child. And Ella knew that she had brought up trying again. But she didn’t know if she was really ready for that. She didn’t know if she was ever going to be ready for that.

She knew that she had to. She owed it to the crown. And she owed it to Elliot. But she knew that more than just owing a child to her husband, she had to have one because she was her. Because she was the heir. And she wasn’t. She wasn’t really the heir. She was Matka’s heir. Not his. But that didn’t change the fact that the line of succession needed her to have a child. Sylvestr would never be king. They all knew that. He didn’t want to be. He didn’t want anything to do with it. And Ella partially blamed Matylda for that. But she didn’t know that that was fair either.

Matka could be queen, if something happened to her bratr. But she knew that she didn’t want to be. She had never wanted to be queen. And Ella was well aware of how hard losing Josef would be on Matka. She thought that was painfully clear to her. She would have to step up. Should that happen. Sylvestr would abdicate. Matka wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would be her. And she knew that she had every right to that role, but somehow it was harder to imagine herself in it than it should have been. One day, she would be queen.

She was worried about what that was going to do to Elliot. He was her husband, and she knew that. But she also knew that he hadn’t really signed up to be king. Or even Prince Consort. She knew that he hadn’t said yes to that when she had said yes to him. And she didn’t want to lose him. She didn’t want to leave him behind here, she wanted him to come with her, when the time came to go home. But it was a lot to ask of him. It would always be a lot to ask of him. For now, though, she knew that they weren’t going anywhere.

They were here, because they were stuck here. The borders were closed, and they couldn’t go to Prague if they wanted to. Right now, here problems were a lot more focused on what her best friend was working on. On the Epidemic that had taken so much from all of them. She listened as Delilah explained what she had thought that she had found, and on some level, she thought that it made sense. She thought that she understood what was going on there, but on another, she wasn’t sure that it made whole sense at all. If it was genetic, why Constance? Why not her?

Her own DNA was so much more similar to Matka’s… More similar than any of them even knew. “I…” She knew that she couldn’t share that secret. Not even with Delilah. Not even for this. But it was there, and it didn’t make sense. “I wish that that would explain it. But DNA is so finicky.” If Delilah started testing theirs, she was going to find out the truth. And Ella wasn’t sure that they were ready for that. Even for this. “You’re right about one thing though, it’s a very advanced weapon. We can use magic, and we can use muggle technology. But this… Bioterrorism is not something that can be looked upon lightly.” They needed to know who had done it, if they knew how to reverse it.

@ lilah • 676 • eleánora's outfit

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