Gabrielle didn’t anticipate this sort of encounter, but she did have things ready for a rainy day: from under some of the broken pieces of wood she procured some filthy yet dry cloth rags, a new candle, and the rusty lantern. With this and her little tricks, she was ready! But Baraqiel’s eyes did not go to her preparations– they were a bit too busy noticing the abysmal state of the girl’s legs.

“Saints’ sake, Gabrielle! Are you okay!?”

The kid tried their best to get up and help her out, but their body simply refused to comply. All they could manage were some jerking motions before the pain of their itching wounds came back, and the sensitivity of their legs disappeared once again. They really had pushed it all way beyond their limit, and the body of a child could only take so much abuse.

Meanwhile, the girl stopped right in her tracks and turned around, looking at Baraqiel with dumbfounded eyes before finally looking down and realizing what the problem was.

“Ah.” She said, immediately disregarding the whole deal. “My legs. Yes, they are filthy, but I am okay.”

She went back to gathering her pieces of cloth in no time, completely ignoring the many pebbles on her feet, not to mention the cuts and filth left by their improvised run around. In Gabi’s mind, that was a great explanation as to why her legs hurt. Baraqiel stared in a mixture of awe and frustration.

“Doesn’t it hurt?!” they finally asked.

“It does.” Gabrielle still refused to pay any attention to her wounds before sitting down right beside the “Angel”, letting out a soft sigh. “But complaining will not do anything at all.”

There was a moment of silence in which Baraqiel simply did not know how to even begin to explain to this girl what was wrong with that line of thought. They tried to imagine ways to approach the topic, be sensitive about it, not pushy or anything– but eventually the exhaustion and frustration reached critical mass, and the kid simply snatched one of the improvised towels from Gabi’s hands.

“H-Hey, wait, I can help you dry your—Ouchie!”

They didn’t give the girl any opportunity to complain, before laying down and using that towel to pull out the many pieces of vegetation trapped in Gabrielle’s skin, all while grumbling and looking pissed about it.

“Oi! Stop that, it hurts!” Gabi complained, grumbling and wincing every time the “Angel” pulled another pebble off her.

“You are supposed! To complain! So others can know! If you’re hurt!” Baraqiel accentuated every pull with a grumbling nag, throwing the pieces away from Gabi with spiteful yet good intent. “How are others going to help you if they don’t even know you need help at all!?”

The girl quieted down there, narrowing her eyes as she thought. True, one could never really know what others were thinking, and to Gabi it was especially hard to understand what others felt! Vocalizing was their only way to make all that known, but…

“People will not come to help just because you complain.” Gabrielle narrowed her eyes, snatching another towel and forcefully starting to rub Baraqiel’s hair dry.

And, well, the answer did stun them for a bit. It was either that or Gabi’s forceful rubbing on her head, shaking and pulling from him without much tact at all.

But they were not just going to accept that sort of thinking, not when they could still fight back. Metaphorically and physically too, for they would still cling to clear the girl’s legs from all those painful pebbles.

“That is not a reason to stop complaining!! You have to ask for help!!” The “Angel” had no idea where all this energy came from, but the Anger seemed to have rekindled the fire inside of them. “You can’t just do it all on your own! That’s how you end up dead!!”

If it wasn’t for the other kids in cages, Baraqiel would be more than dead right now, and this was something they were very aware of. They felt a little guilty as well for not giving the others much of a thought before escaping. But they would certainly fix that by getting more help! Soon, they would all run away, not just Baraqiel!

And that was more than enough reason to internalize the idea even more.

“What would have happened if I didn’t ask you to help me before, huh?!”

Gabi stopped right there, her hands still pushing down on Baraqiel’s head as she thought. A part of her really wanted to yell back at them! Of course I would have helped you anyway, dummy! You looked like you needed help! But that was a shameless lie. She was simply not that perceptive.

In retrospect, it felt quite silly to Gabrielle to not see how hurt the kid was before: Now it was as clear as their purple eyes.

Oh hey! Those are kind of easy to remember.

Not many people she knew had those kinds of eyes, just sister Arianna and some Demis. Gabrielle internally clung to that, trying to memorize the “Angel”’s face so it didn’t elude her next time.

Their face looked so nitid and easy to memorize at this point! Unlike the ones in the chapel.

“Well!” Gabrielle pulled away from Baraqiel, now that their head was finally dry. “You only say that because you’re an Angel! Of course you are kind like that!”

The kid pulled down their own cheeks in exasperation. Seriously, they felt like shaking this girl sometimes.

“I am not an angel! I told you this, I am just a kid who got pulled by the Demiurge! I am not an angel, blazing saints!!”

Really, they didn’t need to get this angry about it, but Baraqiel was absolutely done being called an “Angel” over and over by people. They never felt like it, and the implications of the word simply disgusted them. No more “Angel” shenanigans.

“I am a kid, just like you!”

“No you are not.” Gabrielle crossed her arms, adamant.

“Yes I am!! And now it is my turn to help you so, stand still!”

Baraqiel grabbed the pot covering Gabrielle’s head with both hands, pulling it all of the sudden. A damp rag of a habit flew right off with the makeshift helmet.

“W-Wait, not my helmet!!!”

And then, the kid’s eyes widened. That hair, so red and bright that it jarringly contrasted with the girl’s Brittan skin. It felt a little bit out of place, surprising at best, but besides that Gabrielle was a pale, normal Brittan girl.

The girl did not like this. Not one bit. With all instincts suddenly kicking in, Gabrielle kneeled down and covered her hair with both of her hands, practically shrieking.

“I-I can explain, I can explain! This, uhm. This is not–I am not!! I am not a witch, I swear! Baraqiel please you have to believe me, I am not a Witch!!”

Baraqiel had opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box, and now they had absolutely no idea how to deal with the consequences. Gabrielle was breathing louder and louder, shaking in place while trying to make herself smaller and smaller, frantically covering her head. The kid tried to reach her, hold her close, but she immediately jerked away from the touch.

“P-Please!! I am not! I am sorry!!” Gabrielle shouted, suddenly afraid of being smacked.

“O-Okay, okay! Sorry, I–Ugh, I shouldn’t have grabbed you.” Baraqiel took deep breaths, trying to relax– as soon as they noticed that, they tried to get Gabrielle’s attention. “Hey, hey. Shhh, shhh… Breathe with me. Come on, this calms people up. Breathe, breathe and say ‘I am not a witch’.”

The kid would take long, exaggerated and loud breaths, trying to fill their chest as much as they could before letting it all out, repeating the phrase over and over.

“You’re not a Witch. You’re not a Witch. You’re not a Witch.”

Repetition was a good way to focus, and even Gabrielle knew this. Hearing Baraqiel, she would slowly, shakingly try to imitate them. Deep breaths, sometimes interrupted by a shaky sob, while repeating.

“I-I am not a Witch… I… I am not… I am not a Witch…”

“There you go… you’re not a Witch… you saved me, Gabi! Is that what Witches do?”

“N…No…?”

None of them had any idea of what a Witch even did to get such a bad reputation, but they both agreed that if they were so bad as people said, there was no way a Witch would come down to help someone. Much less an “Angel”.

And just hearing someone else say it was enough to help Gabrielle’s panic to slowly, gently die down. A few moments after, they were both silent once again, shivering. Uncomfortable…

“...I hate my hair.” Finally, Gabi broke the silence. “Everyone hates it too. Because they think I’m a Witch.”

Apparently, all Witches had “weird things” like red hair, blue marks on their face, unusual eyes or reptilian features in their bodies. Witches were evil, ate people, made them suffer. To Baraqiel though, it was just another word like Angel: strange, alien, full of heavy implications that they couldn’t even understand, because no one had even bothered to explain a thing.

A bad word. An evil word.

Just like Angel.

“They… never even told you what a Witch is, did they?” Baraqiel tried their luck there.

“No… they don’t talk to me, people don’t talk to Witches even if they are under penitence with the church.”

“Well, that’s dumb.” The kid frowned, maybe projecting a bit there. “They don’t even tell you how to do better or anything! They just, expect you to be evil??”

“Y-Yes. I think that is it.” Gabrielle nodded twice.

“That’s dumb. They are dumb, I bet they don’t even know what a Witch is either!”

Gabi gasped. Now that was something that never crossed her mind until then, the girls never really knew much of anything anyway! But. The Sisters, Father, they certainly knew what it meant, right?

“What if I am an evil witch…?”

“You have helped me here a lot! You are not the evil one, that much I can promise.” Baraqiel tried to smile at her, reassuringly. “Besides… what if you are a Witch?”

“Well, people would be mean to me…”

“They already are, though! All of them!”

“N-No, not all of them! Sister Alejandra and Sister Arianna are nice.”

“Well, I say it doesn’t matter what the people who are mean think. They never listen to you when you say you are not evil, right?”

The girl gasped, eyes wide open. “Did you read my mind with your angelical powers!?”

“Not an angel!”

“S-Sorry, sorry…”

“It is just obvious by the way you move, the way you are so afraid of having others see your hair. They probably just run away as soon as they see it, right?”

“Either that or…”

“Or they hit you.”

Gabi nodded slowly, sitting up once again and gripping her dress a bit harder. So many different memories that she really just, didn’t want to relive at all. And yet there they were, so present and nitid in the girl’s thoughts.

“...I hate my hair.”

“But do you really hate it? I think the color is neat…” That comment got a bit of a look from Gabrielle. Baraqiel could see the light of curiosity in her eyes, an odd hunger for compliments that the girl probably didn’t even know she had. So, they pressed on a bit. “You keep it short to hide it, right? It still curls in a neat way, it’s very pretty.”

Gabrielle gulped. Embarrassment coloring her face for a moment, she was absolutely not used to positive reinforcement of this kind. Baraqiel grinned a bit, they didn’t even know they could infer so much from someone’s eyes, it was getting easier by the second to her!”

“You just hate it because the people bother you for it. But they bother you for anything anyways, right?”

“I thought hiding it would help me.” She finally admitted, reaching for her pot and hugging it close. “But they still find ways to give me a hard time.”

“They just have boring hair, probably. All black all the time, or blonde.”

Gabrielle’s smile curled a bit more. She didn’t like the bad times she got because of her hair, and she definitely didn’t want to be “special” or anything; but she did find deep in her heart that, well…

Red was a pretty colour.

Baraqiel thought that was enough. They simply didn’t know much more to say, and they didn’t want this to get weird or even more embarrassing for either of them. Time to close the topic.

“You hair is ace. Simple like that.”

“It’s… yes. It is.” Gabrielle finally admitted it, and just saying it out loud made her heart pump a bit harder. “It’s ace.”

They both shared a bit of a smile for a moment, until Gabrielle suddenly reminded of her final secret stash. Fishing in the wet cloth, she found the few little biscuits that still remained from the elves’ gift. Water had reached them but not enough to make the dough break down. It was perfect.

Soon they were both eating, wolfing down piece after piece of the treats like it was the first food either of them had in ages.

“So!” Gabrielle finally spoke up, suckling on her fingers to clean some crumbles off them. “What sort of things should I do then? If I am going to be a Witch, and a good one!”

Baraqiel gulped, cleaning their face a bit with their sleeves. Apparently the girl had gone in a completely opposite direction now, fully embracing the role she had been assigned. And the kid was not sure if this was a good thing? Maybe they did accidentally push a girl into a path of evil?

For some reason, they didn’t really care that much for the “evil” part; they were worried about Gabi’s well-being.

“I don’t know! Witch things?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then do Gabrielle things instead!”

“What are Gabrielle things though?” The girl tilted her head, eyes staring deep down into Baraqiel’s, unblinking. It was kind of unnerving, but at this point Baraqiel didn’t question it.

“I don’t know!? How would I know? I am not Gabrielle! What would you want to do!?“

“I don’t know. I just do what I am told most of the time”

Baraqiel pulled down their cheeks again, taking a deep breath. “Ugh! Okay, okay, uhm. When you helped me, did someone tell you to do it? Or did you do it because you wanted to?”

Once again the girl gasped. So many different eureka moments in a single night!

“I wanted to help you.”

“Well!” Baraqiel clapped once. “There you have it! That’s one thing you want to do.”

“Being nice?”

“Yes!”

“Then I am a “Gabrielle Witch”, who does “Gabrielle things”, and those things are “Being nice”, right?”

Another long, exasperated sigh.

“Yes? I think!? Look… let’s… let’s just try to learn more of these things tomorrow morning, is that okay?

Gabrielle was about to nod in agreement before a loud sneeze practically shook the entire shed. With a sigh, Baraqiel carefully took one of their improvised towels.

“Okay, but first… may I dry up your hair?”

“I’d… rather do it myself. It’s delicate.”

Baraqiel grumbled, thinking “Yeah, of course! But you can just pull mine around like a sack of potatoes huh!?”, before finally giving up.

“Fine, as long as you take care of yourself.”