Peacekeepers

Chapter 52: Falter

July 14th, 1893

Diane looked up into bright green eyes, her tiny hands playing with black skirts as her mother dried her tears.

"This hurts, huh?" Her mother asked softly with a gentle smile, tapping her wand to the scrape on her knee with a nonverbal healing spell. "There, all done."

Diane felt her tears still coming though, sniffing softly.

"But the pain is still there, huh? What happened?"

"Daddy wanted me to practice jumping over stuff." Diane said with another soft sniff. "I fell."

She saw her mother make an angry expression toward the direction of the training rooms before her eyes softened when she looked back to Diane. "Are you upset you fell, or upset because you couldn't do it?"

Diane shook her head, not really knowing how to say what she felt.

"Did something else happen?" She urged, giving a soft sigh.

"Daddy got upset, and Will yelled at him. The they got in a fight." Diane felt fresh tears come to her eyes. "I don't like people fighting. I didn't mean to hurt them."

Her mother made a soft sound and picked her up, setting her on her lap and wrapping her arms around her. "Do you remember what I told Will about hurting people?"

Diane furrowed her brow as she fought to remember. "Only hurt people when they're gonna hurt you or someone you love." She said, looking up to see if she was right.

"That's right. But feelings are different, aren't they? And sometimes they can hurt more than a scrape or a cut." Her mother set her hand over her knee where the scrape had hurt a bit ago. "But feelings are harder to heal. There's no spell that will truly heal hurt feelings."

"Then how do you fix it?" Diane looked up with wide misty eyes.

"Love, patience... a lot of words. Most importantly is to figure out what's wrong and try to fix it." Her mother smiled gently.

The world melted away, rebuilding to a small room where she and Sebastian stood in front of the others. She looked around and noticed someone wasn't there. "Where's Ominis?" She asked in worry.

No one said anything.

"Where's Ominis?!" She yelled, looking up to Sebastian and saw his face was stoic. "Sebastian! Where's Ominis?!"

Still no answer.

She tore her hands away and turned toward the others, who all had similarly stoic expressions. Ominis wasn't in the room. Panic rose in her, and she darted from the building to find him, only to find herself suddenly in pouring rain in a familiar countryside. She was trudging through mud and slop, her skirts stained with it. Sebastian followed close behind her.

"Diane, stop." He said firmly, but she ignored him.

"Stop!" He hissed, reaching out and grabbing her wrist tight.

She tried to tug herself out of his grip but he held tight. Her struggle became more frantic, tears coming to her eyes as she pulled against him.

"Let me go, I have to find him!" She shouted at him through her tears.

"We don't even know where he is." Sebastian insisted, resisting her struggles.

"I don't care!-" she stopped mid sentence, remembering this. When Ominis had apparated away. Sebastian didn't seem to respond to her pause, his face going stoic again as if he didn't know how to respond.