Villain and violent (infant and innocent)

"Agatha, why don't you show us your battle
scars?"

Jen smiles whilst saying this, not in an unkind way at all, but Agatha swallows the lump of apprehension in her throat. Logically, she knows that Jen does not mean to say this to embarrass her, but there's a hot flash of humiliation in the pit of her stomach. Obviously, she's being irrational; nobody knows about.. those ones. Not even Rio.

She forces the heat creeping up her neck down and says,

"I don't have any."

The silence stretches awkwardly and she grimaces. She's not the most eloquent witch in the world. Agatha forces out a grin. "I mean, sure, people have tried to cut me, but they never got to me before I got to them. Let's just say I've left more than one person with a finger count less than ten."

She sees Alice snicker which seems to give everyone else the permission to chuckle. Agatha finds herself holding pride in the fact that even after everything with.. Wanda, she's not lost her ability to be a leader.

(She pretends that she hasn't lost some of her backbone too, but even she can't deny the tremors in her hands when she mentions that witch's name. Whatever. She tells herself it's probably just an aftereffect of that terrible wine.)

Rio doesn't laugh. Doesn't even crack a smile, which is insulting really; Agatha knows she's funny. She goes to crack a witty remark when she sees the look that Rio is giving her. It's steeled and even, but Agatha has spent more days than stars in the sky staring into those eyes. Rio's look is laced with undeniable concern, and that makes Agatha feel a bit sick.

Concern. How laughable. Concern, after all this time.

(What does she know?)

She looks away. Rio's eyes burn holes into the side of her head. She can physically feel her hair cooling when the green witch finally tears her gaze away.

"I have a scar." She says.

Agatha scoffs. "No you don't."

It's not a dig. She knows for a fact that Rio can't get scars. And even if she could, Agatha has spent more nights than grains of sand on the earth worshipping that woman. She knows every centimetre of her body. She knows it's smooth as porcelain and tough as diamond. No scars. To her, this is not a debate. She knows.

Rio looks at her with an indescribable emotion in her eyes that hurts Agatha to the core. It singes at her heart and she can't move her own eyes away any faster.

"Yes I do." Rio says. And she takes a breath.

And Agatha is not prepared for the string of words that comes out of her devil's mouth next.

"A long time ago, I loved someone."

Oh my fucking God.

"And I had to do something that I really did not want to do. Because it was my job."

She is too frozen to open her mouth.

"And it hurt them."

What do you know about hurt.

"She is my scar."

Agatha rears backwards, falling over the tree where she is sitting and tumbles to the floor. Her brain is on autopilot; she's not even in the front seat of her mind when she scrambles to her feet and lunges as far away as possible from the fire that has burnt her. She hears Lilia say something that sounds vaguely like her name, but she does not care as she stumbles past the trees and into a clearing.

Her breaths are coming in short gasps, ripping their way out of her throat like razor blades, and she tastes blood in her mouth. She wants to scream but all that comes out is a mangled cry. Salt mixes with the blood in her mouth and she knows she is crying.