Christine's brown pinched slightly, unsure of the girl's tone. Gathering her skirts, she walked back up the stairs, sitting in the chair beside the bed.
"Alright then," she answered. "What is it that you want to talk about?"
"You. Erik… me." The answer was short and simple, but Margareite had hesitated before adding "me" at the end. Her eyes were not the liquid brown they normally were as she gazed at Christine steadily. Now they swam before her as almost black pools of ink, waiting to be dipped into and written with to reveal secrets long held back. But the quill was not quite ready yet to cause ripples within those cold pools of darkness. No, not yet, Christine thought as the hostile air that hid behind a tiny girl surrounded her.
"What about us?" she asked cautiously, her fingers playing uncomfortably within her lap, tangling the folds of the smooth skirt.
Margareite resisted the urge to wince at the careful tone of Christine's voice. The woman practically feared her! A child just as easy to subdue as a kitten! She was not one to be feared. If anyone had the right to be afraid, it was Magragreite. Scared that Erik was being torn away from her by an old obsession come back to haunt the Lair.
"How much do you care about Erik?" she asked suddenly, sharply.
As terrified of loosing the Phantom man as Margareite was, she was almost protective first and foremost. She cared desperately about him, and did not want him to face more of the pain that had been delivered to him through this woman, months before now. What complicated it was that that pain was a double bladed knife. If Erik was forced to relive the pain that had pierced his heart so violently, it would only be twisted, bringing out a part of Erik that Christine and Margareite both knew existed, and neither wanted that phantom…. That ghost, to rear its head. Erik could be a dangerous man when he chose to be. He had proven that to both, margareite less so, but that did not hide the facts from her intuitive mind, young as it was. She was asking out of fear of what may come if Erik was caused pain, as much as she was asking out of protectiveness.
Christine was taken aback by these words, laid out flatly by the seven year old girl that sat before her. She knew children could be obliviously frank, but this was not oblivious bliss asking a question that it didn't know was rude. This as a seven year old child that couldn't possibly know how deep emotions could run when asked a question, and yet she had, and clearly, she DID. This girl was not merely smart for her age, she was far too versed in words and meanings and the workings of the mind for such a brush off of and "intellegent girl. No. this girl was a genius. It was the only explanation. She had never heard such cultured words come form the mouth of a child any younger then twelve, and have them clearly understanding exactly what it was they were saying and the reactions they knew it would cause. This girl was so much like Erik, it frightened Christine. The only thing that was missing was the music. Music was all for Erik. His heart, his soul, his mind. But for all Erik was genius mad in thought at times of extreme emotion, this girl was a genius all the way through, and was not in the slightest mad, although perhaps due to an evidently cruel past, perhaps slightly disturbed.
Sighing, Christine turned her mind back to Margareite's question, knowing that the girl awaited an answer. How much did she care about Erik? The Phantom of the Opera? Or were they two different men? And how much did she care for the Erik that Margareite knew, which, Christine felt, was what Margareite was asking. She bit her lit, unsure of how to word her answer. Margariete waited patiently upon the bed, her face emotionless. After a moment of thought Christine answered hesitantly,
"I care about the Erik that cares for u now very much Margareite, but I cannot say that I love him. Not after all that he has done in the past. I cannot forget all the agony and the death that revolved around what happened…well what happened some months ago."
"I already know," Margariete answered sharply. "Erik told me. You needn't try to hide the pain that you inflicted upon him as much as he inflicted upon you." Again Christine was slightly awed at the girl's almost perfected use of lacunae, but continued on. Well then, she supposed she had no choice but to bear the truth. She wondered just how much Erik HAD told the seven year old child.
"Then you know," she continued. "That he killed two people, both innocent men, despite how horrid one of them may have been. You know…" She trailed off when Margariete jerked, her eyes narrowing.
"Then you obviously DON'T know just how horrid he WAS," the girl seethed. Christine looked at her questionably. Margareite glared at her, sparks spitting from the black pools that were her eyes. " You didn't know then that he used to sneak into the stage hand girl's rooms and rape them, then? You didn't know that he held a knife to their throats when they tired to scream?" The girl's voice was positively hissing now, angry as a cobra that had its crown flared for attack.
Christine's eyes widened. Boquet She had known him to be a bit of a peeping tom, but surely he had not raped the girl that helped with props and other such things? They were just young ones, the daughters of the male ballet dancers and other stage hands. She had been close with one infact, saw her rather like a sister. The young twelve year old girl had been quiet, and rarely spoke but to Christine and yet… while the other girls of the ballet fancied over the men about the audience in their fine clothes, the girl had simply walked away, mumbling one excuse or the other. Christine's hand flew to her throat as she remembered noticing a small nick of a scar along the hollow of the girl's throat.
"Oh, god…" Christine whispered harshly, hardly daring to believe what she was being told.
"That man deserved his head, and more," Margariete continued to bite. "So don't you DARE defend such a monster. You called Erik a monster and yet you make excuses for that THING that thought he had the right to call himself human!"
Erik awoke violently at the sound of Margariete's raised voice, almost falling out of the too-small chair. Slightly disoriented, he listened to what was happening, hoping to figure out what was going on before he raged into the room.
"…Erik a monster and yet you make excuses for that THING that thought he had the right to call himself human!" Erik's heart began to beat fiercely in his chest, emotions swelling heavily within him. If he had thought the cold, harsh voice she had spoken towards him with the night he had thrown her aside was terrible, he knew Christine faced double-fold. The girl's voice was rough with shouting in anger; the echoes reverberating like a thousand tiny children all screaming her agony. She was defending him. It was a concept erik couldn't quite grasp. Never before had anyone defended him… and yet… Erik shook himself. Now was not the time to delve into his emotion. He flew up the stairs, grasping Christine's arm and pulling her to a stand giving her a small shove towards the stairs as Margariete's voice continued to shout blasphemous things at the woman.
"Go! Leave her be!" he directed, pointing farther into the lair. Hesitatingly, not quite sure how to calm her, he sat on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, and her shouts were immediately cut off, but she did not move away. She turned her black serpent eyes upon his on cool blue ones.
"She knows nothing of humanity," she said her voice scratchy, but the velvet tone unmistakable. "She dared to call you a monster, and yet she defends that bastard Boquet."
Erik's eyes widened slightly at the strong word she had thrown in to describe the late stage hand, but he did not correct or scold her. It was a fitting description of the man. He had caught him once in the action of ringing a threatening knife to a girl's throat once, and had caught the man's collar in the darkness, threatening to break his neck. The cowardly man had nodded fiercely, unable to see his attacker, and Erik had dropped him, allowing him to scramble out of the room. The girl had not woken from her deep sleep, and the Phantom had disappeared into the shadows. Erik had not regretted killing the stage hand when he did. Erik sighed, letting his hand drop from the now silent Margareite's shoulder.
"Ma chere…Christine was raised with the same beliefs as everyone else in Paris. Yes, she called me a monster… but, she kissed me before she left, leaving me with the knowledge that she did not fear my… deformity. You cannot blame her for that which she did not know."
Margariete gazed at the only man, human for that matter that had ever shown her any love, utterly at lack of understanding his forgiveness of Christine. And yet... if Erik could forgive her… could she learn to as well?