Welcome to Gaia! ::

Astra had been rather bored up until that moment... but as soon as the hint of secrecy came into it, the pale blue eyes lit up with thinly veiled interest. "I understand," she agreed, walking on finely slippered feet towards the tapestry as well. Another day... or perhaps another month or so ago, Astra would have been nearly vibrating with the anticipation of learning something that no one else knew.

Unfortunately, the months had taken their toll on her. It wasn't until she found herself unwilling to make the effort to even perform that she came to Nox, begging her to either find her damned wayward kithain... or to find a way to break the hold over her.

Taking Nox's hand, Astra attempted to still the trembling that came with the mix of anticipation and nervousness that flooded her. She'd never quite seen magic like this before, but didn't want to embarrass herself in the Majestrix's eyes. Still, she couldn't help but take a deep breath and hold it a moment before the took that final step through the tapestry, her hand tightening on Nox's involuntarily.

Astra was visibly trembling by the time she emerged into the room, her legs feeling weak beneath her. DAMN this irritating and unnecessary (in her eyes) need for that blasted human she called kin. "Forgive me," she mumbled, taking the opportunity to lean against the wall for a moment and regain her composure. "This grows more and more unbearable by the day... I can do NOTHING without needing to stop and rest. Your kithain could have picked better caretakers for us if this is how we react upon being seperated from them!" Of course it was Sajhiri's fault. It had to be her fault. Astra would have blamed her own kithain, but that would be pointless, seeing that the aforementioned kithain was never around.

At the mention of 'child' Astra's eyes narrowed a bit, but she refused to argue the point that she most certainly was NOT a child with Nox. To Nox, she supposed they were all children in one manner or another. Moving to the chair, she swept her skirt neatly around her ankles, sitting in a rather prim pose as she looked towards the book expectantly. "Of course I'm ready, or I'd not have come this far. The sooner I get past this annoying little 'quirk' of the bond, the better."

The book was pretty well Greek to her, from what she could see. But she wasn't worried. She wasn't the caster here, Nox was. "Let's get this over with, I was just putting the finishing touches on a transcript of one of my father's songs. I intend to perform it tonight in the main hall."

Astra's mouth snapped closed at the reprimand, and she would have said something else... but she DID have a survival instinct, after all. She stayed in the chair, watching the spell weave itself with ever widening eyes...

Until the tendrils latched onto her and she instinctively tried to rise from the chair to get away.

The effort was futile, the spell took hold of her almost before she'd even managed to move. For a brief moment, she was afraid, and reached out towards Nox as if about to beg her to make it stop. Then the pain hit, and the bard let out a piercing scream that would likely have been headache-inducing, had it not been almost immediately muffled by the spell itself.

She felt as though every part of her body was on fire, and if she'd been able to, she would have swatted at the tendrils to break free. Her mind was racing in circles... she had to stop this, had to get away...

Then it seemed as though everything started to bleed away. Her thoughts were gone almost before she could grasp them. Her memories were drifting away like sand, and she couldn't keep hold of them.

Why was she here?

Why was she in such pain?

Why was this happening?!

The scream seemed to rise in pitch, until it went from being the Diva's exquisite soprano to a wailing cry of a child that now lay curled on the floor of the room, shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.

Astra was still hiccoughing with the sobs as Nox spoke to her, the girl pushing herself up on shaking hands as she looked to herself in shock and fear. At first, it seemed that she was wondering why she was trapped in this body again... until she looked up at Nox and opened her mouth.

"Wh-what happened to my clothes?" she asked, trying to gather up the now too-big pieces of her garb that lay on the floor around her. "What... where am I?" She looked around the room as if she'd never laid eyes on it before in her life... which to her memory, she hadn't. When she turned to Nox again, she was sniffling faintly, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to come once more, not from pain this time, but from fear. "Who are you?!? What am I doing here, did the curse finally get broken?"

Astra looked down at her own hands, then to the walls around them as if looking for the window she'd come out of. "The glass... I remember being in the glass. Did you let me out?"

Astra focused her mind, frowning as she looked down at herself. "Weak," she answered affirmatively. "I feel like if I try to stand, I'm going to fall over. Was dizzy when I opened my eyes, but that's gone now." She didn't feel nervous at all, and tried to push herself up to stand. She ignored the fact that she didn't have clothes on anymore, they were pooled by her feet where they'd fallen off her now-tiny form. This one was a girl. It wasn't like she had anything Nox hadn't seen before.

She wobbled a moment on her feet, catching hold of the chair before getting herself under control. "Legs feel funny. Like they're wiggling, when they're not." A moment later, however, she took her first tentative steps. "But it's going away too."