[ He listens. It is a good story, a passionate story, exactly the sort he goes looking for: old folklore, the sort of tale with mythic highs and lows and some lesson to be learned. It feels like the origin of something real and rawly powerful. It feels familiar.

It does not feel like anything he might have expected from a timid maid.

The girl gazes somberly down into her tea, and Ozpin watches her through several beats of silence. He wonders, now, at the thing which came to him in the night. He does not quite see how the pieces interact, but he is coming to understand their places on the board.

He inclines his head in a slow nod, and when he speaks again, his tone is low and warm. ]

I had no idea your home carried such a mythic history... however dark the tale may be. Thank you, Shannon, for sharing it with me.

[ He reaches for his tea, but it is has well and truly gone cold. Ozpin simply gazes down at the space between them, instead. ]

What became of her, in the end? Your witch who found her freedom.