SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer, Friday Morning [Fandom Time]
Karla had spent most of the past day sleeping. She had vague recollections of briefly swimming to consciousness to eat or be gently bathed, but it wasn't until midafternoon on the second day after they'd left Agio behind that she truly awoke.
She had never been to glad to wake up in her room at the Hall in her life.
At the same time? She had never wanted to leave Kaeleer quite so much. Just...get away. Away from people who would try to control a witch by dosing her with safframate and forcing her to sign a marriage contract. Away from psychic witch storms and attacks on landen villages. Away from spirals and the abyss and six thousand dead in seconds...
She loved Jaenelle, she truly did, but she'd gotten a glimpse of the combined power of thirteen Black Jewels. Karla needed a little while to put that all into prospective, to slot this newfound information into how she already saw Jaenelle until she had a better handle on it.
Sadly, running wasn't an option. Neither was hiding. She still had people to face after this most stupid of plans, and even watching Jaenelle annihilate thousands of Jhinka didn't change that.
After her bath and a meal that consisted of something more solid than soup, Karla was feeling a little more herself. Helene had left her ensconced in a comfortable chair in the front room of her suite, dressed in a thick, woolly sweater, a long skirt, and wrapped in a spell-warmed blanket. Hopefully, these would not only keep her warm--even with a fire, Karla was deuced cold--but help hide just how much weight she'd lost.
Now that she was awake and up, it meant that it was time to face the music. Too bad 'music' in this case, translated out to 'a bunch of people who had every right to be very, very mad at her.'
Somehow she felt like enforced fussing was going to be the least of her worries right now.
Dinah
Dinah came in and sat on the bed, just watching Karla. The last few days-- god, she wanted to be back in New Gotham. Wasn't sure how she'd come to terms with everything she'd seen.
"So." She studied Karla, then took her hand. I should be mad at you. I'm too relieved you're alive to do a good job of it, she sent, mental voice stark.
Karla
"So," Karla repeated, her voice still a little raspy. Singing that many Healing webs without tea was hard.
*It wasn't supposed to turn out that way,* she attempted to explain. *I just wanted to help Jaenelle.*
Dinah
It never is, Dinah sent back, a muscle ticking in her jaw, then she sighed. "I know. And she needed help." She studied Karla, trying to think how Barbara would handle all this as her hand tightened on Karla's in reassurance. Where did it get messed up, do you think?
Karla
*When whoever it was set that trap,* Karla said, pulling the blanket tighter around her. *I think it was for Lucivar. It wasn't strong enough for Jaenelle and it was in Askavi. Eyrien territory. Lucivar's the strongest male in Kaeleer, save for Uncle Saetan and Andulvar. And they can't go out in daylight. If word of this attack had gotten out, Lucivar would have been the one to be called.*
Dinah
That wasn't what I meant, Dinah sent, but turned this information over in her head anyway. "And you got pulled into it, because...?"
Karla
"Because I was with them when they discovered it," Karla explained, shifting a little in her chair. "Jaenelle caught wind of something wrong, but the drugs they'd given her had messed up her senses too much for her to really understand what was wrong. So we went in to investigate."
Dinah
"And then you stayed." Couldn't really fault her for that. "So far, so good." She picked up Karla's hand and turned the wrist over. The very very thin wrist. "And this was just... inevitable?"
The tremor in Dinah's voice might hint at how upset this had her. Or how tight her shields were at that moment.
Karla
Karla looked away, tugging her sleeve down over her arm. "It wasn’t like I could actually leave. You saw how many there were," she said quietly. "And we didn't Heal a damn thing that wasn't life-threatening. We couldn't. The Jhinka...they don't like fast kills. They play. They go for gut-wounds and lacerating cuts and blinding and--and--"
She shut her mouth abruptly, lips trembling. "What was I supposed to do? Let them bleed out in front of me? Die, poisoned by their own waste? We ate when there was still food and drank when there was still water."
Not much, of course. But then, there were five hundred people in that one building.
Dinah
Dinah was horrified to realize she was crying. She swiped at her eyes fast with the back of her own hand, shaking. Furious, she realized. Don't give into it, she told herself. Don't.
"Magic makes things too easy for you," she said, keeping her voice low. "'Cause yeah. You weren't supposed to kill yourself for anyone. Just because you can." Her throat tightened. "You don't know your own limits. Or you don't like them, so you ignore them. I don't know which it is."
Karla
"Easy?" Karla said, close to tears herself. "You think that was easy? You tell me, Dinah. When were you going to walk away? Huh? Do you know how many children made it to safety? Less than fifty. Out of a village of nearly two thousand, less than fifty children survived. Could you have looked at them and said, 'No' and walked away?"
She sniffled and looked up towards the ceiling, willing the tears to go away. "The landens in that village were targeted because someone was trying to kill Lucivar. Or even if they weren't, someone of the Blood was playing games with their lives because they could. You think that we didn't owe them something?"
Dinah
"Don't try to distract me. There is a big difference between staying and doing what you can, and pushing yourself to death. There is." Dinah swallowed hard. "And I don't know," she said more softly. "You have a hard, hard gift. Human doctors in the same position, they have to admit they can't fix every one. Or even as many as you did. So you tell me. Would the Healers you trained with have expected that of you? Not that you'd heal who you could, and then stop to rest. And try to get your strength up. That you'd almost break our deal?"
And goddamnit, now she had to put her head down so she could breathe hard enough to get her control back, frantic remembered fear overshadowing all her logical arguments.
Karla
"I can't ask them!" Karla flared, tears breaking through. "Because half of them are dead! And I couldn't save them, either!"
Oh. Hello issues.
Dinah
Oh, God. Dinah got off the bed and stepped over to hug Karla over the blanket, hard. "Honey, no one expected you to," she whispered, squeezing her. "They didn't. Please, please stop this. Stop trying to make it up to every person who died."
Karla
"I--I...I don't know how!" Karla wailed, sobbing into Dinah's arms.
Dinah
Dinah hugged her even tighter, and rocked her, stroking her hair, crying a little again. She kissed the top of Karla's head as she held her.
After a long few minutes, Dinah took a breath, and sighed. "I wish I knew what to say. Except I'm glad you're alive. And I wish you didn't feel so bad about it, sometimes. You scared me. You looked like you did-- you still look like you did in the vampire world." She looked around for Kleenex, then laughed shakily. "Handkerchiefs?"
Karla
"I ate when we had food!" Karla repeated, swiping at her face with her sleeve. "We just...ran out. But I did eat, because I knew I had to try to keep my strength up. I wasn't like in the vampire world. I wasn't...punishing myself for surviving."
In quite the same way. Here, she'd had Craft to do it for her.
"And Lucivar bullied us both."
Dinah
"Remind me to kiss him," Dinah said, very sardonically.
She picked up the edge of the blanket and used it on Karla's face, then a little on her own, and settled on the arm of the chair, arms around Karla. "I believe that you ate. I'm not doubting your word." She turned Karla to face to her, palms on either side of her face. "Tell me that you were thinking straight. Tell me that you slept enough. Tell me that you weren't just trying to keep up with Jaenelle, so she wouldn't be alone, even when you were about to fall over." I'm not angry now, she sent. We have to talk about this though. I don't want to see you this sick-and-nearly-dead again.
Karla
"Ew." It was a testimony to how exhausted Karla was that she couldn't conjure up more than a disgusted face for that image.
"I..." There was really nothing she could say to that. Because she knew as well as Dinah did that there was no way she could say yes to any of those questions. "There was too much to do..."
Even to her ears, that sounded lame.
Dinah
"I know," Dinah said gently. "And I've pushed myself too hard too. It's just-- I can't push myself to the point where I'd die using my powers. Or I've never been on that edge." They could both see her point right there, now. "You have." She brushed Karla's hair out of her face, and softly asked, "Do you feel better, now that you're so sick? This thin, this chilled, this weak?"
Karla
"It feels awful," Karla admitted, burrowing deeper into the covers. And since it was Dinah, she could admit things that made her feel petty and stupid. Not aloud, because she couldn't bring herself to say this aloud. *Jaenelle...she looks like Hell, yeah, but even so. There's something so lovely, so compelling about her now. Even after all that, even as skeletal as she is, I look at her and I can't help but think she's lovely. And I...I'm not. I just look scrawny and half-starved. I'm ashamed to be seen like this.*
She buried her face in her hands. "But I don't know how to say no. I don't know how to back down when I see need. I don't!"
Dinah
Jaenelle's got good bones, and some kind of wacky charisma, Dinah granted her. And she still looks half-dead and sick. Also, more than a little crazy. You love her, and she's Witch. Maybe that influences what you see. She tilted her head on top of Karla's, and sighed. You will always be pretty, but terrifyingly ill is not a good look. It doesn't bring out your inner Death Maiden, no. I'm glad you realize it.
Hearing Karla admit that aloud made Dinah hug her again, even as worried as she was. "Okay. Let's break it down... Doctor, I have a friend who over-works herself to exhaustion and near-starvation when she's stressed. She has trouble telling people in need or people she loves that she's tapped out. She doesn't want to do that any more, but I don't think she'll break the habit overnight. I can't be there to monitor her, and she wouldn't want that anyway." She stroked Karla's hair. "What should she do?"
If it were a girl in New Gotham, the answer would be get therapy for anorexia and control issues. For Karla...?
Karla
"Sit on her whenever she's about to do something stupid?" Karla suggested. "I'm a Black Widow. I'm supposed to be better than this!"
Because that was a helpful train of thought, yes.
Dinah
Dinah grimaced. "You've been through a lot. Over a long period of time. You had to cope the best you could. You fell into some destructive patterns. Smart or strong doesn't help if you're fighting yourself. You win and you lose." And you haven't been thinking, you've been reacting. You can't do this alone. I think you're gonna need to talk to someone, a doctor or Healer, to figure out how to stop yourself, hon. She paused. Not Jaenelle. You love her, but comparing yourself to her? That's part of the problem.
Karla
"I would have done the same thing regardless of who was there with me," Karla mumbled into her blanket.
Dinah
It was worse because it was her, though. "You realize that's not an argument against you needing a real plan for dealing with this, right?" Dinah checked. "Your uncle is awesome, but if he's picked up on this, what do you think he'll do about it?"
Karla
"He might have finished scolding by the time I make the Offering," Karla said.
Dinah
"Fair guess there." Dinah sat back to study Karla, and sighed. "You did a bone-headed thing. Then you did another bone-headed thing. 'Cause you cared. You don't have to stop caring. Just... work on the part where you almost die." She squeezed Karla's hand. It goes without saying, anything I can do, I will.
Jack
"The next time you run away," Jack said, with a ragged form of his jauntiness as he looked Karla over, "I'm not coming after you."
A beat. "Probably not. What were you thinking?"
Karla
Karla wrung her hands, shaking her head slightly. "I wasn't," she whispered. "I just knew I had to help Jaenelle. But I didn't think anyone here could contact anyone at school. I didn't expect you all to get dragged into this. I'm so sorry, Jack. For what you saw and what happened and your paper and...everything."
Jack
The paper is nothing," Jack said dismissively. It wasn't, really; he hardly remembered what it was supposed to be on. "Don't apologize for dragging us in. We love you and wanted to be here. Apologize for not telling us to start with. Emma was half out of her mind, and that was before ... everything."
The worst thing he could imagine. The worst thing he'd ever remember.
Karla
Don't say that Jack! Karla's canon is full of terrible things!
"I--It didn't even occur to me to tell someone," she said, then flushed. "No, that's not entirely true. I was afraid someone would try to stop me. If I sent a letter or attempted to call...I was afraid they'd tell someone else and stop me from going."
She hung her head, cheeks bright red with shame. "I wanted to help Jaenelle so much that I ignored everything else. And you all came to danger because of it."
Jack
"I don't mind coming to danger," Jack said, a bit too casually. He didn't entirely mean it. "I mind that you seem to think you're some -- disposable cannon fodder when compared to Jaenelle, but it looks like you've suffered enough for that. I just wish you'd trusted us. Emma or Warren, at the least, even if you didn't think to call me."
Karla
Why did everyone keep bringing this back to Jaenelle?
"I didn't know my cell phone would work," Karla tried feebly. "And...you don't understand, Jack. Jaenelle is more than just my friend, more than just some powerful Queen. She's Witch. We dance in her honor every Winsol. It's not just a matter of trusting everyone...she's--I can't even describe how important she is. Not just to me, but the whole world."
Jack
...
"Karla," Jack said, trying to sound calm. "You're saying your best friend is, quite literally, the messiah."
Karla
"I don't think I know what that means," Karla said, tilting her head slightly.
Jack
Jack sighed. "I'll send you books about Earth religions another time," he promised. "I doubt it would be good for you to hear it explained just now."
He remembered, after all, how his explanation of women's rights in his own time had gone with Karla.
"She's very important," he clarified. "I ... hadn't realized how much so."
Karla
"She is," Karla pressed, hoping that someone would understand. "She's going to be Queen of Ebon Askavi sometime soon. It's her place to rule the Blood. All of us, humans and kindred alike."
Jack
"Why?" Jack asked. "I know you love her, I understand that, but -- what makes her the ruler?"
He wasn't scolding her; he was simply curious.
Karla
"Because she's Witch," Karla said, also apparently unfamiliar with the definition of 'tautology.' "The living myth. Dreams made flesh. She was born to rule the Blood, just as we were born to serve her."
Helpful, no?
Jack
If giving Jack a headache counted as being helpful, it was absolutely helpful. He shrugged. "It's no sillier than saying some woman has the right to rule England because her father ruled England, and his father, and so on back," he decided.
Which ... wasn't exactly high praise, but was, at least, an admission Jack's world had its own sillinesses.
"Don't you worry at all about one person having so much power in her hands?"
Jack did -- especially when that one person was given to, oh, committing genocide with a thought. Sweet as Jaenelle seemed when she was in her right mind, he was happiest with her nowhere near him.
Karla
"It's nothing so simple as that," Karla said, wringing her hands again. She really wanted to make someone understand. "It has nothing to do with Jaenelle's parents or lineage or even her castes. I mean she was quite literally created to be Witch. The Weaver of Dreams turned our dreams into flesh. How could I be afraid of her? I fear for her, sometimes, about what she may be driven to do--" like destroy six thousand Jhinka in a matter of seconds, "--but I never fear her."
Jack
"No, no, I know being a queen isn't inherited here," Jack clarified. "I just meant anything people are born to and don't have to earn is a bit arbitrary."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "How can you not be afraid of someone who could kill everyone in this building, simply by wishing for it? She's on your side, of course, but -- I saw what she did." Pop, pop, pop. "It doesn't give you pause at all?"
Karla
Karla shook her head. "No. I trust her, with everything I am. I might not always agree with her, but I'm not afraid of her. I'm not saying she's perfect or that she won't make mistakes, but I don't doubt her. I don't think I ever could."
Jack
"You're the one who chooses to serve her," Jack decided. "Not me. So your opinion is all that matters."
He trusted a vampire above all other beings on the earth. It was possible he realized he wasn't in a position to judge.
He rose from his seat, stretching a bit. "How soon do you think you'll be well enough to go back to classes?"
Karla
"Soon, I hope." By which Karla meant 'tomorrow.' "I think it might be easier to come to terms with everything in Fandom. It's been a very long trip and now that I know Jaenelle is better, I don't feel so guilty about leaving."
She looked down at her hands. They almost looked like claws. "I know I look awful," she said, trying to sound light about it, "and that I won't be good for much besides eating and napping for a few days, but I can do that at school just as easily as I can here."
That wasn't entirely true, considering the Hall had a Mrs. Beale and the school did not. But Karla wanted to go home anyway.
Jack
"I'll leave when the rest of you do," Jack answered. It'd be longer than he had planned to be gone, but he'd find a way to make it work. Family emergency about covered it, really.
"Don't worry about how you look. I'm just thrilled we'll all be all right. It's -- a miracle."
Karla
"It's easy for you to say," Karla retorted. "You're not the one who looks like a walking skeleton. Besides..." Her toned softened a bit and she ran her hands through her hair. "If I'm thinking about how awful I look, I'm not thinking about something else."
It gave her something to focus on that wasn't the dead.
"Will everyone?" she asked, glancing up at Jack. "Physically, sure, but Agio was a lot to take in. So, so much to take in."
Jack
"We haven't a choice, have we?" Jack asked with a tiny shrug. "I'm sure Raven or Emma could clean out our memories if either of them got it into their head, but not knowing would be even worse. So ... we have to be all right."
Karla
"Minds very rarely work that neatly," Karla said with a brief smile that owed very little to humor. "Too complicated. Though, I'll grant you the miracle."
She readjusted the blanket around her shoulders and said quietly, "A wish, offered with blood, is a prayer to the Darkness. There was enough blood and enough wishing, perhaps the Darkness heard us."
Or perhaps what Jaenelle did was in answer to all those wishes. Who knew?
Jack
Well, if Jaenelle was an embodiment of the Darkness, there wasn't really much difference.
"Perhaps," he said. "I suppose it's not the kind of power to ask how we'd like the problem solved."
He ran a hand through his hair. "It was just, if not kind."
Karla
Karla nodded; she didn't disagree with either sentiment. While she'd been appalled at the sheer magnitude of Jaenelle's power and how quickly it had erupted, but she hadn't argued with the targets. The Jhinka had swarmed in, killing unarmed people and innocent children. Their lives were forfeit and if their deaths were brutal, no one could say they weren't just, as well.
Well, no one in Kaeleer, anyway.
"It...didn't bother you?" she asked, tentatively.
Jack
"Of course it bothered me," Jack said, as if the statement were ludicrous. He thought they'd just been talking about how much it bothered him.
"I heard hundreds die. I saw my friends in pain. Emma had to shift to diamond form because it hurt her too badly, otherwise. I understand the time for diplomacy was long past" -- the corpses hadn't escaped his notice -- "but I wish she'd found another way. Any other way."
Still. Their lives were forfeit, as Karla had said. An eye for an eye, all of that.
Karla
"I didn't mean the act itself," Karla said, wishing that rolling her eyes didn't seem like too much of a chore to bother with. "Hell's fire, I don't think anyone could watch--or hear, or whatever--the deaths of six thousand people and not be bothered."
"I meant the...the underlying idea, that their actions required justice and the most appropriate form of justice was death." It was hard, putting the concept into words, especially right now. "That's what I meant about bothering. Some people don't. I didn't know where you stood."
Jack
"Oh." Jack didn't say out loud that he thought Karla should have been clearer to start with, but the thought was evident. "Then yes, I believe in blood vengeance. They were killers; it's not as if Jaenelle went into one of their nurseries and slaughtered the infants."
He still wished there had been another way, though. Maybe transporting them to some nice cave they could never get out of. Maybe ... Maybe he should be too old for maybes and wishful thinking.
"You don't believe that?"
Karla
Karla was proud she was conscious and coherent for this conversation. Clear was another step or two beyond from that.
"No, I do," Karla said. "But my people have a different view of death, murder, and justice than a lot of others. So I wondered."
She was pretty sure Dinah didn't believe in death as justice. Probably not Ben or Tahiri, either. And Raven? The very idea was laughable.
Jack
"I can't speak to the religious side of it -- I'm a horrible Jew," Jack said thoughtfully. He, too, was wondering who would agree with them about death as justice.
He continued, "But I think the situation we were in was a bit beyond the laws of man. We couldn't put 6,000 jhinkas on trial. I don't like what she did because it seems there must have been other ways to use that much power -- but I understand why she did it, and I wouldn't call it wrong exactly."
Karla
"She didn't mean to do it," Karla said quietly, staring past Jack towards the flames in the hearth. "We talked about it, earlier. Her intention had been to just put a Black shield around them all and wait for reinforcements to arrive. But then Khevin died and the rage she'd been feeling just...boiled over. Between exhaustion and grief and the safframate, Jaenelle just couldn't stop."
Jack
"She couldn't?" Jack was honestly alarmed. "I have to say, I was more accepting when I thought she'd done it on purpose."
If it was on purpose, he didn't have to worry about her losing control and hurting Karla.
Karla
"Have you ever been drugged, Jack?" Karla asked. "Drugged, forced into signing a marriage license, nearly raped, forced marched for three days, over-exhausted after Healing for three more days, and then grief-struck? After all that, if you were capable of making purely rational decisions, then I withdraw my defense of Jaenelle."
Jack
Jack could have argued with her. He could have pointed out he couldn't do what Jaenelle did no matter what happened to him, and that his comment was aimed more at her truly frightening lack of control then at the end results. To him worshiping Jaenelle as Karla did -- and it was worship -- was a bit like worshiping a land mine that could be triggered at any time.
Another glance at Karla's scrawny hand stopped the debate.
"I didn't mean to work you up," he said simply. "Consider the criticism dropped."
Karla
Karla didn't feel like it had been dropped, exactly, but she also wasn't in much condition to pursue it, either.
Instead, she nodded. "I'm hardly at my best or most rational, either."
It was too obvious to deny.
Jack
"I don't think any of us are," Jack said. "We're all exhausted, and ... it's a good time to let things go."
He reached a hand out to rest on her shoulder. "Don't hesitate to call if you want my help again. I mean it."
Karla
She reached out to grasp his hands, overcome with emotion and not because his hands were warm, rly. "I will," she choked out. "If I'd known--if I'd stayed here for me--I was just--I stayed for her."
Jack
Oh, dammit, she was crying, or close to it. Jack never dealt well with an overabundance of emotion.
He'd rise to the occasion. For Karla. Assuming she never spoke of it again.
"I know," he crooned softly, if a bit awkwardly. "I know. You did the best things you could do. No one blames you."
Karla
Karla began choking and coughing again as she tried to laugh through her tears. "I'm pretty sure people do," she said, hiccuping.
Jack
"Well," Jack decided, still uneasy, "then they're wrong. Who does? I'll speak with them."
Karla
"Me for one," Karla said, letting go of his hands to impatiently scrub at her face. "If I hadn't snuck after them, you guys wouldn't have been there."
Jack
"We could play if all night," Jack answered. "Yes, I think you should have told someone -- but that would hold true even if you'd been back in Fandom safe and snug within a day. It's just poor form to go off on your own."
He ceased the lecture. "You were trying to do the right thing, anyhow."
Karla
"I think we can consider it a lesson well-learned," Karla said, voice still a little shaky. "You were wonderful, by the way. I mean, everyone was, but I saw you moving around the patients. You were so gentle."
Karla, parked at the table while the Fandom students dispersed, had been in a good position to watch.
Jack
Jack shrugged a bit, but was clearly pleased by the praise. "I didn't have nearly the supplies I'd need for proper first aid, and I can't heal," he explained. "Being gentle was all I could give the poor bastards."
Karla
"A little kindness does a lot among people who've survived something so awful," Karla said softly. "It gives them something to hold onto amid their pain and grief."
Sookie
Sookie had regained a tiny bit of her color by the time she went to see Karla, peeking in before crossing to perch on the bed. "Just want you to know," she said lightly, "you don't get to scold me next time I go home and get eaten by a dragon or something. So we're clear."
Karla
"Do you really have dragons in your world?" Karla asked with a small smile. "And it does not. All the stuff back in your home means you don't get to yell at me for this."
It did not, Sookie. It so did not.
Sookie
"I dunno. I didn't know there were maenads until a couple months ago," Sookie said, smiling a little. "And I'll yell at you if I want to. Honey, what were you thinking?"
Karla
"That helping Jaenelle was the most important thing ever?" Karla tried. "Or not really thinking at all. One of those two."
Sookie
"I can understand that," she said slowly, "but as much as you love her, you're useless to Jaenelle if you run yourself into the ground, or get yourself killed 'cause no one can help you."
Karla
"I know that..." sort of "...I just, forget sometimes?" Karla ran a hand through her hair, glad that it was no longer matted with blood. "If I can see a place where I can help, it's hard for me not to. Even if it's dangerous."
Sookie
"I know, sweetie. Just maybe next time let more of us know you might skip town?" Sookie offered gently. "We can all help. As demonstrated."
She swallowed, pushing aside her guilt at what she'd done -- who she'd become -- in the name of offering that help.
Karla
"Do you honestly think I would have had you see that, if I had any choice in the matter?" Karla asked quietly. "What you saw in Agio..." She shook her head, trying to banish those thoughts. "If I had my way, you guys never would have even known such things could happen here."
The idea that her friends had to see that, live through it, endure it. Karla hated what they'd gone through. And hated herself for putting them through it.
Sookie
Sookie quirked a humorless little smile at her. "I know," she said, reaching for Karla's hand. "But if I'd had my 'druthers, y'all wouldn't have seen my hometown in the midst of an orgy. It's not the same, but honey, you've got to know that everyone here would go to the ends of the earth for you without your even asking. I won't have you feeling guilty because we showed up to help you out. I'd do it over again."
Maybe not the same way -- maybe with a bit more control -- but she would.
Karla
"How are you doing?" Karla asked. "How is everyone doing might be a better question. I've been too much a coward to leave my rooms, even after I woke up."
Sookie
"We're all fine," Sookie said way too casually. "And you're not a coward. You're recuperating."
Karla
"I don't believe that for a minute," Karla said, eying Sookie. "I'm recuperating, not stupid."
Previous actions aside, of course.
Sookie
"...I'm not sure how everyone is emotionally," she said honestly after a moment. "I'm not doing well, in that regard. But we're all physically fine. The rest will come."
Karla
"I can only imagine," Karla groaned, dropping her head against her knees. "It wasn't supposed to be like that. I was just going to follow them for a few days, act like a buffer between Jaenelle and Lucivar, because I knew she couldn't trust him with all that safframate inside her...Then before I know it, we're trapped with five hundred dying landens, facing six thousand angry Jhinka, and you guys are running up the front walk. And I don't think I was ever more terrified than when I saw you."
Sookie
"Those fucking horrible creatures -- " Sookie swore, some of the anger she thought she'd finished with returning with a surge. She paused, burying it, and murmured, "Sorry. I -- the kids. It was the kids, and all the thoughts of those poor people, as they blinked out. Bobby had to ice me down to make me stop, out there. Think I scared him."
She was positive she had.
She shook her head, and continued, "But we're all fine. It's over, Karla."
Karla
Karla nodded a little, still keeping her face buried. "We Healed the kids when we got them," Karla said. "It was the only time we broke the 'lethal-wounds only' rule. Even then, Sookie. Only fifty of them made it into the building. Out of a village of two thousand, there are fifty children left."
She was trying not to cry again, but it was awfully hard.
Sookie
Sookie reached over to stroke Karla's hair. "And you saved those fifty. The others aren't your fault, honey." In case she was concerned.
Karla
That wasn't much comfort, even so.
"We're supposed to protect them," Karla sniffled. "That's why we have Craft; to be the caretakers of the land and its people. And even knowing the ones we saved...we failed them, Sookie. We failed in our sacred trust. Three-quarters of a village died because we couldn't protect them."
Sookie
Sookie scooted closer to wrap an arm around Karla, biting her own lower lip as she did so. Every offer of comfort in her mind seemed hollow. What did you say to someone who'd been through hell and back this way?
"I don't know if it's a failure," she murmured after a moment. "When there was almost no way to win, it seems. You did everything in your power, and beyond that. I know there's no way to feel better about this, Karla, and nothing I'm going to say is going to bring those people back. But you were outnumbered by the thousands. Mourn those we lost, yes, but don't forget the gratitude of the ones who did make it."
Karla
"Thanks, Sookie," Karla said, curling up against her side. It didn't help, not yet, but it might. One day.
"Thanks."
Sookie
"Any time," she murmured, curling her arms around Karla.
Karla
"Is it all right to say I hope that you never have to help me through anything like this again?" Karla asked into Sookie's shoulder.
Sookie
"I hope I don't, either," Sookie assured her with a little laugh. "It's sort of up there with how I hope you never have to visit Bon Temps again, you know?"
Karla
"I wouldn't mind you all coming back to Kaeleer," Karla said. "Just not into a warzone. In fact, I hope you all do come back for a visit sometime, just so you can see my world as it's supposed to be. Not...not like this."
Sookie
Sookie smiled a tiny smile. "It's pretty," she offered. "I spent some time in the gardens earlier. Learned a little about your world. I bet it's downright idyllic sometimes."
Thanks, word-of-the-day calendar.
Karla
"It is," Karla said a little fervently. "The unicorns of Scelt and the dragons swimming in the Fyreborn Islands and Winsol when we dance for the glory of Witch and harvest festivals and carriage rides and flying on the Winds..."
She was babbling now, she knew, but she didn't want this to be what everyone thought of when they thought of her home.
Cassidy
Cassidy tapped softly on Karla's door. She didn't want to disturb her if she was still sleeping and not wanting to be bothered by any one yet.
Karla
"If you're coming to yell, I'm sleeping," Karla's voice came through the door. She might have been lying, as a second later, the door cracked open.
Cassidy
"I'm not going to yell," Cassidy promised as she entered the room, looking Karla over. "So long as the next time I do something that almost gets me killed I can get you not to yell at me."
Fat chance on that, Cassidy.
Karla
Karla gave her a Look that suggested how likely that was.
"Fat chance of that." You know. Just in case Cassidy hadn't gotten it.
Cassidy
She shrugged. It had been worth a try. "How are you feeling, Karla? Physically."
Karla
"Physically?" Thank the Darkness, an easy question.
"Tired. Cold. Sore." Karla reached up to rub her temples; a dull headache had been plaguing her all day. "I feel like I got hit by a Coach and probably look ten times worse than that."
She glanced up at Cassidy. "How are you feeling?"
Cassidy
Cassidy thought about that carefully before answering. It's not that she would lie to Karla, it was that she didn't have the words to describe how she was feeling. Plus, she wasn't about to say anything about her physical well-being because she knew that Karla had fared much worse than she had.
"Tired," she finally admitted. "Confused about some things. Worried." She took a deep breath. "Next time, you need to let us know when you could be in danger -- and not just because you're a Queen, Karla." This was an easier topic. "We're your friends and we care about what happens to you, and I've never had anything close to a sister before I met you. I'm not ready to lose you because you don't want to endanger the people who love you. Dangerous or not, it's our choice whether to help our loved ones or to stay somewhere safe."
Guess which one Cassidy would always choose. Go on guess.
Karla
It wasn't a very difficult answer to come up with, honestly. Karla would always make the same choice, much to Morton's chagrin.
"I just wasn't thinking, Cassidy," Karla admitted, glancing away. "Not about me or my safety or you or possible danger. I just knew that I had to help Jaenelle and everything else took second place to that."
Cassidy
"Hey," Cassidy said gently. "Look at me. I'm not mad at you Karla, not at all. I'm just so glad that we were able to get to you before something worse happened." She shook her head. "I understand that feeling. I can't say that if it were someone I cared about, I wouldn't have done the same thing."
Well, the first time. She would probably remember to tell someone the next time after the chewing out she would be sure to receive.
"I'm just... I'm just asking that next time you try to remember that we care... and that, well, I can only speak for myself, but if you had asked for help at the beginning I would have come."
Karla
"I know," Karla said quietly, looking back at Cassidy as she'd been bid. "The Darkness has blessed me with friends and Sisters who will fling themselves headlong into danger at my request." Her smile was a little rueful; it was wasn't much of a complaint and certainly wasn't something she could deny about herself, either.
"Though if I had, you wouldn't have gotten to meet this version of your cousin," she added. Gossip spread fast sometimes.
Cassidy
Cassidy groaned. "My cousin is a pain in the ass. He declared himself in service when he got done shaking me and after I kicked him."
Karla
"Poor Aaron," Karla said, dimpling.
By that, she mostly meant that he was never going to live it down.
"And of course he did. The boyos love pulling Protocol when they can't win any other way."
Cassidy
Cassidy shook her head. "He kept asking me how I was twelve and he said something about sending me to Nharkhava because Kalush would know what to do with me." She raised an eyebrow. "He didn't seem to like the fact that I go to the same school as you do."
And then because she had to add it.
"Morton didn't treat me like that when I showed up." Yes, she was blushing. A lot.
Karla
"Morton?" Yeah, Karla hadn’t missed that blush." "Do I even--? No," she decided abruptly. "I’m so much happier this way. Maybe we’ll talk about this later, after I’ve slept a few more days."
Like a month, maybe. A month might make that conversation okay.
[NFI, NFB, OOC is love. Last day of plot and we have completely left canonical events behind. Post master list is here.]
She had never been to glad to wake up in her room at the Hall in her life.
At the same time? She had never wanted to leave Kaeleer quite so much. Just...get away. Away from people who would try to control a witch by dosing her with safframate and forcing her to sign a marriage contract. Away from psychic witch storms and attacks on landen villages. Away from spirals and the abyss and six thousand dead in seconds...
She loved Jaenelle, she truly did, but she'd gotten a glimpse of the combined power of thirteen Black Jewels. Karla needed a little while to put that all into prospective, to slot this newfound information into how she already saw Jaenelle until she had a better handle on it.
Sadly, running wasn't an option. Neither was hiding. She still had people to face after this most stupid of plans, and even watching Jaenelle annihilate thousands of Jhinka didn't change that.
After her bath and a meal that consisted of something more solid than soup, Karla was feeling a little more herself. Helene had left her ensconced in a comfortable chair in the front room of her suite, dressed in a thick, woolly sweater, a long skirt, and wrapped in a spell-warmed blanket. Hopefully, these would not only keep her warm--even with a fire, Karla was deuced cold--but help hide just how much weight she'd lost.
Now that she was awake and up, it meant that it was time to face the music. Too bad 'music' in this case, translated out to 'a bunch of people who had every right to be very, very mad at her.'
Somehow she felt like enforced fussing was going to be the least of her worries right now.
Dinah
Dinah came in and sat on the bed, just watching Karla. The last few days-- god, she wanted to be back in New Gotham. Wasn't sure how she'd come to terms with everything she'd seen.
"So." She studied Karla, then took her hand. I should be mad at you. I'm too relieved you're alive to do a good job of it, she sent, mental voice stark.
Karla
"So," Karla repeated, her voice still a little raspy. Singing that many Healing webs without tea was hard.
*It wasn't supposed to turn out that way,* she attempted to explain. *I just wanted to help Jaenelle.*
Dinah
It never is, Dinah sent back, a muscle ticking in her jaw, then she sighed. "I know. And she needed help." She studied Karla, trying to think how Barbara would handle all this as her hand tightened on Karla's in reassurance. Where did it get messed up, do you think?
Karla
*When whoever it was set that trap,* Karla said, pulling the blanket tighter around her. *I think it was for Lucivar. It wasn't strong enough for Jaenelle and it was in Askavi. Eyrien territory. Lucivar's the strongest male in Kaeleer, save for Uncle Saetan and Andulvar. And they can't go out in daylight. If word of this attack had gotten out, Lucivar would have been the one to be called.*
Dinah
That wasn't what I meant, Dinah sent, but turned this information over in her head anyway. "And you got pulled into it, because...?"
Karla
"Because I was with them when they discovered it," Karla explained, shifting a little in her chair. "Jaenelle caught wind of something wrong, but the drugs they'd given her had messed up her senses too much for her to really understand what was wrong. So we went in to investigate."
Dinah
"And then you stayed." Couldn't really fault her for that. "So far, so good." She picked up Karla's hand and turned the wrist over. The very very thin wrist. "And this was just... inevitable?"
The tremor in Dinah's voice might hint at how upset this had her. Or how tight her shields were at that moment.
Karla
Karla looked away, tugging her sleeve down over her arm. "It wasn’t like I could actually leave. You saw how many there were," she said quietly. "And we didn't Heal a damn thing that wasn't life-threatening. We couldn't. The Jhinka...they don't like fast kills. They play. They go for gut-wounds and lacerating cuts and blinding and--and--"
She shut her mouth abruptly, lips trembling. "What was I supposed to do? Let them bleed out in front of me? Die, poisoned by their own waste? We ate when there was still food and drank when there was still water."
Not much, of course. But then, there were five hundred people in that one building.
Dinah
Dinah was horrified to realize she was crying. She swiped at her eyes fast with the back of her own hand, shaking. Furious, she realized. Don't give into it, she told herself. Don't.
"Magic makes things too easy for you," she said, keeping her voice low. "'Cause yeah. You weren't supposed to kill yourself for anyone. Just because you can." Her throat tightened. "You don't know your own limits. Or you don't like them, so you ignore them. I don't know which it is."
Karla
"Easy?" Karla said, close to tears herself. "You think that was easy? You tell me, Dinah. When were you going to walk away? Huh? Do you know how many children made it to safety? Less than fifty. Out of a village of nearly two thousand, less than fifty children survived. Could you have looked at them and said, 'No' and walked away?"
She sniffled and looked up towards the ceiling, willing the tears to go away. "The landens in that village were targeted because someone was trying to kill Lucivar. Or even if they weren't, someone of the Blood was playing games with their lives because they could. You think that we didn't owe them something?"
Dinah
"Don't try to distract me. There is a big difference between staying and doing what you can, and pushing yourself to death. There is." Dinah swallowed hard. "And I don't know," she said more softly. "You have a hard, hard gift. Human doctors in the same position, they have to admit they can't fix every one. Or even as many as you did. So you tell me. Would the Healers you trained with have expected that of you? Not that you'd heal who you could, and then stop to rest. And try to get your strength up. That you'd almost break our deal?"
And goddamnit, now she had to put her head down so she could breathe hard enough to get her control back, frantic remembered fear overshadowing all her logical arguments.
Karla
"I can't ask them!" Karla flared, tears breaking through. "Because half of them are dead! And I couldn't save them, either!"
Oh. Hello issues.
Dinah
Oh, God. Dinah got off the bed and stepped over to hug Karla over the blanket, hard. "Honey, no one expected you to," she whispered, squeezing her. "They didn't. Please, please stop this. Stop trying to make it up to every person who died."
Karla
"I--I...I don't know how!" Karla wailed, sobbing into Dinah's arms.
Dinah
Dinah hugged her even tighter, and rocked her, stroking her hair, crying a little again. She kissed the top of Karla's head as she held her.
After a long few minutes, Dinah took a breath, and sighed. "I wish I knew what to say. Except I'm glad you're alive. And I wish you didn't feel so bad about it, sometimes. You scared me. You looked like you did-- you still look like you did in the vampire world." She looked around for Kleenex, then laughed shakily. "Handkerchiefs?"
Karla
"I ate when we had food!" Karla repeated, swiping at her face with her sleeve. "We just...ran out. But I did eat, because I knew I had to try to keep my strength up. I wasn't like in the vampire world. I wasn't...punishing myself for surviving."
In quite the same way. Here, she'd had Craft to do it for her.
"And Lucivar bullied us both."
Dinah
"Remind me to kiss him," Dinah said, very sardonically.
She picked up the edge of the blanket and used it on Karla's face, then a little on her own, and settled on the arm of the chair, arms around Karla. "I believe that you ate. I'm not doubting your word." She turned Karla to face to her, palms on either side of her face. "Tell me that you were thinking straight. Tell me that you slept enough. Tell me that you weren't just trying to keep up with Jaenelle, so she wouldn't be alone, even when you were about to fall over." I'm not angry now, she sent. We have to talk about this though. I don't want to see you this sick-and-nearly-dead again.
Karla
"Ew." It was a testimony to how exhausted Karla was that she couldn't conjure up more than a disgusted face for that image.
"I..." There was really nothing she could say to that. Because she knew as well as Dinah did that there was no way she could say yes to any of those questions. "There was too much to do..."
Even to her ears, that sounded lame.
Dinah
"I know," Dinah said gently. "And I've pushed myself too hard too. It's just-- I can't push myself to the point where I'd die using my powers. Or I've never been on that edge." They could both see her point right there, now. "You have." She brushed Karla's hair out of her face, and softly asked, "Do you feel better, now that you're so sick? This thin, this chilled, this weak?"
Karla
"It feels awful," Karla admitted, burrowing deeper into the covers. And since it was Dinah, she could admit things that made her feel petty and stupid. Not aloud, because she couldn't bring herself to say this aloud. *Jaenelle...she looks like Hell, yeah, but even so. There's something so lovely, so compelling about her now. Even after all that, even as skeletal as she is, I look at her and I can't help but think she's lovely. And I...I'm not. I just look scrawny and half-starved. I'm ashamed to be seen like this.*
She buried her face in her hands. "But I don't know how to say no. I don't know how to back down when I see need. I don't!"
Dinah
Jaenelle's got good bones, and some kind of wacky charisma, Dinah granted her. And she still looks half-dead and sick. Also, more than a little crazy. You love her, and she's Witch. Maybe that influences what you see. She tilted her head on top of Karla's, and sighed. You will always be pretty, but terrifyingly ill is not a good look. It doesn't bring out your inner Death Maiden, no. I'm glad you realize it.
Hearing Karla admit that aloud made Dinah hug her again, even as worried as she was. "Okay. Let's break it down... Doctor, I have a friend who over-works herself to exhaustion and near-starvation when she's stressed. She has trouble telling people in need or people she loves that she's tapped out. She doesn't want to do that any more, but I don't think she'll break the habit overnight. I can't be there to monitor her, and she wouldn't want that anyway." She stroked Karla's hair. "What should she do?"
If it were a girl in New Gotham, the answer would be get therapy for anorexia and control issues. For Karla...?
Karla
"Sit on her whenever she's about to do something stupid?" Karla suggested. "I'm a Black Widow. I'm supposed to be better than this!"
Because that was a helpful train of thought, yes.
Dinah
Dinah grimaced. "You've been through a lot. Over a long period of time. You had to cope the best you could. You fell into some destructive patterns. Smart or strong doesn't help if you're fighting yourself. You win and you lose." And you haven't been thinking, you've been reacting. You can't do this alone. I think you're gonna need to talk to someone, a doctor or Healer, to figure out how to stop yourself, hon. She paused. Not Jaenelle. You love her, but comparing yourself to her? That's part of the problem.
Karla
"I would have done the same thing regardless of who was there with me," Karla mumbled into her blanket.
Dinah
It was worse because it was her, though. "You realize that's not an argument against you needing a real plan for dealing with this, right?" Dinah checked. "Your uncle is awesome, but if he's picked up on this, what do you think he'll do about it?"
Karla
"He might have finished scolding by the time I make the Offering," Karla said.
Dinah
"Fair guess there." Dinah sat back to study Karla, and sighed. "You did a bone-headed thing. Then you did another bone-headed thing. 'Cause you cared. You don't have to stop caring. Just... work on the part where you almost die." She squeezed Karla's hand. It goes without saying, anything I can do, I will.
Jack
"The next time you run away," Jack said, with a ragged form of his jauntiness as he looked Karla over, "I'm not coming after you."
A beat. "Probably not. What were you thinking?"
Karla
Karla wrung her hands, shaking her head slightly. "I wasn't," she whispered. "I just knew I had to help Jaenelle. But I didn't think anyone here could contact anyone at school. I didn't expect you all to get dragged into this. I'm so sorry, Jack. For what you saw and what happened and your paper and...everything."
Jack
The paper is nothing," Jack said dismissively. It wasn't, really; he hardly remembered what it was supposed to be on. "Don't apologize for dragging us in. We love you and wanted to be here. Apologize for not telling us to start with. Emma was half out of her mind, and that was before ... everything."
The worst thing he could imagine. The worst thing he'd ever remember.
Karla
Don't say that Jack! Karla's canon is full of terrible things!
"I--It didn't even occur to me to tell someone," she said, then flushed. "No, that's not entirely true. I was afraid someone would try to stop me. If I sent a letter or attempted to call...I was afraid they'd tell someone else and stop me from going."
She hung her head, cheeks bright red with shame. "I wanted to help Jaenelle so much that I ignored everything else. And you all came to danger because of it."
Jack
"I don't mind coming to danger," Jack said, a bit too casually. He didn't entirely mean it. "I mind that you seem to think you're some -- disposable cannon fodder when compared to Jaenelle, but it looks like you've suffered enough for that. I just wish you'd trusted us. Emma or Warren, at the least, even if you didn't think to call me."
Karla
Why did everyone keep bringing this back to Jaenelle?
"I didn't know my cell phone would work," Karla tried feebly. "And...you don't understand, Jack. Jaenelle is more than just my friend, more than just some powerful Queen. She's Witch. We dance in her honor every Winsol. It's not just a matter of trusting everyone...she's--I can't even describe how important she is. Not just to me, but the whole world."
Jack
...
"Karla," Jack said, trying to sound calm. "You're saying your best friend is, quite literally, the messiah."
Karla
"I don't think I know what that means," Karla said, tilting her head slightly.
Jack
Jack sighed. "I'll send you books about Earth religions another time," he promised. "I doubt it would be good for you to hear it explained just now."
He remembered, after all, how his explanation of women's rights in his own time had gone with Karla.
"She's very important," he clarified. "I ... hadn't realized how much so."
Karla
"She is," Karla pressed, hoping that someone would understand. "She's going to be Queen of Ebon Askavi sometime soon. It's her place to rule the Blood. All of us, humans and kindred alike."
Jack
"Why?" Jack asked. "I know you love her, I understand that, but -- what makes her the ruler?"
He wasn't scolding her; he was simply curious.
Karla
"Because she's Witch," Karla said, also apparently unfamiliar with the definition of 'tautology.' "The living myth. Dreams made flesh. She was born to rule the Blood, just as we were born to serve her."
Helpful, no?
Jack
If giving Jack a headache counted as being helpful, it was absolutely helpful. He shrugged. "It's no sillier than saying some woman has the right to rule England because her father ruled England, and his father, and so on back," he decided.
Which ... wasn't exactly high praise, but was, at least, an admission Jack's world had its own sillinesses.
"Don't you worry at all about one person having so much power in her hands?"
Jack did -- especially when that one person was given to, oh, committing genocide with a thought. Sweet as Jaenelle seemed when she was in her right mind, he was happiest with her nowhere near him.
Karla
"It's nothing so simple as that," Karla said, wringing her hands again. She really wanted to make someone understand. "It has nothing to do with Jaenelle's parents or lineage or even her castes. I mean she was quite literally created to be Witch. The Weaver of Dreams turned our dreams into flesh. How could I be afraid of her? I fear for her, sometimes, about what she may be driven to do--" like destroy six thousand Jhinka in a matter of seconds, "--but I never fear her."
Jack
"No, no, I know being a queen isn't inherited here," Jack clarified. "I just meant anything people are born to and don't have to earn is a bit arbitrary."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "How can you not be afraid of someone who could kill everyone in this building, simply by wishing for it? She's on your side, of course, but -- I saw what she did." Pop, pop, pop. "It doesn't give you pause at all?"
Karla
Karla shook her head. "No. I trust her, with everything I am. I might not always agree with her, but I'm not afraid of her. I'm not saying she's perfect or that she won't make mistakes, but I don't doubt her. I don't think I ever could."
Jack
"You're the one who chooses to serve her," Jack decided. "Not me. So your opinion is all that matters."
He trusted a vampire above all other beings on the earth. It was possible he realized he wasn't in a position to judge.
He rose from his seat, stretching a bit. "How soon do you think you'll be well enough to go back to classes?"
Karla
"Soon, I hope." By which Karla meant 'tomorrow.' "I think it might be easier to come to terms with everything in Fandom. It's been a very long trip and now that I know Jaenelle is better, I don't feel so guilty about leaving."
She looked down at her hands. They almost looked like claws. "I know I look awful," she said, trying to sound light about it, "and that I won't be good for much besides eating and napping for a few days, but I can do that at school just as easily as I can here."
That wasn't entirely true, considering the Hall had a Mrs. Beale and the school did not. But Karla wanted to go home anyway.
Jack
"I'll leave when the rest of you do," Jack answered. It'd be longer than he had planned to be gone, but he'd find a way to make it work. Family emergency about covered it, really.
"Don't worry about how you look. I'm just thrilled we'll all be all right. It's -- a miracle."
Karla
"It's easy for you to say," Karla retorted. "You're not the one who looks like a walking skeleton. Besides..." Her toned softened a bit and she ran her hands through her hair. "If I'm thinking about how awful I look, I'm not thinking about something else."
It gave her something to focus on that wasn't the dead.
"Will everyone?" she asked, glancing up at Jack. "Physically, sure, but Agio was a lot to take in. So, so much to take in."
Jack
"We haven't a choice, have we?" Jack asked with a tiny shrug. "I'm sure Raven or Emma could clean out our memories if either of them got it into their head, but not knowing would be even worse. So ... we have to be all right."
Karla
"Minds very rarely work that neatly," Karla said with a brief smile that owed very little to humor. "Too complicated. Though, I'll grant you the miracle."
She readjusted the blanket around her shoulders and said quietly, "A wish, offered with blood, is a prayer to the Darkness. There was enough blood and enough wishing, perhaps the Darkness heard us."
Or perhaps what Jaenelle did was in answer to all those wishes. Who knew?
Jack
Well, if Jaenelle was an embodiment of the Darkness, there wasn't really much difference.
"Perhaps," he said. "I suppose it's not the kind of power to ask how we'd like the problem solved."
He ran a hand through his hair. "It was just, if not kind."
Karla
Karla nodded; she didn't disagree with either sentiment. While she'd been appalled at the sheer magnitude of Jaenelle's power and how quickly it had erupted, but she hadn't argued with the targets. The Jhinka had swarmed in, killing unarmed people and innocent children. Their lives were forfeit and if their deaths were brutal, no one could say they weren't just, as well.
Well, no one in Kaeleer, anyway.
"It...didn't bother you?" she asked, tentatively.
Jack
"Of course it bothered me," Jack said, as if the statement were ludicrous. He thought they'd just been talking about how much it bothered him.
"I heard hundreds die. I saw my friends in pain. Emma had to shift to diamond form because it hurt her too badly, otherwise. I understand the time for diplomacy was long past" -- the corpses hadn't escaped his notice -- "but I wish she'd found another way. Any other way."
Still. Their lives were forfeit, as Karla had said. An eye for an eye, all of that.
Karla
"I didn't mean the act itself," Karla said, wishing that rolling her eyes didn't seem like too much of a chore to bother with. "Hell's fire, I don't think anyone could watch--or hear, or whatever--the deaths of six thousand people and not be bothered."
"I meant the...the underlying idea, that their actions required justice and the most appropriate form of justice was death." It was hard, putting the concept into words, especially right now. "That's what I meant about bothering. Some people don't. I didn't know where you stood."
Jack
"Oh." Jack didn't say out loud that he thought Karla should have been clearer to start with, but the thought was evident. "Then yes, I believe in blood vengeance. They were killers; it's not as if Jaenelle went into one of their nurseries and slaughtered the infants."
He still wished there had been another way, though. Maybe transporting them to some nice cave they could never get out of. Maybe ... Maybe he should be too old for maybes and wishful thinking.
"You don't believe that?"
Karla
Karla was proud she was conscious and coherent for this conversation. Clear was another step or two beyond from that.
"No, I do," Karla said. "But my people have a different view of death, murder, and justice than a lot of others. So I wondered."
She was pretty sure Dinah didn't believe in death as justice. Probably not Ben or Tahiri, either. And Raven? The very idea was laughable.
Jack
"I can't speak to the religious side of it -- I'm a horrible Jew," Jack said thoughtfully. He, too, was wondering who would agree with them about death as justice.
He continued, "But I think the situation we were in was a bit beyond the laws of man. We couldn't put 6,000 jhinkas on trial. I don't like what she did because it seems there must have been other ways to use that much power -- but I understand why she did it, and I wouldn't call it wrong exactly."
Karla
"She didn't mean to do it," Karla said quietly, staring past Jack towards the flames in the hearth. "We talked about it, earlier. Her intention had been to just put a Black shield around them all and wait for reinforcements to arrive. But then Khevin died and the rage she'd been feeling just...boiled over. Between exhaustion and grief and the safframate, Jaenelle just couldn't stop."
Jack
"She couldn't?" Jack was honestly alarmed. "I have to say, I was more accepting when I thought she'd done it on purpose."
If it was on purpose, he didn't have to worry about her losing control and hurting Karla.
Karla
"Have you ever been drugged, Jack?" Karla asked. "Drugged, forced into signing a marriage license, nearly raped, forced marched for three days, over-exhausted after Healing for three more days, and then grief-struck? After all that, if you were capable of making purely rational decisions, then I withdraw my defense of Jaenelle."
Jack
Jack could have argued with her. He could have pointed out he couldn't do what Jaenelle did no matter what happened to him, and that his comment was aimed more at her truly frightening lack of control then at the end results. To him worshiping Jaenelle as Karla did -- and it was worship -- was a bit like worshiping a land mine that could be triggered at any time.
Another glance at Karla's scrawny hand stopped the debate.
"I didn't mean to work you up," he said simply. "Consider the criticism dropped."
Karla
Karla didn't feel like it had been dropped, exactly, but she also wasn't in much condition to pursue it, either.
Instead, she nodded. "I'm hardly at my best or most rational, either."
It was too obvious to deny.
Jack
"I don't think any of us are," Jack said. "We're all exhausted, and ... it's a good time to let things go."
He reached a hand out to rest on her shoulder. "Don't hesitate to call if you want my help again. I mean it."
Karla
She reached out to grasp his hands, overcome with emotion and not because his hands were warm, rly. "I will," she choked out. "If I'd known--if I'd stayed here for me--I was just--I stayed for her."
Jack
Oh, dammit, she was crying, or close to it. Jack never dealt well with an overabundance of emotion.
He'd rise to the occasion. For Karla. Assuming she never spoke of it again.
"I know," he crooned softly, if a bit awkwardly. "I know. You did the best things you could do. No one blames you."
Karla
Karla began choking and coughing again as she tried to laugh through her tears. "I'm pretty sure people do," she said, hiccuping.
Jack
"Well," Jack decided, still uneasy, "then they're wrong. Who does? I'll speak with them."
Karla
"Me for one," Karla said, letting go of his hands to impatiently scrub at her face. "If I hadn't snuck after them, you guys wouldn't have been there."
Jack
"We could play if all night," Jack answered. "Yes, I think you should have told someone -- but that would hold true even if you'd been back in Fandom safe and snug within a day. It's just poor form to go off on your own."
He ceased the lecture. "You were trying to do the right thing, anyhow."
Karla
"I think we can consider it a lesson well-learned," Karla said, voice still a little shaky. "You were wonderful, by the way. I mean, everyone was, but I saw you moving around the patients. You were so gentle."
Karla, parked at the table while the Fandom students dispersed, had been in a good position to watch.
Jack
Jack shrugged a bit, but was clearly pleased by the praise. "I didn't have nearly the supplies I'd need for proper first aid, and I can't heal," he explained. "Being gentle was all I could give the poor bastards."
Karla
"A little kindness does a lot among people who've survived something so awful," Karla said softly. "It gives them something to hold onto amid their pain and grief."
Sookie
Sookie had regained a tiny bit of her color by the time she went to see Karla, peeking in before crossing to perch on the bed. "Just want you to know," she said lightly, "you don't get to scold me next time I go home and get eaten by a dragon or something. So we're clear."
Karla
"Do you really have dragons in your world?" Karla asked with a small smile. "And it does not. All the stuff back in your home means you don't get to yell at me for this."
It did not, Sookie. It so did not.
Sookie
"I dunno. I didn't know there were maenads until a couple months ago," Sookie said, smiling a little. "And I'll yell at you if I want to. Honey, what were you thinking?"
Karla
"That helping Jaenelle was the most important thing ever?" Karla tried. "Or not really thinking at all. One of those two."
Sookie
"I can understand that," she said slowly, "but as much as you love her, you're useless to Jaenelle if you run yourself into the ground, or get yourself killed 'cause no one can help you."
Karla
"I know that..." sort of "...I just, forget sometimes?" Karla ran a hand through her hair, glad that it was no longer matted with blood. "If I can see a place where I can help, it's hard for me not to. Even if it's dangerous."
Sookie
"I know, sweetie. Just maybe next time let more of us know you might skip town?" Sookie offered gently. "We can all help. As demonstrated."
She swallowed, pushing aside her guilt at what she'd done -- who she'd become -- in the name of offering that help.
Karla
"Do you honestly think I would have had you see that, if I had any choice in the matter?" Karla asked quietly. "What you saw in Agio..." She shook her head, trying to banish those thoughts. "If I had my way, you guys never would have even known such things could happen here."
The idea that her friends had to see that, live through it, endure it. Karla hated what they'd gone through. And hated herself for putting them through it.
Sookie
Sookie quirked a humorless little smile at her. "I know," she said, reaching for Karla's hand. "But if I'd had my 'druthers, y'all wouldn't have seen my hometown in the midst of an orgy. It's not the same, but honey, you've got to know that everyone here would go to the ends of the earth for you without your even asking. I won't have you feeling guilty because we showed up to help you out. I'd do it over again."
Maybe not the same way -- maybe with a bit more control -- but she would.
Karla
"How are you doing?" Karla asked. "How is everyone doing might be a better question. I've been too much a coward to leave my rooms, even after I woke up."
Sookie
"We're all fine," Sookie said way too casually. "And you're not a coward. You're recuperating."
Karla
"I don't believe that for a minute," Karla said, eying Sookie. "I'm recuperating, not stupid."
Previous actions aside, of course.
Sookie
"...I'm not sure how everyone is emotionally," she said honestly after a moment. "I'm not doing well, in that regard. But we're all physically fine. The rest will come."
Karla
"I can only imagine," Karla groaned, dropping her head against her knees. "It wasn't supposed to be like that. I was just going to follow them for a few days, act like a buffer between Jaenelle and Lucivar, because I knew she couldn't trust him with all that safframate inside her...Then before I know it, we're trapped with five hundred dying landens, facing six thousand angry Jhinka, and you guys are running up the front walk. And I don't think I was ever more terrified than when I saw you."
Sookie
"Those fucking horrible creatures -- " Sookie swore, some of the anger she thought she'd finished with returning with a surge. She paused, burying it, and murmured, "Sorry. I -- the kids. It was the kids, and all the thoughts of those poor people, as they blinked out. Bobby had to ice me down to make me stop, out there. Think I scared him."
She was positive she had.
She shook her head, and continued, "But we're all fine. It's over, Karla."
Karla
Karla nodded a little, still keeping her face buried. "We Healed the kids when we got them," Karla said. "It was the only time we broke the 'lethal-wounds only' rule. Even then, Sookie. Only fifty of them made it into the building. Out of a village of two thousand, there are fifty children left."
She was trying not to cry again, but it was awfully hard.
Sookie
Sookie reached over to stroke Karla's hair. "And you saved those fifty. The others aren't your fault, honey." In case she was concerned.
Karla
That wasn't much comfort, even so.
"We're supposed to protect them," Karla sniffled. "That's why we have Craft; to be the caretakers of the land and its people. And even knowing the ones we saved...we failed them, Sookie. We failed in our sacred trust. Three-quarters of a village died because we couldn't protect them."
Sookie
Sookie scooted closer to wrap an arm around Karla, biting her own lower lip as she did so. Every offer of comfort in her mind seemed hollow. What did you say to someone who'd been through hell and back this way?
"I don't know if it's a failure," she murmured after a moment. "When there was almost no way to win, it seems. You did everything in your power, and beyond that. I know there's no way to feel better about this, Karla, and nothing I'm going to say is going to bring those people back. But you were outnumbered by the thousands. Mourn those we lost, yes, but don't forget the gratitude of the ones who did make it."
Karla
"Thanks, Sookie," Karla said, curling up against her side. It didn't help, not yet, but it might. One day.
"Thanks."
Sookie
"Any time," she murmured, curling her arms around Karla.
Karla
"Is it all right to say I hope that you never have to help me through anything like this again?" Karla asked into Sookie's shoulder.
Sookie
"I hope I don't, either," Sookie assured her with a little laugh. "It's sort of up there with how I hope you never have to visit Bon Temps again, you know?"
Karla
"I wouldn't mind you all coming back to Kaeleer," Karla said. "Just not into a warzone. In fact, I hope you all do come back for a visit sometime, just so you can see my world as it's supposed to be. Not...not like this."
Sookie
Sookie smiled a tiny smile. "It's pretty," she offered. "I spent some time in the gardens earlier. Learned a little about your world. I bet it's downright idyllic sometimes."
Thanks, word-of-the-day calendar.
Karla
"It is," Karla said a little fervently. "The unicorns of Scelt and the dragons swimming in the Fyreborn Islands and Winsol when we dance for the glory of Witch and harvest festivals and carriage rides and flying on the Winds..."
She was babbling now, she knew, but she didn't want this to be what everyone thought of when they thought of her home.
Cassidy
Cassidy tapped softly on Karla's door. She didn't want to disturb her if she was still sleeping and not wanting to be bothered by any one yet.
Karla
"If you're coming to yell, I'm sleeping," Karla's voice came through the door. She might have been lying, as a second later, the door cracked open.
Cassidy
"I'm not going to yell," Cassidy promised as she entered the room, looking Karla over. "So long as the next time I do something that almost gets me killed I can get you not to yell at me."
Fat chance on that, Cassidy.
Karla
Karla gave her a Look that suggested how likely that was.
"Fat chance of that." You know. Just in case Cassidy hadn't gotten it.
Cassidy
She shrugged. It had been worth a try. "How are you feeling, Karla? Physically."
Karla
"Physically?" Thank the Darkness, an easy question.
"Tired. Cold. Sore." Karla reached up to rub her temples; a dull headache had been plaguing her all day. "I feel like I got hit by a Coach and probably look ten times worse than that."
She glanced up at Cassidy. "How are you feeling?"
Cassidy
Cassidy thought about that carefully before answering. It's not that she would lie to Karla, it was that she didn't have the words to describe how she was feeling. Plus, she wasn't about to say anything about her physical well-being because she knew that Karla had fared much worse than she had.
"Tired," she finally admitted. "Confused about some things. Worried." She took a deep breath. "Next time, you need to let us know when you could be in danger -- and not just because you're a Queen, Karla." This was an easier topic. "We're your friends and we care about what happens to you, and I've never had anything close to a sister before I met you. I'm not ready to lose you because you don't want to endanger the people who love you. Dangerous or not, it's our choice whether to help our loved ones or to stay somewhere safe."
Guess which one Cassidy would always choose. Go on guess.
Karla
It wasn't a very difficult answer to come up with, honestly. Karla would always make the same choice, much to Morton's chagrin.
"I just wasn't thinking, Cassidy," Karla admitted, glancing away. "Not about me or my safety or you or possible danger. I just knew that I had to help Jaenelle and everything else took second place to that."
Cassidy
"Hey," Cassidy said gently. "Look at me. I'm not mad at you Karla, not at all. I'm just so glad that we were able to get to you before something worse happened." She shook her head. "I understand that feeling. I can't say that if it were someone I cared about, I wouldn't have done the same thing."
Well, the first time. She would probably remember to tell someone the next time after the chewing out she would be sure to receive.
"I'm just... I'm just asking that next time you try to remember that we care... and that, well, I can only speak for myself, but if you had asked for help at the beginning I would have come."
Karla
"I know," Karla said quietly, looking back at Cassidy as she'd been bid. "The Darkness has blessed me with friends and Sisters who will fling themselves headlong into danger at my request." Her smile was a little rueful; it was wasn't much of a complaint and certainly wasn't something she could deny about herself, either.
"Though if I had, you wouldn't have gotten to meet this version of your cousin," she added. Gossip spread fast sometimes.
Cassidy
Cassidy groaned. "My cousin is a pain in the ass. He declared himself in service when he got done shaking me and after I kicked him."
Karla
"Poor Aaron," Karla said, dimpling.
By that, she mostly meant that he was never going to live it down.
"And of course he did. The boyos love pulling Protocol when they can't win any other way."
Cassidy
Cassidy shook her head. "He kept asking me how I was twelve and he said something about sending me to Nharkhava because Kalush would know what to do with me." She raised an eyebrow. "He didn't seem to like the fact that I go to the same school as you do."
And then because she had to add it.
"Morton didn't treat me like that when I showed up." Yes, she was blushing. A lot.
Karla
"Morton?" Yeah, Karla hadn’t missed that blush." "Do I even--? No," she decided abruptly. "I’m so much happier this way. Maybe we’ll talk about this later, after I’ve slept a few more days."
Like a month, maybe. A month might make that conversation okay.
[NFI, NFB, OOC is love. Last day of plot and we have completely left canonical events behind. Post master list is here.]