SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer, Friday Morning [Fandom time]
Raven retreated to a private room once they returned to the Hall. She was still shaken by what had happened to her when Jaenelle had killed all the Jhinka. It was more than her inner demon struggling to be free. She'd felt her father there as if he was one with her, egging her on to accept the dark mantle of her power. And she'd been so close, too close to accepting it.
So now she hid, unwilling to face anyone after what she'd almost done.
Tara
A servant had directed Tara to Raven's room, and so she tapped on the door.
"Raven?" she called softly, feeling a bit foolish. "I -- are you all right?"
Dumb question. None of them were all right.
Raven
Raven almost didn't answer. But she could sense her friend's concern, and she felt guilty about being the cause. "Tara," she called out quietly, just enough to be heard through the door. "You may come in, if you wish."
Tara
"Hi," Tara said again, softly, as she slipped through the door. "I'm not -- I don't want to bother you. It just ... seemed like you could use a friend."
Tara, it should be noted, didn't really want to be alone herself.
Raven
Raven was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back to the headboard. "I must warn you," she said, "I am not entirely certain it is safe to be around me now." She didn't feel like she was out of control, but the fear was still there.
Tara
Tara snorted, involuntarily. "We just watched hundreds of beings die," she pointed out. "Raven, hon, you ... um. You aren't the one I'm worried about. I figure I'm safer with you than about anywhere."
Raven
Raven shook her head. "You do not understand," she said. "Though my father is trapped now in his own dimension, he is still part of me. And that part almost burst free after Jaenelle...did what she did. I only barely restrained him." But she had, and she took comfort in that, but she was still shaken by the experience.
Tara
"But you did," Tara said. "I'm sorry. That sounds -- scary. Worse than scary. Is he ... talking to you, now?"
Raven
"He is not, or I would not allow you near me," Raven said. "I have been working to rebuild my shields and reassert my control over that part of me which is my father's."
She chewed at her lower lip, hesitant to confess what she said next. "And I have been afraid that in my need for comfort, I would take it from my friends without their consent."
Tara
"What if I said you could take as much comfort from me as you needed?" Tara asked. She was reassured by Raven's explanation of the situation with her father. "If it wouldn't hurt or anything, I mean? I ... you do so much for everybody else. Anything I can do is just -- fair"
Raven
"I worry that I would not stop," Raven said. "I am not entirely confident in myself at the moment." If she latched on to comfort to counteract the awful feeling of all those deaths, she might not be able to stop herself from leeching it away until there was nothing left to give.
Tara
"I get that." Tara wouldn't press more; she didn't have so much comfort to give, anyhow. "But -- if there's anything else I can do, anything at all, let me know."
Raven
"I will, thank you," Raven said gratefully. "Just being here now means much to me." She needed reassurance every once in awhile that her friends weren't scared of her.
Raven
When she finally felt safe enough to emerge from her room, Raven went out looking for Jaenelle. She wasn't certain of what she'd done to the Jhinka had purged the safframate from her body, but she wanted to make sure. She'd told Saetan she'd heal Jaenelle, after all.
Jaenelle
Jaenelle looked up at Raven's approach and gave the other female a small smile. "Hello," she said shyly. "Are you looking for Karla? I think she's in her room. I don't know if she's ready to come down and face everyone yet."
Raven
"I will visit her soon," Raven said. Jaenelle didn't seem to be starved for pleasure or violence, but she wanted to be certain it wasn't lurking under the surface. "But it was you I was looking for now, Jaenelle."
Jaenelle
"Me?" Jaenelle looked startled and then concerned. "About Agio?" Her shoulders slumped. "What you all must think of me now."
Raven
"I wished to make certain you were free of the safframate," Raven said. "Though, yes, I would also like to see if you are suffering from what happened in Agio, and if there was anything I could do to help." She paused a moment, then added, "I know what it is like to have such power inside you, and to have difficulty controlling it."
Jaenelle
Jaenelle was silent for a minute, head down. Then, slowly, she nodded. "I do. It's more of a tug than an overriding need, but...it's still there. Just a bit."
Raven
"Then allow me to heal you of it," Raven said, offering Jaenelle her hand. "You must be clear-headed now." She knew dealing with Agio would be difficult enough without the effects of the safframate on top of it.
Jaenelle
"You can Heal me?" Jaenelle asked. "How?"
She gave Raven a brief nod, granting her permission. If only to see the other female's Healing in action.
Raven
"I am an empath," Raven said. "Healing is my gift."
She took Jaenelle's hand and closed her eyes, reaching out to seek out the toxin in her blood. Healing wounds was different, almost easier, because the damage was more obvious. The safframate was more insidious, hiding in her blood, affecting her emotions and behavior. But she found what lingered of the drug and pulled it out of Jaenelle and into herself, freeing her completely.
Jaenelle
Jaenelle sighed a little, almost an erotic sound, before slumping back onto the bench. "Free," she murmured. "Thank the Darkness. Thank you Raven."
Raven
Raven felt the safframate beginning to move through her system, stronger than she would have imagined. She struggled to purge it, but it was difficult, most likely due to her using up so much of her strength healing in the village, she reasoned. "Please excuse me," she said, trying to keep herself composed. "I must return to my room for a moment. But I would like to speak to you later again, about what happened, if you do not mind."
Jaenelle
"Of course," Jaenelle said, giving Raven a warm smile, before turning her face up to the sun. "I think I'm going to stay out here a little longer, should you wish to find me again."
Raven
It was awfully warm out here now, wasn't it? And didn't Jaenelle look so attractive in the sunlight....
"I will find you then," Raven said hurriedly. After she meditated and purged herself of the toxin in her blood now. She really should've known better, but it was too late to think about that now. She nodded to Jaenelle, then turned to head back to her room.
Raven
Pity Raven didn't make it back to her room after healing Jaenelle before running into someone. And the visual stimulation just enhanced the feelings the drug was making course through her system.
"Hello, Warren," she said in a friendly voice. A very friendly voice.
Warren
Warren was pretty much doomed, wasn't he?
"Hey, Raven." He was even offering her a little smile, there. A painfully, horribly oblivious one. To say he was still distracted at the moment would probably be a pretty big understatement.
Raven
Raven stepped closer, totally ignoring the concept of "personal space." "How are you feeling?" she said, moving in a circle around him, touching her fingertips to his shoulder and then the back of his wings as she did.
Warren
"Uh..." He craned his neck a little, giving Raven a look that was more baffled than anything, and pulled his wings a little closer to his back. "I've been better," he admitted. Because even weirdness couldn't take away his need to at least be honest enough to be polite. "There's been a lot on my mind, you know?"
Wow, she was close.
Raven
Raven finished her circuit, finishing by drawing her fingers down Warren's arm. "We have all been better," she said. "But that is the nice thing about my gifts. I can make people feel much better."
Warren
It was crazy, wasn't it? How Warren wasn't feeling much better at all, in spite of Raven's gifts?
"... Ah." There was a nervous lump in his throat that he needed to take a moment to swallow. "I wouldn't mind just... talking?"
With words!
Raven
"Why talk," Raven purred, pressing herself against Warren, "when there are so much more interesting things to do?"
She was so going to hate herself when this wore off.
Warren
Please hold for a brief blue-screen-of-death moment. Warren's mind was going to have to completely reboot itself, at this rate.
"Because..." My, was it warm outside today or what? "Because I'm a big fan of talking. Really. I never shut up. I might not shut up right now, for that matter. Don't you like talking? Oh my god."
The efforts to inch away were... going.
Raven
"There are better things to do with one's mouth," Raven said. She wasn't about to let him escape, not when she had this burning need inside her. She slid her arms around his neck and tried to stop his babbling with a kiss.
Warren
It was really amazing just how many times Warren's reactions could be summed up in single-syllable exclamations with no real meaning, wasn't it? This particular moment was expressed with a very eloquent sort of, "Mmngh!"
Roughly translated, that was a 'gah' in being-kissed-ese.
Hopefully she'd understand if he was squirming to get free now as though his life depended on it? Because he was going to do just that. Right now.
Raven
If she understood, she didn't care. She wasn't going to make it easy for him. "Do not fight me," she said breathlessly. "I need this so much. Please...."
Warren
Her talking, at least, meant that he could get a hand over his mouth. Because that was an effective kiss-deterrent, right?
"From me? Really?"
Of course, spoken into his hand like that, it was probably about as coherent as his 'mmngh' had been a moment before.
Raven
She reached out a hand to run her fingers through his hair. "You are here," she said. That was about all she cared about at the moment.
Warren
Oh, good. Warren was never letting himself mope in the wide-open again. There was something even weirder about being kissed and pawed at on account of his being convenient.
"I have a girlfriend, Raven," he announced, with something that actually almost approached a backbone, if you didn't look too hard to be sure. "Karla. Remember her?"
Raven
That's right, Warren. You were just a prop. Deal with it.
"Karla," Raven said dreamily, thinking about what she might like to do with her now, too. "I am certain she will not mind. She would understand how much I need this."
Warren
"Actually, I think she probably wouldn't." Not that he was going to put words in Karla's mouth or anything, but all things considered, there were just some things that you didn't behind your girlfriend's back. Especially not with one of your girlfriend's closest friends, who currently appeared to be completely insane. That went double for those serious trauma moments.
... He was pretty sure. Everything he needed to know about messed up triangles and weird girls forcing themselves on people, he'd learned by watching daytime television while growing up.
"Now, if you don't mind," and even if she did, "maybe you could... back off a little? Please?"
Raven
"You are refusing me?" Raven said, scowling as her eyes briefly flashed red. "I can make you want me. I can make you...."
Her voice faltered as some rational part of her struggled through the haze of the safframate and fought for control. "I can...I can...oh, Azar, what am I doing?
Warren
Red eyes. Red eyes were not happy eyes. Warren was a big fan of happy eyes, right about now.
"Little breathing room? Please?" Now he was backing away. Kind of scooting backward on his behind across the ground, yes, and he'd end up with grass stains on his rear as a result, but that was seriously not a problem.
Raven
Raven pressed her fingers to her mouth, eyes wide as she struggled to keep herself from falling prey to the drug's effects again. She took a step back, but it took all her willpower to do so instead of just jumping on Warren again. "I am sorry," she said. "The safframate...." It was still coursing through her blood. She had to get back to her room before she did something stupid.
Something else stupid.
Warren
"I don't know what that is," Warren shared, still a little wide-eyed, and more than a bit freaked out. "But maybe you can tell me about it another time."
Girls were insane.
Raven
Raven doubted she ever wanted to look at Warren ever again after this. But she was still fighting the urge to pounce, so she took another step back. Karla was never going to forgive her. "I must go," she said. And she fled.
[ooc: Preplayed with the always wonderful life_inshadow, glacial_witch, and poor not_a_parakeet. NFB due to distance. Warnings for drug use of a sort.]
So now she hid, unwilling to face anyone after what she'd almost done.
Tara
A servant had directed Tara to Raven's room, and so she tapped on the door.
"Raven?" she called softly, feeling a bit foolish. "I -- are you all right?"
Dumb question. None of them were all right.
Raven
Raven almost didn't answer. But she could sense her friend's concern, and she felt guilty about being the cause. "Tara," she called out quietly, just enough to be heard through the door. "You may come in, if you wish."
Tara
"Hi," Tara said again, softly, as she slipped through the door. "I'm not -- I don't want to bother you. It just ... seemed like you could use a friend."
Tara, it should be noted, didn't really want to be alone herself.
Raven
Raven was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back to the headboard. "I must warn you," she said, "I am not entirely certain it is safe to be around me now." She didn't feel like she was out of control, but the fear was still there.
Tara
Tara snorted, involuntarily. "We just watched hundreds of beings die," she pointed out. "Raven, hon, you ... um. You aren't the one I'm worried about. I figure I'm safer with you than about anywhere."
Raven
Raven shook her head. "You do not understand," she said. "Though my father is trapped now in his own dimension, he is still part of me. And that part almost burst free after Jaenelle...did what she did. I only barely restrained him." But she had, and she took comfort in that, but she was still shaken by the experience.
Tara
"But you did," Tara said. "I'm sorry. That sounds -- scary. Worse than scary. Is he ... talking to you, now?"
Raven
"He is not, or I would not allow you near me," Raven said. "I have been working to rebuild my shields and reassert my control over that part of me which is my father's."
She chewed at her lower lip, hesitant to confess what she said next. "And I have been afraid that in my need for comfort, I would take it from my friends without their consent."
Tara
"What if I said you could take as much comfort from me as you needed?" Tara asked. She was reassured by Raven's explanation of the situation with her father. "If it wouldn't hurt or anything, I mean? I ... you do so much for everybody else. Anything I can do is just -- fair"
Raven
"I worry that I would not stop," Raven said. "I am not entirely confident in myself at the moment." If she latched on to comfort to counteract the awful feeling of all those deaths, she might not be able to stop herself from leeching it away until there was nothing left to give.
Tara
"I get that." Tara wouldn't press more; she didn't have so much comfort to give, anyhow. "But -- if there's anything else I can do, anything at all, let me know."
Raven
"I will, thank you," Raven said gratefully. "Just being here now means much to me." She needed reassurance every once in awhile that her friends weren't scared of her.
Raven
When she finally felt safe enough to emerge from her room, Raven went out looking for Jaenelle. She wasn't certain of what she'd done to the Jhinka had purged the safframate from her body, but she wanted to make sure. She'd told Saetan she'd heal Jaenelle, after all.
Jaenelle
Jaenelle looked up at Raven's approach and gave the other female a small smile. "Hello," she said shyly. "Are you looking for Karla? I think she's in her room. I don't know if she's ready to come down and face everyone yet."
Raven
"I will visit her soon," Raven said. Jaenelle didn't seem to be starved for pleasure or violence, but she wanted to be certain it wasn't lurking under the surface. "But it was you I was looking for now, Jaenelle."
Jaenelle
"Me?" Jaenelle looked startled and then concerned. "About Agio?" Her shoulders slumped. "What you all must think of me now."
Raven
"I wished to make certain you were free of the safframate," Raven said. "Though, yes, I would also like to see if you are suffering from what happened in Agio, and if there was anything I could do to help." She paused a moment, then added, "I know what it is like to have such power inside you, and to have difficulty controlling it."
Jaenelle
Jaenelle was silent for a minute, head down. Then, slowly, she nodded. "I do. It's more of a tug than an overriding need, but...it's still there. Just a bit."
Raven
"Then allow me to heal you of it," Raven said, offering Jaenelle her hand. "You must be clear-headed now." She knew dealing with Agio would be difficult enough without the effects of the safframate on top of it.
Jaenelle
"You can Heal me?" Jaenelle asked. "How?"
She gave Raven a brief nod, granting her permission. If only to see the other female's Healing in action.
Raven
"I am an empath," Raven said. "Healing is my gift."
She took Jaenelle's hand and closed her eyes, reaching out to seek out the toxin in her blood. Healing wounds was different, almost easier, because the damage was more obvious. The safframate was more insidious, hiding in her blood, affecting her emotions and behavior. But she found what lingered of the drug and pulled it out of Jaenelle and into herself, freeing her completely.
Jaenelle
Jaenelle sighed a little, almost an erotic sound, before slumping back onto the bench. "Free," she murmured. "Thank the Darkness. Thank you Raven."
Raven
Raven felt the safframate beginning to move through her system, stronger than she would have imagined. She struggled to purge it, but it was difficult, most likely due to her using up so much of her strength healing in the village, she reasoned. "Please excuse me," she said, trying to keep herself composed. "I must return to my room for a moment. But I would like to speak to you later again, about what happened, if you do not mind."
Jaenelle
"Of course," Jaenelle said, giving Raven a warm smile, before turning her face up to the sun. "I think I'm going to stay out here a little longer, should you wish to find me again."
Raven
It was awfully warm out here now, wasn't it? And didn't Jaenelle look so attractive in the sunlight....
"I will find you then," Raven said hurriedly. After she meditated and purged herself of the toxin in her blood now. She really should've known better, but it was too late to think about that now. She nodded to Jaenelle, then turned to head back to her room.
Raven
Pity Raven didn't make it back to her room after healing Jaenelle before running into someone. And the visual stimulation just enhanced the feelings the drug was making course through her system.
"Hello, Warren," she said in a friendly voice. A very friendly voice.
Warren
Warren was pretty much doomed, wasn't he?
"Hey, Raven." He was even offering her a little smile, there. A painfully, horribly oblivious one. To say he was still distracted at the moment would probably be a pretty big understatement.
Raven
Raven stepped closer, totally ignoring the concept of "personal space." "How are you feeling?" she said, moving in a circle around him, touching her fingertips to his shoulder and then the back of his wings as she did.
Warren
"Uh..." He craned his neck a little, giving Raven a look that was more baffled than anything, and pulled his wings a little closer to his back. "I've been better," he admitted. Because even weirdness couldn't take away his need to at least be honest enough to be polite. "There's been a lot on my mind, you know?"
Wow, she was close.
Raven
Raven finished her circuit, finishing by drawing her fingers down Warren's arm. "We have all been better," she said. "But that is the nice thing about my gifts. I can make people feel much better."
Warren
It was crazy, wasn't it? How Warren wasn't feeling much better at all, in spite of Raven's gifts?
"... Ah." There was a nervous lump in his throat that he needed to take a moment to swallow. "I wouldn't mind just... talking?"
With words!
Raven
"Why talk," Raven purred, pressing herself against Warren, "when there are so much more interesting things to do?"
She was so going to hate herself when this wore off.
Warren
Please hold for a brief blue-screen-of-death moment. Warren's mind was going to have to completely reboot itself, at this rate.
"Because..." My, was it warm outside today or what? "Because I'm a big fan of talking. Really. I never shut up. I might not shut up right now, for that matter. Don't you like talking? Oh my god."
The efforts to inch away were... going.
Raven
"There are better things to do with one's mouth," Raven said. She wasn't about to let him escape, not when she had this burning need inside her. She slid her arms around his neck and tried to stop his babbling with a kiss.
Warren
It was really amazing just how many times Warren's reactions could be summed up in single-syllable exclamations with no real meaning, wasn't it? This particular moment was expressed with a very eloquent sort of, "Mmngh!"
Roughly translated, that was a 'gah' in being-kissed-ese.
Hopefully she'd understand if he was squirming to get free now as though his life depended on it? Because he was going to do just that. Right now.
Raven
If she understood, she didn't care. She wasn't going to make it easy for him. "Do not fight me," she said breathlessly. "I need this so much. Please...."
Warren
Her talking, at least, meant that he could get a hand over his mouth. Because that was an effective kiss-deterrent, right?
"From me? Really?"
Of course, spoken into his hand like that, it was probably about as coherent as his 'mmngh' had been a moment before.
Raven
She reached out a hand to run her fingers through his hair. "You are here," she said. That was about all she cared about at the moment.
Warren
Oh, good. Warren was never letting himself mope in the wide-open again. There was something even weirder about being kissed and pawed at on account of his being convenient.
"I have a girlfriend, Raven," he announced, with something that actually almost approached a backbone, if you didn't look too hard to be sure. "Karla. Remember her?"
Raven
That's right, Warren. You were just a prop. Deal with it.
"Karla," Raven said dreamily, thinking about what she might like to do with her now, too. "I am certain she will not mind. She would understand how much I need this."
Warren
"Actually, I think she probably wouldn't." Not that he was going to put words in Karla's mouth or anything, but all things considered, there were just some things that you didn't behind your girlfriend's back. Especially not with one of your girlfriend's closest friends, who currently appeared to be completely insane. That went double for those serious trauma moments.
... He was pretty sure. Everything he needed to know about messed up triangles and weird girls forcing themselves on people, he'd learned by watching daytime television while growing up.
"Now, if you don't mind," and even if she did, "maybe you could... back off a little? Please?"
Raven
"You are refusing me?" Raven said, scowling as her eyes briefly flashed red. "I can make you want me. I can make you...."
Her voice faltered as some rational part of her struggled through the haze of the safframate and fought for control. "I can...I can...oh, Azar, what am I doing?
Warren
Red eyes. Red eyes were not happy eyes. Warren was a big fan of happy eyes, right about now.
"Little breathing room? Please?" Now he was backing away. Kind of scooting backward on his behind across the ground, yes, and he'd end up with grass stains on his rear as a result, but that was seriously not a problem.
Raven
Raven pressed her fingers to her mouth, eyes wide as she struggled to keep herself from falling prey to the drug's effects again. She took a step back, but it took all her willpower to do so instead of just jumping on Warren again. "I am sorry," she said. "The safframate...." It was still coursing through her blood. She had to get back to her room before she did something stupid.
Something else stupid.
Warren
"I don't know what that is," Warren shared, still a little wide-eyed, and more than a bit freaked out. "But maybe you can tell me about it another time."
Girls were insane.
Raven
Raven doubted she ever wanted to look at Warren ever again after this. But she was still fighting the urge to pounce, so she took another step back. Karla was never going to forgive her. "I must go," she said. And she fled.
[ooc: Preplayed with the always wonderful life_inshadow, glacial_witch, and poor not_a_parakeet. NFB due to distance. Warnings for drug use of a sort.]