Temple Azarath, Friday Fandom time
[Follows this.]
Those inside Temple Azarath were not fighting, of course. They chanted and waited as demons tore the roof off the temple, creating an ever-widening opening through which they would soon come. Arella, Raven's mother, was among them, tears in her eyes as she waited and listened.
"It is time, it is finished," the woman who led the ritual declared. "Azar summons us now, and we go to meet our destiny!"
The woman who spoke turned to look at the new arrivals, stretching out a hand to Tara.
Tara
Tara drifted through the fight as if it concerned her not at all, feeling strongly pulled to the temple. Home.
"This is where I belong," she said. "Isn't it?"
Azarathian Woman
The woman who had beckoned to Tara moved to her side with a smile that seemed not to realize there was so much violence outside and above. "Welcome home," she said gently. "We have been waiting for you."
Tara
"I feel like some part of me has been waiting to come here," Tara said, and then looked confused. She didn't think that was right, but it felt true. "Do -- do we know how this will end?"
Azarathian Woman
The woman took Tara's hand, drawing her closer to the tomb in the center of the temple. "Azar first appeared on earth knowing the evil was coming," she said, her words calm and soothing despite the danger gathering above them. "She appeared before us to teach us her ways, lead us from Earth's strifes, and bring us here to this realm of peace. And with never a violent thought, we have survived these centuries, awaiting this special day, when Azarath and all who live within must die."
Tara
Tara glanced out into the fray. "Some of my friends aren't understanding that."
Yet she herself was totally at peace with it. Weird.
Azarathian Woman
"We have long known this day would come," the woman said. "It is our destiny." She gave Tara a knowing smile. "And we know now that Azar is with us."
Tara
"I'll explain that to the others, after her will is done," Tara said, returning the smile. "They'll accept it. What must be, will be."
Karla
"It doesn't have to be this way!" Karla cried out, unable to keep silent. "This isn't strength, this isn't bravery! It's cowardice too ashamed to speak it's own name! Together, we can defeat these demons!"
She glanced around from face to face and realized she wasn't going to reach them this way.
"What good with Azar's teachings come to if they die here?" she asked instead. "There will be nothing to live on! The collected knowledge in your library, all of your works--it will be like she never existed if it all is destroyed!"
Arella
Arella was looking a lot better than when Karla had last seen her in Raven's mind; being returned to Azarath had restored her body to its former health. "This is Azarath's way," she said, shaking her head. "Nothing you can say will change that. They are prepared to meet their end."
Karla
"Then what is the fucking point?!" Karla demanded, not quite wailing. "What purpose do you serve--any of you? For you to just lay down and die when the world needs you most! What worth do any of you have?! I saw landen children with more spirit and spine then you! They at least tried to run!"
Arella
"They knew this day was coming," Arella said, flinching from Karla's anger. "They have known it all their lives. You can't stop it."
Karla
"Stop it?" Karla flared. "Who said anything about me trying to stop it? Why should I? If you clearly don't think your lives are worth the time and effort to protect and save, why the Hell should I disagree? Or is that your whole plan? Let others do the dirty work of fighting and violence to save your lives, while you sit piously by, unwilling to get your hands dirty even if it means your own survival?"
She whirled around to glare at the passive Azarathians. "I don't play games," she announced coldly. "I have seen nothing on Azarath that's worth protecting. You exiled the only one among you with spine or spirit. Go then, cringing, to your deaths. See if I care."
Her wet cheeks might suggest, in fact, she did care. Should someone mention that, however, Karla might suggest they shut the Hell up.
Arella
"And look where that spine and spirit got my daughter!" Arella cried. "I saw her after she sent me here. When the demons came she was standing and watching and when I tried to touch her, I heard Trigon's voice say she was his now."
She stabbed an angry finger at Karla, letting the emotion she'd kept contained for years rise to the surface. "You taught her emotion! You let him in!"
Karla
They were never going to be friends, were they?
"If you think I was the one who introduced Raven to emotions, you're both foolish and blind," Karla informed her coldly. "She loved you before she went to the island and longed for your affection in return. She feared who she was and the affect emotions might have on her. But even so, I accept responsibility for what Raven has become."
Mother Night, it hurt to say. Her grief and guilt hadn't ebbed.
"I am striving to make right my part of the debt. Unlike the people of Azarath, I am going to fight till the end to get Raven back!"
Arella
"She could not learn to love without knowing hate and anger and fear as well, and those were Trigon's gateway," Arella said, blinking back tears. "Do you know how much it hurt me not to tell her I loved her? But Azar forbid it. She had to remain without emotion to protect her father. And now he has her."
Karla
"Yeah, you'll forgive me? But I'm not real impressed by anything I've heard of Azar or her teachings," Karla snapped. "So far she's told everyone Raven must live in emotional isolation and that committing suicide by demon is an acceptable way to go. I have yet to see wisdom or compassion in any of Azar's words."
Arella
"Emotional isolation kept her safe for most of her life!" Arella said, tears giving way to anger now as she glared at Karla. "If Azar hadn't brought me here before Raven was born, my daughter would be dead."
Possibly by Arella's own hand, but she wasn't mentioning that.
Karla
"And she was nearly killed here, too," Karla reminded with a tight smile. "Before growing up feeling unloved and feared, isolated and alone. And then exiled from the only home she ever knew and told she could never return. Then she was called evil and turned away from the first people she tried to find succor with. Thank the Darkness she had you all. Otherwise she might have been loved and happy, for years before coming to Fandom."
Arella
"I didn't want any of this!" Arella said. "The church tricked me! Trigon raped me! I was only a child myself and I tried to kill myself when I felt the evil growing inside me. Azar saved me and brought me here. This has been the only home I've ever know. Do you think it is easy for me to see this happen, to lose my daughter?"
Karla
"Then help us," Karla argued. "You're about to lose your home and your daughter both. Rather than expending that last bit of spine you have fighting with me, try to do something to help us defend and protect both!"
Arella
"It's too late," Arella said, shaking her head and pointing at the demons scrambling to make the hole in the roof bigger. "Save yourselves. You cannot save us."
Karla
"Then don't talk to me about how hard this is for you to watch what happens!" Karla snapped. "Not if you're willing to just stand there and wring your hands as Azarath burns and Raven dies! We, her friends, are at least willing to try!"
Arella
"Azar knew what she was doing," Arella said quietly. "I have to believe in that, or all this meant nothing, and she should have just left me to die before Raven was born."
Karla
"Or maybe she gave you and Raven a chance to grow! A place to plant your feet and find your own true strength!" Karla said, about to throw Arella and her entire pity-party for one to the demons and just be done with it. The longer she stood there debating with the female, the more Trigon could be harming Raven. Or using Raven to harm others.
"Maybe you should look past all the dogma and learn Azar's real lesson. She didn't give up on you--or Raven, either. Pity you can't say the same."
Diana
Dinah stared around, disbelieving, and then looked at Arella. "How can they be okay with this? Never mind. I get it. They gave up on being anything else, on being anything ages ago." Her jaw tightened. "I'm sorry we couldn't save you from Trigon," she said, her voice lower. "But we're not giving up on Raven, either."
Arella
Arella flinched at the mention of her daughter's name. "Her father has her now," she said. "I saw her as the attack began."
Diana
"Then we'll get her back," Dinah said. Two plus two equals four, the moon revolves around the Earth, they'd get Raven back. "She doesn't want this. He didn't convince her of anything, he possessed her. We'll get the her back and get her better."
Arella
"I hope you can," Arella said, looking up at the rapidly crumbling ceiling and wiping a tear from her eye. "But you must go, for Azarath is about to fall."
Diana
"You're coming with us," Dinah said, her stomach sinking. "...aren't you?"
Arella
Arella bit at her lip, looking very much like her daughter at that moment. "I belong to Azarath now," she said quietly. "If it is Azar's will I remain here, then I will do so, even to the end."
Diana
"What do I tell Raven?" Dinah pleaded. "We let you down. We didn't rescue you. When we get her back--" Don't cry, don't. No time. "Please. She'll need you, after this."
Arella
"She'll understand Azar's will," Arella said, hoping there was something of her daughter left in the creature she'd seen. "This was the pledge I made when they took me in here."
Diana
"Why are you willing to do this?" Dinah whispered. "I don't understand. You deserve better than to just-- die here, after all you've been through."
Arella
"Azarath was founded to prepare us for this day," Arella said. "They all knew it would come, and they accept it."
Most of the inhabitants of Azarath had been there for hundreds of years, however, and she'd only been there for just over seventeen, so it wasn't as ingrained in her.
Diana
"Do you have to?" Dinah pleaded. "All these other people-- they're already doing this. What's one person? You've already done enough. You held back Trigon for months. You gave up your daughter. Please. Just-- come with us instead. Fight just that much. Just be alive instead of dead."
Arella
Arella looked up. The demons were pouring through the roof now, and flame began to rain down on all inside. "It's too late," she said sadly. "Too late for all of us now."
Diana
"It isn't. We won't let it be. Just-- hold on until we handle this, okay?" Dinah pointed at her. "Just don't go. We're enough. We'll hold them back. Just don't--" Drink the Kool-Aid, slit your wrists, jump off a balcony... "Die yet."
Dinah turned back toward the fight, pushing thoughts of failure out of her mind. If they could just save Arella, stop Trigon, and get Raven back-- it'd be worth it. Not another Agio.
Arella
Not another Agio.
Agio hadn't exploded like the Temple just did.
Fire filled the temple, and stone and marble exploded in blinding light and heat.
Then everything was quiet, and the light faded.
Azarath was completely gone, and all that remained was an island of stone in an ocean of white nothingness. All the remaining people of Azarath and the demons had vanished as well, leaving only the travelers from Fandom...and Raven's mother, Arella.
Arella
Arella looked dazed, confused as to why she was still there. "Look at the skies," she said. "They're empty now. White, no longer black with clouds. Azarath is destroyed, and Trigon is gone."
Tara
"The souls of those who lived here have joined Azar herself," Tara said, voice clear if sounding like it didn't quite come from Tara. She was still very calm. "I think ... Trigon has claimed his daughter, and she has embraced him. The soul of Raven is gone."
Arella
"No, don't say that," Arella said. "My daughter has to be safe." But she'd seen Raven right before the attack began, she'd heard Trigon claim her.
Tara
"Don't be sad," Tara said, "By Azar's grace, we were all saved."
She still didn't sound upset in the least as she twirled Raven's rings on her thumbs.
Kennedy
Yeah, okay, that wasn't like Tara at all, even if Kennedy was wondering whether this was some kind of new coping mechanism because hi, they'd just seen Azarath get wiped out into a big blank nothing.
"Baby? Aren't you hitting the zen kinda hard there?"
She had to ask, because she was kind of freaking out.
Tara
Tara shook her head, eyes clearing as her face took on a more usual expression. "I'm fine," she said. "This is just ... bigger than I am. Bigger than any of us. But it's t-true. Can't you feel it?"
Kennedy
Kennedy shook her head slowly. "Really, really not." She glanced around at the others, questioning. "Just me? Tara-- what's the deal here?"
Yeah, all of this was wigging her out badly; she still trusted Tara.
Warren
"We're... not dead," Warren offered, biting his lip as he looked around. Not that there was really much to look around at. "That's something, I guess?"
He was trying quite desperately to keep from freaking out. He didn't much like the view.
"But... Uh... How?"
That question came with a gesture of one blood-streaked wing toward the nothingness around them. They... probably should have gone with that, right?
Bobby
"I've learned at this point it's best not to question it," Bobby contributed from behind Warren. This may not have been the Angel he grew up fighting alongside, but when the explosion hit, instinct took over and he'd moved to cover his teammate's back.
Tara
"We have to go to Earth," Tara offered, some urgency tainting her voice for the first time. "Azarath is gone, and Trigon walks the planet Earth now. It is there that we must go."
Arella
Please forgive Arella for being a little vapor-locked, staring at the whiteness around them, numb with despair at the loss of her home and her daughter. "I was brought to Azarath before I could commit suicide," she said. "I was little more than a kid. I was afraid, but they took away my fear. I was weak and they made me strong. They were pacifists -- I didn't understand pacifism had nothing to do with weakness. And they're gone now. All of them. All my friends. All they believed in. Gone. But how did we survive? That fire should've killed us all."
Tara
Tara held up her hands, spotlighting the gleam of Raven's rings. "Arella, it was the rings -- the rings Raven had worn since the day that Azar died," she said. "They kept us safe for a reason. Listen to me -- we must return to Earth to stop Trigon!"
Arella
"Yes!" Arella said fiercely, sorrow giving way to anger now. "That fiend has to be destroyed before he destroys your world as he destroyed mine. But listen to me -- if he killed my daughter, then mine shall be the hand that slays him!"
Big words from the pacifist.
Emma
"And how, exactly, do we plan on getting there?" Emma asked tartly. "Somehow I doubt the local Portalocity Office is currently available."
She eyed Arella skeptically. "Can you even do anything?" Speciesist? Yeah, kinda, but Emma was used to being at school with the best of the best. A grieving mother wasn't exactly helpful right now.
Tara
"Azar's rings," Tara interrupted, "will light the way."
She brought her hands together as if in prayer, and there was an enormous flash of light.
[Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]
Those inside Temple Azarath were not fighting, of course. They chanted and waited as demons tore the roof off the temple, creating an ever-widening opening through which they would soon come. Arella, Raven's mother, was among them, tears in her eyes as she waited and listened.
"It is time, it is finished," the woman who led the ritual declared. "Azar summons us now, and we go to meet our destiny!"
The woman who spoke turned to look at the new arrivals, stretching out a hand to Tara.
Tara
Tara drifted through the fight as if it concerned her not at all, feeling strongly pulled to the temple. Home.
"This is where I belong," she said. "Isn't it?"
Azarathian Woman
The woman who had beckoned to Tara moved to her side with a smile that seemed not to realize there was so much violence outside and above. "Welcome home," she said gently. "We have been waiting for you."
Tara
"I feel like some part of me has been waiting to come here," Tara said, and then looked confused. She didn't think that was right, but it felt true. "Do -- do we know how this will end?"
Azarathian Woman
The woman took Tara's hand, drawing her closer to the tomb in the center of the temple. "Azar first appeared on earth knowing the evil was coming," she said, her words calm and soothing despite the danger gathering above them. "She appeared before us to teach us her ways, lead us from Earth's strifes, and bring us here to this realm of peace. And with never a violent thought, we have survived these centuries, awaiting this special day, when Azarath and all who live within must die."
Tara
Tara glanced out into the fray. "Some of my friends aren't understanding that."
Yet she herself was totally at peace with it. Weird.
Azarathian Woman
"We have long known this day would come," the woman said. "It is our destiny." She gave Tara a knowing smile. "And we know now that Azar is with us."
Tara
"I'll explain that to the others, after her will is done," Tara said, returning the smile. "They'll accept it. What must be, will be."
Karla
"It doesn't have to be this way!" Karla cried out, unable to keep silent. "This isn't strength, this isn't bravery! It's cowardice too ashamed to speak it's own name! Together, we can defeat these demons!"
She glanced around from face to face and realized she wasn't going to reach them this way.
"What good with Azar's teachings come to if they die here?" she asked instead. "There will be nothing to live on! The collected knowledge in your library, all of your works--it will be like she never existed if it all is destroyed!"
Arella
Arella was looking a lot better than when Karla had last seen her in Raven's mind; being returned to Azarath had restored her body to its former health. "This is Azarath's way," she said, shaking her head. "Nothing you can say will change that. They are prepared to meet their end."
Karla
"Then what is the fucking point?!" Karla demanded, not quite wailing. "What purpose do you serve--any of you? For you to just lay down and die when the world needs you most! What worth do any of you have?! I saw landen children with more spirit and spine then you! They at least tried to run!"
Arella
"They knew this day was coming," Arella said, flinching from Karla's anger. "They have known it all their lives. You can't stop it."
Karla
"Stop it?" Karla flared. "Who said anything about me trying to stop it? Why should I? If you clearly don't think your lives are worth the time and effort to protect and save, why the Hell should I disagree? Or is that your whole plan? Let others do the dirty work of fighting and violence to save your lives, while you sit piously by, unwilling to get your hands dirty even if it means your own survival?"
She whirled around to glare at the passive Azarathians. "I don't play games," she announced coldly. "I have seen nothing on Azarath that's worth protecting. You exiled the only one among you with spine or spirit. Go then, cringing, to your deaths. See if I care."
Her wet cheeks might suggest, in fact, she did care. Should someone mention that, however, Karla might suggest they shut the Hell up.
Arella
"And look where that spine and spirit got my daughter!" Arella cried. "I saw her after she sent me here. When the demons came she was standing and watching and when I tried to touch her, I heard Trigon's voice say she was his now."
She stabbed an angry finger at Karla, letting the emotion she'd kept contained for years rise to the surface. "You taught her emotion! You let him in!"
Karla
They were never going to be friends, were they?
"If you think I was the one who introduced Raven to emotions, you're both foolish and blind," Karla informed her coldly. "She loved you before she went to the island and longed for your affection in return. She feared who she was and the affect emotions might have on her. But even so, I accept responsibility for what Raven has become."
Mother Night, it hurt to say. Her grief and guilt hadn't ebbed.
"I am striving to make right my part of the debt. Unlike the people of Azarath, I am going to fight till the end to get Raven back!"
Arella
"She could not learn to love without knowing hate and anger and fear as well, and those were Trigon's gateway," Arella said, blinking back tears. "Do you know how much it hurt me not to tell her I loved her? But Azar forbid it. She had to remain without emotion to protect her father. And now he has her."
Karla
"Yeah, you'll forgive me? But I'm not real impressed by anything I've heard of Azar or her teachings," Karla snapped. "So far she's told everyone Raven must live in emotional isolation and that committing suicide by demon is an acceptable way to go. I have yet to see wisdom or compassion in any of Azar's words."
Arella
"Emotional isolation kept her safe for most of her life!" Arella said, tears giving way to anger now as she glared at Karla. "If Azar hadn't brought me here before Raven was born, my daughter would be dead."
Possibly by Arella's own hand, but she wasn't mentioning that.
Karla
"And she was nearly killed here, too," Karla reminded with a tight smile. "Before growing up feeling unloved and feared, isolated and alone. And then exiled from the only home she ever knew and told she could never return. Then she was called evil and turned away from the first people she tried to find succor with. Thank the Darkness she had you all. Otherwise she might have been loved and happy, for years before coming to Fandom."
Arella
"I didn't want any of this!" Arella said. "The church tricked me! Trigon raped me! I was only a child myself and I tried to kill myself when I felt the evil growing inside me. Azar saved me and brought me here. This has been the only home I've ever know. Do you think it is easy for me to see this happen, to lose my daughter?"
Karla
"Then help us," Karla argued. "You're about to lose your home and your daughter both. Rather than expending that last bit of spine you have fighting with me, try to do something to help us defend and protect both!"
Arella
"It's too late," Arella said, shaking her head and pointing at the demons scrambling to make the hole in the roof bigger. "Save yourselves. You cannot save us."
Karla
"Then don't talk to me about how hard this is for you to watch what happens!" Karla snapped. "Not if you're willing to just stand there and wring your hands as Azarath burns and Raven dies! We, her friends, are at least willing to try!"
Arella
"Azar knew what she was doing," Arella said quietly. "I have to believe in that, or all this meant nothing, and she should have just left me to die before Raven was born."
Karla
"Or maybe she gave you and Raven a chance to grow! A place to plant your feet and find your own true strength!" Karla said, about to throw Arella and her entire pity-party for one to the demons and just be done with it. The longer she stood there debating with the female, the more Trigon could be harming Raven. Or using Raven to harm others.
"Maybe you should look past all the dogma and learn Azar's real lesson. She didn't give up on you--or Raven, either. Pity you can't say the same."
Diana
Dinah stared around, disbelieving, and then looked at Arella. "How can they be okay with this? Never mind. I get it. They gave up on being anything else, on being anything ages ago." Her jaw tightened. "I'm sorry we couldn't save you from Trigon," she said, her voice lower. "But we're not giving up on Raven, either."
Arella
Arella flinched at the mention of her daughter's name. "Her father has her now," she said. "I saw her as the attack began."
Diana
"Then we'll get her back," Dinah said. Two plus two equals four, the moon revolves around the Earth, they'd get Raven back. "She doesn't want this. He didn't convince her of anything, he possessed her. We'll get the her back and get her better."
Arella
"I hope you can," Arella said, looking up at the rapidly crumbling ceiling and wiping a tear from her eye. "But you must go, for Azarath is about to fall."
Diana
"You're coming with us," Dinah said, her stomach sinking. "...aren't you?"
Arella
Arella bit at her lip, looking very much like her daughter at that moment. "I belong to Azarath now," she said quietly. "If it is Azar's will I remain here, then I will do so, even to the end."
Diana
"What do I tell Raven?" Dinah pleaded. "We let you down. We didn't rescue you. When we get her back--" Don't cry, don't. No time. "Please. She'll need you, after this."
Arella
"She'll understand Azar's will," Arella said, hoping there was something of her daughter left in the creature she'd seen. "This was the pledge I made when they took me in here."
Diana
"Why are you willing to do this?" Dinah whispered. "I don't understand. You deserve better than to just-- die here, after all you've been through."
Arella
"Azarath was founded to prepare us for this day," Arella said. "They all knew it would come, and they accept it."
Most of the inhabitants of Azarath had been there for hundreds of years, however, and she'd only been there for just over seventeen, so it wasn't as ingrained in her.
Diana
"Do you have to?" Dinah pleaded. "All these other people-- they're already doing this. What's one person? You've already done enough. You held back Trigon for months. You gave up your daughter. Please. Just-- come with us instead. Fight just that much. Just be alive instead of dead."
Arella
Arella looked up. The demons were pouring through the roof now, and flame began to rain down on all inside. "It's too late," she said sadly. "Too late for all of us now."
Diana
"It isn't. We won't let it be. Just-- hold on until we handle this, okay?" Dinah pointed at her. "Just don't go. We're enough. We'll hold them back. Just don't--" Drink the Kool-Aid, slit your wrists, jump off a balcony... "Die yet."
Dinah turned back toward the fight, pushing thoughts of failure out of her mind. If they could just save Arella, stop Trigon, and get Raven back-- it'd be worth it. Not another Agio.
Arella
Not another Agio.
Agio hadn't exploded like the Temple just did.
Fire filled the temple, and stone and marble exploded in blinding light and heat.
Then everything was quiet, and the light faded.
Azarath was completely gone, and all that remained was an island of stone in an ocean of white nothingness. All the remaining people of Azarath and the demons had vanished as well, leaving only the travelers from Fandom...and Raven's mother, Arella.
Arella
Arella looked dazed, confused as to why she was still there. "Look at the skies," she said. "They're empty now. White, no longer black with clouds. Azarath is destroyed, and Trigon is gone."
Tara
"The souls of those who lived here have joined Azar herself," Tara said, voice clear if sounding like it didn't quite come from Tara. She was still very calm. "I think ... Trigon has claimed his daughter, and she has embraced him. The soul of Raven is gone."
Arella
"No, don't say that," Arella said. "My daughter has to be safe." But she'd seen Raven right before the attack began, she'd heard Trigon claim her.
Tara
"Don't be sad," Tara said, "By Azar's grace, we were all saved."
She still didn't sound upset in the least as she twirled Raven's rings on her thumbs.
Kennedy
Yeah, okay, that wasn't like Tara at all, even if Kennedy was wondering whether this was some kind of new coping mechanism because hi, they'd just seen Azarath get wiped out into a big blank nothing.
"Baby? Aren't you hitting the zen kinda hard there?"
She had to ask, because she was kind of freaking out.
Tara
Tara shook her head, eyes clearing as her face took on a more usual expression. "I'm fine," she said. "This is just ... bigger than I am. Bigger than any of us. But it's t-true. Can't you feel it?"
Kennedy
Kennedy shook her head slowly. "Really, really not." She glanced around at the others, questioning. "Just me? Tara-- what's the deal here?"
Yeah, all of this was wigging her out badly; she still trusted Tara.
Warren
"We're... not dead," Warren offered, biting his lip as he looked around. Not that there was really much to look around at. "That's something, I guess?"
He was trying quite desperately to keep from freaking out. He didn't much like the view.
"But... Uh... How?"
That question came with a gesture of one blood-streaked wing toward the nothingness around them. They... probably should have gone with that, right?
Bobby
"I've learned at this point it's best not to question it," Bobby contributed from behind Warren. This may not have been the Angel he grew up fighting alongside, but when the explosion hit, instinct took over and he'd moved to cover his teammate's back.
Tara
"We have to go to Earth," Tara offered, some urgency tainting her voice for the first time. "Azarath is gone, and Trigon walks the planet Earth now. It is there that we must go."
Arella
Please forgive Arella for being a little vapor-locked, staring at the whiteness around them, numb with despair at the loss of her home and her daughter. "I was brought to Azarath before I could commit suicide," she said. "I was little more than a kid. I was afraid, but they took away my fear. I was weak and they made me strong. They were pacifists -- I didn't understand pacifism had nothing to do with weakness. And they're gone now. All of them. All my friends. All they believed in. Gone. But how did we survive? That fire should've killed us all."
Tara
Tara held up her hands, spotlighting the gleam of Raven's rings. "Arella, it was the rings -- the rings Raven had worn since the day that Azar died," she said. "They kept us safe for a reason. Listen to me -- we must return to Earth to stop Trigon!"
Arella
"Yes!" Arella said fiercely, sorrow giving way to anger now. "That fiend has to be destroyed before he destroys your world as he destroyed mine. But listen to me -- if he killed my daughter, then mine shall be the hand that slays him!"
Big words from the pacifist.
Emma
"And how, exactly, do we plan on getting there?" Emma asked tartly. "Somehow I doubt the local Portalocity Office is currently available."
She eyed Arella skeptically. "Can you even do anything?" Speciesist? Yeah, kinda, but Emma was used to being at school with the best of the best. A grieving mother wasn't exactly helpful right now.
Tara
"Azar's rings," Tara interrupted, "will light the way."
She brought her hands together as if in prayer, and there was an enormous flash of light.
[Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]