Selkie Cove, Tuesday Afternoon

[poison_pretty]

Sometimes, being in town got to feeling claustrophobic. Too many people with too many loyalties, all crowded together, dancing on eggshells while they pretended one thing and felt another...It all got so tiresome after awhile. After awhile, Karla felt on edge, jumpy; and needed to retreat somewhere to gather herself again. The park in town was a

Comments

[broken_empath]

As luck would have it, Raven was seeking solace as well, away from detention and the school and everyone else so she could try to focus and stop the battle in her head. And, well, to be alone in case she started singing again so no one else could hear her saying things she'd rather not.

Such as:

Now I will tell you what I've done for you -
Fifty thousand tears I've cried.
Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you -
And you still won't hear me.
Going under
Don't want your hand this time - I'll save myself.
Maybe I'll wake up for once
Not tormented daily defeated by you
Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom

I'm dying again

I'm going under
Drowning in you
I'm falling forever
I've got to break through
I'm going under

Blurring and stirring - the truth and the lies.
So I don't know what's real and what's not
Always confusing the thoughts in my head
So I can't trust myself anymore

I'm dying again

A familiar emotional signature broke her from the song, and she smiled sharply. Oh, this would cheer her up. "Karlaaaaaaaaaa."

[poison_pretty]

"Kiss kiss." Karla smiled to see her old friend, but it wasn't a nice smile. There was pity in it, and sadness, but also a cold, sharp-edged malice. This wasn't the girl she'd known, however briefly. This was a puppet that wore pink clothes and the other girl's face. "Someone let the pretty songbird out of her pink cage?"

[broken_empath]

"I can go wherever I wish," Raven said, choosing to ignore the songbird comment, preferring to believe that Karla hadn't heard her singing at all. She also tried to ignore the pity. She'd had enough of that today.

"I am free. Unlike you, who has to skulk in the shadows. Or your friends in detention. Is there anyone to whom I should give your greetings? Dinah? Sookie?"

[poison_pretty]

"Only a bird that's forgotten her freedom sees nothing amiss with bars," Karla chided, breezing past Raven's offer. She'd rather her friends had the kindness of being ignored by the empath, not deliberately sought out. "So, carrion-eater, what brings you by? Tired of picking at the people discarded by your betters?"

[broken_empath]

Didn't matter. Raven had a list of favorite toys that she was always happy to give her attentions to...though she might be avoiding one of two of them for awhile since they were getting under her skin.

"Maybe I came to cage you," she said sweetly. "Take you in and break you down, keep you with the rest of my toys."

[poison_pretty]

"Oh, honey, there are easier ways to commit suicide," Karla pointed out, voice just as sweet. "You're not the first to try and you won't be the last."

Her eyes swept over the agony in pink that Raven had become and shook her head. "I'd return the threat, but what's left to break?"

[broken_empath]

Raven giggled. "Arrogance, I like that," she said. She didn't know why Pride tasted the best of all emotions, and it always made her crave more.

She ignored the broken comment, not wanting to get unsettled again like she had with Jono earlier that day. "You are not impossible to catch," she said. "I will find the right fishhooks to reel you in."

[poison_pretty]

"Ravens are scavengers," Karla retorted, her voice like sandpaper over glass. "Nothing more than that. Keep that in mind before you overstep yourself. I'd hate to see you make a promise to the bitch in pink you couldn't deliver."

Her voice dropped, more a whisper than anything else. "You don't want her to punish you again, do you, Raven?"

[broken_empath]

"I used to be punished because I disobeyed," Raven said, circling around Karla like a predator. "Just like you will be. Nothing so crude as needles forced under your nails and heated to red hot." (Where the hell had that specific an example come from?) "Though the feel of your pain would be exquisite. No, you get to be mine to play with."

[poison_pretty]

"Let me guess," Karla said, sounding bored, "And then I'll scream and beg and cry and whimper and any other countless synonyms for the same. And you'll laugh and turn to your mistress, hoping she's pleased with your work."

She sneered. "That's pathetic, Raven. Even for you."

[broken_empath]

"I do not even need to touch you to make you suffer," Raven sneered, refusing to let any of Karla's taunts hit their mark. "Just lock you up, away from the land. Soon you will be going as insane as that other girl from your world...Cassidy, that is her name, correct? You would barely recognize her now. She is a gibbering mess. Now that is pathetic."

[poison_pretty]

Karla's hands clenched by her sides; she could only imagine what being locked away from the land was doing to her Sister-Queen. "You don't need to touch me, but then, I don't need to touch you, either. Even if my little parlor tricks can't kill you, they can hurt. And while you're on the ground writhing from what I've done, all my friends will come out of the shadows and end you. Where are your friends, little carrion-eater? Where's your backup?"

[broken_empath]

"I need no back-up," Raven said. She could see her words had had an affect on Karla and tried to squirm her way beneath her shields.

"Even if there were someone here close enough to come to your aid, I could merely teleport away. Not that I would need to. I am Trigon's daughter, and I am eternal." That arrogance she'd tasted earlier thrummed through her.

[poison_pretty]

"You're nothing, just a shadow of your old self and a puppet to the stupid old bat that pulls your strings," Karla snapped, finding one or two of Raven's incursions and ruthlessly stomping on them. She sent the sensation of fire up the tendrils, hoping that would make Raven back down. "Trigon would be ashamed to see you brought so low."

[broken_empath]

Raven hissed, flinching back before thrusting a sharp stab of pain back at Karla. "I am not a puppet!" she snarled.

[poison_pretty]

Karla gasped, hands flying to her side as her body tried to make sense of a pain felt only in her mind. "You dance to her tune merrily enough!"