The Roof, late Saturday night

[trigons_child]

Raven had been grateful for Karla's insistence that she stay with her once they returned to the dorms. The thought of being alone again terrified her. But her guilt and sadness made it impossible for her to rest, and since she didn't want to disturb Karla or Gabrielle's sleep, she slipped out of the room to find some place to meditate.

She didn't want to go up to her room; she had no idea what Ariel had been told about her disappearance or return and didn't want to frighten her by suddenly walking into the room. So she retreated to the roof instead. The black nightgown Karla had given her (her own, in fact, which had been left behind after Karla's Virgin Night) would have been little defense against the cold, so she'd taken the white cloak Sebastian had insisted she wear. She didn't like that it was his or that it was stained with Warren's blood, smeared there when she'd hugged Karla, but it was better than freezing.

She was back in Fandom, back home with those she loved, much as the memory of what she'd done to them tormented her. But people had died to bring her back, some willingly, some not. She hadn't asked for that, she never would have asked for that, and now she was scared what the dark magics used to resurrect her body might have done.

Her father was gone, but so was Azarath. Her friends were forgiving, but she could feel the tension beneath their words. Jono was afraid of her -- no, not her. Himself. And she was so weary of being used, by Sebastian, by Trigon, even by Azar.

She didn't know how to begin to make things right. So for now, she huddled in a dark corner of the roof and quietly cried.


[OOC: open! But emo girl is emo. ;) ]
 

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[angelo_wings]

You'll never guess where I have burnmarks OH SNAP

"It's not you he's afraid of," Rinoa said, biting her lip. "He might need time. Just to ... know it's safe. I don't know if there's anything you can do, just yet."

She hesitated, torn about whether to say more. It might only make Raven feel worse.

"I don't think he blames you," she said, instead.

[trigons_child]

"You do not understand what I did to him," Raven said. The thought of it was starting make her hyperventilate again. Monster. Telling him if he had loved her it would have stopped her fall. Lies, all of it lies. She was intimately familiar with all his insecurities and she had brutally used them against him.

"He was relieved I was safe," she conceded. She'd felt that much, at least, beneath his fear. "But I wanted so much to touch him and he would not let me. I am not afraid of him. I do not blame him for what he did. That was not his fault."

[angelo_wings]

"I think ..." Rinoa was still worrying her lip between her teeth. "I think that ... that even if you don't blame him, and if he knows, in his head that it's not his fault ... that it might be different for his heart to understand that. If he had to ... do what he ....... did."

She didn't know the way Raven had torn apart Jono's weaknesses. But she knew that he had been the one to end her life, and that he couldn't forgive himself for it.

[trigons_child]

"I do not know what to do now," Raven whispered, wiping her eyes with the side of her hand. "I do not know if I should stay away from him or go to him and somehow try to make him see that it was not his fault."

He'd killed her, yes, and that was going to haunt her nightmares for some time. But she loved him and held no blame for what he'd done.

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa shook her head. "I wish I could say," she said. "To have to destroy someone you love ... I think it might tear out small pieces of you. I'm not sure how he can get those back."

She tried to imagine what Squall might be like, had he ended her on the space station. Or, worse, should Ultimecia take hold of her now.

The thought made her feel like she was going to be sick.

[trigons_child]

Now Raven shook her head. "He does not love me," she said quietly. "I had hoped he would, someday, but...." Could she still cling to that hope?

Of course, whether he did or not didn't make much of a difference now. "But I am not destroyed, I am here now," she said. "And I must believe I can help him through this, somehow." Because the alternative made her feel too sick inside.

She glanced sideways at Rinoa. "Something is troubling you," she said.

[angelo_wings]

Rinoa straightened up, shaking her head again. "It's nothing," she said. "It's ... imagining what he must have went through."

She didn't want to distract Raven. Unless ... maybe it would help to know?

"Jono asked me to do something," she admitted. "Or ... not to do something. Why ..."

Hang on, she needed a moment to be distracted herself.

"Why do you think he doesn't love you?"

[trigons_child]

"I know he does not," Raven said. Except when she'd forced him to say it in New York, but that hadn't been real. That had just been another horrible thing she'd done to him.

"He loved Didi," she said, matter-of-factly, no bitterness. "He still does. And losing her has made him reluctant to open his heart again. He has always been honest with me about that."

[angelo_wings]

"It sounds like he's afraid," Rinoa said, considering that. "But that might be afraid to love, or afraid to let himself admit it. I know he cares a great deal for you, whatever name you call that. He wouldn't have been so devastated by this, if he didn't."

[trigons_child]

"I think it would be almost easier if he did hate me," Raven admitted, twisting her hands in her lap. "Not that I would ever wish such a thing! But...I would understand it. This 'giving him space' -- that I do not understand."

[angelo_wings]

"You ... don't?" Rinoa asked. She glanced at the other girl curiously. "He ... he had to kill you. The one he cares so much about. There's guilt, and anger, and resentment, and fear, all mixed up together. Sometimes people feel so much that ... that they don't know what they feel, and they need time and space to let everything fade out a little. To sort it out. The wound's too fresh."

She closed her eyes. "I told him that Squall is supposed to do that, for me. Be the one to ... stop me, if I can't stop myself. He said that I should never put Squall through that kind of hell."

[trigons_child]

"I understand the emotions," Raven said quietly. She did, mostly, though her gifts still felt raw and shaky since she'd been freed from Sebastian's control. "But I do not know if I should hide from him, or try to talk, or...I do not know."

But what Rinoa had just said had her attention now. "Squall might have to do that one day for you? What do you mean?"

[angelo_wings]

Raven's question came first. "I can't say," Rinoa admitted. "Jono would know that better than anyone. Talk, if you think it'll help, but don't press him until he's ready."

Jono had been through so much in the past few weeks. He might be lost in the fog of it.

As for the rest ... Rinoa placed her hands on her knees, studying the ground carefully.

"I'm a Sorceress," she said. "I have all kinds of power, now, and I will until I die. Plenty of Sorceresses ... they go bad. They get lost in the power and can't find their way out again. Squall is supposed to be my anchor, to the parts of me that are me. And if that fails, then he's ... I asked him to be the one to destroy me, before I hurt anyone else."

[trigons_child]

Raven just wished there would be a shiny little triangle above Jono's head when he was ready so she'd know. Jono, sadly, was not a Facebook game, however.

"And then Squall would have to go through what Jono has been," she murmured. Not something she'd wish on anyone.

"At least it would be an act of love, in a way?" she said, thinking it over. Her own death had been born of hate and fear, not a conscious choice by any involved. "But I would hope it would never come to that. Part of himself would die with you."

[angelo_wings]

Or a green floating diamond, but Jono wasn't a Sim, either. Life would be so much simpler if he were.

Rinoa scuffed her toes on the ground. "I think ... that I was only thinking of me," she admitted. "That he wouldn't be cruel about it, or hurtful. He wouldn't draw it out or make me suffer. I wasn't thinking of how ... cruel it would be, for him. To ask him to do that, and then to ask him to have to live with that."

Squall was another one who was terrified of opening himself up. But he had, to her. If she were gone .... he may not risk it again.

[trigons_child]

Raven would totally be clicking and selecting all the affection options now, oh yes.

"It is a difficult thing to contemplate," Raven said. "I fear what would happen if I one day lost control again -- I know I would rather die than harm my friends. But if such a thing happened, the odds would favor it being their hands I would fall to again anyway. I do not care if it would make me suffer, however. I would deserve that."

She stared out at Fandom. "I fear that happening so much that it is tempting to just flee, to spare them that."

[angelo_wings]

"Don't," Rinoa said, and the forcefulness of it even surprised her. She flushed and cleared her throat, hoping the other girl didn't think that had been viciously meant. "Please. If you leave, they'll blame themselves. They'll think you blame them, or that they could have done something differently. It would crush them to lose you again, this time by your own choice."

[trigons_child]

"It would be a cowardly act," Raven conceded with a slight nod. "And...I am too much of a coward to do even that." And selfish; she didn't want to be alone.

"I do not blame them for anything they did," she went on. "They were all controlled when they killed me. And...it was necessary. I was lost in evil and had to be destroyed. But even if they were not controlled, I would not blame them. Jono and the others are innocent in my death."

[angelo_wings]

"I know you don't," she said gently. "But I'm sure it's hard for them to accept. They're the ones who ... had to ... you know."

Kill her, but there didn't seem to be a polite way to say that.

"Having to ... do that to someone you care about," she said, "no matter how necessary it was ... it may have killed little pieces of them, too. The same way it would for Squall."

[trigons_child]

"It seems the only way to spare them this pain is to make certain it never comes to that," Raven said. Not again, at least. She forced a very small smile. "I will help you if you will help me."

She had little idea what Rinoa would need to make certain her power would not consume her, but she was willing to help.

[angelo_wings]

"Agreed," Rinoa said, nodding before she reached to pull Raven into another hug.

She wasn't sure exactly what she'd need to do, but they could figure that out as they went, right?