Room 509, Monday evening

[trigons_child]

After going into town and meeting with Tara and Dolf and then visiting Jono, Raven retreated back to her room. She was glad she didn't have classes until Tuesday, and she wasn't even sure then she could bring herself to go. She needed to see her friends, but the thought of going out in public terrified her.

So for now, she hid.


[For one in particular, but ooooopen.]

Comments

[weetuskenraider]

"I know," Tahiri assured her. "Believe me, I know."

If she let herself dwell on it, the possibility of resenting Raven's return was still very much present; therefore, Tahiri was flat-out refusing to dwell. (It helped more than she realized that Anakin wasn't an overarching presence in her life despite his absence.)

She did her best to emulate Luke's calming voice and presence as she sat down beside Raven and asked, "So can you tell me about it? What scares you so much about this?"

[trigons_child]

"I did not want to be dead, but...I was at peace," Raven said. Till they pulled me out of Hea~ven. "Just my soul, unbound by the taint of my demon flesh. But Sebastian brought me back with dark magics. People died to bring me back. And I do not know what that has done to me."

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

[weetuskenraider]

GODDAMMIT. SO EARWORMED NOW. AGAIN. DAMN YOU.

"A sacrifice?" Tahiri asked quietly. The vagaries of magic still escaped her, possessed as she was of that particular blind spot that meant she didn't see how her Jedi abilities were similar; she understood the implications of that, though. "Well, that certainly sounds ominous -- at least, if you choose to put that much weight on what his purposes were for bringing you back."

She paused, tucked a lock of hair back behind her ear, and offered a crooked smile. "Though I think it's a safe bet to say that we set his plans back awfully far by getting you out of there. It doesn't matter what he brought you back for, Raven; he's not pulling your strings."

Although . . .

"Do you think there's any possibility left that, um, someone else might still be able to do that?"

[trigons_child]

\o/ GIVE ME SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT

Raven nodded. "When I came back, I was in a pool of blood," she said. "I could feel some of it was donated by Sebastian's followers, for I could feel the wounds they'd inflected upon themselves. But there were bodies as well, those who were killed to empower the ritual. I never asked for that. I do not want it!" Death had been peaceful, but to send someone there in her name was still abhorrent.

"He was able to control me by drinking my blood." She rubbed the side of her neck; the bite marks had healed, but she could still feel them. "And then by biting my chakra off. He is gone now, and I hope no one will be able to so again. But it does not change the fact that I am once again bound to a body of corrupted flesh."

[weetuskenraider]

"Because of what was done to you, to bring you back?" Tahiri frowned, her eyes narrowing in concern. "Is that why you feel it's corrupted?"

[trigons_child]

Raven nodded. "Yes," she said, running fingers wearily through her hair. "My father's evil is no longer oppressing me. But I do not feel...clean."

Unclean! Unclean!

[weetuskenraider]

Tahiri reached up to brush the hair back from her forehead, her fingertips running over the middle of the three scars. "I felt that way for a long, long time myself," she offered gently. "That was long before I found out that it wasn't just memories and a language they'd put into my head, too -- Raven, they literally shaped me, changed half my brain. On a purely biological level, I'm not either of the people I was born as, and one was raised to believe the other was an abomination."

She reached out to take Raven's hand, feeling the need to emphasize her point through physical contact.

"The flesh is simply that: it's just flesh. Crude matter, as Luke's teacher Master Yoda would have said." She grinned, now. "It's not the important thing, and neither is the history behind how it got to be what it is."

[trigons_child]

Raven squeezed Tahiri's hand. That was one of the reasons she wanted to talk to her like this; she knew Tahiri would understand. "I do not feel as much like myself as I wish,"she confessed. "I almost feel as if I am a passenger in a stranger's body. In a way, I am. I look much as I did before I died, but it is almost as if I were born only a few days ago."

[weetuskenraider]

"In a way, you were." Tahiri chewed on her lower lip, searching for the words to elaborate. "It might help to think of it that way, actually. It's your chance to be someone new -- someone who isn't, and won't be, a piece on the dejarik board for someone else to control. Who you are and will be are for you to decide from this point on."

[trigons_child]

"I hope so," Raven murmured. "I do not feel out of control now, not like I did before this all began. But I do not entirely feel in control, either. I suppose it will take time to settle myself again."

She gave Tahiri's hand another grateful squeeze. "But I am very glad I will have friend such as you to help me."

[weetuskenraider]

"You'll get the hang of it," Tahiri assured her. "I suppose it's a really big adjustment after being, well . . . dead for a while. It's only been a few days; give it some time."

She paused for a second, then grew more serious. "But this is where you need to be on your guard, too. You're basically going to be learning a lot of things all over again, and that means you're going to be vulnerable to -- to any kind of influence, really. Any old being could come along right now and tell you you're destined to be evil, and you'd be more likely to believe it. Don't let that happen or you'll eventually do the Jumanji thing. Just remember why we went to get you, instead. Why the others tried to save you."