Valdis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redlightgreenlight) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu_logs2015-04-04 07:20 pm
redlightgreenlight) wrote in tushanshu_logs2015-04-04 07:20 pm
This is Where the Healing Begins
Characters: Valdis and the chosen few (Raine, Gene, Jackie, Vergil, Genis, Arno more to come)
Date: The Month of April
Location: Noted in Starters
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: Noted in starters
She hadn't thought that it could get worse, but the slow decay of the barrier over the month had culminated in Gene's near death at her hands. She could only guess that the massive amounts of death magic that she had released on the cliffs of Evidet had compromised the stability of the Angelic Magic protecting her soul. For a brief instant, she had wanted her soul gone and, weeks later, she had almost gotten her wish. Her own foolishness had almost cost her everything and now she was left to pick up the pieces.
Date: The Month of April
Location: Noted in Starters
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: Noted in starters
She hadn't thought that it could get worse, but the slow decay of the barrier over the month had culminated in Gene's near death at her hands. She could only guess that the massive amounts of death magic that she had released on the cliffs of Evidet had compromised the stability of the Angelic Magic protecting her soul. For a brief instant, she had wanted her soul gone and, weeks later, she had almost gotten her wish. Her own foolishness had almost cost her everything and now she was left to pick up the pieces.
Raine | April 1st | The Healers Guild | CW: None
... omg I'm sorry this took so long. D:
"It's good to see you're finally awake," she said without preamble, nudging the door shut behind her. Whatever direction this discussion took, privacy was preferable. "Are you aware of everything that's happened?"
JK At the Midnight Hotel!!
"Anton told me that the Void broke free and I attacked Gene and that I fell into a coma, but..." She sighed, not meeting Raine's eyes, "I remember none of it."
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It would have been easier to blame her if she did remember. Raine sighed, covered her eyes with one hand just for a moment. "All of that is correct," she said, looking at Valdis again. She did not want to be having this discussion; she did not want to deal with the necessarily complex issue of Valdis' stability. But it was, after all, important if not necessary, so she pressed on. "Tell me, did you have any indication beforehand that something was wrong?"
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There had been so may signs, and she had tried so hard to ignore them, convinced that she could do nothing to prevent the inevitable. Admitting the facts to herself would have been the end of everything, or so she had believed.
"So yes, there were signs. Signs that I foolishly and pridefully ignored."
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Her words were precise and clipped, though they softened a little bit as she went on. "One of my students once did something similar. She had a rare, fatal illness, but rather than say something when she first noticed something wrong, she hid it from all of us until it was revealed by sheer chance. It was luck alone that let us save her. She'd hidden it because she didn't believe there was a solution, and she didn't want to worry anyone, but if she'd said something sooner, a good deal of suffering could have been avoided."
Raine folded her arms across her chest, eyes still sharp on Valdis. "I don't know if your motives were quite so selfless, or if you simply like to believe yourself completely invincible. It doesn't matter. Did you think you had to handle everything on your own?"
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She still refused to look at Raine, "I learned long ago that I wasn't invincible; but like your student, by the time I realized what might be wrong, I didn't believe there was a solution. Fear and pride swore me to silence on the matter. Fear in that if I spoke of it, then it would confirm the darkness. Pride in that admitting it...would reveal weakness.
I'm not saying it was right, nor that it would make sense to someone like you, but centuries of conditioning is hard to undo."
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She shook her head in the moment after, dismissing the question. "Nightmares aren't uncommon when one's been through trauma. Alone, Wan and Anton would have been correct. Paired with the other symptoms, anyone would have worried." She tapped her fingers against her other arm, thinking, and when she went on her words were slow and deliberate. "I am familiar with the way centuries of living make change slow. However, you need to understand two things. First, that your right to pride and privacy ends where it begins to harm other people. Second, that if there is anyone in the world you may feel safe revealing weakness around, it is Anton and Wan."
Honestly. She knew friendship was a foreign concept to Valdis, but she hadn't thought learning would come this slow.
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She fell silent again, listening to the woman speak, she didn't have the energy to do anything else.
"I didn't know that I was going to hurt anyone," she continued when Raine finished speaking, "When I finally suspected what was wrong, I thought that, without a soul, there would be nothing to anchor me to this world and I would be gone before anyone could be hurt." She shook her head, "How could I possibly know that the Void would act in that manner?
"And since I didn't know that it could be fixed, what would be the point of telling Wan and Anton? If I simply vanished as I thought I would, they would simply have been left with the thought that I had finally gone home. Why torture them with the knowledge that they could do nothing?"
She fought back the tears, "I'm sorry that my logic makes no sense to you and I'm sorry that it resulted in what it did, but at the time, the only one I believed was at risk was myself."
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Raine spared a moment to reiterate the thought that she truly hated the last week or two. Then she sighed, and crossed the room to the cabinets at the far side, and shortly after offered Valdis a tissue. "I can accept that you didn't know you'd attack anyone, but harm is not only physical," she said, tiredly. "Do you think that the people who love you would be all right with any of that? Even those who go home may as well be dead, after a fashion-- the loss experienced by those remaining is the same."
She turned away, pacing the length of the room. "'It's okay if I have to die'-- thinking like that only causes pain." Lloyd, where was Lloyd. Valdis could do with his particular brand of persuasion, rather than all Raine had to offer. She sighed once more, turned around, tried a different tack, considering now what Valdis had said first. "Would you be so sanguine about the idea if it were Anton who had been slowly dying, and hiding it from you?"
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"You cannot compare us," She replied, "Even now he is already slowly dying, as are you, as is the man you love, as is the case with all mortals."
The thought was still painful despite her argument, she didn't want to ever lose anyone again, but that was foolish, mortals grew old and died, that was life.
"I understand that they would have mourned, but their mourning would have increased if they had known the truth of the matter. If I had gone home, then I would have still been myself at heart," she shook her head, "But no, what was happening was destroying everything I thought I had become. How could I tell them that the person they had come to know would no longer exist, not even in her own world?"
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Pacing again, until Raine noticed she was doing it and firmly stopped herself, leaning against the wall next to the door again instead. The strange restlessness that had settled in her despite her exhaustion of late would not control her. "Perhaps that is where I fail to understand you," she said, now a little thoughtful. "There were immortals in my world, as well. The death of others had long since stopped to mean much to them. I am young, relatively speaking; I know I will watch most of my friends grow old and die before my second century is out, but the reality of the situation is not one I've been faced with yet."
But Valdis did present an understanding of death, and the effects it had on others... hmm. No, she still didn't make complete sense. Frustrating. Raine shook her head again. "However, you're missing my point. Frankly, I'm unsure if I can even get it through to you given the disparity in our worldviews, though..." Lloyd would try. Therefore, so would she, no matter how much she just wanted to turn around and not be having this conversation. "Never mind. What I'm trying to say is that you need to remember that you are not alone any more. Your friends want to help you, and you have been doing both them and yourself a disservice."
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It was far more complicated than that, but she was tired, weak and ashamed about what had happened. Then there were the actions of the Void, what it had done to her as well as the others. Her confidence wasn't something so easily fixed as the Barrier had been, if you could call it easy.
"I know you mean well," she continued, "But I acted in the best way I knew how, wrong as it might have been. I am not you, I cannot shake the doubts and fears that the Void spoke of as easily as you did. It knows me better than I know myself, and I fear that more than I ever feared Malicant. You may have saved my soul from dying, but the Void had four days to play with my heart and mind, and no matter what you do, you cannot fix the damage that it has done."
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She exhaled, steadily, and straightened her posture. "I suppose I was lucky, in some respects," Raine said slowly. "The-- Void does not know me, or at least not well enough to know my weakest points. In that respect it may be fortunate we are not closer." A grimace, leaning to wry. Four days of... that. If she'd done something sooner... her efforts to save Valdis had been subsumed by her fears for Solomon, but it seemed she'd extended Valdis' suffering. "I'm sorry," she said then, and for a moment she sounded as exhausted as Valdis had sensed she was.
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"Why are you sorry?" She asked, "There was nothing you could have done without Bakura. I know the hatred he holds for me. That it didn't take you longer to convince him surprises me. That you even knew of the Shadow Realm...I am relived, but surprised nonetheless."
Solomon could have helped, but she would not mention him, not to Raine, not when the subject was so often a form of conflict between them. Besides, Solomon seeing her weakness would have been worse.
"And you are indeed lucky," she continued, "The Void uses your weaknesses to cut away at your soul...I do not know why it took so long with mine...It simply must have been enjoying its game."
There was no reason to tell her more. To tell Raine how she had sensed their arrival and tried to force the last of her energy into reinforcing what was left of the barrier. She would probably just receive a longer lecture if she did.
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Better to have the reason for her apology, at least, plain, though she was not bringing Solomon into it. Not now. "It took me a little time to learn of the Shadow Realm as a possibility," she said in the end. "But as for Bakura..." A little shrug. "I said 'please,'" she said dryly. "No, I owe you that apology because I took longer to act than I should have. By inaction I extended your suffering, and for that, I am sorry."
She offered Valdis a short bow then, a gesture she rarely found the use for. "I'll leave you to rest," she said. "At least think on what I've said, please."
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