tushanshu_logs | i will be rocks [August, catchall, open]

Entry tags:

i will be rocks [August, catchall, open]

Characters: Raine Sage and many others (that is, open)
Date: August 2018
Location: Around [Guild, apartment, other]
Situation: Many, lots [Overwork, friendship, souls]
Warnings/Rating: will update as required

A | Healer's Guild | Open

~~Look who's overworking herself again.~~

Having ceded about half her responsibilities to Suhiet frees up Raine's time somewhat, so she's not technically obligated to be at the Guild; but all this means is that she spends more time in the lab that was Solomon's instead. She keeps busy.

There's a few days toward the beginning of the month where this isn't the case, as Sheena's returned from the Dreaming and some kind of celebration seems the order of the day. Apart from that, however, Raine can usually be found at the Guild, and if she isn't at the front desk then one of the volunteers can easily find her. She's the person to talk to for health concerns or helping out around the Guild. Or if she's been demanding answers about someone's home world.

B | Earth Sector | Open

When she's at home Raine can often be found in her apartment proper -- never in the kitchen, owing to an age-old conspiracy against her, but tending the small planter boxes in the front or sitting in the window of the open living room, reading or writing.

Sometimes she can be found instead at a park nearby, sitting with her staff across her knees and her hands glowing faintly. Her eyes are half-shut, but she tracks anyone who comes within a few meters, and won't be startled if interrupted.

C | anywhere | Open

[If you have ideas feel free to pm me or discuss them at makaricrow! or if we did discuss something and it doesn't fit either place, we can work something else out. <3 ]

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Raine's allowed in the kitchen--just not near the food when it's being prepared.

She's seen all those spices, Raine. She knows what you'd do with them. But helping her with that is a subject for another time and bribe. She has to get through this one, first.

Crossing her arms, Sheena shakes her head and chuckles. "That obvious, huh? Well, since you're not beating around the bush, neither will I." She sits and meets Raine's gaze, her own questioning and concerned.

"What's this I hear about you turning into a dragon?"

Raine grimaces, ducking her head to look back at her book for several moments. She really doesn't want to talk about this. It was uncomfortable at the time, let alone now, revisiting the emotions and the sense of being something other and bigger.

...but of all the people, Sheena certainly has that right.

"That's correct," Raine says stiffly. "There was an-- enchanted necklace. I presume it must have had several different spells worked into it, somehow, but it's no longer present. I'm still not certain of exactly its function or origins."

For a moment, Sheena wants to back down in the face of that grimace, but she holds her gaze steady. Raine may not want to talk about this, but the ninja feels she needs to. Otherwise, it'll eat at her.

And boy is she having a sense of deja vu here concerning that.

The ninja listens quietly as Raine speaks, waiting until she's finished before taking her turn."Okay. We're both familiar with items like that." Sheena's own cards, for example. "But there's usually a trigger, Raine." She pauses and her voice becomes gentle as she reaches a hand out to her friend.

"What was the trigger?"

"Anger," Raine provides, after a moment's pause to sort through what Sheena has and hasn't asked. "However, I'm unclear on whether it generated the anger itself, or simply hooked into an existing sentiment and magnified or twisted it." She sighs. "Since I wasn't able to examine the item, there are many things which will remain unclear."

This is all true. She's just also leaving out a few things.

"May I prevail on you to pour tea?"

Oh, Raine... Sheena already has some idea of what triggered the amulet--thanks to a certain redhead. Luckily, she had calmed down before coming to the mage about it--or things might not have gone too smoothly.

Hell, they still might not.

"Sure," the ninja says, picking up the pot. She continues as she pours. "Anger, huh? That can be a pretty powerful trigger." Handing her friend a filled cup, she asks, "So what were you angry about, Raine?"

Yep, totally innocent question.

Raine sets her book down properly and takes the cup of tea, arranging her fingers around it with a great deal of unnecessary fidgeting. Even if she makes it look calm and collected. "Any number of things. Surely you're aware I have... something of a temper."

She catches herself dissembling, sighs, and grimaces again, this time at the tea-cup. "...if I recall the feeling correctly, I was-- angry about how much I viewed as having been taken from me. It's foolishness, of course. There's no conscious hand controlling the magic here."

Despite appearances, Sheena recognizes that fidgeting for what it is, but again remains silent. Until Raine's comment elicits a soft chuckle. "Yes, I am very aware--though you tend to control it very well."

Which is the crux of the whole situation, isn't it?

Setting her cup and the pot aside, Sheena regards her friend quietly for a moment. "All that you had taken from you... Including me?" she said softly. Yeah, she's done dancing around the subject. "I know when this happened, Raine. There's no need to keep that from me." She pauses.

"I'm sorry I put you through that."

The tea warms her fingers. Raine studies it longer than it warrants. "...don't apologize," she says finally. "It's hardly your fault. I'm aware it was not your choice, to disappear, nor is my reaction, enchanted or not, something that you could have done anything about."

She isn't denying that Sheena was part of it, nor that the loss was a direct correlation, but... all the same, it isn't Sheena's fault.

Sheena sits patiently, waiting for her friend's response. When it comes, she shakes her head. "No. Part of it is my fault, Raine--whether directly or indirectly." She pauses. "Do you remember a conversation we had several months ago about letting your anger out? Well, this had to have been building for some time for it to have consumed you the way it did."

She spread her arms wide, presenting herself as a target.

"I'm here, Raine. Yell at me for leaving. Put aside rationality and yell at me!"

"The necklace was enchanted." Raine takes a sip of the tea, rearranges her hands. "Which is not to discount the emotions, I suppose, but I think it would have acted on any variety of anger. On my own, I'm not angry enough to spontaneously become a dragon."

She eyes the tea for a little longer, then slants her gaze sideways to Sheena. Improbably, she smiles faintly. "And I'm certainly not angry at you. While I appreciate the offer, I'm much more likely to take a rheaird up and yell at the sky than anything else."

"Yes, I know the necklace was enchanted," Sheena says. "Like my cards. And it makes me wonder if--like my cards--the less 'power' given it, would it still have the same effect? But that's not really the issue, Raine." Her gaze becomes direct. "Just because you can't physically turn into a dragon when enraged doesn't mean you can't feel the equivalent of a dragon's fury."

She pauses, choosing her words carefully.

"And that's what you have to prevent. The necklace gave you an idea of what happens when you let your anger consume you and eat at you. It takes over, changing you into someone unrecognizable." In this case, literally. "And you should be angry at me--it's natural. Or have you forgotten who you're talking to?" She's being blunt now.

"I've been where you are. Seen people come and go, grown attached to them--only to have them taken away, leaving me behind. And while I couldn't yell at them for doing that--even though i was happy they went home--or yell at the one who caused it, I still let out my anger." She smiles wickedly for a moment before becoming serious again.

"But here you have an opportunity to do what a lot of people can't--yell at one of the people involved. Or ask me that one question that always comes to mind when something like this happens."

How could she leave Raine there--like the others had?

Raine listens carefully, taking in what Sheena is saying, though as Sheena goes on her gaze becomes distant with introspection. She's silent for a little while even after Sheena has stopped talking.

Eventually Raine focuses again. "'How could you'-- is that what you mean me to ask?" She shakes her head. "It's still pointless. I understand the how and the why very easily. Our existence here is predicated on chance; I've been unable to find any link or commonality between those people who vanish. Only that, uniformly, there are people who miss them. You forget that I knew many of the people who had hands in the spell. I would blame them, before you."

...all the same, she still wants the people she's lost back. "I'm curious to know what you would answer, though."

Sheena's beginning to wonder if Raine's all right, and is raising her hand to wave it in front of her eyes when the mage speaks. Dropping her hand, she leans back slightly and crossing her arms, gives her friend a pointed look.

"You're a researcher. Do you honestly believe that there are pointless questions, Raine?" She pauses to let that sink in before continuing. "But since you seem bent on looking at this logically, I'll try to as well. Even if you understand the how and the why of this whole thing, how do you think you'll feel if you wake up and the same thing has happened. That you were left behind--abandoned--through no fault of your own?"

Yeah, she chose those words specifically.

"And my answer would still be the same. I'm sorry I put you through that--and I'll try not to let it happen again."

"It's pointless to ask something when I already know the answer." Also, it's more or less impossible to prove a negative, so it's pointless to ask if there isn't something.

But Raine is splitting hairs; she understands the point Sheena is trying to get at. "Your apology is accepted, but still unnecessary." Raine sighs very faintly, folding her arms and shifting her weight. "If you do find some way to stop it from happening, I'll be more than interested in your process. I'll be upset if this happens again, naturally, but that's neither here nor there."

She sees Sheena's phrasing, and she doesn't like it, but she's going to be rational about this. "...I've lost enough friends that I should have come to some kind of terms already, in truth." ...she didn't quite mean that to sound as pathetic as it honestly does, and she dips her head to look at her tea again.

"But are you sure you know what the answer is?" They had been sure they knew all about the Hero of the Kharlan War. And look where that had gotten them. "Not all questions have answers, that's true. But sometimes, those are the ones that need asked just so you can start processing things and healing."

The ninja gives the woman a faint smile. "You'll be the first to know. I promise." And if the mage really knows her, she'd realize that the ninja means this. She's going to try to figure something out so they can prevent this from happening.

And sorry, Raine, but she had to phrase it like that. They have too much in common for her not to. And, it gave the ninja the answer she had been waiting for. Maybe not in so many words, but the mage's actions verified it.

"In truth, you haven't," she says quietly. "I know, Raine. It's because this whole thing deals with emotions--not rational thought. Once in a while, you have to let your heart guide you. Not your mind."

She's done it before, she can do it again.

"Perhaps," Raine allows grudgingly. She'd rather query about more substantive things, but she will allow that Sheena has a point.

She's quiet for some time, then sighs. "No, you're correct. I haven't." It's still painful, every time, and the losses tie each other together with grief and history. "I'm familiar with the concept of being guided by one's heart, yes. It's simply... difficult to let go that far, right now."

But she has, on occasion, set aside practicality and rationality for love and friendship.

Sheena gives Raine a look. Perhaps? These are emotions they're talking about here. Sheena knows what she's talking about. When Raine agrees with her, Sheena gives her a comforting smile.

"I know it can be difficult--for a lot of reasons. One of them being fear." She places a hand on the other woman's arm.

"Is that what's stopping you, Raine? Fear?" Fear of turning into someone or something she isn't--or fear of saying "goodbye"?

Yes. Perhaps.

Raine's bearing slumps a little, and she sets her other hand over Sheena's, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that she's there at all, that they can have this contact. "I am... more often afraid than I would prefer to admit."

It's a concession. Sort of.

"And it certainly wouldn't be very dignified or fair to yell at you for things you can't control." This more archly, a stiff sort of teasing.

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i will be rocks [August, catchall, open]

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