fandomhigh | Destiny & Free Will, Week V [Monday, Period 4]

Current Mood: calm

Entry tags:

destiny and free will

Destiny & Free Will, Week V [Monday, Period 4]

As the students came in today, they'd probably all be pleased to notice the lack of desks. Instead, there were huge piles of pillows and blankets heaped around, and the television set up in front of the room. Ghanima was showing affection in the best way she knew how, with pastries from JGoB and carafes of coffee and juice from the Perk.

"We'll delay the discussion of the 'omnis' until next week," she said cheerfully, once everyone had picked a spot. "Today, we're watching a movie that involves destiny."

[ocd up!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Raven had been dreading this class the most today, so she was glad it was only a movie. She sat off to one side, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Raven also got a hug today ~~if she's willing to accept it~~ as well as an extended bout of warmth, friendship, and understanding.

Raven accepted and returned the hug, though her tension was obvious. "I almost did not come to classes today," she admitted softly.

"I am glad you did," Karla said. "I would have been sad if you had not." She drew away and considered Raven at arms length. "Learning to ride a horse is hard. You often fall a lot at first. But the only thing you can do afterwards is get back up on it. Or you run the risk of being scared of horses forever."

"I did not simply fall, Karla," Raven said. "I lost myself. I almost killed, not just vampires, but Professor Anakin, and people in the dorms."

"And now you know what it feels like," Karla said quietly. "With Black Widows, there is a test that does something similar to us. Too teach us our limits. Because we cannot help those who suffer from madness without understanding madness ourselves. And some who walk into the Twisted Kingdom never come out again. We need to know this, to understand it."

"Then I have failed my test," Raven said. "I forced Professor Skywalker to kill me." She pressed her hand against the phantom wound in her chest, fingers twisting in the fabric of her dress. "Not the other me from that world, but my true self. I do not understand why I live now."

Hurley's ice cream had helped her somewhat the night before, but she was still confused and emotionally raw from what Max had done and her own failures.

"The test is not whether you withstand or succumb," Karla explained. "We don't let our Sisters stay in the Twisted Kingdom if we can help it. Rather, it is to teach us that our actions have consequences and make sure we really and truly understand what it feels like to go beyond those limits we must impose on ourselves."

"Then I have seen the consequences of losing control," Raven murmured. "I almost took a life. I surrendered my body and soul to a vampire." Her shame and wounded pride were so strong, they leaked through her shields.

[Way past my bedtime. Night! :) ]

Karla felt them, and sent over another wave of understanding and concern. "Do you remember what it felt like, as you began the ascent? Do you remember the last point when you were fully in control?"

[Night!]

"Before the visions started, I think," Raven said quietly. "That was the last time I felt fully myself. But in the dreams, Liir and Tahiri, they were tempting me to abuse my gifts. And when I crossed over, the vampire had me prisoner." She closed her eyes and shuddered, trying not to think of how much she had enjoyed it. "He was...corrupting me. And I was not fighting it. I wanted it."

"The remember those feelings. Remember what he taught you, use what you can to protect yourself if you can, but you must always, always remember," Karla regarded her steadily. "Because that might be what keeps you alive and sane and in control next time. But don't let it eat at you, because you'll lose yourself just as quickly that way."

"I do not want to remember!" Raven said with sudden fierceness, though her voice was still low enough to not disrupt the movie. "You do not understand what he did to me. He made me feel things I have never felt before, and now part of me wishes to keep feeling them." She absently rubbed the side of her neck where Max had bitten her.

"There's a difference between 'remember' and 'obsess over,'" Karla said, jaw tightening. "But if you forget, it you take this lesson and let it wash over you and beyond you, you will be forced to learn it all over again! You have just discovered a weakness in your armor. Forgetting about it won't make it go away. It'll just make it that much more tempting for your enemies when they discover that you have it!"

Karla gentled. "You don't have to work on it right away. There's a lot of healing that needs to be done. For all of us. But it isn't something you can afford to push into the well of your mind, either."

"I am so afraid of losing myself, Karla," Raven whispered. "I do not wish to ever hurt another. But what has happened to me has changed me, I can feel it. I was grateful to Professor Skywalker for killing me."

"Of course it changed you," Karla said, going to clasp Rachel's hand with her own. "You went into the abyss, into the deep, dark part of you that people don't like ackowledging they have, never mind facing it. There are places inside of ourselves that we cannot ever go and come out unchanged. But now you know what you are capable of. Now you know some of the things you can do, if pushed to far. Now you know some of the ways you can be twisted and manipulated. These are dark and unhappy things, but they will always exist inside of you. It is up to you to learn how to keep them at bay."

"And you don't have to learn these things by yourself," Karla added quietly. "I will help you, if you'd like. Professor Skywalker will help you, if you ask. Contrary to how you feel right now, you haven't lost everything. What you must find again, though, is the trust you once had in yourself."

There was still the slightest of flinches at being touched, but Raven tightly grasped Karla's hand with her own. "For the first time, I truly felt that I was my father's daughter," she admitted softly. "The vampire showed me such pleasure and pain and made them one inside my mind. He made me his slave and made me want it. Even after I escaped, I could still feel what he had done to me, and it made me crave sensation of any kind, both feeling it myself and forcing it in others. And Azar help me, Karla, I still do."

Mother Night.

"Hell's fire, Raven, that's awful," Karla said, voice quiet but intense. "He got you addicted to sensation?"

That didn't change anything Karla had said. Adictions lived with people for their entire lives. But they could get stronger and learn to deny it, even as their bodies clamored for more.

"It happened so fast," Raven said, her hand trembling now. "I thought he was only a vampire, but he had powers like my own, only he was much better trained in their use...their use against another. I was not his prisoner for long, but in that time he made me feel things I had never felt before. And I can still feel the cravings. I have not acted on them since I returned to our true world, but they frighten me."

"Do you know which one it was?" Karla asked absently, trying to think of what she could say to reassure Raven that wanting wasn't the same as doing.

Raven shook her head. "I do not know. I had never seen him before, and the only name I called him was Master. He was older -- I do not think he would have been a student here." She closed her eyes and tried to remember details from both dreams and when she was truly in the other Fandom, though calling the vampire's face to mind made her heart race. "His powers were similar to mine, but stronger, and he could also manipulate the wind, I think. He made the fog move. He was large and strong, even without a vampire's additional strength."

Her first meeting with Max in the true Fandom was so guaranteed to be spectacular.

A big, male vampire with powers? That could have been anyone as far as Karla knew, especially since she was still unclear about Max's abilities.

"Well, he's dead and gone now," Karla said. "Which is a blessing. The island got moved to somewhere called Greenland, which has a sun that never sets. Before I left, what vampires remained alive were turning into dust as I watched."

Like Dinah...

"I know that's not the comfort you need," Karla added. "But I thought you might like to know anyway."

Truly spectacular, yes.

Raven nodded. "It is a comfort to know he cannot touch me again, thank you," she said. After a moment dwelling on that, she said, "I think perhaps since I had denied my emotions for so long, that what he forced inside me was all the more intense. I have ~~molested~~ passed by doorways behind which there were couples engaged in intimate acts, but I have never felt it so strongly. If I were more experienced, perhaps he would not have enthralled me so easily."

"Perhaps," Karla said softly, "but anyone can be broken. Remember that. Anyone. No matter how strong you are, someone can get around your strength."

Karla hung her hair in front of her face. This knowledge came not from the Fandom they'd just left behind, but the place she'd once called home.

"I was not strong," Raven said. "I was his toy."

But as Karla ducked her head, her tone changed. There was nothing like another's pain to make her forget her own. "Karla?" she said softly, lifting hand to move the other girl's hair aside. "I am sorry, I have done nothing but pour my pains upon you. Are you all right?"

Destiny & Free Will, Week V [Monday, Period 4]

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!

Re: The Movie!