fandomhigh | Multicultural Fair! [The Gym

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!event: multi-cultural fair

Multicultural Fair! [The Gym - After Classes]

The benefit of doing something like this for the second time meant that Joan and Turtle had a much easier time of setting things up since they knew what worked and what didn't.

Turtle had, once again, provided decorations from Turtle & Canary. There was the requisite refreshment table, though it was primarily there to provide beverages, since most of the booths featured culturally appropriate food.

After set up was complete, Joan and Turtle sat down to catch up while they waited for the fair to begin.

[~~wait for the ocd or Turtle will kick you in the shin~~ OCD up! No shins were harmed in the making of this post!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Much like healing others was Raven's way of ignoring her own issues!

Raven settled in the chair. "I should be fine," she said. "As long as the memories are not intensely emotional, but I know you know that."

"They shouldn't be, but even if they are, they're intensely emotional in the 'Wheeeee! Fun!' kind of way," Karla promised.

She pulled out her silver knife and pricked her finger and let three drops of blood fall onto the center Jewel chip. Light flowed from the chip down the lines, spreading out until the entire web was glowing.

...and suddenly Raven found herself in a whole new world. The walls of ice arched up hundreds of feet above their heads. It wasn't cold though; a warm wind blew around them. "Welcome to the Blood Run," Karla said from beside her.

"It is lovely," Raven said, looking around in wonder. "But why do I not feel cold?"

Karla shook her head. "Weird, right?" she laughed. "People have been trying to understand that for millennia. The ice is frozen solid, but the air currents are well above freezing. Most males who fly the Run do so bare-chested. They get a bit chilly, but that's about it. We think the warmth comes from the Winds--the currents of magic that cross through the Runs."

"There is nothing like this in Azarath," Raven murmured. "It is truly wondrous."

"Ready for a geography lesson?" Karla asked, pleased by Raven's reaction. "I figure you should get some information about my world before we jump into the flying bit."

"So, the three Realms of my world are completely separate entities. Tereille, the Realm of Light, is here," she drew a line in the dirt at her feet with a toe. "Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm, is here," another line, this one below the first, "and then Hell, the Dark Realm, is below them both." A third line. "Hell is the darkest Realm, therefore the most powerful. Terreille is the lightest, and therefor the weakest--though that's pretty relative."

"But your Hell is not a place to be feared, a punishment for those who are evil, correct?" Raven said. Not a place her father would be pleased to call home.

"It's not like that at all," Karla said, shaking her head. "It's a place where the demon-dead go to stay until they've expended the last of their psychic strength and fade into the Darkness. Uncle Saetan has the right and power to judge any of the denizens of the Realm as he is the High Lord, but that's on a case-by-case basis."

"Hell can be a cold and desolate Realm, but it's no punishment. It's just another place."

"Your demons are so different as well," Raven said. "Not like my father."

"Right again. Our demons are just Blood who have too much psychic strength to fade into the Darkness once their bodies have died. There's no moral weight to the term; the demon-dead are pretty much the same people they were when they died. The only changes are physiological." Karla looked wistful. "I hope my parents transitioned to demon-dead and are living in Hell now."

Well, not living, exactly.

"I hope so as well," Raven said, sending comfort to Karla instinctively. "Though it is strange for me to think that. I prefer your Hell to the one of my world."

Karla smiled at Raven in thanks.

"It's not a fun place or a kind place, but it is a good place," Karla said. "It gives a people a chance to make peace with their lives."

Raven nodded, then looked back down at Karla's lines in the dirty. "So the Blood Run is part of the Shadow Realm? Is it all ice like this, or is this just one area?"

"The Runs are the only naturally occuring element that exists in all three Realms," Karla explained happily. "I think it is ice everywhere, but I'm not sure. I know the other Run is in the mountains. The only other thing that does is SaDiablo Hall. That's because the Territories of Dhemlan and Askavi exist in both Kaeleer and Terreille, and he has a Hall built in both Dhemlans. And one in Hell, because he rules there. The Keep also exists in both of the living Realms. But you'll have to wait to see that when you actually come to visit."

"When will that be?" Raven asked with a smile. "And does it get confusing at all with something existing in more than one realm? Can you get lost between them?"

"I'm not sure," Karla admitted. "I should really ask Uncle Saetan if it's all right. I'd like to have you all up for Windsol, but Dinah told me that there's an important holiday in that world around the same time. But we'll see." She grinned. "There's a ball and a feast and presents! It's very fun."

It took some more squeeing, but Karla was able to drag her mind away from Windsol and the prospective trip and towards answering Raven's oher question. "Kaeleer and Terreille have been almost completely cut off from one another for almost fifty-thousand years. There was a war that devastated both the Realms and Kaeleer just closed up. But when we travel from Kaeleer to Hell, there are special gates to take us between Realms. One of the jobs of the Priestess caste is to care for the Dark Altars and the Gates between the Realms."

"Ah, so you cannot merely wander between them, you must take a gate," Raven said, nodding. "Like the Great Door in Azarath."

"I suppose so," Karla said. "Jaenelle knows of another way, but I don't understand what she does or how she does it. She speaks of 'jumping the Webs.' I know what she means when she says Webs, but I can't imagine how she jumps them." Karla shrugged, dismissing a concept which still gave Saetan and Geoffrey the willies when they tried to figure out how she did it. "The Gates are connected to candelabras at each Dark Altar. When the candles are lit in the proper order, the wall turns to mist and the Gate opens."

"Opening the Great Door is not so complicated," Raven said thoughtfully. "All it requires is the proper key."

"How does one get the key?" Karla asked. "Or is it only allowed to Azar?"

"They are freely available to those who need to travel between worlds that way," Raven said. "So if one has a need to pass through the Great Door, they may do so. The only time I have gone through the door was when my father sought me out, and that time the Door opened by itself somehow."

"That probably didn't make anyone particularly happy," Karla said, looking troubled. "He came to find you and the door opened by itself?"

A gust of wind interrupted whatever else she was going to say by blowing her hair into her mouth and eyes. "Blech," she said, pulling her hair back. "I love my hair, but not for dinner." Her eyes flicked over Raven and she smiled. "You look lovely with wings," she complimented.

Uh, surprise?

"I felt him summoning me," Raven said. "I walked to the door and it opened, and he was waiting." She forced the tremor of remembered fear aside. "But this is to be a pleasant trip, we should not discuss such things. I will tell you what happened later, if you wish."

And then the rest of what Karla said sank in. "Wings?" Blink, blink.

Unlike the wings Karla had back in Fandom, constructed from metal and fabric and Craft, these were real wings of bone and muscle and sinew. These were large, black, and membranous, like bat-wings. "These are the wings of an Eyrien warrior," Karla explained. "They're a race of people here in Kaeleer. They make their home in the mountains of Askavi. They're how you're going to fly."

With a rustle, Karla flared her own wings. "Do you trust me?" she asked, holding out her hand.

[Okay for occasional mod?]

Raven glanced over her shoulders, flexing the wings in wonder. "My Soul-Self can fly, and I experience what it does, but I have never flown like this before," she said, delighted.

She took Karla's hand. "Of course I trust you," she said. "You are my friend."

[Of course!]

Multicultural Fair! [The Gym - After Classes]

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