Christmas Day, SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan Kaeleer

[glacial_queen]

Times had lined up well enough that Karla's portal had arrived late in the night for both Fandom and Kaeleer. She'd barely stayed awake long enough to follow a footman up to her suite before flinging herself onto the bed and falling asleep.

The next morning, however, she blearily realized that her suite was decorated for Winsol, even though it wasn't the holiday season. She'd tiredly noted the same thing on her way upstairs, but it hadn't registered then. It took her a few moments to understand that the family and staff had decorated the Hall again for Christmas.

For Warren.

There was a lump in her throat as she sent out a mass text to all of her friends. Merry Christmas!

[NFB for distance, but open for holiday greetings, phone calls, etc! SP warning in effect like whoa, because, y'know, Christmas.]

Comments

[glacial_queen]

"Corwyn," Karla said, unaware that she'd said anything different. "Lord Corwyn Something-Or-Other. He was a real charming son of a bitch. Hated humans, which made it extra-fun to beat him at his own game."

Until the fire, anyway.

"Why?"

[wwiii]

"Because," Warren replied, his eyes full of worry even while his voice had dropped down to something as smooth as knives wrapped in velvet, "you said Hobart."

And he had no idea if he wanted to cling to her and fret, or go and make more wood mulch and fret some more.

[glacial_queen]

"No, I said..." Karla trailed off for a moment, trying to remember. "I..."

"...I did, didn't I?"

[wwiii]

"You did," Warren replied, softly. "You said Hobart."

And then he drew in a slow, deep breath.

"Now I think I need to know what happened back there, Karla. You're projecting."

[glacial_queen]

Karla's hands began twisting in her lap. "I--I--" She shook her head, drew in a long, quavery breath, and tried again. "Corwyn was a noble of Faerie. He had Leda's parents murdered when she was little, and tried to kill her, too. There's some kind of weird time-travel thing that I didn't quite get, but Leda grew up, regained her memories, and went back to Faerie to become Queen. Corwyn's been playing a bunch of games with her since then, and she called me when he basically declared war on her by invading her allies with an army of trolls and things and bombing--or the magical equivalent--the capital city. Leda nearly died, the vast majority of her council and the nobles that supported her did, and Corwyn had an army a few days out from the city gates. So...she called for backup: me, Momoko, and James."

James got a small nose-wrinkle. Warren probably remembered him.

"She didn't need an army. She needed a strike force."

[wwiii]

"And you went in, and you struck," Warren murmured, frowning a little more as he realized just how much that story resembled Karla's own. It wasn't any wonder she was projecting, was it? Which didn't make him any less worried, especially not with a slip like that and knowing that she'd been badly wounded in the process, but at least he understood. "So... it's all under control, now? You all took down Corwyn, this isn't going to happen again?"

At least, not until they had to go to Glacia to do the same damn thing?

[glacial_queen]

"He's dead," Karla said softly. "Leda shot him in the back while he was standing over me. At least--I'm pretty sure that was what happened. Everything's a little hazy right about then. You'd have to ask Momoko for sure."

[wwiii]

"Believe me, I will be," Warren replied, with a sort of tightness to his smile as he bit back more worry, choked back that urge to drop all of his classes at Sunnydale. Fought down every knee-jerk reaction that was still grabbing at him, now. "You... came how close to dying, then?"

He didn't want to know so that he could lecture her. He wanted to know because he needed to know. Needed her to be honest with him about this.

[glacial_queen]

"Which time?" Karla asked, which pretty much answered his question, didn't it?

[wwiii]

There was another one of those long silences from Warren, right there. It... kind of didn't need comment, did it? That statement more or less spoke for itself.

And so he held her closer to his chest, and closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair and wondered the logistics of hiring somebody to pack up his stuff back in his dorm room, maybe. Because nobody made him freak out quite the way Karla made him freak out. It was science.

[glacial_queen]

"I didn't mean to," she mumbled against his chest. "Right up until then, I did everything right. I made traps and strategies to keep the bulk of Corwyn's army away from the troops, I took naps and ate snacks and took Ethers to keep my Jewel from going into overdrive...I did everything I was supposed to, except stay home and twiddle my thumbs. But I just couldn't, Warren. I just...I just couldn't. I can't."

It wasn't who she was. Karla refused to sit on the sidelines.

"The fight with Bloody Mary wasn't supposed to have happened. We got split up, so I had to face her alone and she was...powerful. So powerful. And smart. And then with Corwyn, I took a gamble and it worked--but he was able to turn it around."

She didn't mention that taking him down was worth the pain and the fear and the nightmares. But she thought it.

[wwiii]

"I know what your gambles are like, Karla," Warren murmured softly. "It worked, but if it hadn't? What would have happened if it hadn't?"

[glacial_queen]

Yeah. Yeah he sure did.

"Well, Momoko would still have been there with the Potions," Karla said. "I would have passed out from the pain, and Leda's shot probably wouldn't have worked. I stole his magic armor, which was why he turned on me."

Well, that and the taunting. In retrospect, the taunting had been a bad idea.

[wwiii]

Taunting never did seem to work out well for Karla, did it?

"And once you were unconscious? There's no chance he would have just killed you to get you out of the way?"

Because one of these days, Karla's gambles were going to backfire magnificently, and somebody was going to die. How could she not see this?

[glacial_queen]

Because her every plan was a brilliant one? At least, until it wasn't.

"Momoko was there," Karla reminded him. "She grabbed me. At least, I'm pretty sure she did."

Again, he'd have to ask her for the full story. "If I'd gone unconscious, Momoko would still have been there."

[wwiii]

"And Momoko is more powerful than you are? She's actually tougher than the Sapphire? There's no way he couldn't possibly take her down too?"

He was going to take your arguments and smash them relentlessly with a sledgehammer until you at least admitted that your insane plans weren't even remotely foolproof, Karla. At this point, that's all he really wanted.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, no, but she wasn't alone," Karla said. "I mean, that was why we were in a group. So that all of us together could do what one of us alone could not."

[wwiii]

"So you're the only one who got hurt... why?"

Huh? Huh?

[glacial_queen]

"Well, no. We were all injured by the time we got there--or would have been, except we'd been guzzling potions," Karla pointed out. "But I'm the strongest, so I took the brunt of the risk. We had to get his armor off to beat him. My Craft was better-suited to it and Leda had already gone down sorta--friendly fire by Momoko--so I was the one that did it."

[wwiii]

Warren sighed and closed his eyes at that.

"I'm never going to like this, you know. No matter how it gets framed, I'm not. And none of this is convincing me that Sunnydale is the right place for me to be right now. Not if you're going in as fodder now, too, and taking gambles with your life like that."

[glacial_queen]

"I wasn't fodder!" Karla declared, going to throw up her arms in exasperation until she realized she'd probably whack Warren in his chin if she did. "Mother Night, you're making it sound like I just stood there and waited for him to attack me. Give me some credit for autonomy, if nothing else. Call me stupid or irresponsible or whatever, but give me that much at least!"

[wwiii]

"Irresponsible, then," Warren countered, furrowing his brows. "Ridiculously, maddeningly irresponsible! And the worst of it is that I can't even blame you for it, because any one of us from school would have run off and done the same thing. All I can do is sit on the other side of the country, trying to pass classes or live a normal life or whatever while I'm half-terrified that you're being choked or lit on fire or tied to a meat tree or I don't even know, and why am I there and not on the island with you, there to have your back when all hell is breaking loose?!"

[glacial_queen]

"It's been months, Warren!" Karla said, almost pleading with him now. "Months! Not counting my trips to Sunnydale, the last time I ran off and did something mind-breakingly stupid was...when?"

Months at least. Which meant she was learning, right?

[wwiii]

Or it meant that all of her friends had graduated and left, and there was no cavalry to be called, anymore.

"I don't even know," Warren replied, managing to keep from throwing his arms in the air, too. "When's the last opportunity you had? When we were tossed out of Haven? It's not the same danger, but it's all the same sickness, isn't it? You have something you need to prove, and you go above and beyond and well into the realm of self-destructive, and what am I supposed to think? You're a great person, Karla. You'll be a good Queen if you stop actively trying to kill yourself in the process, we get that."

[glacial_queen]

"I'm not doing this stuff to prove to anyone that I'm a good person," she mumbled, eyes dropped to her lap. "Or a good friend."

Well, maybe not anyone else. But Karla hadn't quite grokked that distinction yet.