The Queen's Chambers, Sidra, Glacia, Sunday Afternoon (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

It had been a long and miserable two weeks. Just ask anyone who had had the misfortune of dealing with their Queen. Karla was a terrible patient; somehow managing to be a tyrant even when she was coughing so hard she could barely speak. It was a good thing her nasty chest cold had also kept her asleep a great deal, or it was possible she would have been overthrown by her own Court.

Now, however, she was on the mend. Which, on the positive side, meant she was feeling almost human again--and behaving that way. On the negative side, it also meant she was bored out of her mind. Morton and Julian had finally made good their escape after their third straight hour of playing cradle, her lunch lay untouched because she was tired of soup and toast, and the next person who came in to make her take another foul-tasting brew was going to get kicked in the face.

There was clearly only one thing to do. Call people and whine about how bored she was. Also, check up on anyone who had gotten tangled up in the latest bout of Fandom crazy, but mostly the whining and bored thing

Let's see. Who to call first?

[Open for phone calls, visitors, and them what live here. If you think Karla would have called you, she did!]

Comments

[trigons_child]

"I am truly sorry you feel that way," Raven said.

She pulled her hands into her lap. "There is nothing about it I wish to discuss. There is no point in dwelling. Do I not do that too much? I have decided to change that."

[glacial_queen]

"So we're going back to the 'bottling it all inside and pretending that we're not feeling anything' method of coping, are we?" Karla asked with a sigh.

Karla debated whether it would be worth having the argument head-on and decided that it wouldn't. This would require delicacy and gentleness and not her usual subtlety-with-a-pronounced-b.

"So what've you been up to over the past few weeks? Anything fun?"

[trigons_child]

"I am not pretending," Raven said quietly. She felt it; she just wasn't letting it rise to the surface. Totally different!

"I spent some time in Fandom," she went on. "I decided to face some of my fears so that they do not control me. I am no longer afraid of vampires."

[glacial_queen]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Let's see how long she accepted that excuse when someone gave it to her why they didn't need a healing!

"You're not?" Karla asked, surprised. "Good on you! Err, how did that happen?"

Had she missed some kind of Vampire Pride Parade at Fandom?

[trigons_child]

"I confronted them head on," Raven said, with just a tiny trace of smugness. "I spent the night with Eric Northman."

[glacial_queen]

Blink.

Blink blink blink.

"You...slept with...like sexually...Eric?!" If Karla's jaw dropped any further, she'd need Raven's help reattaching it.

"No way!"

[trigons_child]

"And it was very enjoyable," Raven practically purred. "It did wonders for relieving tension."

[glacial_queen]

"Well, isn't he like a thousand years old?" Karla said. "It had better be good and tension-relievy!"

She eyed the door. "We need chocolates and wine, stat. So that you can tell me every detail ever."

[trigons_child]

"His age only means he has a great deal of experience," Raven sighed. "And as a vampire, he has amazing stamina, of course."

Apparently talk of sex was a good way to distract Karla. Raven mentally filed that away.

[glacial_queen]

You juuust keep thinking that, Raven.

"So, how did this even happen?" she demanded, calling in a box of Fererro Roches and offering one to Raven. "Like...I've got nothing. I have no idea what sequence of events could have led to you and Eric in bed together."

[trigons_child]

Raven unwrapped the chocolate and nibbled at it. "I went to the Devil's Nest, and he was there. We spoke for a time, and then one thing led to another...."

The one thing being her boldly propositioning Eric and offering him her blood, but details.

[glacial_queen]

"Like what?" Karla asked. "What things? What were these things? What are these magical things that fell like dominoes into Eric's bed?"

Karla needed popcorn. Or at least that .gif!

[trigons_child]

She shrugged a little. "Well, he is very handsome, and I wished to feel something pleasurable. I made that need obvious to him, and he was willing to fulfill it. And, as I said, I wanted to prove to myself I was unafraid. So I managed to do both at once."

Raven finished her piece of chocolate and set the foil wrap aside. "Perhaps it was the drink that made me bold enough to offer myself to him, but I do not regret it."

[glacial_queen]

"I'm definitely glad you don't regret it," Karla said, snagging a second chocolate. "But you don't think this is at all related? I mean, you went through something traumatizing and then you fled to the island and ended up having sex with the Darkness's gift to vampires?"

Not so distracted as you thought, was she?

[trigons_child]

Dammit, Karla.

"So what if it is?" Raven said. "I have decided to make changes in my life. They are long past due. I think you would agree with that."

[glacial_queen]

"I would," Karla said calmly, floating a mug of tea over to her. She took a sip and grimaced, then created a tongue of witchfire to warm it back up. "But impulsive, reactionary life-changes aren't necessarily better than what they're replacing."

She shrugged. "I'm hardly going to complain or judge if you decide to start taking lovers. I just want to make sure you're taking them for the right, healthy reasons and not just so you can ignore other feelings through sex."

[trigons_child]

"There is nothing wrong with seeking pleasure." Raven fiddled with the chocolate wrapping she'd discarded. "I have denied it to myself for far too long. And it changes nothing."

Absolutely nothing. It always ended in blood and death.

[glacial_queen]

"There isn't anything wrong with it," Karla agreed. "Though the reasons why you're seeking it might make such a thing good or bad for you."

She took a sip of her now-warm tea. "What would you be saying if our positions were reversed? Purely out of curiosity, of course."

[trigons_child]

"I would be concerned, of course, because you are in a committed relationship with Warren, and it would be uncharacteristic of you to betray him in such a way," Raven said. "Clearly that would mean something was affecting your behavior, so I would seek to find it and restore you to normal."

Why, yes, she was taking the easy way out of that question.

[glacial_queen]

And the look she was getting in turn suggested as much.

"You do realize that the more you dance around the true answers, the more I'm convinced this is all bullshit, right?" she checked. "Again, I don't have any problems with you going out and having a good time, but the only person you're convincing that you're completely okay with everything is you. And probably not even that much."

[trigons_child]

Raven stood up, struggling to contain her agitation, not at Karla, but at everything that had happened. "I have tasted enough darkness to last several lifetimes," she said. "It will come for me again, I know it will. So I must take what pleasure I can, where I can, before it is lost to me."

This latest transformation had shattered her hope. She needed something, anything, to fill the hole it had left behind in her and chase away the nightmares, even if it was fleeting.

[glacial_queen]

Frowning, Karla tossed back her covers to stand up with Raven. "What? You really believe that's going to happen to you?" she asked. "...Do you think Warren's going to turn blue and go all razory, too?"

[trigons_child]

Raven took a step back, trembling a little as she remembered how she'd stood so close to Karla and threatened her unborn child. "I am a demon, Karla," she said. "I am Sin. I am the blood of Trigon. And no matter what I do, no matter how hard I fight it, it changes nothing. I can pretend I am good and wish to help all those in need, but it is just a mask the demon wears to hide itself."

[glacial_queen]

"Nonsense," Karla said sharply. "That's no more a guarantee than Jono ending up headless because he is a mutant."

And if Jono did that now, she'd swear it was done only to spite her and smack him a good one.

"That was not who you are or who you will be! Rosalind turned into a child! Jack became a vampire--again! Quirks of Fandom's own insanity isn't some lifelong guidepost. It's a dark mirror showing us possibilities. It's certainly not a reason to wring your hands and bewail your fate!"

[trigons_child]

"Then why does the mirror almost always show me something evil and twisted?" Raven said softly. She'd tried so hard to cling to the few better futures that had been hinted at, but she grew more and more tired as they slipped through her fingers.

"That Raven who was here -- that is who I truly am. Pride, Wrath, Lust, Envy, Greed. Even Gluttony and Sloth. I feed on pain and misery." The ecstasy she'd felt at Warren's suffering still lingered inside her, and his screams still echoed in her mind even when she tried to meditate.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. "I dream about killing my friends," she said. "Even before this. I dream about it all the time. Or of forcing you or Jono or others to love me. I have remade Sidra and Fandom in my image a hundred times. I cannot deny what I am."