SaDiablo Hall, Dhemlan, Kaeleer, (Saturday Morning, Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

After the debacle of Agio (and the even more debacle-y aftermath), Karla had promised to keep Saetan, Lucivar, and Morton apprised of major events at Fandom. She might often interpret that promise as conveniently as possible, but there was no way that even she could spin the end of all creation as something other that a 'major event.' Which was why two months after reality had been repaired, she was standing in Saetan's office, telling them what had happened in stark and painful detail. Of course, since what had happened had affected all of Kaeleer, even if they didn't know it, Karla was not delivering her report to Saetan alone, or even Saetan and Lucivar. No, Jaenelle and several members of the coven and the boyos had all crowded in, too, and were listening to her clustered in the chairs at the back of his office.

It could have been worse. There might not have been a Kaeleer to return back to. Or the split between her and Warren could have been permanent, leaving her to stand in front of the High Lord's great blackwood desk alone while spilling out the story. It was comforting, having him beside her, so she could reach out and hold his hand for comfort at a few parts.

Karla had done all of the speaking up until this point, laying out all of what had happened in sparse detail. They had heard the entirety of the account, all the way up to remembering the universe back into existence without interrupting, but she didn't think that silence was going to last for very long, not as her story wound down to an end. From the shifting behind her and the faces that Saetan and Lucivar had made at various points in her tale, once she stopped talking, she was going to face a torrent of words.

Most of them probably invectives. At least from Lucivar.

Warren	Karla had warned Warren well before they ever came here that the coven were not going to take so well to hearing about what he had done during the last moments before all portal access from the island had been cut off. He had that warning still in his mind when he walked into the room, after all. Which was why, for the time being, at least, he was thankful that Karla was leaving out some of the more sticky points. He was also not holding his breath for that to last much longer. For the time being, he'd brace himself for whatever was about to come out of Lucivar's mouth. And, far more so, from Saetan's. While Lucivar tended to just bluster until you gave up or broke down, Saetan could tear you to shreds with a word.
Saetan	And since it was Saetan's office, everyone deferred to him. He took a long, slow sip of yarbarah and then sat back, looking at the two of them. He opened his mouth, then shook his head at Karla and turned to Warren. "Lord Worthington, please explain your actions," he said. Mildly.
Lucivar	"Explain?!" Lucivar blustered. "He did what he--" Saetan raised a hand, cutting Lucivar off and the loud murmurings coming from the boyos and coven behind them.
Warren	Warren took a deep breath. Squared his jaw, because for the life of him even if the entire population of the room could see flat-out how terrified he was, he wasn't going to back down from this one. He just... wasn't. "She left a note. Just a note, saying that she was coming back here, to be with her people before the end," he said, and needed a moment to kind of swallow and breathe before continuing. "But, while I understand her need to be with her people... I couldn't let her. Not knowing that it was a suicide move. Not when there was still some bit of hope that maybe we could stop what was happening, so long as there were people still alive to do so. It seemed like... like a waste, to me. In so many ways. At the time, I thought there was no way she'd be able to look at me again, after what I did, and I know that taking away her right to choose was..." He balked a little. For only a moment, as the eyes of the coven threatened to bore holes straight through him. But another deep breath and a small ruffle of feathers, and he soldiered on. "... was unfair to Karla, to say the least. But there wasn't any time to come up with a better option, not with the way she slipped out at the last possible second, and it seemed to me that a lifetime of Karla hating me for what I did was better than there being no Karla in the universe at all." And then, once he had finished speaking, he dropped his gaze to the floor. Not a moment sooner, but god, he could only hold his head up under scrutiny like that for so long.
The Boyos	"A letter?!" Khary sounded appalled. "Shut up, Khary," Gabrielle snapped. "She knew he would protest. And look!" "Maybe if she'd bothered to say goodbye, he wouldn't have had to do that," Chaosti muttered.
The Coven	Gabrielle elbowed Chaosti and Morghann was glaring at Khary. "Right," she snorted, shoving a shock of flaming red hair out of her eyes. "Because a proper goodbye would have stopped any one of you." She transferred her glare over to Warren. "She had a duty to her people, you know," she informed him frostily.
Lucivar	"Enough from the peanut gallery," Lucivar barked. "Or the High Lord will toss you all out and let you fight amongst yourselves up in the rumpus room." That silenced them again, though Chaosti and Gabrielle were exchanging heated glances that had Sabrina stepping out of the way between them.
Saetan	"Thank you, Prince," Saetan said formally, his golden eyes fixed on Warren. "And now, Lord Worthington? Now that you have had time to think over your actions, would you change what you did?"
Kalush	"We don’t have a rumpus room," Kalush protested in an undertone, arms folded across her chest.
Jaenelle	"You wouldn't say that if you’d ever been in the room under it when we were all doing...whatever we were doing the day I was there," Jaenelle murmured back, her sapphire blue eyes trained on Warren. "Now hush. I want to hear what our Brother has to say for himself.
	Warren bit his lip for a moment, trying desperately to ignore the exchange between the females and males in their little audience. And then he shook his head, just slightly. "I might have changed how I did it," he said, softly. "With a lie and then by force, while she struggled to get free. But I would have still stopped her. I had to. For all that she had a duty to her people here, the only way she could have really saved anyone was by staying behind. And she did." There was another pause. And then he added, "She came back to me. I didn't think she would. I'm still surprised she did. But me maintaining my answer has nothing to do with me... somehow thinking I could... could get away with it, or anything." He said that with a sideways glance at Karla, half expecting her own ire to be rising along with that of the coven.
Karla	Karla was looking more relieved than anything else. She had made her peace with Warren and what he'd done--and what she had done, too. But knowing that she'd been right, that the coven was staunchly on her side...that eased her mind. She'd been doing what any good Queen would have done in her situation. Enough people had protested and convinced her that it might not have been the best idea, but at least she wasn't alone in thinking of it.
Saetan	"You do realize, Lord Worthington, that we males swear obedience when we agree to serve?" Saetan asked, still very grave.
Lucivar	"Unfair!" Chaosti burst out. "Obedience is the--" An Ebon-gray aural shield cut off the rest of what he was saying. Lucivar lounged against the wall, looking calm, almost bored. He knew where this was going.
Warren	Warren glanced up at Saetan's words, and at the short-lived outburst from across the room. And then he shrugged his shoulders a little. "I am aware, yes. But with all due respect, sir, I can't serve somebody who doesn't exist, either."
Karla	"Obedience is the third law," Karla said quietly, finishing up what Chaosti had begun to say. "The first law is to honor, cherish, and protect. The second law is to serve. Only then comes obedience." She reached for Warren's hand again, just a simple brush of her knuckles against his. "I didn't like what he did. I didn't like how he did it. But in so doing, he held up the first two of our laws; he served and protected." "And that," she said, turning towards him, "that was why I forgave you. Because at the heart of it all, you did as any one of the boyos would do. I followed what my heart said was best--and I can't fault you for doing the same."

[Preplayed with the wonderful not_a_parakeet. TBC in comments. Apologies, was supposed to be up yesterday (and completed), but I sort of failed at availability this week.]

Comments

[wwiii]

Warren couldn't help but smile in the face of words like those, as the rest of the people in the room seemed to drift out of his mind and he gave her hand a little squeeze.

"It all worked out," Warren decided, in a softer tone that was more for her than anyone around them. "I'm glad."

Which didn't really change what happened or how any of them went about it, but hey, you couldn't win them all, right?

[glacial_queen]

"Well, we did have the entire school weighing in on that," Karla said, ducking her head a little even as she smiled. "And they were all on Team Warren, so it was kind of inevitable, I guess."

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes. They were both very cute. Lucivar was going to roll his eyes now and bluster on.

"So, according to our laws, the boyo made the right decision," he said flatly, ignoring the feminine chorus that rose up at that. "So why are we here exactly?"

[theboyos.livejournal.com]

"He did not!" Gabrielle yelled at the same time Aaron yelled, "Exactly!"

Which just had the two of them turning to eye one another angrily, leaving Chaosti to bristle silently behind them. On the one hand, Aaron was right. On the other, he was yelling at Gabrielle. Chaosti wasn't entirely sure which of his instincts were being triggered right now, damn it.

"He did what any Brother would do!" Aaron growled at her.

"That doesn't make it right!"

"According to Protocol it does!"

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"Enough."

Just a single word. But it broke through the raised hackles and arguments, Aaron and Gabrielle stepping away from one another. Kalush gave Aaron a disappointed look and went over to offer her Sister an arm around the waist.

"Lord Worthington, would you care to guess why we're having this discussion?"

[wwiii]

"I'm... going to go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't so that I could watch the boyos and the coven go at one another's throats over my actions," Warren replied, kind of staring at the chaos now, and feeling extremely uncomfortable about the fact that he was at the root of it.

Warren was pretty good at coming up with all sorts of things that this wasn't. He was also still mostly stuck on that creeping desire to maybe find a desk to duck under now.

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"That's just an added bonus," said Lucivar, who'd always done his best to live up to the accusations of having a rotten sense of humor.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

Jaenelle stepped forward, rolling her eyes at her brother. "I'm going to smack you extra hard for that one tomorrow morning," she threatened, before looking at Warren and weighing him on some internal scale. She gave no indication of what she'd decided, either. "So, Warren. You're sticking to your decision to stop Karla, even if you don't like how you went about it."

"With good reason," Sabrina muttered.

"How did you expect us to react to hearing that you--"

[darkcourtcoven.livejournal.com]

"--Kept Karla in Fandom and away from her people against her will," Morghann interrupted, stepping on Khary's toes.

Whatever reply Khary had intended to make was cut off by a yelp. Morghann smiled smugly at him, tilting her chin up with a smirk.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"--Something like that, yes," Jaenelle finished. Her expression still gave no hint about where she stood on the subject, but her voice did carry at least a hint of irritation.

[wwiii]

Warren just shrugged his shoulders a little. It was probably no secret to anyone in the room that he was terrified just then, knowing that he'd been weighed and judged. But he looked up. Squared his jaw. met her gaze. And shrugged.

"I didn't think you would be happy about it," he replied. "But... at the risk of not making any friends in the room right now, I didn't care about what any of you would think, either. I kept her alive. Twice, once at the cost of my own life. And she helped save the world. Helped bring her people back into being. She wouldn't have been able to do that from here."

When this talk was over, he was going to just go and find himself a corner to curl up in and whimper.

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar had nothing constructive to add here. He was just going to chortle and attempt to pat himself on the back a few times.

No, he didn't care if the coven and boyos were looking at him funny. BACK PATTINGS FOR HIM.

And some for Warren, later.

[glacial_queen]

Karla, at least, knew why Lucivar looked so smug. "Don't hog all the credit," she told him, before wrapping her arms around her boyfriend and holding him tightly.

*A year ago, you wouldn't have thought that way,* she told him on a private thread. *And most definitely wouldn't have said so. And now you not only can do both of those things, but sound serious and defiant while doing so.*

[wwiii]

Oh, Karla. You went and pointed it out to him! Now he was going to look kind of sheepish as he leaned against you, wrapping one wing around your shoulders and holding you close.

His legs weren't going to work later. Like, at all.

*Oh god I just talked back at Jaenelle. Please tell me I didn't just talk back at Jaenelle.*

He was serious and defiant and also doing a very impressive job of not wetting himself.

[glacial_queen]

*Of course you didn't,* Karla soothed. *That's not what happened at all.*

Lieeeees.

*And anyway, it's not liked she's not used to being talked back to by strong and sassy males?*

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"Well, personally, I think that was well-said," Lucivar drawled, looking at the darkened faces of the coven. "The part about saving her life at the cost of his own was particularly eloquent, don't you agree, Gabrielle?"

It was probably best for Lucivar's continued health and well-being that the only daggers Gabrielle was shooting came from her eyes. Because the Dea al Mon were deadly with blades and she looked like she'd be happy to carve a pound of flesh or two off of him for his insolence.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"If you're quite done, Lucivar?" Jaenelle asked, regarding Warren with dark, maelstrom eyes.

[hells-highlord.livejournal.com]

"He's done now, Lady," Saetan said, shooting his youngest son a dark look. "He remembers that he needs to set an example for the rest of the children."

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"Excellent," Jaenelle said, obviously dismissing everyone in the room besides Warren.

"So," she said, too softly. "You are willing to go against everyone else in the room--go up against me and all I am, just to do what you think is right?"

"He's not--"

"Be silent, Chaosti," Jaenelle said.

Chaosti opened his mouth to argue and then Jaenelle slashed a look his way. He swallowed and stepped backwards, giving a low bow. "Yes, Lady."

And back to staring at Warren

[glacial_queen]

Karla stepped in front of Warren. "Lady, I--"

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

"I am talking to Warren."

Jaenelle flicked her eyes towards Karla; the Abyss was lurking not too far below them. Karla gulped and closed her mouth, but did not step from between them.

"He is the one who made these decisions. Now he gets to see the full measure of the consequences."

[wwiii]

Okay. Okay, Warren was staring into eyes so deep that it felt as though he could be swallowed whole by whatever was sitting behind them. But he put a hand on Karla's shoulder, pulled in a deep breath, and stepped around her, fanning his wings slightly.

"I'm willing to disagree with you in order to do what I believe is right, yes." He bit the inside of his cheek, and then shrugged, feathers lifting a little in that unconscious habit that served mostly to make him look a little more like a puffball. Or bigger, if you asked, you know, nature. "If there are consequences beyond what has already been paid, I'll face them. It was worth it."

See all previous statements regarding how they were all standing here today.

[changeable-eyes.livejournal.com]

And, at that, Witch faded and Jaenelle was standing there, grinning at Warren like he'd just one some kind of prize. "That was exactly what I was hoping to hear," she said, voice sounding almost childishly gleeful. "Not many people can stand in front of me and disagree. That you can says a lot."

Not just about his decision, but Warren's own strength of character.

[glacial_queen]

Karla's own smile was weak--as were her knees. Jaenelle could pull of a Hell of an object lesson when she so chose. A look around the room suggested she wasn't the only person to be breathing a bit easier with the Abyss gone from Jaenelle's eyes.

"Well, there's a reason I fell for him, Sister," she quipped, trying to sound as unwobbly as possible.

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar, being the BEST EVER, was going to pour a small glass of brandy and hand it over to the lad.

*Drink this,* he advised on a spear thread. *It helps.*

*It does not!* Aaron argued.

*I know that, but it's a polite fiction we maintain, all right? Now let the man drink and get the bones back in his legs.*