Tales of the Ice Harpy from Glacia

Karla hunkered down in the corner of the shower and cried. She'd managed to keep up her facade of 'no, no, I'm fine' up through the portal trip and back to the dorms. She'd begun shaking in her room, kicking the blood-soaked gown into a corner with a cry of horror. By the time she'd gotten into a shower, she'd been sobbing.

It wasn't just the whole being stabbed thing, though that was ranking pretty highly. There had just been blackness for awhile--a deep, all-consuming darkness (Darkness?) that had held her tightly and refused to let go until Raven came and forced it away. Karla couldn't dwell on how close she'd come to death because if she did, she might just never stop crying.

But it really hadn't just been being sacrificed on a meat-tree that was getting to her. It was the smell in the air as she'd walked through the orgy, the scent of anticipation and lust and sweat and sex. Had she closed her eyes, she never would have known she was in this world and not in Glacia, at one of Hobart's parties. It was the stress of this weekend and not knowing where her friends were and if she would ever see them again. Of feeling the land dying by inches as she walked. Of being stabbed and poisoned and getting up to hold off a friend who was also a vampire...

Of having her Sapphire wrenched for her and profaned by the maenad. She thought she could still feel the grubby residue of that bitch's touch on her Jewel, like fingerprints on her soul. Some of her tears were pure relief at having it back, having it safe. Karla had seen the revulsion in the eyes of her friends when she'd ripped the maenad's heart out, but she'd meant it when she'd promised agony for agony. The maenad had just been more metaphorical about it.

And so she held her knees and cried big gulping sobs until she felt hollowed out inside and the water had long since run cold.

[For one please! NFB, as this happens after radio]