ruinsprofessor

Raine nudged the door shut behind them and moved to the living room, indicating a chair for Valdis if she felt so inclined. "All right," she said, studying the other woman. This was the sort of thing she'd expect from-- well, herself, and simple curiosity about magic didn't quite seem to fit with what she'd seen of Valdis so far. But our, she'd said, not your, which suggested perhaps something about the way they intersected?

There wasn't quite enough data to make an assumption, so Raine simply asked. "What in particular?"

Valdis took the indicated chair, settling down and briefly taking in her surroundings. "I told you about a bit about my power. I can see souls, walk into them, and you've seen my regeneration first hand." There was no point in running around the topic, but she would wait for Raine to confirm that she remembered the conversation.

"Yes, I recall." Raine took a seat herself shortly after, gaze fixed on Valdis. It almost seemed like she was delaying coming to the crux of why she'd come. Well, it was likely going to be uncomfortable, but there was no sense in putting it off, so Raine said nothing more for the moment, just watched Valdis and waited for her to come to something like a point.

Best to get to the point, "The less 'desirable' part of my power, well, all of my power, comes from soul energies that I have taken from others. This energy drives my strength, speed, and healing abilities. I am capable of stealing souls because of a device known as the Void. I used it in the fight with Anton, but did not take his soul. I used it to take Wan into the Turtle." She paused, took a deep breath, "And I used it to kill some cultists in defense of Wan, Katara and Zuko at the turtle's head."

Raine let out her breath, slow and measured, kept studying Valdis. Taking power from the souls of others, hm. That wasn't at all a foreign concept, and it was less disconcerting than it probably should be. Still horrible, but not surprising, and it would come down to what she did with it. "All right," Raine said finally, turning the idea over in her head. "Something that, like any weapon, can be used to protect or to cause great harm. Why are you telling me this now?"

Something about that pause, maybe. She could guess it had something to do with having killed, perhaps, but it was still easier to ask, since Valdis seemed in a particularly forthcoming mindset.

Raine's reaction was immediate proof that Valdis had come to the right person. The woman's logical nature probably overrode her sense of disgust at the revelation, but Valdis had to admit that she knew almost nothing about Raine, she hadn't even looked at the woman's soul. Valdis disagreed with Raine's assessment of the Void, because even though she had used it to protect others, it was a weapon created for one purpose, to utterly and completely destroy lives.

"I have multiples reasons for telling you," Valdis replied, quickly ordering the top three reasons in her head, "The enemy said in his conversation with me that he didn't kill Evandau with his own hand. He is a liar, but the thought crossed my mind that my power could still be responsible." It didn't terrify her as much as it had before, but the possibility was still there. "Secondly, it is becoming more and more difficult to control its power." She sighed, "But most importantly, I came to you because of what your magic did at the Midnight Hotel."

She almost wished she'd made tea, if only for something to do with her hands. Raine laced her fingers together instead, consciously keeping herself still. Hm. "You weren't here during the summer festival, correct? 'Asti' granted you no boon?" It was a related query, though it seemed a bit of a non sequitur.

That aside, she moved on, to the other two facts taken together. Progressive difficulty in controlling a very dangerous power, and the mention of what Raine had done at the Hotel -- which, while one of those things had been healing, she recalled also that she'd hit the hound with photon, and it had had much more of a destructive effect than she'd expected.

Raine felt comfortable enough making the logical leap. "You want me to stop you," she said, as neutrally as she knew how. She might be wrong yet, but she didn't think she was, for she certainly couldn't help with the problem of the enemy or the control of her powers.

"I don't know anything about a boon," She replied, not entirely certain how it was important, "I arrived just before the foreigners confronted Evandau at the Midnight Hotel."

There is was, the cold intelligence that Valdis had come to associate Raine with. Logic without sentiment, something that others lacked.

"As I told Anton," She began, "I think you are the only one who can...who will."

Wan would have been capable, but after seeing him with Zuko, how he didn't give up on him, she knew that he wouldn't give up on her either, no matter how hopeless. But she was far more dangerous than Zuko could ever be.

"That's probably for the best. 'Asti' gave magical gifts to those who were in charge of the children at the time." Valdis should be able to follow that through to the logical conclusion. It was worrying Raine more and more, these days, not just for Solomon's sake but because hers was so thoroughly woven into her own abilities.

But that she could come back to. Raine sat back, thinking over the request. It was a sensible one, all things considered, and she did not know Valdis well enough to call her a friend. There was little emotion there, nothing to compromise the idea that the city, innocents and combatants alike, needed to be kept safe. "All right," Raine said, after a moment. "Should you lose control of yourself and begin killing needlessly, I'll stop you. Lethally, if necessary." Given what photon had done, a holy lance should do the trick, if she could get ten or twelve uninterrupted seconds.

And it was better, that it would be her rather than someone who cared about Valdis. Perhaps that was a contributing factor in why Valdis had come to her, as well.

Edited (...calling the department of redundancy department) 2014-11-08 08:59 (UTC)

"Mali gave you gifts for caring for the hatchlings?" The news was indeed worrying, because if those gifts were integrated into the foreigners, then in a way, those who had the boons were more compromised by Malicant than those who had been tainted. Valdis didn't want to even think about what that information meant for the turtle hatchlings, but luckily her mind was drawn away by Raine's acceptance.

"Thank you," She replied, her body noticeably relaxing. "I couldn't ask anyone else because I couldn't trust anyone else to follow through."

She knew that it wasn't so much that she would lose control of herself, but more that she would lose control of her power and the only way to attack that power would be to attack her. Yet that brought her full circle to her concerns about the hatchlings.

"If it was 'Asti' who asked you to care for the hatchlings, then how does this all affect them?"

"I don't know that he asked us to care for them -- I wasn't here when they hatched -- but certainly that was the justification he gave during the festival, yes. A thanks for looking after his relatives." Raine said it with a little distaste now, where before it might have been a happy thing to think of. "A number of us have them, and it's a real concern that they may be used against us. I don't think it affects the children themselves, only us, but that's more than enough."

She tipped her head just a little, added, "You didn't want to burden your friends with it."

"I hope you are right."

She still needed to think about how Bobby might be affected by all this, how those with boons might be affected by Malicant. It was all very concerning, but Raines last statement hit a sore spot. For a moment she didn't answer, trying to get her emotions under control.

"I cannot ask him," she said finally, "I can't even tell him that I've asked you. I think that Wan is perhaps the only other who is capable, but he is blind to how dangerous the Void is, how dangerous I can be if I lose control of it. He can only see the goodness, and while I love him for that, I cannot ask him. He would refuse and probably try to stop anyone else who tried."

She had seen it with Zuko, and while Wan had been right then, the void was nothing to mess around with and she had been messing with it.

There was an odd little smile on Raine's face at this. She didn't know Valdis well, admittedly, but such an overt admission of sentiment seemed at odds with what she knew of the woman. Fascinating. But she didn't draw attention to it, simply nodded. "I know people like that," she said, and her tone was somewhat fond. "An idealist, with the strength to back those ideals up more often than not."

Still they could only do so much. And here, there was only her. No Lloyd, no Colette. No determined idealists with the power to reshape worlds. Raine sighed, the smile fading. "But not always. May I ask you something similar in return? The boon I was given-- it's thoroughly intertwined with my abilities. There's a not inconsiderable possibility I may be turned against those I care about, and -- much as yourself -- I'd rather not put that weight on them." She had grown a little quieter, but no less matter-of-fact.

Valdis cocked her head. Idealism was filled with folly, the world was too dark a place for such optimism, but she could appreciate it nonetheless. Though in this case no amount of strength could back up Wan's idealism and Raine seemed to agree. Valdis narrowed her eyes when Raine spoke again, seemingly asking for the same thing.

"You are not the first one to ask this of me." She replied, "But as I have placed the same burden on you, then I cannot refuse. But now that we have agreed to such a thing, can we turn our minds to the issue at hand? You know more about what I saw than I do. Can you explain what you know?"

They understood each other, then. Good. That was all she could ask. With that scant reassurance in mind, Raine moved on.

"All right. I'll start with Valishaera. The ruins you saw were part of that city. We made landfall there this summer. The black and white arch, in particular, was of a kind that featured prominently-- it's a portal to the Dreaming. Do you know much about the planes here?"

The name Valishaera meant nothing, but it must be a place in this world if the foreigners had been there. Valdis shook her head, "I know very little about the planes, but can I assume that the Dreaming is one of them?"

Dreaming seemed self-explanatory, but there had to be more to it.

"It is." Raine nodded. Probably best to skirt the finer details of Solomon's theories for now; what mattered most was the Dreaming. "Life is the plane in which we stand now. Our enemy I believe has dominion over the plane of Death, which while accessible is inadvisable to visit. And the Dreaming is a place which, as you may have intuited, works rather like a dream. The surroundings are at least somewhat malleable, and it most often draws from your own experiences and memories. I suspect that the presence of the arch in the vision means we'll need to conduct at least part of our final endeavor within the Dreaming, whether it's retrieving the stone, or what we must do with it once we have it."

Valdis listened quietly, contemplating what a venture into the dreaming might entail. Her past was more of a nightmare than a dream, her memories were mostly bitter and angry. She sighed.

"I see," she said, "And how do you manipulate this plane?"

"In my limited experience, intent, familiarity, and emotion. Any combination will do, but those together seem to work best." Raine was quietly thoughtful for a moment, then added, "My experience with the Dreaming has also been in limited 'pockets,' so to speak. It may be somewhat more flexible, more easily altered, when those restrictions are removed."

"You have been researching this for some time it seems," Valdis said, "Have you been doing it on your own?"

She wouldn't put it past the woman to research weird things alone, but this Dreaming seemed so complex that she suspected that Raine had someone helping her. Not that the woman wasn't smart enough, but the planes were complex.

She herself had the ability to manipulate the spiritual and physical planes to an extent, but she didn't understand how any of it worked. Then again, she had never tried to understand, and perhaps that was where her problem was.

Raine shook her head. "Not on my own, no. To be honest, my focus has been more on the taint and the places beneath the shell, but I've occasionally been collaborating with Solomon Wreath. He has a particular interest in the planes, and the bulk of the progress there is attributable to him." Despite the overall grave nature of their conversation, this mention brought Raine to smiling a little.

Raine's smile was not lost on Valdis and she had a feeling it had to do with the mentioned Solomon Wreath.

"Ah, yes," She replied, "I've met the one who calls himself Death Bringer, I get the feeling he doesn't think much of me, but we did discuss the planes briefly."

Raine raised her brows at the mention of that title. She knew of it, but she hadn't gotten the impression it was something he had any actual fondness for. "That's an interesting way to refer to him," she said neutrally, leading. "How was it you met, that something like that came up?" If she was a betting woman, she'd lay money against it being wholly friendly circumstances.

Valdis winced, "It was not one of my finer moments," she replied, "The enemy's drug got into my system while exploring the palace and I offended the wrong person on my way home." That was putting it lightly to be sure, but she waved a hand dismissively, "Your Solomon showed up and managed to talk some sense into my slightly unstable mindset and a fight was avoided."

Her Solomon, hm. Raine blinked at the phrasing, briefly bemused, but didn't disagree. "Fortunate," she said instead. "An outright fight at that point could have been disastrous."

The entire thing sounded like a complete understatement, however. "The wrong person?" Raine repeated, curious. Any of them could be the wrong person, really, given the right motivation.

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