3734/If you're reading this, you're too close

If you're reading this, you're too close
Date of Scene:	07 October 2020
Location:	RAVEN'S ROOM DUN DUN DUUUUN
Synopsis:	Koriand'r comes to speak with Raven, they come to an uncomfortable agreement about pizza
Cast of Characters:	Koriand'r, Rachel Roth

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Koriand'r has posed:
There is but the briefest of knocks upon the door which most people, understandably, avoid in Titan Towers. A short clip of knuckles upon the frame and then Koriand'r slips inside without awaiting a reply, since the reply will almost certainly be go away anyways, so why even worry about it right?

She's wearing a long Who Framed Roger Rabbit sweater, red tights, and bare feet! All of her much hair is tied up! She is also carrying hot chocolate. "Raaaacheeeel... I am coming inside your room without permission, but I am doing so because I have hot chocolate so I am hoping that one of these things cancels out the other of these things!"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    The door opens quickly, and the temperature within is... Chilly. Not quite enough to see one's breath, but it's closer than is comfortable for normal people. Luckily for Star, she's probably not normal people.

    Within the room is an abyss, an inky blackness only broken near the sliding glass doors that lead onto the balcony. These doors provide some minimal light, less than they should considering it is only evening and the sun is not as yet below the horizon. However, within the glass is a strange display- it does not seem to, anymore, lead out onto a bare stone space upon which there is but a lone, sturdy, padded mat for Raven to meditate on.

    Instead, there is an infinite, alien starscape before them, constellations unlike anything the Earth has ever seen. It is a window, then, into space nigh upon unknown.

    Before it stands Raven, impassive and unmoving, like a statue gazing into that expansive nothing, as if she sees something that is out there, somewhere. Without turning her head, she addresses the interloper- whose tiny knocks she'd heard moments before, but had not regarded.

    "What do you need?" she asks, her voice... Echoing, in a way that isn't entirely natural, and is not produced by the emptiness of the pitch-black room.

Koriand'r has posed:
This would usually be the point a normal person would set down the hot chocolate and get directly the hell out of Raven's room. There's an atmosphere of discontent that permiates in this room, a black cloud hovering over head as obviously as a storm on the horizon or the millions of stars beyond the balcony in front of her old friend.

A normal person would see exactly how precarious this situation can be, think deep about self preservation, and understandably bugger off... but as we've previously established:

Kori isn't normal.

Nor is she scared.

She's smiling, walking barefoot like a beacon of light in the abyss that is Rachel's room holding hot chocolate mug in both hands as she steps out beyond the sliding glass door into an infinite horizon of twinkling lights. "I do not require anything." She assures, holding the mug out sideways, "It is hot chocolate, with extra marshmellows because I know you like them, what are you looking at?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    There is more than an atmosphere of discontent in the room anymore. Before, Raven had this air of... Misanthropy, based more in rumor than anything else, a palpable but by definition ephemeral aura of inhuman don'tmesswithitude. That was cultivated only by the way she acted- but this... Right now, Raven does not feel human to be around. As if just looking at her is regarding something utterly unknowable, shaped like a person, but at once both so much more, and so much less.

    Her head turns, her hood shifting with it to regard Kori with eyes of brilliant, shimmering purple. For the long seconds that she regards the erstwhile intruder, she does not blink- nor seems as if she is at all going to. Her hands do not leave her pockets, and it might beg the question of whether she still has any- as if she even needs them anymore in the traditional sense. A force unseen lifts the mug, and sets it down by the door. Not an outright refusal, but she doesn't seem inclined to drink.

    "At the edge." Of what? The universe? "Why have you come here?"

Koriand'r has posed:
So it's a new developement!

This is good information.

Koriand'r is often considered very ditzy and kind of naive, but she knows things and she certainly knows her friends. Her come-what-may attitude is based more on her inexperience with EARTH, not life itself, because it's arguable she's had a fairly traumatic past in her own right, which while not possessed by the father demon bad, is still pretty polarizing!

Which makes her continued smiling in the face of such profound horror rather impressive.

She does, though: Smile.

Watching Raven with her head cant to one side, long having released the mug so it can be set away, her jade green eyes settle on brilliant purple with compassion and acceptance and silence... for a lot longer than most would given what they can see and hear in this room right now.

"Rachel, I know you think you have to do whatever it is your doing to get them back, but you, as you always do, are trying to do it alone... when you absolutely do not have to do that..." Usually she would hug the moody, broody, goth-witch..

Oh nevermind, here she comes in for it.

"I would very much like you to step back from the edge. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, maybe it is time to be the smart assed, but well intentioned woman I know you are.. and not..." Wavey hand, "You know.. a monster."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven has attained a state long thought impossible.

    Her head turns back towards the stars as Kori descends upon her, and then, when she collides with Raven she finds that she passes right through her- as if Raven's presence were a mere trick of the light. It may be displeasing, in a way- but to be unhuggable is one of those life goals that just seems rather correct for someone like Raven.

    "I understand your sentiment." she states, neck craning somewhat as her eyes return to some indistinct point in the nothing. "But I am not currently material. I understand what you are saying, but what I am doing now is something that only I can do. It is not a team effort, it is not something that can be done by committee. Even attempting to allow any of you to assist might even doom you to a fate worse than death."

    After a pause, she continues. "If you believe me a monster now, you have not even fathomed the truth of it. I appreciate your compassion. At the moment, however, all anyone should do is wait. That is what has been asked of me. To wait. So I will... But only for so long."

Koriand'r has posed:
"You are trying to solve a prob-" Kori passes right through Raven, catching herself on the railing that leads out into oblivion, furrowing her orange/red brow with a glance back at her old friend now gone Casper on her...

"You are trying to solve a problem without anyone, Rachel.. and I am worried because that is not how this was meant to work. We are a team... and you have taken it upon yourself to ... what? Solve it?" Glancing out at the galaxy with a frown, something that is a new form for Koriand'r too.

"And what will the price for this be, hmm? What do you have to give up for waiting when waiting could have solved everything with no price at all. We are /trying/, and while I admit freely that what you are is doing, it is doing it wrong."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    There is this... Odd and forlorn sigh.

    "As I said before," she chides, her voice growing just this little bit more discontent- something that Raven is normally not prone to- "I understand your sentiment. Your concern is noted. As is the concern of beings incomprehensible to most minds. I have been cautioned by things that cannot properly exist in this universe against what I have prepared to do."

    There is a pause, then, as for a moment, Raven looks down. At what is difficult to discern, as is where her gaze lies anywhere she looks, at the moment. "I am allowing them all of the time that is possible. However, at any moment, any spare second- or less- I have to be ready. It all has to be prepared. I have to be capable of taking whatever measures must be taken. Or we will lose them."

    Her head rises, and turns again to regard Kori. "I cannot contribute to the science. I cannot contribute to the methods they must undertake to return, if they are going to do it themselves. Therefore, I am doing what -I- can. Because -only- I can. I understand that it is not well understood. I understand the price that may come due. I am prepared to pay it. The alternative is worse. If you think what I am doing is wrong, then it is up to you and the others to make it unnecessary. As yet, the outcome is in flux. Until I am proven unneeded, I will not compromise the truth that I -will- be."

Koriand'r has posed:
Kori's frown deepens considerably at the words her friend is speaking back at her and both her hands smooth back across her brow to collect loose bangs to be slipped into the bun on the back of her head, "Alright, Rachel." Usually she would reach out and rest a hand upon her friends shoulder, give it a squeeze, express through physical contact (where it is her way) that she understands, even if she doesn't necessarily agree.

"We have all lost a great deal.. our friends.. a lot. I know, but I do not wish to lose you in the retrieval of them.. One is not worth the others, we would all sacrifice for their return, but.." A glance at the stars, what she knows Raven is willing to do for those that are gone.

"It is good to see you again."

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven notes the frown- but how she feels about it, as always, is kept hidden. Buried. By necessity or by habit, is unimportant.

    "We have lost too much, already. Too many. We will not lose again. I will not allow it. I /cannot/ allow it. The stakes are too great. More than anyone really understands."

    It isn't necessarily the cold shoulder, as she stares into the sky once more. "It will be better when all of them are returned from this un-existence into which they have been thrown. I am sure the others will demand for there to be pizza."

Koriand'r has posed:
"I am sure they will make this demand, yes..." Kori watches Raven, but soon enough her smile begins to return because a good smile cannot be kept down for long. With another clipped nod, she glances at the mug sitting not out of reach, but possibly out of mind...

"If something you are doing is going to tear apart the fabric of space and time, I wish only that you inform me before hand, please. While I have no doubt you will do all in your power to prevent it, I would very much like to secure a spot on the closest safe transport away!"

Another nod, "I will let you continue to stare out into the middle distance of nowhere! You look lovely."