3817/Book Report

Book Report
Date of Scene:	14 October 2020
Location:	Raven's room - Titans Tower
Synopsis:	Sometimes even final requests aren't easily fulfilled.
Cast of Characters:	Kian, Rachel Roth

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Kian has posed:
    Raven is scary.
    That much Kían knows, not only from personal experience inside her head, but from everything he's heard from other teammates, whether spoken aloud or whispered conspiratorially.
    Even so, he's been given a charge by Vorpal to deliver a last bequest.  Yes, Kían has some hope that his friends are still alive.  No, Kían knows how bad the statistics are that they actually are.
    Even so, Terry—Vorpal—has tasked him to deliver a last request for him.  And Kían will honor that request.
    The copy of The Poems of Sarah Teasdale clutched in his right hand, he rather timorously knocks on Raven's door.
    I mean, she wouldn't blast him into nothingness just for knocking, would she?

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven might.  She's done worse things for less, probably, but much of that is just rumor.  Raven is in many ways a living person about which there are stories that people tell around campfires.
    The knock, though, comes without any response aside from the door opening as if bidden by some unseen force.  Sadly, the doors in the Tower are mostly sliders; they don't creek in that satisfying way, despite that Raven's door opens without anyone near it to provoke it to do so.  A perfect opportunity for a haunted door trope, ruined by disastrously efficient, well oiled technology.
    All the same, Raven stands in her room, not near the doorway that Kian inhabits now, but in front of the sliding glass door.  The soft moonlight is all that illuminates the environs within, most of the dwelling pitch black and utterly perfect, as if a snapshot taken immediately after it had been cleaned and tidied, at least what can be seen, anyway.  Her hood is up, as if to block out some source of light in the darkness, and she is apparently staring out into space at the doorway.  The hood hides her features well, making her imperceptible in a way.
    "What do you need, Kian?" she asks, apparently not having to see Kian to know that it is him.

Kian has posed:
    Kían steps in, driven more by his sense of obligation to Terry than by anything else.  "I am… I haf…" he begins falteringly, and then he collects himself.  "I haf been ask to bring you some-thin'," he says clearly.
    He take s another step—hesitant, it must be admitted—into the room.  "Téri has thought if he lef' hyu a message, hyu woul' remofe it unseen.  He has ask me to bring you a book.  I mus' not fail his las' reques'."
    He pauses, and the fear of the birdman is almost a physical thing.  "Will hyu accep' his final gif'?"

Rachel Roth has posed:
    In normal circumstances, Raven is an eerie person to be around.  Much of that is due to the aforementioned campfire reputation, rather than any mystical element to her being.  Yet, this time, there is something utterly, wholly unnatural to her existence.  Each word has this otherworldly echo to it, and the room itself is colder still than it ought to be.
    Her head turns, and when she regards Kian, her eyes are glowing, that shade of purple faintly lighting the area under her hood. They light upon Kian, and stare at him passively.  She does not blink.  Before, she was a somewhat creepy human with powers.  Now… she may not look it too much, but in her presence, she feels quite genuinely inhuman, in a way that is not comfortable.
    "It is not going to be his last request," she offers, "If you feel that it must he done, then you may leave his gift.  Vorpal, however, is not dead."

Kian has posed:
    "It iss his las' reques' to me," the little birdman says, trying not to shrink back… and perhaps surprisingly, mostly succeeding.  "I know the math of hwat hyu call black holes.  I know hwat the odds are, an' they are not very good.  Téri has ask me to bring you some-thin'."
    He holds the book out.
    "He has said if he sen' hyu the same kin' of message he sen' me, hyu woul' haf delete it unseen.  So he has ask me to bring hyu this.  I do not know hwat it may mean to hyu, but I mus' honor his las' wish."
    He waggles the book in his hand, almost as if daring Raven to take it.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Raven stares impassively for a time, somewhere between unamused and unenthused.  There is little emotion to it, before she eventually speaks up again.  "The odds are inconsequential.  They do not reside in the singularity.  They reside beyond the brim of existence.  Either their perseverance will return them here…."  She pauses, then, ominously falling silent for a moment, as her head turns back towards the empty void she's been staring into.
    "Or I will."
    There is another silence, and Raven leaves her gaze on the sky, not looking back to Kian.  It feels better to have her eyes off, if we're being honest.
    "You may leave the book wherever you like.  I will address whether it is to be kept when Vorpal returns.  Was that all?"

Kian has posed:
    "Yes.  No.  I do not know," Kían says, still holding the book out.  "It iss beyon' my ex-perience.  I shoul' not be alife, but I am.  Our frien's shoul' not be alife, but I wan' them to be even though the math says they shoul' not.  But I do not wan' to hope.  I wan' to know."
    He draws himself up.  He's only five-foot-nothing, so it isn't very impressive.  "If they are alife, how do hyu know?" he asks.  It's not a demand.  Kían would never demand.  But it's a terribly earnest question, and empaths and telepaths would know how much he wishes to know, not to merely hope.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    In silence for a time, Raven contemplates the question.  She understands Kian's want, but how to speak to him in a way he'll truly understand is… an interesting task.
    "I checked," she begins, "I tore open the doors to the afterlife's various forms, and looked for them there.  They do not reside in the lands of the dead."  That's… probably not okay.
    "When I did not find them, I went searching to the places that… are yet more difficult to get to.  I found an existence that is temporary, in which our friends were trapped.  I have begun the process of retrieving them, but I… spoke to Donna.  When speaking with her, I was asked to wait.  So I do.  I will not allow this temperance to spell their doom."  Her head turns again towards Kian.
    "So in that, now you may know that they live."

Kian has posed:
    Kían absorbs that, or at least he tries to, very hard.  "I wan' very much to belief hyu," he finally says, a little sadly, "but the dead, they do not speak from beyon' the walls of life, in my ex-perience.  An' the only reason I hol' out any hope iss because I myself shoul' be dead... an' I am not.  Please, Raven tavár'h, do not jus' tell me they are alife.  If hyu can, show me they are alife."
    He still holds out the book, waiting for her to take it.

Rachel Roth has posed:
    Normally, Raven would be so much more understanding.  After all, Kian is the only person who has spoken to her so far that, well, doesn't know.
    The problem is, that normally, Raven is so much less Demon.  She has given him so many chances now to understand, and by now, what patience she has, what mental fortitude she has, is all being devoted to keeping the power she's attained, while not delving further into her heritage.
    The long silence of her contemplation is rather punctuated by a sudden, terrible rumbling.  As if the tower is shaking itself apart.  Raven is no longer on the floor, having risen into the air.
    Her head turns back to Kian, and when she speaks, there is a great thunderous reverberation to her voice.  "I scoured the levels of Hell, as my human half shrieked in horror at the tortures performed there.  I invaded the heavens alone, as the half of me that is my father burnt with pain unimaginable for the mere act of existing."
    It is at this point that the walls of her room have crumbled away, revealing then a revolving thoughtscape of shining clouds and burning pits.  Raven's eyes are no longer purple, shining red and losing defining characteristics such as iris and pupil.  All that remains is glowing blood red.
    There are four of them.
    "I searched among the unending gray of purgatory, where the malaise of redemption begged all of me to remain and repent.  Is this not enough for you?!  Must I show you the void of nothing beyond what Is wherein the marble of impossible existence lies with my heart trapped within?  Would then you believe what I tell you?  How foolish of you to think that you could possibly come here, and doubt me."
    Her hands leave her pockets, flesh beginning to turn red underneath her gloves, with no indication of how high that redness is climbing up her arms.  "BEGONE, you INSECT.  Pray that when I have delivered them from their prison, I do not consume the fabric of your very being to replenish the power I will expend in the act!"
    With that, a force, unseen, unheard, will violently throw Kian backwards, as if he'd been launched from a cannon.
    Quite suddenly, too, is the tower suddenly a real thing again, and Kian's trajectory will take him out of the doorway to her room.  It is likely that with the power behind the fling, and the width of the hallways, Kian will strike the opposite wall, book and all.

Kian has posed:
    Despite the disorientation—both mental and emotional—Kían tries to catch the door frame as he's blown backwards.  He fails, and slams into the wall opposite, barely noticing the door slamming shut behind him, and leaving the faint outline of powder down from his wings.
    He does not drop the book.
    "I do not doubt you," he says, rattling the door handle, trying to re-enter.  Téri tavár'h gave him a charge!  "I jus' do not under-stan', an' I wan´ to under-stan'," he says, raising his voice and slumping against the sealed door.  "They are my frien's too.  Hyu talk of places I do not know.  An' hyu talk of me as if I was hyour enemy.  I am not hyour enemy."
    He sighs heavily, and then adds, "If you mus' take me to restore the four of them, I will let hyu.  Four good lifes iss better than one confused life."
    There's a long pause.
    "And take this qokh book.  Téri has ask for you to haf it, an' hyu will haf it.  Take it for him, not for me.  I haf no idea hwat it means, it iss for hyu."
    He sounds tired, worn out… but determined.
    He might be found later, leaning against the door asleep, The Poems of Sarah Teasdale still clutched in his right hand.