fandomhighdorms | Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

Leto had actually made some plans for this meeting, in case Arthur and Zack would still be asleep, although if they had been, there would certainly have been a lot fewer people showing up.

Those plans were now pointless, however. There was no way he would put people through defining the goals of defensive tactics today. Clearly those who had spend their weekend in another reality were a little too emotional to deal with that now. Leto knew that from experience; he had spent the previous day being bitched at (hello Arthur!) or hugged and cried on. It was obvious that people needed some kind of emotional outlet today.

Also, it seemed like some people had trust issues after having run into alternate vampire versions of themselves. That could prove dangerous in a fighting situation.

"Good afternoon," he greeted everyone gathered. "Today we will work on what I believe is referred to in this time as team-building. Without loyalty and trust - both of leaders and of fellow warriors - a military unit is nothing. Where that trust is strong and army may rise about their actual level of fighting skill."

"Often this loyalty has been nurtured by shared pain and suffering. A guerilla group might have faced persecution together for a long time. Many forms of military training forces the warriors to endure severe hardships together in order to achieve something similar."

Leto smiled. "Today, I decided for a more playful and gentle approach. We will start with a shared meal. Eating together is a sign of friendship in many cultures. First, you need to divide the food." He gestured at a blanket on the ground with a large fruit bowl in the middle. "It needs to be divided equally, but for every fruit you take, you need to tell the group something significant about yourself."

"When the food has been divided, you may eat, but you may not feed yourself, only other people."

He watched the people gathered. "Any questions?"

[~~Wait for OCD!~~ OCD is up!]

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"They'd better not," Karla said fiercely. "Jaenelle's just beginning to heal. They can't take her away from him. From us. From everyone who loves her and understands her! And if they even tried, well, Uncle Saetan--"

And froze as she realized exactly why she was being summoned. "If they try, Uncle Saetan will destroy the Dark Council," Karla said softly. "He created it almost fifty thousand years ago, but he won't hesitate to send them all to the bowels of Hell if they try to take Jaenelle away from him."

Dinah gave her a suspicious look. "Do you need back-up, when you go back there? Or do you think you guys will be enough?" She really, really wasn't up for another fight yet. But she'd do it if Karla needed help.

"Uncle Saetan wears the Black. They'd never survive his attack."

Great, the rhyming was back. Even in the bloody narration!

"My job will be distraction
Till it's too late.
He won't want her seeing
The carnage he can create."

Karla was facepalming. Repeatedly.

"You're up for this battle? I don't want you rattled." Dinah made a face. "Arrrrgh."

Let's see you find a rhyme for that, Island.

"Anyplace where I won't ryhme, seems to me a rockin' time."

Karla. Hated. Fandom. (Sometimes.)

"But I should be fine," she gave Dinah a grateful smile. "There's won't even be a battle. No one on the Council wears darker than the Red. They'll be lucky if they have a chance to defend themselves."

"That's... good?" Right now, Dinah did not want to deal with more people dying, as a matter of course. Punching would be okay, but yeah. More distance needed. "I hope it goes okay. And you get to just visit with Jaenelle, too." Karla's best friend seemed to make her feel secure in a way nothing else could. "You call if you need to, okay? Or send a message. When do you leave?"

Karla shrugged. It was easier for her, since this was very neatly slotted under, 'Warlord Prince protecting his Queen.'

"It's better then them taking Jaenelle away again. I don't know if she could survive something like whatever happened when she was twelve. This has nothing to do with her and what's best and everything to do with power. Whoever controls Jaenelle controls Witch. They just don't yet understand that you can't control her. Saetan does."

She sighed, rubbing her temples. "He will take another scar on his soul to prevent another one on hers. He will protect and serve her with everything he has."

Dinah got that, and was so fed up with other people's power plays and violence that she had nothing to say to it, right now. It made her angry in a way she didn't want to be. And reminded her of the Other Leto, wanting Karla.

"Stupid."

"Agreed," Karla said. Then, "Good idea for a Reserves meeting, right? Like I'd turn down more food."

Let it never be said Karla way always oblivious.. Though she did mean it. She'd lost some weight over the past week. No where near as much as her counterpart, but still enough to be noticable. Reminders to eat helped.

"Extremely," Dinah said with a sigh. "I'm glad it's not anything really attacky. I'm still jumpy too." She poked at Karla. "Share that you really love your hair. Then have more fruit."

"Smart ass," Karla said, tossing said hair over her shoulder. "She didn't have a lot else going for her, did she? No Craft and most people don't find 'skeletal' all that pretty. Hair it was." She held out a lock and examined it. "I do have nice hair though, don't I."

It wasn't really a question.

"You do. But she had a lot more going for her than hair," Dinah said, mildly amused. "She didn't give up, for one thing. And she didn't scare easy, when crazy evil bitch me was trying to..." Okay, this had to stop. Saying it and remembering it shouldn't be so hard to take. "Kill her."

"She was brittle," Karla said softly. "That's one of the reasons she was so thin. She kept punishing herself for not being ablt to do more. And that undermined her ability to actually do things. And she was totally scared when facing other-evil-Dinah-in-looks-only. She was just mouthy. And too proud to give other-Dinah the satisfaction of killing her." Karla smiled a bit. "Yet another thing we don't share in common."

"I'm very, very glad Triela was there." Dinah hugged herself. It didn't happen. It didn't end with Karla dead. "I wouldn't want to remember killing another friend besides Priestly. Even if it wasn't me."

"Me, too." Because Karla was also well-aware of the probable ending if Triela hadn't been. "I never wanted to kill anyone. I'm a Healer. A Queen. My gifts are meant to help people. And now..."

She'd killed the one male back in Kaeleer. She'd killed Eleanor and Max. She'd helped kill Leto, and other-her's actions lead to Ender's suicides. All deaths for all good reasons, but still deaths.

She looked squarely at Dinah. "You know there isn't a bit of me that fears you or worries about you, right? You're my best friend, here in Fandom. And there was nothing in her that was you. I will trust you forever."

"Thanks." She wanted to believe that, she really did. But she'd seen similarities to herself in that other Dinah. "It's just--" Dinah looked down, not knowing where she was going with that, and gave a tired sigh. "All the worst things in myself were there," she said softly. "They were. All the things I don't do. Plus, just silly stuff. Being friends with Zack, only horrible. Coloring books and singing. And I know I don't have to be perfect, and it counts that I don't do the worst things." She swallowed. "It was just ugly to feel that in the dreams. And feel the impulses when I got there." She sighed. "You did what you did to survive, Karla."

Herself, she still wasn't sure about, sometimes. If she attacked Eleanor from the need to stop her, or visited the flower shop to save other people... she didn't know.

"We all have dark places inside of us," Karla said. "But those places don't make us us. But there was a demon that wore your skin and got to pick and choose what it wanted to use. Even the nice things, like your friendship with Zack and coloring and singing, it used and twisted and perverted until it wasn't yours anymore. At your worst I don't believe you would do such things. Not without something else there, forcing."

She went to wrap an arm around Dinah, if she'd accept it. "I don't know what it was like, having those memories, or falling into a body with those needs and impulses. And doing so hurt you. It may even scar. But that doesn't change who you are. Not to me, anyway."

Put like that, it didn't so much feel better, as become more understandable. "I'm glad," she whispered. Dinah thought she maybe could even tell Karla about the flower shop, and not lose her friendship. But she still didn't know how she felt about it, and couldn't stand the idea of explaining yet. Or maybe never tell anyone besides Tony at all. She accepted the hug, and put her head down on top of Karla's. "All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream," she whispered.

She really owed Adah Price for that.

"That's really pretty," Karla said. "Quoting something or did Fandom just contribute to one of the most insightful phrases of our time?"

"Edgar Allan Poe." Dinah smiled a little more and squeezed Karla. "The girlfriend of one of my former crushes liked his stuff, so I had to read it. In a night, or in a day / In a vision, or in none / Is it therefore the less gone? / All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream." She shook her head. "I don't know. With all the weird and psychic and disturbing dreams I have, I find that reassuring."

"I can see why you would. It's pretty. This Poe is a poet, here in your world?"

"He was. He lived about a hundred-something years ago. I dreamed that line when I was on Arrakis, just before other people's dreams started." Dinah shook her head. "A warning, maybe, about what was happening." She tilted her head. "Not this rhyming chiming from today, no way."

"I'm kind of glad that's not your line," Karla said with a smile. "It would mean your poems are better than mine."

That might or might not have been Fandom's influence. Karla wasn't going to say.

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Behind the Dorms, Tuesday Afternoon

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