The Gym, Monday Afternoon

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria had been less than pleased by finding that no one worth sparring with had been available yesterday due to how late her player pinged into that thread, shh, but she supposed she had managed some of that much-advised 'socialization' at least. Still, words, even exchanged with fellow demons, were no substitute for hitting things, no matter what the demon in question might believe, so. Here she was. At the gym.

Where there was, as Cal had promised, a punching bag. There was also a music system, and the science wasn't so advanced that she couldn't figure out how to load in Pure Disco 1.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

The music was nonsensical, but there was something about the words and the beat that made punching and kicking a stationary bag of sand the tiniest bit more satisfactory.

Thinkin' I could never live without you by my side....

The punching bag might not agree. Then again, it also might not survive the experience, so its opinions were of relatively low value to Illyria.

[OOC: Open like a box without a cat in it! P.S. I has a squishee. Mostly Red.]

Comments

[trigons_child]

Maybe just a little bit.

"Who are you?" Raven said. "You are not from this world."

[bitchy_smurf]

In more ways than one. "I am Illyria. Mine is an older race." Older than humanity, yes, but also older than most of those watered-down demon races that concerned themselves with concepts like good or evil.

[trigons_child]

"I am Raven," she said with some reservations. "My mother was of this world."

[bitchy_smurf]

"Your father was a demon, then." And that right there, just having a mother and father, demon or otherwise, illustrated the ages between them. I was never a child.

[trigons_child]

"I would appreciate it if you did not share that with others," Raven said, not quite admitting it, but close enough.

[bitchy_smurf]

"I have no reason to." Did that sound very like a promise? Secrets had value. "Why do you hide it, though? There are many such here."

[trigons_child]

"What I am has caused others to attempt to destroy me or force me away," Raven said. "This place is different, but I do not wish to risk it."

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria could comprehend that only too well, remembering the scant days when she could still part dimensions in this form, yet stood in fear to, lest those who knew her once would, if they lived at all, now crush her like a particularly amusing bug.

"Your caution is not without sense. There are likely others who'll know you for what you are as well, though."

[trigons_child]

"Who?" Raven asked. "Those who know what I truly am only do because I told them so myself." Well, except for Sam, but that had been unintentional, and she would definitely be avoiding his father for fear of the same thing happening.

[bitchy_smurf]

*cracks self up, is easily amused*

"I can tell who isn't human in this place, but I know little of their powers, if they aren't a species I recognize. The teacher who calls himself Dèmon is something like what we are, though, and may well know his own. The girl Didi is... not what she appears to be, as well."

[trigons_child]

"I do not know the teacher," Raven said carefully, "but I know Didi." She wasn't about to tell Illyria that she knew Didi was an aspect of Death; she had no idea what kind of demon Illyria was or what her intentions in Fandom were. "Thank you, I will watch for them."

[bitchy_smurf]

"Neither seems to mean harm," Illyria allowed. If a power like the incarnation of Death had meant to cause trouble, there'd be little any of them could do to stop it, and the teacher was... odd. "But everyone has secrets."

[trigons_child]

"Apparently," Raven said. "But you do not hide what you are?"

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria lifted her head. "What I am is... not what I was." And Wesley wasn't here. For a moment, she let another face play across this one that she was forced to call her own. "I can appear human, if I choose, but it isn't my face."

[trigons_child]

That just made Raven even more curious. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Because you are not as you once were?"

[bitchy_smurf]

Indeed. "As you say." Illyria nodded once. "The world I knew is dust, now. Humans cover this one. It seems I must learn to live among them, if I'm to live at all."

[trigons_child]

Raven nodded, feeling some sympathy. "That is one of the reasons I came here as well," she said. "To learn to be more human."

[bitchy_smurf]

She could learn in an instant if she let the memories that crawled in the back of her head swarm up and overtake her, but Illyria was loathe to do that more often than she wasn't.

"I had no choice in becoming more human." Perhaps untrue. She could have fought and killed and exploded over and over again, until her fury destroyed the earth. "It was that or die. Now I suppose I must learn what I have become."

[trigons_child]

"It will be easier here for you than another school," Raven said. "At least here those of us who are more unusual do not have to hide it here."

[bitchy_smurf]

"And yet you do," Illyria pointed out.

[trigons_child]

"I do not hide that I am...unusual," Raven said. "It is common knowledge that I am an empath and a healer. But I do not share everything."

[bitchy_smurf]

"You conceal the source of your power, lest others judge you by that, instead of what you do with it," Illyria concluded.

[trigons_child]

"Yes," Raven agreed. "My non-human heritage" -- she still wouldn't bring herself to say "demonic" -- "is the antithesis of who I wish to be."

[bitchy_smurf]

Illyria's gaze grew distant for a moment, the instinct to say something scornful losing to the instinct to... well, she didn't know the word emo yet, but.

"Mine is everything I've ever known."

[trigons_child]

"Then how do you refrain from violence and conquest?" Raven asked. "Do you not have those urges?"