sith_happened | Office hours [all day]

Raven was very tired and somber when she arrived at Anakin's office after her morning class. Despite falling back on Azarathian training and trying to suppress her emotions, she was likely radiating tension and distress.

"Professor Skywalker?" she said in a small voice.

Anakin looked immediately alarmed. "What happened?"

"Karla," Raven said haltingly. "Something happened to her on her trip home. When she returned here, she was...damaged. She retreated into her mind. Several of us attempted to help her back last night. Ben was with us as well." She thought it important that he know his grandson was involved in case he was still feeling the effects of the trip as well.

"Sit down," Anakin said, a touch of command in his voice. "Tell me what happened."

Raven obeyed, taking a seat, her hands twisting in her lap as she spoke. Her tone was detached, like she'd been an observer and not truly there. "Late last night," she began, "several of us felt Karla suddenly become enraged. Myself, Ben, Dinah, Emma Frost, Francine...and Ender and Katchoo were there as well. We followed her to the causeway. I think she intended to cross to the mainland and harm others, but Lady Aphrodite and Professor Maximus blocked her way. When we arrived she was unconscious. I thought that Professor Maximus had done something to her, but he said she had attacked him and then collapsed. I could sense no emotion from her, nor could Emma or Dinah detect any thoughts."

She drew in a deep breath and continued. "Emma brought us into Karla's mind to see what she had experienced that would harm her so. It was a truly awful place and seemed so very real to us. Children...young girls...were brought there to be broken and made into playthings. But we were able to find Karla and restore her."

She'd left out some of the details because if she talked about them, she feared she'd break down.

Anakin made a mental note to talk to Max, but he nodded along as he listened.

Well, until Raven got to the part about people hurting young girls, and then the overprotective father part of Anakin kicked in. "Does this place exist in the real world?" he asked, keeping his voice even. "Or was this something Karla's mind invented?"

"Briarwoods," Raven said. "It is a real place in Karla's world. A close friend of hers suffered there, that is what Karla experienced. And through her, we experienced it as well."

Anakin's hand went over his mouth. "Force forbid," he whispered. "What do you need from me?"

He was open to all options, from hugs to "go kill everyone ever associated with that place".

"We destroyed it in Karla's mind," Raven said, her voice still tight. She didn't want to admit how much she had enjoyed Katchoo's rage and and seeing the building burn. "But the true place...it must be destroyed. They torment the girls there even after death." She blinked and shook her head, cracks starting to appear in the wall she'd put up around herself. "They...said I was too old, but wished to examine me nonetheless."

Anakin's blood ran cold. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad are you today?" he asked softly.

With ten as a full-scale kneel-before-your-new-god-and-despair daughter of Trigon, and one as how she'd felt when she'd thought Chuck was in love with her? "Eight?" she whispered. "I came very close to losing control several times. There was so much pain and despair and fear in that place, and I wanted to punish the men for harming those poor girls. I cannot get the images of what they had done out of my mind. It reminded me too much of the other Fandom...."

Anakin sent a wave of reassurance toward her. "It wasn't real," he said quietly, "and feeling rage and pain now only hurts you."

"It was real for Karla's friend," Raven said. "And real enough to break Karla. Just knowing that that place exists...."

No, Raven, you can't fix the entire world.

"We'll see how long it will exist now," Anakin commented darkly. This was the sort of thing Jedi geared up for.

"I want to help," Raven insisted fiercely. Destroying the dream Briarwoods hadn't been nearly cathartic enough.

"Absolutely not," Anakin replied. "The dream version put you near the edge of your control. I'm not letting you closer than, well, here, to the real thing."

"I deserve to be there!" Raven argued, her desire for revenge proving Anakin right. "You do not know what I saw. I need to be there to see it burn for real."

"You don't," Anakin countered flatly. "It's all hypothetical anyway. I'm hardly going to book a Portalocity trip for this."

"My Soul-Self can take us there," Raven said. She'd been to Kaeleer twice now, in dreams and in Karla's web. She could find the way there on her own.

Anakin shook his head. "You're not going," he insisted.

Raven bowed her head. "Very well," she said quietly, but not entirely convincingly.

"Raven, look at me," Anakin said.

She did as he requested, lifting her head. She was still keeping a tight and desperate hold on her emotions, refusing to break down.

"Now breathe," he said softly. "Nothing is going to harm you here. My word on it."

"I know," Raven said, blinking furiously to try to stop any tears from falling. "I just cannot bear to think of that place and those girls. And...." She finally forced herself to say the other thing that was troubling her so much, trembling as she spoke. "I used my gifts against one of them. And I cannot use losing control as an excuse. I knew what I was doing. I wanted him to suffer, and...I enjoyed it."

Anakin looked a little heartbroken to hear that, but he covered that quickly. "You know why that's dangerous."

"I know," Raven agreed, bowing her head again. "I felt sick afterward, but at the time it felt like justice to make him feel what he had done to those girls."

"Tell me why it wasn't," he said softly.

"My gifts should be used to help and heal," Raven said, biting at her lip. "To use them to harm or punish is what my father would want. Even if it seems right and just, it can be too easily twisted."

"Exactly," Anakin said with a nod. "Decisions made in anger generally end badly. Sometimes astonishingly badly."

"I am not certain where my anger ended and the others' rage began," Raven said. "There was so much terrible emotion there. But it was my decision to do what I did."

"Ben too?" Anakin asked, looking a little alarmed.

"He was very upset," Raven said. "But I cannot tell you exactly what each of the others were feeling. Some were more angry. I know Ender was trying to be very calm, and Katchoo was so very angry, but the others just blended together as one to me."

Anakin muttered something not quite under his breath about Ben better damn well knowing better, then focused again. "How many of you went?" he asked.

"We were split up," Raven said. "I am not entirely certain where Dinah, Lady Aphrodite, and Professor Maximus were. Emma, Francine, and Katchoo were outside Briarwoods, and I was inside, first with Ben, then with Ender when we became separated." The brief time between losing Ben and finding Ender had been one of the worst parts of the trip, just her and the ghost girls and the sounds of the uncles behind the closed doors.

"Is it too soon to talk about what you saw?" Anakin replied softly.

Raven closed her eyes. She didn't want to remember, but it was haunting her, much as she tried to suppress it. "The place...Briarwoods...it masqueraded as a place of healing for girls who were emotionally disturbed," she said. "But that was all a lie. The entryway was warm and comforting to trick the parents of those girls, but beyond it was a prison. The men who were there beat and drugged the girls to make them compliant. We saw many ghosts there, of the girls they had killed, and cildru dyathe, their word for those who still walked between life and death. One girl, Dannie, tried to run away, and they cut off her leg and let her bleed to death, then made the other girls eat her flesh. Myrol and Rebecca had their hands severed and were killed because Myrol would not do as she was told, and Rebecca tried to stop one of the men from hitting her. Rose had her throat cut because she refused to...." No, she wasn't going to say it. But she had each of those girls and their fates burned into her mind now, along with the desire to make their murderers pay.

"There were rooms with just beds, and straps to...tie the girls down," she continued. It was a good thing she hadn't eaten since last night or she might have been sick again. "One of the men -- they called them 'uncles' -- came out of a room, and...that is when I made him feel all that he had done to the girls."

All of the revulsion and fury Anakin felt for these men--and it was far from a small amount--was carefully slammed behind his shields. Raven didn't need to be hit with more negative emotion.

"And that's what happened to Karla?" he asked.

"To her dear friend, Jaenelle," Raven said. "Karla tried to help her heal and got caught up in the memories." She wondered if the same would've happened to her if it had been Karla and she had been the one to attempt to heal her. "We found her attempting to protect Jaenelle...and then taking her place."

Despite his best efforts, Anakin was looking a little green. "I'm so sorry, Raven," he murmured. "No one should have to see that aspect of humanity."

"I have always know of the evil that exists in the world," Raven said. "I was never allowed to forget it because of who my father was. But this...this I never imagined."

"I've witnessed great evil," Anakin said quietly. And participated in it, but he wasn't going to mention that. "And I'm sorry that you've had to as well."

"Does it become easier?" Raven asked.

Anakin nodded. "It becomes less sharp with time," he said. "I promise."

Raven let out a long sigh. "Good," she said. "That is very good to know."

"It also helps when you talk about it and don't let it fester," Anakin replied, "so you're making the right choices now."

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