Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Final Dance of the Fallen Dove ❯ Points of Authority ( Chapter 4 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Author’s Notes: At the end of this one, I’m going to be pulling out some French terms that I’m not terribly familiar with, so I apologize if I use some of them incorrectly. Also, I apologize to the Mediaminer readers for the sorry state of the Lyric listings, but for some reason I just can’t get them to look right there.

Forfeit the game
Before somebody else
Takes you out of the frame
Puts your name to shame
Cover up your face
You can't run the race
The pace is too fast
You just won't last

You love the way i look at you
While taking pleasure in the awful things you put me through
You take away when I give in
My life
My pride is broken

[Chorus:]
You like to think you're never wrong
(You live what you've learned)
You have to act like you're someone
(You live what you've learned)
You want someone to hurt like you
(You live what you've learned)
You want to share what you have been through
(You live what you've learned)

You love the things i say i'll do
The way i hurt myself again just to get back at you
You take away when I give in
My life
My pride is broken

[Chorus]

[repeat again the song]

“Points of Authority” - Linkin Park

“I’m afraid, Starfire.” Raven said quietly as she walked down the hall beside her alien lover, not trying at all to hide the quaver in her normally calm voice.

“Why, Raven?” Star returned at right around the same volume, though her lower decibel count was more due to the limits of her abused throat, still little better than it had been when she first woke up.

She was fearful as well, most certainly, but had at that point virtually gone beyond “afraid” and straight into shock. Her fear of the coming horrors, coupled with her inability to do anything about their advent, had caused the Tamaranian to emotionally shut down. It was a terrible existence, simply waiting mutely for the inevitable catastrophe that was Anbu. Raven’s initial answer caught in her throat as she looked at Starfire in that moment after she spoke. Something was wrong, terribly, horribly wrong, and the dark magus knew it as she stared at her lover, for the first time truly seeing her since they’d met back up outside of her room. Star looked almost as if she were waiting to die, the light and life gone from her emerald on lime green eyes and replaced with resignation, her features drawn and worn in ways that they had not been before.

Raven stopped walking, and after the moment it took Starfire to register that fact, she did as well.

“Dove?” The pet name, so warm and loving just the night before, sounded forlorn and hollow in Raven’s ear, then.

“What did I do to you?” The dark magus stared down at the expanse of floor between them as she asked the question, unable to even look at Star’s back.

“What are you talking about?” The Tamaranian queried in return as she looked back to Raven, her voice even quieter than before.

“What did I do to you last night, Starfire?” The violet-haired mage reiterated, hands clenching at her sides.

“I do not know what you mean, Raven, you did not do anythi- . . .” The alien’s voice abruptly cut off as she found her ashen-skinned lover’s arms wrapped around her, the other girl’s violet orbs staring up at her and filling with unshed tears.

“What did I do to you last night, Star?” Raven’s head fell against Starfire’s chest, as the dark magus sought whatever comfort she could gain. “Please, tell me.” The crimson-haired alien hesitated a moment, saying nothing at all as she simply stroked the hair of her love, drawing as much solace from the action as it gave the other girl.

Finally, she slipped her fingers from the silky strands of Raven’s hair, unable to continue the gesture as she at last spoke the truth.

“You . . . Anbu attacked me last night.” Guiltily, Star pulled at the collar of her borrowed cloak and revealed the marks on her neck that she’d been hiding all of that time, only growing more dejected at the horrified gasp that escaped Raven at the sight of them. “She was strangling me, throttling the life out of me, and I believe that the only reason I am still alive is because she did not yet want to actually kill me.” Abject terror was the only emotion in Raven’s eyes then.

“I hit Beast Boy earlier,” she whispered quickly. “The joke he told shouldn’t have made me angry enough to do that, I didn’t even realize I’d done it until he’d already hit the wall across the room.” She pulled away, wrenched herself from Starfire’s bosom before she spoke again, though the Tamaranian made sure to keep a tight hold on Raven’s wrist, preventing her from escaping. “She can possess me, could possess me right now!” She cried frantically, trying to release herself from the alien’s hold. “Don’t you understand that?!”

“I do, Raven.” Starfire said in a voice that was quiet but also steeled. “I understand that she could come out even as I speak to you and hurt me, but that does not matter.” She pulled, alien super-strength easily winning out over Raven’s far lesser strength, and forced the violet-eyed mage back near to her, embracing her tightly. “I believe in you, Dove, I believe you can stop her if you remain strong, if you fight her.” Raven struggled in her grasp, though, unable to enjoy the affectionate hold as she wished she could.

“But if I can’t, then you and the others might get hurt, even killed!” With a tremendous shove, Raven managed to separate herself from Starfire. “I won’t, I can’t take that chance!” Even as she stumbled back and shouted those last words one moment, Raven turned about and broke into a run, taking off down the hall and away from the alien girl.

Before Star could even shout for Raven to stop, though, the mage halted dead in her tracks and simply stood there, stock still. Instinctively, she flew to her dark lover to see what was wrong, not even taking the time to consciously process the implications of something being “wrong” with her.

“Raven . . . ?” She whispered, floating near but still just behind the ashen-skinned girl.

“Raven’s not in at the moment, would you like to leave a message?” A voice, at once Raven’s and yet not at the same time, answered.
Fearfully, Starfire whimpered,

“wh-who are you?” She knew full well who it was that she spoke to, but she could not help asking regardless, hoping so desperately that she would be proven wrong.

In a flash, Star felt a hand catch her solidly around the throat and then bear her to the nearby wall, slamming her viciously up against it. The hand around her neck was indeed Raven’s, but as the second pair of blood red eyes set in her forehead attested to, it and the rest of her body were no longer the dark magus’ to control. Now they belonged to her other half.

“I believe you know me as ‘Anbu,’ unless the little crow has been keeping things from you.” She smiled a vicious, bestial smile as she gave the Tamaranian’s injured throat a little squeeze, making her cry out in agony. “But what you should really know me as, Starfire dear, is your and Raven’s suffering incarnate.” Starfire’s head shook and her lips moved, but no discernable sound emerged, causing the demon magus’ expression to shift with feigned surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I holding you too tightly for you to speak?” Anbu asked tauntingly, those monstrous eyes filled with callous laughter. “Let me fix that, then . . .” Her hand around the alien girl’s neck suddenly let go, dropping Star to the floor in a heap.

She didn’t remain there long, though, as the dark rage quickly snatched up the frightened Tamaranian’s arms and then lifted her up by a one-handed hold on both wrists, smashing her back up against the wall from there. Starfire would have screamed, had she the vocal capacity then, but instead she could only manage something akin to a high-pitched croak, which quickly shifted into a fit of violent coughs. Anbu watched her as she rode through the condition, amused in the same depraved way that a cat appears after cornering a mouse.

“There, now is that better, Starfire dear?” She asked in a mockingly sweet tone, and laughed aloud when Star tried feebly to pin her with a glare. “What’s that, I can’t seem to hear you?” The quadruple-eyed menace turned her head slightly, angling an ear directly at the Tamaranian, even going so far as to use a finger to shift it completely toward her.

“S- . . . stop . . .” Starfire managed to just more than mouth out, and a harsh, bark of a laugh let her know that she had been heard.

“Stop?” Anbu brought her eyes back to her captive and simply laughed in her face, smirking cruelly once she’d had her fill. “Oh dear, you don’t know me very well at all, do you?” Unexpectedly, Starfire felt a sudden, sharp pain in her side and found that Anbu had stabbed her with a suddenly materialized claw. “I do whatever I want, whenever I want, and however I want to do it.” She smiled thinly as the alien girl tried and failed to scream when she slowly twisted the claw inside of Star’s body.
Surprisingly, she only removed it then, and her hand holding Starfire up by her arms as well. She didn’t fall, though, as her hand left behind a shackle of dark energy that held the tortured alien in place. At Starfire’s bewildered look, Anbu’s face only split with that vicious, inhuman smile.

“Don’t feel bad about your ignorance, though, because you and I are about to get very well acquainted.” The Tamaranian didn’t get the chance to even ask what her torturer meant, didn’t even need to, really.

Because the moment she finished speaking, Anbu laid her lips upon Starfire’s in a thing that could only be called a “kiss” under the loosest definition of the word. There was no gentility to it as the dark rage plundered all that lay inside the Tamaranian’s mouth, the foreign tongue ravaging the poor girl’s in ways she had not even imagined possible before. It was a relentless, remorseless assault upon Starfire’s very being through the intermediary of her mouth, and spelled out the coming events in no uncertain terms. Anbu held the “kiss,” one hand clamped on to the alien girl’s jaw to keep her from turning away, even as her free hand began a “tour” of Starfire’s body.

It traced its way down her neck, suddenly razor-sharp fingernails leaving tiny, wandering cuts all down it that filled the poor girl with an ecstatic pain that shamed her even as it tried to force pleasured sounds through her nearly broken throat. Unexpectedly, the touch lost its sharpness as it passed between the Tamaranian’s breasts, doing so without event at all. As if to make up for her lack of action, though, Anbu slipped from her vicious kiss with Star to instead lick at the blood slowly weeping from the cuts on the girl’s neck, actually evicting a choked sound of agony and anguish from the tormented Titan. And, as her traveling hand made its way down the crimson-haired girl’s stomach, briefly detouring to play at the wound in her side from earlier, the dark rage spoke.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” She asked simply, letting go of Star’s jaw so that she could bring that hand down to trace little circles in the alien’s shoulder with a finger, meanwhile still licking at the lacerations and blood on her victim’s neck and moving her other hand lower. “And not just physically either, it hurts you in that pretty little heart of yours, right?” She continued, punctuating the word “heart” by suddenly driving her manifested claw into the alien’s shoulder.

A spasm went through Starfire’s body at that pain, and though no sound came from her throat, she began to sob burning tears as she tried pathetically to pull away from her tormentor and curl up.

“I hope you do love that little crow very much, Starfire dear, because it’s only going to make this all the sweeter for me.” The Tamaranian’s eyes shot open wide then and despite the talon still embedded in her shoulder, she somehow managed to muster the strength for a surprisingly fierce side kick.

It was caught, though, before it managed to strike the demon magus, and Anbu raised her head to look the captive Titan in the eye.

“Do you honestly believe that you can do anything against me, Starfire dear?” She queried with an amused smirk, just before slamming the girl’s leg back up against the wall and returning her hand to its former position, slipped up under the crimson-haired alien’s skirt.

For a moment, the alien heroine glared at the dark rage with an undeniable fierceness, lime on emerald green eyes fairly burning. But it didn’t last, couldn’t last when faced with the terrible truth of everything that was arrayed against her, not with the demon usurper raping her in the middle of a hall in Titan’s Tower. The fire faded from her eyes and her gaze fell to the floor, away from Anbu.

“R- . . . Ra- . . . Raven . . .” She forced the name out with her renewed tears, calling for her love, and her spirits fell further when the demon magus only laughed hysterically at the call.

“You think that weak little bitch can do anything to help you now?” Anbu asked mockingly, pressing herself up tightly against her captive and making the girl shudder and struggle against her bonds as the dark rage’s hand went to work. “She’s up in my head right now, watching all of this. She may be fighting like hell, and giving me something of a headache doing it, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still here, and I’m still doing with you as I will.” She smiled, that fanged, vicious smile of a beast delighting in the suffering of its prey. “Raven can’t save you, Starfire dear.” It was at that point that Anbu returned to her previous play, once again licking at the swirling incisions she’d made in Star’s neck, while her other hand shifted to the alien girl’s chest and joined its twin in torturing her.

She tried to keep struggling, even tried to kick the demon magus again, but after the blood-red eyed demon sank her materialize talons into the offending leg, Starfire simply couldn’t muster the will to fight anymore. She sank in her bonds and simply gave in, hoping that it would be over soon. She couldn’t bear to consciously consider the fact, then, that Anbu probably wouldn’t stop at just that one time.

“That’s it, give up and despair, because your little ‘dove’ isn’t going to save you, and neither is anyone else.”

“Get away from her right now, Anbu!” The shout snapped Anbu’s head up from Starfire’s neck and the alien girl’s eyes opened wide, just in time to watch Robin’s metal bo-staff swing just past her body.

The dark rage just managed to evade the attack by flipping back and away from her captive, landing a few feet from her previous position facing Robin and Star. He stood interposed between the girl and the demon, free arm outstretched to hold the Tamaranian back behind him where she would be “safe.” The smile, the cruel, monstrous smile split Anbu’s features at the sight, and it was obvious that she was only barely containing an utterly hysterical fit of laughter. Before Robin could actually do as he wanted, though, and demand an explanation for what was amusing the demon magus so, she was gone. It was not as though she had made use of one of Raven’s many tricks to defy the laws of physics and all logical thought in order to shift into nothingness or through solid objects, not at all. But rather, she had simply abandoned the scene, leaving behind nothing more than Raven herself.

And the moment her eyes were her own once again as bloody tears traced down her face, the second pair vanishing back into their place beneath her eyebrows, she screamed. The sound was piercing and broken, as if she had been doing so for minutes on end, screeching her vocal cords raw in horror and rage, and it sent chills down the boy wonder’s spine. It had a far more severe effect on Starfire, though, striking a cord deep inside of her being with the sheer and unimaginable torment that resonated through the sound. Even so, the girl had just been assaulted quite viciously, and was in no shape at all to be dealing with such powerful emotions, she simply lacked the mental capacity to do so while her mind was still trying to deal with the horrors that had been inflicted on her body just moments ago.

She ran, stumbling and scrambling, down the hall in the exact opposite direction that Raven lay, presumably retreating to her own room, a place where she could feel safe again. The defacto leader of the team did nothing to try and stop her, not really disapproving of that course of action, and also far too fearful of what Anbu or even Raven might be about to do to even consider taking his eyes off of her. Finally, at the limit of her now tangible lungs, the dark magus’ scream died and her violet eyes opened, taking in what lay before them. Breathing heavily, she noted Robin’s presence and Star’s absence, just before catching a flash of brilliant red in the air at the end of the hall, turning the corner. Her urge to hide so great as now clear tears slipped down her cheeks, it barely took a thought to make Raven’s powers respond to teleport her from the scene, leaving behind nothing more than a few dark, wet splotches on the floor.

And so Robin was left alone with that, those splotches of tears to his side, and stains of blood on the floor beside him, near the wall. And he couldn’t look away from those stains.

A meeting took place in the dead of night.

“She has to be stopped, it’s become plainly apparent by this point that she’s a danger to anyone and everyone around her.”
“Dude, calm down, this is Raven we’re talking about.”

“Yes, the Raven who knocked you across the room for no reason, tried to use the obstacle course to murder Cyborg, and who . . . attacked Starfire, earlier today.”

“You act like it’s Raven and Raven alone that’s doing all this.”

“. . .”

“You and I; hell, all of us; know that there’s more to Raven than we’ll probably ever know, and you can’t just say that it’s her that’s doing all of this, that ain’t right.”

“Yeah, Raven hasn’t been herself before, and if we didn’t blame her then, we shouldn’t be blaming her now!”

“Does it really matter if it’s her or some other part of her that’s doing these things? Will it matter when she kills someone?!”

“Raven wouldn’t do that!”

“You’re not the one who had to fight her off of Starfire!”

“You’re just saying that because you care more about Starfire than Raven!”

“And you’re still hopelessly in love with Raven, so you’re no better!”

“Both of y’all shut the hell up, else I’m going to bust both of your asses!”

“. . .”

“We are not gonna be treating Raven like just some criminal, she’s our friend.”

“But- . . . !”

“So we’re going to act like the friends we’re supposed to be, and we’re going to help her.”

“You mean, like one of those ‘intervention’ things?”

“Yeah, if that helps you think of it, BB.”

“Alright, I can get behind that.”

“. . .”

“Robin?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Good, then let’s go get ready.”

In the early morning hours, a specter shifted through the halls of the tower, making its way virtually unseen to the tower’s ground entrance. It hid in the shadows that still clung with desperate abandon to the walls, despite the early morning light filtering in through windows and other such fixtures, seeking escape with its own fearful impulse. What it found in the lobby of the Titan’s Tower, though, was most certainly not an exit. In fact, with the three Titans standing right in the middle of it waiting, it looked far more like a dead end at that point.

All the lights came on in an instant, casting the form of the dark magus in stark illumination, revealing her haggard, agonized appearance, as well as the death of her final hope in her eyes.

“It’s alright, Raven, we’re not here to hurt you, we just want to help.” Cyborg assured the girl quickly, seeing the fear that filled the emptiness left behind by the deceased hope in those violet orbs.

To add weight to his assurances, he raised his arms high over his head, palms open to show that he held no weapons, looking back to the other two Titans behind him in order to indicate for them to do the same. Beast Boy had no issue with the gesture, but Robin only reluctantly complied, unable to suppress the accusatory stare he was pinning the violet-haired girl with. Still, Raven shied away, her plans to escape and leave all of the people she didn’t want to hurt far behind her having been foiled, which left her with no options that her troubled mind could think of. Seeing her distress, Beast Boy approached the mage almost casually, a smile on his face.

“C’mon Rae, it’s us, your friends.” He said gently, just before laying a hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

Everything went straight to the fiery pits of Hell after that moment. With a terrible sound of talons rending flesh, Beast Boy was lifted high in the air over “Raven,” revealing the girl holding him up with just one hand, that appendage surrounded in a claw of crackling black energy which was buried deep in the green-skinned hero’s gut. Blood poured from around the raptor-like talons and splattered against her pale face, its color matched almost perfectly with that of her quadruple, demonic eyes, which then fell upon the dumb-struck Cyborg and Robin.

“Hello boys, mind if I come out to play?”

“BB!” Even as Cyborg screamed in horror and outrage, Robin almost immediately went on the attack, leaping straight for the dark rage with staff ready.

Unexpectedly, though, Anbu used Beast Boy’s by then limp body to block the strike, the defense followed immediately by a vicious snap kick that sent Robin flying away. Anbu smirked at Cyborg, still in the same spot he’d been when she’d initially appeared and attacked his green-skinned friend.

“C’mon, metal man, don’t you want to avenge this poor little bitch?” She asked tauntingly, giving Beast Boy’s body a little shake with her claws still embedded deep in his side.

Still, he did not move, looking fearfully to his friend’s form, not wanting to make the same mistake Robin had moments ago, especially considering that the injured hero probably couldn’t take much more punishment if he was even still alive. Looking positively annoyed with the cybernetically-enhanced youth’s caution, Anbu sighed.

“Fine, if you’re going to be such a little pus- . . .” She paused for only an instant, unerringly raising a hand to create a telekinetic wall which blocked and then crushed the three birdarangs Robin had tried to secretly launch at her. “-sy about it, I’ll get rid of the dead weight.” An easy flick of the demon magus’ arm and a quick twist of her wrist set Beast Boy free from her talons planted in his guts, and sent his body sailing across the room, coming to land face down in a corner, unmoving.

The moment Beast Boy was away from Anbu, Cyborg already had his arm in its sonic cannon configuration, and without the slightest hesitation he fired a shot directly at her, an action which elicited a single barking laugh from the demon as a devilish falchion of surging dark energy materialized in her grasp. She cleaved the attack cleanly in two, deflecting the two halves off harmlessly to the sides and leaving her no worse for the wear, though the pseudo-metal of her blade appeared to be vibrating slightly afterwards.

“Ooooo, that tingled, just a bit.” She cooed scandalously, giving a little giggle at the end to rub salt into the mocking wounds she was cutting into Cyborg’s ego.

Seemingly losing his temper at that point, the techno-marvel hero charged Anbu outright, but the dark rage was not fooled. She ducked down beneath the swing of Robin’s staff, letting Cyborg deal with the attack while she turned about to sweep kick the boy wonder out from behind her. The attack caught him at mid-waist, sweeping him completely around and into his largely metal partner, knocking them both into a heap a few feet to the side of the demon magus.

“Oh please, you expected to take me down when you two haven’t even been able to lay a finger on me yet?” Anbu queried the pair with frank disgust, shaking her head disappointedly as she did so.

Both were back on their feet in an instant, sending a flurry of anger-filled attacks at her in a tandem assault that would have floored a lesser combatant in moments. But Anbu was something beyond anything that the two Titans had ever faced before, almost effortlessly evading every attack they threw at her without even bothering to block or deflect any of them. She easily dodged to the side to avoid Cyborg’s downward smash punch and then fluidly slid just beneath Robin’s paired up kick. In moments, she was laughing aloud while still remaining untouched by their doubled efforts, mocking them with soft caresses and gentle prods made even as she was dodging their attacks like some kind of ethereal, insubstantial entity.

The dark rage didn’t even flinch when the both of them suddenly leapt back at the same moment, Robin landing just in front of Cyborg with his bo-staff ready, the cybernetically-enhanced youth already having his sonic cannon raised.

“Sonic Bli- . . .” Their combined call was cut off when Anbu suddenly appeared right before Cyborg, seated on his outstretched arm.

“You know, I think it’s about time you boys let me have the offense, since I have been giving it to you for quite a while.”She smiled viciously as she raised a dark-energy taloned hand, and the astonished Titan only barely managed to dodge back in time to avoid having his face taken off by those razor claws, instead receiving five deep gouges in the armor of his chest. Anbu landed easily on her feet as the machine-human fusion fell back from her, catching Robin’s staff swing in that same taloned hand.

“It’s quite sad, really, because your constant sneak attacks indicate you realize how hopelessly outmatched you are in this fight, and yet you still keep trying.” With only the faintest of effort, the demon magus snapped the bo at the midpoint between her grip and Robin’s, before rounding on the boy wonder, fangs filling her smile with bestial cruelty. “I might have let you run away mostly unharmed if you’d just fled!” Then she pounced on the Titan like some kind of rabid dog, bearing him to the ground and forcing him to fight against her disturbing strength as her claws and fangs sought to sink into his tender flesh.

He struggled valiantly, but still received a number of terrible cuts and rends from her then short but hideously sharp claws, before the dark rage quite suddenly threw them into a roll that traded their places. Robin realized just a second later, as the reverberations of the sonic cannon blast rattled his entire skeletal system, why she had done that. A nice, strong push with both her legs sent Robin’s barely conscious form flying to his horrified partner, who scrambled to catch him.

“You two are a complete and total joke, and this is just pathetic now.” She stood up easily, all four eyes closed. “In fact, I think it’s about time I stopped playing with you and just ended this miserable excuse for a fight.” She opened those quadruple, blood-red slits once again, a dark aura forming around her being that shifted and grew like something alive, something hungry.

And then, quite suddenly, a high, feminine voice rang out into the area.

“What is happening down her- . . . Goddess X’Hal!” All eyes came to focus upon Starfire, floating just a foot above the top of the staircase that lead down into the reception area, all six of them.

She looked terrible, still wounded from the events of the day before and obviously still quite emotionally distressed from them as well. And so the horror that filled her being at the sight of the lobby only made matters worse, to the point that the poor Tamaranian looked almost as though she would simply snap.

“What has happened here?!” She had seen Beast Boy off to the side, the plush chair beneath him soaked through with blood, as well as Cyborg and Robin, both injured and exhausted, as well as the area in general, torn up from the fight itself.

And there, in the middle of all that, stood Raven, looking as if she were about to die as she stared back at Starfire with impossibly wide, violet-eyes, blood-shot and tear filled. Before anything else could be said, she was gone, her desire to escape completely overwhelming her fear over the effects of her unstable emotions on her teleportation power. Leaving the haggard group simply standing and laying, the lobby and the team in ruins.

From the fairly quiet, early morning streets of Jump City, Raven came crashing into a darkened alleyway in the heart of the city. Quite literally, in fact, as she ran into several garbage cans just as she turned the corner, making considerable noise as they scattered about and also sent her falling flat on her face on the pavement of that alley. She stumbled back to her feet in an instant, slumping heavily against the brick wall just behind her as her adrenaline fueled strength began to waver. It was all just so horrible, everything that she had done, how she’d hurt Starfire several times by that point, betraying and failing her in almost every way possible. She’d killed Beast Boy, she could still see far too vividly the image of Anbu planting her talons deep in the poor boy’s side, could still see and feel his blood all over her hand and face, stains that would never go away. She’d betrayed them all, failed them all because there was absolutely nothing she could do to hold Anbu back, she was simply too weak.

And that demon, Raven knew exactly what she wanted, knew she wanted nothing more than to torture every last one of her friends until they would whole-heartedly beg her for death, at which point she would leave to their inevitable deaths at their own hands, if they still possessed the appendages, or those of others years later. Anbu wanted to make all of them suffer, just to hurt her, just to make her pay for all the years that she has been in control of their body. She couldn’t bear to know that, couldn’t bear to let Anbu do that to the others, except that there was nothing she could do to stop the beast. It was at that point that Raven realized that she was bleeding from her own nose, an injury caused by her fall of moments before. She reached up to touch a finger to the tiny trickle running from her left nostril, brining it away so that she could look at the redness with her own eyes, her lifeblood.

Then, quite suddenly, she had her wrists set side by side, curving daggers of dark energy materializing in the grasp of each hand, their blades angled downward and to the side. After only a moment to prepare, she drew them apart with vicious force, slashing her wrists even as it caused her to throw one arm up high and the other out to the side, one leg raising to maintain her balance as the greater force exerted by her right hand threatened to topple her.

And thus, she began alonge arabesque, her leotard quickly becoming painted into a beautiful crimson that shined even in the faint light. Then, en arrie’re, she slowly shifted into balance’ for several steps, before finding a bottle beneath her foot. She threw into a pirouette, flinging exquisite flowers of brilliant crimson out onto the stage in every direction, before slipping back and out of the twirl. This touched her against a nearby trash can and its sharp contents, reflexively springing her into a pas ballonne’ across the floor, landing retire’ against the opposite wall with one leg still drawn up. She rocked back from it, once again retreating balance’ en arrie’re until she came to rest her back against the other wall. From there, fondue, she came to be seated there, her dance completed.

And as her torso fell to rest on her still raised knee, the dark dove wings of her cloak flying about her just slightly for that moment, great blooms of crimson sprouted about her sides, petals slowly slipping in a thin trail to the nearby drain, sucking inexorably away from her.