World Tree MUSH

Raven had lied before. She was hungry. Very hungry. But... Shs didn't know them well enough to share that. However, the more she traveled, the more... Difficult it seemed to be to find things.

The strange domes of darkness... She didn't trust them. Refused to fly near them. However, she couldn't find much, or any, sign of people. And then her eyes fell on a small farm... There were orchards.

The raven landed, disappearing as the dark garbed girl took its place. She then walked to the trees... Something had happened. Something bad. Baskets were tipped over, equipment left in the fields. Whoever had been here had left in a hurry... She held her hands up and one of the red fruits fell down from the tree, into her hands. She gave it a sniff... Then a bite. It was juicy, but not bad. And more importantly, it was food. She could investigate the house on the edge in a bit.

    Xion was lost.

    Of course, Xion was USUALLY lost. She hadn't quite managed to get a fix on her surroundings for the past several months, and things were never where she expected them to be. It seemed as though sometimes she just... wound up in different worlds entirely, through paths that only lead in one direction.

    There weren't any large buildings here. This... worried Xion for some reason. She felt exposed, walking through rolling fields and stands of trees. It didn't really help that her boots were completely unsuited to this terrain!

    The weird bubbles of darkness were oddly comforting, though. They felt like home, even if the lack of tall buildings made her feel lost and exposed.

    If there were any villagers left in this village on the edge of the Twilight, they might be alarmed as a short figure wearing nothing but black, with a face-concealing hood and skin-concealing gloves and coat, approaches. But luckily, no one's here but a sorceress! Xion is currently distracted by the bubble of Twilight right up close. It's so pretty...

Raven was entirely alone. She didn't feel anyone or anything. So it was after her fourth fruit(she was REALLY hungry, okay?!) That she realized that there WAS someone. She dropped her fifth, her hands and mouth a littlr sticky, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve(it's not like there was a sink nearby to clean up!)

She stared and...reached put with her abilities. Her senses. But there wss nothing. It was a complete and utter void. Shields? No. She'd felt shields before. This was different. It wasn't like an animal or... Anything.

It was like feeling a block of cement. She took a step closer... Then moved behind a tree, a little nervously. What was--

"Stop!" She called oit when then girl went closer to the darkness. "It's dangerous!" Well. She didn't KNOW it was dangerous. But... It felt dangerous to her magical senses. And she tended to believe them.

    Peering into Xion's emotional core - her Heart - is like peering into a void. There's just nothing there. It's not even cold like the heart of a psychopath, just... nothing. Like trying to peer into the heart of a doll.

    It's... unsettling.

    Just as Xion's hand is about to touch the bubble of Twilight before her, she hears a voice cry out at her to stop. She freezes in place for a few long moments, before slowly turning around to peer in the direction that voice came from.

    Her hand raises in a sort of half-wave. She can't see Raven yet. "Hello...?" It's the voice of a girl. It sounds normal enough - it's not even an emotionless monotone! She sounds curious, even though Raven still can't feel anything like that flowing from within her.

Raven let out a sigh if relief. She didn't KNOW whatever was beyond that darkness was bad. She just felt it was. But... Well. Panic. She then focused on the... Person. Empty. Void...

She could read body language well enough and this thing was radiating it. But... There was nothing. It made her uneasy... But... It wss impossible there was nothing there.

Obviously whatever it was was just so foreign to her she couldn't grasp it.

That wasn't much more comforting than the idea of there not being anything at all. Slowly she stepped out from hiding. "Hello... I am... Raven. You shouldn't touch those. They're... They're evil. They're bad."

    Xion brings her hands up to pull down her hood, revealing the face of... a totally normal-looking girl! Pinkish-white skin, blue eyes, black spikey hair that really should've been messed up by that hood but seems fine... she must use a LOT of hair spray. The girl's head tilts to one side, and she gives a warm smile. "Hello Raven! I'm Xion."

    She takes a few steps closer to the sorceress, then suddenly stops and wheels around. "Evil? But it seems so..." Xion adopts a stance that looks a whole lot like she's about to attack the darkness.

Raven nodded. Yes. It looked so dangerous. Not realizing what tje girl wanted to say. "It's am evil place. Don't attack it, it won't do any good except, maybe, trapping you inside it." 

She didn't note the laxk of hood hair. After all, she wore a hood all the time and her hair never messed up. Why? Because she was awesome like that. She definitely didn't know a simple spell to keep her hair perfect ans silky soft. That would be such a shallow waste of her magical potential(she did).

"Xion... Are you not from this world either? " she asked softly.

    Xion's body language just immediately shifts again to a more passive pose as she turns back around to regard Raven again. "Oh. I wouldn't want to get trapped inside there. If it's evil. It's probably icky and gross and it only looks pretty on the outside to lure people in." She nods her head firmly, apparently deciding the matter is completely settled.

    She approaches Raven! "You're not from here? Um. I don't know. It doesn't feel familiar but I don't really... know where I'm from so..."

Raven nodded. "Yes. That's how evil tends to operate. It looks calm, inviting. Almost loving on the outside. But the moment you do what it wants, the charade falls apart and it destroys everything you love and care about," she said coldly. "And i can feel evil from them." 

Raven took a step back. "Please keep your distance..." The hooded woman requested, not showing her face. "I... Am not from here either. I am from a place called azarath. My home. I... Cannot return there either." Not now... Possibly not ever. She couldn't face them...

    Xion stops approaching when Raven takes a step back. Her head tilts to one side again. "...Huh. You sound like you have a lot of experience with, um. Evil shadow bubbles??" Xion crosses her arms over her chest. "What's wrong? I'm harmless!" Another warm smile plastered in front of a howling void of emptiness. "..Well okay maybe not but I'm not gonna hurt you! It's not like YOU'RE evil or anything, right? Evil people don't stop to chat, they just... do bad stuff and then I have to fight them and make them stop doing bad stuff."

    "Azarath? Isn't that from a video game?"

Raven blinked a few times and stared. Finally... "What's a video game?" She asked cluelessly. They didn't really... Have television where she was from. "I've... Dealt with a few. Or at least.... Seen enough to have an idea of how they operate." 

She urked at the 'not evil' comment. Of course she was. Raven was a borderline monster. Half demon. The daughter of one of the most destructive and powerful demons in existence. The kind of abomination that deserved to be...

"Of... Course. I am not evil at all. I am a... Good... Person," she lied. "I have no intention of doing bad things. Would you like one of these fruits? They taste delicious and they seem to have all been abandoned."

    Xion grins excitedly. "I fought an evil teddy bear the other day!" she suddenly blurts out. "It was piloting a... big robot suit of armour thinger but it was made out of a CAR! A nice lady and a girl who's like a frog and a couple of other people helped out it was really fun." And she got thrown into a wall and heavily concussed, but for some reason doesn't think to mention that. "Fighting evil is awesome. I hope there's evil people in this world too."

    What is she even saying?

    She pauses for a few moments, seeming to calm down a bit. "...But the fruit is over by you, so to have any I'd need to get closer."

Raven lowered her head, stepping away from the tree so she could grt to it. It wasn't the only one with fruit but... "Help yourself..." She mumbled 

"So you go around tracking down evil and eliminating it? How... Do you know if something is evil? What creatures meet your criteria to.... Eliminate?" Shw asked, a little panic rising. Could she... Wouls she have to fight this woman?...

Maybe.

    Xion happily skips to the tree - yes, literally SKIPS - and picks up one of the apples. She studies it for a while, moving it around and viewing it from different angles, before giving a bit ol' bite of it.

    Crunch, munch...

    "...Sweet. Could use some salt," she declares, with a not.

    "Um. Well, y'know, things that attack innocent people or blow up cars on the freeway or try to plunge the universe into an endless night of torment and despair... y'know, bad guys! They're always doing something obviously bad I have to stop." Nod.

Raven chuckled an couldn't help but smile. The girl seemed so... Simple. Completely unaware she was talking to possibly the evilest thing she may ever meet. Hopefully would ever meet. She gave a softly sad sigh. 

"That's... Good. But evil isn't always so obvious. Some things are evil just by their very nature. Their very existance makes the universe a worse place for it. Sometimes evil will try to trick you, by pretending to be good. You should be wary." She took another apple and lifted it up, taking a small bite.

    Xion shakes her head. "Nope! Not accepted. Wrong idea." She smiles brightly at Raven. "Hurting people is bad, but it's bad because you choose to do it, not because people get hurt! Hurting people by accident is... sad, but it's not evil." She crosses her arms, seeming rather adamant about this. "Evil people hurt people because they care more about what they want than they care about the people they're hurting. If you care enough to worry about hurting people then you can't be evil. Right?"

    ...She can't possibly know Raven's situation, so she can't be talking directly about her. Right?

Raven blinked a few times... Then chuckled. "That's.... A nice way to think about it. Then what about someone who's presence brings misery, and they know it and choose not to isolate themselves to keep everyone safe? Is that knowing enough?" She couldn't help but smile. Just a little. 

The girl was... Strange. But she liked her ideals. Even if they were wrong. Such childish notions made her almost, for a moment, believe she coukd possibly not be evil. But that was impossible. All she could do was hold back the evil for now....

    Xion hmms a little bit. "...That sounds familiar..." she says, softly, one finger to her chin in a classic 'thinking' pose.

    "I think... I think if just by being around someone makes people worse off then you should... try really hard to make people's lives better, too. It's not enough to do nothing, you've got to... you've got to put in an effort!" She nods her head firmly. "It's not fair to make people be lonely, even if..." She trails off. Something about this conversation feels really familiar to her.

Raven blinked a few times and looked far less amused now. Ahe had an obligation to... Help people? Of course not. That was...

But the woman was right. It... She didn't want to be alone forever. In fact, she hated to be. Ut felt terrible. And hurt sometimes. Though she tried to bury that pain down. 

"really? You have? It's just a simple logic puzzle, is all. There's no hidden meaning... " she mumbled. Then...

"What do your people... Call you? Human? Something else. I..." She trailed off. "You feel.... Different. Than most things... Very.... Hollow."

    "All morality is a logic puzzle," Xion declares. Oh wow no that's totally an unhealthy attitude to take, Xion.

    "Um. People call me Xion. What do you mean... hollow?" She frowns a little bit, putting one hand up to her chest. "I'm not... hollow..." she says, sounding a little uncertain. Within, the core of emotion that should be there still stubbornly remains absent.

Raven blinked a few times. "All of... I think I've heard that before. I couldn't say, one way or another however... I'm sorry. I don't mean it like that... Just..." 

She looked unsure, hiding within her cloak. Finally... "I... Can usually sense the emotions of those around me. The feelings. Animals, people, it makes no differenxe... Normally..." 

"But i can't... Sense yours. They're... They feel absent. It might just be because we are of different universes, though," she added quickly. "I just have nevet... Encountered this. So i was curious...."

    Xion looks troubled.

    "...People talk about feelings as if they just happen. Like it's magic. Like you can just see a thing and then -feel- a way about it without having to... make any decisions." She hmphs, turning away slightly and pulling her head up. "That's... dumb. Why would anyone want to feel things they don't want to feel..?"

    "...Who is 'Nobody', anyway..?" she seems to ask... no one in particular. That seems somewhat out of left field.

Raven blinked and... "Because thy don't have a choice. We can't... Not feel. No matter how badly we want to. The monks of Azarath said that emotions were all a part of being human. That to deny them is to deny our own humanity," she mumbled. "That they could be accepted, controlled, tempered and directed... But not denied." She sighed and turned around.

"I'm sorry. I didn't... Mean to upset you. I don't... Think you're a nobody. And I'm sorry i hurt you. I... Need to find a place to meditate."

"Perhaps... Wr could meet again, xion. I... Would like that..." Even if she couldn't feel it... She still felt she had hurt yhe girl. Of course she had. That was what she was. A demon. A monster...

    "Huh?" Xion looks back over to Raven... and then gives her one of those warm, heart-melting smiles she seems to be so good at. "Oh, of course! We'll definitely run into each other again. That'll be nice." Beeaaam.

    It's like she just turned off the melancholy like a switch. Maybe she really does have to choose what to feel. Creepy.