@deceitanon 146
Rasa pauses for a while longer, holding the bottle of alcohol close simply because she wants to hold something in general.
"Um..."
...
"Yeah... I..."
It takes her a lot to say her next words, and her body relaxes fully when she does.
"I trust you... Just um... I'm..."
She shakes her head and stops saying whatever she was going to say.
"Is Amber still in the same room?"
She trusts Amber decently too, but she doesn't fully trust anyone yet.
“Oh- uh sure I think so- she doesn’t come out of there often”
{Remy frowns, he grows tense.. he wasn’t able to get Rasa to like him enough.. he doesn’t want to manipulate her in any way… but if she somehow ends up hating him..}
{he’s fucked in so many ways}
{he.. doesn’t want to go back.. to how things were with Tyme}
"Thank you..."
She notices him tense up.
...
She considers saying anything or not...
"Are you okay...?"
She's just wary of trusting anyone... Sure she trust physical contact with Amber, that's why she asked in the first place, but she does trust Remy being protective...
Trust isn't linear for her.
She doesn't understand why Remy is tense though.
“You…. Literally have my fucking life in the palm of your hands. You tell my heart to stop beating it will!”
“I’m scared!” {his voice wavers}
“Please… I need you to trust me… so I know I can trust you”
“I-I don’t want to die…”
{he tears up, his tears are all black.. oil, his vision gets spotty because of it}
{he backs up against the wall}
Rasa freezes as she thinks...
"I..."
Her mind feels louder.
"I-I wouldn't... I-I don't want to hurt anyone..."
Saying don't want instead of just won't...
"S-sorry I-I'm sorry!"
She can't think straight.
"I don't want this! I-I... Fuck! I..."
She can't just...
She backs up.
"I-I don't distrust you... I... I just struggle to trust, i-it's not you..."
Why does she want to run...
...
"I... I trust some things with you?... I-I trust you being protective, but I trust Amber with touch... Trust isn't... I... It isn't linear for me... I wanted Amber so I could be held..."
That's all...
“I…I”
“Fuck can we talk about this later- just forget it happened until we get some fucking sleep and it’s not 3 am in the god forsaken morning”
{Remy is shaking… such a powerful man, broken}
“Just… don’t touch the strings until we talk…”
Rasa nods and takes a deep breath.
"O-Okay... I... Talk later then, Remy..."
She silently walks over to the room Amber had been in... She doesn't look at Remy again.
...
"Amber?" Rasa knocks on the door as she asks.
{Remy shakily teleports to Eddie’s room} “Eddie?”
——
{Amber is sleeping with the cats, her tail curled up as a bed for them}
“Hm… Ra?”
{she murmurs sleepily}
Eddie is quick to sit up in his bed when hears Remy.
"Remy?... What's wrong?"
He shifts over in his bed to make room for Remy. He's half asleep, but he'll wake up for Remy no matter what.
----
Rasa hums and sits on the edge of the bed.
"Hi... Can I sleep with you tonight?"
She takes off the braces while she talks and leans them up against a nearby wall... She sounds sad and tired.
"Don't want to talk about it."
She just wants to stop thinking.
She also places the alcohol next to the braces, saving that for later.
“Strings… Bad.”
{Remy shakes his head as he slips into the spot Eddie made}
“rasa… can control me..”
—-
“Mmm, mhm, c’mere it’s sleep time”
{Amber makes room for here}
“I like those braces you got.. *yawns*”
Eddie holds Remy gently and wraps a tail around him.
"Hmm..."
It takes a second for what Remy said to register, and by that point he's properly awake.
"Wait what?... H-how?"
He barely knows Rasa.
----
Rasa gets into the bed and actually curls up into Amber unprompted.
"Thank you..."
She falls asleep almost immediately... She doesn't know how long she's been awake.
“Mana Weaving”
“She literally-“
“She literally weaves things from my core..”
{Remy curls up into the bed}
“She doesn’t even trust me!”
“She can do anything to me!”
——-
{Amber purrs softly and holds Rada, falling asleep with her}
Eddie gently runs his hand through Remy's hair to try and calm both of them.
He has to think.
"Has she given any indication she would do anything to hurt you?"
Knowing Eddie's protective nature this question is important to him.
"I'm here... I wouldn't let anything happen, okay?"
“O-okay.. and not- really? But she doesn’t know how to use it correctly.. she came up with Mana weaving on her own!”
“She doesn’t want to control me it looks like- which is good.. but damnit I need her on my side, so I can relax in again”
{Remy nuzzles into Eddie}
“She can also see everything I do apparently- even which it comes to rewinding time…”
“It’s so weird- I’m so curious about what she can do but at the same time holy shit”
“How do I go at this my dreamer? How do I not make it so I’m not being pushy about this..?”
Eddie nuzzles Remy back and takes a deep breath.
"Shit... Um... You can teach her how to use it, which could build trust too... But also you could try talking?... I mean earning someone's trust is different for each person."
He runs his hand through Remy's hair.
"It'll be okay, my seeker... I can't really explain how to earn someone's trust because it can vary so much, so just talk to her and ask you know?... Sorry if it isn't very helpful... Want me to stay by you?"
{Remy nods and sighs softly, and shakily}
“Maybe… I should talk to her in her dreams.. that way she can feel safer? I can’t hurt her in her dreamscape”
“and yes please.. i want you to stay with me, thank you”
{Remy leans into Eddie’s hand}
“I love you”
Eddie purrs softly and and kisses Remy's forehead.
"I love you too, my seeker... I'll be right here."
...
--
Rasa is back in the valley from her last dreamscape. The large flower field surround by mountains with the river that flows through it. She's sat at the river, feet in the water, wings laid out, and humming softly as she stares at the water.
A gentle breeze cools the air around them.
She wouldn't notice Remy at first.
{Remy watches her in the background, completely invisible to her- unfortunately, he can’t appear until Rasa looks for him}
{He looks around in dreamscape, he fidgets with his string on his wrist with a sigh}
Rasa kicks her feet in the river and sighs.
She pauses though. She's more aware of the strings in general, so she can sense that.
"... Remy?"
She looks towards him, just to see he'e there, and then turns back to the river.
{Remy immediately tenses and nods}
“Sorry- I don’t.. mean to interrupt your space..but I thought this would be the best place, since none of us can hurt each other in here”
{Remy slowly sits down in a distance but next to her, giving her space but he knows they need to talk}
Rasa nods slowly and stays silent for a while.
"I don't like having power over others... Not like this."
She sighs.
"I don't want to hurt you... But I also don't feel ready to really trust anyone yet. It's scary..."
She kicks her feet in the water more.
"... I trust Amber with touch, but... Not really more. Still feel on edge... So it's not... It's not anything to do with you when it comes to trust."
“…”
“I guess that’s fair- I.. believe you, when you say that you don’t like having power over people.. but we are here now”
“I can’t.. do much about it but the best way to go about this… i teach you how to fully master and understand Mana weaving..”
{Remy says with a shaky sigh}
“It won’t be all in one day, but- it would be best if we at least talked about starting”
Rasa nods slowly and fidgets with her hands.
"I would like to learn then... Maybe I'll feel ready to trust people eventually, but... Past isn't always easy to let go of. I'm at least eating now, even if I still really hate needing blood."
There's progress, but she's not quick to it.
"How would you teach me?..."
She looks over at Remy finally. Her golden and red eyes, she almost always covers her red eye with her hair. Not in her dreamscape though.
“Well, you should show me what you know, then I can help expand on it”
{Remy turns to her and tilts his head}
“Any progress is still good yknow?”
Rasa smiles softly and relaxes.
"Yeah... Sure I don't know how much I do know in perspective to how much can be done."
She chuckles a little and then focuses on the mana threads again.
She weaves them like incredibly fine lace into one of her dolls. Indistinguishable from a real person when she flows the mana into it in order to animate it.
Then she weaves together a wine glass like before. She mainly just knows how to weave it together to make a type of illusion.
It's just mana, but the way she does is like making an illusion out of something physical instead of a mirage.
"Kind of just know how to weave it together to make things, not sure how to do anything else right now."
Still she weaved those threads together impossibly fast.
"Does that help?"
“That does help a lot, you are very skilled at this ability, is there a limit for you that you are aware of? Like when you weave too much?”
{Remy asks with a head tilt, he stares at the wine glass in a slight awe, he can see the glass is made out of only mana but she made it look like a solid wine glass}
Rasa thinks for a moment at Remy's questions.
"I have not found a limit, no, but I also only really made my dolls with it before Virgil asked if I could make other objects... While I can the structures of things it's still more like an illusion than a real object."
She unweaves the glass and weaves together what looks and smells like coffee.
"I can make things smell, look, and feel like the real thing... But it isn't so this would basically just be like drinking mana."
She unweaves it as well.
"And I'm not using internal mana to do this either so it only tires me out from the movement. I do have a small amount of internal mana, but I use that when controlling the dolls."
She fidgets with threads she has wrapped around her fingers as she talks.
"I suppose the main limit from weaving too much would be from mental exhaustion since it takes focus? It does take focus, but the type that is more like muscle memory?"
Background focus can still be tiring.
“Holy shit.. I’m very impressed, can you show me how you weave exactly? I can see that you do it in a fast fashion, but I could help you make your weaves last without much concentration, Mana holds memory, kinda like memory foam”
“You just need to learn how to weave the ends properly so it stays in form until you unweave it”
{Remy says with a head tilt}
Rasa nods and thinks for a moment.
"Hmmm..."
She grabs the threads and weaves them together slower this time. She weaves similar to how people would handmake lace. She weaves together in such a fine way, but at a closer look she does very specific patterns as she does.
For the glass it has a repeating simpler pattern that causes the mana to reflect within the threads... Resulting in the glass illusion.
When she does her dolls though the patterns vary and repeat in patterns, also looking like more complex patterns... it causes the mana to reflect through the threads in a different way.
She's not just threading it together, she's creating patterns to reflect the mana in the threads. She doesn't seem to really realize that though.
The stress ball at simple repeating patterns, different segments of the dolls require different patterns, the wine glass is folded patterns.
"Does that help...?"
The fact she does that all fast enough to look like regular magic is... It would seem impossible.
