cast your eyes--

     ☽. It is extremely easy to tell that something is off - that something is wrong. And Raven has to be a little out of it to think Kori won’t tell that. She takes a deep breath, looking up at the taller woman as one hand holds onto the book underneath her cloak. What… what does she need. Does she need anything ?? Probably something. Azar can only tell. …Maybe she needs someone.  ❝ …I don’t really know. ❞ She honestly answers. ❝ I just need to get out of my own room for a bit. ❞ Earlier actions have made her head run in circles - it’s almost embarrassing. Especially in front of Kori.

“ would you like to go with me to the downtown? ” a pause as her hand pulls back, falls by her side and she takes a step back, herself. no need to crowd raven, to push her back into the dark confines of her room when it’s clearly not where she wants to be. there’s a pause, a moment as kori just looks at her, searching for an answer. silently, she reaches up, brushing a lock of dark hair from raven’s face. “ or we could just sit on the shore and watch the waves. ”

@koriaandrs

    ☽. She should have burned it the moment she found out he was a liar, but call it a moment of weakness those long as hell years ago ; his calling to her is becoming less and less frequent, but every once in a while, the damn thing will pipe up, and  M a l c h i o r  will poison Raven’s thoughts again. She never opens it, but she does find herself looking at it and holding it from time to time. Today happens to be one of those days the saccharine words echo to her ears as she’s meditating, and now her balance has been thrown off. So now she’s made herself a contained fire of her power in her room, and the book is silent, but her hand hovers with it in her palm as her mind tells her to just fucking do it already, but her fingers won’t give out. It feels like hours of struggle and debate before she recedes, the fire stops, and she finds herself staring at the floor, the book, and the silent mockery of her own cowardice. 

   ☽. Then there’s an interruption. She hears another’s presence. Her hand moves to hide the book underneath her cloak as she steps outside, opening the door -  ❝ Kori. Hi. ❞

“ rae-- ” 

but the look on her face is familiar, and kori’s words stop. her smile shifts, falters, drops from her face as she reaches a hand out to her friend. few things shift the light behind raven’s eyes the way they are now, darker. heavier. and whatever it is, it breaks kori’s heart a little--or a lot. she takes a step towards her friend, her--whatever the hell they are. her fellow titan. her adoring, adorable friend. she wants to help doesn’t know how. if she knew what the problem was-- “ what do you need? ”

    “ sort of. i mean, showers can be a little tough to find on alien planets, i guess. ” granted, that’s rarely ever their main concern, but hey - jess feels marginally justified in wanting a warm shower after the messes they get into. “ sounds pretty insignificant compared to, uh…all the other stuff going on, to be fair. ” 

kori makes a noncommittal noise, shifting to get a better look at jessica. showers weren’t a concept she was particularly familiar with until arriving on earth, and while they’re comforting... they seem less of a necessity to her than most humans seem to consider them. “ mass disappearances and world convergences do tend to take priority. ”

cassie stares away, off at the sky, and pulls her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing at it. then she sighs. her hands drift, grazing over the ground. “still feels selfish. still feels stupid.” she knows it isn’t. she knows the girl is right. but knowing doesn’t always equal feeling. “i know.”

“ then you must let yourself feel that. ” a shrug of her shoulders, fingers threading through the grass beneath her. tugging lightly. sitting still feels wrong, now. there’s too much restless energy in the world tonight. “ and then you must move on. ”

starter – *✦·˚ ( @koriaandrs )

    her hair is still damp as she enters one of the pseudo living rooms that the hall of justice houses. “ i miss the watchtower. ” she mutters before realizing she’s decidedly not alone. “ uh - sorry. i mean, everyone’s great here. just…lot of people. not as much hot water. you get the picture. don’t have to worry about that in space, i guess. ”

kori half-turns, casting a glance over the back of the couch. “ you are a lantern, no? ” she can’t keep the colors straight, to be perfectly honest, but she can only assume that to be a lantern and living on earth leaves a small number of options. at least, to be living in the hall of justice and a lantern. “ have you encountered many issues with hot water in your travels? ”

@koriaandrs

   “ hey, star, ” dick greets, slips an arm around her waist to hug her in greeting.  it’s easy affection borne from a decade of history.  her presence is warm and familiar, and it draws dick out of his near-perpetual funk under current circumstances.  “ you got a second ??  i could use your help with something. ”  he closes the laptop on his desk, picks up his cup of coffee.  “ i’ve been working with tim to set up a few new security measures, and you’re better suited to test them than i am. ”

kori hums, leans into dick just as he does her, a slow-growing grin on her face. familiarity in every single way, there’s nothing about his presence that she would protest. for better or worse, he is her closest friend, and one of the dearest. “ sounds like a challenge. ” her slow-growing smile blinks up to brilliance in a matter of seconds, buzzing with adrenaline, with a chance to stretch her legs. “ will tim be upset if i ruin something? ”

cassie’s heard it all before: i’m sorry for your loss; he was a great man; we miss him, too. she’s learned that sometimes, a reply to those is worth far less than silence. so she doesn’t speak, only smiles sadly, and blinks away the burning in her eyes. “yeah, i know. but i’m not the only one here who’s lost someone. it feels a bit selfish, sometimes. i don’t know.”

kori stills for a moment, head tilted just slightly, the picture of a curious, calculating cat. ( there’s a plethora of reasons she’s been called a space kitten before, and this is one of them. ) when she does move, it’s to take one final bite of the snack in her hand, brushing crumbs from her fingers. “ mourning isn’t selfish, and denying yourself the moments you need most will be detrimental to your personal growth. ”

“the first time, it was… four years? i was eleven when he died, fifteen when he came back, i think. everything’s fuzzy, around that time.“ she swallows back the darkness, tries not to dwell on the haziness. coming back from death isn’t an easy thing, she has to remind herself. don’t push yourself. “and now… well, he disappeared with the rest. i haven’t really been counting the days. it feels like forever.”

“ i am sorry. ” it’s not nearly enough, not nearly helpful or encouraging. she hates the way it sounds in her mouth, thick like cotton, distorted and useless. “ it is good that you have thing to remind yourself of him. even if it’s hard. ” a pointed look at the book, the donuts. kori sighs, taking another bite of the food in her hands. “ and it is alright to grieve. or to feel whatever you do. ”

the confusion is clear to cassie - she feels it, almost, more than seeing it - but she can’t quite work out the source of kori’s misplacement. then she shrugs. “here i am,” she agrees, then she sighs. “dad always loved it. thought it was brilliantly hilarious - the idea that the only way out of a situation would only make the situation itself inescapable. paradoxes, i guess. it was pure genius to him. he always said i’d get a better education in books than in most schools.” she looks down to the box, and selects a sour cream donut. she sinks her teeth in; chews; swallows. “first time he died, i made a promise to read all the american classics. but i kept coming back to catch-22 when i missed him.”

there it is--the reason kori doesn’t push. sometimes, it’s just better if it comes naturally. kori takes a few bites of her donut before she says anything, tugging her legs under her and settling on the grass in lieu of floating. “ how long has he been gone? ” she doesn’t ask how many times he died or who he was or which universe they hail from, because it doesn’t matter. when you miss your family, when your family is your home, none of that matters at all. 

  ☽. She looks down, only breaking eye contact as her smile curls slightly wider. Again, Koriand’r is perhaps one of the only people that can lure out this type of response from the normally closed-off half-demon. Raven chooses to shut herself inside - but those who she does let in ?? She cherishes. But she hasn’t even let Kori in - Kori makes herself welcome, and her presence is… better. Raven keeps her door open for her at all times. ❝ …And you’re one of mine. ❞ She looks back up, still smiling. ❝ …Thank you for visiting me ; ..you hungry ?? ❞ There’s a multitude of other things Raven could say, but her own fear makes her hold back. Fear she has to bottle up inside, with the rest of her emotions. Hesitance to really ponder on what exactly she feels for Kori ; she just knows when Kori approaches her, she instantly feels calm.

their gazes disconnect and kori feels the loss somewhere deep in her gut. it’s softened by the upward curl of raven’s lips, a tease of a smile that seizes her chest and holds it captive. saysomethingsaysomethingsaysomething. but perhaps she’s been around humans too long, because she says nothing. just taps her nails on the counter and shrugs in reply. “ you never have to thank me for that. --maybe a bit. ” she smiles again with all the warmth of a hearth fire, reliable and slow and steady, while another kind of fire thrashes for freedom in her gut. 

“yeah. it’s from the 70s, though. it’s probably not the easiest thing to watch.” cassie explains: she’s never been tempted, not once, to cheat her way through the classics via the big screen. words have more power. “also, the concept of the book itself is pretty confusing. most people don’t see why you’d read it for fun.”

classification by decade means... little to kori. earth’s history is confusing and so absolutely unapologetically human that she is both enamored with and confused by it. more often confused. wars fought over unspoken truces and back-stabbings and... she smiles and nods all the same. it’s 2018. people should be more understanding by now. “ and yet here you are. ”

   ☽. It’s no secret that Raven’s mood can instantly change when the Tamaranean woman makes an entrance. Even if she was occupies with something else prior ; Kori is different. Raven’s skies are permanently gray until soft sunshine enters and breaks through the clouds and rain, and normally, where she’d draw the curtains and shut herself away in darkness, she now encourages the light to seep through. Gentle and warm… ❝ …Tons of people here, and somehow the company you want is mine. ❞ She breathes, a soft smile on her features.  ❝ …I don’t think I get that, but … I’ll take it. ❞

there are years of familiarity between them that would permit a brush of hands, a subtle, gentle touch. and kori is hardly one to deny herself that. but raven... raven is otherworldly in a way kori is not. and she is reserved in a way kori is not. and despite all that they’ve been through, the princess can’t bring herself to take advantage of those years. even for a kiss. even for a smile. her fingers twitch in her lap, her tongue skimming along her teeth. “ you are one of my oldest and dearest friends. ” it’s the only explanation she needs, really.