2013.10.20 - Love Cures All

There is a princess at the door to Kara's room in the Tower. Unlike Pyre, Kara has other places to stay if she chooses, so this room isn't always occupied. But today it is, so Pyre is there in yet another thermal suit replacement since her last one had four holes in it (two in front, two in back), a white scarf with penguins on it, and the most ridiculous and adorable fluffy polar-bear-face ear muffs. She thinks it's past time to talk to her friend about what's going on between them.

Like, 'are they are still friends'.

As the red-head looks at the door with unfocused red eyes, lost her in own thoughts, she eventually takes a breath and lifts a hand to knock on the door. Then she glances to the side as she realizes Caela is standing behind her. "Hnnn!?" she inquires in annoyance. The blue-scarfs-instead-of-clothes-wearing ex-assassin stands there with her hands folded together at her belly, and smiles encouragingly. "Don't mind me, princess. I'll just be ensuring your safety." Pyre frowns and says, "Noh-meh-daa! Pyre no has need guarding!" Caela holds up the thermal suit Pyre was wearing before, with light shining through the holes, and turns it back and forth to illustrate the fact she does, infact, need guarding. Pyre retorts hotly, "Pyre say no!" Then she knocks on the door quickly, and unless she is told to get lost, she barges in as fast as she can and closes the door in Caela's face.

Caela looks very indignant about this.

Kara has withdrawn from the team in all but name, having become little more than a perfunctory member. She no longer appeared in the game room, only exited her room in the Tower during emergencies, and was frequently gone... and not at Karen's apartment, either, which she had also been avoiding, aside from the occasional need to raid it for clothes. She knew if she went back there when Karen was there, the older Kryptonian would MAKE her talk. And Kara Zor-El didn't want to talk. She didn't want to think, didn't want to be responsible.

She wanted to be alone.

But then comes a knock on her door, causing her to look longingly at the window and strongly consider flying out of it rather than face who was on the other side. Yes, she already knew. Super-senses told her who was coming down the hall when they got off the elevator. Her cape is somewhere over there on the back of a chair along with her super-suit, leaving her in a long night-shirt pullover that came down to her thighs. She's on her bed, her hands on one of her propped up knees, her cheek on her hands, staring out into the night.

With a sigh, she says "Enter." and the hydraulic doors 'shhhh' open at the sound of her voice. Pyre stalks in, Caela's left out. Poor Caela.

Kara does her team mate the service of picking her head up and turning around with a wan smile, though wary eyes. "Pyre. Need something?"

Pyre has stopped smiling. She had started to before, making her look so much younger and so much more like a normal girl not an alien princess. But then she stopped. Because being abrasive and huffy and self-absorbed is how she keeps people from getting close enough to find out how she really feels. But she's not really as focused on herself as she acts -- though she fools even herself sometimes. As much as Kara's words had hurt her, she thinks Kara herself was hurt even worse. So here she is to help Kara feel better.

She starts by climbing onto the older girl's bed uninvited and crawling across it until she is face-to-face with the blonde. Then, frowning, red eyebrows angled downwards, she says, "Kara is sad. Pyre is here and making Kara oh-so-is-not-sad." Then the hot-bodied girl who probably can't get away with hugging most people without burning them awkwardly puts her arms around the Kryptonian and holds tight. Her frown softens, her eyes losing focus again, as she rests her cheek on Kara's shoulder. "Bad-Kara's words hurt Pyre. Even if Bad-Kara's words true, Pyre knows Kara hurt super-bad-much like is opposite of foot massage. And if not true, then has no use in worrying. Kara is Kara."

Then as her flame-red hair tickles silky-soft all over Kara, Pyre's lips turn upwards in a small smile. "Unless Kara say 'no, Pyre is go away', Kara is always Pyre's friend."

The blonde watches the redhead come across the room with a rising sense of apprehension. She knew what Pyre was going to say even before she said it, and it was the one thing she /didn't/ want to hear. It's why she'd been avoiding everyone, why she'd been searching for answers, even going so far as to track down a Justice League spellslinger for magic protection, which hadn't gone as expected. Apparently magic didn't work like that, it wasn't a 'do anything' answer.

Then the other alien is crawling across the big, plush, red-blanketed bed towards her and, before she can protest, she's in a hug. Kara hears the words, sighs, and eventually Kara raises her arms and puts them around the flame-haired princess.

"We'll always be friends, Pyre." She whispers softly, then begins to pull back, pushing the redhead back by the shoulders at arms length so she can look her in the face. The Kryptonian's features practically shine with sadness. "It's been difficult for me. I-I think..." She wets her lip, "She knew just how to hurt you, all of you. She knew what you could and couldn't do, and just what to say. She knew everything I did, and twisted against us."

"I think whatever she was came... from somewhere inside of me."

Pyre is held at arm's length by her shoulders and looks innocently puzzled throughout the explanation. She worries for a moment maybe she made Kara feel worse somehow. But then she hears that last part and she frowns again. Though the other alien in the room can easily stop her if she chooses, Pyre raises a hand and attempts to slaps Kara across the face. Not that it would have hurt even if she put all her strength into it, it's still a relatively weak slap. Not intended to do damage. Then, angrily, she responds, "Pyre knows that! Pyre not dumb! Pyre talk like is so-so stupid, but Pyre not!" Then the anger goes away as quickly as it came, like a flame flaring up in the wind right before being blown out. She has a slightly sad expression of her own now, but there's still a smile on her face.

"Pyre knows. Pyre accepts all of Kara. Good, bad, and oh-so-is wishy-washy inbetween. Kara is Kara. Pyre love Kara exactly as-is." Then she puts her hand more gently to the blonde's cheek, not really being familiar with how affection is displayed amongst various other species, but knowing at least that contact like this is usually comforting, usually feels good... Both for her people and for humans. "All people is have bad inside. Even mighty Pyre." She huffs slightly. "If take dumb magic rock to make oh-so-is-hidden bad show up, then normal Kara is most mightyness of all, tah! No change who is Kara. No worry about who is Kara." She then attempts to plant a kiss on Kara's forehead. "Kara is Kara. No is replacing her for all food in universe."

Kara takes the slap. Truth be told, she feels like she deserves it, and more. It's more inline with how she wishes the rest of the Titans would treat her. "Pyre..." Kara starts, but the other alien is going on already, and the teenaged Kryptonian wasn't going to interrupt her. It was the first time the redhead had reached out to HER to help her solve one of HER problems. Sure, her and Pyre had talked before, but it had always been Kara seeking the other girl out, helping her acclimate to Earth, knowing what it was like to be a stranger cut off from home in a land you knew nothing about.

She closes her eyes and swallows. "I know, Pyre. I know. And I love you, too. I love /all/ of you. You're like my family, a real family, and if anything ever happened..." The young woman floats up and off the bed, placing her bare feet on the floor as she hugs her arms around herself, showing vulnerability and insecurities she wouldn't dare show in front of the whole team at once.

"But it's not that simple. Part /me/ tried to kill you, /would/ have killed you. Part of /me/ did all those things. Wearing the crest of the House of El," She's pacing, taking three or four steps, then turning. "Wearing my fucking /face/. Somewhere inside me, all of that is in there. It's eating me up that all it takes to make me try to kill my friends is a little black rock. There's already the red, that's bad enough. But something that brings out /that/?"

She stops, turns, and faces the alien, spreading her hands, blue eyes shiny with tears yet to fall. "Things I didn't even believe were inside of me. But she's in there, somewhere. She's a /part of me/. How can I not worry about that? How?"

Pyre quiets down, even with the passions prevalent among her people, she realizes there is a time and place to listen. She sits on her knees on the bed, with her legs spread, and watches and listens. She considers what Kara's saying, not just pushing the words aside in the bull-headed and stubborn way she normally does. She knows how she feels about Kara, but she doesn't know how Kara should feel about herself. "Pyre not have answers. Pyre still learning how has all working too. Pyre almost hurt -- maybe kill! -- people when Pyre is so-so angry at Bad-Kara's oh-so-is-mean words. No black rock. No blue rock. No plaid rock. No pink rock. No oh-so-is-sexy red rock. Just Pyre angry, and kawoooosh!" Pyre puts her arms up to illustrate the pillar of fire she had generated from her body and endangered team mates, allies, enemies, and bystanders alike. She drops them and says, "Pyre no have answers. But Pyre not giving up search for them. Having the knowing that there is bad inside means that much more carefuller of bad in future. Pyre not know how to fix Black Rock Shooter problem. But Pyre believe Kara strong enough to find answer for herself!"

Then she glances to the door, where Caela is probably waiting, and decides she really doesn't want to go back out there and get bossed about security. So she turns to the older girl, pulling her penguin scarf up over her nose and mouth since they're getting chilled, and says, "Pyre have question maybe Kara is having answer to." Then she fidgets a bit and glances at the bed as she moves to dangle her legs over the side. "...Pyre is sleep with Kara tonight? Pyre see on 'Sailor Love Love Shine' that love is cure all problem. Maybe cuddles is help Kara." Her face seems a bit red in the cheeks, but she pulls up the scarf even higher just then. "Please?"

"I know, I know, I just-..." Kara trails off, reaching up to rub her temples with her fingertips before digging her hands back through her blonde hair and exhaling sharply as she scowls up at the ceiling. She arches her back into a stretch as she does so, though the 'oh-so-sexy-red-rock' gets a brief bark of laughter from her.

She finally drops her hands, cocking her head to the side as she looks at the other alien quizzically, as if not understanding what exactly she was asking for at the moment. "Are... Did... Pyre, what kind of show was this, exactly?" Because the blonde was beginning to suspect that it wasn't the sort of thing someone would find on prime-time television during peak hours.

"Are you asking if you can sleep here? Like a sleepover? That's... usually reserved for humans who are mating. The cuddling thing, I mean." She looks at the door, the back at the red-haired alien princess. "I'll make you a deal, okay? I'll come stay the night in your room, if you like, where you won't be cold. We can listen to music and play checkers just like we used to all night, if you want. ...But you have to let Caela in, too. No more making her wait in the hall."

"It's..." She searches for the right word. "The /nice/ thing to do. I know she's 'so-so is bossy', but she's only ever thinking of you."

Pyre siiiiiighs. There's not really anywhere for Caela to stay in Pyre's room, and unlike Pyre herself, Caela is not immune to heat. The Assanti can acclimate to it quickly, but that still doesn't leave her anywhere to sleep. But if it's for Kara's emotional well-being (and Pyre's, to be honest. She feels slightly guilty about that, but she is also lonely and Kara is her best friend. Snuggling might make them BOTH feel better), then she will allow her counter-assassin to come in. Maybe she can sleep on the floor or something.

"Sailor Love Love Shine is magical princess who uses 'Luv Luv Beaaaaamu' to smashify Big Evil and turn them to side of good!" Pyre explains enthusiastically on the way to her room, after agreeing to the terms. Caela follows behind, raising a finger and asking, "A-Aah... What are you talking about exactly?" It's hard being out of the loop on popular anime.