Welcome to Gaia! ::

The door opened, a giant of a boy standing in place of the oak wood and looking quizzically at the young woman that hovered before him. He had a habit of looming without meaning to, except he looked so friendly and inviting that it was hard to feel defensive.

"Can I help you?" Ray asked, peeking around the sides of the building to make certain that this wasn't some sort of raid. When he was positive that the girl was on her own, he offered her a warm smile. "You knew to kick the door, so I guess you're here for someone. Are you one of Theresa's friends? She's not in just now."

She had odd colored eyes, he noticed, mostly blue but rimmed with gold or a yellow that might have been the result of some new drug he hadn't heard of. Her ears looked strangely pointed and elongated as well; he'd heard of people getting surgery to give them just such a look, but had never really agreed with it. Still, it was none of his business and she didn't look particularly dangerous; just the opposite, if anything.

Dark eyes displayed some surprise at that announcement, along with a measure of pleasure and slight hintings of regret. "Yeah... but I don't know if she'll be up to talking with you. She's had a rough couple of days."

News? He wanted to ask, but he held his tongue.

He moved from where he barricaded the door, glancing toward the stage where Pell-mell had made her sanctuary for the last few days. He wasn't certain if she was sick from her various wounds or from what had occurred at the rave nearly five days past. Ray simply didn't have the heart to prod at her by asking.

"You're a medic or something?" He questioned as he led the way down toward where the back door of the stage was. "She won't go to the hospital and she won't let me try anything. Her knee is swelled and red, and she can't close her hand right," he was babbling, he knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help but feel hope spring up at the prospect of aid. "She's also got a cut on her stomach that she needs to wash out more..."

He paused, looking highly embarrassed as he remembered something. "Oh, geez, I didn't catch your name. I'm Ray, Persephone's old friend."

He shrugged, perhaps a tad suspicious that this 'Panacea' had not known Pell's given name. Her name also rang a few bells in his head, mostly because he could remember referencing it when he was still in school, something about it being a cure-all, a folklore remedy.

Then she unfurled her wings.

He would have been struck dumb had he not engaged in a conversation with Pell-mell earlier concerning gods and goddesses walking the earth through mortal form. Still, it was a bit of a shock, though it somehow fit and explained perfectly her abnormal features.

"I... no, I don't mind," He replied mildly, looking upon the full wingspan with reserved awe. It would do little good to ogle at an Edelsteine, however, so he snapped the thoughts out with an inaudible clunk. "Pell was the only one who got hurt... "

Guilt was evident in his voice and in the way he gave the draconic tattoo on his arm a consoling rub with one thumb. "We have water that tends to come out hot every once in a blue moon, but the only cloths around are either used or moth eaten. Do you want me to tell her you're here?"

Pell had mentioned Memi offhand once, describing her as a younger girl with charcoal black hair and sweet blue eyes. He could draw similarities, though they disturbed him when he realized that this was what would eventually happen to his friend; she would become a ghost to better glorify the goddess within.

The thought was not a cheering one.

"I'll tell her that you're both here." He said finally, his tone having lost only a small amount of its joviality. "And I'll look for any cloth that isn't too messy. Wait here for just a sec."

He went behind the curtains, eyes adjusting to the dark with slow precision, and saw her laying amidst the piles of old stage clothes and a few pilfered sleeping bags. She looked like a princess of unwanted things, dressed in rags and resting on them, face pale with dark shadows under her eyes. It made him hurt physically, that he could not care for her, that she would not allow him to.

"Persephone...?"

She awoke with a start, rising up hurriedly and biting back a yelp when the movement caused pain to blossom across her abdomen. "Ray...?"

She had been dreaming of something terrible, but could no longer give a narrative of what the plot had been. Only the sensation remained, a sickness that spawned from both her and Kishara.

"Yeah," the boy approached her carefully, as though afraid she would lash out. It hurt, but the action was unsurprising considering what she had accomplished with a pocketknife and some free-flying anger. "There's someone here to see you... two people... well, a goddess and a person if you really want to get technical."

She wilted, like a flower that had been stepped on. "Who?" Her voice was small and scared.

"Memi and Panacea," His look was one of worry. "Do you not want to see her?"

"... I don't know," She admitted, stroking her dragon tattoo with her good hand. "I don't know..."

So Memi was now Panacea? That was hardly a shock, considering how the young girl had changed so drastically before. It was disappointing though, she had been certain that if anyone could have evaded the change, the metamorphasis, it would have been Memi.

Apparently, there was nothing left to hope for.

"She wants to look at your injuries, see if she can do anything." Ray's words had taken on a pleading note, forcing her to look at him once more. "I can sit in here while she does it, if you want. I just think you should see her."

She really did not want to see what Memi had become, didn't want Panacea to take in her wounds and know what she had done. The child wouldn't have understood, but the Edelsteine was likely not to even bother herself by trying.

"Please, Persephone... you need to be treated."

The thief ached all over, like her body was a full fledged bruise. She had to wonder if her skin was purpled, riddled with black and blue. That she could have coped with, but Ray's concerned expression was eating away at her, and she couldn't bear to have him remember her as a stubborn mule who died because she felt like it and not because it was the only option left.

"Fine..." She said tiredly, rubbing one eye with her bandaged hand, but that seemed defeatist as well, so she added. "But if she so much as looks at me funny, I'm kicking her holy a** out of here."

Ray smiled and went to retreive Panacea without even giving her the impossibility of such an action.

Her first instinctive thought was that Panacea looked very much like Memi, something that both amused and devastated her on some base level. Was the little girl who had tried to make her pancakes still in there somewhere? Could she see her?

She listened, lips pursed in stubborn dislike that gradually warped into horror when Medicine explained precisely what had happened. "Kishara knew... she said his name..." she murmured, almost to herself. Her rage would have been hotter, had she felt less like she was being held together by pieces of compromised twine and running on nothing but sleep and water.

"Gods, I knew Khiviance was trouble, and Lucius was insane or something that last time I saw him. I would have warned you but-" She stopped, eyes narrowing, "At least, I would have warned Memi."

The thief stopped talking for a moment, feeling the goddess who had been absent for days stirring up at the topic of conversation. Kishara felt around politely as she could in a sleepy rush before finding what she required: the vocal chords. "And Harmodius, how does he fare? Is he well?"

So nice of you to show up.

Let us not argue in front of Medicine; I will explain once she has tended to you.

Kishara let her control fall away, figuring that was as much information as she could get out of the goddess of medicine without a full-blown interrogation that the Gaian Edelsteine was much too tired for. Whispers of fear still swam around her, something that she kept from her host as best she could.

Pell blinked back into her own head from where she had been strangely squashed in her own skull. "You're not my damn mom, I didn't expect you to swoop in and kiss my boo-boos," She replied, perhaps a bit caustic in her rush to be heard once more.

She shifted into a more comfortable position, tensing when the scabbing on her knee cracked and began to seep beneath its rough bandaging. "If you work while you talk, I don't see what the problem is. What's this thing that'll cheer me up?"

The thief half-expected to be admonished for her ill tongue by one of the goddesses, though Kishara seemed preoccupied. But she felt almost human again, at least more than she had in the past few days when all that there was to think about was pain which had been both inflicted and received.

Her mouth fell open in a fashion fit to attract any nearby flies, eyes widening to form two perfectly round circles. "Memi did what?!"

Kishara was also stunned, something that was hard to accomplish with an Edelsteine that was nearly as old as Creation. Then she gave an incredulous laugh, What an interesting development these mortals have become...

She nearly jumped out of her bruised and bloodied skin when Ray cleared his throat, a pile of partially clean rags doused in warm water in his arms while one hand held a cup of steaming liquid. "Do you still need these?"

Her face hurt from maintaining its expression of shock, so she carefully shrugged it off, still looking at Panacea with surprise and the beginnings of amusment. "You do realize that you're going to have to share everything now... put those here, Ray, we'll deal with them in a minute."