raisetheearth | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Jasmine, Marina
What: Touching base
Where: Jasmine and Marina's home, Shepherd's Haven
When: August 31st

Jasmine sat on the bed of the home she and Marina shared, drawing in her sketchbook. Her comic had a few new characters upcoming, and at this point, Jasmine was trying to hash out some character designs. At the very least, that was the idea.

Because the drawing on the paper currently wasn't anyone from "Magical Enforce", nor was it anyone fictional at all. It was Jasmine herself, standing over a pile of defeated, decidedly reptillian-looking foes, including a few crudely drawn snakes.

Jasmine grimaced as she looked down at her handiwork. "As far as cries for help go, this is excessively blatant," she remarked to herself.

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Laid out on the other side of the bed, Marina had a phone in one hand, texting, drumming on the sheets with the fingers of her other hand. Normal, but the concentrated frown on her face gave away that she'd been thinking about little things like the sudden return of the snakes, the damage done by those dinosaurs, and the appearance of new faces on the network.

Scooting up to her knees to peer over her shoulder at Jasmine's pronouncement, she looked down on her art. "Hey, it's almost as cool as the real thing."

"Well, yeah," Jasmine replied. "It is pretty cool. But not what I wanted to draw..."

She sighed and moved to set her sketchpad aside, before staring up at the ceiling. "Ugh, why am I thinking about stuff that literally terrifies me?"

Marina wrapped her arms around Jasmine from behind, kissing the top of her head. "Because it terrifies you. If I could just yank it out of your head for now I would..."

Sighing as well, she relaxed against Jasmine. "If you need to talk, or cuddle, or go out and do something, or whatever, though, I'm right here."

Jasmine felt herself relax when Marina leaned against her. She closed her eyes, and set the sketch pad to the side before moving to turn around and wrap her arms around Marina in kind. She ended up placing her head against her fiance's chest.

"It's not just that I'm scared," Jasmine admitted. "I don't... I don't really know how to explain this, but I've felt different when I've been fighting, lately..."

Holding Jasmine against herself was about as comforting as she could get. "Different how?" she asked - hoping that she could help with more than just this. "If you need a break, no one's gonna hold it against you."

"... It's not that I need a break," Jasmine replied, her expression turning serious. "It's more... how easy it is to get into battle mode..."

Marina thought on that a moment, with a low 'hmm'. Too easy to get into battle mode. "You don't like how natural fighting comes to you, huh?" Jasmine wants to be an artist, not a soldier, and here fate is throwing battles at her.

"I dunno," Jasmine replied. Then, after realizing how noncommittal that sounded, she continued.

"I wonder if that means anything bad, is all. Like... if that's a part of me I should be ashamed of."

"Bad..." she wasn't sure about that, honestly. "We've all had to fight so much that I think it might be normal... but you know there's a lot more to you than fighting. So many things about you that I love, that your sister and your friends see in you."

Jasmine's cheeks turned red, and she felt a bit of warmth in her chest. However, as good as it heard to hear those words, she felt like it didn't quite hit the mark about her anxieties.

"... It feels good to hear that," she said, smiling sort of sadly. "I mean it. But... it's not like that. I love all the parts of myself. I love having this power to protect my friends. I love having clarity I didn't have before..."

She looked Marina directly in the eye now.

"I just... I'm afraid that clarity makes me inhuman somehow."

Edited 2015-09-14 15:31 (UTC)

Sometimes, Marina wished she was better at figuring out how to actually help in situations like this, or understand what Jasmine was feeling more easily. "Right... yeah, I get liking power, and stuff..."

She looked back, raising an eyebrow. "Hey, you being 'not human' wouldn't make much of a difference to me - you're still you - but I don't think there's anything inhuman about it, far as I can tell."

"... I don't mean inhuman like... 'I'm a freak'," she replied. "I mean, I'm over that. It's more like I'm afraid I'll lose my compassion... or that I'll do something that's excessive or more violent than it should be."

She sighed, and reached to hug Marina. "But... knowing you'll believe in me no matter what? That does help. Thank you, babe..."

"Your compassion? All that compassion in that fluffy Jasmine head of yours?" Fluffy...? Sure. "If you have gone that far - or been tempted to go way overboard, or hurt someone who didn't deserve it, we'll deal with it, and if it does happen, I'll be there to help you."

They were public - they could see therapists, unlike, say, two years ago. A mundane solution to a supernatural problem?

"We make mistakes, and that's all it'll be. Your heart's too big for anything else," Marina assured her, clinging and cuddling.

Edited 2015-09-15 04:06 (UTC)

Therapy was something Jasmine needed before all of this happened, so she was more than thankful enough for that. But being in a much better place now than when she started this strange journey, she couldn't help but admit her fiance was right.

"Thank you," Jasmine admitted finally, hugging Marina softly. "For making me realize how dumb I'm being. And really, the fact I could recognize it before anything bad happened means more than I'm giving myself credit for."

Edited 2015-09-17 14:30 (UTC)

Marina was glad for that, at least - that she could see how much better Jasmine felt. She hugged back, gently, smiling. "It's not dumb, but yeah, see? You've got it under control."

She kissed Jasmine on the cheek, and pulled back slightly. "Better?"

Jasmine smiled like the schoolgirl she'd been two years ago... except, wait, no, that version of her would have turned red, said something embarassing, and ran off to express her feelings in the form of an angsty fanfic or artwork posted to an online gallery.

No, she smiled sincerely and lovingly. God, she adored Marina so much.

"Yeah... definitely better," she said, leaning in to kiss Marina's cheek in turn. "What would I ever do without you?"

They'd both changed, and grown up, a lot since then. Marina could never know what it was like to live with quite the same problem Jasmine had - but she could still do something about it. That was enough.

"I don't wanna think about you melting into a puddle of angst." And she leaned down to kiss Jasmine on the cheek again. She will have the last word. "...I know how strong you are Jasmine."

And then her eyes went wide, for just a moment, like she'd just remembered something important.

"You're strong too," Jasmine added, like it was the most natural thing ever to say, moving in for another kiss... when she noticed the expression on Marina's face.

"Babe...?"

"Oh I just remembered I meant to talk to you about something. This is a terrible time, but you know how I am..." she laughed nervously. "J-just remind me to bring it up later? Unless you want me to spoil the mood and all?"

"... Babe, we just had a conversation about me being afraid I'm losing my conscience," she said. "I'm fine now. Whatever you want to talk about, I'm cool with it."

"Okay, okay, gotcha." No lovey-dovey then. She leaned back a bit more, a thoughtful look on her face. "So a little while ago I was looking at stuff on the network aimed at me and, you know, the uh, doppelgangers still have the same numbers. I try not to look at Umi's stuff because that's super rude, but I noticed a number I've never seen before and..."

Actually, now that she was saying it out loud, she was starting to look a bit more worried than she'd started out. "Looks like someone's recruiting 'special people' for some kind of unspecified cause."

Jasmine's eyes widened, and... she frowned. Honestly, she wished she was surprised, but honestly, she wasn't. Not really.

At the same time...

"I'm guessing that you don't have a name to attach to all of that..."

"Nope. In fact, the dude sent a helicopter to pick Umi up, so he's definitely got resources." To do what with? "Could've been a fully loaded military chopper, could just be a two-person, like, news helicopter, but the fact remains that he didn't wanna talk details like that."

Does he know about their shared number, or did he just get lucky?

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