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[right][code] Cracker Island - Cracker Town - Cracker Bar - The Cracked Pysche of Lila[/code]

[code]INTERACTIONS[/code] PRA, [@Punished GN] Stormy[@Blizz] Luca, Bianca [@FernStone] [/right]

Jasper blushed as Luca vomited out his words.  His mission was a success,  With just one phrase he now had a little bit more information about where Luca was, and he couldn’t help but smile wider at the revelation. He kept the smile up as his thoughts began to race.  These thoughts were still very new to Jasper, the thought of what might come next was scary.  Like, really, really scary.  He kept telling himself that this was not a feeling that he wanted to confront tonight but he could not help himself from feeling them.  He knew that he would need to slow down, not only for Luca’s sake but also his own.  He thought that but did not mean it.  There was something deep within him that made him want to experience more firsts with Luca.  Jasper would need to confront these feelings before long but he once again told himself that tonight was not the night for it.  Too much had happened, and much more might happen later in the night.  Still, he found it hard to pull his eyes off his friend.  

Instead of pressing the advantage while he had it, Jasper kept his smile up as he looked over the group again.  He listened to the PRA as they explained themselves further, and listened to the agent named Maximilian as he smoothed things over.  Jasper let out a deep breath of relief as he said the right words in the moment.  They were still words, and Jasper would want to see something more concrete than those, but it was still progress.  Sycamore Tree was the new kid on the block, and having peace with the town’s ‘police’ would be useful as time passed.  Also, if the Snake ever managed to free itself, all-verse forbid, he knew everyone would push their feelings to the side, even Lila and Linqian.  Jasper turned his head towards Stormy.  He managed to play the diplomat well, and his natural charm, confidence, and teacher's voice allowed the coven to get an explanation and an apology from the PRA agents who had hurt them.  Jasper would need to thank him later.  He flashed the diplomat a smile before he turned his head towards Meifeng before his head was drawn towards Luca standing up.  His first instinct was to jump up alongside him and help him to wherever he needed to go but Luca had this determined look to him.  

Jasper watched as he walked to Lila, and he raised an eyebrow at the mention of continuing the party at Luca’s.  That sounded much more fun than talking to the PRA, facing off with 8th Street, and even going through with the rest of the festival itself.  That was not because he did not want to eat the festival food, visit the haunted house, hang out with the coven, or anything like that.  He was more concerned with making sure Luca, and Lila, were okay.  And if that meant he needed to stop at the store on the way home to grab a maid outfit then so be it.  [color=98FB98]”Yeah, we’ve been through a lot tonight already Lila.  Plus, if we do have an after-party we can be [i]selective[/i] with the guest list.  Do you want to head home?”[/color]  Jasper looked at Luca and knew he needed the same.  [color=98FB98]”What about you Luca?”[/color]

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Lynn whispered a soft [color=F08080]“yay”[/color] as Bianca confirmed she had the same number as a decade prior.  Lynn knew that the text history was empty, but she also knew that it would not remain that way for long.  Lynn grinned at the comment about kidnapping someone.  [color=F08080]“I’ll need to find a sidekick for my kidnapping schemes then,”[/color] Lynn chuckled before she took a drink from her drink.  Lynn sighed happily as the buzz was finally here.  She wasn’t drunk, however, she was feeling pretty good. Right now all she wanted to do was drink slowly to stay at this level of drunk, get some good food, make some poor choices with a man or a woman, and then have a great night's sleep.  She took another sip.  If life was good she would be able to stick to the plan.  If life was not good she would be able to adjust the plan as needed to ensure she maintained this buzz.  

Lynn pulled her focus back to Bianca and smiled when she confirmed she would want to catch up again soon.  [color=F08080]“I can always check for you when you might be free, or I can leave it a mystery for you.  Regardless,”[/color] Lynn paused as she raised a glass, [color=F08080]“Whenever you are free I am sure it will be great to catch up in a less chaotic setting.”[/color]  Lynn watched as Stormy put his money on the table and raised an eyebrow as a smile crossed her face.  He seriously doubted her liver at that moment by putting that little money down.  And then, Bianca made a comment about drinking Stormy under the table and this caused Lynn to smile the hardest she smiled in a while.  [color=F08080]“How did we never hang out more ten years ago?”[/color]

Lynn pulled herself away when the Pink Power Ranger began to ask if Lila was okay.  Okay, they noticed the obvious and the obvious was strange enough to force the entire PRA congregation to stare her down.  Lynn did not like that.  Lila was having a moment unlike any other before, and right now her power was not only unpredictable but also unable to be suppressed by Stormy sitting nearby with his aura on.  Lynn knew they were making amends with the PRA right now, however, if Lila was going to become a threat she worried they might shepherd her away.  Lynn quickly slipped into the possible future, checking to see if Lila was in any danger from the PRA and if Luca’s suggestion was the right move for her.  Her eyes glazed over in an instant and her head remained steady for a few seconds, coming back to the present a second or two after Jasper finished speaking.  She had a bewildered look on her face as she looked towards the festival and the faint sound of a conga line was present in the air.  Lynn looked back to Lila with a concerned look on her face, and her eyes shifted to Lila’s dress.  

[color=F08080]“An after-party sounds much more fun than what is coming our way,”[/color] Lynn paused as she pointed in the direction of the toga crew.  [color=F08080]“Sully and Drake are drunk and have formed a toga conga line, and it is heading straight towards us right now.  Emily and Vashti are in the line and will not be happy to see us.  If we leave now, we can avoid all of that,”[/color] Lynn paused as she waited for Lila to respond.

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Anxiety, Lila’s old friend, had returned in full as she caught sight of just what happened with her hand. It wasn’t the feathered arm or the claws that caused her heart to sink, but rather the crimson-red color that dropped down from them both. She felt the stares of the table as the one PRA asked if she was okay.  Lila was anything but okay.  She did not know why, but this transformation had ended up feeling different, and painful, like the claws themselves had dug their way through her fingers to get out.  Her eyes grew wide as she saw the tips of where her fingers would have been.  The skin was broken and bloody, and the claws themselves carried with them specks of both flesh and blood.  Her fingernails were in pain as they were forced upward at a sharp angle to make room for the claws and she felt like the bones in her fingers were misaligned or pushed out of place.  It hurt.  It hurt really, really, bad and that pain was finally allowing itself to be felt in this moment.  The pain wasn’t localized to her hands either, all up her arm she felt like she had experienced a hundred cuts where the feathers had pushed their way through her skin.  The bones in her arm also felt like they were not where they were supposed to be, and she felt something [i]ielse[/i] alongside them. Under the canopy of feathers, she felt the steady, consistent trickle of blood which alerted her to the bleeding.  Lila tried to take a deep breath but all she could manage was shallow and quick.  When her eyes drifted down to her dress she could see a splattering of her blood on it.  

What the fuck was going on? Lila thought back to the first transformation she underwent earlier in the night.  Did this happen then and she did not notice?  She would’ve remembered the pain, but she did not look at her arms after the claws and the feathers went away.  Was the Maiden hiding the pain from her then?  She looked over to Lynn who was staring at her dress and Lila made herself look even smaller in response.  Maybe?  But then again, Lynn and Luca would have noticed if she was bleeding.  Jasper would have been too busy staring at Luca to notice a thing.  Something changed with this latest transformation, and she wondered if it was the ‘gifts’  becoming permanent.  She took a deep breath and looked back down to the clawed hands that rested on the table.  They looked familiar as she looked them over like she had seen them before many times in a forest far away.  This was beginning to scare her.    

Lila pulled her hands back across the table, claws digging a path clean into the wood before she hid them under the table.  She did not mind that she had a feathered hand, or arm, nor that her eyes were as black as the sky above if it were devoid of stars.  What she was worried about was looking not in control in front of these PRA agents.  She needed to calm her mind, she needed to push out The Maiden, and she needed this to happen right now.  Thankfully, Luca showed up and gave her an out.  His words had a calming effect on her mind, he had gone through something like this many times and had managed to pull himself back out the other side.  He had The Rot inside of him for the better part of the past decade and he was still here, and still able to live a normal life regardless.  If Luca could do it, Lila could too.  Lila took a deep breath and shook her head up and down.  She thought about the after-party at Luca’s.  They could just put on a crappy movie, eat some popcorn, invite everyone who was chill, and then go to bed.  Before the party she could take a shower, fix her hair and makeup, and make herself look and smell cute again.  The thoughts calmed her mind even more, and a moment later pain in her hand doubled as the claws began to pull themself back into her hand.  Slowly, inch by inch, they retreated back into the holes at her fingertips before the claws were gone from sight once more.  As they retreated she felt her bones inside her hands and arm readjust and she nearly collapsed over in pain. The holes remained, more or less, and they would not be able to grab, grasp, or use them at all.  All across her arms the feathers also found themselves pulled back inside.  As they left sight, they left a feather-width hole in her skin.  While not large, it still continued to allow blood to flow out easily, and soon her arm was covered in small streams of it.  

As the final feather disappeared, and her eyes returned to normal, Lila looked to her friends and smiled.  [color=DA70D6]“We’re good, but let’s get out of here,”[/color] Lila shifted her focus to Meifeng, shifting it to Cindy, and then to the next agent as Lila still could not look at the maids without blushing, [color=DA70D6]“I’m fine, Emily said something that messed with my head a bit and my power is tied to my emotions,”[/color] Lila thought to herself [color=DA70D6]’ apparently’[/color] as she shook her head, [color=DA70D6]“could I borrow your healer, if they are here?”[/color] Inside, Lila vomited.  She did not want to ask for help, she was fine.  Totally fine.  There was nothing wrong with what was going on, the bleeding was normal and happened to everyone who was cursed by a fucking bird.  She was cool, calm, collected, and confident.  She was not panicking.  Lila knew that asking for help was her way of telling the group that she was cool talking to the feds now, and that she was okay with Stormy playing the diplomat and nothing more.  There was nothing else it could possibly be.  Right?  Lila forced a smile across her face, a pained smile.  She held it as she forced herself to look at Meifeng and stared her in her eyes.  She hoped that the stare read along the lines of [color=DA70D6][i]’‘we’re cool, we’re chill, nothing else is going on and we’re totally okay and nothing else will happen tonight I promise, and if something did happen tonight it totally won't spiral out of control, I'm not that drunk so you don’t need to worry about me……………please.’[/i][/color]