Raphael looked ready to do physical harm to her after she climbed on the bench. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Get. Off. The. Bench.”
“No.” She replied flippantly and smirked. “Oooh, what’s this, big guy doesn’t like getting a dose of his own medicine? Not so tough when you can’t intimidate me, are you?” He was turning apoplectic with rage. That last bit -might- have been a tad too far…
He’d started advancing when Jessica piped in. “The academy heard about her and wants to recruit her. They’re panicking a bit because the selections are almost over and they only heard of her today.”
Jade smiled benignly at Jessica, stepping down off the bench and smirking even wider, which was kinda creepy on her skeletal face. All three of them had taken a step back, and she belatedly frowned. “What, am I that scary?”
Jessica and Kaylee shook their heads frantically, while Raphael snapped rapidly, “You’re creepy. Now tell us what you know.”
Jade was glaring at him outright again, all signs of her smirk gone. She questioned pointedly, “Do you really think it’s a good idea to piss off your information source...before you get the information?”
Raphael ran a hand through his glorious hair in frustration, then countered. “Do you think it’s a good idea to piss off the owner of the place where you’re staying?”
Jade glared. “Touché.” Turning to the girls, she asked, “Did you get a description of the…healer?” She had barely stopped herself from saying zombie. She did NOT want this to become her nickname in the future, but she had a bad feeling about it…
“Yeah, of course!” Jessica seemed happy to be back onto a semi-neutral subject, and she rattled on. “She was covered in blood, super skeletal like skinny, dark brown shoulder length hair, green eyes…”
As she listed the attributes, it was like a lightbulb went off over all of their heads as they stared at her.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me.” Raphael cursed loudly while Jade’s smirk, albeit a much smaller one, came back.
Jade gave him a little ironic curtsey, saying pointedly, “Beginner healer, at your service. I believe I said something earlier about joining the academy and you said there was no way… So I think now is the right time to say I told you so.”
If looks could kill, she’d be minced meat at this point. Like, unidentifiable mush level of minced meat. Finally, he spat out two more words. “Prove it.”
She raised a brow. “I’m not injuring myself again just to prove a point to you.”
Kaylee caught the pertinent word there. “Again?”
Jade mentally cursed. That had slipped out. Giving up, she shrugged. “I got the ability, wanted to try it, and needed an injury to heal. How do you think I got covered in blood in the first place?”
Now they were ogling her like she was stupid. Jessica pointed out the obvious, sadly. “Wouldn’t a bruise have been fine? Did you need to cut yourself up?”
She sighed. Nope, she was never going to live down these rumors. “I hit myself a little harder than I anticipated, okay? But look, no scar!” She held her arm out for inspection.
“I want to see you do it.” Raphael was like a dog gnawing on this bone of contention.
“Oh, you want to see it, do you? Stab yourself and I’ll do the voodoo.” So she was maybe feeling a little vindictive at the moment.
“What’s voodoo?” She vaguely heard Kaylee ask in the background, but her whole attention was on Raphael, who had pulled a wicked looking knife out of seemingly nowhere. She winced as he made a clean cut on his bicep, though she did note he didn’t do it very deeply. Smart. Though she figured if she really had been a fraud, he could go to Mike’s. He wasn’t all that far away.
“Well?” He was staring at her challengingly, seemingly totally nonchalant that blood was now running down his arm in little rivulets.
“You’re a crazy person; you know that?”
“Just heal it.” He muttered gruffly as she walked forward, putting her finger on his arm. Randomly, she noted no new notification popped up, so siphoning him again wasn’t currently an option. In her mind’s eye, she saw the wound pop up. It was a super clean cut, and she was reasonably impressed.
“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” She muttered softly, pushing the warmth of her power into his arm. When she was sure it had closed completely, she let go, contemplating her hand. She was fine with her own blood; it had been drawn enough times. Other people’s blood, she was learning, she wasn’t so good with. Feeling a little woozy, she stumbled back to sit at the table, staring at her hand. “You uh…got something I can put the blood in?”
“Put the blood in?” His comment came too late, she’d already concentrated on rolling the blood together and had it in a little ball on top of her palm before she looked up at him like a deer caught in the headlights. All three of them were now giving her the ‘she’s a witch!’ look. Like a little kid trying to hide candy, she put her hand behind her back. “Give me that.” Raphael had come forward and with supernal ease pulled her arm back in front of her. Despite the fact that she’d been resisting as hard as she could, she was forced to bring it out or hurt herself trying to stop him...unsuccessfully.
He was now staring at the little orb of blood rolling on her palm innocently. She was actually getting a little queasy looking at it and the blood on his arm. With a sigh and figuring the cat was already out of the bag, she made a grabby motion at his arm and pulled all the little rivulets of blood into her ball, making it about five times larger. She took the now tangerine-sized ball and grabbed his hand, opening it, and dumped it there.
“Your blood, your problem. Get it out of my sight before I sick up.”
She turned away and flopped onto the bench as he let off a low guffaw at her discomfort. He walked away, and she could hear him grabbing a mug or something before he stuck the ball of blood inside it. He walked back over to her, squatting so they were eye to eye as he stared at her.
“You’re a blood mage too?”
She sighed and shrugged. “I dunno. I just wanted to clean the blood out of my hair, it moved for me, and then I had blood magic in my skills.”
He looked like he was trying to read her soul. She glanced away, made uncomfortable by his piercing attention. Finally, he spoke again. “I’ll take you to register for the academy tomorrow. The room is yours.”
She glanced back at him, surprised. He laughed and shook his head. “You were right. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. You just…don’t look like the normal academy type. Or the normal traveler, for that matter.”
She shrugged and sighed. “I’m abnormal, okay? And I’m still growing. Where I came from…” She drew circles on her leg with her fingers. “Things were different. I was different. This is all new to me.”
Jessica, whose existence she had honestly completely forgotten about during her intense healing/conversation with Raphael, piped in. “You’ll get the hang of things in no time, don’t worry. We’ll help you.”
Unless I wake up and this was all a dream. She mused sarcastically to herself. She still thought she was going to wake up trapped in a reality that seemed like it was black and white dull compared to the day she’d just had. Though…was her imagination really this good, to be able to create a whole new world with magic and stuff? She didn’t think so.