Private Finished An eye for an eye

Tilly’s day began like any other. That was to say, she awoke, screaming and sitting bolt upright, soaked in cold sweat. The nightmares were back.

She’d been plagued by them for a year or so, but recently, they’d begun to go away. She hadn’t had one in nearly a month, but it seemed that whatever troubles her subconscious had designed to fret upon had come back to take a bite of her again. She felt weak and groggy, but the light pouring into her room through the cracks of her blackout curtains told her that she was late for class. It must have been almost noon. She didn’t have a clock or anything, to keep one maintained would be an exercise in futility, but she had a good head for what time it was.

She rolled out of her bed, and found that her legs could barely support her weight. She had to scoop her staff from the wall adjacent to it to support her weight fully, clinging to it like her grandmother held her own. She caught a look at herself in a mirror, (which she really should have remembered to turn around last night, least someone peer through it) and was frightened by what a mess she looked. Her hair was a frizzy, tangled mess, and she was pale as a ghost.

She realized now that Grandma Blackstone’s staff was just as much a tool of locomotion as it was a tool of magical prowess, and she wondered if age would ever reduce her to that point. She wasn’t really sure how old her grandma was, but she knew that her father had been a veteran of the Scottish Revolution, so she probably had time to spare before she had to worry about that.

With those cheery thoughts to keep her occupied, she hobbled to her kitchen, kicking open the icebox. Mom and dad had sent her a case of Vernors for just such an occasion, and she cracked a can of it open and took a few sips. Shuddering, she set the can on the counter and pulled a can of chicken soup from the cupboard. It was that kinda day.

Bundled up in her robes, with a pack of crackers, a bowl of hot soup, and the best ginger ale in the world, she sat on the little loveseat in her room and tried to keep comfortable. The soup had bolstered her strength, but it did nothing for the monstrous headache that usually accompanied these nightmares. She’d just gotten up for some excedrin when there came a knock at her door.

”Ugh.” She grunted, scooping up her staff. It was probably an RA, or maybe Shiro or Lottie or one of the other MA people that she’d hesitantly begun to call her friends, come to check on her. Either way, it was a disruption in her recovery process, and she was not having it. She hobbled to the door, her strength having mostly returned, although she still warily clung to her staff, in case it failed her again. The lock unlatched itself with a small effort of her will, and the door was eased open by a breeze.

At the sight of the figure standing before her, any color that might have been restored to her face immediately drained, and her green eyes grew wide.
”Thunderation.” She uttered, and what usually was nothing more than a simple curse to be uttered by Tilly in her frustration manifested in static electricity, crackling across the length of her staff and into the floor. Just an instant later, she raised her hand, bringing her will to bear.

”Kansius!” She would cry, drawing forth a hurricane gust of wind to drive the woman before her out of reach and through the wall behind her… and the wall behind that wall.

”Kan-cchk!

A sharp, sudden sensation of stabbing pain manifested at her throat, and she felt herself suddenly unable to speak, and, more importantly, unable to breath. How had this demon found its way here? How had she gotten inside the school? She staggered back, frantically swatting at the demoness’ knees with her staff as she backpedaled, choking and sputtering, a hand over her throat.

Think, Tilly, think.

She recalled her surroundings, searching for possible weapons to use. She couldn’t speak, which limited her options severely, and she had little in the way of armament. She was okay with a quarterstaff, but the nightmare was still packing a mental whammy on her, and it made her reflexes slow. Where she normally was able to calmly formulate a plan in a split second, she found herself grasping at straws, her thoughts cast to the wind.

And then she dropped two equally potent bombshells on Tilly. First, she was a student at Starlight Academy. She was all too willing to dismiss this as a lie, but this was definitely the kind of place she’d be likely to dwell. Secondly, she knew her full name. All four of her names. She never used her middle names. They were given to her as protection against those who would invoke her name to do harm. How had she gotten ahold of all four?

...It was probably an exercise in futility to wonder how a demon who was invoked specifically to answer questions knew anything. It would have made her feel a lot less safe about the protections of her name, but there was a much more direct threat to her safety presently.

Scrambling to her feet, she eyed her surroundings. In a cup on her coffee table to her left, she had an assortment of rods that all packed a wallop of one element or another. On her desk, just behind her, an assortment of labeled potions sat ready for her. On her nightstand in the room, just behind her and too her right, was her escape bracelet. Any of them were viable options, but she needed time to get the air back in her lungs.

”F-Khak-” She sputtered. ”Fellow s-student?” She rasped, hand rubbing against her throat.

As she stepped into the room, the silent alarms she’d prepared in the doorway began to ring in her head.

Thanks, I know. She groaned internally, disabling them. She didn’t need a constant ringing in the back of her head right now, on top of the throbbing headache and difficulty to breathe. Speaking of which…

She held up a finger, a gesture for patience as she placed a hand upon her throat and used one of the smaller spells she was capable of working nonverbally, a yellow aura originating from her hand glowing against her throat. She wasn’t injured, but it hurt like hell, and she wasn’t going to be able to speak like this.

As her airway was cleared once more, she sighed tiredly, standing with the majority of her weight on her staff, her posture wary. Coughing once, she cleared her throat, and took in a breath to speak.
”Oh yeah, I could tell you came to wave the white flag and sing kumbaya.” She scoffed, standing up a little straighter, tensed and ready for Caissa to pounce. ”Why should I believe a word you say?”

Tilly didn't really have much desire to engage further with her lecture. Caissa was very purposefully blocking the door, but now that she was able to speak once more, she could conjure up a defense, if she had to. She had absolutely no idea what Caissa was capable of, except that she really didn’t want to let her get close.

When Caissa removed her eye, Tilly’s face flashed with a puzzled expression. Several thoughts ran through her head, all vying for control of her next words, but she settled on the low-hanging fruit, first.
”Bejabbers.” She uttered, realizing the implications of what she was showing her. She’d managed to scorch away the Demon’s eye with a lukewarm fireball potion? She was pretty sure that the Flamin’ Hot Doritos weren’t even fully distilled yet. ”Is that… Is that one of those thingies you plug into a computer? UFCs or something?” She added curiously. She didn’t get to see much of computers, on account of her presence tending to fry them into nothing more than scrap metal. She wondered if Caissa knew that about her. She had to, right?

”So what, you’re here for payback? Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, et cetera? I didn’t think you were the Inferno kind of demon.” She was no longer eying her accouterments. If just a bit of hot water could scar her for life, then she was suddenly feeling much more confident about her position.

It wasn’t incredibly easy to grapple with this new information. She’d been acting in self-defense. assuming that she’d been up against an entity whose physical prowess was so great that she was almost surely going to die. But Caissa hadn’t used any magic, hadn’t simply kicked her door off its hinges. Was she just a mortal scion? Was that even a thing? She’d yet to encounter a demon who couldn’t bench press a Subaru.

She might have felt a small twinge of guilt if Paimon’s spawn wasn’t trying her hardest to disgust her. She raised a quizzical eyebrow as her summoned familiar began to return the eyeball to its socket, and while there wasn’t much that could squick her, the rat crawling across her face to do it kinda did, combined with the implications of what she’d said prior.

Any other day, she would have probably had something smart to say in retort to Caissa’s demand for satisfaction, but she’d managed to trip across one of Tilly’s pet peeves. What would normally result in a simple, pointed correction instead caused more electricity to involuntarily crackle across the length of her staff as her temper flared.

”Wizard.” She growled. Caissa knew full well what her title was.