Your student Paula is pleading with you—the expression of anxiety and fear on her face doesn't suit her strong features, for once. You are doing your best to assure her that things will be fine—that even if it is fearsome, the both of you have been preparing for this, and soon, the work will be over. Soon, she'll be able to go forth into the night confidently, no longer something instinctively set apart from people.
She's so much like you, in many ways—someone who has difficulty getting along with peers, but with great ambitions, and someone who has already suffered much—that you're sure she'll be able to do it. You're sure.
It's easy to let time slip by you, meditating in isolation in the darkness of the Wyrm's Nest, the intersection of ley lines. Your spirit is resolute, even at times there are strange sounds and visions—even when you feel things pulling at the core of you, like they intend to tear at your soul, or like you are blurring into nonexistence. You know yourself, and you know you can acknowledge these things and let them pass by, for the full day in the darkness that it requires. You are sure that Paula can, as well.
When you emerge, though, she's unsteady, panicky; she's confused and recoils from you, when you step closer. It was a strange experience; perhaps it shouldn't be surprising. She has always met your expectations, and has always stepped up when she faltered; she may take some time to decompress, but she'll be fine, you're sure. And the two of you have an event to dress for and go to.
At the charity event, you feel so much more at ease among people than you have in years—and you're sure that your research has paid off. The inherent distance, the wariness that people have around you—it's vanished. One step closer to being more human.
Paula, however—you see her from across the room, and she's not good at socializing, but you've been practicing, and... even with your achievement, you see the crowds almost instinctively parting from her, her gaze darting back and forth across the throng, wild-eyed, and—something's gone wrong. She's almost on the verge of frenzy, like this. What happened? It should have been fine—
You have to get her out of here. You murmur some hasty apologies to your conversational partners, and dip across the room, gesturing for her to follow you as you pass her. She doesn't, though—instead, she grabs your collar in a way that almost gets your hackles up, even steadied by the way you've tamed the Beast within you.
"What did you do?" she screams, in a way that makes heads across the room turn—ugly tears running down her face, fangs bared. "What did you do to me? I feel like I'm going mad—you wouldn't let me not—"
And, for the first time in your life, you realize you don't know what to say to her.
But then, as suddenly as you found yourself experiencing that, you're somewhere else—
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