Owner	Pose
Diana Prince	The message had been received by the staff at the Themysciran Consulate. An appointment was made ar the earliest convenience and upon arriving, Rachel had been escorted to the central courtyard inside the embassy by a tall redheaded Amazonian woman in a long flowing white and gold robe. It only took Diana a few minutes to arrive herself, she came in through the eastern archway and was flanked by two other Amazonian sisters, a blonde and a brunette that took up positions near the archway. Diana was wearing civilian clothing, unlike her sisters that were all in traditional Amazon attire, having spent a longer amount of time away from Themyscira, Diana had gotten much more accustomed to traditional clothing than her sisters have. A black sleeveless top tucked into a pair of black slacks that fanned out around her feet that were in silver heeled shoes and a black leather belt that had small silver discs around its length about her waist. Diana would approach Rachel and offer a friendly smile to her upon red painted lips. "Hello again." She said to her. "We spoke at the orphanage opening in Gotham, correct?"
Rachel Roth	Raven has come to to the consulate as Raven, not as Rachel; her gown and cloak looking like a cross between a Cthulhu cultist's robe and an evening gown, and her face half-concealed under a constant, impossible shadow. But Wonder Woman is Wonder Woman, and Raven can't be surprised Princess Diana sees through her disguise. Her violet eyes are probably a giveaway she should think about disguising somehow; violet eyes that flickers here and there seemingly at random to take in Wonder Woman herself, the room, the bodyguards. She nods her head at Ambassador Prince. "Thank you for remembering me," she creaks (her voice is also pretty distinctive). "And for having me. I wouldn't be coming here to pry into your personal life if I didn't need the guidance." She glances at the guards and asks, "Can we do this privately? I need to tell you things that will put me in danger, and people who hear it. I don't want their deaths on my conscience."
Diana Prince	Diana would motion to a stone bench beside the central fountain in the courtyard. She'd sit and place her hands upon the tops of her thighs while she listened to Raven's words. Diana's blue eyes looked, then, to her Sisters who were present, three of them in total. She smiled faintly and looked back to Raven. "They are here to protect and aide you as much as I am." She told the other. "Raven, right?" She asked to confirm the name, where she leanred it was anyone's guess. "It is okay to speak in front of them, they are eager to learn more of the world around them." She showed a small smile then before her chin dipped down a little and she leveled her gaze upon Raven. "But, should you really wish them to go then I can ask them to."
Rachel Roth	Raven's cloak is drawn close about her, but flared back at the hips: her forearms and hands are outside the cloak, a subtle hint that if she's concealing a weapon in there, it's one her hands won't have fast access to, at least. She takes a seat on the bench, unconsciously mimicking Wonder Woman's posture, back straight (though Raven's back has rarely been anything but), palms flat on her thighs. She meets Wonder Woman's gaze levelly. "Sometimes information isn't just information. It can create a psychic resonance that evil entities can track. I've avoided being tracked by spending decades learning how to think. I wouldn't be trying to tell it to you if you weren't Wonder Woman and capable of handling what I think might get thrown at you."
Diana Prince	Diana softly nodded her head one time to Raven's words and then she exhaled and glanced to her sisters once more before looking back to Raven. "I do not hide from evil entities." She told the young Raven in her accented English. "It is why I do not hide my identity from the world. If there is a person, or... thing, out there that wishes to hold issue with me then they need not struggle with the quandry of where to locate me. I am here, right here, waiting for them." She showed a soft smile once more. "So then, how can I assist you?" She gently raised her dark eyebrows up after asking this question, quite curious to the young Raven's issues that hae lead her here today.
Rachel Roth	Raven looks at Diana for a long moment, not quite sure of how to proceed (and she'd be lying if she didn't admit to herself that, in addition to purely tactical concerns, there's a heavy element of fangirling over getting to talk about this kind of stuff with WONDER FREAKING WOMAN!!!!), but she comes to her conclusion soon enough: be direct. "You and I have something in common. We're both important figures to particular religions. You seem to have figured out a way to step out of that role, in the public conception. I was wondering if you've managed to step out of that role among the faithful here on Earth, to the people who see you as an important component of their faith."
Diana Prince	Diana heard the question and she raised her chin again, showing a brief and small smile that came and went like wind across one's face. "It is impossible to fully shed such a thing." Her eyes glanced away as she pondered her words internally before looking back to Raven. "There are many people on this world, as you are well aware. People of such vast variety that it is essentialy an impossibility to catalogue everyone into strict catagories. However... of the people on this wonderfully diverse world, many of them desperately seek something to believe-in. And in this, they'll choose whatever speaks most to their heart. For some..." Diana glanced to her sisters who were standing guard several steps away, but likely quite able to hear their words. "... that is me." She then looked back to Raven. "For others, that is Superman. And yet others, that is Thor or some even Batman." She leaned toward Raven and grinned. "Though that type tends to be far more melodramatic." She spoke, teasing the nature of the Batman. "Can you 'shed' this element of yourself?" She then asked aloud. "To some degree. But never entirely." An inhale of oxygen was pulled in between Diana's red painted lips. "My best advice is full-disclosure. The less mysterious you are, the more information others have to form their view of you with."
Rachel Roth	Raven is mildly relieved you went in that direction at the end. It gives her a few more minutes to put off the inevitable reveal she's about to have to make. "Have you ever been pursued by a cult that wanted to use you for your connection to your gods and theirs? A mixture of religious belief and plain self-interest?"
Diana Prince	Diana glanced down at her hands that were resting atop her thighs nea rher knees and she shook her head gently from side to side. "Nothing quite so dramatic, though I have seen... things... that make me wish to speak to those involved, to attempt to she a bit of realism into their mindseyes, however I have not done it because ultimately if someone chooses to worship me, but are causing no harm to others? She shakes her head lightly then. "I won't take that comfort out of their heart, if that is what its truly providing them. If someone -is- somehow using me as a reason to casue harm unto others, then yes... I will gladly step in to find a way to stop them."
Rachel Roth	Raven nods. She doesn't sigh; she nods. The nod LOOKS like a sigh, though. "Okay. Thank you." Her gaze is abstract, thinking hard about what her next step here is, but she's not going to rise or leave until dismissed. Diana may not be a princess in the way the rest of the world perceives the term, but she is one to Raven, and princesses are the ones who decide when the meeting is over.
Diana Prince	Diana watched the young Raven nod in a troubled sort of way and she watched it with great curiosity. After a moment she spoke up as well. "It does not seem as though my words have given you much comfort." She said with a soft smile. "If there is more troubling you, Raven, you need but ask. I do not know the full extent of the problems that face you, but I know that you have a great deal on your shoulders. You carry it quite clearly with your posture and how you hold yourself. So please, if there's more to your story that you wish me to know, you need but tell me."
Rachel Roth	Raven regards Diana closely, but only for a moment. There's deep steel in this girl, and she's shirked this part of the conversation as long as she can stand to. She lifts her hands off her lap and draws back her hood (the shadow goes with it; the enchantment is keyed to it) to reveal the face of a young woman, rather pale, with remarkably unblemished skin for her age, and with some odd accessory choices, but fairly normal. Her eyes find Diana's and hold them searchingly for a moment, and then...then things change.     Her skin begins to darken and flush, heading toward the blacker ends of the red spectrum. Her eyes glow red like iron in a forge, that red light burning away any other features her eyes might have, and they grow, dominating the top half of her head, then split in the middle to become four almost spider-like eyes set too high in her now alien face. When she speaks, that haunted house creak is still in it, but it's only one of dozens, hundreds of voices speaking in not-quite unison: "I am the demon Pride, daughter of the Great Trigon, who was birthed of all evil in spirit dimensions where all things burn and he smiles at the smell of endless death." Raven's voice is flat and emotionless, but the rest of them are viciously, spitefully gleeful. "When I am united with my six brothers, our powers combined shall open the gates of Hell and where he steps, the Inferno follows him. All flesh shall burn, all voices shall wail, all spirits will be bent and broken under his unstoppable will--"     Raven grunts, then. Just Raven, none of the others. Their voices are cut off like someone dropped a guillotine on them. All four eyes squeeze shut; the top eyes begin to smooth out and melt into her forehead, out of which that dark red color drains. Soon the only red left on her face is in the gem on her forehead, and the only eyes left are the violet ones set normally in her pale face.     Calmly, Raven draws her hood back over her head. "So you see why I'd like to excommunicate myself from my father's mythology," she explains wryly.
Diana Prince	The Amazonian women watching guard over the courtyard all react to the display put on by whatever it is that inside of the Raven girl. Two of them draw long gilded daggers, while the third pulls a lasso from witnin her cloak that begins to glow a bright golden light... all three lock their eyes upon the demonic entity that is beside Diana. Diana herself, observes as calmly as she had throughout their talk with one another. She listens to the beastly remarks from the four eyed entity and she seems to be wholely uneffected by it while she processes it all intnerally behind her seemingly endless wall of inner strength... When Raven returns, however, Diana reaches out to place her right hand upon the girl's shoulder. She says softly then to her. "Tell me, how to help you achieve this and we shall see it done. You deserve to be free of this."
Rachel Roth	Raven shakes her head. "Being free of what, Pride? There's no being free of her. That's what I am." She looks Diana squarely in the eye and says very deliberately, "But it's not WHO I am. I decide that." She pauses to let that sink in, then continues, "But as for the Church of Blood? I don't know. They worship my father because, like you said, it gives them comfort. And power," she adds. "If I knew a way to make people stop wanting comfort and power, I'd have done it by now. But you, you're a demigod and the spirit of truth. I thought if anyone had figured it out, it would be you."
Diana Prince	Diana's hand returned to her lap and she shook her head gently as her sisters relaxed their postures and could see things return to normal, they each exchanged glances however as what they'd witnessed had shocked each of them even if it seemingly hadn't shocked Diana. "We fight to defend human nature, in all its diverse desires. This includes the freedom to desire power and, obviously, comfort. Even if achieving 'power' can come in terrible ways, but the idea of having power alone... isn't inherently terrible. The President of the United States, has... power, for instance. A great deal of it. But its up to the people of the country to decide who they elect into that power. And this is what we fight to protect." Diana glanced away for a moment then. "We fight against those who achieve powerful through harming others, and if you are being harmed by this Blood Church..." She looked back to Raven. "Then we will find a way to end it."
Rachel Roth	"Let's talk about endings," Raven says dryly, to cover up that she kind of regrets losing that moment of touch with Wonder Woman. Her hands are back on her lap now, her glacial calm restored. "Demons corrupt. That's our nature. I'm half-human, so I can suppress that--and I do--but even seeing me as I was just now has taken away some of your innocence. Two of you were willing to kill me just for what I look like. No hard feelings," she adds as an aside to the two who drew the knives, and she means it, "but even so, if you have any purification rituals to engage in, you should do it as soon as possible. The taint I just exposed you all to leaves psychic markers the Church can track, and it opens spiritual cracks demons can slip in through. If they find you and capitalize on them...well, no one needs demon-possessed Amazons running around."     That rather chilling mental image is presented and then left behind as Raven returns her attention to Wonder Woman. "But by now you see the problem. People who worship evil of their own free will see me as a prize to be won for my father's favor, and they won't ever stop coming after me. I've had to do things I'd have preferred not to in order to keep my identity and location safe. I've had to send a few cultists to cruel places." She doesn't hesitate to describe her sins: you don't lie to Wonder Woman. "I came to you hoping you had a better idea."
Diana Prince	Diana glanced then over to her Amazonian sisters and she nodded softly to the idea of the corruption and the taint that may have been brought unto them. "It will be taken care of." She said in a calm voice. Her pale blue eyes returned to Raven's face then. She leaned forward then and asked quietly. "Where is your father through all of this? He is the one responsible and he is the one to solve the problem." She was not versed in knowing who Raven's father was, it was not information that she had been provided up to this point. "Perhaps I can hold an audience with him and convince him that you need to be released of this burden."
Rachel Roth	"He's in Hell," Raven explains, eyebrows lifting. "He's trapped there. The way the stories go, a people on a very different spiritual plane from this one undertook long rituals and spiritual purifications to completely purge themselves of evil, and they did, but the evil had to go somewhere. They sent it to a void beyond the universe, and it coalesced in Trigon, one who is many. He can't escape Hell because he is Hell, but he thinks there's a loophole that will allow him to escape by making other worlds INTO Hell. That's why he sired my brothers and I. If my mother hadn't escaped to Azarath, to the people who first purged themselves of all evil where the monks raised me to rise above my nature, I'd be working to spread his taint already."
Diana Prince	Diana seemed more somber by this revelation and she gently nodded her head two small times, her eyelashes fluttered a little as while while she internally processed all of this. AFter a moment of thought she spoke once more. "We then have to find the Church of the Blood, where they are headquartered." She glanced toward the two sisters that were standing near the archway to her left. "We shall also have to contact a Demonoligist who specializes in this sort of thing. A few names come to mind off-hand, but they are often very busy." Diana's eyes then returned to Raven and she stared at her with a look of compassion. "Have you spoken to anyone else on this matter?" She asked her then.
Rachel Roth	Raven shakes her head, first at the mention of its headquarters, then at the question asked. "There's no centralized governance on this world. There are only individual cults, organized like terrorist cells, because that's what they are. They get their marching orders by revelations from Trigon, or from whichever of his demons is dealing with that cult, which sometimes helps disorganize them as a particular demon puts its agenda ahead of Trigon's but you can't count on that. And no, I haven't told anyone else. Zatanna got caught up in one of their plots against me, but I didn't tell her exactly what was going on. She might have figured it out for herself, though." Raven shrugs, as if to say, 'She's Zatanna, after all.'
Diana Prince	Diana pursed her lips together and gently nodded her head a single time about the cults and at the words of Zatanna. "Indeed." She said, having known of Zatanna but not having had an opportunity to meet her face to face. "It would seem that this cult, has never had to face great opposition for their immoral acts on this world. Or at least, not enough opposition." She exhaled sharply then. "We shall change that. This world is not their plaything, they cannot take their beliefs and twist them into plans for bringing discomfort upon others. Do you know of any such cult locations in the immediate areas? Or any at all?" She'd question then. "If not, I am sure we can find them through other means."
Rachel Roth	Raven shakes her head (and banishes a distracting, gleeful thought about how many people would just die of jealousy if they could see her be this close to Wonder Freaking Woman as she pursed her lips). "I don't. There must be at least one in or around New York City, because I've been attacked there in the past by the cult and by tracking monsters. Nothing has come after me since I moved away, and I don't go looking for them. Being near them gives them a chance at what they want, and I want to be cautious about using my powers in the possible presence of demons. I control my magic by channeling it through my better human half, and that eliminates the corruption, but corruption is still the core of my powers. I don't want to add to what other demons are already causing to happen any more than I have to."
Diana Prince	Diana would show a soft smile then and another gentl single dip of her chin. "Then we find a contact who can locate a cult of this variety." She says. "We use them to locate where this cult is hiding and we show them that what they are doing is in the wrong. They are plauging you and making your life harder to live. You have enough trouble as-is without a sect of religious fanatics bringing further harm upon you, and I assure you, Raven..." She gently shook her head side to side. "I won't stand idly by and allow such a thing. It is when religion crosses a line that should not be crossed."
Rachel Roth	Raven doesn't smile. Ever. Smiling isn't her thing. Still, she's tempted to at Wonder Woman's promise. "I believe you," she says simply, then has a thought. "Do you have your lasso nearby? I want to try something. It would be useful to know how a demon responds to being caught in it before you have to do it in a dangerous situation."
Diana Prince	Diana's face leveled in emotion a little at the question, but she understood Raven's reasoning behind it and she gently nodded her head at the question. She looked over to the blonde haired Amazonian guard and motioned for her. "There a more than one type of lasso, but yes. The one that I know you speak of us just here." The tall blonde haired Amazon approached and proceeded to offer the lasso to Diana, who accepted it with a smile and a thank you to her sister and then turned back to Raven. "Let us hope this goes better than worse." She said to her as she took the end of the lasso and held it out. "Extend your left hand." She softly told Raven.
Rachel Roth	Raven doesn't, yet. First, she explains, "All demons lie. Pride is the lie you tell yourself because you need to believe it. I don't know what lies I've been telling myself--my spiritual discipline demands that I face the contents of my mind very openly--so I don't know what questions you need to ask. They'd be in my psychological blind spots, I suppose. So do what you think is right, Wonder Woman. I trust you."     Raven doesn't smile, but those last three words almost sound like one. She ducks her face to pay rather more attention than is necessary to the removal of the long glove on her left arm, in case skin contact is necessary, but her eyes are on Diana's again when she extends her arm for binding.
Diana Prince	Skin contact is not necessary, but Diana doesn't vocalize that to the girl as she watches her remove the glove. She nodded her head gently and extended the golden rope toward Raven's wrist and then looped it over and under, binding it in a small knot that was not pulled tight. Diana's black eyelashes lifted up and her blue eyes looked at Raven's face, a second later and the golden lasso came to life in a silent display of pure gold light. It wasn't hot, it wasn't even warm, it was simply imminating a gorgeous hue of sunlit shine. "Are you happy?" Diana asked then, firstmost, a simple question. Or so it would seem, until you're forced to tell the truth (or at least how you perceive the truth).
Rachel Roth	Raven holds eye contact with Wonder Woman. "Sort of," she says calmly. "I have to keep control of my emotions to use my magic responsibly. That includes happiness. I am relieved that you binding me didn't physically transform me into Pride again. You never know if the person you choose to be is who you really are until something like this happens." And indeed, her visage isn't changing. Raven remains Raven.
Diana Prince	Diana only stared at Raven as she answered the question, she did not react much beyond that. She did however, draw a breath and then continue. "Are you seeking to do Good for this world?" Was her next question for the young half-demon.
Rachel Roth	Raven probably would have said this after a moment's consideration, but the Lasso doesn't let you take time to think. It's a bit upsetting. "Not the way you mean it. I try not to hurt anyone, but I'm not here to crusade. I'm here because humans are here and I want to be human, and make connections with other human beings. When I can help, I do."
Diana Prince	Diana listened to this response and then she had a warm smile show and she released the knot and let the lasso's light fade as the lasso itself slipped off of Raven's bare wrist. "I see no complications in the effectiveness of its ability to do its job." She told Raven in a pleased-sounding voice. Diana would slowly wind the gold rope back up and then hand it back over to her blonde haired Amazonian sister who accepted it and turned back to silently stalk back to the archway's side. Diana looked back to Raven and gently nodded her head. "I believe we have our goals set then, Miss Raven."
Rachel Roth	Raven nods, clears her throat, and pays attention to putting her glove back on. Is she blushing a bit? Hush your mouth! When she looks back up, she's calm again, and says, "I'd rather be Raven to you, if that's okay, Wonder Woman."
Diana Prince	"And I would rather be Diana to you." The Themysciran Princess responded with a bright smile. "Wonder Woman is a title created for public show... Diana has been my name for my entire existence..." And with that, Diana would stand up from the stone bench beside the pool of water with the statues in its center. Diana's right hand is extended out toward Raven. "I will contact you, once I have arrangement a specialist for tracking of cults such as the one taht plagues you. We will go from there?"
Rachel Roth	Raven stands, the ghost of a smile haunting her black lips at the invitation. "Thank you, Diana." She pauses, and adds, "Every scenario I can come up with that doesn't involve using magical relics as bait involves me revealing myself as bait. I'm okay with that if it's how your specialist thinks is has to be." She hesitates, then puts her hand over her heart and bows to you. "Thank you for everything you've done for me today. I know what I owe you for this."
Diana Prince	Diana gently bobbed her head in a singular nod. "Let us hope that a 'bait' scenario is not the route that we have to go. But... sadly it may not be so easily ruled out either." Her head would shake then once from side to side. "A thank you is pleasantly received, a debt is not necessary however." The brown haired Amazonian girl came forward then to stand at Raven's side, she was Raven's escort back to the front of the Consulate.