"...o-oh," he murmurs, sounding at least somewhat curious, although he's trying to hide that. "I- I'm sorry I don't know- much to tell you?"

"Anything you'd tell a stranger, from a strange land. It's okay if you can't think of anything, though."

He thinks for a moment. "I- um. S-some people can- do things with elements?" he offers.

"So you have elemental-based magic? That's neat."

He ducks his head, shaking it slightly. "I- as you say," he agrees.

"Is it a problem in your world?"

"I- uh. It's- I'm-" Pause, trembling faintly. "wrong. B-bad.."

"You don't seem wrong to me," she says, gently.

"Fairly normal magic, far as I can read," the raven says, his voice deep and discordant.

Sarah nods towards the raven, then continues with, "And if you are wrong, you're in good company," with a wry smile. "I'm not exactly human anymore, myself."

"I- it's-" He licks his lips awkwardly, fingers tightening around his glass. "They- they say-"

He stops as she realises what she said, looks up almost directly at her. "Not- human?" he seems confused by that.

She smiles, and her skin flickers slightly. Are smiles supposed to have that many teeth? Are eyes supposed to be that bright?

"Used to be. Now I'm something - else. My world didn't have magic, you see, until a great thing attacked. We killed it, but anyone who came too close to the body developed powers. And then, slowly, became more like the thing. I left, when I realized I was growing to be something other than myself."

He's not exactly looking at her face, although he catches the brightness of her eyes, and a hint of too many teeth. "I- oh. I'm- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- pry?"

"I don't mind. I like telling stories, much as I like hearing them."

He's still for a moment, thinking about that. "I- you have more?" he asks, it practically bursting out before he can stop it. He flinches.

"Sure, plenty. Would you rather hear about my homeworld, or a different one?"

He doesn't quite relax, but pauses, trying to figure out the answer to that-

"I- yours? Please? If- if that's okay?"

"It's perfectly alright. Let's see, where to start... Well, my world was of a type known as 'Earth.' Apparently a fairly common type of world, as these things go. Mine had no magic, no special science, nothing to make it stand out amid the myriad worlds except the presence of daemons - we wear our souls on the outside, you see; mind is Tycho, here - and plenty of worlds have daemons." She brushes her fingers against the raven on her shoulder. "We were slowly working on our problems as a people, progressing in fits and starts towards our future. Then, one day in mid-autumn, near the turn of the century, there was a... Problem. Something beyond mortal description appeared in our skies. I'm still not quite sure how, or where it came from. To look at it was to look into eternity, unfolding and twisting impossibly. It flooded every sense with static, and they say that those who looked into its single, immense, writhing Eye went mad from the pressure of its gaze. Animals beneath its shadow started to change into grotesque forms. But there was hope: it was bleeding into the air, already heavily wounded, and over the next few days our world came together to wage a great war upon it. Its body broke up in the sky and fell to the ground; most of it landed in the ocean, scattered pieces hitting wilderness or even cities. And where its body fell, monsters arose. Those people trapped too close to it saw their bodies and minds, their very daemons, twisted by its energy, as they gained immense and impossible powers.

"Monsters spilled out from the exclusion zones where the largest pieces had fallen. We formed groups - often of those with powers, now - to defend our lands and fight the monsters. The Olympians were the first and most famous in my part of the world. There was a problem, though: the more you stayed near the abomination's body, the more you changed, and the more powerful you grew. Eventually the Olympians were no longer themselves, and the organization fell apart. The New Olympians rose from their shadow, only to fall into disagreements a few years later. The Dodekatheon split off from them, and several new groups formed in response. I was part of one of those new groups, the Passerine Society. We focused on using powers peacefully, to improve our world - I built vehicles and machines designed to work in disaster zones. Things... Started to change, though. I spent too long in one of the exclusion zones, once, and my powers progressed too quickly, so I had to leave fairly early into things. We were working on moving between worlds when I left, largely in the spirit of just discovering what's out there, though an avenue to evacuate our world along if needed was more than a passing concern." 

Nova listens raptly, nodding quietly and-

When Sarah finishes, he bites his lips. "I- that sounds- scary?"

"It wasn't scary to live, just... Normal, at the time. But, yeah, closer to the brink than most worlds. The majority of worlds are not like that, though."

He ducks down, bites at his lip. "I- what did- changing- feel like?" He winces slightly, worried she might not want to talk about that.

"Hm..." She leans back slightly, glancing up at the ceiling, and takes a few sips of her drink to stretch out her thought. "Like... It wasn't noticeable at the time. But it was like being excited, being so into a moment you start making unwise choices. Having fun. But maybe you'd pause and look back on yourself, and realize you'd changed. That you weren't the sort of person you used to be. Which is normal, but the change would be in the direction of not caring about other people, or of recklessness, or of wanting more and more power. And it'd be fast."

"...oh." He sounds like he's having a specific thought there, like that...isn't entirely what he expected her to say, like he had a way he thought it would feel.

She (well technically her not-socially-awkward-and-helpfully-clairvoyant-daemon) picks up on this!

"It feels different to different people, though, I'd think. What would you think it'd feel like?"

"I- I'm not sure I just- Sometimes- I- things get- hard to remember. And- I feel like- the fire is- pressing against my skin and- everything goes- quiet. Like- like I'm not- there."

He shrugs. "I- it's just- I don't know."

Does he seem like he would benefit from appropriate physical contact? Maybe a hand-pat or a small hug. 

"I think I've known some people that it'd be like that for them, yeah. That sounds rough."

It's entirely possible he would! If it is appropriately telegraphed at least. It's not something he has a large amount of experience with, if any.

"I- it's- I'm not sure- they say my fire's- evil. And I'm- not- not sure it's not- my-"