(She flinches at the touch, reflexively. She doesn't seem to notice that she's doing it.)

The magic sets in. Her bruises fade. Her eyes widen as pains she hadn't even noticed she was feeling disappear.

She looks at the elf girl properly for the first time, confusion still plain on her face. 

Smile! "I'm Ember! It's nice to meet you."

"...Muvaki."

Muvaki looks like she's trying to figure out a complicated puzzle. "...you do know I'm Chelish, right?"

"I wasn't sure where you were from! But I didn't heal you because I thought you were from somewhere in particular, I healed you so you wouldn't be injured."

"...it's - it means I'm a Diabolist. Evil. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" she sounds confused, frustrated.

She tilts her head. "I don't think that means it's good for you to be hurting. Do you?"

How is she supposed to explain - oh.

It's quite simple, actually.

"Do you want to know what I did today, Ember?" she asks, with a sort of false sing-song quality in her voice. 

She bites her lip. "...You can tell me if you want to."

"I killed six people, one by one, and I went out of my way to make their last moments painful, when I could. I tortured the last one to death. I c-cuffed him to his bed, broke his hand, threatened him with a knife, mocked him while he tried to plead for his life, and t-t-then I t-threw acid on him w-while he screamed until- until-" She starts out in a hard, bitter voice, but she can't stop stuttering as the memories come back in unwelcome flashes. (Her eyes move wildly, like she's seeing something that isn't there - her hands grip her arms tight. She wants to throw up.)

She rallies. "That's what Evil means, Ember! It means I'll do horrible things, and I w-won't feel bad about them!" 

Ember is, through visible effort, managing not to cry!

"Why did you do that?" she asks eventually. 

Her tone isn't judgemental, or scared, or angry. She mostly sounds confused, and a little bit sad.

...This is really not the response Muvaki was expecting!

"I - what? Why would that matter to you?" She says. She doesn't understand this girl, and that's scary, because - because -  

"...You're in a lot of pain right now, and one of the things that's painful is what you did to them. And — I want to help you stop hurting, but right now I don't understand why you did it, and that makes it harder to know what to say. But if telling me would make it worse you don't have to."

"What? I don't - it's not hurting me that I did that to them," (fascinatingly, she pretty clearly believes this!)

This is a stupid waste of time. Why is she doing this. (Why is she so tired.) (why does she feel so horrible)

...Whatever. Ember is - weirdly hard to argue with. Maybe it'll just be easier to tell her what she wants to know.

She breaks eye contact, and it's in a quieter voice that she says: "...they were Baphomet cultists. They captured me while I was out on patrol. Kept me in a cell. Hit me or fucked me, when they were bored." (She's shaking.)

Now Ember is crying!

"I'm so sorry that happened to you." Pause. "It sounds like you were very scared, and angry with them for hurting you, and you thought if you hurt them too it would make you feel better. But hurting you more because of what you did to them wouldn't make anything better, it would just mean you were hurting even worse."

What? Why is she crying - it doesn't make any sense. She feels so confused and overwhelmed.

(She curls in on herself and tries to actually think about what Ember said.)

"I - I was angry, yeah. Anyone would be angry! I'm still angry! B-but..." she takes a shaky breath. "I wasn't scared" (that's not true, she knows that's not true,) "because they were stupid, it was obvious they were stupid, they let my hands heal and they didn't watch me close enough and they deserved it, how could they not have deserved it, they would have kept me like that until I died," and now she's having to fight not to cry. 

"It was wrong for them to do that to you," she says firmly. "I think a lot of people would have wanted to hurt them, after what you went through. But hurting them didn't make you stop being in pain."

Her breath hitches. "But - but I - but it did, I'm not trapped, I escaped, and, and, and -" 

and now somebody is crying and it's confusing and distracting and she can't see properly.

"It's good that you escaped! You were in a terrible situation, that should never have happened to you, and I'm glad you aren't stuck there any longer. But — just because you're out, doesn't mean you aren't still hurting."

She inhales sharply. The elf-girl sounds so far away - the crying is so loud and - and it's her that's crying, she can't, she can't show weakness like this, people hurt you if you do that, they hurt you or they leave -

"please don't leave," she whispers, because apparently some part of her is stupid enough to think that Ember actually might mean any of the things she's saying and her rational brain is on strike. 

She sits down on the ground next to her. "I'm right here, I'm not going to leave."

She's crying harder than she has since her first year in school. (...she was always worse about keeping it in than her peers. Crying isn't safe - she's not stupid, she knows that. She's never understood why her body can't get the memo)

...the way she's curled up and has her arms around her head it might be clear that she's on some level she's expecting to be hit. 

"s-sorry," she whispers. 

She tucks her hands underneath her legs so she's sitting on them. "You don't need to be sorry for crying."