RIPPLE ( peter parker.. ) ✔

003. In Black and White..

Sierra Harss' translucent shape was floating in deep meditation in the middle of the dark room underneath the Sanctum Sanctorum. Crossed legged and with her wide open eyes glowing white while plastered onto an expressionless, haggared face, she was surrounded by specks and trails of bright light, swirling magic and helping her astral form flip through glowing books and write down her thoughts on a paper on which the pen moved on its own. 

The trance she was into was unbreakable until her material form with half her soul and mind returned back to reclaim these remnants she left behind to learn and solve; it was all a try of multi-tasking with a method she was very much familiar with already. On the ground, outside her light circle was a man, also meditating, but not for any sort of reflection, yet rather as a watcher for her safety. It pained Danny Rand to open his eyes and see the deterioration of his lover's state, so he just kept them closed.

In the infinite silence of just a single pen scratching a paper and some books flipping pages under the all-knowing gaze of those blindingly bright eyes, for a second, even that bare minimum ceased. Danny Rand flinched and Sierra finally gasped. The translucency vanished and materialized her back to a whole; her eyes flickered back to a normal hazel as well, though rather blurred into tears.

One by one, reaches of her magic began disappearing from the air and undoing the levitation. Books started falling while she was still forcing her body to strengthen and prepare for a decent landing. Instead, when her feet touched the ground, since she was much more concentrated in catching the parchment, while the pen dropped, her knees wobbled.

"I got you," Danny was already on his feet, behind Sierra, supporting her into his arms, until she could stand again. She was so frail that he barely even felt her lean all her weight against him. Behind the soft voice, his heart was breaking under the circumstances they were trapped into.

Sierra struggled to get a hold of her own body in full again, but one of Danny's many powers, at least when it came to her lately, was just how much of a powerful strength battery he could be. "I swear, I do not remember this spell being this hard."

"Maybe because you didn't stay separate for seven days last time," worry swept into his voice in a total wreckage of emotion. Sierra began turning around to face him; she was finally standing on her own, though the paper in her hand was lightly shivering still, due to the shakes in her underfed joints.

"Seven days...," she repeated.

"Yes. I was worried sick every second of it..."

Danny did not even have to speak because Sierra read it all on his face: the sleepless watch nights, the struggle to complete his own tasks and stay beside her. Stress did a number on him while she was away.

"But now it's done and we can order some takeaway-"

"It's not done yet," Sierra interrupted him and bowed her head immediately into a sigh. "Things are really bad out there. I found Peter, but he ran into some big trouble into a God forsaken universe. Had to fight the evil version of Daisy Vince."

Danny grimaced in the sounding way a hot surface would scream under the impact with cold water. "I imagine that wasn't a treat."

Half ironically amused and half just simply and utterly tired, Sierra chuckled, "Maybe not as hard as I thought it would be, but having to fight Dormammu immediately after surely wasn't our usual work in the park without my full self." Her bright voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, "I had some help."

With Danny's eyes widening in an instant, Sierra felt compelled to immediately add in the same manner, "Don't worry, I sent him back to his box before returning here."