Man Sense

<SNIP>Jade stumbled out of the side room, her eyes raw from tears. A wave of pure sorrow followed her out of the room washing over the Dwarfers and breaking against the remaining demons. She faltered again, falling over her feet. The wave built to a peak, the demons wailing and dying, their 'food' poisined by the sour feelings. Jade, exhausted from the unwilling effort, looked to Alex, who until the most recent mesures of time she would have collapsed on. The wave of magic ended and Jade fell forwards onto the dance floor.</SNIP>

As the sorrow washed over them, the Dwarfers felt terrible, like they wanted to curl up and cry themselves to sleep, to sob their hearts out, and wring out all their pains, and all the wrongs that had ever been done to them.

Alex drew his knees into his chest, naked and vulnerable and keenly feeling all the sorrows of his past, and of his alternate futures that never were.
“Owwww…” he wailed, wondering if he was going to go loony toons again. Through the fog of his misery he could hear the others moaning too.
Mercifully the intensity of the horrible feeling didn’t last too long, and he looked up to see Jade lying on the dance floor, looking as awful as everyone else had sounded like they felt.
She was looking at him. He blinked. It was in a way which he reckoned meant she probably didn't want his help.

He gulped down a portion of shaken, post-sorrow saliva, and his instincts. Obviously his first thought had been to rush over, snatch her into an embrace and make it all better... But there were two main problems with that. The first being that he didn’t have any clothes on (which was bad for a whole bunch of sub-reasons), and the second being he reckoned that recent discussions would mean she'd probably prefer someone else to do it. Probably the last person she wanted or needed would be naked Fool Alex (with a cringe he realised that while mainly naked, he still had his curly shoes on). He might not be the shiniest spanner in the kit, but he had enough savvy to realise that he was probably not her favourite person right now.

He caught Jaxx’s eye and gave him a meaningful look. Go on he was trying to convey. Give the woman a cuddle… Comfort her. Still somewhat bewildered after his own sorrowful feelings, the shark-dude looked confused. Alex rolled his eyes and tried Plisken, whose expression gave nothing away.
Not sure if either them had got it, he quickly looked around at everyone else. They were all looking fuzzy - one good thing about the sorrow-wave, it’d stopped everyone gawping at him.
Jamie? Jay? Jacky… Artie… Evelina? Anyone Alex thought. F'smeg's sake, someone look after her.
There was something in her eyes as she looked at him which made him think that if he got up and reached out a hand, she'd only snatch herself away.... Before de-testicling him with her scythe, most likely.

His Man-Sense reminded him that women's more complex logic was often confusing, and though she didn't seem to want him near her, if he didn't do anything, there was the risk that she'd think he was cold or something.
But, he reasoned, that was still better than upsetting her by getting too close, (and definitely better than the frightening thought of virtual-castration. Who knew how realistic the pain of that would be).

“Isn’t anyone gonna give her a hug?” He grumbled aloud. Deciding he'd try to play a comforting tune on his lute.

---

<TAG>
- Is anyone gonna be nice to the fallen, sad-looking Jade?

-What was your sorrow like?

Also, to repeat earlier thingy:

Everyone.
- What was your experience like? Did you see anything different? Were they really demonic or beautiful or what?
- What is your enhanced/new power?
- Are the two realities slightly merging?
- Can Dungeon Master Tregard be entirely trusted?
</TAG>