You're what happens when two substances collide

[noteasybeingblue]

The longer she dwells in this world, the more she despises it.

No one will see her.

A vengeful God-King is not something so easily ignored. She is destructive and regal and demands the attention of all who would worship her. But there are no worshipers here. There is nothing here, nothing at all, just endless swarms of humanity that apparently care nothing for Illyria the Merciless, Ruler of the Primordium, even as she grows ever more indignant and ever more enraged and ever more desiring in her need to do violence.

The vermin are to remain untouched. The vermin are to remain untouched.

So she will not touch them. She will not touch anything here. Illyria will not remain here any longer than is necessary, even if it has long since ceased to become necessary.

The mortal-built bridge will be her focus point. She stretches one shell's hand out, testing the scintillating tear of unclassifiable dimensional energy against her vessel. There is resistance there, a barrier intended to prevent any motion beyond the isolated pinprick of too-small, too-confining space. If she can reach past it, she can escape this metaphysical prison and thus seek out the way back to her world.

The God-King's shell smiles, small and self-satisfied. Nothing can hold a god.

She reaches further. The crackle of foreign energy against hers is unbearable. And then further - the shearing, rifting edge of the barrier begins to screech against her being.

She will test these waters no further. Illyria launches herself at the barrier, driving forward with fists and blazing intent, and the strength of the unfamiliar matter rips at her, eliciting a blistering, tearing roar of utmost pain and displeasure. It is unbearable. It is intolerable. But Illyria is not yet through. She will continue driving at it, regardless of the shrilling agony webbing its way through her shell, into the core of what she is -

The God-King's strength, once glaring and eternal, runs out. She no longer possesses the will or instinct to even draw herself back. Her shell howls, the pain of simply being is exquisite and unquantifiable, and Illyria falls away from the torment of the conscious world.

Comments

[bibliophale]

Oh, well, at least she's used to it? He cringes slightly at her distressed confusion, wondering how he can make her understand without frightening her, and how much time he has left before-

She convulses sharply and he immediately reaches out to catch her; no sooner has he done so than he realizes that Fred is gone. Her body is pale and blue once again.

He continues holding her, too stunned and demoralized to let go.

"This is not your body," he says quietly, anger stirring beneath shock. "It isn't yours."

[noteasybeingblue]

Illyria's whole head and body and everything are hurting, shell and all, something she finds to be both maddening and intolerable. Mortal liquid should not be doing such things to her shell.

The principality's fury is dark and smoldering and a complete tonal shift from its earlier attitude of general pleasantries and nostalgia. Illyria does not know how her shell landed itself in this position. She pushes it out and away from the principality's grip with a fraction of her usual dexterity.

What business does it have, criticizing her shell? Illyria could dispense all sorts of comments about its shell, of how inanely normal it looks, but she elected to remain silent out of respect for what she assumed was an honorable opponent. Now it criticizes her shell indiscriminately for no reason she can so easily discern.

"I did not choose it, I assure you," the God-King replies, extricating her shell from the principality with obvious distaste. "Had I the choice, I would never have resurrected myself in a body so small and so fragile." And so human, but that is near enough implied.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale stays where he is, even if it does leave him on his knees before them. He looks up at them, anger now very much on the surface. He realizes he's trembling. "There's a girl in there. She's still alive. Do you realize that? Do you even care?" Of course not. Why would the God-King care about the 'vermin', as they call them. "That was her body, and you took it."

He knows he's repeating himself, stating the obvious. It doesn't matter. Illyria's complete disregard for the life they've overtaken infuriates him beyond reason. He can't just pretend nothing happened, though that seems to be their plan.

[noteasybeingblue]

The principality has made a sudden shift to righteous anger, which at this point Illyria simply finds tiresome. She is also tired, a completely foreign sensation to an otherwise tireless body.

"Impossible." She rights herself enough to stare down at the principality with relative dignity, though her impeccable balance has begun to waver. "The soul of Winifred Burkle was destroyed in my resurrection. Were it possible I would abandon this shell and seek out another."

The longing to return to her true form unexpectedly becomes overwhelming and omnipresent, and Illyria looks at her shell's hands with an expression that one might mistake for sorrow.

"I am shackled to it. Such is the nature of my being."

[bibliophale]

"But I just saw her!" he explodes, and climbs back up to his feet. "She was here, moments ago, talking to me. I tried to make her understand, but-" He turns away, shaking his head in frustration. "How could you not realize that she's still in there?"

And yet, he knows Illyria is not lying to him, that if they could choose another form they certainly would. They have no choice. And Fred is still alive, even if she is trapped. Perhaps it's good that she's unaware. That she can't see what's being done with her body. That she's not sitting in there like a paralyzed prisoner, being puppeted around by this arrogant creature.

"I thought you made your body," he murmurs, softening, fatigued. Unsure what else to do, he slumps back to his chair and collapses into it. He refills his wine glass and takes a slow, ponderous sip. "I made mine. Don't understand why something like you needs to borrow."

[noteasybeingblue]

Illyria watches the principality impassively. None of what it says makes any sense. Winifred Burkle is gone. She must be. Illyria can take her form well enough and access those fragmented memories, but she is gone. She is gone. She has been gone.

She is gone.

Isn't she?

"My true form was taken from me millennia ago," she murmurs. "I chose not the moment of my rebirth. Nor could I know that it would be a moment too late, in a time that no longer knew of gods or kings, or cared to remember them."

She is choosing to blame the effects of the alcohol for this unexpected divulging of personal history that the principality should have no right to know. Only that - she shared this with it, did she not? Earlier, at the edge of the Rift. Yes.

The alcohol is impairing her memory it seems. Illyria registers this with a dull acceptance. She does not like alcohol.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale finishes his wine without enjoyment and disappears the glass, leaning forward and dropping his head into his hands.

"I am sorry," he says after a moment, and looks up to meet their gaze. "This has been... a very trying day."

He, meanwhile, misses being drunk. Pleasantly drunk. That was nice, wasn't it? Briefly.

"I do not know how to help you," he says, "or Winifred Burkle. Now is not the right time. I have other matters I need to attend to." He has to know if Melanie is all right. Why she's stopped praying to him. It was painful, but at least it assured him she was there, still holding out hope for his return. Maybe she finally discovered his note?

"Stay here, will you?" he says. "Please. It's all locked up, no one will disturb you. Just... stay here, and I'll come back tomorrow." He has no idea if tomorrow will be any different, and even if it is, he has no idea what he'll do about this. "I need to get home and you need to sober up. You'll want to sleep this off, I imagine."

He gets to his feet. He feels tired and defeated, and his voice is gentler for it. "Will you stay here?"

[noteasybeingblue]

"Sober up," she repeats distantly, entirely uncertain of the phrase's meaning. At the present time Illyria is feeling oddly - tired, yes. Had she the energy to be disgusted she would be. Obviously the alcohol's effects are draining in addition to soporific. She will have to remember that.

She looks at the principality, at how equally worn and conflicted it is. The leaking of emotion is unsuppressed; she struggles for a moment with that stab of, of, of - ?

Of pity. Pity. Yes.

How profoundly unnerving.

Illyria nods.

"I will remain." She hopes it will not forget her. She has tangled with that sensation often enough as of late and she does not like it. She will stand in the room and analyze the tiny creatures in the air and the atoms and space she occupies and await the principality's return.