don't get lost in heaven, they got locks on the gate [open to multiple]

[peacefulexplorer]

Existence without form or breath or shape is disorienting, the spread of atoms over a plane he doesn't recognize, with the repeated dissolutions and reshapings of an indistinct self. At one point there was pain, and the unspooling of himself into light and purpose, and for a long while there is only amorphous drifting. He hits barriers, dissonant and frequent, where once he should have crossed from one plane to another, one reality to the next, in an effortless slide of energy across the universal boundaries. It is difficult to define emotional state outside of the human context - he only knows that he is not human - but it is a state of affairs that generates confused distress.

Temporal sequencing becomes a problem.

Awareness, too, is difficult to achieve. Gradually he is able to pull together the various components that comprise himself and reshape them into something capable of perception, but doing so strikes him with a revelation disconsolate, and that is that there are no Others here - no Ancients, nothing, simply an empty plane of shifting light and bottomless dark. And he is alone.

He knows he did this, and it was for a reason. But he finds he cannot remember anything, not immediately, and when the memories trickle back with his concentrated effort they are unfiltered and unstructured and unordered until finally he can impose the alien concept of linear time upon the thing, and fully interpret what he is in comparison to what he was.

Daniel Jackson.

The name is the linchpin that generates the outward ripples, spreading from that singular point of origin. It triggers the flood of remembrance, the 'gate, Manhattan, the locked-away knowledge that was once sealed in his head but now coalesces seamlessly into the whole of him now. He cannot delineate his form by shape or size or mass, not any longer, but now he remembers, he remembers what it is he can do and how it is he can do it.

He starts small because he must, drifting as a pair of hydrogen atoms while he glimpses the city on a reduced scale. Then he builds to it, the recollection of his shape. Spectrally manifesting was never truly allowed before, but if there are no Others then he is not bound by their laws. He assembles a body that resembles the one that was human and familiar, and projects it. It takes two tries to succeed, three to sustain it for longer than a meaningless collection of seconds, and no matter what he tries he cannot force his shape to manifest with glasses. Apparently his inner self, or however he chooses to define it, does not need them.

He loses track of how many attempts he makes before he can maintain his form visibly for any significant length of time. But finally, in a ragged burst of energy, the bewildered shape of Daniel Jackson reappears in Manhattan, and there he stays.

[ooc: Daniel Ascended back during the Rift Shitfit of September 4th, and he's only just figured out how to Do Things in his new state of being. Right now he's completely intangible and frequently phasing in and out of visible existence. I've added to his handy-dandy reference post as to what he can and can't do in this state. He can also show up LITERALLY ANYWHERE so if you want in on Ascended funtimes just pick a date and a location, or Daniel can pick one, or whatever.]

Comments

[omnomnom_feels]

Rashad's hands twitch and he tries to remember that violence will not help this situation. Needless violence is an inherently entropic act...and he does not expect he would succeed at harming Daniel.

He does not want to harm Daniel.

He wants Daniel to stop advancing.

"Thou shalt not change the natural order of things as formed in their divine Order," he says, jaw tense as he looks away and takes refuge in twisting another commandment to suit his argument. "I am whatever I am."

[peacefulexplorer]

The body language is too much to bear. Rashad's energy has become prickly and unbearable, and Daniel's manifestation halts, even if the energy that he is still flows, nudges forward by increments.

"The natural order is just the way things fall into place," Daniel insists softly. "It doesn't need to be maintained. It just happens."

[omnomnom_feels]

"There is only Order or Darkness," growls Rashad. "Follow the path of Order or be consumed by Darkness." Why is it so hard for him to look at Daniel now? He has nothing of which to be ashamed. He is not ashamed. There is nothing wrong with him, nothing that will not heal and be right again. "Entropy will destroy this world and all worlds."

[peacefulexplorer]

It's like he's reciting a prayer, some kind of dogmatic litany to force Daniel away. It's clear that his presence is simply generating anger or defensiveness or distress at this point, but he can't not address what seems to be a fundamentally flawed set of principles. Especially since he just inadvertently healed the being recounting them.

"There's more than just one or the other," he says, frustrated and intent. "Just - creating false dichotomies where they don't exist? I'm pretty sure that's the only entropy at work here."

[omnomnom_feels]

"There is not!" He was not aware he was going to raise his voice to a shout until he did so, but the outburst is enough to bring him back around to staring Daniel down. "You wish to complicate what is simple, to make of one thing another! I will not have it!"

Rashad's hands appear to have caught fire. He is not sure when he did that.

[peacefulexplorer]

The swelling and burst of bright conflagration is impossible to ignore, and he sees it in every plane and level as it blazes on Rashad's hands. It's similar to the sort of internal makeup that Rashad seems to be comprised of, probably physically lethal, but as he is now Daniel simply looks at it. For a moment he's grateful he can't seem to manage a corporeal manifestation.

"What if you're simplifying what is inherently complicated?" He looks at Rashad with undeniably melancholic sympathy. Experience has taught him that, if anything, arguing against such a staunchly rooted belief is doomed to never succeed.

But Daniel's never been one to stop trying.

"The world doesn't exist on scale of black and white. It can't function like that. Nothing could."

[omnomnom_feels]

"I could." The aetheric fire is wasteful, pointless. He does not put it out. "The world could. Mortals could, if they would only try harder."

Deep down he knows this conversation has no use, that no good will come of it. Daniel is a stubborn, conceited mortal like so many others he has met, semi-angelic powers or no. "How is it not one of you can seem to see your place in the world?" he asks desperately. "We are all part of a greater whole, but each of you acts as though the world began and ended with your little lives."

Unlike Rashad, obviously. He has never behaved selfishly; he has only ever worked to improve the condition of things, work toward universal categorization and stasis.

He has tried, at least.

[peacefulexplorer]

"But you're not," Daniel points out gently. "Right now? You're not."

His manifestation's head goes to one side. He wants to express compassion for the stubborn being, but he doesn't know how. Rashad is probably simply clinging to the one thing that makes any sense to him in a world twisted beyond his recognition.

"Because the greater picture is relative," he continues, and begins moving the steps of his projection forward again, steady and unrelenting. "And there's no universal way of looking at it. Can't you see that?"

[omnomnom_feels]

"I cannot under these conditions--!" The protest cuts off with a frustrated noise in his throat as the fire spreads up his forearms, his hands raised in a halfheartedly defensive posture he knows will not do him any good. It is not fair, Daniel should not point these things out. He recognizes the hypocrisy of his statement, of the claim that mortals should control themselves under these conditions when he cannot. It is justified, though, is it not? They are made to be this way and he is not. The disadvantage is his.

He shakes his head again, the motion turning into a constant wagging back and forth of impotent disagreement. "It cannot be relative. There is a purpose, I had a purpose, and I understood when I saw from Heaven's perspective."

[peacefulexplorer]

The fire roars up, and Daniel's supremely grateful that no civilians seem to be stopping to view the confrontation or interfere in the slightest. Rashad - former-angel, or whatever he is - isn't something Daniel would be able to face directly if he were human.

Fortunately for them both, he isn't human. Not anymore.

"Purposes change," he says evenly. "Mine did, when I Ascended. People change - the status quo changes, constantly. Really, the only thing that is constant is that things will change."

[omnomnom_feels]

He chose this space precisely because it is unattractive to humans, but Daniel would be right to be concerned. There is no place in New York that is truly devoid of life, and if Rashad were more rational at the moment he would recognize that he is far, far too likely to attract the attention of some passerby at the mouth of the alley or in one of the dismal little windows above now that he is on fire.

"I do not want change! I would bring the world to peace and keep it in perfect stasis," he complains petulantly impatiently. "Were I myself again, were I even what you are --"

But even when he was an angel, it had been impossible. There have been unrelenting forces of entropy at work in the world as long as he has existed, and the knowledge chafes.

[peacefulexplorer]

Daniel has no idea if anything he's saying is helpful, or even properly conceivable to something so high up the metaphysical chain. Granted, he's pretty high up that alleged chain of being now, but he's got the benefit of dual citizenship here, and he's not sure Rashad does. In fact, Rashad looks to be taking the dual experience aspect very, very poorly. Incredibly poorly.

"Stasis isn't sustainable," he answers, looking at Rashad in genuine, confused alarm. "Peace and order aren't synonymous. I mean - god, what's the doctrine like where you're from?"

[omnomnom_feels]

"Death is entropy," retorts Rashad. "Peace is synonymous with Order. How can there be peace without Order?"

That he has never known peace and that there is no true Order outside of Heaven makes no difference. The fight for Order has been eternal, but it has been eternally in earnest. "In this world, it might have been possible for a real angel to set things to rights," he growls. "And yet you begrudge my regaining even the slightest aspect of what I should be!"

[peacefulexplorer]

"Because peace doesn't equate to order, can you see?" He stares at Rashad, desperate, beseeching, urging him to understand. "If you could see like I do - I see things - the way I never could have before."

The spin and turn of the world, the ebb and flow of a universe in constant motion. The breathtaking beauty and wonder of understanding every atom, every ripple, every delicate, fine-grained part - it came flooding back with the resurgence of his unlocked memories. He understands. More than anything he wishes he could transfer that understanding, let Rashad see through eyes that perceive so much.

"On a higher plane, I - I'm energy. I can see chaos and order, entropy and change, and they require each other," he presses, passionate and insistent. "They're meant to balance each other out. They can't exist in a vacuum. It's not - it's not ontologically possible, do you understand?"

[omnomnom_feels]

Rashad draws in an incensed gasp, the muscles of his face twitching. To suppose that Order requires Entropy, that they are somehow complementary, to deny the inherent evil of chaos --! He makes a valiant attempt to voice his vehement disagreement, but finds himself spitting out a series of incoherent sounds instead, robbed of even his ability to speak by the audacity of the claim. He stops himself, jaw trembling, and fights to gain control of himself as he stands huffing and glaring at the apparition of Daniel.

"How dare you?!" he finally snaps. "This is blasphemy! I am Order, the Host are Order! We exist for Order!"

[peacefulexplorer]

"Maybe you should exist for something else," he says, and Rashad is growing ever more worryingly agitated and angry so he softens his tone, making his voice less immediate, less intense. "Things are different here - you're different. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. I mean - "

He opens one of his projection's hands to indicate the physical appearance of himself. "It wasn't necessarily for me."

[omnomnom_feels]

"Why?!" This seems to Rashad to be the key question. He finally reverses his retreat, leans forward as little flames lick over the whole of him. He cannot sustain this output of energy, and though the fire has spread it is dying down from what it was, sustained at all only by his anger. "Why should I?! You have aided me, I will -- I can return to normal, I am almost certain of it, and that is what I want!"

He presses his lips together, breathing heavily, the fire brightening and ebbing with his breaths. "That is what I want," he repeats, and he finally lets the fire go out. "Leave me," he demands.

[peacefulexplorer]

Daniel watches him, wishing he could extend something better than his peristence, something that Rashad is clearly finding to be profoundly upsetting and distressing, and he hovers on a tenuous edge, a brink of indecision.

The flickering of his endurance and the realization that he cannot hold his form indefinitely is what changes his mind. He doesn't have the energy to simulate a nod, so he simply looks at Rashad for a long moment.

"I just don't think the universe is as polarized as you think it is," he says softly. "That's all."

The energy reaches the nadir where it would become unsustainable, and he reluctantly lets go. The projection fades in the space between blinks, and his awareness uncoils from the nameless alleyway to trail back into its amorphous, drifting disorder.