Daniel Jackson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
peacefulexplorer) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bigapplesauce2015-05-24 10:57 am
peacefulexplorer) wrote in bigapplesauce2015-05-24 10:57 am
don't get lost in heaven, they got locks on the gate [open to multiple]
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.]
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.]
no subject
"There's a difference between doing nothing and exercising care," he answers coldly. "Don't paint false dichotomies where there aren't any."
Reasonable. True, Lucifer has made every effort to act deceptively mild-mannered since the bloodbath that was his tumultuous entrance into Manhattan, wreaking the kind of indescribable havoc Daniel only glimpsed. There are still patterns, though, splashed over the composition of his being - patterns of blood and retribution, and Daniel doesn't need to be able to interpret them to know how unquestionably lethal the being to which he's speaking is.
"I think you're being patient here because you have to be." The old defiance creeps into his tone, bright and flinted. Even in this shape, he cannot stop being what he is - the man who challenges gods, who calmly embarked on the genocide of the species that took his wife from him. Too bold, too curious, too machinating, stubborn and resistant to a fault, a perpetual pain in the ass regardless of what plane or dimension he happens to reside on at the time. "Because there are too many here that would stop you. Too much collateral damage. But if you had complete free reign of this universe?"
He doesn't complete the thought.
no subject
And Daniel, pain-in-the-ass, won't-die human that he is, has apparently managed to misread the Morningstar. Lucifer wants blood and retribution, yes, but it's specific blood he wants and specific retribution. He could lay waste to this universe if he wanted to, but why would he? What purpose would it serve, how would it put him any closer to his goals?
He tilts his head, leveling that birdlike curious gaze at the projection of Daniel.
"What would I want with this universe?"
no subject
He could never buy into the mentality that Daniel's is the only universe of consequence, and he should somehow cease to care about what causality may exist in others. True, Lucifer's universe sounds like a desolate, grim place - that doesn't mean he wants to add to that by allowing him some way to slip back into it.
no subject
Really, it doesn't matter if he does or not, because Lucifer is going to tell him regardless.
"Between Gabriel and I, I seem to be the only one who actually cares to save my universe. My brother would rather stay here, drinking and whoring to his heart's content and ignore what he has fair warning of. And everyone says I'm the bad guy."
He places a hand theatrically over his heart, like he's deeply wounded at the offense.
no subject
At least with Gabriel - well, Daniel might not always feel like he knows where he stands with Gabriel, but at least talking to Gabe doesn't leave him flat-out uneasy.
"You guys are literally biblical. That doesn't generally go well for anyone involved."
no subject
He hadn't exactly let Daniel forget about it, especially not when his phone, back when he'd been alive to use it, had always had that little infernal symbol in the upper corner and its perpetual strong wifi signal. Blessings be upon you, Daniel Jackson, now and forever.
"Do you remember what I told you about Heaven?"
no subject
"Oh, do I remember," he answers in the wary, tired sing-song of someone who deeply regrets ever getting involved. But no denying it, now the Devil's taken an interest. Lucky, lucky, lucky Daniel.
no subject
And he cannot abide an empty Heaven. Even if Gabriel could sit around in some empty universe, screwing the not-quite-locals, he couldn't.
"I shouldn't have to explain to you the ramifications of an empty Heaven while Hell overflows with demons."
Sure, he doesn't so much care about the effects it will have on humanity so much as he does the fact that his entire family will be dead, but that's just semantics. What's good for Heaven, in this case, benefits Earth as well.
no subject
The fact that the Devil kind of has a point - a point about caring for family, wanting to help - is not a happy thought.
Granted, Daniel doesn't have the full context here.
"You seem pretty confident that I can actually do something about the cosmic elephant in the room," he says slowly, "when it's affecting me just as much as it is you."
no subject
A few years isn't much, but he can do a lot with a little. He is old and powerful even in captivity, more so when unfettered, and if he plays his cards just right and can return outside of the Cage...
He can fix this. He will fix this.
"What I want now is to have as many active pieces on the playing field as possible. And I'd really rather not downgrade a rook to a pawn, if you follow me."
no subject
He repeats the name, quietly parsing. There's a significance buried there, but it's beyond him. Whatever the name represents, it's something resonant, something keyed to Lucifer. Someone from his universe, probably.
It's troubling that Lucifer - genuinely seems to want to fix his world. It seems to be, in Daniel's mind, a pretty uniformly terrible world. But -
But it's also Lucifer.
"I don't know," he says, and it feels like a complete betrayal of self that he even has to say it. He doesn't know. He doesn't know if Lucifer has a point, or if it's worth helping him to get him out of Manhattan, or any of it. He doesn't want to be shrouded in doubt over this, but he is.
no subject
Sure, if he can manage it, he'd rather avoid the whole imprisoned in Hell thing, but the point here is that he'll go back regardless. He won't hide in an empty universe to avoid his punishment, he won't bury his head in the sand to keep himself from thinking about his brothers' genocide. He is the Morningstar, and he doesn't let a little thing like being trapped in the deepest pit of Hell stop him.
"Perhaps, instead of questioning my motives, you should be wondering what kind of brother knows about the deaths of his siblings and does nothing about it."
He loves Gabriel dearly, but his little brother is an absolute chickenshit coward.
no subject
"No promises," he says, choosing his words delicately. "I'm not locking you out. I just - you realize you're asking kind of a big thing, here. Help. For the Devil. But I'm not - "
He breaks off. He hates that he's considering this, that it's even an option.
"I'm not ruling anything out. Yet."
no subject
"Speak to Iman at some point. I've been giving her all of my observations on the Rift, and there may be something in it that would benefit from your input."
Look, he's even learned to play nice with others, Daniel. Is he really the big bad Satan that you've made him out to be?
Well. Technically, yes. But he's a Satan who knows how to behave to get what he wants, so that's something.
no subject
This is it, this is Daniel Jackson's life now. Or not-life, rather, because the Rift is a pain.
"I'll consider it," he says, lending a careful weight to the emphasis. Consider. He's not sure he can go toe-to-toe, tête-à-tête with Lucifer straight-up, but he's not as defenseless as he was as a mostly-human. That's something he can hold onto, at least. It's a mild comfort, if anything.
no subject
And he sends another reproving nudge at Daniel; why do you keep disappointing him? He thought better of you.
"Regardless of what you think of me, the Rift is a common enemy and you should keep up with whatever information is out on it."
Congratulations, this is your second chastisement from Satan. It's your lucky day.
"Besides, I'm sure she would like to know that you've only been inconveniently discorporated and not actually killed."
no subject
He's almost tempted to snap out the childish insistence of fine, he'll do that now but he doesn't think he actually can. Almost every encounter he's unwittingly initiated has been made purely by chance, and Iman's one person out of a vast, vast many, all of whom he has the ability to detect but not necessarily separate on an individual basis.
no subject
He's quite well aware that Daniel has problems with his own locomotion; after all, he could only make it here with the equivalent of a supernatural spotlight. If he tries to find Iman on his own, it'll be a game of chance, hoping that he randomly stumbles across the right human.
Unless, perhaps, he's escorted.
no subject
His projection does not fade or whisper into nothing; it is simply gone, though it takes Daniel himself somewhat longer to uncoil back into his former state of being and away from the warehouse. But then, he's been given a lot to think about.