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

[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.