bigapplesauce | Rain Rain Rain Come Down Down Down [open to multiple]

Current Music: September 18, 2013

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Rain Rain Rain Come Down Down Down [open to multiple]

Very little in this place has proved familiar, and that which is familiar has proved uncanny. Asmodia's life has run the gamut from metropolis to frontier and back again, but until being taken by this Rift she had never seen anything like Manhattan. Bustling port cities she's seen, but this city is like something out of fantasy. The word 'skyscraper' is oddly appealing in its imaginative accuracy, even if the buildings it denotes are less appealing. They blot out the sky in a way even Kintargo's grizzled skyline never managed, and they make her feel simultaneously trapped and as though she should expect one to topple down on top of her at any moment.

This is far from the first time circumstances have called upon her to adapt herself to a foreign culture, but she had never imagined she would encounter one this foreign...or that she would find herself nearly powerless with no indication of when or how she might regain her magic. She's been keenly aware of her relative inability to ~~kill her enemies~~ defend herself since being returned here; it's as though Biscuit has completely forgotten most of the spells she taught him. It's a struggle to prepare each of the spells that remain for even one use each day, and all Biscuit can give her are Deception's spells. Maybe she should be grateful for what she has given that their survival here will likely be predicated on their ability to pass unnoticed, but she has grown accustomed to living openly and to responding to threats with violence, not subterfuge.

Not that anyone has threatened her. True, she's spent most of her time hiding out in the little living space assigned to her, quietly testing her new limits, but the worst she's gotten on her brief forays outdoors are odd looks. Odd looks she's used to, but sooner or later she'll have to make another attempt to buy some local clothing because the human guise alone isn't cutting it. Her first attempt was a miserable failure, the layout of the stores and labeling of the goods even more confusing than the grocers she's visited, and since then she's simply worn the clothes in which she arrived, washing them in her new abode's sink a few times at great inconvenience and with mixed success.

Today, at last, she is growing bolder...if only from boredom. Trouble is, she doesn't know where to go or what to do with herself, and she doesn't have any money with which to do it anyhow. She heads down to the ground level and outside only to wander aimlessly a few minutes, listless and annoyed at the realization that she has no idea what to do with herself.

If there's one thing she's always known how to do, though, it's how to take out her frustrations on strangers. An idea forms as she passes one stranger after another on the street, and once it occurs to her it sticks. It wouldn't hurt anyone, not really, and it would give her something to do for the next hour or so, and maybe most importantly, it would remind her that she's not helpless.

So that's why Asmodia and Biscuit have picked out a spot in the Sheep Meadow and commenced dancing. They're both pretty bad at it, and Asmodia's eldritch chanting is almost entirely unmusical, but for the first time in a while she's starting to feel a reassuring (if likely fleeting) sense of control. She's Asmodia Antarion. She's faced devils and felled giants, and she can and she will command the elements themselves for her own petty amusement. Enjoy the coming rainstorm, Manhattan. Or just enjoy the performance art; it's not every day you see a LARPer and a giant rodent performing a rain dance.

[OOC: Asmodia is using a hex to control the weather! Unfortunately for pranking purposes, this hex requires a literal solid hour of dancing and chanting with her familiar and she's chosen to do it in a public place, whoops. She might try to brush aside briefer distractions, but whenever anyone gets her mind too far off what she's doing she's going to have to start over. Subsequent interrupters will get an increasingly frustrated Asmodia.]

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For the second time in as many minutes, Daniel causes Asmodia to lose concentration on an ongoing casting. "Oh!" she says, and then, "Oh," and finally, "Oh?"

Ascended. Dead and ascended don't usually go together, but she's no religious scholar. Maybe that's how it's done sometimes, or maybe he just means dead as in no longer on the mortal coil. Either way, she's running through the last minute or two in her mind and trying to decide just how badly she's done in terms of mouthing off to a deity, or at the least a servitor. "Haaaa," she adds, the nervous laugh barely even recognizable as a laugh at all. The urge to flee is rising, but that's kind of stupid because there is no running from a god or its servants.

"I only wanted to make it rain," she says, holding up her hands in a placating gesture now. "I didn't -- um -- are you...should I be kneeling or something right now? I haven't, uh, met a god before. Sorry -- uh, my, uh, liege." She punctuates the apology with an incredibly awkward downward bob that might have been a curtsy in a former life.

Is that correct? She's pretty sure that isn't correct. She's also pretty sure he's not going to want the formal address one would use for the servitors of the great devil Asmodeus, which is about the only one she knows.

"Wh - no, I'm - I'm not - " Oh. Oh no. He reaches forward awkwardly before remembering, belatedly, that it won't make the least bit of difference. His hands clip through her shoulders uselessly and he retreats with a sigh.

This is why broadcasting stuff like this is not necessarily a great idea. Throwing the word 'Ascended' into the mix had probably been his first mistake.

"I'm not - I'm not a god," he clarifies weakly. "Just, um. Human, more or less. Happened to have run into a very, um powerful entity. A while back." He flaps one insubstantial hand halfheartedly.

Asmodia freezes up, eyes big and mouth compressed into a wide, thin line. He just reached right through her, like she wasn't solid at all -- or like he wasn't.

"So was Cayden Cailean, until he wasn't," she blurts, because correcting a deity on the subject of what he is sounds like such a good idea right now. She immediately repents ~~of her sin~~ and flaps a hand in return. "Sorry -- sorry. Not a god, got it. Just a -- ascended human."

She's not clear on the difference, here, but hey, if he insists.

"Yeah, um. Please, please don't - " He looks at her in helpless frustration. That name is flying right over his metaphysical head right now, but that's really the least of his worries. "Don't bow, um. I was human until, like - a week ago." It's an interval of time he picked at random because, as it occurs to him far too late, he doesn't know what day it is.

"This isn't the first time it's happened, I just - happened to be in the, in the wrong place at the, uh. Wrong time." Sure, except the Rift probably chose that place and time so, really, that's probably not what happened at all, but how else is he meant to explain it?

So he's a new god. Godling. Servitor. Repeat godling? For once in her life Asmodia really, really wishes she'd ever given a crap about religious studies because maybe, just maybe she'd have some idea what's actually going on here. It's not just the use of the word ascended, though, he said he was on a higher plane and that is -- well, more or less in line with what she understands of how that all works.

"I won't! I won't," she reassures him. Is that going to be his mode of worship when he figures out what he's doing? People studiously not bowing to him? That's a really stupid line of thought, and it occurs to her that she might be getting just a touch hysterical. A memory clicks and she says suddenly, "You said! About this, you said! In the dream, you said you had been resurrected! Is this what you meant?"

"Yes!" His expression clears slightly. They're moving in a direction he has more control over, and this is good! "So it was - kind of an accident then. And kind of more of an accident now. Once I remember how to descend, I'll be me again."

Ordinary human Daniel who, as it so happened, has still been mistaken for a god multiple times due to mass cultural misunderstanding.

"I'm not - this isn't - godlike, or anything." His shape's expression folds into a frown of concentration. "Ascending is kind of its own thing where I come from. Brainwaves and, and evolution."

He's really not doing a great job of explaining, is he.

He still hasn't said anything to really convince her that he's not a god in the sense of what she considers a god, except maybe the part where he's willing to descend. That, admittedly, doesn't sound much like a god, though she's never given any thought to the question of whether a god can descend and become mortal.

It's clear he's trying to be helpful and explain how it really does work, but the foreign words just bring a blush of embarrassment to her illusion's cheeks as they register as yet more she doesn't understand in this world. "Right," she says. "Brainwaves. Evolution. Of course."

"Okay, just." He holds up both hands, palms out. "I'm still me. I just happen to, uh, exist in a different form than I do usually." That is to say, human. Or mostly human. He's been in a bit of a gray area for a while now.

There were some that would have called the Ancients gods.

Of course, Daniel never subscribed to that school of thought. All the gods are false these days, always have been, and he's uncomfortably aware that the substance of him is very much a state of being that's easily placed on a pedestal. Elevated, in more than once sense.

"I was dying, before. Another being helped show me how to, uh, make do." He sweeps one hand in a sloppy vertical gesture, eyebrows raised meaningfully. "And now more recently the Rift hit me and I was sort of dying, um, again so - I had to do it again."

"But you're not a ghost," she points out, because clearly he's not. There would a lot more wailing and indiscriminately attacking people. "So you're saying that you do this at will?"

This is all distressingly bizarre and again, she really wishes she'd spent more time studying the full pantheon because maybe there's something like this in all the legends. Maybe he is a servitor of whatever being uplifted him, but he's really very insistent that he's not divine at all and he should know, shouldn't he?

"Alright," she decides. "Alright, you're -- whatever you are. Extraplanar."

"Kind of?" he says after a puzzled pause, drawing the words out slowly. "I'm - I'm energy, basically. And I did it, well. I did it because I didn't really have much choice at the time."

It was Ascend or never see home again, and the thought was unacceptable, still is unacceptable. He's not dying permanently in a universe he doesn't even belong to. He hasn't made a habit of doing that yet, and he's certainly not about to start now. Never mind that he sort of already has.

'Ghost' isn't a good word for it, but neither is 'god'. But neither, he notes miserably, is 'human'.

"...I don't get it," she admits, because she doesn't think she's going to get it if it's not something that fits into those familiar terms. "But if you're not a god, you're not a god -- and I do know about making hard choices," she offers, because he's looking so down about it all. The guy could be (is) mistakable for a god, and he's moping about it. If she had that kind of power --

If she had that kind of power, she'd hopefully have the sense to keep a lid on it lest something even bigger and stronger come along. Maybe that's the take-home for today, all things considered.

"Yeah, um. It's complicated," he says after an indecisive pause, expression momentarily flickering into something pained. Complicated in far too many ways, many of which he has no idea how to define, let alone address.

"Sorry about the interruption." It feels a bit belated at this point, but it bears mentioning. "I was just curious, is all." He's gotten a close look at the varied brands of angelic magic, but nothing like this, nothing similar to a hex. It's intriguing, he won't deny it.

"I could start it again?" she offers, though the thought of beginning all the way from the beginning -- and with a dedicated audience -- isn't as appealing as coming out here to do it in the first place had been. "It just -- just takes an hour. Of dancing."

"Oh," says Daniel, his expression reforming, taken aback.

He doesn't want to request for her to start over or do it again since, well, an hour of dancing sounds like a bit of a commitment if it's done in the linear sense, which seems to be the general course for non-Ascended beings. He is genuinely interested in the many and varied forms of energy flowering out at infrequent points all about the city but in this case it's not so much natural as it is a conscious effort, and that's quite a bit different.

It leaves him feeling unsure as to what one should say to that.

"Oh," he says again.

"Yeeeah," she replies because believe her, she gets it, even if she's thinking more in terms of him not wanting to stick around and watch her dance for an hour. Lest he think that all her magic is useless due to time constraints, she adds, "There's quicker stuff but not, you know, weather. Do you...do you have magic, where you come from?"

Not a question she'd ever imagined she'd ask any reasonable person, but this world is so devoid of spellcasters that she's having to face the possibility that her own world might not be the norm.

"Not generally." He shakes his form's head. Unless one counted the Ancients, which didn't qualify so much as 'magic' as simply the higher plane lending access to more power. "Clarke's third law, you know."

"I don't know," Asmodia points out with a sigh. "Who's Clarke, and how'd he manage to outlaw magic? Because that wouldn't stick even where I come from, and believe me they're big on laws there."

"Oh. Oh, no." Well, he really should have realized that wasn't a great reference. Her universe has already proven to be significantly different from his own. "It's not - Clarke's third law - 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' We don't have it, really, just - technology that seems like it."

"Uh huh." Law of the universe then, not a law of the land. She mulls it over, considering the implications of the concept. There's technology back home that looks like magic at first glance, to be sure, but it's easily distinguishable if you're studied. "If it's indistinguishable, why do you assume it isn't magic?" she asks.

It's a fair question. One side of his mouth quirks upward as his shoulders lift in a shrug.

"Can't promise I understand it, but I have some friends who can explain the science of it." With plenty of in-depth, polysyllabic words he can't remember.

"Then it's not indistinguishable, is it?" asks Asmodia, the edge of her own mouth quirking up at the little victory of logic. She waves a hand at his apparently incorporeal form with a rueful smile. "So this is technology, huh?"

"In a sense." He considers it, thoughtful. "It is possible to digitally Ascend. There are - lots of ways to go about it, I guess. In my case?" His smile softens, but retains its rueful edge. "I kinda got lucky. Ascension's just a science we haven't fully figured out yet."

"Well, back home it's usually, you know. Divine. Think you could teach me how? I'm always open to new experiences."

And if it's not divine, she might actually have a shot at it. Ascending from the mortal coil isn't exactly something to which she's devoted her life, but if there's opportunity...well, she really doesn't see why he's so glum about living on a higher plane of existence.

"To Ascend?" He looks at her, aghast.

Maybe to her, it's an honest question. Even if it were his home, it would still be a reasonable question. Despite it, his shoulders drop briefly in a movement suggestive of the uncomfortable shuffling of feet.

'Accident' he'd said, and it hadn't exactly been untrue. He hadn't conformed to any of the stipulations the Others insisted upon - he'd broken rules, he'd circumvented them countless times, twisted loopholes upon loopholes, discussed or negotiated his way out of punishment, he'd acted arrogantly and brashly and self-righteously. And it had placed him beyond anyone's help, placed him in a position where he was left mnemonically scrubbed, mind empty and open, cast into physical flesh. He'd never wanted it, he'd never believed himself worthy until that doubt had been riven open and Oma had extended that road to him.

"It's not really a consistent thing," he says slowly, looking away. "And I'm - well. I'm an anomaly. It's not really for humans, not really for anyone at that level in the evolutionary scale."

Could he? If she was dying, if there was no other way, and if he had to -

The mass of his energy shifts, pulling deeper into itself. Maybe. Maybe he could. Maybe the effort would trigger some cessation of his existence. Maybe that wouldn't be so terrible.

That look he gives her -- it's like she'd asked him something bad. Like she'd asked him to teach her how to become a lich or vampire...or, maybe, how to pledge one's soul to a patron. Her grin falters as it becomes immediately apparent that she's overstepped something big, as he goes on explaining anyway, reiterating what she'd already guessed: it's not for her. Not him, either, except by chance.

She forces a chuckle. "Hey, it was a joke," she lies lamely. Maybe it was a little bit a joke. "I've got a good setup in this body, don't worry about me."

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tw: brief suicide ideation

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