Howler

A Song of Men and Arms: A Homeric Rp

Wow, I am super sorry! This dropped off my subscriptions for some reason and I just now realized why I felt like I needed to be getting a post up somewhere. I'll get one up ASAP, thanks for the patience.

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

@Fairess@Themerlinhawk@Wind Wild
Oh my, lookit what I did ma!

Glad we got that all sorted, good job team. Storming accomplished with (hopefully) minimal collateral damage. Similarly, next in the collab!

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

THE SURFACE ISN'T UNEVEN YOU PHILISTINES *EYE TWITCH* you ever looked at a cut wood table top before and looked for pictures in the knots? Lazarus did that by changing its fundamental nature lol.

@Themerlinhawk

Philistines, eh? Cast ye no stones lest ye be stoned, brosef, that high horse makes a fine target!

On a different note, in the future you might want to allow opportunities for intervention in your posts before reading people's minds. Jasper, for instance, would be hella protected against even cursory mental scanning or manipulation, but you have Lazarus picking things up left and right. I clarified with Wind that it's the standard procedure here to have what's in the post be fair game, but going forward you might keep in mind that Jasper wouldn't be throwing even surface thoughts out into the ether.

If you'd prefer not to rewrite it no worries, I can make up a reason for it, but it would be pretty out of character for him to get read like that.

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

@Wind Wild@Themerlinhawk@Fairess

Contributed. Next. XD

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

I'm all for collabing. In fact I can initiate it if you want.

@Themerlinhawk@Howler@Fairess

@Wind Wild

I dunno what your preferred medium is or whatnot but by all means. It just strikes me that there's a good deal of conversation likely to occur that might not be best dealt with via independent posts as far as expediency goes.

Edit: I don't know if you lot use Skype for coordination, but if you do I'd be game to add one another. PM me your handle if you'd like, no sweat if not.

Wishing Star - A Frontier Adventure

Eugh. Not a great showing, but I at least wanted to get something on the board. Apologies for it taking quite so long, Holidays messed me up as well.

Wishing Star - A Frontier Adventure

"Hello there!"

The cloaked figure wasn't the only one with hops.

No more than an hour after the train and Eamon was almost convinced that Dust had been worth it on its own. Sure, it lived up to its namesake--his boots were scuffed and caked with it already, let alone the back of his poor coat--but it was also exciting! Adventurous! The kind of place where anything could happen, just brimming with potential. He hadn't even had to wait for a proper gunfight to start, the sound of powder-discharge and roguish shouting in the distance almost enough to make the young man shiver with glee. Real outlaws, slinging real bullets, in the middle of public no less! He wasn't at University anymore, he knew, and my was it good to be out and about.

And speaking of out and about, he was very nearly knocked on the head by a loose shingle displaced by someone who had all the finishings of a bandit. They were even leaping between buildings, heading off from the direction of the gunshots and towards--well, who knew! Eamon certainly intended to find out, though. With a twitch of his ears and a grin he coiled, crouching on the balls of his feet and concentrating a moment to light the runes on them. He felt the usual rush of energy, the building of pressure like the charge of a bullet--

Was it common for people in Dust to sail through the air? Certainly the other man had before, and if Eamon had been thinking about it he might have realized that a standing jump to about twenty feet might have drawn some attention to himself, but in truth he was far more interested in whatever it was his mystery-runner was up to. It was a controlled hop, the kind of thing he'd done plenty of times before, and he found himself landing only a roof behind the figure in black as he hit the roof running and skipped to the next with a jackrabbit's ease.

"What are we running from!" He added cheerfully, closing the distance with a few impossible strides. Sure, the man could attack him, but that was half the fun! Brigands and outlaws, sheriffs and lawmen, such was the name of the game on the Frontier.

Right?

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

I am, by the way, down to collaborate this next segment with...well, I suppose all of us, actually, if you lot feel like it. Otherwise I don't mind the prose.

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

Eugh. Unedited but at least it's up. I'll probably fix it later.

Essence of the World: Cadence [Always Open]

Loom: Brightman-Dial Treatment Center

Day 3, Morning
Zadkiel

It wasn't that Jasper didn't sleep so much as he hated to.

First and foremost it was wasteful. Time spent sleeping was time that could well be spent doing something else--he didn't need to, or at least he had sufficient essence reserves and the methodology to avoid having to do so, but he also didn't enjoy it. Angelic though he might have looked his dreams were rarely pleasant ones, subconscious rioting at the notion of having to fit all the jumbled information he accumulated in somewhere. It was hard enough to fit millennia of personal experience into a single mind, let alone the collective memories and experiences and consciousnesses of the many others he'd metaphorically (and, unfortunately, not-so-metaphorically) devoured since, and the end result was not what one might consider 'restful'. Still, the night had been surprisingly soothing, and had he not been woken up by his tinny, choral ring-tone proffered by a single, red-finger-nailed hand he might even have been in a good mood for it. Honestly the phone was damn lucky--had he any less patience it would have been ashes so long ago it wasn't even funny.

Not that you'd have been able to tell from his voice as he sat up and swiped in.

"No, he hasn't escaped." Was the first thing he said, his breath the slight, weary sigh of someone speaking to an obvious idiot with obvious patience and compassion. "Yes, it's a ploy. Yes, I'll be right over." The phone swiped closed and laid itself in Rubra's hand at the same moment Jasper turned in bed, running a hand over his face as if to brush off the cobwebs of centuries and the weight that came with them. It didn't work, if his creaky rise was any indication, and he padded his way to the closet with the same resigned, determined footsteps he always did. Distractions abounded, but in the end there was always work to be done.

Another white shirt, another pair of immaculate white pants, another day. Back to the war.

------

"I did warn you." Jasper was saying, but Ricket couldn't hear him. He couldn't actually hear much of anything, really, but the panicked blood pumping in his ears and the wet sound of sobbing that he realized only after a moment was his own. The angel certainly wasn't crying--at best he looked mildly apologetic, which barely even computed now as Ricket tried to suck in another breath but instead only shuddered and wept.

And tried, desperately, to understand what he had to do to make sure Jasper never, ever did that to him again.

To be fair, the angel wasn't lying; Ricket just hadn't believed him. They never did, the demons that Jasper captured, having suffered as they had. They'd survived Hell, after all, and struggle and dismemberment and the countless awful deeds their species was prone to. What did this prissy little angel who walked with bare feet, with his chains and his concrete and his fuck-off huge bodyguard, know of pain? Ricket had even said it to his face.

And Jasper had smiled, kindly and sadly, because there was nothing else to do. How could he have made him understand? That this was a pain not endured but suffered, that the demon would never be the same for bearing its memory? Some things could only be experienced, not learned, and this apparently was one of them.

It's only in the face of horror that we wicked things find our nobler selves, Jasper remembered, from so long ago now that it was incredible to think he still felt that empty burn. But we can be so noble!

So, horror. It had taken Jasper a long time to perfect it.

"Please." Ricket realized he was saying at about the same moment Jasper did, hearing it over and over on a breathless whisper. All one word, a prayer. "Please. Please. Please." The angel standing above him knelt, slowly and achingly, one knee to the floor first and then the other, and leaned in to turn his ear to the demons lips. If the creature had the burden of such agony, it was the least he could do to bear its confession.

"Please?"

"Please." Ricket breathed and nodded his head, swallowing back another blubbering sob as he closed his eyes. Red tears streaked down from his eyes, ran down from his ears, dribbled from his lips to patter at the ground below. "Anything. Please."

It was the part that Jasper liked the least, if he was being honest. Contrary to popular belief he did not enjoy the pain of others. Their redemption, yes, but not the pain that came with it. Its necessity was his only consolation, but he wore it like armor as he labored to his feet with weary understanding. It was always the same, after all, the begging and crying and pleading. To think he was once the Archangel of Mercy.

"I know it hurts, Ricket." He said, closing his eyes and managing a beatific smile as his hand lay on the demon's shoulder. "But you will rise above it, and be so much more in its wake."

And, his eyes beginning to shine, Ricket screamed.

-------------------

Loom: Darlyn's Cafe

Day 3, Afternoon
Roanne, Tokarin, Lazarus, Zadkiel

@Fairess, @Wind Wild, @Themerlinhawk

Lunch time.

It came later than he'd intended--the morning had been busy--but Jasper stepped into Roanne's diner and made his way to the same seat he always did...and stopped. That there was someone else in it was hardly surprising, the diner's food was quite good after all, but that it was someone he couldn't simply move without thought was. Try though he might to keep the molding of memory to a minimum, after all these years Jasper was a creature of habit. He much preferred what he'd come to appreciate as his red leather stool by the counter, three stools in to the left of the corner where the checkered floor made its way back towards the kitchen. It had his little tear exposing the cheap white cotton beneath and didn't squeak when he swiveled on it, as he occasionally did while he was preoccupied in thought. And while normally a little mental nudge would be enough to shuffle the counter and allow him his space, today it was significantly more occupied.

First and foremost there was the man in the dark suit, settled at the bar and lost in his memories. It didn't take a genius to see the aura around him and to Jasper it was clear as day, heavy as grave dirt and dark as death. It clung in the air around him like a pall, thickening and permeating it like the weight of the enchanted locket he carried. The second was the young angel seated in his stool, a pretty thing trying to get Roanne's attention. That was, in and of itself, an interesting development--Jasper knew that Roanne had angelic friends outside of himself, of course, but he'd never made any effort (and in fact, had made efforts not) to meet them. He had no desire to be cloying and besides, little enough time to spend on it. But this little bright thing looked exactly the kind of companion someone like Roanne would appreciate, and given that it was so clear that she was there to converse with his dear guardian he took the liberty of making his aching way to the seat between the oddities instead of trying to slide them about. He sat more slowly than a man his age should.

Would they, he wondered, see the man in the tan suit or the angel in white? The wings on his back dwarfed even Tokarin's, massive and heavy as they trailed across the floor behind him. That people stepped around them was suspiciously convenient, as was their immaculate cleanliness, but such things were common enough among angels.

"Afternoon." He offered to either or both of them, nodding slightly in acknowledgement. He gathered up a menu and set it delicately on the counter in of him, the universal sign of being ready to order no matter how unlikely it was to happen. Roanne had a penchant for not bothering to let him after the first fifteen times he'd asked for a wedge salad, but it never hurt to be prepared. Turning to Tokarin, his smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

"Would you mind switching seats?"

Alba and Rubra, as always, waited outside.