Unlit

Marvel Comics: Sentinel Initiative

U.S. team for Thor!

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Clumsywordsmith said
Great posts all around, people. Makes lunch break far more interesting. Adam's always a hoot. Though I might not have been clear in my post, Unlit, but the demoness was quite visible at the time -- I'm a bit vaguely imprecise sometimes -- but maybe Adam just can't see her, if that's how you chose to play him.

To quote Adam... Oops. I did a couple of minor edits to fix it. Sorry! One of the risks of trying to do too much in one post, I suppose.

I'm having a lot of fun reading the latest round. A naked dryad, pervy vampire and demon soul, flying Nestor, scheming mummy, no-nonsense undead badass, a giant hulking out, and a skeptical siren. Almost too much awesome to process!

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Waiting for the terrible flight to begin, Adam felt something tugging upon his hand. Were the whales nibbling at him already? Slowly, two of the fingers covering his eyes split apart, and he peered down through the slitted digits at… another female with red hair. Those glinting black golem eyes blinked. She was smiling at him. The corner of his lip twitched momentarily in response -- about the most the golem ever did for smiling back. Her touch was not as warm as the other red-headed woman, as Veti’s, but it was still just as strange to Adam.

“Oh,” replied Adam eloquently to the girl’s (Mila’s) reassurement. The tone of his rumbling reply was just detectably dubious, but some part of him could appreciate her effort to soothe his golem nerves.

When Isis’ wings began to close around them, Adam shut his fingers back tight. Not in the ocean, not in the ocean, not in the ocean…

The golem’s worries trailed off in his mind. Everything trailed off, truly. He drifted, warm and… and… fuzzy? Was it possible for a golem to feel… fuzzy? Like velvet curtains, like the pelt of Optimus the feline, like the mold that grew on the bread Adam never ate in his cupboard. A great giant cotton golem, how absurd, yet Adam could feel nothing except for humor at the thought, or what he supposed was humor…

“Hah hah hah…”

The sound of his slow, monotone, reverberating laughter echoed back to him. He split his fingers again to peer out, and he saw a monstrous room rife with texts of every variety. A lingering smile on his sculpted face faded to typical golem grimness. He lowered his hand from his eyes, slowly rotating his head to gather in his surroundings.

By the time his head had rotated one way and had started back the other, there was a bird upon his shoulder. Adam had been a perch for avians before during the many years he had sat in the park in Prague, but never since, and never for a bird of such pleasing plumage. Isis. He knew it was she without consciously making the connection. She had not dropped him into the ocean, or even a volcano. She was welcome to perch his shoulder, in Adam’s reckoning.

He listened as the goddess spoke. He followed her gaze as she directed it, assessing the massive columns, the pointed archway, the statues of dark-skinned canines. Golems like him? He wondered. Shifting his eyes back to Isis, Adam grimly digested the goddess’ warning. Many lives were at risk for the sake of one, but the cause was just. Or if not just… meaningful. Adam reflected upon Eve and wondered at the trials he would willingly face to recover her were she the one trapped beyond that dark space. The threat of Set or the Guardians of Alexandria paled then, and any budding doubts receded forever from the golem’s mind, other than hoping the Max they sought was worthy of red Veti’s devotion.

As others broke the silence and began to prepare themselves, Adam… simply stood there. As far as golems went, he was as prepared as he was going to get.

He… continued standing there, until a feminine creature with a dusty tome in her hands approached him. The golem blinked, a reaction borne of puzzlement rather than from the need to re-wet his eyes. As the icy female voice began to discuss Adam’s anatomy and… mating habits, the golem shifted his feet awkwardly. Dark and glossy on the outside, but he was certain his mystical body began to heat from the inside at the uncomfortable commentary.

“Er…” the golem started to reply with untested golem delicacy, but the approach of the one called Nestor interrupted him.

The interruption was a blessed interruption. Adam hastily agreed with a firm nod, for no other reason than to stifle further talk concerning his monumental golem apparatus. Adam’s witchy creator had been rather lecherously generous in her sculpting and proportioning of certain… parts. It was lamentable. A woeful curse to be so incredibly endowed. It was a sore topic for Adam. Don’t ask.

“A favor,” Adam rumbled agreeably, “yes.”

Subtly wincing at the shrieking female voice beside him, the golem did not even pause to wonder over Nestor’s plan or ask questions. The moment Nestor finished speaking, Adam gripped the smaller being by the harness he wore, cranked an arm back, and… threw him! This was no half-hearted underhanded lob, not even a hearty softball pitch. This was an extreme, wind-whistling, beeline, blurred type of throw, and the moment Nestor was out of Adam’s hand, Adam feared he had thrown too hard. His onyx eyebrows rose.

“Oops.”

The golem hastened to lumber himself in place to catch a falling statue.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

What was that, Igraine?

Edit: (Even I couldn't keep this picture up. Urgh.)

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

I'm licking this here spoon like Miley Cyrus licks sledgehammers.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

I'll totally share.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Is there anything left for me to lick?

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Adam’s mind blanked at Isis’ words. He forgot the wonder of witnessing a dryad for the first time, forgot the shocking transformation of the red-headed woman Veti to a gargantuan red-furred canine, and set aside the curious sight of a pale child moving faster than the golem’s eye could follow. He stood there motionless, his carefully sculpted jaw slightly ajar, glittering black eyes wide as he regarded the goddess.

My wings will bear us, she had said.

If a golem was not created for gentle touches, one was most certainly not created to fly. Adam was heavier, far heavier than he looked -- and he looked rather heavy to begin with. What if Isis dropped him? What if he fell in the ocean and was trapped there for all of time, just two futilely kicking legs protruding from the unlit mud miles beneath the surface? What if a giant whale swallowed him like Jonah? What if Adam fell on a bed of rock and shattered to a million pieces? How could he ever rebuild himself?

There appeared to be no choice, though. Adam had given his assent. It was not in his nature to revoke such agreement, nor to provide an alternative for an unfavorable path. It was in the golem’s nature to protect and enforce … and to serve. And “to serve” now meant helping a red-headed werewolf named Veti recover an artifact that would return her lost Love.

He breathed in slow and deep. He had noticed humans did that when faced with a troublesome bargain. The golem had never understood the magic in such gestures, though, but somehow the routine made his broad shoulders go from slumped to squared.

Ponderously Adam stepped toward Isis. He tucked his hat and sun-shades in an inside pocket of his trench -- he didn’t want to lose them while in flight. When he was with the group, he slowly raised his huge hand and covered his eyes. If he was going get accidentally dropped into a volcano somewhere, he didn’t want to see it coming.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Igraine said Unlit, your new avatar? You have my wholehearted, unequivocal approval, ginormous thumbs up, for however little or much that may count.

Why thank you. It's actually an old avatar, one of the first I used back on the old guild. One of my favorite characters from a favorite movie. And I brood a lot, so it often seems fitting.

And... I am present, and I plan on posting tomorrow if all goes well.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Oh. Well, I have learned something.