RP Drumming

[Ira]

SHE was waiting. WAITING. What in the name of all that SHE is was worth HER -WAITING- for? SHE was the greatest and oldest of all who existed among the cosmos and multiverse. Since the return of Ira from the land she calls 'the Dreaming World,' SHE had singlehandedly thwarted seven hundred, one assassination attempts on HER and Cait and her lives. SHE had half a mind to crack the fabric of all reality and rewrite the pillars of mulitversal existence into naught but piles of dust for this insolence!

And SHE, SHE was WAITING!

Yes.

SHE was waiting, because SHE was going on a date.

SHE tapped HER foot gently against the dead flesh of The-Sphere-That-Hates, a gentle rumbling echoing from her mind and coalescing into a slowly gathering storm of red miasma in the sky. The gases, powerful concoctions exhumed and inhaled by the Sphere, were made to race across the sky for but mere moments before being pulled back into the great lungs of the world SHE had a hand in creating. The gases were HER idea too- the world was alive, it needed to breathe, and breathing needed to serve a purpose for the continuance of its life. Everything had to have a purpose, and every purpose a logical reason. It had to be right.

So it was that they arced their way through the atmosphere, glowing red gases of incredible light and power. And so it was that they swirled and twisted over the head of their supreme GODDESS in response to HER emotions. HER anxiety. Anxiety! For the sake of HERSELF was SHE really feeling ANXIOUS? It was just a mortal! SHE could flip HER fingers and, at a whim, recreate him perfectly as a being made solely to love and pleasure HER! It would be so easy!

It would be wrong.

SHE was anxious, because SHE was going on a date. Because that was the right thing to do. For purpose of real love, for the logical continuance of life, SHE was going on a date. It had to be right. By HER own rules, she could not be wrong. She could not make herself wrong. So she waited, anxiously, for her date. Dressed in a simple, clean white tunic with an elegant Tyrian purple palla draped over it, SHE was worried SHE had not prepared HERSELF properly. But SHE had forgone HER stola, a clear sign SHE considered HERSELF unwed and eligible, what more was there to do?

Releasing the tension in HER fingers, the storm above the sky slowly dissipated, leaving HER in total darkness a few miles away from the Foundation's little site on HER Sphere. SHE would not approach closer than this, it was for everyone's benefit. It was only right. He would come to HER, that is what was done, what was right. GODDESS SHE was HER head beat so terribly, a noise so powerful and great it threatened to drown out all else. Anxiety, the waiting, the terror...

It was right.

 

[illirica]

Rhythm & Blues

"This is crazy, right?"

Nic wasn't sure what he was looking for. Confirmation, maybe. Probably not reassurance. Maybe that, too. He was seated in one of the corner tables of the upper level of Imagine nightclub, which anyone with any experience would have pegged as a Foundation cover location in about five seconds flat. It wasn't the atmosphere - neon sci fi dystopia was perfectly valid, the beats from the dance floor below were most frequently a mix of metal and techno and anything else that cared to be in the mix. Maybe it was, in part, the bar specials - an equal number of alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails, catering to the always-alert agent and the one that was trying to stop remembering.

Mostly, though, it was the people. All of them a bit too aware of their surroundings, even the surroundings that weren't really there. Nic knew about the door to the back, outlined in dimension-darklight and invisible and intangible and nonexistent to anyone who didn't already know it was there. Cait had done something to the entryway, so that it wasn't just that people didn't know it existed, it was that it actually didn't exist until people knew it existed. He wasn't quite sure how that all worked, but he supposed you didn't have to explain things, if you were a goddess. Officially, the location didn't exist; there was no L-i, because it was just an imaginary location. Or, rather, it wasn't even a location at all, until you were cleared to know about it, and then it was. Cait hadn't really bent reality, she'd bent unreality, which was something he was pretty sure no one had ever thought of before, which made it just about par for the course for her.

The man across from him didn't exist for the uninitiated, either, Nic was aware. Brian Connor, definitely not A-Class-E in the same way Cait definitely wasn't SV-6. He'd gotten the rank for being Cait's direct staff, his title being only listed as Messenger. Anyone who had the clearance to know he existed also had the brains to know they ought to be pissing themselves about that. Nic was terrified, too, but more for him and less of him. They didn't talk about it. It was a guy thing.

"Of course it is." Spoken, of course, like this all being crazy wasn't necessarily a bad thing. That was the reassuring part, Nic supposed. It was absolutely, completely, bat-flappingly insane.

So, that just made it the sort of thing they did every week. Right? Nothing to worry about.

Nic was still worried. "I've just... never... you know." He knew. He supposed he could at least say it, right? "...Dated a goddess. Before."

An exhalation, surprisingly sympathetic. "Nic... it's all right." No. There was something lurking there, in the sympathy. Something just a little bit... what? "No one's going to be mad just because you're a little slow."

Ah. Snarky, that's what it was. Nic snorted, in spite of himself, or maybe because of himself. "Screw you," he objected, with fondness. Fondness, and dawning horror - now that was the default state of things if anything was. "Wait, it hasn't been everyone-? I mean..."

"Well. Joshua's not into that sort of thing, regardless of divinity, but, you know." A shrug, uncommitted in the sort of way that implied someone probably ought to be committed, psychiatrically speaking. "What, you want advice? Ask Agent Weber."

"I did."

"What'd she say?"

"'Use protection'." Nic had not considered this statement particularly helpful. Or, rather, it had been particularly helpful, in multiple ways, none of which were actually... helpful. Neither was Brian snickering about it, which he definitely was.

"Look. You're overthinking it, all right? Deities are unfathomable, but in fathomable ways. It's the Domain situation. There are things that are expected of them. Back- back in the waking world, everyone knows what to expect from HER. It's been that way for a long time. SHE is just looking for something different. Just... treat HER like any other girl and you'll do fine."

"Yeah. Sure." Nic pretended he hadn't noticed the part that hadn't quite been back home, kept himself from thinking something like so it's like that, is it? - because of course it was like that, and he'd known for... a while. Because Brian might have been over here, on this side of things, but he was just visiting. Nic... wasn't like that. Maybe it was just that he was different, or maybe it was that he had less to hold onto, so he was holding onto it all the more tightly. "...You know I don't remember ever dating any other girl, either."

Not to say he hadn't - he probably had, back before that thing in Idaho, but he certainly didn't remember it. And after he'd joined the Locusts, well, he'd been busy, and all the girls around him had been absolutely bonkers.

Nic contemplated the fact that SHE was actually comparatively less bonkers, and didn't know what to make of it. He supposed it was that fathomable ways situation. Ugh, he hated it when the nonsense started making sense.

And he loved it, because that, too, was just the sort of thing they did every week.

"What, you want advice?"

"Uh... sure?" Nic wasn't sure. A sense of impending doom made him regret his claim to certainty, as did the little smirk that seemed more Cait-like than anything else.

"Use protection."

By the time Nic had stepped through the door that couldn't be seen into the place that only existed in the imagination, he had mostly just decided that what he was taking out of that conversation was that he should never ask for advice again.