deercountry | Catch-all for July and August

"...a lot of us were,"

Oscar said quietly. The amount of people that understood even his baseline trials always astounded him. Pyrrha, and others like her, understanding the deeper issues left him shaken.

Just as John had gained some insight into Pyrrha's decisions, Oscar had as well. Pyrrha hadn't been joking when she suggested that he and John were fairly alike. How many people could talk about world shattering affairs so plainly over tea? How many of them would try to explain via metaphor and have it understood.

... He didn't like this. But, Oscar always knew he was a few poor decisions away from being a war criminal.

"My predecessor still speaks to me in my head. We were starting to work together at the time we were taken into the Dream. But, as Salem said herself, I'm not him. Not yet. But, since the only condition is that this eternal Knight always joins with a 'like-minded soul', I don't think the gap between us is as wide as I had imagined."

Edited 2022-08-25 20:35 (UTC)

"I'm starting to get the picture."

He sets down the tea mug with a soft clunk, and tips his head in consideration.

"Personal question: is it still progressing? How does the squid situation play in? Not to be callous, here," he raises his eyebrows like it's a joke, after July— "but you've got a fascinating case study going on, when it comes to puzzling out the way Sleeper souls interact with the local patterns of death and rebirth."

And: "I imagine this has something to do with the way things played out, back in the spring." When Oscar fell out of his body and couldn't find his way back in. No wonder; the link between soul and body isn't straightforward, in his case, least of all if this greater revenant has deeper roots in his body than he does. He's in a constant flux state of possession.

"--it's stopped since we left Remnant,"

Oscar explained, carefully omitting the fact that his predecessor had a physical body due to the circumstances. Sitting a little straighter underneath that curious gaze, Oscar frantically looked everywhere but John's face.

He was a known liar, even to Salem. There was no telling what this man who dared to call himself God would divine.

"What's done is done. We can't reverse it. And when Deerington fell apart, we made decisions that we hoped would earn our freedom from the agreements with the Gods that bound us-- like how we freed Cynthia Sodder to become the Moon."

Oscar shifted awkwardly, and tried to cover his unease with a big gulp from the tea cup.

"I think a lot of things are involved... the kinda things that you're probably familiar with. Honestly, I wasn't even sure about coming. But...

"Pyrrha said that you'd be nice."

Edited 2022-08-25 23:41 (UTC)

Pyrrha's giving out her name to stray soul mélanges, then. Not like it matters anymore; not like any of them still have control of anything at all, here. She didn't even live through the eras in which they were all most distant and divine.

Here, they're, what? Powerful squid among other powerful squid. The landscape is cluttered with ghosts and gods.

"Did she," he says. "I'll have to take that up with her later." It's a toothless threat. He's more interested in this kid squirming with something he isn't saying, anyway. "And what is it you think I can do?"

His first instinct upon meeting Salem for the first time had been to lie.

Oscar, in all of his fear, had summed up the iron in his soul and drummed up the best Ozpin impression he could manage. It would have hosed Ironwood certainly, likely Qrow, and who knows who else? But a single sentence was all it took for Salem to divine his Truth.

He didn't sustain a searing blast of magics so ancient they didn't even have a name anymore to just give up his Truth to someone who called himself God.

"Pyrrha knew all this from my own admission. We bonded over sharing headspace with others and deciding to make our own path with what we've been given."

A shrug. John didn't need to know more.

"The kinda stuff you do doesn't exist in my world. I can't even explain it. Now... I warn you. That Noodle Guy gave me the word 'Anti-theist'. I don't trust anyone who encourages others to think of them as a God. But, Pyrrha is just a person with a strong will who was dealt a bad hand. I trust her."

Sharing headspace with others, says the kid. God puts a pin in that.

"Anti-theist," he murmurs, and closes his eyes. Incredible. "I trust her, too. So we've got that in common."

He says it like it's a little bit funny. It is, in fact, a lot bit funny. With immense patience, God says:

"And she thinks I can help you with something?"

Oscar quickly hid his discomfort by loudly sipping at his tea. It wasn't so hot anymore, but it allowed him a moment. He needed that eternal heartbeat to contemplate the wisdom of what he was about to do.

After all, he was putting his very heart in the hands of a ten-thousand year old God Emperor that didn't understand any shred of human boundaries.

Setting his cup down with a soft click, Oscar finally answered.

"It took me a month to get back to my body. The part that is Me was stuck bouncing between the headspace of my friends and my Squid out in the sea.

"It can't happen like that again."

God goes hmm. He chews his lip a moment, brow furrowed like Oscar is an interesting puzzle to unpick, and then he nods.

"That wasn't my doing," he says. "Not by any mechanism I'm aware of, anyway... not with any intent. I can undo the pinning job, but that's meant to keep your soul with your body, squid-shaped or otherwise. If there's something else that keeps throwing you loose, I don't have the shape of it yet, and the interactions are as much an enigma to me as to you."

He spreads his hands like it's a mystery.

"We seem to have a lot of variables in play. Still: hold still and I'll take a look." He offers an open hand for Oscar to take, palm-up, eyebrows quirked in invitation. "In trade for the brownies, and telling Pyrrha I've been nice. Deal?"

"Only if that's good enough. I'm not gonna ask you to help for free. Everyone knows that nothing is actually free..."

He trailed, lips pressed together in a wary, uncertain line. Not being from Earth has given him a certain blindness to the miraculous healer that John had taken his notes from.

Oscar steadied himself with a measured breath-- and reached out to take John's hand.

He gives a soft sound of amusement, but it doesn't stop him taking Oscar's hand.

What he does next does not hurt, as such, but it does feel— startling. A moment's dissociation, disorientation, as he releases a theorem already gone threadbare and forgotten with his repeated deaths and resurrections. From here on, there will be nothing of his magic to bind Oscar's soul to body, for the little good it did him in the long run.

John releases his hand and sits back, chewing his lip again in thought.

"I'm a healer, you know," he says, after a moment. "Blood Minister, on technicality. I take tips... I don't charge. So if things go sideways again, you can come to me. Call it an olive branch." He tips his head towards the door, where he knows they're being listened to. "And a favor to a friend. We'll try for more brownies and less bloodshed, you and me."

It's not forgiveness, exactly. It's domesticity, if it's anything. They'll make it work.

It wasn't the first time he had felt dissociated since starting on this mess of a journey to solve Remnant's crisis and find his footing in this new world. It was a disconnect-- a sense of being both within and without his body at once-- and it lasted for a second.

The result was... no change. Just the quietly amused face of a man that called himself God.

"One of my friends from home is a healer. Another is an empath. I've watched them... and the healers I've met here."

He arched an eyebrow.

"You guys take care of everyone, but don't always take care of yourselves."

A beat. He glanced towards the door, where he knew Pyrrha stood watch.

"Just don't mess with my friends anymore, or come to my place once it's rebuilt, and we're good."

It wasn't much. Oscar knew that ultimately his words were just that. Words. Without a firmer grasp of blood magic, he couldn't completely bar anyone from his home once it was back in order, but with luck that little boundary would be... respected.

"You better take care of yourself, though." He added, almost as an afterthought. "Pyrrha also said that you two did a blood pact, so she's implicated in what you do. And, since she's one of my friends..."

Oscar trailed, and gave John a pointed look.

"Get yourself in order, John. So my friends don't get hurt."

Edited 2022-09-16 21:05 (UTC)

This kid is, again, so bold he wishes Pyrrha were in the room so he could give her astonished looks about it. Are you seeing this, he wants to say. She's probably laughing.

Antitheist. Of course she went and scooped him up.

"I'll work on it," he says, tone contrite because it's funny. He's not going to hurt a kid for backtalk. That's not going to get anyone anywhere. "Pyrrha will probably kick my ass, if I don't."

It wouldn't be funny to promise anything about not getting Pyrrha hurt, so he doesn't. That ship sailed lifetimes ago.

Oscar appreciates the lack of promises.

Two years of watching other colorfully menacing figures in both Deerington and Trench claw their way through corruption-driven madness and back to a semblance of sanity had taught him not to ask for promises. All any of them could do was their best. Oscar included.

He chuckled a little at the commentary and finished off his tea.

"If I don't get there to make a point first," He said-- and grinned.

Shooting God in the face was nothing to be proud of, especially for the little good it had done. But, Oscar still felt a little proud about it.

He was done trying to be something that he wasn't anymore.

"Don't push your luck," he warns, low and soft. But he looks amused. A skeleton clatters back in to collect their empty teacups and shuffle back with the tray, and John rises unhurried from his seat; it's a dismissal.

"Til the next crisis, then."

Catch-all for July and August | Closed

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