deercountry | 15 . JOHNUARY

[ This is a surprisingly earnest effort from a guy he's reasonably sure he pissed off on the network - but then, that describes most of town. John tips his head in thought. ]

When you go through hell together, that'll do it. Granted, it's a very 'all or nothing' approach.

[ Being around Asriel is always easy, because John so readily falls into the role of 'unflappable cop.' He waves a hand as though to dismiss Asriel's simmering fury. ]

Ridiculous always seems to be the order of the day... well, ridiculous or dire, but usually it's both. I'm sure we can find something fitting.

Edited (repetition my beloathed) 2023-02-23 19:23 (UTC)

[ The name bit is interesting. She otherwise strikes him as unremarkable: a brave but nervous girl drawing herself up before a noted murderer with spooky black eyes. He's sympathetic to that. It's an awkward spot to be in. ]

They do love to watch us talk. [ This is said without particular rancor, but there's some underlying gravity to it, a glimpse of the greater anger and resignation. ] But I won't be much help on this one... my family has never been particularly traditional.

[ sometimes a family is a pack of feuding immortals and a couple dead kids, who knew ]

Just... This face.

What the fuck, John?

Edited 2023-02-23 20:00 (UTC)

Heat reddened Waver's cheeks and ears immediately with the horrible pun and the attention called to his continued status of being a plaything to the Pthumerians. Growling under his breath, Waver snatched up the nearest item-- a bundle of fragrant flowers sitting in a vase of water-- and threw them in John's face.

"You've lived for Ten Thousand Years, and my teenage students tell better jokes!"

Edited 2023-02-23 20:11 (UTC)

Naturally, this called all attention to them-- and Waver felt his horsey knees buckle as he sank to the floor.

Thoroughly embarrassed, he buried his face in his hands and groaned.

"You don't just ask someone why they are a horse, John!"

Edited 2023-02-23 20:01 (UTC)

[Thankfully for John he's a very forgiving sort. More than he should be, but there's very few people he'd truly call 'enemies'.]

... That's very true. It can end badly as well, and it's not an ideal sort of situation, and it's not something you'd like to engineer -

[If you're not a psychopath, at least.]

But it has a good track record. As for me, I'd say honesty. I don't like lying - there's very little point in it.

Tell that to our squidly overlords.

[ He spreads his hands to the engineered situation they're sitting in. Still, the next bit makes his expression draw tight and wry. ]

The old classic. Not even the little white lies, eh?

[ As though John's ever told those, and not bigger uglier ones. Only by omission, really; only ever letting everyone make their assumptions. ]

Edited 2023-02-24 14:54 (UTC)

Oh, I very much would like to.

[He's been watching the Pthumerians as closely as he can... he's doing his best to be helpful, but cautious.]

I try to avoid those, though... I can't say I never have. Occasionally it's unavoidable, to save someone's feelings... though those can lead to bigger and bigger lies.

[He glances down at his omni.]

'What was your school experience like?' ... I didn't even have proper lessons until I left home at twenty. I learned my letters and basic mathematics, but I mostly learned about the outside world via books. I grew up in a forest.

[ John's school experience was ten thousand years and a dead civilization ago, so he doesn't jump to dwell on it. It's the bit about growing up in a forest that holds his interest, anyway. ]

Anything like this one? [ He tips a hand out to the wilderness beyond Trench, dark and gnarled and monster-ridden. ] I'd hope not.

Brighter and a lot hotter, but not too dissimilar. The beasts were significantly less ferocious, but for a child they were no less dangerous. I grew up in a hunting clan - they had no interest in magic. Only I did, and I had no interest in hunting. Especially not after I gave myself this with a bow string.

[He rubs the scar across his nose, chuckling softly.]

So most of what I learned about magic before leaving home was from books.

John has endured many reactions to his jokes, over the years. For the past ten thousand, those reactions have been pretty restrained. It's bad form to groan at God's puns, apparently; it's forbidden to turn around and slug him. This means he is completely unprepared for the moment Waver throws a vase of flowers in his face.

God recoils with a splutter. There are little bits of leaf sticking to his brow, water dripping down his chin. He now has a lapful of soggy and aggressively fragrant roses, some with the thorns still on. He picks these up gingerly and sets them on the table while Waver collapses in utter, horsey anguish.

"Fair, but. For sake of argument. You do appear to be a horse."

[ Whatever culturally insensitive joke John is beginning to formulate about catboys, he doesn't speak it. His gaze lingers on his companion's ears here and there, and the scar when Nara'a traces it with his fingers. ]

I guess I'm self-taught, too. [ His smile goes wry. ] But there weren't many books of use to me. Do you specialize?

[ It's been a trip, meeting all the kids who have twenty kinds of magic, with necromancy tacked on as a spooky afterthought. ]

[He's probably heard it anyway. But he thinks for a moment.]

There are types I'm best at, yes. Red magic is a combination of white and black magic - two types of magic that are largely used to heal and harm respectively, though white magic can also be harmful. I channel my aether for attacks when I'm using my paladin abilities, and then when I use my reaper abilities I'm drawing on the power of my pact with my voidsent.

[He didn't bring all of his job stones, sadly.]

I'm skilled in other kinds of magic, but those are the ones I have access to at the moment.

"it's not my fault that Bausphomette has a worse sense of humor than you!"

Waver didn't move, and his voice was muffled by the table while his tail flicked in apparent horsey defiance. This wasn't the first time he was locked in such a form, but it was both inconvenient and embarrassing.

He looked up finally, glowering at John while peeking above his shirt sleeves.

"It's got something to do with a teacher in classical myth being a centaur, I bet. Also, with how my King is very fond of stories of one of the centaur's students."

[it occurs to sansa that the chair's magic might simply not bother him, which would be immensely frustrating. well, she shouldn't expect things to be easy. instead she reviews what she knows about john gaius: he feels himself a prisoner here, and he wants more than anything to leave.]

Sometimes we make our own traditions.

[she smiles apologetically.]

I don't think they'll let us leave without giving them the answers they want.

[likely the doorway won't let them leave until they've established some kind of connection, which would help sansa herself find answers to questions like 'how does one get rid of john gaius,' but she does not want to risk her person in this. it had gone poorly enough for the gull.

sansa flips to the next card.]

How do you see yourself progressing in the coming years?

[she pauses carefully.]

I should like to learn more of magic and knit fabrics. Perhaps I could forge a moon drop relic, too.

[before the chair can zap her, she quickly adds:]

I would like Trench to be safer, and of course I'll do what I can to help with corruption and all the curses.

[if the doorway wants to know sansa's plans for the various organizations she helps out with they are going to have to ask after them specifically.]

[ Very little of that meant anything to John. He decides to cherrypick interesting terms and see how long he can get away with sidetracking them; experience suggests not long, but there's a spark of genuine interest underlying his urge to push the line. ]

Got it. I'll walk you back a bit. Can I get definitions for 'aether' and 'voidsent'?

... Right, right. Aether is the substance that makes up my world - you can channel it to wield various magicks and abilities. It's elementally aligned as well, unlike 'atoms' which other people seem to have their worlds made of.

[It's weird as hells to him.]

Voidsent are creatures from the void, a world covered in darkness. ... The elemental kind, not just that it's dark. Though it's true there's no sun there anymore. People twisted into monsters after their world fell. Often times people from my world will summon them for pacts of power. They're somewhat like the 'demons' I've read about in some books from Earth.

John does have to sympathize: he's met Bausphomette's sense of humor. While Waver lies there bemoaning his situation, little tail flicks and all, John mops water and bits of leaf off his chin with his sleeve. Neither of them looks particularly elegant.

"Knowing this place? It'll stick around until you jump through the right hoops. Bonding exercises," and here he gestures to the table and its cheerful getting-to-know-you questions, "and playing nice."

You know: not throwing water in a guy's face. Or smiting anyone for it, if anyone's keeping count.

[ In one sense, John hasn't really had conversations like this— all rigorous ambition and disregard for the limits, a minute from demonstrating theorem mathematics on the back of a napkin— in lifetimes. It's been a hell of a long time since he was in this position: men with nothing to their names but underdog enthusiasm and necessity, untested magic and the fire to use it. He's been feeling the old days more and more, since he washed up on this shore. Remembering the first stumbling steps of a fledgling empire.

In another, this is the same conversation he's had twenty times, except he's usually the guy waving the war banner. His banner-waving has been getting weaker by the day. The empire's wheezing its last, these days, and clawing his way back towards it hasn't won him anything but bruises. He's had a bad go of it, taking potshots at the bastards kicking them down. It isn't a popular opinion, and it's looked a hell of a lot like a hopeless one, too.

But what else can he do, right? Chara has always had the right of it: what the fuck else can people like them do.

John finishes his drink. He sets the glass down with a final, decisive click. He resolves himself, for probably the twentieth time, to ill-fated deicide. ]

Let's get testing.

[It says something, truly, that one of L's greatest historical nemeses is fairly invested in helping to keep him alive.

They help each other, this way. Because L, also, wants to live as much as he wants to see his version of Justice prevail.

He has no problem setting the tone. Taking charge. Lighting a fire that sizzles his own belly and keeps the others on their toes. In fact, isn't this the very definition of being in his element?]

There are so many unguarded places to stumble. It'll be a pleasure in service of the truth, won't it, Light?

[He makes a point of grasping Light by the arm, to demonstrate that nothing he does will be accomplished alone, anytime soon.

Forced-teaming is such a unique joy.]

[ John watches him bristle, and really does wonder at how far he'd go. But this is high-risk; any gamble he makes here will be putting a lot of vulnerability on the line for the very real chance of no payoff. Maybe that's the play, even. It'd be a horribly clever one.

Hold hands and carry on. He'll take it. ]

Works for me. [ He shifts his grip in Asriel's, settling in. ] Let's get back to it.

[ Thinking loudly does the trick, because John's expression changes immediately: he is startled into open surprise, then something quietly assessing. He isn't a fan of all the local magic themed around getting into his head. But this feels less like intrusion, more like a murmur in the open air.

He'll roll with it. He comes to a stop in front of Martin, looking thoughtful. ]

This is a new one, but not by much. I can hear you, so that's a solid start. [ He seems only faintly concerned about this, closer to interested than alarmed. ] Any theories on a cure?

[ He coughs a clumsy little laugh, at that. ]

There they go stealing my bit again.

[ It's subsided for the moment, but not for long; he'll know it's finished when he regains clarity on what the hell's happening inside of him. Right now it's an ugly foreign muddle, which is more upsetting than he'd like to admit. It feels a little like going blind. ]

You met the guy yet? Dead Willy Wonka made of hands? [ Normal. ]

[ John is drawing parallels. He's very helpfully not sidetracking them into whether or not catboys are still made of atoms. ]

I think I follow. You say 'elementally aligned' - we're talking earth, wind, and fire?

[ He does not unpack people twisted into monsters after their world fell, but he's making a private note. ]

15 . JOHNUARY

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6.2 spoilers

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belatedly wraps this

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