event } catch the last sunbeam.

[seeingyou]

WHO: All of Navi’s passengers.
WHAT: A winter wonderland visit with your new brainmates.
WHERE: All over Vivamion City - and on Navi, if you want.
WHEN: The next three weeks (Dec. 7-28).
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you get taken out by a super snowball, please report it on the death page.

Gooooood morning passengers! Time to rise and shine - with a very important Navi announcement incoming:

Attention, passengers.
We'll be landing soon on the planet Trelnar,
near Vivamion City.
We'll be docked for three weeks, local time,
which coincides with the city’s annual winter festival.
Should you require any weather-appropriate clothing,
I will handle the bill for your expenses.
Please stand by for atmospheric entry.

Have fun! As Navi said in their message, any passenger who requires a warm winter coat, scarf, hat, gloves, and/or boots before joining the festivities will be able to select such items from one of the shops near the docks, charged to Navi’s account. Passengers will also find a bank counter just past the docking terminal, where your new windfall of Navigems can be exchanged for credits (the universal currency). Try not to spend it all in one place!

Comments

[bilocates]

While Simon had initially been wary, much as he was at the water park, it was more the wariness of someone who had never been around an animal as large as a draft horse than his typical anxiety. He relaxed some once they settled in, this time he'd also partaken of the boozy drinks, having left his usual choice back on the ship. He was going to try to make it without them for a change. It might be a terrible idea.

As for Ella being Ella, fortunately Simon enjoys listening to her chatter. Her enthusiasm is enough to draw anyone into a conversation, even the awkward crazy guy. Cookies are also a good bribe.

"He didn't spend the whole time debunking it?" Simon asked, tone faintly amused in such a way as to suggest he's very aware of how Strand behaves. However, her pause made him finally cast a cursory glance down to his own hand and... sure enough, it was also a steady blue. He frowned faintly, not because he disliked Ella, but because he'd have to work even harder to keep that creeping demon side of himself carefully locked down. ...It would appear that way. He shot back, raising a wary eyebrow.

This was about to be interesting.

[anormie]

“Huh.” The word is spoken aloud because the whole talking in someone else’s head isn’t something that Ella has gotten used to. Besides she tends to speak on the whole rather a lot so she doesn’t want to crowd someone’s brain in the same way that she may or may be crowding the air around them with her voice. The person who Ella was paired with for the longest (and let’s be honest the best) time was Murmur so he’d had a better grasp of things than most of the rest of them did.

“Well, there’s definitely worst people we could be paired with. If I had to have Strand in my head I’d probably need to murder him considering everything.” Considering the whole fact that she’s basically been surrounded by celestials her entire life. Ella respects that people have different faiths and of course that some don’t but she really doesn’t want to deal with the whole thing where someone spends a hell of a lot of time attempting to talk her out of it.

Frowning for a moment, it’s clear that Ella realizes something important. “You know him and don’t like him. He’s from your world then, right? So is it him just like plugging his fingers into his ears and pretending none of its true or something?”

[bilocates]

Simon's mind was already more noisy than one might expect with how little he spoke. There was a reason he'd insisted it was too loud in that crowded water park. Even out here on the sleigh ride a few stray thoughts from others could filter in, though they were easily ignored. Simon had lived his whole life this way, after all, the more quiet places like this weren't more than he could handle. Simon didn't have a lot more experience than Ella on this front, however. Still getting used to the whole psychically bonded thing.

"I'd help," He offered, not entirely kidding though he did try flashing what he hoped was something of a reassuring grin. "But Alex would be mad at me." Which was true, and really the only reason Simon hadn't murdered Strand at least once on the ship. Man was still on thin ice. "Do you want to know a secret?"

Simon of course had to be mysterious Simon, but Ella more or less nailed it in one. He nodded, letting his strange unblinking gaze go staring out at the snow. It was peaceful out there wasn't it? "He's lying. He knows it's true. Always has." And Simon? Well, he doesn't have much patience for lying.

[anormie]

Ella just looks to Simon with her head inclined for a moment. She’s trying very hard not to jump to conclusions and also not to invade the privacy of his thoughts. After all, Ella is a woman who enjoys gossip but in the routing for people to get together or whatever but this doesn’t feel like a situation like that. Is she pretty sure that Simon has super strong feelings for Alex even while she’s trying to let him have as much privacy as possible? Oh yeah for sure. But there’s also the fact that Simon isn’t subtle in the least.

But his being angry with Richard Strand is something else that feels understandable on several different levels and not just because Simon has a crush on Alex. She would probably be the same way if someone was being that much of a dick about what was real and what wasn’t. Yeah, Ella herself may not have believed that Lucifer was like THE Lucifer but he also never lied to her about who and what he was.

Ella’s pretty sure that Strand is lying to himself on every level, not to mention to everyone else.

“You really don’t like him, huh?”

[bilocates]

Oh Simon absolutely has super strong feelings for Alex, he also knows that's never going to happen. He also also knows that he doesn't care, and he's going to keep on doing what he's been doing regardless. After all, he's pretty much doomed back home. Might as well make it for a cause he cares about. Simon's been very bad about hiding his feelings, even if he's never actually stated them outright. The fact that he guards over Alex aggressively and acts as her very own pocket murderer is evidence enough of that.

She's right, however, his anger with Richard isn't just some petty jealousy or some such nonsense, hell it's barely even that. He'd be lying if he tried to claim it didn't play a small part, but the majority had everything to do with what was going on back home. The Cult of Tiamat, Richard's involvement, pulling Alex in, everything. The cherry on top was Richard pretending he didn't know a damn thing about it.

"No," Simon confessed easily. It's not like it was a secret. "I don't." For now he was in camp tolerate, though even that was tenuous.

[anormie]

"Hmm." Ella, considered for a moment, trying to not pick up along all of the other information that she feels like she's getting from their being connected in this way. All of this is super hard and unfair and of course Ella is a grown woman who knows many times over just how unfair the world always is, but she doesn't want to think of there being a world where Simon goes home to be destroyed. It sucks, and if part of the reason that it's happening is because Richard Strand is sticking his damn head in the sand, then.. Well, then another tiny woman is going to get angry with him on Simon's behalf.

So, because Ella knows just how Simon gets about people actually asking him questions (he'd done it to her before at the waterpark around the stuff with Pete) she does actually do that this time, just in order to cut out the middle man on the things that she's wondering about. Yes, the two of them are connected, but somehow she doesn't expect that's going to make Simon want Ella to ask the question aloud less. She's got theories on why he does it rather than just answering: Simon wants to make sure that it's something that you actually want to know rather than him just assuming. Ella knows that she could be wrong, but that's definitely the hypothesis that she's going on at the moment.

Once a scientist always a scientist.

"Is Strand pretending not to believe why you're doomed back home? Is it like a part of it? Or is it something else?" Yes, Ella knows about how he'd been raised by a crazy cult and stuff, which also makes her wonder if Richard and Alex were too.

[bilocates]

The world is always unfair. To some more than others, and the mentally ill tended to fall in that category of being more unfair than it should be. Thus is life. But Simon wasn't going to ruminate or dwell on any of that. However, he would be deeply amused to see another woman angry with Strand over his bullishness.

It's for the best, Simon will continue to do the thing where he insists she asks out loud. She's not entirely wrong with that reasoning, though there was more to it than that. Now that she was privy to more of what was going on, she was likely gathering a picture that his antics weren't just about being dramatic... he actually did know and hear things beyond what was considered normal. The Cheshire Cat act was just part of the fun.

"He doesn't want to admit his part in it. He's the key, and when he inevitably goes to Geneva... we're lost." Because Simon's very sure that Richard Strand isn't smart enough to get out of Warren's trap. He's going to waltz right in, and fuck them all and the world. Because Richard's a damned idiot.

[anormie]

For all of the celestial stuff in her life, Ella hasn't needed to deal with a real and proper everything on the line apocalypse thing. Well, at least as far as she knows she hasn't, it's probably something she should talk to Lucifer about later. But the point is that she doesn't know what it's like to know that your world is under a super like real threat and that you know who could possibly save you but also who will definitely fuck doing that up. "Wow." Ella says after a second. "Heavy." And it's not her writing it off or anything like that, it's clear that it feels heavy to her, like all of the weight in the world is pressing down on them.

"You don't think Alex can bring him around?" Because while she has no doubt that Strand would be a complete moron about things, Ella doesn't think that Alex Reagan is one. "I mean I'm pretty sure I scared him into stuff and he doesn't know me or like care about my feelings or whatever." And from what Ella has seen, Alex would do the same sort of thing.

"What do you think he should do instead? Maybe you and Alex could convince him like together. He definitely seems like the sort of guy who would be pretty persuaded by his girlfriend."

[bilocates]

She's fortunate. It's been Simon's life from day one and has definitely gone a long way into shaping him into the murderous lunatic he is today. Part of him wishes he didn't have to go back, but he knows he has to look after Alex. No one else was willing to tell her the truth. "Yeah..." He agrees with a wry smirk. Sorry, Ella, you got one of the depressing ones. At least he isn't moping about it, just quietly resigned. It has, after all, been his whole life.

He shakes his head. "No. She'll try, but he doesn't listen." Richard Strand is singularly the most bull-headed individual in the universe. Not only would he cut off his own nose to spite his face, he'd tell everyone else they're idiots for not doing the same. He hopes he's wrong about this, honestly, but given what they learned on the Tapes he doesn't think so.

"Not walk directly into Thomas Warren's trap." That would be a good step, but he's Richard and Warren is very good at pulling him around. "I found a recording. Into our future. It's... not going well." Simon's a demon, Alex at least has the Horn of Tiamat, aaand Richard's still denying there's anything going on.

[anormie]

"A recording of your future?" Ella just looks at him with a frown because while definitely familiar with the whole podcast thing one (ask Ella about the Wolverine one sometime) it hasn't yet crossed her mind that could be someone's world. She'd missed the whole announcement that Alex had made about having found them, and Ella had been quickly collecting massive amounts of media everywhere she went so she had yet to find herself so desperate as too take that little player thing herself. As such she doesn't know much about Strand other than his skeptic bullshit. Which was a whole thing clearly.

"Did you hear the ending of it though? Like the real ending? Maybe Alex manages to pull it off anyway. I don't know her well, but I think she's pretty scrappy at doing that sort of thing or whatever. Getting him to actually believe." But due to their connection and Ella's knowledge of pop culture, she's able to put at least something together. "So this Warren guy? He's like the bad guy?" It's not really a question and they both know it. No, it's Ella leading into a different follow up question. "What kind of bad guy are we talking? Like Elon Musk or like someone super high up in your parents church? Well, not church but you know what I mean." Considering the way that he'd told her about how his parents were fundamentalist evil in the different way than fundies are normally evil.

[bilocates]

"Alex has a podcast. She's been documenting it. All of it." Even if she didn't know it at first. It certainly sounded fake, but it was all too real for those involved. Strand's skeptic bullshit really was a hell of a thing. Much to Simon's infinite frustration.

"No," He admitted a little warily. "It just... left off." With a mysterious message from him, no less, which is par for the course. That's just how Simon do. Unfortunately being on the receiving end of his own mysterious bullshit he can only speculate just how bad it's gotten. It wasn't that much further into the future from what he was already up to though, and he definitely had confirmation of his own fate. Whatever happened... he was already fucked. Unwilling to dwell on that further Simon decided to focus on the question.

Easy enough. "Both." Right, you need to do more than one word at a time Simon. "He's the CEO of Daeva Corporation. He's also been working on bringing demons into our world." And probably the Advocate but that wouldn't mean anything to her right now.

[anormie]

For a moment Ella just considers that. She’s not someone who doesn’t know what a podcast is considering everything. Honestly, it sounds like the sort of thing that she would end up listening to. Listening to and getting pissed off if there was an ending that wasn’t an ending. Things like that always ended up sucking honestly. But there’s not anything that it seems like he can do anything about. For a long moment, Ella is quiet which when you’re Ella Lopez feels like it’s super long. 
“I’m guessing you don’t mean cool kick ass demons like Maze right? Bad ones.” It’s not a question even though there’s a little bit of a lilt to her voice. Sometimes the whole multiverse thing can be a little weird. Like her best friend is the Devil, and she has definitely had crushes on Cain, Maze and Eve before with the last including the fact that she’d gotten to make out with the first woman will always feel totally insane to her. But she had. Oh and there’s also the fact that her best friend since she was a kid was the freaking Angel of Death! 
It seems like there’s not angels in Simon’s world which sucks and is worrying considering all the demons that are there and present like. All the time. Which is more than a little scary, even for her. 
But then she adds with a bit of a grin. “Clearly this is why we should eat the rich.” Not in general cause let’s be honest Lucifer has a shit ton of money, but it’s just not the same.