event } this ain't a scene, it's a deus ex machina (act two)

[albatrossomen]

WHO: All y’all.
WHAT: Act One of This Ain’t A Scene It’s a Deus Ex Machina
WHERE: On Navi; Rizyeria and New Estos on the planet Merox.
WHEN: This month of April.
WARNINGS: Add these to your comment subject lines as needed! And if you get yourself smote, please report it on the death page.



It began with a warning. Reverberating from everywhere and nowhere at once came a sound like trumpets the size of mountains. So thunderous was the sound that it shook the very buildings in their foundations. Three times the call sounded, three times the sky screamed in fury and despair. Then came the wind. Bitterly cold and biting, and with the wind dark clouds grew dense over New Estos and New Estos alone.

By the time the rain started it was too late. There would be no escape, there was no time. It fell in sheets of vicious cold that pounded on walls and glass, so piercing as to threaten to break skin. Then the sky became a sickly green as the hail started, this one did break skin. Beating down with the ferocity of growing hurricane force winds, soon shattering windows and coating the city in a thick layer of ice. When the sky changed again it was to a dark bruised purple, with it the rain and hail changed this time to blood.

In a crack of blood-red lightning the first fragments of machines fell, torn to shreds and twitching to the earth. The howling winds screamed their rage echoed in the literal thundering of lighting that tore at the root of one building in particular. The place where that fool of a Prophet chose to hang Jon’s corpse out for all the world to see. With the body gone all that would be left behind was a smoldering pile of ice-encased rubble.

Soon it would become apparent that some of the horrifying sounds from above were not just the screaming storm but a fiercely waged battle. Glimpses of beating wings with feathers like molten glass or crystalline ice, perhaps the edge of a massive radiant ring or even a series of huge eyes could be caught between the clouds. Mostly it was blinding flashes of light and spears of ice that plunged with impunity irreverent of who or what might be below. The “protectors” of New Estos had chosen war, and Murmur was quick to deliver it. There was a reason Ophanim were traditionally kept on a short leash and fought only alongside Cherubim, for unleashed and free of the burden of the weight of another to protect Murmur had no reason to hold back. No reason to conserve his strength to act as a shield, no reason not to tear open the sky’s terrible wrath to rain down on this now doomed city. His storm could be seen for miles, and heard for many more. He would tear each and every machine that dared to rise against him to fragments and dust every home and structure with their shattered remains.

It had been a very long time since the angel had brought his might to bear. The long years had not served to dull the sting of his wrath.

Comments

[albatrossomen]

The light show wasn't for beings like Persephone. No, sewing terror was strictly for the oppressors upon whom he waged war. Murmur had insisted he didn't want to get involved, but once that push had happened he could no longer ignore the injustice of this place. As for the eye and wing covered rings that flickered in and out of existence, those were simply the manifestation of his true form breaching the reality within which they currently resided. As for the soul thing, he'd apologize if he knew, his universe does work quite differently from others.

However, none of that was important right now. There was a war going on, and another crash of thunder presaged another hail of shattered and twisted metal even as his attention seemed to be on Persephone and her hunting vines. Murmur's icy wariness wavers slightly at Persephone's words. If there was hope perhaps he could allow her to pick up the mantle of guardian.

"How likely are you to succeed?"

He wouldn't surrender Jon's soul recklessly, while her vines sought what was no longer with the vessel they would find themselves barred by the angel's very essence. A trick of Ophanim was that they could hold the essence of another and protect it within themselves, if Persephone were inclined to take the soul by force she'd have to tear his very being apart to do it. It would be no small feat, they were designed as shields in this manner. Jon was the first mortal soul he'd harbored, but certainly not the first he'd ever acted as a bulwark for.

[threshes]

Persephone doesn't want to battle for the soul, cause she knows that the battle that Murmur is currently fighting is more important than that, and she ain't got no intention of throwing down over something like this when she ain't gotta. There's enough going on and whatever else, she doesn't mean harm to anyone she knows; this includes both Jon and Navi. While there's space between them, both of them don't need to be close in order to have this conversation, and besides that given that she's here and taking care of the machines close to the ground and he's taking care of the ones that are higher up, shifting to head on up there would definitely be counterproductive in the long run of this. 

With a deep breath and a little shrug that's punctuated by another scrap of thorns against melt, Persephone considers. "I don't know." It's truthful, thoughtful and measured. "I don't know if I can bring him back like I would at home, but I can't know unless you let me touch his soul with my power. Can't know what it may react like without it, and I don't wanna hurt him, brother. Ain't trying to hurt anyone. I'm just tryin' to help." Persephone doesn't lie, and she's not lying now. She's being entirely honest with him, and given the way that all of their universes are so different, the chances of her helping him are about fifty-fifty probably. 

Which means that she has to at least make the effort to try, if only for her own sake. For too long in her life, Persephone's been passive, drowning things in enough wine that it suffocates everything that she may or may not end up feeling, but she's been awake for a while now and she sure don't want to go back to how she were before. Taking a long and slow breath, Persephone offers in order to try and calm whatever fears that the angel might have. "It won't do him harm to be scanned, Murmur. I wouldn't suggest it if it would. Please, trust me." 

The angel of the Lord is angry, and he's hurt and Persephone knows better than most just how them two emotions are all too often born out of fear. Fear of loss, fear of pain, fear of losing somethin' that's so precious that ya just couldn't live on without it. For the first time in what feels like centuries (and hell, probably may have actually been centuries, given the lifespan that her and that man of hers have got going; sure feels like that some days) she has empathy for the husband who's constantly being left behind and wallowing in that fear that Persephone herself wouldn't end up coming home. Fear drives men mad, that's true, but it also drives gods and angels in the same way. 

[albatrossomen]

Murmur would prefer not having to fight with Persephone over the soul. He considered her friendly enough at the moment, even if he was wary about surrendering something as precious as Jon's soul to her. For Jon was precious, more precious than he had words to describe. In his long existence very little had ever been important on a personal level. Certainly he had his duty, certainly he would protect Creation and all that entailed as he was tasked. But to care for something selfishly simply because he did was a new and terrifying experience.

Only to have it ripped away so violently... it's no wonder the angel had reacted the way he had. His grief and rage was screamed in the haunting howls of the wind as he brought his full might to bear upon those he condemned as either guilty, or complicit in this crime. The fact that those living within the walls of the pseudo angel city benefitted off the suffering of those tossed outside only further justified his goal of eventually sinking the entire city beneath the earth. They would learn the price of hubris and cruelty.

For the moment his attention was split between the war waged above and Persephone's proposition below. What she offered wasn't impossible, this he knew, were Navi functional they could revive Jon. So why not the goddess? Murmur couldn't do it himself, that power was forbidden to be tapped into like this without command, even if he had seriously considered the gamble. To burn away his own wings in defiance of Jon's chosen will, however, did not seem the wisest course of action. Even if wisdom wasn't one of his strongest governing traits at the moment. Persephone, on the other hand, was not bound by such laws.

There were a few moments of silent hesitation while he weighed her words. She was right, it couldn't hurt to try. Gently he placed a hand on Jon's chest, tying the soul back to his vessel for the time being before gingerly alighting before her to offer out the body. For all the steely, icy neutrality Murmur wore on the average there was so much pain in that small gesture. A plea for her help, any help at all, to not have lost the first love of his long lonely existence.

"Guard him well." It was spoken softly, in that tone that barely betrayed emotion but the way the sky screamed when he did so was far more telling than any voice from from borrowed vocal cords could ever be.

[threshes]

For so long in her life, Persephone had done well ignoring the pain of the people who were around her and who believed in her. She'd numbed everything out so that she could just keep on living in a world that had cold winds and icy barbs and a bed that was too filled with resentment and pain to allow either her or that man of hers to sleep inside of it. Pain had become a sort of currency between them, as much as Persephone had plain old hated it at the time. Her pain, Hades pain, the pain of the mortals that had been cried into desperate prayers, the pain of the shades that had come into her speakeasy and plain old demanded some of the things that they'd missed, the peace that only came when they'd done swallowed the rivers of the Lethe in order to forget about the past, all of it had a cost that ran up and down the Underworld and it had been something that Persephone had born terribly. Coming and leaving, the world damned near ending all the damned time with just how it worked, she knows the ways in which pain can be soft, and the ways in which that was sometimes worse. 

Softness ain't normally a thing for Persephone, or at least it ain't been in so long that seeing it in him was like uncovering it within herself. Holding her breath as the goddess held out her arms for the body of the dead man that the angel loved. Holding him with all of the care inside of her, the care that she hopes someone would show her if they'd ever needed to take the massive carved granite and gravel of her husband's body, Persephone just gives the angel a quick nod. "I'll protect his soul like it's my own." She means it, soft against the screaming of the sky but she sure ain't worried that he'd not be able to hear her. There's too much pain in the very air around her and the mortal now, swallowing up the oxygen and using it to swallow anything that ain't that deep hurting. For a long second, the goddess just lets it touch her, coating her skin and leaving the bitter notes of fear that ain't hers crawling it's way down her throat. It's almost enough to make her want to scream in response, curse out at the Universe for being so cruel to these two, but screamin' out right now sure ain't gonna be something that's all that helpful in the long run. Besides, Persephone has a job to do. 

The thorns that had been acting as weapons shift and twist striking out at anything within the distance of the goddess and the mortal, before they weave and twist and whirl around them. All of the sharpened, deadly thorns shift so that they are on the outside of the little shelter that she weaves together so tightly that the torrential streams of rain slowed and then stopped into drops that fat but probably are more likely coming from the thick locks of her hair rather than the storm raging outside. While the light inside ain't golden or nothing like that, it's definitely not entirely dark for her. With so many years living underground and the limited amount of plants that would take root there, Persephone had learned long ago which plants and the like would give off a glow. Oh, they sure weren't natural in the beginning, but the Goddess had created them in an attempt to bring the sun that she was missing to Hades. While her husband's artificial versions of silver screen and cathode ray were brighter than the light of day, Persephone much preferred this. This was simpler, and it reminded her more of the side of her magic that she had spent so long trying not to use. 

Honestly, she needs the reminder. Persephone had done this far more in the beginning of her time caught between the worlds down below and up above than she had now, and it helps to center her. The mortal below her is cool to her touch, and it ain't just the coolness that would have come from the rain. No, it's the coldness that comes from the embers of life being gone. Still, she brushes Jon's dark hair from his forehead and her fingers linger, spread out against his third eye. As Persephone's dark eyes close, she takes a deep breath and presses out with her magic on the exhale. Back home, she's felt the souls of mortals and gods and everything in between, but she ain't ever felt a soul like this one. Jon's soul don't unsettle her exactly but it's different in a way that she don't understand. There's a claim on it that reminds her almost of a demigod, or the way that her family (let's be honest, mostly her brother Apollo, that bastard) would alter mortals. But it's not something that Persephone has any idea how to actually handle. There's ideas of course, but she'd never mess around with the soul of someone aboard Navi, or someone who she's friends with's love. It's too dangerous to even think of doing it. 

But what Persephone can do, is that she can keep him protected, both his mortal form and his soul. Feeling the way that Murmur had tethered Jon's soul to his body, she just ads to the bond that's already existing, in order to make sure that it doesn't depart to whatever happens to souls in his world. More importantly, Persephone pauses the effect of his death from continuing into his body to make it more difficult to have him return to later. Whispering so that only Murmur would hear her, she just adds: "I can't bring him back, but I'm gonna bring him to Navi." 

[albatrossomen]

Of course he heard. For at this very moment the only thing that mattered were her words, and no amount of his own agonized screaming would muffle them from his ears. In silence he watched her then, his own words lost to the winds of the storm protecting them. He didn't move, didn't so much as blink while he waited on her word to come again. There was for a brief moment a knot of hope in his throat. If anyone could bring Jon back it was Persephone, surely she could stitch the soul and body back together like no one else could. Surely...

But that would be too simple. Nothing in existence could ever be simple. It was why his brothers fell and lost their grace. Again and again ever disappointed by the lack of logic and simplicity to Creation. They weren't made for it. They were made for stars and numbers, the beauty of song and light, heat and cold, things that simply worked without complication... But not life. They were never meant to be among the living. That was why they would always, always suffer for it. Murmur knew the bitter taste of loss better than most among his kin, and yet that drink was never easier to down for its familiarity.

He knew it was futile, and yet he'd still dared to hope. For a few moments the air in their vicinity seemed to hold still, as if even the storm was holding its breath in anticipation. When Persephone revealed the truth it all moved again at once. Whipping into a new frenzy of unbridled rage. It howled up the buildings, the clouds deepening into that hideous bruised purple as the rain again changed to thick freezing blood, fetid and rotten.

Go, the sky roared and whispered at once. Your path will be shielded. Do not return here, I will leave nothing standing.

He had every intention of following through with that, as the torrent came down in even fiercer sheets than before. While it was true the judgement wasn't solely due to Jon, Murmur was absolutely allowing the grief to fuel a rage he was absolutely willing to lose himself to. Sometimes being reasonable was just too much. Time to demonstrate exactly why Heaven executed every Blood they got their hands on.