EVENT #18: EMERGENCE - IC EVENT LOG

[abraxasmods]

Event #18 - Emergence

OOC Plotting Post ⦁ Pre-Event Info ⦁ Setting Descriptions

Whether voluntary or by force, you find yourself transported to the Singularity's crater. There probably aren't many resistors - officials have taken great pains to convince you to come voluntarily, reserving force as a last resort - but it's clear that everyone is required for this to work. It takes multiple mages to stabilize the portal, but you make it there in one piece. If you cooperate, you'll be asked to walk towards the ancient relic. If you resisted, you might be forced to do so while restrained. Regardless, a heavy fog soon descends around the area, obscuring you and your vision.

If you have thoughts of turning back, it's too late: for some of you, the second you step across the threshold, a force pulls at your chest and absorbs your psyche at once. For others, a mystical call beckons you to walk a little further before the same effect takes hold. And for a rare few, the call brings you to the Singularity itself, where you're compelled to touch it - and are subsequently swallowed up like the others.

The Horizon doesn't greet you like you might expect. Instead, something far stranger awaits.

Please communicate with your fellow players as needed! We also recommend discussing with us if you plan on a major environmental upheaval. As a rule of thumb, you should avoid changes to the landscape that will significantly alter the established map.

We've also posted comment sections for WORLDBUILDING and HANDWAVED submissions. Instructions can be found at the respective links.

Year 20,879

When you open your eyes, it feels like you've only blinked. If your body has transformed or you're someplace that shouldn't exist, it doesn't strike you as odd. You were always here. Everything around you was always here, and your physical alterations and new abilities - while perhaps not originally there - have been a part of you for a long, long time.

The world of Abraxas isn't completely foreign. Familiar territories remain, as well as the familiar faces of those with long lifespans. But a lot has changed in 800 years, too, especially where the Gods are concerned. Alongside the Old Gods of the Ancient Pantheon and the Cardinal Gods of the New Order, a third class of deities formed from you and your fellow Summoned: the Ecesis Gods of the Iterum Pantheon.

Politics, People, & Gods

Abraxas's political landscape remains complex, with continued tensions over land, worship, resources, and power. Nonetheless, since the Free Cities is no longer intent on destroying the Singularity, conflict over the ancient relic has lessened. All territories agree that the Godlands - and the Singularity - belong to the Gods themselves.

Beliefs and Gods

The active presence of the Summoned confirms the existence of the Gods. As a result, most Abraxans turn to the Summoned and other Gods for aid or protection. Extreme reverence exists in certain areas, especially on the Isle of the Lost and in parts of Solvunn. In other places, though, the Gods are merely acknowledged as a facet of life - a force that helps or hinders depending on temperament and should be respected, much like the sea. The Gods play a crucial role, sure, but so do the rain and stars. This is particularly true in the Feywilds, the Nether, and the Free Cities.

Small pockets of non-believers actively denounce the Gods. They claim the Summoned should be wiped from the world and the Singularity destroyed to prevent future invasions. Labeled dangerous heretics by Thorne and Solvunn, and "regressives" by the Free Cities - whose scientists and philosophers liken such thinking to be as foolish as declaring the sun unworthy or the earth to be flat - these people are shunned from society. In Solvunn, the consequences are more severe: heretics are exiled to the Barren, where they are subsumed by the desert, the Maw, or whichever Gods may punish them.

At the other end, some sects revere the Godlands so much that they believe feeding themselves to the relic will enhance Abraxas' good fortune for generations to come. Such cults are quite rare, but there are reports of mortals throwing themselves into the Singularity's crater and disintegrating as a gesture of their devotion to the divine.

International Relations

Due to the combined change in their priorities, Thorne and the Free Cities are less at odds. The Free Cities believes in protecting the Singularity; Thorne no longer seeks to control it. Nonetheless, mistrust flares on occasion.

While things are peaceful during these three months and have been for a few decades, Abraxas hasn't found a cure for war in the Gods. Conflict has broken out in the past and will again. Eyes are on the Nether as it grows in power, and who knows how long Thorne will be content with its losses? Will they convince the Velan Republic to reunite and turn against the Free Cities? For now, though, the territories have found their stride and appear more interested in progress than fighting.

Magic & The Singularity

Magic is relatively unchanged and is a vital part of Abraxan life. The small kingdom of Thorne continues to practice Academic Magic. Meanwhile, Wild Magic plays the same important role in the Velan Republic (formally Nott). Meanwhile, the Free Cities has developed New Magic further. The goal of decoupling magic from technology is less of a focus. Instead, researchers are eager to find new ways to fuse magic and innovation, including aspects of the Gods. Portable shrines, for example, are popular with traveling merchants.

High Magic no longer exists as a specific school of magic now that offerings, pacts, and requests to the Gods are a part of everyday life across Abraxas. Solvunn has returned to its roots, using the ancient Academic Magic practiced by the Lunae for standard tasks while turning to the Gods for greater blessings.

The Singularity has been relatively stable for the past two or three centuries. While occasional disturbances rumble, for the most part, the presence of the Summoned has strengthened it, alleviating its displeasure and ensuring that Abraxas - and possibly the universe itself - continues to exist. Indeed, academic writings from Thorne and the Free Cities across time suggest that the Singularity's devouring of the world has considerably slowed. It is now as much of a threat as the eventual collapse of the sun, something that is bound to occur but not for eons.

Of course, this could quickly change if the Summoned or any other Gods provoke the Singularity by rejecting its connection or denying its magic...so all should take care not to upset the nature of things.

Old World, New World

The map of Abraxas has undergone some notable shifts, although many names and places are the same.

Setting descriptions are HERE for your reference.

Mechapolis, the Witchwood, and the Barren/the Maw contain prompts related to the event itself. Information about those areas can be found under "Exploring the Land" in the section The World as the Divine (Month 1-2).

Month 1-2: Submersion

What do you last remember? Well, that depends. You might recall most things perfectly clearly. You might have new memories that don't feel new at all. Or, you might only remember the most recent year or two. Regardless, there is something missing: an important face, a handful of key events...maybe you don't remember having ever lived anywhere except Abraxas. You might find this unsettling, or you might accept it as just the way things are.

You've transcended those old memories, anyhow. You feel a little distant from the person you were centuries ago, and you most likely look different, too. Perhaps you've sprouted giant wings, become a formless void, or you're now a shapeshifter with no permanent appearance. You've gained a substantial amount of power and influence, the type that people of this world attribute to the Gods.

The first half is a more sandbox-like environment designed for scenarios that emphasize CR and personal character moments. Active conflict between the emergent reality and the world will not arise until the second half.

The World as the Divine

The mortals have bestowed you with a title and possibly a new alias. Do you know your mortal name anymore? Some of you might've taken on a new identity, or you might have held very tightly onto who you were. Regardless, your abilities have grown. Your new powers and appearance are as unique as your dominion, influenced by your interests, subconscious desires, or personal relationships.

While in your full God form, you'll move through the world unperceived. Only when you're sought by a mortal - followers, believers, cultists - can you consciously make your complete divine presence known. To be seen freely by all, you'll have to take on a less overwhelming shape to the mortal gaze. Those who have met the Old Gods or Cardinal Gods in the past finally understand why they seldom reveal their true selves, often arriving in hazy visions or speaking through animals.

Exploring the Land

◎ The Witchwood

As the Summoned continued to ascend, their power began to coalesce, creating a new ecosystem never seen before. The dense woods, originally a temperate climate, warmed and grew into a thriving jungle. The air is humid and heavy with magic, the sky locked into an eternal sunset. Reds and oranges filter through the thick canopy. Birdcall and animal cries echo throughout the jungle. Trees and rocks seemingly move at night, meaning the Witchwood is impossible to map. Foolhardy souls who venture too deep are rarely seen again - unless divine intervention prevents a tragic fate from befalling them. Perhaps one of those intervening Gods is you?

The most dangerous beasts in the Witchwood are the demigod spawns. Creatures born from the Summoned, demigods are powerful enough to affect the world around them should they ever leave the magic-encased forest. See Impact & Consequences for more details on the demigods and how, as the Summoned, you can help maintain Abraxas' ecosystem.

◎ Mechapolis

Heartwood Syndrome persisted in Fomalhaut long after the quarantined population died out. The port city stood as a monument to loss for nearly a century until about 200 years in when the Summoned gained notable influence as Gods. This resulted in a slow but steady acceptance of the Singularity's power as a positive force for potential advancement. New Magic boomed, leading to increased sophistication in technology and the refinement of automatons.

Originally designed to clear and guard Fomalhaut, they were eventually used to rebuild it. Fomalhaut became known as the City of Machines and was renamed Mechapolis. Although humans are barred from entering for safety, the automatons gather soil and air samples for study and perform fishing duties. The clockworks require routine maintenance and must return to a hub city or outpost for recalibration. Clockwork birds are used to communicate with Mechapolis. They can broadcast through the Free Cities's primitive "radio" towers.

You can enhance clockwork performance, boosting the towers or providing additional energy to the automatons. Scientists often have "rituals" when performing maintenance or experiments to earn the Gods' favor, hoping this will prevent their inventions from breaking down.

◎ The Barren/The Badlands

Once contested territory between Thorne and the Free Cities, the Badlands was split into two by a large ravine shortly after Thorne retreated to Hayle. With neither side able to breach the gap, Solvunn naturally laid claim to the western half while the Free Cities retained its eastern half. On the eastern side, the chasm swallowed several well-known bandit camps and the presence of a new entity further drove them away. Bandits now occupy the mountains northeast of Aquila. Due to the entity's threat, the Free Cities increased its military presence in the Badlands to keep careless or foolish travelers from straying too far.

Meanwhile, Solvunn has named its portion of the wasteland the Barren and sought the Gods' assistance to form an enchanted forest. Those who enter are lost forever. Meant for more than just protection, the forest and the Barren serve as a place of exile. Heretics are taken into the woods and left to wander towards the Barren's harsh desert. There, they will face the elements, be devoured by the waiting Maw...or encounter a God.

As a God, you can lead the exiles to their salvation or doom, but choose carefully: the Maw is hungry and must be fed. These exiles want you dead. They don't care for you, and should their lack of faith spread, they might revive attempts to destroy the Singularity - and with it, your home. Is it so wrong to leave them to their fate? On the other hand, saving them might convert them by demonstrating your kindness.

◎ The Maw

The Maw lurks beneath the chasm dividing the Badlands. Named for its gaping jaws, the Maw waits at the widest part of a jagged canyon, mouth open and salivating in the desert heat. Rows and rows of teeth as tall as a man spiral downward into a bloodshot throat. When sated, it retreats deep into the gully, barely visible aside from the shine of a tooth. When hungry, it draws closer to the surface. Hot and heavy winds often carry the putrid scent of its half-digested meals.

Solvunn is not the only territory that uses the Maw. The Free Cities will occasionally march criminals and bandits in that direction, as well, tossing them into the gaping mouth, although this method of execution is much rarer. Desperate exiles from Solvunn will try to cross the chasm despite the danger. None ever make it - at least, not without divine intervention.

Horizon, "Death," and Dormancy

Your domain in the Horizon is no longer constrained by size. How it's changed depends on you. The more detached from your mortality, the more likely it'll have surrealist elements: bizarre statues, physics-defying architecture, odd visual or psychological effects. The Horizon feels like home to all Gods, although you ought to take care not to heed its call beyond reason. Shutting yourself off from the physical world can result in unintended consequences...but completely refusing to enter the Horizon will do the same.

Additionally, Gods are beyond true death, but that doesn't mean you can act with impunity. Engaging in an exhaustive battle with other Gods can weaken you into dormancy. In this state, you will enter an ethereal void inside the Singularity. As you heal, you'll slowly be able to return to your Horizon domain and then the physical world once more. Depending on the extent of the damage, this process could take anywhere from months to decades. For instance, losing your head could take a few months, total dismemberment might take a year, and being vaporized into atoms can take a few decades.

Mortals cannot achieve this level of damage, even if they seemingly "succeed" in striking true. Only a God can weaken another God into dormancy. If a mortal removes your head, you can merely pick it up and put it back on.

Impact & Consequences

In the early years of your ascension, you might've wondered why the existing Gods seemingly intervened so little. Why did they not demonstrate their powers more blatantly over the thousands of years? Is it apathy? A desire to watch rather than act? As you come into your abilities, you realize that the Singularity and the universe are significantly more delicate than you thought. You begin to understand why the Gods have behaved the way they do.

Of course, whether you care to keep the world (and yourself) in balance is another story, but to be sure, some of the other Gods and the Summoned do - and you may have to defend your choices.

The equilibrium mechanic is described in OOC terms HERE. The Singularity and a character's ascension will not inherently sway them one way or the other. Any temptations will result from individual personality and development.

Instability Effects

To maintain the universe's equilibrium, you need to be cautious of when and how you interfere when using your status to alter the state of the world. Conversely, you'll also need to take care not to withdraw entirely. Several Gods have undergone periods of instability, though others haven't. Which category you fall under is up to you. It depends on who you are, your experiences, and your desires.

◎ Should you refuse to ACKNOWLEDGE your Godhood or enter the Horizon, you'll find yourself losing time. You may forget how you got from one place to another, or names you knew yesterday slip your mind. Lapses in memory or time can be temporary or permanent, but one thing they are is certainly confusing. With magic building inside you and nowhere for it to go, your power will begin to spill over, causing the Singularity to exhibit bursts of power that spawn demigods in the Witchwood.

◎ Should you give into the temptation to OVERINDULGE your Godhood or retreat to the Horizon for excessive periods, you'll lose more of yourself and your history. You may make decisions that feel unlike you, forget larger chunks of old memories, or struggle to distinguish what's real. Unrestrained use of magic will cause you to absorb yet more power, causing the Singularity to lose power in brief spurts, which can spawn demigods in the Witchwood.

These effects can be halted or even reversed in some cases. You might need someone's help to bring you back or convince you there's another way, or maybe you're the one seeking others out to assist. What you do soon understand is that your ability to manage your powers and stabilize your connection to the Horizon directly affects the Singularity and Abraxas...something that may have been true the moment you were summoned.

Demigod Spawns

Under the red haze of the Witchwood, monstrous creatures known as demigods or spawns emerge from crimson waterfalls and claw their out through the mossy soil. Born out of instabilities caused by careless actions from all Gods, they're usually contained to the Witchwood. For the most part, the older Gods - and the Summoned, if they choose - keep the demigods from leaving. However, now and again, one or two might escape, damaging towns, destroying villages, or causing ecological destruction in ways that are similar to natural disasters.

Demigods are not sentient. How they look can vary, but their appearances are often corrupted and disturbing: twisted animals, amorphous blobs, or alien-like parasites. They may resemble a monster you recognize from home.

Defeating one is possible but a challenge even for the Gods. Most crucially, you cannot kill your own spawn. Another God must deliver the killing blow, so working together is imperative. Should too many demigod spawns be allowed to invade the Witchwood, they will overwhelm and disrupt the Singularity further. Culling them is the only way to maintain stability.

You can submit demigod spawns you create to the WORLDBUILDING section if you want. Similar to using character powers, just keep the scale of destruction at a reasonable level.

Hearing Echoes

Echoes are a form of prayer that resonates through your connection with the Singularity. Solvunn has dedicated a monument to where the "First Echo" was heard, though the accuracy of this is debatable. Like the Network, you can hear an Echo regardless of where you are and can shut them out with concentration. However, your ties to Godhood may compel you to listen every so often. Mortals can entreat you through more formal methods (rituals, offerings, seasonal ceremonies) or in a moment of duress or desperation. They may seek you specifically or call to any God who will listen.

You can answer or ignore these cries for help as you like, but your choices carry consequences. Answer too many too eagerly, and your increased interference in mortal lives can upset the world's equilibrium - and the Singularity. Ignore your impact on the world, and your refusal to accept your ascension will equally destabilize the land as prayers go unheard.

Interacting with Other Gods

The Old Gods and the Cardinal Gods are an equal part of this world. For the most part, you coexist peacefully, though personal pacts and tensions can play a role. Each of you is aware of the impact of your actions on the Singularity: extreme displays of power are reserved for substantial transgressions, considering the price it carries.

Further, the older Gods have also walked the earth for centuries before you came. To them, you're still young, and rising against one of them won't end well for you. Nonetheless, many older Gods are more interested in giving advice or guiding you, ensuring the health of the Singularity and the universe so as not to doom all of you - Gods and mortals alike - to the void.

You can REQUEST AN INTERACTION with a God. Interactions will be brief but informative.

You will not be able to request a specific God. For logistical reasons, we have curated the list of Gods available ahead of time. However, we'll do our best to pick one from the pool that suits the purpose of your request.

Month 3: Awakening

Over the past 2 months, you've existed in the emergent reality without question. As you enter the third month, however, everything you've known over the past many centuries begins to shift. You might decide to investigate further, wondering if there's more out there that you aren't seeing. Alternatively, you might choose to ignore it, believing that your awakening is damaging the world and your life.

Catalysts

A catalyst can occur at any time through any circumstance. Do you see a familiar face you've forgotten in the eyes of a stranger? Do you recall a moment in your past while watching the mortals? Has a friend approached you specifically to try and remind you of the things you've forgotten?

With each memory returned you'll gain another piece of yourself. Depending on how much you've lost and how hard you'll cling to this reality, the effect may be clarifying or it might cause you distress and confusion. You might begin to encounter temporal cracks: buildings or areas that normally don't exist will flicker in and out of existence, or your reflection will briefly show an image of you from before your transformations took hold.

If you allow yourself to doubt your abilities or divinity, you might have trouble controlling your powers. If you've made alterations to your Horizon domain, it might start to revert to its original design.

These cracks are difficult to ignore, but if you bury your head, you can make them disappear - briefly, at least.

Shattered Skies

The effects go beyond the individual. As more of you and your fellow Gods reawaken, the sky also begins to form cracks that spread like broken glass. Through the fractures, you glimpse flashes of lightning and a swirling fog. The fissures only grow larger.

Soon, you realize you can see the Singularity itself, reflected upside-down in the crater. Disconcerting though it is, it may serve as proof that something is very wrong. Of course, you can also refuse to acknowledge this disturbance, closing your eyes to the crumbling sky. Doing so will let you remain unaware to the very end, but your friends who are seeking the truth might find your denial distressing.

The sky won't hold, though. Eventually, it does shatter completely - and you awaken abruptly, your body and others scattered several feet away from the Singularity's crater as if you were physically thrown out. The fog begins to dissipate. The lightning has stopped, the unrelenting storms fading across Abraxas. Whatever you went through, it seems to have done exactly what the territories hoped: stabilize the Singularity.

Characters will be returned home afterward. They will be thanked for their assistance regardless of if they cooperated.

Resistors will not face any consequences, as long as they don't cause excessive trouble upon their return. Officials will issue an apology for the heavy-handed action, stating that they saw no other way to keep the world safe. With the portals and weather returning to normal, it does seem to have worked...even if characters may not find the method agreeable.

---

Comments

Michael | Supernatural | Guardian of the Chosen

[familysucks]

[Closed starters below, PM to set something up.]

Nanaue

[familysucks]

Michael doesn't often leave the land. That's where most of the Abraxan locals live; it's where his followers and the mortals he finds most interesting are. There isn't much beyond the shore that matters to him, and the seas have their own guardians to look after them. He's not half as needed there as he is elsewhere.

Every now and then, though, he makes the time to slide down the rocky beaches at the edge of Solvunn and into the water to visit said guardians. Some of them are friends and brothers of his.

Today is one of those occasions. It's raining and the settlement he usually watches over is occupied with indoor activities. The sky is overcast. Swimming near the surface, wings propelling him along just as well as fins would, his white plumage stands out against the grey above. His flock circles over the water, mingling with seabirds curious about the unusual sight. (Is that a whale? A very large duck? Will there be food in it for them if they hang around?)

[nomnoms]

The Herald of the Briny Deep is most often a peaceful deity these past couple of centuries, content with his mini-hordes of land dwelling sea creatures.

Once in a while, though, it seems that his moods match the weather. There's rain on the coastline, but farther out is a raging storm. Perhaps he got caught in it while out hunting, and his hunger was let unsated for too long. Perhaps the storm winds blew him too close to the shore again while in this state - or maybe he's just seeking easy, two-legged prey that scurry across their slow moving wooden vessels.

In any case, Michael will quickly discern that it is not a whale, but the massive, flat head of his sometimes-companion as it breaches the surface, his maw the approximate size of a semi-truck as it opens wide, consuming an unattended fishing boat.

[familysucks]

Michael is not ignorant of the Herald's capacity for violence. They've shared meals, and he remembers the old days with astonishing clarity for someone who's forgotten almost everything that came before it. Even when he was just Nanaue, all that stood between a smile and biting jaws was a full belly and a few good memories.

It's too late to do anything for the fishing boat already splintering between leviathan-sized teeth, but there are others closer to shore. Without knowing why they're being targeted, he's inclined to intervene. Michael angles himself between his fellow Summoned-god and the remaining ships. Then he lifts a wing above the water and slaps it down against the surface to draw his attention.

He lets out a wordless, inquisitive rumble. The shark never has been much for words when he's in this state.

cw: gore

[nomnoms]

His jaws close around the boat, the rows of teeth tearing the wood to massive splinters that he swallows down his gullet, cutting all the way down. Blood is blood, even his own, and with the scent in the air and his stomach still empty he lets out something between a howl and roar, his massive head turning toward the sudden new movement in the water.

His shape disappears beneath the dark water again.

The Shark King is quick for his enormous size, and he doesn't seem to recognize his companion's shape - he snaps out to grasp the appendage between his many, many teeth.

[familysucks]

His wing drips red, clouding the water, but the wounds the blood springs from glow grace-blue around Nanaue's teeth.

Michael lets out a roar, more indignant than pained, and whips his head around to sink his teeth into the Herald's shoulder in return. He's been here before, some eight hundred year ago, and he learned from it. There's no point in words right now; violence speaks to violence. Though his jaw is not nearly as wide as the Shark King's, Michael has leviathan teeth of his own—and more limbs than his fellow god.

He wraps his second set of arms and legs around the other, claws digging into rough skin. He's not going to give him another chance to swim away and circle back from a new angle. Beneath the waves, the shark is more agile than he is.

Dean

[familysucks]

There's no completely safe place to leave his body, but his own domain is a safer choice than anywhere else. Michael releases his wounded form and lets it slide down into the grass, as if for a nap. His flock settles on top of it and gets to work: cleaning wounds, healing slashed flesh, and preening feathers back into place.

Michael doesn't linger. Outside of a body, he's a destructive force of the most useless variety.

He makes for Dean.

The feeling of possessing another's body is entirely unfamiliar to him, now, having forgotten that his was ever anything other than his (it doesn't look much like Adam anymore anyway, even if he did remember who that was). He settles into his fellow Summoned-god's body like he owns it, the formless howling light of his grace softening to a mild warmth as he sinks beneath the skin, weaves between bones and fills up the metaphysical hollow behind his rib cage. There's no empty space left over by the time he's seated himself within—but there's none missing, either. It's comfortable.

(Just right, he thinks, and that thought abuts an ancient memory that's not his own. Some story about a young girl and three bears.)

He recognized Dean's potential without understanding the root of it, in the same way he recognizes Lucifer and Castiel are entities more like him than other Summoned, but he didn't expect sharing a body to feel familiar in a way he can't place. Like a home he's forgotten, but where he's nonetheless entirely at ease.

I admit, I expected this to be more unpleasant.

This agreement after all is not what either of them would prefer. It's a matter of necessity. They each need something the other has: Michael's strength and experience fighting his own demigod, Dean's ability to strike the killing blow.

[righteously]

It's been lifetimes since he's done this. Literal full human lifetimes, and the memory is faded. He remembers the last time didn't sit right. He remembers feeling wrong, a square peg in a round hole, with the spiritual equivalent of elbows digging into his ribs. All the angles were sharp and ill-fitting, even if the space was supposed to be right, the right size the shape wasn't. Part of him, the deep subconscious part that still carries the echoes of it, is expecting something similar.

That isn't what he gets.

It's hard to say whether Dean was born hollow, or whether that hollowness was carved into him the night Azazel took everything from him. It's been there for so long it's just background noise, static, a permanent fixture — like the way your eyes have developed not to see your nose between them. An always-there, always-consuming emptiness that he has tried and tried to fill with people, and has never been able to come close to satisfying. Cas slipped into him once, and almost filled the space, but not quite.

Michael does. Even after centuries of change in Abraxas, even after the new wings and the new powers, the new muscles, the new wavelengths, Michael still fits in perfectly. Cosmically, divinely right.

He has never not felt empty — until now. All he can do is force their joined form to exhale around the sensation. For a second, he forgets why he was ever so against this in the first place; once upon a time there was a call for this, he's pretty sure, and it was a call he steadfastly and furiously rejected. Why? This is- good. This is definitely and undeniably good.

But also:

Freaking weird. You know how all the controls work, right?

[familysucks]

All humans are born a little hollow, Michael thinks. There's a space in them for a soul, for experience, for a creature like him to fit. Not many of them could accommodate a being like Michael, though, so perhaps Dean was born (or later made) a bit emptier than most. Those thoughts touch on distant past motivations he no longer recalls, so it terminates in the feeling that this is comfortable and right. They both feel it. This is the path to justice.

There's something like amusement that thrums through Michael. Does he know how this works—is that a comment on his not-so-human form? His daily existence involves managing twice as many limbs as Dean has, of course he can coordinate less. The real question is if they can work together. That's something Michael hadn't been so sure of at first, but now that he's within, he has no concerns.

I should be asking you that. I remember you before you had wings.

How's your flying, Dean? He projects a loud expection that Dean will provide a suitable demonstration before they get into a fight.

Besides, we are—there's a thought moving around the back of Dean's mind, like a bait fish glinting in shallow water. Michael holds it down to read the words on its side. Drift compatible?

Oh, it's a movie. Something about oversized monsters brought down by equally gargantuan robots. Michael supposes that's close enough to what they're planning to do. He doesn't come equipped with a plasma cannon, but he can offer a blade.

With a flash of blue eyes, Michael releases physical control to Dean. Behind them he extends his wings, non-corporeal to Dean's fully realized ones, and arcs the right one around front. One of the feathers there does have weight and density to it, edges rigid and sharp as a knife. It should be clear he expects Dean to take it.

[righteously]

I remember you before you had wings — it earns the emotional equivalent of a little huff, token defensiveness that's automatic in much the same way that little brothers automatically shove their older brothers back when teased. Dude, shut up, I was a kid. He wasn't, but... comparatively, with centuries now under his belt, it feels like whoever he'd been before was only a child. He'd only had a few decades of life under his belt. What the hell did he know back then?

For your information, his flying's great now. Eventually, the wings began to feel as natural as his arms. Even more eventually, the fear of heights began to recede. The latter took longer, but he got there. His impulse to point all that out is immediately lost when Michael has the audacity to drop a Pacific Rim reference and pretend like it's just a totally normal thing to do. There's a full-blown stutter in their mental processing as Dean's brain goes through the 5 stages of acceptance, and it ends on something closely resembling: !!!

"Wait, wait, wait-" He says, because Michael handed the controls over and Dean's thoughts tend to fall directly out of his mouth when he's given the wheel. "Drift compatible? Since when do you know the first thing about Guillermo del Toro?"

And then, in the next beat, "What's this?"

You want him to, what, just- fully rip that feather out? Seriously?

Okay, man. Your call, whatever, he'll go with it--

And so reaches a hand, the newer one, the one most accustomed to wielding a sword these last few centuries. Rare that there isn't already one held, rare that this hand is empty — and after this, it won't be again. Not until all of this, all of this, comes to an end. He grasps the feather by the shaft, and pulls. It breaks away only because Michael wills it to, and their fingers lock into place at what becomes a new hilt. A new blade. A new part of them.

Awesome.

[familysucks]

Oh, whole centuries. Michael's amusement does not fade. He may not remember his past beyond the certainty that he has been alive for millions of years prior to Abraxas, but that's enough. Even though he's now lived long past a normal human lifespan and has become a divine being in his own right, Dean is and always will be his junior. Between the two of them, Michael has the elder sibling privileges and is entitled to make exaggerated comments about his youth.

(Besides, hadn't he been sensitive about his age showing, at one point? Michael has the vague sense that this would have been a sore point, once upon a time. Not now. Something he left behind along with his mortality, maybe.)

Michael isn't going to examine that former fear of heights too closely. He doesn't want to breathe new life into it. There's a confidence in his abilities not unlike Michael's own absolute conviction, and that will do for now. He's still going to keep a critical eye on his technique once they take off.

Dean gets a metaphorical slap on the back to get things moving again, as if that mental stutter were him choking.

Since you won't stop thinking about it, I know as much as you know.

And now he's being treated to Guillermo del Toro's filmography, great, thanks. Hellboy and Pan's Labryrinth are very pertinent to the matter at hand. He has access to the full breadth of Dean's memories if he wanted it, all eight hundred plus years of them, but that's a lot of history to immerse them in all at once. He doesn't need to know everything. Just the thoughts and feelings that impact this collaborative effort.

Dean gets his mind back on track on his own and Michael fold his wings back out of the way. Giving up a feather willingly is no more painful than shedding them.

I trust you know what to do with that.

This part, he has no doubt about. He feels the outline of the divine blade in Dean's hand, their hand, is intimately familiar. Dean is like him. He has been a soldier, a fighter of one form or another as long as he can remember. He's had a weapon in his hand since he was a child, probably too young to be holding one (to outside eyes, anyway; to Michael, it is perfectly natural).

He'll allow a few practice strikes, if Dean is so inclined, but he doesn't cover that he wants to get on with this and get moving.

Wilhelm

[familysucks]

Michael is confident enough in his own abilities that he hadn't sought company for this particular trip to the Witchwoods. All the same, when he bumps into another Summoned-god between the trees he nods a greeting and sweeps out a wing in an invitation to join him. He and Wilhelm don't know each other beyond a surface level, but they aren't at odds. He learns something every time he fights alongside someone new.

Besides, Wilhelm's a bit young to be fighting demigods on his own. All of his fellow Summoned are too old for him to fret over like they're newly created, of course, but Wilhelm's on the young side of eight hundred. Youth and wisdom don't often go hand in hand.

"Do you often come here alone?" And does anyone know he's here?

His tone is conversational rather than judgmental. Not his kid, not his duty to ferry him home unless he actually gets into trouble.

Michael turns back to the direction he'd been facing. He'd been following the scent of something through the woods a moment ago. He hasn't spotted it, nor heard it beyond the usual ever-present rustling of leaves and branches cracking, but he nonetheless has the sense that it's close by.

[ordinar]

"Sometimes," comes his answer, paired with the defensive set of his jaw and eyebrows. He's recalling a time centuries ago when Michael plucked him from the jaws of danger and dumped him unceremoniously at the threshold of Lucifer's garden, as if after all that time he were still some troublesome child.

Wilhelm comes to the Witchwood when he feels the weight of things he should redress. Over eight hundred years, you accumulate so many mistakes, all of them like wounds that fester without proper treatment. You inflict so many scars.

In the red haze that drapes the forest, his wings transform into black rippling masses of shadow at his back. Following Michael's gaze, he finds the dark shapes of birds rustling in tree branches. Too many eyes stare back.

"Is there one coming?"

A demigod, he means.

[familysucks]

He'd have been just as sulky if Michael had left him there all alone instead. Michael doesn't think it has anything to do with him, so he chooses not to take it personally. That Wilhelm is still sore about it is yet another sign of his youth.

He peers into the same shadows that Wilhlem does. In the Witchwoods, it's not the darkness that obscures his sight. The atmosphere itself is against them.

"There was, though it may have reconsidered its angle of attack." Or whether to attack at all. One god versus one demigod is a fight the latter might win. Two gods versus one demigod is still one it might win, but far riskier. One of them is guaranteed to be able to strike a killing blow against it. "Do you want to try tracking it?"

He'll let Wilhelm make an attempt, if he's so inclined. What has he learned from his 'sometimes' trips to the woods?

[ordinar]

He does not sulk. Sulking is for children, and although Wilhelm may not have aged in several centuries, he has long since outgrown childhood. With it, he has left behind the powerlessness that used to fetter him. So, he does not appreciate being underestimated. All of this finds its way into the frown he slices Michael's way.

"Sure," he answers like it's a challenge rather than a suggestion.

A breath, and he melts into the shadows cast by the crowded trees as his own shadows gather around him. Though his magic renders him invisible, Michael can likely still sense his presence — but the demigod lurching through the underbrush remains unaware of Wilhelm as he hews closer and closer. He listens for the rustle of leaves and snap of twigs, pauses and feels for the faint energy that's emitted by the spawn. Other than wrong, he doesn't know how to describe it.

[familysucks]

He's received fiercer frowns from people younger than you, Wilhelm. It earns him nothing but a tilt of his mask-like face. Michael does grasp some of the sentiment behind it, at least: clearly Wilhelm doesn't want to be coddled. He wants to do this himself. Michael's role here, then, is merely to observe.

(And then to intervene, whenever it looks to him as if things are getting out of control.)

Wilhelm still has the faint glimmer of a soul to his eye as he weaves between the trees, grass flattening beneath his feet and the occasional branch pushed aside by an otherwise unseen force. Nothing else in these woods would notice him and that's what counts. He's good at tracking, he'll give him that. Michael follows along with less subtlety, though he's quiet and light-footed for a creature his size.

The sense of wrongness grows as they move deeper into the woods. Under the shadow of a distant tree, there's the glimmer of something wet; the scent of rotting meat. Michael reaches up and snaps a branch. This is interfering instead of letting Wilhelm do it, isn't it? Whatever. Wilhelm's between him and the monster, so he'll still have the opportunity for the first strike as it rises from its resting place. The amorphous mass of raw flesh shrieks and dives for what looks like just one Summoned-god.

Lucifer

[familysucks]

This existence is not as watertight as advertised. Reality finds its way in through the cracks. For some it's a slow, steady trickle, while for others it's a rush that has already reached their neck. All of them are forced to deal with it, whether that's trying to plug the holes or sticking their hands in deep and breaking them wide open.

Michael has retreated to the hottest part of his domain, though it's the simplicity of the locale he seeks to balance the influx of memories. There's blue sky above and white sand below. The horizon is a clean line that separates the two without ambiguity. He sinks his claws into the dune and watches the sand flow between his fingers.

He watched a young man help his grandmother this morning, bringing her the loose coins she'd dropped, and thought of Samandriel. He doesn't know who that is; he is certain he has known him all his life. He overheard two men speaking of the brother they haven't seen in years and remembered the face he's been trying to recall for eight hundred years. Gabriel. Everywhere he goes, every interaction he's witness to, there is a new name that comes to him.

Does he have as many siblings as this desert has grains of sand? How could he have forgotten so many?

Better yet, how did he forget the one underlying it all, the bedrock below—the Father he both loves and dreads.

Michael forces his hand deeper, until the sand covers the back of it, and tries to follow the thread of his memories from one name to another. He wonders how much is still lost to him.

[thedevilwhorose]

It's convenient that Michael is surrounded by sand because that's exactly what Lucifer needs in this moment, metaphorical or not. Just stick his head right in the sand and ignore the fact that outside the Horizon the sky is beginning to crack and maybe here he can ignore it just a bit longer.

Enough people have tried to get him to wake up and come back to reality, but he's not giving in. He refuses. Why should he come back? Back to weakness, to problems? To his gilded cage?

No. No, no, no. He's staying right here!

He's not sure why Michael seems to be playing with sand, but Lucifer isn't paying him all that much attention when he comes across him, his true form mostly remaining strong, but there are cracks here, too. Some push back, slipping towards the age-worn visage of Nick, reminding him that he was never great at forcing his will over the Horizon, but no, never again. He knows who he is. He knows what he is. He's accepted that.

This damned place can't change that no matter how much it tries to break down around them.

"This is nonsense," he says in Michael's general direction, just to announce his presence. "If you're trying to build a sand castle, you're not doing a very good job."

[familysucks]

Michael remains fixated on his own claws dug deep into the dune. He has been aware of Lucifer's arrival since the moment he crossed the border into his corner of the Horizon. Control has always been his strong suit and Michael is still master of his domain, no matter how distracted he is. He just wasn't going to get up and greet Lucifer if he was only passing through.

If only he were so fortunate. Apparently he has to deal with this.

"The sand here is too dry for that." There's also the fact that Michael has not a single creative urge in his vast being, but of course he fixes on the logical argument first. This is terrible sand for building anything but piles and dunes. "If you're here to boast about another of your 'projects', I'm busy."

Lucifer, he's noticed over the years, has creativity to spare, though most of his work leans towards the grotesque. The things he does to mortal minds are frankly distasteful. Still, it's no worse than what some of their fellow Summoned-gods do (sometimes even to themselves) so Michael has obligingly listened with silent disinterest whenever Lucifer dropped by to show off his latest creation. Or deconstruction, rather.

If he's going to hang around, though, this time he's going to be subject to Michael's chatter. He is as absorbed in his own thoughts as Lucifer is consumed by denial.

Michael lifts his front hand and examines it, turns it left and right. This is him, but there was also a him that came before this. A smaller, mortal-shaped one, even though he's certain he's never been mortal.

"Do you remember before we were this? There was a man, Gabriel. He was my brother."

There is something akin to awe in his voice. This is a revelation to him.

[thedevilwhorose]

Oh, wonderful, Michael knows how sand castles actually work. Kudos, Lucifer is honestly surprised.

Too bad that isn't the only thing to catch him off guard.

He wishes it was.

Is this quicksand, instead? Has some antlion reached up and snagged his foot. He feels locked in place at the rest of Michael's words, freezing him up like a statue. He hasn't felt this off-balanced since his return to power and subsequent godhood.

He...

He can't have heard that right.

He looks back to his brother, empty sockets of his skull head conveying more emotion off his presence than he'd ever prefer. "... What did you just say?"

[familysucks]

Of course he knows what sand castles are. He's friends with the shark. He has it on good authority that the opportunity to build sand castles is the primary reason to visit the beach.

Michael finally spares Lucifer a glance as he lowers his hand back to the sand, letting it rest atop instead of tunnelling into it this time. He never mumbles, and he is always direct in his wording. He thought he was pretty clear in what he said. Then again the realization came as something of a shock to him, so it's not surprising it might take others by surprise, too.

He doesn't guess at what else might be behind Lucifer's suddenly rigid demeanour. His memory hasn't caught up yet, hasn't reached that far back.

In a generous display of patience—or maybe just because Lucifer is a convenient audience at the moment—he offers an explanation.

"Gabriel was my brother. Created as such, from the beginning." He has other brothers and sisters here, now, but they were not always such. Gabriel had been like him from the moment of his creation. "Somehow I had forgotten it."

Wanda

[familysucks]

The problem with trying to find the Patron of Altered Minds when she doesn't want to be found is twofold. First, she has a natural inclination for illusion and routinely assumes a dozen different forms of all shapes and sizes. Second, Michael is not very good at hide and seek. It might not even be that she doesn't want to be found in the first place. He might just be looking in all the wrong places.

She's kept to Solvunn for the past eight hundred years or so, so he's sure she's somewhere around here, at least. Where exactly is the question. He's checked the villages and the quiet homesteads out in the forests that she favours, still cloaked in the veil of divinity that hides him from mortal notice—not that anyone's likely to give him a second glance now that he's back to wearing Adam's familiar face. He's moved on to checking her main ritual sites now. The one he's at is not too deep in the woods. Sun filters through the canopy, lighting the flowering vines that climb the trees and the carpet of floral offerings that surround the shrine.

Some of the offerings have been left in fancy pots and vessels embossed with the shapes and symbols the locals associate with the goddess. Michael approaches and looks into one of them. Often times she pilots an inanimate shell. It's entirely possible she's taken refuge in one that's smaller than usual.

"Vexani? Wanda?" He peers into an adjacent pot, plainer than the other. Still no luck. "Sister?"

He circles around to the other side of the shrine. Is she handling the gradual degradation of this false reality as poorly as the others? Behind him, his wings flick with unease. He'd had an unpleasant return to his sense of self alongside his brother, but conflict with Lucifer is nothing new.

"We need to talk."

[carmesi]

The fancy pots and embossed vessels, decorated with wax and paints, circle around and behind the shrine. Michael’s judgement is right in assuming that he ought to find Vexani—no, Wanda—in one of them.

She is tiny, like a forest fairy, as she peeks out of a small, green pot, hands pressed and poised onto the lid as she lifts herself to see who exactly it is that comes seeking her. Their eyes meet, momentarily, and Wanda hides again, back into the darkness of the pot.

Her voice is amplified by the echoing chamber.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Whatever it may be, she is not sure, but all she knows is that she is upset and is feeling all too overwhelmed by the current rupture of circumstances, of their current reality.

“Go away.”

[familysucks]

There she is. It's inevitable now that he's spotted her. He will not be chased away by so mild a shooing as that. Saying she doesn't want to talk about it is as good as saying she does, in bratty little sibling speak.

Michael walks over and slides one of the nearby pots out of the way with care—one far too bright and visually noisy to be to Wanda's tastes, he thinks now, getting a closer look at it—and takes a seat on the flat stone it previously occupied.

"I'm afraid the passing of time is inevitable. You can face it with a friend or without."

He intends it to be with. He reaches over and taps his knuckles against the side of the pot she's in. Knock knock, open up.

"Why are you holed up in there?"

Michael could make a dozen guesses, certainly. Maybe because her worshippers have finally gotten too loud to take; maybe because it's the noise of the other gods' thoughts and activities that have finally got to her; maybe because the sky is cracking and this dream is finally starting to fade. He's not always an expert in predicting human behaviour, he's come to realize, so he expects it's even more likely it's some combination of that and another emotion he can't even guess at.

[carmesi]

Wanda huffs, inside her tiny home; a glamour makes it dark, should anyone peek in, but the inside is steeped with lights and colors, little furbishings and even a window into some other plane of reality. She is quite comfortable here, and the tapping of his knuckles against the side of the pot rattles everything as if it were an earthquake shaking up a dense metropolis.

She hurries to the shelf where she keeps her cups and pots, using her splayed out hand to keep the delicate porcelain from falling to the floor and breaking entirely.

The words come out almost accusatory.

“I know we aren’t siblings. None of this is true in the same sense that time means anything.”

Pulled within the depths of the pot she is, can she really be blamed for sounding upset?

“I don’t want to see the sky.”

A sky that shatters under the weight of reality seeping into their made-up prism. However much of this is actually true she cannot tell, but Vexani is not her name in the same way that Wanda is. She’s forgotten so much that she never wanted to forget.