abraxaslogs | [ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

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[ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

WHO: Julie + others
WHAT: December catchall
WHERE: Places
WHEN: December
WARNINGS: Language, etc. Specific cws in subject headings.

[ ooc: dec catchall, starters in comments,

bitchcraft or bitchcraft#2753 to plot. ]

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Since establishing his Domain, it has become apparent to Goro that people will freely wander in and out of it as they please. Ergo, Goro will return the favour and because he is very big and monstrous-looking he expects that, as in most cases, people will simply let him have his way other than try inviting his wrath.

This place is...garish. The sort of pit Kano would probably enjoy, however. Though maybe not the more...festive decorations Julie has added to the place. Some sort of human holiday, which means nothing to Goro. He presses further in, pushing the revelers in the club out of his way, making little to no effort to be gentle, as they are not, in fact, alive.

In the back area, he spies Julie hard at work, and suspects he has found the Master of this Domain. If the thundering of his footsteps do not announce his presence to her, Goro simply folds his upper arms over his chest, and waits, watching her work with mild disinterest. He'll wait for her to notice him.

It's true that people can and do just walk around the domains of others, particularly nosy people like Julie, who consistently leaves a light coating of glitter all over everyone's belongings as she touches them without invitation. Her domain, of course, is meant for the company of others, to the point that the fake people don't ever seem to even care when they're pushed around.

"Yeah, yeah, hold on," she calls down in response to footsteps, which sound heavy but honestly, she's really high in the air, so she thinks it's just someone in thick boots, or maybe it's Volcano Guy. Volcano legs would be heavy. She's suspended in the space between the railing and the ladder, stretched out to finish linking a series of light plugs together, and when they suddenly illuminate in bright white, she straightens back up with a pleased sigh.

Then she turns and looks down, promptly shrieks and recoils, and sends the ladder falling backward.

It seems to almost happen in slow motion, the ladder clattering down with her in midair, a flailing mass of pink and gold that drops several feet but suddenly seems to catch on nothing at all. She's caught the balcony railing with her invisible third hand, although it's a struggle to keep hold for even the few seconds she needs to save herself from become a splat on the floor.

"What the fuck!" she yelps, kicking the air as a thick crash pad forms from nothing below her. The second it's done, she drops the rest of the way, bounces and then scurries away from this giant... thing. Where the fuck are her monster hunters when she actually needs them?

"What kinda insane mental illness bullshit is this look?" She gestures at the... four arms, the weird lizard-y skin, the everything of it all. "Just look normal!"

Goro watches it all, the ladder going down, Julie's fall, catching herself, and finally managing to reach the ground safely before skittering away from him, with the same mild disinterest, though his lip does curl in amusement at the antics his presence causes. He never gets tired of seeing people react in fear to him.

His head tils to the side. "Normal." He repeats, and his eyes narrow. "You mean "human."." They do seem to be omnipresent, in the Realms and larger multiverse. "Your kind always do insist that everything be made in accordance with your comfort in mind."

The failure here, is of course that she did not immediately assume he isn't human. Given that the only non-humans she's met since arriving (and it's not many) are all very human presenting, her assumption is that this is also a human who is instead choosing to appear this way only within the Horizon. And she can't fathom why anyone would want to look like that by choice.

If Julie was afraid of him in the moment that he caught her off-guard, the fear disappears when she snaps back, though the crash pad remains between them. "Well, humans seem to be the majority 'round here, so yeah, I'd say our comfort's way more important than whatever-the-fuck-you-are's comfort. Lookin' like some fuckin' Clash of the Titans stop motion bullshit monster. And you're in my goddamn domain! I didn't walk into your swamp and start talkin' shit, so don't think it works the other way 'round."

Still huffing, she straightens her dress, grabs her shoes and puts them back on, giving her another few inches. She doesn't like how much this guy towers over her, and while she knows that five inches is ultimately nothing, it makes her feel slightly better anyway.

"Whatever your kind is, you should look into some fuckin' moisturizer."

The rage of a terrified animal attempting to make itself look bigger to ward off predators. Goro lets Julie's anger roll off him, ignoring her as she snaps at him to look around her domain more closely. "Why should I not be in your domain? People come and go as they please in this place, it seems." His own domain has already had at least one visitor that he is aware of. "Am I not allowed the same right, little human? And my domain is a cave, not a swamp." He adds. That's...better?

"I am not...that." He said, as Outworld is sorely lacking in knowledge of Ray Harryhausen and his body of work, and he also didn't understand most of what she called him (though he'd agree with the Titan part, at least). "I am Goro, a Shokan of Kuatan. I am no human."

This one's impertinence and attitude do feel familiar to Goro, though he knows he's never seen her before. He turns back to regard her more closely for a moment. Ah...perhaps not met in person but he thinks they have conversed.

"You want be conquerer of Hell? Be my guest, but do the rest of us a favor and off yourself. Go fight the devil." He says, repeating the last words he remembers reading from her in that insipid network. "I believe that was what you said last time we conversed...Julie, was it?"

"You're allowed, most people just have better fuckin' manners about it. Y'know, like tryin' not to sneak up on folks when they look like... you," she says, gesturing at literally his whole body. She feels like maybe she once saw a story about a baby born with four arms in India or something, some kind of freaky birth defect. "And when other people come here, they don't storm right up to me like I did somethin' to 'em when I don't even know 'em. They have a drink or dance. It's a club."

Another mistake has been made here, and this time it's his; he assumes that Julie remembers any of the specific things she says. She does not, for the most part, and particularly not when it comes to conversations that had upset her in the first place. So there's a long, blank pause after he says her name, where she tries to force that sentence to mean anything. Who had she said that to? A few more blinks and it starts to come back.

"Oh, for the... that was you? Well, don't nobody wanna fight you here, numbnuts, so I hope you figured out macrame or whatever."

"Should I have interrupted you, then?" Goro replies sharply. "Called out as you worked? Would that have ended any differently, or would you be here lambasting me for terrifying you in an entirely different way?"

He snorts derisively. "You mean looking not human. Why should I change to accommodate you, when none of you seem willing to do the same? You demand a great deal and offer nothing in return. I see no reason why your petty whims should be indulged."

He shrugs off the reference to "macarame", whatever that is. A dance one, assumes, but he is irked by her indifference. People should not be indifferent to the Prince of Kuatan. "Clearly. They would lose anyway." He replies simply. "And again you seem to be convinced that when war comes to you you will have the choice of saying no. What do you intend to do when your barking proves ineffective, hm? Hide here in the Horizon?"

She scoffs and rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. "Stop pretendin' you don't know how basic manners work. You think I buy for a second that you'd take it well if someone just stood behind you while you worked? All silent and scary, just lurkin' until you catch sight? Fuckin' look at you, you'd rip 'em to shreds the second you saw 'em in the corner of your eye. It don't work different just because I'm smaller'n you. You don't startle people."

The crash pad fades out of existence and she breezes past him to one of the messy tables. In line with her weird feeling that she needs to do most of this manually, she manifests a garbage bag and begins cleaning up the shreds of wrapping paper, the discarded packaging. Indifference is a good word for it, though it's not borne of anything specific to him; he just isn't the first royal she's met here, and as an American, she doesn't really care about royalty anyway. It's not impressive to just be born into the right bloodline.

"Why do I have to be involved? It ain't my world and it ain't my fight. If I wanna be neutral, that's my choice. I wouldn't be the first person in history to do it. You wanna be a soldier in someone's army just because they tell you to? Fine. Did anyone even ask you what you think about the Singularity? Or did you just join up with the people who dragged you here, not even askin' what they believe in? Don't make it my problem that you can't think for yourself."

She looks at, then crumples up an instruction sheet for an elaborate electric train set and tosses it in the bag. "And yeah, if I wanna, I can stay in the Horizon as long as I want. All any of us has to do is find a good hidin' spot for our body. Won't age, won't get hurt, won't change a bit for as long as we're here. It's a better tool to have in your back pocket than you think."

"Again, you impose your norms on me." Goro replies with a dismissive wave of one of his lower arms. "You speak of poor manners, when by the standards of my people and Realm it is you that have shown me great disrespect and offense." He leans down towards Julie, his stare intense. "Should I insist on having you flogged for it?" His lips part, not so much a smile as it is a baring of teeth. "I would be well within my rights to have it done so."

He snorts derisively. "Proclamations of neutrality only work if the soldiers with weapons and reason to use them decide to honour it. What assurances do you have that will ever happen? The Singularity is power. A power to rival that of the Elder Gods themselves, that could shake the heavens of this Realm and all others besides. So yes, having been brought here, I rather do think I wish to have a say in how that power is harnessed and to what ends." Fortunately, the Free Cities have an admirable distaste for magic in general and yet...a power that could cow even the Elder Gods themselves. Seems a shame to have it simply destroyed. There are opportunities for one not afraid to grasp them...and Goro has need of power back in Outworld. "But by all means bury your head in the sand and pretend none of this affects you. A strategy certain to work out in your favour, I'm sure." He adds in an obviously condescending tone.

"Is it?" He sneers. "To run and hide in this...charming little fantasy you have created, forever? You mistake cowardice for cleverness." He gives Julie a more critical once-over. "But you are clearly no warrior. Not much of anything, from the looks of it. So your answer is understandable. Pitiful, but understandable." Truly, if ever Goro needed proof that summoning was not targeted so much as it was a shot into the multiversal darkness, it stands before him now. "Soft and powerless as you are. Actual hardship would break you."

She does not blink in the face of his attempts at intimidation. Startling someone on top of a ladder is entirely different than actually frightening them, and Julie is not frightened. It's nothing personal to Goro; she's just only afraid of a few things now, and most of them are abstract concepts rather than living beings. It's difficult to be scared of monsters when you've seen them in human skin, when you serve one like a god. She only continues to stuff trash in the bag.

"I didn't say I don't have an opinion on the Singularity," she notes off-handedly. "I said I don't want to go to war for it. I don't think any of 'em know what they're doin', and I don't think anyone should be botherin' the thing. It's way bigger'n all of us, and shouldn't no one mess with it. I told you before, if they fuck with it, it's gonna destroy everything. Not just this world and everyone on it, which includes you now, but everything. The whole universe, all the worlds. I ain't gonna get involved with that shit, but I can't take on three different armies on my own, so. Neutral. They can't get close to it, anyway, so they can slaughter each other over the idea of who gets to be in charge of it."

It's not until he calls her soft that she expresses anything other nonchalance. That's a bright, flashing red button that he pushes, and she ties the bag off before she curls her hands into fists, leans on the table with her weight on her knuckles.

"A prince is callin' me soft?" Her scornful laugh is bitter, venomous. "You don't know who the fuck you're talkin' to, buddy, but I can guaran-damn-tee you that I've been through more'n you and come out the other side smellin' like roses. I saw ninety-nine percent of life on Earth die. I survived on my own, I walked a thousand miles over mountains and desert to get to the handful of other people left, and I stepped the fuck over all of 'em to get to the top. One day of my life was more hardship than someone like you could even wrap your mind around."

She tilts her head, hair falling to the side in pink curls that bounce against her neck. "So you can just fuck right off with that shit, hear?"

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[ dec / open ] what even is the point of december without christmas presents?

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