caveofsapphires | smaller patch of fading sky [ open ]

smaller patch of fading sky [ open ]

WHO: EVERYONE. All PCs thus far will be in this log, through active tagging or implication.
WHAT: THRILLS. SPILLS. Hiking trip toward the Diamond City.
WHERE: The Overworld.
WHEN: Forward-dated to May 1st (Tuesday) through May 7th (Monday).
WARNINGS: May contain violence or other mentions of physical harm. This is not summer camp.
NOTES: More information can be found on the OOC post here. Please read it!

Gathered in the morning haze, Sleepers were brought to the mouth of the Cave with plenty of supplies and equipment. Compasses that would point them toward the City. Backpacks full of clothes and food, medical kits, tents and even weapons. Stun rifles and knives — to fight off any unwanted company, they said. ("Watch out for their bite," Ryan had commented. "Those fuckers are downright feral.") The straight and narrow path would get them there in six days if they kept a good clip. They were sent off just like that. Refusals to leave were met with a wall of guard force officers blocking the entrance back into the cave city. No way to go but forward, unless someone was particularly stalwart about remaining.

From the exterminator's station near the mouth, leaving the Cave was as simple as a short hike upward into the fresh air of the Overworld. Dust and an uncomfortable sort of heat pervaded the atmosphere, light winds stirring up the sand and teasing the meager bits of vegetation that had grown. No matter what direction you looked... it was all wasteland, cracked ground and desolate emptiness. Jutting up from scarred ground were boulders and small spires made entirely of glass and patches of stone; instead of reflecting the harsh sunlight, they seemed to absorb it and only add to the muted loneliness of the atmosphere. As far as the eye could see, there was no life to be found.

With no other option, the Sleepers eventually made their way onward.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Re-l shifted on her rock. It was not, she thought, an especially comfortable rock. The sooner she was out of this place the better.

The man's words didn't help. Oh, we're back to that, she thought, and she wondered how the subject could occupy so much of anyone's thoughts. Still, if everything else failed she could always use that option. It wasn't any worse than some of the other things she'd had to do.

Her companion pulled off his bandage and Re-l looked back towards him. It was worse than her own cut, and she shifted slightly, then caught herself.

"You need some help with that?" She didn't smile, but her eyes glimmered for a moment. "I could help, for a price. Give me one answer, and I'll do it for you."

Did he need help? He would have liked to say no, but as he looked down at the oozing scratches he realised that was a pipedream. Sure, he could probably clean it on his own, but clean it, avoid getting more sand in it during the first cleaning, and then bandaging it up again while still keeping it clean? Not likely.

So he laughed. "That's called bribery, you know. I'm so proud." He indicated for her to come over with a tilt of his head, reaching for the first-aid kit attached to his bag. He was surprised by a sudden shiver, having finally cooled down enough to register the difference in temperature between outside and in here, with the sky blocked and under an overhang no sunlight could reach.

"Hrm." He threw a glance at the opening, his brow furrowed. If the sandstorm went on too long, it could get really cold. And he didn't carry a blanket, let alone a tent. From the looks of her pack, neither did his companion, at least on the latter front. "Don't suppose you have some blankets? I get the feeling we're going to need them."

He threw her a cheeky grin, a token bit of humour. "Maybe for more than one reason."

Re-l picked up the torch and dropped down in front of him. She held it tightly in one hand and gripped his arm with the other, turning it this way and that.

"You've got a lot of sand in here. I'm going to have to clean it out, and it's going to hurt." She bit down on the torch handle, holding it between her teeth and tilting her head so it hit the wound. Her hands unscrewed her water bottle, and she fumbled her handkerchief out of her breast pocket, tipping water onto the dark surface and watching it spread.

She dabbed the cloth lightly on the man's arm, removing the outer layer of pus and scabbing. It would slow down the healing, but she had to get at the grit underneath. She focused on the work, not looking at anything else. It was slow work, but at last most of the pus was gone. She sighed and took out her flask again, and tipped it out over his arm. The water splashed through the cuts, taking some of the grit with it. Not enough, though. She did it again.

Her water bottle was almost empty, and her handkerchief was filthy. She set both down and pulled out the little first-aid kit in her bag. It was too small to be really helpful - there were only a couple of bandages and cotton pads in it. She glared uselessly at it and dropped the torch to talk.

"Almost done." His last words registered with her at that point, and she looked up at him.

"I've decided you don't get to make comments like that until you know my name. But yes, blankets would be good." She looked at him and then set the back of her hand against his forehead. "You don't have a fever, but your body is using up a lot of energy to heal itself, so you might get cold faster." She shrugged uselessly. "What I really need is antiseptic cream. Even a little bit would make a huge difference. But there's nothing in the first-aid kit."

"Hey, wait a--" Gabriel began, and then closed his mouth on a yelp, body going rigid as he avoided pulling away. "Hnnng." He grimaced, running his hand through his hair in lieu of anything else to grasp. It wasn't until she started cleaning the thing that the smell hit him at all. He'd known it had hurt, but without having context as to how badly a sustained injury like that should hurt, and without having looked at it since, he hadn't known it was getting quite so bad.

He breathed deeply, evenly, and distracted himself by mumbling the names of his brothers from youngest to eldest, starting with the cupids. At her words he cut himself off halfway through the fourth rank and looked up.

"Who says I don't know your name?" he asked facetiously, even though he didn't, and blinked up at her hand, momentarily baffled by the action. Then he snorted. "Once upon a time, I could have given you all those just like that."

He snapped his fingers. He really, really wasn't expecting anything to happen. And yet a blanket dropped across their laps, sustained its form for a moment, and then dissolved into nothing as if it didn't have enough substance to remain. Gabriel stared down at where it had lain, stunned. "That ... hasn't worked in a month," he said with something close to wonder.

She had felt it. The blanket had lain across her legs, heavy and warm.

Re-l leapt back, scooping up a handful of hand and pulling out her gun, creating space between herself and the creature. She'd never known a Proxy able to do that, but then she hadn't met all of them. Maybe some of them could create matter.

She aimed the gun squarely.

"I don't miss," she said clearly. "What was that?" The sand in her other hand was trickling out, but she still had enough to blind him if he tried to move.

"Ow!" Gabriel yelped as she jarred his arm, catching the gauze and pressing it to the scratches. He lifted his eyebrow at his companion, unimpressed by stun-only the gun. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't stun him and slit his throat, but he didn't let the discomfort of that thought show. (Especially the fact it could actually happen.)

"That was a blanket. I swear, they don't bite." He lifted his hand again, but slowly, eyeing her carefully in case she decided to shoot or blind him. And then he grinned, half a leer and half a simple tease. "Want to see it again?"

Re-l stared at him steadily. It was true that the power demonstrated had been harmless, but that meant nothing. If he could do that, what else could he do? Caution and curiosity warred in her mind, and curiosity won. She didn't lower the gun, but she didn't stun him either. She kept her aim firm and sat down on a nearby rock.

"Just a blankets don't break the laws of thermodynamics," she said. "How is that even possible? Are you constructing on a molecular or sub-molecular level? Or is it actually teleportation? Did a blanket in the cave vanish just now? Can you make complex objects? Do they last when you're not concentrating on them?" A thought occurred to her. "Could you actually make me some antiseptic cream? Your arm would like you for it."

The whole world seemed to have fractured and restructured. She was more and more certain that no Proxy had ever had this ability. It was beyond the known. She stared at the man before her, seeing him all over again. Short, a little like Vincent in looks, but with so much power there. It was terrifying and exciting all at once.

Gabriel huffed a half-laugh, partly in genuine amusement and partly in irony. "Oh, you're a scientist." He shook his head. "It's not a transport. That's all some of my siblings would be able to manage, buuut ... I'm better at it than they are." He shrugged his good shoulder as if to say 'that's the way it goes', his smile deprecating. "I just gather together some bits and pieces the universe isn't using and put them together how I want. A month ago I could've made you anything I damn well liked, but right now?"

The archangel scoffed. "Let me put it this way. Snapping my fingers in the Cave just made them get sore after a while. So, sure, I could probably make a blanket now I know something'll happen. Antiseptic? Thaaat might be a little more difficult. I don't know exactly what the Hell is in those sorts of things and I don't think the universe is going to fill in the gaps for me around here."

Either way, he took a deep breath, eyes flickering a little as he thought of this absolutely amazing soft blanket he'd once happened to find on a target's bed. He snapped his fingers and a thick, lime-green blanket appeared across his lap once again. And this time it didn't disappear.

Gabriel laughed softly with delight and shades of pure relief. It was working. It really was. It had made him feel just a tad dizzy, putting effort into it, but it had worked.

"Actually, I'm not," Re-l said, irritated at being pigeon-holed. "I was educated in all the natural sciences, but my work was in the investigation of people, not the world."

She couldn't stay annoyed, though, not when the subject was so interesting. And it was easy to let your guard down when all the other person wanted to make was a blanket. It was a shame about the antiseptic cream, but the water had done a lot of good.

Then she made the obvious connection. The gun slipped from her hands.

"That ability is from your dream world." The enormity of the revelation swallowed her up, and she felt dizzy. Her vision clouded over, just for a moment. "They're real."

She raised her fingers to her mouth, a gesture she was totally unaware of. It didn't matter, suddenly, that she didn't know where Vincent and Pino were. It didn't matter that she couldn't see them, that they weren't here for her. It didn't matter that she was alone. They existed somewhere. It was enough.

She steadied herself, breathing slowly to calm her heart, and swallowed.

"I should finish your arm," she said finally, stooping to pick up her gun.

"Uh, duh," Gabriel said, lifting his eyebrow. "What, don't tell me you actually believed all the bullshit they were feeding us? Please. When it comes to the manipulation of memories, I'll grant yah they're pretty good. But the manipulation of time and space?" He snorted. "They should've chosen a better route than the whole 'it's not real' thing. And trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Playing with peoples' heads is what kinda I did."

Well, a job he moonlit with, anyway.

He shrugged again, as if it was a no brainer, and then with a lazy snap of his fingers made a sky-blue blanket fall across her shoulders and drape after her like a cape. "Yes, you should," he said agreeably, presenting his arm to her again. The revelation that he could actually construct things again had made the pain, the exhaustion and the general circumstances infinitely more bearable. He grinned almost wickedly. "Let me know if there's anything you need. Well, anything that's not too complicated, anyway."

Re-l shot him a glance and tugged the bandage on his arm particularly hard.

"I won't apologise for liking proof," she said coldly. The blanket fell heavily around her shoulders, and she was quite proud of not jumping. It was a beautiful blue, almost the same colour as her eyeshadow, and heavy and warm. THen she looked at his face. There was exhaustion there, and beads of sweat on his brow.

"Not that I'm not grateful," she said, "but you shouldn't have done that. Your body is trying to heal you, and it needs all your resources right now. I don't know what you were before, but there's no regeneration in these cells. They have to do things the slow way."

She knotted the bandage one last time, deciding that it was her inevitable fate to be surrounded by total idiots incapable of looking after themselves.

She sat down beside him, folded the blanket over her legs and sighed.

"What I want?" There were two answers to that question, but she was only willing to give one of them. "What I really want is Awakening. My gun. But I guess that falls neatly under complicated."

"Why should you need proof of your own identity?" he asked, his amber eyes glittering. "You'd be amazed at how much reality is defined by what's going on in our own skulls." Or, at least, theirs.

He 'pffft' and waved his now free hand dismissively. Sure, it wasn't as effortless as it had been, but he'd rather play around a bit than conserve his energy right now. Balm for the soul and all that, and he was never ever going to let anyone know he'd thought the phrase. Of course, it would be even better if he could just snap himself healed ...

The archangel smirked, glancing down at the bandage and fingering it consideringly. To heal or not to heal? "That depends on what kind of gun and how advanced you're talking. Most of 'em are really just mechanical objects, you know. They're not that hard to piece together. I can make a mean Colt."

There was a ghost of a grim smile on his face as he said the last in afterthought. Then his eyes snapped up at her. "What's Awakening? I could make some guesses, buuut I doubt you'd appreciate them."

Re-l looked at him sharply.

"I have a lot of experience of reality altering itself. To match my head or otherwise. But this didn't feel like any of the other times. I don't just think I'm here, and I'm not wandering around any kind of illusory landscape. Whatever this place is, it's real. And if it's real, then it has a truth I can uncover." She rolled her shoulders. "I think it might be easier for other people to guess that they were lying though. I haven't confirmed everything, but it seems that everyone's dream worlds were quite different. Mine is enough like this place that I could have constructed it based on the Disaster. I couldn't be sure."

She noticed him fingering his bandage and stopped her train of thought, reaching out to grip his wrist and move it away.

"Don't do stupid things," she said, glaring. "It will heal on its own, and you might mess it up. You're obviously not used to having your power back. And while I might want my gun, I'm not going to compromise your health to get it. Besides, how would I bring it into the city? It doesn't make any sense for you to create it until we're there." She glanced up at the sky, wondering if they would ever get there at this rate.

"It was a lovely gun, though," she admitted. "An R-SCG12 shotgun. With armour-piercing rounds."

[OOC: Just for reference, this is what she's talking about: http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100105092611/ergoproxy/images/4/48/Ergoproxyshotguntt3.jpg]

"If it felt like an illusion, then it was second-rate," Gabriel told her. "The best ones are always real, either because of time or space changes. The problem is these guys' execution. They've proven they can shove memories into our heads; they should've done that right from the start and then told us it was all a dream."

It was a quick, clinical judgement, the sort made by someone who has, indeed, done quite the same. "Unless, of course, the point is just to mess with us," he added thoughtfully. "Then they're going about it okay, what with the whole 'ooooh, been kidnapped' vibe. Not the route I'd have chosen, but whatever, it's working."

He glanced down at her grip with a mixture of surprise and amusement, and then looked at her with a cocked brow. "Why, you do care! I'm touched. Really. And obviously you'd carry it in. How else?"

The archangel noted, however, that she didn't say anything about him not making it once they were in the city, and smirked. He also noted she didn't answer his question about the Awakening, but let it pass for now. "Can't say I'm familiar with that type, so it's probably just as well if I didn't try."

"So you're an expert with illusions as well?" Re-l satisfied herself with an internal eye roll. "I should have assumed, I suppose."

It was irritating, having to pick up fragments of his story from hints and crumbs, but it was better than nothing. Whoever this man had been, he had been powerful. And by the way he was implying things, there were supernatural forces at work in his universe. Were there thousands of other worlds, then? Each of them separate, each of them operating on totally different guidelines? It seemed such an impossible idea.

She tugged her blanket closer around herself, drawing her legs up and wrapping it around them, resting her head on her head on her knees.

"You might be useful," she said, putting as much ice into her voice as she could. "I can't afford to lose useful resources. And if I brought a mysterious, highly powerful gun into a city someone would notice, and then I would be in danger and you probably would too."

His refusal stung a little, but it was an illogical reaction, and she ignored it. She was used to Awakening, and it would be nice to have a weapon she knew perfectly, but it wasn't necessary. She didn't want it for the firepower. She wanted it because she wanted something from home. Something that reminded her of the world (and the people) she had left behind.

She looked up at the sky and sighed, wondering how she had gotten tangled up in this place so quickly.

"Eh, they're amateur work, but they'll do for the minor stuff. Tricks of the trade and all that." Illusions, constructs, alternate timelines and realities ... Sure, that one with the Groundhog Dean Dies Day had been particularly complicated because he'd had to keep stashing Dean's soul somewhere so Hell didn't get it too early, but something like that just had to be made cohesively and it started sustaining itself. His only complaint had been that he'd gotten bored of the same syrup every damned morning.

The archangel glanced down at the bandage one last time, but the adrenaline of his discovery was starting to wear off and the weariness was sinking in. He felt like he couldn't possibly muster the motivation to get up even if he'd wanted to; his whole body was leaden. With a regretful sigh he left the thought of healing himself alone and pulled the blanket up, resting his head back against the stone and staring up at the opening where the sandstorm still raged.

"Don't keep me in suspense, now," he said, amused. "Just go ahead and tell me how you feel." He wondered if she remembered she'd asked for a question in return for her help, and then decided that, whatever, a display of one of his powers was more than enough in trade.

She appeared to have offended him. Re-l wondered vaguely if she should feel guilty about that, but decided it was for the best. It might stop him flirting with her. And she couldn't afford to get close to anyone here. She was quite sure of that. She was all alone.

But she didn't want him to be huffy and offended either. Huffy and offended people were annoying and sulked at you and didn't talk. And Re-l was still curious. She wondered what the best peace offering would be.

"My name," she said, out of the blue. "They call me Masa, but if no one is listening, then my name is Re-l."

Not offended, but given this chick didn't seem to get the nuances of sarcasm, Gabriel wouldn't have been surprised she thought so. Rather, at the silence he let his eyes close. The stone was cold on his back, but he really couldn't muster the urge to sit up and draw his blanket around him.

Then she spoke again and he stirred, opening his eyes, recalling what she'd told him before. "Does this mean I have permission to flirt with you now?" he asked with impish brightness.

She'd forgotten about that, and kicked herself mentally for having even a moment of sympathy for him. How anyone could combine the worst parts of Vincent and Ergo in a single body without any of their advantages was beyond her.

"It's your time and energy to waste," she said, not looking at him.

The sandstorm couldn't possibly last much longer. And then she could leave.

She could hope. They'd be lucky if the sandstorm didn't last for days.

"I prefer to think of it as a challenge," Gabriel said innocently. There was a moment or two of silence, howl of the wind notwithstanding, and then he huffed and said a little more quietly, "They called me Sylvester. My name--it's Gabriel."

It really was getting cold. The sun had been the one good thing about this stupid world, and with it gone, Re-l couldn't think of a single thing she liked about the place. At least she'd made decent progress today, because at this rate, she was going to be sleeping in the ravine. And there were a number of different reasons to avoid that.

Having a name would help her to organise her thoughts, though she couldn't say that either suited her companion particularly. On the other hand, his reluctance to give them away was mildly amusing. Re-l certainly wasn't above petty jabs, though she never thought of it that way.

"Gabriel. I'll remember." She huddled a little bit closer into her blanket, rubbing her fingers together and missing her big white coat. "With supernatural abilities and a name like that you almost could be a Proxy. And you match the idiocy requirement perfectly too. You don't burn up in sunlight, though." She muttered something under her breath, which might almost have sounded like "shame".

Her almost smile was probably a trick of the light.

At that, and the mutter, Gabriel could only laugh. "A vampire? Puh-lease. I have way more taste and style than them. Especially the kind who are actually allergic to sunlight."

Though it was curious she considered his name vampiric. He had to admit, he was intrigued. He grinned at her, saw the totally-not-a-smile and shifted into more of a smirk. "So why d'you call them Proxies, then?"

The word he used was unfamiliar, but the tone made it evident that they were talking about totally different things.

"Proxies are proxies. Made by the creators, to repopulate the earth after its destruction, and to die when their task was complete. Hence the weakness to sunlight. When light returns to the world, the Proxies are no longer needed. So they die. Except Ergo." She paused and corrected herself. "Vincent. But he was made to be different." She shrugged. "I don't understand everything that happened. Daedalus could tell you a lot more."

She looked down, remembering that Daedalus was dead, and would never tell anyone anything ever again.

"So not a proxy then. Or a vampire. What are you?"

Huh. No wonder she'd said that this scenario was actually possible, if that's the kind of place she came from.

"So what, you all live in atmosphere domes with self-sustained light, and outside everything's just ..." He waved a hand toward the exit. He was intrigued, but his mouth was twisted with ironic bitterness too. Just how many people here had come from worlds on the heels of Armageddon, failed or not?

He turned the smile on her, but its tenor didn't change. "So you have wannabe-vampires and a dead Greek inventor. Happen to have belief in God too?"

"It was like that, at the start. A dull, bland, pointless world, small and tiny." She closed her eyes, and her eyeshadow leapt out. "But it's all gone now. Then. Whenever. The domes collapsed, the Proxies died, and the Arc returned."

She opened her eyes and looked at him. That constant smile made his face hard to read, but he wasn't joking. What could she say?

"I heard the Proxies called Gods, more than once. But I don't think that's what you mean. I can't say I ever thought about it myself."

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oh fff i misread that whole awakening bit. orz oops let's just pretend he's tired and misheard.

I thought he was being perceptive! It's a really important word in canon

oh maybe i didn't misread then. first i thought awakening and her gun were separate entities.

Her gun is called awakening but so is everything else XD

gotcha. XD let's say a bit of A and a bit of B, then

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