Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Stop! Hammer Time!"

paxnarrator (paxnarrator) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2010-10-31 00:01:00

Entry tags:

amun, aphrodite, ares, changing woman, coyote, eris, harmonia, isis, jormungandr, mania, morrigan, mut, osiris, raijin, raven, urdr

Who: OPEN
What: The Halloween party continues, now with far more elaborate costumes...
Where: The Empty Grave
When: 9 p.m. until
Warnings: Just assume this one's going to get naughty.
Notes: This is the transformation post! Again, subject line denotes location. Go shed those mortal skins!

As it had been with Pax Letale, so it was with its tenants: The shift from mundane to immortal was somehow creeping but immediate, passing almost beneath notice until the change was complete. Clothing faded rather than being shed; some deities remained in their humans' attire, some wore their old familiar kit, but all were utterly changed. The DJ played on, bartenders and waitstaff wound through the crowd, guests from outside the strange apartment danced and talked and flirted still with the partners who had brought them, all of them oblivious to the inhuman nature of the beings beside them. But for the residents of Pax, everything was about to change.

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-12 04:35 pm UTC (link)

I felt you, he said, simply. His head tilting slightly, he regarded her at length, studying her as she took her seat. He was pleased by her praise and could not help but show it; a carefully measured length of his body raised up from the ground, angular head and slender neck shaping a languid curve. He moved closer to her, what would have been a single step in his stolen, human body. His tongue flicked out toward her, sensing the change in her mood. Your heart is beating quickly. Are you afraid?

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	Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia pax_vobis 2010-11-12 07:00 pm UTC (link)
	"Not afraid, no," she shook her head. "You momentarily reminded me of someone. It was a touch of wishful thinking." A rueful smile played across her lips. "But you are here and he is not. Tell me, do you know how you came to be here? Not in this room, but in this place and time? Something tells me this is out of the ordinary for you." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-12 07:37 pm UTC (link)

It is.

He liked the feel of her, this biped who did not seem fully human. There was more to her than the skin she wore, though he could not begin to guess at her true nature; he assumed this, like so much else, would be revealed in time. He thought long on her question, and longer still on his answer, unsure, himself, how this had come about. In the intervening moments he found himself slithering toward her, coiling thoughtfully at the foot of her chair.

I slept, he said, in the ocean. It seemed a long time. When I woke, someone was with me. Adam. A boy. His head canted again, quizzical. Do you know him?

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

pax_vobis
2010-11-12 08:56 pm UTC (link)

Adam. Harmonia listened for any familiarity Brighid had with the name, sensing a faint spark of recognition. "I do not, but I understand your meaning. This body belongs to a girl, Brighid. It appears I am part of her, though I know her only from dreams. Or perhaps they were visions." Absently, she trailed the fingers of one hand along the arm of the chair in which she sat, a poor substitute for the sensation she knew his scales would cause. "I believe she does know your Adam, though not very well. It is a pity. If they had known one another more, perhaps we could have pieced this puzzle together more rapidly.

"As it is, I will try to be good company. Do you remember the time before you slept?"

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-12 09:12 pm UTC (link)

He pondered this, too, and it came more easily to him than the answer before it. He felt his wits returning, as if at last the veil of sleep was at last lifting from his mind. I do. He saw the motions of her hand, wondering what purpose this small movement of hers served; as he sought a better view of her his body shifted, flexing to move across the cool floor. He stopped at the side of her chair, gazing at her slender fingers. The ocean, still. Midgard. Memory came back in a rush, a flood of scent and sensation and sound. I am the child of a god. He raised his body once more, looking over her knee, so close she could easily have touched him. What are you, Harmonia?

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

pax_vobis
2010-11-16 12:51 pm UTC (link)

"What, indeed," she murmured as she studied him. The child of a god, he'd said. But his name wasn't one she knew. After a few moments of silent consideration, Harmonia slowly reached down to stroke his green scales, allowing plenty of time for him to move aside if he objected. "I believe we may be alike in many ways, Jörmungandr. I am the offspring of two deities, you see, and the sometime plaything of others, though they named me goddess by virtue of my parentage. Perhaps this is another game of theirs in which we find ourselves caught up."

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-16 01:10 pm UTC (link)

He wondered at the family she claimed, though in some respects it sounded not so different from his own. His own uncle had cast him into the oceans; his siblings and father had ignored him, seemingly apathetic to the rift of distance his exile drove between them. That this might be a game was not an altogether outlandish possibility. Perhaps, he allowed. He raised himself up beneath her hand, finding he rather liked the feel of her hand on his scales. Are there others like us here? He tipped his head, feeling the pads of her fingers slide over him. It seems I sense others; I feel them. Perhaps my own kin.

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

pax_vobis
2010-11-16 04:29 pm UTC (link)

"I, too, feel others, though you are the first I have met." The conversation intrigued her, but the texture of his skin under her fingers, rough and smooth by turns, soothed Harmonia in a way few would understand even if she deigned to explain. "There are some who are familiar to me and many who are not." She made a soft humming sound as she reached outside herself to more thoroughly investigate the spiritual landscape. "This building is full of ones such as you and I: out of time and out of place. Would you be glad to see family members?"

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-16 04:32 pm UTC (link)

It was a difficult question; Jörmungandr realized that too much went into its answer to respond hastily. He felt some stirring of emotion as he pondered the question, but it seemed distant, experienced so long ago it now felt like it belonged to someone else. His sides rose and fell with a deep, slow breath.

Perhaps, he said again. His head turned beneath her hand, his tongue darting out, exploring the air around her. It felt tense, fraught with energy he only vaguely understood. Who would you be glad to see?

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

pax_vobis
2010-11-16 06:52 pm UTC (link)

Kadmos, she thought again, and her hand tightened on him for the barest fraction of a second. Her husband, though, had been mortal, and those she felt around her now were not. Harmonia knew she was going to have to accept that their separation was permanent and her loss was final. Curiously, she felt an echo of empathy from the presence she understood was Brighid, and Harmonia wondered what the girl had been through to stir such emotion. It was something she would linger over at a later time. Now, the goddess shook her head to clear it and focused on the question Jörmungandr had posed.

"My father, the god of war." She stroked him once more in a gentle apology, then dropped her hand in her lap. "And my mother, though if they are together in this place, it may be some time before they separate enough for a reunion with others."

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Re: wallflowering in the ballroom: Harmonia

jormungandr
2010-11-16 07:00 pm UTC (link)

He pulled away as her hand withdrew, settling back onto the floor in a tight coil. His green eyes watched her closely, reading in her expression and poise the signs of a sort of tension and sorrow he could identify, but to which he could not fully relate. Some degree of discomfort seemed to wane as she discussed her parents, and her thinly veiled reference to their feelings for each other seemed almost an attempt at humor. For a moment, Jörmungandr seemed to smile. They like one another, he observed. That is good, I assume. Do you think they are here? He raised his head, as if seeking out some spiritual signature hidden in the air, some hint of who these other presences were, or had been. I should not keep you, if you wish to look for them.

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