Rory (badasswings) wrote in valloic, @ 2023-03-28 17:19:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ~plot: future vallo, ₴ inactive: aurora morningstar, ₴ inactive: lucifer morningstar |
She was aware of what had happened to her counterpart in this time. She was Thralled, but still alive, which meant at some point she could come back if this plan turned out. She was also aware that the versions of Lucifer and Sabrina were both alive, here, and as well as they could be in a place like this.
Rory was aware that there were a number of people here who were watching her, and probably every other Outlander who had arrived from the past. Their faces weren’t expected in this time or place. She didn’t pay them much attention though, instead she focused on trying to locate this version of her dad, or Sabrina. Whichever one she found first could likely take her faster to the the other.
Lucifer meandered aimlessly as he did just about every day, no destination in mind and nothing but the steady stream of his own failures to keep him company. At some point he would head for Sabrina’s place of residence but maybe he’d find something along the way to bring as some kind of apology for his presence dropping in unexpectedly, as if he didn’t most days. He took a deep draw off the joint in his hand and let the smoke twirl up into the sky. At the end of the world with a good many of his powers taken away, a perpetual high made it a little more bearable.
Rory’s appearance in front of him initially was written off as a side effect of damn good weed, an illusion of hopes he buried deep but held onto with an iron grip that maybe would someday be fruitful. When he realized she was truly there, he next jumped to the consideration that the Thralled had broken into the Outpost and, well, that was just a bloody matter of time wasn’t it? In the time it took these thoughts to jump from one to the other in his head, he stood there and stared at her, mouth slightly dropped.
Then he ran. Lucifer didn’t question the spontaneous movement without additional thought, wrapping his arms around Rory. Having gotten a good look at her, that wasn’t the appearance of a Thrall but his daughter, the product of his and Chloe’s love for each other. His daughter as she was before the evil power that had infected Vallo had gotten its clutches on her. He only released her from his tight hug to take her face in his hands. “How? How are you…how did you?”
Rory had no idea what she was expecting when she finally did spot Lucifer. If anything she was probably thrown off by his reaction. He did know people were arriving from the past, right? She returned his hug, but when she pulled and she found her face framed by his hands, the look she gave him was between confusion and concern. “From…the past? Dad, they told you they were going to bring people to the future, didn’t they?”
She didn’t pay much attention to the joint in his hands, that wasn’t exactly a new sight. It was probably easier to grow cannabis than it was to produce whisky in the end times.
With any luck, time travel worked differently here, and their arrival wasn’t any kind of time loop. This was a future she very much wanted to prevent for herself, and maybe get her future-self back from Team Psycho Asshole at the same time.
“May…be?” The leaders of the Outpost said a lot of things and aside from what was necessary for the safety of others, Lucifer tended to breeze out on anything that wasn’t related to him. He had his own tasks to go about and only pitched in when his usefulness was in questions. Given his intimacy with mortality these days, life outside of the Outpost would probably end quickly without giving him a chance to break through with Rory. The thralled one, not the one looking at him like he was madder than the Hatter himself. “I need to ask someone to give me the quick notes of their speeches,” he muttered quietly, more to himself.
Regardless of the how, here was the daughter he’d lost, the one he tried to bring back to him over and over and nearly paid the price for. Whole and celestially healthy and not a weapon hell (not their Hell) bent on killing anyone and everything. He took one last draw from the joint and tossed it away. “Bloody hell, you are really here though. Not trying to kill anyone is certainly an improvement although it did give me somewhat nostalgic feelings,” he added with a glint in his eye that one might describe as a tad off balance.
Sanity was truly overrated in the wake of the end of the world. “Wait, why are you here again? Not that I am against it in the least but knowing those in charge, they didn’t expend the magic for nothing knowing it might get this place flattened.” Good Amenadiel, he really should have paid attention when they were talking.
Somehow she wasn’t surprised that at the end of the world Lucifer was only paying half attention to what was going on around him. If any attention at all. “Some of the wizards came back in time.” she supplied, a little exasperated. “And brought some of us forward with them to help take down your big bad. Only those of us who wouldn’t have our future selves to worry about. Apparently I turned evil.” Which, good to know magic could be used against her like that. Something to watch out for.
Rory studied him for a moment, frowning. “You’re a mess.” she declared, and not the King of Debauchery kind of mess. “Yeah, I’m here. I couldn’t just leave my future self hanging. This isn’t a future I want to walk into myself.” She didn’t know how that was going to work, but it didn’t matter. Rory was going to help save her own ass, and everyone else’s who could be saved.
“Thrall. It wasn’t your fault.” One thing that hadn’t changed about Lucifer was his inability to flat out lie. He could avoid the truth but Michael was by far still the duplicitous one. The words tumbled out immediately. “You are not you,” he emphasized. They crossed that particular bridge of killing each other and worked it out long ago. Well he thought they had. Mostly.
Lucifer scratched at his jaw, fingernails making a soft sound against the several days worth of stubble. “Hey!” His mouth dropped open in outrage. “You come from the past and have no right to criticize apocalyptic chic,” he grumbled but couldn’t find it in himself to hang on to the annoyance. It was if time hadn’t passed, as if she hadn’t been taken from him, as if he hadn’t spent years hoping to see some sign of his daughter when they met out there.
“This future is bloody stupid so if you want to help stop it, by all means please do so. I made someone cry over toilet paper and it was an accident.” He may have been the Devil, moreso in just name these days, but he wasn’t that cruel. “Oh. Sabrina is around here somewhere. She does a lot of farming these days. I found her a copy of Farmville but she seems to do it because she enjoys it. To each their own, I suppose.”
He would absolutely assist her by digging in dirt but he wasn’t going to enjoy it.
Rory shrugged, she wasn’t really blaming her future self, or alternate self, or whatever for anything. But she sure as hell didn’t want the same thing happening to her in her own timeline.
“I think we both know time travel isn’t a reason that will stop me from criticizing shit.” In fact it might just make her more judgmental. “The future is supposed to be more advanced, not archaic.”
She looked around them, ignoring any of the people that passed by with odd looks for her. “I mean she’s still a witch, right? They’re supposed to be good with that shit or something.” Or maybe it was just something to do in this shithole to stay busy. “Should we go find her?”
“Yes, well, blame Invictus. Invertebraeus. Whatever its bloody name is.” Lucifer waved off the subject of the name. It didn’t deserve the attempt. “We’ve been reduced to duck and hide away from it given it has taken over everything almost.” He dug his hands into his pockets and shrugged.
Lucifer laughed harshly. “Any use of magic and minions will come calling. It knows and some of us have the fortune to have provided it sustenance.” He rolled his shoulders, the old usual way for getting his wings to appear…and nothing happened. “We are not working with what we used to here.” His voice was quieter and he stepped back, indicating Rory should follow him. “I know she will be quite happy to see you.”
“Even our power?” because she didn’t classify what they could do as magic per say. At least not when it came to her time powers and Lucifer’s ability to pull someone's desire. That was, in her mind, something beyond magic. It was celestial.
Rory watched another person walk past them who gave her a look that said that it might not be exactly true. “Will she? Or will this just make things worse?” she said skeptically. There was only one way to find out.
“How are you doing?” she asked, turning back to Lucifer and fixing him with a stare. “Actually. No diversions.” He might not lie, but he could avoid the truth if he really wanted. Everything else could wait.
“Even our power.” This world played by rules that did not exclude them the way theirs did. While it had been something new and entertaining at what time, Lucifer hated those new rules now. “Let us just say that a well placed bullet will finally answer the question as to where the Devil goes for his afterlife.”
Sabrina had been more hopeful than him from the start. It started before Rory had become Thralled and had all but been abandoned now. “She was the one who believed this would work,” he replied after a beat, “so I think yes.”
He met her gaze, chin lifting slightly, almost defiant. Rory had asked him directly and while it was her from a past that felt forever ago, he couldn’t deny the many nights he’d spent wishing for one last conversation with his daughter. “You’re gone.” Bloody emotions causing the lump in his throat as he spoke those damn words. “If I see you, there is no recognition there and you would kill me just as easily as any other and I know, I know you are gone and yet every time I try hoping something I do or say will bring you back to us.”
Lucifer looked away, to a point in the distance. “I have missed you so much. This world is a nightmare for all of us now, even those who don’t realize they still live in it.”
Of all the things she had imagined, that wasn’t one of them. He might as well have been…well, herself of Charlie. Bullets could take them out, even if they healed fast and had above human resistance. She knew some of her uncles and aunts had been killed before she had been born. Rory didn’t think anyone knew where they went. “That’s not a question that needs an answer.” she said with a flinch.
Sabrina having faith in a crazy plan wasn’t remotely shocking. Rory had some faith in it too, otherwise she didn’t think she’d show. Or maybe she would have just because it was the right thing to do. She didn’t need to know what the answer was.
At one point Rory had easily hardened herself to emotional reactions from Lucifer. But that hadn’t lasted long after meeting him, despite fighting tooth and nail to hold onto her anger fueled shield. That wasn’t something she had at her disposal now, and seeing the toll this place had on this version of her dad was heartbreaking. “She’s alive through.” which meant there was some hope, right? Whatever she said wasn’t going to be enough, so she reacted physically, pulling Lucifer into another hug, tight and as reassuring as she could make it. “If this timeline travel things works, you could get her back.”
“I believe you already know the universe does not care what we do or don’t need,” Lucifer replied with a humorless laugh. Rory grew up without a father because Hell needed a counselor, not a ruler, and in the end sacrificed part of her childhood for souls she didn’t even know.
The hug he gave back to her was just as tight, as if Rory kept him from drowning on dry land. His baby girl, the one he never got to hold but loved so dearly from afar as she grew up with family and friends he held in high regard. Who loved her. One hand cradled the back of Rory’s head as he held tightly to her. “That is why I will never stop trying,” he murmured softly. “In any world, I will always fight for you, Aurora.”
“The universe can piss off.” at least in that aspect. It wasn’t going to provide Lucifer with an answer to that if she could help it. The only reason she thought the universe might be working against them is because rules were different in Vallo. As far as she was concerned, everything at home was a result of choices.
“I know.” she knew that now, and if there was any part of other-Rory left in that Thralled state, she had to know it too. “I also happen to be great at fighting for me,” she said, attempting to bring some light into the conversation, “so let's get other-me back. She’s going to be furious.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Morningstar creed. One of many.” And one he hadn’t thought to abide by in decades. Decade? How long had it been since? Reluctantly he gave her a little more room, releasing the tight hug he had on his daughter to step back, hands resting on her upper arms. “You have no idea how long I have waited to hear those bloody words,” he stated, a slight spark of the old Lucifer appearing again as he grinned. Using the jacket sleeve, he wiped away the wetness that threatened to leak out of his eyes and then spun on a heel to face the other direction. “Right then, let’s go find Sabrina.”