Introduction
“There will come a day when you realize that all I’ve said is true. You’ll notice the horror that awaits you up ahead, but you won’t be able to stop moving towards it. You’ll realize that there’s no escape for you, no backspace, no detours, and though it may be fate that you kill me here, it is also fate that I get my revenge on you. Even the kingdoms of gods are just playthings for other gods, and even though I’ve died here, I’ll be painting your fate one universe above you… Heh… be sure to take good care of my daughter, boy.”
He was always afraid of words. They were such careless things, so easily made, but they had power over people. They have power over him. That’s why he wasn’t one for talking. When he was quiet, he could almost forget it all. He only had to suffer at night when his soul cursed him in dreams for keeping his agony so close to his heart. He only had to suffer when the darkness smothered out all distractions and left him in an empty room with nothing to do but wait for his insides to leak out. That’s the only time he had to suffer if he could just shut up for the rest of his life. But it was never that easy. He couldn’t be silent, so even the day tormented him. Because of her, the vampires could creep just as flawlessly in day as night. Just looking at her inspired fear. She had power over him. Just like words. It’s true he wouldn’t mind that much if she’d just asked him for actions—he could surrender actions in the day just fine; they were distractions, and he needed and liked distractions—but he knew it was words she wanted. Every day, every goddamned day, he’d watch her—wondering if today was the day she’d ask him to cut out his soul and present it to her on one of their shattered serving plates. It wouldn’t even be a whole one, he knew, because she wouldn’t understand his fragmented words and the shards would pierce both her hands for touching the subject and his heart for revealing itself in the unforgiving air. Living like this was starting to destroy him. He now understood why her father had ordained this as his punishment. At night he was cursed with insomnia and nightmares. In the day he lived in fear and flashbacks. He couldn’t escape from it anymore. It was a hideous, primal monster that chased him day and night without rest. He was going to break. His emotion was bound to slip out eventually. Then she would know. They would all know. And his promise would be broken.
He knew it was going to happen eventually. He followed her every order without fail until it did, resigning himself to objective recital that would hopefully spare him any outburst. But he couldn’t delete his emotions—as much as he hid them, they were still there. So when she finally called him in one night and looked him in the eyes and “Tell me why you killed my father” fell off her tongue, he couldn’t do it. Everything fell apart—just like the old man said it would—and he realized for the first time just how damned he was. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look her in the eyes and see all his shame shot back to him along with whatever hatred she mixed into the powder. For the first time she saw his weakness; she saw the suffering he tried so hard to restrain. And then his promises were broken. He’d cried in front of her and ran from his punishment. He broke his oath to always obey his master. And for the first time, everyone knew that he hadn’t been a dog chained and forced to do what he was told. They knew he’d been collarless this whole time. He did what they said by force of will. It was never because of some cursed mark bestowed on him by that damned old man he killed that night. They all knew it was true, now that he’d fled in tears instead of telling her what she wanted to know.
They all knew the secret, now. And he knew they’d want to know more. They’d want to know why he stayed and listened and why he ran and what happened that day and all the answers would just beget more questions and rather than face the wrath of all those words and memories that he only wanted to bury he would rather just die and face that damned old man that predicted it all. He had abandoned his pride long ago, but it still hurt to know that man was right about everything. It hurt to know that if he was right about all the pain that chased him up to this point, he was probably right about the monster that waited in ambush just ahead in the darkness. He was probably right when he said there was no escape.
After running that night, he ran for another two years. For two years he tried to outwit his fate. But in the end he knew. He was doomed. The old man was definitely watching him, and no form of recompense would save him from a dead God’s vengeance. So after running for two years and trying to postpone the inevitable for one, he returned to the door of his master and resigned himself to living without completely falling apart.
Details:
I'm looking for someone to play a goddess named Alexandria. Exactly what kind of Goddess she is is totally up to you. From Gabriel's perspective, she likes to pick things apart. To fully understand the inner workings of things. She likes honesty and complexity. That's just his view of things, though. She could be the complete opposite. He's not the most stable and sensible person there ever was.
Setting:
Basically, there are several universes all nested inside each other and when a person dies they just move one universe up. Each universe has a different level of "magic" than any of the others. For example, the one above us has a substantial amount while ours has very little. Her father was known to have a greater degree of magic than this world permitted, and that's because he was originally a god from the world above ours who created this world and came down to rule it. Since at least part of Alexandria's bloodline is from the upper universe, she too has more magic than this world allows. The only problem is she hasn't been trained in how to use it (because her father died when she was pretty young, and Gabriel wasn't 'technically' her... eh... "familiar" until she came of age to be considered the god of this world. You should also note that gods are immortal in the fact they won't die of old age, but they can die of sickness, overuse of abilities, and physical wounds. Basically any kind of unnatural death. Poison, for instance, would kill a god). Actual age is more or less irrelevant after 18-30ish years, as physically, gods age really slowly after that point. The actual age to be considered god... well... um... Gabriel doesn't really know. He didn't attend the coronation (is that what gods do?) or anything like that. He was too busy running around somewhere.
Alexandria doesn't really know what powers she has. There's basic things like "creating" life and natural objects, ordaining births and deaths, creating universes... knowing the feelings of peoples' hearts, seeing good and evil (and grey area), seeing people's pasts... stuff like that. But she can't reliably do any of that--and she doesn't necessarily know what all she has the capability of doing--because she was never taught. There are no other gods around, after all.
She could probably do some of this stuff subconsciously, like accidentally killing humans without realizing it or feeling some lingering feelings of a person or seeing a flashback/fragment of a person she walks by or thinks about. Other stuff must be taught or learned by trial and error. Gabriel is kind of there to teach her about stuff, (though he hasn't really done his job yet) since he was pretty close to her father when he was alive. Well, alive down here.
Here's some kind of foreshadowing / inspiration on some of her powers:
There's the possibility that she could have the natural ability to control a sort of element. So, for example, she could manipulate a type of crystal and basically be like Elsa (from Frozen) for lack oof a better example. Any type of natural element could be a candidate for this power. That's kind of rare though. Her father couldn't do that. (Or could he? Heh heh heh...)
The world itself is earth--but it's a different plane of earth. It shares the same space as earth, but the humans and human buildings aren't tangible or visible to the angels, and vice versa. Sometimes it's possible to see misty ghost-like projections of the other plane. This occurrence, on the human plane, is what started banter of ghosts. There's a total of three known planes, though one is rather mysterious, and a doorway in each allows you to become tangible in a different plane.
The angelic realm (plane) is really misty, bright, and godly. A lot of the buildings would be similar to Greek architecture in the main city, but some in the more nature/forest regions would be constructed with stone and other natural building materials.
Here's some of the civilized areas:
There's also ruins, like this:
And this is the angelic portal:
And this is a forest region:
Lifestyle would be up to you. She was basically a princess while one of the archangels played god until she was old enough. She can be as close or as distant to the people of the angelic region as you want. She could have a love interest, too. Maybe the archangel who played god? That could make for some drama later.
Rough Timeline:
Gabriel killed her father a good while ago, and then eventually he became a familiar to the Archangel that was playing god. There were periods of time that he (the angel) just sent him off to do odd jobs for other people in the realm. He was kind of like a messenger, general mechanic, and soldier.
Then Gabriel became Alexandria's familiar when she became god. (He didn't attend the ceremony, though.)
That didn't last too long, since she would've asked him about her father relatively quickly. He then ran around for three years doing secret things and came back. That's now.
Oh--I forgot to tell you. Another one of god's powers is placing curse marks on people. The exact consequences and effects of this power are generally unknown, as it's pretty abstract and not often used. Everyone thought Gabriel was given one by her father on the night he died, and that was why he listed to whatever he was told. There was another reason why they thought he had a mark, but she doesn't know about it.
So yeah. I hope you can tell that this is going to be more complicated than it might've originally seemed.
I'll elaborate more if you have any questions.
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As he left the surrounding night for the innards of the palace, he dimly wondered where and when this sudden eloquence had broken into his soul, but it didn’t loiter around long enough for him to take any real notice. No pretty words could change the truth of the matter. Her palace was a prison. A pound for hopeless tramps and strays like him and an adventure for the obedient and trusting pedigrees like everyone else. It was a prison. But it was only his prison, and as such the bars were visible only to him. No one else really noticed how everything got darker the more steps you take inside. No one noticed how cold it was. How empty. How dark.
It was quite a long time before he reached the darkest place of all. No—it was the second darkest place. His room was the darkest. His empty room with nothing but bars and chains and airless darkness. Her room was the second darkest. That’s what he realized as he stared darkly at the door of her room. There weren’t any bars in her room, for some reason. Her room was the only place that wasn’t a prison. It took him a minute to remember why, but he regretted thinking about it when he did. Why wasn’t the second darkest room a prison cell? He knew why. It was an execution chamber. The place where god died. When he thought about it, staring at her door, he started to wonder if she knew that her father was killed there. If it was him, he wouldn’t want to lay in the same place someone else died. But then again, that’s exactly what he used to do.
He stared at the door for a few minutes before he started to realize how stupid it was. No one else saw this place as he did—the darkness was only reflected in his eyes. And because of that he was more afraid of the door than actually facing what he’d done. So he decided he didn’t have to go through the door. He didn’t even have to touch it. Well, maybe he had to touch it. The old man would want him to suffer for running off for three years, and touching the door seemed like a good way to do that. Maybe if he started his own suffering it wouldn’t be as bad. And maybe Alexandria wasn’t even in there. It’d been three years, after all. Maybe he could just lean against the door and start talking and do what he should’ve done then, and be rewarded with a clean conscience without all the trouble of facing her again. Maybe he could slip out before morning and no one would ever know. Maybe there was some god out there that loved him.
“I… um… you asked me… why I killed your old man…,” he whispered, stalking the door to lean a fist and a forehead on it. As he continued, he couldn’t quite keep his voice at a steady volume. It fluctuated somewhere between a breath and a low, strained murmur, like he couldn’t quite decide if he should be a man about it—quietly, of course; there was no need to wake anyone else in the palace—in case she wasn’t there or do everything in his power not to be heard if she was. “…Three years ago… well, three years and twenty-two days…uh, not that I counted or anything… or kept track from the beginning... damn it. I, uh… I have to answer you sooner or later… since I… well, ran away in tears like a little… you know what, let’s just start this over. I’m sure you’re sleeping anyway… in a room… that isn’t this one… God… Why didn’t I… why the hell didn’t I practice this shit? God damn it… I had three years… I shoulda practiced…”
He fell silent for a moment, listening to the air behind the door, trying to judge if she was there or not. It probably wasn’t too late to run again. He’d done it once right in front of her, so what was the shame of doing it again like this? She might not even be there.
But the old man was. It was a scary thought—one that he hadn’t fully grasped before. Her dad already had it coming to him for running—he knew that much—so to even think about running again was just… man… what had he become? And why was talking so damn hard for him? Was he always this much of a pussy? He couldn’t quite remember. That worried him.
“I… um… are you… are you there? Alexandria… about what happened…with the old man… I… I made a deal with him, once… I exchanged my life for… well… something I thought… was important to me… but I didn’t… I didn’t understand the price I would pay. So when he… he… took… something from me… something I wasn’t expecting him to take… I killed him because I didn’t realize it was part of the price... I killed your father because I wanted revenge… I killed him because I was stupid…,“ realizing something, he backed away from the door to shake his head. “I should’ve just said that when you’d asked… I killed him because I was stupid.”
He knew a simple answer like that—blaming it on stupidity—would’ve never satisfied her. Hell, he didn’t even know if his legitimate answer would satisfy her. That’s partially why he was internally petrified. Would the master still tolerate the mutt that not only killed her father, but ran away when he was supposed to be making up for it? Making up for it…? Well, as much as a mutt could make up for biting all his previous masters. “I’m sorry failing your command before.”
- 1 posts here • Page 1 of 1
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Eternal Shadows
by incendium on Sun Feb 08, 2015 4:31 pm
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Eternal Shadows
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Re: Eternal Shadows
So I read everything over, and I'd like to take a crack at playing Alexandria. That said, there are still some things I think I'd need to know about her before I was fully comfortable doing that, and as you've mentioned, there are compatibility issues to be assessed as well. Is there a particular way you think we'd be best off starting that process? Of course, if you find yourself no longer in need of a taker, I'll not be offended.
-V
Eternal Shadows
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