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 Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 12:26 pm
The ground was damp underfoot, not from rain but the cooling of the day. The sun was low in the sky, the blues turning to pale oranges and pinks, getting ready for darkness to take over.
Ankou and Cosine were stood in what had once been a forest. The trees were bare, scarred by the ravages of destruction. Some life had returned though, under foot there was grass, some small flowers, moss on the trees and shoots of those that in a couple of hundred years would replace the forest.
Through the bare trees they could see the outline of buildings, lights coming on within the windows as the light began to fade.
"This must be it, the town. Where the temple is." Cosine looked up to Ankou and smiled. "it seems peaceful doesn't it?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 9:58 pm
Yes, he remembered this place. He remembered it, remembered this very sight - through without the backdrop of oranges fading into dusky pinks backing it.
It was breathtaking, in it's own way, through clearly still ravaged. Maybe, if he could pin down Forest in between councils matters, he would like to come here and try to help breathe new life into it's place.
"Yes, that's the right place." He said, softly, wrenching himself from his thoughts. "The path leading down the town is abrupt and in disrepair." Just a warning, really - would they be flying, it wouldn't matter, but...
Well.
Ankou wasn't planning to fly. First matters first, through... "Do you remember how to shapeshift ?" Many didn't, which... well, had always felt startling to him.
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 7:44 am
Cosine breathed the scents of the unfamiliar land in and glanced from the path to Ankou.
"Is it impossible to navigate?" She asked, surely they would be able to manage it, even if it was a bit of a hike. "And um, no?" She gave a slightly pained look. She did feel a bit useless sometimes. The past was like a giant wall that she could not see over or scale.
"How do you know all these things." Her smile returned and she gave him a nudge with her arm. "Show me how, maybe it will jog my memory."
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:34 am
"No, not impossible, but best taken slowly." Unless one fancied tumbling down the path rather than following it downward. He doubted Cosine fancied that.
He reached out to give her shoulder a light squeeze - reassuring. "Not many remember, I have found." He admitted. "Perhaps I do because... These were things that I did, always. Before the fading. Surely..." Some gods ruled from above, content with sending their servants down to the mortal worlds below to be small and diminished. He remembered, a little more clearly now, with time and growth. Yes, there had been the valkyries... But they had not been alone. He had gone, as well, always. All the time. Day after day, Age after age, without end...
Until it eventually did. But... he couldn't remember that. Still, show he would - he closed his eyes, and focused.
It came easily to him, like simply picking bits and pieces and applying them to his form as if it had simply been mutable putty. White hair turned a deep black, grew longer, to mid-back length. Wings faded away, sliding out of sight but not truly gone. His skin lost the blue tint, but remained pale - so pale that it looked nearly strange against the dark hair. He looked younger, also, and there was something in his face that definitively looked like the host, long gone - but perhaps the easiest bits to recall were the ones that had once belonged to the body, not that Ankou himself noticed.
When he opened his eyes, through, they were still that bright, gold on gold. It threw the whole guise off, slightly, but as long as one didn't focus on them... "Did that help ?" He asked.
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:03 am
Slowly, she could do that. She decided looking off down into the valley where more lights had come on in the village. She turned back to Ankou and watched as he shifted. Of course he made it seem effortless, the changing of some features, others staying where they were. Perhaps it was that simple.
"i doubt I ever changed before." She smirked a little. "That would have involved the idea of socialising."
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She focused, tried to connect to something within herself. Her core. She kept her eyes shut tightly, like Ankou visualising change, after a few moments, nothing happened.
"Heh." She muttered, opening her eyes. "I suppose it's not as easy as you make it look." Cosine puffed her cheeks out and looked at the pretty sun set. "I'll try again."
This time she closed her eyes and tried harder. Reaching right down inside, she knew she wanted to blend in as much as possible. She visualised her wings disolving, again, for a moment nothing happened, then slowly they began to fade. She kept her appearance for the most part, her dark hair, tanned skin and bright green eyes. The advantage of being one of the more normal deities. The green tint of her lips dulled to a more human colour, though she kept green feathers that covered her ears.
"Did it work?" she asked, her eyes still shut.
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:27 am
"I wouldn't know for sure." He'd never struggled with it, not really - once he finally had remembered, the rest had come easily.
"Socializing ? What's that ?" He commented, amused. He still wasn't the most social or approachable god around, really, but yet, this was leaps and bounds beyond what he had once been.
Ankou waited through Cosine's attempts patiently, offering encouragement to the goddess until, after a few minute, she managed to get it right. Not that different, compared to him, but it would do nicely. Travelers from a far-away village... Yes, that might work nicely. He knew the communication in between the different communities was still spotty at best, the networks not yet completely recovered from Gehenna.
"Yes, it worked just fine." He nodded, even if Cosine couldn't see it. "You might want to pretend the feathers are earrings of sort if anyone ask, through..." There were things they couldn't change about themselves, he'd learned that much in experimentation. No matter what he did and how much he tried, his eyes always remained the same.
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:30 pm
Cosine smiled and gave him a salute.
"Aye Captain." She looked to the village again and breathed in. "Should we wait for morning? It might be hard to navigate down there in the dark?" People might also be more on their guard. "We should work on our story? So we can answer questions. i'm sure they will be rather curious. For example, why we left our home? What brings us there. Who we are?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 4:55 pm
A plan, of course. He had rough ideas of a plan, himself, but it wouldn't be so bad to bulletproof it. He wasn't used to do elaborartes plans, himself - experience had told him that he'd likely wind up improvising, anyway, so why waste time ?
But Cosine had a point about that, and also a point about the dark. "Not a bad idea." He settled to sit, then, against a large pine - bark still ripped and destroyed in places, through it showed signs of healing.
"Well, the communications in between towns in still spotty at best - we can use that to our advantage." He mused. "The nearest big town is more upward the continent, a few day's worth of travel... We could simply say we wanted to relocate." Really, she was better at this than he was.
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Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 10:39 am
Cosine sank down to sit next to him under the bare tree. Planning was definitely her thing. Logistics and organisation, she could combine these skills with her love for trashy novels to come up with a suitable backstory. Hopefully a realistic one.
"Well, yes, that is a good plan." she said, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. "Relocate, why though? Perhaps our families are dead or maybe we were isolated and have run out of resources. Or both." She smiled and shrugged. "Searching for a better life."
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Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 4:40 pm
It probably was a good thing that Ankou didn't know that trashy novels were part of the plan. He'd probably worry, then.
One hand did move to wind up at her side when she did take place beside him, holding her close.
"Hn." He pondered out loud. "Both sounds valid and, well... easily believable, thanks to the weeks. This world hasn't fully recovered yet. It is... Perhaps the location of the worlds on Yggdrasil itself matter ?" He mused. "The further away they are from the 'center', the longer it takes for the Crown's influence to reach out fully..."
Maybe. He had no idea.
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Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 2:10 pm
"I think so." She leaned her head on his shoulder and looked out into the forest. "I've noticed that the area around the pantheon is much more developed than places beyond. It's like there is a concentration of power there. Which, I suppose is true. If all the gods are there." she looked up at him and smiled. "It's good to see some growth though, and communities coming together to rebuild. Even us, the gods. We are talking to each other, helping each other. Forging alliances that were not there before perhaps?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:43 pm
"...Yes, probably..." He mused. At any rate, these seemed to be potential for more that could have happened before - he'd never been much present at the old pantheon, and Cosine had been completely different...
And it was only just the two of them... Every god was different, if only slightly. That could open up opportunities that weren't there before, perhaps.
"I do remember that I was rarely at the old pantheon." He elaborated. "I either wandered all the time... or was in the Underworld."
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:34 am
"I think I spent a lot of time at the old pantheon. Probably rarely left. I think I spent much time in the library and hiding. I never want to be like that again." it was true, she enjoyed the new friend she had made and the adventures she had gotten to go on.
"I suppose you'll be going back to the underworld though? I'd like to go one day, to see it. I must have been in the past but I don't remember any of it."
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:19 pm
"I figure, through... I never stayed down there that long, either." Always on the move, always, always, always...
Death never slept.
Talking about how they once had been did make him realize just how little he actually remembered. It wasn't something he'd pondered on at length, before - he had always been more focused on remembering how to do things, remembering his own abilities, rather than actual memories. Some things he'd remembered - like the valkyries - but a lot was... missing.
But ultimately, it was the future that matter.
"Beside." He grinned. "You're certainly too lovely to stay holed up in a library all the time."
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:16 pm
"I'll have to come and pester you then. If I can find you." That was quite a sad thought. Not that she expected their relationship to be anything like a mortal one. They were gods, they had their own things to be getting on with. But, she did miss Ankou a lot when he was wandering.
"You won't forget about me will you? When your journeys get longer."
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