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 Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 3:18 pm
Cosine picked up what looked like a piece of fish with her chopsticks and smirked as she watched Ankou get to grips with his. He was certainly doing better than the night before. Though as a deity who didn't usually eat, she felt a bit sorry for him.
"This is really good Hiro." She said to the shy man who they had met that morning for the first time.
"Thank you." He gave a shy smile and reached for a pad of note paper that his wife had left. "Ayumi left a list of things you can help with if you like. There's the garden that needs some planting and um, we're working on the school down the road, and the hospital."
As he read through the list Cosine became aware of noise outside. It had been relatively quiet until then. The odd bird, the sound of a child laughing. This sounded like several people, a group, they were singing and not very well.
Hiro looked up and glanced to the doorway.
"Uh, its the group from the temple." He muttered. "They do this sometimes, come to the town and try to convert people." He shook his head to show what an annoyance they were.
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 3:30 pm
Really, it was a wonder he wasn't outted by his chopstick skills alone. Was he not pretending to be a foreigner, he probably would have been, and eventually Ankou had just taken to stabbing pieces of fish with one chopstick whenever Hiro wasn't looking.
Hey, the important thing was that he was eating, right ?
It didn't help that the feeling was getting stronger, and now he felt like there was something nagging at him, relentlessly, like bright lights at the corner of his vision that threatened to steal his focus away.
"Uh ?" And indeed, he'd lost track of the conversation, and required some mental backtracking to figure out what had just been going on. "I can tend to the gardens... I am not too sure how good I'd be in an hospital." He mused.
And then there were the noises, and he continued to poke at his fish more-or-less successfully. "Might as well go see what the lunatics have to say, uh ?" That was pretty transparent - he wanted to go see what was going on.
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:01 pm
Cosine sipped her tea and nodded. Of course, though she tried not to look as eager as she actually was. She could feel something too, not the nagging that Ankou felt but something different. It was a feeling she did not remember but one that she once knew well.
The feeling was belief.
"Strange." She stood and walked to the doorway, pushing the curtain aside. Light flooded into the entrace of the inn and she stepped down into a pair of wooden sandles that appeared to be for guest use.
Out in the main street a mismatched group of people were stood, crowded around something ... no, someone. Some of the people appeared to be locals, others appeared to be from abroad. She stepped out into the street and watched as the person who had their focus stepped up onto a wall.
He was certainly -not- local. He was white, with thick white hair and a trimmed white beard. He was dressed like he probably thought a local would dress. In a monks robes. Though one had to wonder if they were just something that he had found at the temple. In his hand was a staff of somekind, he leaned on it as he spoke to the group assembled.
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 6:15 pm
Ankou had given one look at the sandals and found himself pondering, once more, what in hell those mortals were thinking. Therefore he preferred to take the time to put on his host's boots, even if the thought of simply stepping out barefooted had crossed his mind.
Wouldn't have been too good for the whole blending in aspect, through. However, once he stepped outside, and saw...
Well, he quickly forgot about that. It wasn't the man that had his attention, no. The man was an afterthought.
It was the staff.
No... it was the spear, for what that man was leaning on was much more than a simple staff. Finely carved ebony with an elegant silver point, adorned with long, black feathers, through some were missing bits, showing a lack of care.
That.
That was...
He had been young, when he had first touched it, when pale hands first caressed dark wood. It had been the most beautiful thing he had seen, back then, and the spear had felt right at home in his hands from the first second he'd held it to the last.
"I am pleased." He said, simply - why say anything else, when this little was enough ? They would know. Mortals, immortals, and gods alike. They would see the spear, and they would know it's wielder, no matter the shape he happened to take.
It would be symbol, tool of the trade, and weapon, all at once. Efficiency in a most beautiful package.
But something so lovely definitively deserved to be known.
"They will know you, just as they will know me. I will call you..." He whispered to the spear, as if it had a soul of it's own. It did not, but right now, it mattered little.
"Gungnir."
He had forgotten. It seemed impossible, but he had forgotten. Memory came rushing back, and it was probably the only thing that stopped him from letting go of his mortal guise and rushing back to take what was his.
How...
How had this mortal found it ?!
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:31 am
Cosine stood just outside the Inn, next to Ankou, her eyes fixed on the man. There was something terribly familiar about him. She glanced back to Ankou, sensing his agitation, there was a strange tension in the air and she was not sure that it was a good one. This man, he was certainly not a god, but then he did not seem entirely mortal either. She took a step forwards, moving closer to the group so that she could hear what he had to say.
"Listen, listen all. Come join us for I can lead you all to salvation, to a world beyond these mortal realms, where there is goodness and health. Shake free your worldly possessions, donate them to the temple devote your lives to our cause. I am Pythagoras, Number incarnate. The one god reborn on this forsaken earth to lead you to heaven." He brought the staff up in the air to gesture above. "Let us pray. Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy, holy Tetractys, thou that containest the root and source of the eternally flowing creation! For the divine number begins with the profound, pure unity until it comes to the holy four; then it begets the mother of all, the all-comprising, all-bounding, the first-born, the never-swerving, the never-tiring holy ten, the keyholder of all"** Cosine's eyebrow rose as was her habit. When she was amused it was accompanied by a smile, when she was unamused the rest of her face remained void of emotion. In this case her expression was the latter. Number incarnate? What in the name of Harmodius was he on about.
"Okay, that I did not expect." She muttered to Ankou. She was obviously happy that people were taking up belief in Number, but not at all happy that this ... whatever he was seemed to be masquerading as a God of Number.** actual pythagorean prayer to number. Here
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:32 am
It was Cosine's voice that dragged him out of the unfolding memories, not the man's. She looked... just as unamused as he was, really.
"He should stop waving it around like if it was just a stick." He all but hissed. And so it became evident that what had pissed off the Spirit Guide was much different than what had annoyed Numbers, and it never seemed to occur to him that Cosine would have no damn idea what had him so upset. In fact, he seemed just about to rush into the fray and solve the problem himself, the skin of his hands losing color until...
That girl. On the left. Long red hair, in a braid... But no, that wasn't what Ankou was looking at. There she was, the source of the feeling. She felt like Lenneth had felt.
Valkyrie.
With that ******** b*****d... What was she doing with that b*****d ?!?
It isn't him. It is Gungnir. He remembered suddenly, eyes widening, freezing in place as memory took him over again.. The spear. Gungnir as the symbol of the master of the valkyries. He who wields the spear, they obey.
If that conviction held true even if her powers were dormant... He prefered to think that, actually, than the other option. And of course, if he did anything, he might attempt to use her as a shield.
At least the way he ended up clenching his fists disguised the unnatural paleness well.
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:35 pm
Where had she seen him before. It was frustrating, rebirth, there were all these distant memories, no, not memories that was too strong a word. Nagging feelings.
She glanced to Ankou at his whispered words and studied him a moment. he looked troubled, perhaps more so than she was. About to explode and paler than usual, though only someone who knew him very well would notice. They could not afford to blow their cover now. They did not know who this man was, what he was and it was best not to mess with things unkown ... even for gods.
She reached her hand out and traced her fingers lightly over his clenched fist.
"Let's get out of here." She whispered, they could hardly discuss what they were both feeling out there in the open and she really wanted to know what was bothering him so much.
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 1:55 pm
He did not want to get out of here. He wanted to go into the fray, rip that b*****d's soul apart, and claim back what was his. But it wasn't a good idea. It really wasn't a good idea. What was the point to have worked so hard to build their cover, only to throw it all away now ?
And yet Gungnir was here, so close and yet so far, and he had forgotten a part of himself that he might have considered unforgettable, before the fading. It felt like someone had yanked a part of him away and was now dangling it right in front of his nose, and there was nothing he could do about it.
It felt like everything he had done in his rebirth did not matter, not compared to this.
But Cosine was right. As much as he hated it, Cosine was right.
He wordlessly turned and entered the inn again, turning his back on what had been his - if only temporary. It felt almost like if some unseen hand had slapped him.
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:10 pm
Cosine was not letting him go to rip anybody's soul out just yet. The last thing he needed was to scare the mortals. Of course, as a god a certain ammount of fear was needed, but also respect. That was what she believed anyway. She knew many would disagree.
She said nothing until they were back in the room they had been assigned. Calmly she closed the door, wandered back into the main room and took one, deep breath.
"Okay. I am not entirely sure what just happened. I saw a man pretending to be a god, what did you see?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:32 pm
Ankou was also silent, through that was also probably for the better. He was also forcing his own breathing, trying to calm himself down.
From the look of it, it wasn't working too well, with how badly he was shaking. "That... That was mine !"
Not helpful, Spirit Guide. "Son of a b***h..." Not helpful either. Another set of deep breaths. "The spear. That was Gungnir. That was mine."
And he hadn't remembered, before now. Hadn't thought, ever, that maybe, just maybe, he'd been missing something all this time. Suddenly Nergal's obsession with the past almost made sense. He could feel himself threatening to break down to it, to want nothing but to stay on a standstill and try to remember exactly what else he might have forgotten.
"I can't remember what happened, I can't remember where the hell I left it, I can't remember just how the ******** b*****d could have found it !" This wasn't working, and the urge to just punch something (preferably that old coot of a mortal who had dared to touch Gungnir without his permission) seemed unrelenting.
So instead he sat on one of the bed, and clutched his own head so hard that his knuckles were turning white again. That was fine. The pain was rooting him to reality. "He had a valkyrie with him... Drawn in by Gungnir, no doubt. ******** little..."
Well, it was pretty evident what Ankou planned to do to this pretender once he finally got his hand on him.
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:56 pm
Cosine watched and listened, she said nothing until he had finished. Though, really she had no idea what he was talking about. His words were tangled around each other. Whatever it was, it clearly made him very angry. She'd never heard him use that kind of language before, well, not since his rebirth, his host had been pretty foul mouthed.
She sank down to sit next to him on the futon.
"Slow down." She wanted to understand what he was talking about. Needed to understand, especially as it was related to the weirdo outside.
"what is Gungnir? And ... Valkyrie?" She thought he had mentioned them before, but she was not one hundred percent sure. "I recognised him. It must from the time before but I just can't grasp it. Do you think he could be an aoide?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:27 pm
Slow down. Oh, he was trying, but it was a lot to take in, very quickly. The feeling of so badly wanting something that he hadn't even known had existed five minutes ago was... overwhelming.
Her touch did made him untense, just a bit. "Gungnir is the spear that he was holding. It was my... weapon, and at the same time a symbol of... who I was. What I am." He wasn't sure if was or am was the most correct wording here. "It helped hone my own powers in. I could call to any dead soul I wished with it, as long as I knew it's name, no matter their location." He could find them, yes. He could make them follow him, yes. But this kind of summoning had been outside his influence - without Gungnir, it would have been impossible. "He's taken a shitty care of it, for one. It's missing feathers." He snorted.
"Gungnir was the symbol of the leader of the valkyries. They are drawn to whoever own it, and will consider the wielder as a master. The valkyries... They were ageless. They helped me gather souls. I handpicked them out of the dead coming in for Judgement, made them... something greater than they could ever have otherwise been." He went silent as he remembered, suddenly, the first time Hrist had looked at him, but he pushed it away.
"There is one, Hrist... Who was reborn through a mortal shell. You might know her better as Lenneth." He was sure that they must have met, since she had lived in with them even before he had been certain. "I felt the same thing I felt within Lenneth in the redhead near him. She was calling for me..."
He blinked, quite suddenly. "They're gone..." The nagging feeling that he'd felt had lessened, but not gone entirely - but the feeling that had overtaken him upon seeing the spear was gone. His want for it wasn't gone, far from it, but... it was less overwhelming.
"I have no idea what he might be." He admitted. "If you remember him in some way... Then... Ageless at the very least. Through, if he has any idea what he's holding in his hands... If he has any idea how to truly use the spear... He could be extremely dangerous."
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:39 am
How strange, she thought, that they would come so far to find something that was hers yet they found something very significant of Ankou's. Gungnir it rang no bells with her, though why should it? She had no real memories of others before the fading. Of Ankou.
"Lenneth, yes, we have met." She said softly, she had seen her around and about though they had not spoken much.
As he continued her mind ran over the evidence and possibilities. Ageless, he must be, to still be around.
"He must have stolen it perhaps? Or found it? Our belongings are scattered about the many worlds." Just like temples, aoide, everything.
"We need to be cautious then? We don't want to provoke him."
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 12:27 pm
"I just... I can't remember letting go of it. It was always with me." He frowned - still irritated but now coherent, at least. Small victories.
Of course, he didn't remember fading. That must have been then. What other way could someone had stolen it away ? But even then... wouldn't the valkyries have guarded it ? "But that is the most logical explanation." He had to admit.
"Again, it all depends. If he doesn't know how to use it... Then it's a spear. Probably able to wound a god, but nothing that we can handle. If he knows how to use it, through..." He frowned. "Then things get a little more complicated." For Cosine, really. He would be able to see the summoned souls, and attempt to wrestle the man for dominance, but her... not so much.
"Through we can't let this lie." That was completely and utterly out of the question - he wasn't leaving this world without Gungnir, that was for sure. "Doubly more so if he is conning these people..." And pretending to be her, apparently, which he also wasn't happy with.
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Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:47 pm
"I agree." Ankou clearly needed the spear returned and if there was a valkyrie involved. The thought of this man manipulating people, especially people that thought they were following her. It was comforting to know there were those willing to believe, but to be led blindly did not make her happy at all. She was as pissed off as Ankou, though she kept it hidden beneath her calm expression.
"We need to get in close, to find out exactly what he knows, if he knows anything at all." She glanced up at Ankou and smiled. "Ever fancied joining a cult?"
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