tushanshu_logs | I don't Wanna Battle from Beginning to End

"My quarrel is not with you." Raphael replied mildly, recognition finally flitting through his eyes. "Though it seems the sword is not the only suitable weapon around for said quarrel."

Valdis said nothing, though she did consider lowering her arm to a defensive stance. Anani stopped hissing, but the cat still appeared agitated. Raphael tore his gaze away from the dagger and looked at her again.

"Hiding behind a man? The archangel questioned, "The queen I knew wouldn't show such weakness."

"I'm trying a new strategy." Valdis countered, "Besides, right now, all you are is talk."

"For now..."

"You're here and you're threatening someone I have responsibility to. That makes your quarrel with me," Devin said flatly. "And correct me if I'm wrong, but queens have pawns for a reason."

Certainly, he'd let Valdis fight her battles if she wanted to, but two against one wasn't bad odds. He'd generally prefer she stay alive, although that had more of a powerful draw than it usually did.

Valdis looked at Devin, eyes narrowed at his comment, surprised by his words, and even more by the accompanying resolve behind them.

"Responsibility? Raphael asked, eyes moving back to Devin,
"And it is my responsibility to end this creature. Pawn or not, I'd prefer to avoid extraneous casualties."

"Devin," Valdis said, lowering her arm to rest it on the table, "I'd like you to meet the Archangel Raphael, my father."

Raphael looked at her, and for a moment she though he looked sad, but his eyes quickly filled with anger.

"Your luck won't last forever."

Ah. Those were some puzzle pieces he hadn't put together before. He studied Raphael like he was an incredibly fascinating insect.

"This has very little to do with luck, archangel." Liquid electricity crawled down his spine as the aspect flared again, and the vampire stepped towards their unwelcome visitor. "Your responsibility ended with your life. If you want your afterlife to continue, get out."

Raphael didn't move, though Valdis rose after a moment's hesitation, still holding the bandage to the cut. She didn't know why Devin felt so on edge, the minor irritation of her father shouldn't have affected him like this.

"You are not what you seem." Raphael almost seemed surprised, but in the next moment, he began to fade from view.

"And that," Valdis said after her father had gone, "Is why I called you."

She sat back down, lifting her arm again.

"He's not so much a problem when he can't move Revelations, but when he can...well, my poor mattress can speak to that."

It took a few seconds after Raphael disappeared, but Devin relaxed enough to put away the Genesis dagger. He spared it an almost confused glance before returning it to a sheath under his jacket.

"I can see where the problem is, yes," he agreed, returning to the table. He picked up some gauze and poured some antiseptic on it, relying on the familiar nature of the actions to steady his mind. "I haven't heard of them being able to physically interact with us before," Devin continued, frowning. If his family came back, he was in trouble. "This is going to sting," he warned her, before moving the bandage to clean around her wound.

Valdis watched Devin, concerned by how he looked at the dagger, by how he had acted around Raphael. Her lip twitched at the sharp scent of the anti-septic, and she took a breath when he moved the bandage and began to tend to the wound. It stung, drawing a short hiss, but the pain wasn't unbearable.

"I hadn't either," she said, trying to focus on something other than the sting, "So you can probably imagine my surprise."

She wanted to ask him about the aspect, but there didn't seem a way to work it in tactfully.

"You were...very on edge around Raphael." She commented, "More so than was warranted."

Devin exhaled slowly, reaching for the sutures. He didn't speak again until he'd threaded the needle. The kit had a topical numbing agent, but nothing designed for subdermal. Valdis had probably dealt with worse than getting sewn up.

"I did tell you that you would not be the only one the changes in the planes would affect," he reminded her. "It's been happening for a few days. Try not to move much, this won't take long."

That was true, he had told her to be on alert for how the heightened activity of the planes might affect others, she simply hadn't expected it to affect him. She took a breath, knowing that stitches would probably be unpleasant, but she recalled him saying he had lots of practice in a previous conversation, so hopefully they would at least look pretty.

"You did," she agreed, "I suppose I'm simply confused as to how it would make you more... protective, I guess." She looked away from him, away from the where the stitching would take place, a very human thing to do, but she couldn't help it. "Mine make me more likely to murder people, so I guess that's more along the lines of what I was expecting."

It would, at the very least, heal neatly if she didn't seek magical assistance for it (or if that would even work). He started on the sutures, working carefully but efficiently.

"I didn't anticipate that either, if I'm being perfectly honest. Perhaps he and the version of Raphael from my world weren't on good terms," Devin replied. "I've never been told much about him, for reasons that haven't been adequately explained. I do know that he's not meant to be accessible."

Valdis never imagined she'd end up sitting patiently while someone else tended to an injury in such a mortal manner. The smooth needlework pinched every so often, but otherwise didn't bother her much, she was too busy thinking about the aspect for the discomfort to take her attention.

"He might not be meant to be accessible," she said absently, "But that doesn't mean he isn't...I once spoke to someone imprisoned inside of his own mind. True, he tried to kill me later, but that seems to be how most of my friendships begin."

Valdis was proving a model patient as far as the stitches went. He arched an eyebrow at her. That was an odd way of making friends.

"I'm led to believe he's not especially murderous," Devin hedged, talking around Abaddon's abilities. Angel of Death, yes, but random acts of killing weren't his purpose. "How did you manage to speak with someone trapped like that?"

Valdis winced at a particularly sharp pinch, but she didn't jerk away. Devin's interest in the mechanics of her conversation with Vergil was a welcome distraction.

"It's an ability I discovered under some fairly intense circumstance, but after some practice, I found I could walk in the soul planes of others. Essentially, I send my soul into a place where I can converse with the soul itself. Interact with memories, speak with other entities...It's not particularly dangerous as long as I follow the rules." She laughed, "Discovering those rules has been somewhat interesting though."

Vergil had only been the first step.

"You continue to have unseen depths, Lady Valdis," he commented wryly. He could admit to being curious about the ability, but was simultaneously wary. Some secrets were meant to stay that way - but if they were going to unravel regardless, perhaps it would be better if Devin knew what to expect.

"The limits of any new ability have to be understood in order to use it to it's fullest extent. What kind of rules are there?"

"When you're as old as I am, you tend to have many faces and just as many, if not more, secrets."

She sighed, "Let's see...The most obvious one is that my physical body is defenseless while I'm soul walking. The next one is the longer I stay, the harder it is to actually maintain the connection between my soul and physical form. Another is that I can affect magic contained within the soul plane, but there are consequences to it. When I tried to release Vergil, the physical strain almost killed me and the magic ended up being too strong to affect permanently anyway." A short pause, "I can relive memories, but only the ones presented by the person whose soul I'm in, though I've never tried to sift through on my own, I'm not sure it would go well. If the person's soul plane rejects me, well, I'm not sure trying to stay would go over well."

She winced again, and again resisted the urge to jerk her arm away. He had to be almost done, or perhaps it just seemed like it was taking forever, time didn't seem to be moving right.

"Oh, I also can't do it over long distances, there has to be physical contact to stabilize the ability."

Edited 2017-11-07 01:33 (UTC)

Devin listened as he continued to stitch her injury closed; it would be ideal if he had some subcutaneous numbing agent, but that wasn't the kind of thing you got off the shelf, even in this city. Resources needed to be apportioned properly.

"I imagine letting your soul go wandering around freely isn't considered worth the risk on top of everything else," he remarked. "So, basically you can only maintain it safely or at all if the person consents to your presence." Abaddon might kick her out swiftly, if it weren't Devin empowered to make that decision. His soul was elsewhere, after all. "How aware is the person of what you're doing? Souls don't really have nerve endings."

By the time he finished speaking, he was starting to tie off the neat line of sutures, knotting one and carefully to ensure they didn't unravel or pinch her skin.

"Not necessarily," Valdis admitted, "I once did it without permission and did not experience any ill affects, but it's safer, not to mention more ethical, to gain permission first."

His curiosity over this particular ability didn't make much sense, but it was welcome distraction from the stitching.

"As far as I can tell, they don't feel anything. There was one instance, with another immortal, where I touched upon some sensitive memories and he relived them with me, but that hasn't happened with others."

Valdis looked over as he finished, eyeing the sutures with a sort of morbid curiosity. She had seen stitches before, but having them in her own skin seemed strange.

Her examination of the sutures was almost amusing; she healed from everything else, so this must be a rare experience for her. Devin selected one of the clean bandages and began wrapping it around Valdis' arm - tight enough that it wouldn't fall off, but loose enough that it wouldn't constrict blood flow.

"You'll need to have these changed daily, if not twice," he instructed. "Keep it clean. The sutures can be removed in about a week, if you heal well." Devin was quiet for a moment or two more while he secured the bandage. "The ability is intriguing - I'll admit to wanting answers about what's happening to me," he said, gathering up the items that needed disposal. "And about the possibility of something unexpected and unwelcome occurring because of the planar shifts. I'm not convinced it's worth the risk, however. It's hard to weigh. Do you have ice?"

"Yes, Dr. Parker," she said in response to the instructions. He seemed amused by her curiosity over the wound, but lasting injuries were foreign to her. Valdis frowned when he implied interest in her perhaps using the ability to find more information about the aspect. The sudden burst of redirected curiosity didn't show in her eyes, but he would probably hear the brief increase in heart rate.

The opportunity did carry some risk, but based upon what she had observed so far, she didn't think that she herself would be at risk by trying. However, it was a piece of an angel and if it did object to her, then they might have a problem.

"If you're willing, I can try." She said, "Personally, I'd prefer to know more about what it is we might possibly face before it emerges as a problem." She tipped her head, "I might have some, or at least access to some. The KPD has a fridge."

Devin carried the used items to the trash bin, his mouth a thin, pensive line. He would have to give her fair warning, if he let her walk around near his soul. Doing so would put her in danger, even if everything went as well as it could.

She had most of the pieces already, anyway. Perhaps if he gave her another nudge, she'd figure it out for herself. "You already have an idea of what we might face if you put what I've told you together. He's only a fragment, but he's still an angel; and of all the insanity we have in this place, it's the Death plane that's triggering him," he laid out, leaning his hands on the counter. It wasn't the most difficult math.

Valdis said nothing, listening to the silence and the lack of a heartbeat that symbolized Devin's existence. She already knew there was more to the aspect than he wanted to say outright. Whether that was due to the agreement, or just the way he decided to communicate, she had no idea.

"I'm not afraid of angels, Devin," she replied finally, "Nor am I afraid of death. Putting the two together doesn't make any difference."

Or at least not enough of one to discourage her.

"Then you're either exceptionally foolish, or well past the point of caring," he sighed, keeping his back to her. Devin wasn't afraid of the aspect, exactly, but he didn't like not knowing what it was doing. He liked the idea of it taking control from him even less. All of the angels feared Abaddon, if not all of creation.

"I don't think he'll try to kill you," Devin continued. "Assuming he's just unsettled by what's happening and otherwise unaffected. The problem is that I don't know which it is." He pivoted, leaning against the counter. "But I suppose the danger is proportionally much greater to the world at large if I don't know what's going on."

"Perhaps a bit of both," she allowed, watching his back with one brow arched. "But you must remember, we are from different worlds, thus our experiences with angels are not the same."

It was the demons she feared, and even then, only one in particular. The Hounds were another matter entirely. She gently poked at the bandage, testing it absently.

"Based upon your earlier reaction to my father," Valdis replied, "and what I saw on the soul plane, I would agree with you. But despite appearances, if you need to know more, then I'd say its worth the risk."

On the one hand, Devin wanted answers - he always had, and they had never been given to him - and the possibility of getting some was very tempting. Averting a potential disaster was also a tick in the 'pros' column. On the other hand, treading where neither he nor Valdis were meant to be could be catastrophic.

And a very small part of him feared the answers he might get. Uncertainty was as much a freedom as a prison, when it came to Abaddon. Another sizzle of electricity crawled down Devin's spine; it was impossible to tell if that was approval or a warning, or just completely random. Which in itself proved the need to find out what the hell was going on, as wary as it made him.

"Alright," he exhaled. Being exceptionally careful went without saying. "How do we start?"

He was thinking deeply, torn, perhaps, between knowing and blissful ignorance. Valdis could sense emotions, not read minds, so she simply had to infer from what she felt and his silence. His answer almost surprised her, but his concerns over what could happen must outweigh his need for secrecy.

"It's not hard." Valdis stood, picked up a chair, and headed toward the living room, "I just need you to make yourself comfortable, I'll open a pathway onto the soul plane and see what I can find."

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