Event Log: Home Sweet Home

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Home Sweet Home event
Where: All over the city
When: June 20th-July 2nd
Warnings: Nothing bad could ever happen now that you're home

It could happen at any moment- any action you do could be cut short by a sudden trancelike state, and so hopefully it happens when you're safe in your surroundings. And of course you're safe... after all, what could happen to you now that you're finally home?

Whether you don't remember Hadriel at all, or you just believe that this entire ordeal is over, you're home for good now, which is something worth celebrating. What happens in your home? Are you treated like royalty or just cast aside and forgotten? How are your friends doing? Your family? Everything is just as it should be and it's easy to get lost in it, even for an unlucky onlooker who may find themselves drawn into your trance and able to interact with you as you mill about your world and your reality.

Snapping out of it is the only way to end this trance, and you've got to eat and sleep at some point, but how can you go back now that you've been teased with what you desire (or maybe even fear) the most?

► This log covers June 20th-July 2nd.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you die of homesickness let us know here.

Comments

[circumitus]

"Some of us just don't see death being so simple just because there's a guy who can resurrect people."

Rey still doesn't like entertaining the notion of what would happen to Nick if he ever meets his end around here. The gods are horrible at understanding human anatomy -- could they do the same for a synthetic? Would they even want to, knowing how closely similar he is to the race that eradicated most of their entire species...?

And that doesn't take into account the other disturbing possibilities Rey has mulled over, such as how the resurrections work. Are the dead given new bodies, or are the bodies reformed? What would happen if someone were to somehow have their entire corpse obliterated from existence? Does Hope have a pile of dead bodies of all the people who died somewhere?

She'd ask the god himself, but Rey isn't sure if she'd like to hear the answer.

[abyssalarcana]

"No, I think the problem is they're all too simple to see the bigger picture, but I suppose that's all I can expect from a bunch of simrevi."

She prefers her tongue to others, and fights translation when she's feeling particular about a word, but this is Rey's dream, after all, and whatever merging of consciousness has occurred to allow this to happen also helpfully shares the meaning of the word, the intent behind it, rather than the direct correlate. Abyssal is a language of nuance and the word for bug is an obvious slur against all of those poor denizens of material worlds who breed and multiply and die without any greater awareness of what goes on in the multiverse around them.

A lot of meaning for three syllables.

"I'll have another of these," she says, meanwhile, as she turns to the bartender and gestures to her nearly-empty glass.

[circumitus]

"And what is the bigger picture to you?"

It can't hurt to try and figure out how Caedra thinks. After all, Rey has been a kill-crazy monster herself. She still remembers what it's like to relish in it... much as she despises it. There are downsides to having a quantum memory that doesn't forget anything.

Glass in hand, Rey turns and presses her back to the bar counter as the bartender prepares Caedra a second flaming drink. She takes a sip of her own, watching the dancer on the stage.

[abyssalarcana]

She finishes off the cocktail just in time for the second, and smiles into the flames as she takes it into her hands.

"That they don't matter. And maybe to some extent you fit in that category, but it's hard to know since I'm not well-acquainted with your kind."

She has a sip, then continues.

"Do you often spend time considering the value of lives of individual ants? Or - oysters, perhaps? Some little, insignificant, short-lived thing that yet produces something of value. I imagine not, right? Nobody buys a string of pearls and worries about the oysters."

[circumitus]

That was about the answer she expected, but still, interesting. Some would probably argue that Rey isn't as expendable as she thinks she is. IV sure seems to have a differing opinion on that, in her belief that Rey is a walking example of an artificial soul.

But that isn't the point.

"Maybe not, but you can still value someone even knowing that the world will go on without them," Rey points out. "Doubt you'd be talking that way about the life of your son, who might not matter to the millions of others out there. He obviously matters to you, though."

Rey knows she's likely treading on dangerous waters here now. While Caedra won't be able to lash out or harm her here, it would be another matter when they're both awake. But that doesn't matter. Caedra was the one who told her about her son, about how he was treated, and the mere notion that he could be seen as expendable and insignificant to someone would likely not sit well with a mother. At least, that's what Undine would probably think.

"For someone who has a capacity to love and defend it so strongly as you do, it really sounds like you enjoy making others fucking miserable. Sounds sort of contradictory, don't you think? Hypocritical, even."

[abyssalarcana]

Caedra's eyes snap to Rey's at the mention of her son, but she waits, and listens. Rey doesn't understand, as it quickly becomes clear. Can't. Her perspective is a mortal one, even if she may not have any sort of soul and yet will likely outlive most of them.

"My son was never one of them. And nothing I said makes me a hypocrite - but even if I am, I don't care. I don't live my life trying to hold myself to any standard but my own."

Meanwhile so many of these people have the most absurd little social customs. With lives so short, why do they bother imposing so many restrictions on themselves? It's absurd.

[circumitus]

At least she doesn't deny the hypocrisy of it -- mostly. In a way, Rey is the same. Her expression is unwavering, neutral as she continues staring at the stage, her focus no longer on the dancer but the shapes. Just shapes.

"And what standard is that? That your life and the lives only you cherish have more meaning than others? That's just an excuse to make yourself feel better, that you're not an ant just like every other life in the universe, down to the microscopic organisms. That's just self-important and vain."

She downs the rest of her drink. Maybe the bottom of it will tell her where all this is coming from so suddenly.

[abyssalarcana]

Rey's attempts at drawing more information from Caedra only lead to her shaking her head with a small smile. The bait isn't good enough for her to rise to it. Her words are no excuse - they're backed by the will of the Abyss itself, the first entity in the whole of the multiverse, that seeks to regain all of what it once was. Everything in all of the other worlds is fuel for its whirling and terrible fires.

"The lives of people like the humans around us are literally traded as currency where I'm from, Rey. That's how little they matter. That's how I know we're different."

Is all she'll say on the topic. Whatever attempts the construct is making at philosophizing, they seem to have no effect whatsoever on the pitch-eyed creature who is contentedly sipping a flaming cocktail. She's young, herself, for a demon. She knows that, and she knows that even with all this grand talk it will still take hard work and a good amount of luck to make it to the age where everything she parrots is actually true for her personally. But with the Abyss itself in every particle that makes up her mind and body, it doesn't really matter. She acts as an individual, and her individuality matters to her, but she's still part of something greater than these people can possibly comprehend.

"But that's all right. I don't expect it to make sense. So I'll be a hypocrite, I suppose, and enjoy the sight of that gorgeous dancer. Do you think she'd be interested in an afterparty?" she teases. "I'd invite you too, of course. I wouldn't want you to be left wanting."

[circumitus]

So that's how it's going to be. Rey understands a lot better than Caedra might think. War will do that to you -- think of life as a number, all actions a statistic, everyone is expendable, civilians are a necessary casualty. When the GRIGORI program was created, it was supposed to predict the best outcome within billions of other possibilities; its financiers were displeased to find that these outcomes did not always work in their favor, and thus the program had to be cut. How many people died because of a statistic that proved the GRIGORI right?

A century living as different women tends to put things into perspective. Things that Rey wouldn't have considered on their own without those experiences in her head. Caedra doesn't have that. She hasn't seen the things Rey has, and Rey hasn't seen the things Caedra has. The chances of her ever seeing eye-to-eye with the demon is probably just as likely as Rey will ever want to go home and face what IV has planned for her.

Dropping the glass on the counter, Rey just huffs at Caedra's come on. She's too annoyed to be flustered.

"Whatever. If you're going to be boring and go back to your casual flirty high horse routine, fine. Not interested in this song and dance right now."

Contrary to what she just said, the music is still raging on when Rey turns heel and heads out the door. Caedra might humor a salacious afterparty with a grind-dancer, but it won't be happening at all in the absence of the dreamer.