multiversallogs | birds singing in the sycamore tree

birds singing in the sycamore tree

As night falls on Baedal, the city is almost quiet. The streets have a few last minute workers returning home, but by now, most citizens have already gone by the temples and picked up their vurt, ready to lay down and dream.

After placing a not-feather in one's mouth, there's a moment where it fizzes against the tongue before sliding coolly down the back of the throat and pulling the user down into sleep. A series of impressions, more sensation than anything concrete, appears before the user and this is how one chooses which Dreamer to enter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Steph looks down at him with a grin, taking a few seconds to move down to a lower branch, some sort of pastry held carefully in one hand - it's filled with nuts and jam of some tart fruit she doesn't recognize. She gets herself settled comfortably a few feet away from his hammock, her legs dangling from a branch and the dress still swirling in a light breeze.

"That's me," Her voice is a little softer than it is in reality - she's taken assorted damage to her throat that's gone while here - but her smile is as easy as ever, "And you're Hellboy. What brings you to the forest?" As opposed to the other possible dreamscapes.

He nods with a small smile, acknowledging his identity. "Had to get away from anything city-like. Been too much of that on the job, especially lately, with not enough time to rest. Space is where horrors from beyond are back home, and I've had bad experiences on and in the water. I like the forest, though. How 'bout you? Just looking for somewhere to play Tarzan?"

"Makes sense. I'm feeling the same about the city right now," That won't last for long, Steph loves cities too much. She'll probably end up there before the night is over, not that she's keeping track of time that well.

"I could play Tarzan in the city," It's easier to be honest in the dreams, which is something she should be careful of, but, oh well. "I don't have much experience with forests. At least, ones without carnivirous plants," The way she says it, and she way her mouth twists in a wry smile makes it clear she's not just talking about run-of-the-mill venus flytraps.

"Back home, back before I retired, I'd take a couple weeks after a particularly tough case and go wandering somewhere, clear my head. England was particularly good for that." He shrugs and settles a little more into his hammock. "Sometimes I'd still run into stuff anyway, but that's just my crap luck. Here, there's just too much going on." It's kind of sad when the closest thing to a relaxing walkabout you can get is while back-tracking a dead Shoggoth's path through the sewers.

Steph's comments cause Hellboy to peer more intently at her. In his world, costumed heroes were only a very tiny phenomenon that rose and fell on either side of World War II. Even though Hellboy received training from one and read the fictionalized adventures of another as a kid, it's still not something he automatically thinks of, but he can tell she's hinting at something. "Well, at least it seems you're pretty well prepared for dodging curses. Or... other things, I guess."

She eats a bite of the pastry as she listens, nodding in agreement about things being too busy here, "Even if there wasn't so much going on, there's nowhere you can really go. Unless there's a secret day spa out in the fog." If only.

That gets a small laugh, just because other things has come to mean a lot in the last few weeks, but rather than saying that she shrugs with one shoulder, "You have to be, in Gotham. You either learn to move quick or you learn to take a beating." Saying that doesn't seem to affect her mood much; maybe she should worry that it doesn't. It's not that she's jaded, she just doesn't want to let it upset her.

"It's a decent sized city, as they go. But yeah, kind of cramped, if you're used to traveling the world." He picks a few grapes off his bunch and chomps them down. "Not a day spa, but there is an amusement park out on the border. I wouldn't recommend it, though. We occasionally send newbies out there to roust whatever the fog's brought in." He gives a dark little chuckle.

Casual mention of beatings causes Hellboy to let go of whatever might've been hinted at before, and go all scowly-face. "Well, that just doesn't seem right at all," he grumbles. "Someone should be doing something about that."

Welp, Steph's expression definiely shifts to an awkward, slightly guilty one, "I was gonna go to a party at that park, but I don't think it ended up happening," So, she was partly going to make sure no one got eaten by any fog creatures but she also just wanted to go 'cause it sounded fun.

"They try, but the cops can only do so much, and they focus on the city. The suburbs get forgotten," Which was part of the reason she stuck with the Spoiler thing, to protect people from gang violence and the like.

"Probably for the best." The fog is Not For Fooling With, as far as Hellboy is concerned.

"Hmpf," he sniffs grumpily. "Don't think we have a Gotham, back home. If I end in one, though... well, there'd probably be my kind of weird, to bring me there, but after that, I'd have to wander around a bit, have some conversations." He lazily raises his mighty stony fist to illustrate the language he'd use. "Not my usual line, but I can make an exception."

"You probably don't have one, it's apparently a pretty rare city, which is probably for the best," She has a lot of conflicting feelings about Gotham, but she knows most people are better off without it. When he raises his hand, she shrugs a shoulder, "If violence worked, the problem would've been solved years ago. The whole city needs a rehaul."

She finds it interesting that this is how she feels about Baedal too, although it's concerning slightly different things; poverty and crime in Gotham, and the corrupt police force in Baedal.

"Mm." Not especially satisfying to hear, but unsurprising. He lowers his fist, but then strokes at the little tuft of hair at the point of his chin instead. "That reminds me, though. Something I was comparing notes on with a friend a while back. In your world, Nazis: Still a going concern after World War II?"

"Not like you mean, I don't think. We've got like, neo-Nazis around the place, but they're little cults that are mostly powerless," Her expression is wry, but after a second it clears when she remembers something else, "Oh and there was like, Captain Nazi or whatever the fuck his name was, but he got his brain melted by a tazer."

Steph had secretly wanted to high five Jason when she read that in his files. She should go find him tomorow and do that.

"I'm guessing they're still problem in your world?"

"'Captain Nazi.' That's about the kind of crap I'm talking about," Hellboy chuckles. "Allies won the war, but all Hitler's close buddies? The ones with the crazy science and the occult stuff? Those guys got everywhere, and when the Reich fell, they went into hiding, kept up their crazy crap in secret stashes all over the world."

He sighs and mentally tallies up. "Nearly fifty years with the Bureau, give or take, I'd say maybe... a third of my workload involved Nazis in some fashion. I hope my case is relatively rare."

"I think it might be the crazy science and occult stuff that makes the difference," She sounds sympathetic; having Nazis around would suck, "I think there wasn't much of that involved with World War Two back home, awful eugenics experiments aside."

And that makes her frown, because it's hard to discuss things like this and keep a light mood, "I'm sorry you ave to deal with all that. I'm glad we just have run-of-the-mill supervillains."

Hellboy takes care of the mood, lighting up into a gruesome smile and even sitting up and forward in his hammock. "Supervillains?! Really? And heroes too, right? We only ever had a couple back home; the phenomenon kind of faded out after the war, except for in comics."

His glee at the concept of superheroes seems to shave some years off of him, some of the crags smoothing out of his appearance and itty bitty horns appearing on his stumps. It's not actually what he looked like when he was younger, so much as a slight melding of his childhood self.

At first she wonders if he's just trying to distract her from the distress that coomes from talking about Nazis, but he does seem generally curious, and she notes the change in his appearance. So she smiles back.

"We've got more than you can poke a stick at," She sounds more amused than annoyed by that, and she's carefully focusing on her dream-appearance so that nothing shifts unconsciously; she doesn't need a cape or Bat-ears right now, "My dad was a C-grade supervillain, so I've had a little contact with both sides."

No, if anything, she distracted him, as he really is that interested in the superhero phenomenon. He comes down from the initial giddiness, his appearance shifting back to normal as he flops back into the hammock again.

"Oh, that's great. I mean, not about your dad, but the rest of it." He makes a little gesture, and a photograph appears in his hand, then floats up on a breeze to Steph. "The guy in the back called himself the Torch of Liberty. I never knew him by any other name. When I was old enough, he taught me how to fight."

(Also, Steph, enjoy the cuteness of Baby Hellboy.)

She catches the photo easily and forces herself not to coo over how cute baby Hellboy is.

"The Torch of Liberty, huh?" It's pretty standard superhero fare, though at least a little more interesting than Batman, "It's cool that you got to learn from him."

It's tempting to say more about her own experiences and it might be obvious that there's a moment of indecisiveness before she settles on something more harmless, "Were superheroes in your world just regular people with costumes, or did they have powers and stuff?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

birds singing in the sycamore tree

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject