(no subject)

[wingwalker]

Who: Xas & You
What: Feels about religion, followed by feels about plants, and also new acquaintances/friends/enemies.
Where: In or around Chimer. Specifically the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in the morning to early afternoon, then the Chimer City Trail Park - but he could have wandered elsewhere by nightfall, although he'll have a plant with him.
When: All day Shundi.
Notes: I have never done this summary-y type thing before. I'm sorry if it's the worst. Also, a rough approximation of clothes, minus the goofy hat and creepy mannequin face.
Warnings: None, I think. If anything comes up in the comments, I'll edit accordingly.

It takes Xas a few weeks to reach out to God, and when he does, it's less desperation than experimentation. He just wants to know. Before they took his wings, he used to hear God all the time, feel Him everywhere, feel himself pulled toward Him like a moth to light. But then he stopped listening, and now Xas isn't sure if the silence is his own doing or if God doesn't reach here, the same way he didn't reach Hell.

He's already in Chimer peering up at the spires of the Cathedral when he gives in and tries. ("All right," he says quietly, a little resentfully, and waits in vain.) He goes inside in time to catch the end of the service - his first time in a church, to add to his string of recent firsts - and sits in the pews for a while afterward, giving a set of stained-glass apostles a rather challenging look.

He always did think humans' idea that God waited in a house for them to deign to visit Him was a little ridiculous, if endearingly earnest. As if He were their patient grandmother.

When he finally leaves the church, it's half boredom and half frustration, and he's glad to stumble almost immediately onto a park and to almost as immediately get lost in it. He's never seen most of the plants before, and by dusk he's on his knees in the dirt, scraping at dirt to get his hands under the roots of a small flowering shrub. It's gotten him into trouble before, this habit of plant-taking, but he doesn't think anyone will miss it.

Comments

[gwynn]

"What are you doing?"

Possibly Xas was not expecting a tiny girl to be in the park at this hour. Possibly no one is expecting this, which will surely be their downfall because unexpected Megans are the most alarming types of Megans. Either way, she's here, sucking down some kind of slush thing that isn't a proper Slurpee but is pretty close. Her pupils are roughly the size of nickels, overtaking her irises so that the entirety of her eye appears black -- one of the upsides of being freaky-looking is that it's hard to tell when she's high.

She's standing in shorts that are extremely seasonally inappropriate and a top that is inappropriate at all times of the year, gazing with fascination at the dude digging up plants. That kind of looks like fun, though, she's considering helping.

[controlledvariable]

Steph doesn't look like Steph right now. The disguise is pretty decent, considering this isn't her forte and she hasn't got much to work with, but Babs had helped out which made quite a difference; changing the dsguise from 'passable' to 'good'.

When she comes running through the park near where Xas is wandering, she looks like a seventeen year old boy, with scruffy, short, dark hair and a lot of layers (binding only does so much). There's blood in her mouth, a bruise already forming on her cheek, and her knuckles are scraped. She's working on a persona, and losing fights happens to be a part of that, which is why she'd had to run from a kid about a foot taller than her.

"I'll give you five shekels if you point him in the wrong direction," she says when she's within ear shot of Xas, the offer clearly directed at him, and then she scrambles up a tree to hide.

Half a minute later, a burly eighteen year old boy follows after Steph, obviously searching for someone.

[hehaseatenthepancake]

There's a demon in the park. Well, a half-demon, anyway. He's sitting on one of the benches, which is sagging just the tiniest bit with the weight of him. A sword, golden handled and sheathed in a scabbard attached to a baldric, rests next to him, slid through the gap in the slats of the bench seat. On the other side of him there's a bag of bread, but since the season and the lack of a pond to flock to conspire to deprive him of birds to feed the bread to, the bag just sits there untouched. He's got his arms stretched out over the top of the bench's back on either side of him -- the right ending in a hand that looks like it should be on a statue twice his size, with three fingers and a thumb and possibly a little something extra on the inside -- and his head is tipped back, looking up into the sky in apparent contemplation.

[studious_snake]

Today, Jay had decided to look up what parks there were in Baedal and go visit a few. He didn't really know why, it was cold enough that any snakes would be hibernating and he could get all the small rodents he could want at the pet store, but he was curious about what kind of wildlife there would be in a place like Baedal. And that was why he took a particular interest in the man digging in the park, thinking he might be more familiar with the park, plants and, more importantly, local wildlife than Jay himself was, so he decided to approach the man.

"Hey," he said casually.

[molotovmartinis]

The reasoning is sound, yet the reality resists: Balthazar is still a demon, despite the distinct lack of Hell, or any superiors breathing over his shoulder telling him to reap souls. He may not have the job anymore, but the powers remain. He is what he is, and every step he takes towards the church in Chimer confirms that down to his greasy demon bones. It is a holy place and it repels him like a high keen, a persistent ache, a slow burning. Balthazar retreats to a park bench to rest.

But the trip isn't totally worthless. Someone... unusual enters the church.

Angels have always hurt him to look at, just a little. A holy glint in the eye, as it were. This had a similar sort of reflection, but not exactly what he's used to. Balthazar stretches one arm out along the back of the park bench and waits. And in due time, he is rewarded by this possibly-an-angel stalking right out and past him into the park. Interesting.

He follows at a decent interval, observing the angel gathering some kind of plant, and slows to a stop about fifteen feet away. Just for safety's sake.

"Didn't find what you were looking for?"

/latest of tags....

[mightyfallen]

Jack doesn't typically attend services at the cathedral. Diverse as the House and consequently its services may be, there's a particular slant here that feels alien to him, everything from the name of the venue to the vaulted ceilings and stained glass. The temples he knows are places of calm and clean lines, and no matter how often he reminds himself that they all believe in the same God, this doesn't feel right. (It's why he's funding a house of worship of his own, in fact.) But there are good people in the House, and a particular rabbi in the nearby administrative offices who he drops in on from time to time when he needs to clear his head. Today, after, he takes a walk through the church to light a candle, because that at least is a familiar comfort.

The young man giving the windows a death-glare catches his attention, however. He recognizes that look. Coming around the pews, he pauses at the corner of one and tilts his head at the stranger, the slightest of knowing smiles on his lips.

"Any luck?"