[open] channeling angels in a new age, now.

[priorly]

Who: Prior Walter (priorly) & you??
What: Catch all logs for October!
When: October!
Where: various
Warning(s): language, likely mention of terminal illness (AIDS). Adult themes?
Notes: Please PM me if you'd like a starter, or feel free to wildcard me anytime.

Comments

[priorly]

I don't see what's logical about it. [Prior glances up, a flicker of surprise to see Fitz here, but not so much that he questions it. God knows he has enough questions already.]

Who gets wine drunk in a hospital room? [His fingers are all red at the tips, even the ones that didn't get wet.] At least it should be something easier to sneak in.

[Prior sits back, and the red pools shrink to droplets, and from droplets evaporate into nothing, not even stains on the pristine white floor.]

In my head he's always just in the next room. That's why I call him.

[badgerlock]

Well. As logical as the names around here go. Nobility name their children things like that, you know. Prior. Shrewd. Verity. Regal.

[In a manner. Commoners tend to have different names. Fitz should have been named Tom, if Patience had her way. Patience did not have her way; instead Burrich named him. A horse is a horse and a fitz is a Fitz.

He looks at the wine and watches it evaporate, and then sighs, and looks over.]

In you dreams, does he always come when he's called?

[priorly]

Never. Asshole.

[Called toward the door behind which Louis would be, if he were anywhere.]

He never is. I have dreams where I look and look until I'm exhausted and I know I really should just give him up. [He straightens, slowly, hand pressing to his thigh out of instinct, even though there's no pain here.] I really should.

[When he's standing, he turns properly toward Fitz, and looks him over.]

What are you doing here, anyway? This isn't the kind of hospital with visiting hours.

[badgerlock]

I think I'm invading your dreams.

[He frowns a little.]

Most usually, they can't see me when I do this.

[Molly or Burrich, that is. But its usually the two of them awake, and the baby, and not their dreams at all. He doesn't know it he wants to see what Molly dreams, anymore. Probably nothing that involves him. It would hurt more for it. Fitz takes another look around.]

Is this what your world looks like too?

[priorly]

Well obviously you're invading my dream. I just can't imagine why.

[With a gesture of distaste encompassing their particular surroundings. Prior's always somewhat objected to hospitals as a location for entertaining guests. Belize is a nurse himself, and a godsend, and so doesn't count, and the majority of his other visitors are his own nurses but Louis...

Maybe Louis' discomfort is the reason Prior feels uncomfortable about it. In which case, fuck him.

With an agility he lacks in reality, he hops back up to perch on the end of the bed, legs swinging.]

This is what my world looks like in the very specific locations where they confine the sick. If I'd known you were coming, we could have gone somewhere with a prettier view.

[badgerlock]

It's the Skill.

[He says it calmly. The Skill was never a secret; it's the Wit he holds close and tightly to him, because that's the one that ends with you drawn and quartered over water.

He looks around again, and sits at the edge of the bed as well.]

Where would you have taken us? I've no skill in dream magic, except to show up.

[priorly]

I don't know what skill you mean. The last person to get muddled up in my dreams was highly skilled... at swallowing fistfuls of pills. Down in one, gone. There's an art to that, you know, took me months to learn. You're not stoned, are you?

[He folds his hands across his lap.]

Anyway, that was her skill. That and-

[Fingers curl tight a moment, then relax.]

Well, nevermind about that. I'd take you to the park, I think. Bethesda Terrace, to see the angel.

[badgerlock]

No, not-

[He shakes his head a little. He thinks that this is easier in dreams.]

It's not a skill. It's the Skill. A magic of the Farseers. It allows those who have it to speak to each other across distances in their minds. And dreams.

I didn't think anyone outside of my world would have it.

[Of course, he doesn't know what an angel is, but.]

Is that a person?

[priorly]

I see. Magic? [He leans back, palms pushing into the thin mattress] I don't think this is magic. Just something inflicted on me, like everything else. Although, not the worst.

[The company's not bad at least, and he'll take company wherever it comes: dreams can be as lonely as waking at times.]

It's a statue. Our divine overseer of plumbing works, or something. And a pleasant place to sit on sunny days.

[badgerlock]

Well, if it is, it's too similar to what was inflicted on me.

[There's a flicker, then. This is a dream, and Fitz's dreams are not safe places. First the walls turn into Regal's dungeon, just for a moment, fast as anything. Fitz's head comes up, surprised.

There's a deep voice, then, a growling voice that sounds as much like a person as the growl of a wolf. You're bleeding, Changer, it says, and Fitz shakes his head.]

A statue of a person?

[priorly]

A statue of an angel, I'm sure I mentioned that before the creepy fucking voice cut in on the call.

[He didn't miss that momentary flicker to somewhere his own dreams do not tend to go, and so his head's up, scanning the walls in case they pull that trick again.]

Which you're taking very calmly, by the way.

[badgerlock]

I don't know what an angel is, you realize.

[He says it and looks around, as if Nighteyes might just show up.]

It's a dream. Dreams are never really that logical.

[He thinks: this is private, this is a secret. He also things: this is Prior, and no one else has ever heard Nighteyes' deep voice before, not even the Fool. He thinks: he is allowed his secrets. He thinks: Prior is owed some kind of explanation. So Fitz sighs.]

It's nothing that would harm either of us.

[priorly]

For some reason, jumping in with 'it won't harm us' as your first descriptor is less reassuring than it may appear. That's just what the big bad wolf told the pigs.

[Prior's not sure why the voice has attached itself to fur and fangs, somewhere in the back of his mind. It just fits. And despite this, he makes no move to leave.]

No angels. Do you have gods?

[badgerlock]

[He may not get the context, but he gets it anyway, and so he laughs. As he laughs, there is is, around him, a wolf, dark and gray, staring at Prior for a second.

And then it's gone.]

Well, I promise. I wouldn't let him hurt you.

[Nighteyes wouldn't do it.]

El. And Edda. But they're not really, well. They're gods, but it's not such a religion. There are religions in the southern countries, like Bingtown, and Jamaillia.

[priorly]

[Prior's raised a hand out to the wolf, fingertips outstretched, and then it's gone, and he curls his fingers back against his palm, arm still uselessly lifted.]

They sound like people's grandparents. Our Gods are hard to pin down on names. There are cryptic, mysterious things. Things you aren't supposed to speak out loud. Nothing you'd really care to use for a chat.

[If he cared to chat to anyone at all, that is, which from Prior's understanding he currently does not.]

Angels are... as though he had a horde of children specifically so they'd grow up to work as his personal assistants. His own divine office administration, from the typing pool to the mailroom clerk. Immeasurably powerful and boring, all at once.

[badgerlock]

[He considers that for a moment. Religion is a strange thing. Better to just swear, occasionally, at a god that like as like doesn't exist or no longer cares.]

God's servants, then.

[He frowns.]

But higher than priests.

[He's getting the idea.]

[priorly]

Oh, quite literally higher. Winged denizens of a realm above and beyond our mortal concerns. Eternal in their glory.

[He lets his legs kick and swing.]

Or, they used to be.

[badgerlock]

Sounds like dragons to me.

[Winged denizens a realm above and eternal in their glory?

What else could it be?]

[priorly]

They are full of sound and fire and fury. [Prior concedes. If only someone else had seen one, outside of ancient texts dug out of caves somewhere. Maybe his own testimonies will end up given a similar fate.

Or maybe they would, if the world had survived. Heaven should have fallen too, and yet.

And yet, if he dwells too long he can feel an anger inside him not his own.]

Though human in form, or something close.

[badgerlock]

[He considers this a moment.]

Well.

That's bizarre.

[He says it with half a smile, as if none of what is happening between them now isn't bizarre, well and truly.]

[priorly]

[Prior lets out one short laugh.

Then another, and more, running together until it's laugher, real and true.]

Yes, that is one way of putting it.

[badgerlock]

[He laughs and it feels like the first time he's laughed in a long time. It's hard not to, when Prior is laughing the same way, bold, and without reservation at all.

When was the last time he laughed like this?

With Molly, he thinks. Maybe.

And maybe it's the laughter that wakes him up, suddenly, and he's alone then, but it doesn't matter. He thinks, well.

He'll see Prior again, soon enough.]