nexus_sages | It's a Bird, It's a Plane

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It's a Bird, It's a Plane

Aw, shucks. It's that large, funny-talking horse dude with the winged helmet. What's he doing with that big wooden sign? Hammering it into the ground in the Forum? And, what does it say? "FREE PIGGYBACK RIDES." He can't be serious. Who would trust this huge, jolly weirdo (even if he does clean out demons like it's his day job)? The long-snouted thief of Thor's wardrobe must be nearly seven feet tall, and he's wide enough to weigh a quarter ton!

Oh, great. He's hovering. He must really be insane to expect anyone to go FLYING with him. The 'man' looks like some kind of monster. And, is he looking this way? Too late to hide...

"Wouldst thou care to take to the sky with Beta Ray Bill?" The joy of flight is apparently worth sharing. Boy, someone must be in a good mood...

((Note: any characters taking Bill up on this offer are in danger of seriously getting their hair mussed. Horse jokes may result in one unassisted flight lesson...just one))

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The winds, the clouds, the currents of magnetic electricity surging between the flowing magma beneath the ground and the swirling ocean of the atmosphere above. Like lovers forever barred from each other, stealing a kiss only when the conditions are most favorable, Bill can feel it all through his hammer. And for this moment, so can Verity.

The energy fills one's body like a neon balloon, somehow making it feel as though one were some statue, not truly living until this moment. And like an echo, there is the memory not too distant of how lightning should feel. A fickle beast, seeking to find its own way, like a mostly homogeneous herd of wild horses only loosely aligned. But the echo betrays the Nexus' unique energy, where centaurs and unicorns, Clydesdales and Arabians all struggle for dominance, corralled by only the most skillful of wranglers.

Bill flexes the control he is so blessed with. The control beyond the power and command of the elements; there is his innate will and finesse as master over them. Like angels, sparks of Nexus lightning begin to dance around the two touching Stormbreaker. They are easily seen, but there is so much more than what can be seen, vision truly becomes a hindrance. Even Bill is only meant and able to sense but so much at once.

"Close thy eyes, Verity Willis."

"Oh." It's such a tiny word to hold so much meaning. She had no idea. She's not much given to poetry, but this is beauty. This is the sort of thing people die for and she finally understands why. Her life has always been so small, and even after she was taken out of the box she'd made for herself she hadn't dared to let much in, or out. What a waste.

The dance of lights around them is mesmerizing. How can he expect her to look away? But she does, eventually, close her eyes. The lights will be dancing in her vision no matter how tightly shut against it.

Like water, the lightning can rush and crash with force and anger. But it can burble and wash with warmth, as well. Thor's oath-brother closes his keen eyes as well, stepping into the darkness with sensation, and leads Verity on a journey of perception. They are the lightning. The unrestrained static dancing around them crackles with a life all its own, and he whispers to it sweetly. Sweetness begets sweetness, even here in the Nexus; all but the lightest of a charge, ebbs away.

In the body of the temperamental electricity, they flutter ever closer, ever closer to their own skin. Bill becomes the finest calligrapher, writing on tissue so delicate. He mustn't carve through the paper, but the lettering must be flawless. Now, just a hint of a tingle. It is shy, at first, but quickly becomes curious with the bodies of flesh. Like a wave, the tingle quickly washes over them. Two islands magically meet on the sea, as the atmosphere delicately exchanges its curious banter with the nerve endings in their bodies, and they are on both sides of the conversation.

The excitement crescendos all the way up to a sizzle, just a touch of fire to the skin before Bill pulls it away by the nape of the neck. Away it zooms, commanded by its master, held so gently and yet so firmly. We are so fast! Is this how light feels to traverse such distance so quickly? Out over the ocean now, some long-forgotten beach in some unused corner of the Nexus. His fingers still hold the static like a mother cat holding her struggling kitten, but the sensation changes.

"Thou canst sense it, hm?"

His fingers loosen so slowly on the rallying lightning, until only Verity's are holding it.

It's a bit of a struggle for her, letting go and becoming something else. Anything else. The curse has held her down for so long, and even lightning can't move a mountain all at once. She almost backs away--almost. But she's done running away from things she doesn't understand.

It's more than worth the effort. Everything is alive and beautiful and dancing and she's part of it too. Feeling so much power around her, in her, is overwhelming.

"I do. It's beautiful."

And then he's trusting her to hold it. It's too much, she doesn't know what to do. But he wouldn't trust her with it if he didn't think she could handle it. Deep breaths and calm thoughts. They're going to be okay.

"Abide with it...stay upon it..."

The electrons may not respond exactly as she wishes, but she commands them nevertheless. They are skittish, and stubborn, and so easily distracted. But Bill hadn't chosen this little unknown cove for no reason; there was no one around to be harmed, and the dark clouds were brimming with pent up power. For a first timer, it is often like trying to paint a porcelain figurine with a fire hose. But even that is a beginning, and Bill is right there with her, his patient focus an encouragement to Verity that there is no such thing as a mistake.

People like Verity shouldn't be given so much power all at once: she's angry and she's inexperienced, a dangerous combination. It's a good thing Bill's there to protect her from herself. But what she isn't is violent. She has no desire to really hurt anything. She wants to make the sparkles dance, not make the rocks explode.

Not that she's likely to manage either, with her lack of practice. But she can try.

"How...?"

The birthright of another, in truth a part of Odin's son's very being, is not easily harnessed by another. Perhaps it is like being a baby, at first, unaware that the little hands one keeps seeing in your visual field, belong to you. Their minds mystically linked by this enchanted hammer, the power flowing from some place beyond understanding, Bill does not take command of the elements for her. An artist, his student's hand holding a paintbrush on a canvas: instead, he places his mind's hand on hers, and moves it ever so gently. It's right there for her.

In the world, far away, the clouds stir. A faint jolt jumps between them, coaxed by Verity's command.

There's a lot of pressure. Not just the emotional pressure of wanting to do well and not wanting to lose control, but the physical pressure of the storm starting to bear down on her, the pressure of the power wanting to be released to do something. Anything. The horses chomping at the bit can feel her nervousness through the reins. The waiting is agony.

And the beach, a good clean stretch of sand, is a good place to run. Maybe if she lets some of the pressure off, she'll be able to focus on what she wants.

So much pressure. Too much. Too much too soon. The powerful lightning snakes instantly down from the heavens, the furious clouds unleashing a blistering strike at the beach. Even Zeus would be pleased. The silica sand forms beautiful, jagged shapes of white-hot glass from the discharge of the thunderbolt, but the deafening boom of the thunder is heard only by a lonesome flock of birds, miles distant. With his eyes still squeezed tightly shut, Bill smiles, forgetting himself in this living dream. He may be horse-like, but in truth he resembles the fiercest of predators from his homeworld. His unrestrained smile is the stuff of nightmares.

"A worthy blow, Verity Willis." At least, the black clouds have lost some of their fury in it.

His smile, scary as it may be, has nothing on her nightmares.

The crash makes her jump, then she laughs at so many things: the situation, herself, the fact she's scared of the things she's causing. Life. Is this what is was like for Thor when he was young? Or Bill, when he first tasted this power? It almost helps explain why Thor is so quick to solve everything with violence. It's so easy...

"Thank you. Will you show me how to make things dance again? Please?"

Because she asked so sweetly, Operation Balance-an-Elephant-on-a-Pencil is go. Bill gives a sigh of concentration, his face focusing now. Making the cacophony of energies from different worlds stampede like horses is one thing, but taking one specific horse, taming it, making it obey...This Nexus lightning does not want to heed even Bill; he has to labor against it. But it can be done. Particularly if the right steed is chosen. He challenges Verity to find that one most docile energy.

"Be calm, and gather unto thee, those sparks which art thine. Whisper sweetly unto the lightning, and see what heeds thy whisper. It will dance for thee." With some coaxing. But first things first. She has to draw out just that little bit of the most eager-to-please electricity, probably even from her own world, trapped here between dimensions.

Calm and sweet? He must have her mistaken for someone else. She is seriously beginning to doubt she can do this, but she'll try. Better to take a chance and take this chance while she has it. Once-in-a-lifetime situations come, well, just the once.

She takes a deep breath before trying to focus not on the whole of the energies but on seeing them as separate pieces of a whole. Then she begins to talk to it, calm and quiet, like she would to coax a shy kitten out from under a table. Sure, hiding's an option, but wouldn't it rather come out and play?

Just when it seems like it isn't working, a small charge exerts some decohesive force and breaks away from the pull of its own kind. It cautiously, perhaps even curiously drifts to that Siren song, that magical lure...

"...yes..." whispers the big alien. His words are so delicate on the air, as delicate as Verity must be with this fleeting little sparkle of energy that she has enticed. "...keep thy draw sweet, so sweet...and put blinders to the power...encircle it with repellant..." It's going to take concentration and skill, perhaps more than a novice can bring to bear. She must hold this one crackling little sprite of electricity with her coaxing, but must additionally block it from all other influence. He gathers up his own volition, ready to build an impenetrable fortress of ether around the little spark, himself. It's probably a bit too much to ask. But once the lightning is in the bottle, then it can be coerced into dancing.

Ohmygod. She's shocked when it happens, pun intended; excited and a little scared. This is like nothing she's ever done before.

That is far too much to ask of a novice and a mortal with no experience wielding anything more dangerous than a sharp tongue. Trying to split her attention is bound to fail, but... perhaps she doesn't need to. The most effective kinds of coaxing are all-consuming when it comes to attention and outside distractions. She's not skilled at that kind of manipulation, but alternating sweet promises and entreaties for undivided attention might work?

Maybe?

It might work. In a perfect world, at the perfect time...but the Nexus is so unruly, so disjointed with its powers and energies. Even a sage handler has only but so much finesse against the distractions. Bill closes his mind's hands around Verity's ever-so-sensitive spark, and it suddenly becomes that much more pliable. It can't hear the call of all the other forces at work: the shifting gravity and magnetism of the strange interdimensional place; the call of the thunderclouds and the air saturated with electrical potential. Other magicks, sometimes from other spellcasters can even interfere, on occasion. It only hears Verity, for the time being.

"Now, whisper no more. Laugh. Take that part of thee which breathes, which pulses with thy heart at every beat. Let it kiss the lightning." She wants to make it dance. Now is the time. She doesn't need years of experience, hard-earned multitasking focus through the heat of a thousand battles: she has a patient Thunderer nearby.

No such thing as perfect when a human's involved. She's lucky he's feeling so patient and helpful with her. She's lucky he's letting her do this at all.

The kind of unselfconscious joy he's talking about doesn't come easily to her, but the sheer joy of the moment has coaxed a small burbling laugh from her. Would the spark like to dance? She'd like to dance. She loves dancing and would like to share that. Her free hand lifts to where the spark is waiting. Dancing is a partnership and she won't try and force it.

Some strange mystical force is at work. That little sparkle of electrical energy, trapped now in an ethereal bubble of Bill's willpower, ripples and flickers with Verity's laugh. She's happy? It seems happy. Happy happy, joy joy. Bill's hard expression of concentration softens. This is going so well; he clutches his mind's hands to his chest, so to speak. So captured in the interaction with raw lightning, Verity might not even notice. Her one special spark of receptive energy doesn't: such was the point of blocking out all of existence from its attention.

"Now, open thy eyes slowly, mine compeer." Just a little twinkle, a little glimmer of crackling blue electricity in a sphere the size of a beach ball. It is in the space between Bill and Verity, now, having come such a long way so quickly. Her joy feeds its behavior, and Bill hopes it will feedback. Happy master makes a happy charge, and a happy charge makes a happy master. The sparkling wave of bright, cheerful energy is in so many ways like a constantly surging flame; fireworks without the explosion. It dances for her, free of coercion, needing only the best part of life to sustain it.

She is trying to be as focused on the spark as it is on her. Sorry, Bill. You can have the bulk of her attention again later.

Knowing that this beautiful elemental thing is happy, that it's with her and it's happy that she's happy, oh yes. That's a joyous feeling. She's never felt anything like it. Her happy little friend won't be dancing alone because she's dancing too and she's trying to drag Bill into it as well. It'd be hard to dance and keep her hold on Stormbreaker without his at least turning from time to time.

Let's see exactly how much concentration the last son of Korbin possesses. He stretches out his long wingspan to stay in step with the jubilant dancing girl while maintaining his mental focus, keeping their sparkling ember of lightning well blinded to the turmoil of its inter-dimensional surroundings.

It crackles and sways, like a mirror reflection of Verity's own emotions. This is good, he observes, as long as she stays in that happy place. Hell, if they had some music, maybe he'd dance too.

It's a joyful dance indeed, until the fleeting thought I wish Loki could see this sneaks in.

And then she stops as the weight of everything she's been trying to ignore crashing down on her again. It's never far away, but she hasn't lived with it long enough to have learned how to live with it. For a moment, her attention is drawn away from the spark and Bill and what they'd been doing. She doesn't even think to keep hold of Stormbreaker.

It's just for a moment. But lightning moves quickly.

Bill tilts his wing-helmeted head at the sudden lapse. The lightning in the bottle suddenly balls up, withdrawing itself into an apple-sized orb, before Stormbreaker drinks it up altogether. The thunderer tries a word of consolation.

"Fret naught, mine compeer. 'Tis no small consummation, to twist the lightning so."

She sighs when she realizes it's over, but Bill's kind words do help her feel better. "Thank you. That was... magical." That's a high compliment from her. "It was very kind of you to let me try."

"Worthy of a peck," he echoes. "If not by a ride upon Beta Ray Bill's back, then perchance thy spirits wert hoisted nevertheless." In some way, maybe Verity can see some part of what Loki sees in his brother, now. Who could not be jealous of Odin's firstborn, God of Thunder? A gilded road since birth; such power, his birthright.

She always understood in a vague intellectual sort of way: the dynamic of the Golden Child versus the Scapegoat, the pain of being the brainy one in a world full of jocks, the warring desires to fit in and to be appreciated on one's own merits. But now she understands. It is a beautiful, terrible burden.

"Yes. It was wonderful, and," because this is the best compliment any friend of Loki can offer, "it'll be a great story."

Bill grins merrily, toothy and gruesome and alien as ever. Maybe one day he'll explain to Verity how such power came to be his.

"I pray thou drew as much revelry as I. But I shan't hold thee, Verity Willis." He'll be giving piggyback rides for a while, yet.

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brave_heart_verity - 2015-10-22 02:35 (UTC) - Expand

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It's a Bird, It's a Plane

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A truly beautiful description, well done!

aw shucks ma'am 'twern't nuthin'

False modesty is not a virtue, dear.

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slow tag is slow

Better slow and well-written, right?

aye

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ignoremode

OMG you're so mean!

feel the hate

T.T

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