nexus_sages | Interdimensional Cable

Interdimensional Cable

Today in the forum, someone has set up a techno-pile of video gadgetry. At the heart of it is a television, and an old one at that. The screen is large enough, but it sits in a retro wooden fixture that gives it the appearance more of furniture than of an entertainment system. All the better for it to hold the weight of a number of video-playing devices from across the ages and dimensions.

On either side of the pile of plastic boxes and tangled wires stacked on top are a set of outdoor lounge chairs. One, sat up like a chair, is empty. The other, fully reclined, is full of a whole lotta dead dude. It’s Harrowheart, who can’t possibly understand the vast majority of what he’s lying next to, a lit cigarette between his lips and his arms dangling off the chair and onto the grass. His floating hands are hard at work twisting knobs and pounding on the top of the television. Now and then the screen flickers with a hint of a signal.

Without spending the energy to lift his head, Harrow calls out to any passers-by, “Hey! What’s your favorite movie? People keep tellin’ me about ‘em, but I ain't ever seen one. I wanna find a good one and invite everyone over to watch it. Help me pick one out, will ya? And if y’ain’t ever seen a movie either… I dunno, weigh in on someone else’s recommendation?”

(( OOC Info: I want to stream a movie in-character! I love streaming movies, usually it’s a really good time for everyone involved. I’ve never done one IC, but I think this is a great opportunity to start. I’ll take any and all IC movie recommendations (real movies only!) and by next Wednesday I’ll try to decide which one we watch. The better your character talks it up, the better its chance! I’m shooting for next Saturday the 21st at around 8 or 9pm Eastern for a start time, but I’m going to be flexible if people know they can’t make it. I want as many people to be able to enjoy this as possible! If you’re interested in the idea or have any questions shoot me a PM and I’ll PM you back with answers and details and remember to get back to you when the movie and time are decided. ))

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Harrow laughs, then laughs again. Everything she said has some amount of humor in it, apparently!

"You think if I could get paid for teachin' folks things I'd be hangin' out on benches tryin' to make movie boxes work? Frost magic's one of the only kinds that doesn't come with a price, Verity. Only price you gotta pay is puttin' up with me and Steve-o." What a good time to be Verity Willis, Truth-sensor. Harrowheart either has some extremely tricky magic that can actually hide all of his lies (which, come to think of it, he has appeared suspiciously truthful...) or he isn't lying at all.

But there's no way this guy, of all people, has the power to keep the truth from Verity. His magic comes without a charge, and he doesn't even realize it should.

"I guess Steve's a pretty common name, huh? Steve's, like... He's... Blonde, sweet, rail-thin, and about nipple height. I think I could pick him up with one hand, even in my human form. He wants to be a soldier, and he's from North America world. 1941!"

People don't usually find her this amusing. She's not sure what to do with this.

No, it's unlikely Harrowheart could hide from her. However powerful he is, he's not a god--and even Loki couldn't lie to her. So, however unlikely it seems, she'll accept his offer as genuine.

"That's generous. Thank you." She's going to find a way to repay him. It will probably involve baked goods. If he smokes and drinks and eats chocolate, then lovingly-made muffins should be nice. This is her thinking and it's a good plan.

"Oh. Yeah... I know him. I'm from the same city he grew up in, but about eighty years later." And a different universe, but that's nitpicking at this point. "He's sweet, yeah, and not at all interested in dating me. I didn't realize he was interested in dating right now. I really am oblivious to these things." So does that make her statements self-contradictory? Who knows. Not her!

"North America is a continent. Our world is called Earth."

"H-how come everyone let me call it North America World all this time? No one even corrected me!" He frowns. He frowns so hard. Harrowheart just learned his first real lesson about Americans.

"So Brooklyn's a pretty important city, huh? What happens there that makes it so special? I mean of course the king probably lives there, but what else?"

As for whether or not Steve is interested in dating, Harrow keeps quiet. He also does not know. That doesn't mean he can't try to hook a guy up, right?

"I don't know. It's not really a big deal I suppose." Don't frown, Harrowheart. Now he knows, and he'll super impress people with his new improved knowledge.

"We don't have a king. Brooklyn's part of a bigger city, New York City. It's special because... well, it was one of the financial centers of the world, it was where artists flock to become famous, it was one of the most successful melting pots... New York had people from all over the world. Eight hundred languages were spoken there. Musicians, painters, actors, all kinds of artists gathered there, creating and inspiring each other. It was one of the most fashionable cities as well, obviously, with that many artists. We had some of the most beautiful architecture and some of the biggest shiniest buildings... The tallest was nearly two thousand feet high."

She can keep going. She loves her home and she misses it so much.

This is so much information. He listens with a mostly neutral expression, but every now and then his eyebrows twitch or his mouth shifts with his thoughts.

"Eight... hundred languages? Two thousand feet? That's taller than a mountain..." His glassy eyes stare through Verity as he tries to process all of this.

"People... Did... All of that? Without magic?" 'Stunned' doesn't begin to describe his reaction to all of this. He's full of questions, and he can hardly speak.

"How many races are there on Earth? And how do you do so much without a king?"

Edited 2015-11-15 03:01 (UTC)

That's life in the big city, Harrowheart. She's used to drowning in data. The Nexus is quiet and calm, for her. Weird, but quiet.

"Mm-hmm." She can see he needs some time to think it over, so she won't do more than answer his questions for now. But he did offer to listen, so he can bet there'll be more later.

"Right, without magic. Without superpowers of any kind, mostly. Races... it's... it depends on how you define a race. And whether we're including races from other planets who've come to live on Earth for various reasons. But mostly we're all some kind of human." Her bundle of cables is a makeshift pillow for her arms now. "We do have governments. Instead of monarchy, we have democracy. All the eligible adults vote for who they want to have in charge at regular intervals."

"You vote?" Harrowheart tries to laugh, but two breaths in and he's already feeling forced. That was Verity's first unfunny joke. Except. Oh. Wow. He looks into her eyes and he can tell she wasn't joking.

"Earth is fuckin' WILD." he says breathlessly. "You've only got humans? But... But Jesse said people are racist, and Steve said there's wars, and – I-I mean. Humans don't... We don't do that to each other!"

He slams a fist into his open palm, and with a sudden confidence and clarity says, "Humans are united! One race! We protect each other no matter what!"

Nope. Not joking. Just wait until he hears about all the legally protected freedoms she had.

"Oh, we know how to party." She tries for a smile, but it doesn't quite work this time. "People fought over land and resources and religion and skin color... people find all kinds of stupid reasons to hurt each other. Like I said, nobody's perfect."

Hard news. Extremely hard news. Land and resources, he can see that. Religion? Debatable. Skin color? Humans on Earth fought over skin color?

"Steve said that when he comes from, people woulda kicked his ass if Bucky was his boyfriend. Now you said all this, and... Shit... I met that wizard guy, Naugus? He liked me, I think, but he told me if I showed up on his planet I'd probably get lynched. Jim said I couldn't ever go to space with him 'cause of the way I am. Kinda... Hard to hear they'd probably kill me on Earth, too."

He looks down at his hands and suddenly remembers every reason he ever kept them wrapped. He twists his mouth from side to side to keep from frowning. It takes a deep breath of air and a moment's pause for him to collect himself.

When he looks back up he manages a smile and asks, "Can you tell me some more good things about the place? Or – Or! You got a phone? A photograph phone? I wanna see pictures real bad. Nat showed me one, of a car? But she wouldn't let me hold it, and she wouldn't let me see any others."

Verity's not one for sugar-coating things. But he can always count on her to be honest.

"They wouldn't have where I was from. Really, you wouldn't be the weirdest thing someone in New York saw on any given day." But her world exploded, so, kind of a moot point.

"Yeah, I've got a picture phone and a lot of photos." Cables be damned, it's picture time. She fishes it out of her bag before moving to sit beside him, not quite touching but close enough they can both see the screen. "I'll show you how to use it, but there's a price. You have to let me take a picture with you."

Verity moved in to sit near him? What a strange twist of fate! Usually he's the one who has to invade someone else's space, and boy was he primed to crawl all over her to get a good look at the phone. This is much, much nicer. It's a totally automatic response for him to put his arm around her shoulder and close that small gap between them until their knees touch, but he means nothing by it. He gives a dutiful nod to her ultimatum, and the reflections of his bright blue eyes bob on the screen. His hands hover near hers, ready to mimic whatever she's about to do.

"Can I have a copy?" he asks quietly. "The only photos of me I ever saw were war photos."

Her first reaction to unexpected touches from people she doesn't know well is to shrug them off, but she's been working on that. She's tense, but she's not trying to get away. Instead she focuses on the phone, moving her thumb across the screen slowly so he can see what she's doing.

"Yeah, I can print out a copy later. I'll bring it to our first lesson. Do you want a smiling picture, a serious one, or a silly one?"

"I want a nice one," he says. "I wanna be able to look at it and show it to people. Can we just smile this time? I'd say we do one of each, but I don't want you to run outta film on my account."

"There's no film. We can take as many pictures as you want. Just look up at the screen and smile."

Once he's doing that she taps the button to take the picture. There's a click from her nail against the screen, and another from the phone. And then--magic!--there's a picture on the screen.

Harrow smiles softly just in time for the picture to take. His smile grows when he sees the picture of the two of them.

"It's a selfie! Everyone does these on Azeroth! But our cameras are real expensive, real delicate, and a whole lot bigger. I think I like the phone better! Humans on other worlds must be brilliant to make all this. But... I think I get how this one works?"

His hands feel the back of the phone and he starts to nod. "So... When you touch your finger to the glass, all the lights change, right? And when you touched it on the little button, all the lights changed to look like us, right? So, if it's got no film, that means it remembers how to change its lights to show you the picture you want if you touch it in a certain way, huh? It's like... A techno-enchantment!"

He tries not to smile too much. He wouldn't wnat to look too proud if it turns out he's wrong, after all. Save the hubris for the next time he's drunk in a minotaur's maze.

"That's right!" Good job, Harrowheart, she's very impressed with you now. Enjoy this genuine limited-edition grin. "That's pretty much exactly how it works. And then I can tell it to send those memories to another machine that turns the lights into colors and prints the picture on paper."

That is close enough to how things work, anyway. "There's a saying, where I'm from, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I suppose the reverse is also true. It's all ways of manipulating energy."

"Huh!" What a neat way of looking at life. It bridges the gaps between their worlds very neatly. He likes it.

"So machines can send their thoughts to other machines? That means... A phone can hook up with another phone? If you're holdin' yours, you could tell it a message, and then it can tell someone else's phone that message, and they can see the picture you see! You could write a letter on a piece of paper, and take a picture, and they could read that letter without you even havin' to go to the post!"

Forget Disneyworld, this is a lifetime of excitement and wonder right here.

"I really want one! And I wanna see more pictures on your phone! I wanna see New York, Verity!"

"We can send messages through the phones, yes. Pictures, text, or we can have a live audio conversation. Want to send the picture to Steve? I got him a phone the other day... hopefully he remembers how to use it." A few more taps brings up the texting box and the fussy little keyboard. "What should the message with the photo say?"

His enthusiasm is cute. She'd be just as excited by some minor magical non-ring doodad. "Okay, we'll send this to Steve and then you can look through my pictures of New York."

"Ooh! Tell him that we're havin' a good time talkin' about New York, that you're joinin' the magic lessons, and that I got a special gift for him next time we meet!"

Speaking of magical non-ring doodads, Harrowheart roots around in his breast pocket and comes up with... a ring! Wow, false advertisement. He shows off the kite shield emblem to Verity and explains, "I won it in the minotauren's maze at the ball. It's a ring of protection! I'm gonna give it to Steve. I figure it'll keep him strong when we practice. If not... Maybe he'll believe it does?"

"Okay."

Hey Steve, look who I found! We're talking about NY and planning magic lessons. He's got a present for you, lucky!

Picture attached, text sent. Sending. ...okay, sent now.

Verity shrinks away when she realizes it's a magic gold ring. No, she does not want to see the design, thank you. Just keep that away from her. "That... that would be good for him. I'm sure he'll like that."

Harrow knows the look of someone who fears metal when he sees one. He stores his ring away in a hurry and holds his empty hands up to show he means no harm.

"Does gold burn humans on your world? I'm sorry! If it makes ya feel any better, I'm weak to somethin' called truesilver. It's not 'cause I'm undead or nothin', it's part of some curse that's on me."

Oh, relief when the ring is put away again.

"Oh. No. It's not... when I was a baby my dad dropped his magic see-through-lies ring near me, and I swallowed it, and it dissolved in my throat. So now I'm cursed and... really not fond of rings." It's a completely rational irrational phobia! "It should be fine for Steve."

She's curious about his curse, now, but she's not going to ask.

Harrowheart listens to this story with the only kind of expression a man can have when hearing that. He's confused, obviously, but also trying to keep sympathetic. In the end he looks vaguely queasy as he tries to smile and fight back his dumbfoundedness.

But, hey. They share in being cursed! That's common ground! He can work with that! One of his hands pats Verity's shoulder. There there, Verity. It won't be all right, but we can pretend.

"Well, you showed me yours. I'll show you mine." He clears his throat and quickly adds, "Figuratively."

He looks to the screen of her phone while he thinks of how to sum this up. She must have some practice explaining her curse, being that it's strange and fairly unique. He admits, "Where I come from, I've never had to explain this. It's a thing most folks already understand. Here, it's kinda weird to some folks. I'm too many monsters to them. Anyway. When I was a soldier, I got bit up by a monster called a worgen. Only lived 'cause of magical healin'. Every night the moon came out, and I turned into a worgen too. I didn't have any control over it. It was a real curse to me back then. Wasn't 'til I died and got risen up as a death knight I could keep it under control, and now it's a part of me I like."

His fingers search his shirt pocket and come up with the butt of his cigarette, but before he lights it he remembers why he wasn't smoking it in the first place. He puts it away with a little laugh. "I met a kid at the ball who said the word y'all use for it is 'werewolf.'"

Her curse is really weird and really annoying, but not in any kind of life-threatening way. How do you even respond to that? Shoulder pats are good. Not backing away because she's a freak who always knows is better.

She's flipping through things on the phone while he talks until she gets to the photos of 'back home'. The first one is loaded, and then she lifts her gaze to him. Nothing he's saying is scary or upsetting to her. Really, that kind of thing isn't so unusual where she's from.

"...Loki. I think Loki was the only kid at the ball," she supplies absently. "So now you're an undead knight shapeshifter? Cool."

"Loki? That's a cute name. He was a cute kid! I don't recall too well but I think he tried to convince me to fist fight his brother. Maybe next time!" Masculinity's a hell of a drug. "Just don't tell Steve I'm a worgen, okay? I'm tryin' to decide if I oughta scare him with it one day. On the one hand, it'll be funny as hell. On the other, guy might have a heart attack. I gotta stew on it."

He leans in to see what Verity has to show him on the phone. He's ready to see some Earth.

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Verity needs to get a family plan at this point.

Harrow gets a phone, texts exclusively in emojis. The hieroglyphics strategy

Dear lord, forgive me. I knew not what I did! :P

Verity doesn't like fancy jewelry. She must be cheap to shop for on Valentine's Day!

She's never had a Valentine. :(

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