DUST TO DUST ❅ EVENT

[nightmods]

DUST TO DUST

It will take them time to discern the cause. After all, all the artifacts brought back from the fight with Project Prometheus were deemed safe or at least contained, only able to have their dangerous power unleashed if people were dumb enough to try it.

The altheiometer is not the real thing. It was created by the belief of a child, after reading a certain book series, and therefore is more of a symbolic object, with none of the real capabilities of the device in fiction. Instead, it had other magical abilities. It was not entirely understood by the Project itself, just kept there to be studied and eventually co-opted for sinister use if possible. But it had remained inert in their company.

At the Pole, it passes the magical scan, since it technically is "safe," then finally activates. It works on a child's logic, after all. A child would think daemons are cool but wouldn't think bad people deserved them. A child would think the device should only activate to let good guys have daemons.

In the study containing the safer artifacts, the altheiometer opens of its own accord. Gears turn. The hands start clicking as they move in circles around its clock-like face, rotating back and forth between different symbols. The hands finally stop, clicking as they meet in the same spot, on the symbol of an apple, with a bite taken out of it.

It's all very metaphorical isn't it. The soul can't exist without free will. In some worlds they think free will only exists because of an apple in a garden.

There is a burst of light and sound that reverberates through the Pole. As the floor shakes, everyone sees a brief glimpse of the wave as it passes through walls - and then passes through each of them. Getting hit by it is like getting hit by a storm wave in the ocean, briefly lifting everyone off their feet.

Alongside the sensation of being briefly levitated, there is also the painful sensation of suddenly being aware of something deep inside, briefly made to feel almost like a splinter in their very core.

Then, with all the subtlety of getting attacked with a giant hole punch, the splinter is removed, excised. It does hurt, but there is also a strange relief. Except...whatever it was, it's still here. Next to each of the Guardians. Still attached, just...an externality now.

The wave crashes to the shore. They're all knocked to the floor again.

If they were alone in a room, they aren't now. If they weren't alone in a room, said room's occupants have now doubled.

DAEMONS
Each PC now temporarily has a daemon. Daemons are the soul externalized, sentient and able to talk. Taking the form of animals, they often shapeshift and change forms during someone's childhood, but settle into a permanent shape during someone's teen years as the person's personality becomes more concrete and distinct.

• Form: A daemon takes an animal form that represents the person's personality. They usually have a gender opposite to their respective person's, but there are sometimes exceptions, sometimes for entirely unknown reasons, or if the person is some flavor of queer. Daemons will know that they're their owner's soul and be able to tell them that.


• Daemon Selection: Here is a page with interpretations of a few animals and what types of personalities they can represent, but please don't take it as law. It's just possible inspiration. The daemons can be any animal. For characters not from Earth, their daemons can be animals that are entirely made up or ones in their canons.


• Link: Daemons are connected metaphysically to their person through an invisible link, allowing that person to still be attached to their soul. Moving too far from your daemon can cause physical and spiritual agony. Suddenly being ripped apart by a great distance can kill someone. Killing a daemon - which is only as hardy as the animal they are - also kills their owner.


• Personalities: Daemon personalities are often similar to their owner's, but sometimes daemons are more willing to be honest about feelings or subconscious impulses. For instance, daemons often instinctually show affection to the daemons of people their owner is fond of. Daemons will remember everything their owner remembers, and was basically there the whole time they were alive, just integrated. Despite being externalized, they aren't something separate from each person, they were always a part of them.


• Physical Contact: People can touch their own daemons without effects and cuddling their daemon can be a positive experience of self-love. Someone hurting their own daemon can feel like they've caused the damage to themselves, and hurts on a spiritual or almost self-hating level. Meanwhile, picking up someone else's daemon without permission can cause incredible discomfort and pain. Alternately, touching someone's daemon with permission can cause comfort, a surge of happiness, or even pleasure, depending on the context of the contact and the relationship the two people have.

OOC DETAILS
❅ Event Length: The plot will last an OOC and IC 2 weeks before they can figure out what's causing the change and reverse it, making the daemons internal again. During this time, allies of the Guardians will temporarily take over their duties and fortunately no major crises will happen. Players can set their own opens during this time as well as play out anything that happens over the whole 2 weeks in this post.

❅ New Characters: If your character is introing at this time, assume they arrived just in time for the magical wave to hit them, or walked into a cloud of its residual energy.

❅ Opt-out: Anyone that doesn't want to play in the plot or have a daemon can handwave Vasilisa's magical defenses caught on to the power surge and her glowing charms protected at least some people in the Pole from the transformation. You can ignore this and thread as if there's just a little extra chaos around the Pole.

❅ Jack Frost: There will also be a network post with Jack explaining what Vasilisa has magically discerned has happened. It will take time to find the source, as the altheiometer is very good at cloaking its readings and registered as "safe." (Technically, it is safe, it's just...inconvenient.)

Comments

[bringinghopewithme]

Neither Acacia nor Bunny has, technically, eyes in the back of their heads, but they are both so accustomed to paying attention to everything around them, and any kind of awareness that they're being watched. Both their heads snap to track the movement of a raptor, and while both immediately recognize the daemon as a daemon before they recognize the falcon, they recognize the intent look of a predator as well.

Acacia reddens with fury. "Hey! Look somewhere else you gallah, I won't hesitate!" she brandishes the boomerang and Bunny winces at how imperfect her grip is, how Acacia hasn't had thousands of years of perfect practice by which to be able to back up her defensive anger. "You won't like what happens if you try it, true enough."

"Hey, who's responsible for this?" Bunny yells at the crowd at large, pointing to the falcon. "Get your instincts in check willya?"

[ninjavampire]

She doesn't back down from the threat, though her legs bend slightly in case she needs to jump away from a badly-thrown boomerang. Daemon or not, it wouldn't be fun for her!

"¿Qué pasa? I was just curious." she insists. It most certainly wasn't just curiosity. "Good eye, though."

Not quite perfectly in-sync with the nature of the daemons, Miguel takes a moment to realize that his own had gone wandering around while he was trying to find answers to all this. When he catches up to investigate, appearing up above beside the bird, he looks perplexed. He initially wonders if Acacia was a new arrival and the rabbit the daemon. No, that didn't feel right.

"Wait, you're -" he begins to ask, pointing at the fluff in the crook of her arm.

It can't be. Bunny?

[bringinghopewithme]

"Yeah, nah, does that work to fool people where you're from? You can go patronize someone else while you're at it," Acacia snaps at the falcon.

It's not that she has less of a filter than Bunny. She really has about the same amount of filter. It just comes out a lot faster.

When she looks Miguel in the eye, too, there are things so subtly off about her that there's no mistaking her for anything but a daemon. The way she carries herself, aside from the details of her veinless eyes and her poreless skin, her hands that don't have lines on the palms or prints on the fingertips, reminds anyone looking at her that a human being is an animal of its own. Natural born, modern socialized humans have a tendency to forget it, thinking themselves separate from nature, but Acacia is a primate and a pursuit predator. It's obvious about her the way it's obvious about Miguel's falcon that she, somehow, is Miguel in a way that is even deeper than belonging.

And Bunny, protectively tucked into Acacia's arm, looks like a children's toy that came to life and got mad about it.

He stares Miguel in the eye, daring him to make any comment at all about his condition.

"Get your soul under control," he orders, pointing at the bird, still trying to throw all 2 pounds of his weight around. "If she eats an elf, that's murder."

[ninjavampire]

"She's not going to eat an elf." he clips back, immediately rejecting any pretense of taking orders.

But Miguel can't deny feeling a little defensive at the accusation. It was like hearing someone badmouth his kid. Or no, the better comparison would be throwing doubt on his control over his own body.

The realization that the fluffball was Dan's husband seems to hit them both at the same time. Rita loses interest in Bunny as a prey item and instead follows Miguel as he drops to the lower floor, swooping down like a slender shadow. He figures it'll make all parties less anxious if they were on the same level, rather than perched overhead.

That thought doesn't stop him from sizing the two of them up with a critical eye. The way he surveys them seems to fit the bird exactly, sharp and distant. He doesn't miss the printless hands and uncanny texture of her skin. The daemon was strange, like some bizarre lab-grown doppelganger of a human rather than the real deal.

"I'm guessing you don't look like that by choice." he says to Bunny. Not unkindly, but not with much sympathy. If this was Bunny's preferred form, then Dan's tastes ran weirder than he initially thought.

[bringinghopewithme]

Miguel might not mean it unkindly. Unfortunately for him, neither Acacia nor Bunny take it any other way. Acacia gives him a wordless, offended shout, exclaiming loudly in the way of someone who's just been told a joke so offensive it was that or punch the teller. She has time to yell because Bunny is struck with the horrible, frustrated conundrum that is . . . Miguel being right.

He doesn't look this way by choice. He hasn't existed in this form for longer than he ever occupied it when he was not yet the Easter Bunny, instead of just one of thousands of them, and it is a serious regression into powerlessness and vulnerability that doesn't align at all with the work and the trouble he seeks out, that he's carved a niche out for himself by doing to the point that the world needs him to do it. Few mortals get to manifest their highest selves in the magic of power and belief; for him to go back to the body he was born in has become a serious downgrade.

But to object to being this small and cute and soft and harmless when all his dead friends and family, every other pooka who ever existed, lived perfectly happy and actualized in bodies just like his would disrespect their memories, and Miguel positing the conundrum, let alone being right about it, disrespects them.

Not that he knows that. Not that Bunny is in a state to offer Miguel the grace of that explanation. "What's wrong with the way I look?" he bites out, instead, which unfortunately opens Miguel up to pointing out all the downsides he is already well aware of with being small and vulnerable and powerless, with all his spiritual power externalized as Acacia.

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan's been gossiping about Miguel to Bunny for weeks at this point, using Bunny as a sounding board for the several bumps and twists their friendship has taken. It's not that Miguel's flaws are foreign to Dan; after all, he sees a lot of them in Bunny, although he's mostly avoided saying that out loud to his husband. But they did require some talking through, and Dan loves that Bunny's so willing to listen to him sort out his thoughts. For so many years, Dan didn't have anyone to talk through the complex emotional math that occupies so much of his mind.

Bunny's frequently commented that Miguel seems a bit unkind, a bit aggressive, a bit uncharitable, a bit why-do-you-like-him-Dan, and Dan's always responded with some advocacy about Miguel's many virtues. Dan's been considering for weeks how to introduce the two of them in a way with minimal friction, if only because there's a likelihood that these two large headstrong egos might someday need to work together to save some children or some magic or the planet. Dan's aware that this will take some orchestrating, that the natural collision of the two will be pretty disastrous. He's been considering a controlled environment in which to acclimate the two to each other, like dominant animals sharing an enclosure.

He was hoping he'd be able to have a hand in making sure everything went smoothly, but when he catches up to Bunny now, he manages to get there just in time to hear Miguel's deeply unfortunate question.

"Oh..." Dan mumbles, pulling a yikes face, reaching out to take Bunny in his arms.

"Are we interrupting?" Virginia peeps, voice like a strangled dial-up modem, nudging Acacia's ankle with her nose to ask to be picked up - and to try and divert Acacia's attention from potentially trying to throttle that falcon.

[ninjavampire]

Miguel's face simply becomes sterner as the daemon screams, looking annoyed at the volume more than anything else. He doesn't seem to read any real threat from the outburst. Rita was competent enough to stay out of reach (he feels assured of this, somehow) and his body functioned as normal. He's confident in his ability to manage things if it came to blows.

Dan arrived at a good time, though, because he opens his mouth to say something - something rude, probably - and puts it off when Virginia introduces herself. Although not as relaxed as she might have been if it was just Dan and his daemon, the falcon still finds her feathers fluffing up with a little contentment before remembering to tamp down. Acacia was still right there! Back into a smooth bullet shape she goes.

"Hit a sore point, I see." he says evenly. "...There's nothing wrong with the way you look. I was just expecting something else."

He makes an attempt at being diplomatic.

[bringinghopewithme]

"Keep on going, I'll hit one back," Acacia mutters, picking up Virginia. "Yeah, you're interrupting, not a minute too soon either."

She juggles Bunny and Virginia carefully in the sense that she tries not to drop them, but the prohibition she feels against touching real humans doesn't extend to Dan. She hands her person off to his husband and drapes Virginia around her neck, sullenly keeping an eye on Rita.

Bunny looks at Dan, knowing Dan knows the nuances of the question that Miguel can't have known he was bringing up. It's easy to be less furious knowing that he isn't going to explain himself to anyone, and doesn't have to explain anything to Dan. "You know this guy?" He asks, jerking a tiny thumb at Miguel.

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan's look at Bunny carries that understanding; Dan knows that there's a war between the fact that Bunny isn't this small defenseless creature anymore and hasn't been for a long time, has worked not to be that, and yet that's the shape of the frozen dead bodies that Bunny had to place in graves the size of shoeboxes by himself. Miguel couldn't possibly know that.

He also notes the way the falcon betrays Miguel's fondness for him, and he hopes that's a sign that he can be a bridge rather than a wedge. He cuddles Bunny to his chest, tucking him into the front of his jacket so Bunny's head and front paws can peek out but he's supported enough that Dan can use his hands.

"Bunny, Acacia, this is Miguel and..." As if the name of Miguel's daemon is the current concern, not the tension that's sprung up. "What's your name, miss? And pardon, I ain't introduced Virginia yet either."

He gestures at the ferret, who's nosing Acacia's ear canal but also watching Miguel and the falcon for body language.

"Miguel, this the husband I been singing praises about when we spend all that time together." Dan figures that it'll go better if he emphasizes that he cares for them both, in the hopes that they extend each other grace for his sake if no one else's. "And this is a stressful situation, so ain't none of us acting our best."

[ninjavampire]

Perhaps appropriately, a raptor's body language can be a bit hard to read with just a glance. The black eyes of the falcon are alert, wings slightly out, her contour feathers flat against her body. Her talons grip his suit at the shoulder, but not enough to breach. She is meeting eyes with Acacia in anticipation of their verbal spat escalating - falcons were in the business of split-second decisions both for hunting and for threats. And she was still too much in the 'uncertain' realm to display any signs of curious behavior.

"I can imagine this all must be disorienting." Miguel casts a look at Bunny tucked away, ignoring whatever grumbling of the daemon was addressed at him. He doesn't care overmuch if Bunny recognizes it as sympathy or more patronizing. If this is going to break out into a brawl, he has decided he won't be throwing the first fist.

"Rita." she says, her gaze split between Dan and Acacia. "Apologies, I didn't set out to try and eat your husband. It just feels like I've been locked up inside for weeks and it's enough to drive anyone crazy. "

Miguel remains stone cold as he gets a light thwap of the wing while Rita adjusts her balance on him. Was it accidental? Was it on purpose? It'll have to be left to interpretation.

"It hasn't been weeks. It hasn't even been a day." he corrects her.

[bringinghopewithme]

Acacia rolls her eyes enormously at I didn't set out to try and eat your husband. She has the excuse of being a pure expression of Bunny's id - but to be fair, he also rolls his eyes, just less enormously.

No, of course Rita wouldn't set out to eat someone's husband, but the pole sure is the place to double check that the small person in the room is a person, not a pest, even before everyone's soul got sucked out of their bodies. The elves alone need so much looking out for, even when the only predators present are the yetis and the humans, but no, of course, it's a simple mistake for anyone with cabin fever to make. Maybe predators really do just think that. Bunny could not possibly know.

"So you're Miguel," Bunny mutters, thinking about everything Dan's told him about. Like the time Miguel threatened him with violence, and the time Miguel assured Dan he'd definitely broken the entire universe, and the coke binge that Dan went on after. It can be heard in his voice that he was already not Miguel's biggest fan, even before Miguel's daemon eyed him up like a snack.

[hallelujahjunction]

"Pleasure, Rita," Dan says, and somehow in spite of all the acrimony in the air Dan truly does imbue that greeting with the sort of warmth that indicates that he is, actually, honored to meet her. It's not every day you meet someone's externalized soul, and even though that vulnerability isn't voluntary, it's vulnerability nonetheless, and Dan always respects that vulnerability is something to be gentle and considerate with.

He knows it's not a pleasure to Bunny, based on every little detail of Bunny's body language. He glances at Miguel in time to see Rita lightly boff him and Miguel correct her. He wonders if that's some inner conflict he should keep an eye on.

"This ain't the first time we been through this, Miguel, Rita. Last time the stakes were higher, though. Had a mission and everything," Virginia says in between gently nibbling Acacia's earlobe.

"We're all a bit on edge, I reckon. Bunny, I ain't gived you the details yet on how well Miguel worked with me and Sam in Quebec," Dan says, trying to make it clear in as few words as possible that yes, he talks to Bunny about Miguel, but no, it hasn't been to talk trash at all. "And how we talked out our disagreements about the Prometheus mission and came to a decent understanding. Miguel, those the pants I made you you're wearing?"

Lord, he's trying to defuse this.

[ninjavampire]

"I see my reputation precedes me." he says in response to Bunny. It's his attempt at humor.

He doesn't miss the displeasure and does not seem to be thrown off at all by the hostility. Some verbal sparring can make for good exercise, if Bunny wants to indulge. He already figured the two of them talk - they're husbands, after all.

Once it seems like there isn't immediate physical danger, Rita's feathers rouse proper. She shakes off the tension much like a dog might, and folds her wings a little closer and neater to her body. She is ready to talk with them, rather than jump to action. She still checks on Acacia from time to time, but it gets broken up in longer spans.

"Pleasure, Dan." her voice is clear like spring water. "He likes them quite a lot. It's the first thing that didn't fit like Peter's pajama pants."

Miguel doesn't dole out compliments so readily, but he also does nothing to deny it. He did appreciate the gift.

[bringinghopewithme]

Acacia and Bunny both want to ask what part of Miguel's reputation he's okay with being preceded by, but Acacia gets out a "what -" before Bunny flicks a paw and she clams up.

Acacia stews in silence in Miguel's direction, but Bunny looks at Dan with one sideways glance that asks first Price, now this one? How many aggressive strays are you going to let get attached to you? without him having to say that, at least until the two of them get some private time again.

Dan forgives Miguel, Dan likes Miguel, but Dan is the most forgiving person Bunny's ever met, and he likes everyone. Bunny doesn't have to. He does, however, have to work with the team he's got to protect the kids and set the universe back on track.

When they figure their way out of this crisis, he can go back to happily never thinking about Miguel ever again. In the meantime, Dan is doing a lot of hard work to keep the peace, and he's got to respect it.

"I don't know a better tailor than you," he says to Dan, which carries weight, because he knows a lot of people. He knows Dan will hear the honey I'm trying behind his words.

[hallelujahjunction]

"Glad to hear it, Rita. I probably need some time to put the finishing touches on them summer clothes before I deliver them over." He always has to consider that he might need to budget in time for getting dragged on a mission or, now, potentially making a backup outfit for Acacia. He hopes he doesn't have to. He hopes this all gets sorted out in a few hours at most.

He and Bunny make eye contact and have an entire conversation without words, where Dan litigates that his friendship with Miguel isn't at all like his friendship with Price but that even if it is, part of why Dan's the love of Bunny's life is because Dan's just so damn willing to forgive and focus on people's virtues before their faults. If Dan had taken it personally when Miguel lashed out at him for going off-script on a mission, or revealed that he messed with the timeline, he wouldn't be the person he is, and he likes that about himself.

He can tell Bunny's trying and that Miguel's not agitating, which he suspects may be the best he's going to get. He feels vaguely like he's feeling tectonic plates grinding against each other, two similar big entities on their own course clashing, but he thinks that an actual earthquake has been averted.

"I would have could figured a falcon for you, actually, Miguel. Fast, efficient, smart, likes to hang out on perches." He pets Bunny's head. "I'm sorry I couldn't all could introduce y'all two in better circumstances."

[ninjavampire]

"You have to get used to them with Nueva York's skyline." he remarks, avoiding the more morbid quip about liking heights. There is plenty of gliding and diving needed to traverse the city, more than even web-swinging. In a way, he supposes it fits.

For what it's worth, Miguel doesn't seem interested in digging into the exposed emotional underbelly that was Bunny in this state. He'd push back on ever being called a 'stray', though. He was still the leader of the Spider Society, thank you! Just temporarily stranded like the rest of them.

"You're very diligent, Dan. I can tell you that the gift will be the highlight of his month." she says, chin feathers fluffed with a sly content. Rita had a candidness to her that Miguel hid behind a filter, but that didn't mean it had to be a cruel kind. Even if the hunting drive seemed to come with the package.

"This must be the work of a curse or artifact." Miguel says, refusing to let them stew on that. For him, this was a mission. And that means it's business time. "You both have been through this before, how did you set things back?"