milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Ava's up in the library.

Presumably, she's been quietly working shifts this whole time. But now you might actually catch her-- going through the stacks reshelving books, or at the front desk reading.

She has three books of her own: a bright-yellow Nancy Drew, a star-covered hardback called Depth, Silence, and one that looks a lot older.

It's a book of seventeenth-century demonology.

[ooc: Hey friends! Ava is taggable at the front desk or wandering through the aisles. PM with questions/plots/schemes/dreams.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Death stood in an isle reading a very old book and smirking at it. The content, to him was funny, but the art was beautiful.

Ava rounds the corner, a stack of books in her arms that reaches her chin. She has her cheek tilted to keep them steady.

"Oh," she says, "hi there."

"Hello Ava," said Death not even looking up,"having fun in the stacks?"

He turned a page gingerly on the book.

"It's my job," she agrees, pleasant.

With care, Ava extracts the topmost book in her tower and starts scanning the spines of the books on the nearest shelf.

"You? I bet you never get lost in here."

"No," said Death finally closing his book and watching her,"I don't."

He walked over to the place his book was from and placed it back. He wasn't about to help her in her job, it wasn't his.

"Can I help you find anything?"

Ava figures that being polite doesn't go amiss, with this guy. Even if she hasn't entirely figured out how to deal with him otherwise.

"I believe you answered your question all ready," he said, "Are you bound here?"

Must have been one of those nuances that was missing for him here. He was beginning to hate this place, just a little. He wondered how much trouble he would get in if he simply killed everyone and left. He sighed, it wasn't his place to deal out death here, no matter how much he wanted to. That Elf sure needed a taste.

Ava nods.

Then she pauses.

"Well ... I haven't tried to get out for awhile."

Death smiled at her, "Why?"

He was still rather annoyed with the Elf, and he was feelling a slight malevolence.

Edited 2015-01-05 21:38 (UTC)

"Oh," she sighs, "a demon from home told me I'd just end up in hell. Sounded like a drag."

"And so you are avoiding your fate," stated Death, "The demons can't destroy you, only to true and change you. I am s uprising you didn't spring from your body as one, considering the things you have done."

He was not benevolent today, and it may have come across in his tone.

Ava doesn't look upset, but there's a distinct lack-of-something in her expression that might read as, well ... not nothing.

"That part isn't so much my wheelhouse," she admits.

"Are you telling me that you are not responsible for your own actions, or that you are not able to go back if you wanted to?" asked Death.

"Neither."

Although it's not like she could have killed people using demonic powers without someone giving her those demonic powers in the first place, if you dig.

"Just that I don't actually know much about how anybody becomes a demon. Just rumors. And since those are from demons ... they're not the most reliable sources."

Death smiled, and not his nice smile, either.

"You do know that the soul can be warped, tortured, and mangled in many ways, but never broken," he said, " Not even by me. What do you think a demon is?"

She wasn't responsible for the demonic powers, but she was responsible for how she used them.

Why he decided to actually tell her this is beyond him. He put it up to being cross.

That's nice to know, she guesses. It's immortality of a sort.

"Not a ghost, not a monster, but a little of both?" Ava answers with a shrug. "Although hellhounds are kinda monsters, as far as I know."

"Something like that," he said, "Because instead of Hell monsters go to Purgatory. You don't want to go there, believe me."

Not if you are afraid of pain.

"I thought Purgatory was for Catholics," she says, nose wrinkling.

Ava has no particular loyalty to the faith she was raised in-- she pretty definitively switched teams, after all. But its influences resurface from time to time.

Death shook his head.

"You do know they got a lot of things wrong," he said.

"Well, I know now."

"They got a few things right," he said, "Ava, how many people know about your demon side, here? Do any of your friends know about what you did?"

He had moved closer to her, the smell of dust mingled with the smell of books. There was also just the slightest smell of death, a sickly sweet smell of a dead body.

Edited 2015-01-07 02:17 (UTC)

Ava doesn't move-- just holds the stack of books in her arms.

"Some of them do," she answers, quiet.

"Not many."

"How do you intend to atone?" asked Death. It wasn't that it mattered at all in the long run. In reality, atonement was all a cop out.

"I didn't realize I was supposed to be atoning." Pause. "Figured it was a little late in the game."

Death grinned, she was smarter than she looked.

"At least you understand the game."