milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

belar,
helva xh834

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It is totally way too warm outside for Belar to do the polar bear thing any more, but that's okay. On Gara they're having one of his holidays, which is always cool as far as he's concerned. The Mongols, not so much, but holiday necessities are different in Mongolia anyway and he's not about to start throwing his weight around until he's a little better established there.

Since the polar bear thing is right, out, Belar's doing the next best thing: he's taking advantage of what, to him, is positively balmy water and going for a swim. He happens to be using the form of a large bull orca to do it, but enh. Not like the lack of salt in the lake water's gonna hurt him.

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Helva's out by the lakeside, after a morning spent on some work with Alex Rogan. She walks through trees and rocks, when she's not remembering to go around them.
Her reaction to Belar-the-orca is somewhat "OMG What" on first seeing him.
Recalling Chao, she waves. "Hello?"

There's a tremendous splash before the orca spyhops, poking its head out of the lake.

Hey there. Gimme just a second and I'll be right with you, okay?

"No rush, if you're in the middle of something." She eyes the water.
Damn. Intangibility has its drawbacks, but then--
"Or I could come out," she offers, smirking a little.

Entirely up to you. I'm not actually doing anything other than relaxing right now, so I'm down with whatever you decide. Seriously, I'm good either way.

She takes a second to make adjustments, and then she's up above the water, 'walking' toward him. "It's too lovely a day for all work," she agrees, trying to sound nonchalant.

The whale remains casually spyhopped. Oh, totally. You new here? I don't remember seeing you around here before.

"Yes; we landed a little over a week ago. I only got over to the Bar itself yesterday." She's grinning. "Amazing, so far."

Seriously. I don't think there was anything like this either on Earth or on Gara, says the whale. My name's Belar, by the way. hi there.

"I'm Helva," and her smile brightens. "Gara? Is that where you're from?" She's fairly certain that there aren't talking whales on Earth, much less places like Milliways.

Seriously. I don't think there was anything like this either on Earth or on Gara, says the whale. My name's Belar, by the way. hi there.

She coughs politely, a mannerism learned from her brawns, and waited, thinking that he might be a bit distracted, or tired if he'd been resting.

"A pleasure to meet you."

And then Belar smacks his mun upside the head, because he tagged with the right thing before and it got deleted somehow.

Stupid mun.

Did I just- oh, man, I did. Oh, Eriond, I'm sorry- look, I didn't mean to have a temporal skip like that. Sometimes I ignore time and space a little bit to get places in a hurry and I guess it catches up with you even in my position. What I MEANT to say was, I'm a god and Gara is a world my brothers and I made, so... yeah. Oh, dad, that's embarrassing.

"You're...Uh huh." She's grateful she can't actually get headaches, for a fleeting second.
"Which god? Or what kind I mean," recalling some classical myths, she hopes he doesn't take after Zeus, for example.
"Eriond being who, your father or a brother?"
She 'sits', cross-legged.

"He's my baby brother, actually," says the blue-clad blond man who's sitting on the spot of water where the whale had been moments before. "He's pretty new at the whole business. I'm the Bear-god of the Alorn people on Gara, and lately I've become the god of the Dorbed people of Mongolia, on Earth. Nice folks, the Dorbed. Horse nomads. They raise yaks. From what I understand Earth's gods handle things sorta differently- you've got gods of this and that, but you'll have like ten or twelve gods of any given people. It doesn't work like that back home. On Gara we each took a race of people, except for Aldur, and we agreed to teach them and look after them in exchange for them praying to us and all that good stuff. It's not like being Eunice, Roman Goddess of Municipal Water Supplies or something."

"Eunice of..."
Helva tries, but she can't help it. She's laughing too hard to get words out, for a few
seconds.
She gets hold of herself and sits back, meeting his eyes. "Thanks for explaining. I've never really held to any of the Terran religions, but there was a lot of history and classics I'd learned. 'Gods' back there tend not to be the easiest company for us mere mortals."

"No problem," says Belar easily. "My brother Torak had an attitude sort of like some of the more irritating gods of Earth, I'll admit that freely, but he's sorta dead now. Two of my other brothers are real jerks, but neither Nedra nor Chaldan's nearly as big of an asshole as some of the Terran gods I've read about." He pauses, thinking. "Well... Nedra comes close, but he's working on Wall Street these days. It sort of goes with the position."

"Yet more one reason why home for me doesn't mean a planet, these days." She looks thoughtful. "Only brothers, no goddesses where you're from?"

"Yeah, no," says Belar. "Our dad was UL, and our mom was the Universe. No goddesses."

"My.
Are whales intelligent on Gara, too, or is that only you?" She glances at the water. There's a soft trill of notes, almost too deep to hear, that might remind seafarers of a whale's song.

"They're pretty intelligent," says Belar. "They can't talk the way humans can, but they've got their own way of being, same as wolves. If they really wanted to, they could probably pick up sorcery and change shape, same as Garion's ultimate grandmother did to make herself human. That takes serious brainpower."

"Like any group of people," she nods. "But perhaps they don't need to. As for sorcery, I'd have to be stupid to ignore the supernatural here," a pointed look, "though there isn't any where I'm from, or I don't think so."

"It was pretty rare even on Gara," says Belar. "The potential for it was sorta present in all human beings from the beginning, but we hardly ever saw it actually crop up and get used. Sometimes it came out as witchcraft or wizardry or something else, but still, compared to the number of people? Hardly anything at all."

"And on worlds that are tech focused, I'd think it'd be even less likely...Gara sounds rather remarkable. Does the name have a meaning?"

"It means 'tree'," says Belar. "The only thing in the entire world that we didn't make, or that didn't come about as a result of our making other things, was a tree. It sprouted on the day the world itself was made, and it's been growing ever since. It's the oldest living thing there is on the planet."

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