milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOM: One commission, two gifts and an unexpected visitor. Small warning for a bit of blood and gore.]

Weyland returns to the bar sometime later, when he has recovered enough to appear calm again, and he carries the gifts he has made up to the bar. It looks like it's going to be another Atlantean night.

He takes a seat at the bar, and waits. There's one person in particular he's waiting for and several others he'd be very happy to see, but really any distraction would be welcome.

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"Do you ever feel like... the also-rans of divinity? Not completely forgotten like some, but never going to be the first tier of godhood, like Thor for instance?"

He chuckles quietly, humorlessly. "You believe in me, and I appreciate that. But you're one of the few."

"Hm." She smiles, a little. "Yes. I always think I should have been put in charge of war, or something. Then they'd know who's boss."

She pushes the parasol, and it flowers open, providing a small amount of shade.

"Well, a few is better than none, I suppose."

"Imagine if you were in charge of war, just for a week or two--you could set things up to make quite a lot of beautiful tragedy when you returned to your usual place."

He leans back against the backrest, watching her.

"You know I prefer quality over quantity."

She quirks a brow; otherwise, her face is unreadable.

"True enough."

"A shame that the powers-that-be here spend their time turning people into machines and vice versa--I should love to exchange powers, just for a little while, with someone else. To see how it feels."

He uncorks the bottle of wine.

"I've changed physical appearances with others, but never powers."

"Is that possible, would you say?"

"I could do it, I think," he says. "Make something that would do it. I've made things to transfer powers between sorcerous humans, at least--it would be like that, only stronger. But I'd need a willing volunteer."

"I think I'd be scared to volunteer. You know, it'd be quite strange."

"It would," he says. "Strange enough just to take the shape of another--stranger still to take one's powers. Especially when they are such an innate part of what we are."

"Yes."

She contemplates it. "I doubt I'd realize what how much I take for granted until they were gone."

"Does it ever feel like a burden?" he asks quietly. "The pull to do your work, the inability to avoid it? Would you take a break from it if you could, and not even have to think about your work?"

She looks at him, still.

"Maybe."

"It does for me, and yet... I can't imagine life without it. The week I spent in another person's shape, I lacked the strength and coordination to do my work, not to mention the parts... and I nearly went mad from it. But then, I still had the need to craft. If I had another's powers, I might not."

She tilts her head.

"You changed shapes with someone? I didn't recall that one."

"I did, while I was here," he says. "It was... quite a while ago, now. We didn't do as much preparation beforehand as I would have liked, so I was all but going in blind, but luckily, I doubt anyone noticed."

"Well... people see what they want to see. So I'm sure that made it easier."

"Definitely," he agrees. "Also given her nature--capricious, hard to pin down--well, I suspect my performance simply made her a little aloof for a week. We all have our moods."

"To be sure," she says, not without irony.

"And she probably had an easier time of it than I did. My relationships with other people are very... well, most of them are strictly business, very formal. Whereas hers were all over the map."

"Like what?" she asks, taking a sip of wine.

"Apparently having children--I'd simply not even thought about the possibility, but I was asked about some of them, and had no idea what to say. There were a few conversational fumbles like that."

"Mmh," she says, contemplatively. "Sounds like fun."

"It can be liberating, to live someone else's life for a while, is the point," he says, "but better still to have their powers, or at least not a need for your own."

"I suppose it could be," she says, but it's flat.

(You could probably only here the wistfulness if you were listening for it.)

"But I still owe you a vacation, I believe," he says, more quietly. "If you're still interested."