milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

asmodean,
kim bauer

(no subject)

[OOM: A nightmare from last night - warning: violent content]

Kim comes down from upstairs. She ran earlier and showered and changed so she's ready to eat and hopefully not think about certain things.

She's also kind of curious why so many people are running upstairs but isn't really in a party mood either.

She orders a chicken pad tai and a soda. She finds an empty booth and sits down but probably wouldn't mind some company.

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Asmodean nodded solemnly. He looked her in the eyes. His eyes were deep wells that opened into pools of pain.

"It takes a very strong person, stronger than I, that when they have been hurt do not lash out and hurt others. All of us have our moments of weakness. Your father is no exception. With me, because of my power, my capacity to do harm is far greater."

'With great power comes great responsibliity,' she thinks and doesn't say.

"But you're new to this being good thing so maybe it'll just take some practice."

Asmodean nodded.

"I suppose. It takes a great deal of control, because I am, for once, concerned if in a sudden flash of anger, I tear someone's body to pieces."

"This may sound a little odd but do you have specific powers?"

Asmodean nodded.

"It is not odd in the slightest. I can harness the One Power. The driving force of my universe."

He continued to look straight at her, but dark fire lept up in his eyes, and lightning began to arc around his body.

Two nearby unoccupied tables lifted into the air and danced in the air above their heads. Asmodean did not move or acknowledge their presence at all. Then the tables returned to their positions and the lightning vanished, and the fire in his eyes died down.

"That was just a small taste of my power. It was as easy for me as lifting a kitchen utensil would be for you."

Kim gasps, she can't help it and watches in amazement. "I've never seen anything like that. I can't imagine having powers that could...do that"

Asmodean shrugged.

"You grow used to it. However, if you are, for some reason, denied use of your powers then it becomes quite a hassle. It happened to me once, and would be like you losing use of your right arm."

"Were you born with these powers?"

Asmodean nodded.

"Yes, but I had to train for over a century to be able to use them skillfully, and to develop a specialty."

"That's a long time to be in schooling. What is your specialty?"

Asmodean paused.

"Using the One Power as a weapon. For most of my life, I lived in an enlightened society where war had been forgotten. I used my powers in order to maintain stability and to stop errant individuals."

Kim isn't quite sure she understands what he means. "When you say errant individuals do you mean people who were against the rulers or people who were trying to hurt civilians?"

Asmodean paused.

"I suppose I could have been sent for both, but I do not recall ever being sent against individuals who were against the government. I do not recall such individuals existing."

"In your society there was no one who tried to change things or overthrow the ruling class?"

Asmodean gave a smile.

"Before the Shadow came, my society was a practically ideal one. Disease had been conquered, the weather and the earth had been harnessed for the good of all, hunger and poverty had been abolished. Honor and status were the driving forces of society, and to serve others generated more honor than to serve oneself."

"So the Shadow wasn't always there? It kind of sounds like a utopia."

Asmodean considered.

"We did not realize what we had until we had lost it."

"Do people in your society live a long time often?" Kim met someone who had two hearts so this wasn't such an out there question.

Asmodean paused.

"I am one of the Aes Sedai, people who control the One Power. In my age, the Aes Sedai routinely lived past eight hundred years. Ordinary people lived to between one hundred and fifty and two hundred years."

Kim nods. "It's still kind of hard for me to imagine all these other worlds existing."

Asmodean shrugged.

"I suppose. In my world, we had the Portal Stones. They allowed us to visit the Mirrors of the Wheel, it showed us what might have been. Other worlds where we met other choices. I do not know what exactly Aes Sedai did with them, because that was far outside my area of expertise."

"You mean you got to see alternate versions of the future?"

Asmodean nodded.

"That is what I was told concerning them."

"Where I'm from we never see other versions of the future and lifespans are much shorter."

Asmodean nodded.

"Our worlds are different, but perhaps one day, your world will be similar to the way mine was before the Shadow came."