Roleplaying
2004 Archive
2005 Archive
Seminars
| When: | 10 May 2005 |
| Who: | Damien, Noah, Sandra |
| What: | Damien and Sandra explain to Noah that he's a Remnant. |
Damien's Apartment
This classy two bedroom apartment is decorated in an emotionally cold and sterile, but very popular, modern style of glass, black leather and chrome. It looks like the cover of a Pottery Barn catalogy, picture-perfect with snazzy end tables and modern prints, but the whole place is so clean it looks like a model, not a home. The only real non-professional-decorator touches are the tall bookshelf with dozens of books on politics, history, and public policy and the absolute chaos of the bedroom coverted to an office. A giant window graces one wall of the apartment.
Sandra called Damien about 15, 20 minutes ago to expect company. He's still in his suit and tie from the night before, but the suit jacket is hanging on the back of a chair and his blue power tie has been undone. He's unlocked the door, let the desk downstairs know that he's expecting company, and started cooking breakfast. The apartment smells of coffee, frying eggs and bacon. Amazingly, sometime in his life, he's learned how to fry an egg.
Sandra knocks sharply on Damien's door, possibly with a Noah in tow. She's got a paper bag with some fresh fruit under one arm, and sniffs at the air curiously. "...he's cooking? Wonderful!"
Noah is still in a bit of shock from the previous night. He looks nervous as he stands behind Sandra, backpack still slung over both shoulders.
Damien calls out from the kitchen, "Just let yourself in! The door is unlocked!"
Sandra opens the door and makes a gesture for Noah to proceed her. She gives the young man a reassuring smile. "It's okay, Noah. Things really do make sense, it's just not the normal kind of sense." She sticks her hand around the door and waves at Damien.
Damien works on plating up breakfast. It's amazing that he even has plates or forks or pots or pans. Perhaps even he craves just the taste of something once in a while. "Make yourself comfortable," he says over his shoulder.
Noah steps in, still looking a bit uncomfortable. He freezes though a few steps inside the apartment. Loooking around, he says "Wow...This is...*really* nice."
Damien finishes plating up breakfast and sets the plates down on the glass topped dining room table. He pulls off his tie and tosses it on the table top. "I have coffee and orange juice."
"But Damien's hardly anywhere in it," Sandra murmurs. After closing the door, she goes to set down the fruit. "Apples and oranges. Oh, and Eli is going to try and restore Noah's soul on Thursday, so I thought explanations were required. Oooh, orange juice. Thank you, Damien." She smiles and then moves back towards Noah.
Damien doesn't miss a beat as he starts pouring orange juice and grabs Sandra's fruit so he can wash it and cut it into wedges.
Noah stops dead again after walking towards the table in tow behind Sandra. You could have just told him he was about to undergo an alien autopsy. He is speechless for a good half minute as the two just go about the daily routine of preparing for breakfast. Finally he said in a flat tone "What?"
Sandra tries to gently steer Noah to a chair. "I'm going to try and get the most difficult parts of this over first, Noah. Once you get over those hurdles, everything else will come easier." A deep breath. "You know what Damien and I are, yes?"
Damien sets food on the table, and says, "Sit down. Eat. Eat." He takes up a seat himself. "So that really was Eli wandering around downtown doing flamenco dances? I'm surprised that Judgment hasn't covered the city yet. C'mon Noah, sit down, eat."
Noah still looks utterly and completely at a loss for words. He simply nods as he is led into a seat. Eating...eating he knows. Without thinking, Noah reaches for a work and begins to poke idly at the eggs while staring up at the two for answers.
Sandra makes a so-so gesture at Damien. "He claims it wasn't. Either he's telling the truth, he's lying, or Dominic is right and he's insane. I'm hoping for anything but the last option myself." She plunks herself down into a chair and reaches out for a piece of bacon. "Noah, hon...you were once an angel. Like me. You got into some sort of fight, and got hurt. Badly hurt. So badly that you haven't healed, and you started to think that you were human. Eli, that man last night, was an Archangel. He's going to try and heal you."
Damien starts picking at his food. "There are rules for introducing someone like you back into the community of Celestials," Damien says, "But I went ahead and blew it by not observing them correctly. My kind doesn't care about rules very much -- we're very married to our concept of chaos and disruption -- so the impulse kind of happened without much thought."
Noah listens to the two as he pokes at the eggs without eating. He tries to take it in stride, saying casually, "Oh...well..that explains everything." But he's obviously shaken. His fork stops moving and he just stares at the two as if internalizing what he's just been told "How? How can I believe you? I mean...I'm just...me," he says, looking down at himself.
"I didn't know," Damien admits, and then reaches for his cup of coffee. "Not at first. Sandra told me, after apparently Tyrr looked at your soul. I was just trying to keep you from being recruited as a Soldier of the War by Kacela. At first, I thought about making you a Soldier for myself," Damien admits, "but as the Bob Dylan song goes, things have changed. And you're not human, so discussing Heaven and Hell was having a disruptive effect on you."
Sandra plays with a piece of bacon. "It's...I can't really prove it to you, aside from things you've probably already noticed yourself. Do you ever actually /get/ hungry, or do you just eat when it seems appropriate? The same with becoming sleepy. Have you ever really been cold or hot outside, unless the temperature was truly extreme? Maybe you've occassionally done things, or known things, that seem...odd?"
Noah just shakes his head "I don't know...I guess..maybe. I just go to bed at night. That's normal, right? And I like to eat." He still looks stunned and it takes him time to even come to those revelations. For once, though, he doesn't look as if he's about to cry. He's just too shocked to be upset.
"You probably don't have any frames of reference, Noah," Damien says. "So you're not sure what being hungry or needing to sleep or feeling cold is actually like. You just believe that you need to be hungry and need sleep. If you never slept or ate again, it would not harm you any."
"He's right," Sandra says, gently. "Can you ever remember having a really long shift, and hearing everyone else talk about how they're starving, or exhausted, when you're just...okay? You wouldn't mind a sit down, or something to eat, but it's not a drive? They're mortal. We, including you, are not."
Damien pokes at his eggs. "Which is why," Damien admits, "I could not figure out Kacela's whole cooking thing. It's not s survival skill for her. I'm sure it's just some screwy Balseraph thing."
Noah shrugs and then looks down at his food and back up again "I guess," he says quietly "I mean...I loved what I did so guess I just assumed that kept me going." He thinks for a moment or two and says "Never got sick though...working at a hospital. Perfect attendance for three years when I was an orderly."
Sandra nods. "You won't get sick, either. Ever. Your body is...we call it a 'vessel'. It's not the real you. Celestials can shed it when they want, or when travelling to another plane. Heaven or Hell, I mean." She glances at Damien and smiles. "Most likely."
Noah shakes his head a little "But...that's what normal people have though? Right? Their body is where their soul is? How is it different? And...what does it mean? What happens when I die?" He begins to look scared now, his eyes watering up a little.
"My partner Nastor," Damien explains, "is a Balseraph. I've known him off and on for about a century. He's the kind of demon who forces the world to conform to what he believes, not the other way around, so I am constantly contending with him doing some very strange things simply because he has decided that is how the world works today. Demons," Damien says after a long swing of coffee, "suck. But you weren't a demon, Noah." He puts the cup down. "Your body is like a clay jar. You inhabit it, but it's not you. Humans have their actual bodies, and it _is_ them. That's the difference. And it's very, very, very hard to kill you, Noah. Someone quite obviously tried, though."
"Tried, and succeeded," Sandra says, quietly. "They killed most of who you were. Your angelic soul was torn from you. That's why you can't remember. Why you can't hear the...why you don't understand what you are. The vessel preserved fragments, which have gradually grown into the Noah-we-know." She crumbles the bacon slice between her fingers. "Eli can give you a new soul, but he can't make you who you were."
Yep. Noah breaks. He puts his fork down and cover his mouth again, his look of confusion and sadness turning to one of horror "But..." and then he begins to speak more rapidly "Do I still have a soul? And what about people? People have souls even if they are their bodies? How is that different? And who is Eli? What's he going to do to me? Will I still be me? Like me, this me?"
Damien looks a little helplessly at Sandra. "You still have fragments of a soul, but you're not complete, Noah. People do have souls. When they die, they either go to Heaven or Hell. Eli is the Archangel of Creation. And, will you be like you? I don't know, honestly. I'm not the me I once was; some of us change."
Sandra wipes her fingers off on the napkin, and then reaches out to try and hug Noah. "I think you'll be the person you are now. I've never done this before. Usually, we /don't/ do this. It's...we don't...restoring a soul is difficult, and your situation is unusual. Usually, if we find someone like you, we just stay out of the way and try and let you live a normal human life, as much as you can."
Damien says sadly, "I kind of threw a wrench in that process. I'm sorry about that."
Noah just sits there and lets himself be held. He asks through the embrace "Why? Why don't you try and help them?" Then he frowns "Maybe it's easier...Maybe it would have been easier if I was just Noah who was in an accident, the John Doe in a coma who had amnesia. Made a life for myself, thought I knew who I was. Now I just don't know anymore. It hurts knowing...I have nothing left to lose," he says in broken tones "If this angel can help, can fix things for the better...yes."
Damien heaves a sigh. "I don't know how much help Eli could be. He might be mad as a hatter."
Sandra rocks Noah gently back and forth in a soothing rhythm. "...it's easier, yes. And sometimes it doesn't work. And, Noah, to be honest, it can be difficult for us to interact with those like you. I'm not sure how to explain it, except that it's sort of like the way firemen might look a fellow of theirs that was horribly burned in the course of duty. We're immortal, but not invulnerable, and it's a strong reminder." She smiles, sadly. "But Eli /can/ help. He's agree to try, and he's Creation. Creation is an immensely powerful concept, and Eli is one of the oldest and wisest of us." She gives Damien a LOOK.
Damien withers a little under Sandra's LOOK of DOOM. "But if he can help, Noah, I'm absolutely positive he will."
Noah nods, rocking back and forth but seemingly still a bit out of it "So...what do I have to do? To prepare?"
Sandra continues to rock. "There's nothing you must do, however you may find it useful to pray. Or write in the journal Damien gave you," she says, gently. "Whatever would help you. And we'll be here if you need us."
Damien admits, sadly, "When I look at you, Noah, I often think of Rem, and what would have happened if we just would have let her become a Calabite. I think about her roaming around as a Remnant instead of what we ultimately did, lost, confused, and sad, and in the end, when I think it through, I don't want you trapped in your current condition forever, Noah. I am happy that whomever did this to you didn't finish the job, but I'd rather you rejoin your Chorus of Angels then live, believing you're human, and forgetting Heaven forever."
Noah nods "I'll...get to see Heaven then? But. What will I do? I mean...Nevermind. I guess you guys have day jobs too."
Sandra ruffles Noah's hair, then breaks the embrace. "If your Role hasn't been compromised by that mess last night, then you can continue to live your life, as long as your true nature allows it. Eli will likely take you as one of his Servitors, I imagine."
"I work because I'm forced to by my Master, and because if I do not work, I'll finally, completely go mad," Damien says. "Thus my day job."
Noah nods, chewing on his lip "I guess I see..."
Sandra smiles. "You'll understand more after the restoration. I'm sorry to spring it on you so suddenly, but I thought the more time you had to come to terms with it, the better." Speaking of time, she looks down at her watch and frowns.
Damien looks at Sandra, and offers, "Noah, if you just want to chill, I need to work in the office. You're welcome to hang around for a few hours."
Noah nods, still chewing on his lower lip "I'd like that...just to think and stuff. Thank you, D."
"The place is full of food, I get digital cable, and the couch is all yours," Damien says. "And I have to go do some actual, legitamite work in the other room. Make yourself comfortable."
Sandra rises, looking relieved. "Thank you, both. I would stay, but I've got a scheduled meeting with some of our donors, and it'd be terribly rude to be late." She smiles at them. "Take care, and you have my number if you need anything at all."
Noah nods. He stands, not having eaten anything and finds his way to the couch where he proceeds to just lie down.
Damien thinks for a moment, and then arranges to make Noah comfortable with a plate of the left over cut fruit, some crackers, and the TV remote control. Then, he heads into the second bedroom converted into an office and starts messing with his Powerbook.
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