Snowblind Inbox

[warriorscribe]

[Such a wondrous device. Are there little invisible couriers for these messages?]

Comments

[warriorscribe]

[There is a correlation for a reason, he realizes...why it's so strange for someone in a world skeptical of God to not be skeptical about Babel...]

What brought about the end of Babel, if it was not an act of God or His angels?

[cahooted]

Disasters of a scale of nature? Many think of the Great Flood as such.

[warriorscribe]

And they do not think this an act of God?

Where I am from, this "Great Flood" will not happen. I doubt God would threaten the same thing twice for any other transgressions, else the Fallen Angels will begin to prepare for it.

[cahooted]

[Flynn frowns, replaying the message a couple of times, getting a little lost in translation.]

I don't understand. There was no Great Flood in your realm?

[warriorscribe]

I should hope not. It was to be a last resort against the hidden angels; their Nephilim were escaping their hiding place and destroying innocent villages. It was determined that if they could not be found, it was best to purge everything.

I did find them, and I did put an end to the Tower they had built for themselves. If such a flood happens, God will have reneged on His promise. I don't believe He is that sort of being.

[cahooted]

The Nephilim built the Tower?

Purge sounds very... drastic.

[warriorscribe]

The fallen angels did, their parents. If Heaven did nothing, humanity might be entirely destroyed by the rampaging Nephilim, in time. They thought it better to end things on their own terms so they might begin again. With my success, it need not end at all now.

[cahooted]

[Yes, he'll stick with drastic.]

Are you of the shape of angels too, then?

[warriorscribe]

Of the shape of angels?

[What else might he... "body", maybe?]

Are you asking if I am an angel?

[cahooted]

Yes, apologies. That is the question.

[warriorscribe]

No, I am human. Were I an angel I would not have been able to argue against the plan.

[cahooted]

[That... doesn't really speak for the angels in his world Flynn thinks but he doesn't know how to get that idea across.]

Why is it that you were chosen?

[warriorscribe]

[It's okay. He knows. It kind of sucks for the angels, really, lacking free will.]

I'm not certain anymore. I was told it is my piety, but I think my passion and patience are serving Heaven much more.

[cahooted]

Ah.

[Flynn purses his lips because those are pretty good attributes to have?]

But you have lived longer than humans?

[warriorscribe]

Indeed, I am nearly four centuries old. The Fallen Angels were very well hidden. It took well beyond a lifetime to find them, so I was blessed with immortality.

[cahooted]

[That's... okay. That's old.]

Did you find them all before your path brought you here? Are there others like you?

[Flynn, knowing his very own personal immortal, is itching to ask if Enoch knows Judson by any chance – but it's not very likely. Or is it? Maybe he does. Maybe they have their own little immortal club that spans across the universes. It's not like Judson TELLS him anything about these things or something.]

[warriorscribe]

I did find them. I could not retrieve them all, as some had died, but I did find them.

As for other immortals, I believe Ishtar may be? She was another chosen by God, with a path similar to mine. While I was to bind and return the Fallen Angels to Heaven, Ishtar was to guide the people in their Tower to freedom. But I am not sure of her immortality. Her previous incarnation stopped aging, but I can't say the same with certainty for her current one. I don't know of any others.

[Yeah, he just. Threw reincarnation out there really casually. One more bit of weirdness to add to the mix.]

[cahooted]

[Reincarnation, so that's a thing, too.

But Ishtar, now that's a name he's familiar with. Flynn squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, concentrating, going back through his memories of ancient scripture until he finds the verses. His voice slips into a more specific Babylonian dialect that is inherent to the words.]

To the netherworld, land of no return,
Ištar, daughter of Sîn, set her mind.
When Ištar reached the gate of the netherworld,
she said these words to the gatekeeper:
"O gatekeeper! Open your gate for me,
open your gate, that I may enter!
If you do not open the gate, that I may enter,
I will break down the door, I will smash the bolt,
I will break down the frame, I will topple the doors.
I will break the lock, I will tear off the knob.
I will raise up the dead so that they devour the living,
and the dead will outnumber the living."

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch follows him to that dialect naturally, after a moment to process what he's heard.]

Is that the tale they tell of her? Interesting how it has changed. Ishtar's current incarnation was indeed raised by a man named Sin, but she did not voluntarily go to The Darkness, and the souls trapped there - I am sure she would have wanted to free them, but the salvageable souls are few and far between. Her first incarnation's remains were taken to The Darkness before her soul could part from them. Her second one was abducted by a demon as bait so he could have me. It was there that her trapped soul took its rightful place in her body, though I was not there to witness it and only informed ten years after it happened.

[...It sounds really bad when he actually lays it all out, doesn't it? He'll have to ask Ishtar what happened, exactly, to the soul born with that body. Had it merged with hers? Was it always a part of hers? He'd assumed they were always somehow one and the same since Michael had said she had been "transfigured into Ishtar", but now that he's vocally called attention to the ten-year divide between the birth of that second body and her original soul, he isn't sure.]

[cahooted]

It is a tale of the times yes. It is much longer, I wished not to recite in its entirety.

[And yes, yes Enoch, that does sound a little sketchy. That sounds a little bit like possession there.] In the mythology, she is regarded as the Babylonian goddess of war, love and fertility.

[warriorscribe]

She is admirably strong, and certainly blessed. But not a goddess. I wonder where the idea came from.

What else does the tale say about what Ishtar does?

[cahooted]

She courted the hero Gilgamesh but he refused her so she sent the Bull of Heaven after him.

[warriorscribe]

I don't think that's true of my world at all. She was certainly involved with him, but I don't know in what way. While I have met Gilgamesh briefly, it was well after they parted ways, and he had yet to take Uruk's throne.

[Also, hundreds of years ago so he only barely remembers him.]

[cahooted]

That is a thing of good for in the tale she is of wrath and revenge over it.

[He's not sure if the bodysnatching thing is much better, though.]

[warriorscribe]

I would imagine a goddess of love and fertility would take rejection very poorly. It must have seemed foolish to her, if not outright mad.

In fact, it's strange to think of from my own perspective. An heir to a king or a king himself could hardly do better for the royal lineage or his public image. It's an intriguing rejection, to say the least. Your world's version must have had some deep distrust or distaste for her.