Snowblind Inbox

[warriorscribe]

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

Comments

[warriorscribe]

The tower. Do you remember it?

[He does. He can never forget it, no matter how long ago it was. It may no longer be a raw wound, but it still aches to probe.]

You were relatively new here. You knew very few people. And when all of these strangers or near-strangers were hurting worse than they ever had, though you knew nothing about any of them, you used the the charge in your Zune - limited so far as you knew - to lift their spirits with music.

That's what I remember. That the sight of their pain moved you to give something you didn't believe you could replace.

[zunesareawesome]

Yeah, I remember.

[It seemed so incredibly far away, but that wasn't something anyone could forget.

When he listens to Enoch speak, his hands grip his tablet more and more forcefully until his knuckles start to hurt, half out of surprise, half out of the pain of remembering who he used to be, and how upset he would be with himself if he knew...who he'd become.]

I...

It was no big deal.

[He's quiet though, this has hit him harder than he'd expected.]

[warriorscribe]

As it should be. It can be second nature again. In fact, it might be still, waiting for you to simply act on it again.

[Why else would he so vehemently cling to all of this?]

[zunesareawesome]

[There's a long pause.]

Why haven't you given up on me? You said you care because you must, but there's got to be something more. Something more, some secret on why you really haven't you given up at all on any of this stuff?!

[This stuff, meaning the town, people--mortals, everything.]

[warriorscribe]

I-

[He knows. He knows exactly why. The reason the nightmare of his dead, flooded world did not fill him with despair, but with an urgency to return to Norfinbury. To the reason he still had left.]

I have someone to fight for. A cherished friend who keeps my love and hope alive. Your reason doesn't have to be a living person, or a person at all. It can be an object, a memory, a motto...find something that makes it easier to be true to who you really are, and cling to it. That's how we get by.

[zunesareawesome]

[Someone to fight for. Something to fight for.]

You're...lucky.

[The words are honest, and a little raw. He hasn't listened to his music in...forever, literally, he's tried his best not to think about the Guardians but that dream...it reminded him of being so stoked to save the Galaxy, to have actual friends, all of it...the music, dancing with Gamora, flying with Rocket...giving it all up to save everyone from his dad...]

...it was all such a long time ago.

[warriorscribe]

I know. You're not the only one left from that time. Even if you can't find comfort in mortal company, be it yet or ever, you'll have the rest of us. You're not alone. And I know how easy it is to feel like you are.

[zunesareawesome]

[Despite everything, he was afraid there would come a point that he'd no longer be able to take comfort in mortal company. Maybe that point was now, maybe not. He just...as much as he berated them, it was also out of a sense of...loss. As if a random mortal person was offending him by their mere existence because they had the potential of him liking them, and then feeling their loss when they inevitably died.

But...he didn't want to have to just hang out with all immortals, either.]

You guys have to promise not to be boring.

[It's a joke, because he does feel alone, and doesn't want to say how scary it feels.]

[warriorscribe]

[It's a balance, Peter - he can help. Dealing with mortals is easier with someone who won't leave around. It will probably never be easy for him or Peter the way it is for Castiel, but having someone helps. He knows this.]

I'll see what we can do.

[zunesareawesome]

Good.

Because like, ten thousand years of watching wallpaper peel isn't exactly my idea of fun.

[Can he do this? It's not like he has a choice. He still sounds terrified, under his bravado and pretend-casualness.]

...how old are you again, exactly?

[warriorscribe]

I've lost track of time. I was about four hundred when I arrived. Angel and Rhys have-...

[...That is a shitty way to tell time.]

...No. I don't remember how long we went without them, either.

Honestly, I'm not sure anymore. I've stopped counting.

[zunesareawesome]

...right.

Yeah. [Probably not the best, no.]

Maybe I should stop counting. Maybe it'll make things easier.

[But there was some part of him, some part that reveled in the horror of it all, that made him want to wallow in self-pity at every passing year.]

[warriorscribe]

It will. It was one of the first practices I adopted, back home. I thought I was closer to three hundred before Eve's medical records corrected me.

[Not that losing track of time is the best thing? But it does help.]

[zunesareawesome]

[Anything that could help would be...good.]

...do you think there's gonna be a point where you can't relate to them anymore? Mortals? And won't be able to talk to them like, properly anymore? Because one day you're gonna wake up and it's three million years later.

[warriorscribe]

No. I don't know what kind of person I'll be in three million years, but I'll still be human. I'll still need the same things they need. Food, water, safety, love. There will always be that common thread, and life itself will always be the same.

Whether or not I'll be able to bring myself to speak to them, I can't see myself failing to understand them anymore. Nothing will change the fact that I was still born among them.

[He pauses a moment longer, and then adds:]

When I was younger - comparatively so, the age I first arrived - I was afraid of this, too. I worried I would become withdrawn the way chaos and the nations have now. That I would lose some of my claim to humanity somehow. But it hasn't been as bad as I feared.

[zunesareawesome]

[Nothing will change the fact that I was still born among them. Peter thought about that for a long moment. He did know what it was like to be a regular person, once. Even though it seemed like forever ago.]

...seriously? After all of this, you still consider yourself human? When you know things and have experienced things they'll never be able to?

[How does he do it? Peter's thrown himself head-first into calling himself a Celestial and berating mortals out of a subconscious fear of losing his humanity. If he embraced the...non-human-ness, his alien side, rejecting his humanity, maybe it wouldn't hurt as bad. Or be as frightening.]

[warriorscribe]

Of course. Humanity is an experience, yes, but it is also an identity.

[Setting aside the fact that he never ceased to be biologically human...]

It is who I am. I didn't become like the other immortals at home when my aging was suspended, because I was different from the start. I came into the world in a different way and saw it from a different perspective. Nothing can undo that foundation of who I am. I was never anything like an angel - I am an immortal human.

[zunesareawesome]

[The fact that Enoch could retain who he's always been...stung, in a way.]

Well, I'm not. I was born among 'em, raised among 'em, but I'm not.

[Is he proud? He sounds proud. Or maybe he's bitter.]

[warriorscribe]

[He suspects bitterness, given the way he's gotten his real emotions to crack through during this conversation. He responds, calm and gentle:]

You were raised as a human. You've never told me what you are - you certainly look like one - but perhaps you should listen more closely, to the things I define as "human". It's a perspective, it sets us apart from those who never lived as we did.

...Whatever runs through your veins, living as a human is what originally shaped you as a person. It's how you learned right from wrong, and the way the world works.

[zunesareawesome]

Celestial. My dad wasn't even originally even remotely humanoid, he just made himself an avatar to interact with everyone else. He was a planet, otherwise. So you can see how piddly everyone seems to a planet.

[He had managed to convince himself that being a Celestial was better, but there was something disconcerting about it that's never left him, after all these years.]

So he could look like humans, but he never quite got their perspective. Mortals were nothing to him, he was disappointed by life. He lived for millions of years, regular people's lives were like...flies to him.

I might've been raised human. But ordinary people's versions of right from wrong doesn't apply to Celestials. Dealing with literal eternity.

[warriorscribe]

And that's where you're wrong. Right and wrong - especially in the context of doing right or wrong by someone else, it's not about relative significance. It's about the moment itself. Immortals are not above it, no matter how much the older ones like to think they are.

[zunesareawesome]

[Peter's quiet a moment.]

He was disappointed by...other life. I think he was always bothered with how short everyone's lifespans were. Never being able to make friends that lasted long enough to mean anything. He couldn't connect with anyone, in all those years. He never saw them as actual people, didn't care about anyone else.

[He didn't connect with anyone...except for Meredith Quill. And look what he did to her in the end.]

He thought he was above normal right and wrong. He taught me to forget about the mortal in me. To look at things in the context of eternity.

[warriorscribe]

And yet, look at the way mortal humans evolve, look at the way they pass their knowledge on. Look at the good they do for one another, at what they can accomplish - if you want the true context of eternity, it is that humans have boundless potential, and the ability to build on the knowledge of those who have passed on is its key.

[zunesareawesome]

[And that's something Ego never really could understand, even if he stumbled around the edges of it, with his appreciation (if he wasn't lying, that was) for earth's music and most of all, for Meredith Quill.

Peter sighed.]

...yeah, well. Not much luck getting any of that here, what with all the repeats.

[warriorscribe]

I would argue that they still benefit from their predecessors. I could swear the House we have now is more calculating with his recklessness than the first. Of course, that's difficult to tell now, given the town has forced the wrong versions' brain maps on all of them...

[Norfinbury, why do you do this.]