Path of Iron

Coming home used to be easier.

Ireland used to be cleaner.

Trash on the mountain path, no actual hiker would leave it. He swept his hand over it all, and it disappeared. Broken down. Recycled on an electro-molecular level.

When the Teutonic Order swept over northeastern Europe, the pagan tribes were either crushed or ran. Only Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod put an end to their reign of terror. But that was after Vandil had gone to sleep. For he had a different objective. The hearts of his creations, of Torvig and Jarv and their families, were inconsequential. If he brought them back it would only bring a small measure of personal satisfaction to himself. Jarv had made it painfully obvious that they were catching on to the fact that he looked upon them as more possessions than children.

Toys, not people.

That is why he slept. For five-hundred years, concealing himself in the mountains of the Irish countryside, he underwent something he would call the Flesh-Change. For those five centuries, he concentrated on his powers and only his powers. His metal body unfurled into steel-corded flesh, and his molten blood began to run deep with red and the smell of copper.

Never before or since in all the forgeworks of Nidavellir would something like Vandil happen again. He didn't find comfort in that fact.

He tried to force it to happen, in the seams of Midgard. But they were automatons given the barest semblance of conscience, and they learned through many violent mistakes. Torvig and Jarv had just barely begun a stage of peace. Prior to 1190, they were at each other's throats - competing with hunting, tracking, or just fighting in the midst of the small two-cottage village that was their home. Jarv was the first to find out that there were more people outside the borders of the forest.

For a time he grew more violent, but then complacency took him as the boar impaled his iron veins and forced him into a chair until his dying day. He would often question Vandil, mostly about those who live outside their realm of influence. Away from their families. He asked if he was ashamed of them, that they had done something wrong to impose this exile upon themselves. He learned about religion, and inquired if Vandil was the jailer to their souls in a form of hellish imprisonment.

In a way, Jarv had been right.

The Eitrison had no purpose in giving them life other than the selfish pursuit of making things that were similar to himself. Mirrors, ugly reflections that constantly reminded him of his failures and his own greed. At least that is what he knew now. The metamorphosis from iron to flesh had brought with it a new understanding, not only of his powers but of his surroundings.

As expected, the cottage he built four centuries ago had crumbled into little more than partially-fossilized timbers. Mold had overtaken the rest.

He gave a sigh. He didn't know what he wanted from this venture, and vanished from the summit.

The Paddy Wagon had a new patron that night. Half-bar and half-B&B, the Wagon remained a quiet little place in the corner of Glasgow that survived on its usual customers as well as aspiring world-travelers who wanted a quick place to stay. Drinking hardly ever got out of control, brawls were the sport of younger men full of hotter blood. The Wagon was just a calm stone in the lake, nothing more nothing less.

Vandil spotted her from the doorway. Glass of water, her hands flat on the table. From a glance he could tell she was blind, and so approached her calmly and peacefully.

"Hello, miss?" he placed his fingers on the head of the booth opposite her. "You from out of town? Never seen you before."

@eitrison:

He smells like metal. It was her first thought regarding the man who walked up to her in the badly named bar. The instinct faded after a second, though, leaving her a little confused. He did sort of smell like metal, she supposed, but in a subtle and unfamiliar sort of way. Or maybe he didn't and it was just her imagination.

Sitri didn't think so, though. She didn't often rely on imagination. Whatever else he was, he was at least polite, so she half-turned, contemplating whoever he was. A man, by his voice. His accent was subtle as well, like and yet not-like the rest of the people in the bar. He wasn't originally from here, but he'd been here a while. Miss implied he was probably older than her. Tall, by his footsteps, with a heavy tread. He didn't move like he was fat, though. Maybe muscular, maybe something else. She couldn't help but think that metal was heavy...

"Yes," she answered the inquiry, seeing no reason not to be honest. "I was trying to hit England, but I'm crap at geography. I figured I'd chill here for a bit before I have another go." Maybe a little too informative, but that was the problem with metas these days. Everyone was so damn guarded all the time, hiding themselves and their secrets. It made it hard to talk to people. Maybe being more open wasn't the best idea, but it had at least led to some interesting conversations.

Other interesting things as well, sometimes. Maybe he'd be one of them.

@demonboundsitri:

Vandil observed her subtler movements, the lack of eye contact, the heavy emphasis on physical gestures as if to scope out the immediate area. She had no eyesight, that was for sure. Formalities would be pointless now, so he refrained from his usual repertoire of humanoid grins and facial expression. As blunt as a slab of granite, though his voice carried the implications and finer points of conversation just fine.

"England? It's none too far here, if you feel like swimming," a small laugh. "But it's lucky that I found you, it's too late in the day to catch a ferry and planes are grounded until later tomorrow because of heavy fog. But," he levitated some of the nearby objects on the table, a metallic humming noise coming from his hands.

He was sure she could sense it, as well as the clawing scraping of metal that existed as a duller, less obvious sound.

"As I said, luck is on your side. I can get you to England no problem, so long as you have no aversion to flying. Otherwise we can just walk across the pond."

@eitrison:

"Actually, I hate flying," Sitri answered, with a little smile. It was easier to respond to the words of the conversation, since she wasn't really sure what all else he was doing. The hum of something, the scrape of metal, the shift of the table in front of her and the vibrations beneath her fingertips as something was dropped onto the table.

"You're one of those nice-guy types that thinks he's got a solution to everyone's problem, without bothering to ask them if it's actually a problem in the first place." She picked up the water glass, turning to him and taking a slow drink, fixing blind eyes on where his own eyes would be. "I'm not here because I want to be in England. I'm here because I want to figure out how to get to England. So... thanks, but no thanks, as it were." Besides, she definitely had a feeling that his offer of assistance was likely to come with strings attached. Maybe not... but maybe. Jumping in to be a girl's savior without bothering to ask her name or introduce himself... not a good sign. She'd seen that enough from creeper boyfriends at Moon Bird Studios.

She wondered if this guy was anyone's creeper boyfriend. Maybe he was trying to be hers. Girl from out of town would make a good target for that. Or for murder.

Sometimes she wondered if her thoughts were getting too morbid lately. She'd been better about that in the past... back when she'd been hanging out with... well, not normal people, really, but at least regular people. Friends. These days, it was all strangers. The world had gotten bigger, and it was hard to navigate all the new people that encompassed. Some days she didn't even want to.

She really ought to, though. Stop hanging out with people, and she'd be one step further down the road to a white Persian cat and an impenetrable fortress. No good could come of that.

@demonboundsitri:

An audible rustle, but not of anything normal. Plates? Or discs rubbing against each other. The iron vertebrae of his spine jostled in unison, angling his head in a most intrigued fashion. The steel-corded flesh of his body remained rigid.

"My apologies, then, ma'am," he responded politely. Something clicked in his mind, far and away a courtesy he had forgotten. "Vandil, by the way. I am sorry for not... acting normally," he tapped the side of his head, which resonated with a much less than human autonomous noise - much like copper sheets buried under wet sand, rattling under the soft tremors of a hammer.

"I'm still learning about human interactions. I wasn't, well, designed with such things in mind," it wasn't something he was comfortable with telling anyone, but he knew it would lighten the mood. He knew he came across as brash and impulsive, but that was as he ever had been. Eager to learn, eager to experience. Humanity had been a fascinating subject for him, if the evidence he kept to himself could be an indication.

"Perhaps we can try this again?"

@eitrison:

Oh, god, it's going to be another Stephen episode. Why do I attract socially inept men? Is that a meta ability? Do I have that ability? Can I turn it off somehow? "Okay, human-in-training, get your stuff off the table and sit your shiny metal ass down on the bench there." Futurama references were probably beyond his current level, but that wasn't going to stop her from making them, especially when it was such a great opportunity. "I'm Sitri. And believe it or not, you are not the weirdest person I've ever met."

Scary, but true. In fact, she wondered if he'd even make top five these days. Maybe. Not top three, though, she didn't think. Stephen, that crazy biddy Xanders, Vandal King, and Raeyn pretty much had the top spots locked down. In any case, his weirdness failed to phase her. Probably not a good sign. Maybe she ought to see a psychiatrist about that. One in particular. Who didn't want to see her.

No, she could take her own advice and not be the crazy ex-girlfriend. She'd give him his space. It just wasn't easy. She brought her attention out of the past and back to the present, considering the guy. Vandil, she thought. Not Vandal. Which was good, because that was a guy she was quite happy wasn't running around much lately. He'd been one of the socially inept types as well. What was it with her and men who failed Communication 101?

Maybe this one could get a passing grade with a little tutoring. She set her glass back down on the table, and leaned back idly. "Next time, lead with the name."

@demonboundsitri:

"Human-in-training? That's new," Vandil quipped, his personality changing for the better now that he realized that this conversation didn't fail completely. "Also, who are you to assume what my posterior is made of?" he gave a quiet laugh, electing to follow her advice. His formal wear shimmered and converted itself into something more casual, just for his own comfort, following the rolling tides of electromagnetic current and changing according to the atomic rearrangement.

"I would say that's a good thing, all things considered," sliding in the bench across from her, he held his chin in a subtle bemusement.

"Vandil Eitrison, born in the God-Forge on Nidavellir, the same fires that gave light to Mjolnir and Gungnir," he rocked his head back and forth.

"Of course, Eitri didn't exactly make me by himself. Loki helped with a curse that gave me life in an attempt to use me against Thor, but that never really resolved itself,"

A curious smile.

"Alright, that's who I am."

@eitrison:

"Damn," Sitri commented, somewhere between idly impressed and somewhat horrified, "You got even more divine issues than me." She didn't like meddling in the affairs of the so-called "gods." For the most part, she was an atheist, but 'sufficiently advanced mutation was indistinguishable from divinity,' so to speak. And when someone thought they were a god and was powerful enough to act like one, it wasn't a good idea to argue the point with them.

"So, they make you up and then just dump you here in Ireland, or what? And isn't Loki supposed to be Iceland and not Ireland? I might suck at geography, but I know my myths all right." She wondered if maybe Vandil were here because of some divine typo somewhere. Eh, it's only one letter off, it'll be fiiiine. Then again, mythologically speaking, Loki would probably find that hilarious.

"What do you do here?" she had to ask him, "Other than accost attractive young foreign women in dive bars, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with that, now and then I can use a good accosting, but it just seems like maybe you're the sort of guy who ought to have more to do with his life than that. Like... oh, I don't know, go to Iceland or something."

@demonboundsitri:

"Accosting?" he raised an eyebrow, if only for his own reasons.

"Sure, that's all I do," a snap of sarcasm, and a small laugh.

Heaving a sigh, he leaned back into his seat. He didn't know if she wanted to hear all of what he had to say, considering they had just met, but this was as good a time as any to actually explain himself. And, unfortunately, there was a lot to talk about.

"Well, it was originally Scandinavia," he began.

"It's been a while since I've come to Midgard, actually. For the first century or so I was content with fighting in the various wars and invasions, though that went about as well as you'd expect for the opposing forces. Traveled around the Baltic for a decade, learning from all the coastal tribes. I even created some beings that were a little bit like myself, but I felt they needed to learn like humans. They were destroyed in the Northern Crusades, however. Never tried that again, it just felt wrong to try and 'make' life,"

He stopped for a moment.

"Feel free to let me know if I'm telling you too much."

@eitrison:

"Actually, it's kind of refreshing," Sitri said, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her hand. "Most of the people I meet these days are all secretive about everything. It gets a little trying, making conversation. So, you've been around a while," she summarized his commentary. That first century comment alone solidified it, but all the traveling would have taken a while, even if he were a teleporter or a speedster. He might have been one of those as well, but she didn't think so - his language choices seemed to imply he'd traveled in a more normal fashion. Or, at least, didn't imply the contrary - so if he was one of those with special travel powers, at least he wasn't the sort who was going to tell her all about it and how that made him infinitely superior, blah blah blah.

She'd met a few of those. "Sounds like you have quite a bit of experience... but not with people? How's that work out?" Had he spent all his decades and centuries being reclusive? Perhaps. She supposed there were probably all sorts of people who just didn't want anything to do with other people. Hell, sometimes she still felt that way. There had been a time when she'd considered doing something like that. Just living out in the middle of nowhere by herself.

Unfortunately, the fact was, Sitri kind of liked people. Some people, anyway. A lot of people were dicks, but she liked being around people, and now that she'd gotten herself well enough sorted out not to go around eating them - in either the metaphorical or the literal sense - it was nice just being able to wander into a dive bar in Ireland and see what kind of weirdos she ended up talking to.

Every day an adventure. Just like an inspirational poster.

@demonboundsitri:

"Well," he tapped the table.

"Interacting with people never really came naturally to me. As you can imagine, it takes a while for a hunk of Uru metal to actually develop social skills,"

He hesitated before continuing, but he felt like he had to.

"And... there was a period of about 500 years when I came here to enact what I've come to dub the 'Flesh-Change', where I converted most of my metal parts to humanoid components. It was in a simultaneous effort to both understand humans more and put a certain polish on my powers. You can only do so much when you're solid Uru. The finely-tuned muscles gave me a much tighter control on my electromagnetic powers,"

Another pause, and he sighed.

"Once I did that, I woke up to find that the world was starting to turn over on itself. Back then it was called the Great War, but they didn't know there was going to be another one shortly afterwards. I knew I had to participate in some way. But the second war, I never predicted the horror that would be unleashed,"

Curiously, his left arm twinged at the mention of those certain events, especially the latter.

"But... I'm trying to steer things away from another cataclysm like that. If only for the odd accosting here and there." He teased.

@eitrison:

"Vandil Eitrison, I do believe you just made a joke," Sitri said, amused. He had more social grace than he was giving himself credit for - either that, or he picked up on things quickly. "I've... heard a lot about World War 2." The first one, not so much, but since she was currently living in a Jewish household... it would have been impossible not to know about the effects of the Holocaust. In fact, Sitri was pretty sure that elderly Mrs. Ackerman's father had been killed in a concentration camp. Dachau, she thought. It wasn't something that Mrs. Ackerman talked about often. "I'm sorry you had to live through that."

She didn't know what he'd done in the war, but something about his tone had implied that whatever it was, his experiences hadn't been pleasant. He'd suffered, somehow, and she was polite enough not to ask him for the exact nature of his suffering. "I appreciate your dedication to avoiding another cataclysm. Is there... er... another one on the way that I should know about?" she couldn't help but inquire. The world being what it was, it was hard to say. Some days, it seemed like the next apocalypse was only hours away. Other days... other days things were quiet. Sometimes that was a good thing.

And sometimes it wasn't.

@demonboundsitri:

The Eitrison didn't reply right away, scratching at his arm. The old ink cut deeper, and he left it alone.

"Well, that's not easy to predict. It's not as obvious as when a group of people herd others into ovens now. It's a matter of when someone decides that a group of people isn't worth having on this planet anymore and pushes a button,"

His hands clenched.

"I'm not certain where political lines are drawn anymore. I'm not certain of... many things. I can perhaps disassemble a nuclear warhead, but then a hundred more appear," his fingers unfurled, flowers of wrinkled skin.

"All I would say to you is... be prepared," the warning carried an unprecedented weight, and a moment of silence passed from the Eitrison.

"But, with that said, you're visiting England? History, or chance to see the royals? Because you're damn well not going there for the food." Another pseudo-joke, perhaps he was getting the hang of this.

@eitrison:

Sitri shook her head slightly. "I don't think there's any way to be prepared. Not really. There's always going to be something you weren't prepared for. Best you can do is roll with the punches, as best you can. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes... not so well."

She shrugged slightly. "England was mostly just a chance to visit somewhere overseas where I actually spoke the language. I don't care much for history, and it'd take a hell of a miracle for me to 'see' the royals. I dunno about the food. I'm sure I've eaten weirder stuff than British cuisine." I could eat a Brit. Part of one, anyway. Start keeping a journal of what people from different countries taste like. Get in trouble for being racist or something.

Or, you know, for eating people. The way the world is these days, though, hell if I know which one I'd get called out on first. "You ever been there?" she inquired, "England, I mean."

@demonboundsitri:

"You know what I meant," he rolled off her comment about him 'forgetting' about the important detail regarding her lack of sight. "Meet and greet, have tea with, whatever they do to pass the time,"

He leaned his head back and covered his face with a slight groan.

"Oh, it's been ages," the Eitrison mentioned. "I think last time I even set foot there was when the doughboys shoved off for the trenches - erm, 1909 or something similar," he corrected himself.

"I remember it being rather loud, quaint and homely in most places but dirty and prone to fires. Industry didn't do its streets any favors, crowded them with pollution. I hear it's much better now, but... I quite like emptier places,"

He looked out the window. The clovers were starting to overtake the grass.

"Simpler things. That way I get to practice how to loudly approach strange women in bars, since the acoustics are so different." He gave a small laugh.

@eitrison:

"Fair enough. I'd guess a lot of places have changed since 1909. Hell. A lot of places have changed since 2009, and that's not even a decade. I feel you about the quiet spaces. Usually I like people, but sometimes they get to be too much and I go hang out in Montana for a weekend. It's a good way to forget things, I guess. And a good way to remember things."

Maybe some of the things she tried to forget should have been remembered, and maybe some of the things she tended to dwell on would have been better forgotten, but there was really no way of knowing. She just had to do what she thought was best, and try to do her best. Some days, it was enough.

"You get lonely, at all? Doing your hermit thing?"

@demonboundsitri:

He knew she wasn't going to see it, so there was no point in trying to show off. The Eitrison raised a couple of his fingers, took a bottle of whiskey and a glass from the bar, and scooped three ice cubes into the container before pouring himself a drink. It didn't matter what he did, he couldn't get drunk, but the fact of the matter was that he was in an Irish pub and he wasn't drinking - people would start to think he was justifiably insane.

Downing the alcohol as quickly as it came to him, he set the glass down without even so much as a satisfied grunt. It just... happened. Drinking and eating worked with his body just as pouring gas into an engine, except no actual waste was conceived. His breath - or whatever constituted for breath - would stink of whiskey for the next week or so before all the vapor dissipated, but at least he could keep up the charade for those who might be watching.

"Lonely?"

The concept of being alone always struck him as odd. Sure, he had lost plenty of people he considered important or that he might have 'loved'. But, again, such a strange thought to someone who used to be solid Uru just sort of passed over his mind as unnecessary for his overall existence. Yet, he still felt the pain of loss. He still acknowledged that it happened, that he had memories of people who no longer existed. The circumstances of their passing might have been painful or peaceful, depending on what decade he decided to recall. The core of the matter still intrigued him, however.

"I... suppose I do. It's not like how it was in both World Wars. I knew I was lonely back then, even when others were around me. They were like ghosts. Some had the facade of cheerfulness, but deep down they didn't want to die. Or at least most didn't. Following the Flesh-Change I couldn't use my powers for over a hundred years, since I had used them constantly prior to that. It's why I didn't just... make it all better. I couldn't. That's probably the greatest feeling of loneliness I can comprehend, because even my own powers left me,"

He poured another glass of whiskey.

"But no, I don't feel like that anymore. It's easy to think of loneliness, of being alone. But I know I can just come here, meet someone, and talk their ear off."

@eitrison:

"Hm." Sitri fell silent for a while, just thinking. She could smell the whiskey, both in the bottle and on his breath. It didn't tempt her, though. She didn't let herself drink. Not ever. Drinking lowered inhibitions, affected a person's self-control. Neither of those were things that Sitri could afford. It was easier now than it had been when she was younger, but she still wasn't willing to figure out where the lines lay, exactly. She knew how easy it would be for her to slip into maniacal slaughter. She'd given up far too much already to stay out of that. Taking the risk wouldn't bring back what she'd lost, it would only make her lose different things.

"You mentioned the... um, 'flesh change' a couple times. How does that work? If that's not an appropriate question, you can tell me to piss off, but I'm curious." She wondered if it was a Frankenstein sort of thing, all stitched together out of other people's corpses. Or maybe it was a flesh-of-the-living thing. Or maybe it was a "drop yourself into a magic portal of goo and emerge a new man" sort of thing. "Morbidly so, maybe. But I like to know how other people's things work. Especially the weird ones."

@demonboundsitri:

"Things? Please, we're in public," he teased, another glass of whiskey gone and another poured.

"It was a process that took a few hundred years to actually complete. If you're thinking about it like a Frankenstein's monster sort of affair, you'd be mistaken. I'm not lumped together out of pieces of cadavers, I designed this body mentally. Changing Uru to actual flesh through the electromagnetic spectrum, evolving it to define it to a single word. It's still as strong as Uru, but it's more layered and detailed, like working on a map of the human anatomy for five-hundred years without pause and using your mind as both a pen and a scalpel,"

He slowed down by the third glass, merely letting it hang there in front of him balanced on nothing but his own psionic prowess.

"It was rather tedious, but I'm happy with the results."

@eitrison:

"Weird," Sitri said, in a tone that was both interested and wholeheartedly approving. She liked bizarre stuff. "So, can I touch it?"

Would changed flesh feel the same as regular flesh? Would it have the same properties? Function the same? Would she know it was different if he hadn't told her ahead of time? She'd have known something was different - she had known something was different. There'd been the scent and sensation of metal-ness when he'd arrived, she'd known he was not exactly normal. But did that translate to anything different about the flesh he'd created for himself?

And now who was accosting strangers in bars? Sitri smiled at herself in wry amusement, self-aware and not minding in the slightest. She'd never claimed to be normal, after all.

@demonboundsitri:

A chuckle.

"You're being rather straightforward now," he let the ornaments of his drink-making casually cascade down across the table. "But, I've told you so much already. Would be poor manners not to,"

He reached out his hand, a slightly mechanical grinding happening as he did so. The layers of Uru-flesh were so thin and dextrous that at their very basis, each one behaved much to the liking of a strand of human muscle or a fiber of skin. Yet always that incessant noise, no matter how subtle. The music of an invisible brass quartet hidden underneath thick leather.

The Eitrison would move his fingers in tandem with her touching him, so that she could feel the bizarre biomechanical motions underneath the skinlike framework. Clicking and whirring like clockwork, grinding and stretching like muscle, the genius craftsmanship put into the Eitrison's body far exceeded that of his original design, and perhaps most other designs ever devised by the forges of Nidavellir.

"Well?" He inquired quietly, curiously.

@eitrison:

Sitri reached out, running her fingers over his hand. "It's... different," she said, verbalizing her assessment. "The top layer feels like skin, but underneath it doesn't quite. Metal and gears and clockwork, almost. You're like a steampunk engineer's wet dream." She released his hand, almost reluctantly, and gave him an impudent smile. "So, does all of you feel like that?"

Maybe he would answer that, and maybe he wouldn't. He seemed to be catching on fairly quickly, though, for someone who'd professed himself utterly inept at human interactions not five minutes ago. She wondered if his learning curve was really that quick... although, if that was the case she would think that he'd have had little human interactions here and there over the last half-millennium that would have given him a better idea how to act.

So it was entirely possible that the whole thing was a lie, and he was perfectly adept, and was just testing to see how she'd react if she thought him incapable. The predator, slowly beguiling its prey. Or maybe that was just reading in to the situation too much. Maybe not... but Sitri didn't like to think of herself as prey. She preferred things to be the other way around.

@demonboundsitri:

The Eitrison found it bemusing that she entertained the concept of his making so highly, though he could simultaneously understand. He had long envied the staggering depths to which the complexity of human anatomy often dropped to, opening up entire worlds of information for him to digest. Yet, he could only incorporate so much without losing himself to those dizzying shadows. The Flesh-Change did just that, it changed most of his components to the complicated layers of Uru that unfolded underneath his enchanted skin. It never once gave him organs, or a human skeleton. Beneath the surface that's all he was, just hollow.

He lowered his head, looking into the glass in front of him. He had no actual purpose for it.

"You know, for my supposed tutor you never did give me your name," a joke, at best.

"I've been lying to you in some ways, and I wish to apologize. It's my first actual conversation with someone ever since I was released from Auschwitz," the whiskey glass found itself floating again, though he had no distinct plan for it.

"The past two-hundred years has been exceptionally difficult for humankind. Industry exploding around them, weapons being advanced to an unpredictable degree. The world became smaller in an instant, and they've done nothing but try to catch up. Some are still at the starting line. I fear for them, much like I feared for my clay creations in the early 13th Century. They'll be broken by the end, either by themselves or by others who despise them for existing. I haven't done... anything with my life here on Midgard. For a hundred years I had to watch as men and women and children were torn from each other. The wars that happened after I woke up from the Flesh-Change in 1861 alone... I had always been accustomed to swordplay beforehand, but the scale had become apocalyptic in nature. From when I fought in the German Civil War to the Great War, it became a difference of magnitude. And that was just fifty years!"

He didn't partake in any further drinks, content with just leaving them in midair. The act if of itself was pointless.

"Not to mention that the innovations of the Great War were rendered obsolete in just a couple of decades, when the grand stage of the Third Reich began its descent into madness. And then, mankind made for itself its own death-knell. By the 1960s the global attention had shifted from the stockpiles of nuclear weapons to The Beatles," he scoffed, and paused.

"I don't want to see them suffer anymore. But sometimes, I feel that if I interfere it will either be condescending or genocidal. To keep them safe, bottled up in their own little worlds. Away from each other. Away from interacting, the chance to hurt each other. But that's impossible to dream of. Downright cruel. Yet, to clean the slate - to make it all empty again, and try from a new Adam and Eve. That is even crueler, I think. It erases the hopes, the voices of all others who dared to dream or speak. Am I just consigned to watch it all happen over and over again? There has to be a simpler way."

@eitrison:

The story unfolded, more quickly and more fully than she'd expected. He'd lied earlier, about not having experience with people - or at least concealed the truth somewhat. That, or he was lying now. Sitri decided it didn't really matter all that much. All truths were someone's truth, it was just a matter of finding the right idiot to believe it. None of that mattered, really, so she tried to focus instead on what he was saying. On the idea of what life would be like when finding the weapons to which you were accustomed suddenly meant nothing. Sitri knew how that felt. It probably wasn't the same, finding that your handguns weren't much use in a meta fight, but there was probably something similar in the way it affected a person. Having to figure out how to grow into a world that you hadn't expected, one that made it all too easy for the people you were supposed to protect to kill each other.

The desire to get rid of 'em all, just to make it easier to deal with. But... no. Sitri never wanted to kill everyone. A few people, here and there. One or two people, pretty constantly. But... not everyone. Not the entire world.

"No good has ever come from any of the people trying to take over the world or 'wipe the slate,'" Sitri said, "Most people don't deserve to die. And even the ones that do... they don't deserve the gift of all the innocent lives that would be given in killing them. Trying to destroy the world, or the universe, or the dimension, or the timeline... There's only megalomania and white Persian cats that way." Maybe that reference would be lost on him. Well, he'd probably understand about the megalomania, even if not about the cats. And if he was a Bond villain, was she the femme fatale, or the Bond girl? Which one had a longer life expectancy? It'd been a while since she'd seen any 007 films.

"You sound like Raeyn." Yet another reference he probably wouldn't get, but she'd had that same "I'm too awesome for the world, the world can't handle my super powers" vibe. Personally, Sitri thought it was probably a load of bull. The world was full of plenty of people who could handle all sorts of super powers. "Why don't you just do little stuff, to try to make the world a little better? Stop thinking massive scale, and take out the damn garbage without being asked or something. Just... focus on small improvements. Improve a life here and there. See what comes of it. You'll be around for a while, you've got time to go at it slowly. Half the immortals seem to think they've got to change the world immediately. You'd think that having a few centuries behind 'em would teach them some bloody patience."

Her irritation at the last might have been evident, but it was also fairly evident it wasn't really directed at Eitrison himself, more just a general malaise at the state of the meta-society. "Anyway. The world got itself into this mess just fine without you. It's not your job to fix it. Just... set a good example, and praise people when they live up to it."

@demonboundsitri:

"Most people don't deserve to die. And even the ones that do... they don't deserve the gift of all the innocent lives that would be given in killing them."

The Eitrison felt a flash of something hot in his stomach. Too long had he been content with merely watching on the sidelines, allowing things to happen. While the world burned, he had done nothing but observe the cinders.

She seemed to understand at first. That is why he fell into such an uneasy silence. He thought she knew. Giving her all of this information, it almost bounced right off.

"A gift?" he muttered at first.

Surely she had some form of witty banter planned for the remainder of her turn speaking. Yet as she carried on, it became evident that she was indeed very serious. Small improvements? He possessed in his body the power to flip magnetic poles. If he had the capability to, there would be no World Wars. There would be no nuclear stockpiles. There would be no chemical weapons, gas attacks, or child soldiers. But all of that had already been set into motion long ago, too long now for him to stop now. Maybe she was right after all.

"The world got itself into this mess just fine without you. It's not your job to fix it."

"Can I call myself a person if I sit idly by, then? Just watching the world go by, accomplishing small blessings? Humanity is at its core an ambitious species, and I have redesigned myself after it. Even if I am immortal, even if I will never die, does that give me the automatic excuse to merely exist? I deny that. It is not fate, or destiny, but I must try. The 'gift' of millions dead to destroy the ideals of one man's evil, and it still does not stay buried? Even after all that has been sacrificed? I deny that. Even after all these years, after all this death, there are still marches in the streets of cities across the world chanting that man's name,"

He stood, at length.

"If humanity cannot fix itself, then it must be pushed to improve. Stagnation, the cold bitterness of waiting for death, this is not the way humanity is supposed to live."