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Ezekiel Member

STATUS: Sleeping before midnight is just a conspiracy theory started by big bed sheets anyway 3 mos ago
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3 mos ago
Current Sleeping before midnight is just a conspiracy theory started by big bed sheets anyway
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5 yrs ago
What's the worst thing about the Roleplayerguild and why is it the status bar?
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In Absolute Comics - A Multi-Fandom Singular Universe Roleplay → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
<Snipped quote by Ezekiel>

Outside of throwing a wrench in the Nightwing plans, I have a couple of other reservations:

- Invincible, as a series, in general has a penchant for massive destruction and loss of life. Especially where Omni-Man and the Viltrumites are concerned. In comparison, in my experience at least, rarely do DC/Marvel comics actually focus on the same scale of destruction. So I guess my first question is, how do you intend to translate these larger-scale fights into the game and deal with the repercussions of them?

- Viltrumites as Proto-Kryptonians. What does this mean? How does this affect Viltriumites as a whole? Are they the same as they are in 'Invincible' but with flavour text, or do they now also have the same abilities and weaknesses as Kryptonians?

-If the Viltrumites don't have the same weaknesses as Kryptonians, how do you intend to incorporate them in such a way that they're scaled appropriately to the game's cast? How big an ambition do you have for bringing Viltrumites to Earth? Or how big of a threat is Omni-Man going to be? Keeping in mind, during the opening arc of Invincible, he eradicated his version of a Justice League.

- The Titans battling a villain named Titan? That won't get confusing to read lol.


Responding in my own paragraphs that arent 1 to 1 for any points except the last one.

- Part of the adaption to the Marvel/DC focused setting is to generally avoid the amount of mass casualty events that seem to crop up every other tuesday in Invincible (especially when the storylines are condensced like in the show). I would choose between adapting larger events i.e Flaxan Invasions as collaborations with people so that the impact of such things can be properly reflected or just not do them. There's plenty of non-end of the world events in the earlier volumes of Invincible to pull from, as well as interacting with the non-Invincible aspects of the world which is part of the fun of the whole crossover thing.

- The connection to Proto-Krypton came out of a concern for me of just explaining their similarities in setting. Given the vast spans of time Last Days of Krypton deals with when it comes to Kryptonian History I don't think it neccesitates their power set being Kryptonian. It's more than just flavour tex,t in that I could see it being a thread to pull down the line with Kryptonian lore, but its not designed to fundementally change either. I feel this sort of answers the scaling concern, given Kryptonians by and large have been shown to pull off far more fanciful feats than Viltrumites (punching through dimensions, moving planets without destroying them, holding up the metaphysical burden of creation etc). This was largely a point of adaptation though so I can just drop it from the concept if need be.

- Omni-man kills the Guardians of The Globe, but I wouldn't say the Guardians are on par with the bigs of DC and Marvel, which is the part of the logic mentioned in my sheet about why he hasn't attempted his takeover by this point as he would in the comics. The other being that I want to write a story in this crossover, not just rewrite Invincible, so Nolan is himself more troubled by the thought of doing the big evil. I would imagine it would still be a threat I'd want to collab with people if a similar-to-comics event did occur, but I don't see it being close to 'the rest of the world are powerless spectators to Mark and Nolan's fight.'

- I think if I ever did get round to writing other Viltrumites on Earth it would feature as more of a covert 'they walk among us' threat as opposed to trying to force everyone to play the lore of Invincible with me. More open interactions with Vultriumites I would keep to adventures far away from where they might break other people's toys.

- Regarding Titan, that is pretty funny I missed that. Along with Nightwing that's an edit I can easily make, I will probably just come up with a totally unique OC please don't steal name for the character.
In Absolute Comics - A Multi-Fandom Singular Universe Roleplay → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
If Blizzard wont write the lore, someone has to.
In Absolute Comics - A Multi-Fandom Singular Universe Roleplay → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
What timing.

Easy enough edit on my end to change up my Titans roster, which more than happy to do.
In Worlds Collide: A Merged Universe Superhero Roleplay → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

Beverly High, Beverly Massachusetts



She had forgotten what a normal morning felt like. Or at least, she had forgotten what passed for her,

Carol had been awake before her alarm, which was nothing new. Usually it was the low pull of anxiety, the rehearsal of what the day required of her, the performance of it. This morning it was something more like the feeling after a very long run, the pleasant hollow of a body that has pushed itself entirely and come out the other side. She'd lain there in the blue-grey before-light of her room, staring up at the ceiling, and let herself have it for exactly as long as she could afford before she had to get up and be Carol Danvers, senior, Beverly High, the usual.

She'd dressed quickly. Nothing overthought. Dark jeans, a cream ribbed top, her leather jacket over the top. A pair of boots she knew from experience were comfortable enough to stand in all day. Just enough effort to count as being her on a low day.

The walk to school was quiet and grey, the kind of mid-morning overcast that couldn't decide if it was going to rain or simply threaten to for the entire day.

It became apparent the moment the doors opened that Beverly High had its own opinion on recent events.

"—did you actually watch it, the whole clip is like forty seconds and she—"

"—my dad says it's completely CGI, the government does this stuff all the—"

"—no way is that CGI, you can see the light, like actually reflecting off the water—"

"—she just flew straight through it, though. The whole thing. How—"

Carol pulled the left earbud out and tucked it into her pocket, very calmly, and continued down the main corridor.

She had known it would be like this. She had known it on an intellectual, practical level,but that was different than understanding what it would feel like to walk through a school hallway while the people around her argued about whether she existed.

Fascinating.

She grabbed her locker combination from muscle memory, not quite listening to the fragments of conversation around her. Two junior girls at the next bank of lockers had what was very clearly a paused-on phone screen between them; she didn't look directly at it but her peripheral vision was, through no fault of her own, considerably better than it used to be. The frozen image was gold and blurred and moving very fast over a dark ocean, and the caption underneath it had accumulated enough exclamation marks to constitute a safety hazard.

She got her locker open. Retrieved her books. Closed it again.

"Morning."

Michael appeared at her elbow in the way that he always did, as if he had simply manifested there at the precise moment most likely to be useful to someone. He was holding two cups of coffee from the place on Cabot Street that no one should have had time to get to before school but which Michael apparently considered a personal challenge, and he extended one towards her in a gesture that brooked no argument.

"You," Carol said, taking it, "are an actual saint."

"I know." He turned to survey the corridor with the expression of a man watching a very entertaining documentary. "You've seen the video, I assume."

"I've been trying not to look directly at it. Like an eclipse."

"Smart." He took a sip of his own coffee. "Kelly thinks it's a government actor. She's very passionate about it."

"Sounds like Kelly."

"She's made a PowerPoint."

Carol turned to look at him for the first time since he'd appeared. He looked back at her, entirely without irony.

"She's made a PowerPoint."

"Eight slides. There's a section on 'suspicious hair volume.'"

For one extremely dangerous moment, Carol felt something shift in her face that she had to work very hard to neutralise back into simple, polite amusement. "Well," she said, after a beat, "she's not wrong that the hair is a lot."

Michael gave her a sideways look that lasted approximately half a second longer than she would have liked, then moved smoothly on. "Half the football team has decided she's actually military. The other half think she's an alien. Kyle Briggs apparently spent twenty minutes this morning explaining to anyone who would listen why the G-forces alone would—"

"Kyle Briggs failed physics."

"He did," Michael confirmed, "and yet. The confidence."

She laughed then, properly, which helped. The first period bell rang. Around them the hallway began its usual self-reorganisation.

"If Kelly shows me that PowerPoint," Carol said, shouldering her bag, "I'm dropping cheer."

"You won't."

"I won't," she agreed. "But I'll think about it very seriously for at least six seconds."

She headed towards her first class, coffee in hand, past two more sets of students with phones out and voices low, before any member of staff could impress on them the importance to be elsewhere.

It was a very strange thing, she reflected, to be the secret at the centre of a rumour. To hear your own name spoken in tones of speculation and not be able to say yes, that's me, I was there, I was cold coming back through the atmosphere and the hair helmet thing is genuinely a lot of engineering for something that aesthetic.

She sat down in AP English. Opened her notebook. Wrote the date at the top of a fresh page.

Across the aisle, one of the girls from the cheer team was leaning over to whisper something to the girl beside her, phone face-up between them. Carol caught the image without meaning to. The angle was different from the one the junior girls had been looking at, this one was taken from the ground somewhere in Boston, the quality shakier, more human. A streak of gold against a flat grey sky, impossibly fast, impossibly bright.

She recognised the exact moment it had been taken. She remembered the whip of air, the specific pitch of its shriek, the way the city had looked impossibly small and impossibly dear from up there.

She looked back down at her notebook.

Outside, somewhere past the grey overcast, the sky was very wide and very quiet.
In Absolute Comics - A Multi-Fandom Singular Universe Roleplay → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Given I am all caught up on the couple of collabs I have in the works and we've lost a few people (albeit one only for a few days) I thought I'd throw down a second concept. Something that's been cooking in my brain for a fair few iterations. Carrying on my trend of being a bit more ambitious than I've been in the past so more than happy if adjustments are required.

In My Brother's Keeper - A Song Of Ice and Fire Blackfyre Rebellion RP → 3 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Ive had my eye on this for some time. Still accepting?


Absolutely!
In My Brother's Keeper - A Song Of Ice and Fire Blackfyre Rebellion RP → 3 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
S E P T A R H A E N A
S E P T A R H A E N A

"Gentle Mother, font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray, stay the swords and stay the arrows, let them know a better day."
P E R S O N A L D E T A I L S
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Age: 49
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Allegiance: The Faith of the Seven — Starry Sept, Oldtown
A P P E A R A N C E
_________________________________________________________

Rhaena Targaryen has aged into the kind of woman that the Faith seems to produce at its best. Her hair, always more gold than silver even in youth remains so, worn beneath her septa's veil in the careful, coiffed manner she has maintained since girlhood. Her Targaryen blood shows in the softness of her violet eyes, though they are warm rather than piercing. She was ever the softer of her sisters, in form as well as manner. Not having to bear the burdens of childbirth or rearing like her sisters, her silhouette remains much as it was. Some part of this is no doubt a hidden aspect of her vanity, and perhaps memories of harsher words from her sisters in youth, does continue in the way she dresses, hiding any additional softness the years have brought with them. Her robes are the finest permitted to a septa — white with gold trim at the cuffs and hem, always impeccably maintained, often embroidered at the sleeves with her own needlework, the Mother's face, the Maiden with a white hart, small devotional scenes she has been stitching since she was a girl in the Maidenvault. She retains her love for silk and often embellishes her outfits with it, although most of her creativity for such things benefits others in the form of gifts for the ladies of Old Town.

K E Y A S S E T S
_________________________________________________________
P E R S O N A L B A C K G R O U N D
___________________________________________________________________________________
Rhaena was born in 147 AC into the diminished court of Aegon III, the Dragonbane, a king whose grief and trauma had settled over the Red Keep like a permanent weather system. She was the second daughter, softer and quieter than her elder sister Daena, and from the earliest age she seemed to find the world of devotion and needlework more comprehensible than the world of courts and politics. Where Daena chafed and struggled, Rhaena seemed to quietly accept her role. It is possible she was simply better at hiding what she felt, though she would not say so.

When her brother Baelor came to the throne and confined his sisters to the Maidenvault, it was Rhaena alone among the three who did not resent it. She was, by that point, already more than half a septa in her habits and her heart, and the confinement gave her libraries and silence and time for prayer in a way that she had not known she was hungry for until it was provided. She was almost as pious as Baelor himself, or at least that is how it is remembered. Those who were at court during the later reigns of Viserys II and Aegon IV may remember a royal princess more involved with the gossip and goings of court than the histories say. She had a particular fondness for the pious lords and ladies of the Vale at court, even as her nephew's reign became increasingly corrupt. There were rumors, at one point or another, that she may have married a Valeman of good title and greater piety, a match she would have approved of dearly. Instead, the mercurial whims of the King turned away from seeking an alliance with any Vale house, and Rhaena's happiness was never considered again.

When the opportunity came to take her vows properly, she did so with a conviction that was entirely her own. That it was also politically convenient for a Targaryen princess to be removed from the board of succession in a period of instability was not something she ignored, she simply did not find it diminishing. One could serve the Seven and still understand the world.

She has been in Oldtown for the better part of two decades now, a respected figure at the Starry Sept, known for her needlework, her patience with novices, and a quiet competence in the management of the Sept's considerable charitable work among the city's poor. She is liked rather than feared, which suits her. She is also more informed about the state of the realm than most would expect of a woman who has spent twenty years in prayer and domestic devotion. Letters arrive at the Starry Sept from a great many places, and Rhaena has always been an attentive reader.


C U R R E N T M O T I V A T I O N S
__________________________________________________________________________________
Rhaena's primary purpose is the Sept and the people in her care; the novices she trains, the sick she tends to, the charitable works she has spent years quietly expanding. She is not naive enough to think the rebellion will leave Oldtown untouched, and she is engaged in the practical work of ensuring that whatever comes, the Sept and its people are protected. She is the sort of woman who will not tell you she is doing anything in particular, and will have already done it by the time you think to ask.

Beneath the practical work is something more calculating. A woman in the second half of her life examining what she has been, what she chose, and what it cost. She does not regret her vows, but she is forty-nine years old and has spent the last twenty of them in a city that is not her family's, serving an institution that is not her house, and sometimes in the small hours she thinks about her sisters and what became of them. She is grateful for the silence and the candlelight that do not require her to resolve those thoughts into answers.
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In My Brother's Keeper - A Song Of Ice and Fire Blackfyre Rebellion RP → 3 mos ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
featuring Dyanna Dayne ( @Vanq )

S U M M E R H A L L
S U M M E R H A L L

After Daemon's Escape



"You are a coward brother, do you know this?" Maekar could not keep the bitterness from his tone, even if he admittedly regretted it. Less and less did he have an opportunity to spend time alone with his brother, outside of their duties, and even though he felt that bitter bile rising in his throat he wished he had not spent their time thus.

"To not risk the wrath of Dyanna Dayne? Label me a traitor and a knave, brother, for I would not wish that upon any man. Had I not known her to love you dearly, I would have fought against your match for fear of your life." There he went again, dismissing Maekar's churlish judgement with the easy charm that worked on court as much as it worked on family.

Maekar could not understand the traitors not for their grasping of gain over loyalty. Men were simple things, he could feel that in his own heart. What he could never understand was how any man could speak with Baelor and not feel like there was a true King of Westeros, for what else or who else could there be? He was loathe to admit that in his darker thoughts the sting of envy always rose.

"I suppose you have some excuse, that your duties call you away immediately, and you cannot linger to bring this news to my young family yourself." Maekar scowled atop his steed as he looked out over Summerhall from their vantage points atop the rolling hills.

"I would not relent a chance to see my youngest brother's children if I did not have dire need." Baelor looked to him with eyes of genuine pleading. Believe me brother dearest they spoke to him, and in his failure, he did so.

Maekar let out a grunt, before he pulled on his reins. "She will be worse for you not being there, brother. You both combined are a far lesser burden than you are alone."

"You know, so well, how to treat those you love, Maekar." The Prince of the Realm smiled in passing to his brother, before he was away, back to the company of the armed escorts who had brought him thus, and onwards to greater battles. Maekar was already riding away, although he eventually could not resist a look back towards his brother, only to find an empty horizon.

"Cunt." Maekar swore, before spurring his horse into a gallop back towards the palace.




The pages were quick to attend him as the Prince of Summerhall rode into his courtyard. The grand estate was a work of art and for many a generation people would proclaim the artistry of Dyanna. What they would not record was the secret heart of a poet that hid within the brutal exterior of Maekar Targaryen, and how every act of beauty within Summerhall was a reflection of their love.

It was a far more clean legacy than their children might prove.

"Where is the Lady Dayne?" Maekar spoke to the man who took the reins of his steed as he swung out of the saddle, immediately discarding his riding gloves into the hands of another page.

"She is in the Northern solar, your highness, with her cousin."

"Seven above." Maekar swore, as he made his way within the palace of a thousand dreams.




"Fuck off, Ulrick." Maekar announced as he entered the splendour of the solar, each perfectly positioned pane of glass highlighting his Targaryen beauty even as his words dispelled them.

He didn't wait for the man to leave before he claimed her lips, hungry and grasping as their first fumbling intimates had been. She had been sitting as he swept in. Reading or gossiping with her Dornish kin he didn't care, for his presence interrupted it in a moment.

Maekar lost himself in the moment, in how the sun caught in her hair and spun it to gold, how the more caramel tone of her skin to his made him think of warmth and home. How even in the most conservative of gowns he saw the shape of the form he knew from heel to crown.

The chair clattered to the ground as he bore down on her, the weight of him toppling it backwards but not as such space as to harm her, but not so much that he had a thought to care for the state of their gentle wicker furniture.

"I love you." He breathed desperately through the kisses, even as his mouth trailed down her neck.

It was not the first time his devotion had taken her unawares, that her consciousness was slower to react than her body knew to be. There was something in her that had always recognised him before thought could intervene and her fingers found laces at his back with a familiarity that managed still to feel like discovery, tracing him the way she had learned to read star-charts as a girl. It was instinct and love that she gave herself over to.

Her lips parted for him first by the force of it and then in return, of her own desire and longing. It was always just beneath the surface and now it eagerly rose to meet his. They were both from houses of flame, she had mused before, both born of the sky and of things the maesters could only explain poorly and with great embarrassment. It had never surprised her that they burned so easily together.

"You taste of the road." She breathed against him when her mouth pulled away from his, her senses returning slowly, reluctantly. It wasn't a complaint but it was recognition of something and it pushed through to the forefront of her mind.

He had not just been out amongst their gardens, nor the training yard, nor inspecting their men for any number of flaws that he would surely find. She knew all those scents of him and more, had learned him more than she ever thought a woman could know a man, more than she had thought she would ever want to.

She drew a longer breath and tipped her head back so that she could see him properly.

Her purple eyes met his, violet shade to violet shade and her hand rose to trace the lines of his face with a softness that belied the still simmering hunger for more. There was a familiar set to his jaw, beyond their shared desire. His brow bore a furrow, one she had seen before, one that she knew had a name.

Her thumb traced over it, an attempt to smooth it only to have it reappear as soon as she lifted her touch. It was as stubborn as the man who wore it.

"So," Dyanna spoke without attempting to smooth away the rasp in her voice, the one he always managed to put there. "What has happened this time, my love." It was a statement as much as a question. Her hands dropped to his chest, curling tightly into the fabric that separated them still and drew him closer. "Where has my husband ridden hard from, and who was he with that he returns to me in such desperate need," the leg hooked around his waist pressed him nearer, a nudge that was both demanding and teasing, "that he does not first bathe nor even brush the dust away, hm?"

Her eyes held his, knowing and playing at innocence at once. The lightness was deliberate, she left open the possibility that she was wrong, that he did simply need her and there was nothing more to it. She could hope that he would say so and they would carry on with their love, there on the floor, uncaring of what had been interrupted.

But the letter she had been discussing with Ulrick sat folded still against her chest, and her cousin's face before the interruption had not been that of a man discussing idle gossip.

Maekar didn't answer her immediately, as her own body reacted faster than thought to him, so too did his own. He was less poetic than most of his family, and certainly his wife. He would not put such things in metaphors of flame or mystery. Just her, that was all the poetry he required. Another few kisses he placed on her skin before his mind recovered enough to be aware that she was expecting an answer in more than just physicality.

Mores the pity.

"My brother." He spoke, finally, with a rasping gasp that was only slightly tainted with the insolence of being interrupted. He didn't clarify which brother, there was only one there could really be that would drive him with such importance of duty. "I was returning from the capital after speaking with my father, they had a plan to seize Daemon. It would seem hard evidence of plotted treason had finally been found." Even as he spoke his fingers traced her skin, the pale amber of her skin a beacon that called him to far more than duty. "Whatever the plan was, it did not work. They wish for me to ride with Rhaegal, so that he might speak kind words to those whose oaths are not so dependable." That was enough of those words for the moment, as he returned to enjoying the taste of her.

Even in the moment though he couldn't not entirely dispel the bitter thoughts of frustration, and where that flared too brightly his kisses left the marks of his teeth, as the press of his hands began to mar the surface of her soft skin.

"I wanted more time." He finally breathed through his contact with her, his lips barely lifting from their touch.

She leaned into his affections, but with a steady enough head that she wouldn't allow herself to be swept away before she had the full truth of it. Baelor, of course. The full truth of things never took long for her husband to explain, a blessing to have a man of so few words he always offered them in a way that they could move on quickly to other, better, things.

He spoke, and her fingers' caresses against his face slowed and deepened, ran down his neck to the top of his shoulders, kneaded into them as comfort and desire still. Her lips, though, wrinkled into a small look of disgust. "Baelor is now my least favourite of your brothers, I expect you'll inform him of this change." The look of faux anger dispelled as quickly as she had worn it, from the new kisses and the way his hands manipulated her skin in kind.

Dyanna breathed deeply. Time, they had had so much of it and still not enough. "Begging would not keep you here." Hers or his own pleas to the gods, she knew he would go and do as he was asked — told — to do. "And I would beg to go with you but I will not leave Summerhall to chance." Her fingers wrapped around his chin, willing him to look into her eyes once more. "Let's not waste what little we have left, hm?"

She would shoulder the burden as much as him, and she would find pleasure in his displeasure at doing so. "But if you leave me here alone with yet another son growing," she said, her voice low and unhurried, the softness of it a threat, "I will hand you over to that pretender myself." She pulled his lips to hers before, breathing him in deeply, desperate to retain this moment for whatever the next days brought them.




T H E R I V E R L A N D S
T H E R I V E R L A N D S

Weeks Later



"What do you mean, you lost him?"

"We arrived into Gulltown, your grace, we were there when they declared for the Black Dragon and —"

"They declared themselves traitors, loyal men of the realm need not address them by whatever they wish to call themselves these days." Maekar's fury was not usually a quiet thing, but for now it simmered as the rider addressed him. They were a party of three men and each looked more sorry for himself than the last. "Carry on."

"The Prince commanded us to disperse throughout the city and seek our own method of escape, before they could move to arrest any of us. I think they thought to catch us off guard, but we were already on the move." Another one of them answered as the first speaker stumbled over his words for a few moments.

"So, not only do you not arrive with my brother, but, in fact, the rebels may have him in chains?" Maekar could not help but to bring a hand up to his features, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he contemplated the matter.

"It was as he commanded y —"

"But not as your King commanded!" Maekar suddenly exclaimed, hurling a particularly solid piece of ration bread at the third man who made to speak. The royal party had been travelling light and fast since leaving the Reach, ever mindful of the scouts of the enemy. Some of the rations had begun to go bad in the meantime, and now made for ideal non-lethal projectiles. Even the men not assailed by weaponised tack bread found themselves in silence for a moment. "It is a good thing that our foes are not humble, for surely we would have heard, had they already claimed a royal hostage." Maekar exhaled, turning his attention away from the three men as he regarded the cloud streaked sky for a few moments.

Seven above lend me strength.

"Fall in with the rest of the party, once you have recovered from your journey you may join our hunting parties, see if you can lighten my mood with good fare." When no other punishment seemed to be incoming, the three men bowed gratefully before moving off to the rest of the camp, while it dawned upon Maekar that matters of diplomacy with the Freys was now his burden alone.


In Dispatch: Heroes of Claremont → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
T H E Y E A R 1 3 3 8 B C

Definitely Not Los Angeles



They came in the hour before noon, when the heat pressed the shadows small and the court was quiet.

Merit-Iset heard the sandals before she saw the men, a dozen pairs at least, striking the processional stones in the wrong rhythm, the rhythm of soldiers rather than supplicants. She was in the inner hall wrapping the morning offerings in linen when the sound reached her, and she set down the bundle with great care, the way one sets down something precious when the hands have begun to shake.

Through the entrance columns she could see them now. Royal officials, not soldiers, which was somehow worse. Soldiers could be reasoned with, bribed or cowed with the weight of religious authority. Officials carried the righteousness of a cause granted to them by a higher power, complete, final, backed by something larger than any one man's cruelty.

One of the young acolytes, Nefret, barely past her naming ceremony, appeared at the inner door with wide eyes and a question already forming on her lips. Merit-Iset crossed the hall in four strides and gripped the girl's thin shoulders.

"Get the others," she said quietly. "The archive cylinders, not the great one, we won't be able to carry it. Tell them to bring nothing else. Nothing." She held the girl's gaze until she saw understanding replace the fear. "Go now. Quietly. Through the rear passage."

Nefret disappeared. Merit-Iset turned back toward the entrance and straightened her shawl and made herself breathe, made herself become the woman they would see first, calm, formal, a servant of ritual with nothing to hide, while behind her the temple quietly began to empty itself of everything that mattered.

She moved into the public chamber beyond with a confidence she did not feel, channeling all the elegance and splendor her time among her family had granted her, before she had felt the call to service in her lord's temple.

"Greetings, honored bearers of Pharaoh's will, what brings you to the halls of the Falcon of the Horizon?" She offered a smile, a dazzling one that highlighted the smooth texture of her teeth and the plumpness to her cheeks which marked her out as a daughter of nobility even years after she had been among those halls. For a moment she thought it might be enough, clearly some of the armed men arrayed before her did not relish the prospect of violence and desecration so much when confronted with its cost. The more wizened of them, their vizier, had no such issue.

"There is no power but the Solar Disk, Priestess. We have come to ensure only the proper respect is being paid here." For all his sour expression of judgement, it was clear the man enjoyed his sudden flush of power over her, a woman who had enjoyed the benefit of her noble station and then the protection of Horus' priesthood.

"This is no temple of Amun, Vizier, the Pharaoh has granted you no power to attempt such here." She found the strength to muster a fierce quality to her voice. It would not be enough, she knew, as the men prepared to act, but she had no desire to make it easy for them.

"Pharaoh's command has expanded, there is no longer any place for false gods in his Kingdom. The Morning and the Evening Star thus commands." She kept her eyes on him as he spoke, but could not help but notice those of the group who began to move around her.

"Surely you cannot mean to —" Her words were cut off, a flash of pain from the back of her head that she would never know the true cause of.






T H E P R E S E N T D A Y

Almost Certainly Los Angeles



"Ah….fuck."

Nadia groaned as she bolted awake. The sudden pounding of a hangover combined with the sudden jolting of a new memory from a previous life was not a combination she found particularly pleasant. She rolled onto her side with a heavy 'flumph' of errant hair and feathers. The bed, a grand enough superking — a heirloom from her much grander previous apartment — was still nowhere near enough to contain the full length of her wings when she fully stretched out, her furthest feathers trailing to the ground as she otherwise arched into a stretch, cursing again the pounding of her forehead made all the worse by the sudden startle of her awakening.

Forcing herself up was a test of will almost too much for her, but eventually she was standing, her wings trailing behind her as she made her way to her shower. The shower room was another throwback to her previous more luxurious accommodation, but this set up was for more functional reasons. Given how difficult feather maintenance could be, she argued, successfully, that she needed both the larger shower and powerful blowdry features to maintain her heroic effectiveness, even if she had lost a fair few other privileges following the rather forceful move to Claremont.

The comforting warmth of the water blasted against her skin in a caress she would find even harder to extract herself from than her bed a few moments before, the feathers of her wings ruffling in reflection of her satisfaction. Nadia allowed her head to slump against the tiled wall. She was, admittedly, at a bit of a low point. Ever since she had been strongly encouraged to participate in the Phoenix Program she'd chafed against the restrictions placed on her time and lifestyle. After she'd let out those frustrations quite forcibly on a number of jobs for SDN Downtown, her position within the program had become rather less an encouragement and more of a legal necessity. She'd been forced to move to Claremont rather quickly and given the cost of moving to Downtown was still eating a hole in her wallet, the second move had rather done her in financially. That wasn't to say she didn't still have access to the best of the wild social events infamous across minor-celebrity life in LA, and that went some of the way to explain the headache.

As the near-industrial dryer powered away at her wings, momentarily making each of her feathers into a puffball of volume, her phone, ever nearby, pinged. It was a monotone beep, not one of the various cheery tunes she had set up for the notifications she wanted to spend time on. With another groan she reached for it, regarding the messages on the screen:

We have a new starter. Transfer in from …actually I have lost that paperwork, but Ikret, Egyptian demi-goddess, is joining Claremont A-Team. Please give her a warm welcome!


Ugh.

Slack, her least favourite of her many messaging apps and the one she was forced to avoid muting. She had to admit one of the reasons for the night's previous wildness had been discontent with her first day at yet another team. With far less enthusiasm than she would normally have for such a thing, she began the process of getting ready. Even if she hardly felt her definition deserved it, that didn't make art any less worthwhile.

It wasn't long before she stood in front of her mirror, after the brief required struggle into her bodysuit, applying the last touches of kohl eyeliner and jade eyeshadow, matching the vibrant shade of some of the detailing on her costume. She paused for a quick turn and pose before said mirror, blowing herself a kiss with mahogany-coloured lipstick clad lips, then headed to her balcony. Her eye guards in place, which looked in tint far more akin to fashionable sunglasses than anything else, with a woosh of thrusting air, Ikret took to the sky once more. Nadia hardly rushed in her travel, for her journey was as much a performance as anything else. With artful grace in the air, various snaps of her would end up all over socials even before she landed at SDN Claremont. Even if she had to give them her time, that didn't mean she couldn't still bask in the attention of Joe Public while she did so.






S D N C L A R E M O N T

Friday · 13:01 · Break Room



Arriving at just the right moment to flare her wings to capture the near midday sun behind her was a skill Nadia had practiced for some time, and was one she immediately employed as she arrived via balcony to SDN Claremont, rather startling a janitor managing to escape to a smokebreak. She fixed said janitor with a look that wasn't quite a full smile, but enough to be charming, as she swept inside, her wings tucking to her back to not entirely demolish her surroundings as she navigated her way through the building.

It didn't take her long to find the break room, albeit navigating her way between a collection of — in her opinion — far too cramped desks provided a brief obstacle challenge. A momentary competition for space between her wings, hips and a few desk ornaments resulted in a resounding victory for the former two, briefly before she swung through the doorway into the break room. Regarding the group from over the rim of her definitely-not-sunglasses, her greeting was simple.

"Sup." Punctuated suddenly by the 'pop' of the bubblegum she began to work on purely for dramatic purpose.
In Dispatch: Heroes of Claremont → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
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