Red God: Looking Glass
Jun. 27th, 2008 10:08 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsNathan, Jean and Ororo arrive in Wakanda - and find themselves through the looking glass almost as soon as they step off the plane.
"It's too hot," Nathan muttered, adjusting his sunglasses as he took the last step down from the plane. They'd arranged for a flight into Wakanda from Arusha, lucking out with the discovery of a Wakandan pilot returning home and perfectly happy to carry some passengers along for a nominal fee. "We're in the mountains, why is it this hot?" It was mostly a rhetorical question; it was East Africa in July, after all, so the heat-shimmer that hung over the town of Kanda wasn't all that unexpected.
"I thought we agreed on no complaining," Ororo replied, shifting the bag over her shoulder and stepping onto the tarmac. "I have a distinct memory of just that phrase, in fact. No complaining, and the first person to get into an alpha-dog fight with T'Challa has to buy drinks." She smiled sweetly at Nathan. "I hope you brought your wallet."
"Ah, 'Ro, you should have known that the promise was empty," Jean said with a grin, settling her sunglasses into place. "Nate not complaining requires coma status, really. That or the imminent opportunity for serious violence to improve his mood."
"And seeing as we are hoping to avoid either of those, I suppose complaining it must be." It had been a pleasant journey over to Wakanda; all three residents of the mansion were looking forward to seeing what T'Challa had set up in the time since their last visit. Nathan and Jean were there to give opinions on the DDR center and mutant-specific hospital that the king had helped start; Ororo herself had less reason to be there, but was happy to be along all the same. "The sacrifices one makes to keep the peace."
"The pair of you. I invited you along, why?" Nathan paused. It was a very theatrical pause. "Sorry, 'Ro. I forgot. T'Challa invited you along. And probably went 'Nyah, nyah' in LeBeau's general direction while he did it." He gave her the blandest smile imaginable.
The silver-haired woman considered taking off her sandal and pummeling Nathan with it - he did make such an appealing target at times. "You were saying about a coma?" she instead asked Jean, shooting Nathan a deadly look.
"We're not going to be inducing it... at least not this time. Besides, I'm all in favor of getting the chance to tease you about your royal quasi-suitor; I like him. Plus, I can totally see you as a queen." Jean held her hands in front of her, warding Ororo off as the other woman turned her glare on her.
It was a good thing she had two shoes, really. One for each unbearable companion. She decided to take the high road and ignore the teasing; hopefully they would forget about it once they were on their way to the site. The thought didn't seem likely, but she clung to it. "How are we to get from the airfield to where we are going?" she asked, glancing about. "I do not remember the arrangements."
Nathan was frowning slightly, looking around. Like most regional airfields in Africa, Kanda's was very open-concept - its facilities were much better than one would see elsewhere, due to Wakanda's very rosy economic situation, but still, there weren't many places a very large kingly type could possibly be hiding. "Maybe he's inside?" he said, inclining his head at the tiny, but very neat and tidy looking terminal building attached to the hangar. But he was reaching out telepathically even as he ventured the possibility, and - no. "Hah," he said dourly, peering towards the road. "Late. I'm going to give him such a hard time."
"Didn't even send a car," Jean mused, following after Nate. "Odd." She glanced back at Ororo. "He didn't say anything the last time either of you spoke with him?"
"Not that I can recall," the silver-haired woman responded.
All of a sudden, there was a strange shimmering around them like that of a heat mirage; Ororo felt dizzy for a moment and frowned. That was odd... she had never experienced a phenomenon like that before.
The reaction of the man beside her was considerably more dramatic; Nathan staggered, going nearly gray. He didn't see a shimmer, like Ororo; instead, he saw the lines of force twisting, warping. Colors bleeding into the world that didn't belong there, and he went to his knees on the dusty ground, all but doubling over. Distantly, he felt Jean start to react as well.
Something was screaming in his head.
No, not screaming. Roaring.
Conversely, the world seemed to go gray to Jean as all color save for a nimbus of light around her companions and herself was leeched away. Yet despite that, the monochromatic landscape seemed filled with a familiar potential. A sharp wind blew across the suddenly empty plain behind them.
"Something's happening," Nathan managed through gritted teeth. There were two mountains in his sight right now, layered images. One green and lush, tidy houses visible through the trees. The other was
the other is
Grass and scrub and empty. And he blinks, and after the flash of dark, the empty mountain
the only mountain
is there and solid, and Nathan opens his mouth to protest as the sun goes red. And then out.
Jean? Ororo? he says, in the dark. His stomach is twisting itself into knots, nausea sweeping over him like a tide. Are you- And the moon
Moonrise
Nathan leans back on his heels, staring blankly at the moon that should not be there. Hanging in the sky above Mount Kanda and no town. No people.
This is not Kansas, he says.
Kansas is a far cry from where they are now, wherever it is. Ororo sinks to her knees in the dirt, delving her fingers into it, feeling it cool against her skin. Not sunbaked, no -- how can it be when there is no sun?
It is beautiful.
Looking up, she takes in the stark, uninhabited landscape, bathed in moonlight and the bright twinkle of stars above. Something is strange about them, though she cannot put her finger on what.
Sirius, Canopus, Orion...
What happened? she asks, blinking at the stars.
The Pleiades...
The stars are wrong.
Everything is wrong. It's all gone again. Empty, formless void... Until it's not. The world seems to be made of gray clay, until Nathan looks upon it and there is a mountain which springs into being, plains of grass filling in around the trio. The hard, formless ground becomes dirt as Ororo falls to her knees and the other woman brings the sky into being. She knows in the distance there must be more, but all she sees everywhere is mutable possibility and it would overwhelm her were it not for her companions - between the two of them they paint in the world in an instant and Jean can once again perceive that it is there. She wonders if that makes them as unto God, and if she takes this clay can she make of it man?
Nathan takes a breath of air clear and clean and free of any taste of the modern world. Modern world. He leans back on his heels, wondering where that thought came from. A logical leap? No town, no people... and check off the senses, they're all there. Sight and hearing, touch and smell. Taste, too, he thinks, fingers to his lips. The picture is complete, just very different.
If this is still Wakanda, what Wakanda is it? Are we seeing what someone wants us to see? he asks - more to Jean, than to Ororo. There is a familiar feel to all of this. He thinks he knows what's happening. Is this someone trying to remake their world?
Yeees, Jean says slowly, drawing it out, tasting the idea and then shaking her head as she glances around. And then again, no. There's... There's multiple effects, more than one hand making the world. A pause and then she focuses on Nathan again. I think.
Ororo stands then, crumbs of dirt falling from her fingertips. If that is the case, and we are still here... there may be others as well. Her head spins slightly with the sudden readjustment of hundreds of years' worth of sky and air. We ought to find them.
T'Challa, Nathan says, suddenly sure. If someone is trying to redefine Wakanda, they need to find the man who is part of the definition they know. I think we should be looking for him. If he's here, he might understand - what is THAT? His voice rises, sharp with alarm in the moonlight.
Because there is another light in the sky. It burns on the western horizon, fierce red-gold. Not the moon, or the sun, or anything artificial. Like a shooting star, but large. Too large.
He stares at it, and feels dread rise up and punch him in the stomach. The dread is part of the fabric of the world around him, he realizes. It's... is it moving? he questions, uncertain. Blink, and it's frozen in the sky. Blink, and it's moving again, bearing down on them and Wakanda, or whatever this is. In the back of his mind, he hears the roaring again.
wrongwrongwrongwrong...
Flashes of something she used to know - still knows - batter at Ororo's mind, pushing their way through panic and disorientation. It's-
wrong
moving, yes... moving towards us. Coming here. Coming here. She squints at the fiery falling missile, dread twisting her stomach. The meteor. That fell-
is falling
centuries ago. It wiped out life everywhere in the area. The source of the vibranium. It is falling-
falling
Again.
But is it a dream or a memory? Jean asks, voice distant as she watches the fire in the sky solidify into being. Did we return to it or has it come to us? There's meaning in the lights and the darks that the mind breathes into life, imprinting upon the gray matter with it's swirls and bumps. Is the perception of the world what brings it into existence or is there a solid reality which remains regardless of the observer? And, she adds after a moment, eyes less disconnected, tone drifting into something more practical, don't you think we should move before it, whatever it is, lands out here?
"It's too hot," Nathan muttered, adjusting his sunglasses as he took the last step down from the plane. They'd arranged for a flight into Wakanda from Arusha, lucking out with the discovery of a Wakandan pilot returning home and perfectly happy to carry some passengers along for a nominal fee. "We're in the mountains, why is it this hot?" It was mostly a rhetorical question; it was East Africa in July, after all, so the heat-shimmer that hung over the town of Kanda wasn't all that unexpected.
"I thought we agreed on no complaining," Ororo replied, shifting the bag over her shoulder and stepping onto the tarmac. "I have a distinct memory of just that phrase, in fact. No complaining, and the first person to get into an alpha-dog fight with T'Challa has to buy drinks." She smiled sweetly at Nathan. "I hope you brought your wallet."
"Ah, 'Ro, you should have known that the promise was empty," Jean said with a grin, settling her sunglasses into place. "Nate not complaining requires coma status, really. That or the imminent opportunity for serious violence to improve his mood."
"And seeing as we are hoping to avoid either of those, I suppose complaining it must be." It had been a pleasant journey over to Wakanda; all three residents of the mansion were looking forward to seeing what T'Challa had set up in the time since their last visit. Nathan and Jean were there to give opinions on the DDR center and mutant-specific hospital that the king had helped start; Ororo herself had less reason to be there, but was happy to be along all the same. "The sacrifices one makes to keep the peace."
"The pair of you. I invited you along, why?" Nathan paused. It was a very theatrical pause. "Sorry, 'Ro. I forgot. T'Challa invited you along. And probably went 'Nyah, nyah' in LeBeau's general direction while he did it." He gave her the blandest smile imaginable.
The silver-haired woman considered taking off her sandal and pummeling Nathan with it - he did make such an appealing target at times. "You were saying about a coma?" she instead asked Jean, shooting Nathan a deadly look.
"We're not going to be inducing it... at least not this time. Besides, I'm all in favor of getting the chance to tease you about your royal quasi-suitor; I like him. Plus, I can totally see you as a queen." Jean held her hands in front of her, warding Ororo off as the other woman turned her glare on her.
It was a good thing she had two shoes, really. One for each unbearable companion. She decided to take the high road and ignore the teasing; hopefully they would forget about it once they were on their way to the site. The thought didn't seem likely, but she clung to it. "How are we to get from the airfield to where we are going?" she asked, glancing about. "I do not remember the arrangements."
Nathan was frowning slightly, looking around. Like most regional airfields in Africa, Kanda's was very open-concept - its facilities were much better than one would see elsewhere, due to Wakanda's very rosy economic situation, but still, there weren't many places a very large kingly type could possibly be hiding. "Maybe he's inside?" he said, inclining his head at the tiny, but very neat and tidy looking terminal building attached to the hangar. But he was reaching out telepathically even as he ventured the possibility, and - no. "Hah," he said dourly, peering towards the road. "Late. I'm going to give him such a hard time."
"Didn't even send a car," Jean mused, following after Nate. "Odd." She glanced back at Ororo. "He didn't say anything the last time either of you spoke with him?"
"Not that I can recall," the silver-haired woman responded.
All of a sudden, there was a strange shimmering around them like that of a heat mirage; Ororo felt dizzy for a moment and frowned. That was odd... she had never experienced a phenomenon like that before.
The reaction of the man beside her was considerably more dramatic; Nathan staggered, going nearly gray. He didn't see a shimmer, like Ororo; instead, he saw the lines of force twisting, warping. Colors bleeding into the world that didn't belong there, and he went to his knees on the dusty ground, all but doubling over. Distantly, he felt Jean start to react as well.
Something was screaming in his head.
No, not screaming. Roaring.
Conversely, the world seemed to go gray to Jean as all color save for a nimbus of light around her companions and herself was leeched away. Yet despite that, the monochromatic landscape seemed filled with a familiar potential. A sharp wind blew across the suddenly empty plain behind them.
"Something's happening," Nathan managed through gritted teeth. There were two mountains in his sight right now, layered images. One green and lush, tidy houses visible through the trees. The other was
the other is
Grass and scrub and empty. And he blinks, and after the flash of dark, the empty mountain
the only mountain
is there and solid, and Nathan opens his mouth to protest as the sun goes red. And then out.
Jean? Ororo? he says, in the dark. His stomach is twisting itself into knots, nausea sweeping over him like a tide. Are you- And the moon
Moonrise
Nathan leans back on his heels, staring blankly at the moon that should not be there. Hanging in the sky above Mount Kanda and no town. No people.
This is not Kansas, he says.
Kansas is a far cry from where they are now, wherever it is. Ororo sinks to her knees in the dirt, delving her fingers into it, feeling it cool against her skin. Not sunbaked, no -- how can it be when there is no sun?
It is beautiful.
Looking up, she takes in the stark, uninhabited landscape, bathed in moonlight and the bright twinkle of stars above. Something is strange about them, though she cannot put her finger on what.
Sirius, Canopus, Orion...
What happened? she asks, blinking at the stars.
The Pleiades...
The stars are wrong.
Everything is wrong. It's all gone again. Empty, formless void... Until it's not. The world seems to be made of gray clay, until Nathan looks upon it and there is a mountain which springs into being, plains of grass filling in around the trio. The hard, formless ground becomes dirt as Ororo falls to her knees and the other woman brings the sky into being. She knows in the distance there must be more, but all she sees everywhere is mutable possibility and it would overwhelm her were it not for her companions - between the two of them they paint in the world in an instant and Jean can once again perceive that it is there. She wonders if that makes them as unto God, and if she takes this clay can she make of it man?
Nathan takes a breath of air clear and clean and free of any taste of the modern world. Modern world. He leans back on his heels, wondering where that thought came from. A logical leap? No town, no people... and check off the senses, they're all there. Sight and hearing, touch and smell. Taste, too, he thinks, fingers to his lips. The picture is complete, just very different.
If this is still Wakanda, what Wakanda is it? Are we seeing what someone wants us to see? he asks - more to Jean, than to Ororo. There is a familiar feel to all of this. He thinks he knows what's happening. Is this someone trying to remake their world?
Yeees, Jean says slowly, drawing it out, tasting the idea and then shaking her head as she glances around. And then again, no. There's... There's multiple effects, more than one hand making the world. A pause and then she focuses on Nathan again. I think.
Ororo stands then, crumbs of dirt falling from her fingertips. If that is the case, and we are still here... there may be others as well. Her head spins slightly with the sudden readjustment of hundreds of years' worth of sky and air. We ought to find them.
T'Challa, Nathan says, suddenly sure. If someone is trying to redefine Wakanda, they need to find the man who is part of the definition they know. I think we should be looking for him. If he's here, he might understand - what is THAT? His voice rises, sharp with alarm in the moonlight.
Because there is another light in the sky. It burns on the western horizon, fierce red-gold. Not the moon, or the sun, or anything artificial. Like a shooting star, but large. Too large.
He stares at it, and feels dread rise up and punch him in the stomach. The dread is part of the fabric of the world around him, he realizes. It's... is it moving? he questions, uncertain. Blink, and it's frozen in the sky. Blink, and it's moving again, bearing down on them and Wakanda, or whatever this is. In the back of his mind, he hears the roaring again.
wrongwrongwrongwrong...
Flashes of something she used to know - still knows - batter at Ororo's mind, pushing their way through panic and disorientation. It's-
wrong
moving, yes... moving towards us. Coming here. Coming here. She squints at the fiery falling missile, dread twisting her stomach. The meteor. That fell-
is falling
centuries ago. It wiped out life everywhere in the area. The source of the vibranium. It is falling-
falling
Again.
But is it a dream or a memory? Jean asks, voice distant as she watches the fire in the sky solidify into being. Did we return to it or has it come to us? There's meaning in the lights and the darks that the mind breathes into life, imprinting upon the gray matter with it's swirls and bumps. Is the perception of the world what brings it into existence or is there a solid reality which remains regardless of the observer? And, she adds after a moment, eyes less disconnected, tone drifting into something more practical, don't you think we should move before it, whatever it is, lands out here?
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