asgardchrysalis | ( open ) you cut me deep

Entry tags:

( open ) you cut me deep

Who: James T. Kirk & you!
What: Finding out about his blood magic spell (blood telepathy) + Odin's compulsive honesty curse
When: Early/mid April
Where: Around
Rating: PG? Just a bit of blood but not expecting anything more.

I ▹ BLOOD MAGIC

Jim should have figured they wouldn't come back from that cave entirely unaffected. The last time he died he ended up with a soreness in his shoulder and down his side that has never quite vanished, sometimes even prickling and feeling a little numb, so when he actually can't sense anything different in him for days after they come back, it starts to feel like something is just strange or off.

It starts with vague dreams, at first; he can hear droplets fall, something dripping, dripping... it's not until the third night that he notices that the droplets are dark red, thick, pooling on the ground, spattering around. Then he begins to hear voices. Unintelligible words, and it's his voice reaching out, calling, the whispers and the sound of the falling blood drops growing louder and louder, almost deafening, until everything goes still and quiet and all he can hear is his own voice:

Listen to me.

He doesn't know what compels him to try this in the morning, but he does: he goes out to the field at the farm, and he takes out a sharp knife and nicks himself on the finger with it. There's a prickle of pain and he hisses, but instead of focusing on that, he closes his eyes and thinks of a specific person, someone he knows, and reaches out with his mind.

The message is short. A test, just to see if it really does what he thinks it should or not. Somewhere in the city, someone should be getting Jim's voice ringing in their head...

This is Jim Kirk. I'm at the farmland in Sigyn's district. If you can hear this message, please come meet me here.

II ▹ COMPELLED TRUTHS

Like many others, Jim doesn't escape Odin's curse. He's not a secretive person by nature, however, nor does he tend to lie, so he doesn't worry much that he might say something he doesn't want to. However, depending on what hour of the day someone runs into him, he may be feeling less or more frustrated with the curse that compels him to speak the truth, even when unasked or unprompted.

On the other hand, he might instead run into someone else who's affected. He won't use that to his own personal gain, though he might tease just a bit if he's comfortable with the person... But he won't be mean, really.

((ooc: for this prompt, basically feel free to write up your own starter as you think might best suit the compelled truth curse! I'm open to anything at all.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alright, so, maybe that was the wrong kind of judgment. Not that it's an unreasonable question, but it's so direct, and so sudden, that Jim can't help but tense up at it, even when the answer is expected, inevitable. Everyone in Asgard knows what happened at the cave, regardless of having been there themselves.

"Haven't we all?" He counters, but he knows that he could've been there and not died; he simply would have to be one of the people who stayed outside, waiting. He lets out a breath, nodding as he looks away. "Yes. I was inside the cave, when... Yes, I died."

Again, his mind provides, not so helpfully.

Edited 2020-04-18 13:27 (UTC)

Jet shrugs, a fractional lift and roll of one shoulder. It's not the dying that upsets him. It's the fact that the deaths of everyone else were, in his mind, wholly preventable. And yet that's not what the majority wanted, so that's not what was allowed.

He can't say he cares for that.

"Same." That raises the question, though. He glances down at his own hand, flexes the fingers into a fist and out again. Does magic course through the blood in his veins now too? "Think we all have it?"

That's something Jim's still struggling with himself. In the end he voted in favor of keeping the quarantine, but at what cost? His own life he was willing to sacrifice, actually all the other Wanderers didn't bother him nearly as much, knowing they would be revived once back in Asgard, but those orcs trapped in there...

They went out there to save them, after all. In the end they only sealed their fate. The guilt over that consumes him, though in truth it would just as much had they decided to break the quarantine and let that disease spread.

"I don't know," he says, reluctant to encourage the man to try, since it would mean he'd have to cut himself for that. "Have you... felt any different? Had any strange dreams? That's how I figured out that something had changed."

"What do you usually dream about?" Strange dreams are a given in Jet's life, and always have been. He can't remember the last time he slept peacefully, assuming he ever did, even back home. The diverging of those dreams from his baseline of borderline nightmares isn't something he's ever thought to keep track of. What would be the point in it?

There are things in his dreams he's got to pay attention to now?

Fantastic.

"A lot of things," he says, purposefully vague, even though it sounds like a rhetorical question. He goes on to explain. "But this was different. It felt different. I felt like it meant something, and when I woke up in the morning there was just something telling me to try this."

Kind of like what drove him to use his God powers the first time, though there hadn't really been a dream involved then. Just a compulsion to reach out, touch a flower and make it bloom.

"Different how?" Jet regards his hands for a moment, opening and closing them into fists and then back out again. Perhaps if he decided opening a vein he'd be able to work out something of whatever strange properties his blood might be capable of now...or he'll just bleed everywhere.

Yeah. Safer to not.

"...think we all have it?"

"I can't explain it. It was just a feeling," he shrugs. Like the dream in itself was a message. He doesn't know how to put that feeling into words.

"It's possible, but I wouldn't advise anyone to go around cutting each other," he says, almost like reading the man's mind. "But we could ask around. Talk to the others who were at that cave and see if anyone else has developed some new ability, like me."

Jet snorts faintly, a nose that coming from him tends to translate to obviously not.

"Might work," he concedes. Then he reaches up, taps two fingers to his temple with a faint, wry twist to his tone. "Maybe not in their heads."

What'd be better is some kind of way to test what kind of ability might have been gained from their deaths in the cave, but considering the context of what those abilities might turn out to be, that's also liable to be a literal bloodbath. No thanks.

Well, one can never be too sure. Some people are a little crazy like that.

Jim's eyebrows lift at that, and his lips stretch into a smile before he lets out a chuckle. "No, I wasn't planning on it. But maybe a public announcement or something of that kind would do the trick. If it really is something that happened to all of us, then I can't be the only one showing signs of it, I'm sure."

On that, they can agree. Jet's barely got a grasp on his own god powers, and now there's another one being thrown into the mix? One that's probably blood-activated? Fantastic.

"Probably not," Jet agrees. "Be good to know."

And it'd be good to know a more effective way of figuring out what that is as opposed to simply pricking your fingers and hoping for the best.

"Careful with the voice." Again, he taps his head. It tripped up Jet for sure, and he's pretty sure that he's not going to be the only one.

"Yes, I know," he nods, sighing. "Again, sorry. I'd like to say it won't happen again, but until I get the hang of this power, I might end up getting a few unsuspecting people."

But he does want to get the hang of it. Even if it means he has to injure himself to make it work, the usefulness of an ability like this is too great for him to ignore.

"What's your name, by the way?"

"Jet Star." And he already knows your name, courtesy of that telepathic message. And, hey, in your defense - "Could've been worse."

A vaguely suspicious message is hardly the worst thing to be flung his way. Given that nothing's come of this besides a civil conversation and some information that Jet himself didn't already have, Jet will take it.

"I suppose so. I wasn't even sure how it was going to work, but it wasn't that bad, no. Still wish I'd gotten the person I was aiming for."

He tilts his head, smiling a bit. Not like he can say much more about his newly discovered power, so he focuses on something else. "Jet Star. That's a pretty cool name, I'm almost jealous."

Well, Jet did pick it himself, the way most killjoys do. Out in the Zones, your name's not given to you. Your name gets found. He shrugs, though there's a very faint twitch to the corner of his mouth that suggests that he thinks his name sounds pretty fucking cool too.

Still, that's not the point.

"Who you looking for?"

"My girlfriend. She's in the city right now, so I thought I'd try reaching out to someone who's not too near me."

Chances are Jet was around where Mary was, either that or Jim's just not that good at reaching out to who he wanted to yet. Doesn't matter for now, anyway. It did work, even if it wasn't flawless, and that's good enough for him.

"How long have you been here? In Asgard, I mean. I don't remember seeing you before the cave."

Fair enough. No idea who that is, but he doesn't know a lot of the people here all that intensively. He's...not the social guy of the crew, typically. At least, not in the conventional sense.

Jet shrugs.

"Couple months." Long enough to have died once already. "You?"

Two months was about as long as it took for Jim to die the first time too, that time being even less avoidable than this one. Dangers are abound, especially to the Wanderers who dare go beyond the (relative) safety of the city.

"I've been counting the days since my arrival. Following the Gregorian calendar, I'm coming up on nine months now."

Nine. So not the longest stay, compared to some of the other people he's talked to, but longer than Jet himself. Not saying much, that.

"Long time," he says. "Rough adjustment?"

Not the longest stay, it's true, but not by much either. He's definitely among the few Wanderers who have been here the longest, which explains why he looks so settled, and why so little even seems to surprise him anymore.

"At first, yes," he admits. "But it was different then. We didn't have electricity then, we didn't have animals either. Things are easier now."

There's a pause, then he adds, "Well, maybe not easier necessarily, just... different problems for us to focus on."

"Still don't have rayguns." No rayguns, no loud music, no cars screaming down the highway blasting loud tunes - it's like this place took all the things that Jet liked about the Zones and stripped them away. It's sobering.

As much as he's adjusting to the dated weaponry, he'd be lying if he said he didn't miss the chirp of laser fire.

Jim smiles a hint. Rayguns sounds a little different from what Jim's used to, but not that different that he can't draw a bridge there. "Yeah. I'm not used to the weaponry here. They have nothing like the phasers I had in my world."

He shrugs. "I've learned to make do, though. I know how to wield a sword and use knives, which is-- an improvement. Better than nothing, I guess. And I've managed to get my bike working."

"Gotta bike?" That's a glint of interest in Jet's eye for sure. That could mean anything from a bicycle to an honest to god motorbike, and on top of everything else, Jet misses the speed and thrill of cruising on open highways. He misses the Trans Am, the closest thing he ever had to a home, barreling down the Getaway Mile.

So far, nothing in Asgard comes close. Anybody who's managed a working bike is going to get his attention.

"I do," he beams, looking actually pretty pleased with himself, though at least he manages not to brag about it. He gestures to the cottage, tipping his head.

"It's behind the cottage, if you want to have a look?"

That vague interest is the closest that Jet's going to get to enthusiastic agreement, given the circumstances.

"Yeah," he says, 'cause - yeah, actually, he'd really like a look. For all that this was a weird-ass meeting to have, it might not end up being a trip done for nothing after all. Anyone who's got a means of transport that's not just eight-legged horses and carts is worth knowing around here.

Hey, good enough for Jim. He likes showing off his bike anyway, and getting to know anyone who's into that kind of thing is always a delight.

"Come on, then," he smiles wide, leading the way to the cottage and then around it. Soon enough Jet will be able to spot the bike parked there, with a couple of wires hooked up to it. It's looking pristine, like Jim has spent a little too long cleaning and polishing it.

"She hasn't moved much since I moved to the farm," he admits. "I've only just managed to figure out a way to charge her. Before here I lived on that big ship crashed in Skadi's district, the Benatar, and it was much easier to charge her there."

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