asgardeventide | 003

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003 - Audio

[Samantha opted, when setting up the feed, to go with voice only. She still looked like hell, and she didn't need anyone seeing or asking stupid questions. It wasn't their business. But, after speaking to Conan, she'd resolved that it was time to stop trying to hide from this place any further. When she spoke, her voice had a tired quality to it, but was still strong.]

So, Asgard.

I wanted to discuss something with those of you who will still speak with me right now. These powers that we have. Most of the people I see seem to think of them as a good thing, a blessing of sorts, or at least they partially make up for the tricks you had in your homeworlds. Right.

Here's the thing I wanted to talk about. Most I've spoken to seem to think of these powers as something that's being used to help other people around here, or to protect people that can't protect themselves. How do you people handle the fact that any of them can be abused, misused or mishandled? What do people around here do to prepare themselves to be protected if those powers get used for the wrong reasons? I've been thinking a lot lately about how people could protect themselves from some of these powers, and it worries me.

Not all of us are nice people, you know.

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Wait. Do what now? Hold your horses and run that one by me again. what do you mean lose our free will? I thought we were talking stupid crap like that beard crap or some inane curse or something like getting turned into a guy for a bit. Don't tell me there's more to it than that. I was just starting to almost like one of them.

Well, for example, my friend who's intensely afraid of being touched. Put your hand on her shoulder, she'll freeze up. She wound up being compelled to hug a LOT of people. I don't even know how many. It wasn't even as if she could hide in the house or in her room. To say that she was upset about it is kinda putting it mildly, but there was no fighting it.

Then there was the singing thing - people had songs stuck in their head and had to sing them. Songs they didn't even know, some of them. I know a few people who wound up singing things that upset them for one reason or another.

So, not BIG things. But it's enough.

It's enough. Most of that sort of shit's probably not big, but it can be really infuriating. I think they like irritating us, really. Sorry about your friend though. I do understand how she feels. I'm not afraid of being touched or someone getting close, I just really don't like it. If it has to happen, it has to happen, though.

Still, that just makes the whole hugging thing worse.

Exactly. It's a kind of 'thin end of the wedge' thing. So, today they're making me hug strangers, tomorrow they'll do.. what? Make me jump off a building? Hurt someone? I'd like to give them the benefeit of the doubt and all but it is worrisome.

Freyr... put it this way, and whether or not you like him there's some truth to it that's undeniable. They're people. Whatever they are, they've got emotions, wants, goals, personalities and weaknesses. I'd call Baldr a childish bully, like some scared kid showing he's in charge by beating people up, just to avoid thinking about his problems. Every one of them is like a regular person, only with the powers of eternity at their fingertips.

That's always been one of the scary things about the old gods. They're basically people with lightning bolts in their hands, and people can do some horrible things. If my other half could laugh, walking someone off a building to see what they look like when they landed, who's to say that these gods are any different or better? Hell, they started with kidnapping. I'd assume they're worse.

That's similar to my take on it. I noticed that they bicker a lot amongst themselves, like some kind of family filled with different siblings. One wants it this way, another wants it that way, and they argue about it and we get caught in the middle.

I can almost forgive them for starting with kidnapping if only because how many of us would have come willingly? Despite anything I might think about being here now, if they had asked me then, I would have flat out refused. I had sort of picked my life up and had started putting things together that I wanted and wanted to do, so, yeah. I would have said No. Now that I'm here and understand the situation, I'd stay, given the option. I mean, we're here to save all of creation in thousands of universes - saving trillions of lives. I mean, don't get me wrong - Kidnapping is a terrible way to go about it but I can see the reasoning behind it.

I can 'get' that they're desperate. That's starting to be obvious, but I would have still liked to be asked. I might have let it slide and gone with them. There's not much back in my world that I'm all that keen on protecting, personally, but some of what I've seen's right for me to want to be here anyway.

Still, I think we're mostly on the same page again.

Well, even if you're not so keen on your own world, there are thousands of others we're helping by being here. To be completely honest, I'd stay just to save one. Any one. It wouldn't even have to be my own, though, that's a definite mark in the 'Pros' column for me.

It's just if I can do that without having to sign embarassing songs, hugging strangers, or exploding, I'll be much happier.

Agreed on the not exploding thing. Dying's a bitch, though that at least would be fast. Messy and freaky as hell, but fast. There's advantages to fast.

Personally, though, I'm not good at the whole hero thing. I can't sit idly by if someone's in trouble. That'd be monstrous, but at the same time I have trouble understanding helping a world I don't even know exists for sure. It's... too distant to understand properly, if that makes sense. Sounds great in theory, but I don't work in theory too much.

Yeah - fast is a definite plus in a situation like that.

I don't even think it's like a Hero thing. I mean, the only people who will ever know what we're doing are the people who are here. The people on most of these worlds have no idea they're in danger, and have no idea who we are, what we're doing, or anything. So, if we win, life goes on for them completely uninterrupted and no-one's any the wiser except the few hundred of us who got picked to help out. I don't need to have seen or even heard of those worlds to know that they need to be saved. I mean, there's billions of lives on each one - I understand that well enough and that's all that matters in the end.

I... have trouble being that noble, but in the end that isn't what's going to matter. We're right up in front of the fight one way or another, so we've got to figure something out. I'll make do, even if it's not that much of a cheering thing to think in those terms for me.

I'm not really sure if it's that noble. It's just what needs to be done. Besides. Not doing it would make us complicit in the deaths of trillions - I'd kinda like to be able to sleep at night, you know? Haha!

I think, maybe, that's why we see things differently here a little bit. I've already got plenty of blood on my hands that I didn't deal out personally, but that my hands dished out. I already have trouble sleeping, but if me saving the world's the same as me fighting what's in front of me, then I suppose it's going to have us on the same side, eh?

Our pasts definitely inform our perspectives. You're right about that, yes. But it's OK - We are on the same side, no matter what our reasoning is.

Yep. We are definitely on the same side, at that. I don't see any reason to side with the other side of the town's walls. I'll definitely say that.

There is that. I don't really know much about the other places. I know some people travelled to another city recently but I haven't heard much about it.

Utgard. I've been there to start some forms processing. It's really high tech. Lots of traders there. Real easy to get lost. From what I've heard, they're sort of neutral, but the guy in charge isn't exactly a fan. We're really outsiders over there.

Oh? Forms for what? That's cool that you got to see the place - when you say Hi Tech, do you mean like more modern? I mean, we have TVs and Fridges and stuff here, sure. But it's not exactly Star Trek levels of technology.

More advanced than modern, but not space-age. It's definitely more advanced than what you and I might have seen in a normal earth, and there's a fair amount of strange and surreal stuff around it. All kinds of people going around, a lot of them not human.

I'm getting a license to traffic and use some of the local herbs. There's apparently ones with magical properties. You have to take a test first.

Oh wow - that's so cool! I've got to go and see it for myself some time. And that's neat that you're getting a license for something like that - any particular reason?

I'm an herbalist and pharmacologist over at the Yakuzen Clinic. I don't like not having access to all that's available. There's some stuff I want to experiment with.

Oh! Oh, I see. You work with my friend Dr. Watson. I'll probably see you there at some point soon, then.

I'm usually in the Pharmacy, fussing with the stock, re-organizing or prepping the medicine. I don't leave it too much, but I'm easy to find there.

Sure - I'll make it a point to say Hi.

[She was eventually going to see his prescriptions, then. Or notice that his visits to the clinic were regular as clockwork. He was unsure about what to do with that thought, though, he'd cross the bridge when it was in front of him.]

[There were healthy odds she'd already seen them. Samantha, however, was the sort to rarely ask questions about these sorts of things. Much like her own 'problems,' if it wasn't staring her in the face, drooling and growling, then she didn't care to nose around where people didn't offer information.]

I'll look forward to it, Hisao. Sorry for all the confusion.

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