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† duncan jackson | heimdall

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WHO: Duncan & Urushihara
WHERE: Heropa
WHEN: 5PM 11/9, Monday
WHAT: Urushihara doesn't know what Tex-Mex is and that is a travesty that must be corrected
WARNINGS: TBA

Duncan had told Urushihara 5PM because it gave him time to actually find a place with decent reviews, though not the time to vet it personally. He hoped that wouldn't prove to be a mistake, because if there's one thing that sucks it's being misled by the internet into thinking a bad restaurant is good and then taking a friend there and having them get the wrong impression of an entire food genre.

So when five rolls around, Duncan would be sitting out on the front step of his house, waiting for Urushihara to show up. Unlike when he first posted to the network, he is dressed like a perfectly normal American this time, jeans/T-shirt/boots combo, except he is wearing long sleeves underneath the T-shirt which is a bit odd considering how warm Florida is even this far into autumn.

He'd also be mostly absorbed in his phone when Urushihara showed up, looking up info on hoverbikes and how much they cost and which models are best-liked. He's getting a hoverbike. This is not a question. He just has to figure out how to afford it...

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A hoverbike is cool in theory, but the sad reality Urushihara must face is that he will never need one. Ever. Especially in a place like this, where powers are not a rare thing. If Duncan had been expecting Urushihara to pick him up in a car, he had been sorely mistaken.

It is, in fact, shortly after 5 pm that Urushihara actually shows up. Rather than appearing on the road, like a normal person, he calls down to Duncan from the roof of the house. Black hi-tops brace him safely on the structure, even as he crouches to look down at the so-called cleric.

"Hey, are you ready, or what?"

His amused, lilting tone is more playful than annoyed. Everything about him screams purple, from the dark violet of his eyes and hair to the sleeves of his shirt and his earrings, to the slight tinge of a tone that implies royalty.

From this angle, the reason he is on the roof is not immediately obvious; his back is hidden, his body set far enough back that Duncan would not see the great black wings, folded firmly behind him.

Duncan looks up at the sound of the voice, but he's looking toward the street and there is nobody there, which is puzzling. It's a few seconds before he thinks to look up up and sees Urushihara perched at the edge of the roof.

"...What is with people and roofs in this city?" It's muttered but, like, a stage mutter: loud enough for Urushihara to hear it from all the way up there.

Duncan climbs to his feet, shoving the phone into his pocket, and takes a few steps toward the street before turning to look up at the roof. He doesn't have to crane his head back quite so far that way. "So are you coming down, or...?"

He hasn't guessed that it's flight that got Urushihara up there. He's used to seeing assassins and rogues up on rooftops like that, so he's more inclined to assume the answer is parkour.

Urushihara's grace doesn't fall under the category of sport or effort. It comes from what he is, and his mixed delight and loathing of that existence. He considers Duncan for a moment, before finally settling in his own mind that this kid might be worth a bit of honesty.

He jumps, landing smoothly on the ground with no wince of pain or even a sound of effort. When he stands, it's not to a very impressive height; he's barely over five feet tall. However, his wingspan makes up for it. Jet-black wings flex, spreading out wingtip-to-wingtip before he folds them lazily behind his back again.

"Lots of people like roofs in this city?" he asks nonchalantly.

~~Excuse u he is 26~~

Duncan is definitely not expecting the dismount to take that particular form. He takes a step back when Urushihara jumps, visibly startled by the seemingly-sudden appearance of wings. And then he just...stares, for a minute, because that certainly caught him off-guard and he's completely lost track of what he wanted to say and has to mentally flounder for a moment to find his place again.

Did I say mentally? I meant the first words out of his mouth are, "Holy shit. What are you, a fucking condor?"

Followed immediately by him stiffening and a look flashing across his face that screams Why did I say that.

Luckily for Duncan, Urushihara has taken a liking to him. He laughs, shaking his head.

"You really have to tell me about your universe. Are wings that shocking to you, considering...?"

He's insanely curious, but doesn't want to push. As much as Urushihara wishes he had no secrets, that's not the case. However, Duncan may be the closest chance Urushihara has to making a friend. For now, he'll be receptive.

He is visibly relieved at the laughter. People who just roll with it when he says something stupid are a godsend. Keep that up and you've definitely got yourself a friend, Urushihara.

Duncan folds his arms, responding in a wry deadpan. "Look, we just merged with a fantasy universe, it's not like people suddenly started sprouting wings. That would be ridiculous."

He unfolds one arm to gesture toward the wings. "Anyway, don't take this the wrong way, but can you hide those or are you stuck outing yourself as an ImPort to everyone that looks at you?"

Urushihara releases a long, annoyed sigh. However, his wings fold tighter against themselves until they seem to merge together, and then recede into his back as though they'd never been.

"I don't need them out to travel, anyway," he mutters childishly. "I got legs. Where're we goin' that you're so damn paranoid?"

He's a whiny brat, but much like Duncan's dumb comment, there's no real bite to Urushihara's words. He has no filter, but his eyes, unusually reflective and very bright, reveal more than a normal human's would. If he was truly upset, Duncan would know.

Wow, that is fascinating. Where do they go? Are they still part of his total mass? Does he weigh more with the wings out vs hidden? Maybe Duncan will ask these things later. Right now, he gives Urushihara an apologetic look because yeah, Duncan can tell he's not happy about that request.

"Out into the general public? I don't know if you noticed, being that you don't go outside and all, but opinions on us are pretty mixed around here. I prefer to blend in as much as possible." It's a paranoia that will probably make a lot more sense once Duncan explains the details about what happened in his universe.

Though it strikes him now that the hair is a little obvious. He's gotten so used to seeing weird-ass anime hair colours around that he didn't even realize before now that Urushihara's hair is just as likely to out him as the wings. But it's not like Duncan's going to force him to hide that, too. He's not that bad about the whole paranoia thing.

He starts a motion that is turning to leave while gesturing for Urushihara to follow, but stops almost as soon as he starts, hesitating and staring at Urushihara's hair. That is...almost exactly the same as Artemis's hair, come to think of it. Shorter and unstyled, but the colour and the cut is uncannily close. "This is going to sound really weird, but...I just realized you have almost exactly the same hair as one of my alts."

Pause. He probably has no clue what that means, Duncan. "Uh, one of the characters. That I played, in that game that my world merged with. He's real now, so... Wow I should really start at the top here, shouldn't I."

The idea of blending in touches a nerve, and Urushihara bares his teeth and looks away as Duncan continues to speak. He keeps pace with him all the same, but the emotion around them darkens, growing tense and heavy. At the shortspeak used by Duncan, Urushihara glances at him.

"I know what an alt is. So... What, your characters became real? Or you're your main and can switch to one of your alts?"

Clearly, Urushihara is no stranger to bizarre happenings, but that ominous rainbow sheen over now slitted pupils hasn't gone away. He's watching Duncan, somehow seeming wary and ready to bolt and at the same time having the predatory look of a jaguar. Violet hair is one thing, but those closest to him are more afraid of his eyes than his wings.

Not that his wings aren't dangerous, since they're hardly only for flight.

Edited (lol what are tenses) 2015-11-18 06:39 (UTC)

The sudden tension in the air does not go unnoticed, though Duncan is already walking and doesn't catch the look that goes along with it. He feels a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with his brain having wired itself to respond to negative ambiance by associating it with the most severe case of it he's ever felt. He folds his arms in that tight, stiff manner of someone trying to shut out the cold and glances back at Urushihara. He's not looking closely enough to notice the change in his eyes, yet.

Man the wings thing pissed him off, didn't it? Way to go, Duncan. Pro at upsetting people by worrying too much. But since Urushihara isn't saying anything about it, and seems to be trying to carry on this topic of conversation, Duncan is going to roll with it and hope that's the right answer.

"Hah, I wish. I'd swap with Artemis in a heartbeat." Physically, at least. Personality-wise, not so much. "No, they all became real. Fully realized self-aware people with all the fucked up backstory and drama you'd expect out of MMO RP characters."

The nonexistent chill having passed, he drops his arms and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking up to double-check their location by the surroundings. "Some alts handled that worse than others. Some players, too."

Urushihara can't help but be fascinated. The idea of an MMO coming to life is like something out of the kind of bad shounen manga Maou would read. That, or by itself, the world seems like a great idea for a game.

Shaking Star Ocean flashbacks out of his mind, Urushihara watches Duncan curiously.

"So you're like... Their creator? Everyone who played became their main and then their alts came to be?" He feels like he's way off, but then, Duncan's world seems complicated. Two purple gems gleam from Urushihara's lobe as he sweeps a lock of hair behind his ear. "Will they be okay without you?"

The world does seem like a great idea for a game, doesn't it? That's why the people in the know decided to introduce it to Earth as one, apparently.

He pulls a hand out of his pocket to give a dismissive wave. "No, no. Nobody became their characters. God, that would be terrible. I mean as much as I'd like to be a spellsword instead of a cleric, Marlene's not the character I'd prefer to be." Personality-wise, maybe. Physically, not so much...for reasons that the name alone probably makes clear enough.

"They'll be fine. Like I said, they're all fully realized people now. The player-alt relationship is..." He buries a hand in his hair, considering how he wants to phrase that. When he settles on it, he drops his hand for idle gesturing instead. "Well, it's what people decide to make of it. Like I said, not everyone handled it very well. My three hit the whole spectrum, pretty much. Marlene sort of adopted herself as my big sis, Artemis seemed pretty neutral on the whole thing, and Ravi--holy shit, Ravi, that motherfucker. I'm still surprised I got out of a meeting with him without getting anything broken."

Yeah, so, fun fact Urushihara: Duncan's a rambler. Especially on this topic, because the player-alt relationship and duty toward one's creations are things he has a lot of Feelings about.

Urushihara doesn't mind the rambling. In fact, if not for the rambling, Urushihara would probably fully realize that his friends back home rarely, if ever, spoke to him. Unless he was getting yelled at, which was often. But this is nice.

"So you... Made them?"

Even now, he has trouble understanding, though he makes a full effort to. He uncrosses his arms, shoving them lazily into his pockets instead. "Isn't that awkward?"

He laughs. It is...not a funny laugh. A biting, bitter, forceful laugh. "Yeah! Yeah, it's a little fucking awkward!"

Stoplight. Crosswalk. Duncan hits the button and leans against the pole, facing Urushihara while they wait on the light. "These are people that you know more intimately than it is possible to know a person. You've been them, you decided everything about them, and you're used to talking about them like they aren't real people, because they were never supposed to be! They don't have any privacy, a bunch of people they've never even met know details about them that they never would've told anyone. And you know that! And you know exactly how they feel about it, because you made them in the first place!

"But I mean the worst part is..." He pauses, inhaling deeply, whatever steam he was running on seeming to fade out as he exhales. "The worst part is when they come to you for advice, because they know you know everything about them. And you know they're not actually ready to hear what they're asking you to say. Like, what the fuck are you supposed to do, there?"

"I dunno, man. It's like you're a war general that created your own subordinates, and they won't listen, even though they owe you their existence." He considers. Then a grin splits the lower half of his face. To his credit, he doesn't break into laughter like he wants to. He's conscious enough of Duncan's frustration to avoid it. The amusement is still obvious in his voice when he adds, "They're like teenagers. Your teenagers."

This time it's a funny laugh, with a touch of exasperation at the end. "You have no idea. Hell, every time I talked to Ravi I swear I was getting a 'you're not my real dad' vibe off of him."

The light changes. Duncan straightens from the pole to cross the street, glancing over to make sure Urushihara is still with him. "Not all the teenage rebellion was harmless, though." Before launching into that explanation though, he pauses, looking questioningly over at Urushihara. "Do you RP at all?" Because the level of personal familiarity there is going to affect how he explains this.

"Yeah, occasionally. Not online, usually, more of a tabletop and LARP thing."

It would be more accurate to say that Urushihara is talented at being someone he is not, or at least pretending to be. Then again, his survival has been dependent on hiding his true nature more than once. Back home, pretending he's on neither side, or the other side, helped him through whichever army he had happened to be on at the time.

In fact, Duncan might not realize it, but at this very moment, there was a character smiling curiously at him, waiting for the story to continue.

Easily fooled by experienced actors, Duncan doesn't even have the slightest suspicion that the antisocial teenager with him is anything more than just that.

Tabletop and LARP is good enough for the common ground explanation to work, anyway. "Alright, so. You know, then, that not everyone's putting together good guys, because shit's boring with no antagonists. And you know the kinds of bad guys RPers like to think up." Pause to let that sink in a bit. "So now imagine those types of characters also becoming real, finding out they were created by players, and being unhappy about their backstories."

"And so becoming the "I was created by Man for Generic slash Miscellanious Purpose" trope. See also, "Mewtwo Syndrome.""

Really, to him, it's terribly ironic. He keeps pace with Duncan, glancing briefly at the sky.

"Afraid your bad guys and good guys are gonna off each other?"

"What the fuck is Mewtwo Syndrome?" Sure, he's vaguely familiar with Pokemon because that shit's classic, but Mewtwo Strikes Back is over fifty years old in his present timeline. Fuck if he knows any of the specifics about Mewtwo's origins.

"No, uh... As far as I can tell, mine are all pretty well settled at this point and not particularly murderous. See, the problem was never really the idea that alts might try to off each other. More a...Frankenstein kind of problem." IE how the monster had sworn vengeance on its creator and proceeded to ruin everything he loved as revenge for having been created at all.

"Fuck, never mind. Look, the whole thing is very "Fuck God, I can do better," isn't it? The last thing that You-God needs is your Heaven breaking apart because of your right-hand men. So what d'you plan to do about it?"

It seems insanely amusing, but at the same time, Urushihara wonders if Duncan might be of some use to Maou. Either way, Urushihara likes him enough to consider him a friend. He hates to admit it to himself, but Duncan getting hurt is something he'd like to avoid.

"Do you have some way to defend yourself against some uprising? Your own personal Lucifer?" It is a question and an offer all in one.

That sure is a lot of god metaphor going on there. It's actually vaguely uncomfortable, because Duncan's power does come from a god, and he is technically a demi-god himself, and that positions him at the head of that god's church like some kind of fantasy pope in theocratic middle-ages Europe. He's perfectly aware of how much power he has and how easily he could bring himself to abuse it if he ever starts to think in terms like the ones Urushihara's using right now.

While he's trying to figure out how to explain that most of the worst problem cases have already been settled and he has bodyguards for the rest and anyway he's nearly unkillable--he's caught off-guard by the Lucifer comment.

He gives Urushihara an incredulous, bewildered look, so thoroughly distracted by the unexpected comparison that he fails to watch where he's going and hipchecks himself against a USPS mailbox. He's stopped short with a wince, but rather than step around the mailbox and keep going, he puts a hand on it and steps back like he's trying to keep it at arm's length, and looks straight at Urushihara. "Beg yer pardon?"

There's a bit of a drawl to it, because, spoilers: Duncan's carefully maintained neutral American accent is fake and occasionally sneaks off while he's not paying attention to make room for his native Texan.

"You know, that whole "Lucifer betrayed God" thing." Urushihara's stone-faced, and it's quite clear that he's barely keeping from laughing at Duncan's graceless actions. In a way, that forced composure is almost more offensive than if he'd laughed. "Doesn't it seem kinda like that? Won't it be like that, if they decide to rebel against the all powerful You and the Heaven You created for them?"

He can't help the metaphors here. He isn't sure why, but this is way too fun. He stops with arms crossed again as they speak, though he does glance in the general direction of which they'd been walking.

It's a good thing he does keep his composure, because laughter would just be a distraction. It'd probably get them off this topic, and Urushihara would never get his answer.

Duncan lets out a low whistle, because damn son, he is not entirely comfortable with the ideas being proposed here. "Number one," he starts, wrestling his accent back into submission, "I would not, by any means, call what we gave them a 'Heaven'. Number two, players were not all-powerful, despite what several alts would like to think, and they found that out once the servers went down and we stopped being able to log into them. I mean we're basically all on equal footing now, except for those of us who wound up with--" With god-organs, but he knows better than to mention that whole mechanic in this new place. The last thing he wants to do is inspire anyone to do to him what he did to his predecessor. "With guild leader positions.

"And three, most of the rebelling has already happened. The dust has pretty much settled, you know?" At least, he hoped so. All the alts he'd been most worried about on a personal level seemed to have been taken care of, one way or another. "The two I was most worried about, one of them DKO'd his creator, and the other one--" He grimaced, briefly, at the memory of Nova finally making good on his threats. "The other one, I put the fear of God into, and he is never going to be a problem for me again if he knows what's good for him."

"Damn. Your world sounds chaotic." And this grin right here? This grin implies he's fascinated by the idea. "At least it seems like you've got a good head on your shoulders. How're you adjusting to it at this point? Running their risks for them, are you?"

In the back of his mind, he wonders again how Duncan and Maou would get on.

"World like that, being here might not be such a bad thing, eh?"

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