[CLOSED] Are you ready for the power of God?

[pummelgranite]

WHO: Persephone, Frederick Chilton, Sam "Borf Borf" Merlotte
WHERE: Room B-121 at the Maurtia Falls rec center
WHEN: Slightly predated to January 10th
WHAT: Exposure therapy
WARNINGS: Themes covered may include depression, suicidal idealization, sexual assault, and other related Bad Stuff.


[ The room that had been reserved (rented?) for them was small: barely large enough to hold a meeting table and a number of wobbly-looking plastic chairs. The place smelled distinctly of the generic cleaning solution that all unpleasant basement spaces had in common- one that had no specific association with any fruit or flower or spice, but simply brought to mind an unpleasant shade of pink. In the corner of the room one of the ancient halogen bulbs flickered almost too quickly for the eye to catch.

The young woman they had come to see was already there when they arrive. She's cross-legged on the table, alone, under the unpleasant flicker. Cool, I guess? ]

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Unconventional. It was all unconventional -- that was how Chilton liked it. Something slightly jagged in its unpredictability, the sharp taste of a surprisingly tart thing on the tip of your tongue, it was all a reminder of this immediate fragility.

It was what Persephone inspired.]

Hope we didn't keep you waiting too long.

[He had been sure to step a few feet ahead of Sam, ever insistent on his own hierarchy. Ever ready to provide the leash. Chilton spoke only to Persephone.]

Ready?

[shifting]

[an aesthetic which might have served both Chilton and Persephone's tastes, but Sam's step faltered the moment he crossed the doorway. He'd hesitate to call himself claustrophobic, but limited exits and a lack of windows weren't exactly a comfort.

And there she was, sitting like a carved idol on the world's cheapest dais. Fine hairs rose on the back of Sam's neck, his posture and stare stiff as that ammonia smell raking uncomfortably against his sensitive senses.]

- Hey now, hold on. [he protested, stepping around the doctor to find equal footing. His gaze shifted back to the goddess, wary but hard. Insistent.] You hold on. I've got somethin' to discuss with her first.

We've got boundaries to set. Regardin' privacy.

['The bull' was what Persephone called him, the first time they spoke face to face; a card Sam had never shown but she'd known regardless. If rifling through a person's deck would indeed be part of this, if this would in part be a game of memory, then Sam aimed to make it clear this would be a game with only two players - and one of them wouldn't be Chilton.]

[pummelgranite]

[ Seeing him unsettled calmed whatever nerves she may have had. It was a good start, that he had descended out of his element, and away from control. The Underworld doesn't make house calls. There is decorum to keep, after all.

He expects her to be dangerous. He expects her to have him at the advantage. Easy enough. Callous as it might seem, in the end it was better for everyone if he came in a little rattled and disarmed.

She regards him with her inscrutable green gaze. ]


You want a safe word?


[ It doesn't sound like a joke. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton glanced at Sam, a smirk on his mouth. Sam was the waxy candle that fed Persephone's flame, the wick and the fuel -- but Chilton? He was the very oxygen that enabled this combustion. Like the very air they all breathed now, he knew how to slip in and deep.

And sometimes that meant keeping acidic remarks behind a smirk. He watched Sam, allowing his patient to discuss whatever boundaries he wanted to root.]

[shifting]

My safeword'll be me leavin', if it comes to that. So no. Just - I don't know how this works, but if you see things, get things from my memory or my thoughts while you're doin' this, you need to know those aren't yours to tell. I want your word as a -

[Sam paused, distaste curling his mouth, and tried to ignore Chilton's smirk in his peripheral.]

- as a goddess. That those'll still be mine to share or not.

[Sam slipped off his coat and hung it on the back of a chair, left in jeans and a shirt he didn't mind losing if it came to it. He hoped it wouldn't. He rolled the sleeves up his forearms, keeping distance and making no motion to sit. He would get through this, he told himself. He'd get past whatever she managed to sing out of him, and he'd learn to keep a handle on it, resist her influence altogether. That was the goal.

He was here to use Persephone, not the other way around.]

Past that, we can get this started. [he glanced between them then, struck by a thought. A nervous one. ] Only last thing is don't try to hold me down or in place. Nothin' like that unless you have to.

[the space felt too much like a cage as it was.]

[pummelgranite]

[ She watches him impassively as he lays out his demands and limitations. Her look is so neutral, he may wonder if she's actually listening. Whatever she'd find in him was only as relevant as it was to their own relationship, but his request not to be held down betrayed an unfortunate underestimation of her power. Well, no need to spell all that out. She would leave the door available for him as long as she could. He'd figure it out after that.

That was the trick to godhood: in the end, she existed only to be used by human. A tool for them to better themselves, then evolve past. Eternal, unknowable, indestructible, yet in the end disposable. This was not to say that she was not dangerous either to him or to others- obviously she was. But so is a gun, or a knife, or a car. It didn't make them any less of a tool either. He was right, he was here to use her. The trick was letting him do that when the power and control were all in her hands.

She neither agrees nor disagrees to his demands, just hears him out and then blinks mildly. ]

What have you come here for, Sam Merlotte?

[shifting]

Control.

[Sam swallowed, blinked. Her silence and stare were unnerving, something old and alien looking back placidly from a young face, but he couldn't look away. Wouldn't let himself. This was what he fucking came for, and he didn't plan to do this twice.]

Havin' to fight for it is normal, that's just bein' human. And it's... one thing when it's life takin' it away from you. Circumstance. Then at least, even if everything else is noise and chaos, you can still keep a handle on yourself. Even if you have to fight for that too. But what you sang that night -

[he blew a harsh breath through his nose.]

I didn't even have the chance. So that's what I want - that's why I'm here. The next time you or anyone who can do what you do tries to spook my horse, I want to be able to keep hold of the reins.

No matter what song's bein' sung.

[pummelgranite]

[ She wonders, not for the first time, if the details of their meeting had escaped him. What did he think was going on, if he did not realize that he has descended to the underworld and is petitioning a goddess for her favor? Did he expect that she would open up an abyss beneath his feet, for him to gaze into safely form the surface? ]

Control.

[ Her head tips as she considers it. All the lights in the room flicker for a long moment. When they settle again, there is something different about the layout of the room. ]


I don't offer control. What makes you think you can find it here?

[shifting]

[silence dragged. Sam's brow furrowed, eyes casting a moment at the corners and few shadowed places in the small space. At Chilton. Fearful instinct shivered down his back, distrustful. Truth be told, he wanted his gun. He'd been careful to leave it at home for just that reason.]

...You don't have to offer control. I'm not sure you could, and anyway I'm not askin' for it from you.

[the shifter licked his teeth behind closed lips, squaring his shoulders like a dog with something to defend.]

It's somethin' I mean to take for myself. What I think is you're gonna give me a reason to need to.

[the struggle would be Sam's; it would always be Sam's. If he failed again, even with warning - well. Hopefully Chilton knew enough to keep out of the way.

Or at least had also worn clothing he didn't mind ruining.]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton returned the look; in truth, his eyes had never left Sam. Precise and focused, he observed. His role was that of psychopomp, of guide and enabler. He straddled both worlds, a man always on the brink of death and yet never quite succumbing. Because of this, he possessed unique perspective, and he was certain of one sterling and immediate fact: Sam Merlotte needed this.]

You want agency.

[Crisp, bright words from a no longer smiling mouth.]

You want to own your narrative again. [Again. That word alone was debatable, Chilton doubted that Merlotte had ever truly owned his life sequence of events.] And Persephone is willing to help you.

[pummelgranite]

"To own your narrative."


[ She repeats the words again, seeming to taste them as they pass her lips. ]


Maybe. The people on Earth tell the stories of the Underworld. Not the other way around.


[ She finally slides off the table and begins slowly closing the space between them. But- something's wrong. Hadn't she been the first one in the room? Hadn't Sam been careful to watch his exits? So why is the door behind her instead of him? ]


Sam Merlotte. You're . . . alone. You're alone in the dark. I know. I can hear you. What you really want right now is to prove you are stronger than me, than the darkness. But unfortunately you can't, because you're not.


[ She leaves just a little more than an arm's reach between them. ]


You're living in my kingdom whether you like it or not. Whether I like it or not. You and I, we're in Hell. But I rule this Hell, understand? I'm not nice, but I'm not a total dick either. If you're really ready for it, maybe I'll show you your way around.

[shifting]

...More or less. [an uneasy agreement with Chilton's assessment, aware now that both were watching with expectation. Sam steeled himself, still watching Persephone. He gave himself credit for not reacting when she slid down to stand.

It lasted for the three seconds before he noticed the door. Sam startled. He glanced over his shoulder and back again, his heart jolted into a faster tempo. When had that happened, when had she done that? Had Chilton noticed?

Oh, but alone. There was a word to sink claws into his attention. A child's protest jumped to his tongue, defensive in the face of her assertions and approach. He swallowed it down. Persephone encroached on his space and Sam forced himself to stillness, held only by a glue of grit and will and denial.

There ain't no Hell, he remembered telling Tommy, to ease his brother's guilt the night he helped him dispose of the bodies of their parents, the night he'd let Tommy in on the secret of the blood on his own hands and the lack of any devil ever come to claim him for it.

He remembered how his brother corrected him, the night he died on Sam's pool table: There ain't no Heaven, but Hell's a dogfight.

Persephone looked small for a pit bull.]

...I'm ready. If you've got somethin' to show me - then come on.

I'm here.

[pummelgranite]

[ She closes the space between them. The lights all begin to flicker, more darkness than light now. This close, she smells like- Pomegranates, blooming, rips, rotting, all at the same time. And she smells like earth: wet, dead, old, living. It's overwhelming, not just that it's a strong scent, but that it is too complex, too real, like his shifter senses are trying to pass in too much data to his conscious mind at once.

Even as she has to look up to meet his eyes, there is still the overwhelming sense that she is too big, too much to be anything like small. She scrutinizes him for a long, long moment, before the lights flicker back on and she takes a step back. ]


No.

MEANWHILE IN CHILL TOWN

[pummelgranite]

[ The darkness stays perfect- thick and cold and boundless. Perhaps he's stuck in place, perhaps he's still falling. It's impossible to say, and likely irrelevant.

But then, he may notice, it's not perfect isolation, not quite. There is nothing to see, nothing to hear, but the scent of pomegranates and deep earth still permeates. Is he really alone? ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He wrinkled his nose at it, almost convinced that his mind was conjuring the scent as a defense mechanism. One tended to succumb to hallucination quickly, when deprived of all senses. It was a suitable torture technique.]

Am I alone?

[Because, perhaps not. His voice sounded distant and cold, even to his own ears -- like the shine of a star billions of light years away.]

[pummelgranite]

[ Her voice seems near. The scent is stronger. But there is still nothing but the darkness. ]

Has Death ever left you alone, Frederick Chilton?

[slightlyoffchilt]

[A quick, sharp look over his shoulder -- only to witness darkness. Endless darkness.]

Death seems rather eager to hold my attention, quite honestly.

[He closed his eyes (not that it mattered, visually) and took a long, deep breath through the nose. A calming, steadying technique. A way to ground himself within the abyss.]

Can you explain why?

[pummelgranite]

Nuh uh. Well, not the way you want, anyway.


You seem kinda uncomfortable. Want a- I dunno, uncomfortable chair? Some ficus plants?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Light constructs might do. Something other than the searing abyss -- it is a bit like Baltimore, isn't it?

[Home sweet home.]

But I really must get back to Sam. He only agreed to this because I had assured him my supervision -- goes without saying that he fears you more than he fears me.

[pummelgranite]

[ From very, very far away there is a dim light sssssllllllowly getting brighter, until it can be seen that it's one of her green, glowing vines, approaching from the other end of the abyss. ]


No can do. God-pilgrim privilege. I'm sure you understand.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Am I supposed to be walking towards the light? That green light -- I'm not much of a Gatsbian figure.

[Walk towards the light. Not something that Chilton has examined without skepticism. But he could appreciate the flora aesthetic; Raina, too, was fond of that look.]

Did you bring me here simply to bide the time? Unorthodox. I can appreciate that, at least.

[pummelgranite]

[ It keeps approaching, until it seems like it's almost to him . . . when it becomes clear that it's massive and still approaching. ]


Uuuuh huh.


[ She sounds pleased with herself. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

When I said light construct, I really intended more like a sofa.

[Just for clarity's sake, as the green glow graces his complexion.]

[pummelgranite]

[ When it's finally under him, a large pink blossom opens and he will land gently in it. ]


How about a love seat?

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Ah, well. She did have style.]

I cannot possibly deny the invitation.

[Because of a few reasons, to be sure. Nevertheless -- no reason not to have a little good humor about it.]

Are we about to have a rather serious chat?