asgardmeridiem | [Open] Taking Notes

Entry tags:

[Open] Taking Notes

Who: Samantha Grey

samantha_grey and Wide Open
What: Samantha is taking notes and apparently mapping the District while on her way to work in the morning
When: Morning, Day 110
Where: Heimdall District
Rating: PG tops is preferred.

Samantha sighed. The morning light was pleasant as she made her way out of Hel District towards Heimdall's. She had her clipboard out again today, and was making chicken scratch notes on Heimdall District wherever she could. She would hit Loki up again in the evening when she wasn't at work, at least for a few hours, but this was proving to be a long, arduous and frustrating venture. Still, she was able to take some notes that supplemented the map she had found and at least added her thoughts on defensibility, even if it was all very personal-defense oriented.

She had time, since she only lived a reasonably short distance from the clinic, to take notes on the paths she took from what she graciously called 'home' to work. She was dressed in what was available at the house, though smart slacks and a blouse gave her a somewhat tomboyish look. With the professional expectations of her job, she didn't want to muss her hair up with a hat, so her horns and tail were visible, the latter swishing behind her languidly as she walked at a leisurely pace.

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Castiel usually didn't return to Heimdall district much anymore, as he didn't live in the welcome hall there and neither his home or job were in the area, but he did venture into it sometimes when wandering around. This was one of those times, hands tucked into his coat, quietly just sort of drifting around the city to try to sort out his thoughts.

He noticed Samantha by her tail, actually, or he might have passed her over as simply another native. He'd never seen her in person, but he hair was unmistakable and he recognized her face as well, though the tail was a curiosity that drew his focus for several seconds. "Samantha." He greeted quietly, with a small nod.

Samantha took a second, on being greeted, to recognize Castiel. She had only seen him once, and a few of the memories from those first days were fuzzy because of the gray. It clicked after a second and she nodded, her eyes narrowing warily momentarily.

"Castiel," she said in turn, making a motion that he could continue to walk with her if he so saw fit. "I suppose I shouldn't be 'that' surprised to run into someone from your house around the district in the morning." She didn't, after all, know where it was he lived.

Castiel's memory was perfect, a part of his angelic heritage, so he fortunately didn't have trouble placing names and voices and faces even after one time. He did fall into step next to her, unbothered by her wariness.

"There are many in Heimdall house. Chances were high you would encounter one, yes." He glanced over at her clipboard, making no comment on her tail--or her horns--instead of focusing on the paper for a moment. "What are you doing?"

Almost as soon as he fell in step, she shifted her stride to put a little more distance between them. Her personal space was larger than most would have even expected, and she seemed to prefer to keep to it normally. She paused at a point to look at one of the older buildings. Her eyes squinted while she held up the pencil and made note of it. It looked like it might have been an active shop at one point, though it wasn't in full color yet, or open really.

She took a note of it and frowned. "Second one I've seen today. Swear that place looks like they used to sell magical tools," she muttered, frowning. The more that she looked, the more that she was convinced that the 'gifts' they were given were vastly less powerful than the magic that used to be active here was. None of that was here now, however, or only fragments.

"I'm trying to map the ley lines," she said with a grunt. "I'm on my way to Doctor Watson's clinic, so I thought I'd check this area while I was over. It's hard to do it without the ability to detect actual magic right now, but there are some old shops that are odd around here."

Castiel didn't mind her putting more space between them; he had, even after all this time, little concept of personal space when it came to other people and often unknowingly invaded it. Paradoxically, of course, his own personal space bubble tended to be enormous.

He was quiet while she muttered to herself, watching her curiously, though he gave a small nod when she explained about her mapping. The comment about the clinic caught his attention too. "Do you work there?" He didn't, really, though he was on backup call for them and his wife had just gotten a job there.

"This is an odd place." So the stores being strange isn't unexpected as far as he was concerned, though the idea of mapping what each used to be was an interesting one.

Edited 2012-07-09 19:55 (UTC)

"I answered the doctor's request for a pharmacist. I am not one, but I am an herbalist and alchemist with plenty of experience in what usually gets called alternative medicine in my world," she said, nodding. "So, I've started cleaning, cataloging and trying to update his stock to make sure it's ready. I am planning to take a short trip out to Utgard in the next day or two to make an application for an herbalist's license. There's apparently some stock I can't order and have shipped in without one."

She frowned at that, annoyed. However, if she wanted full access to whatever was available in this place, she was going to have to deal with Utgard's paperwork apparently. She finished her note and nodded before continuing on, keeping a tab of the alley and road sizes, whether the roads seemed to connect as the map said they should, putting small hash marks when they didn't.

"Insane's the word I would use, but odd works too. It's like someone killed the magic here and all that's left is the gods' castaways that they abducted," she added, frowning and glancing at him. "Assuming that they aren't holding out on us, which I am not about to assume."

He was interested in the alchemy and herbalism of her world, being fascinated by and well-versed in it in his, and made mental note to ask her about it later in exchange for perhaps demonstrating some of his own knowledge. Similarly noted was that Utgard had different supplies; he would need to organize a trip there as well, out of sheer curiosity.

Her last comment, though, prompted a response from Castiel almost immediately. "I find it highly unlikely they aren't. They run far too much of a risk by allowing us access to all the power that exists here." Castiel doesn't doubt there is more, that they could have more powers, or even that their own powers from home would work. He's still pretty sure the gods had caused them to backfire and kill them on purpose just to scare them off of asking for and trying to regain them.

"If the Lucifer running Lux is the real deal, yeah I'd say they run a serious risk if they give too much power to a lot of us," she said, shaking her head. "There's some things they seem to have trapped here in this cage that are not the sort to take kindly to being treated like prisoners. Personally, I think they pick some of the powers just to tick some of us off."

Samantha, herself, only barely knew anything at all about the Utgard tests for herbalist licenses. It had been recorded in one of the registries she had looked through, and the only references to plants with greater than natural properties had been in that book. She wanted access to them. Ignoring their normal properties, careful abuse of a magical plant had considerable possibilities in making a poison of some sort.

Sam was not the sort of person you ever let find an edge. She was always looking for an angle to strike back.

"He seems to be, though he is far different than the Lucifer of my world." Castiel wasn't particularly impressed with this Lucifer, and he was glad he seemed to be leaving him alone now. But she was right on the whole, indeed; there were more than powerful enough beings here that, if they weren't limited, would be a threat to the gods. Depending on what these gods were like, Castiel might be one of them himself, and often he really wanted to test that theory out.

"I don't personally know the Lucifer of my world, and I prefer to keep it that way. I'm giving this one, be he mine or another world's, a wide berth. There's way too much trouble that comes with angels and demons," she said, shaking her head and spitting to the side.

Again, her eyes turned towards him and she raised an eyebrow. "So, I take it you know a thing or two about Lucifer here and in your world?" She asked, that suspicion there again. By now, Castiel might have caught on that there was a sense in which Samantha literally never stopped being suspicious. No matter how good a mood she might have seemed to be in, she always listened for an angle. She never trusted. Her eyes were always watching.

Even by demonic standards, she could be more than a touch paranoid some days.

"Angels and demons can indeed be difficult." But he said it in a way that was faintly amused, almost like an inside joke.

He glanced over at her, unconcerned by her suspicion, giving a small nod. "I assisted in stopping the apocalypse, in my world." A good reason for knowing about Lucifer, though not the only one.

She stopped for a minute, taking another set of notes as she looked along the roads. These had little to do with magical shops or anything of that nature, but more simple observations. She was looking at one of the smaller alleys off the side street. Her eyes glanced back towards him while she did this and she nodded.

"You're more than you seem at first glance," she said carefully, shrugging. "But, I would guess you have a good idea how much trouble my kind gets to be at times."

He stopped as she did while she made her notes, giving a tiny shrug at her question. "That depends what precisely your kind is. I presume demon, or half-demon." He didn't bother with the term cambion.

"I do have experience with demons, however. Enough to know they are as individual as humans, angels, or any other beings, though they do seem to cause more problems."

"Half," she said, and there was some venom in that, though it had the sound of old bitterness, a wound that she refused to stop worrying. "The term the old hunters used is cambion."

She grunted and her eyes remained narrowed as she looked down the alleyway. "Our experiences differ. They are varied, but they're driven by vice where I come from. The few I've seen here scream that it's the same in other worlds. Lucifer practically oozes pride here," she said. "Vices are self-centered in nature, focused on the wants and needs of the person who has them, and for demons that comes regardless of the cost to others. They aren't necessarily going to gut you in the streets, but if it suits them, they'll sell you to someone who will. If the distinction makes sense."

"Cambion is the technical term in my world as well, though they are exceptionally rare." And exceptionally powerful. Castiel briefly considered the alleyway she was looking into before his attention instead drifted to the brickwork on a nearby building.

"My world is unusual in many ways. There was a demon here, named Crowley, who would have told you about the rare unusual demons. However, what you described about vice again describes demons, angels, and humans alike. I have seen the same attitude from they all, though humans least of all." Or he'd seen more good humans, at least.

He glanced back over at her. "I presume it is fair for me to tell you what I am, as you have told me what you are."

"It was more rigid in my world, though some of that applied," she said with a shrug. "But, if you want to share you can. I'll be honest that you keep making me curious one way or another."

"The different worlds vary greatly." And it was fascinating to compare them, really. He wanted to ask Samantha if the demons of her world were fallen angels or something else entirely, like they were in his, but he didn't quite yet.

"It doesn't take long for most to guess I'm not human, and it is no secret here any longer." It had been for awhile, while he'd been afraid of how those here might react, but so far he's had no issues. "I'm an angel."

She wasn't sure if she was surprised or not. Nodding, she motioned that he could continue following as they walked and kept quiet for a second. "This isn't exactly an easy place to keep the non-human thing secret," she said, shrugging. "Ignoring waking up from the gray without my hat a few days ago, there's people around here that know human from not. It's easier to hide in a crowd that's got no clue."

"I will say that you not trying to kill me on sight's an improvement over the last people from your side of the fence I've dealt with."

"Indeed. Even if my species is rarely guessed, it is assumed quickly enough here that I'm not human." Though at home recently he'd managed to go several months without being assumed to be something other than human, even with a healing power.

He glances over at her last comment. "I have only encountered one cambion in my world. They are extremely rare." And he sort of had tried to kill him, though to be fair he'd been attempting to protect his family, and no harm had been done on either side.

"Good reason too. Most incubi and succubi kill their partners mid-coitus," she said, shrugging. "It's all very predatory, and they want them dying with unrepentant sins so they can drag their souls with them. Mom never really knew why she got away."

Samantha had some suspicions as of now, but her father was 'special' in some ways. She resumed her walk, looking around. "Anyway, you seem to pretty much treat a person like a person, so I think I can give you the same treatment, angel or no. Besides, we both agree your boss's an ass."

Well, that was interesting; cambion simply weren't usually created in his world because demons tended to have other things to be doing, and cambion were just as dangerous to a demon as anyone else. "You have incubi and succubi in your world?" They didn't in his, really. Most demons were very sexual, but weren't specifically so.

"I had a demon as an ally for two years. I have learned better than to judge by species alone." At her comment about God, he once would have been offended or shocked, and now barely seems to register it past a small shrug of a shoulder. "My Father is not particularly pleasant." Even having never met Him, Castiel is sure it's an accurate description from what experience he does have.

"I'd say there's demons devoted to each of the seven deadly sins where I come from," she said, shrugging. "Incubi and succubi are simply the most famous. Very few, however, really bothered to keep individual names or tell those they victimized them, so they're not really anything more than a known 'type.'" Her father, and his arrogance, was something of an exception.

"I'm not quite as forgiving as you. They've given me no reason to trust them yet. Angels, it's less that I have an active reason to hate your kind so much as there's nothing good that goes on between us. Cambions are abominations, filthy rejects that should be killed as a favor both to themselves and the world. At least that's their attitude. Talking to them is a bit like talking to an inquisitor most days."

Castiel nodded; that made sense. "There were demons who were the personification of the seven deadly sins, though most individuals humans are a combination of them, just like many humans. They simply don't bother to repress them as humans do." Or angels, but no need to get into that.

"It's our nature to destroy anything that seems dark and impure to us. It's what we were created to do." He explained, idly, as if he was talking about some obscure fact about some type of plant. "Cambion, in my world, are exceptionally dangerous; more powerful than an angel. It is more fear than anything else that prompts action against them."

"A half-breed... more powerful? There's a metaphysic at work in your world that's very different than mine. We're diluted, like bastard runts, stunted and deformed," she said, motioning back to her tail. "Things like those, which a succubus might have and use, they could turn off basically, make invisible or merge with their bodies to hunt more easily. A cambion doesn't have that luxury, and is weaker. They're basically easier prey for demons, and dangerous and horrific to humans."

She shrugged. That much should have been obvious just by looking at her. Her body was deformed, unnatural, and its 'benefits' were less than obvious at first glance. Even the element of the pheromones were a subtle, weak thing at best. "Really, the worst part was how poorly cambions could usually control their natures. We're considered pathetic by full blooded demons, little more than pawns in their games," she added, remembering her father explicitly.

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[Open] Taking Notes

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