comin' on to the overload

[doyoulikecake]

[OOC: Okay, so the first section is a bit tailored and QUITE timey-wimey, as I'm not actually sure what day the Mio & Roxis meetings went down. But feel free to have it be backdated, forward-dated, not-actually-on-the-same-day-as-each-other-at-all, etc. To Kaden, it'll have happened on the same day, but I doubt that anyone's going to be like 'so

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aaaand Babeltag. Oh Babel. T__T <3333

[sophicsulphur]

Iris doesn't have all that much reason to be in the Kashtta anymore, aside from work. And today is not a work day. But occasionally she does swing back this way anyway, just to catch up with old friends, see who's hanging out. The Kashtta's a kind of community she doesn't get as much of over at Kaden's, and even if she was only there a few months, she still feels kind of like she belongs. It was her set of training wheels for this city, and she's still a Wanderer. It's still her place, in a way.

She was going to head over to the kitchens, see if anyone was making up food. She could do with a snack and a chat, maybe. But then there's a Babel, right in the lobby, and that stops her right in her tracks.

"Hey! Babel!" she calls excitedly. She bounds on over to the other girl, grinning all over her face. "Whatcha doin'? Making a poster?" She picks up one of the stray sharpies that are rolling about the floor. Some of them have already migrated around the back of the potted plants. "Can I help?"

[allmydiredreams]

Babel looks up and grins when Iris calls her name out, staring up at her from her place on the floor. She's been busy inexpertly drawing just about anything she feels -- she hasn't really opened herself up, but there are enough people in the Kashtta that some stories slip through in their bodybeats. So the mural is a little full of things like angels and demons and violence and displacement, but it somehow works together in Babel's inexpert drawing

[sophicsulphur]

Iris laughs as the sharpie rolls away, collecting up a few of the others that have scattered before plopping herself down next to Babel and leaning into her shoulder. She can do that, with Babel. It feels normal. Easy.

"Recording," she repeats, glancing over the paper. She notices some of the winged people, and something that might just be a coffee shop exploding, though it's a little hard to tell. "People's stories. I was there," she says, pointing to the explosion-squiggle-thing. "Or at least I think I was."

She wonders what it is that makes people quiet, and what makes them loud. She wonders if Babel can hear her. "Am I quiet?" she asks. "Or am I loud?"

[allmydiredreams]

Babel tucks an arm around Iris when she leans on her shoulder, sticking the sharpie she'd been holding in her mouth. She nods when Iris points to the coffeeshop. "It explodes a lot," she says, moving the sharpie to the corner of her mouth like a cigar. "I was shot in it once."

She considers, at the question, the sharpie making a sharp angle upward toward her nose and catching on a stray piece of hair in her face. Iris is strong, though she's never considered whether or not the other was loud or quiet. "In-between," she says, after a moment. "Most of the steps are loud, but not as loud as they could be. There's quiet underneath, where you strive for the gods."

[sophicsulphur]

Iris' eyes go wide at that admission. "Whoa. Really?" she says, reflexively wanting to check Babel over to make sure she's all right. But of course she is. This mst have been a while ago now, and, well... Babel is Babel. She's pretty sure Babel can't die, between things she's said and her godliness.

She can't help smiling when Babel talks about her striving. "I try. I wish I could more," she adds after a moment, and it's a statement that says so little and yet so much about where she is right now. "I meet a lot of them around here, but I don't see them often enough. Like you." She rests her chin on Babel's shoulder. "I don't see you often enough. Was thinking of sending you a journal. I miss you."

It's a frank admission, but the kind that seems okay to make to Babel. That's a lot of what she likes about her. Being frank with her is so easy.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel nods, shrugs. "Was a long time ago," she says, "and not." A long time for mortals. Not even a blink, for something like she's supposed to be. She's somewhere in between, though; this far away from the end of the world, she's more mortal than anything, even if she desperately wishes she could be truly mortal. "I could die then," she says very quietly, as if sensing Iris's beliefs about her. It's evident in her voice that she wishes she still could.

That's abruptly cut off, though, when Babel laughs, a full-body, head-thrown-back laugh. "I'm not a god," she says. "Only a device -- a recorder." She snaps open another Sharpie, leaning in slightly to doodle little stars in orange all over the side of a building that looks something like a tavern. "Graffiti," she explains.

[sophicsulphur]

Iris would have commiserated, if she'd had the chance. She's not sure whether gods should be able to die-- that sounds kind of bad for the universe-- but on the other hand, never being able to die would be a terribly restless existence. Especially for these more human-shaped gods that Chicago seems to favour, ones who get tired, feel sorrow, feel pain.

But then Babel cuts her off, and she's just staring at her for a while, uncomprehending. "You're not?" The concept doesn't make sense to her. Babel's hardly just an anything. "But you're so much bigger than me," she insists, her expression almost sad.

She's apparently not very good at picking people to worship. It kind of hurts, a little.

Just to make sure Babel knows that's not directed at her, though, she wraps her arms around one of Babel's, hugging. Which may or may not impede her drawing. But she has something to convey, and she doesn't know how to do it in words.

[allmydiredreams]

Babel shakes her head, still doodling stars, though her demeanor has turned sad. She can feel Iris's disappointment, and she doesn't like disappointing people. Not when it comes to things like this. "I'm only a device," she repeats. "The gods are the clouds."

She's not sure what the clouds are, but they might as well be gods, the way they can pull her away as she dies again and again and again and put her into another body. Another world to watch end. She shivers, slightly, goosebumps raising on her skin, when she thinks about it, and she hugs Iris back tightly. Though she does make sure that the marker is pointed away from the other girl, so she doesn't get orange on her clothing.

[sophicsulphur]

"It doesn't matter what you are," Iris reassures, hugging without any regard for markers or stains or any of that mundane stuff. The colour will come out. Hugs, on the other hand, are forever. Or at least the memory of them is: not just the mind-memory, but the imprint on skin. Skin remembers, even when your mind forgets.

Babel's skin feels all goosebumpy, and she wonders if the girl is cold, in just that thin little shirt. Wordlessly, she pulls back and removes her jacket, then drapes it loosely around Babel's shoulders. It more or less fits, or at least it looks like it would.

"...I mean, it matters in the sense that it matters to you, and things," she adds, scrutinising the way the coat looks on Babel. And in the sense that it makes some things a little awkward. She feels a lot for the other girl, and she doesn't know how to quite translate that into people-level feelings-- not without feeling vaguely shameful about it, anyway. But she's still pretty far from human, she reasons, so maybe it's all right. It's not her fault she's

[allmydiredreams]

Babel smiles at the jacket, smoothing it over her shoulders even if she doesn't actually put it on. It's a nice jacket. She kinda likes it, though possibly not as much as her fluffy blue jacket. That one's gonna be her favorite for awhile, she can tell. At least until this life is properly over.

"Not me I'm worried about," Babel says, tilting her head at Iris. "Only the way you catch the knowledge, turn it over." She snaps the cap back onto the orange marker, absently chewing on it. "Everyone's gods are different."

[sophicsulphur]

She smiles, restored a little by that statement. "I guess they are," she says. "I mean, here in Chicago, everyone's from different paradigms, different... entire worlds. Maybe there'd be a world of people who are so powerful that someone like me would call them a god, but in their own world, they're really normal. I guess maybe I can only go by what I feel."

She leans in to squish Babel again, then sits back, pondering. She could really rather use a snack. "Want food? Something while you work? Cookies? A drink?" Not that she knows that there are cookies in the kitchen for certain, but there are so often cookies in there that she thinks it's a pretty safe bet.