Closed Log, In Progress, An Age of Darkness, a World of Fear

[swornprotector]

WHO: Goliath, Elisa and Angela
WHERE: Elisa's apartment
WHEN: Monday night
SUMMARY: A welcoming indoctrination for Angela into the clan's temporary home here.
FORMAT: Paragraph, whatever.

Comments

[from_avalon]

In truth, it was not the strangeness of the city itself that worried Angela. After leaving Avalon, everything had seemed strange and unfamiliar. She had managed to adjust to the world of humans and to life in Manhattan. She felt certain that she would adapt here as well.

No, it was the powers that the transporter seemed to possess that troubled her. A device that could pull people from their times and their homes and equip them with strange abilities? Even now, it sounded like the strangest sorcery imaginable. (She had not spent long in her human form, and, consequently, hadn't accepted it fully.)

And the clan, of course. She would miss the rest of the clan terribly.

"I do," she confirmed, "And it will be good to spend it in a place where I know I will be safe."

[swornprotector]

"Indeed. Once again, Elisa's grace knows no boundaries, and we are as always in her debt."

Goliath dare not think of his clan, having seen Puck's miserable vision of the future without him. It chills his blood.

"However, since we are able to operate in public, we are more readily able to pay that debt by working in trades. I have joined Elisa on the police force, and I am now granted currency of my own."

[from_avalon]

Angela folded her wings around herself like a cape, partly because she had no desire to knock anything over in Elisa's apartment and partly because, after waking up as a human, it was nice to reassure herself that they were there.

"I'm sorry Elisa is a prisoner here as well," she said, for there was no other word their ... situation, "But I'm glad you were not here alone." Although she knew that her father could take care of himself, there was a part to him that needed Elisa. She had seen that as soon as she'd seen them together on Avalon, and it had never occurred to her to view them in any other way.

"The police force? It has always sounded like an admirable profession. To protect the city with others instead of alone, and to be respected for doing so."

[swornprotector]

If only she could get Elisa to share that view.

"The respect is... intermittent, I have found. But it is as Hudson once said. A gargoyle can no sooner stop protecting their home than breathing the air."

His own wings are folded over his shoulders as well as he looks around for signs of Elisa. Perhaps she has not returned yet.

"The police need all the help we can get, however. There are precious few of us responsible for the entire city."

[nyc_detective]

The jingling of keys and the sound of the lock signaled Elisa's arrival home. "Oh, hey!" she called out, happy to see both Goliath and Angela. "Sorry I took so late, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things." Elisa placed the several bags of groceries she had juggled in on the counter and went to greet her friends properly.

"Out for a tour of the town?"

[from_avalon]

Perhaps, in time, she would come to share it. It seemed natural to Angela, but it was unlikely that others would accept a relationship - even a potential relationship - so readily. (It was often easier to hide from the truth and from yourself, particularly when something so important was at stake.)

"And this is to be our a home now," she said, as Elisa opened the door. She was no stranger to adjusting to new places, and, while she was here, she would protect the city and the people who lived in it. That was, as her father said, what gargoyles did. If nothing else, it would give her something to fill her nights.

She smiled broadly when she saw Elisa, moving to help with the bags. Though it had, for Angela, only been hours since she had seen them both, it seemed to have been far longer. Part of her wanted to sweep the human up into a hug, but, in the end, she settled for a nod in answer to her question.

"Yes ... it is so like Manhattan, and yet very different to the world we knew."

[swornprotector]

Elisa's arrival always brings a smile to Goliath's face, and seeing his daughter insantly being so helpful to her gives him a sense of quiet pride. So often he is torn with being grateful that they are here and wishing they had not been drawn to this ugly world.

"Each new world we find ourselves in tends to require greater caution."

[nyc_detective]

Elisa grinned. "Goliath, you are a master of the understatement. This place is just plain bizarre. But," here Elisa smiled warmly at her two friends, "I think it's solidly improving. So Angela! You'll have to tell me about your Porter-granted powers. Have you figured them out yet?"

[from_avalon]

At the moment, Angela was similarly torn. She was very glad to be with her father and Elisa, but she missed the other members of the clan and part of her feared the unpredictability of life in such a strange - and apparently terrible - place. What sort of world was it where you could not even remain safely in your own skin?

"Well, I was in a human form when I arrived here," confessed Angela, "But I was able to change back. That must be my power."

She looked up again, giving Elisa a curious glance.

"What powers did the Porter grant you, Elisa?"

[swornprotector]

Goliath cannot help but smile at the question.

The look he turns to Elisa with is unable to conceal his pleasure at knowing her ability... but he lets Elisa explain it.

[nyc_detective]

Elisa grins. "An interesting one." Rather than explaining, Elisa opts to simply show off. She shifts into her gargoyle form, and twirls around. "Tadaaaaah," she announces. "So, what'd you think?"

[swornprotector]

If her attention stays on Angela, the look on Goliath's face which reveals that his heart skips a beat whenever she does that will be missed.

Which is probably what Elisa prefers.

Sadly.

[from_avalon]

Angela had not been part of the clan during their first encounter with Puck and, consequently, she had never seen Elisa's gargoyle form before. When she watched the detective change, her eyes widened in surprise and delight. It was not the power she had been expecting, but if she and her father could switch forms, why shouldn't Elisa?

And she was still very much Elisa. No amount of magic could mute that.

"Elisa!" Angela exclaimed, "That's ... oh, it's wonderful! It doesn't hurt you to change?"

[nyc_detective]

"Nope," Elisa replied, flexing an arm and looking at herself critically. "So far I haven't really had any chance to use it... but it's kind of neat, knowing that I can have superhuman strength anytime I so choose. Plus the fact that it doesn't hurt makes me two up on Demona." She smirked.

"So Angela, you're staying here, right? Goliath, she's staying here. We have to stick together."

[swornprotector]

"Of course," Goliath responds, unable to shake that smile of his. "There is no place safer for us. Our clan may not be whole, but we are still a clan."

It almost pours from him that this is officially the happiest he has been since being pulled here.

And it's quite obvious that his eyes are unable to leave Elisa's gargoyle form.

[from_avalon]

"I'm not sure about 'superhuman'," said Angela, but Elisa's enthusiasm for her new form was infectious and she couldn't help but smile a little more. (The comment about Demona was a little more problematic. Angela's feelings regarding her mother were complex. She hoped, fervently and a little futilely, that, one day, Elisa would not need to defend herself against attacks from the immortal gargoyle. One day.)

Angela couldn't - and, indeed, wouldn't - deny that she would be much happier if she could stay with her father and Elisa. As Goliath had said, they were still a clan. They would always be a clan.

"If you're sure it won't be a problem," she said, though it appeared the matter had already been decided. Really, she was watching her father - and the attention he was giving Elisa - curiously.