Application for Mordichai Black: Julie Kenner's Aphrodite series

[shifter_mordi]

Being unexpectedly transported to an unfamiliar castle wasn't the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to Mordi, but it was going to put a crimp in his afternoon plans

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[chance_silvey]

For a second it looked like Chance was about to do just that -- pay no attention: turn around and leave. She did turn around.

Then, reluctantly, she turned back.

"Much as that appeals," she said flatly, "I can't do that." She owed him better than that. Owed the previous Simon, maybe, but at some level they were the same, even she had to admit it. Was the Dancy Flammarion of her dream/memories a different person than the Dancy Flammarion she'd seen in a Florida madhouse? It'd be more comfortable to think so, more comfortable by far, but Chance's gut knew the answer, however her brain might try to equivocate. Same with popcorn. People who'd been popcorn. Simon might have forgotten the help he'd given her -- not just one day, but months of sustained care -- but his cleared mind didn't clear her slate of debt.

"Why are you wearing a cape and binoculars? Did you decide you were, I don't know, a birdwatching superhero?" She tried to sound ... not so acerbic. She might have failed in that attempt. "Have you hit your head, or ...?" Chance was running low on explanations and excuses, today.

[shifter_mordi]

He'd completely forgotten that he was wearing his favorite propulsion cloak. Since flying unassisted was not one of his powers, the propulsion/invisibility cloak made spying unseen from high locations that much easier. Since he wasn't about to soar through the New York skyline anytime soon, he looked like a loon with it on.

Mordi took the cloak off and started folding it up. "That's what it looks like, doesn't it? As a matter of fact, I was birdwatching, and I was cold." Gods, that sounded stupid. "I'm fine, really. You can go."

[chance_silvey]

"You were birdwatching, and you were cold." Chance repeated the words with clear skepticism. "Yeah." She crossed her arms. He was acting ... weird was an understatement. Uncharacteristic, she thought. That was the word.

[shifter_mordi]

"You've got it."

Obviously she didn't believe him, but maybe if he stuck to his rediculous story she'd stop asking questions. Go away, he thought, but suggestion wasn't one of his powers, either.

[chance_silvey]

Of course she didn't believe him. When she'd seen him in here at first, he'd been wearing a lost look that made her think of the way she felt after one of her damn-near-trademarked trilobite-induced fugue states. That seemed to have quickly changed to a self-conscious defensiveness. She couldn't blame him for that, really, either.

"You don't want to talk to me, that's fine. I ought to go get Brennan or something, then. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending everything's normal, okay?"

[shifter_mordi]

"Look," Mordi said running his hand through his hair and looking a bit weary, "I don't think you're stupid, but I can't tell you what's going on. Go get whoever you want. I'll tell them the same thing. It'll be a lot easier if we pretend that I'm telling the truth."

[chance_silvey]

"Yeah, okay." Chance didn't have to deal with the attitude. (The un-Simon-like attitude, actually; when had he ever been this pissy? Well ... all right, Simon could be pissy. And obstinate. And a pain in the ass. So, maybe not so un-Simon-like. She just wasn't used to being on the receiving end of it.) Doctor Tam was someone else's problem these days.

Let him deal with it.

She left Simon where he was, and went to go find Billy Brennan. Odds were pretty stellar that he'd be with the dinosaur skeleton he'd gotten for Christmas.

[shifter_mordi]

She finally left, and Mordi breathed a sigh of relief. Until she came back with a beefy guy who looked concerned. Great. Save the Council one headache and get committed. He should have just said to hell with it and let the Mortal Liaison Office deal with the fallout.

"So Chance tells me you've gone insane," the man said. He picked up an application, read it quickly, and turned to Chance. "I'm not sure if Simon is creative enough to come up with a name like Mordichai."

[chance_silvey]

Chance hadn't even looked at the application -- hadn't even noticed it was there, before. She scowled. It wasn't unheard-of for a person who already lived at Hogwarts to fill out a Sorting application, she was sure, though she couldn't think of any specific examples. But Mordichai?

"That's awfully biblical for spacemen," she admitted. "It's like something off a tombstone in --" Ugh. She put a hand to her temple. "Never mind." Old North Burial Ground? Best to let Billy take the lead, she decided. "You know him better than I do."

[shifter_mordi]

"Hello?" Mordi interjected. "Can I say something here? Mordichai isn't that unheard of." In the Protector world, at least.

"You're getting me mixed up with that doctor." He'd been holding out hope that the man was a mimic of some sort (he was definitely an ass, but that wasn't a superpower), but this seemed to confirm that he went around looking like that all the time.

"I'm Mordi. Your friend already came and left."

[bone_not_rock]

Oh. Well, that explained a lot.

Billy's first introduction to doppelgangers had been a lecture along the lines of thou shalt not talk to Damien Thorn. This time the resemblance was much more striking, down to the fancy clothes.

Billy would regret having missed the cape when he found out about it.

"So, Mordi," he said. "How's that pyrokinesis working out for you?"

[chance_silvey]

Chance's eyes flickered from face to face. She thought, vaguely, that she ought to be embarrassed. Instead, she was relieved, and also a little annoyed, irrationally enough.

"It's bizarre," she said. "You don't just look alike, you talk alike." That was not the case with Grant and Thorn and Sidney Reilly, all of whom Chance knew, all of whom had a distinctive style setting him apart from the others quite definitely. "And hold yourselves the same way." Something to do with the way they wore their clothes, or their clothes draped on them. Something physical, she supposed, and therefore stupid to talk about.

"Sorry," she said to Mordi. "Honest mistake. Simon's ..." She shrugged. "Not my friend. His friend," she tilted her head to indicate Billy. "Around here, strange things sometimes happen, that's all. I don't think you're even the first pyrokinetic we've seen." Thinking of Gillian, there. She missed the girl.

[shifter_mordi]

Mordi facepalmed.

"I'm not even the first," he muttered. He'd just made himself look like a complete fool for nothing. "So if this isn't Council business, and I'm not the first Protector to come through here, what in Hades is going on?"

[bone_not_rock]

"Birdwatching in the cold, apparently." That was too good to pass up. Even the real Simon was going to hear about that.

[chance_silvey]

Chance's mouth twitched. The remark made her think Billy might understand why Simon-in-a-cape would have to be Simon-gone-off-the-deep-end.

"That's what the man said."

[shifter_mordi]

"Apparently, since this isn't the great secret that I thought it was, no, I was not birdwatching. I was getting ready to do some surveillance before I got teleported here."

He shook out the folded cape. "It's a propulsion and invisibility cloak. I'm guessing that if you've already had people throwing fireballs around, this isn't too exciting." Mordi folded it back up instead of putting it on, because really, it did look stupid with his suit.