Open RP: Mel with the worry-stick in the library

[totallyluminous]

The fact they have saved the world really ought to be a cause for celebration. A party in the Great Hall or something. None of them got injured, since there was no big brawl between the forces of good and evil, nothing that would look especially awesome in an action movie, just an angel in hand-painted basketball boots entreating a Navajo girl to

Comments

[fiercefluffy]

There are subtle differences between Mel and Maia. Octavian can tell the difference, these days, quite well.

He knows it's Melanie and he goes over to greet her anyway, for his own reasons.

"Hello," he says. "How have you been?"

[fiercefluffy]

Imagine that cosmic mojo is ice cream. Now imagine that Octavian is lactose-intolerant. Yeah, not too impressed.

"She might not, actually. She's rather allergic to doing anything that's good for her. Or anything that isn't dreadfully ill-advised." He says this not without a faint note of fondness. "Who did you have in mind?"

[totallyluminous]

The case stands he knows very little of Heaven and Hell and she...well, she knows marginally more. Besides, who hasn't wanted to bitch-slap a Roman emperor once in a while?

Ooooh, ding. Mel may be an angel, but she can still sense that fondness. Maybe it's safe for Maia to be left alone in a room with Brice, then. She clears her throat. 'My--boyfriend, actually. Brice. He was...he Fell, and then...climbed back up, I guess.'

[fiercefluffy]

Melanie has a what? (For one thing, the term boyfriend doesn't quite translate, to Octavian. In a semantic sense, sure, he understands what is meant. It's the nuance that doesn't work for him. It's like a coy euphemism that purposely doesn't succeed at being euphemistic. This has nothing to do with Mel's delivery of the word, which is unobjectionably matter-of-fact. It has to do with Octavian's aesthetic preferences as applied to language. Boyfriend is the kind of word his mother would probably use for Marc Antony, if she spoke modern English. It's gross.)

He decides it's something between a lover and a coveted object, and leaves the notion alone for now. Gods have playthings; why shouldn't angels? It's just ... this is Melanie Beeby. Melanie and that sort of thing don't mix, in Octavian's mind. She's too goody-goody to enjoy a good roll in the hay, surely?

"Your boyfriend. I see. I recall something about that, actually, now that you mention it. Only wasn't he an angel all along?"

[totallyluminous]

Yeah, living in sin, and all that. It's love. It's not for anyone to decide what happens in their relationship but them.

(Go on, Octavian, ask if they have a sex life.)

'No and yes.' Mel sighs. Brice isn't here. This is not how she'd like to do it. 'He became an angel when he died. He went to Hell willingly, and did a lot of bad things for what he thought was a noble goal, and then went back once the goal had been accomplished by Heaven.' She can't help being pithy there. 'Regardless--he knows what it's like to live in Hell and have conflicted views on things. Maybe he can help. I'd ask him, but...' Mel reddens slightly. 'He's off somewhere.'

Doing something. With Lola. And she doesn't know what is going on and this is why it is worrying.

[fiercefluffy]

Octavian definitely does not want to know about the intimacies of angels. That would be gross too. He'd prefer to keep all that in a safely allegorical and metaphorical context. Even Zeus giving Danae a golden shower is less objectionable than the amorous grapplings of teen angels, surely

[totallyluminous]

Mel smirks a bit, eyes brighter than they were a second ago. 'Oh. He won't be.' This is 'he better not be.' It's her default mode whenever Brice has to talk to females he doesn't like.

'The only other person is Michael,' she points out. 'Brice is the only other person, but he can't tell her if she's human or not. Only Michael can do that.' She pauses. 'And I'm guessing she ought to hear the answer.'

Suddenly, a smile blossoms over her face. 'I forgot to ask how you were, at the start of this. I'm sorry. That was dead rude of me.'

[fiercefluffy]

... How he is? Octavian is nonplussed. Who would bother asking a question like that? It's rather beside the point.

Possible answers:

Self-contained and self-sufficient!
Plotting the rise of an empire!
Mopey and hormonal! (Hey, at least he has good skin. For an eighteen-year-old that's no mean feat.)

"I'm very well, thank you," he says, in a sort of flat and disinterested tone. (There is a difference between disinterested and uninterested. Octavian has that difference covered.) "And yourself, apart from the matter over which you say you require no especial congratulations?"

[totallyluminous]

Mel hesitates. Ah. The no-lying thing.

'I don't,' she points out, 'And I guess okay. But after the mission, people have gone a bit weird.' Mel sighs, and doesn't stop her mouth. 'You tell me, with your fantastic mind, all cogs turning and wheels clicking, why a friend's boyfriend and his ex flit off together after days of whispering and plotting, without her.'

[fiercefluffy]

Octavian considers this as requested. "Did the departure really come after the whispering and plotting, or are the whispering and plotting occurring during the pair's absence?"

[totallyluminous]

He is like a slightly sinister information robot. 'I don't know what's happening in their absence,' Mel replies, voice a little stiff because she's clearing out her brain buffer of what just might be. 'But let's assume both are true.'

[fiercefluffy]

"Are either of them highly involved in politics? Terrestrial or celestial," Octavian amends, for present company.

[totallyluminous]

'Trainees,' Mel replies, not even giving away a twitch of the mouth. 'Members of the History Club.'

So, footsoldiers, in his lingo.

[fiercefluffy]

"Mmm. And neither has ambitions to rise higher than that status?"

[totallyluminous]

'Not unless they work honestly for it,' Mel tells him. Seriously, how hard is it to think like an angel?

[fiercefluffy]

Octavian approves of loyal and unimaginative soldiers. They are very useful. "In that case," he decides, "it's entirely possible the two of them were given orders which your hypothetical friend has not been given. Unfortunately they were not clever enough to keep entirely quiet about it, and couldn't avoid acting suspicious before departing to carry out said orders."

A pause.

"There is also the possibility they are collaborating on a project of their own initiative."