jla_watchtower | Ἀποκάλυψις - The Lifting of the Veil

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Ἀποκάλυψις - The Lifting of the Veil

There is no moment of silence, when so many are gathered to discuss the state of the multiverse, but there comes a time when the conversation is not quite so noisy. Nightstar flies above the heads of the attendees, landing before a draped painting. Judging by the size, the attendees may wonder if the hidden work is a lifesized portrait, but of who? Those most familiar with the Dreaming, and the Endless, may think of the paintings lining Dream's gallery, and what they are used for.

"Excuse me," Nightstar says politely, waiting until all (or at least most) have focused their attention on her. "Dream said that he would be willing to let you all have glimpses in the dreams of those who dwell in the multiverse. I'm afraid you won't be allowed to make any requests, and the glimpses may not last very long." She smiles ruefully. "I also don't know how much use you'll get out of what you see, but ... please pay attention?"

With that, she pulls the veil aside, revealing that the frame is, at first glance, empty.

And then the frame fills with images....

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There are other images that appear before this one and there will be images that appear after as well. There is a woman sitting on a chair, almost a throne. She is wearing very little in the way of cloth but it doesn't matter as she is covered in jewels. There are large hunting cats lounging about on the ground.

Selina, as that is her name, known in the way that dreams allow knowledge, seems uncertain between loving her situation and being terrified by it.

She can't move from the throne, you see....

Wayne Manor is bright with sunshine. Small children chase each other through the rooms and corridors, screeching happily. A tall dark-haired man stands beneath the portrait of his late parents. A warm paternal smile is on his face.

Goodness me, so much to do for the birthday party....

Images wheel past in a cavalcade, almost faster than the eye can follow, but always with underlying order.

A flood of equations ripple upwards and turn into geometric shapes which turn into a three-dimensional blueprint of something looking rather like a beam-emitting weapon. An oscillator's pattern flickers in and out of sight, gradually transforming into an illustration of gravitic field theory, and then extrapolations are formed and from those extrapolations digressions emerge. Briefly, there is the faintest image of a young, beautiful, blonde girl - then it disappears under a fresh flood of new information.

He is four thousand feet below sea level, and all of a sudden he can't breathe, he can't breathe -

The time has come, the Walrus said,
To dream of many things.
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
Of cabbages--and kings.

It's down the rabbit-hole into dreams here, as a small man in a large hat has tea with his favourite companions: a rabbit, a mouse, and a young blonde named Alice. Or is it? It's hard to tell anymore. She isn't wearing the blue dress, but instead a red costume. And goggles, even a yellow cape.

And oh look, there's the Queen playing croquet. She must have replaced her usual balls, though. They don't look like hedgehogs at all. One of them's small and brown, keeps trying to flap its fleshy wings. Then there's two little birds, one blue and one red. Still, it's always a delight to watch the Queen bash them about. Brings a smile to his face for a reason he just can't place.

What strange dreams Jervis Tetch has. And they only get curiouser and curiouser.

A warm, cozy fireplace crackles as a lovely woman brings this gently smiling individual a mug of hot cocoa. He reaches for his evening paper as he kicks off his slippers, then pauses and looks directly at his observers.

Do you mind? I'm trying to have a moment of solitary peace in a place that should by all rights be private! Not that I'll remember any of this or the dream itself, but honestly! SOME PEOPLE!

Nightstar scowls and mutters something in Tamaranean, not quite audible to the attendees.

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mistress-magik.livejournal.com - 2007-01-03 04:37 (UTC) - Expand

One father dead before him. The other with a hand raised. And all around, only black. Only shadow.

Women's laughter...sounding happy and up to absolutely no good....Rio de Janeiro, time is Carnival....Tora is there with her and they are more than a little tipsy, leaning on each other for support.

The parade is in full swing. They are on a judges' dias, presiding over the entire fanfare. All of the performers on the floats are highly attractive men and each of them are desperate to catch one or the other's eye.

They aren't giving any of them any more attention than they want. None of them are good enough for them, but it's so amusing to them the lengths the men go to to appeal to the women. Quick kisses to various of their body parts, increasingly flattering words, gifts...all fall short of their mark.

Giggling and smiling, their fingers entwine between their weebling bodies. A look to each other, hearts in their eyes then more raucaus laughter as one of the men breaks into song.

He's dropping from the plane, six miles up, a HALO jump into Uzbekistan. Down below is the job - there's a local warlord who needs to stop breathing, or at least that's what the pay is for.

He easily guides himself, falling downwards at an angle for the first four miles, until he's right over his target, then pulls the ripcord. The chute explodes open easily and -

Grant?

That was Grant falling past him! The boy was right behind him the entire time and -

why isn't he opening his chute -

The event is black tie. God knows why he comes to these things. Charity, he reminds himself. The policemen's annual charity ball. Thank goodness it's only once a year. He'll have to mingle. That's the worst part. The crowd is already thick. Across the room, he spots the mayor. A city councilman is standing next to him. He just about ready to brave the masses when there's a touch at this arm. He turns and lays eyes on a beauty.

"Have I told you lately how lovely you look in green?" he asks his only daughter.

He offers his arm and together they glide towards the dance floor.

Why doesn't he go to these things more often?

She has everything she could ever want. Her sons, still children, playing before her eyes. Her husband. Her brother is smiling, happily watching Luna chase her cousins in the latest round of tag.

Despite the brevity of their times working together, Amanda's grown to like the Scarlet Witch. So watching Wanda's dreams...

She feels as if she's intruding. If this is what the woman dreams, then her true life, the way it must feel to live it instead...

Amanda turns her head. For Wanda, it's all she can do.

Look here. Look well, I beg. See the wheel of ka. Yonder can be heard the sound of celebration, as the New Year is rung in. But even as the year of 1992, as time is counted on this level of the Tower is cheered in, the first death of the New Year occurs in an alley near Times Square.

Eddie Dean sits in an alleyway, pawing through a purse, oblivious to the dead woman next to him. It's only been a few hours since he shot up, but he can already feel the shakes start to make his usually steady hands tremble. He hadn't wanted to kill the old lady, but he and Henry need their fix. Besides, if she had just handed over her purse, she and the electric scooter that Eddie will be pawning tomorrow morning would have gone about their merry way. She looked to be in her sixties, but Eddie had to admit, the old bitch had put up a fight that he wouldn't have expected from someone riding around in Armani and riding an electric wheel chair that probably cost more than his car. The muted roar of his gun, drowned out by the celebration a block away, had ended her struggles, though. As it always did.

As Eddie finds what he's looking for, yanking the scuffed Lord Buxton wallet out of the purse and tossing the rest aside, Henry comes out of his hiding place. Watching out for Eddie, that was Henry Dean's job, as it always had been.

"Christ, bro, why do you gotta carry that fuckin' cannon? They probably heard that down in Co-Op city!"

Eddie shrugs, as he always does when Henry asks, which Henry does pretty much every time Eddie uses what he thinks of as "the big iron." To be truthful Eddie has no idea himself. He only knows that for five years now, nothing has felt real, and nothing has felt right. When he puts his hand on the .45 revolver that Balazaar gave him after his first job muling, though, he can feel something right in it's wooden grip. If he judged this old woman right, though, then-

"Bingo!" Eddie yells, pulling the wad of bills out and tossing the wallet into the dead woman's lap. Most of the bills are twenties, with a generous helping of tens and fives, and at least a couple of fifties and hundreds. Thoughts of what he did or didn't want to do to the old black woman across the alley disappear, and all that remains in Eddie Dean's mind is the thought that this will get them enough smack to stay zoned out for a week, and the munchies to go with the high.

"Yes! Way to read 'em, bro," Henry tells Eddie, grinning. Watching Out for Eddie may be Henry's job, but reading the rubes is Eddie's job all the way. "Let's go get some dinner and then bake some turkey."

Eddie's grin in return is hungry, lighting up his pale face, and has nothing to do with food. He walks past the electric scooter and it's dead owner, not bothering with the fifty bucks he can get for the scooter. As he does his foot nudges one of the stumps of the woman's legs and makes the wallet fall to the ground. As it hits it falls open, revealing a driver's license. Neither of the Dean brothers even notice, and even if they had neither of them would have recognized the name Odetta Holmes. Instead they walk away to the life that ka has left them to, and Odetta Holmes lays in the gutter, her face still frozen in the shocked expression of recognition that came over her in the instant of her death. But still there is the wheel of ka, and all it knows to do is turn.

Say true, say sorry.

In the back, Henchick closes his eyes briefly but tightly, and mutters a prayer to the Over as he holds a clenched fist to his brow. The debt that both his people and the Forgetful Ones of Calla Bryn Sturgis owe to the ka-tet of the Nineteen is beyond words, and to see them so...

A relatively short time ago, were someone to spy on Marrow's dreams, they'd see a beautiful woman, surrounded by friends, with a tall metallic man on her arm. His voice would be strange, though. Almost a cajun accent.

Now, though, it's quite a different sight. Marrow can't be found at all. But there's a collection of misfits sitting on a park, laughing, playing, enjoying the day. People walking by, politely waving. As if these aren't misfits at all, but valued and accepted members of the community. With no suffering, no problems...Just happiness. For them and all the other Morlocks.

But it's only a dream.

At St. Elias School for Girls, Greta Hayes sits in a warm corridor, studying for midterms. Through the window in front of her, she can see her best friend, her blonde head bobbing occasionally as she tries to stay awake through Algebra. Class will be over soon, though, as will the chemistry exams that she's presently trying to avoid studying for. Then all she has to worry about is three weeks of tedium at home, so long as her brother Billy is really staying over break with his friends in Happy Harbor.

That's all down the road, though. Now there's only the bell ringing in her ears, her hands closing the book of their own volition, and Cissie smiling down at her.

There is darkness.

A spotlight clicks on, illuminating a green man, with antennae, in a top hat and suit. "Hell-o, my baby, hell-o, my honey, hell-o, my rag-time gaaaaaal.."

"Say, I seem to have attracted quite and audience! Lemme go change.."

Scurrying off into the darkness, he returns wearing a white tablecloth as a robe, with a mop servicing as hair. "Welcome to the Dweebing."

"Hey, didn't I see you at CapeCon?" asks Mar'i.

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mari-grayson.livejournal.com - 2007-01-03 13:21 (UTC) - Expand

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the-ambush-bug.livejournal.com - 2007-01-03 15:11 (UTC) - Expand

Rachel/Phoenix sleeps.

She's waiting on a street corner in the dress Wanda helped her pick out for her date. The street is empty, snow flurries blowing squirly ques in the air around her. She looks down the street for the tenth time then sighs, shrugging her coat collar closer to her neck.

There you are, Red.

Something snaps around her neck and she jerks, the coat falling away to reveal her Hound costume except this time it's red, not black. A leash leads off but it cannot be seen who holds it.

Rachel pulls against the leash as it seems to change hands: a magenta, chain mail glove holding the end.

She goes easily enough to that hand then cries out as another takes the leash. A ruby blast fires from out of view towards the mail gauntlet.

She is yanked harshly from one hand to another before the scene goes black except for a small, firey sparrow that looks at the viewers.

The flame sparrow takes flight away, taking Rachel's consciousness with it.

Rachel Summers. Kurt has spoken of a Rachel many times, but to see a dream so tormented, Amanda has to wonder if this is truly the same. Again, her heart goes out, yet she can do nothing. Nothing but pray.

An impossibly hard rain falls in downtown San Francisco, two combatants locked in a struggle in the middle of Union Square, the entire plaza reduced to a series of overlapping craters, what remains of the streets and sidewalks littered with bricks, chunks of concrete, and millions of shards of glass. A colossal burst of thunder echoes through the ruined plaza, a lightning bolt illuminating the darkened sky, silhouetting the combatants, as well as a third body, laying prostrate on the cement.

The sound of a body slamming into the side of a building overwhelms even that nigh deafening burst of thunder, and it is several long moments before a young man staggers out of the gaping hole in the side of the fractured building, blood trickling down the side of his face, the knuckles of his gloves shredded, his blue and yellow uniform top streaked with red. An angry roar tears from his throat as he leaps forward, a brightly glowing fist reared back, aiming at another figure, one that is only vaguely human in shape, completely black, seeming to suck in all light around it.

The punch never lands. Events unfold as if in slow motion, the enraged strike blocked easily aside, and a flurry of blows rain down upon the youth, muffled groans and the sickening sound of bone splintering filling the space between punches. He is motionless on the ground for what seems an interminable interval, his blood mingling with the pounding rain and concrete dust.

Slowly, he staggers to his feet, then falls to one knee, grimacing, his body seemingly ablaze with a white hot aura. Another moment, and he is on his feet once more, and with an agonized howl, a sound that is only just human, a blast of energy explodes ever outward, the youth serving as the shockwave's epicenter. The dark figure is obliterated in an instant, as is every building in a five mile radius of the youth. The third form, a woman, unmoving in an impact crater, is consumed by the blast, a thin wisp of violet smoke the only sign she was ever there.

And the young man remains, bloodied and battered, tears streaming down his face as he falls to his knees, screaming her name to the heavens.

And tears are streaming down the face of Nightstar as she watches.

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mistress-magik.livejournal.com - 2007-01-03 18:35 (UTC) - Expand

Warmth laced with laughter, dream gauze with the solidity of memory. Someone grazes the back of his neck with their teeth, getting an indignant yelp in return.

"If you're going to abuse me, have the decency to wait until we're on the slopes!"

An apology delivered with a chuckle, and a kiss pressed to the imagined injury. The nip was nothing. The kiss burns. It provokes a hungry response.

She can almost smell the white mother through the circle scents. The white mother is safety and companionship.

The feeling is off. Old. Stale.

Cold trail.

Kittens call urgently from down uncertain trails and Catseye follows the sound.

"That's why I'm telling you that it's impossible." The brown-eyed blonde smirked across the gleaming chrome soda counter at the furry boy. "So try something else," she suggested.

Nick sighed, glancing at the clock on the ceiling. He'd been trying to order a drink for almost fifty minutes. He was going to have to get back to class soon. "How about a glass of water? Or are you out of that too?"

"Nah, we've got water. Five bucks."

"WHAT?!"

"I'm trying."

The sound of creaking ice surrounds him, the pitch rising until it turned to a delicate chiming. The boy smiles, brushing his fingertips against the crystaline facets of the frozen world around him.

"Thank you. I don't mean to forget. Not ever." The smile fades. "But will I remember this?"

The world shatters, and the boy with it.

There are things in the dark with teeth and glowing eyes and harsh voices. The dark itself is worse. They just bite and snarl; he can do the same. The dark smothers him, crushes him into a depthless black mire. And worse, he feels he has forgotten something...

The Pax Dei do not sleep, but that does not mean they do not dream.

A desire threads its way though the love and peace in the angel's soul. It is a delicate tendril, green and new and budding fear.

"I will make my sacrifices in a timely way, then." She smiles. "Thank you, Father."

The sea churns around her rocky seat and the young woman bows her head respectfully.

"I would have it so, at least for a while yet. I feel there is reason enough to stay. But Father..."

The sea is as calm as glass, without even a ripple by way of answer.

Degaton dreams of gray streets and jackboots. The air around him is quiet ... peaceful ... orderly. The people do not cheer him, but then, they fear nothing, either. Nothing but him.

He walks, and the bodies of his enemies litter the ground: Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Carter Hall, Karen Starr, Ted Grant, Michael Holt, Pieter Cross, Hector Hall, Courtney Whitmore.

He looks down at their impassive corpses, and his heartbeat accelerates. Just a bit ... enough.

"Soon," he says, as he looks into a sky of unfamiliar stars, watching as a planet explodes into radioactive green pebbles, a lone rocket with its sole survivor hurdling into space. He watches a woman sculpt a daughter for herself out of clay, her palm smoothing each contour of her face. He watches a young boy scream in an alley as the bodies of his parents lie face-down on the sidewalk, his mother's necklace broken, pearls scattered everywhere.

"Very, very soon," he says, and he smiles a twisted, evil smile.

"Degaton," says Fate, and the hatred with which he speaks the name boils the air around him.

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Ka is a wheel, and all it knows how to do is turn

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