[The City] IC Contact

[hypnagothic]

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[keepgodwaiting]

[ She shrugs. ] When would you have had a chance to find out?

[hypnagothic]

[ his jaw clenches again, his expression closing off. ]

[keepgodwaiting]

[ All right, that one, she has no idea what she might have said wrong, though clearly something hit him badly. Apologizing for trampling over a sore spot she understands is one thing; she's not going to apologize for a rhetorical question.

... So this silence is gonna get a little awkward, then. ]

[hypnagothic]

[ soooooooo awkward, with Dream remaining tense. it's only after several long moments does he ask quietly: ]

What do you know of the Endless?

[keepgodwaiting]

I don't know.

[ She shrugs; it's an honest answer. ]

There's things I think I know. I tried to find out more after we met, but it wasn't easy. Gran told us stories about the Lord of Dreams and the Lady of Death, and the Lord of Destiny's garden. And I found someone saying something about a Desire appearing in the Nag Hammadi codices, but that whole exegesis was a bit hysterical.

[hypnagothic]

Desire does tend to cause hysteria where they appear, in person or otherwise.

[ said mostly even, but there's a note to his tone like one might imagine an elder brother speaking of an irksome sibling. ]

Are you aware of how many there are, at least?

[keepgodwaiting]

[ Oh, yeah, as an irksome younger sibling, Johanna knows that tone. ]

No, I don't think so. Five? Seven?

[hypnagothic]

Seven, which you have already named four of them. There is also Desire's twin, Despair, and the youngest of us is Delirium.

[keepgodwaiting]

[ She counts in her head. Death, Dream, Desire, Destiny, Despair, Delirium -- Delirium? That's curious. ]

That's six.

[hypnagothic]

[ that hard expression of his makes another appearance now, the muscles bunching around his jaw briefly before loosening once more for his answer, his tone flat. ]

Destruction has abandoned his purpose.

[keepgodwaiting]

Destruction?

[ Her eyebrows go up, bemused. ]

What does "abandoned" mean, exactly?

[ Since obviously, like dreaming, mortals are fully capable of destroying on their own. ]

[hypnagothic]

That he has left his realm and ignores his responsibilities as the personification of destruction and creation, no longer directing the affairs over which he has control.

[keepgodwaiting]

And ... would things be better or worse if he was around?

[ Even as she asks it, she suspects it's a foolish question. "Better" and "worse" is a simplistic binary, and she knows it.

Still: she thinks of heat waves and cold snaps that blanket London more and more lately. Grenfell Tower. Bombs in the tube. Would the havoc humans wreak on the world around them be different if someone was there to oversee it? ]

[hypnagothic]

I cannot say. But it is obvious that what was his continues without him. As you noted earlier.

[keepgodwaiting]

Right. Yeah.

And he left centuries ago? Where'd he go?

[hypnagothic]

We know not. It was his wish that we do not enquire of him upon his leaving.

[keepgodwaiting]

Ah. Well, I can imagine how he feels. Family's complicated like that.

[hypnagothic]

Complications of family should not excuse his absence. He did not pass his mantle on so his responsibilities remain untended.

[keepgodwaiting]

[ Her eyebrows go up. ]

You can pass these sorts of things on? Someone could take over your jobs?

[hypnagothic]

[ his eyes flick towards her while still facing forward, a different sort of tense now. ]

[keepgodwaiting]

--I'm not getting any ideas. Do I seem like the sort of person who wants that sort of responsibility?

[hypnagothic]

[ he keeps silent for another moment as if weighing her sincerity, and eventually his tension eases. ]

It would not only be the responsibilities he has discarded. Were he to pass his mantle, they would become Destruction.

[keepgodwaiting]

That sounds ... dramatic.

[ Maybe an understatement, there. It's like in old mythologies where someone ascends to Olympus or something. ]

Has that happened before?

[hypnagothic]

[ the silence stretches again, only the sound of their footfalls echoing in the early morning air. it goes on long enough that Johanna might think he won't answer it, but ... ]

There was one who thought to kill Despair. They succeeded, and they continue to pay for it and will do so for many millennia to come. A new facet of my sister replaced the one killed. Thus the Endless continue.

[keepgodwaiting]

[ That, somehow, chills Constantine at least as much as the revelation of how long Burgess had him trapped. Partly it's the idea of an eternity reaping the consequences of an act like that; partly it's the phrase my sister, when she was already thinking about her own family complications compared to Dream's.

(Does Cheryl think she's missing, or dead, or something? Or has she even noticed Johanna's absence? Not like they've ever been the kind of family that rings each other up every Sunday.) ]

Endlessly.

Can I ask -- no, never mind, I should ask Hob, really.