if the elephants have past lives

[invoking]

WHO: GIL and YOU
WHERE: anywhere! The park, a grocery store, the streets, around his workplace, etc.
WHEN: between 12/10 and 12/13
WARNINGS: references to Thunderhungerdome events
SUMMARY: In spite of everything that's happened, Gil has to try and carry on with City life.
FORMAT: starting with quick but tagger's choice!


[ If there's anything Gil is always quick to buy, no matter how stingy he can be with money, it's cigarettes and a brand new lighter. He's not too fond of those cheap ones from the corner stores, even if they do work in a pinch. But so do matches. (The odd stare every now and then doesn't both him when he's craving a long drag of nicotine. While he's well are of the laws against public smoking, when he really needs (re: wants) a cigarette, he can't help himself. When he's working, he avoids it as long as he can before he lights one outside the building.

Attempting to quit doesn't cross his mind. There's a lot on it.

He's even lost count of how long it's been since that night in the stadium. There are fleeting moments it feels like it was a decade ago, buried under the other painful events that seemed to consistently plague his life-- and then the vivid moments like it was just yesterday and his senses are overloaded with the smell of copper and screaming ringing in his ears.

It's the brief seconds of remembering Lenalee and Damian's bodies that jostles him out of his daze and he needs to stop and catch his breath. ]

Comments

[invoking]

[ As strange as this guy is, Gil does have manners. He'll try to keep up a polite image. ]

Do... you come to this park often?

[foreshadower]

From time to time. When the mood strikes me. [ He gestured out to it. ]

Little traffic at this time of night, it's quiet, secluded. All the things a reformed supervillain would want when they go out for a stroll.

1/2

[invoking]

[ He just said supervillain. ]

[invoking]

[ And he's been here long enough to understand what that entails. Somehow, the "reformed" part is long forgotten by the time he reacts. ]

You're... a criminal?

[ And the tension returns, as well as some awful, lingering memories from the stadium.

Don't. Not now. ]

[foreshadower]

I was once a supervillain. In my time of greatest boredom, I found it enjoyable to dress up in an outlandish costume and fight superheroes.

[ He dodges the direct question that he's a criminal, of course. There are small ways that he still breaks the law, of course, but how could he not? The laws were so terribly arbitrary.

Especially to someone who had seen laws come and go in his time. He would do what he wished, after all. Human laws were just that. For humans. ]

There's something exhilarating about fighting against them, you see.

[invoking]

[ He listens quietly, assessing the story and trying to determine whether or not Shade's words hold some truth or that he's playing around with Gil. He does think, why would someone talk about a troublesome part of their life in the open?

Strangely, he doesn't feel the need to reach for his gun. ]

Why tell me this?

[foreshadower]

You seemed curious.

[ He answered it simply. The Shade was an odd sort. He wasn't so weight down by guilt about his past. He'd enjoyed it, after all. Most reformed ex villains were likely reformed due to realizing how awful their misdeeds were, but Shade had simply retired out of boredom.

But that didn't mean he didn't have his own history with dastardly deeds, or that he hadn't done some more recently.

After all, he maintained that he was still something of a villain, when he wasn't doing the rare good deed. ]

Why would I hide it?

1/2

[invoking]

[ The point. What is the point? He actually looks perplexed, trying to think of an answer. ]

2/2

[invoking]

[ Not that it's any of his business... ]

Wouldn't the... ah, superheroes find that difficult to believe? [ Gil's not implying he is one. No, he's far from something as great and powerful as that, as odd as it is to him.

But he could have had a bad reaction! The possibilities in the City seem endless. ]

[foreshadower]

Of course they do. They're often perplexed by me, but I much prefer it that way.

[ After all, he'd saved Jay Garrick's life, even when he'd been a villain. He didn't wish him ill, of course, but the Flash thought he had. That had been the point, after all. It was for the sport, really.

Like fishing, only to throw back the fish when you were done. ]

After all, it's not as if it's trouble either way, for me.

[invoking]

It sounds like it can be troublesome. [ Who knows what kind of morals all these superhero types had. Perhaps some were of the the "punch first, questions later" variation. ]

Ah, that's right... you mentioned magic the last time we spoke. [ Which makes sense if he knew how to use it to protect himself. ]

[foreshadower]

[ He only nodded in agreement, before moving onto the second statement. There was no need to debate the merits of one generation of superheroes to the newer generation. Some things were better left waiting in the ether, instead of constantly brought to light. ]

Yes, I did, but I myself and not magical, I'm afraid. [ Magic implied wonder, and the vast unknown that one wanted to find. Shade, however, was dark, and sinister. If not in personality, than in power alone. What had given him his power was the sort of unknown where horrors lurked, waiting to be let free. ]

I have a passing interest, however. There comes a time when one gets bored of what the real world has to offer, hm?

[invoking]

[ Gil probably wouldn't be able to grasp all of it anyway-- magic isn't something he's heard much about even back home until a short while ago. Even with the Sealing Stones they had been looking for, sealed with black magic, there's certainly a lot he doesn't know about them. ]

It's not part of the real world? Magic.

[foreshadower]

Not the world most know about, of course not. [ He gestured with his cane, indicating out, drawing it across the surface of the park. ]

There are metaphors, of course. How magic can be found everywhere and such nonsense, but at the end of the day, we do not use magic to cook our food, or get from one place to another. No, magic is not of the real world. It's of something else.

[invoking]

What is its purpose, then? [ He's suddenly thinking deeply about it, surprising even himself. ] It can affect the real world with consequence, can't it? People as well...

[foreshadower]

Fair enough of a point, yes. [ He agrees, his eyebrows lifting in surprise at the statement, as if he's surprised at how astute it is. ]

However, for most intents and purposes, it only has an effect on the rare few. Most would walk this world and never know that magic pulses beneath their feet and in the air around them.

The real world is the world on the ground, you see. Not the elite, but where the masses lie. [ He held the beat for a moment, before with an almost whimsical tone, he added: ] Or perhaps I have too much of a fondness for certain philosophies that favor people as a whole.

[invoking]

[ He thought of home and the Sealing Stones... Glen, Jack, Oz in the entirety of the moment he asked. He doesn't know how any of this would help even if they could remember everything when they were ported back, but it's better than not knowing, he supposes.

Still... ]

This is truly beyond someone like me...

[foreshadower]

Is it? If you believe it is, then it shall be so. [ He dropped his cane to the ground with a soft 'thunk', the metal end hitting the concrete, and he held onto the bird's-head end, a gloved hand drawing across the surface as if in thought. ]

But I believe nothing is truly beyond anyone. Why, in my example, I belong to another age altogether, and yet here I am, just as well as any other person raised in this time.

There was a time when such technology would be magic, and then it was a luxury out of the hands of most, and then it became common.

Time, I have found, changes things.

[invoking]

Well, I'm no practitioner of magic and I don't stu--

[ He freezes in that second at the little tidbit Shade had just shared with him. He thinks he means he's like Gil, from a different world that is still in its apparent infancy with technology.

Or so, a part of him does.

He thinks there might be more weight in those words than he'd like to believe. ]

Your world isn't like this one?

[foreshadower]

No world is like this one! Of course, it is a similar time, and there are metahumans galore, and we both have a history that is somewhat similar, but in the modern age, we branch away, or perhaps it's the City that does so.

[ He pauses thoughtfully at that, mulling over the concept that lit through his thoughts like a dark spider, skittering along, before he lifted a hand in something of an "eureka!" gesture. ]

Or perhaps it was the advent of the metahuman in mine. It seems that such an event diverts things.

Why, look what happened in this world, with our arrival. Things certainly changed, and not necessarily for the better. [ But not for the worse, either. }

[invoking]

Oh. [ Short, but tinted with vague disappointment. It's odd and even a little lonely, but increasingly frightening to be the only one from his world or "era". Gil thinks he's over thinking everything, especially after the stadium. He's simply longing for something to help him ease down.

He speaks up finally, though he still seems slightly distracted. ]

It's true that... certain people have made things worse for us. But the Porter is the one who bring us here in the first place.

[foreshadower]

Of course she is. It is true, however, that the advent of the metahuman creates change. It doesn't matter whether it's due to certain people, or not," he explained, in the sort of world-weary explanation that spoke lengths about how many times he had dwelt on the fact, dwelt on what the world would be like.

Well, he had spent some time writing on the subject in his journals. Not all of them had been given to Jack, after all. Only the ones that had been relevant to the history of Opal City. As the protector, he'd known the budding hero would appreciate the look into her history.

Besides, Jack had always been enamored enough with the past.

"Even by existing, I affected those around me. No matter whether it was positive or negative, the powers that metahumans hold, and by extension themselves, tend to make waves."

[invoking]

[ Like Chains, he thinks to himself. ]

But the person who created that machine... why start all this in the first place? The police had supposedly disappeared.

If these metahumans were only going to cause trouble, why bring them here in the first place?

GOD I'm sorry, apparently I fucked the formatting!!

[foreshadower]

Do we even know if they knew? How were they supposed to know that we would be such troublesome creatures? I'm sure they thought it would be for the betterment of all mankind, but then we arrive.

[ He gestures with a hand, an amused sign of "what can you do?" lilting with the fingers. His hands are bare, despite the chill. ]

Well, I think that spoke for ourselves.

IT'S OKAY

[invoking]

[ And who knows what else there is to come. The Porter's always bringing in someone erratic and irresponsible with their abilities-- or just plain dangerous. ]

It's not something you dwell on, huh. [ Maybe it's for the better. Shade seems at ease enogu here. ]