| Sword and Snake | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary: Deis gives Jaune a bit of a pep talk. Jaune falls in a hole.   |
The reason it's not a full bikini is she's in her serpent form! Deis is looped around on top of the rock, loosely coiled to soak up some of the sun. Her human half sticks out of the middle of the loose coil her snake half makes, her arms folded on the topmost coil. Her eyes are closed, and she looks to be enjoying the sun immensely, given the wide, almost goofy smile on her face. Jaune steps off the road and onto the sand, looking up and down the beach. "Wow... Vale doesn't have any coast line like this..." He looks down and kicks a bit of the sand with a light laugh. He walks further down onto the beach, closer to the water, before he notices the rock and the woman sunbathing there. It's an odd image to him... but not for the right reasons. No, the fact that the green scaly looking parts might be a part of the woman isn't registering with him at this distance, so he's trying to figure out just what it is that the woman is reclined in. Clearly she doesn't look to be in danger, though. It's hard to tell whether she heard him, sensed him, or whether it was just completely by chance. But as Jaune is looking at him, the woman wakes from her light doze, and smiles in his direction. "Oh! Hello!" she calls out, shifting upwards to wave in his direction. Then the coils start to shift, to uncoil from around themselves. And from around her. She slides into the water, the coils following her in. The rock isn't too far from the beach, only through the shallows. But still, it might not be until she makes landfall that he sees the serpent and woman are one being. "Hi there! I haven't seen you around," Deis remarks. "Are you new? Or did I just sleep another century?" Jaune replies in a manner that he considers quite appropriate for the given situation. That is, to become a bit slack jawed and to say, "Uhhhhhhhhh." Is it just because she's a snake woman? Or is it the bikini as well? The world may never know! He then shakes his head a few times to clear his mind, and more properly introduces himself. "Uh, yeah, I'm Jaune Arc. I just recently... Converged, I think they called it?" "I'm not sure what they call it," Deis admits. "I haven't been here that long myself. Couple of months, maybe?" She smiles, and offers a hand in a quite normal handshake. Mind, he will find that if he does shake her hand, she has quite the grip. It won't be bone-cracking. But it may be a bit uncomfortable. "Pleased to meet you, Jaune! I'm Deis, resident lazy goddess." She's pretty free with that information, that she's a goddess. Though there's no note of arrogance in her voice, as if she expects to be worshiped. No, it's just offered as an introduction, a bit of information about herself. Jaune takes the hand and shakes... and yes, he does look a bit surprised by the strength of the grip. His isn't nearly that strong... but does feel a little stronger than his relatively thin frame would suggest. Well, once her own strength is registered, at least. "Well, you certainly have the looks of..." He pauses, remembering a certain other self proclaimed deity he ran into the other day. "Wait... you mean literally, don't you?" "Mhm," Deis replies, with a smile. "There's a couple of us running around this place. There's one, this god of war, he has the most adorable hair under his helmet. It's all dark and curly, like a cute little black sheep~." She gives a girlish giggle. Admittedly though, Kotal is the only other deity she knows of. "We're from different worlds, mind you. But yes, that's literal." Her smile goes a little mysterious. "But then again, is a deity without worshipers still a deity? Even if he or she once had them?" Jaune says, "Yeah... I... ran into him when I first got here, I think. Tall, blue, drops out of nowhere from the sky?" Sounds like Kotal all right. "I'm finding your introduction to be a bit more plesant than his." He offers the snake-goddess a grin, then a frown at question of needing worshipers. "Well, considering you're only the second possible deity I've seen, I'm... going to have to plead ignorance on that one." Deis snickers. "That sounds like him all right. The sun is in his purview, and the sun is bad about appearing when you least expect it, clobbering you on the head," she comments, with a smirk. Then she nods. "Exactly! An existential crisis! Were we ever really gods? Or were we only gods because others wished us to be? Have we ever really had control of our fates, despite our power?" Despite her words of a 'crisis', Deis herself looks far from the point of doubting her origins. She reclines easily on her coils. "But yeah... godly problems, those aren't something you have to worry about," she assures him, with a wink. Jaune raises a hand to the side of his head, scratching at his temple lightly. "Yeah, the only thing right now I have to worry about is..." He pauses. What does he have to worry about right now? He's been put into a new school, and so far no one has tried to bully him. It seems this town doesn't have too many problems, but just enough that he might be able to play the part of a hero yet. But then it strikes him again, and he frowns. His team. Not that they won't be perfectly capable without him. Let's face it, they might even be better off. But he still worries that, from what he's been told, he's never going to see them again. With a sigh, he finally finishes his sentence. "...The same thing everyone who comes here has to worry about, I suppose." Deis nods. "Missing home, mainly," she acknowledges. "Being homesick sucks." Very frank, this one. "But hopefully you'll make new friends here. They won't ever replace the ones who were left in your world, but they're still valuable. But, on the bright side, I hear when one person comes here, it becomes more likely that others from the same place might come here too. So you might find friends you left behind. Or enemies." "Yeah, well, I came with an enemy, and a... I guess a friend showed up shortly after." Jaune's not known Yang that well before. Just that she's Ruby's sister and teammate, and also Weiss's teammate. Oh yeah, and he threw up on her shoe when they first met. Not the best of first impressions. "But there's plenty more missing." Another pause, the he looks up again. "But hey, yeah, plenty of time to make new friends here, right?" It sounds more like he's trying to convince himself of this. "Ah, good, at least you're not alone," Deis observes. "Believe it or not, even an enemy can go far in making you feel at home coming here.Particularly if you've fought them several times before. You fall into a routine in your world, then you come here and it's all turned on its head. Then an enemy shows up, and you pick that rhythm right back up. It almost feels good." As for new friends? Deis nods! "There's enough people here to make friends, that's for sure. It's been recently there's been more people showing up, too." Jaune blinks and moves slightly back, a surprised - and slightly worried - expression on his face. "So I'm... part of a wave?" His stance settles down, his expression turning more neutral again, but glancing off to the side. "Lots of people, all showing up at once... Heh. It's going to be difficult for me to make a name for myself in all that." He looks back at Deis again, with perhaps a slightly hopeful smile on his face. "Think I got a shot, goddess?" "Not exactly a wave," Deis replies, tilting her head. "But there seems to have been an uptick in people coming here since I arrived. Then again, I could just be imagining it. This place is called 'Twisted' for a reason. I'm sure there's some method behind all the madness, but it escapes me as of yet. And even if I knew, I'd probably be sworn to secrecy, so I wouldn't be able to explain it too much. If everyone knows how the tapestry is woven, after all, anyone can unravel it." She chuckles when he mentions making a name for himself. "You have a name, all you need to do is remember it," she points out. "Now, if you want others to remember it, that all depends on how you want to climb the ladder. Be sure to pay attention to the world around you, including the people. I've felt the air of unrest of late. Nothing I can tell you about it, though-- admittedly, I mostly just sleep. But the unrest could be a ladder or an anchor, depending on how you handle it." Jaune nods, seriously considering Deis' words. "You're right... I'm just going to have to... keep my eyes open, and look out for opportunities." He looks out to sea, stepping back a few steps as he does so. "If I'm going to make the right first steps here, unlike at Beacon, I'm going to have to keep my eyes open and take the right-" and that's when he backs right into one of Muradin's holes. "....Steps." Deis nods at the mention of opportunities. "You just have to know which ones to take, which ones you can handle, which ones are too much for you-- all that," she replies. And then suddenly Jaune is in a hole. "Oops. Careful." She offers a hand to him, to help him up if necessary. "Sorry. We have a dwarf nearby, and he likes to dig holes." Jaune looks for a moment at the offered hand, but he doesn't take it. Instead, he seems determined to get back out of the hole on his own. "Yeah, well, I just need to keep from falling into the same pitfalls I always do," he says a bit sheepishly. No, he's not making eye contact after that. Once Deis realizes he's not going to take hold of her hand, she pulls it back. She doesn't say anything about it, but she does watch him to make sure he's all right in gwtting out. If not? He might just find himself lifted with her tail and pulled up! Of course, if it looks like he can get himself out, Deis won't disturb him that much. Unlike her sister, Deis believes in letting people stand on their own two feet. As for falling int he same pitfalls? "Not to worry. That's a common problem," she replies. And she can't help but tease, "Literally and figuratively." Jaune pats the sand off his jeans and armor. "Very funny. This is exactly the sort of thing I always get myself into." He sighs as he gets at least most of it off. "Some things never change, I suppose, no matter how much you want them to." Deis shifts, moving a coil up so that she can lean on it. "You ever heard the expression 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'?" she inquires. She doesn't figure any further explanation is necessary. But she does ask, "You OK?" Jaune waves off the concern, saying "I'm fine, I'm fine. If just falling down a hole could hurt me, I'd probably be dead by now. But yeah, that seems to be where I'm stuck in life." He sighs. "I can't quite get out of being the lovable buffoon stuck in the tree." "Hey, listen to what you said-- 'lovable'," Deis points out. "There are far worse roles to be stuck with in life. You could be stuck playing the ultimate evil." Pause, smirk. Though the expression has a bitter edge to it. "Believe me, getting stuck with the role of the ultimate evil is very much not fun." Jaune gives Deis a look with a quirked eyebrow, looking a bit unbelieving. "You? You don't exactly strike me as an evil goddess. Do I even want to know what happened?" Nope, he doesn't seem to be seeing the bright side of that as Deis had been trying... or at least he was distracted by the thought of her as being evil. "Oh I'm not," Deis assures him. "Don't worry, I won't eat your soul." As for what happened? "By default, of course. My sister played the good, the nurturer, the benevolent god. But she went too far. Her worshipers wouldn't see that she'd gone too far, and so when I finally did put my foot down, figuratively speaking, her worshipers decided I was evil. And then her 'holy' warriors sealed me in a temple for five hundred years." Jaune can't help but laugh just a bit. "Yeah, you're right. At least I'm not thrown into being the villain just because someone told people I was. So she spoiled her kids rotten, so to speak?" He then blinks, "Five hundred years?" Deis nods. "She was trying to commit genocide against a species she couldn't control. I told her warriors to stop. Stupidity then took its course." She shrugs a little, helplessly. "Paranoia was the problem. She let her first kids act out any way they want, and they ended up killing themselves. So she figured she needed to micromanage the whole world. She couldn't control all of it though, so she tried to kill what she couldn't control." Jaune says, "Huh... Well, I suppose our world could have used a bit more hands on management by a good deity. Remnant's in pretty rough shape, but we're getting by. In the cities, at least." He then frowns. "How can anyone micromanage a whole world, though? It seems farfetched even for a deity..." "It was a very small world," Deis explained. "Technically it was only HALF a world. She used a giant ocean to cut off the dead part of the world with the living part. She made it so people couldn't invent new technology, and started systematically destroying anything that wouldn't live in the little terrarium she created for it. The last of that species she committed genocide against kicked her in the teeth, though." Jaune says, "So... no new technology? Just... forcing people to stay just like they are? That sounds... like a boring world." He frowns at the thought. "What's the point of living if you can't make things better?" He pauses again. "Oh, right, that's where you came in, wasn't it?" Deis nods to Jaune's question of no new technology. "She'd toss a few vital things in the ocean and let them watch up on Steel Beach for people to salvage and fix," she says. "But she wouldn't let them invent anything." As for 'where she came in'? Deis shakes her head. "No, she was pretty quick in telling her warriors to seal me away. It was the member of that one race my sister tried to genocide." Because yes, 'genocide' is totally a verb. "I did help him, but I didn't have my full strength then." Jaune says, "Well... At least your world had that great hero to set it free from her grip. I wish I could be Remnant's hero, saving it from the Grimm... But that's not going to happen now, is it?" "Maybe not... but you can be a hero here," Deis replies. "We have threats coming in from lots of different worlds. Grimm, demons from some weird green magical realm, those things that try to forcibly mate with your face while the bigger ones try to eat you... and lots of other things, too. This world needs heroes badly." Jaune says, "Well..." He once again looks out to sea. This time he doesn't move from where he's standing, however. He's learned his lesson on that one. "I guess it's up to me to meet that-" He suddenly looks back to Deis again. "'Forcibly mate with your face'?!" Deis levels a calm look to Jaune. "That's what it looked like. I only saw it once. One of them leaped on some poor girl's face. Thankfully it got pulled off before it did anything to her. I don't want to know what it would have done if it hadn't been pulled off. Also thankfully, you know those from the fighters. Those are little hand-sized horrors." Jaune recoils slightly, a look of horror on his face. "I'll... have to keep that in mind. Man, the monsters here really are worse than Grimm. They'll just kill people. I mean, they can be really scary, still, but at least they don't... do that. I think I can go without seeing that particular event in my lifetime." Deis nods once, slowly. "If you see a little pink or peach-colored crawling horror that looks sorta like a spider scorpion? Murder it with extreme prejudice. Murder it by whatever methods you use, then murder it again, and then-- just to be safe-- set it on fire." Jaune draws his sword from his sheath, then pulls the sheath off his belt. It expands into a shield and he takes a fighting stance. "I'll do whatever I can." Deis blinks as she sees the transformation. "That's handy," she comments. "Technology? Or magic?" she inquires. She starts to get a little closer to him, to examine the sword and shield. She'll be trying to sense it for magical power, mostly. Though she's familiar with higher technology through Myria and her orbital station. There doesn't seem to be any magic involved in the shield, in fact, with a closer look, the segments are clearly visible. "Nope, it's technology... Which means it's still pretty heavy on my belt." This is a point that has been made to him before about the limited utility of a shield that collapses into the sheath of a sword. "Ooh, I see," Deis replies, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "You think you could benefit from having a lighter weapon? Or are you used to the weight and a lighter weapon would throw you off?" Magic is always a kind to experiment, it seems. But she also seems to understand the concept of not screwing with what's already there, for various reasons. Jaune blinks at Deis as she suggests a lighter weapon, then shakes his head, pulling the sword back, almost defensively protecting it. "I... no. This is my great-great grandfather's weapon, I... don't want to alter it." History can easily be one of those various reasons. Deis nods. "Ah, I understand that," she replies. "A good reason, too. Let your past be a foundation for the future." She smiles broadly. Then she stretches, raising her arms over her head. It's a little odd, what she does with her tail here. Sort of pushes herself up, then arches her back and a 'wave' runs up from the end of her tail and then back. "Well. Have you eaten yet? It's about dinnertime. How's about stopping at the Usual with me?" Jaune shakes his head. "No, I've got to get back to the Academy. They... lock the doors for some reason when it gets late." He waves as he turns back towards the road. "It was nice talking to you, though, Deis." | |
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Kotal Kahn