Round 2 [open]

[pure_havoc]

characters: Cao Pi and everyone who wants to show up
location: town hall
date/time: Dec. 8, starting at moonrise
content: Community meeting, take 2! After the Dreamer/Defender incident, there's a lot to talk about and Cao Pi has encouraged everyone to come and publicly share what they learned while asleep or what ideas they have to make the next massacre less massacre-y. Feel free to handwave catching his post or hearing about it from a friend.
warnings: none likely but lmk if that changes. Threadjacking likely; if you don't want to be threadjacked, make some sort of indication.

As before, Cao Pi arrives ahead of time to ensure the town hall is ready for a session, righting any chairs that might have been thrown about in recent melees and checking the logbook for recent information. When a fair amount of people have arrived and he can see the waxing moon rising through the leafless trees outside, he rises to begin with a short intro.

"By now we know that those who succumbed to the food at the feast had a strange experience - they shared dreams with each other, in which they found themselves seeing Beacon as it was in the past. I encourage all those who dreamed, and remember it well, please tell us all what you saw. There may be considerable clues to our purpose and progress in even the smallest detail.

"The rest of us, well. We managed to make it through and I believe those who were killed are whole again, but for our part we can go over what worked and what didn't. Defending ourselves isn't merely a matter of being trained to use weapons. The spirits which attacked were formidable, powerful. We will need more than just our strength to outlast another attack. Ideas are welcome, as is any new information we have on everything from communications to threats."

That's all he'll ramble about this time, he'll take a seat and allow others to have the floor before he makes any more grandiose speeches.

Comments

[sauntered_downward]

Do I look like someone who worries about doing the right thing?

[No, that's always Aziraphale's gig, isn't it? And Aziraphale thinks they should stay. He thinks they need to save this place, save the stupid spirits and this world. Stop everything happening and then go back and save Earth all over again. Like this is their job now or something, which Crowley does not agree with at all.

And yet, here they are.

He sighs.]

We don't have to stop them. We could----I don't know. Create fake light, something they can feast on forever, as long as they want. As much as they want. Like----I don't know. What is that fake sugar?

[he moves on]

Eat it up and eat and eat and they'll never go anywhere else.

[pearlstrings]

[It's an easy perspective to empathize with and understand. Bruce understands what selfishness feels like and he doesn't consider it an inherently bad thing. He knows he's done things, made choices, that have had profound costs in the name of protecting the people he cares for. He says do I look like someone who worries about doing the right thing? and Bruce thinks You look like someone who has friends. And your friends are probably worried about doing the right thing. Perhaps in from that angle it's six steps one way, half a dozen the other.

Besides. The idea Crowley presents is a nice one. Bruce has no idea how to stop the World Eaters, has no idea if they can be stopped. It's possible that the suggestion might be what saves them all in the end. But even that, creating fake light to distract them, to let them gorge on forever, is Doing Something.

The corner of his mouth tugs. It's not quite a smile, but it suggests one. The muscle memory of it at least.]

I don't think it's a bad idea.
For what that's worth.

[sauntered_downward]

No, of course it's not a bad idea. But I'm the one who made it, so who the hell is going to listen to it?

[he gestures vaguely at the crowd]

Not them. Not to me. I'm the one who sunk the ferry, remember?

[Which, Crowley would be the first to state, was not a terrible idea, either. If the people running the ferry hadn't gotten wise and decided to stop them from going after the controls, he'd do it again in a heartbeat. It's a transport, and it's a way out. It could carry everyone. Everyone else is just afraid of failing, in Crowley's mind. Afraid of getting hurt.

Not that he doesn't feel guilt for hurting people. He doesn't like hurting people, not really. Being a troublemaker isn't the same as being a demon who hurts people. Maybe if he were a proper demon he'd have gotten more joy out of sinking the ferry, but he isn't so he doesn't.]

[pearlstrings]

[He wonders how many people Crowley has asked. How many people have said that they want to leave, and of those people who want to leave- where do they think they will go? There's a phrase that comes to mind: the devil you know, and Bruce thinks that even if he didn't feel an interest and responsibility for the mysteries of this town- surely there are worse things than being reunited with people you care about after you've died.

One shoulder rises and falls. It isn't a cavalier shrug so much as it's just a small one. Bruce's grand gestures have always been reserved for times behind a mask.]

I listened.

[Crowley will probably never stop being The One Who Sunk The Ferry, but that's the strange and wonderful thing about the passage of time, in his experience. The opportunity to make new mistakes. Get new monikers.

People have an amazing capacity for forgiveness.]

And anyway, who knows. Maybe they'll surprise you.

[sauntered_downward]

[Suddenly:]

ASPARTAME!