[Video]

[maddest]

I'm setting up communal clotheslines here, for anyone whose bedding is waterlogged. Bring as much strong wire or string as you can if you can find it.

We work best when we aid one another.

[x,y]

Comments

[thelightbringer]

I'll try not to gossip.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Gabriel made me more nervous than you, Michael, and Raphael combined.

[thelightbringer]

[That actually startles him.]

Why?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

I know I can hold my own with the rest of you. You're all- deliberate, quiet, graceful. I can startle, impress, or horrify you in terms with my humanity, wit and facility.

But Gabriel- Gabriel is fast. And we have enough in common that I doubt I'm anything particularly new to him. I get the impression he knows humanity a little better than the rest of you.

[thelightbringer]

He does. In fact, he's spent the past two thousand years living in various forms. He ran away from heaven and hijacked a god's body, just to live among you.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Mm, see? Nerve wracking.

[thelightbringer]

He shouldn't be. You've lived with an even older human. And unlike him, Gabriel doesn't want the world to end.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

That went astonishingly well for me.

[thelightbringer]

Yes, well, Gabriel wouldn't have thrown you aside.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

That makes a refreshing change.

[thelightbringer]

[Any remark Lucifer thinks of making seems self-pitying, so he just doesn't. Instead he changes the subject, his tone still light and conversational.]

How many do you have staying with you now?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, to be honest. Either four or five.

[thelightbringer]

[A sound almost like a laugh]

You don't seem the type not to know who's padding around your bunker.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

They come and go quickly, inviting one another in, fighting and fluttering off. New family, new friends, one sent home one minute, one dead the next. I can't always differentiate.

[thelightbringer]

[He nods thoughtfully]

Some things are easier not to keep track of here I suppose. You seem to handle all the little changes better than most. So many minds here are so preoccupied with their losses....

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

What changes?

[He laughs.]

Nothing of any importance ever shifts.

[thelightbringer]

What do you consider 'important' then?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

Actual quality of life, meaningful social structures.

[thelightbringer]

Social structures aren't all that meaningful. Humans change them every hundred years or so.

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

The permanence of something doesn't actually have anything to do with it's meaning. As lasting or transient as they may be, a great deal of human existence is spent invested in navigating social structures. To us, they are very meaningful.

[thelightbringer]

[He leans back on one hand.]

Enlighten me. Which structures do you promote?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

I personally don't.

But I do inhabit them.

[thelightbringer]

Such as?

[mister-hatter.livejournal.com]

My current house is a little commune.

[thelightbringer]

And your future home?