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[kobes]

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koby



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[kobes]

[a thoughtful pause, a flicker of that sunset-pink something flaring bright on the ambient landscape of unseen power.]

I think that and
To show I was there.
That I was real, at the same time as you.

[snaggleteeth]

[is that bar low? he's not sure. one supposes one has to be real before one can be angry.

he finds he likes the answer anyway.]

Do you ever feel powerful when you fuck?

Or when you don't.

[kobes]

[there's another pause.]

It might be the only time I feel that way. I feel
Right. Like there's nothing wrong.

1/2

[snaggleteeth]

Has it ever occurred to you that the bar should be a little higher than 'there's nothing wrong?'

'Right' is something else. For most people. But you should think how you want to think.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

How many people have you killed?

[this does not occur to him as a non-sequitur!]

[kobes]

Not really. "Wrong" has been my default state for a very long time, so feeling like I'm okay is a bigger deal than it may be to others. That's all.
Sometimes "right" is how it is, but. It depends.

Oh.
Physically? None.
By association? A few hundred.

[snaggleteeth]

I can see that.

A few hundred dead is a lot. Probably better, they aren't yours to regret.

What does 'it' depend on? Whatever makes something right?

[kobes]

I guess that's a matter of perspective. I did nothing to intervene, so they're on my conscience, the same as if I'd killed them with my own hands.

It's complicated. The way I am now isn't the way I was born. Feeling "right" took a long, long time.

[snaggleteeth]

Do you want to talk about this here, somewhere else, or not at all?

[it's an important word: want.]

[kobes]

Oh. Um
I don't know. It's
Well, you've been inside my head. I'm sure you'll find most of it out anyway, eventually.

[not an answer.]

[snaggleteeth]

Pick one.

[he's more congenial sometimes than others.]

[kobes]

You're VERY bossy, has anyone ever told you that?

I want you to understand, so. Yes.

1/2

[snaggleteeth]

[that would, in fact, be a way he and tara carpenter are similar.

somewhere in the mansion, the stranger is smiling.]

Not sure I'm 'bossy' enough, considering that wasn't one of the three choices.

2/2

[snaggleteeth]

I can come find you, now. Or later.

Whatever you want.

[kobes]

For what?

[he's assuming it's some sort of training exercise.]

[snaggleteeth]

[it's not not a training exercise.]

For speaking the ocean.

Maybe bite like it too. Some point.

[kobes]

Oh.

Well. I wouldn't mind either. Come find me.

But tell me how you do it. How you find people. Is it the same as me?

[snaggleteeth]

You're better at it than I am. More precise, longer range. Probably also adapted to whatever's off about the energy in this place.

I just happen to like walking.

[kobes]

You're being modest, which is weird.

[but -- koby does reach out, slipping through the signatures of energy that signify each guest, like sliding his fingers through sand, until he comes up holding the dark-red, shifting one that means the stranger. that unseen nudge nudge.]

Found you.

[snaggleteeth]

[the stranger smiles, and it's a vague brush of something in the energy. the psychic handshake is accepted, if that was the equivalent of a hand.]

I'm not. In my galaxy, I was one of the most powerful people you'd meet. Here, I'm average. It's not what I'm mad about.

[koby will feel it, when the stranger rocks his legs off the bed. his aura, its deep trench lava, starts to move. phone in one hand, the other in his pocket.]

What would you use your power for, if you had more of it?

[kobes]

[a very polite, brief, non-invasive handshake that retreats just far enough to observe the magma-esque aura as it shifts, moves.]

I see. That's interesting, that you're limited here.
I have moments or days or even weeks where my abilities don't work at all, but maybe I have more of them because they awoke here, in this world, instead of my own.

To help people. [immediate, prompt.]

[snaggleteeth]

I'm sure my limits remain the same. There's always a bigger animal, that's all.

That can't be so hard to believe. You've met the people here. 'Superheroes.' 'Gods.' Telepaths like nothing you've seen. Someone has to be average. Why not me?

[he doesn't love it. but there are worse things. he didn't attack the temple by himself, for reasons. being overmatched is merely a logistical reality. as is the fact that a little thing like koby would not have a mission to destroy a hostile order of hypocritical monks. the stranger can't pretend to be surprised, as he walks.]

How? What would that look like?

[kobes]

There are average people here, yes. But I don't think you're one of them.
It doesn't match what I've felt or seen of you.

[privately, koby doesn't think anyone is well and truly average in the house -- there's something, some wound or pain or power or burden that distinguishes them. even people who otherwise seem ordinary.]

Here, I mostly use it to feel if my friends are in trouble. I can check in on them from a distance, feel if they're injured or something's wrong.
I do a lot of running around, as I'm sure you've noticed, but I can't be everywhere all the time.
Except now I sort of can.

[snaggleteeth]

Your definition of 'average' has a very strong lean toward confidence and self-esteem, for someone who doesn't seem to have much of either.

[the stranger was concerned with math. but he doesn't mind the encouragement. he has a surfeit of confidence! it's a character flaw.]

Do you call for help, if they're injured or something's wrong? Run in yourself?

[kobes]

You should've seen me when I first got here. Much, much worse.
Also a lot of the confidence isn't entirely genuine -- the house tends to strip away our sense of propriety and it makes people much, much bolder.

Both, usually. I have some first aid experience.
And I killed a lot of the undead back at the beginning of the year. I'm not as helpless as I look.