Summary:Hod has another favor to ask of Jean. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The brand is gone. That's the important part. It was awkward, and Jean still isn't sure it was worth everything that went on and is apparently in danger of happening in the future, but the brand is gone. Which means Jean can spend a minute focusing on studying for her finals coming in the next two weeks. Graduation is coming.
Currently, she's sitting on her bed in her dorm room, taking notes on a textbook with headphones on blaring Queen. "Don't stop me nooooooow!" Luckily for Hod, he can't see her attempts at dancing.
But he can hear the music. Which is … well, it's not /so/ bad. Not like what her neighbor is listening to anyway. "Hey Good Time!" he calls through her door, "You wanna stop listening to music that died when your parents were boinking and answer your door, or leave me standing out here looking like the old creeper in a bad movie?" Now, to get this loud enough she can hear on her headphones, he /does/ have to shout it. So, it's more - "HEY GOOD TIME! YOU WANN-" yeah. Like that.
Jean pauses at the pounding, pulling down her headphones and stepping to the door to hold it open with an arch of her brow. "First of all, you look like an old creeper regardless," she says with a smirk. "That's just part of your nature. I'd think you'd be used to that by now. Second of all, you could invest in a cell phone, you know." She steps to the side then, opening the door all the way. "Come on in, roommate's studying at the library."
Hod shrugs his shoulders, "How would I know what I look like?" he asks pointedly, "My place doesn't have a single mirror in it," he waves a hand in front of his face, "or painting, photo, or lightbulb." because duh. "I pay a guy, he cuts my hair, trims the beard, which is apparently popular again. I don't get the fashions, I just know that with what I pay, I better look good." which isn't entirely /untrue/. He would be a big hit with the right people. People into hipstery bearded guys with obvious money and a monochromatic fashion sense going into middle age. He could clean up the divorce' market like a hurricane. He's not unattractive, just hard around the edges, makes him a smidgen unapproachable. Maybe more then a smidgen. He steps inside, "A cell phone. Right. Because what I need is /another/ way for people to be able to track me around the world. Besides, at some point you just know some nerd is gonna wonder how my cell phone keeps pinging off multiple continents all within hours of one another while they're cleaning out the database. No thank you. If I wanna talk to someone, I talk to someone. Like people are supposed to do. Phones are for the rude and inconsiderate." because he's just so full of hugs and sensitivity, "Hey! Look at you!" the irony is lost on him given his previous statement, "You're all demarked! Good for you kid."
"Fresh and clean," Jean agrees, smile wry. "Although Zee didn't mention until after it was done that it put a target on her for removing it, so, you know. Not getting her blasted by some god is also at the top of my list of things to do. Aside from the fact that she's a friend and she did me a favor, I'm pretty sure Scott would be crushed, so." She shakes a hand through her hair, pausing her music and setting the headphones aside. "So. What's the news then?"
Hod nods his head, "All magic has a price." he intones in the same manner people say 'water is wet', as if it were just DUH made manifest. "Yeah, about that. I need your help. I think I've narrowed down my pool of suspects and I didn't even have to impliment my suicidal crazy plan of certain death that I had begun to dream up. So there's that. But I need more help, more eyes - ha ha ha - on the look out for someone. Someone I have seen, but can't explain to other people."
"Not having to do something suicidal is always a plus," Jean nods, setting things aside and taking a seat on the edge of her bed. "So…you need me to take the image of the person from your head so that it can be shared around?" she asks. "I can do that."
Hod raises his hand in the air and waffles it side to side before patting about with the same hand, finding the wall, and leaning against it, "I need you to take the image from my head, then somehow transfer that to an image I can show other people. Like a photo or a drawing or something. Can you do /that/?"
"Um…" Jean grimaces, rubbing a hand at the back of her neck. "I'm not a great artist. But I can transfer it from you to me to an artist, who can draw it. I think Piotr's pretty good with that. How soon do you need it?" She's thinking it over already. The school's not too far away, Piotr's mind is familiar. She can transfer it from here, he could email a copy of it back…
Hod nods his head, "That's fine, assuming you know a good artist, that'll work. I honestly don't know how to do it. This … this is a weird situation. Usually my visions have something I can identify in them." yeah, he said visions. So what? "This is just things I lack the words to properly express." he shrugs, "Fortunately, I found a girl who can-" he waves a hand in her general direction, "and she doesn't hate me! So you know, things are coming up Hodr these days." he offers a big fake grin and a thumbs up sign, "Okay, so how's this work?"
"First, you sit down." Jean stands up long enough to guide Hod over to the edge of the bed. "Because your brain is weird and I don't know how this is going to go, so. Better safe than sorry. Then I want you to think about what you need me to see. Picture it in your mind. As many details as you can. Take that picture and hold it in the front of your mind." She waits a moment, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, and reaches over. "Now I'm going to put my hands on your head, because contact makes it easier. And then I'm just going to take a peek…"
Hod goes where he's lead and takes a seat, where he fidgits for a moment, first squirming to get comfy, then straightening his vest a bit, then brushing his hair back from his face, then pushing his glasses back up firmly, then just with his hands, toying with the cane in front of him. Nervousness comes off of him in waves. Ones you could surf. "So." he says after a minute, "This is the part of the whole thing I'm not thrilled about. There's some… some stuff in there. Some things. Things that no one should see, so to speak. And then there's some things mortals aren't often built to know. I'm the Aesir of Hidden Things, paths mostly, but the word's definition in English is…" he makes a face, "nebulous. Flexible. There might be some temptation to uh, wander, or look around. Try to curtail that if you can. I don't wanna insult you or anything, frankly you might be just fine. But you also might not. I'd rather you not go mad on my account. I only have like 2/3's of a friend and you're most of that. So. Careful." he ends lamely before taking a deep breath and summoning the image in his mind.
It's really not that hard, his mind isn't like others, for starters, there are almost no images. Or rather there are, but so /few/. Every one of them is vivid and crystal clear, sharper then sharp, preternaturally emblazoned in his thoughts so they can never be forgotten. That's part of being a Seer. Usually though, you have all the rest of the sights of your life that fill up space, add cusioning to the vision's images. Hod does not. He's only ever seen visions or shadows, and so calling this one forward is easy, and also difficult for him. And for Jean, beyond the images in question, there's the temptation of all that dark empty space, so lacking in physical vision laden information but /crowded/ with sounds and smells and feelings. The void stretches, so empty and so full at the same time, almost bekoning, whispering in a thousand languages of all the secrets that wait within, if only she'd step off the path and wander a bit.
A red headed man with a receding hairline descending down a set of stone stairs into a room full of statuary before taking a knife and cutting his hand to bleed on a pentagram on the floor which then lights up. The place is the same place Hod took Jean, where Thoth marked them, but different, clearly a different time then when they were there.
"Don't worry," Jean smiles faintly. "I'm very aware of my limits here. I won't go wandering." She takes a deep breath, sets her fingertips against his temples, closes her eyes…And there's a brush against his mind. It's exceedingly gentle, as Jean tests first for any instinctive resistances to things like this. The minds of gods and all that. No need to go blazing in. If Hod can feel anything of her pressing against his mind, it's a gentle warmth, like flames. But there are shadows there, too. As if something is blocking the full force of those flames, keeping them from turning into a wildfire. And in the background as well, a faint, golden line of connection, anchoring her in place.
« Focus. » The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at once, but it's unmistakeably Jean. "Just…hold that image…"
Where Jean is light and fire Hod is darkness and frigid ice, and while something keeps her fire at bay, there's something in him to, not his mind persay, but something sharing space with him that keeps him seperated from the god he once was as well. Familiar feelings, but not, all at once.
Hod doesn't react to a voice in his head, on the scale of weird shit in his life, it's ranking solidly near 'they invented bread thats presliced' as a shocker. What? Did everyone just misplace their bread knives in 1928? He never understood that. Still, he does as he's told, focusing on the vision, looping it for her so she can see it over and over and over again, as he has, and so she can… um… make brain photos? He has no idea what she's doing. So she can do that she do. There.
Brain photos is pretty accurate, actually. Jean runs the images through her mind again and again, at a pace that outruns the time the vision actually takes. Funny how direct brain to brain work cuts out time like that. She studies it from every possible angle, storing away the details until she can play it back again, side by side, and keep everything matching.
"Okay," she says quietly, carefully withdrawing from the darkness. "Now you just give me a minute to send it to a friend, and give him a minute to do what he does, and then we'll get the image done."
Hod's face scrunches up a bit beneath his beard and he reaches up to rub at a temple, "So. That was weird." he says, but he doesn't seem bothered by it so much as just surprised. "Thought it'd be more like a doctors visit, lots of poking, proding, asking questions that would be wholly inappropriate in public, that sort of thing."
"Nope," Jean chuckles, smile crooked. "Yeah. Part of the reason people are so uncomfortable with psychic abilities. If you're good at it - and honestly, I'm really not that much yet - you can do a lot and people will never know you did. Which is also why ethics is a big part of it, so. You have my full permission to knock me the hell out if I ever seem to be going too far over that line. Please."
Hod shrugs at her, "Hey, your wheelhouse, your rules. I don't pretend to understand what you do, anymore then I'm sure you can understand the ways of winter, which to me are just…" he holds out a hand as if he were gripping something in his fingers, "You want me to knock you out, sure thing. In return, is I ever seem to be going to far over the line with magic stuff, don't ever hit me. Just fear and worship me in the manner befitting a god of my awesome might and power, groveling and maybe the sacrifice of a double whopper wouldn't be amiss." he says this with a completely straight face.
"Double whoppers it is," Jean laughs with a roll of her eyes, standing up and taking his hand to pull him up as well. "Now on your way, mister god of hidden things. I've got a final to study for. I'll set a double whopper in the janitor's closet when I've got your picture. That's how you summon a Hod, right?"
Hod shrugs, "Depends honestly. This is a place of learning, so the janitor's closet isn't the best place. Library is where the Path comes out here, though honestly it's not a solid walk anymore, lot of it's bits are broken and falling apart. New Path is opening up, ends in the financial office. Frankly, wonder what that says about the modern educational system." his brows arch over his glasses as he stands. He plucks up his cane and begins swinging it, heading for the door, "You can also speak my name into darkness, but it has to be actual darkness, dim rooms don't so much do it anymore like they used to." which is to say, a DARK room. Like, where there are no sources of light readily available. He says all of this also in a matter of fact tone, so maybe he's kidding about this too? Maybe?
"All right. Dark room. Double whoppers. Yeah. Now you don't sound like a creeper, old man," Jean smirks, turning him toward the door and opening it. "Go. Hide from…something or other. I'll let you know when I've got your picture."
Hod snorts, "Dark rooms and hiding have let me survive as a blind guy for over two and a half millenia, don't knock it till you have to avoid being stabbed to death by an angry crowd with pitchforks and torches kid. See you around." and then he's walking down the hall, pointedly ignoring, or not noticing, any looks he gets as he does.