What's a God to a non-believer?

[houmaprotector]

There are some parts of the woods, especially lately, that have been overgrown and - to be frank - dangerous. When certain people have gone deep into the woods, to some of the more serious hiking paths, they've found them overgrown with crazy plants and vines. The entire place has repelled people and Alec hasn't been seen.

He's been thinking. Thinking about Metropolis, thinking about how he almost killed people. Thinking about how he probably did. Then thinking about that mugger and that...that hero doing their job.

He was a monster. He is a monster and the green of his world is far more encouraging in those pursuits. The Avatar needs no one.

It's the Nexus's green, it's web of life, that's intervened, bringing him out of his impassible woods and trails, pulling him towards civilization. Inch by inch. Mile by mile. It'd be hard to see him however, he's keeping to the shadows. Hiding in the woods nearest to those concerned before an unnatural, inhuman voice speaks.

"What keeps you human when you don't have to be?"

Superman gave him an answer, but it's far easier for him. He can be normal.

He has control.

Trying to get at him is pretty impossible, currently. There's a massive tangle of vines and creepers and trees. He could be anywhere. Be any one of them. Tread cautiously.

He is a monster after all.

Comments

[grantuseyes]

Micolash likes to tread out into the Wilds at times, usually with specimen jars or satchels on hand. Collecting herbs and plant cuttings for study usually, or sometimes looking for fodder for science projects. (Or dissection. Sometimes science has to happen at the end of a scalpel.) While he usually comes armed with means of gathering, rarely does he think to dress appropriately. So here he comes, tromping through the mud and underbrush, towering cage on his shoulders and his pinstripe pants and untied shoes already soaked and caked with mud. He hardly seems to mind, though. He's humming to himself as he keeps wandering and peering about for anything he'd qualify as a specimen.

It's not long before Micolash's exploring brings him nearer to the shadows, his interest having been caught by some remarkable mushrooms growing on some of those trees! He's only just starting to get close enough to examine them before the voice speaks up. It catches him off-guard, understandably so, and the scholar jolts and giggles in nervous reflex. Now straightened back up, his eyes dart back and forth behind his cage's iron bars, looking for the source or speaker, should there be one. (Voices from seemingly nowhere isn't uncommon, after all.) Only several seconds later does the actual question register and considering makes the man gradually start to frown. The expression is still distantly nonplussed, but he takes to all of this in relative stride regardless.

"Misfortune? Squandered opportunities? Simple rotten luck?" Micolash sighs in discouragement. "It is not so for lack of trying, however."

[houmaprotector]

Something in that response reminds him of woodrue, his former student turned colleague turned enemy. He would have loved to have been chosen to be avatar. Selected. Molded apparently, as Alec was, from birth.

Around the man, but coming from the shadows nearest to him, is that same voice.

"You want to rise above your beginnings?"

There's an echo and more voices,or is it one? Its hard to tell.

"Creatures of the red want so much...for so very little. Fascinating."

[grantuseyes]

"There is nothing we want more," Micolash answers without hesitation, his usual dreamy and halting speech taking on a firmer edge. One of conviction. Certainty. "To be left to malinger in the profane Waking? To be caged by demanding, mortal flesh? Once one has. Seen the mortal plane for what it is, and what it is not, how can one not resent being human? To be nearer to beasthood than greatness?"

Micolash straightens his back and looks forward regardless of the uncertainty of the voice's direction, nor the voice's owner. His pale eyes, however, continue to rove, rolling in their sockets continually in search of the same.

"So. Little?" he repeats, his brow furrowing slightly. Uncertain if he should be confused or offended. "You think me to not have made...valiant efforts? Endless searching? Litanies of prayer, dauntless research, tremendous costs, vast sacrifice... I have given...everything to find our ascension. No mere pound of flesh; more an ocean of blood."

[houmaprotector]

Hmmn.

For once Alec agrees with the parliament. Such a shallow effort to search for ascent. Desperate creatures reaching for godhood and-

this is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

Giving into godhood. He's seen what great power can do unchecked.

"It's not what you think it is or could be. There is simplicity in being human. Lesser beings then you yearn for it."

His predecessor battled a barren wasteland clinging to his corpse, a twisted reminder of humanity.

Alec straightens and vines climb up the trees, spikes turning his hiding place into a fortress.

[grantuseyes]

Micolash still doesn't know the one he's addressing, nor their nature, but the reply causes a small, scandalized 'ohh!' sound to slip from him. He takes a step forward, closer to that twisted copse of trees, addressing it as it's good as anything at this moment. There's still mud underfoot and one shoe slips a short ways to the side before he recovers and plants it firmer with a squelch. His voice comes now without the pauses and hitches, but the droned emphases only deepen.

"Do not presume I am some. Uninitiated schoolboy; some naive daydreamer! We have bore witness to Great Ones lovingly planting eyes upon the brain of a human and thusly lift her to the same lofty plane as They. We have taken a thousand mirror shards to cut open the womb of the cosmos to withdraw and cradle a celestial child in our own two hands. We have seen the stars and the lakewater alike withdraw as curtains to reveal the higher planes. We have learned words of Their wordless language and seared their meaning into the very meat of our brain. We have invited in the Augurs of Forgotten Ebrietas to make Her flesh our own.”

Increasingly passionate, the caged scholar clenches both his bony hands into fists in front of him. His ramblings have now dropped to a hissing whisper. “We have been Host of the Nightmare; we have shed our vile flesh once before and taken new form; one of mist and festering eyes. We have been the surrogate of Mergo, the murdered godchild of the doomed Pthumerian queen. We have been so near to greatness that we still remember the moonlit scent of it. Daren't presume I know not the precise nature of what it is I crave when I have done and become so MUCH in the pursuit.”

[houmaprotector]

Do you sense it Alec Holland? Do you sense the Rot?! Defend us! There is darkness here! Rise up, raise the green to defend us before it runs to our home and poisons our roots!

The plants burst into flowering bloom around him and Alec is grateful for this green, the nexus's green, being so willing to keep him under control. In moments like this Alec Holland ceases to be. This green says calm. calm.

Rise up Alec Holland! Your parliament needs you!

Do nothing. You are safe here Alec Holland. We are with you. This is still, despite any rot, a man.

He is our avatar. Refuse this gift at your peril Holland. You were allowed to wander here by mistake

"If you have done such a thing then you deserve Death. Explain why I should not, foul rotted thing. You have sold your soul to the black."

Two vines emerge from the ground, small, ready, waiting.

Yes! Rise up avatar! Kill the foul black thing! Take this green!

[grantuseyes]

Micolash totters on his feet as a sickly smile spreads across his features. A sane being with sense somewhere inside them would see this display and realize the severity, or at least the strength, of what he converses with. But sense and sanity has long since granulated like sand and blown away, or sifted down into the cracks, forgotten. And while Alec's own links to greater beyonds whisper to him, another flares awake in turn. An eye, one buried somewhere in fleshy mass that one does not belong, opens

(godkind godking kin of cosmos seek the paleblood fear the oldblood green and growing amygdala-borne moon presence-wrought harry the roots burn the leaves seek it SEEK it)

its lids to swivel a rot-black eye sightlessly inside his skull. The Swamp Thing and his Parliament may have used the term in metaphor, but there is a wave of virulent wrongness, a sense of misintent, a curdling in the air that somehow brings to mind the smell of rotting meat. Micolash did not bid this eye open, but it doing so only makes him swoon and grin, arms moving languidly as though in trance; spreading out wide as though in invitation.

"Death has touched me once. Twice. Countless times in tenure to the Nightmare. I cannot, must not die until my purpose is realized. I was meant for it! I was destined for it. Be you kin of Flora, be you kin of Amygadala, know that we are the same! Transformed by greater knowledge, reshaped by higher purpose."

[houmaprotector]

He is a good man. A good man. He can't kill him. He can't - It's not something that he can do...can he? Can he even battle him here?

How can our avatar be so afraid? Too afraid to even do their duty in front of such a creature? A true creature of darkness?

"...Higher purpose." Yes.

His vision goes green, bright natural green and the Nexus's flora and fauna releases it's grip and Alec...

Thick brown green roots pop out of the ground, covering themselves with slowly growing spikes. He dissolves his body, fading away in a late summer breeze. The vines wriggle, twisting and inching slowly, slowly towards the rot black eye before a second vine bursts out of the ground and a third, these far bigger then any other vine.

Three more vines pulled their way up the two largest trunks, shifting and tracing their way to the top of the grass. The roots tangle and shift to form - a face. Alec's face, hanging from the trees like some sort of demented spider.

The vines lash, "Shaped by higher purpose to beat creatures like yourself. Flee now Being of the rot."

[grantuseyes]

Micolash watches agog as the vines and flora reshape and shift, marveling at the display. Again, a sensible person would step away from the mysterious plantlife and its actions, but the Mensis scholar instead takes a step closer. Done not in defiance or intimidation, but drawing nearer to something he openly marvels at.

“Majestic,” he whispers, pale eyes wide. “Marvelous!” he says, now at a more conversational tone, his face gone slack in amazement now breaking into a wide smile. He laughs, giddy, clapping like an excited child. Whatever Alec had said in warning apparently was not heeded or absorbed in the least; Micolash is too caught up in wonder at such a verdant display of powers unknowable. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I have seen so much! Speak unto me, kin or Great One! How have you become as such? Who has made you this way? I must know!”