sixthiterationlogs | At first disguised by hollow warmth

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At first disguised by hollow warmth

WHO: Bobo Del Rey
WHERE: North Village
WHEN: Middle of January
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Will update as needed

Words echo in Bobo's head. Things that Willa said to him, that Vasquez has said, Bull, Wynonna, voices he hasn't heard in over a century. It's easy to ignore those words in your head when you're busy keeping nearly a hundred revenants from getting out of control and killing everyone in the Ghost River Triangle. It's another trying to quiet them when you're in a place where you're seen as a peer and a friend and not merely some hellspawn to be killed to break a curse.

Which only makes it that much harder.

Having spent so much time in the south village, Bobo decided to give a week to getting things ready where he lives in hopes that if winter descends, they'll all make it.

So he spends more time working on converting the police station into a barn for the kirin, chickens and whatever else the cowboys decide to bring home. Clearing out much of the walls that aren't load bearing, and even tearing up the floor in parts of it, to use making a pen to one end for the chick where they can be held and have ground to scratch at.

He takes time seeing that the forge is in working order, hoping to find and mine enough to fashion horse shoes for the kirin. They were keeping their hooves trimmed back, but shoes would make things better for them, to see to them a they grow and may one day become mounts for them.

Most afternoons he can be found on the front porch of their house by the forge, his lap covered in a piece of hide from something he first killed and cured, and working to use one rock to shear bits from another rock. The ledge of the porch rail is lined with his experiments, dangerously sharp arrowheads and larger "blades" that didn't go quite right but show progress in knapping the stone just right into a blade. His hands too show the work, cuts in various degrees of healing marking his knuckles and palms.

It's sitting on that porch that he's approached, in a way, one day by a creature he well knows. A moose that meanders through the "front yard", pausing to sniff at this or that as is makes its way through the village. It's a familiar enough sight to Purgatory, especially back when Robert Svane made a homestead so far North, that Bobo finds himself nearly giggling, then laughing until he has to set aside the things he's working on, digging the heels of his hands against his eyes and staunching tears that he would swear had everything to do with the laughter and nothing else.

All around the house he's chosen show signs of the things he's working on, from boards with pelts stretched over them, to sinew drawn tight between sticks and drying, and several long staff looking saplings in various degrees of drying that he plans to eventually split for bows. So much of it is trial and error, being aware of the basics of how to assemble and make all of it, but also having been a being a fucking mouse in velvet and glasses. The practical experience isn't there, even if the knowledge is, and Bobo is playing off all of it to try and ensure that he and the roommates, those he also considers his people, can make it in this place and thrive.

All the while trying to ignore the voices in his head, the things that others have said to him, and that voice that he barely recognizes from a man that gave up his life for a town that condemned him for a eternity, not yet realizing how soon that forever existence might end.

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"What? Why would you call your mother such a word?" Thor asks, face contorted in confusion. He cannot wrap his mind around tossing such a phrase around so casually, without thinking of who it could insult. Mention of his mother, however, softens some of the toughness he's called forth, and he can't help but nod in agreement. "She was the best mother I could've ever asked for, truly."

Hands on his hips, he snorts and shakes his head.

"Volunteered? To lose my powers and be all — weak and floppy and vulnerable like a mortal?" he asks, wiggling his arms out at his sides haphazardly, like a weird jelly man. "No, I wouldn't have willingly sacrificed all of that to be here." He glances up towards the skies, wondering if Heimdall's been able to find him yet. "The last time I lost my powers was when my father banished me to Midgard, to teach me a lesson. Truthfully, I deserved it." He looks back to Bobo, all traces of previous insult and anger vaporized. "But this time — I can't see why I would've deserved the same fate."

It shouldn't be amusing, but the man's confusion is utterly sweet and fairly darling if Bobo is honest. It's been such a part of modern vernacular for so long that he doesn't consider cultures where it might cause so much upset.

"As I said, I'm sure your mom is. Not everyone can say that, but mu apologies," he manages, grinning a bit, but really not trying to disrespect, even if he's more than amused by the reaction to the turn of phrase.

"It's that or imagine what kind of power could capture a god and bring him here," Bobo points out, shrugging. "I would be offended by the way, if I was a weak and floppy human." Or was before this place, which he wasn't. "Though since you're talking about yourself now too, all good," he says, chuckling at the man before him dancing in that way.

"It's never our choice why our parents think we deserve it. Maybe he thinks you did, though that oesn't explain the rest of us," he points out.

"It brought my brother here, too," Thor explains after a brief hesitation, like he had to let the sentence sit at the tip of his tongue for a moment before deciding to expel it. "If you see a greasy, long-haired man sneaking in the shadows, sulking, and rolling his eyes into the back of his head, that's probably him. He dresses like a witch, but not a cool, hip witch, but like a wannabe witch." Anyway .. "So the question is really what sort of power could capture two gods and bring them both here."

It's a question with which he's been grappling since he'd first woken up in that stupid tube.

"And it wouldn't have been our father, anyway .. whoever brought us here. He — he died, not long before I arrived here."

"It... Huh." He considers that, not even sure what to make of it. He's thought it odd it could do the things to him that it is, has changed it like it has. Things that he had never thought could ever happen, and still isn't sure how they had. Gods though? Honestly? Who even could be behind something like that?

"Exactly. Not a comforting thought either." Not in the least. It's downright worrisome.

"Wait, your father... Who kills a god? What can kill a god?" He's not read enough mythology but he didn't think that was actually something that happened.

"I know," Thor agrees with a huff and shake of his head, his tone commiserating and defeated. "All of this —" he gestures around him in a vaguely circular motion, "— I've been trying to understand it, and I'm afraid I'm no closer now than I was when I first arrived. Even my friends who knew me when I was still the God of Thunder and Lightning do not understand how it is that me and my brother were brought here."

Thor's been grappling with a lot of other personal issues, namely who he is without Mjolnir and his powers. He doesn't feel like he's got a right to claim to be anything, let alone a once-god. He's nothing more than a mortal man now, and it's been weighing down on him quite a bit. It hasn't left a lot of time for him to think about what kind of power could've brought two Aesir to the village.

"Oh, we can kill each other," he explains with a shrug. "But we Aesir die eventually, just at a much slower rate than humans. My father was well over 4,000 years old when he ascended to Valhalla." A pause. "Maybe older than that? Maybe he was like, 7,000 years old? I don't know, I never really kept track. You have that many birthdays, and you eventually stop counting."

Bobo considers that, all of it. Thor and Loki being there, gods dying, and the words that Thor has said, and that makes him frown more.

"Well, I mean, if you can kill one another, then wouldn't it stand to reason that if one of you wanted to contain another, you could? Such as being able to banish one or two of you to another place? Like this," he says, gesturing around them with the sweep of one hand.

"If you can be killed by them, why not this?"

"My father did that with me, a number of years ago," Thor agrees with a slight nod. "I was stupid and hammer-happy and all of that. I directly disobeyed him because I thought I knew better, and as punishment, he took Mjolnir away from me and banished me to Earth without my powers." It seems like a lifetime ago. "But he was the Allfather, the most powerful of us Aesir. I don't know who could —"

Unless .. his sister. His father said that she drew her power from Asgard, and that the longer she stayed there, the more powerful she became.

Could she have been the one to have banished he and Loki here? It would stand to reason that she would if she'd had the power to. Get rid of her sibling competition, become supreme ruler over Asgard and their people, lead them into Ragnarok. It's a worrisome thought, and one that he tucks away to discuss with his brother at a later date.

"I don't suppose I'll ever really know, will I? Who it was who might've banished us? Not as long as I'm here, anyway."

"That's some tough love there," he says, nose wrinkling. And it really spoke of strict parenting, though Bobo supposes that's what comes from having kids that are gods, maybe.

Not that it solves the true problem about this place, or how it came to be. Not even likely to help them in finding a way out of there.

"I guess you're right. Though not like it would answer a lot. Might explain you being here, but not the rest of us."

"That — is true, yes. I doubt Odin would've wanted to punish everyone here for one thing or another." Even if it was by Hela's hand that he and Loki were sent here, she wouldn't have been able to send all of the others, too. He points vaguely in Bobo's direction as he has something like an idea.

"Unless we are all sent here by someone more powerful than we are in order to do so? To punish us?"

"A few think they're here for punishment. Other think they're dead, or they are dead. I doubt most of them have even been blips on the radar for any god," he says, figuring he never had been and only would be with conversations like this one. "But I think punishment tends to hold the reigning theory. I've been through worse punishments though."

This place was, for him, pretty therapeutic. "Unless this is more insidious."

"It would stand to be the most logical explanation, if there's any to be had," Thor mutters, half to himself and half to Bobo. But his last comment draws Thor's full attention, and his brows furrow together in concern. "In what way?"

He shrugs, not even sure if any of it makes sense, though he's put some thought into it. "There's a lot of theories, but if we're really us and we're not clones or replicants I think is what someone called it, but I've found this place more helpful than harmful."

And he can't be the only one though he's not spoken to many about it.

"Wouldn't that be a good thing? If this place was more helpful than harmful?" Thor asks, brows knitted together, eyes slightly squinted. "Unless you think there are ulterior motives involved? That they are being helpful or benevolent to us so that we put our guards down for something nefarious to come?"

"Everything has ulterior motives," he says with a snort. "And it's good for me but not for most. A lot have been ripped from homes and families, and at best it isn't real, but at worse, they're fucking up a lot of lives."

At best they're all clones so they really haven't lost anything but for Bobo it doesn't matter either way.

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At first disguised by hollow warmth

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