July Open Prompts

[cannot_flinch]

WHO: Ikora & Ophiuchus & you!
WHERE: The Library/An open field
WHAT: Harassing a Ghost & Light practice.
WHEN: Various times.
WARNINGS: None at the moment.



Boo! You’re Haunted! - OTA

It was rare to see a ghost without their Guardian but for many years Ophiuchus had plenty of distance from Ikora. Not often physical but emotional, intellectual. That was why he felt perfectly fine on his own floating around outside the library.

Ikora was inside working on clearing another room. The debris seemed endless and since he couldn’t really transmat it somewhere else to make things faster Ophiuchus felt more useful out here alternating between scanning things and finding places where the building might need a few repairs.

He was very good at scouting the roof and hard to reach, high places. Inspecting them for structural damage felt a lot like being back home when they were helping to fix the Tower after the Red War. The problem with the roof though was the birds.

Well, one bird.

It was very similar to a parrot back home with feathers the color of the rainbow and when Ophiuchus floated by it took great offense squawking and flapping at him. It came after him, much to the ghosts great offense.

“Shoo! Shoo!” He had been forced into a small alcove, close to the ground while the bird perched above his hiding place occasionally leaning forward to try and peck at him. “I will zap you. Don’t think I won’t!”

Training - OTA

Ikora stood very still in the middle of a field outside the center of town. She was not in her usual purple robes, those had been folded and left for Ophiuchus to watch over while she trained.

It might seem like nothing was happening at first. It probably looked very strange just a woman standing in a field with her arms held out by her sides, head bowed forward while she took deep breaths.

Then the air began to smell slightly of ozone and if someone passed close enough, ignoring the Ghost warning them to stay back, they would feel the hair on their arms and the back of their neck stand on end.

There was a soft pop and a bolt of lightning raced across Ikora’s bare arm. Another pop, another bolt across her middle. She lifted her head as a sound like the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm began to emanate from around her and slowly she rose off the ground. Small bolts of lightning raced across her body and looked for ground in the earth beneath her feet giving her the distinct look of riding a disc of lightning.

She raised her hand above her head and the little bolts began to race up, away from ground, to her hand. For a minute, two, Ikora was the center of the storm…

She slammed her hand into the ground causing the lightning to discharge around her with a loud CRACK of thunder. She stopped floating. The smell of ozone faded. She swayed for a moment before dropping to a knee.

“Ikora!” Ophiuchus raced over to his Guardian, circling her anxiously. “You don’t have to push yourself. You can still command the Light. Save your strength for when it’s needed.”

Ikora ignored him. After collecting her breath and the dizziness passed she stood up. She took another deep breath and began the whole cycle again

Comments

[ezra_of_lothal]

The feeling of power surging while Ikora, to outward appearance, just stood and concentrated wasn't odd to Ezra.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to happen...but still the lightning surprised him, to his private chagrin. Just because throwing lightning was associated with the Sith where he's from, didn't mean anything, anywhere else. Thankfully, he's never actually seen it done, either, so his reaction if fleeting, rather than visceral enough to linger.

"That looks like a big energy expenditure," he calls from the side of the field, eventually. He's pretty sure he's missing part of the point, too.

[cannot_flinch]

"It shouldn't be." Ikora straightened and smiled slightly at Ezra. "But since I far from the Light it is more taxing."

Her theory was if she exercised her Light abilities and used them, it would forge a stronger bond with the Light even at a distance. It was there. She simply needed to get better at reaching for it.

"And Arc has its own challenges when it comes to controlling the energy." She was the calm in a storm. The anchor point for chaos. It was a different challenge from the Void or Solar.

[ezra_of_lothal]

"If a Jedi were to say they were far from the Light, it'd probably be an internal thing, about their own emotions and choices," Ezra says with a head tilt.

"Somehow I don't think that's what you mean."

[cannot_flinch]

"The Light is more a connection with the Traveler than a flowing energy like the Force," she explains patiently. "A Guardian's ghost makes that connection. Ophiuchus and I can hear the Traveler but it's a very faint whisper instead of a roar."

But if they could strengthen that connection, continue to reinforce it and make it a roar then they would be better suited to protecting this place and investigating its mysteries.

"I am not used to such quiet."

boo!

[seeingscarlet]

Wanda still finds joy in flight even though no one she used to share it with is still here. And fortunately for Ophiucus, she just so happens to be in the area and taking a moment to land on the library's roof. She can't see the voice's owner or sense anyone at all, but that bird is definitely pecking at something.

"Hey!" she shouts, waving her arms and finally managing to spook the bird into giving Ophiucus some room. "Shoo!" She takes a few mock-menacing steps forward and finally it flies away. Leaving...a weird little spiky cube? It looks kind of like Sundance. "Are you all right?"

[cannot_flinch]

Ophiuchus breathes a sigh of relief as the bird flies away. He floats out of his hiding place, shell spinning idly. Definitely a more relaxed ghost now. "Yes, thank you. The beak wouldn't hurt me but being harassed is frustrating."

It would certainly ruin his day to have a bird following him around pecking at him until he was chased away.

"How did you get up here?" he asks, cocking himself to one side like a human head tilt. "There's no way up onto the roof for a person."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra winces. "I'm sorry. Feeling like my connection to the Force was muffled for that month we were in Billy's spell was pretty hard."

Of course, now he has more questions. "The Traveler is...a distinct entity?"

[seeingscarlet]

She can't help but be even more strongly reminded on Sundance from the way his shell spins. She's the only Ghost Wanda's ever met, so she has no way to know what any others would look like.

She shrugs in response to his question. "I flew. I go for flights for fun, or when I need to think."

[cannot_flinch]

"You can fly?" Ophiuchus made a quick circle around her looking for either some form of wings or engine to make her fly.

While his world had people capable of many incredible feats none of them could fly without wings. And even Warlocks really only glided. They didn't exactly fly.

He didn't see anything about her that would make him think she could fly. There were a few odd energy readings around her but many people here had that. She looked like a person to him.

[cannot_flinch]

Ophiuchus projected an image of the Traveler which looked simply like a white cracked sphere hanging in the sky. Almost like... a Death Star.

"The Traveler is an entity. A paracasual being that brought about humanity's Golden Age in my universe." If Ikora had been alive then she had no memories of it. Guardians rarely remembered their lives before Resurrection and it was taboo to search it out.

"It created the Ghosts who connect us to the Light it produces." Ikora could just barely feel that connection now.

[seeingscarlet]

"Something like that." Some energy readings about her might feel similar to a chaos-attuned Voidlock, but whatever she has clearly doesn't stem from the gift of Light. Although the wispy red energy Wanda summons to hoist herself aloft a few feet certainly looks Void-like.

She floats in the air just as easily as he does for a long moment, then releases it. "I'm Wanda."

[cannot_flinch]

The energy around her spiked in all sort of interesting ways as she lifted off the ground. Ophiuchus' shell spun faster as he took readings. Like many things the ghost had encountered here it was similar but not the same.

"Hello, Wanda. I'm Ophiuchus. From the Earth with the Traveler and Guardians." Because there were multiple realities here from Earth. He wanted to be specific. "It's the same reality as Cayde-6 and Sundance if you are familiar with them."

Cayde had been here a long time so he expected most people would be familiar with him and his ghost.

[seeingscarlet]

"Yes, I know them. Are you also a Ghost?" She doesn't think it's terribly odd to see an unaccompanied Ghost - Cayde had been here for a long time without Sundance, and when Sundance had finally arrived it wasn't as if she'd just popped into this reality at his side. "I am from a different Earth, but also a long time in the past for you."

[cannot_flinch]

"I am." He nodded. "My Guardian is Ikora Rey. She's inside the library. I was scouting for her."

They were fairly independent of each other. Ikora would often do things without her ghost by her side. Yet, he wasn't very far from her if there was trouble.

"Pre-Golden Age. Most humans here from Earth are from a distant past very similar to ours." He had figured that out with Ikora. The Earths were all very similar but there were very slight changes. And none were as advanced as theirs. "What year is it in your Earth?"

[seeingscarlet]

That name sounds kind of familiar. Has Cayde mentioned her? Maybe. But he's thrown around a lot of terms and names that she hasn't been familiar with, so it's hard to be sure.

"It was 2016 when I was taken. Our world has fought an alien invasion already, but we have nothing like your Traveler."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Fortunately, Ezra hasn't seen or felt the full horror of the Death Star in action, just some of the plans and the kybers being collected. The connection doesn't even occur to him. He simply continues to be openly curious.

"What's paracasual mean?"

[cannot_flinch]

It's possible. Ikora and Cayde have worked closely together for hundreds of years. They are part of the same fireteam.

"What kind of aliens?" Ophiuchus was very curious what sort of alien races existed in other realities. Was her world threatened by the Hive as well? Did they even know what the Hive were?

It was important to collect as much data as possible. If they ever visited these realities he wanted to be prepared.

[cannot_flinch]

"Paracausality is a category used to refer to abilities, events or entities which seem to violate causality, the principle that all effects must have a preceding cause. It is also commonly referred to as magic." Ikora said with a little smile and a tilt of her head.

The Force could be paracasual though Ikora hadn't seen much evidence of it having the same effects as the Light. They were both certainly magical but Ikora had only seen them move objects and fight, nothing that was like the Light breaking reality and overcoming death.

"It is not tied to reality and the laws of physics like everything else in the world. Neither are Guardians."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra contemplates that for a moment.

"Time travel is possible with the Force," he says slowly. "Changing fates. But - I couldn't say my first master because the way he died saved me. I mean, I'm not sure what would have happened if I tried, but I'm pretty sure it would have been bad."

[cannot_flinch]

Ikora wouldn't say anything about Osiris. Their relationship wasn't one of self-sacrifice. To her it felt like it would sully the memory Ezra shared of his first master. And Guardians sacrificed themselves regularly. It held little to no sway in the world where they were functionally immortal.

"There are other beings in our world with paracausal abilities that can time travel. They frequently manipulate timelines. We have not found a way to safely and reliably do so." Ikora gently put a hand on Ezra's shoulder and squeezed softly.

"I am sorry. He seemed like a very noble man."