(no subject)

[tryingitall]

Who: Balthazar (or Mirror!Balthazar), and OPEN
Where: the gardens
When: Wednesday-ish
Rating: PG-13-ish?
Summary: Balthazar is just having a nice little booze picnic. The Mirror version is looking for information.



Armed with a blanket from his room, a cooler of beer and bourbon, and a set of sidewalk chalk he retrieved from his closet, Balthazar has found a place to settle, amidst the garden he first stumbled through when he arrived. Now he's in a better state to appreciate the beauty. They may all be in a prison, but at least it's a pretty prison, and well-stocked with comforts.

Anyone who comes upon him will be offered a drink, of course. The later in the day he's found, the more elaborate will be the chalk design he's sketching onto the brick path. It's not recognizable as any specific person or item, just a tangle of color and repeating patterns. Maybe it means something to him.





Leviazar is not interested in alcohol, except as a tool to lubricate social interactions and get others' guards down. He's even less interested in chalk art. Today, he's stayed inside, despite having seen his real depart for the open air. There are other people to watch, on both sides of the mirrors. But a close observer on the realside may catch him tracing Enochian sigils in steamed-up glass, with the tip of one finger.

Comments

for Bal

[ex_alighthouse135]

A shadow falls over one of the sketches. When Balthazar looks behind him, there's a young woman looking over his shoulder. She smiles as she takes a look at the artwork. It may not be anything definable to her eyes, but the combination of colors is very nice.

"That's very pretty."

[tryingitall]

He glances up as the shadow appears, distracted out of his work. Not that he minds; particularly when the distraction is a pretty young woman. "Thank you! It's just a doodle, really. You can join me, if you like."

[ex_alighthouse135]

"Thank you."

Elizabeth crouches down next to an empty space and reaches for a piece of blue chalk. "I like to draw or paint sometimes. It's a nice way to distracting yourself from your troubles. Or just a way to kill time."

[tryingitall]

"Do you? I'm not actually any good at art, but I'm an appreciative observer. Do you have a sketchbook or anything?" He's wrapping up the tail end of a zigzag pattern in shades of green, and sits up, dusting his hands off on the edge of the picnic blanket.

"I have cold beer, as well, if you're thirsty. And about a fifth of bourbon left, but I'm not sure how refreshing that would be."

for Leviazar of course c:

[illbeeatingyou]

Ever since Dick introduced himself, secretly and not so secretly, he wonders amusingly when an assault will come out of nowhere. So far he was only threatened by two people, both of which he was going to ignore completely. That really was not part of the big picture here. If anything, they were just going to slow him down a bit. Really the only thing he was concerned with on any level was if he was here then those he had beneath him would not know what to do with themselves. When he returned, he might have to do a few rounds of bibbing to get his point across.

That being said, he was not expecting to finally run across one of those inhabitants behind the mirror. He recognized those symbols when he got a little bit closer, but that was not what got his attention. If there was anything he could recognize, it would be his own kind. With hands in his pockets, he approached with a smile on his face.

"Well...this is a pleasant surprise."

[bibbing]

Dick Roman is a distinct ping on Leviazar's radar; really he was from the moment he arrived. But he's not a real Leviathan, simply a very good facsimile, and he wasn't sure what to make of the feeling. The sense that he's Pinocchio in a toy shop full of other puppets and one Real Live Boy.

Now, though, he can see the stranger face-to-face, and stops his doodling, eyes wide and fascinated, fingertips pressed against the glass. As a matter of course, he keeps the point of his teeth and his bifurcated tongue under wraps, trying to keep from scaring the locals until he's ready. They flash now, in a brief smile of recognition, before his face settles back into a calm that's more like his angelic counterpart's.

He can hear Dick through the glass, and see him quite clearly. It's his understanding that Dick can't hear him, though, and possibly it's only the Leviathan senses piercing the veil that enable him to see him. Well enough. There's still writing.

The glass fogs again, and letters appear: Welcome to Wonderland.

[illbeeatingyou]

As far as Dick was concerned, something close enough to his kind was the same. He too was intrigued at what he was looking at. Granted, there were strange things where he came from. Seeing something behind the mirror that he knew to be a mirror of another here was not something too familiar.

It was like he was looking at an experiment to meld a Leviathan with something else. Still, he could not help that stirring that he was face to face with one of his own. He continues to smile back before reading that welcome.

"Assuming you can hear me, I appreciate the welcome."

Where to even start with questions about the other side?

"I'm Dick. What should I call you?"

[bibbing]

Well, he is the reflection of an angel. What does that say about said angel? What does that say about Leviathans? Maybe they've always been dim reflections of one another in some fashion. God only knows. Literally.

Leviazar wipes the glass with a sleeve, fogs it again, and draws a smiley face, then writes again: My Real is Balthazar the angel. Call me that or something else. idc.

balthazar pls and ty

[perceptum]

Angels are curiosities to her and Balthazar is no exception, so when River decides to get out of the stuffy room and take a breather it's no surprise that she makes a bee line for the quiet, empty plane that is the space that Balthazar occupies. It's the emptiness that fuels the fascination after all. It's not often that she can spend time with anyone without learning far too much. The angels are a - frankly, very welcome break.

She tip toes up quietly behind him, not out of an attempt to be subtle so much as habit. She lingers a little distance away for quite a while though, watching in silence as the tangle of colours expands on the floors. She waits for quite a while in the end, at least an hour, and when she finally makes her approach it's just as slow and steady as before, creeping carefully across the grass on the balls of her bare feet.

"Does it tell the story of his mind, the twists and turns?" The interruption is just as quiet as her approach, and when she gets close enough to really see the details of the patterns on the path a slight smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Or is it for someone else entirely?"

[tryingitall]

She's stealthy, so much so that it takes him a good twenty minutes to sense her presence. That's impressive, considering what he is, and he's curious to see how long she'll linger without speaking. He says nothing, peacefully rubbing the colors into the brick until she comes closer and speaks. Then, he looks up with a smile and a shrug.

"More the former than the latter. But I began with no real sense of purpose, other than passing the time. I like the colors, and the activity. D'you want to sit?"

[perceptum]

She stands a moment longer, eyes moving slowly between the art and the angel in quiet contemplation before she gives a single nod. Just a small tip of her head, and then she drops down onto the floor next to him. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she reaches out a hand to drag a finger through some of the chalk and traces out a small spiral.

"Purpose or not, it speaks the words his mind shrouds, tells the stories she can't hear. It's an exercise in expression even when the hand moves without the guidance of thought. Bypass the mind and bare only the soul. Can he hear her like Castiel can? We talk."

As she says 'talk' she touches the side of her head lightly, gaze dropping back to the designs on the floor.

+1 For Balthazar

[no_nonsense]

Susan liked art, or rather she liked museums and the things they housed. She didn't know any artists, so the idea that art didn't spontaneously come into being was, ironically, quite abstract. In theory, she understood that someone had to sit, or stand, or...in this particular instance picnic and make it, but it was still something of a surprise to be confronted with the process. In fact, it took her a second to even realize what he was doing was art¹, but once she had, she couldn't resist stopping to look.

Susan was one of those people who had a deep, academic appreciation for art but who, due to a multitude of other factors, was utterly unable to create any of it, whatsoever. He seemed to be having an easy time of it, though. This led, inevitably, to Susan asking the most asked question in the history of art. She did so at a safe distance of several feet, with her head tilted at the standard 15 degree angle that, for some reason, helps people see art better.

"What is it suppose to be?" Susan, just as countless others before and after her, asked as she stared at the bright tangle of markings and color.



¹Street art was an utterly foreign concept to her. Even graffiti was something of a novelty. Both were rare bordering on unheard of in Ankh-Morpork...the former was because nobody on the Disc had discovered a way to actually apply color or line to the unique, and resilient, Morporkian street slurry...and the latter was mostly due to an abundance of large, wall-like, easily angered Trolls.

[tryingitall]

Ah, but that's the thing: Balthazar doesn't think he's making art at all, but wishes he were. In fact, if someone were to ask him if there's one mortal gift he'd give his Grace for, the ability to create art, real art, is the only thing he'd think to name. Of course, he's comfortable painting and sketching sigils and rituals circles. A lot of angels do that. It didn't seem like a huge step from there to coloring in the bricks, and from there a few patterns emerged...

He glances up in surprise at the question, looks the stranger over thoughtfully, then smiles and shrugs. "A way to pass the time. I just started with the pink-striped brick over there, and it sort of grew. It's not a likeness of anything."

[no_nonsense]

"Oh," Susan responded in the traditional manner. It wasn't as if she'd been expecting some high minded answer full of poetry, but she had been prepared to listen to one. That she didn't have to was both a kindness and, admittedly, somewhat disappointing.

"Well, it's quite nice," Susan added after a moment of consideration. Given that she was dressed, head to toe, in black with bits of white and her most adventurous accessory was a striped shirt of a similar pallet, "quite nice" was a high compliment.

She walked around the perimeter of his work, staring and tilting her head here and there, until she came back to where she'd began. She hadn't really needed to examine it just to remember it, but art always had this funny way of changing depending on how you looked at it. Susan had this counterproductive way of wanting to look at everything right.

Somehow, astonishingly, those two features weren't completely at odds.

"It's very..." Susan paused as she sought out the word she wanted. She was as adept with poetry as she was with art. "Honest." Yes, that would do...so long as she wasn't expected to explain how pattern and line and color could manage honesty.

"Do you always draw on the ground?"

[no_eels]

Drawing was something that was extremely familiar to Toothless, as Hiccup did plenty of it. But that was with charcoal, or in the dirt. He's out in the late afternoon, enjoying a walk in the garden and a chance to stretch his legs, when he notices the blooms of color. Except... they're on the ground. Not on the ends of trees or other plants. Intrigued, Toothless wanders up to Balthazar and sits down on his haunches to observe him. Just what is the wingless Viking drawing with? A tangle of flowers?

[tryingitall]

"Oh! Hello, there!" Balthazar's happy to see the dragon again, and pauses in his work to take a gulp of beer. The piece of chalk remains in his hand, a pale-blue cylinder with one side worn flat. Balthazar's hands are also covered in the stuff by now.

"Bored? I'm just playing around out here."

[no_eels]

Toothless rumbles a greeting, his attention still largely on the colorful shapes and, now, the tube in Balthazar's hand. He leans down and sniffs a few inches up from the sidewalk art, intrigued by the strange smell of the chalk. But he inhales a small cloud from the chalk as he does so and, eyes widening, sneezes — a plume of blue flame coming from his mouth at the same time.

Luckily, he has his head turned in the opposite direction. He looks back to Balthazar, still curious but now just a touch wary of the blue stick in his hand.

for Balthazar!

[vates]

He's been told there's no real way out of here, no way to escape. People appear and disappear, and that's it; there's no way to cheat the system, no secret tunnel back home. What would that tunnel even look like? Some kind of portal between the two worlds? It has to exist, unless it's magic; maybe this world has its own set of tablets with secret backdoors, and if someone could just figure out how to open the doors...

This is what he's been doing for hours on end. Every time he tries to accept the idea that he's stuck here, he keeps working his way around to thinking about how to get out. He's been told there's no way out, and that's hard to hear and he doesn't want to accept it, and he knows that he should. It was hard to accept being a prophet, but it was a waste of time acting like he wasn't. It would be a waste of time trying to figure out how to escape -- unless he finds a way. Then it wouldn't have been a waste at all, would it?

So Kevin winds up walking around this place, and then when he gets a little lost in the house, he switches to the grounds. It's been a long time since he could walk anywhere without checking over his shoulder every thirty seconds, and here's no different. Dick Roman is out there somewhere, and Kevin might have maybe convinced him to try to eat him. He has a container with borax in it, just in case.

He comes across Balthazar, and a grown man drawing in chalk on the sidewalk while drinking is an interesting enough sight to get him to stop. Maybe he could try, like, talking. It's been a long time since he could do that safely too, and he's less worried about that here.

"What are you drawing?" His first instinct is to try to see if he can read it, and he kind of hates that.

[tryingitall]

There are, in fact, a few subtle Enochian marks in gray and white along one edge of the mass of color. Kevin may or may not notice them: they're poetic rather than warding marks, just some idle commentary about creating things.

Balthazar looks up at the Prophet, and is immediately struck with a sense that he should know him, although he doesn't. Not by sight, at least. "Nothing in particular. Just patterns and colors. It seemed like slightly healthier way to pass the time than staring at the walls of my room. D'you want to sit? There's plenty of chalk."

[vates]

Kevin glances over his shoulder and back at Balthazar, evaluating. He doesn't want to get anyone else in trouble with Dick Roman, but he does have borax with him. And where's he going anywhere? Just pacing the cage, clawing at the corners. It's as depressing as it is potentially useful. Nodding, he takes a seat near him, but not too close, and he keeps the borax in his lap. He skims over the designs again, and something triggers and brings his eyes back. He can't read this like he can read the tablets, but he recognizes Enochian when he sees it, and he can pick up a few symbols.

He doesn't really want to advertise that, just in case, so instead he gives him a small, polite smile instead.

"Are you one of the ones that have been here for years?"

[eatsyourscience]

Souji comes upon Balthazar as he's walking with his pet--a squat, silvery-gray dragon he calls Tefra. Souji stops at the edge of the chalk patterns, looking at them without stepping onto them, and Tefra stops beside him as though she doesn't quite trust this strangely colored surface in front of her.

She taps it experimentally with her front feet, one after the other, and scrapes it with her claws, testing it. She snorts and the breath kicks up a small cloud of chalk dust, which makes her jump up and back like a startled cat, her tiny, narrow wings stretched in alarm.

Souji looks down at her and smiles a little, then follows the chalk designs back to where Balthazar is currently.

"I don't have any sandwiches with me."

[tryingitall]

"Ah! Hello! I almost sent you a message to invite you out here, and then I got distracted by the drawing." Balthazar seems pleased to see Souji, and not dismayed by the lack of sandwiches, in the least. "You can have a beer anyway, if you've got the time."

He watches the little dragon test the design, amused. "Who's this, then? Careful; apparently chalk dust makes dragons sneeze."

[eatsyourscience]

Taking that as permission to walk over to Balthazar, Souji crosses the chalk drawings to get to him and the cooler. He'd be dead if he ever drank a beer at home--his uncle would have seen to it--but there's no one to tell him no here, so he's going for it.

Tefra follows slowly, snuffling at the chalk and, indeed, sneezing several times as she wanders behind Souji, distracted.

"Her name is Tefra. A friend gave her to me before she left." Souji opens the cooler and peers inside before selecting a can of beer and popping the tab.

Balthazar's a really popular guy huh

[donttestme]

You can see a lot from the roof of the Mansion. The swirls of directionless colour are a little harder to see, granted, but Chell can recognize them as something new. And, familiar, in a way. Though, the art she found was not anywhere as nice what was in the gardens, it was... uh. Interesting. Very... honest, sure.

A portal here and there makes the trip short, but she doesn't appear right in the artist's line of sight or anything. She doesn't mind another stroll through the gardens, before she tracks down the source of the chalk drawings.

Apparently! Even though his mun is a slow tagger. ^^;

[tryingitall]

Balthazar is sensitive to human presences, but not so much high technology. He chalks up the sound of the portals opening nearby to some quirk of the mansion grounds, and thus he doesn't notice Chell approach until her footsteps become audible. Then, he glances up with a mild, friendly smile. "Afternoon."

His hands are stained rainbow with the chalk he's been playing with, but somehow his clothes are still impeccable. It's slightly odd.