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[quis_ut_deus]

Who: Michael and YOU
Where: The playground. (Other locations possible; PM me and we can work something out.)
When: Friday, March 21st - Sunday, March 23
Rating: PG for now, to be updated as needed.
Summary: Michael falls victim to the age-down effect of the playground, both in (borrowed) body and in mind.
The Story:

Though the appearance of anything new in Wonderland generally means unfortunate consequences for its residents, Michael doesn't shy away from investigating the newly renovated additions. Fear and apprehension aren't emotions he's frequently given to experiencing, and taking a look at the new areas himself is about the only way to learn anything about them - if, indeed, there's anything worth learning. From afar, the gazebo looks like nothing more than a gazebo, and it doesn't hold his attention for long.

The playground doesn't call to him any more than any of the other new locations do, but it winds up being the one to sink its claws into him.

The effects of the playground are insidious. Michael doesn't notice anything amiss as it turns back his clock; there are no gaps or blank spaces in his memory, because it lops them off from the front rather than the back. The longer he stands there, the less he remembers why, and the less inclined he is to leave. Maybe he's supposed to be here?

God's absence after Lucifer's fall had been the longest and the most permanent, but certainly not the first. From time to time, He'd left Michael on his own in Heaven. He'd always come back.

In time, the Michael Wonderland knows is no more. In his place sits an unfamiliar boy, four or five years of age, inhabited by an archangel of equivalent age. Even if his appearance doesn't seem out of place, his odd disinterest in actually playing on the playground probably is. It's apparent that he's waiting for something.

Comments

[quis_ut_deus]

It's far too early in his life for Michael to be charged with a mission beyond keeping his fingers out of black holes and not knocking things over in Heaven's garden, but he certainly holds himself as though he's ready for orders.

Right up until he's approached by Crowley, anyway, and gives the demon the sort of stupid look birds get when they try to fly through glass windows. He's not small. Not really, not on the inside.

"It's just the-" he starts to protest, then cuts himself off.

Just the what, exactly? Michael looks down at himself, suddenly confused. He realizes that he's not sure what he's wearing or how he got into it. This is the first time he's seen One Of These. He feels as though it's important that he stays inside it, though, and he thinks he needed to ask permission to use it, first. Why he'd need to ask is beyond him, though: the only authority over him is God.

That's it! This must be one of his father's creations, then, this flesh and blood thing he inhabits. It's not the name he's after, though. He prods through John's young mind, seeking to pull free a better term for the creature he's wearing.

"- boy. The human. This isn't my body."

To emphasize his point, he stretches his wings out behind him; they're not much smaller than they usually are, out of proportion with John's small body. He gets the feeling that this person he's talking to won't have any trouble seeing them.

[thepointisdolphins]

That's the thing, though--back home, angels never wear people, not the way demons do. Crowley has possessed people once or twice when he was between bodies and needed to get something specific done, but it's always a rather unpleasant feeling. It's a muddy feeling; at least that's the closest he can come to trying to describe it with words. He can see why some of his kin would enjoy it, the way the human mind scoots aside to make room for you, the confusion and terror and that sensation of making something cower.

He just never too much pleasure in that sort of thing. Major failing, again.

Angels, though, angels don't possess people unless they need to make some kind of grand proclamation, or lend credence to the words of a prophet, things like that. All very brief and productive. So the idea that the archangel before him is possessing someone is a bit lost on him; he thinks that the angels in charge of handing out mortal coils must just be having a laugh at the poor guy.

Which would be weird, because no one laughs at archangels. Especially not Crowley, who visibly flinches when he sees the wings fan out behind the kid, somewhere beyond actual Seeing.

"No? Did you go and get yourself stuck in a human?" Huh, now that he thinks about it, yeah, that's a proper human body and all. Not something actually crafted by the engineers Upstairs. "Well that's a shame. For both of you. Problem with incorporeality, eh? I take it you haven't been planetside that often."