[Closed] Live on borrowed time

[volksdaemon]

Who: Saint Schuldig volksdaemon, Kija justclaws, and Demyx sitarsongs
What: Prayer #20; Schuldig helps Kija with his squeamishness when confronting ayakashi
When: June 4
Where: Near Shore; TBD
Warnings: n/a yet

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[Schuldig's natural power of knowing where to be when he's needed got him in trouble the last time it was used. Thankfully, right about now, he doesn't mind it so much. This time, when he gets that feeling at the nape of his neck, he decides to actually teleport in and see just how he can be of help to the people calling for him.]

Comments

[volksdaemon]

[Schuldig teleports into the nearby area of Kija's temple and catches sight of the man.]

Well look who it is! My partner to go on his first prayer...

[That's his excuse that worked on Simon Tam, so maybe it'll work on Kija too. It covers up his telepathy fairly well... either way, Kija should be a few minutes late of realizing that the prayer he just received involved a very ugly, very amorphous, horror-movie-blob of an ayakashi.]

[justclaws]

[Question: who do Gods pray to?

[The whole business of answering prayers had seemed daunting at first, right up to the point that Kija realized how many of them seemed to involve things like searching for missing wallets and retrieving cats from trees. Maybe none of them were exactly the kind of thing one would call on a God of War to sort out, but they were at least reassuringly low-key. The whole business, in fact, appeared to be considerably less daunting than he'd expected...

[And then they had involved, oh, dealing with a giant animated pile of sewage.

[And then they had gone right back to being incredibly daunting again - to say nothing of absolutely foul. Was there a God of Cleaning Equipment? Should this not have been referred over there? Would this creature even possess a face it could be hit in, and how could he manage that without touching it? What of the damage that could be done to Demyx's hair?

[Where, exactly, was he supposed to start?

[That was about as far as Kija had managed to get before Skyler made his presence felt, answering at least one of his immediate prayers. Okay. So now he has someone he can talk to about this. Maybe that's why he doesn't listen to a single word the man has said.]

Skyler, oh thank goodness you're here! I... [have absolutely no idea how to explain what I was just told I had to do?] Well--something came up. Do you - if it is not too much trouble - can I speak to you for a moment?

[How do you kill a giant animated pile of garbage, is what he really wants to say.]

How do you kill a giant animated pile of garbage?

[volksdaemon]

[He could have sworn he implied that he was here to help Kija with exactly that problem, but he lets the other god babble instead.]

I came by to see you anyway, so I don't mind.

[He holds his chin as if in thought.]

A giant animated pile of garbage? You can't mean an ayakashi that just looks like garbage, can you Kija?

[Which of course he is, but he wants Kija to be the one to keep explaining why this isn't as easy as 'go kill the ayakashi and take care of the prayer that way.']

[justclaws]

They can do that?

[Well, that makes a lot more sense.

[It is still absolutely disgusting and goes no way to explaining what the heck he is supposed to do about the hideous, overgrown thing short of back away as quickly as he dares and hope against hope that the problem sorts itself out. Which hardly helps and would involve shirking his responsibilities, but why oh why is this his responsibility?]

I mean, I can understand entirely why someone wants the thing gone! But - how can we manage that?

[Without touching it. And, if possible, without seeing or smelling it.

[There are limits.]

[volksdaemon]

Ayakashi take on all kinds of forms. You just happened to find one of the ones that's less of a blob and more a pile of objects mashed together.

[He gestures between the two of them.]

We aren't going to manage that. You've got a shinki hiding around here somewhere, don't you?

[Soulless or not, he can't be sure, but short of the man who 'lost' his all gods were supposed to have a shinki or plural.]

If you've never used your shinki to perform the Rend spell, well there's a first time for everything.

[justclaws]

Somewhere, yes...

[Off somewhere, Kija guesses, doing whatever it is Demyx does when he isn't doing anything very much, which he is starting to suspect is not very much.

[He looks about himself anyway, but he doesn't seem to be anywhere within eyeshot. Yes, he has heard there are ways to - well, to fetch him, but simply up and doing that seems, if you ask Kija, somewhat discourteous, to say nothing of the potential embarrassment should the man be doing something he would not want to do in front of a stranger, if Skyler is indeed a stranger to him. The redhead seems the kind of man who knows pretty much everyone.]

But what do you mean, use him? Ask him, surely.

[volksdaemon]

What, do I need to go find him myself? You should be able to call his vessel name and he'll show up no matter where he is on the Far Shore.

[Then he gives a light shrug.]

I'd prove it to you first but I gave mine the day off today.

[Not... entirely untrue but this is about Kija and he's trying to encourage the nervous god to actually work with his shinki. If he can't do that, no amount of saying the word 'Rend' in the general direction of the ayakashi that Kija is supposed to destroy will actually help.]

When I say 'use' I meant that the Rend spell is the god's power being channeled through the shinki's vessel form. It's mostly the shinki that controls how effective it is, so if you don't practice around here once or twice at this rate, you won't get rid of that disgusting thing for the sake of your prayer.