apostatised | [log] and we'll learn politics and some new party tricks

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[log] and we'll learn politics and some new party tricks

New York is as easy to get to as about anywhere is when your main method of getting around is teleportation (every time he uses the pinpoint, Martel puts 'stables' higher on his mental priority list of necessary projects). He doesn't even argue the point about changing his clothes for the outing, even if he does spend altogether too much time fastidiously pulling at his cuffs and fixing his collar.

All in good time, he ushers Candice into the 'establishment' Ethan gave him details of, standing out about as much as a 6'3" man of military and noble bearing with long white hair tends to regardless of what he's dressed in.

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"She's certainly more hands-on than the Christian God," Candice says.

Mind you, He hangs around the Nexus sometimes, too.

"Do you have any background in chaos, Candice?" he asks to be polite.

Martel's actually rather interested to hear the answer to this, cocking his eyebrow at her in an unspoken back up query.

Questions she didn't anticipate today: that one.

"I hadn't thought of it so concretely," she says, carefully, "But yes, I suppose I really do."

"Oh? How so?"

He smiles. The slightly feckless uncle you know you shouldn't trust but probably would anyway. Because he's more fun.

Or so he likes to think.

Martel's understanding of Candice's religious practices is...somewhat nebulous, which probably explains the sharp-eyed following of this conversational tangent. (That or he just tends to have conversations centering around religion, politics, violence or some combination of the above. Maybe it's both.)

Candice is currently exercising the sort of methodical steadiness that means it's being actively calculated. She doesn't talk about her abilities very often, and keeps what she does with them clandestinely swept under the rug--dirty little secrets involving the dead's energy and demonology. Martel's scrutiny is only compounding her internal awkwardness, and she makes a mental note to address that some other time.

For now, she smiles, just slightly, and waves a hand, dismissive of herself.

"I have certain religious obligations of my own. Yielding to a lack of order is a part of that." And that is a decidedly limited explanation of her actual involvement, but it wouldn't do to talk about herself too much, would it? "And you, have you got background there...? I'm just guessing."

He senses the... restraint. Very well. He won't push. Not at the moment.

"I have been... well. Called a Chaos Worshiper in the past, and it's not entirely inaccurate." A wolfish grin.

"As far as anyone can be, of course."

"Where I'm from," Martel drawls, "'chaos worshiper' would as like be synonymous with the worship of a particular god--now deceased--and it always struck me as a delightful irony, the organized worship of a god devoted to disorganized excess."

He takes a drink, adding with a dry tone he's too good at, "I have a feeling that's a very different thing."

Everything about Candice tends to be carefully controlled all the time, which is possibly the basis of her current faith's appeal, honestly.

She rests her elbows on the table top. "I hope so. What sort of tribute does Chaos take?"

"There's no order. Well. I do take bits and pieces of other 'orders' and use them to my own device. But part of the joy of worshiping chaos is... the unpredictability."

Another drink, he thinks. "There are no rules. But I do enjoy causing... disruption. And twisting things on their head, too."

"Sort of the point, wouldn't it be?" Martel asks, halfway between 'yes, I think I'm hilarious' and genuinely thoughtful. "It seems as though something that needs its opposite to balance it out."

Candice mulls that over, but to herself, tracing her fingertips along the wood grain of the table.

"Without chaos, there would be no life. Without order... much the same."

"But... balancing itself is a notion of order, so you can see how... chaos, true chaos, is something of a... mindfuck to be involved in. It's... counter to everything the mind likes."

"Granted," Martel agrees, tapping his fingers against the side of his glass, "but in a world wholly without order, chaos unfettered, undefined, would only be a new form thereof."

See, these are not concepts he could've got across with his limited grasp of reading and writing in English. He's a quick study, but not that quick.

It sounds suspiciously like something he's given thought to the practical applications thereof, rather than pure philosophy. FYI.

Candice and her crazyass Yoruba religious beliefs will continue refraining, over here, though she does take a suspiciously long drink of her own scotch.

"True. But beings such as we would be incapable of surviving there. Perhaps more chaotic creatures would, though."

"Chaos is more than... most would dismiss it as."

Martel smiles very faintly--another one of those private jokes, maybe. "Gods and monsters," he suggests, somehow managing neutral amusement before continuing. "People dismiss what they fear to lessen its danger. How would you describe it, then?"

"One and the same, technically," she corrects almost absent-mindedly, re: gods and monsters, but then she doesn't really mind monsters on principle. It's a broad category she herself occasionally falls into.

"How... to desribe chaos? Anything I say is of course immediately redundant, you do realise? 'Chaos'... defies description. But... if I had to try? It would be as that: something that resists, or is superior to our own understanding. Something... larger than we are. Something beautiful and variable and powerful and... fun." He smiles to himself, thinking happy thoughts.

"Monsters needn't be gods," Martel observes to Candice, mildly, pausing to listen with some small amusement to Ethan's description of that which by everyone's admission defies it. "Your bias is showing," he notes, faintly smiling. (Nobody will hold it against anyone who happens to think Martel probably shouldn't smile. Ever.) "Interesting, though."

"The word used to just mean 'space,'" Candice recalls, "A reference to existence--or the lack thereof--before the big bang, I think, though I may be misremembering. But the meaning got a bit shifted around."

She's not going to point out this is really odd conversation for casual drinks out, largely because of who her company is.

"Yes, 'chaos' comes from 'chasm' and so on, the concept itself as understood today is a mismatch, really. You might think of it as the 'void' rather than the non-order we understand by it today. Much the same way as other words get hijacked, during their lifespan..."

He laughs at Martel. "Of course it is. But ask me on a bad day, and my answer might be different. It's... something of a chaote habit." He rolls his eyes at the paradox. Sometimes it hurts the head.

To be fair, Martel will submit he was lured here for purposes of really odd discussion anyway. He leans back where he's sitting--moves like he's not quite used to or comfortable with the clothing he wears. It suits him well enough, adds to his certain air, but he doesn't seem well placed in it.

That and he dislikes the necessity of not wearing the broadsword here.

Regardless: he laughs, too, because as much of a headache as the complexities are he enjoys this. "I can't debate your words, not from where I am. But, I've been accused before of having no faith at all. No beliefs. It struck me as unintentionally funny, at the time, given indisputable proof...knowledge and faith are different again, of course."

"I have a hard time ever seeing you that way."

She just leaves that there, and pushes her half-drunk scotch glass away a bit. Maybe she'll have the rest, maybe not.

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