[network] @Enoch; Day/Night 46 [open] [vomit warning]

[warriorscribe]

A: Day 46, video

[The first thing that appears is the image of a bottle, faint in the darkness of the snow-covered hospital. It appears to be filmed with the inside camera of the tablet, using the tablet's own light to illuminate the label. It's hard to read in the faint blue light of the screen, but not impossible to make out as he slowly tilts the bottle in his hand: it's labeled "potassium iodide". Enoch's voice comes from off-screen, behind the tablet.]

I found this in here, and I don't know what it is. Does anyone recognize it?


B: Night 46, video

[Enoch sits in one of the many waiting lobby chairs outside the hospital rooms on the third floor. His face is hardly visible in the darkness, though there is at least one other backlit tablet screen behind him.]

This day was not without its findings...for my part, I found a video...one moment.

[He fails to turn off the video as he pokes through menus on his tablet and speaks to its assistant.] Helel, would you please show them this one?

[A link to an attachment is posted.]

The video shows a young child ill or injured enough to vomit blood, so I would caution against watching it unprepared. Whatever happened here was disastrous. I don't recognize the surroundings, so they must be on a lower floor. Perhaps we'll find something there tomorrow.

Also, Quark found...something. I'm not quite sure what it is...

[He glances back at one of the tablet lights behind him, and the shadows shift as when Quark hears his name mentioned, his focus immediately snaps up from his own tablet.]

Yeah! Look, it’s a program or something! There’s a picture of a bird on it, but it doesn’t have anything to do with birds at all!

[He all but clambers over Enoch to show his tablet on Enoch’s feed, and he complies, shifting his arms to let him crawl over him and get into the shot. (Information about the app can be found here.)]

I know a little bit about computers, but not so much I really know what to do with this, and I don’t want to press the wrong thing and break something. Does anybody recognize this? Maybe that’ll help me figure out what to do!

[Enoch adds, once Quark is done talking:]

Whatever it is, it was well-hidden. I believe I went over the same room he did and found nothing, so wherever it was, only a child could reach. Surely that must mean something...

Comments

[warriorscribe]

Well, there's a woman with me...or there was, at the camp before I was taken here. Ishtar is her name. She was chosen by God, too, so...perhaps she is also immortal.

[He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish.]

Regardless, we've both faced hardships and have grown close for it... Whether she'll grow old without me, or we'll both grow old, or neither of us will...well, I planned on asking her what she would think of marrying me.

[So embarrassing. He half-considers making this private. He doesn't normally make the first move, leaving it up to the other party to show interest - and she definitely has, but...well, it's a mixed bag that would take more time than needed to get into.]

[armoured]

[Of all the answers he had been expecting, that was not one of them. It's... such an adorable answer and warmth floods his voice.]

I really hope that works out for you, it's nice to hear someone has something nice waiting for them back home.

[That's a sad rarity here.]

What was she chosen for, if... if it's okay to ask?

[warriorscribe]

The same thing I was - to find the Fallen Angels. She initially failed, so I was to, in the course of binding the Fallen Angels, aid in her resurrection.

We...well, in the end, we helped each other out of our respective binds.

[He's not sure what to say about the fact that he actually met her before her death but didn't know who she was. That's still very weird and involves memories that are still mostly faded from time.]

[armoured]

[And again the conversation swings back to touch on immortality and resurrection, adding a veneer of discomfort to the genuine well-wishing he felt for Enoch and his possible future wife.]

I don't understand why gods would choose normal people to send after angels. I'm not-- I don't have a religion, but it seems unfair. Aren't gods powerful enough to control angels themselves?

[warriorscribe]

I would have once thought so, myself. ...It's more complicated than that.

[He's not even sure he's got it entirely right. It's all snatches of information gleaned over the course of three centuries or so, and some bits are clearer than others. Still, he does his best to explain.]

The story of Creation holds that God gave Adam dominion over the Earth. ...He meant that. Earth is ours. He wouldn't interfere, and angels in fact cannot interfere without express permission. It's much easier to get a human to volunteer themselves and bless them, I think, than tell every angel, yes, they can do this or that every time something they do might interfere.

[armoured]

[He doesn't really know the story of creation, nor has heard of Adam, the few religions that exist in Amestris are not compatible with this. But--]

I guess that makes sense, but it still seems kind of unfair. He's asking a lot of you, of anyone He wants to do this task.

[Not that he's saying Enoch isn't up to the challenge. But just because someone can do a task, doesn't mean that it's right to ask them to.]

But those angels you're hunting down don't have the same restrictions?

[warriorscribe]

I volunteered for the task. Nobody even asked me to...I suppose that makes it somewhat odd to call myself "chosen", but I was the only living human in Heaven to volunteer, and I was there because I was chosen to serve as a scribe. I can only assume Ishtar volunteered herself, too. They're very adamant about our free will not being imposed upon up there. Our right- our ability to say no is special, in their eyes.

[That out of the way, he takes a deep breath, sitting on the hospital bed in the room he's in as he thinks about the Fallen Angels. Fallen. That's the key word. They'd rejected their angelhood.]

Fallen Angels aren't...quite the same anymore. They've turned their backs on God and Heaven and revoked their ties to both. It's...dangerous, when that happens, because it's as if a child has come to inhabit a very powerful body - Fallen Angels lose much of their strength in the fall, but these found strength in another source, a pact with a demon. They...they don't quite grasp the consequences of their own actions. Certainly they will learn, but my world was threatened by destruction, because the children of angels and humans... [He shakes his head.]

When they mature, they become powerful giants who know nothing but inflicting destruction on everything around them. And yet...there were many mature Nephilim. Fire Nephilim, they're called. Their destruction, that consequence, they either didn't truly grasp it or they did not care.

[armoured]

[Al sits quietly and listens while Enoch explains, gripped with interest at such an alien subject. Even the possibility of alchemically created humans, homunculus, were overwhelming to believe in... but actually legitimate gods and angels? It blows his mind, far too surreal to really wrap his head around.]

That sounds awful, so frightening for both sides. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to be capable of nothing but destruction.

[But he can definitely see why they need to be stopped.]

And it was your task to stop them? You must be an amazing warrior.

[warriorscribe]

I wouldn't say so. With special weapons I do well enough, but I do what I can, and that's all I can truly say about my skills.

[Of course, without any powers at all, this is still the man who's going to eventually nearly kill Handsome Jack alongside Beckett. Combat experience is combat experience is combat experience.]