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Atlas Gym, Monday Morning

Ghanima had felt oddly twitchy this morning, and found herself down at Atlas to try and work it out of her system before she started climbing the walls of her suite in sheer frustration. It had felt like someone was looking over her shoulder all night, and it was at the point she needed to get out or go insane.

We can bring her back, my lord. You've seen it for yourself!

The words echoed in her inner-space, where they could not be. This wasn't right. These words did not reside within her Other Memory. Ghanima shook her head, trying to free herself of the time-dilation she felt closing in on her, the yawn of the prescient void. No.

Yes.

The vision snapped into place around her, and Ghanima could do was watch.

A past. Where Paul Muad'dib took the offer of the Face Dancer and had Chani brought back as ghola. Ghanima saw it with a clarity that went beyond the spice trance. Chani, holding the twins, just hours old. A vision of herself and Leto - perhaps around twelve years old - playing one of their furious chess matches as both her parents looked on. There was laughter and love, and the family she had been denied by the circumstances of her birth. The Tleilaxu now secretly controlled the Imperium through the hold they had over her parents, but life for most people was no better or worse than it had been.

The most important thing was that they were happy. They lived happily, and died surrounded with love. No more sacrifices to the oracle, no more trying to throw themselves against fate. There was laughter and joy again. House Atreides washed its hands of the world in favor of the Now, and they were the happier for it for generations upon generations.

And she saw.

The great and horrible vision that had belonged to her father, the possible futures that had driven Leto to sacrifice himself: The eventual stagnation and death of humanity. Not with a bang, but a whimper of defeat. (This is the way the world ends) A future that destroyed everything, thousands of years down the line. Enslavement, and oblivion.

A might-have-been that had been diverted through Chani's death and Leto's sacrifice.

Ghanima dropped to her knees as the vision receded, taking with it her ability to breathe. Her father had tried to straddle the divide, to snatch a chance at happiness while trying to save humanity from itself. Yet when the time came to make that final, terrible sacrifice, he had failed. In the end it had fallen to Leto to endure the agony, and Ghanima was not sure she would ever forgive Paul Atreides for that even as she understood his reasons.

She gritted her teeth and pushed to her feet, quick steps carrying her over to the sparring mats on the far end of the room. Space. She needed space.

I will not fear.

Her crysknife was out of the sheath before she'd realized it, and Ghanima settled into the opening stance of the bindu.

Fear is the mindkiller. Ghanima let the focusing power of the Litany infuse her as she lost herself in the movements. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. Harder. Faster. I will face my fear, I will let it pass through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. She pushed herself farther, forcing her muscles to work at the top speed she could force without dropping into the Weirding Way.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing - Her knife flashed, and the ghosts of memory spilled their water upon the sand in sacrifice.

Only I will remain.

"Shai-hulud curse you for a coward, father," she sighed, pushing hair from her eyes before resuming her battle stance. Again. "And me as well, for caring."

[OOC: Open after Ghani's IAWL vision for interactions.]

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Between the massive temperature change of yesterday and the coins raining from the sky, Loki had ducked into the first building he'd come to in an attempt to warm up his hands.

Even he got a little cold sometimes.

The first building happened to be the gym, population one that he could see.

"Does no one go on vacation in this place?" he asked as he walked closer.

"This is vacation," Ghanima answered from where she was currently engaged in taking out her frustrations on a punching bag. "Never underestimate the joy in organized violence."

"Good answer," he said, unable not to smile at that. "The holidays bring out the aggressor in you? The fucking songs are enough to make me want to run amok with a tire iron."

Not really but those damn songs were annoying.

"I got hit on the head with chocolate coins," Ghanima sighed, giving the bag a solid kick that set the chain to creaking ominously. "The music is designed to send people to the asylum, and I have little patience for those that manipulate religion into feeding some narcissistic consumerist drivel of a holiday."

One more solid punch, and Ghanima took a step back to catch her breath. "And I am usually aggressive. Normally, I'm simply a bit less conspicuous about it."

"Where in the hell have you been all my life?" he asked not without amusement. "If we hadn't just met, I'd be proposing marriage."

If he knew how in the hell to do that without fucking it up.

"The gold coins got me too. The songs are so annoying that they're growing on me. And it seems that, given the opportunity to do so, people will twist any religion into something driven by materialistic gain and their own need to feed their egos by giving the most extravagant presents they can afford. Or not afford. Merry Christmas, I got you a fucking Ferrari and now I'm bankrupt but you love me best, right?"

Oh, she liked him.

"I do like the little lights," Ghanima admitted. "Very festive. I think, however, you're giving humanity too much credit. They'll twist anything into a method of materialistic manipulation, not just religion. They aren't picky."

"I've been working on that whole benefit of the doubt thing," he said, waving a hand. "See how it works out for me. So far, I'm not that impressed."

He shrugged and pulled out one of the many gold coins that had smacked him on the way over.

"But, you're right," he said. "They aren't. Religion's just the one that's at the forefront this time of year. The human race just wants to show off how fucking awesome they are, I think. What better way to do that with tangible things? I swear, if they can't fight a war, they'll give you money."

"Or they'll fight a war and throw around money," Ghanima said brightly. "That's always fun, placing bets as to the odds of an economic collapse before they finish hitting each other." Ghanima had a very odd idea of fun sometimes.

"Well, they obviously need something to do after they get done beating the shit out of each other," Loki said, nodding. "War, economic collapse, period of respite, war again. Everyone uses the 'I want world peace!' answer to impress someone else but the human race couldn't do peace. They'd get utterly bored. They need strife. They need to be shooting each other or tearing each other down."

"Oh, they can do peace." Ghanima replied, a less-than pleasant smile flickering quickly across her face. "People don't like it, but it can be forced with the right tools." Like installing an immortal God-Emperor to stomp on any dissent.

"You're right about the boredom, though. They'll explode outwards like an a star if the societal and governmental pressures that hold them in place collapse." Ghanima spun quickly to hit the bag again. "Peace brings stagnation, and stagnation is nothing more than a slow death, and that's no fun at all. Give me conflict and strife any day, since that's how we continue to evolve."

"I don't mind the conflict," he said, wandering closer and wondering if that bag was just going to come off under her aggression. "I probably wouldn't be here, in the general sense, if it wasn't for conflict."

Conflict made the world go around, after all.

"Do you think pacifism is a myth then? A word people use to try and make themselves bigger than someone that holds a sword?"

Considering the way the chain was protesting, it might. Ghanima packed a lot of power for such a slight person.

"Pacifism is very pretty, but it won't work unless everyone embraces it," she answered between hits. "It's a wonderful ideal, if people can agree on the rules, but too many pacifists would try to remove all conflict everywhere, violent or nonviolent. It exists in an extreme world of black and white, and that's not the way this world works."

"And there's always going to be one dissenter," he agreed. "The exact same belief system across a population doesn't make them human, it makes them robots. And that's only fun if I have the remote control and can make them my minions."

He stuck out his arms in front of him and mimicked a robot. Or a zombie. Who knows?

"And most worlds are built or, at least, progress because of dissension. Someone doesn't like how things are going or how the belief system is written so they change it."

He paused.

"Robots would be really fucking cool."

Edited 2008-12-22 19:15 (UTC)

"Robots are not 'really fucking cool.'" The punching bag had finally had enough, thank you, and broke from the chain, hitting the ground with a solid twack.

"Machines are sterile, they usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments," she said, dusting her palms against her pants. "Disgusting things, really."

She stuck her hand out and smiled at him. "Ghanima Atreides, by-the-by."

"Loki," he said, shaking the offered hand. "Nice work on the bag there. And machines aren't so bad. Really, I fucking love the television and that's a machine."

Except when it endlessly played Frosty the Snowman.

"Nice to meet you. And I was more talking about the little robots that zip around the floor and I could run into people's ankles. Fun times!"

"I am convinced my school-issued computer has declared vendetta against me," she sighed in mock-anguish, "but one of my students specializes in those little zippy 'droids', and they sound harmless enough. I suppose you could try to take over the world with them, but the opposing army might fall over laughing instead of in fear."

"That means you must try it, of course."

"If I thought I had a shot, I would definitely try," he said with a laugh. "But, I think I'd be stopped faster than I could give my little robot army orders to destroy Tokyo."

Goddamn smoggy city.

"And why should I try it? Why don't you try it? You look capable enough. You've got the power and the stature for it."

"Mmm. They always underestimate the blonde ones, don't they?" Ghanima answered sagely. "But I already control one universe, and that's enough for me. This planet would be more work than it is worth."

"A woman of power," he said, grin staying on his face. "This planet would drive you fucking insane, trust me. I've been on it long enough to make a good, solid judgment on that point. It's got it's good points but holy hell, it's a chore."

"It's a good thing I'm already mildly crazy then," she quipped. "Perhaps that will stave off the worst of the insanity."

Even real voices in your head were still, well, voices in your head. It was a minor miracle they hadn't driven her past the point of insanity.

"'Been on it long enough?'" Ghanima regarded him, eyes flashing brighter with amusement. "I take it you're not a local then."

"Everyone's a little crazy, aren't they?" he asked, smirking. "It's what makes people interesting? I haven't known a world leader yet that hasn't been either narcissistic, paranoid, power hungry, vain, compulsive, obsessive, or just fucking psychopathic."

Ah, memories.

"Oh, I am," he said, answering her last question. "Just not in the way you're thinking, probably. This is the first time I've been to this weird ass island but I've been around the planet for awhile."

Long while.

"I'll confess to the compulsive and paranoid, but that's only because they really are out to get me," Ghanima answered gleefully.

'Loki', violent, and clearly a bit 'different' himself. Ghani could hazard a few theories that were probably not what normal people would assume.

"What, you don't prefer the infinite amusements of Earth to the other níu heimar?" she asked sweetly, alert for any reaction. "At least it's almost always entertaining in Fandom."

"I've got a little narcissism in me since we're being forthright," he said and grinned.

At the use of the Old Norse word, his smile only widened. "Powerful and a scholar, are we? You can find anything on the internet, can't you? The infinite amusements of Earth can get really fucking old when you see the same thing repeat for generations, you know. History always repeats itself."

"The internet is for mindless entertainment, like that nice game where you can be a virus and wipe out humanity." Faith had been extremely enthusiastic about introducing Ghanima to video games at one point. Usually when alcohol was involved.

Ghanima was terrible at first person shooters.

Her mouth twitched slightly into a smile, and Ghanima just shrugged. "Yes, well, you almost never see lasting change if you're just dealing with a few generations. That's like trying to teach a monkey an opera in a weekend. If you take it in a context of a few thousand years, at least you get to point and laugh when they screw up again, but they tend to get a little bit more right eventually."

"I have watched the human race screw up more times than you count," he said and waved a hand again. "And they try so hard, gosh darn it. They're like that little fucking engine that could. I think I can I think I can I think I---and then something explodes."

It wasn't always explosions but, more likely than not, something went kaboom. "A friend of mine once said mankind was a failed experiment. He was a little batshit so I don't tend to agree. I like to think that the ship will be righted eventually. I'm kind hearted that way."

"'More times than I can count?'" Ghanima let her smile grow slightly vicious. "I think you'd be surprised how high I can count, when it comes to the history of humanity."

The presences in her Other Memory stirred, discomforted. "He's dangerous, Ghanima," Jessica murmured. "Stop baiting him."

Ghanima, however, was having none of it. "The ship can be righted," she agreed. "If you've got someone steering it that knows what they're doing. You can't blame the crew if they don't have a captain."

Edited 2008-12-23 01:10 (UTC)

"Yeah, but how do you choose a captain?" Loki asked, shrugging. "Everyone wants a piece of the pie, so to speak. One person's not going to like how another person does the job and they'll think they can do better and they'll off the captain and attempt to take control. So now, you have an unstable ship, a new captain who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and you're back at the beginning."

He matched her smile with one of his own.

"The history of humanity, as you should know since you apparently can count just as high as me, seems to be going in a circle. There's progress until something is utterly fucked and then they're back at the beginning. It's like the song that never ends."

Edited 2008-12-23 01:26 (UTC)

"But it's not really a circle, is it?" she asked. "Yes, they screw up and it goes back towards the beginning, but it's not the same as it was. The circle starts again, but on a slightly different path. Again. And again. It's a rather indirect and spiral path, true, but it's one that's inching upwards."

"Doesn't that just prolong the suffering?" Loki asked easily. "Humans can't resist temptation, that is a proven fact. They keep reaching for that apple only to have it blow up in their fucking face. And they keep reaching for it. And they keep reaching for it. They get a little closer each time because the temptation overrules common sense and they have fallen every time."

He shrugged lazily.

"Does that make them determinedly stupid or stupidly determined?"

"I think it makes them beautiful," Ghanima replied. "Because every time, they take their free will they try for something more, something greater, rather than just giving up and dying."

"You are..." He paused and had to smile really. "...a much more optimistic person than I am. What in the hell are you doing here?"

Ghanima laughed and gave him an innocent look. "Me? Why, I'm a liberal arts teacher. History, mythology, theology, that sort of thing. Where else would a teacher be?"

"A teacher, I should have known," he said and snickered. "I...am not a teacher, if you couldn't tell. But, you seem to know a whole helluva lot just to be teaching on a small island."

"If you know so much about humanity, you should also know that an interesting woman never tells all her secrets on the first encounter," Ghanima teased. "Or at least, not sober."

"Which means we need more encounters," he replied. "Because I do so love women with interesting secrets and intelligence to match mine."

See? Narcissism.

Ghanima didn't mind narcissism when it was this entertaining.

"I need to get out more in general," she admitted, "and you qualify as interesting company, I think. How do you feel about pizza?"

It was an important question. Ghanima considered the perfect 'picking theological fights' food. You could wave it around, and hopefully not loose toppings.

"It's the cornerstone of my diet," he answered. "You can never go wrong with a good pizza. Unless there's pineapple. Not a fan of the pineapple on pizza. I don't need fruit on something that's supposed to be bad for me."

[Omg soooo sorry. I fell asleep hardcore last night!]

"Sacrilege," Ghanima replied promptly. "There is nothing better than pineapple and bacon pizza. A few bites of fruit can't possibly be healthy enough to damage whatever decadent lifestyle you are trying to achieve."

[No worries, I tend to take spontaneous naps on my laptop all the time.]

"They should be separate," he argued with a laugh. "Extra cheese, mushrooms, peppers, sausage, and ham. That's what I tend to get. If I want to eat some fruit, I'll buy some apples at the store and then dip them in caramel or something."

Ghanima shook her head. "Only caramel? No chocolate and sprinkles to complete the conversion from healthy to junk food?"

"And pizza almost always needs bacon. Possibly jalapeño peppers too."

"Caramel to start with," he amended. "I can pace myself. That's one thing I can do. No over indulgence for me."

Liar.

"But we can half a pizza. Make it easy on the both of us."

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Atlas Gym, Monday Morning

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