paradisalost | the fifth loophole

[Boy, last night was a really cool meteor shower, wasn't it? Not that the man in black really cared much- he had seen several meteor showers back on the island, and so yesterday's event was something not worth his time and interest.]

[Right now he's going around the castle grounds in smoke form, flitting to and fro throughout the underbrush. People nearby can catch glimpses of black smoke and the strange sounds of the smoke monster. He's bored. Incredibly bored. And suddenly, he spots something.]

[The duck pond.]

[Sometime later, people walking out near the grounds might spot a man dressed in black examining something red and brown in his arms while sitting by the duck pond. As you come closer, you may realize that he's picking off the feathers one by one off a rather dead duck. It doesn't look harmed at all, surprisingly. No wounds or cuts or anything.]

[He has his journal open next to him, and he speaks, still engaged in his task.]

It's been a while since I asked you people anything. So, here's another question to keep your busy.

[A pause.] If you suddenly saw somebody that you loved that had died a while ago one day, what would you do? Would you think that it was an illusion? A ghost? A mere hallucination of your already tormented mind?

For, it's not every day you can see the dead. But what if you could...?

[ooc: Feel free to run into him in his smoke form or wonder why the heck he's plucking a duck. Or just reply to his question. All up to you. :)]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You might say as much. It is a gift I have had since birth.

On the contrary. [Paths of the Dead, anyone?] But rarely have I heard of a spirit seen by one alone. And I should like to think all my loved ones safe in the Hall of Mandos.

That's interesting. Is it something passed down from your family?

...Is that like your version of heaven?

It both is and is not. It is not unheard of among the more powerful of my kind, though few possess it to the same degree as I.

Something like. There the souls of the slain of Elvenkind reside until the unmaking of the world.

Elvenkind? You're an elf?

[He sounds intrigued.] Unmaking of the world? Where do the souls go when there is no world to return to?

I am.

It is said that, at that time, both Elves and Men will join the singing of the Second Music of the Ainur. That will mean little to you, I know, but the explanation is a long one.

I thought those only existed in fantasy stories. I guess I've been proven wrong.

Eh, it's to be expected. People back home also have very long-winded stories about the Coming of Days and such.

You are not the first to have said as much.

And what of you? What would you think when brought face to face with the dead?

Elves aren't exactly a common race among worlds, what can I say.

[He lets out a small sigh.] I'm one of a small group of people back home who can see the dead. Ghosts and traces of people do exist, as much as people don't like to believe it. They don't see them, and they think that that's enough to prove they don't exist at all.

It is arrogant, is it not, to think existence limited to one's own knowledge? An all too common failing, I have found.

Ignorance is found everywhere, whether you like it or not. It's something you can't change in people.

Mayhaps. I am not so foolish as to believe there exists a land free from ignorance, nor that there will ever be. Yet it needn't prevail.

True. But what can you do? Go and tell people "stop being ignorant"? It's in their nature. A leopard can't change it's spots.

Is it? I wonder that people so readily assign to nature what might be better put to circumstance and will. "I cannot change" is a far cry from "I will not change," yet it seems to me one is oft mistaken for the other.

Sometimes they're one and the same thing. But whatever the case, people are always the same, from generation to generation.

In that they have equal chance to rise or fall as they will, you are right.

I guess so. I knew somebody who believed that everyone would be able to be redeemed in the end, be able to rise...

I don't know how much of that is true, to be honest.

There are very few who are past all hope. But I do not mistake hope for certainty.

Exactly. You shouldn't blindly think that people will become better because of the way they are. In fact, quite the opposite. They're almost doomed to corrupt others.