12376/A New You: A bird in the hand...

A New You: A bird in the hand...
Date of Scene:	09 August 2022
Location:	Lydia's Apartment
Synopsis:	(CW: Body horror) Jon confronts Lydia at her apartment, but things don't go so well for Jon, as Lydia reveals just how corrupted she is by Viscera's influence.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Jonathan Sims

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Sunday night Lydia's magical trip alarm went off and showed her an image of Chas busting into her Body Shop. What followed was a night of panic, thinking that at any point in time from there, the entire JLD would come knocking on her door demanding answers. When that didn't happen she spent the next night making escape plans should things turn south for when the JLD eventually *did* confront her.

    Tonight, she's decided that instead of waiting she'd take matters into her own hands, and texted Jon (who hopefully had a new phone by now) that they probably need to talk and that she'd be in her apartment that night. No use in delaying the inevitable.

    She's got the electric kettle on set to boil, and a wide variety of teas for them to choose from. It feels like tonight is going to be a tea night. She also has a small tray of fig newtons to nibble on, even though neither of them would get much out of it. Now it's just a matter of waiting for Jon to arrive.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    The main reason the entire JLD has not come knocking on Lydia's door demanding answers is that there's been a general agreement that Jon would come knocking on Lydia's door demanding answers by himself. It's something for which he has to prepare himself, though, both emotionally and physically. Emotionally--as much as he wants to believe Lydia really is doing all of this out of the goodness of her heart, why is she trying to hide what she's doing? At the very least, she doesn't trust them anymore, and he's been having some long thoughts as to why that is. Was there something Jon could have done to avoid this? Been a better friend, a better leader?

    Physically, well--he needs a new phone. His old one got chomped up by the Hound of Hell, and so he requisitioned a new one. It's SHIELD standard issue, so heavily encrypted and with tracking apps built in, which means that if he hasn't contacted Cael within a few hours--he's left himself plenty of time for a long talk and maybe a good cry--she can bring the others in to rescue him. He sends her a text as he reaches Lydia's front door: 'Alright, going in. Synchronise watches or whatever. <3 and don't worry too much. It's Lydia, after all.'

    Lydia's not going to /hurt/ him. Right?

    So, there's a knock on the door. Jon's come unarmed and not wearing any armor, instead opting for a sapphire blue skirt and emerald green shirt. It's starting to become his favorite color combination. It matches his wings! He does not have his wings right now.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia stands still, frozen for a moment as the knock on the door announces Jon's presence. She squeezes her eyes shut as if she's trying to concentrate on something, before nodding. "Okay," she breathes.

    She steps to the door and opens it to greet Jon with a weak smile. "Come in," she says, stepping back to give them room to enter. "I've got the electric kettle on and your choice of tea. I've also got Fig Newtons in case either of us... I don't know... feel like occupying our hands with something."

    Once Jon is in she sits down at the dining room table, and gestures at the array of teas. "Help yourself." She watches him with those strange pink eyes before starting, nervously, "So. You found the shop."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon smiles just about as weakly. "Hi," he says, stepping inside. "Fig Newtons are lovely. They still... mmm. It's sort of like cotton candy these days, you know? Except without the stomach-aches if you eat too much. They taste good, even if there isn't much... nutritional value."

    He sits down, chooses out a tea without entirely paying much attention to which, and says, "Yes. We found the shop." His own eyes no longer glow green, at least not obviously; there's swirls of that green in their sometimes, or teal, but mostly it's just the usual deep chocolate brown. They still peer at Lydia like he's seeing right through her, whether or not he actually is.

    "Why don't you tell me what's been going on?" It's not quite the normal friendly tone he has when he talks to Lydia. It's something more professional--compassionate, considerate, but slightly distanced. Therapist voice. He's trying his best to keep /some/ emotional distance from this whole thing until he can figure out what 'this whole thing' even is.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "I know what you mean," Lydia says with a soft chuckle, reaching for one of the cookies. She watches Jon make his tea and when he sits down to ask his question there's a bit of hesitance. "Well, I mean, you /saw/ what it is that I'd been doing," she says, without a hint of remorse. A bit of fear, to be sure, and maybe a touch of annoyance.

    She takes a little nibble of the cookie before continuing. "You have to understand that Viscera gave me the power without asking. At the end I talked to it to try to get a better understanding of what it wanted." She purses her lips thoughtfully, "It said that it merely wanted to see me reach my full potential which... I believe is /a/ reason, but not the only one."

    She offers up a little shrug. "So I thought about what I could /do/ with that power. All the good it could bring that could run counter to Viscera's plan. I mean... did you see the photo album? All those people finally getting the help they deserve."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon absently twitches the fabric of his skirt as he says, "I understand that. I really do. I don't think--if everyone's agreeing to what you're doing, I don't think there's a problem with the idea, /inherently/. Just a sort of... magical plastic surgery, yeah?"

    He sighs, as he picks up a fig newton and toys with it for a moment. "And I'm not--mmm. Chas is an /angel/ now. He's meant to work against this power, to keep it out of the world. I'm more... understanding?" A gesture with one hand. "Ma'at cannot exist without isfet. The entire /concept/ of Order, in my view of the world, is dependent on overcoming Chaos. The Old Gods, they were originally part of the world, and they still are, in a way. I don't like the concept of absolutes. So the idea that just because you're using Viscera's power, what you're doing /must/ be bad--that doesn't really sit well with me."

    He bites his lip and frowns at Lydia. "But... why did you feel you needed to /hide/ this? I mean... you lied to me, Lydia. You /must/ have. You said you didn't have any power, but you did. You hid all of this from us, you were obviously worried about our reaction. Even now, I'm not certain I can trust when you say you didn't ask for the power." He holds up a hand. "If you didn't, then you didn't, and I'm not arguing with you. I just mean that I don't--"

    He sighs. "I just don't know why you don't trust us."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia closes her eyes again, her brow furrowing, sitting still for a moment before answering. "Because I didn't think you'd understand," she says. She opens her eyes to look at Jon before shaking her head. "Well /you/ I think would understand, but Chas? Rien?" She shakes her head. "Never."

    She lets out a little huff. "You've seen how Chas gets around these things. Hell, just getting a little *whiff* of Viscera's influence has him blasting down doors." She narrows her eyes, almost suspiciously. "What would you have done had I had been there? How certain are you that any confrontation with Chas wouldn't turn violent? If it had, whose side would you have been on?"

    She shakes her head. "On top of that Rien doesn't like me. She... tolerates my presence on the team, but that doesn't stop her from dismissing all that I have to say, or treating me like a novice who doesn't know anything." A small smile that's almost a sneer touches her lips. "She wouldn't hesitate on bringing me down a peg or two for my decisions."

    She waves a hand at Jon, "And you. I trust /you/, Jon, but you can't lie. If I thought that you'd have been able to keep this a secret, I would have told you. All it would take is one wrong question, though."

    "You don't understand. This all... it feels right. Like an extension of my mutant power." She gives Jon something of a helpless shrug. "The stuff of flesh and bone... malleable by my hand, just like my ectoplasm. Same power, different material."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon fixes Lydia with that piercing gaze again. "Lydia--in a lot of ways, you /are/ a novice who doesn't know anything. I know you did the Great Seal, and that was amazing work, but--we also accidentally ended the universe, and dragging Saint Michael through Nullspace is the beacon that let the Fears find us, and use Rien as a gateway. And that wasn't your idea--hell, I remember that you were utterly confused by it when I suggested it. But you /also/ didn't know enough to tell me what a terrible fucking idea it was. Sometimes the most important thing with magic is knowing when /not/ to use it."

    He sighs, and shakes his head. "Rien doesn't dislike you--she's just worried about your power, and doesn't know you well enough to trust that you mean well. Chas stayed back specifically so he wouldn't get violent, because he didn't want to hurt you. And I can keep a damn secret by just not answering a question. I'm still capable of deception--I just can't tell an outright lie."

    They can sense the odd resonance off Lydia's words, but don't comment. Not outright. Instead, they rub at their face with their left hand. "I know that it feels right. The Ceaseless Watcher feels right to me, too. But..." A pause. Then, "I almost lost control of it, in the Astral. I ran into a well connected to the Great River, tainted by the Old Gods, and the Watcher... nearly overwhelmed me. Tried to turn on me, to take over. I had it on a leash, but it was like having a tiger by the tail. It tried to... to get me to take the power in the well, and turn on a friend."

    He folds his hands together, lacing green with brown, and the look in his eyes--his face isn't more lined, there's only a touch more gray in that hair, but his eyes are far older than they ought to be. "You might think you've got control of this now, but what happens when Viscera tells you to do something to someone who says 'no?' Someone you're working on gets scared and asks you to stop, and you think 'no they /want/ this,' you tell yourself it's for their own good. And you don't stop. There's a reason doctors swear oaths and have ethical oversight. Power over someone else's body is an /immense/ responsibility." A pause. "I think there's a way for you to have this power, without it being attached to Viscera. It'd be hard, but I think you could do it, if you want to know how."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia's eyes flare in anger. "I knew enough to build a goddamn golem! I knew enough to research the techniques and find the flaws in them that would make a golem go bad! Just because I specialize in Kabalistic magic, it doesn't mean you get to just discount all that I've learned!"

    "Michael was..." she waves a hand dismissively, "a fluke. The circles would have worked perfectly had it been a normal angel, and let's not put that mistake all on me. /You/ didn't know enough to know what a terrible fucking idea it was either, and yet people aren't second guessing what /you/ do! Remember who came to whom to learn how to do wards."

    She stands up suddenly, causing the chair to scoot back and nearly topple over. "Hell. /You/ went and and chained one of these things /in your head/," she nearly shouts as she starts pacing. "You even grew a goddamn /third eye/ and everybody shrugged and went, WELP! That's Jon for you. Everybody knows how dangerous these things are and nobody questions your judgement, while if I get just a /touch/ of this power, everybody will go off the deep end!"

    "Trust you! How about trusting me?" She glowers at Jon. "I know what I'm doing. I know there's a line you don't cross. I /understand/ what consent is! God! Already you're thinking that I'm going to go full Frankenstein with this power without giving me the benefit of the doubt. I can see it in your eyes."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon holds up his hands. "Whoa, slow down. I never said Michael was all on you--it's my fault, as much as it's anyone's. And if you don't think people second guess me..." He shakes his head. "Lydia, Chas level a sword at me. Cael frets /constantly/ about me and the Watcher. And that's my /friends/. I had Garfield fucking Logan show up on my balcony a few weeks before all of this happened to gripe at me about my choices--and he was /right/."

    He shakes his head. "Alright, let's just... you're engaging in some black and white thinking here, Lydia. I can respect your ability with Kabbalistic magic--and I very much do--while also worrying that you might not have a handle on this power from Viscera. None of this is 'everyone' or 'always' or 'never,' alright?"

    He frowns as he watches Lydia pace. "I don't assume you're going to go 'full Frankenstein.' But Lydia--leashing the Watcher the way I did was a /mistake/. I didn't need that power--none of us do. I already had everything I needed to defeat the Old Ones, in here." He presses a hand to his chest. "And you do, too. I--I'd hoped maybe I could help you with that. I know you're scared, I know you want to help people. That's why I /am/ giving you the benefit of the doubt."

    He gets up, to stand and offer his hands to Lydia. "You could /purify/ this power, take it away from Viscera. I know you have it in you. Let me help you?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    The laughter that bubbles out of Lydia is a bit unhinged. "Scared? I'm not scared. I'm frustrated. Angry."

    She stops pacing to stare at Jon's offered hand, her head tilting a bit as if she's hearing something. "No," she says, slapping the hand away. "You don't want to cleanse it. You want to take it away from me." Odd pink eyes glare at Jon in accusation. "I should have known it would go this way. I don't know why I thought I could talk to you."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon steps toward Lydia, shaking his head. "I want you to be safe, and happy. I want you to--alright, look. Let's just..."

    He keeps holding out his hands, taking slow, deep breaths. Regulating his heartbeat. He's not scared of Lydia. He doesn't have /flesh/, after all. "Why don't you tell me why you want to keep the power. Let's just... let's talk about it, okay?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "No!" she shouts, lunging at Jon vampire quick, wrapping a hand around their neck and lifting them off the floor. Her eyes are actually /glowing/ that meat-pink color. "No more talking! You keep *nagging* and *harping* on me!" Her head tilts again, this time assuredly listening to something in her head. She suddenly bursts out laughing, the kind that only somebody completely off their rocker would have.

    "You think you're safe from me, she says, and suddenly Jon can't feel his body anymore. Nor does his vocal chords work. That unhinged laughter bubbles up from her again. "Flesh or ectoplasm, I can shape it all. You're no different." She walks over to the couch and carefully sets Jon's limp body down on it. "I'm sorry about this," she says gently, "but I think I need to teach you a lesson."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    There's a moment where Jon /almost/ manages to respond with proper speed and power, bringing up his hands and starting to pull up a shield to stop Lydia. But the depth of his conviction that he /could/ talk Lydia down, that she was still his friend, causes just enough hesitation that the vampire gets there first. He should have been ready for it, but he wasn't. Thinking like a doctor instead of a spy--and who can blame him, really? He's been a doctor far longer than any of the other things.

    Still, he doesn't really panic, right at first, both hands coming up to clutch at Lydia's wrist and try to pry it away, forming constructs in his head. A pair of glowing arms come out to grab at Lydia--but the constructs, like Jon's body, are made of ectoplasm. They'll be easy to swat away, and it's when his body goes limp on the couch that his eyes widen just a little and panic starts to set in. His heartbeat speeds up, and he tries desperately to move, but--to no avail.

    He reaches out with his mind, trying to speak to Lydia telepathically. Maybe he can still reason with her. It's about the only hope he's got, now, aside from Cael coming to check in.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    The constructs Jon form in his defense are easy to dismantle. Normally Lydia has problems with manipulating ectoplasm that isn't her own, and mostly it boils down to a contest of wills. It's why it's hard for her to just disapparate a ghost or a specter. But she has an Old God jacking up her powers now. It's not only her will that bats away Jon's attempts to free themselves but that of Viscera's as well.

    When Jon tries to get in her head, she closes her eyes and clutches her temples, murmuring, "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" and all Jon gets is a head full of meat.

    She takes a step back once the probing starts and stares at Jon, as if deciding on what to do. "Right," she says, having come to some sort of conclusion. Stepping back forward she reaches out a hand and and makes little snipping motions with her fingers. Golden scissors appear and start snipping at Jon's shirt, starting from the hem, and going up the sides, and under the arm. "This is just going to get in the way for what I have planned." Once both sides are done, she leaves the shirt hanging there with the sides open like a tunic.

    "Since you like to *harp* on me, let's have your form match, she says with a giggle that's a bit off-kilter. "Let's start with that missing arm of yours." She reaches out and waves away the magical prosthetic like so much smoke, and touches where Jon's right arm is supposed to be. Immediately a limb starts growing from the socket, with Lydia encouraging its growth with painless pulls and tugs.

    "You know you could do this yourself," she says, continuing to pull and tug at the new arm. "If you had the will, that is. But you are so *attached* to the idea of having lost the arm that you'd never be able to grow it back" She gets the arm to about what arm length should be but she... but she just keeps going, pulling it out longer and longer. No hands form, at least no human hands. Instead something more akin to a thin paddle forms, and it isn't until feathers start to grow from the skin that it becomes obvious that instead of an arm, she's giving Jon a wing.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Planned? /Planned/? Gods, no wonder Lydia'd been hiding things from them, if she'd been planning something. Of course, Jon /could/ be over-interpreting that one word, but he's really rather panicked now. He could protest all of this--that he /tried/ to regrow the arm when he was reborn, that it didn't take. That he has wings already, thank you very much. That he doesn't want the arm back. That he's scared for her. That he's scared /of/ her. He hasn't been scared of Lydia in months, and even then it wasn't a /conscious/ fear.

    But her mind is full of meat, so she can't hear them.

    The eyes are the one thing his will's going to hold onto past anything else, and they stare at Lydia, silently pleading. They manage, as well, to mouth words: 'Please. Stop.'

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia cocks her head at Jon's mouthed words and gives him a smirk. "Stop? And leave you lopsided? Why would I do that? Besides, there's more I need to do."

    "What it is that I'm doing to you may seem drastic. Cruel, even," she says in a conversational tone as she moves to Jon's other arm and starts working on it. Pulling it out and stretching it just like the other one. "I wouldn't do this to any human, just so you know. But you're not human, are you? You're so used to being human that you've convinced yourself that you needed to mimic humanity to the cellular level. This..." she says, holding up a nearly finished wing, "is just as much an extension of your will as any of your constructs are. What I'm doing is going to be only as permanent as you want it to be." She stops, takes a step back and takes a look at the winged Jon. "Or maybe my will is greater than yours and you'll be stuck like this."

    She folds her arms as she considers her handiwork. She suddenly bursts out laughing and nods, "Right, right. You're right. This is a good start."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    'Lydia,' Jon mouths. Stops, tries to work up sound, but finds he can't. 'Lydia. Stop.'

    A few tears leak out of the corners of Jon's eyes. This isn't Lydia talking anymore--is it? /Is/ it? Mabe he'll get a chance to find out, someday, how much of this is Lydia and how much is Viscera. If the Fears are working on people's fears and insecurities, their worst selves, is that all this is?

    He just has to hold out until Cael realizes he hasn't texted her, and brings people in. Maybe Chas. Oh, no, but--Chas might kill Lydia. At this point, /Cael/ might kill Lydia. So, another tack: 'Don't. Want. Others. Hurt. You.'

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Well, it's a little too late for that," Lydia says, getting on her knees and delicately taking of Jon's shoes and socks, setting them down in a neat pile off to the side. "Chas *already* wants to hurt me, and as you've pointed out, Rien doesn't know me so she won't care. Cael was ready to put a steak in my heart ever since we met, and the others?" She shakes her head. "They'll follow the leadership."

    She reaches up Jon's skirt and grabs a firm hold of their left thigh with one hand, and their calf in another. "Okay. This is going to be uncomfortable," she says, and there's a sudden *crack* as she dislocates and breaks bones. True to her word, it /is/ rather uncomfortable, but still not painful. "The thing you have to understand about anatomy is that, for the most part, once you evolve past fish, the anatomy is more or less the same."

    She starts reshaping the leg, talking Jon through what she is doing. "Take, for example, a bird's leg. At first blush you might think it vastly different, but it's not. You start at the femur, which on a bird is significantly shorter. The Patella is a bit smaller too, as a result. They've got a tibiotarsus, which actually is the tibia and some of the ankle bones fused in. The fibula is almost non-existent, but it's there." She looks up and gives Jon something of a lazy grin. "It's that one bit on the drumstick that always gets stuck in your teeth." She turns back to her work, "They've got a tarsometatarsus, which is basically the bones that make up your foot all fused together, and lastly... the digits." When she's done reshaping Jon's leg to that of a bird's, blue-black feathers grow to match those of their wings.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon winces at the breaking of bones, but then actually /glares/ at Lydia. 'Knew. That.' He had to study bird anatomy to get his wings right, after all, even if they're not /quite/ right. He's rather attached to the idea of wings situated like angels have them. But anyway, he's a /doctor/! He knows anatomy. Eesh.

    Irritation gives way to horror, though, at managing to catch sight of what she's doing to his foot. Oh, /gods/. What if he can't put it right again??

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia looks up and puts her hands on her hips and actually kind of pouts. "Well *I* didn't. I'm an English major, remember? Now, lets get that other leg done." She reaches out and proceeds to change the right leg as she did the left. She even has the audacity to start humming as she works. When she's done and feathers start growing in, she gets to her feet and considers her work, stroking her chin thoughtfully like she was in an art gallery.

    "Hmm... Not quite right. I'm missing a few things. Ah!" she snaps her fingers once she's got an inkling of what's next. Tendrils of golden light snake out and gently fold Jon's wings close to their sides, and then picks him up and maneuvers them around until they're awkwardly lying face down on the couch. "Forgot the tail," she says, giving their bottom a little pat.

    This transformation doesn't take long. All she has to do is scoot Jon's skirt down until she can see their tailbone and then just coax it out into a nub. From there all that's left is to let the blue-black feathers grow in, which doesn't seem to want to stop at the tail as feathers star sprouting along Jon's back and shoulders.

    "Okay," she says, hoisting Jon up and getting him situated the right way around. "Almost done."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon winds up just kind of staring up at the ceiling and silently blinking away a few tears. They don't have enough control over their body to properly /cry/, so that's about all they can manage at the moment as Lydia manhandles them around.

    He /is/ rather glad he didn't bring Cael, though. What would Lydia have done if she'd tried to get in the way of all this?

    By the time Lydia's 'almost done,' Jon's settled into kind of glaring at her. A lecture's not going to much good, but it's still the lecturing kind of /look/. It fits what she's going for, though, right?

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "All right. Just a couple of more things," Lydia announces. She reaches up under the tunic and her hands brush against their chest. "Pardon me." At her touch, Jon's pecs and shoulder muscles swell and become more well defined. "Gotta have all that muscle or else you'll never get off the ground. Plus, I've given you a little extra something." She gives Jon a playful wink as breasts start to grow in, too. She reaches out and gives their hair a bit of a ruffle which causes it to grow a bit past his shoulders.

    She takes a step back and puts her hands on her hips and looks over her captive to make sure she hasn't missed anything. "There. Now you're a /true/ harpy, ready to harp on anything." She cackles madly at the very bad pun and turns away from Jon to pull out the iron chest from underneath it.

    Unlocking it with her ectoplasm, the lid pops open and she starts rummaging around for a few items. "I'm going to disappear now that we're done. Ah!" She pulls out an amulet on a golden chain, and places it over her head to hang around her neck, where the pendant for her coven should be, but is absent. As soon as the amulet touches her chest, it's like all mystical sight of her sees her as a void. "This baby will keep you all from tracking me," she says, patting the amulet. She goes back to the trunk and digs around a bit until she finds some leather bound journals and takes those too.

    "Now, before I leave just a couple of things. Firstly I'm going to leave the door unlocked so when Cael comes to get you, she won't have to bash the door down. Secondly I'd like you to find a home for Memphis. He's the cat. He's a cuddlemuffin, but a picky eater. Thirdly," she says, reaching out and touching Jon's neck. "You should start getting feeling back in everything now. It'll take about ten minutes before you're fully mobile again. Long enough for me to get far away."

    She starts to stride away to the door before pausing and turning around to say one last thing. "I'm sorry things went this way. It didn't have to, you know. But it's just as well. I never realized how... freeing this would be. It was good knowing you, Jon. Give the others my regards." And with the awful deed done, she walks out of the apartment and into the night.