14596/Ex Umbra: Hello and Welcome

Ex Umbra: Hello and Welcome
Date of Scene:	03 April 2023
Location:	Asgardian Embassy
Synopsis:	A promise of violence and rescue sworn by a Shi'ar noble means something. A horse offers counsel and sets the stage. Bottoms up!
Cast of Characters:	Jane Foster, Michael Erickson

---

Jane Foster has posed:
Sunday night in Midtown sees the usual array of early spring activity. Well-heeled individuals gather in tony restaurants and private homes, be those fancy townhouses owned by billionaires or condo towers soaring into the sky. Asgard's sole mortal embassy in Midgard rubs shoulders with particularly wealthy neighbours, fitting into the area just fine.

Guards stationed outside are few, numbering only two, since someone would truly need to be outstandingly mad to risk attacking a whole host of Aesir. Not all of them are warriors, naturally. When the staff can conventionally hurl a car across a football field, they don't need to be. Lights gleam through the 19th century-era townhouse -- admittedly a very fancy building -- and all signs appear certain that someone is home. Probably multiple someones.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    It has been some time since Erickson came to the embassy's gates, not since before angels came to Manhattan. But of late, after months of self-isolation and the grimness that follows, he finds himself seeking friends from other worlds. In this case, the Lady Sif, a new friend at the time and hunting companion. Had she married the Odinson as she had wanted? Should he have brought a marital gift? No, better not to assume. He just brings himself.

    At the gates he introduces himself by a name the embassy staff would know - not his Human guise, but as a son of Chandilar. His clothes have changed, too: slick gray suit, black shoes. Fitted, Italian. Black Wayfarers he picked up forty years ago. He doesn't look like a federal agent, he looks more like foreign nobility. Which he is, of course, just another galaxy instead of another continent.

    And, thus introduced, he awaits reaction.

Jane Foster has posed:
The angels in Manhattan likely were forgotten within the month they happened. The strange way of things in New York, as in Gotham and Metropolis, rests on the human capacity to overlook damn near everything that gets in the way of living a normal life. They simply want to get down to the business of working, playing, and earning the occasional holiday away from the city. Interchangeable disasters of the season don't exactly leave a perpetual mark on humanity. For the better, really.

Thus, the Asgardian Embassy isn't on an abandoned street. No fortifications guard the curb beyond the normal kinds found in tony neighbourhoods. One can really walk right up and ask for admission, amazingly enough. It's easier to get into than, say, Croatia's embassy. Or Paraguay's. Certainly Latveria's.

The guards can check against the known names or consult with whatever excellent staff manage matters of hospitality, security, and the rest when Michael appears. It doesn't take long to confirm against a previous guest list, or maybe they'd welcome diversions. Inside, the handsome halls bear definite hints of Asgardian finery, albeit somewhat muted; recent events may call for celebration, but the war footing and certain losses leave a subdued charge to the air. In the midst of this, a man in a smart green tunic embroidered deeply in gold comes briskly down the hallway. "Be you welcome to the embassy of Asgard. I am Gylfi. Are you expected?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    So it certainly would appear; Michael has long since become innured to humanity's resistance to the enormity of such things, though certainly he has never lost respect for it. It is one of the many, many reasons for which he elected the path that sees him where his life's course leads in the first place. Upon seeing this man in green, of course, he is polite - offering a faint dancer's bow as the man arrives, a feudal expression of respect given when one is unsure of the other's social position. "I am known on this world as Michael Erickson." He assumes that his security passes have all long been filed away. "I am not expected. And this is not an official calling."

Jane Foster has posed:
Gylfi has a leaner look to him than many of his kin, and hooded eyes that could be unkindly said to offer a shifty appearance. Then again, anyone familiar with Loki probably knows better than to judge by a cover. He presses thin-fingered hands together and drops his chin. "Master Erickson." Crisp diction tries on the name and finds it suited. Some near unspoken gesture puts the guards back to watching the door, and somewhere overhead, the pattering of feet moving rapidly suggest a pack of half-grown lions chase zebras or possibly younger Aesir are up to little good. All the soundproofing in the world can't help entirely deaden the sound of a boisterous scuffle during the Sunday reading club.

"May I inquire of the purpose for your visit?" The niceties must be observed before tossing out someone on their ear or tossing them into the lion's den where guests and residents mingle: the meadhall. Excitingly, a pair of servants roll a very large keg through the door to general noisy fanfare.

"Aye, bring that right here! We're already at the bottom!"

"'Tis scarcely fair you only bring one! He'll drain it all!"

"Bah, you're just jealous you cannot quaff the finest products of our hives in a gulp!"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Michael will do." He gives the lads and their barrel a gauging look, falling silent a moment before returning his gaze to the other man. "Or if you prefer to speak without Earthly seeming as we are no longer strictly on Midgardian soil, you may refer to me as Cal'hatar of Chandilar. Or simply Cal'hatar, ideally. I came to visit the Lady Sif, whom I consider a friend and adventuring companion." A beat. "And, perchance, to partake of Asgardian mead. Nothing in Midgard so much as makes my neck burn unless it is expressly toxic."

Jane Foster has posed:
Gylfi nods to the preferred cognomen, as one must. "As you would prefer." No language barriers exist between him and the many denizens of the realms under Yggdrasil's branches. If Michael wanted to screech a series of tones, he could expect to be understood.

The brief pause after Michael expresses his wishes stretches further as Gylfi consults what, for all purposes, appears to be his finely woven cuff. He traces the lavish embroidered metalwork, distracted for a moment, hooded eyes narrowing. "Unfortunately, Lady Sif is not available. I can leave word of your presence, however." This may be a small olive branch to wave about, but sufficient to lend credence to hospitality such as Asgard understands it. He nods briskly. "You of course may spend the hour in our company. I am obliged to remind you that the potency of our spirits is known to have lasting effects -- substantially impairing ones -- on those of more modest constitutions."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "The Lady has shared with me before, aye," Michael replies with a nod; his eyes track the barrel a moment longer before returning to Gylfi once more. "My people have the equivalent constitution of ten healthy Midgardians, you see. Certainly nothing to your people, I am sure, but humans do not make proper drinking companions." The man reaches toward his jacket, slowly enough to demonstrate no ill intent, and unless stopped produces a small flask made of silvery metal of distinctly nonhuman design. A soldier's flask, albeit not of any human army.

    "Come, Gylfi of Asgard," he enjoins the other man. "Let us exchange toasts of fallen comrades."

Jane Foster has posed:
"Ten! Ah, then you can expect to finish a tankard in excellent company. We are familiar with hailing the services to transport you home safely, if you have established an account." Yes, Gylfi can call an Uber or a Lyft, and make sure his guests are someone else's problem. The responsible ones in Asgard always go far. Far in the other direction to roost the troublemakers, right?

The rather handsome set of double-doors where the mead-bearers rolled in leads to the meadhall, the nexus of socializing that cannot simply be characterized as a mere tavern or bar. It's far more than that. Large trestle tables constructed of golden oak run the span of the room, split by occasional aisles to permit servers through. Communal meals coincide with a wave of warm bread from the ovens and lighter fare for the evening -- plenty of starchy vegetables, cheeses and cold meats, roasted other vegetables, and a fine stew. Round loaves end up distributed liberally, slathered in honey. Other pickled things -- pickled anything -- go well with the sweetness of the mead and the lambics poured in abundance, above and beyond the ales, beers, and other brews sloshed around.

Several people cluster under the great round chandeliers, animated in their conversations. Men in green and brown take away old drinks and plates; a woman comes round to refresh them in kind. The mead-bearers roll their hand-cart away without any keg atop it. There's a horse that would dwarf a Clydesdale with his pearl-white nose in a rune-banded barrel, evidently showing the Aesir and Vanir guests what-for.

"Eh! Is that another?"

"Not delivered so quickly from the cellars," groans one of the un-meaded drinkers. "You've come at a time when we're parched and made to wait."

On a horse, as it would seem, his feathered wings tucked neatly to his sides and every line radiant. There are equestrian statues green with envy. "Hmph." The low, rumbling noise radiates off the golden drink. "I have my reasons."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    Ten indeed - or more, perhaps, given how far the Shi'ar pushes himself these days at the gym. Bird-men like himself tend to have more of a swimmer's build, but his muscle definition is akin to an exotic topographical map. He gives the hall a long surveil as he and Gylfi arrive, and the soft sound that escapes his assumedly highbrow throat is not one of disappointment but of relish. His house is full of soldiers and hunters, after all. What one might call the salt of a distant earth...which is then used to befoul the foundations of rebellious cities across a far-flung galaxy.

    But there is a horse there, a glorious, talking one. Who is hogging all the mead. And so instead does Michael uncork his flask with a shrug, that flask still mostly filled with a potent, nigh-toxic brew made from dead men and exotic swamps, and he lifts it in toast to Gylfi before taking a swig and offering it to his host.

    "To my friend," he announces. "Newly fallen in battle. Let us hail the name of Jane Foster, who helped battle the elves at the human spaceport ere too soon ago. I will wear a necklace of their nobles' ears before long, I swear it." Because here, more than anywhere he knows in this galaxy, could such a bloodthirsty oath be made without shaming or reprisal.

Jane Foster has posed:
Fear not; the Asgardian mead stores would likely not go dry short of a proper fullscale dark elf invasion with intent to lock the whole of the planet off from Midgard. Certainly nothing of the sort could be expected to transpire in living memory. Silence! There will be none of the idle speculation about a major battle in the South Atlantic signalling near doom.

Mindful of their guests and regulars, the two servants nod politely and laugh when announced. They hasten to return to the lift back to the cellars, fit to bring up another keg aslosh with the honeyed elixir so valued by warriors and poets alike for highly different reasons. Other nutty beers and one lager end up poured in lieu of tastier prospects.

The prospect of *any* toast in this vicinity tends to betoken more in kind, at least a rousing round of "ayes!" and "Hear hears!" to encourage anything short of treasonous sentiments. Even if "Who?" gets thrown in there among the fanfare. Because they'll toast or cheer nearly anything, Michael won't suffer for silence when he pours one out, the stiff necks and respectful nods all around encouraging him. Hands clap or pummel the thick oak tables, sending resonant rumbles spreading outward, drowning out murmurs of conversation.

The report of a plate-sized hoof cracking into the ground almost certainly sounds like a cannon discharged close, and startles one drinker into sputtering. The horse raises that magnificent neck, eyes dark as the winter skies delivering an uncommonly direct, if near withering stare. One of Mr. Horse's splendid ears swivels, and he swallows the last of the mead with absolutely no obvious signs of inebriation because no one's asked him to move more than a few inches sideways. Probably a fine thing, all in all. "Fancy the notion of a *noble* svartalf," he drags out the harsher syllables against a whetstone of absolutely ideal diction. "Their trumped-up titles mock Asgard entire, and they're bloated fat as bugs on hate. Blasted assassins and murderers, the lot of them. Leastwise the poncy ones in Alfheim keep themselves above board, for all their airs and nonsense poetry and pleasures."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The taste of the dead buzzes electric and chemical in his mouth as he squints at the horse, unperturbed at the concept of a talking horse - though the words of the angry charger at the other end of the hall does give him some stay. "I speak not to defuse your obvious displeasure, sir," says Michael, having abandoned English entirely to speak in the ancient, respect-railed tongue of High Shi'ar in which he was taught since hatched from his own egg. "But there is only one race in all the galaxies encountered that is unalloyed evil in the regard of which you speak, and the elves are not they. There are always innocents in such populations. Although..." He grunts, then. "...clearly those who seek no truck with honorable conduct beg for the axe, and their own hot blood in their mouths." Because this is what he can do, here, speak as a warrior in a camp, with the essence of long-conquered planets on his tongue. At least, in the moment.

    "I am Cal'hatar," he proclaims. "I would drink with you, master horse. If you would raise a mug - so to speak - in honor of my friend."

Jane Foster has posed:
Chargers and destriers would be flattered by comparisons to the pearly creature worthy of the mantle Shadowfax, were such tales ever envisioned by another British bard. Mr. Horse professes no grievance with the mead, modestly dipping that great arched neck of his to reach the mead level below the rim of the barrel. A remarkable feat he can drink without sounding like Niagara Falls met a ball pit, demonstration a distinction several of Michael's fellow drinkers -- a lone dwarf from Nidavellir among the lot -- otherwise lack in their sloshing flagons and hearty conversations picked up rather than give way to the uncelebratory discussions of loss.

Their sentiments shared with their fellow trestlemats dispense with the expected honours, and short of someone calling for a game of draughts, shooting svartalfjar or wrestling, conversations resume.

"You lack grand familiarity with the shadow realm. Nary an innocent may be permitted under the auspices of their blighted philosophy, where elders and youths alike hew to the prevailing expectation to slaughter progeny demonstrating any hints of unwanted weakness." The dark eye fixes a look of unmarred intelligence, albeit hardened and unaffected by the Asgardian mead. Which says a great deal for the horse since any horse even capable of drinking probably goes under the table profoundly quickly. Those stomachs just aren't made for fermented anything. "The very hounds and stags they breed for viciousness foremost near to tear even their masters apart, let alone those branded exiles or afflicted. Though in your own travels, what race have you had truck with that lacks all ethical and moral stances held in common by the galactic milieu?"

There's very little tack for Michael to see about that horse, short of the metal-shod hooves perfectly capable of flattening a tank due to the relative size. He doesn't offend Mr. Horse by calling him that either. "Cal'hatar," he repeats. Equine vocal limitations do not apply to this particular drinking buddy. "Well met. Mr. Horse."

How a name like that gets applied to something of that noble mien...

Cerberus basically means Spot, so there's that.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    What else COULD the apparent Platonic ideal of a horse be BUT Mister Horse? Only Sidney Poitier and he get to begin the conversation with such an evocation. "Alas," he replies then, moving down to take a seat next to said elemental equine and taking another small pull from his flask of death. "I know all too well, for when I don my armor for battle my soul swings from a tree in the depths of the Void." Which, given the poetic nature of the situation, fits the situation just fine. "And I come from a race of conquerors yet rejected his people to defend Midgard as required." This, too, a poetic telling of reality. Perhaps this is the effect of Asgard on warriors. "But the race I have met that cares for naught but annihilation and its own expansion, at their own delight with the suffering they cause, are the creatures that call themselves the Brood."

    This bears no poetic exaggeration.

    This said, Cal'hatar of Chandilar lifts his flask in toast. "To Jane. May her killers prepare themselves for woe."

Jane Foster has posed:
It's not Mr. Ed, at least, nor 'Horseface' or something equivalently awful. Mr. Horse could be nonsensical, and doubtful that Mr. Horse knows anything about such business. Nonsense and whimsy? He is not a fancy-free individual today and perhaps never more.

The horse lightly flicks his tail, a matter to disrupt some nascent itch on a fetlock that cannot wisely be attended by less socially-acceptable means. Never mind Asgard accepts a /horse/ in its embassy, drinking along with everyone else. If Cal'hatar is here, then they truly extend their to company to nearly everyone. The frivolities in the mead hall rise a notch when the two previous mead-bearers return with another flagon to restore beverages behind the bar, much to muttered delight.

"That what she called herself. Ah." So she has a name. Verily. His feathers rustle for mention of the Brood, and there, Mr. Horse scythes those folded wings across the broad croup of his back, a habit of circumstance. "Rapacious and little better than virii. May their like avoid this planet for a time. It already has suffered overly much in past months."

Muzzle dropped, he scours the drinkers arrayed. "They indulge their blithe moments, ignorant of the day's coming travail. Is that a gift bought by the strength of arms arrayed on their behalf, or a small reward for the toil they must face?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "That is what she called herself," echoes Michael with his toast. "She was among the most welcoming humans when my origins were revealed. She was a friend to me, as well as my superior in our organization. She deserves avenging." Someone call Tony Stark. Michael, of course, is not one known to indulge in whimsy either. Tucking away his flask Cal'hatar folds his hands upon the table, not yet summoning (or presented with) a flask. His gaze follows the horse's, expression grave once more, and shakes his head at the horse's musings.

    "What is life if simply lived," he asks quietly. "Existence for its own sake is no existence at all." He considers a moment. "Where is she now? Her soul. Do you know?"

Jane Foster has posed:
Let Michael speak as he will. Gylfi discharged his duty and the thin crowd filling the meadhall with their laughter and conversations prove that life ever moves on. Additional rounds dispensed with a smile barely intrudes on the fierce camaraderie harboured under the Golden Realm's watch.

Mr. Horse flicks his ear, swiveling to face Cal'hatar, though he doubtfully requires no amplification to be heard. "To quote the inestimable Leonard Cohen, 'You want it darker; we kill the flame.'" Whatever meaning might be drawn in there, the pearly equine that practically blazes in the opulent golden woods and bronze-hammered knotwork fixes the Shi'ar noble with that pointed look. "Why?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    A shrug is the alien warrior's only answering gesture. "People come back to life all the time," he says. "If she is not where her soul wants to be, I will go and fetch it." A moment, and he wrinkles his nose. "May I have a flagon?"

Jane Foster has posed:
Mr. Horse says, "Were they dead in the first place?" Sarcasm lends a very thin veneer to this rhetorical inquiry directed at the world at large rather than specifically at the Shi'ar noble. For deadpan delivery, one could do much worse than an angry, grieving stallion able to quote Leonard Cohen, dispense philosophical ideas gleaned from the Romantics and Stoics, and drink half the Caspian Sea.

"You would not like to drink from 'ere, surely." Up to Michael about dumping a flagon or his death-rot flask in there where he's stuck his nose, but far be it from anyone here to show remote evidence of squeamishness. "However colloquial your view of what lies beyond death, it is not quite so simply. You do not simply take a soul. The division of the realms prohibits it. You could pull all you wanted, gravity greater and older than atomic attraction defies the effort. Such a plan, however admirable, requires refinement. And substantially more drink."

Michael Erickson has posed:
    That gets another grunt from the alien. "I have no qualms with filling my mug from another warrior's cask," says Michael/Cal'hatar; he waves at one of the attendants, gesturing to the barrel and then making a gesture like drinking from said hypothetical vessel. "Were he to allow it." Alas, he has no dreams, no poetry in him. But he has passion - his people are known for it. And no end to a thirst for vengeance when raised. As are his people also known.

    "I saw angels come to Manhattan, and were rebuffed. Each time I go to battle my soul beholds the horrors of the void, of dead stars and souls. Nothing is impossible. It only requires imagination." And, of course. More drink.

Jane Foster has posed:
Invariably someone will take note that their guest over there yapping up Mr. Horse actually bothered to take some mead, and at that point, resplendent cheers prevail because what beats Asgardian liquor? Nothing save a rousing bone-cracking that also leads to more drinking. The stakes are very reasonable.

No complaint; the attendants shall offer fresh drinks in due course.

"Then your mettle exceeds the average stout-hearted warrior that would traverse the very depths of the Hells in pursuit of their purpose." He isn't taking on the professorial tone so much as blunt fact, for the whole of it. "Were thy battles staggering in their victory all the way to whatever frosty shore the lost lady dwells on, and the very shades cowered at the resounding force of your footfalls. The fact remains unchanged, those who pass beyond do not return. The imperceptible line cannot be returned. Those resurrected, reanimated, returned share one of two qualities. Consequence to stretch past the known limits of creation breaks something in their being. You cannot pluck something from the past and return it to the future and expect any manner of smooth fit. Beyond death is supposed a stasis enduring, but you dwell within the girded sea of time. The name and the face may be the same, but the stage and vessel to which you return the player is never the same. That ill fit remains throughout whatever span of years remains -- if they can breach the gate. But to simply walk in and claim a soul like a prize, then cart off your jewel? Have you never learned the story of Orpheus?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "Orpheus was an idiot." This does Michael/Cal'hatar proclaim when his mug is finally deposited beore him; he knows, of course, the stoutness of Asgardian mead, and knows what his limit will be. It is not, however, anytime soon - with moderation. And so with moderation he begins. "That story is about faith. He did not keep faith, and so his lover was abandoned. We make no such mistakes among my people."

    The first of many pulls to come is taken. He make it long, savoring the mead's unearthly flavor. Its potency. A sigh escapes his lips. "She was murdered," he says finally. "It isn't right. An effort must be made, and I will do so. I have many among my organization who are sorcerors and the like, even if I am not. And I have fought many things, in this realm and across many other worlds. Hell is just another battlefield to trod."