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THE PARLIAMENT OF TREES

[]It happens after most things have been discussed at Elrond's Council, but before anyone has left.]

[It is unreal. Reality warps and trees shoot up from the ground around the meeting area of the council. They don't destroy Rivendell but it's as if Rivendell is suddenly shoved away and off in the distance. Civilization retreats at disorienting speeds and suddenly the squad, Elrond, and his guests, in the middle of the woods, under massive trees that stretch up into the sky. The trees are taller than skyscrapers and thicker than the average lighthouse. Their branches intertwine as they reach up to the sky in a way where the branches seem to form almost a natural cathedral.]

[The ones immediately circling them also have gnarled faces. They chant in an unknown language, in deep musical tones with voices nearly indistinguishable from the creaking of branches, then speak to them in weathered voices.]

You have been summoned by the Parliament of Trees.

[Elrond stands, almost imperious in his expression. Though his voice is calm, he clearly has taken issue with the sudden abduction.]

A summoning we would have answered readily, if asked. It is considered courteous among our peoples, if messengers have been sent, for one to send word of agreement to a meeting first. [A tilt of his head and a slight narrowing of his eyes] But the Green truly does prefer to offer little forewarning when drawing others away from their homes, it seems.

OOC DETAILS
❧ Free-for-all Post: This event will be in "free-for-all" format, meaning that threadhopping is encouraged and that threading should be treated in the same conversational way as network posts with branching threads. This post will only contain the part with Elrond and others. The agents of the Green will be set up with their own Q&A post after they've had time to talk to Elrond and co.

❧ Joint network Post. Due to the magic mirrors having the ability to be widened and set to float, any characters that don't (or can't) attend the meeting will be able to still participate. The mirrors will have been transported too and still broadcasting.

❧ Post in bracketspam format. We're trying to keep a brisk pace and allow a network vibe where speech matters more than action, for some talking heads rp.

❧ NPCing. The mods will handle all the fantasy npcs and some may show up that aren't specifically listed in this post. There are many people at the Council.

❧ It's okay if the conversation gets messy. It's a giant group that's going to be talking here. That means it's natural if side conversations happen, interruptions happen, or things get missed because people are talking over each other and switching conversational partners.

❧ A private discussion will happen later. A crossroads post and private conversation among the squad will happen after the Council, and after the meeting with the Green, so they can decide for themselves what to do next and how to handle what they've learned.

❧ Please only post to the sub-threads below and not to the main post. This allows the mods to add some if we need to.

❧ Please treat each appearance in chronological order. It may be good to spend some time talking to Gaia first or reading her answers before moving on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Oh, so that’s a yes then. If “that” enclave doesn’t want to talk to him, then that enclave - that is, an enclave that conscripts in its own world, does in fact exist. ]

Thanks. I don’t mean to use you as a interdimensional operator.

[ But then the new Gaia shifts into place. We do what we must.

Did - did they say Holland?

(As in Alec Holland?)

(As in Swamp Thing?)

(No, they’re just really into windmills. Obviously as in Swamp Thing.)

(If the Green created Swamp Thing, that’s several orders of magnitude more powerful than the abilities the abductees have).

Oh, this makes so much more sense now. No wonder there’s so many metahumans in his world, if there’s a neutral (self-interested) party capable of giving that much power in one burst or spread out across larger groups.

The voice in his head is an unwelcome surprise, although Tim fights to not react to it. He largely doesn’t. There’s a lightning quick full body tensing, like a dancer contracting muscles to cause that pop, but no one can hear the sound of his train of thought coming to a screeching halt of fifty mental doors being slammed shut.

But he doesn’t think of brick walls. He thinks loudly, and clearly. ]

I could understand enough, if you explain it to me. I’m a fast learner, and I don’t need to understand the full scope of it.

You wouldn’t have given me powers over [a visualization of Nightwing] if you thought I couldn’t understand your intentions.

And we don’t always fight Ivy. Sometimes, her intentions align with ours. [A visualization of the absolute wild untouched growth in Gotham when it was No Man’s Land.] She protected a lot of kids.

[ (They know who he is. How could they know?) ]

This is how you knew how to pick your avatars. You’re a telepath.

[ (But why would they pick Dr. Isley? She’s not the stablest option.

Maybe they’re not the stablest option either.) ]

Do you have trouble with, ah, mammalian archetypes, or just conversation?

[That tensing might not be caught by pretty much anybody else. But Dick's used to looking for the small ticks in people's body language. So he immediately glances over, raising an eyebrow, then signing quickly to him.]

[Thank Joey that ASL was something all the Titans learned. Or, at least, Dick did his best to make sure they learned it.]

[ Tim doesn’t want to be rude in this moment, but he doesn’t know what “rude” is in this context. Is it rude to let the others know that at least one member of the hive mind is telepathic? Are they all telepathic?

Gaia knows - a lot. Which means they likely know an equal amount about Dick and Tim’s inclination to tell him everything.

(80% of everything.)

Tim holds up a hand in a front-facing closed fist and knocks it forward. Yes.

He’s not as good as Dick is with ASL, although he’d begun learning when Joseph Wilson rejoined the team. He was still working I. Fluency. What he knows is finger spelling, basic conversation signs, the Titans’ name signs, and a smattering of single words that Tim had sought out as potentially necessary in a fight, and among which is the two-handed sign that Tim flashes. Telepathy. And then his right hand keeps going. O-U-R G-A-I-A. ]

I’m sorry. If I didn’t answer my brother, he’d be alarmed.

[ It’s better to be upfront with your subterfuge, right? ]

Edited 2022-03-21 22:30 (UTC)

[Dick watches Tim's hands, then huffs what is obviously a sigh from so far away. The reply is quick and only three finger spelled letters: O-F-C.]

[Which Joey would either roll his eyes or laugh at, Dick's not too sure. Maybe he'll ask him one day when they get home.]

[ Tim doesn’t shrug. It doesn’t sound like a nice thing to do in front of a nature spirit(S) that is having trouble with mammalian conversation, as they put it.

But the crinkle of his eyes, the expression, the unvoiced non-committal sound - he might as well be shrugging. Instead he just repeats the sign for yes. ]

[The Gaias overlook it. The honesty helps.]

Power has a price in our world's magic. This is not a rule we have set down, it is embedded in the nature of magic itself. This world is no different.

Great power either requires sacrifice up front, or causes any gain to come with hooks. Those you know that do not pay such a price are often not tapping into greater power when they fight beside you -

[ - a flash of Zatanna doing some kind of straight forward spell causing magical chains to bind a villain - ]

- have a more powerful patron like one of the Lords of Order -

[- A flash of Dr. Fate creating a massive shield with an ankh glyph in the center -]

- or cheat, and even then, constantly displace suffering onto others in their wake.

[A flash of John Constantine flinging fire at demons and then using it to light a cigarette.]

[She speaks aloud again, so others can try to understand.]

With magic, there is always a price.

And in this world Stories have power. Nature abhors a narrative vacuum. Completely willing volunteers, perfectly empowered with exactly what powers they do or do not want, powerful and capable, used to cooperating, and already prone to victory? That is not a Story. This is not our preference, this is metaphysics.

There must be struggle, there must be smallness. You must look up at the steep incline of a dread mountain and feel doom and exhaustion.

Your world's Justice League would die. The one called Superman would fall. He has grown too powerful to easily fall and therefore he would be doomed to. We have picked the better Superman for this world and this journey. He was born from darkness, he knows struggle and despair, and he has recently felt the sting of death. He will be stronger here.

We cannot choose the willing. We cannot be gentle to you all. We cannot give you a choice. You will lose. We must be cruel to be kind.

This is the nature of magic.

[Dean has mostly been listening so far. This all has been way above his pay grade. He's a point and shoot kinda guy and doesn't know what to do with magic trees if he isn't trying to stop them from killing people. But this doesn't sound right.]

Uh... That doesn't-- I call bullshit on that.

Not the nature of magic part. That I don't know anything about, but your whole 'Story' thing? Yeah, that doesn't sound right.

Because, we would be having conflict anyway. You throw a group of us together like this and we're bound to not get along. You give some of us random powers and there's going to be a training montage.

I don't know about anyone else, but just hearing about all the stuff we gotta do if we don't want every reality to explode? Yeah, it makes me feel pretty small. You didn't need to be dicks on top of all that.

[This time, Dick's sigh is voiced. He reaches up, rubbing his hand across his face then back through his hair. When he opens his eyes, he looks...thoughtful. But perhaps accepting.]

No. No, they have a point, as much as I hate to say it. Think about the stories that we've all been brought up on. The hero of the piece stumbling into what needs to be done.

The Chosen One doesn't get asked. There's always a prophecy or some item that comes to their possession that needs to be dealt with.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time." Remember that? [He might not have gone with that particular quote had they not been in Rivendell, had they not been surrounded by that very story.] And remember the answer? "So do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what we do with the time that is given us."

[Tim is going to give him so much crap for knowing those quotes off the top of his head. Though, at least, this quote was a bit better known and not as much of a deep cut as what was said when Frodo woke up.]

Even the ones that would have wanted to couldn't ask because, by narrative rules, we can't be asked. We can only be thrown into the deep end and see if we can swim.

"Even the wise cannot see all ends" [he replies.]

[Thank god Sam isn't here. Dean's outing himself as a nerd, too.]

The Ring was gettin' in his head and Ian McKellen was pressuring him, but leaving the Shire was still Frodo's choice. Sam's too. They’ve didn't choose to have the Ring in the first place, but they definitely chose to do something about it.

I'm just saying, you can make the story exciting without actively fucking us over at every turn.

Edited 2022-03-22 14:35 (UTC)

"I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way," Mikey says, adding in his two cents.

"Frodo got the Ring to Rivendell. That was the job he got asked to do, and the little dude did it. Nobody expected him to do anything but that. Dude decided to take it the rest of the way all on his own."

[ On one hand, Tim is impressed by the universal love of Tolkien and the sheer nerdery that he is surrounded by.

(He sees you, Dickie bird.)

But on the other, he has to hiss at them. ]

Will you all keep it down? Elrond is literally standing right there.

[Elrond does indeed look very alarmed.]

After the Green releases us, we must have words.

[He glances at some of the non-Elf guests.]

In the meantime, it would be wise to still your tongues when in the company of people unknown to you!

[Just because he has guests over doesn't mean they're guests he'd broadcast info to about Rings of Power, some are just messengers.]

Yes sir. I promise you the next one to loose their tongue will be too busy saying ow to spill any secrets.

[ The emphasis is for the benefit of the blabbermouths, because opsec is a thing.

Tim is absolutely going to start plinking foreheads and stepping on toes, and that’s if they’re lucky. ]

Okay, nerds, [Mona says, as if she is also not this sort of nerd who recognizes every single quote] the point is that you're not supposed to choose to go into the portal fantasy. It just happens to you. That's what makes it work.

[Mona's fucking living right now. This is all of her middle school dreams (and maybe a few of her high school ones) come true.]

You're not suppose to choose finding the portal. Frodo didn't choose to have the Ring in the first place. He chose to go to Rivendell and get it away from the Shire. It's a two-part thing, right?

[What's that thing they talked about in English class? The hero circle, or whatever?]

There's the part you don't agree to, but then there's the choice. Imagine if Frodo said "no, I want to stay here" and Gandalf strapped Frodo to a wagon and used him as hot pad for the Ring. There's no way he would make it to Mount Doom if that's how his journey started, right? He had to make that first decision.

Ugh, forget about Frodo. I know they [she makes a dismissive gesture towards Gaia and Elrond] keep talking about Sauron and all that, but we're not Frodo. We're Dorothy.

[And Mona fucking loves the Wizard of Oz.]

You can either yell and whine at the tornado, or you can buck up and get those slippers on, hun. One of them's a lot more fun.

Dorothy could've popped Glinda's bubble and gone back to bed. They were ruby slippers, not the red dancing shoes of death.

[Nothing was walking for her. Dorothy still took those steps herself.]

It's the-- the-- [what was that stupid hero circle bullshit called? Where's Sam and his nerd-ery when you need him.]

Hero's... thing... Like Buffy learning she's the Slayer. Is she gonna tell Donald Sutherland to fuck off or is she gonna get it with Luke Perry? If there wasn't a chance she was gonna say no and walk away, there's no drama.

[Finally some nerd references Dwight knows!]

Dorothy didn't really know that at the time.

And technically we could sit on our hands and let every world ever die out of spite, just like Buffy could have let the vampires have their rampage.

I don't know if that would be the smart option. But if we're being pedantic about choices, that is on the table.

[Keeping his voice light and only slightly teasing, he gives the two a "whatcha gonna do" shrug.]

Buffy is kind of an ironic pick for an argument though, considering she was also marked and probably would have died or been turned if she said no to her destiny.

Edited (I fixed it and screwed up my fix T-T) 2022-03-23 12:47 (UTC)

Right, like. Hugo Weaving said we could try to go home. We're choosing our heroes' journey by deciding whether we say screw it and go back to Kansas without even trying.

[Insistently refusing to move on from the Wizard of Oz example...]

Also, in the books it was all real.

Didn't the lady just say that magic is gonna make us do this whether we like it or not?

[Dean's pretty sure he heard that. Multiple times. (He fucking hates magic.)]

Can lead a horse to water, can't make it drink seems appropriate here.

By the sound of things, the magic is going to keep us on a path but what we do on that path is up to us.

[Which meant they had all the room in the world to fuck this up, possibly on purpose, and doom every universe in the prosses. No pressure.]

What I understood is that although our path has been traced and we'll be nudged to follow it the way the Green want us to, we're the ones who decide what we will do. We could decide none of this is worth it and leave to return home and continue with our lives, or we could take this to its final conclusion.

What's over our heads is a lot of coercion, that's what it is.

[Ange is being pretty uncharitable, but not without reason, all things considered. The Green's actions are not great! But she seems very into refusing to look at them in any kind of positive light, content with sulking and voicing her disapproval when she sees a chance]

Magic doesn't require conflict.

It requires sacrifice. Hardship.

Lady, we got sacrifice coming out of our ass.

Did you see those two? [He gestures to where Kon and Tim are trying to have a private moment (way to go, Dean).] They're practically tripping over trying to sacrifice themselves.

That's why they're here. It's why many of you are.

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THE PARLIAMENT OF TREES

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