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Summary: The Spirit of Earth is passed from Dmitri to Giea, bringing the girl back from the dead, and giving her a new role to fulfill.
Date: Sunday, September 4, 2011. 3:24pm
Log Title: Ascension of Earth
Rating: R (Language)
NYC - Cemetery
Nestled in one of the suburbs of New York City, this cemetery is nice and neat. The headstones are clean and the grass is neatly trimmed. Several graves have flowers on them, and there is a short iron fence surrounding it, for decoration more than security.
It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon, there's a nice breeze in the air carrying the scent of flowers with it. It's almost as if the weather is mocking the sad occasion of an all to recently deceased, and all too young, friend. The earth on Giea's grave is still soft and the scent of dirt is in the air. Walking towards the area are two men, a red head and a darker haired man. The red headed Kaden scowls as he shuffles his feet along the walkway. "Why the fuck are you bringing me here Dmitri, why can't we jsut be home." There seems to be a perpetual scowl on his face.
Elsewhere Giea has been sitting on the side of a mountain, the view of the valley down below. The view from this area is of earth, water, fire and air. She's been sitting there for minutes, days, months, years, it's been hard to tell. Time hasn't had any meaning where she is. One thing has been certain though the feel of the earth, the connection to it, has become strong. There's a voice that sounds like the shift of the earth that sounds, "It's time."
Mason has come again to pay his respects, a dark grayish blue polo and a pair of khakis on this fine Sunday afternoon. He was almost worthless at the funeral, unable to give any heartfelt speeches, instead he just sat quietly by in a dark suit. He carries lilacs with him, they are a spring flower, and not the easiest to find, but he found them all the same. "She really liked the lilacs I got for her once, because she could pick out the smell above all the others," he tells Rashmi. "Thanks for coming with me, I don't think I'd want to do this by myself." The hand which doesn't hold the flowers sits in his pocket, and he steps between the graves of others as he makes his way toward Giea's location. Kaden and the other man don't catch his attention much. He assumes that they must just be someone come to pay their respects to another grave.
"Of course," Rashmi says gently, her skirts swishing at her heels as she walks beside the younger teen. "I wouldn't have said no, no matter what. She was as much my friend as you are, right…?" With a gentle, encouraging smile, she rests a hand on Mason's shoulder as they approach the grave, but comes to a halt a few steps away, letting Mason have his time in silence. The others in the graveyard get a brief glance, but like Mason, the redhead assumes they're here on their own business.
Giea hasn't really been compelled to move from her position for a very long time, even if she did not really notice how long a time that way. She tilts her head to orient her ears towards the sound, "Time?" She stands from her position and offers a slight nod back at the voice, "It is." With those words, as if waking from a dream, Giea departs this place.
Stopping right behind Mason are Kaden and Dmitri. Older looking brunette smiles at the two. "Ah it's nice to see that she has friends. Don't be sad for her, she's one with the earth now." He says before looking at Kaden. "Tell Drew, Keith and Xane I'm sorry but you have to be there for her now. I'm sorry I have to leave you but I don't have a choice, good bye Kaden." He says and the brunette man starts to turn to stone before crumbling to be absorbed by the ground below leaving just the redhead alone. "Dmitri?" He says wide-eyed sounding confused. "This isn't fucking funny Dmitri!"
Next to Giea Dmitri appears, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Go, they're waiting for you." He says and Giea would find herself waking up, six feet under in a wooden coffin. It's nice and soft inside but dark, very dark. The air inside is stale but the soft earth surrounding the coffin is able to be felt by her and everything that's inside. In fact about three feet to her left and up a bit, she'd be able to tell there's
a worm making it's way through the dirt.
Mason's face betrays a mild annoyance. "Thanks," he says, though the tone would engage a false positive to the statement. He glances over to Rashmi, glancing over his shoulder to see Dmitri crumble into the ground. He could try to detect where the man went with his powers, but to be quite blunt, he doesn't give a rip. He would assume Dmitri to be a mutant, and doesn't seem to be posing a threat, so he just shifts his attention to Kaden. He doesn't say anything to the redhead's outburst, but just sighs and turns back to Rashmi with one of those looks that says it all. He wishes people would just leave them alone right now. He kneels by the grave, pulling his hand out from his pocket. Placing one hand on the soft dirt to support him while he places the flowers by the headstone, Mason stares at the engraved name and his hand slightly moves along the soft dirt. Beneath the surface, the dirt across the coffin strokes it gently. He takes a deep breath, and turns to regard Rashmi, not with any words to speak.
Rashmi blinks sharply, turning to face Dmitri and Kaden upon hearing the brunette's words of comfort… but appreciation becomes puzzlement at his words to his companion, then flat wide-eyed shock as Dmitri crumbles away. "Um…….. wait what….?" Edging around Kaden, Rashmi moves to stand beside Mason, slightly in front of him as though to protect the younger teen, one hand reaching back to squeeze his arm. "…S'cuse me, sir?" she asks of Kaden, rather visibly unsure whether to be polite, annoyed, or outraged. "….Can you tell us what's going on, here?"
Giea inhales sharply as she wakes up in the coffin, sightless eyes flying open. She takes a few breaths, getting used to this sensation of things around her. At the stroking of the dirt against the roof of the coffin, she gasps slightly, placing her hand on the roof of the coffin and pressing upwards, the pressure actually pressing against Mason's strokes before the Earth rises slightly.
Falling to his knees, Kaden punches the ground with quite a bit of anger. "Dmitri! FUCK!" He yells before looking up at Rashmi and Mason and there's a look on his face like it's his first time seeing them. "No! Cause I don't know! He's not supposed to be able to die but I can't feel him." He says as his eyes focus on the earth underneath Mason's hands. "Instead I feel it, down there, but it's not him down there but it's earth!" He sounds pissed off as he said that last part.
Mason clenches his teeth a little at Kaden's theatrics. "Dude, shut, up! Some of us are trying to pay our respects, okay?" he snaps, and then feels the ground press back against him. His hand pulls back reflexively, and he stares at it oddly for a moment. "He's screwing with her grave!" Mason declares to Rashmi. He leaps back to his feet, quickly rushing at Kaden to lay hands on him to attempt to drive him to the ground by force. "You sickos, this isn't funny! You tell your buddy to quit the jokes and stop playing with Giea's grave! Let her stay at peace! What's wrong with you!" As far as Mason perceives, this is just a rather twisted form of a practical joke.
"Mason….*Mason!*" Pulling on the teen's shoulder, the redhead attempts to stop any fighting before it can begin. "This isn't going to help! C'mon, stop it, okay?!" While she is quite visibly annoyed at the idea that Giea's grave is being tampered with, Mason's anger is a much more manageable problem, and one that gains the bulk of her focus.
The earth splits over Giea's grave, as does her coffin with all the upwards force pulling up. She stands up on the floor of the coffin, and uses the dirt to pull herself up to the serfuce and effectively rise from the grave. She still wears the clothes she was wearing at her funeral, though now they've become rather dirty. Her eyes are, as always, completely unfocused and unaligned as she arrives in the sunlight.
Even though Rashmi is trying to stop the fighting, Kaden isn't. As soon as he's pushed down to the ground he swings a fist right into Mason's left cheek. "Fuck you! He's gone, he's fucking gone you asshole. I can't feel him anymore but all I can feel is…" He stops and looks over at Giea whose now standing there. The look in his face and eyes is one of pure hate. "Give him back." He growls at her.
Mason takes the punch directly, and it hurts quite a bit, catching the corner of his lip and spilling a little blood from it. Then again, it might hurt on both sides, since punching this pretty boy is like punching a stone wall with skin over it. Mason continues to hold onto Kaden's shirt, and then slams an elbow at Kaden's ribs. He is about to rear back with a punch of his own when he sees…her. Mason freezes, fist still in the air, and his blue eyes wide with shock. "Giea?" he asks, and a beat later his hand lets go of Kaden's shirt. His eyes glance at the split grave, and then back up at Giea herself. Both Rashmi and Kaden are suddenly forgotten, and Mason backs away from his recent opponent. There isn't movement toward Giea, the blond isn't sure what to make of her presence quite yet. He just…stares.
"Mason STOP IT," Rashmi yells, tugging fruitlessly on the teen's shoulder, his arm, whatever will get him to cease… but the movement from Giea's grave pulls her attention away from the melee almost at exactly the same time Mason stops, her hands flying up to her mouth. Dark brown eyes flick from the dirty blind girl in front of her, then the grave, then Mason, and back again. "……Giea….?"
Giea seems to 'look' right towards Kaden, though her eye remain unfocused, and steps forward a few times carefully. "You have to speak up! It's hard to hear!" she says loudly, pointing towards herself, "I don't have my hearing aids in!" She pauses and then says, "I am sorry about your friend… but he was very sick, and he gave me a gift. I can't…" The yelling from Rashmi, though, she hears that, "Mason? Mason, are you here?" She holds out her hands as if trying to find him.
A ball of fire starts to form in Kaden's hand but stoops as Mason calls Giea's name. He looks over at her narrows his eyes, "GIVE HIM BACK!" Kaden yells as Giea tells him to speak up, maybe a bit too loudly. "You stole it from him." He says before looking over at Mason and scowling at him. "There, you got what you fucking wanted douche bag."
Mason eagerly steps forward, ignoring Kaden's insults at this point. The pyro can say what he likes. Instead, he rushes forward to Giea. "I'm here," he says, speaking up as Giea instructed, reaching his hands out to take Giea's. "I'm here." His eyes begin to well. "I don't understand," he says. "How?" He doesn't even finish the question, but moves his hands onward to catch her in an embrace. "You're real! Rashmi, she's real!"
The *moment* Kaden's hand lights up, a softly glowing blue sphere slaps it out to one side, hard enough to do a good deal more than sting. "How *dare* you," Rashmi says through gritted teeth as the orb returns to its place in orbit around her, along with its brethren. "This place is supposed to be *peaceful,* and you—" It's about that moment when Mason's words get though to her, the spheres winking away in the space of a breath. She doesn't step forward just yet, but she bites hard on her lower lip, her own eyes threatening to tear up.
Giea returns Mason's embrace, leaning her head on his shoulder for a moment. "Yes, I'm real, Mason. I'm so sorry for what you've gone through." She pulls back and then says, "Rashmi? Is that you there?" She raises her hand slightly and nods, turning towards Kaden, "I understand that you're grieving, and I am so sorry for your loss, Kaden… Dmitri was sick, but I know it hurts just as much if you know that. I didn't steal from him, I would never have done that. I do not want to hurt him, you or anyone. If you need a friend, I will glad to be one for you. That offer will stand." She nods slightly, and then takes Mason's hand and says, feeling it, "I never noticed your bones…"
"You don't know anything, none of you." Kaden says snapping back mainly at Rashmi. "And I don't care who you are but you're not one of us." He says to Giea. "He never said he was sick, and he can't die. We can't die." He says before turning to walk off. "And I don't a friend and I sure as fuck don't need you." He snaps as he goes to hurry away from the graveyard.
Mason turns his eyes to follow Kaden as he exits. He isn't about to further the conversation, he's happy to see the angry man leave, and he's just happy to have Giea back. "He sure is one angry guy. My bones?" he says in a half laugh. "Well, I've always had them," he answers, not realizing what she is referring to. "But how can you be back? I saw you die. I held you the whole time. How can you be alive?"
"Hey wai — " Rashmi trails off as Kaden makes his exit, hands going limp at her sides. Sighing, she shakes her head, turning back to Mason and Giea. "That, um…. actually a really good question. ….. ….But if you're not, um…. dead….? Maybe we should wait to have the explanations *after* we talk to the graveyard people, and, um…. Giea…. you're sort of standing right next to your grave. And it's…. um…. pretty messed up. So…."
Giea seems a bit confused and then she says, "Wait, how long was I… ?" She shakes her head and says, "My grave? I have a grave?" She furrows her brow in thought and lightly licks her lips. "I was in a strange place. I was able to see, but I don't remember what that's like, just that I was doing it, and that it was beautiful… I am Earth. That's the gift Dmitri gave me… he was dying, so he passed his gift on so I could live… That man who was here, he was one of Dmitri's friends."
Mason arches his brow. "A couple months, Giea. What do you mean, "you're Earth", this is really weird, maybe you should sit down. Are you feeling okay? Your parents! We have to tell your parents that you're back! And we should probably get an ambulance, we need to make certain you don't have any impending second deaths and…I don't even know what I'm talking about!"
Rashmi merely nods, lost for words now. Slowly, she approaches the pair, clearing her throat and resting a hand on Giea's shoulder, as though to confirm to her own senses that the girl is, indeed, back from the dead. "…There's a *lot* we have to be sure of," Rashmi says quietly, voice tight. "….but if you're really back…? I'm *so glad you are,* Giea…"
"I don't know, it was really weird for me too, I didn't know what the people there were really saying. But I feel connected to the earth now, like it's a part of me," says Giea, tilting her head and feeling Mason's hands, brow slightly furrowed as she does so. "Does that make sense?" Pause. "Oh my gosh. My parents… I haven't been home in two months."
Mason happily lets Giea feel his hands, reacting in kind, and suddenly realizes what she found strange about his bones. "Connected to the earth?" he asks timidly. His own hands stop moving, and his eyes look down at his hands, and then back to Giea. "Maybe we should call them. I don't have their number, but you can use my phone, we can call them." Still, despite carrying on the conversation, there is a little bit of nervousness present. "Of course she's back, Rashmi, look, she's right here." The thought of anything else as reality has no room to be entertained in his mind right now.
"Giea…" Rashmi trails off, shaking her head. "Mason's right, probably we want to call your parents…. um…. I just…. don't know…" Closing her eyes, the redhead takes a long, slow breath, letting out as smoothly as she can manage. "…Giea, I don't know how else to say it so it makes sense…. you've been *dead for two months.* Mason and I were at your funeral…. your parents, your friends…. all of us saw it. You *came back from the dead, Giea.* Which is *wonderful,* but… *how does anyone explain this to people?!*"
"Oh, yes, I could use your phone… or maybe I'll dial and someone else speak? I don't have my hearing aids, phone conversations are hard," says Giea, seeming a little bit confused, "Rashmi… Mason… I'm so sorry that you were put through this. I didn't even know I had died, of course, there's nothing I could have done, but I am sorry for the pain. I am back now… I'm not even sure I can die anymore. I don't know how to explain this at all without being vague. It's like waking from a strange dream."
"Giea, I don't think anyone would believe us, maybe we should just take you home to your parents," Mason says. "Now that I think about it, they'd probably think it was a cruel prank if you even talked to them on the phone." He waves a hand dismissively at Rashmi. "Rashmi, this is a miracle, who cares how it happened? Let's just be happy!" He hugs Giea tightly again. "This is the best day of my life."
"I *am* happy!" Rashmi says, throwing her arms over her head. "You have *no idea* how happy I am! Probably only a *little* less than you, Mason! And the moment I get the least amount of free time I'll be in a church thanking God it happened! But, *but,* there's lots and lots and *lots* of questions that need answered. For instance… what happens when people find her grave broken out? What happens if we go to a hospital and the patient's SSN is someone who's *legally dead?* I just…." Trailing off, she shakes her head. "….Forget it. No, Mason's right. Let's get you to your parents first. *Then* worry about the little stuff."
Giea returns the hug to Mason, holding him tightly, then raising her brows slightly and says, "I never really thought about what a hassle coming back to life is. It really wasn't a choice, though, it was what it was, and I'm happy to be back." She smiles, and says, "I probably think this is just as weird as you guys do." She gives Mason another hug, "But I'm happy to be with you again. And okay, yeah, I should pay my parents a visit… this is all so strange. Oh! I have to register for classes!"
"Classes!? Well, that seals it for me, you're still the same girl I'm crazy about," Mason answers with a laugh. "Personally I think that'd be a good excuse to take a semester off. I missed you so much," A tear finally falls from his face during the next hug. Slightly murky in color, the earth in it is almost unnoticeable to the human eye.
Rashmi manages a laugh at this point, running her hands through her hair and letting out a breath. "This is just…. unbelievable," she murmurs, voice quivering. "…But it's true. You're back… I just…" Looking from Mason to Giea, she tilts her head. "…D'you want me to come with you? …Or would you rather I let you two handle the reuinion yourselves?"
"Well, I don't remember when I, er, when the accident happened, but it must be almost time for the fall semester to begin… I guess that death is a fine reason to take a semester off though…" says Giea, smiling with a slight bit of colour to her face and she says in response to Rashmi, "I guess I'm not sure… I've never explained to anyone that I'm not dead before today. I don't know what to be prepared for."
"Well, Rashmi is a lawyer, she is really good at wording things, I'm sure she can come up with something by the time we get to your parents house," Mason reasons. "Do you think your parents are even going to care why you're still alive? They will just be happy to see you. I know I don't care how it happened. I'm just excited that you're with us again."
"Law *student,*" Rashmi says, without much feeling, shaking her head. "….Among other things, none of them really helpful in explaining how someone… Mngh. Let's just try to catch a bus or taxi or something. We'll figure it out from there."
