taxonomites | I. [holo] Forsooth!

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I. [holo] Forsooth!

"I dost think I shall get one with all the toppings. And that dost include the anchovies. It twas not just a line when I said I always liked fish to the fine Namora..."

Hercules' voice trails off, as he is suddenly acutely aware he is not walking with his friend Amadeus Cho to a pizzeria. He is somewhere distinctly different, somewhere distinctly new. He quickly pats himself, to make sure he is all there. He had seen enough documentaries on the mortals' 'SyFy' channel to know that one did not know what to expect from being transported in such a manner. It is then that he notices the silver bracelet on his arm, much unlike the typical gold he'd been wearing just moments before.

"What alchemy is this? This tis not my usual color," he declares, poking at it with a heavy finger. "Amadeus? Athena?"

With no sign of his previous companions, he takes the moment to stroke his beard and take in the peculiar surroundings. "Tis not Olympus. Nor of Skrull design. Where art thou, would be capturers?" His eyes then spot his mace nearby, next to the strange tablet. It is his curiosity that makes him pick up the tablet first. "Ahem. If this dost be what I think it is..." he pokes the tablet with his finger a couple times. "Then the Lion of Olympus demands an audience! What is the phrase..."

He smirks, a smugger-than-thou expression. "Take me to thy leader." Something else he learned from those 'SyFy' documentaries.

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"Hey there, kiddo, welcome to Taxon. This isn't my doing, just to get that question out of the way."

"Kiddo?" Herc scoffs, a hand reaching to his beard. "I wouldst like a proper introduction, if you are to use such terms with me."

"Hermes Maiados Huios," he says with a smile and a tip of an imaginary hat. After all, it's only polite to introduce yourself when asked.

"And I am Hercules!"

He pauses.

"Wait, didst you say Hermes?"

Never the brightest bulb, this one. Still, Hermes holds out hope that at least he still knows how to do a proper offering.

"Mmhmm. Sure did."

Edited 2010-03-30 02:31 (UTC)

Herc tilts his head, studying the image he sees in the device."

"Thou dost not look like the true Hermes. But thou dost have a fine name, nonetheless."

"Now, I want you to think very hard about something for me, hmm? When you knew me, or an incarnation of me, did I have any ability to, oh, change shape, look like someone else? And, do you remember how I'd react to the hubris of someone who ought to believe in me denying me?"

It is probably not the reaction Hermes was expecting.

As Hercules just starts laughing.

"Thou dost make a good joke!" he says, between guffaws.

...

Well.

He's damaged.

"The years haven't been kind to you, have they? I'd heard a few had gone mad, but I didn't ever expect you to be one of them." Perhaps, instead of the human Herakles he'd been expecting, this is some half-formed shade of the demigod.

"I am not mad," Hercules says, harrumphing. "But while my memory may not be what it once was, I dost know Hermes. And if there is any god who has a sense of humor, tis he."

He looks solemnly at the device.

"And thou dost seem far too grim, sir."

"I have reason to be, o Rhinocolustes, o Hippodetus, o my brother. Of our great and glorious family, we are the only two members here in this land."

"A land called Taxon," Hercules says, drinking in the words of this other Olympian. "While I have oft been cast from the hallows of Olympus, I know that one such as yourself must find it troubling. Even if I do not recognize thy face or thy demeanor, I must recognize thee as my brother."

"If you recognize me, then let me welcome you to this place. I have no real right or authority to do that, but when has that ever stopped me before?" He grins and raises a glass as if he's toasting. "The housing is free here and there are silver 'hatches' on the walls that'll make whatever you might need. All in all, it's a well-gilded cage we're in."

"A cage requires captors," Herc remarks, still trying to understand what has happened. "They will find it is hard to keep the lion of Olympus content in captivity. I hope their bars are built of something stronger than steel."

"They are far greater than steel. I hope you have better luck than I did, but as it stands, I cannot pass the boundaries of this city." Hermes isn't about to get into the fact that their captors are aliens and/or giant hamsters.

"Now, I think we may be from different, but similar worlds. Tell me what year you knew it to be, where the rest of our family was or is, and I'll repay you with thanks and one hell of a barbecue." All of which is free, but that's not the point here.

The smile on Hercules' face betrays that often one of the easiest ways to his heart is through his stomach.

"It is the year 2009 CE. My accursed brother Ares pretends to fight on the side of good as an Avenger, Athena has left her Canadian retreat to nip at my heels, I recently didst save Poseidon from the evil hands of the new Amazons, and..." his smile fades. "Zeus has passed, murdered at the hands of the Japanese god of treachery."

"Then we are from different places and times. Imagine that the universe is like a giant, sprawling palace; in a place so grand and labyrinthine, it is possible for two men to walk down different corridors, be within inches of each other, and yet, never know each other's passing." It's not the best way to describe alternate universes, but Hermes hopes it will get the point across. "Taking that idea further, it explains why I do not look like the Hermes you knew -- our paths through the palace are nearly identical, but we are slightly different gods."

"Thou are using a rather archaic way to describe alternate universes," Hercules says.

Another thing he learned from the SyFy channel.

"I am well aware of the concept, fair Hermes."

"Okay, now you've got me wondering. If you're from 2009 and you know what alternate universes are, then why are you speaking with the 'thee's, 'thou's, and all that pseudo-Stratford nonsense?"

Herc rolls his eyes. "For the same reasons that Thor doth speak like this."

He sighs, rubbing his hand through his hair.

"Why dost everyone make a big deal of it?"

"Because it sounds ridiculous. Why does Thor speak like that? Neither you nor he are British."

"You speak the same way!" Herc objects, frowning.

"...well, not anymore. But still, it is a habit that is hard to break."

"R-r-rock me Amadeus?" That's not the phrase that Hercules was looking for, Enfys. Her interest in this broadcast can be mostly put down to 'her interest in trolling Hermes', of whom she's recently decided to make a friend, but still: tall, skinny girl sharpening a Lochaber axe is all up in this business. Is she wearing pants? That yet remains a mystery. (Protip: probably not. You get used to it.)

"So, short version, there's no leader to take you to- unless you want to talk to the hamsters, and that's more of a when-they-feel-like-it deal- although I hear we're going for some kind of council thing- anyway, welcome to Taxon, you're as fucked as the rest of us."

Herc fumbles with the device, switching it to a visual response mode.

"Didst thou say... hamsters?"

Hey, she was lucky he wasn't hitting on her yet.

Forgive Brigitta but she is rather excited; it's been many years since she's heard the gods that she's properly familiar with referred to as anything more than a academic matter. And as such she is quite keen to find somebody who fits in with her world view.

...As such she might just resemble a slightly calmer version of Tigger; serious apologies may be in order from somewhere.

"You know Athena?"

"Oh course I know Athena," he replies. "For she is my sister. Half-sister, if thou wish to be specific.

He does notice she seems quite excited. But he's used to that sort of reaction.

"Oh, good!" Brigitta chirps in a rather chipper and faintly worshipful way... Before realising that she still really has no clue who he is beyond possible divinity; because apparently Zeus fathered absolutely everybody in his usual, godly way.

...Not that's she's going to admit the ignorance until it becomes absolutely necessary.

"Who's Amadeus?"

"Amadeus Cho," Hercules explains. "He doth be my faithful friend and traveling companion! We were headed to get pizza when I didst appear to be transported. He is a fine young man. The seventh smartest mind in the world, they say."

Giles doesn't normally pay a lot of attention to the transmissions randomly coming across his tablet, mostly because he doesn't normally pay a lot of attention to anything that doesn't have pages he can turn.

He wonders if he looked so fish-out-of-water when he first arrived.

"I...don't believe anyone actually knows where the 'leaders' are, I'm afraid. I'm also afraid the bracelet doesn't come off."

"But it dost not match my other one," Herc says, holding up his other wrist to show off the golden bracelet. "I canst stand much, but forcibly changing my style to silver is... too far!"

Giles thinks the man might find he has more to be concerned over than his jewelery, but it's best not to be alarmist straight off. "Cover it up with something? There are, um...things called hatches. Somehow they produce what you need, so I suppose you could always just get another to wear over top. Kindly don't ask me how any of it works."

"You sound as if you know much, and yet you request I not ask great questions," Herc remarks, stroking his beard.

"Do you really not know of these answers, or do you feign ignorance?"

Giles looks rather complimented by that remark. "I meant the hatches specifically, or...really anything about computers and the like. Which unfortunately are everywhere here, but you'll find plenty of people who understand them."

Herc laughs. "Do not be fooled by my speech. I am quite tech savvy, mortal. I doth even have my own MySpace page."

Herc's brow furrows with a momentary thought.

"I have not updated it in much time, however."

"My...space?" Giles does not have his own MySpace page. As far as he knows, anyway.

"Thou art not familiar?"

Hercules is not the brightest tool in the shed. It comes from being repeatedly hit about the head and other places in the line of heroism. So sometimes, he draws incorrect conclusions.

"I see! You must be from an archaic time, where thy intelligence does not encompass such things as the Internet."

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I. [holo] Forsooth!

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