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[ragnarsson]

Wait, so I just speak? That's how it works?...Fine...This is Ivar Ragnarsson. Do what you will.

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[soulsflight]

...fair enough. (She can hardly judge. She used to be that way too.) You just seemed to have...experience. A little temper doesn't bother me.

I'm Lightning, by the way. I'm part of the Perimeter Guard.

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar snorts softly.] I have more than just a little bit of temper.

[He's well aware of how much anger he has within him. It's far more than any normal person should have, let alone a teenager who isn't even seventeen yet.]

Ivar The Boneless. But I suppose you already knew that.

[soulsflight]

So did I. (She took it out on everyone. Being in the Guardian Corps had been a reason to fight.)

I recognized your username; I wasn't sure about your real name.

It's nice to meet you, Ivar. (The Boneless part seems...cruel? She's not sure she will use it.) So what should I make of this Dodger character? He seems like he carries a lot of baggage. That shouldn't really matter if he's not a threat to others.

[ragnarsson]

Dodger. I assume you saw him acting like a whiny child on the network. Now he's a subject I could go on for an hour about.

[He doesn't sound fond when he says that. It's just because things are complicated between them. He'll have to get someone to write a book on it sometime.]

What I can tell you is that Dodger thinks he's smarter than everyone else because he's been through a lot and experienced a lot. His powers also make him very arrogant. He didn't take me seriously at first because I couldn't walk. But now he knows I'm more dangerous than he will ever be. I'm probably one of the only people in this city he genuinely fears. At least some of the time.

[soulsflight]

He didn't impress me. (Moping over a birthday at his age? It's silly to her. Also, assuming everyone hates him is...juvenile too. She would expect that of a moody teenager; not a grown man.)

So that's where the "boneless" part comes from? (Wow. Whoever named him sucks.) What are his powers? If I end up in a fight with him, I'd like to not go in blind.

(In all likelihood the only reason she would challenge him to a fight is to knock some sense into him.)

[ragnarsson]

It certainly isn't his personality that makes people continuously willing to sleep with him.

[He was handsome enough in a scruffy dog way, even Ivar would admit that]

Yes. It was meant to be a cruel nickname, but I wear it as my own now. [Blame his father, who hadn't been particularly thrilled that his youngest son was born a cripple.] He can create fire, teleport, turn invisible, and is stronger than most people. Though he tends to forget about all of them in the heat of battle.

[soulsflight]

...I didn't need to know that much. (Sex maniacs. Claire has no interest in that unless she met the right person.)

Good for you. Lightning was like that...at first. But I'm giving it a new meaning.

("Lightning. It flashes bright, then fades away. It can't protect. It only destroys.")

So he considers himself god-like? I wonder what he would think about me killing a god?

[ragnarsson]

If I have to suffer with knowledge of him, you have to as well.

[Though really, he's not sounding quite as abrasive as he had at the start of the conversation. Ivar's like ice: it takes him a while to thaw out towards anyone.]

I don't know about god-like. He just thinks he's better than everyone else.

[Wait. What?] You killed a god? [Now Ivar is impressed.]

[soulsflight]

(She makes a soft sound of amusement in her throat.)

A whole lifetime will not erase some images.

(Not that she cares to imagine Dodger doing...anything.)

That's...interesting. He sounded like he felt abused by everyone. Is that part of being better? Being misunderstood?

(She just deals. Like everyone else. Griping so openly was weird to her.)

I had help and I had godly powers of my own at the time, but yes, I did. The balance had to be restored and there was a new world to see.

[ragnarsson]

He says that, and I'm sure he means it too, but he'll also go on about how he's smarter than everyone around him. No one can ever possibly understand him because he's just been through so much and experienced everything there is to know.

[If this was video, Ivar would be rolling his eyes. Dodger's little ego trips were only one of the many reasons the two of them would never be friends.]

I'm still impressed. Our gods can be killed too, but it takes monsters big enough to wrap around the whole world and break any chain to do so.

[soulsflight]

An act like that would get old fast. I've never met anyone who is impossible to understand. Even the gods have their individual personalities and goals.

(Not that they are legitimate presences anymore.)

I'm not a monster as far as I know. I was a knight...then they called me "savior". It was my duty to collect souls.

[ragnarsson]

Yes. And now you see why I have trouble staying in a room with the man for more than ten minutes without wanting to throw an axe at him.

[Not hyperbole there. He's done it more times than he can count. Dodger annoys him just that much.]

Souls like Christian souls? The things that go to Heaven when people die?

[The Vikings had an idea of a soul, but it was far different than anything else, made up of four parts, and rather complicated.]

[soulsflight]

I knew a guy like that. He thought he could fix everything himself and that I should just trust my sister in his care. (Like hell will she ever do that.) Every time he pissed me off, I punched him.

(Then it continued five hundred years later.)

The essence of people. I don't know what Christian means. I'm not sure about Heaven either, but the new world was paradise compared to the last.

We weren't slaves or soldiers there and we could finally live the lives we always wanted.

[ragnarsson]

Sounds like a good way to deal with people. I'd punch Dodger if I didn't like my blades better.

[Also, he was careful about what he did with his hands. He didn't have his legs. If he lost use of his hands, he'd have nothing left.]

They say that's what might happen after Ragnarok, the end of the world. That the world will be reborn at the end of it all.