Private Finished The Dreams Within Our Hearts

"In the name of Adonai, The Lord our God, I purge you from this world."

It was not possible for a Celestial being to become depressed. But Corona was about as close as one could possibly become. Here, he was in solitude. Upon the mountain top of the highest mountain in the world. Or at least, the highest mountain in this world. Beyond the edge of the land he stood upon he saw only clouds and the beautiful blue sky above it. The beautiful sky that displayed not one but two suns, both of them constantly revolving around the other as if in a violent match for ultimate power. The speed of their revolution was so intense that one could actually view it from the world below. This was the only world he knew of in existence that had such a malformation.

It was then he heard a feminine voice behind him and felt a sudden surge of Divine energy manifest in a vibrant, explosive display. He didn't bother to turn towards it, for he knew exactly who it was and had, in fact, been surprised she hadn't sought him out earlier. Perhaps she had decided that leaving him alone until now was best. But angels were not solitary creatures, regardless.

"So this is where you've been hiding." She said in a beautiful, song-like voice. Her lithe form floated around his own as if a small insect attracted to light. Finally, she stopped behind him, resting her weight upon his back and wrapping her arms around his neck. "You know," She said softly into his ear, "It's not good for you to sulk in a corner like this. We're all here to talk about it with you."

Corona smiled, knowing there was no way out of it. "Very well, Nemaera. You win. But I do not believe there is much to talk about. Merely, I should consider more ways to -"

Nemaera cut him off, interrupting his little explanation to scold him for such thoughts. "Ohhh no! Not this again! Why can't you accept that you had no other option!?" She jumped off of him and floated around him to face him, looking right in his eyes with a scowl upon his face. Her beautiful, loving tone from before changed completely, and even Corona jumped back in fright with an apologetic look upon his face. He knew that look she had, and quickly he began to regret his words. "Look! You did what was necessary. If you hadn't, we would all have been killed! Think of all the souls we would have lost! The negative energy that would have been created!"

He frowned and shrugged. "Surely there was but another way to save him."

"But there wasn't! We all tried! Countless times! If saving all of them were possible, there would be no need for such Mantras! Think of your purpose, Corona! Your abilities are the will of Adonai! The Way of The World!"

She was right, he knew she was. It was not his intention to question Adonai. he merely wished that he had not had to do what it was he had done. But before he could respond, she embraced him once more, and he could tell that she had begun to cry. The entire atmosphere around them felt depressing, it was if the world around them was sad. As an Aspect of Purity, Nemaera's empathic abilities were strong enough to influence not only the emotions of people around her, but also the actual world itself. Sometimes he wondered if she used this to her advantage, purposely to be more convincing. He then thought about how mortal men typically commented on the persuasive abilities of women, and began to think that perhaps they were correct.

"Please don't be upset over what you did, Corona. We need you. The world needs you..."

—-

Alistair's eyes opened as the first bit of sunlight washed over the shore. It had been a fairly peaceful night, despite the possum that had attempted to grab the package of crackers that he had kept in his pocket. Yeah, that bite mark was still on his hand. He rubbed his eyes and realized there were tears upon them, apparently his thoughts had caused the mortal body he had possessed to cry. Interesting.

He stood up and stretched, rubbing sand off of his pants as the chirping of birds began to echo out from the treeline behind him. It was a beautiful summer morning, and he couldn't help but begin singing a hymn. It wasn't long before his voice became rather loud, and although the song was in a completely different language - in fact, no one in this world would even have heard of it - the meaning behind it would be obvious to anyone regardless. His voice was wonderful, although not nearly as wonderful if he were in his true form.

The song did a great job of reassuring him of Nemaera's words, however.

"You really need to learn to not be so perfect all the time. You're going to give yourself away." She closed the door behind them, giving them both privacy in the small town inn. Both of them had taken a human form, he taking the name Alistair Fordren and her taking the name Emily Rose. "Humans make mistakes in their judgement all the time, if you never mess up then they'll think something is wrong with you!"

He looked around the room as he considered her words, then turned to look at her with a formal stance. "Apologies, I will be sure to perform less optimally in the future."

"No! See that is exactly what I mean!" She made her way towards him with a scowl upon her face. "You speak too formally. Normal people don't talk that way! They like, use slang and stuff!"

"I am afraid I do not understand. They do not speak their language properly?" Clearly this was something baffling to him. Nemaera sighed and shook her head, turning away as she revealed the map of the town the innkeeper had given her.

"I guess I'll have to give you a lesson when we're done. There isn't time now, we have to find out where the mayor's daughter has been going every night or -"

—

The singing stopped when he felt eyes on him from afar. He opened his eyes and looked around him before finally noticing a female form in the distance. By this point she had already seemingly lost interest in him, instead turning her attention to the ocean waves. Not that he could blame her, the soothing atmosphere the ocean weaves created was always one of his favorite things about the mortal planes.

Was that Tara in the distance? It looked like her, but he couldn't be sure. Well, she was probably a good person to try practicing on. You know, making mistakes and talking with that 'slang' thing! Now, what was the way an average human would probably react to the opposite sex standing nearby?

"Heyyy HOUSE-PIECE!" He shouted as he started running after her.

Yeah.. he probably meant something like homeslice but honestly, not even God probably knew that one.

Oh, and at one point he "tripped", landing on his face but at the same time making a rolling recovery making it difficult to tell if it was an accident or not. It was just all around..... bad.

Look! She laughed! A joyous emotion! Clearly, he was doing something right! He knew this was a good idea. "I am perfectly fine, m'la - Uh - " No! Normal humans didn't refer to the opposite sex as "m'lady"! "Uh that is to say, I am very rockin', honeycakes! Who wouldn't be upon such a fine morning!?" It was like he was trying out for some high school play, and he had no prior experience. He was using contractions and.. well, what he would probably refer to as "slang" words, though at the same time his tone remained saomewhat formal, similar to how it always was.

He slipped his way into the ocean water with ease, making his way towards her so that he would not have to practically shout over the sound of the waves. Waves! Humans did not always have perfect balance and this was the perfect time to demonstrate yet again he was just a "normal human". Yes, because a "normal human" on an island full of mutants and other such things would certainly fit in.

That was when the ripples of a wave washed over the two of them and he "fell" backwards in a dramatic motion that caused him to become completely submerged in the water. Not only did his "loss of balance" look completely ridiculous, but he looked like a frantic animal that was drowning when he began flapping his arms around as if he could not swim - which was, like everything else so far, obviously fake.

Clearly he was very bad at being bad at things.

He allowed her to pull him to the surface, but seemed somewhat lost as to what to do after that. She called him an idiot! Typical human teenage word, if he recalled correctly. Was this a good thing? Progress! But wasn't 'idiot' an insult? She didn't seem to be insulting him, though.

How in the world did Nemaera ever do this..

He simply watched as she dunked herself, still having said nothing and apparently unsure where to go in terms of conversation. She went to punch him and immediately his reactions allowed him to easily grab her arm in a playful manner, however he realized halfway through that a normal person would usually not be able to do such a thing, and stayed his hand immediately. Which, of course, surely looked awkward from Tara's point of view, possibly even so much that he would come off as twitchy and/or paranoid.

"Stalking you?" He made a weird face. "Uh... sure! Yes, that is exactly what I am doing." Teenage boys stalked teenage girls, he was pretty sure. Didn't it mention that on the television once? "I managed to.." He looked away as if in thought, then looked back at her. "Figure out how you... uh, nevermind."

Wait, this didn't make any sense.

And it was a lie.

DOES NOT COMPUTE!

He dunked himself under the water the same exact way she did prior in an attempt to "wash away the situation".

He surely would find a way to use that pun later. It was excellent!

This whole human interaction thing was seriously harder than he thought. In fact, he probably did a whole lot better when he didn't actually try to socialize with them. But! She had asked him to join her for breakfast, which was a pretty friendly thing to do. Or at least, it sure seemed like it was. He was definitely feeling some hunger coming on, so he certainly had nothing against taking up her offer.

"Very wel-" No! "Ahem, s-sorry. I mean, Okay, cool! I could use some.. uh" What was a slang word for food again? "Cho." Yeah... he probably meant "chow", and it was likely this 'word' was either a mistranslation or mispronunciation of the slang word. He coupled this very odd manner of speaking (for him, anyways) with an overly excited attitude, and began making his way towards the shoreline. Considering his apparent excitement towards the idea, it also seemed likely that he had not even considered that the two of them would be walking there completely wet.

"Last one there is a stinky rock!"

His initial instinct was to immediately return and help her as soon as she fell, but he decided against his protective thoughts and instead decided to wait and see her response. She coughed rather loudly, but immediately stood up and continued running. But it concerned him that she was running while soaking wet, and in her condition he was afraid of her easily falling ill. For now, though, he simply made a note of the situation and let her be. After all, sheltering the poor girl was just as bad for her condition as letting her overexert herself. He was sure to go a bit easy on her for their little 'race' for the remainder of the run.

"Wetness? Oh, that is no problem. You see -" His voice came out as a uninterpretable mumble when the towel she took out passed over his head and muffled the sound of his voice. "- chickens. Also, you really should dry yourself instead." Apparently he hadn't stopped talking at all during her drying session. It was also very likely that one would never be able to figure out why or how chickens were involved in what he was saying.

"Pay? Oh no, I can certainly -" His hand patted his back pocket and his eyes widened. "Curious. I appear to have misplaced my wallet." His face looked blank for a moment and he simply stood there as if a statue. Then he began frantically patting down his entire person as if searching for something. "My wallet! it's gone! Where did it go!?" He was starting to seriously attract attention now, as early morning breakfast eaters began noticing a strange man somewhat freaking out in public. It wasn't long before he even took his shirt off, holding it above him and shaking it as if expecting his wallet to fall out.

"Oh dear! Miria will not be happy that I lost that card!"

"I do not think you understand the importance of such an item." He said, doing as she suggested but still acting rather sodden. "Nor the trouble I will be in for losing it." Indeed, what he said was, in fact, correct. That 'credit card', as humans put it, was in fact a miraculous item (resembling a credit card) that could be used, theoretically, as an infinite supply of money at any type of merchant, regardless of currency, as long as they accepted credit cards. This miraculous item was intended to assist Eternals out with essentials they would require, as they often traveled from place to place and had little way of earning income. The item, however, worked directly in conjunction with Adonai's Will, and thus if it were stolen and used for something deemed inappropriate, (example: going on a spending spree for fun) the card would decline any and all transactions. The item varied depending upon the technological level of the world (a small bottomless sack of coins for lower technology worlds, for example) but its purpose was always fundamentally the same.

But the fatal flaw with this item was that it needed to actually be in possession of the one it was intended for in able to be used. And if Corona lost this one, it would be very difficult for him to obtain a new one, considering the situation he was in. This was, despite his comedic reaction to it, actually a serious situation that could jeopardize his mission. He could, in fact, die because of it (good luck affording hundreds of dollars a week in food alone!).

"I really do not think you comprehend how angry she will be with me.." Of course, he trailed off when he saw the menu and apparently immediately saw something of interest. "Wow!" He exclaimed, with a complete change of attitude and interest, as he gazed over the items upon the menu and seemingly wanted all of them.

Literally wanted all of them.

Tara was going to be broke after this.

"Yes, m'lady, I shall partake in the

All-American Slam®
The Grand Slamwich
NEW! Fit Slam
Lumberjack Slam
French Toast Slam
Belgian Waffle Slam
Build Your Own Grand Slam
Moons Over My Hammy Omelette™
Veggie-Cheese Omelette
Western Omelette
NEW! Fit Fare Omelette
Ultimate Omelette
Meat Lover's Scramble
Heartland Scramble
NEW! Santa Fe Skillet
Prime Rib Skillet
Bananas Foster French Toast Skillet
Ultimate Skillet
Moons Over My Hammy
Country-Fried Steak & Eggs
NEW! Banana Pecan Pancake Breakfast
Bacon Avocado Burrito
Southwestern Steak Burrito
NEW! Harvest Oatmeal Breakfast
T-Bone Steak & Eggs"

Yes, he listed every single breakfast item on the menu, and even included the eye-catching words (such as NEW!) as if they were part of the titles. "As for a drink I would much enjoy a glass of orange juice, if it would not be too much trouble." He gave a warm smile that only seemed to further drive home the point that he was completely serious. "Also, if it would be easier upon the kitchen, you may bring them to me in smaller groups at your own discretion, it does not have to be all at once." He said this to be nice, but the waitress probably wouldn't take it that way.

At one point in time between handing in his menu and Tara scolding him he stopped paying attention as he looked over at the ocean they had such a wonderful view of. He really did need to find that card. Luckily, he was able to take advantage of the situation by acting like a normal teenager who ate a lot of food. Or at least he was pretty sure it was normal to be like this. He finally realized Tara was addressing him and turned towards her.

"Oh apo- I'm sorry." He said. "Actually I didn't really plan to eat all of it, it all just looked really good so I got it all." Despite the last sentence being fairly 'normal', hearing him speak like that really did not fit him very well at all. In addition, he seemed to struggle to speak in such a way, almost as if he was foreign. "The waitress seems nice." He said randomly, completely ignoring her comment about common sense. "Do you think she is betrothed?" His attempt at normal teenage conversation, namely an attempt to act like a typical young man interested in a woman, ended in total failure. Despite the obvious failure in the question alone, he did not fit at all as someone who would think that way, considering how he normally was.

He stared back at her and his face took on a look of dread as he attempted to lean away from her, so much so in fact that his chair actually fell backwards and he fell to the ground. "Y- yes ma'am." He said in a daze before climbing back into his seat. A few more weird glances were given from other diners. A couple of people laughed.

"I don't know, I was simply making conversation." Bad conversation. He stretched and scratched the back of his head as she asked him something else, which made him pause for a bit. "Uh.. someone told me I communicated in an odd manner. Thus, I was attempting to act a bit more normal." He resumed a normal sitting position and looked at her once again. "Considering your varied reactions, may I presume that I was unsuccessful?" He left out that the "someone" was in fact multiple people, one of them being an Archangel that would assist Miria in destroying him once she found out he lost a Card.

Oh, and he really should pay Tara back...