The Western Shore

Powers: Being quicker and stronger than your average human aside, Tidbit is also very capable. She can fix, build, take apart, or reassemble anything she sets her mind to. She’s very clever with her hands, adaptable, and durable. If you hit her, she’ll heal 9 times out of 10. If you piss her off badly enough, she can heat up a room like nobody’s business. She’s got fire, gunpowder, and lead—well. Mostly fire at her disposal. She’s taught herself a range of weapons and she has no problem showing that knowledge off. And if she wants to disappear, she usually can without a trace—unless you’re a preternatural predator hunting her down, of course.

Weaknesses: With an aversion to all things holy, Tidbit is super leery about holy spaces. Holy water burns her, prayer and exorcisms hurt her to an extreme degree. With enough effort, you –could- send her back to Hell, which is exactly what she doesn’t want to happen. Considering her current predicament, she can actually be killed—but her soul would just return-to-sender and wind up either in Purgatory waiting to be reshuffled later, or in Hell, awaiting punishment. She can be trapped by specific symbols and words, provided they have prayerful or powerful intent behind them.

Personality: Tidbit is Feisty with a capital F. She matches her fervor for survival with a zeal for life—while she is always on the run, looking over her shoulder, somehow she keeps from looking back. A lot of people would consider Tidbit [or just Bit] as “out for herself”, but she’s had no one else to rely on. She’s confident, she’s quirky, and she’s straightforward—there isn’t too much she holds back on, unless it’s her own secrets. She has quite a few, but she always knows how to turn the spotlight on others to keep them from digging too deep. Her fire is a constantly-burning one—you can find it in her eyes, in her appetite, in her insatiable thirst to experience everything. She’s a baseball fanatic, loves running—anything that gives her adrenaline, really. While she’s a fighter, she’s also a pragmatist—she knows what she needs in order to make it, and isn’t afraid to sever ties and take lives if that means she gets to see tomorrow. It’s a scary and uncertain life, but it’s the only one she’s ever known. Even if it’s newer, now, than it’s ever been before. She’s changing, but it’s a process, and she goes back and forth every day.

Birthday: She picked her own. November 1st. Scorpio.

Role/Occupation: She does any old odd jobs. Her biggest selling point is illegal arms dealings, but in light of America’s gun obsession, she’s turned to more Robin Hood antics to get by instead. Stay tuned. You’ll see her on the news by and by. Essentially she’s a thief.

Registered: Not yet, but she might be on their radar.

Origin Story: Tidbit is a traitor to Heaven and Hell alike. She only managed to get out of Hell by striking a deal with a fallen angel who wants to redeem himself in the eyes of the Lord. She gave him a lead on a new vessel and he gave her a way out of Hell that she took and -ran-, even if the tether to the Fallen is one she can never fully sever—at least, not yet.

She has a lot to answer for in Hell as much as she does in Heaven, and she doesn’t want to find herself standing trial for either. She’s hesitant to reveal too much about herself to outsiders; but essentially, she’s seen Moses part the seas and walked in the shadows of temples long since turned to dust and salt. She never thought she’d have a future once Hell was forced to go to literal ground, and she was taken down with all of them—pulled into the debris and fire that threatened to destroy her. She expected it to.

She never expected an out like the one she was offered. So, naturally, she took it.

Tidbit assumed the form of a girl whose body was on its way out; healed her, and to thank her, the girl [Bitty Durnin] passed on, leaving the demon to dominate her body and assimilate fully. The possession became a permanent rent-to-own situation. With that comes pronounced speed and strength, as well as other powers.

Tidbit is currently looking for a thing to tie her permanently to Earth so she never has to leave, something that ensures permanence and immortality and will keep her out of the eyes of Heaven and Hell. She scooped Coin out of a bad predicament and he’s been her loyal protector ever since as they seek a cure for him and a shield for her, and both do their best to try and live through the process.

Name: Conrí Coin [usually just goes by Coin]

Face Claim: Dominic Cooper

Age: 32

Height: 5’10”

Hair: Brown

Eyes: A nice coppery brown, his ma used to say. Personally he doesn’t see it.

Species: Werewolf, though some might argue his strain of virus infers more “werecoyote”.

Powers: Pronounced and incredible strength, considerable endurance/durability, enhanced reflexes, heightened senses, and decent speed. He can shapeshift; albeit only on the full moon and not necessarily voluntarily—plus, he doesn’t really let himself roam free during that time. He’s got a lot of boxing skills, some decent knowledge of chemistry and mechanics/engineering, as well as profound cooking abilities. He’s a wildcard in that he’s always pensive, and most people take him for granted—his observation skills are on point. He can tolerate an excruciating amount of pain and heals very quickly.

Weaknesses: Despite his ability to heal quickly, the virus is ravaging his body. It’s turning the hair at his temples gray prematurely [though he swears it’s the stress of being around Tidbit], his muscles almost always ache nowadays [the constant tearing three times a month may be wearing them down; or, alternatively, Bit’s theory is that he’s constantly holding back erratic shifting on a miniature or maximum scale], and he’s always running a low-grade fever. His appetite suffers, he doesn’t sleep right, and he’s constantly on-edge under the calm that comes from…[drumroll!] clinical depression. He has addictive personality traits and is a recovering former junkie. He can’t shake the vice of drinking, and uses it [and the occasional cigarette] as a crutch for his pain and discomfort. He is also allergic to silver, chocolate, and mistletoe to a near-fatal level, while grapes and tomatoes nauseate him. He can be killed, obviously, the usual lycanthropic ways—just work faster than his healing factor, so to speak.

Personality: Besides having a general baseline of “tired” at all times, Coin is just a deeply lethargic man. He’s discouraged; defeated by life, and all-around sad. Despite this constant exhaustion and emotional strain, he tries to; at all times, remain positive or polite to those around him. He is continuously holding himself back to prevent disaster; endeavoring to be soft and reaching for kindness. He’s there for others because nobody was there for him, and because of that, he hopes he can redeem himself for his former shortcomings. He’s a devout man, in his own right, even if he thinks God’s turned His face from him. He’s only ever enthusiastic when he’s fighting, and even then, it’s usually short-lived and gone like a candle flame in the wind. He is quietly funny when he wants to be [usually for others], loyal to a fault, and a lot smarter than people give him credit for, usually from how much he observes and absorbs—without letting any of it back out. He has a lot of things he struggles with, like internalized hatred and homophobia, as well as discomfort with himself and others. He knows he’s a mess. He just tries to not let that mess be anyone else’s problem. 

Birthday: July 9th, Cancer.

Role/Occupation: Former middleweight boxing champ, current protector of the small [re: Tidbit]

Registered: Not yet but with the way Bit drives them both into danger, he has no doubt it’s inevitably coming.

Origin Story: Coin is an ex-middleweight boxer from the lonely town of Kelton, TX. His parents were a mechanic from New Jersey who fell on hard times [and hard substances] and an Irish immigrant. He was going to be their golden child, he was going to get them out of the hell that was a small town with a lot of gossip. He was a man of god and he was Good, and he did his very best to provide from a very young age. A dedicated, hard worker who never said no and always did as he was told, and always nodded or shook his head; spoke when spoken to, and was polite to a fault.

Except when he fought.

Then he was a fury to be reckoned with.

And then he got injured out of the ring. Because he pissed people off inside of it by refusing to throw a match for the benefit of a certain sheriff’s son. It was righteous of him, maybe, but it pretty much shattered his chances of pursuing boxing.

So he followed in the footsteps of his father.

Substance and mechanics.

Then his mom got sick, and Coin got desperate.

He started doing errands for his dad's dealers and wound up pissing -more- people off because, while he was in a bad place, his moral compass never strayed from true north. They asked him to do shadier things and, when he refused (just as he did in the ring), they beat him to near death, drove him out into the desert, and left him to die.

He hallucinated fighting a wolf in the badlands but…maybe it wasn't a hallucination.

He walked back into town a month later, covered in blood and dust and mud. Sunburnt to shit, too. But healing as he walked. His old injury was fully healed. He -was- the cure. He was sure of it.

But he was too late.

His ma had died.

His father called him poison.

Coin walked out of town and never looked back.

He has since dipped into a low, low place, where his addictive personality gave way to his predisposition for depression and mild mania.

He's off the hard stuff but he's still a drinker and it's really hard for him to do anything.

But the idea of a cure, weirdly, keeps him going.

               The effect was immediate; advantageous to none. All froze in the metaphorical sense, as, while the temperature dropped considerably, it was not quite enough to drive spikes and icicles into the bones of man to prevent their progression forward.

               They; the god in custody, had been weakened [shamefully] to mere spectacle.  But it was still one that involved a great deal of rubbernecking, enough so that the other residents of the labs were given the brief mercy of a pause in their own interrogations and experimentations.

               Loki had always been generous to those on the outside. Those like themselves.

               In their cube of glass and glistening panes, the old god hung suspended: an elaborate art piece exhibition beneath lights too harsh to be suited to oil and canvas. It was good, then, they surmised bitterly, that they had descended from a life of limitless beauty and terror into one of flesh and bone. Easier to hold. Easier to keep on display.

               Their chains were crafted after mythos implied—old, old, withered, weak-looking entrails through which were twined the former giant’s ankles and wrists. There was even a loop for their neck; a noose fashioned from their child’s insides. It burned like cold hoarfrost, though Loki wouldn’t know. Their preference for colder weather made it impossible to gauge the iciness.

               Bare save for the white scrubs the orderlies had forced them to wear, the god glanced heavenwards into the glaring eye of the spotlights above, sweat cascading down the length of their gnarled face. This guise wouldn’t do—a different face would be needed should they manage to Houdini their way out of this one [as they fully intended to]. The body they’d borrowed was withering; waning, like a mask of latex or wax oozing into a free-running stream of filth beneath an artificial sun. They bared yellowed teeth at the nonexistent sky and bided their time, the entrail-chains coated in a thick layer of rigid rime.

               “Awake again, I see.” The quiet voice beneath them was no deterrent from the strain the god put against their confinement. Tendons strained and bulged; skin reddening with the effort. Their toes curled with cracks of healing bones and Loki tensed their jaw, studying what they could see of the lights and ceiling above. Not much, but enough. Enough to know they were deep, deeply underground. Appropriately buried. A cave is a cave is a cave—be it welded by the forges of the gods or crafted by the architects of crude mankind. Midgard’s ground level logistics and sciences were leagues behind those of their world’s. And yet, there they were—adjourned by their own pride in their story. A story told for eons. Their defeat; their subjugation: the end of the world postponed by family feuding and a few loopholes they hadn’t accounted for in their ruthless, underhanded efforts at the beginning of it all. At the start of things.

               When the world began.

               And how it would end.

               “Where--” their throat was parched. Speaking made them acutely aware of how much it hurt to breathe, held up like this. But it was more than that. There was a burning in their veins that they hadn’t noticed before—and they noticed, wrapped and wound in the braided intestines and thin steely wire, a narrow, clear strand of plastic, which dug into their arm, a singular silver fang [a needle—pathetic] stuck in their biggest arm vein. Through the channel of plastic flowed a current of nearly-unseen liquid, tinted only vaguely in the light to be the softest shade of green imaginable. It seemed to have stopped its movement for the time being, but Loki knew immediately of its origin, and was, not for the first [nor last] time in their life, afraid.

               “Somewhere in the middle of nowhere America,” the voice below said patiently. Loki did not turn their face to face the figure below, instead deigning to focus on the needle in their arm. A clenched jaw and a shrug that swung their organic confinement in a nauseating fashion did little to dislodge the needle. The voice proceeded, undeterred: “you wouldn’t know it even if I told you.”

               The how and why seemed too easy. How was due to a dwindling focus on their mythos; due to the deaths of pagans and the uprising of pop culture. It had more to do with media and politics than it did in regards to the secular versus piety. Their time in the world had been slowly and painstakingly scrubbed away by the endless, slogging progression of man. This low tier world, barely supported by the branches of Yggdrasil, should’ve rolled off the map centuries ago, dissolved into the great caldera of the cosmos, and been redistributed throughout the galaxy as something more worthwhile. The veritable dirty bitcoin of the cosmic wastes, as it were. It ought to have long ago been recycled to success for a second go at life, rather than its continued descent into sulfuric dissonance.

               But it hadn’t.

               And, as a result, Loki’s influence over the middling world had dwindled to mere fairytale and folklore. Their connection with those beneath them waned. A formerly no-name British actor portrayed them in comic book movie form and their dedication shifted almost entirely from sacrifice and worship to…fandom.

               Shockingly, there wasn’t a whole lot of power in that particular conduit.

               And a god without a prayer was, well. A god without a prayer.

               Why was no less difficult. Rumors of their power were widespread and well-known, as widespread and well-known as the rest of their ilk once was. It was logical for a powerless creature to reach out and try to ensnare some of that power for themselves. A pity they caught them now and not during the time of travelers and longships, but Loki was not without their uses. Uses unto themselves and their family, for the most part, but they could’ve been persuaded to assist in some regard. You know, had there been the proper channels of communication, ritual, and declaration of safe words.

               As it stood, knocking a god unconscious and chaining them from the ceiling of some unknown facility without simply asking first and using one’s words was not, inarguably, the way to go.

               “What,” Loki decided upon, cracked lips curling into a venomous smile at the shadows beyond the glowering lights, “is it that you want from me?”

               Their captor said nothing. More likely, it was an underling to their captor, some plebe who drew the short straw and was forced to enter the lair of the beast to seek an audience with a pissed-off deity whose primary focus had been destruction, chaos, and mischief. Not exactly the sort of individual one’d want to be alone with, unless that’s just what they were into. That’s really why discussion needed to happen before this particular moment, because at present, Loki was seizing up the opportunity to level [quite literally, level] the playing field the first chance they got. Frost, Hel’s fire, it didn’t matter. They’d make it work. There had been a famous pseudo-modern poem about that, or something.

               “Answers.”

               The one-worded response drew a snort from the god that echoed in the chamber; the safety releasing from the gun. It reverberated with ominous purpose and dissolved with a hiss of breath through tightly-clenched teeth. There it was—the needle bit into their arm with particular force, venom burbling under their blistering skin.

               Jorgmundr. No--Basilisk poison.

               Someone had done their mythology homework, clearly.

               As if the innards hadn’t been indication enough already.

               “To what?” The god conceded through gritted teeth. Their captor muttered something incomprehensible and Loki, languishing in their chains, lolled their head to the left and spoke up more sharply than before. “To what?” The venom’s flow stopped, as did the uncontrolled jerking of the god’s wiry limbs and the clenching of their jaw.

               “What makes a god?” asked the scientist.

               And, in the low place below, a switch was flipped that sent a current of electricity coursing through the wires of steel holding Loki upright, frost crackling and breaking apart, as the god emitted a scream that shook the very walls of the foundation they were housed in—

               And screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until the sky, so high and very far away above, echoed their anguished cry with thunder, lightning, and hail over a little town in the middle of nowhere, America: