You are standing in front of a star.

At least, that's what it must be. There's the black nothingness of space all around you, and the sphere in front of you seethes and rages with nuclear fire. It's a large star, a pale blue-white, but somehow, even this close, it doesn't seem so big to you. Even more curiously, you don't feel any heat at all.

And somehow- you don't know how- you know this star is dying.

Suddenly you are not alone in that empty vacuum of space (shouldn't it be cold, if not hot from the star? Shouldn't you be suffocating? Wait, why haven't you needed to breathe?) because there's something next to you. It looks like a man, a tall man with broad shoulders and a square face. His skin is not skin at all, but indeed seems to be the same roiling plasma of the star in front of you.

He frowns, and sighs. He says something you cannot hear and cannot possibly understand, a resigned look on his face. You nod. You hold out your arm.

He takes your hand.

The star erupts in a flash of light more brilliant than you have ever seen, indeed more blindingly bright than you could possibly have conceived. You have a front-row seat to a supernova, but stand your ground. As the explosion consumes you, loud and heavy and violent, you remain unharmed.

Not too far away, a little further than Earth is from its Sun, there is a planet, and you are suddenly there, too. The people are a bipedal race, with green skin and flat, noseless faces. They live in wandering tribes, hunting and gathering, with only a few primitive cities worth noting.

Somehow, you know what every one of them is doing at this exact instant. They are farming, they are marching to war, they are sleeping, they are making love, they are feeding their children, they are on their sickbeds. One herdsman, herding a flock of animals that resemble fluffier, six-legged sheep, looks up at the sky, the daytime star brighter than usual.

The supernova blast is moving at the speed of light. They have no warning before it slams into their lush green world, consuming the planet in an instant. And then you are there, with all of them, in that dark nothingness of space, each and every one in front of you.

Some of them are bewildered. Some weep, some beg, some angrily threaten. Some sit to think, some talk calmly, some simply nod. You have a billion conversations simultaneously.

One by one, they become ready. One by one, they reach out to take your hand.

One by one, everything goes black.

And you are alone.

How am I doing with Death?

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Nina
AGE: 22
JOURNAL: N/A
IM / EMAIL: attherocksbury (at) gmail (also works for trillian/AIM)
PLURK: N/A
RETURNING: Yep!

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Death (of the Endless)
CHARACTER AGE: Billions of years old (appears late teens, early 20s)
CANON ORIGIN: The Sandman (/DC Comics)
CHRONOLOGY: Post-series, after "The Wake" -- Present Day
CLASS: Force of nature (or Hero)
HOUSING: Randomly!

BACKGROUND: The Endless are a family of seven of the most fundamental forces of the universe: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delerium (formerly Delight). They are not gods or kings of their respective domains, they ARE these domains, and as such each is, at the very least, billions of years old. Destiny is the oldest entity in the universe, for he had to exist to record the plan for every creature or thing that would ever come after him. Death is the second oldest; she was there to greet the first living thing, for one day it would return to her.

Each of the Endless presides over both their own domains as well as its opposite. Destruction destroys and creates, Dream sleeps and wakes, and Death usually meets everything and everybody exactly twice: She gives the breath of life and existence at the beginning, and leads them to whatever awaits them beyond life at the end. She presides over the birth and death of humans, aliens, dogs, goldfish, stars and even the Universe itself; she is well aware that she will be the one to "turn out the lights" and close up shop at the end of all things.

Due to her nature, Death is necessarily multifaceted in addition to her vast cosmic power. Though the Death we see is the Death that inteeracts with humans on Earth, she also indicates that countless versions of her exist throughout the universe: While collecting souls on Earth, she mentions that at that exact moment, she's also attending the death of a planet and countless crystal life forms billions of light-years. It's also implied that all the various gods and incarnations that rule over death are in some way facets of Death herself; the Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz perceives her younger brother Dream as the Martian god of dreams rather than his lanky humanoid self, so it is likely the same with her. Given that "The Sandman" indicates that most belief systems are true and that Norse, Greek, Egyptian gods et al all exist, it is unclear the precise nature of the relationship between Death and gods like Anubis and Hades.

Once every hundred years, Death takes on a mortal identity for a day, at the end of which she dies. During that day, though her main consciousness is mortal and is only somewhat aware of her true nature, she still performs her duties (people still die during that day, and at the end she meets "herself"). She does this to better understand what it means to be mortal, how precious life is, and what exactly she takes from people. Thus far, we have seen two of her mortal incarnations; one as a young girl in China living by the banks of the Yangtze River, and one as a spunky raver in New York City during the modern day. In the latter appearance, she has actually invented a family and history (including a heart defect since her birth) and presumably has done so for all her incarnations, which she says is the universe's way of making her comfortable.

"The Sandman" follows Death's younger brother Dream, aka Morpheus, as he attempts to unravel a number of mysteries and puzzles surrounding him and his life, only to discover that events set in motion may have larger repercussions than anyone first believed. Death appears a number of times throughout the series, usually once per each of the series' ten multi-issue volumes. Sometimes, it's to talk to Dream and offer him advice (or scold him for not reaching out to her for help, as in the first volume); she seems closer to Morpheus than any of his other siblings. More regularly, she appears in side stories or cameos, ferrying off the souls of the mortals who perish - or in one memorable case, granting immortality to one at Dream's request.

Ultimately, as Dream's plan (which he seemed to have only woven subconsciously) to allow himself to be destroyed by the Furies so that a new Dream can take his place comes to fruition, Death visits her younger brother one last time to talk with him before the end. And in the end, Death takes Dream.

PERSONALITY: The first thing to know about Death is that she loves you.

That is to say, Death genuinely and wholeheartedly loves everybody and everything, seeing the value in every scrap of life from slug-creature to infant to star to mass murderer. Despite her outwardly somber appearance, Death holds an incredibly deep-seated vivaciousness and love for life. She wasn't always like that, as a flashback to billions of years before the present day shows her relatively cold and distant; the continued fear and rejection living things showed her when she came to guide them to the next existence had hardened her heart. Taking on a mortal existence once a century (as mentioned above) helped her understand the mortal perspective and realize that the thing everything needs at its end is friendly company.

Of course, "friendly" doesn't mean "soft." Death may be quirky, somewhat sarcastic and happy to see almost everybody, but she has a job to do and she does it with quiet, firm authority. Everyone gets a lifetime, no more and no less, and when it's your time to come with her, you almost certainly will be coming with her, even if you need to sit and talk it out for a while. That's not to say that she never gives reprieves, though they're few and far between: As she tells Lex Luthor, what could any mortal possibly have to bargain with that she would desire or need? It's not that appealing to her sympathy doesn't work (it always works, in fact), but it doesn't change the facts of life and death.

Still, she does sometimes bend the rules if she feels like it. She grants a couple more time with their infant child who dies in an accident, and allows an adult to remain behind in her Sunless Lands in the child's place when the infant's extra time is up. When Dream becomes interested in the claims of a 14th-century Englishman that he'll "have no part" of dying, he asks Death to spare the man and give him immortality for as long as the human wishes; Dream and the man (Robert "Hob" Gadling) become somewhat close friends over the next few centuries. Given that she's the Death of the DC Universe, she also deals with "comic book death" and resurrection, yet she doesn't mind it so much. After all, no matter what hiccups or false starts happen, everyone has a final death eventually, and in the end everyone comes to her.

As Hob Gadling says to Dream, "Death's a capricious thing, innit?" Dream agrees that yes, she is.

Though Death is characterized most by her compassionate, down-to-earth nature, she has a very deeply hidden capacity for anger. This isn't referring to the several times she berates her brother Dream during the story of "Sandman;" it's an admonishment that comes from genuine love and affection, that of a big sister to a wayward younger brother. Twice during "Sandman", characters balk at the barest suggestion that she's unhappy with them: She makes her younger brother/sister Desire back down after antagonizing Dream, and in the end, merely raising her voice is enough to deter the Furies--primal forces who have the very real power to kill an Endless. She's friendly and kind, but the universe knows that pissing off Death, which is nearly impossible, is a really bad idea.

POWER: Death will not have her complete immortality, omnipresence, omniscience, ability to be perceived as any number of death gods, or teleportation. She will, however, have her Gift of Death and Gift of Life, which do exactly what they sound like: She can kill something (or induce necrosis, as she does with Lex Luthor's nose to prove her identity before restoring it) or prevent it from dying/resurrect it, with a thought.

While I understand that this is a tremendously powerful power, I ask that it be accepted because Death will almost never use it. She firmly believes in not interfering with things 99.999% of the time, and will in fact be extremely curious about living life as an almost-mortal. That is to say, were she to help at a car crash, she'd use bandages and first aid rather than her powers.

I will also be putting up a permissions post for Death's recognition. She visits everyone as they're born and so knows everybody, but those who aren't in the DC Universe will be able to opt out of that. On the flip side, being the personification of one of the universe's primal forces means that almost everybody knows who she is when they meet her... but most don't want to admit it to themselves.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: Ever have one of those days where you feel a lot more mortal than usual? Well, but not as mortal as some of the time. Mortal-ish. It's somewhere floating around there in the middle.

Maybe it's just me, though. Still! This is going to be fun, isn't it? Every time I think the universe is running out of surprises for me, I go and get myself proven wrong. That's kind of what I like about it. You know, all that... existence stuff. It's super neato, is what I'm getting at.

Just goes to show, you're never too old to learn something new.

So, so! So, so, so. What's your favorite thing about this place? I have two already, and they're the different flavors of malts they were giving us for free down at that cute cafe-ish place. I had so many of those I thought I was going to be sick, and it was awesome.

You can call me Didi.

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: http://etcelsior.dreamwidth.org/14039.html?thread=8220375#cmt8220375

FINAL NOTES: None!