<div class="floatleft">(http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e63/consortium11/8bb9cd32-4a6c-4103-8295-ce81259a62e7.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Azorin (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=169361.msg7948148#msg7948148)<br/><strong>Location: The Woods</strong><br/><strong>Tag: Open</strong><br/><hr/><br/>Typing in “just to see what happens” in Google (remembering the quotation marks of course) renders about 11,900,000 results. It is perhaps slightly less impressive than you might imagine... “Justin Beiber” manages to garner about 401,000,000 but it is still a significant number. It appears that there is a part of the human condition that makes people want to do something... anything... just to see what the reaction will be. A part of them that wants to be the catalyst to changes around them, that wants to observe what happens as life takes a somewhat unexpected turn. Good or bad, right or wrong, there is a part of humanity that simply to throw a stone into the calm pool of existence, to watch the ripples and ride the waves. Perhaps you could call it a “fascination”, maybe even simply a “whim” but there is a force there that demands change, that demands chaos, that takes a sense of pleasure from doing something “just to see what happens” and then sit back and watch how others react.<br/><br/>That urge, that fascination, that whim... it's not limited to humans.<br/><br/>What is life (or unlife) but a series of experiences? Some vivid, some mundane. Is that not what we describe life as? An as we lie on our deathbed, as old ages settles down on us like a funeral shroud, as breath begins to still and we feel ourselves slipping away, how many of us will look back at our lives and be happy that we didn't have enough vivid experiences? That there weren't enough dramatic chapters to our lives? That we didn't have enough passion, that we didn't stand on the edge? How many would be happy with that? If all life is an experience then surely it is better for those experiences to be vivid, to be dramatic, to be so real we can remember the touch and the taste? To be dangerous, to get he heart pumping, to get the nerves tingling, to make our hair standing on end. Not to be beige. Not to be safe. Not to be boring. Not to be mundane. Life is a gift too precious to waste on mundane things.<br/><br/>Azorin was here to grant our wishes.<br/><br/>Once, on one of the rare occasions when he deigned to lower himself to fellow demon company, he had been playing poker with a Serparvo Demon. He'd been doing rather well when the demon remarked that he thought Azorin may be a low-level empath, able to siphon and feel the emotions of others. Azorin had pondered the thought for a long time. There was no doubt he did derive pleasure from others, their thoughts, their feelings, their reactions. But he did not believe it was though empathy. He could not simply look at someone and immediately tell how they were feeling without any other stimulus. More, his pleasure was more intellectual than physical. He did not feel someone’s joy, their hope or their despair itself. He took pleasure from watching them react, to seeing their joy, their hope or their despair. He perhaps shared some similarities with an empath but he was no one himself. At least he did not think so. How would he react if he was? What would he feel, what would he do?<br/><br/>It was an intriguing question.<br/><br/>Azorin fed off emotion, off reactions, off the way the ripples swept across a calm pool. Not literally; he was a demon but not that sort of demon. He lived... if lived is the right term... to see and observe how people reacted to the world around them. Humans... with their myriad emotions, quirks, fears and ambitions... were a wonderful species. He had been told that vampires could live off the blood of any mammal but that human blood was a particular treat... once tasted hard to give up. Azorin suspected he was rather the same. Demons were so... generic. For every one demon who showed something special there were hundreds who were copies of each other, the lack of a soul seemingly neutering their individuality, their ability to react in any but the most obvious of ways. But humans? You could give a dozen humans the same stimulus and there would be a dozen different reactions. A wonderful species indeed.<br/><br/>And if life is a collection of experiences... and if we want those experiences, whether good or bad, to be as vivid as possible, to be as memorable as possibe, then who are you to say that Azorin is wrong when he creates those experiences for you? When he decides to throw in a pebble, when he decides to control the ripples?<br/><br/>Not that he intended to cause any such chaos today. Through his many years of life Azorin had found that there was often little need for him to interfere when humans of a certain age gathered together. Especially if alcohol was present. No, these humans were perfectly capable of creating their own experiences with no input from him. Wonderful, vivid experiences. These puppets did not need a puppet master... they were tug their own strings, locking together and falling apart until they became a tattered mess of twisted threads, wrapped together despite themselves. Oh, he did like college students and he did like the things they did. Already there was one girl making a scene of herself over what he presumed was an ex-boyfriend. Oh, the emotions, the experiences... the embarrassment, the sadness, the hint of anger, the slight touch of lust...<br/><br/>So Azorin, in a form that was utterly mundane, an appearance that no-one would note, quietly made his way around the party, simply observing and noting what was going on.<br/><br/><hr/><br/><div class="floatleft">(http://fashiontribes.typepad.com/main/images/mens_penguin_sweater_nordstrom.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Sam Reid (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=169361.msg7948132#msg7948132)<br/><strong>Location: The Woods</strong><br/><strong>Tag: Open</strong><br/><hr/><br/>Sam was still bored.<br/><br/>The quaterback guy still had Sam's bottle of whisky in his hand, although he appeared to be less interested in that then he was in the the girl he was currently dry humping against a tree. It was all a bit banal to Sam but frankly, even if the guy had lost interest in the alcohol Sam wasn't going to interrupt him to ask for it back. There was an old saying that “alcohol is the social lubricant” and Sam could see the truth of it here. The amount of fun someone was having at the party seemed to directly correlate to the amount of liquor that was currently sloshing its way through their system. Sam couldn't say he particularly blamed them... he was quite tempted to drink himself into a stupor just to get this all over with. He'd taken a few decent drinks beforehand, got the first hint of a buzz flowing through his system although that was starting to fade. But there were things other than alcohol to help one have a good night. Things rolled, smoked and snorted.<br/><br/>But first he was hungry.<br/><br/>The girls with him were telling yet another inane story, this time about some “crazy” party when they were still at highschool. Sam didn't care. He didn't care about the party, he didn't care about them, he couldn't even remember their names. He didn't care that they were interested in him and he didn't even care that he was being pretty obvious with his distaste. Not that the pair seemed to notice, their eyes already slightly vacant from the amount they'd drunk. A glance over his shoulder as more whoops and cheers went up showed a group of women arriving, seemingly friends. Sports team he guessed from the various chants and songs (and he used the term loosely) they were bellowing out. Future of the nation this lot, drunk out of their minds and doing things they'd never admit to their parents about.<br/><br/>There was one plus-side of looking over his shoulder however. Some ingenious people had managed to set up a barbecue and get it going, despite regular interference from people pouring beer and various other drinks onto it. One guy actually appeared to be taking it seriously rather than just throwing chunks of raw meat on and waiting for them to be black on the outside and raw on the inside. Perhaps there was hope of something at least somewhat edible being available. As long as he got there early.<br/><br/>There were a few polite words to the girls, mentions of how he found their story really interesting, of how he'd loved spending time with them, how he'd be back in a moment and would absolutely love to hear them talk about whatever the hell it was they intended to talk about. Then Sam was up, quickly brushing down his jeans (far too expensive to be worn on a night like this, but needs must) and his t-shirt (likewise) and turning towards the barbecue as the first wafts of cooked meat and vegetables washed over him. He fumbled in his pockets, making sure it was still there. It was.<br/><br/>Food first, then something a little more fun...