paradisa | #005 - Crash & Fly

A couple months ago I realized it was probably worth trying to get out of here via the sky, even though it's not too probable. I mean, other people who can fly have been here and haven't gotten out, so what were the odds? Superman didn't get out, that's for sure, but then again, if you could get out, it wouldn't mean you could get very far before you ran out of oxygen. And I say that as someone who can hold her breath for a really long time.

And after weeks of hemming and hawing, I spent, like, an hour this morning looking at the sky at all sorts of different frequencies to see if I could see where any boundary was, but guess what? Nada. Can't see anything now, just as I couldn't when I first got here.

So just now I decided to fly straight up and see how far I could go, and guess what? Now there's a Supergirl-sized crater in the woods where I ate dirt on the return trip. Good thing for superpowers, huh? Slowed myself enough to prevent a shockwave upon impact, but I just wasn't fast enough to catch myself completely.

I've never been so restless in my life.

xoxoxo
Kara

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I thought I saw something. Good to know it wasn't actually a meteor.

[A laugh.]

Nope, just a teenager. Was I leaving a smoke trail?

Maybe a little one.

Yikes. I should have packed a fire extinguisher.

Sure. For the next time you go plummeting from the sky.

Right, just a compact-sized one that clips to my belt.

I'm sure they make travel-sized ones.

Perfect! This is a great suggestion, it'll certainly help keep a lower profile in the future.

[He laughs!] Just doing my part. The fewer people who think we're besieged by asteroids, the better.

Right, wouldn't want people thinking that the end is nigh or anything.

[Oh. That brings up an interesting idea, actually. Hellboy pauses briefly.]

You know, I don't think I ever heard anything about the natives of this place having any sort of religion. There are a couple churches in town, but I think they were built by the residents.

Yeah, I suppose that's unusual to people from Earth... but my planet doesn't really have religion in the same sense that you guys do. There isn't even a direct translation for what we have... we have mythology and superstitions and stuff like that, but they're just stories. We don't have churches for them, we don't have to pray to them or invoke anything from them.

I guess some people would see Paradisa like a god, though.

I spent most of my life dealing with different religions and superstitions -- that are actually real -- so I guess it's just a little odd to me.

[She's from a different planet... of course she is. Not many humans can fly and are so casual about announcing it, Hellboy.]

But that's a good point. I wonder if they worship the castle.

Well, I'm not saying they aren't real, just that some people let gods determine their lives or something.

Has no one asked?

Not as far as I know. They don't really like us.

Huh. I've mostly ignored them...

Easy enough to do. I don't mean they outright dislike us, but they won't really go out of their way to say hi or anything.

Weird.

Do you think they'd take offense if I took a look at them to see if they're really... sentient?

... if you did what.

[Not sure if he should be offended or confused... so his tone is just pretty flat.]

Uh... like, what if I looked at their brains to see if they're built the same way as humans?

If they're... what difference does it make?

I want to see if the Castle controls them through some biological thing? My cousin managed to do a local lobotomy-type procedure on a guy with a precise laser through his eye. He cut out a growth that gave the guy powers. If there's something abnormal about the townsfolk, I can see it.