( scenario )

[privatematter]

“Never wake the sleeping dragon... lest you be a goddamned idiot.”
Nate Silverman used to be God. He had accidentally made an entire universe with his wife and was, by default, turned into the ultimate power presiding over it: the elemental dragon of fire, patron god of humans. With his wife and children, they formed a pantheon of elementals representing many different races and guarded over the universe. He was a complete asshole and very much drunk on the power he had maintained for millennia. When the inevitable happened and his son, Thomas Hawkins, absorbed all elementals including himself and went on to recreate the universe, this time with minimal meddling, he gave each of the new pieces of himself a choice: join him in eternal slumber at the center of the universe, or have a chance at second life.

Nate, being a terrible horrible person and even worse of a father, took that to mean "be stuck with me or be separated" and chose the second-life bit. Since then, he has reincarnated as an Aspect of himself throughout the ages. None are entirely the same, but one thing binds all of them together: they are generally cocky assholes with hearts of gold, a return to who Nate used to be before unfathomable ages dealing with the pressure of all existence on his shoulders. Although Aspects tend to Awaken to memories of their previous lives, more often than not Nate's Aspects only ever get to a "sleepwalking" stage of being aware of their identity without the rest of the headfuckery to go with it. Nate himself is ridiculously unhappy to be a puny, powerless mortal, while his Aspects would rather continue enjoying life and not become bitter, toxic assholes upon returning to their Nate-like states.

It works out. Less than 1/10th of every Aspect truly awakens to Nate's memories.

That doesn't mean that they cannot tap into his elemental powers of fire, and many end up doing just that. Thankfully, fire has many different and subtle uses that would not incur Nate's proper attention by being outright destructive and seductive to use.

---

Shannon Vaughn is a simple man. He has the simple needs of a fairly luxurious life and as much control over his own destiny as he can manage. He was born blind and, with his parents' influence, managed to gain a position on the Chicago PD of assisting with cases in all but the actual footwork necessary to bring the bad guys down. The glasses are simply because he likes to be an asshole about pretenses, and has also heard they make him unbearably handsome.

Born on February 29th, 1956, his greatest aspiration is to get riproaring drunk on his 84th 21st birthday and hopefully go down in a blaze of alcohol poisoning glory. As latent elemental of fire, Shannon's average temperature is 99.8 degrees Fahrenheit and his sense of touch is keen enough that he can sense heat on the air several feet all around him, making some sort of heatseeking radar sense. He currently has a 6 year old German Shepherd guide dog named Lacey. The two are very close, and if it weren't for the fact that Shannon was surprisingly social, he would probably spend most of his time in only her company. Alone. Pathetically.

As part of his work, and then eventually just because, Shannon often meets up with the journalist Eli Delacroix. Something unseen draws him to the man and they get along surprisingly well. Whether he realizes it or not, Shannon has a need to make up for Nate's mistakes with Eli (an unusual Aspect of Thomas Hawkins himself) and finds that he treats the man almost like the brother he never had. Then again, other Aspects he's unknowingly met tend to get the same treatment.