InsaneJournal

Deity Name: Pestilence
Pantheon: Christian theology, Revaltions
Current Alias: Victor White
Apparent Age: 48
Occupation: Supervisory Health Informatics Specialist for the Center for Disease Control

i can see inside you the sickness is rising

Irreverent is the best description of the first impression people have of Pestilence. He always seems to be amused at some private joke – one only three others in the world would understand (but we’ll get to that later). There is always a touch of mocking in his demeanor with mortals. Even in the presence of gods it seems as he takes nothing seriously. That isn’t the case. It’s just that he has an extensive sense of humour. After all, he’s essentially stuck on earth killing time (and frequently people) while waiting for the Apocalypse. It helps to laugh at something. In Pestilence case, he laughs at everything.

It’s really not that he doesn’t take anything seriously, though. It’s just that he doesn’t take much seriously; which is most likely very fortunate, all things considered. Pestilence laidback attitude belies that he is responsible for some of the worst disease and blights in human history. During the Middle Ages his name was nearly synonymous with his brother Death’s. But there was no peace to be found in Pestilence’s embrace. Death, at least, could be seen as the end to suffering: merciful. (And, oh, how he gets a kick of that characterization of his brother). Pestilence makes no such promises. He can be gentle or cruel. His touch may be a quick embrace that bring about the end or a leisurely caress that lasts for days or weeks or years – a slow, rot that turns flesh into a decaying prison. Nothing is ever certain. Pestilence prefers to ‘go with the flow,’ easily adapting to suit any occasion – or whim.

His unflappable, easy going presence makes him easy to overlook. Until he opens his mouth, and, oh, does Pestilence have a mouth on him. Tact isn’t one of his strong suits. Neither is charm. He’s completely devoid of any polite or politic trait. Pestilence just tells it as it is. Exactly as it is: blunt, to the point, no sugar coating. He’s brought great men weeping to their knees and the temerity to ask: ‘what did I say?’ With as innocent an expression as he is capable of (which isn’t very). And it’s not done to be cruel. To his way of thinking, either he’d have to soften his delivery to everyone (too much work) or only to that select, handful of people. But those handful of people, so singled out, would seem to then have authority over him – since he speaks in a manner to please them. No one has authority over Pestilence. No one; not all the hosts of heaven and hell combined can coerce him into movement. There isn’t a power in existence that can, well, except his siblings but that is a whole different bundle of Ebola.

Pestilence is utterly devoted to his siblings. Oh, he spends equal amounts of time wanting to praise them for their brilliance and wanting to throttle them for their stupidity. But he loves them unconditionally. Even in the moments when he can’t to be in the hemisphere as one of his siblings, and there have been a few tense moments over the centuries, he still loves them. They’re the only Beings in the universe he’d ever lay down his immortal life to protect, in an instant, without hesitation and may the other Gods be merciful to the fool who actually manages to harm one of them. The laidback, always amused, irreverent Horseman would disappear in less than an instant. And in his place would be the Pestilence who rained down plagues on Egypt, loosed the Black Death in Europe, and all that would be nothing compared to his wrath in that instant. Inventive, creative, and merciless, for all his harmless appearance, Pestilence’s anger is in some ways the most terrible. For in his fury, he’ll happily leave his victims alive in rotting flesh with perfect, terrible awareness of their fate. He is not a nice god, or a kind god, or a gentle god. He is a vicious, vindictive, sadistic god who loves his family very much.

it seems that all that was good has died and is decaying

The first rider represents the lust for conquest and as such forms an integral part of the four horsemen who are all evil and are summed up by the fourth horsemen. Conquest brings with it war, famine and death. However the color white is usually associated with good not evil, but it can indicate victory, the rider wears the victory crown.

When the Apocalypse comes, Pestilence will be the rider on the white horse wearing the crown of victory. He’s said to symbolize the lust for conquest that brings forth War, Famine and ultimately Death. Other scholars have said it is not the lust that he represents, but the threat of an outside force sweeping in to conquer. Both have merit, in their sense. He is the ultimate conqueror, from within and without brought on by any number of things – he is the plagues that sweep across lands and lay waste to every life they touch. He conquers everything, not with the bow that he is pictured with, but by the very nature of what he is. And so he is crowned victor over any that might stand against him.

Throughout history, Pestilence has spent the majority of his time looking after his more flamboyant siblings. The trouble those three manage to get into is just mind boggling, really, and he doesn’t care that they are all fully capable of managing to find a way out – he has older brother complex, never mind that they are all approximately the same age. That doesn’t mean he’s always there breathing down their necks and stepping on toes. Of course not, that would be terribly rude. He tries to be in the same general region as they are, just in case. So while War might be raging between two Italian city-states, there is a good chance that a plague will be sweeping through the continent. Close enough for him to remind her to eat her vegetables, dress warmly and not work too hard. After all, if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.

And keeping that in mind has made Pestilence a very busy god in his own right; Europe has felt his touch many times over with some of the most famed plagues in history. London, in particular, has always been near to his heart with The Black Death of the 14th century, the London Plague of the 16th century and the Great London Plague of the 17th century. His influence has spread to every corner of the globe: the Plague Riot in Moscow, the Third Pandemic starting in China, Great Plagues of Marseille, Vienna, Seville. Where humans are, inevitably, he is and he spreads.

His siblings arrived on America’s shores during the 1600s on the hearts and minds of the Puritans. He sauntered in late, but made up for lost time with alacrity. Measles, smallpox, yellow fever, the fledgling nation was a breeding ground for some of his children. Every epidemic that swept through towns left the populace in mourning and brought his name to their lips, whispered in fear that he might still be listening. Even as the towns became cities, and the great wars were fought, his mark was still deep in the fabric of the country. Little flare ups of cholera and influenza pandemics kept the settlers unbalanced and his power strong. Everything was going along perfectly until 1928 and Sir Alexander Fleming. Mr. Let’s-See-What-Mold-Can-Do, followed by Howard Walter Florey who found out that Mr. Mold’s mold did, in fact, have medicinal value. The birth of penicillin was the beginning of a very dark time for Pestilence.

Improvements in medicine and medical care continued at an ever quickening pace. No sooner had a disease appeared than it was conquered, and people slowly began to loose their fear of him. The Black Death was something that had happened, far away in the mists of history – never mind that with a single disease he’d managed to kill between thirty and sixty percent of Europe’s population. But that had been then, and reliving the glory days would not restore his power. Pestilence, never given to showy displays, grew more careful in the use of his powers and more inventive in his diseases. They may not last as long, may not kill as many, but he would be damned if his name was ever forgotten. For a time he continued in a sort of limbo, powers reduced but still a presence and a power. Until the threat of biological warfare began to loom from distant horizons; his sister’s great wars were made all the more terrifying by the threat of threat of pathogens, chemicals, and human experimentation. The sexual revolution was next, his new playground; all his nasty little sexually transmitted diseases finally had a chance to come into their own. AIDs brought not only his name to the lips of the nation but also those of siblings, of their Apocalypse. His powers swelled and on the heels of outbreaks of hepatitis, gonorrhea, and herpes.

His brief flirtation with helplessness (much exaggerated by his own fears) has taught Pestilence not to take for granted his current largess. For the first time in his history, he’s taken on a mortal persona as Dr. Victor White, Supervisory Health Informatics Specialist for the Center for Disease Control.

get up, come on, get down with the sicknesss