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emmanuel, his physical form & visits to hell and heaven
— he doesn't posess a traditional vessel and his earthly body is made out of earthly clay, bound to the earth, to the physical world, and so he leaves it behind when he visits hell. in hell he can be perceived as a spectral figure, featureless but endlessly bright (i.e. see below), though some of that brightness is dimmed naturally almost immediately by his surroundings, the air so thick it serves as a shader, much like his clay upon the earth
— when in heaven, he leaves behind his human shape altogether, letting himself go & exist comfortably in what is closest to his 'true form' — just rays of light, refracting through space and time, endlessly warm but hurting no one because this is their natural habitat
— when he does leave like that, he rests his human-shaped clay body to sleep. it can retain its form when he's not there without an issue, though it does not appear alive, it does not move as though breathing, and it does cool down over time. if something were to happen to his body when he left it like this, if it was taken, for example, he wouldn't just take on any shape or form, but instead go looking, in that light or spectral form, because he's had this form for as long as he can remember, and he doesn't want any other one. that one has the indent in his chest, in the shape of a little child's hand. that child is long gone but her legacy is in every act of kindness he enacts with this body, conjured from her own memory.
