Stormy Weather (Mythklok, Chapter 15)
Dec. 10th, 2010 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Stormy Weather (Mythklok, Chapter 15)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles and Raziel stare at beer signs; Ganesh babysits a death metal band
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, smoking.
Notes: Notes after the jump. I don't know if anyone else will like this one but me, but dang was it fun to write.
Cross posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
capslokdethklok.
This is a Metalocalypse AU which![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tiktaalikroseae has dubbed “Mythklok.” Here are the other bits, about an angelic visit (Chapter 1), a hunt (Chapter 2), a barbecue (Chapter 3), a ski trip (Chapter 4), a sword fight (Chapter 5), Bette Davis Movies (Chapter 6), a concert (Chapter 7), tall tales (Chapter WTF), a trial (Chapter8), an argument (Chapter 9), a stray cat (Chapter 10), Satan’s shinkansen system (Chapter 11), the highway to Hell (Chapter 12), a meeting with Satan (Chapter 13) and a tiger hunt (Chapter 14).
And it all everything eventually ends up rolling to my fic journal,tikific, where you are welcome to come poke it with a stick.
THE STORY SO FAR: This is a Metalocalypse AU that has slithered very far off canon and into the realm of barking madcap weirdness. Charles is a Fallen angel who used to go by the name of Sariel. For many centuries he tried to leave memories of this existence behind him (as Heaven is full of douche bags) but now several weird immortal beings have started showing up at Mordhaus and making his existence even more complicated. Raziel is a ditzy Seraph who used to be his partner in crime. She is also now King Wotan’s fiancée. Wotan, as we all know, is head of the Norse pantheon, and, as we all suspect, Skwisgaar’s birth father. One of Wotan’s hunting buddies is Shiva, lord of destruction and Dethklok super fan. Charles is currently involved with Shiva’s son, Ganesh, an elephant god with a rather sexy British accent.
In the last few chapters, Nathan was kidnapped and trapped in Hell, but Dethklok rallied and rescued him. And then Nathan got all emo and decided to quit Dethklok, but Shiva took him on a tiger hunt and he got better. But then Charles got it in his head that he’s going on a monster hunt, so he’s dragging along the wedding-mad Raziel, while leaving his boyfriend, Lord Ganesh, in charge of Dethklok for the weekend. What could possibly go wrong?
Stormy Weather
Lady Raziel of the Seraphim carefully set up her beach umbrella. As it was not typical beach weather at Asgard this time of year, there being in fact some snow on the ground, she had also pulled a space heater over by her beach chair. She draped a towel over the chair, and then sat down and carefully applied two different forms of sun block to every bit of skin her bikini left exposed. This was, frankly, rather a lot of skin. She used two different types of lotion, as one could never be certain about these human concoctions. And she really didn’t wish to get wrinkles. Even though she was an immortal angel, and thus could not get wrinkles. She greatly disliked the thought of wrinkles. On the other hand, she also disliked the idea of getting no sun exposure prior to her upcoming honeymoon on the Pleiades. Lady Raziel had heard great things about the beaches up there.
At length, her preparations finally finished, she lay back in the chair and, after donning a rather large straw hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses – in order to block out any further rays of the weak winter sun that somehow managed to bypass the beach umbrella and two forms of sunscreen – opened her new brand issue of Italian Vogue.
Alas, she had little time to enjoy artful pictures of thigh-high boots before she became aware of the presence of a rather large, rather menacing being standing nearby. He looked to be of East Asian origin, possibly Indian. His arms were huge, resembling the arms of humans who have perhaps indulged to too freely in treatments with anabolic steroids. And they were crossed in a gesture that seemed to be anger and defiance
And, it is probably needless to add, he was not a man, but a god.
Lady Raziel slid her oversized sunglasses down her nose with one well manicured finger, and gave the intruding god what she hoped was her sternest look.
“I am Lord Skanda!” the man announced. “I demand to see Ganesha!”
“Freki!” sang Raziel.
Lord Skanda abruptly found himself located underneath a rather large, snarling wolf.
“You didn’t say, ‘Simon Says!’” she told him, resuming leafing through her Vogue.
“Uh. This beast is not going to consume me, is it?” Skanda worried.
“Freki? No. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now, Geri, he’s a killer.”
Aforesaid Geri the wolf suddenly hovered near Skanda, growling and drooling in seeming hunger for tasty, steroid-enhanced East Asians.
Skanda emitted a rather pathetic squeak, and disappeared.
After a few minutes, a being who resembled a handsome Indian man came and seated himself in the beach chair next to Raziel. He was actually a god as well. He was rather more seasonably dressed than Raziel, in a fine long wool coat.
“Namaste, Ganesha! Your brother came calling.”
“Madarchod,” Ganesh grumbled.
“Ganesha!” scolded Raziel, actually tipping down her sunglasses at him.
“I also drink and smoke,” he told her. “I simply do not eat meat. What did you do?”
“I told him you were not in, and then I invited him to play with my wolves. He did not seem too keen.”
Ganesh smiled a smile that seemed somehow too large for his handsome face. “You are a horrible, horrible woman,” he told her.
“Thank you. I intend to be the most evil of queens.”
“Long may you reign in terror. Speaking of which, we have some matters to attend to.” He pulled out an electronic tablet and tapped his fingers on it.
“Mmm. The reception seating chart.”
“It is the world’s most intricate Sudoku puzzle! And I desperately need Sariel’s measurements for the suit.”
“Can’t you anesthetize him and measure him while he’s unconscious?”
“No. It would not be ethical.”
“Well, what good was it going to medical school?”
“I often wonder.”
“I will hog tie Sariel and drag him to your tailor this week, I promise.”
“Hmmm.”
She grinned evilly. “And then should I deliver him to you that way?”
“Raziel!” Ganesh laughed.
“I just want to cheer you up, dear. I would give you a hug, but I’m coated in oil.”
“Yes, er, you are aware that this is mid-winter?”
“I want to get some sun before my honeymoon! Plus, I’m researching my rehearsal dinner ensemble.” She held up her magazine.
“Oh, is that the new Vogue Italia?” Ganesh asked, snatching at it. She grabbed it away. “Bridezilla!” he snorted.
“OK. So. Uh, guys,” Ofdensen began, surveying the broken IKEA fixtures. He was musing about Dethklok’s brand new tradition of beginning each meeting with a ceremonial lamp-breaking. On the one hand, IKEA furniture, though thrifty, did have some expense associated with it, and he’d had to have his Klokateers raid stores that were several hundreds of miles distant as they began to deplete lighting fixtures from the more local facilities. On the other hand, it had increased meeting attendance as well as participation. On the whole, it seemed a positive thing. Perhaps he could work out some sort of marketing deal with the Swedish retailer, having Skwisgaar pose with one of those bizarre little screwdrivers or something?
“If you don’t mind, uh,” he began again, just as Murderface put a bullet through a table lamp. “Uh, William, I believe we agreed last time, no firearms.”
“Aw, that’s bullschit,” Murderface muttered, nevertheless holstering his 45.
“Williams, dat ams da rules for da cordials lamps-breaksing!” Skwisgaar scolded.
“Yeah, if you’re gonna break lamps, you gotta do it RIGHT!” Nathan insisted.
“Well, ah, thanks for that. We really don’t have a lot this week. As you might, ah, know, I’m going out of town on some business. Since we’ve had, ah, an eventful month, I’ve asked Lord Ganesh if he would stay here, during my, uh, absence, in case you guys need anything.”
“Anything?” laughed Pickles. “I t’ink a need a back rub dood.”
“OK. OK. If you guys could…. Look, Lord Ganesh is doing this as a favor to me. If you guys could just…. Please don’t kill him, OK?”
“Ja, we ams gets him backs to you in da goods conditions,” Skwisgaar snickered.
“We’re Det’klok! What could happen?” Pickles snorted, to much chuckling.
“Yeah. OK. Fine. Whatever.”
Ofdensen felt the headache coming on. He sighed and headed towards his room and some few moments of peace and quiet. There was an angel there.
“Raziel, quit jumping up and down on my bed. What are you doing in my fucking room, anyway?”
“You said you wanted me to quit appearing in your office.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t mean… Will you quit fucking jumping up and down? You’re not that small! You’ll fucking break it!”
“I’m trying to break it!”
“Why do you wanna break my bed?”
“So you’ll get a new one. It’s no wonder Ganesh never stays over here. This is pathetic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my bed.”
“Not if you were an eight year old human. You may as well have cowboy wallpaper in here.”
He sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Is there actually a reason that you’re here besides driving me crazy?”
“You’re coming to get measured for your suit.”
“Just get my fucking measurements from my tailor in London.”
“Oh, no FUCKING way. No Englishmen will be involved in tailoring for this ceremony!”
“Can you just … stop?”
“Promise to come to Milan and see Ganesh’s tailor, and I’ll quit jumping.”
“And then you’ll start doing something else obnoxious?”
“Probably!”
“All right! All right! All right!”
“Ofdenschen!”
“William! Wasn’t my door fucking locked?”
“Yesch, Thanksch, but it waschn’t much of a challenge thisch time.”
“We need to talk to you, dude.”
“Hi Nathan! Hi William!’ sang Raziel.
“Oh, hey Lady Raz. Er, dude,” Nathan said, leaning over to growl more softly to Ofdensen, “What’s she doin’ in your bedroom?”
“Oh, she was…. She was just bouncing on the bed.”
“Whoa! Ganesh AND an angel chick!”
“No!”
“I’m helping Sariel with his interior decoration needs,” Raziel explained, hopping to the floor. “This bed is simply not metal.”
Nathan nodded thoughtfully. “No, dude, it’s pretty un-metal.”
“What is wrong with my bed?”
“Dude, are you kidding? You might as well have cowboy wallpaper.”
“Asch it happencsch, metal interior deschign is my schpecialty!” Murderface announced.
“Oh, that’s splendid, William! Have you seen this catalog?” Raziel was quite suddenly holding a furniture catalog. She grabbed Murderface’s elbow in her firm little grip and was sashaying away with him.
“William! NO SAND! Goddammit.”
“Charles….”
“What is it Nathan!” Ofdensen snapped. He immediately regretted it when he saw the hurt Nathan look. “Sorry, sorry. What did you need?”
“It’s just, the Ganesh dude.”
“Yeah. I just have to be out of town for something. I might be out of phone contact. It’s just a couple days.”
“So, we should treat Ganesh dude like we do you?”
“NO! Do NOT treat Ganesh like you treat me! Be NICE to him!”
“We’re nice to you.”
“Yeah. Anyway, it’s not just Ganesh. You’re in charge too, you know.”
“I don’t know,” Nathan stated.
“Whaddya mean, you don’t know?”
“Since I came back. I’m not sure they want me in charge. They keep overruling me. Pickles and Skwisgaar.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what those guys do.”
“I’m not sure-“
“OK. Nathan. One thing you abso-fucking-lutely cannot do with you guys: you can’t be on the fence. You can’t show any hesitation. You’re either back in the band, you’re back leading the band, or you’re not. Because if you doubt yourself for even ONE FUCKING SECOND, they see it, they sense it, they smell it. Do you understand?”
“Uh, yeah, I guesso.”
“Ready go to?” Raziel was asking.
“Uh,” said Ofdensen. But then they were in his room no longer.
Ofdensen stalked down the corridors of Mordhaus, smoking like a fury. Trust Raziel to abandon him in Milan – he had told her his Italian was rusty, but she insisted she had another urgent errand. So, he had spent the past hours in the company of a pair of jabbering tailors who seemed to be involved in a perpetual argument, the topic of which may have been either politics or fresh fruit, he wasn’t entirely certain.
He came to his room. There was a god there. Outside, this time.
“Oh, Ganesh! Shit, I’m sorry! I just got back from Milan.”
“Splendid, then I take it we may at last begin construction of your wedding attire?”
“How the hell long does it take Italians to tailor a fucking suit?”
“Well, that’s the charming thing about Italian suits, they actually fit.” Ofrensen glared, opening the door to his room.
“Oh holy fuck! Murderface!”
“Is this new?” inquired Ganesh; sitting down on the mammoth bed that now covered approximately half of the floor space.
“Yeah. Goddammit! They must’ve done this while I was out. Fucking Raziel.”
“I like it,” the Hindu god murmured, making himself comfortable.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh. But, I take it you do not approve?”
“Oh, no. No! It’s, uh, great! I like it just fine. I, uh, may need to knock out a wall. Or two. Damn, is that my closet?” Annoyed, he kicked off his shoes and walked across the bed and began tugging ineffectively at his closet door, now shut tight beside it.
Ganesh snapped his fingers, and the closet door suddenly disappeared, sending Ofdensen sprawling backwards on the massive bed. “Lord Remover of Obstacles,” grinned Ganesh.
“Oh, speaking of which, I just got a new lock. It’s gonna take them probably at least 18 hours to break it.”
“Hmm. So, they break into your room quite often?” the Hindu god mused.
“Yeah.”
“Will this bed be sufficiently large then?”
“What?”
“Well, how many of them may we expect to share it with us on a regular basis?”
“WHAT?”
“Namaste, Ganesha!” sang a familiar voice.
“Hello, Lady Raziel!”
“I thought you said you were gonna quit that bouncing shit!” Ofdensen fumed.
“That was your old bed. William and I bounced on all the beds at the store to see which one had the most resilient construction.”
“You did WHAT?”
“You’re a god and an angel – we didn’t want you breaking stuff.”
Ofdensen turned a lovely state of crimson. “That was a very sensible idea,” Ganesh agreed.
“Bouncy, bouncy, oo such a good time!” Raziel sang.
“Bouncy bouncy, shoes all in a line,” sang Ganesh.
“OH MY GOD GANESH,” Raziel said, crashing down next to the god. “Do we still have time to get a bouncy castle for the reception?”
“What on god’s green earth is a bouncy castle?” Ofdensen asked.
“I believe you may have a different term for it in the United States,” Ganesh told him.
“So, you like?” Raziel asked Ofdensen.
“Raziel! I’m gonna need a shinkansen just to get from one side of my fucking bed to the other!”
“Well, I told you you guys needed a bullet train! Anyway, I should go make sure the porters are handling my luggage correctly.”
“Wait, luggage? Raziel, I told you, one suitcase!”
“You silly thing. I takes one suitcase just for my little hats!” And with that she disappeared.
“Dammit Raziel!” Ofdensen shouted at nothing. “Ganesh, I’m sorry, but I really gotta go if I’m gonna talk a ditzy Seraph out of bringing half of Dolce and Gabbana’s fall line along with us.”
“Only half?” grinned the Hindu god. “So, have you any last minute instructions, other than the warning regarding breaking and entering death metal musicians?”
Ofdensen sighed. “I’m gonna give you one piece of advice. But you’re not gonna follow it.”
“Don’t feed them after midnight?” Ganesh grinned.
“Do NOT go out drinking with them.”
“Well, there’s little chance of that. As you know, I do not overindulge.”
Ofdensen raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s what you think. They ask you to get just one little drink, and they all look at you, and before you know it, you’re passed out under a pile of strippers.”
“I see little chance of that. For one thing, I have not been with a female being for at least the past seven centuries.”
“Yeah, well, Dethklok can cure you of that.” He kissed Ganesh and said, “I gotta go,” and was gone.
“Hmm,” muttered the Hindu god. He waved his hand, and a book appeared in it. “Door locking mechanisms.”
Raziel sat contentedly on the DethJet with a plate of little cakes, while Huginn the raven read a wedding magazine over her shoulder.
“If you keep snarfing up all that pastry, aren’t you gonna look fat in your wedding dress?” Ofdensen noted sourly.
“I am not fat!”
“Your ass has looked smaller.”
She scowled at him and pushed away the cakes. “What is your deal with my wedding, anyway? I mean, really?”
“It’s not so much the wedding, it’s that I have to fucking be there. And then there’s all these people asking, so, what about you, Sariel, when are you gonna settle down? And I’m gonna have Ganesh there the whole time, looking at me with those eyes, and this is all after I told him I loved him by mistake the other day.”
“You told him you loved him?”
“It was a mistake!”
“How do you tell someone you love them by mistake?”
“You know me! I can fuck up anything!”
“True. Well, why don’t you just talk to Ganesh? Don’t you think it’s possible he doesn’t want to settle down? I mean, his mom is a goddess of love!”
“WHAT?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want just one person, maybe he wants to settle down with his favorite eight people or something!’
“What? Eight people? Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t I be enough for him?”
“Um, I thought the point was you didn’t wanna settle down?”
“I don’t! I don’t! You’re just…. You’re ruining it for everyone with this fucking wedding bullshit!”
“This is all your fault anyway!” Raziel huffed.
“How the FUCK is this my fault!”
“It used to be…. It used to be I was fine! You were all I worried about, and, I knew you had to stay here, so I’d just come back every couple centuries, to make sure you were alive, and then you’d tell me to fuck off, and I’d be OK to go off, and go wherever. But then this time I thought you were gonna die, because I thought Uriah was finally gonna fucking kill you, so I went to get Wotan’s help, but then I ended up worrying about Wotan, and Valhalla, and Asgard, and everything and everyone up there, and then I started worrying about your people too, and Ganesh, and now there’s all these people and places here I have to worry about, and it’s all your fucking fault!” She looked up. It was his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Oh, don’t blow your nose on my fucking handkerchief.” Ofdensen sighed.
“Water,” she said.
“What?”
“If you have a crying woman you’re supposed to give her a glass of water! I swear, don’t you know ANYTHING?” She grabbed the glass he handed her and drank. And then choked. “This isn’t water!” she sputtered.
“You’re not a woman.” She glared at him. “OK, here’s the deal, If I have to put up with you and Ganesh dressing me up in a ridiculous outfit and having to fucking dance like some douche bag and a bunch of other girlie shit, all because you’ve got it in your head you’re gonna marry Wotan, then you’re gonna have to learn to drink whiskey and smoke cigars. And we’re starting with whiskey. Drink.”
She sniffed at the whiskey. “Is this the good stuff?”
“No it’s not the fucking good stuff! I’m not gonna start you on the good stuff.”
Raziel scowled at him. “Where’s my cigar?”
“Whiskey first.”
“I want to thank you for taking this time, William. I’ve never gotten the grand tour of Mordhaus before.”
“Yeah, Ofdenschen is a buschy guy.”
They were walking past Toki’s room. The door was ajar. There was a giggling girl inside, knitting with Toki. But when she spotted Ganesh and Murderface, suddenly a strong wind blew and she was gone.
“Dat ams Naomi, she ams da wood goddess,” Toki told them.
“From the Schtitch and Bitschh meeting?” Murderface inquired.
“Yes, dat ams where I ams mets her,” Toki grinned.
“Er,” said Ganesh, as they continued down the hall, “If she turns into wind, how do they…?”
“Dude, I have no idea,” sighed Murderface. “It’sch Toki.”
It was when Raziel was quiet like this that you noticed she was not really a woman. This landscape was probably one of the few on earth that did not lend itself to her usual chatter. She was sitting and looking out the window of the rental car, staring with those funny dark eyes.
They had bickered at the airport over who got to drive. He had put his foot down on that one, telling her he would not countenance riding on mountain roads in a car controlled by someone who didn’t seem to comprehend fully the use of the brake pedal. A position which was a bit undercut when it turned out he more than a bit rusty on driving a standard transmission.
“Why didn’t we just take a limousine?” she giggled when he managed to stall the engine for the fourth or fifth time.
“It’s not a limo kind of place we’re going,” he grumbled.
But they managed to escape from the metropolitan area without resorting to swordplay, and soon enough the countryside turned wild and weird enough to be distracting to even the most fussy Seraph. It was difficult to believe that no magical powers had been invoked to carve the intricate buttes, which shown even more vivid red as the sun slanted low in the sky.
They ended up going through two separate sets of gates, although Raziel was not exactly certain what was being gated – it seemed all the same on either side, miles and miles of desert and eerie rock formations.
They finally came to a settlement. It was far to spare to even call it a town. There was a bar, a post office, something that looked like it may have been a general store, during opening hours at least. Nothing was open but Toby’s Tavern, so they went inside. Patsy Cline wailed from the jukebox. Raziel looked curiously around as Ofdensen spoke quietly to the bartender. At length, he went to get Raziel, and found her mesmerized by a decades-old electronic Hamm’s beer sign.
“Look, the waterfall moves!” she told him.
“Yeah, it’s a beer sign. C’mon.” He finally grabbed her arm and dragged her outside.
An ancient pickup truck was driving along the main road, raising a cloud of dust in the dim evening light. It turned and pulled up in front of the bar.
The driver emerged. It was a tiny woman, even tinier than Raziel. She looked old, but her hair was still jet black and eyes were piercing. She was smoking a corn cob pipe.
“Grandma,” said Ofdensen, smiling.
“Sariel? Is that you, you little son of a bitch? Come on and give Grandma a hug.” To Raziel’s surprise, Sariel submitted to an embrace.
She fixed her eyes on Raziel. “And what is this supposed to be?
“Spider Grandma, this is, er, Lady Raziel of the Seraphim.” He was suddenly hoping he would never, ever have to introduce her as Queen Raziel.
“Raziel? Raziel? Are you the nut job who gave away the Book of Secrets and Mysteries?”
“Yeah, that’s me!” Raziel answered proudly.
“Well, come give grandma a hug.” Raziel, a rather expert hugger, eagerly complied. “I don’t suppose you’re very popular at Headquarters these days, eh, Little Missy?”
“Oh, I live at Asgard?”
“Asgard?”
“Er, she’s dating Wotan,” Ofdensen explained.
“He’s my finace!” Raziel announced, proudly holding up her ring.
“You’re an angel girl, and you’re marryin’ a pagan king?” Grandma asked. Raziel nodded enthusiastically. “Well, you are a blazing nut job.” Ofdensen grinned. “Figures this would be someone you’d turn up with, Sariel.” Ofdensen’s grin faded. “And what about you, Sariel? When are you gonna settle down? I always said that’s no life for an angel, running around like you done.”
“Oh, he’s dating a gorgeous Hindu elephant god!” Raziel cheerfully supplied.
“Raziel!”
“Elephant god, eh? Well! I’ll definitely need to hear more about that. You ride with me, and Sariel, you follow.” Raziel blissfully hopped up into Grandma’s pickup truck. Ofdensen, annoyed that he didn’t know any spells that would give Raziel instant laryngitis, angrily jumped into his rental car, and managed to stall it twice backing out of Toby’s parking lot.
Ganesh had pulled his laptop into Sariel’s office, thinking to get a bit of work done.
The office door creaked. It was a gleeful looking Toki, and a rather upset Skwisgaar.
“I apologize – I was simply using Charles’ office during his absence,” Ganesh told them. “If you need to speak to him….”
Toki suddenly giggled and poked and obviously annoyed Skwisgaar in the ribs.
“Toki ams pokings me!” Skwisgaar wailed.
“Er. Do you often approach Charles with troubles of this nature?”
Toki grinned and pokes Skwisgaar again.
“He ams not stops, though I tells him to!” Skwisgaar grumbled.
“Well,” Ganesh mused, “had you considered poking him back?”
“Pokings hims back? Ams dats allowed?”
“Well, that is what I would have resorted to with my own brother. And, as you are bigger than he, it would seem warranted.”
Skwisgaar got a very evil grin. He turned and gave Toki a double jab in the ribs.
“YOU AMS POKED ME!” Toki wailed, suddenly running off.
“Well, dat ams worked!’ Skwisgaar said. “T’anks, Gannish, you ams da goods substitutes managers.”
Well, thought Ganesh, turning back to his laptop, his first emergency had been resolved, apparently.
He looked up to the sound of the office door creaking once again. He restrained himself from grinning. William Murderface was there. Everything above his neck – face, hair, moustache – was colored a striking flourscent pink.
“So, William, I take it you attempted to pick the lock to Charles’ bedroom door. Did you have success?”
“Uh. Ganesch, bro. How do I get thisch pink out of my hair? I’ve tried schcrubbing, and it won’t come off.”
“The color will remain for 24 hours, and then will disappear on its own.”
“Oh. It’sch not paint?”
“No, ‘tis a magic spell, I’m afraid. And a rather resilient one. I am the Lord Remover of Obstacles. So, I know a thing or two about placing obstacles.”
“Uh. OK.”
“Any time.”
Ganesh looked up at the next door creek. “Yes, Nathan?”
Dethklok’s hulking lead singer entered the office. “Uh. Charles and I sometimes sit and have a drink in the evenings.”
Ganesh spared one more wistful glance at his laptop computer, and then decisively closed the lid. “All right. That sounds like a good plan.”
“Uh. Bottom drawer,” Nathan suggested. Ganesh arched an elegant eyebrow. A very good single malt.
“So, uh, you’re a laywer too, huh?” Nathan ventured, after they had booth been situated with beverages.
“Yes. And a doctor.”
“Oh. So, you could sue yourself?”
“Well, yes, I believe so! I have not yet attempted this yet, feat perhaps someday, if I should get bored.” Ganesh sat back. This suddenly seemed like a job interview. A very strange job interview.
“So, whaddya do, day to day?”
“I run my family’s company.”
“Oh. Is that a big job?”
“We are the world’s eleventh largest economy.”
“We’re the world’s SEVENTH largest economy,” Nathan stated.
“That is very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“And, I find it quite impressive that you all appear to care about each other....”
“WE DON’T CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER!”
“Oh, er, excuse me….”
“That’s the rule! WE WILL NEVER SHOW INTEREST, CARE OR INTERVENE.”
“Well. Er. Then, I find it most impressive how much you, er, do not care about each other. And how you are obviously so very, er, uninterested.”
“Yeah, thanks. We try not to show ANY INTEREST.”
They were sitting by the fire in Spider Grandma’s cosy little living room. Grandma had brought out the inevitable extra set of arms and was twisting a blissful-looking Raziel’s long hair into an elaborate French braid. A couple of tame-seeming coyotes were stretched out asleep.
“Is this what grandmas do?” Raziel asked. “We don’t have them.”
“I’m everybody’s grandma, babe.”
“Really? Cool.”
“Uh, Grandma,” Ofdensen ventured, “I don’t know if you wanna-“
“Would you get that, Sariel?” Grandma asked. Her doorbell had just rang.
It was Kwahu, wearing his human head. “Angel homeboy!” he grinned, and warmly shook Ofdensen’s hand. “How’s the Ganesh dude doin’?”
“He’s doing just fine, thanks. He’s great.”
“Hey, the chief was asking after you! You gonna go see him?”
“Uh. I dunno. Maybe. If we have time.”
“Kwahu!” Grandmother called. “Where ya been, ya little sonofabitch? And where did Hon get to?”
“Hey, I brought beer!” Kwahu laughed, bringing a six pack out of a paper bag.
“All right, I guess I forgive ya.”
“Oh, is it Hamm’s beer?”
“Hey Lady Raz!”
“Hey Kwahu! Is it Hamms beer? They have a sign at Toby’s Tavern with a real waterfall!”
“Hamm’s beer is crap! It’s like drinking coyote piss!”
“Kwahu! Watch your damn mouth, we got a lady here.”
“Ha! She curses worse than I do!” the eagle Kachina laughed.
“It’s true!” Raziel cheerfully admitted.
“Well, you shouldn’t curse, babe. It ain’t proper,” Grandma told her.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ofdensen snickered, cracking open a not-Hamm’s beer.
“So what are you doing in my neck of the woods, Sariel?” Grandma asked. “I know you didn’t come to hang around and look at beer signs.”
“Did Hon and Kwahu fill you in on our dealings with the Legion?”
“You got into a blood feud with an Arch.”
“And I kicked his ass! Er, keister?” Raziel supplied. Grandma grinned.
“Grandma, they seemed to be really concerned about Earth magic. I have a hunch it might have something to do with your monsters.”
Grandma sat back from her braiding and sighed. “We have always kept our secrets away in the dreams of our shaman.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“Oh boy,” said Kwahu.
“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna do ya any good,” Grandma said.
“Why not, Grandma?” asked Raziel, admiring her fancy hair in one of Grandma’s small mirrors.
“As you know, Sariel, we have a human shaman. Always have. This one….” She trailed off for a bit, frowning. “Well, this one is only a boy. For starters.”
“For starters?” Ofdensen asked.
“Easier to show you,” Grandma sighed. “We’ll go out there tomorrow. Meantime, you kids want some dinner?”
“Pickles, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind terribly showing me your, er, rather unique media setup.”
“Yeh?” Pickles grumbled. He eyed the Hindu god. He seemed like an OK guy, although he had kind of a snooty accent.
Ganesh held up some Netflix boxes. “I just wanted to do little catching up. If it’s too much trouble, I could watch on my laptop.”
“Naw, dat’s OK, dood,” Pickles said grudgingly. “What is dis, philosophical stuff?”
“Er, you could say that. I have The Meaning of Life here.”
“Yer kiddin’.” Ganesh handed the stack over to the dreadlocked drummer, who looked at the titles and frowned. “Hey, Jabberwocky! I ain’t never seen dat one!”
“Not one of their best. I’ve heard that it is best appreciated, er, in some kind of altered state.”
“Oh, I can definitely take care o’ dat part, dood!” Pickles grinned.
“No offense,” Ganesh smiled, “but I don’t characteristically indulge…. Madarchod!”
They had both become aware of a rather large god now planted in Mordhaus’s media room, arms crossed, glaring at Ganesh.
“So here is where you slunk away to hide, Ganesha!” Lord Skanda snorted.
Ganesh glared back. “I assure you, I am not hiding, Skanda.”
“Consorting with a bunch of filthy humans!” Skanda whipped around his arm, to reveal a fine jeweled saber. “I should slaughter them all, just to make the point.”
Ganesh already had his own sword at the ready. But he stopped. Moving with lightning quickness, Pickles had shoved Skanda up against the wall, one drumstick against his throat, the other shoved quite far up his nose.
“Yeh, I’m a feckin’ human. An’ dis is my feckin’ castle. An’ if you don’ feckin’ leave, yer gonna the first person t’ get a drumstick lobotomy!”
Skanda cast a frankly terrified look at Pickles, and then promptly disappeared.
Pickles looked at the end of his drumstick with disgust. “Ewwwwww!”
Ganesh sighed. “I am so terribly sorry, Pickles. That was…. Lord Skanda is my brother.”
Pickles tossed away the snotty drumstick. “Oh. Yeh. My brudder is kind of a douche too. Hey, yoo smoke dood?” Ganesh had pulled out a thin Indian cigarette.
“Only when I am beset. Which feeling my brother tends to evoke.”
“Oh. You want somethin’ a little stonger maybe?”
Ganesh paused. He frowned suspiciously at the redheaded drummer. “Is this the substance you administered to my father during the ski trip?”
“Heh. No. Dat was from my special reserve. Dis is just a little somethin’ to, ya know, mellow yoo out.”
They drove in Spider Grandma’s ancient pickup truck, Grandma puffing away on her corncob pipe. Ofdensen sat in the passenger seat, trailing his cigarette out the window, and Raziel rode in back with the “doggies.”
“I wonder why Hon never showed up last night?” Grandma was muttering. “That boy is a panic.”
“Do you think he’s OK?” Ofdensen asked her.
“Probably off on another bender. Hon and Kwahu - those two give me more than my share of woes.”
“I can sympathize with that.”
“Speaking of which, that’s one’s a prize fruitcake,” Grandma said, nodding back at Raziel. “But if my coyotes like her, then she can’t be all bad. They have their ways.”
“She likes dogs. They have wolves as pets. At Valhalla. And, uh, she goes into their dreams.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“Where the hell did you find her?”
“Uh, I’ve actually known her since my Creation.”
“That long, huh? You never used to talk about any of that angel bullcrap.”
“We used to murder other angels. For fun.” He glanced over at Grandma.
“Well, angels do need some murdering. Here we are.”
They had pulled up at an anonymous building in the middle of nowhere. The interior smelled of ammonia. And worse.
They walked down the dim, grey hallway. Grandma evidently knew which room.
‘This is him,” she said, opening a door. “This is our shaman.”
Angels don’t have consciences. This comes in useful in some instances. If Sariel had been Created with a conscience, he might have felt troubled by what he saw.
The shaman was propped up in a wheelchair. His head sagged into his headrest, as it was a bit too large for his body, and for his thin neck. He had been pushed up to a table, where he was clumsily trying to use his claw-like hands to draw pictures.
“Too much magic?” he whispered to Grandma.
“His ma. I had no idea she was pregnant. No idea.”
“Hi, I’m Raziel, but it’s OK if you call me Raz!” Raziel was telling the boy. He didn’t look up, but stopped drawing for a time. His heavy-lidded eyes appeared to blink. “May I use some of your crayons?” He used one hand and nudged a crayon her way, which she took as a yes, as she seated herself on the edge of his bunk and grabbed a piece of paper. “What should we draw? I like the landscape here very much. And your beer signs! They have a beer sign with a real waterfall at Toby’s Tavern. Do you like beer?”
Ofdensen felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Without a word, he found himself walking back out the corridor. He pushed out the door, and finally started breathing again. He stood, his back resting against the exterior wall of the building, and fumbled for a smoke.
Grandma was there, watching him.
“You don’t think…. You don’t think he’s aware in there, do you?” Ofdensen asked Grandma.
“That boy? I don’t think so. At least, I hope not.”
“Have you tried contacting him? I mean, in Dreamspace?”
“For years,” Grandma sighed. “We’ve tried everything. Maybe there’s some things best left alone, if ya know what I mean.”
After some time, Raziel finally emerged, holding on to some drawings. “Aaron drew these for me,” she told them.
“Aaron?” Ofdensen asked.
“Did I tell you his name, babe?” Grandma asked.
“No, he introduced himself. We had a good time.” Grandma regarded Raziel. Ofdensen shrugged, and they made for Grandma’s pickup truck.
“What’s wrong with him, Grandma?” Raziel asked. She was a bit less short, sitting on the hump in the middle of the cab. “He seems very weak, even for a human.”
Grandma put her truck in gear. “His ma was doin’ magic,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve never heard that was a problem?”
“Well, it can be, for us.”
“They don’t have a lot of gods here. Not anymore,” Ofdensen explained. “So the humans will try to use our magic. Or magic from the other earth gods. It’s like poison to them.”
“Especially if you’re havin’ a baby.”
“Well, someone needs to spruce that place up!” Raziel declared. “He doesn’t get enough light to do his drawings. I’ll talk to Wotan about it when we get back.”
“You do that, babe,” Grandma said. “You do that.”
Lord Ganesh was sitting in Dethklok’s living room, his bare feet up on Dethklok’s coffee table, smoking dope with Dethklok’s drummer.
It had actually been a rather pleasant afternoon.
“Your brother Seth would appear to be a sociopath,” Ganesh explained, scanning the ingredient list on the bag of whatever horrible American crispy processed snack food Pickles had been consuming to make certain there were no meat byproducts.
“A sochio-pat?” Pickles asked, taking a long, considered hit.
“Someun who doesn’ hab a conscience,” Ganesh smacked around a mouthful of salty snack substance. It was terrible, horrible, nasty stuff, really. He licked some kind of reddish salty powder off his fingers.
“Huh,” said Pickles, grabbing the bag of salty crap.
“Some individuals,” Ganesh continued, washing the salty taste out of his mouth with an equally terrible American beer, “seem to have poorly developed autonomic nervous systems.” Pickles looked confused. “You know when you’ve done something improper, and your parent is likely to give you a smack?” he said, grabbing away the smoke from Pickles.
“Oh, yeh. I know dat one.”
Ganesh exhaled. “And you feel ill?”
“Yeh?”
“They don’t feel that.”
“What!” exclaimed Pickles, snatching back the doobie. “So, is yer brother a sochio-pat too?”
“Nah, just, as you might term it, a dildo.” Ganesh was rooting into the chip bag. There were just a few crumbs remaining in the bottom. So, he tilted up the bag and poured the salty goodness directly into his mouth.
“HEY!” It was Nathan’s unmistakable voice. Nathan and Skwisgaar were now in the living room, looking at him curiously. “We’re goin’ OUT. You guys wanna come?”
“Whaddya think, Gannish dood?” asked Pickles.
“’Gannish dude?’ I suppose I like it better than ‘Ganny babe.’”
“Heh. Knubbla.”
“I am most grateful for him saving my life,” Ganesh admitted, attempting to wipe the sticky chip powder from his face.
“I ams Skwissy babe. I ams nearly hits him. But he ams makes my guitars sounds brutal.” The blond sighed.
“No, I mean are ya gonna come out DRINKING with us?” Nathan insisted.
“I suppose you will tell me that you are going out for just one drink,” Ganesh, who was nobody’s fool, told him.
“Fuck no. We’re going out to get wasted.”
“An’ maybe coked up!” Pickles supplied.
“An’ we ams hangs wit’ da strippers.” Skwisgaar added.
“What did Charles tell you?” Nathan asked suspiciously.
“Well, it was implied that you gentlemen would tempt me out with blandishments of a sedate evening….”
“Blandish mints?” asked Nathan. “What are those? Like M&Ms?”
“Dood, he meant we’d tell him we were gonna have a mellow time an’ den trick him.”
“That’s BULLSHIT. Charles knows damn well what we do when we go out.”
“And he ams enjoys himselfs!” Skwisgaar averred.
“Well, unless he’s unconscious,” Pickles allowed.
“I ams t’inks he ams enjoyses himselfs thens too.”
“This is WHAT WE ARE! That’s WHAT WE DO! And that’s how you get to know us. By PALLIN’ AROUND!” Nathan thundered.
Ganesh washed the taste of terrible salty American snack food out of his mouth with an equally terrible American beer and surveyed the death metal musicians arrayed around him.
Ofdensen stood out underneath the desert sky, looking up at the stars, and smoking the inevitable cigarette. He liked the desert. It made you feel alone. Really alone.
But he was not alone.
If the being standing nearby had been a man, which he was not, he would have been around 35 years old. He was tall and lanky, and wore a quizzical expression. His hair was jet black, and worn in a loosely clasped ponytail. Although it was difficult to see in this light, his eyes were pale blue. But Ofdensen remembered those eyes. He remembered them all too well.
“So, you were gonna leave without sayin’ goodbye? Like you did to me before?”
“Eototo,” he said quietly. He was standing by a low wooden fence. He hopped up to sit on it. He found he needed something to grip onto.
The chief came over to stand closer. “You going by Charles now?”
He shrugged. “Sariel is always OK.”
“You didn’t used to like that name.”
He shrugged again. “I’ve found that some things are inevitable.”
“You just sorta disappeared,” Eototo said. “Before.”
“Maybe I needed a change of scenery.”
Eototo was now casually leaning on the fence. “You look good.” And he was looking.
They were quiet for a time.
“That angel girl you’re here with….”
“A friend,” Ofdensen said hastily. A bit too hastily. “She’s actually King Wotan’s fiancée.”
“That sounds like an interesting story.”
“It is.”
And they were silent again.
“There is, actually…” Ofdensen began, stumbling. “There is someone. Not the girl. Someone.”
Eototo smiled. “But they’re not here with you?”
“He’s…. He’s a god actually.”
“An earth god,” Eototo said, staring away at the horizon. “Like me?”
“No one is like you, Eototo. You know that.”
“There was nothing like us,” the chief smiled.
“How is…. How is Blue Corn Maiden these days, anyway?”
Eototo frowned, but did not answer for a time. At length he asked, “Do you remember how it was? For us?”
“Of course. Of course I do.”
“You know what I think?”
Ofdensen took a drag on his cigarette. He flicked off some ashes. “Do I wanna know?”
“Why did you come out here? Alone?”
“I didn’t come- Lady Raziel and I are looking for something.”
“Yeah. I believe you are looking for something.”
“Oh? What do you think I’m looking for?”
Eototo smiled. He backed up a few steps. He began the stylized motions of his dance. He pulled at the heavens. Responding to his touch, the rain clouds obediently gathered overhead, until the night sky was full and the stars were extinguished. As he coaxed them, almost tenderly, the clouds jostled, and thunder sounded across the darkened plain. The mesas lit up with scattered lightning strikes.
Then Eototo tugged on the heavens, and opened them up. The clouds released. He extended his arms, wide, and, looking up, let himself be baptized in the sudden torrent of rain.
Ofdensen remained motionless on the fence. His cigarette had extinguished in the downpour. He flicked it aside. He shivered. In an instant he was soaked through, clear to the bone.
Eototo walked up - through the torrents of water - walked close. He stood next to Ofdensen, leaning in. He blue eyes glinted in a flash of lightning. “I could never forget you. You know that.”
“I know that. I know. I just.” He hopped down from the fence and stood facing Eototo, looking up. A strand of the chief’s long black hair had come unclasped, and hung, dripping, in his face. Ofdensen used two fingers and pushed the strand back behind Eototo’s ear. “I can’t join in your dance,” he said quietly. “Not this time.” He took a step back, and then turned and started to walk away.
“You walk away from me? Again?” Eototo asked.
Ofdensen stopped. He flourished his arm, as if he were conjuring a sword. But it was not a sword. He gave it a click, and handed it over to Eototo. “Here,” he said. And walked off.
Eototo watched his retreating back, and then glanced up at the umbrella in his hand. He scowled and threw it aside.
Ofdensen pushed into the cabin. Raziel was curled on her bunk, wearing an oversized Dethklok t shirt and thigh-high striped socks. Along with two coyotes and a raven, she was poring through a stack of issues of Italian Vogue.
“Does Spider Grandma know you’re letting them up on the furniture like that?”
“They’re helping me choose a look for my rehearsal dinner!” Raziel protested.
“Raziel, I assure you, the coyotes do not give a shit about your trousseau.”
“How do you know? Did you ask them?” As if on cue, one of the coyotes began to howl and paw at a page. “Oh, yes, I know, he’s terribly overrated,” she told him, turning the page. “Don’t worry, his couture will never dark in my wardrobe!”
Ofdensen collapsed, still dripping, into his bunk.
“You need to take a hot shower first or you’ll catch your death!”
“My death of what?” he asked. “I’m immortal!”
“Well. You’ll catch cold, and be even crankier.”
“Whatever.”
“And who was that fine, fine specimen of Kachina you were flirting with?”
“I WAS NOT FLIRTING.”
“Oh. So, can I go flirt with him?"
“Raziel!”
“I’m engaged. Not dead.”
“That was Eototo.”
“Oh, no way! That’s the mysterious chief?”
“He’s not mysterious.”
“You would never introduce me.”
“Wouldn’t have been a good idea. I’m a fucking angel, for Christ’s sakes.”
“Soooooo?”
“Eh.”
“You need to tell me before you die of pneumonia!”
Ofdensen was quiet for a time. “I can’t remember how long it was. It seemed like a century. Maybe we went along for 50 years? Anyway. His story is, he’s meant for Blue Corn Maiden. It’s all that destiny bullshit, like you and Wotan. So, she rejects him. And he goes off. And then she gets sad. So she calls him back. And he goes to her. Every time.”
“Every time? Even when there’s a monsoon-inducing angel hanging around?”
“Every. Fucking. Time.”
“Oh. Raziel frowned. “I never understood those make up, break up things.”
“No?”
“Nope. Someone pulled that shit with me, he’d have some limbs hacked off.”
“Is that why we don’t see any of your ex-boyfriends, Raziel?”
“Yeah, maybe not many of them can still move around under their own power,” she laughed.
“Well, anyway, that’s their dance. Eototo and the Corn Maiden. And I just told him, maybe I’d sit this one out.”
Raziel was suddenly on his bunk, her hand on his forehead.
“GET OFF ME RAZIEL.”
“Are you feverish?” she asked, grinning. “You must be sick!”
“I’m not sick!”
“You have a perfectly good thing going with Ganesha that you could COMPLETELY fuck up with another of your unavailable men,” she told him, waving her arms for emphasis, “and you just blew your chance?”
He glared at no one in particular and shrugged. “I don’t…. I’m not…” He frowned at Raziel. “And there were unavailable women, too!”
“Oh, not as many,” she giggled, hopping back up with her coyotes and fashion magazines. “Anyway, now you need to go take a hot shower before you really do get feverish. Or else I’ll start discussing this season’s trend in thigh high boots!”
“All right, all right,” he grumbled sitting up.
“Oh, could you grab me that issue with the shoes?” Raziel asked.
“What?” But a coyote had already leapt off the bed, trotted over to the stack of magazines, clamped one in its jaws, and trotted back to the small angel.
“Thanks!”
Shri Ganesha, Lord of Hosts, Remover of Obstacles, roused. He was lying on the floor a strange room. A very strange room. It looked to be the belly of some kind of leviathan.
He propped his arms on a nearby bed. Underneath a veritable pile of naked or barely clad women he could see some red dreadlocks poking out.
“Uh, Pickles.”
“Yeh. Dood.” The drummer emerged, more or less, from beneath a rather fetching tangle of female humanity.
“Uh. You haven’t seen my trousers, have you?”
“Nah. Dood. When yoo go out wit’ Dethklok, yoo gotta keep track o’ yer own pants.”
“I will, uh, remember that, for the future.”
They heard a moan from the other side of the room. “Aaaaaa, where ams my heads?”
“Um,” said Ganesh. He pushed his hair out of his face. It stubbornly fell back into his face.
“Yeh?”
“Is that Skwisgaar?”
“Yeh, dood, dat would be Skwisgaar.”
Ganesh sat back against Pickles’ bed and surveyed his surroundings.
“Pickles, you are aware of my mother’s, er, duties?”
“She’s a love goddess, yeh?”
“That is correct. And I must say, I don’t believe, in my existence, I have ever seen quite so many, er, naked women.”
“HEY SKWISGAAR!” Pickles shrieked. Ganesh’s head throbbed.
“Ja?” came the Swede’s voice from somewhere.
“Gannish dood sez we outdid Parvati!”
“Dat ams goods!” Skwisgaar called.
“Hi five, Gannish dood,” Pickles said, offering a palm to be slapped.
Ganesh slapped his hand. He pushed his hair out of his face. It all fell back into his face. “Uh, Pickles?” The drummer handed over a lit cigarette of dubious origins. The Hindu god sighed and took a puff. “Did I…. Last night…. Do you think I….”
“Oh, I think you probably. Yeh, I think definitely.”
“Um. Yeah.”
Ganesh took a very long drag, and handed the cigarette back to Pickles. “But,” he said, putting an elbow up on the bed. “Do you think I ate meat?”
“Oh!” Pickles put the cigarette in his mouth and lay back for a moment, hands interlaced behind his head. “Naw. No, I don’t t’ink so dood. I t’ink yoo might’ve ate a lot o’ other stuff,” and he grinned a Pickles grin. “But no, no meat.”
“Well,” said Ganesh. He grabbed the cigarette. “That’s something. Right?”
They heard a moan. It didn’t come from Skwisgaar’s direction. Ganesh and Pickles looked at each other, and then, with Pickles hanging over the side of the bed upside-down, Ganesh picked up the blankets to look underneath his bed.
“Nathan?” asked Ganesh.
“Oooo, dat’s where he got to!” Pickles laughed.
They were in the rental car, on a lonely highway.
“You sure you won’t let me drive? You look tired!”
“I would really prefer to survive the ride to the airport.”
“I drove in Hell!”
“Yes, and next time we’re in Hell, I will let you drive again.” He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I dragged you out there, it was kind of a waste.”
“No it wasn’t! Aaron drew me this pretty picture of his dreams.”
“Aaron?”
“Their shaman!”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“We decided to draw dream pictures. It’s too bad you didn’t stay, you could have drawn your wolf dreams!”
“My…. OK, Raziel, could we just agree to keep a lid on my wolf dreams?”
“I thought you do very well for yourself, playing in their wolf band. It helps to have human fingers!”
“Yeah. Can this be the last we ever discuss the wolf dreams?”
“It’s such a pretty green banner, don’t you think?”
“What?” Raziel was holding up Aaron’s drawing. “Let me fucking see that!” The car squealed to a halt at the side of the road.
“What the hell? You’re the worst driver in the history of existence!” wailed Raziel.
Ofdensen had grabbed Aaron’s drawing. Up at the top, there was a streak of green, like a little green banner, fluttering in the sky.
“Raziel. That’s not a banner,” Ofdensen supplied.
“Er, so,” said Ganesh, sitting uncomfortably in Ofdensen’s chair.
“Ummm,” said Pickles, standing uncomfortably beside Ganesh.
“Yes?” grinned Ofdensen, sitting in his own guest chair, and looking not a bit uncomfortable.
Ganesh and Pickles looked at each other nervously.
“C’mon guys. Mordhaus, isn’t a smoking ruin. How bad can it be?”
“Well, then there was that explosion in the laboratories,” Ganesh continued, consulting the list written on his laptop.
“Dey contained dat.”
“Happens,” grinned Ofdensen.
“And, er, the giant pit out in the gardens….” Ganesh said.
“But we got rid o’ da troll!” Pickles said proudly.
“Well, we were going to start work on that volcano. I’ll have Wotan contact Surtr,” Ofdensen told them. “Continue.”
“An’ da unacorns,” Pickles mentioned.
“Unicorns are nice,” Ofdensen allowed.
“Er, it appears they are eating the gnomes,” Ganesh warned.
“Exterminator?” Ofdensen asked.
“That might be warranted. Oh, and, uh, Toki was poking Skwisgaar.”
“Yeah?”
“So, I, er, told Skwisgaar to poke him back.”
“Did it work?”
“Apparently.”
“Huh, I never thought of that one.”
“Helps to have grown up with a brother, I suppose.”
“Pickles,” Ofdensen said, “before you go, we might need you for something.”
“Yeh?”
“There’s someone we met. We need somebody to go into his dreams and talk to him.”
“Wit’ my spirit animal like?” Pickles asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t yoo jist talk to ‘em?”
“We can’t. It’s … complicated.”
After Pickles departed, Ganesh stood. “Er. There is one additional matter. Do you recall, I assured you, prior to this weekend, that I had not had relations with a female being for over seven centuries.”
Ofdensen grinned.
“I, er, feel now, unfortunately, I can no longer give you such an assurance. Although, my memory of this incident, and in fact that entire evening, is a bit hazy.”
“Did you feed them after midnight?” Ofdensen asked. Ganesh looked a bit abashed. “Well, did you eat any meat?”
Ganesh considered. “No, we believe I did not consume any meat during my visit!” he said, with a small dose of pride.
“Well, there’s that.”
Ganesh had gone to bid goodbye to Lady Raziel. He found her sitting with Toki, and one other person, eagerly twisting yarn.
An ear-splitting shriek was emitted, and then the cute redhead who had been sitting with them suddenly was not there.
“Oh, dat ams Caj,” Toki explained. “She ams da banshee.”
“From your mom’s Stitch n Bitch,” Raziel cheerfully explained.
“I don’t t’inks she ams likes da strangers,” Toki explained.
“Oh, well, I am sorry to have disturbed her,” Ganesh apologized.
“No probs, Ganesha. Wanna chat?” Raziel indicated a seat, so the god took it.
“So you ams not likes da Eototo dudes,” Toki was asking.
“I just don’t trust him,” Raziel said, squinting at a knitted something that looked halfway between socks and a hat.
“Eototo?” Ganesh asked. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Oh, Sariel probably mentioned him. He’s a Kachina. One of his many, many, many horrible exes. He spent a bit of the weekend trying to slither back in.”
The temperature in the room dropped.
“Excuse me?” It was Ganesh.
“Oh. Uh. Did he tell you what happened?” Raziel asked.
“No.” Ganesh said, not as courteously as was his custom.
“Uh, well,” Raziel looked around, and appeared to actually consider her words for a moment. And then she plunged ahead. “So, OK, this Eototo guy. Sariel always called him the Chief, so he’s pretty important I think. Anyway, he’s a good looking guy, right? I mean, not as good looking as you, Ganesh, obviously.”
“Go on.”
“So, um, anyway, he popped up one night, out of nowhere. And made a move on Sariel. I mean, really made a move.”
“What precisely do you mean?” Ganesh asked. There was a warning in his tone.
“He ams gets da grabby hands?” Toki asked, looking inquisitively up from his knitting.
“Um, he, um, caused a thunderstorm,” Raziel said.
“Wowee,” said Toki, obviously impressed.
At some point, Ganesh’s expression had shifted from disapproval to menace. There was a shadow over in his fraction of the room, as if light could no longer penetrate. “So,” Raziel continued quickly, “Sariel told him, sorry, no thanks, and handed Eototo and umbrella and ditched him.”
“Oh, umbrellas,” mused Toki. “Dat ams t’oughtfuls!”
“Well, some people like to get along with their exes,” Raziel told him. “I tend to dismember them, but that’s just me.”
Ganesh stood. “If you see your Honored Brother,” he told Raziel, very quietly, “Kindly tell him I wish to speak to him. He knows where to find me.” And then he was there no more.
Raziel and Toki looked for a time at the empty space where Ganesh had been. “Well,” said Raziel. “That’s gonna be an interesting discussion.”
Raziel clattered home to Valhalla a bit late in the evening.
“Is that you, my pet?” Wotan called from the other room.
“Yeah, sorry, I was gossiping with Toki and lost track of time.”
“I phoned!”
“I’m sorry, M’Lord, I forgot to charge my dang battery again.” Sighing, she rummaged through the bottom of her purse for her phone.
“You are my little scatterbrain!” Wotan called. “And what will ye be wanting for dinner?”
“Oh!” she plugged the phone into an outlet and left it on the counter, immediately going into the next room. “Do we have any of that Vritra meat left? Hey, did you know on earth, they have beer signs with real waterfalls?”
The phone came to life and vibrated. A message popped up. And then another. And another.
Ofdensen found him in a sitting room at his residence.
Ganesh was coiled on a chair, thin Indian cigarette going to ash in one elegant hand.
The Lord Remover of Obstacles did not rise. He did not move. His eyes followed the angel across the room.
“Is there something which you would care to discuss, Sariel?”
“Regarding…?”
“In regards to that Kachina.” He spat out the last word.
“OK. Ganesh. If you wanna list of everyone in this universe I’ve slept with over the past few centuries, we’re gonna be here for a while…”
“I have been mistaken, then?”
“About what?”
“I had been under the impression that angels were blessed with the power of reason.”
Ofdensen frowned. “You don’t have to be an asshole.”
“Then you do comprehend what I’m referring to?”
“It’s ancient history.”
“Not for our kind, it isn’t. Is this the reason you didn’t wish me to accompany you to the New World?”
Ofdensen stood, clenching and unclenching his hands. “OK. Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe it was something I needed to get out of my system. He was something I needed to get out of my system. Look, you just got back from spending the weekend getting stoned and fucking groupies with my band.”
“You are comparing this to an evening among human groupies?” Ganesh’s voice grew strained. “Eototo is an earth god. He conjured you a fucking thunderstorm.”
“Ganesh, Eototo could’ve poured the entire fucking Nile river on my head for all the good it would’ve done. It’s over! It’s been over! For almost a fucking century! And now I’m here, in your house, wondering why you’re sitting over there getting pissy with me instead of over here letting me chew on inner thighs, which is what I fucking came up here to do.”
Ganesh was up out of the chair, quicker than a human, so quick he actually startled Sariel. Ganesh stood over the angel now, trembling with anger.
“Sariel,” he whispered. “Where you are concerned, I am a jealous god.”
Sariel was looking up at him. His eyes had somehow slid from green to that odd silver color. But he didn’t appear angry. His face wore just the trace of a smile. And Ganesh, furious as he was, remembered he was not looking into the eyes or a man, or a god. Here was something else.
“Do I need to chain you to my bed?” the god said finally.
Sariel’s smile widened a bare fraction. “Maybe.” A piece of Ganesh’s hair was hanging in his face, and Sariel moved to push it back behind his ear. But Ganesh caught his hand, and gripped it tightly.
“Do you fully comprehend what you are to me?”
Sariel was up on tiptoe, his mouth very close to Ganesh’s. “No,” he murmured. “Show me.”
And then a very expensive shirt was ripped to shreds as the god brought out another set of arms, and then another.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Charles and Raziel stare at beer signs; Ganesh babysits a death metal band
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, smoking.
Notes: Notes after the jump. I don't know if anyone else will like this one but me, but dang was it fun to write.
Cross posted to
capslokdethklok.This is a Metalocalypse AU which
tiktaalikroseae has dubbed “Mythklok.” Here are the other bits, about an angelic visit (Chapter 1), a hunt (Chapter 2), a barbecue (Chapter 3), a ski trip (Chapter 4), a sword fight (Chapter 5), Bette Davis Movies (Chapter 6), a concert (Chapter 7), tall tales (Chapter WTF), a trial (Chapter8), an argument (Chapter 9), a stray cat (Chapter 10), Satan’s shinkansen system (Chapter 11), the highway to Hell (Chapter 12), a meeting with Satan (Chapter 13) and a tiger hunt (Chapter 14).And it all everything eventually ends up rolling to my fic journal,
tikific, where you are welcome to come poke it with a stick.THE STORY SO FAR: This is a Metalocalypse AU that has slithered very far off canon and into the realm of barking madcap weirdness. Charles is a Fallen angel who used to go by the name of Sariel. For many centuries he tried to leave memories of this existence behind him (as Heaven is full of douche bags) but now several weird immortal beings have started showing up at Mordhaus and making his existence even more complicated. Raziel is a ditzy Seraph who used to be his partner in crime. She is also now King Wotan’s fiancée. Wotan, as we all know, is head of the Norse pantheon, and, as we all suspect, Skwisgaar’s birth father. One of Wotan’s hunting buddies is Shiva, lord of destruction and Dethklok super fan. Charles is currently involved with Shiva’s son, Ganesh, an elephant god with a rather sexy British accent.
In the last few chapters, Nathan was kidnapped and trapped in Hell, but Dethklok rallied and rescued him. And then Nathan got all emo and decided to quit Dethklok, but Shiva took him on a tiger hunt and he got better. But then Charles got it in his head that he’s going on a monster hunt, so he’s dragging along the wedding-mad Raziel, while leaving his boyfriend, Lord Ganesh, in charge of Dethklok for the weekend. What could possibly go wrong?
Stormy Weather
Lady Raziel of the Seraphim carefully set up her beach umbrella. As it was not typical beach weather at Asgard this time of year, there being in fact some snow on the ground, she had also pulled a space heater over by her beach chair. She draped a towel over the chair, and then sat down and carefully applied two different forms of sun block to every bit of skin her bikini left exposed. This was, frankly, rather a lot of skin. She used two different types of lotion, as one could never be certain about these human concoctions. And she really didn’t wish to get wrinkles. Even though she was an immortal angel, and thus could not get wrinkles. She greatly disliked the thought of wrinkles. On the other hand, she also disliked the idea of getting no sun exposure prior to her upcoming honeymoon on the Pleiades. Lady Raziel had heard great things about the beaches up there.
At length, her preparations finally finished, she lay back in the chair and, after donning a rather large straw hat and a pair of oversized sunglasses – in order to block out any further rays of the weak winter sun that somehow managed to bypass the beach umbrella and two forms of sunscreen – opened her new brand issue of Italian Vogue.
Alas, she had little time to enjoy artful pictures of thigh-high boots before she became aware of the presence of a rather large, rather menacing being standing nearby. He looked to be of East Asian origin, possibly Indian. His arms were huge, resembling the arms of humans who have perhaps indulged to too freely in treatments with anabolic steroids. And they were crossed in a gesture that seemed to be anger and defiance
And, it is probably needless to add, he was not a man, but a god.
Lady Raziel slid her oversized sunglasses down her nose with one well manicured finger, and gave the intruding god what she hoped was her sternest look.
“I am Lord Skanda!” the man announced. “I demand to see Ganesha!”
“Freki!” sang Raziel.
Lord Skanda abruptly found himself located underneath a rather large, snarling wolf.
“You didn’t say, ‘Simon Says!’” she told him, resuming leafing through her Vogue.
“Uh. This beast is not going to consume me, is it?” Skanda worried.
“Freki? No. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Now, Geri, he’s a killer.”
Aforesaid Geri the wolf suddenly hovered near Skanda, growling and drooling in seeming hunger for tasty, steroid-enhanced East Asians.
Skanda emitted a rather pathetic squeak, and disappeared.
After a few minutes, a being who resembled a handsome Indian man came and seated himself in the beach chair next to Raziel. He was actually a god as well. He was rather more seasonably dressed than Raziel, in a fine long wool coat.
“Namaste, Ganesha! Your brother came calling.”
“Madarchod,” Ganesh grumbled.
“Ganesha!” scolded Raziel, actually tipping down her sunglasses at him.
“I also drink and smoke,” he told her. “I simply do not eat meat. What did you do?”
“I told him you were not in, and then I invited him to play with my wolves. He did not seem too keen.”
Ganesh smiled a smile that seemed somehow too large for his handsome face. “You are a horrible, horrible woman,” he told her.
“Thank you. I intend to be the most evil of queens.”
“Long may you reign in terror. Speaking of which, we have some matters to attend to.” He pulled out an electronic tablet and tapped his fingers on it.
“Mmm. The reception seating chart.”
“It is the world’s most intricate Sudoku puzzle! And I desperately need Sariel’s measurements for the suit.”
“Can’t you anesthetize him and measure him while he’s unconscious?”
“No. It would not be ethical.”
“Well, what good was it going to medical school?”
“I often wonder.”
“I will hog tie Sariel and drag him to your tailor this week, I promise.”
“Hmmm.”
She grinned evilly. “And then should I deliver him to you that way?”
“Raziel!” Ganesh laughed.
“I just want to cheer you up, dear. I would give you a hug, but I’m coated in oil.”
“Yes, er, you are aware that this is mid-winter?”
“I want to get some sun before my honeymoon! Plus, I’m researching my rehearsal dinner ensemble.” She held up her magazine.
“Oh, is that the new Vogue Italia?” Ganesh asked, snatching at it. She grabbed it away. “Bridezilla!” he snorted.
“OK. So. Uh, guys,” Ofdensen began, surveying the broken IKEA fixtures. He was musing about Dethklok’s brand new tradition of beginning each meeting with a ceremonial lamp-breaking. On the one hand, IKEA furniture, though thrifty, did have some expense associated with it, and he’d had to have his Klokateers raid stores that were several hundreds of miles distant as they began to deplete lighting fixtures from the more local facilities. On the other hand, it had increased meeting attendance as well as participation. On the whole, it seemed a positive thing. Perhaps he could work out some sort of marketing deal with the Swedish retailer, having Skwisgaar pose with one of those bizarre little screwdrivers or something?
“If you don’t mind, uh,” he began again, just as Murderface put a bullet through a table lamp. “Uh, William, I believe we agreed last time, no firearms.”
“Aw, that’s bullschit,” Murderface muttered, nevertheless holstering his 45.
“Williams, dat ams da rules for da cordials lamps-breaksing!” Skwisgaar scolded.
“Yeah, if you’re gonna break lamps, you gotta do it RIGHT!” Nathan insisted.
“Well, ah, thanks for that. We really don’t have a lot this week. As you might, ah, know, I’m going out of town on some business. Since we’ve had, ah, an eventful month, I’ve asked Lord Ganesh if he would stay here, during my, uh, absence, in case you guys need anything.”
“Anything?” laughed Pickles. “I t’ink a need a back rub dood.”
“OK. OK. If you guys could…. Look, Lord Ganesh is doing this as a favor to me. If you guys could just…. Please don’t kill him, OK?”
“Ja, we ams gets him backs to you in da goods conditions,” Skwisgaar snickered.
“We’re Det’klok! What could happen?” Pickles snorted, to much chuckling.
“Yeah. OK. Fine. Whatever.”
Ofdensen felt the headache coming on. He sighed and headed towards his room and some few moments of peace and quiet. There was an angel there.
“Raziel, quit jumping up and down on my bed. What are you doing in my fucking room, anyway?”
“You said you wanted me to quit appearing in your office.”
“Yeah, but that didn’t mean… Will you quit fucking jumping up and down? You’re not that small! You’ll fucking break it!”
“I’m trying to break it!”
“Why do you wanna break my bed?”
“So you’ll get a new one. It’s no wonder Ganesh never stays over here. This is pathetic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my bed.”
“Not if you were an eight year old human. You may as well have cowboy wallpaper in here.”
He sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Is there actually a reason that you’re here besides driving me crazy?”
“You’re coming to get measured for your suit.”
“Just get my fucking measurements from my tailor in London.”
“Oh, no FUCKING way. No Englishmen will be involved in tailoring for this ceremony!”
“Can you just … stop?”
“Promise to come to Milan and see Ganesh’s tailor, and I’ll quit jumping.”
“And then you’ll start doing something else obnoxious?”
“Probably!”
“All right! All right! All right!”
“Ofdenschen!”
“William! Wasn’t my door fucking locked?”
“Yesch, Thanksch, but it waschn’t much of a challenge thisch time.”
“We need to talk to you, dude.”
“Hi Nathan! Hi William!’ sang Raziel.
“Oh, hey Lady Raz. Er, dude,” Nathan said, leaning over to growl more softly to Ofdensen, “What’s she doin’ in your bedroom?”
“Oh, she was…. She was just bouncing on the bed.”
“Whoa! Ganesh AND an angel chick!”
“No!”
“I’m helping Sariel with his interior decoration needs,” Raziel explained, hopping to the floor. “This bed is simply not metal.”
Nathan nodded thoughtfully. “No, dude, it’s pretty un-metal.”
“What is wrong with my bed?”
“Dude, are you kidding? You might as well have cowboy wallpaper.”
“Asch it happencsch, metal interior deschign is my schpecialty!” Murderface announced.
“Oh, that’s splendid, William! Have you seen this catalog?” Raziel was quite suddenly holding a furniture catalog. She grabbed Murderface’s elbow in her firm little grip and was sashaying away with him.
“William! NO SAND! Goddammit.”
“Charles….”
“What is it Nathan!” Ofdensen snapped. He immediately regretted it when he saw the hurt Nathan look. “Sorry, sorry. What did you need?”
“It’s just, the Ganesh dude.”
“Yeah. I just have to be out of town for something. I might be out of phone contact. It’s just a couple days.”
“So, we should treat Ganesh dude like we do you?”
“NO! Do NOT treat Ganesh like you treat me! Be NICE to him!”
“We’re nice to you.”
“Yeah. Anyway, it’s not just Ganesh. You’re in charge too, you know.”
“I don’t know,” Nathan stated.
“Whaddya mean, you don’t know?”
“Since I came back. I’m not sure they want me in charge. They keep overruling me. Pickles and Skwisgaar.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what those guys do.”
“I’m not sure-“
“OK. Nathan. One thing you abso-fucking-lutely cannot do with you guys: you can’t be on the fence. You can’t show any hesitation. You’re either back in the band, you’re back leading the band, or you’re not. Because if you doubt yourself for even ONE FUCKING SECOND, they see it, they sense it, they smell it. Do you understand?”
“Uh, yeah, I guesso.”
“Ready go to?” Raziel was asking.
“Uh,” said Ofdensen. But then they were in his room no longer.
Ofdensen stalked down the corridors of Mordhaus, smoking like a fury. Trust Raziel to abandon him in Milan – he had told her his Italian was rusty, but she insisted she had another urgent errand. So, he had spent the past hours in the company of a pair of jabbering tailors who seemed to be involved in a perpetual argument, the topic of which may have been either politics or fresh fruit, he wasn’t entirely certain.
He came to his room. There was a god there. Outside, this time.
“Oh, Ganesh! Shit, I’m sorry! I just got back from Milan.”
“Splendid, then I take it we may at last begin construction of your wedding attire?”
“How the hell long does it take Italians to tailor a fucking suit?”
“Well, that’s the charming thing about Italian suits, they actually fit.” Ofrensen glared, opening the door to his room.
“Oh holy fuck! Murderface!”
“Is this new?” inquired Ganesh; sitting down on the mammoth bed that now covered approximately half of the floor space.
“Yeah. Goddammit! They must’ve done this while I was out. Fucking Raziel.”
“I like it,” the Hindu god murmured, making himself comfortable.
“You do?”
“Uh-huh. But, I take it you do not approve?”
“Oh, no. No! It’s, uh, great! I like it just fine. I, uh, may need to knock out a wall. Or two. Damn, is that my closet?” Annoyed, he kicked off his shoes and walked across the bed and began tugging ineffectively at his closet door, now shut tight beside it.
Ganesh snapped his fingers, and the closet door suddenly disappeared, sending Ofdensen sprawling backwards on the massive bed. “Lord Remover of Obstacles,” grinned Ganesh.
“Oh, speaking of which, I just got a new lock. It’s gonna take them probably at least 18 hours to break it.”
“Hmm. So, they break into your room quite often?” the Hindu god mused.
“Yeah.”
“Will this bed be sufficiently large then?”
“What?”
“Well, how many of them may we expect to share it with us on a regular basis?”
“WHAT?”
“Namaste, Ganesha!” sang a familiar voice.
“Hello, Lady Raziel!”
“I thought you said you were gonna quit that bouncing shit!” Ofdensen fumed.
“That was your old bed. William and I bounced on all the beds at the store to see which one had the most resilient construction.”
“You did WHAT?”
“You’re a god and an angel – we didn’t want you breaking stuff.”
Ofdensen turned a lovely state of crimson. “That was a very sensible idea,” Ganesh agreed.
“Bouncy, bouncy, oo such a good time!” Raziel sang.
“Bouncy bouncy, shoes all in a line,” sang Ganesh.
“OH MY GOD GANESH,” Raziel said, crashing down next to the god. “Do we still have time to get a bouncy castle for the reception?”
“What on god’s green earth is a bouncy castle?” Ofdensen asked.
“I believe you may have a different term for it in the United States,” Ganesh told him.
“So, you like?” Raziel asked Ofdensen.
“Raziel! I’m gonna need a shinkansen just to get from one side of my fucking bed to the other!”
“Well, I told you you guys needed a bullet train! Anyway, I should go make sure the porters are handling my luggage correctly.”
“Wait, luggage? Raziel, I told you, one suitcase!”
“You silly thing. I takes one suitcase just for my little hats!” And with that she disappeared.
“Dammit Raziel!” Ofdensen shouted at nothing. “Ganesh, I’m sorry, but I really gotta go if I’m gonna talk a ditzy Seraph out of bringing half of Dolce and Gabbana’s fall line along with us.”
“Only half?” grinned the Hindu god. “So, have you any last minute instructions, other than the warning regarding breaking and entering death metal musicians?”
Ofdensen sighed. “I’m gonna give you one piece of advice. But you’re not gonna follow it.”
“Don’t feed them after midnight?” Ganesh grinned.
“Do NOT go out drinking with them.”
“Well, there’s little chance of that. As you know, I do not overindulge.”
Ofdensen raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s what you think. They ask you to get just one little drink, and they all look at you, and before you know it, you’re passed out under a pile of strippers.”
“I see little chance of that. For one thing, I have not been with a female being for at least the past seven centuries.”
“Yeah, well, Dethklok can cure you of that.” He kissed Ganesh and said, “I gotta go,” and was gone.
“Hmm,” muttered the Hindu god. He waved his hand, and a book appeared in it. “Door locking mechanisms.”
Raziel sat contentedly on the DethJet with a plate of little cakes, while Huginn the raven read a wedding magazine over her shoulder.
“If you keep snarfing up all that pastry, aren’t you gonna look fat in your wedding dress?” Ofdensen noted sourly.
“I am not fat!”
“Your ass has looked smaller.”
She scowled at him and pushed away the cakes. “What is your deal with my wedding, anyway? I mean, really?”
“It’s not so much the wedding, it’s that I have to fucking be there. And then there’s all these people asking, so, what about you, Sariel, when are you gonna settle down? And I’m gonna have Ganesh there the whole time, looking at me with those eyes, and this is all after I told him I loved him by mistake the other day.”
“You told him you loved him?”
“It was a mistake!”
“How do you tell someone you love them by mistake?”
“You know me! I can fuck up anything!”
“True. Well, why don’t you just talk to Ganesh? Don’t you think it’s possible he doesn’t want to settle down? I mean, his mom is a goddess of love!”
“WHAT?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want just one person, maybe he wants to settle down with his favorite eight people or something!’
“What? Eight people? Why would he do that? Why wouldn’t I be enough for him?”
“Um, I thought the point was you didn’t wanna settle down?”
“I don’t! I don’t! You’re just…. You’re ruining it for everyone with this fucking wedding bullshit!”
“This is all your fault anyway!” Raziel huffed.
“How the FUCK is this my fault!”
“It used to be…. It used to be I was fine! You were all I worried about, and, I knew you had to stay here, so I’d just come back every couple centuries, to make sure you were alive, and then you’d tell me to fuck off, and I’d be OK to go off, and go wherever. But then this time I thought you were gonna die, because I thought Uriah was finally gonna fucking kill you, so I went to get Wotan’s help, but then I ended up worrying about Wotan, and Valhalla, and Asgard, and everything and everyone up there, and then I started worrying about your people too, and Ganesh, and now there’s all these people and places here I have to worry about, and it’s all your fucking fault!” She looked up. It was his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“Oh, don’t blow your nose on my fucking handkerchief.” Ofdensen sighed.
“Water,” she said.
“What?”
“If you have a crying woman you’re supposed to give her a glass of water! I swear, don’t you know ANYTHING?” She grabbed the glass he handed her and drank. And then choked. “This isn’t water!” she sputtered.
“You’re not a woman.” She glared at him. “OK, here’s the deal, If I have to put up with you and Ganesh dressing me up in a ridiculous outfit and having to fucking dance like some douche bag and a bunch of other girlie shit, all because you’ve got it in your head you’re gonna marry Wotan, then you’re gonna have to learn to drink whiskey and smoke cigars. And we’re starting with whiskey. Drink.”
She sniffed at the whiskey. “Is this the good stuff?”
“No it’s not the fucking good stuff! I’m not gonna start you on the good stuff.”
Raziel scowled at him. “Where’s my cigar?”
“Whiskey first.”
“I want to thank you for taking this time, William. I’ve never gotten the grand tour of Mordhaus before.”
“Yeah, Ofdenschen is a buschy guy.”
They were walking past Toki’s room. The door was ajar. There was a giggling girl inside, knitting with Toki. But when she spotted Ganesh and Murderface, suddenly a strong wind blew and she was gone.
“Dat ams Naomi, she ams da wood goddess,” Toki told them.
“From the Schtitch and Bitschh meeting?” Murderface inquired.
“Yes, dat ams where I ams mets her,” Toki grinned.
“Er,” said Ganesh, as they continued down the hall, “If she turns into wind, how do they…?”
“Dude, I have no idea,” sighed Murderface. “It’sch Toki.”
It was when Raziel was quiet like this that you noticed she was not really a woman. This landscape was probably one of the few on earth that did not lend itself to her usual chatter. She was sitting and looking out the window of the rental car, staring with those funny dark eyes.
They had bickered at the airport over who got to drive. He had put his foot down on that one, telling her he would not countenance riding on mountain roads in a car controlled by someone who didn’t seem to comprehend fully the use of the brake pedal. A position which was a bit undercut when it turned out he more than a bit rusty on driving a standard transmission.
“Why didn’t we just take a limousine?” she giggled when he managed to stall the engine for the fourth or fifth time.
“It’s not a limo kind of place we’re going,” he grumbled.
But they managed to escape from the metropolitan area without resorting to swordplay, and soon enough the countryside turned wild and weird enough to be distracting to even the most fussy Seraph. It was difficult to believe that no magical powers had been invoked to carve the intricate buttes, which shown even more vivid red as the sun slanted low in the sky.
They ended up going through two separate sets of gates, although Raziel was not exactly certain what was being gated – it seemed all the same on either side, miles and miles of desert and eerie rock formations.
They finally came to a settlement. It was far to spare to even call it a town. There was a bar, a post office, something that looked like it may have been a general store, during opening hours at least. Nothing was open but Toby’s Tavern, so they went inside. Patsy Cline wailed from the jukebox. Raziel looked curiously around as Ofdensen spoke quietly to the bartender. At length, he went to get Raziel, and found her mesmerized by a decades-old electronic Hamm’s beer sign.
“Look, the waterfall moves!” she told him.
“Yeah, it’s a beer sign. C’mon.” He finally grabbed her arm and dragged her outside.
An ancient pickup truck was driving along the main road, raising a cloud of dust in the dim evening light. It turned and pulled up in front of the bar.
The driver emerged. It was a tiny woman, even tinier than Raziel. She looked old, but her hair was still jet black and eyes were piercing. She was smoking a corn cob pipe.
“Grandma,” said Ofdensen, smiling.
“Sariel? Is that you, you little son of a bitch? Come on and give Grandma a hug.” To Raziel’s surprise, Sariel submitted to an embrace.
She fixed her eyes on Raziel. “And what is this supposed to be?
“Spider Grandma, this is, er, Lady Raziel of the Seraphim.” He was suddenly hoping he would never, ever have to introduce her as Queen Raziel.
“Raziel? Raziel? Are you the nut job who gave away the Book of Secrets and Mysteries?”
“Yeah, that’s me!” Raziel answered proudly.
“Well, come give grandma a hug.” Raziel, a rather expert hugger, eagerly complied. “I don’t suppose you’re very popular at Headquarters these days, eh, Little Missy?”
“Oh, I live at Asgard?”
“Asgard?”
“Er, she’s dating Wotan,” Ofdensen explained.
“He’s my finace!” Raziel announced, proudly holding up her ring.
“You’re an angel girl, and you’re marryin’ a pagan king?” Grandma asked. Raziel nodded enthusiastically. “Well, you are a blazing nut job.” Ofdensen grinned. “Figures this would be someone you’d turn up with, Sariel.” Ofdensen’s grin faded. “And what about you, Sariel? When are you gonna settle down? I always said that’s no life for an angel, running around like you done.”
“Oh, he’s dating a gorgeous Hindu elephant god!” Raziel cheerfully supplied.
“Raziel!”
“Elephant god, eh? Well! I’ll definitely need to hear more about that. You ride with me, and Sariel, you follow.” Raziel blissfully hopped up into Grandma’s pickup truck. Ofdensen, annoyed that he didn’t know any spells that would give Raziel instant laryngitis, angrily jumped into his rental car, and managed to stall it twice backing out of Toby’s parking lot.
Ganesh had pulled his laptop into Sariel’s office, thinking to get a bit of work done.
The office door creaked. It was a gleeful looking Toki, and a rather upset Skwisgaar.
“I apologize – I was simply using Charles’ office during his absence,” Ganesh told them. “If you need to speak to him….”
Toki suddenly giggled and poked and obviously annoyed Skwisgaar in the ribs.
“Toki ams pokings me!” Skwisgaar wailed.
“Er. Do you often approach Charles with troubles of this nature?”
Toki grinned and pokes Skwisgaar again.
“He ams not stops, though I tells him to!” Skwisgaar grumbled.
“Well,” Ganesh mused, “had you considered poking him back?”
“Pokings hims back? Ams dats allowed?”
“Well, that is what I would have resorted to with my own brother. And, as you are bigger than he, it would seem warranted.”
Skwisgaar got a very evil grin. He turned and gave Toki a double jab in the ribs.
“YOU AMS POKED ME!” Toki wailed, suddenly running off.
“Well, dat ams worked!’ Skwisgaar said. “T’anks, Gannish, you ams da goods substitutes managers.”
Well, thought Ganesh, turning back to his laptop, his first emergency had been resolved, apparently.
He looked up to the sound of the office door creaking once again. He restrained himself from grinning. William Murderface was there. Everything above his neck – face, hair, moustache – was colored a striking flourscent pink.
“So, William, I take it you attempted to pick the lock to Charles’ bedroom door. Did you have success?”
“Uh. Ganesch, bro. How do I get thisch pink out of my hair? I’ve tried schcrubbing, and it won’t come off.”
“The color will remain for 24 hours, and then will disappear on its own.”
“Oh. It’sch not paint?”
“No, ‘tis a magic spell, I’m afraid. And a rather resilient one. I am the Lord Remover of Obstacles. So, I know a thing or two about placing obstacles.”
“Uh. OK.”
“Any time.”
Ganesh looked up at the next door creek. “Yes, Nathan?”
Dethklok’s hulking lead singer entered the office. “Uh. Charles and I sometimes sit and have a drink in the evenings.”
Ganesh spared one more wistful glance at his laptop computer, and then decisively closed the lid. “All right. That sounds like a good plan.”
“Uh. Bottom drawer,” Nathan suggested. Ganesh arched an elegant eyebrow. A very good single malt.
“So, uh, you’re a laywer too, huh?” Nathan ventured, after they had booth been situated with beverages.
“Yes. And a doctor.”
“Oh. So, you could sue yourself?”
“Well, yes, I believe so! I have not yet attempted this yet, feat perhaps someday, if I should get bored.” Ganesh sat back. This suddenly seemed like a job interview. A very strange job interview.
“So, whaddya do, day to day?”
“I run my family’s company.”
“Oh. Is that a big job?”
“We are the world’s eleventh largest economy.”
“We’re the world’s SEVENTH largest economy,” Nathan stated.
“That is very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“And, I find it quite impressive that you all appear to care about each other....”
“WE DON’T CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER!”
“Oh, er, excuse me….”
“That’s the rule! WE WILL NEVER SHOW INTEREST, CARE OR INTERVENE.”
“Well. Er. Then, I find it most impressive how much you, er, do not care about each other. And how you are obviously so very, er, uninterested.”
“Yeah, thanks. We try not to show ANY INTEREST.”
They were sitting by the fire in Spider Grandma’s cosy little living room. Grandma had brought out the inevitable extra set of arms and was twisting a blissful-looking Raziel’s long hair into an elaborate French braid. A couple of tame-seeming coyotes were stretched out asleep.
“Is this what grandmas do?” Raziel asked. “We don’t have them.”
“I’m everybody’s grandma, babe.”
“Really? Cool.”
“Uh, Grandma,” Ofdensen ventured, “I don’t know if you wanna-“
“Would you get that, Sariel?” Grandma asked. Her doorbell had just rang.
It was Kwahu, wearing his human head. “Angel homeboy!” he grinned, and warmly shook Ofdensen’s hand. “How’s the Ganesh dude doin’?”
“He’s doing just fine, thanks. He’s great.”
“Hey, the chief was asking after you! You gonna go see him?”
“Uh. I dunno. Maybe. If we have time.”
“Kwahu!” Grandmother called. “Where ya been, ya little sonofabitch? And where did Hon get to?”
“Hey, I brought beer!” Kwahu laughed, bringing a six pack out of a paper bag.
“All right, I guess I forgive ya.”
“Oh, is it Hamm’s beer?”
“Hey Lady Raz!”
“Hey Kwahu! Is it Hamms beer? They have a sign at Toby’s Tavern with a real waterfall!”
“Hamm’s beer is crap! It’s like drinking coyote piss!”
“Kwahu! Watch your damn mouth, we got a lady here.”
“Ha! She curses worse than I do!” the eagle Kachina laughed.
“It’s true!” Raziel cheerfully admitted.
“Well, you shouldn’t curse, babe. It ain’t proper,” Grandma told her.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Ofdensen snickered, cracking open a not-Hamm’s beer.
“So what are you doing in my neck of the woods, Sariel?” Grandma asked. “I know you didn’t come to hang around and look at beer signs.”
“Did Hon and Kwahu fill you in on our dealings with the Legion?”
“You got into a blood feud with an Arch.”
“And I kicked his ass! Er, keister?” Raziel supplied. Grandma grinned.
“Grandma, they seemed to be really concerned about Earth magic. I have a hunch it might have something to do with your monsters.”
Grandma sat back from her braiding and sighed. “We have always kept our secrets away in the dreams of our shaman.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“Oh boy,” said Kwahu.
“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna do ya any good,” Grandma said.
“Why not, Grandma?” asked Raziel, admiring her fancy hair in one of Grandma’s small mirrors.
“As you know, Sariel, we have a human shaman. Always have. This one….” She trailed off for a bit, frowning. “Well, this one is only a boy. For starters.”
“For starters?” Ofdensen asked.
“Easier to show you,” Grandma sighed. “We’ll go out there tomorrow. Meantime, you kids want some dinner?”
“Pickles, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind terribly showing me your, er, rather unique media setup.”
“Yeh?” Pickles grumbled. He eyed the Hindu god. He seemed like an OK guy, although he had kind of a snooty accent.
Ganesh held up some Netflix boxes. “I just wanted to do little catching up. If it’s too much trouble, I could watch on my laptop.”
“Naw, dat’s OK, dood,” Pickles said grudgingly. “What is dis, philosophical stuff?”
“Er, you could say that. I have The Meaning of Life here.”
“Yer kiddin’.” Ganesh handed the stack over to the dreadlocked drummer, who looked at the titles and frowned. “Hey, Jabberwocky! I ain’t never seen dat one!”
“Not one of their best. I’ve heard that it is best appreciated, er, in some kind of altered state.”
“Oh, I can definitely take care o’ dat part, dood!” Pickles grinned.
“No offense,” Ganesh smiled, “but I don’t characteristically indulge…. Madarchod!”
They had both become aware of a rather large god now planted in Mordhaus’s media room, arms crossed, glaring at Ganesh.
“So here is where you slunk away to hide, Ganesha!” Lord Skanda snorted.
Ganesh glared back. “I assure you, I am not hiding, Skanda.”
“Consorting with a bunch of filthy humans!” Skanda whipped around his arm, to reveal a fine jeweled saber. “I should slaughter them all, just to make the point.”
Ganesh already had his own sword at the ready. But he stopped. Moving with lightning quickness, Pickles had shoved Skanda up against the wall, one drumstick against his throat, the other shoved quite far up his nose.
“Yeh, I’m a feckin’ human. An’ dis is my feckin’ castle. An’ if you don’ feckin’ leave, yer gonna the first person t’ get a drumstick lobotomy!”
Skanda cast a frankly terrified look at Pickles, and then promptly disappeared.
Pickles looked at the end of his drumstick with disgust. “Ewwwwww!”
Ganesh sighed. “I am so terribly sorry, Pickles. That was…. Lord Skanda is my brother.”
Pickles tossed away the snotty drumstick. “Oh. Yeh. My brudder is kind of a douche too. Hey, yoo smoke dood?” Ganesh had pulled out a thin Indian cigarette.
“Only when I am beset. Which feeling my brother tends to evoke.”
“Oh. You want somethin’ a little stonger maybe?”
Ganesh paused. He frowned suspiciously at the redheaded drummer. “Is this the substance you administered to my father during the ski trip?”
“Heh. No. Dat was from my special reserve. Dis is just a little somethin’ to, ya know, mellow yoo out.”
They drove in Spider Grandma’s ancient pickup truck, Grandma puffing away on her corncob pipe. Ofdensen sat in the passenger seat, trailing his cigarette out the window, and Raziel rode in back with the “doggies.”
“I wonder why Hon never showed up last night?” Grandma was muttering. “That boy is a panic.”
“Do you think he’s OK?” Ofdensen asked her.
“Probably off on another bender. Hon and Kwahu - those two give me more than my share of woes.”
“I can sympathize with that.”
“Speaking of which, that’s one’s a prize fruitcake,” Grandma said, nodding back at Raziel. “But if my coyotes like her, then she can’t be all bad. They have their ways.”
“She likes dogs. They have wolves as pets. At Valhalla. And, uh, she goes into their dreams.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“Where the hell did you find her?”
“Uh, I’ve actually known her since my Creation.”
“That long, huh? You never used to talk about any of that angel bullcrap.”
“We used to murder other angels. For fun.” He glanced over at Grandma.
“Well, angels do need some murdering. Here we are.”
They had pulled up at an anonymous building in the middle of nowhere. The interior smelled of ammonia. And worse.
They walked down the dim, grey hallway. Grandma evidently knew which room.
‘This is him,” she said, opening a door. “This is our shaman.”
Angels don’t have consciences. This comes in useful in some instances. If Sariel had been Created with a conscience, he might have felt troubled by what he saw.
The shaman was propped up in a wheelchair. His head sagged into his headrest, as it was a bit too large for his body, and for his thin neck. He had been pushed up to a table, where he was clumsily trying to use his claw-like hands to draw pictures.
“Too much magic?” he whispered to Grandma.
“His ma. I had no idea she was pregnant. No idea.”
“Hi, I’m Raziel, but it’s OK if you call me Raz!” Raziel was telling the boy. He didn’t look up, but stopped drawing for a time. His heavy-lidded eyes appeared to blink. “May I use some of your crayons?” He used one hand and nudged a crayon her way, which she took as a yes, as she seated herself on the edge of his bunk and grabbed a piece of paper. “What should we draw? I like the landscape here very much. And your beer signs! They have a beer sign with a real waterfall at Toby’s Tavern. Do you like beer?”
Ofdensen felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Without a word, he found himself walking back out the corridor. He pushed out the door, and finally started breathing again. He stood, his back resting against the exterior wall of the building, and fumbled for a smoke.
Grandma was there, watching him.
“You don’t think…. You don’t think he’s aware in there, do you?” Ofdensen asked Grandma.
“That boy? I don’t think so. At least, I hope not.”
“Have you tried contacting him? I mean, in Dreamspace?”
“For years,” Grandma sighed. “We’ve tried everything. Maybe there’s some things best left alone, if ya know what I mean.”
After some time, Raziel finally emerged, holding on to some drawings. “Aaron drew these for me,” she told them.
“Aaron?” Ofdensen asked.
“Did I tell you his name, babe?” Grandma asked.
“No, he introduced himself. We had a good time.” Grandma regarded Raziel. Ofdensen shrugged, and they made for Grandma’s pickup truck.
“What’s wrong with him, Grandma?” Raziel asked. She was a bit less short, sitting on the hump in the middle of the cab. “He seems very weak, even for a human.”
Grandma put her truck in gear. “His ma was doin’ magic,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve never heard that was a problem?”
“Well, it can be, for us.”
“They don’t have a lot of gods here. Not anymore,” Ofdensen explained. “So the humans will try to use our magic. Or magic from the other earth gods. It’s like poison to them.”
“Especially if you’re havin’ a baby.”
“Well, someone needs to spruce that place up!” Raziel declared. “He doesn’t get enough light to do his drawings. I’ll talk to Wotan about it when we get back.”
“You do that, babe,” Grandma said. “You do that.”
Lord Ganesh was sitting in Dethklok’s living room, his bare feet up on Dethklok’s coffee table, smoking dope with Dethklok’s drummer.
It had actually been a rather pleasant afternoon.
“Your brother Seth would appear to be a sociopath,” Ganesh explained, scanning the ingredient list on the bag of whatever horrible American crispy processed snack food Pickles had been consuming to make certain there were no meat byproducts.
“A sochio-pat?” Pickles asked, taking a long, considered hit.
“Someun who doesn’ hab a conscience,” Ganesh smacked around a mouthful of salty snack substance. It was terrible, horrible, nasty stuff, really. He licked some kind of reddish salty powder off his fingers.
“Huh,” said Pickles, grabbing the bag of salty crap.
“Some individuals,” Ganesh continued, washing the salty taste out of his mouth with an equally terrible American beer, “seem to have poorly developed autonomic nervous systems.” Pickles looked confused. “You know when you’ve done something improper, and your parent is likely to give you a smack?” he said, grabbing away the smoke from Pickles.
“Oh, yeh. I know dat one.”
Ganesh exhaled. “And you feel ill?”
“Yeh?”
“They don’t feel that.”
“What!” exclaimed Pickles, snatching back the doobie. “So, is yer brother a sochio-pat too?”
“Nah, just, as you might term it, a dildo.” Ganesh was rooting into the chip bag. There were just a few crumbs remaining in the bottom. So, he tilted up the bag and poured the salty goodness directly into his mouth.
“HEY!” It was Nathan’s unmistakable voice. Nathan and Skwisgaar were now in the living room, looking at him curiously. “We’re goin’ OUT. You guys wanna come?”
“Whaddya think, Gannish dood?” asked Pickles.
“’Gannish dude?’ I suppose I like it better than ‘Ganny babe.’”
“Heh. Knubbla.”
“I am most grateful for him saving my life,” Ganesh admitted, attempting to wipe the sticky chip powder from his face.
“I ams Skwissy babe. I ams nearly hits him. But he ams makes my guitars sounds brutal.” The blond sighed.
“No, I mean are ya gonna come out DRINKING with us?” Nathan insisted.
“I suppose you will tell me that you are going out for just one drink,” Ganesh, who was nobody’s fool, told him.
“Fuck no. We’re going out to get wasted.”
“An’ maybe coked up!” Pickles supplied.
“An’ we ams hangs wit’ da strippers.” Skwisgaar added.
“What did Charles tell you?” Nathan asked suspiciously.
“Well, it was implied that you gentlemen would tempt me out with blandishments of a sedate evening….”
“Blandish mints?” asked Nathan. “What are those? Like M&Ms?”
“Dood, he meant we’d tell him we were gonna have a mellow time an’ den trick him.”
“That’s BULLSHIT. Charles knows damn well what we do when we go out.”
“And he ams enjoys himselfs!” Skwisgaar averred.
“Well, unless he’s unconscious,” Pickles allowed.
“I ams t’inks he ams enjoyses himselfs thens too.”
“This is WHAT WE ARE! That’s WHAT WE DO! And that’s how you get to know us. By PALLIN’ AROUND!” Nathan thundered.
Ganesh washed the taste of terrible salty American snack food out of his mouth with an equally terrible American beer and surveyed the death metal musicians arrayed around him.
Ofdensen stood out underneath the desert sky, looking up at the stars, and smoking the inevitable cigarette. He liked the desert. It made you feel alone. Really alone.
But he was not alone.
If the being standing nearby had been a man, which he was not, he would have been around 35 years old. He was tall and lanky, and wore a quizzical expression. His hair was jet black, and worn in a loosely clasped ponytail. Although it was difficult to see in this light, his eyes were pale blue. But Ofdensen remembered those eyes. He remembered them all too well.
“So, you were gonna leave without sayin’ goodbye? Like you did to me before?”
“Eototo,” he said quietly. He was standing by a low wooden fence. He hopped up to sit on it. He found he needed something to grip onto.
The chief came over to stand closer. “You going by Charles now?”
He shrugged. “Sariel is always OK.”
“You didn’t used to like that name.”
He shrugged again. “I’ve found that some things are inevitable.”
“You just sorta disappeared,” Eototo said. “Before.”
“Maybe I needed a change of scenery.”
Eototo was now casually leaning on the fence. “You look good.” And he was looking.
They were quiet for a time.
“That angel girl you’re here with….”
“A friend,” Ofdensen said hastily. A bit too hastily. “She’s actually King Wotan’s fiancée.”
“That sounds like an interesting story.”
“It is.”
And they were silent again.
“There is, actually…” Ofdensen began, stumbling. “There is someone. Not the girl. Someone.”
Eototo smiled. “But they’re not here with you?”
“He’s…. He’s a god actually.”
“An earth god,” Eototo said, staring away at the horizon. “Like me?”
“No one is like you, Eototo. You know that.”
“There was nothing like us,” the chief smiled.
“How is…. How is Blue Corn Maiden these days, anyway?”
Eototo frowned, but did not answer for a time. At length he asked, “Do you remember how it was? For us?”
“Of course. Of course I do.”
“You know what I think?”
Ofdensen took a drag on his cigarette. He flicked off some ashes. “Do I wanna know?”
“Why did you come out here? Alone?”
“I didn’t come- Lady Raziel and I are looking for something.”
“Yeah. I believe you are looking for something.”
“Oh? What do you think I’m looking for?”
Eototo smiled. He backed up a few steps. He began the stylized motions of his dance. He pulled at the heavens. Responding to his touch, the rain clouds obediently gathered overhead, until the night sky was full and the stars were extinguished. As he coaxed them, almost tenderly, the clouds jostled, and thunder sounded across the darkened plain. The mesas lit up with scattered lightning strikes.
Then Eototo tugged on the heavens, and opened them up. The clouds released. He extended his arms, wide, and, looking up, let himself be baptized in the sudden torrent of rain.
Ofdensen remained motionless on the fence. His cigarette had extinguished in the downpour. He flicked it aside. He shivered. In an instant he was soaked through, clear to the bone.
Eototo walked up - through the torrents of water - walked close. He stood next to Ofdensen, leaning in. He blue eyes glinted in a flash of lightning. “I could never forget you. You know that.”
“I know that. I know. I just.” He hopped down from the fence and stood facing Eototo, looking up. A strand of the chief’s long black hair had come unclasped, and hung, dripping, in his face. Ofdensen used two fingers and pushed the strand back behind Eototo’s ear. “I can’t join in your dance,” he said quietly. “Not this time.” He took a step back, and then turned and started to walk away.
“You walk away from me? Again?” Eototo asked.
Ofdensen stopped. He flourished his arm, as if he were conjuring a sword. But it was not a sword. He gave it a click, and handed it over to Eototo. “Here,” he said. And walked off.
Eototo watched his retreating back, and then glanced up at the umbrella in his hand. He scowled and threw it aside.
Ofdensen pushed into the cabin. Raziel was curled on her bunk, wearing an oversized Dethklok t shirt and thigh-high striped socks. Along with two coyotes and a raven, she was poring through a stack of issues of Italian Vogue.
“Does Spider Grandma know you’re letting them up on the furniture like that?”
“They’re helping me choose a look for my rehearsal dinner!” Raziel protested.
“Raziel, I assure you, the coyotes do not give a shit about your trousseau.”
“How do you know? Did you ask them?” As if on cue, one of the coyotes began to howl and paw at a page. “Oh, yes, I know, he’s terribly overrated,” she told him, turning the page. “Don’t worry, his couture will never dark in my wardrobe!”
Ofdensen collapsed, still dripping, into his bunk.
“You need to take a hot shower first or you’ll catch your death!”
“My death of what?” he asked. “I’m immortal!”
“Well. You’ll catch cold, and be even crankier.”
“Whatever.”
“And who was that fine, fine specimen of Kachina you were flirting with?”
“I WAS NOT FLIRTING.”
“Oh. So, can I go flirt with him?"
“Raziel!”
“I’m engaged. Not dead.”
“That was Eototo.”
“Oh, no way! That’s the mysterious chief?”
“He’s not mysterious.”
“You would never introduce me.”
“Wouldn’t have been a good idea. I’m a fucking angel, for Christ’s sakes.”
“Soooooo?”
“Eh.”
“You need to tell me before you die of pneumonia!”
Ofdensen was quiet for a time. “I can’t remember how long it was. It seemed like a century. Maybe we went along for 50 years? Anyway. His story is, he’s meant for Blue Corn Maiden. It’s all that destiny bullshit, like you and Wotan. So, she rejects him. And he goes off. And then she gets sad. So she calls him back. And he goes to her. Every time.”
“Every time? Even when there’s a monsoon-inducing angel hanging around?”
“Every. Fucking. Time.”
“Oh. Raziel frowned. “I never understood those make up, break up things.”
“No?”
“Nope. Someone pulled that shit with me, he’d have some limbs hacked off.”
“Is that why we don’t see any of your ex-boyfriends, Raziel?”
“Yeah, maybe not many of them can still move around under their own power,” she laughed.
“Well, anyway, that’s their dance. Eototo and the Corn Maiden. And I just told him, maybe I’d sit this one out.”
Raziel was suddenly on his bunk, her hand on his forehead.
“GET OFF ME RAZIEL.”
“Are you feverish?” she asked, grinning. “You must be sick!”
“I’m not sick!”
“You have a perfectly good thing going with Ganesha that you could COMPLETELY fuck up with another of your unavailable men,” she told him, waving her arms for emphasis, “and you just blew your chance?”
He glared at no one in particular and shrugged. “I don’t…. I’m not…” He frowned at Raziel. “And there were unavailable women, too!”
“Oh, not as many,” she giggled, hopping back up with her coyotes and fashion magazines. “Anyway, now you need to go take a hot shower before you really do get feverish. Or else I’ll start discussing this season’s trend in thigh high boots!”
“All right, all right,” he grumbled sitting up.
“Oh, could you grab me that issue with the shoes?” Raziel asked.
“What?” But a coyote had already leapt off the bed, trotted over to the stack of magazines, clamped one in its jaws, and trotted back to the small angel.
“Thanks!”
Shri Ganesha, Lord of Hosts, Remover of Obstacles, roused. He was lying on the floor a strange room. A very strange room. It looked to be the belly of some kind of leviathan.
He propped his arms on a nearby bed. Underneath a veritable pile of naked or barely clad women he could see some red dreadlocks poking out.
“Uh, Pickles.”
“Yeh. Dood.” The drummer emerged, more or less, from beneath a rather fetching tangle of female humanity.
“Uh. You haven’t seen my trousers, have you?”
“Nah. Dood. When yoo go out wit’ Dethklok, yoo gotta keep track o’ yer own pants.”
“I will, uh, remember that, for the future.”
They heard a moan from the other side of the room. “Aaaaaa, where ams my heads?”
“Um,” said Ganesh. He pushed his hair out of his face. It stubbornly fell back into his face.
“Yeh?”
“Is that Skwisgaar?”
“Yeh, dood, dat would be Skwisgaar.”
Ganesh sat back against Pickles’ bed and surveyed his surroundings.
“Pickles, you are aware of my mother’s, er, duties?”
“She’s a love goddess, yeh?”
“That is correct. And I must say, I don’t believe, in my existence, I have ever seen quite so many, er, naked women.”
“HEY SKWISGAAR!” Pickles shrieked. Ganesh’s head throbbed.
“Ja?” came the Swede’s voice from somewhere.
“Gannish dood sez we outdid Parvati!”
“Dat ams goods!” Skwisgaar called.
“Hi five, Gannish dood,” Pickles said, offering a palm to be slapped.
Ganesh slapped his hand. He pushed his hair out of his face. It all fell back into his face. “Uh, Pickles?” The drummer handed over a lit cigarette of dubious origins. The Hindu god sighed and took a puff. “Did I…. Last night…. Do you think I….”
“Oh, I think you probably. Yeh, I think definitely.”
“Um. Yeah.”
Ganesh took a very long drag, and handed the cigarette back to Pickles. “But,” he said, putting an elbow up on the bed. “Do you think I ate meat?”
“Oh!” Pickles put the cigarette in his mouth and lay back for a moment, hands interlaced behind his head. “Naw. No, I don’t t’ink so dood. I t’ink yoo might’ve ate a lot o’ other stuff,” and he grinned a Pickles grin. “But no, no meat.”
“Well,” said Ganesh. He grabbed the cigarette. “That’s something. Right?”
They heard a moan. It didn’t come from Skwisgaar’s direction. Ganesh and Pickles looked at each other, and then, with Pickles hanging over the side of the bed upside-down, Ganesh picked up the blankets to look underneath his bed.
“Nathan?” asked Ganesh.
“Oooo, dat’s where he got to!” Pickles laughed.
They were in the rental car, on a lonely highway.
“You sure you won’t let me drive? You look tired!”
“I would really prefer to survive the ride to the airport.”
“I drove in Hell!”
“Yes, and next time we’re in Hell, I will let you drive again.” He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I dragged you out there, it was kind of a waste.”
“No it wasn’t! Aaron drew me this pretty picture of his dreams.”
“Aaron?”
“Their shaman!”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“We decided to draw dream pictures. It’s too bad you didn’t stay, you could have drawn your wolf dreams!”
“My…. OK, Raziel, could we just agree to keep a lid on my wolf dreams?”
“I thought you do very well for yourself, playing in their wolf band. It helps to have human fingers!”
“Yeah. Can this be the last we ever discuss the wolf dreams?”
“It’s such a pretty green banner, don’t you think?”
“What?” Raziel was holding up Aaron’s drawing. “Let me fucking see that!” The car squealed to a halt at the side of the road.
“What the hell? You’re the worst driver in the history of existence!” wailed Raziel.
Ofdensen had grabbed Aaron’s drawing. Up at the top, there was a streak of green, like a little green banner, fluttering in the sky.
“Raziel. That’s not a banner,” Ofdensen supplied.
“Er, so,” said Ganesh, sitting uncomfortably in Ofdensen’s chair.
“Ummm,” said Pickles, standing uncomfortably beside Ganesh.
“Yes?” grinned Ofdensen, sitting in his own guest chair, and looking not a bit uncomfortable.
Ganesh and Pickles looked at each other nervously.
“C’mon guys. Mordhaus, isn’t a smoking ruin. How bad can it be?”
“Well, then there was that explosion in the laboratories,” Ganesh continued, consulting the list written on his laptop.
“Dey contained dat.”
“Happens,” grinned Ofdensen.
“And, er, the giant pit out in the gardens….” Ganesh said.
“But we got rid o’ da troll!” Pickles said proudly.
“Well, we were going to start work on that volcano. I’ll have Wotan contact Surtr,” Ofdensen told them. “Continue.”
“An’ da unacorns,” Pickles mentioned.
“Unicorns are nice,” Ofdensen allowed.
“Er, it appears they are eating the gnomes,” Ganesh warned.
“Exterminator?” Ofdensen asked.
“That might be warranted. Oh, and, uh, Toki was poking Skwisgaar.”
“Yeah?”
“So, I, er, told Skwisgaar to poke him back.”
“Did it work?”
“Apparently.”
“Huh, I never thought of that one.”
“Helps to have grown up with a brother, I suppose.”
“Pickles,” Ofdensen said, “before you go, we might need you for something.”
“Yeh?”
“There’s someone we met. We need somebody to go into his dreams and talk to him.”
“Wit’ my spirit animal like?” Pickles asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t yoo jist talk to ‘em?”
“We can’t. It’s … complicated.”
After Pickles departed, Ganesh stood. “Er. There is one additional matter. Do you recall, I assured you, prior to this weekend, that I had not had relations with a female being for over seven centuries.”
Ofdensen grinned.
“I, er, feel now, unfortunately, I can no longer give you such an assurance. Although, my memory of this incident, and in fact that entire evening, is a bit hazy.”
“Did you feed them after midnight?” Ofdensen asked. Ganesh looked a bit abashed. “Well, did you eat any meat?”
Ganesh considered. “No, we believe I did not consume any meat during my visit!” he said, with a small dose of pride.
“Well, there’s that.”
Ganesh had gone to bid goodbye to Lady Raziel. He found her sitting with Toki, and one other person, eagerly twisting yarn.
An ear-splitting shriek was emitted, and then the cute redhead who had been sitting with them suddenly was not there.
“Oh, dat ams Caj,” Toki explained. “She ams da banshee.”
“From your mom’s Stitch n Bitch,” Raziel cheerfully explained.
“I don’t t’inks she ams likes da strangers,” Toki explained.
“Oh, well, I am sorry to have disturbed her,” Ganesh apologized.
“No probs, Ganesha. Wanna chat?” Raziel indicated a seat, so the god took it.
“So you ams not likes da Eototo dudes,” Toki was asking.
“I just don’t trust him,” Raziel said, squinting at a knitted something that looked halfway between socks and a hat.
“Eototo?” Ganesh asked. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Oh, Sariel probably mentioned him. He’s a Kachina. One of his many, many, many horrible exes. He spent a bit of the weekend trying to slither back in.”
The temperature in the room dropped.
“Excuse me?” It was Ganesh.
“Oh. Uh. Did he tell you what happened?” Raziel asked.
“No.” Ganesh said, not as courteously as was his custom.
“Uh, well,” Raziel looked around, and appeared to actually consider her words for a moment. And then she plunged ahead. “So, OK, this Eototo guy. Sariel always called him the Chief, so he’s pretty important I think. Anyway, he’s a good looking guy, right? I mean, not as good looking as you, Ganesh, obviously.”
“Go on.”
“So, um, anyway, he popped up one night, out of nowhere. And made a move on Sariel. I mean, really made a move.”
“What precisely do you mean?” Ganesh asked. There was a warning in his tone.
“He ams gets da grabby hands?” Toki asked, looking inquisitively up from his knitting.
“Um, he, um, caused a thunderstorm,” Raziel said.
“Wowee,” said Toki, obviously impressed.
At some point, Ganesh’s expression had shifted from disapproval to menace. There was a shadow over in his fraction of the room, as if light could no longer penetrate. “So,” Raziel continued quickly, “Sariel told him, sorry, no thanks, and handed Eototo and umbrella and ditched him.”
“Oh, umbrellas,” mused Toki. “Dat ams t’oughtfuls!”
“Well, some people like to get along with their exes,” Raziel told him. “I tend to dismember them, but that’s just me.”
Ganesh stood. “If you see your Honored Brother,” he told Raziel, very quietly, “Kindly tell him I wish to speak to him. He knows where to find me.” And then he was there no more.
Raziel and Toki looked for a time at the empty space where Ganesh had been. “Well,” said Raziel. “That’s gonna be an interesting discussion.”
Raziel clattered home to Valhalla a bit late in the evening.
“Is that you, my pet?” Wotan called from the other room.
“Yeah, sorry, I was gossiping with Toki and lost track of time.”
“I phoned!”
“I’m sorry, M’Lord, I forgot to charge my dang battery again.” Sighing, she rummaged through the bottom of her purse for her phone.
“You are my little scatterbrain!” Wotan called. “And what will ye be wanting for dinner?”
“Oh!” she plugged the phone into an outlet and left it on the counter, immediately going into the next room. “Do we have any of that Vritra meat left? Hey, did you know on earth, they have beer signs with real waterfalls?”
The phone came to life and vibrated. A message popped up. And then another. And another.
Ofdensen found him in a sitting room at his residence.
Ganesh was coiled on a chair, thin Indian cigarette going to ash in one elegant hand.
The Lord Remover of Obstacles did not rise. He did not move. His eyes followed the angel across the room.
“Is there something which you would care to discuss, Sariel?”
“Regarding…?”
“In regards to that Kachina.” He spat out the last word.
“OK. Ganesh. If you wanna list of everyone in this universe I’ve slept with over the past few centuries, we’re gonna be here for a while…”
“I have been mistaken, then?”
“About what?”
“I had been under the impression that angels were blessed with the power of reason.”
Ofdensen frowned. “You don’t have to be an asshole.”
“Then you do comprehend what I’m referring to?”
“It’s ancient history.”
“Not for our kind, it isn’t. Is this the reason you didn’t wish me to accompany you to the New World?”
Ofdensen stood, clenching and unclenching his hands. “OK. Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe it was something I needed to get out of my system. He was something I needed to get out of my system. Look, you just got back from spending the weekend getting stoned and fucking groupies with my band.”
“You are comparing this to an evening among human groupies?” Ganesh’s voice grew strained. “Eototo is an earth god. He conjured you a fucking thunderstorm.”
“Ganesh, Eototo could’ve poured the entire fucking Nile river on my head for all the good it would’ve done. It’s over! It’s been over! For almost a fucking century! And now I’m here, in your house, wondering why you’re sitting over there getting pissy with me instead of over here letting me chew on inner thighs, which is what I fucking came up here to do.”
Ganesh was up out of the chair, quicker than a human, so quick he actually startled Sariel. Ganesh stood over the angel now, trembling with anger.
“Sariel,” he whispered. “Where you are concerned, I am a jealous god.”
Sariel was looking up at him. His eyes had somehow slid from green to that odd silver color. But he didn’t appear angry. His face wore just the trace of a smile. And Ganesh, furious as he was, remembered he was not looking into the eyes or a man, or a god. Here was something else.
“Do I need to chain you to my bed?” the god said finally.
Sariel’s smile widened a bare fraction. “Maybe.” A piece of Ganesh’s hair was hanging in his face, and Sariel moved to push it back behind his ear. But Ganesh caught his hand, and gripped it tightly.
“Do you fully comprehend what you are to me?”
Sariel was up on tiptoe, his mouth very close to Ganesh’s. “No,” he murmured. “Show me.”
And then a very expensive shirt was ripped to shreds as the god brought out another set of arms, and then another.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 07:46 pm (UTC)This whole thing is such a huge fucking adventure. In a good way, of course.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 08:03 pm (UTC)Aaron's got (of course!) more back story. Much more back story.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 09:07 pm (UTC)“Freki!” sang Raziel.
Lord Skanda abruptly found himself located underneath a rather large, snarling wolf.
“You didn’t say, ‘Simon Says!’” she told him, resuming leafing through her Vogue.
I think this would be a prudent time to mention once again just how freaking awesome Raziel is.
“There’s nothing wrong with my bed.”
“Not if you were an eight year old human.
Cue sudden mental image of Charles sleeping in a racecar bed.
“Promise to come to Milan and see Ganesh’s tailor, and I’ll quit jumping.”
“And then you’ll start doing something else obnoxious?”
“Probably!”
Hey, at least she's honest. :B
“Asch it happencsch, metal interior deschign is my schpecialty!” Murderface announced.
...Cue sudden mental image of Charles's bedroom walls adorned with at least half a fuckton of neon "tits" signs.
“What is it Nathan!” Ofdensen snapped. He immediately regretted it when he saw the hurt Nathan look.
D'aww...
William and I bounced on all the beds at the store to see which one had the most resilient construction.
I love the hell out of that image. :D
Ofdensen sighed. “I’m gonna give you one piece of advice. But you’re not gonna follow it.”
“Don’t feed them after midnight?” Ganesh grinned.
...I would so love to see these characters as gremlins.
“Er,” said Ganesh, as they continued down the hall, “If she turns into wind, how do they…?”
...There is an epic joke to be dealt in response to this, I just know there is, but my brain just can't seem to find it for some reason.
When yoo go out wit’ Dethklok, yoo gotta keep track o’ yer own pants.
Words so true are seldom spoken.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 09:57 pm (UTC)To be honest, I think I might hate reading my own story, if I weren't writing it. I always kind of rush along to see what happens next....
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 10:03 pm (UTC)But then again, with your attention to details and back stories, skipping anything could completely screw you, or at least lead to confusion in future chapters. There's no junk details, everything is important here.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 10:08 pm (UTC)NOT a good idea to come between Raziel and Italian Vogue. Though, I'm actually feeling a bit sorry for Lord Skanda - everybody Ganesh hangs out with nowadays is pretty deadly.
William and I bounced on all the beds at the store to see which one had the most resilient construction.
I love the hell out of that image. :D
I know. I was sort of surprised myself that Raziel gets along with Murderface. Although woe betide a retail saleman caught in their path!
When yoo go out wit’ Dethklok, yoo gotta keep track o’ yer own pants.
Words so true are seldom spoken.
Yeah, it seems like a real simple proposition to deal with Dethklok. Until you actually have to deal with Dethklok! :D
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 03:55 am (UTC)Of course he is. He not only responded to Raziel's direct question, but he was drawing. I believe you have to be self-aware in order to create anything. I'm now wondering if Aaron is beyond Ganesh's healing ability.
Up at the top, there was a streak of green, like a little green banner, fluttering in the sky.
“Raziel. That’s not a banner,” Ofdensen supplied.
I take it that this is the monster Charles is seeking?
“Oh, dat ams Caj,” Toki explained. “She ams da banshee.”
There's the tip of the hat to Xixthe. :)
And now Ganesh knows what it's like to herd cats. (I keep wanting to spell it Gannish, now. Darnit, Pickles, get outta my head!)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 04:53 am (UTC)This one wasn't exactly Charles' finest hour. (I sort of wanted to thump him a couple of times. And I wrote him.) Yeah, they have tried to contact Aaron in Dreamtime, but more on that later. I AM BACKSTORY QUEEN.
I'm not 100% sure how Pickles would go about mangling "Ganesh," but for some reason, "dat Gannish dood" kept popping up in my writing, so I just stuck with it.
I sort of like the concept that everyone is like, "Oh, why does Charles always get SO UPSET dealing with Dethklok," and then they try and ... erk.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 05:05 am (UTC)"dat Gannish dood" is a perfect Pickles paraphrase. If Pickles were any drunker, he might use "knish", but then they'd think he'd be a tasty snack.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 05:18 am (UTC)But, I'm not sure whether he'd try anything.
I guess he'd probably be OK as long as he didn't start a rainstorm....
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 01:20 pm (UTC)Aaron intrigues me. And I wouldn't mind having a Spider Grandmother around. (I miss my Grandma liek woah.) Raziel is, as ever, ditzy and surprising and awesome. And I'm hugely amused at Charles just grinning over Ganesh and the strippers.
More than ever, I want to go to Parvati's SnB. Not just for the prospect of hitting on Toki, but to see all the different mythical beings. And hit on them as well. (Toki, btw, is more than welcome to attend my monthly knitting and drinking night! ;) )
no subject
Date: 2010-12-11 05:25 pm (UTC)I was intrigued by what would piss off Ganesh, since he seems so mellow. And Sariel has a legendary talent for screwing things up royally.
And I wouldn't mind having a Spider Grandmother around.
She has a lot of my grandma in her. My grandma has been gone over a decade (she had Alzheimer's really bad and wasn't really "present" those last few years), and I still miss her pretty much every day.
And I'm hugely amused at Charles just grinning over Ganesh and the strippers.
I'm intrigued that they haven't used this kind of plot yet on the show - I don't mean Melmord trying to take over the band, I mean just like the assistant manager or something trying to manage the band for 24 hours when Charles has the flu. Or maybe Charles doesn't get the flu? (Yeah, I know, the flu gets sick with Charles.)
More than ever, I want to go to Parvati's SnB. Not just for the prospect of hitting on Toki
...although that's always a possibility! :D I like the notion of Toki having somewhere that he's not playing second fiddle to Skwisgaar.