milliways_bar | (after work)

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(after work)

You've got to know your idiom inside and out before you can play with it; otherwise it doesn't bend, it just breaks, and it's embarrassing for everybody. If you're not in on the joke, they're not laughing with you.

Sometimes friends ask for favors and you can't really say no; so long story short, here comes the one who doesn't have red hair, the Roman-Syrian, still in costume from a bit of artist's modeling upstairs. He's a god posing as a mortal posing as the high priest and living embodiment of a different god posing as a saint. It's an easy costume, a few of Skaði's arrows and a bit of fabric held up by pure thoughts and clean living, and he makes it look casual. That takes talent. Talent, and having been in the costume for so long he's forgotten he's still got arrows sticking out of him...

Anyway, after all that staying still he's earned himself dinner and a few drinks, so here he is on his way to the bar to order. Totally botherable; heck, you can even ask him for protection from plague. He's got family connections.

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She presses her lips together.

As suspicious as she is of him, she knows there are certain horrors he's been put through. God or not, nobody deserves to be mistreated.

"Not sure I know the whole story. Jus' that you were outspoken, an' they was tryin' t'silence you. Or punish you — well, both I reckon."

"I get beheaded," he says. "At the end of the world, that's my fate. Everybody knows it."

A little awkward, going to dinner parties with people you know are going to imprison and kill you. That may be why he didn't get invited to much, as time went by.

"Weyland and his brothers were loyal servants of the gods. They made them gifts, fabulous things, because they wanted to show their love and loyalty. But it was my job--I went to these other crafters, my brother's cousins actually, and bet them that they couldn't make something better. 'Always causing trouble,' they said. 'If the gods say our work's better, you forfeit your head.' Fine with me; you know the work Weyland does. How could they possibly compare?

"They didn't, but my brother knew about the bet, and he said their work was better. Even though it wasn't. Even though Weyland and his brothers hadn't been competing at all, they'd just made gifts out of love for the gods. It was all a big lie, but they wanted my head."

It's a horrific fate.

Such is the way with gods.

Kate nods, silent for a long time. What can you say to something like that? It isn't fair, of course. It doesn't compare to mortal problems. It's beyond her realm of empathizing.

"I'm sorry. S'awful."

She doesn't press him. There's obviously more to the story, so she lets him get to it at his own pace.

"I'm a clever one though," he says. "That's what they always say--'that Loki, he's clever, he's tricky.' I still had a war to fight, so I couldn't go getting beheaded that early, and while they're there sharpening their axes I tell them: look, fine, you won the bet, you get my head. But you don't get my neck. That wasn't part of the deal."

He shakes his head. "They couldn't really argue with that, though they spent a long time measuring and trying to see whether there was anywhere they could cut that wouldn't involve my neck. They couldn't just smash my head in; that's not my fate, and they knew it. So in the end they gave up and sewed my mouth shut instead."

Her lips flatten into a mirthless smile.

"That is rather wily."

That much she knew about him. Clever Loki, god and trickster.

"An' in the end y'were saved because of a prophecy. They wouldn't hurt you any other way. How queer.

"How did you get rid of the stitches?"

"Pulled them out," he says. "Which probably sounds easy, but you have to realize, they were done by the dwarves who helped make the world. Their tools and their work had magic in them. That's why the scars never went away--I can't get rid of them with magic. I change shape, and they're still there."

Makeup or facial hair can help to hide them, but those don't work for all his personas, or all the times and places he's been.

"Had a full month on no food but broth, until I got a different primordial-craftsman type to cut the stitches for me. Not my finest hour."

She winces.

"I can't imagine how humiliatin' that must have been, on top of all the torment. S'hard to imagine such cruelty from your own family."

"Family by oath, not by blood," he says. "My blood-family's never been anything but wonderful to me--I don't know what you may have heard about my monstrous children, but whatever their shapes, a person couldn't ask for better children."

He won't mention his wife, but she's definitely there in his thoughts.

Her mind immediately strays to the family he has here. Skaði and Egil, of course, though he was very clear in denying Egil as his offspring, and Kate isn't certain what his relationship is with Skaði. Weyland, and their — marriage.

She glances down, combing a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I know of a child who's a horse, at least in part. So far as the tales in my world go."

"He's all horse," he says with a smile. "Not the brightest, bless his heart, but he loves to run. Fastest horse there's ever been--you'd love him. All he wants in life is to be allowed to run, to get out there and push himself and show what he can do... and when that's over, get praised and brushed and fed. He especially likes eating flowers."

Sigyn used to bring him bouquets. Not a normal family moment, maybe, but they made their own normal.

Her lips twitch, but the more he goes on the less she's able to rein in her amusement. She chuckles softly, shaking her head.

"You're right, I would be rather fond'a him. I've known an animal or two like that."

And she herself was born with the love of running in her. Get up and go, be free, fly.

"He doesn't care about politics, or the eternal struggle of good and evil, and all of that. All he cares about is being what he is, and what he is is useful to my brother."

Which is how his brother owns his son, and nobody thinks it's particularly strange.

"Your brother?"

Her brow furrows.

"How so?"

"The sky is just another river, to my boy," he says. "He can travel between worlds, and since he's so fast, you can get there and back the same day. Even the land of the dead. He's the only horse who can do that, and my brother is a busy man who can't be expected to camp overnight by the side of the road somewhere."

Her eyes widen.

"Oh. I see. Well, that seems — t'be honest, I don't know many folk who're both animal and god, an' somebody's son. Does he mind bein' ... belongin' to your brother?"

Using the word 'owned' just doesn't feel quite right, though 'belonging' really isn't any better.

"I honestly don't know," he admits. "I haven't seen him since I was imprisoned, and that might have changed his feelings about the situation. He was happy enough before then, but I don't know how much he knows of what's happened."

He's not exactly sentient, but he probably knows something.

She frowns.

"S'a long time t'go without seein' him."

Though she's sure he has his reasons, and his reasons are for him to keep. She understands being his child makes things complicated at best.

"...well, he's my brother's horse, lives outside my brother's hall, and my brother's the one who imprisoned me," he says. "I'd go see him, but people would notice. It's not the sort of place where strangers can just show up. Very high security, in the hall of the lord of lords."

"Ah, that would complicate things."

She eyes the Bar for a moment, and eventually orders a fresh bourbon.

"As I said, I am sorry for your family troubles. Blood or otherwise. It's — somewhat beyond me, y'understand."

"I've got other children too," he says. "One's a serpent--they shoved his tail in his mouth and threw him out into the sea, and now he's so big he forms the boundary of the world. I haven't seen him in forever."

It must be lonely out there, under the waves.

"And my son the wolf--oh, he was young and strong and rambunctious, like boys are. He just wanted to play, but they were afraid of what he'd become. He's imprisoned on the same island I am."

But he's got guards for company.

Her eyes widen.

"How many children d'you have?"

It's such a normal question for such an odd series of words. It's — wonderful that he has so many, but...

"Can't they change their shape, like you?"

"The horse, the wolf, the serpent and my lovely mangled daughter, those are the ones most people think of when they think of me. But I had two sons with my wife, and probably a lot more out in the world that I didn't specifically know about. I've been a mother, I've been a father, and I got around back in the day--but most of them, I didn't raise. If I had, maybe they could've changed shape."

"Mangled?"

The word comes out sharp and surprised.

The rest of his explanation — well, her ears are burning. It's not polite conversation to be sure, but she reminds herself that he's lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Naturally that would lend itself to many lovers, and many offspring. Still.

It's hard to imagine a life so full.

"It's not her fault," he says. "She is what she is--we all are what we are--and the role she was given may not be a happy one, but it's necessary. She's a plague spirit. Somebody's got to do it."

She's dispassionate about her work. It's simply what she is.

"But the gods didn't like that; it's shameful for a warrior to fall to sickness instead of battle, and having wealth and power doesn't make a person immune. So my brother's son cast her out of heaven--literally, he picked her up and threw her into the lower world. Her legs were shattered and never healed. She's been decaying upward ever since."

Plague spirit?

Kate's brow rucks, and she shakes her head. It isn't until he continues that she realizes what he means, and the more he goes on the more awful it becomes.

"Heavens."

She covers her mouth, aghast.

"Decaying? But she's — still alive?"

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