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 Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:13 pm
Now that Valeriu had broken the rules and entered the physical realm, he didn't seem to want to leave. He knew Quinn was looking for him, rather insistently in fact, but sometime in the past few millennia he'd forgotten everything.
The taste of buttered toast, the feel of warming his toes in front of the solar heater. The utter pointlessness of passing hours by, just reclining on a beaten-up mattress and napping the day away. The joy of greeting a lover when they came home, of wrapping them in your arms and sweeping them off their feet with a kiss.
These little, insignificant, human things that time had washed away. They were amazing. He was half-tempted to lounge outside on the porch beneath the midday sun, but he knew Quinn would spot him immediately that way. Sun god, and all.
Then again, he knew he had to face his punishment sooner or later. Snorting, he rolled to his feet, brushing the cosmic dust off his star-dotted pants and slipping outside, momentarily squinting his eyes beneath the harsh light. A rare, pleased smile broke his lips as he stretched in the warmth of day, luxuriating in the feeling of the sun beating upon his skin.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:39 pm
It was as if the sun burned brighter for a moment, and in roughly eight minutes from the burst something on earth was ********. It would probably cause a hurricane or an earthquake or something, but Quinn was not worried. Hurricanes were for mortals to worry about, and he didn't understand how science worked.
Get that ******** style="color: orange">Get that ******** style="color: yellow">Get that ******** style="color: green">Get that ******** style="color: blue">Get that ******** style="color: indigo">Get that ******** style="color: violet">Get that ********, a small group of birds sitting on a nearby wire swooped down at Valeriu in perfect unison, squawking like the sirens of hell. As they headed towards him, they started morphing together, getting bigger and bigger until right before they hit Valeriu they turned into Quinn, his hands around Vale's neck and his eyes blazing with hatred.
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
I have been looking everywhere for you, you son of a--
He realized he was still using his God Voice, and he cleared his throat.
"b***h!"
He let go of Vale but the feathers on his wings stood on end with agitation. Not an inch of his skin was visible, as his whole body was covered in scales, other than his face and wings. He took a moment to tap his hand against his hair and be sure it was still up on end, as it should be. He was quite proud of his mohawk.
"I mean, I knew you were upset because I had told you I'd give those...ice-places a break with the six-month days, and then I made them full-year days, but that was barely worth an eternal feud over! And now it's only right that my boy and your girl work together-- I mean, he's looking for someone to date, and she's pretty enough, I guess-- and you haven't talked to me for decades, and you always seem to leave the world as soon as I wake up to light it, and I miss you!" His scales slowly melted into nothingness, his hair extending and falling to wrap around his body and hide parts of him while still being revealing and as seductive as possible. He stepped forward and the tips of his wings ran up and down Valeriu's arms.
"Don't you miss me?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:59 pm
Valeriu wasn't much surprised by Quinn's antics at this point, and he'd put up his carefully cultivated facade of boredom and not impressed as he waited out the storm, arms leisurely crossed over his chest.
"The other half of the year was mine," he disagreed, solemnly and shortly. "You took it."
He was completely justified in giving Quinn the cold shoulder. The humans were suffering in those lands thanks to his greediness - the night had been their only source of respite.
"And that is the way of things, Quinn." Sun god, night god. Of course, Valeriu might have been purposefully skipping their meetings during dawn and dusk. He, suddenly, remembered why.
"About that," he muttered, skin shivering beneath the light touch, and his arms crossed all the tighter over his chest. He made it a point not to look at Quinn's hair - the other god knew how much he adored that long, blonde hair. "Yes, I miss you, too." Best to placate him, first. Honeyed words, Valeriu, he reminded himself.
"But I have someone, now. A..." The blush that spread across his face hadn't been seen since he was human. "A girlfriend."
Yes. He, Valeriu, had a girlfriend. And, like the blush, he hadn't had one of those since he was human, either. That part of him had only ever belonged to Tepin.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:21 pm
Quinn frowned and assumed a more neutral form, his hair returning to the mohawk and scales forming in the shape of a Speedo. He flapped his wings, frustrated.
"They can buy a plane ticket, if it's that big of a deal," he insisted, "And who would want to live somewhere so cold, anyway? I was just warming it up. Put a blanket over the windows!" He threw his hands up in the air, and then crossed them.
Quinn snorted. "A whatnow?" He rolled his eyes. "You have a girlfriend? A girlfriend. Great. This is great. And by that, I mean it's totally not great at all. You are a God. We don't have time for committed relationships. And please don't tell me it's a mortal." He paused, but didn't wait for an answer. "Oh my Me, it is a mortal, isn't it? Well, that's dandy. Dandier than dandy." He stepped backwards down the steps of the porch, into the yard. Small ants were popping around his feet, where the sunlight was more concentrated as he got agitated.
"I need you to meet someone, since you have been busy not talking to me." He whistled, but nothing happened. He snapped his fingers, still nothing.
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
Marlow, I swear I'll--
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm right here, chill out!" A boy came running down the street, waving away little birds pecking at his face. "Make them stop! I'm serious!" Quinn waved them away, and the boy got down on one knee in front of him, head bowed.
"I'm so sorry, sir!" Quinn smiled.
"You see, Vale, this is how a godling should be. He's a great boy exactly fifty percent of the time. You may rise, and talk to the nice man, Marlow."
Quinn's godling was still just a teenager, around sixteen. He had long bangs that covered one eye completely, and the other visible eye was an electric blue. His clothes were surprisingly average, especially under Quinn's influence. Oddly, Marlow didn't ever look directly at Vale, but mostly to the side or kind of through him.
"Nice to meet you, sir." He frowned. "Wow, you feel powerful!" He paused, and furrowed his brow, like he was trying really hard to remember something. He grinned, proud of himself, when he figured it out. "Whoa, you're Valerius!" He got down on his knee again. "A pleasure to meet you, bringer of the night!"
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:32 pm
"You melted all the ice," Valeriu thought to mention, dismissively. "Almost everything was wiped out. And the rest burns."
He frowned at Quinn, pointedly looking down at the popping ants in a clear suggestion that Quinn cool it. "Not quite a mortal," he muttered, vaguely, about to elaborate, but was distracted by Quinn's summoning of his godling.
Valeriu was slightly offended on behalf of the boy.
"Fifty percent?"
This poor child.
"Yes, I'm Valerius," he confirmed, watching the boy kneel with bemusement. He crouched down to match his kneeling, holding out a hand expectantly to shake. "A pleasure to meet you, too, Marlow."
Valeriu was not really a bowing kind of god.
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Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:41 pm
Marlow sensed Valeriu kneeling in front of him, and then felt the power move towards him. It took him a moment to register that it was a hand. He furrowed his brow, and moved his eye in the general direction of the hand, quizzically. He reached his hand out and, after a few close attempts, finally shook it, then stood up.
At the mention of the fifty percent, his eyes widened and he shook his head subtly, a cut-it-out gesture to Vale.
"Yes. Fifty percent. I gave him a power that had...unfortunate side effects. I meant for him to be able to have two of him at the same time, you know, multitasking, but I sort of ended up making two of him all the time, as well." Marlow looked panicked.
"I really don't like him, it would probably be best if we didn't--"
"Now Marlow, I just want to show Valerius what you can do."
"That's probably not such a good idea, I can't control what he says, you know, and--"
"Shush, Marlow, I won't let him do anything rash."
"But he's always so mean!" Quinn grunted in disapproval, and ran his fingers through Marlow's hair, moving his emo-kid shade to the other eye, revealing a deep crimson colored iris for the opposite one.
"Aww, here it comes, doesn't it? Can we please just--" Quinn cut him off with a short, sharp slap to the face. Marlow's hand shot up to his cheek but he only squeaked a little by way of vocalizing pain. His eyes were shut tight, but when they opened there was a distinctly less stupid look about them.
"Oh, good. I get called in to participate in the meeting of the Faggods." Wolfram rolled his eyes, and let them settle on Valeriu. Despite being unable to see, he was much better at pinpointing his targets, and piercing them with his glares. He was not afraid to look a God in the eye. "I'm sorry, Valerius," he drawled, "I forgot to bring my catnip. I'm such a terrible houseguest."
Quinn grinned, proudly.
"Meet Wolfram!"
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:24 am
"Ó Cuinn," he murmured, eyes closed and pinched in a distinctly disbelieving fashion, fingers rubbing against the deep, almost permanent wrinkle of his brows as if to ward off an oncoming headache. But it wasn't working, and he opened his eyes to stare at Quinn morosely. "You are an idiot."
Leave it to Quinn to break his godling before they'd even left the starting line.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, as well, Wolfram," he answered mechanically, the insults brushing off his skin. "Unfortunately, that joke became old long, long, long before your ancestors even contemplated crossing my Dark Forest in search of a new home."
He did notice, however, Marlow, and, well, Wolfram's apparent blindness, now.
"Have you asked Séamaisín's godling to see if she can't do anything about his eyesight?" he prompted, eager to change the subject, turning from the boy in front of him to the bird-brain. "It might be within her abilities."
Valeriu had decided, rightly, that Quinn and Katrina should not meet, actually. Really, this should have been a foregone conclusion. Yes, just best to let sleeping dogs lie--
He heard the hum of the keycard at the front door, just quiet enough for his ears to barely catch. His spine stiffened, and he recalled this feeling being called panic.
"As pleasant as it has been catching up with you and meeting your charming godling," he said, managing to retain his unamused poker face, "I know you must be very busy. It is, after all, your shift, and I am sure your Player has other things he would very much like to see to. Humans and their precious time, after all."
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:52 pm
Quinn shrugged. "It works out nicely. They both have their strengths, and they can separate, for brief periods of time." Even if he hadn't really meant for it to happen.
Wolfram snorted. "Also, I've been wondering. You're like, day, and you're like, night-- so, like, do we have eclipses whenever you guys fu--"
"That's enough, Wolfram," Quinn coughed, "You shouldn't use language like that in front of your superiors, anyway."
"Yeah, I'll let you know when I meet someone superior to me." Quinn sighed.
"Unfortunately, Wolfram has all the ego that Marlow does not. He is a much more talented fighter, though, so we put up with him. And no, I find that his blindness works well. The mere sight of me doesn't drive him mad with lust, you know, as it does with other male mortals," or so he wished, "and he can wield light without being caused intense pain. And besides, Séamaisín still kind of holds a grudge for the whole poison thing." Quinn shrugged. "You'd think a thousand years would chill someone out, but addicts begrudge their dealers."
He frowned.
"But I've only just found you, and who knows when you'll be back again? And I think maybe it would do my boys some good if they got some...regular physical activity. Your godling is a straight female, correct? I propose a relationship."
Wolfram, who had merely eyed them incredulously up to that point, grinned. "Hot damn, I'm getting laid!"
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:30 pm
"So charming," he repeated, blandly, at Wolfram's gentlemanly demeanor, thoroughly and completely unimpressed.
"Or, maybe, it was because you never fixed that little problem," he reminded him with a demure sideways glance, tail twitching to the ticking of an unheard metronome. "You forget, that addiction became legendary for him. Written in all the books."
Seamus would, forever, be victimized in his worshipers' eyes. The scars Valeriu had given him had only magnified their sympathies. He was practically a martyr to them, and Seamus hated the thought of it.
I'm a god, he'd once said to Valeriu, sighing. Not a saint.
"I will be back, soon," he countered, reassuringly. "Perhaps as soon as tomorrow." Probably not. Valeriu would hide once again for at least a week after this meeting, in hopes of forgetting how much he wanted to strangle Quinn, sometimes. The world didn't need another battle, not after the damage their last fight had done. Valeriu was reserved enough not to rise to the bait as often, but he didn't exactly have infinite patience.
His ear twitched, turning away from the conversation, back to the house. The front door opened, closed. Her bag was set down. He heard her move to the living room, could sense the curiosity in her steps, and knew his time was up.
"My godling," he said, deliberate and slow and trying very hard to keep the cover on his temper in the face of Quinn's outrageous proposal, "is off limits."
She circled around to the bedroom.
"Because, well," he trailed off as the door slid open.
"Valeriu, there you are!"
"Katrina." He couldn't hide the pleasure that lit his face when she said his name, turning to the girl that hovered inquisitively in the open doorway as she looked between him and the new-comers. He held an hand out, and she quickly stepped across to his side. His arm circled, deliberately and protectively, around her shoulders. "Ó Cuinn, Wolfram, may I introduce you to my godling, Katrina? Katrina, this is Ó Cuinn and his godling, currently going by the name Wolfram."
"H...Hi," she greeted, though her voice and expression were both laden with suspicion and a fair amount of wariness of the other god, pressing close to her own god's side.
A wise decision on her part, he acknowledged.
"They came to visit. How nice of them," he clarified, insincerely. "I apologize for not warning you of the company."
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Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 6:22 pm
Quinn sighed. "I know, I know, but hey, now every doctor has a religious excuse to take Vicodin. Creating an addiction to feel closer to their God! So it's not all bad." He frowned at Valeriu. "No you won't! You won't be back, you liar!" He huffed angrily, and began to pout. Wolfram rolled his eyes.
"Oh, great. One of the Gods mankind is most afraid of is pouting."
"Shut up, Wolfram. Off limits? You're joking! You can't order me or my Godling aro--"
"Check out that hot piece of a**!" Quinn knew, immediately, that Wolfram would be useless for charming a woman and getting any. He gave an exceptionally powerful whisper.
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
Go away, Wolfram!
"Don't have to tell me twice." Wolfram flipped his hair across to cover the red eye. Almost immediately, his posture became slouchier and he somehow looked less intelligent. Marlow frowned.
"How come you just used The Word on him, but you had to slap me to--"
"Shut up, Marlow. Look," Quinn said, encouragingly, "A girl! You like those, right?"
"A girl?!" Marlow looked around, dumbfounded. His eyes settled on her and he blushed almost immediately, boring a hole into the ground with his eyes. "She's pretty," he mumbled, "and she has a pretty name, too."
"Tell her that!"
"Tell her? No, I can't, she'll laugh at me!"
"Don't make me use The Word," Quinn threatened. Marlow sighed, sauntered forward without looking up, and then mumbled to her.
"Sorry for the surprise, miss, but I sure do you think you have a pretty name."
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Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 6:52 pm
"Of course I will be back," he assured, half-heartedly, in what was clearly and most definitely a bold-faced lie. "And yes, off limits--"
Wolfram's charm didn't appear to work on Valeriu that well, either. His comment garnered a sharp narrowing of the eyes, the air visibly darkening and turning chill.
"I do not appreciate your godling referring to mine in such a way, Quinn," he murmured in a clear warning that said, in no uncertain terms, was he utterly willing to break the Contract if it meant punishing Wolfram as he saw fit. Katrina shivered at his side, her hand clutching his wrist tightly, and he shook his head to clear the air.
"Please remind him about common decency and courtesy, especially in regards to women." The polite add-on was clipped and marginally less icy, but the threatening stance was gone for the most part.
One simply did not insult or threaten females around Valeriu.
Katrina was more than weirded out by all this, and Valeriu's show of force had done very little to alleviate the awkwardness. She took comfort in the weight of his arm across her shoulders.
"That," he informed her, nodding to the changed boy, "is now Marlow. He is a special case of split identity."
"I see." Well, as far as godlings went, it wasn't the strangest thing she'd seen. Her voice dipped lower, though, and she leaned up to whisper in his ear. "I have a question."
"Hn?"
"Why...why is he-" She gestured, vaguely, to the flamboyant and capricious sun god. "-wearing a...a speedo?"
"Good question," he acknowledged, but didn't comment on it further, a look of long, long suffering creeping into his expression. She decided to drop the issue for now. But really - it was goddamn weird.
Her attention was nudged away from her god when she noticed the other godling approach, her back stiffening even more warily. She hadn't had much contact with the other Players, utterly content to train on her own under the watchful guise of her god, and her previous first meetings had not gone well. She was prepared for an attack (audacious, and completely in line with matching his outrageous god), and was surprised and confused to find a compliment waiting for her instead from the younger boy.
"Oh. Um, thank you?" She gave a nervous smile. "It's very nice to, um, meet you, Marlow. You're a lot nicer-sounding than the other one."
She was reassured, in part, by the fact that Valeriu didn't seem at all bothered by Marlow or his compliments as he'd been by Wolfram's. This meant to her, quite clearly, that he probably thought of Marlow in much the same fashion she did:
Awh, it's a puppy.
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