Expatrianas Histories - Three Gods Shall Go
A Meeting With Chaos
"This is madness Goddess, are you sure you want to do this? Meeting with DisKord, Chaos himself, in his home, the great black pit at the center of all things. None who have ever even seen that place have maintained their sanity. No one, God or mortal, would go there willingly. Even Gods have disappeared into that infinitely dark expanse, or so it is said.” The fear was evident in his voice as he spoke and his concern for the Goddess was genuine and touching. However, Elyria knew that now was not the time for foolish mortal childishness and she responded harshly. “You flatter me with your concern for my well-being, however, do not forget I am not defenseless and do not forget your place. Yours is not to question, it is to serve. I am going to palaver with Chaos and attempt to discern his plans, you are going to wait here patiently for my return.” The tone Elyria had taken seriously rubbed Baj the wrong way and he was greatly tempted to lash out with a verbal rebuke, but in that moment his fears were greater than his hurt feelings, and he managed to hold his tongue. Through her bond with him Elyria knew (almost) everything that went through his mind. Though he had become more skilled in recent years in shielding his thoughts from her, a trick she very much wanted to know how he had learned, he could not hide most, and she read and (partly) felt his emotions as they washed over and through him. There was concern and fear for her safety, which she felt clearly, and then hurt which had morphed into anger at her harsh words. Behind it all she felt a warm glow of something that was always there whenever he thought of her. She could not place it exactly but thought maybe it was love. As a Goddess she did not feel emotions as mortals did, a God’s emotions were of a much deeper sort and could be very dangerous if left unchecked. Elyria spent a great many centuries learning to control her own with greater success in some areas than in others. With the human Baj she struggled to maintain the air of calm, cool detachment that she felt was befitting of a Goddess of her stature and power. This irritated her greatly, but it could not be denied that she felt something she could not explain for the human Baj Expatrianas. The fact that she could not explain it, nor could she place exactly what it was, added to her discomfort. There were many mysterious things about this human, but the most mysterious was what it was about him that triggered such thoughts and feelings in herself. A child of Olympus should feel nothing for mortals, other than perhaps pity or disgust or sadness at their limited abilities. And yet, she did feel something, and because of it she felt compelled to try and soothe his hurt feelings so she added “If it makes you feel any better human I will not be going alone. That insolent fool Loki and one of the southern Gods will accompany me. This is on the orders of Zeus himself.”
The look on Baj’s face told her everything she needed to know without any need to read his thoughts or emotions. “No, Goddess, that does not make me feel any better, far from it. Every word Loki speaks is a deception and he has no honor. He disgraces the Gods with his very existence.” Elyria nodded her head in agreement at that assessment and Baj asked “Which southern God shall be joining you?” Elyria took her time in speaking, considering if she should answer. He did not need to know, and it would gain her nothing to tell him, however, once again her feelings for him got the better of her and she replied “It will be the great Sun God and God of war Huitzilopochtli. He is worshipped by hundreds of thousands of your kin human, the warrior people of the south known as the Azteka. He is their patron God, and they sacrifice other humans to him to win his favor in battle and so that he will continue to bring the sun each day. He has blessed them with many great military victories over their hated enemies, the Mayano, and it appears that the sun has continued to rise and fall each day in the south exactly as it has in the remainder of the world. Helios may take issue with Huitzilopochtli claiming credit for that however.” She laughed at the thought of Helios, the charioteer and Apollo’s favorite brown-nosing lickspittle standing up to the intimidating and powerful southern war God. Even the mighty Apollo himself might hold his tongue rather than risk angering Huitzilopochtli, the girlish Helios would likely soil his chariot seat to even be in his presence. When she considered how the mysterious eastern sun Gods, the falcon headed Ra and sun Goddess Xihe might react her mood darkened some and the smile vanished from her face. They were not to be trifled with, even by one as powerful as Huitzilopochtli. If they would also join the fight against DisKord she could not say. They had no need for humans or any mortals on any plane. Ra accepted worship and adoration, but he took (almost) no supplicants or servants despite many elaborate rituals by the Eegypti peoples hoping to gain his blessings and favor in the afterlife. What Xihe might think she could not even hazard a guess. The ways of the far eastern Gods were as foreign to her as the ways of the Azteka were to the human of the western lands. All were under threat from DisKord however, and no God or Goddess of any pantheon, in any part of this plane or any other would continue to exist if he could not be stopped. What exactly he intended to do and more importantly why, were the two questions Zeus had commanded her to learn answers for in parlay with Chaos. Why he had selected her and then ordered her to escort the foolish trickster God Loki and the powerful southern war God Huitzilopochtli with her to this meeting were two more questions for which she had no answers.
For immortals like Elyria, time passed differently, but it did pass as it did for all things and as it passed, she accumulated memories, and because she had lived so long now, the number of memories had grown so large that sometimes she felt they were greater than the entirety of existence. Even with that large a store of memories, however she could not remember a time when there were more questions without answers than now, and that made her very afraid. She liked to say, Gods do not have questions, Gods have answers. It irritated Baj to no end when she said it which is one of the reasons she said it so often, but it was also very true. This is how she knew these times were different, and that the threat was very real, and that it was of a magnitude greater than all that any had ever known.
Baj noticed her distress, and he felt it too, the magicopsychic link with her went in both directions, though he only felt but the merest fraction of her emotional states, any more might kill him or drive him mad as he had learned for himself not long ago. That was an experience he did not wish to relive, and it still affected him deeply almost a full year later. “What is it, Goddess? What did you think just now that caused the smile to leave your face.” And the sun to set a little, is what he thought and wished to say, but did not. The last thing the Goddess needed was additional ego stroking. She got enough of that from her other supplicants and servants; she would not get it from him. Her outward appearance would always appear divinely beautiful to mortals like himself, she knew this, and he knew it as well, but, unlike everyone else, he had long since armored himself against her beauty and she was no longer able to wield it like a weapon to influence his thoughts and actions. At least, that is what he told himself. Unfortunately, he could not shield his thoughts from her, at least not totally, though someday he hoped he might find a way to do just that. He had made great strides in recent months thanks to help from a divine source he was certain. Who or what was that source he did not know, and it worried him, but that fear the Goddess could not sense, nor could she sense anything unusual about his thinking. He knew that she knew he was able to hide more and more of his thoughts, but he also knew she had no idea how much of them, or how he had managed to do it. He did not realize that this worried her exactly as much as it worried him. “Nothing human. Quiet your worried mind. Wait here. I will return.” Suddenly the noise of the forest where they sat and talked went silent. The sky darkened noticeably, and a chill wind blew. Baj felt a fear so deep that he thought he must get up and run away as far and as fast as he could manage. But when he tried to rise, he found he could not, all the strength had drained from him. He looked to his Goddess for assistance and reassurance, and he found it there in her smile. When she spoke, the fear left him, and his strength returned anew. “Stay here human. Huitzilopochtli has come. I must leave now.” With those words she was gone and the noise and light returned. With the return of the sun came a strange looking man singing to himself and appearing confused and lost. “Ohhh. Hello Baj Expatrianas. Where has your Goddess gotten herself off to.” Now Baj was confused. “Who are you, and how do you know my name, and why should I tell you anything?” “Because my friend, I am the God Loki, and I command you to speak. If you do not, I will take your balls from your body and hang them from the back of my cart as a decoration. Now answer my question.” Baj knew there was nothing he could do against the might of a God and besides Elyria had told him Loki was to be joining her. “She just left with the southern God. They are on their way to the great black pit. To a meeting with Chaos. She mentioned that you were to join them.” Loki was more than a little surprised by the level of Baj’s knowledge of these matters. “It seems your Goddess favors you more than I had suspected. Consider yourself lucky mortal, or perhaps unlucky. That is not for me to say. But before I leave, I will say this. I am the one who has given you the power to shield your mind from her. I can help you to hide even more, and, some day, I will help you completely break free from her claim on you. However, I do not do this for free. You will owe me. Do you understand?” Baj had suspected divine intervention on his behalf, however, the God Loki was not high on his list of possible sources. It made much sense though given the historical enmity between the two. As much as it pained him to do anything to aid the reprehensible Loki, he very much wanted to be a free man again someday and he also reasoned he really had no choice in the matter. Loki would not take no for an answer. Better to make him think Baj was his ally, even if it was a deception. Fortunately, unlike Elyria the God Loki could not read his thoughts, or at least, Baj did not think he could. Loki smiled at him. “Of course I can read your thoughts human. I am a God after all. I take that as a yes then. Be seeing you.” With those words he was gone and Baj was left alone with his thoughts and the sounds of the birds and grasshoppers of the forest as night began to fall.