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Current Location: the grounds

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Date: April 23rd
Place: The Manor grounds
Status: Public - Aziraphale and Michael (anyone is welcome, though)
Summary: Michael is skilled at avoidance. Operation: Avoid Gabriel has now commenced.

All right, so maybe Michael had overreacted. Evicting Gabriel from his room and then Binding him out might have been considered... over-the-top. But it was his room... and anyway, the gasped "NO" following the "I love you" declaration was enough to throw anyone off! So really, Gabriel brought this on himself. Yeah. Let him grieve the loss of someone he didn't like. Woo. You go, Michael. Way to make a stand.

But Michael's room was boring, and there was only so long you could spend pacing. So, where was Gabriel not likely to go?

Well obviously the Library was out of the question; not that it would be Michael's first choice of location anyway. But Gabriel was such an inside creature - the lack of tan gave that away! - that his best bet was to go outside.

And so he did so, going outside, sitting on a bench and spreading his wings. They needed the sun to keep bring out their highlights, anyway.

He pondered what to do. What was there to do?

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"You know," Loki said, gesturing. "Guys with wings on their backs. That Aziraphale fellow who just left us handles a paint gun well enough by the way. So does Gabriel. So does Baraq for that matter. I was nearly as colorful as they were when we were done."

He wiggled his fingers as if he had to actually count his children.
"I had two sons by my wife, who were murdered by my fellow gods. I have three children by my mistress, who were banished by my fellow gods. Hel made a home for herself in the realm of the dead that died dishonorably, basically meaning not in battle. Jormundangr is living in the seas and Fenrir was bound and hidden from me. My last son I bore myself. He takes on a horse's shape and serves Odin."

More and more bitterness had crept into his voice as he had talked, and he had permitted it. "Fenrir has three sons, but they are... busy."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "You get around," he said lamely, wondering how he'd managed to impregnate himself.

"I try to keep things interesting," Loki said. Then, remembering something heh ad snatched up about these Christians and their ideas of strict monogamy, he added: "Will this change anything about our cooperation?"

"Are you a hermaphrodite?" Michael asked, practically writhing in curiousity.

"Erm," Loki said, "as far as I know, a hermaphrodite is both at the same time, and usual incabale of functioning either way. I'm just incredibly flexible."

To prove his point, he morphed into a female shape for a moment and back again. "Actually," he said, "I bore Sleipnir in the shape of a mare. Since the father is a stallion."

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I get it now," Michael said with a little laugh. "For a minute there I thought you had your own kid and that was freaking weird! We can change gender too," he did so, "although usually with a lot of paperwork involved. I don't need to do paperwork because I'm in charge. It's sort of my thing. Although I don't think I can have my own kid, and frankly I don't want to try."

"I never did any paperwork - just changed when it seemed the fitting or prudent thing to be. Being stuck in horse-shape for almost a year can be quite annoying, though."

He gave a hit of a shudder at the memory. Actually, there were quite a lot of memories that made him shudder these days.

"Anyway, I have three children that are alive and that I am reasonably sure are loyal to me. Five, if Hel lets go the two dead ones, which I should hope very much will go with loyalty towards her father."

Michael changed back into his regular self. "Oh man, a horse? Of all the animals to pick, why a horse?"

He wasn't sure what animal he'd pick. He'd have to think on it.

"The horse," Loki said, "is a symbol for harmony and trust, speed, strength and vitality. I can think of animals less worthy. This particular horse, however..."

He grinned at the memory. "He was the horse of another jötunn and played an important part in a bet that we had gotten ourselves into. If he had been able to finish the walls around Asgard within a certain time, we would've lost it. The bet, that is. So someone had to distract that stallion. It seemed as good a plan as any."

Michael blinked, and then blinked again. "The horse built a wall? But... how would it do that without hands? And you distracted the stallion by..." He made a face. "Taking one for the team, I guess. But still, that's the weirdest story I've ever heard. Horses building walls."

Loki very nearly said 'Idiot!' He caught himself just in time and instead explained. "The jötunn mason built the wall. The horse fetched and carried and pulled things and helped lift up slabs. You know... You tie a rope to the stone throw it over a winch and attach the other end to the horse, then the horse walks forwards and the stone lifts."

He grinned as he added: "And it was one very handsome stallion, too."

"Oh," said Michael. "Okay. You didn't mention the, the mason. That makes a lot more sense. Although imagine if a horse tried to build a wall... But anyway, still the weirdest story I've ever heard."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "It's not really anything far out of the ordinary where I'm from," he admitted. "I take it the place you come from is pretty boring then?"

Michael looked a bit embarrassed. "It's not... boring... I mean, we have stories, just not weird ones. Lots of stories of me kicking the crap out of demons, for example. We also have a lot of 'humans are crazy' stories."

"And for someone who's not from around there those aren't weird because...?" Loki asked carefully.

Michael shrugged. "I don't know, they seem pretty not-weird. 'The demon Belial invaded the Earth to take it over, so Archangel Michael descended from Heaven and beat the crap out of him, the end.' 'There were two cites of pure evil so Michael and Gabriel descended and destroyed them, the end.' Do those strike you as weird?"

"Those aren't stories," Loki laughed. "Those are sentences. Let me see... A hrímthurs wanted Freya as his wife so he tricked the Aesir into a bet that he would have won, so Loki went and distracted his helper to protect Freya. Does that sound less weird for you?"

Michael nodded. "Yeah, that's significantly less weird. What's a... hrimthurs?"

This was actually pretty interesting! Well, barring horse sex. That wasn't very interesting; that was just kinda creepy.

"Hmm," Loki said, "a frost giant, you might say. "Mainly something big and unpleasant."

"But you said you were a giant too," Michael pointed out. "So you have factions of giants that try to undermine each other? Like, fire giants, frost giants, earth giants, etcetera?"

each one represents some aspect of nature," Loki said. "Or rather, is one aspect of nature. So naturally, pardon the pun, they do into different categories. The only ones really interested in undermining anything or anyone are those that see themselves as better than the average Jötunn and call themselves Aesir or Vanir. Anyone else - hey, what would we do with each other's pieces of nature?"

Michael's eyebrows shot up. "Um, we don't have pieces of nature, not really," he said. "Although that's a good point. In our Plan, the world itself goes shke-boom and human souls ascend to Heaven. So if you want the world itself still here, we might have to hash out more details."

"Let me tell you something my dear," Loki said, leaning in a little. "I don't care about the world itself. there's always going to be fire somewhere. And what's your heaven like? If it's just empty space your human souls are going to get boooored. I sure would."

"Heaven? It's very shiny," Michael replied. "And waaaay better than the alternative."

Sure, it got boring sometimes, but it was a lot less confusing than this crazy place, and in Hell Michael probably couldn't smite Hell-demons and then where would the joy be?

"Didn't I hear your embodiment of hell was hot and fiery?" Loki asked. "Sounds like the perfect place for a vacation to me!"