test drive / milliways

[gods_that_haunt_me]

A tall, lanky man, seemingly made up entirely of long lines and angles, wanders into the bar through the back door.

He's been out all day, exploring the forest. Listening to the trees.

(They were quite talkative.)

The waitrats scatter as he crosses the room. They probably don't like the hatchet tucked into his belt. Or the knife. Or the sword.

He snickers at their fright. He's harmless! Really!

(No, he isn't.)

"Lady Bar, a cup of mead, if you please," he says in Old Norse. A horn cup appears, and he takes a swig.

Comments

[gods_that_haunt_me]

Floki's black-rimmed eyes take in the Goth with great interest. Especially the weaponry.

The stacks of paper, though? The last time Floki saw that much paper, he set some on fire and burned a monastary down with it.

"Better than the piss the Christians use in their ceremonies?"

[ostro_goth]

"Much better," the Goth says, with a hint of amusement flitting over his stern face. "Good wine made by the ancient heathens of the south, or good wine from the future. Ale, also, from all lands and times, and far beyond."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

"One day I shall have to take advantage of this bounty so easily made available to us."

He raises his cup to him in thanks for the recommendations.

"You will know this has happened when you must pick me up off the floor to keep other patrons from tripping over me."

And he takes another swig.

[ostro_goth]

"There will be a sick-bed, or a cell, for you to sober up, then," the Goth says, "depending on your behaviour; but pick you up, we certainly shall."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

"Such amenities!" He chuckles. "If one were to pass out on the floor at Ragnar Lothbrok's hall, one often wakes up huddled alongside a baby goat."

[ostro_goth]

That seems to amuse the grim Goth.

"There are worse fates," he says. "It could be a billy-goat, smelly and horned."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

"That is true! And such is one's fate when one's trickster friends decide to make it so."

Not that he's ever made billy-goats lie down with his own drunken friends!

...Okay, yes, he has.

[ostro_goth]

"Trickster friends, though, are good to remind one to not sink into the mire of seriousness, and overmuch gravitas about one's own importance," Teja says, who has been glittered by the trickster, and still is allied to Loki in ways none know about.

Despite very much not belonging to that god.

[gods_that_haunt_me]

He snickers, a bright, almost childish giggle.

"I like people who know the value of joke."

It's why he and Ragnar are such good friends. He knows how to laugh.

"I am Floki. What may I call you?"

[ostro_goth]

"I'm Teja, son of Tagila," Teja says. "I was the last king of the Ostrogths in Italy -- in the south -- and died in battle, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, in the year 552 of Christian reckoning."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

Floki knows nothing of Christian dates. But his eyes widen.

"So this is where you came when you died? This is your Valhalla?"

[ostro_goth]

"In a way, it is," Teja says. "It is a Valhalla where one must pay one's own way; I had always thought that the afterlife ought to be on the gods. But I must have been mistaken; or the gods are stingier than my people believed."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

Floki frowns deeply, considering this.

"The gods must have sent you here for a reason. It is your fate. Perhaps in your afterlife, you were meant to have a purpose among these people here."

[ostro_goth]

"I know not that I believe in gods that powerful and benevolent, using mortals as the little wooden men of a board-game," Teja says.

[gods_that_haunt_me]

"Oh, but I do," Floki says with a wink and a knowing, crooked smile. "The gods have plans for us all."

[ostro_goth]

"Fate happens," Teja says, "but I doubt it is planned by god."

[gods_that_haunt_me]

"But there are gods of fate. Some give, some take away. Some destroy, some heal. That is why we must appease them all so that we are in their favor. When hardships befall us, or when death takes us, we must accept what we are given. The gods are fickle and perhaps not always fair, but as it is, everything we do and everything we receive has already been determined. We have Seers who can tell us what the gods have in store for us. The gods speak to them. And sometimes, even I can hear them."

[ostro_goth]

"I have ever seen fate more like a great water, that runs in eddies down a mountains -- looking at the rocks and pebbles, one may guess at possible ways that water will run," Teja says.