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

[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.