Royal Wedding (Mythklok, Chapter 55) (Part 2 of 2)
Title: Royal Wedding (Mythklok, Chapter 55) (Part 2 of 2)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The big day arrives. On a pirate ship!
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, completely over the top swearing,
Notes: Notes on Part 1.
Chuck Schuldiner Memorial Amphitheater, San Serriffe....
The reception banquet had begun. Young Elias was sitting upon the head table, tiny elephant bib (courtesy his doting Auntie Sarasvati) tied around his neck, enjoying spoonfuls of tasty scrambled eggs and paneer from his daddies' plates.
Young Elias had learned many things in his young life, one of the most important of which was, it was always far more delicious if it originated on an adult's plate. (Or in his cocktail glass, but that was another story.)
"Dancing elephants," Charles grinned, watching the show on the amphitheater stage down below. "Your relatives kill me."
"They're your relatives too now, my shining chakra," grinned Ganesh, wiping his son’s chin. “Uh, I mean, Charles.” Ingestion of solid food had sobered him up a bit. But just a bit.
"Oh, crap. You're right."
"And now, dinnertime entertainment from Dethklok, babies, yeah!" Dick Knubbler announced from the stage.
“In honor of the OCCASION, we’re going to sing a LOVE SONG,” Nathan thundered.
The myriad choices of his fate
Set themselves out upon a plate
For him to choose
What had he to lose
Not a ghost bloodied country
All covered with sleep
Where the black angel did weep….
“Huh. First time I’ve heard that one described that way,” Charles shouted.
“Does your band often perform cover songs?” Ganesh shouted back.
“Naw. We’re cheap bastards. We don’t wanna pay royalties. But Papa just decided we’re outside of international copyright law here.”
“Your father did?”
“Yeah, I just made him Grand Vizier of San Serriffe.”
“That was awfully nice of you. And whatever is a Grand Vizier?”
“No fucking clue.”
“You know who I am,” he said
The speaker was an angel….
One of the massive ancient stone tiki heads that dotted the island, and which had loomed silently and mysteriously over the place for untold eons, cracked apart from the assault of Dethklok's mighty blare and began to roll down the hill, bearing straight towards a table full of Greek gods. They screamed and laughed and magicked the head aloft with a few lightning bolts just before impact. It hurled towards a table full of West African deities, who in turn batted it like a giant beach ball along to the next table.
But when they told me about that side of the bargain
That’s when I knew that I could not refuse…
"Did baby climb steps for Auntie? Did you?" inquired Raziel, who got an egg-y, cheese-y baby smooch in return from her nephew.
"I thought my immortal heart would stop," Ganesh admitted. "And I would become one with the mystical universe! Er….”
"We've been practicing!" Raziel told them.
"You have? You're a sneaky damn baby, Boon!" scolded Charles.
"OK, when your band is done, we're gonna have some embarrassing drunken toasts, and then you guys cut the pie," said Raziel.
"Raziel?" shouted Charles.
"Yeah?"
“Could we talk?”
She nodded, and, leaving Elias to be spooned the somewhat sober Ganesh’s daal, they walked far enough out into the field of mysterious stone tiki heads that surrounded the amphitheater to be away from the full force of Dethklok’s amplifiers.
"Raziel. This wedding is actually pretty cool. The food is good. And almost nobody's died yet!"
“OK,” said Raziel. She was silent for a moment, smiling faintly. “Look I know you. There’s no way you pulled me out here to say thanks.”
“Raziel,” said Charles. He suddenly looked despairing. “What do I fucking do now?”
Raziel waved for Charles to sit down on the base of a tiki head with her. “OK. You guys try to raise an angel kid. Which isn’t easy, but the things are pretty darned sturdy. And you try to keep your band out of trouble. And once in a while you fuck Ganesha’s brains out.” She shrugged. “Pretty much what you’ve been doing.”
“This is important. I wanted to do this for Boon.”
Raziel looked skeptically at Charles. “Oh, and it has NOTHING to do with Ganesh’s ass.”
Charles shrugged. “Well. OK. Maybe it has something to do with Ganesh’s ass. OK, maybe a lot.” He sat for a while. “Gods damn, he’s got a fine ass.”
“I know. I saw.”
“What? When?”
But Raziel only grinned. “And we try to keep us all safe from whatever the fuck Mother is up to.”
“You believe Our Father?”
“For what it’s worth, Brahma agrees with him. As does my father.”
Charles frowned. “I was just trying to tell Pickles that. That we’re here to protect him.”
“And he didn’t go for it,” Raziel stated.
Charles looked at her questioningly.
“He’s a mortal, Sariel. I know you don’t think you’re an angel any more, but he does. What he wants is for you to flutter your magical feathery wings and make everything all better,” she said, wriggling her fingers.
"I don't think that's what he wants.”
"That's exactly what he wants. And you can't give him what he wants."
"Well. That's true at least."
“We should be getting back,” said Raziel, standing up.
“We don’t gotta do the dance thing, right?”
“No, you won’t have to dance. I’ve told you that. But you know Ganesha loves dancing?”
“Yeah,” Charles shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.”
Angel came down from heaven yesterday
Stayed with me just long enough to rescue me....
And she told me a story yesterday
About the sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea…
Parvati watched from her pantheon’s table, fuming, as Raziel walked off with that other angel.
Her son-in-law.
She had just one thought on her mind.
Was that an Orry Kelly that angel bitch was wearing now?
"You saved a dance for me, pretty lady?"
Parvati blinked her gorgeous eyes. Parvati could have been described - and probably had been described - by any number of adjectives in her long existence. "Pretty" was not one of them. It fell criminally short.
But here was this impossibly rude little man grinning and extending a hand.
And here she was, taking it.
Bird land on fifty-three
The street sounds like a symphony
We got John Coltrane and a love supreme
Miles, she's got to be an angel.
“So, Charles is part angel?”
Ganesh looked up from spooning lentils to his son to see Orula and Chango hovering over his shoulder. Chango waved pleasantly, but Orula looked uncharacteristically grave.
“Yes?” said Ganesh, narrowing his eyes.
“We need to know which part!” But Orula suddenly found himself pulled down by the collar so he was literally eye to eye with Ganesh.
“I am actually part Lord of Destruction. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW WHICH PART?”
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed ‘til the morning comes….
Charles returned to the banquet table, but didn't quite make it back to his seat, as Ganesh abruptly pulled him down into his lap.
"Something about a three piece suit," the elephant god muttered as he unfastened the vest, "Makes me desire to see what lies underneath."
"You know damned well what's underneath," Charles laughed. "What did Chango and Orula want?"
"Oh, what do they ever want?" Ganesh muttered into Charles’ shoulder as his hand groped his midsection beneath the tempting vest.
"Ganesh. Uh. You have sobered up enough to realize we're still in public."
"Let's go some place private. Just for a moment. Or an hour. Or possibly two," murmured Ganesh, who finished with a lick to Charles' neck.
"Who's gonna watch the kid?" But at that moment, Elias suddenly screamed and leapt off the banquet table to fly with his giggling cousins.
"They're all in high spirits today!" said Wotan, who had come up with the children. “They’ll sleep soundly tonight.” He leaned over and pressed something into Charles's hand. "Don't break the damned bed," he whispered, "I'm going to need it." And then he strode off with the angel babies squealing around him.
Charles opened his hand for Ganesh to see. A room key.
And then they weren't sitting in the chair any more.
"Did you guess our THEME, Lady Raz?" Nathan inquired as the band shuffled off stage at last.
"Your theme?"
"Our MUSICAL THEME. Did you guess it?"
"Ooooo! A guessing game! I love guessing games! Does it have fuzzy ears and hop around? Is it an evil koala?" guessed Raziel.
"Is what an evil koala?" asked Nathan.
"What I'm guessing! No, wait, how many I's in team?"
"There'sch three i's in team," answered Murderface, who was an expert speller.
"Correct! Now, how what number am I thinking of?" asked Raziel.
"Ams blue?" asked Toki.
"Oh, you guys are too good for me!" she said.
"Where did Charles and Ganesh go?" asked Nathan, waving up at their empty chairs.
"Ams Bostons, Massachusettses?" inquired Toki, who couldn't stop guessing.
"Uh, they’re doing, stuff and things," said Raziel.
"They're off fucking?" asked Nathan.
"Well, would you rather they did it at the table?"
"No, probably not," Nathan sulked.
"It's OK, Nathan! They'll come back, and we can guess some more things, and have pie."
"I ams thinkings about pie!" Toki cheered.
"Yay! You win!" said Raziel, typing text into her phone.
"What was it you were smoking, anyway?" Charles asked as he carelessly knotted his tie. He grinned at his Dethphone, which contained a one word text from Raziel.
“Oh, my uncle evidently cultivates up in the Heavens,” Ganesh sighed. He sat on the edge of the rather vast bed in Wotan and Raziel’s rather vast suite in the InterDimensional, slipping on his shoes.
“Don’t tell Pickles,” Charles laughed. “You ready?”
Ganesh huffed and pulled Charles down into his lap where he untied and began to retie his tie. “Can’t have you looking like you just spent the past half hour off shagging.”
“That’s what we’ve been doing. Right? Wait, what is shagging again?"
"What we've just been doing," knotted Ganesh.
"Come on!” urged Charles. "Hurry up!"
“Dear, they cannot cut the cake without us.”
“The pie! The pie!”
“Yes. The pie. One moment! This will go faster if you quit thrashing!”
“You weren’t complaining a minute ago.”
“All right, that’s as good as it’s will be with you wriggling about.”
“Good,” said Charles, yanking him by the collar.
It was as big as one of the InterDimensional’s pools.
And that was only the bottom layer.
It rose up three stories, layer upon layer, to the very top, where stood a tiny plastic elephant and a little plastic angel upon whom someone had painted with black acrylic nail polish a very tiny skull and crossbones.
“Impressive, huh?” asked Raziel.
Charles wiped his eyes. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
“It is almost too grand to eat!” Ganesh told her.
“WHAT?” demanded Charles. “NEVER!”
“Well, you’re gonna have to wait, Pie Boy,” Raziel told him. “I had a cherry picker to lift you guys up to the top layer to cut it, but the thing ended up getting squnched by a falling tiki head.” She waved an arm at some ruined machinery.
“I don’t need no stinking cherry picker,” Charles declared, suddenly throwing off his tie and doffing his jacket.
“Oh, I just tied that. Ah, well,” said Ganesh. He held out his hand for the little silver pie cutter from Raziel, and was no sooner yanked up by Charles, who flew him up to the top layer. The angel babies squealed and followed them up, where Ganesh tossed them bits of cut pie, and then a somewhat larger slice for Charles, who really had never found much use for a pie cutter.
Jacque helped slice the remaining layers with his cutting power, and also marshaled the giddy angel babies to deliver plates of delicious dessert to the rest of the crowd.
“Is this RHUBARB?” Nathan asked.
“Rhubarb-strawberry-cherry-pumpkin-peach-apple-Dutch apple-lemon crème-key lime-pecan-blueberry-custard-chocolate-ice cream-huckleberry-peanut butter,” Raziel told him.
Charles had gotten at least one of each flavor and was sitting on the floor in the middle of the reception, still True Formed, literally wallowing in pie.
“You’re going to get that all over your wings if you don’t Court Form,” Ganesh laughed.
“So? Leftovers!” smacked Charles.
“BEHOLD! He has the seven bowls of wrath! See, I was telling you, Chango.”
“Orula, what the fuck do you want?” Ganesh asked testily.
“Orula, these aren’t bowls of wrath, they’re pie!” Charles laughed.
“He does have seven lampstands” Ganesh confessed. “He got them from IKEA.”
“You’re not a harbinger?” Orula asked, kneeling down next to him.
“I was. It didn’t work out to well. So I’m sticking to pie.”
Orula squealed and covered his head with his as an angel baby dove overhead with a plate of pie. Chango gracefully caught the plate. “Oi! Thanks, mate!” he cheered.
“Liam, grab me ‘nother slice?” Charles demanded of his nephew.
“Charles, you will get a tummy ache!” Ganesh told him as the little angel whisked off.
“Need to get eight plates instead o’ seven so Orula won’t worry.”
“You could TAKE AWAY a plate!” Ganesh suggested
“What fun would that be?”
“May one obtain ice cream with ones slice of Revelation?” Orula inquired of Abby, flitting by, who giggled and flew off.
"So you're VOODOO DUDES?" Nathan asked Orula as he stood up, reaching for his pie and ice cream. Pickles and Skwisgaar, both still in corpse paint, lingered nearby.
"Chango and I prefer to refer to ourselves as Santerpreneurs!" Orula proudly told the lead singer.
"We fulfill your undead needs!" Chango added. “Ones you don’t even know you had!”
"You gentlemen look like you would appreciate such things!" Orula grinned, regarding the ghoulish makeup. "We could provide corpse paint solutions!"
"Oi! With real corpses!" added Chango.
"Though some of them might still be moving," Orula noted.
"They do that."
"That might be bad ass," Nathan allowed, donning this reading glasses to look at the card Orula had just handed him. Meeting your undead needs since 1492," he read.
"We are nothing like those low rent operations," Orula hissed.
"Which we shall never mention," added Chango.
"Never shall it pass from our lips."
"Norns," coughed Chango.
"What ams dat?" asked Skwisgaar, suddenly looking up from noodling his Gibson.
Nathan looked skeptical, but then just barely managed to dodge a slice of coconut custard that had been hurled by a member of the cast and crew of Corazon de Azul, Luz Magnifico Balustrado having somehow managed to start a lively pie fight.
"NOBODY PIES NATHAN EXPLOSION," the lead singer thundered, sampling a dribble of pie filling that had ricocheted into his hair. "Mmm, coconut!" He ran off to grab some delicious pastry ammunition.
"You guys ams know da Norns?" Skwisgaar asked Orula, sidling over to the vodouisant.
"Low class buggers!" Orula told him, shaking pie out of his cape.
"Behind the times," sniffed Chango, wrapping his mink stole more tightly around his neck against the pie onslaught.
"They're still doing three wishes," said Orula, at which point, Chango started to snicker cruelly.
"Where ams deys? Do you knows?" Skwisgaar pressed, holding up his Gibson to deflect a bit of cherry cobbler.
"Oh, they're still in that horrible little storefront in Lambeth, aren't they?" asked Orula.
"Ooo, yeah, by the laundrette,” agreed Chango. “I saw them last time I had to steam clean my fox fur catsuit!"
“But they’re horrible,” stated Orula. “I wouldn’t- Aiiiii!” he squealed as he was battered by Key lime. “I’ll get you, foreign bahstards!” he thundered, suddenly raising up the entire fourth layer of the pie and bringing it down on the heads of the Roman pantheon, who immediately started tossing the bits of filling at the snickering Renaissance Angels at a nearby table.
“Pickle,” said Skwisgaar, grabbing the drummer before he could hurl a slice of strawberry rhubarb back at some howling banshees.
“Wut, dood?”
“You ams go with me to da Norns chicks?”
“Wut?”
“You ams go with me! Dey ams removes da curses from me, you ams stops your stages frights, and we ams gets da dry cleaningses done maybes!”
Pickles frowned. “I not gonna deal wit’ goddesses. Yoo heard Orula dood! Besides, dey always want somethin’ in return. Ain’t dat how yoo got in trouble wit’ da Norns in da first place?”
“Pffft! Pickle! We ams smartser dan dose goddesses chicks. And we ams gots da crooksed lawyer nows to saves our ass!” he reasoned, waving a hand.
Pickles looked over to where Ganesh and Nathan were laughing and alternately ducking behind Charles’ wings and throwing pies. Charles, blithely ignoring the melee, was still happily eating despite the strawberry filling dripping down his forehead.
“Maybe you ams finds something dats you wishes for, ja?” Skwisgaar asked. “Orula ams says we gots three.”
Pickles frowned. “Yeah. Mebbe.”
Nandi stood contentedly grazing in a quiet field amid the stone tiki heads. Someone - probably Raziel - had written “Just Married” across her broad haunch
A small group of gods and angels now gathered around.
“You sure you guys don’t want us to keep Boon overnight?” Raziel asked a now pie-coated Ganesh.
“No, I am going to gather up all of my angels - this one is mine, this one isn’t,” he said, putting down Liam and picking up Elias and plonking him onto Nandi’s back, “and we shall spend the evening together in our little cabin in quiet contemplation.”
“Quiet contemplation? With angels?” Raziel giggled as Ganesh grabbed Sariel around the waist and tossed him too up on Nandi’s back.
“Just one more sliiiiiiiice!” whined the angel, who was still somehow gripping a plate of blueberry peanut butter.
“Good luck, son,” grinned Wotan, as he shook Ganesh’s hand. The two men withdrew their hands, looking at their palms.
“Was that you or me with the pie filling?” Ganesh sighed ineffectually shaking out his hand.
"That was quite a dustup," laughed Wotan. "Mmm, lemon creme!"
Ganesh smiled and, mounting Nandi, spurred the bull skyward. Elias waved happily, while Charles wagged an elbow so as not to interfere with pie consumption.
Two gods stood on the beach. “Are we ready to set sail?” Jacque called up to his mate, aboard the Starlight Mermaid.
“All set, sir,” the sailor assured him. The man scurried away.
“We’re gonna take a couple extra days of repairs,” Poseidon told Jacque, shaking his hand.
“You’re gonna take a couple extra days holding up the motherfucking bar,” Jacque laughed.
“Cocksucker!” laughed Poseidon. He waved and strode back up the beach.
“Am I to understand you are debarking in the near future?”
Jacque turned to the sound of the lovely voice. “In a few moments, pretty lady.”
“I find myself here lacking a ride home.”
Jacque smiled. “Well, that’s a motherfucking shame. Tell me, you ever seen mermaids dancing in the wake?”
“No, I have never had the pleasure.”
“We saw some on the trip out.”
“CHARLES SAID I COULD GO BACK ON THE PIRATE SHIP!”
“Certainly, Nathan!” Jacque told the lead singer, who had just run up on the beach. “Now, you are aware, we might make a little motherfucking side trip!”
“SIDE TRIP?”
“There’s some pillaging to be done,” Jacque explained, winking at Parvati.
“PILLAGING?” thundered Nathan. “Seriously, dude, where do I sign unto be SHANGHAIED."
“You ams goes straights back to Mordhaus?” Skwisgaar inquired of Murderface.
“Thisch is the faschtest ride you will ever exschperiensche!” Murderface bragged. Skwisgaar scowled over his guitar. It was not quite an answer, but he was a bit eager to escape the proximity to any Hindu love goddesses who might be lurking in the vicinity, sabers at the ready.
“Dat ams fines,” said the Swede, suddenly noticing that Murderface was occupying the passenger seat.. “But, dudes, ams Dick Knubblers knows how to drives?”
“Hey, we’ll see, baby, yeah!” grinned the angel, slamming the car into gear.
“Aiiiiiii!” screamed Skwisgaar.
Pickles looked around, bleary-eyed, curiously wondering where his pants might have gotten to.
It seemed too big a problem for his nervous system to confront at the present time, so, puffing a dreadlock out of his mouth, he took a medium-sized glug from the bottle of vodka (spitting out a cigarette butt with some annoyance), snuggled back up against the naked girl (or goddess, it was hard to tell) who was presently occupying the same deck chair, and drifted back to unconsciousness.
“Oi, Mahster, isn’t this DARLING?”
Chango proudly held up the scarf for Orula’s approval.
“Are…. Are those tiny zombies amidst the design?” marveled the vodouisant, pushing up his thick glasses.
“Toki helped me with the stitching!” Chango told him, patting the guitarist affectionately on the knee.
“Aw, ams nothings,” said the modest Norwegian as Chago whipped the scarf (possibly unneeded, as it was currently in the eighties on the tropical island paradise of San Serriffe) stylishly around his neck.
“You will knit me one? Else I confine you to my CASTLE DUNGEON, BWA-HA-HA!” warned Orula.
“Ja, sure,” said Toki.
“Splendid,” said Orula.
Charles and Ganesh stood over the crib, listening to the lusty snores of their only son, passed out clutching his soft Lelefun and Wunge toys tightly to him.
"He is definitely part elephant," Ganesh grinned.
"Are you kidding? That's an angel snore!" Charles pointed out.
"I thought you were quite finished with being an angel?"
"It's definitely a pirate snore!"
"We should probably turn down the monitor a bit so he doesn't keep us up."
"You don't wanna stay up?" Charles asked as they made their way down the hallway to the bedroom.
"Of course. But I must admit,” said Ganesh, “after the events of today, I am a little shagged out."
"Do you remember anything that went on during the ceremony?" Charles asked.
"Yes, you smelt of vomit and cigarettes," Ganesh smiled, kissing his forehead.
“Oh. You do remember.”
“And you wore a shining mandala!”
“A three piece linen suit. But that’s close enough.”
“Do you know what I would care to do right now?” asked Ganesh, shutting the bedroom door.
“What? Anything! Should I get the wings out?”
Ganesh smiled, and pushed a CD into the small stereo. He held out his arms.
“Mahabharata?” grinned Charles. “Oh! Can we do the story with the laser beam eyes?"
“Certainly,” said Ganesh.
And they danced.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The big day arrives. On a pirate ship!
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, completely over the top swearing,
Notes: Notes on Part 1.
Chuck Schuldiner Memorial Amphitheater, San Serriffe....
The reception banquet had begun. Young Elias was sitting upon the head table, tiny elephant bib (courtesy his doting Auntie Sarasvati) tied around his neck, enjoying spoonfuls of tasty scrambled eggs and paneer from his daddies' plates.
Young Elias had learned many things in his young life, one of the most important of which was, it was always far more delicious if it originated on an adult's plate. (Or in his cocktail glass, but that was another story.)
"Dancing elephants," Charles grinned, watching the show on the amphitheater stage down below. "Your relatives kill me."
"They're your relatives too now, my shining chakra," grinned Ganesh, wiping his son’s chin. “Uh, I mean, Charles.” Ingestion of solid food had sobered him up a bit. But just a bit.
"Oh, crap. You're right."
"And now, dinnertime entertainment from Dethklok, babies, yeah!" Dick Knubbler announced from the stage.
“In honor of the OCCASION, we’re going to sing a LOVE SONG,” Nathan thundered.
The myriad choices of his fate
Set themselves out upon a plate
For him to choose
What had he to lose
Not a ghost bloodied country
All covered with sleep
Where the black angel did weep….
“Huh. First time I’ve heard that one described that way,” Charles shouted.
“Does your band often perform cover songs?” Ganesh shouted back.
“Naw. We’re cheap bastards. We don’t wanna pay royalties. But Papa just decided we’re outside of international copyright law here.”
“Your father did?”
“Yeah, I just made him Grand Vizier of San Serriffe.”
“That was awfully nice of you. And whatever is a Grand Vizier?”
“No fucking clue.”
“You know who I am,” he said
The speaker was an angel….
One of the massive ancient stone tiki heads that dotted the island, and which had loomed silently and mysteriously over the place for untold eons, cracked apart from the assault of Dethklok's mighty blare and began to roll down the hill, bearing straight towards a table full of Greek gods. They screamed and laughed and magicked the head aloft with a few lightning bolts just before impact. It hurled towards a table full of West African deities, who in turn batted it like a giant beach ball along to the next table.
But when they told me about that side of the bargain
That’s when I knew that I could not refuse…
"Did baby climb steps for Auntie? Did you?" inquired Raziel, who got an egg-y, cheese-y baby smooch in return from her nephew.
"I thought my immortal heart would stop," Ganesh admitted. "And I would become one with the mystical universe! Er….”
"We've been practicing!" Raziel told them.
"You have? You're a sneaky damn baby, Boon!" scolded Charles.
"OK, when your band is done, we're gonna have some embarrassing drunken toasts, and then you guys cut the pie," said Raziel.
"Raziel?" shouted Charles.
"Yeah?"
“Could we talk?”
She nodded, and, leaving Elias to be spooned the somewhat sober Ganesh’s daal, they walked far enough out into the field of mysterious stone tiki heads that surrounded the amphitheater to be away from the full force of Dethklok’s amplifiers.
"Raziel. This wedding is actually pretty cool. The food is good. And almost nobody's died yet!"
“OK,” said Raziel. She was silent for a moment, smiling faintly. “Look I know you. There’s no way you pulled me out here to say thanks.”
“Raziel,” said Charles. He suddenly looked despairing. “What do I fucking do now?”
Raziel waved for Charles to sit down on the base of a tiki head with her. “OK. You guys try to raise an angel kid. Which isn’t easy, but the things are pretty darned sturdy. And you try to keep your band out of trouble. And once in a while you fuck Ganesha’s brains out.” She shrugged. “Pretty much what you’ve been doing.”
“This is important. I wanted to do this for Boon.”
Raziel looked skeptically at Charles. “Oh, and it has NOTHING to do with Ganesh’s ass.”
Charles shrugged. “Well. OK. Maybe it has something to do with Ganesh’s ass. OK, maybe a lot.” He sat for a while. “Gods damn, he’s got a fine ass.”
“I know. I saw.”
“What? When?”
But Raziel only grinned. “And we try to keep us all safe from whatever the fuck Mother is up to.”
“You believe Our Father?”
“For what it’s worth, Brahma agrees with him. As does my father.”
Charles frowned. “I was just trying to tell Pickles that. That we’re here to protect him.”
“And he didn’t go for it,” Raziel stated.
Charles looked at her questioningly.
“He’s a mortal, Sariel. I know you don’t think you’re an angel any more, but he does. What he wants is for you to flutter your magical feathery wings and make everything all better,” she said, wriggling her fingers.
"I don't think that's what he wants.”
"That's exactly what he wants. And you can't give him what he wants."
"Well. That's true at least."
“We should be getting back,” said Raziel, standing up.
“We don’t gotta do the dance thing, right?”
“No, you won’t have to dance. I’ve told you that. But you know Ganesha loves dancing?”
“Yeah,” Charles shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.”
Angel came down from heaven yesterday
Stayed with me just long enough to rescue me....
And she told me a story yesterday
About the sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea…
Parvati watched from her pantheon’s table, fuming, as Raziel walked off with that other angel.
Her son-in-law.
She had just one thought on her mind.
Was that an Orry Kelly that angel bitch was wearing now?
"You saved a dance for me, pretty lady?"
Parvati blinked her gorgeous eyes. Parvati could have been described - and probably had been described - by any number of adjectives in her long existence. "Pretty" was not one of them. It fell criminally short.
But here was this impossibly rude little man grinning and extending a hand.
And here she was, taking it.
Bird land on fifty-three
The street sounds like a symphony
We got John Coltrane and a love supreme
Miles, she's got to be an angel.
“So, Charles is part angel?”
Ganesh looked up from spooning lentils to his son to see Orula and Chango hovering over his shoulder. Chango waved pleasantly, but Orula looked uncharacteristically grave.
“Yes?” said Ganesh, narrowing his eyes.
“We need to know which part!” But Orula suddenly found himself pulled down by the collar so he was literally eye to eye with Ganesh.
“I am actually part Lord of Destruction. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW WHICH PART?”
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed ‘til the morning comes….
Charles returned to the banquet table, but didn't quite make it back to his seat, as Ganesh abruptly pulled him down into his lap.
"Something about a three piece suit," the elephant god muttered as he unfastened the vest, "Makes me desire to see what lies underneath."
"You know damned well what's underneath," Charles laughed. "What did Chango and Orula want?"
"Oh, what do they ever want?" Ganesh muttered into Charles’ shoulder as his hand groped his midsection beneath the tempting vest.
"Ganesh. Uh. You have sobered up enough to realize we're still in public."
"Let's go some place private. Just for a moment. Or an hour. Or possibly two," murmured Ganesh, who finished with a lick to Charles' neck.
"Who's gonna watch the kid?" But at that moment, Elias suddenly screamed and leapt off the banquet table to fly with his giggling cousins.
"They're all in high spirits today!" said Wotan, who had come up with the children. “They’ll sleep soundly tonight.” He leaned over and pressed something into Charles's hand. "Don't break the damned bed," he whispered, "I'm going to need it." And then he strode off with the angel babies squealing around him.
Charles opened his hand for Ganesh to see. A room key.
And then they weren't sitting in the chair any more.
"Did you guess our THEME, Lady Raz?" Nathan inquired as the band shuffled off stage at last.
"Your theme?"
"Our MUSICAL THEME. Did you guess it?"
"Ooooo! A guessing game! I love guessing games! Does it have fuzzy ears and hop around? Is it an evil koala?" guessed Raziel.
"Is what an evil koala?" asked Nathan.
"What I'm guessing! No, wait, how many I's in team?"
"There'sch three i's in team," answered Murderface, who was an expert speller.
"Correct! Now, how what number am I thinking of?" asked Raziel.
"Ams blue?" asked Toki.
"Oh, you guys are too good for me!" she said.
"Where did Charles and Ganesh go?" asked Nathan, waving up at their empty chairs.
"Ams Bostons, Massachusettses?" inquired Toki, who couldn't stop guessing.
"Uh, they’re doing, stuff and things," said Raziel.
"They're off fucking?" asked Nathan.
"Well, would you rather they did it at the table?"
"No, probably not," Nathan sulked.
"It's OK, Nathan! They'll come back, and we can guess some more things, and have pie."
"I ams thinkings about pie!" Toki cheered.
"Yay! You win!" said Raziel, typing text into her phone.
"What was it you were smoking, anyway?" Charles asked as he carelessly knotted his tie. He grinned at his Dethphone, which contained a one word text from Raziel.
“Oh, my uncle evidently cultivates up in the Heavens,” Ganesh sighed. He sat on the edge of the rather vast bed in Wotan and Raziel’s rather vast suite in the InterDimensional, slipping on his shoes.
“Don’t tell Pickles,” Charles laughed. “You ready?”
Ganesh huffed and pulled Charles down into his lap where he untied and began to retie his tie. “Can’t have you looking like you just spent the past half hour off shagging.”
“That’s what we’ve been doing. Right? Wait, what is shagging again?"
"What we've just been doing," knotted Ganesh.
"Come on!” urged Charles. "Hurry up!"
“Dear, they cannot cut the cake without us.”
“The pie! The pie!”
“Yes. The pie. One moment! This will go faster if you quit thrashing!”
“You weren’t complaining a minute ago.”
“All right, that’s as good as it’s will be with you wriggling about.”
“Good,” said Charles, yanking him by the collar.
It was as big as one of the InterDimensional’s pools.
And that was only the bottom layer.
It rose up three stories, layer upon layer, to the very top, where stood a tiny plastic elephant and a little plastic angel upon whom someone had painted with black acrylic nail polish a very tiny skull and crossbones.
“Impressive, huh?” asked Raziel.
Charles wiped his eyes. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
“It is almost too grand to eat!” Ganesh told her.
“WHAT?” demanded Charles. “NEVER!”
“Well, you’re gonna have to wait, Pie Boy,” Raziel told him. “I had a cherry picker to lift you guys up to the top layer to cut it, but the thing ended up getting squnched by a falling tiki head.” She waved an arm at some ruined machinery.
“I don’t need no stinking cherry picker,” Charles declared, suddenly throwing off his tie and doffing his jacket.
“Oh, I just tied that. Ah, well,” said Ganesh. He held out his hand for the little silver pie cutter from Raziel, and was no sooner yanked up by Charles, who flew him up to the top layer. The angel babies squealed and followed them up, where Ganesh tossed them bits of cut pie, and then a somewhat larger slice for Charles, who really had never found much use for a pie cutter.
Jacque helped slice the remaining layers with his cutting power, and also marshaled the giddy angel babies to deliver plates of delicious dessert to the rest of the crowd.
“Is this RHUBARB?” Nathan asked.
“Rhubarb-strawberry-cherry-pumpkin-peach-apple-Dutch apple-lemon crème-key lime-pecan-blueberry-custard-chocolate-ice cream-huckleberry-peanut butter,” Raziel told him.
Charles had gotten at least one of each flavor and was sitting on the floor in the middle of the reception, still True Formed, literally wallowing in pie.
“You’re going to get that all over your wings if you don’t Court Form,” Ganesh laughed.
“So? Leftovers!” smacked Charles.
“BEHOLD! He has the seven bowls of wrath! See, I was telling you, Chango.”
“Orula, what the fuck do you want?” Ganesh asked testily.
“Orula, these aren’t bowls of wrath, they’re pie!” Charles laughed.
“He does have seven lampstands” Ganesh confessed. “He got them from IKEA.”
“You’re not a harbinger?” Orula asked, kneeling down next to him.
“I was. It didn’t work out to well. So I’m sticking to pie.”
Orula squealed and covered his head with his as an angel baby dove overhead with a plate of pie. Chango gracefully caught the plate. “Oi! Thanks, mate!” he cheered.
“Liam, grab me ‘nother slice?” Charles demanded of his nephew.
“Charles, you will get a tummy ache!” Ganesh told him as the little angel whisked off.
“Need to get eight plates instead o’ seven so Orula won’t worry.”
“You could TAKE AWAY a plate!” Ganesh suggested
“What fun would that be?”
“May one obtain ice cream with ones slice of Revelation?” Orula inquired of Abby, flitting by, who giggled and flew off.
"So you're VOODOO DUDES?" Nathan asked Orula as he stood up, reaching for his pie and ice cream. Pickles and Skwisgaar, both still in corpse paint, lingered nearby.
"Chango and I prefer to refer to ourselves as Santerpreneurs!" Orula proudly told the lead singer.
"We fulfill your undead needs!" Chango added. “Ones you don’t even know you had!”
"You gentlemen look like you would appreciate such things!" Orula grinned, regarding the ghoulish makeup. "We could provide corpse paint solutions!"
"Oi! With real corpses!" added Chango.
"Though some of them might still be moving," Orula noted.
"They do that."
"That might be bad ass," Nathan allowed, donning this reading glasses to look at the card Orula had just handed him. Meeting your undead needs since 1492," he read.
"We are nothing like those low rent operations," Orula hissed.
"Which we shall never mention," added Chango.
"Never shall it pass from our lips."
"Norns," coughed Chango.
"What ams dat?" asked Skwisgaar, suddenly looking up from noodling his Gibson.
Nathan looked skeptical, but then just barely managed to dodge a slice of coconut custard that had been hurled by a member of the cast and crew of Corazon de Azul, Luz Magnifico Balustrado having somehow managed to start a lively pie fight.
"NOBODY PIES NATHAN EXPLOSION," the lead singer thundered, sampling a dribble of pie filling that had ricocheted into his hair. "Mmm, coconut!" He ran off to grab some delicious pastry ammunition.
"You guys ams know da Norns?" Skwisgaar asked Orula, sidling over to the vodouisant.
"Low class buggers!" Orula told him, shaking pie out of his cape.
"Behind the times," sniffed Chango, wrapping his mink stole more tightly around his neck against the pie onslaught.
"They're still doing three wishes," said Orula, at which point, Chango started to snicker cruelly.
"Where ams deys? Do you knows?" Skwisgaar pressed, holding up his Gibson to deflect a bit of cherry cobbler.
"Oh, they're still in that horrible little storefront in Lambeth, aren't they?" asked Orula.
"Ooo, yeah, by the laundrette,” agreed Chango. “I saw them last time I had to steam clean my fox fur catsuit!"
“But they’re horrible,” stated Orula. “I wouldn’t- Aiiiii!” he squealed as he was battered by Key lime. “I’ll get you, foreign bahstards!” he thundered, suddenly raising up the entire fourth layer of the pie and bringing it down on the heads of the Roman pantheon, who immediately started tossing the bits of filling at the snickering Renaissance Angels at a nearby table.
“Pickle,” said Skwisgaar, grabbing the drummer before he could hurl a slice of strawberry rhubarb back at some howling banshees.
“Wut, dood?”
“You ams go with me to da Norns chicks?”
“Wut?”
“You ams go with me! Dey ams removes da curses from me, you ams stops your stages frights, and we ams gets da dry cleaningses done maybes!”
Pickles frowned. “I not gonna deal wit’ goddesses. Yoo heard Orula dood! Besides, dey always want somethin’ in return. Ain’t dat how yoo got in trouble wit’ da Norns in da first place?”
“Pffft! Pickle! We ams smartser dan dose goddesses chicks. And we ams gots da crooksed lawyer nows to saves our ass!” he reasoned, waving a hand.
Pickles looked over to where Ganesh and Nathan were laughing and alternately ducking behind Charles’ wings and throwing pies. Charles, blithely ignoring the melee, was still happily eating despite the strawberry filling dripping down his forehead.
“Maybe you ams finds something dats you wishes for, ja?” Skwisgaar asked. “Orula ams says we gots three.”
Pickles frowned. “Yeah. Mebbe.”
Nandi stood contentedly grazing in a quiet field amid the stone tiki heads. Someone - probably Raziel - had written “Just Married” across her broad haunch
A small group of gods and angels now gathered around.
“You sure you guys don’t want us to keep Boon overnight?” Raziel asked a now pie-coated Ganesh.
“No, I am going to gather up all of my angels - this one is mine, this one isn’t,” he said, putting down Liam and picking up Elias and plonking him onto Nandi’s back, “and we shall spend the evening together in our little cabin in quiet contemplation.”
“Quiet contemplation? With angels?” Raziel giggled as Ganesh grabbed Sariel around the waist and tossed him too up on Nandi’s back.
“Just one more sliiiiiiiice!” whined the angel, who was still somehow gripping a plate of blueberry peanut butter.
“Good luck, son,” grinned Wotan, as he shook Ganesh’s hand. The two men withdrew their hands, looking at their palms.
“Was that you or me with the pie filling?” Ganesh sighed ineffectually shaking out his hand.
"That was quite a dustup," laughed Wotan. "Mmm, lemon creme!"
Ganesh smiled and, mounting Nandi, spurred the bull skyward. Elias waved happily, while Charles wagged an elbow so as not to interfere with pie consumption.
Two gods stood on the beach. “Are we ready to set sail?” Jacque called up to his mate, aboard the Starlight Mermaid.
“All set, sir,” the sailor assured him. The man scurried away.
“We’re gonna take a couple extra days of repairs,” Poseidon told Jacque, shaking his hand.
“You’re gonna take a couple extra days holding up the motherfucking bar,” Jacque laughed.
“Cocksucker!” laughed Poseidon. He waved and strode back up the beach.
“Am I to understand you are debarking in the near future?”
Jacque turned to the sound of the lovely voice. “In a few moments, pretty lady.”
“I find myself here lacking a ride home.”
Jacque smiled. “Well, that’s a motherfucking shame. Tell me, you ever seen mermaids dancing in the wake?”
“No, I have never had the pleasure.”
“We saw some on the trip out.”
“CHARLES SAID I COULD GO BACK ON THE PIRATE SHIP!”
“Certainly, Nathan!” Jacque told the lead singer, who had just run up on the beach. “Now, you are aware, we might make a little motherfucking side trip!”
“SIDE TRIP?”
“There’s some pillaging to be done,” Jacque explained, winking at Parvati.
“PILLAGING?” thundered Nathan. “Seriously, dude, where do I sign unto be SHANGHAIED."
“You ams goes straights back to Mordhaus?” Skwisgaar inquired of Murderface.
“Thisch is the faschtest ride you will ever exschperiensche!” Murderface bragged. Skwisgaar scowled over his guitar. It was not quite an answer, but he was a bit eager to escape the proximity to any Hindu love goddesses who might be lurking in the vicinity, sabers at the ready.
“Dat ams fines,” said the Swede, suddenly noticing that Murderface was occupying the passenger seat.. “But, dudes, ams Dick Knubblers knows how to drives?”
“Hey, we’ll see, baby, yeah!” grinned the angel, slamming the car into gear.
“Aiiiiiii!” screamed Skwisgaar.
Pickles looked around, bleary-eyed, curiously wondering where his pants might have gotten to.
It seemed too big a problem for his nervous system to confront at the present time, so, puffing a dreadlock out of his mouth, he took a medium-sized glug from the bottle of vodka (spitting out a cigarette butt with some annoyance), snuggled back up against the naked girl (or goddess, it was hard to tell) who was presently occupying the same deck chair, and drifted back to unconsciousness.
“Oi, Mahster, isn’t this DARLING?”
Chango proudly held up the scarf for Orula’s approval.
“Are…. Are those tiny zombies amidst the design?” marveled the vodouisant, pushing up his thick glasses.
“Toki helped me with the stitching!” Chango told him, patting the guitarist affectionately on the knee.
“Aw, ams nothings,” said the modest Norwegian as Chago whipped the scarf (possibly unneeded, as it was currently in the eighties on the tropical island paradise of San Serriffe) stylishly around his neck.
“You will knit me one? Else I confine you to my CASTLE DUNGEON, BWA-HA-HA!” warned Orula.
“Ja, sure,” said Toki.
“Splendid,” said Orula.
Charles and Ganesh stood over the crib, listening to the lusty snores of their only son, passed out clutching his soft Lelefun and Wunge toys tightly to him.
"He is definitely part elephant," Ganesh grinned.
"Are you kidding? That's an angel snore!" Charles pointed out.
"I thought you were quite finished with being an angel?"
"It's definitely a pirate snore!"
"We should probably turn down the monitor a bit so he doesn't keep us up."
"You don't wanna stay up?" Charles asked as they made their way down the hallway to the bedroom.
"Of course. But I must admit,” said Ganesh, “after the events of today, I am a little shagged out."
"Do you remember anything that went on during the ceremony?" Charles asked.
"Yes, you smelt of vomit and cigarettes," Ganesh smiled, kissing his forehead.
“Oh. You do remember.”
“And you wore a shining mandala!”
“A three piece linen suit. But that’s close enough.”
“Do you know what I would care to do right now?” asked Ganesh, shutting the bedroom door.
“What? Anything! Should I get the wings out?”
Ganesh smiled, and pushed a CD into the small stereo. He held out his arms.
“Mahabharata?” grinned Charles. “Oh! Can we do the story with the laser beam eyes?"
“Certainly,” said Ganesh.
And they danced.