Chapter Text
Ned was thoroughly enjoying his little walkabout, as a momentary reprieve from the daily doldrums of being in retirement. Not that life was not perfect as a retired god, as advanced in age as one might imagine. Having been around the same gods for so long had become nerve-wracking; a millennium is a long time. Ned was one of the older ones. So ancient, his nickname was employed as humans could not even remember the name they gave him in the time before. Now when they found remembrances of his people, they called him “The banded eye god.” Life was good at the Axis Mundi, if not prosaic.
In his day, gods walked amongst their people, to be worshiped and honored. Now men worshiped their smartphones.
I suppose this is what man called progress, he thought to himself as he hiked through the overgrown brush. At least his deal was not as painful as he initially thought it might be with Munshin, or Jin as their group of friends addressed him, the god of doorways. All he had to do was look for a proper mate for the lonely god, that he had been robbed of, Jin that is, not Ned. Ned. Ned couldn't understand all the fuss around this or why Jin didn't just try computer dating, because this whole business seemed a little extreme, but what did he know? This way, he got to revisit the earth, where he felt most comfortable. Ned could take or leave relationships but he could see the benefit of a traveling companion. Jin would port him to earth regularly for this task.
As usual, he was using his time wisely and hiking in the undeveloped forests of the Korean Peninsula. The habitat very much reminded him of what it used to be like in his homeland before archeologists and treasure hunters trying to find the villages where his people once lived. Ned did not want to encounter people, so he took his commission from Jin to find his wife, and he got a peaceful vacation out of it. Hwanung god of knowledge, or Namjoon had some dealings many, many moons ago, that should have resulted in a mate for Jin, but something had gone amiss. Now the two gods fought like cats and dogs. For the better part of the past 6,000 years. It was exhausting to be around, but an easy enough to promise to make, to keep an eye out.
Ned was hiking along, minding his own business when he heard something, he never thought he would overhear on the Korean peninsula.
Ned had heard big cats when he ruled the Meso Americas, but a tiger was a new sound. Alongside the roar, Ned could detect another noise. ‘Quack Quack Quack QUACK.’ Ned thought he heard the smooth and mellow tones of the distressed Peking Duck. Ned picked up his pace and double-timed it towards the cacophony. Humans usually didn’t know a lot per se’ about the gods. They thought gods were good at everything or many things, often they were only good at one thing, and if they were incredibly powerful, the god might have two or three tricks up their sleeves. They lived forever sure, but getting mauled by a tiger still hurt. But
Ned was curious by nature, and that duck had been quacking for way too long. Ned was an older god, and thus was good at more than just one thing, most of his powers had to do with nature and the world around him, as you would suspect of a god of the Meso Americas.
When he arrived at the clearing, he became more confused. Up in a tree was the tiger. Covering its ears and looking for all the world like it was trying to hide from a terribly angry Peking duck, who audaciously was hanging from the tiger’s tail. The tiger let out another, pathetic wail that sounded almost human to Ned. For a moment, the tiger made eye contact with the confused god.
Shaking himself, from his inner musings, the god finally came to the tiger’s rescue. Reaching behind the duck, he plucked it from the tiger’s tail and made a “shooing” noise while pushing the duck from behind. The duck looked put upon for a moment but then decided that perhaps now was the time to move along. Sticking its ruffled tail feathers higher in a final act of triumph as if to say, “Come at me, bro.” The duck waddled off into the sunset.
He had considered briefly that the duck might make a decent mate for Jin, but then had second thoughts.
The duck would be the nagging sort. Ned thought himself fancifully. He barely had time to laugh at himself before he had 300 lbs of tiger falling on top of him and licking him messily like he was an appetizer. Once he caught his breath, he found that the tiger was not tasting him but acting like an overgrown puppy, which was just as odd.
“Woah, Woah, Woah, Woah what are you doing out here, shouldn’t you be in India or Africa? Why are you so far from home?” The tiger, still with the very sentient and cognitive eyes started chuffing at him, making this conversation more awkward than anything. Finally, having had enough of trying to read an unnatural tiger’s mind, he simply changed the tiger into something that could talk. What stood before Ned was now something he could speak to. Standing in front of him was a very leggy, and naked man with the most prominent and expressive doe-like eyes. Not all signs of the earlier incarnation had been eliminated. Lateral black stripes decorating the man’s slim but firm torso. Starting from his below his breast bone, down his ribs and ending at where his v line would be just peeking out of skinny jeans; were he not completely naked. While Ned is not a purveyor of flesh, however since he created this flesh, he found himself thinking, Not bad.
“Okay, let us start at the beginning. How did you get here, and what is up with the duck?” Ned arched an eyebrow at the now Demi-god standing in front of him. “Ah, well that. I was supposed to be for one of the gods, along time ago. So, this guy introduces himself as Ragoo, I think, asks my friend and me if we want to be human. Nice girl, little overweight, but good heart, kinda dumb, though. Oh yeah, she was a bear. He just tells us he is trying to inhabit the land; he doesn’t tell us there is a caveat to the whole thing. Like we were supposed to stay in a cave and eat nothing but mugwort for thirty days. I really thought it was just because she had a little too much junk in her trunk from hibernation, but who knows. Any way-Here we are on like day twenty, and honestly, if you are expecting something from someone after this big ordeal, why would you lock them in a cave for thirty days and tell them to eat nothing but roots for the duration? We are meat eaters, who does that even? I overheard him talking to someone, Bin or Jinny. I don’t remember really about how I was going to be this god’s bride. I did not sign up for a marriage contract, nobody asked me, so I may have left before the thirty days was up. I am still here after all that time. Still, I never attained “humanity,” so you are sort of right as a tiger I should not be here. Still, I refuse to be some predestined gods mail order bride just because they order me to. I am not steak, you can't just say, get me a tiger, medium rare for a lifelong commitment and expect me to be pliant. Besides, I was only two years old, like that is way too young to get married.”
Ned found himself entirely charmed by the fiery Demi-god, and he also found himself not wanting to give her up to Mushin. Well, something would be figured out in the long run, he was much older than Jin, and if anything, Korean gods believed in respecting their elders. He could always pull rank. He looked at his lovely half creation and said, “What about the duck?” “The duck.” The tiger blushed prettily, “Well, the duck had hatched ducklings, and they were walking in the most adorable line. I just wanted to play with them. The silly duck freaked out and thought I wanted to eat them, but I would never, they were so soft and sweet.” The newly formed demi-god started to giggle and chortle and suddenly, Snort. *
Dear god, he snorts when he laughs. I would have thought that it would be more, dulcet, his laugh. This is awesome.
“Well, it has been entertaining, I have a quest to go on would you like to join me, erm do you have a name?” Ned asked as if leaving a naked demi-god would be of little consequence. “Nobody has ever had a reason to call me anything.” Looking puzzled and unacquainted with what the possibilities may be, Ned decided to help her out. There is a poem that I am partial to, by Kim Chun-Soo called The Flower.
“Before I called his name,
he was nothing more than a gesture.
When I called his name,
he came to me and became a flower.”
“How about Petal since you became a flower? My flower.” The demi-god looked like he was profoundly considering this as if it were the most important question ever asked. For that matter, it was probably the first time his opinion had ever been asked on any topic of importance. As most gods will tell you, names have power. “I like it,” he said. The only thing close to a name I have had was when I was a small cub. My mother would call me Tae. Still, humans indeed have never called by Ned snapped his fingers, and Petal was suddenly wearing proper traveling clothes.
Petal looked at him, his dark angular eyebrows reaching to the top of his hairline, “If you could have done that before, why was I standing here naked?” Ned thought to himself, Oh, he is quick and then said, “I was not sure what you would like.” Yeah, it sounded lame even to his ear. It took Petal precisely three seconds to before he said, “do you have anything in Gucci, from the fall line perhaps?” “Where are we going?” said Petal. Ned looked at her with a knowing smirk, “We are off to find a companion for my friend, who is very lonely.” Petal smiled as she slipped her hand into Ned’s. They took three Petal when suddenly Ned felt something tap his rear end. “What the heck..” he jostled. He turned and looked at Petal. “Did you just goose me?”
Petal looked at him, dead in the eye, and raised both hands, one of which was still grasped in his very own. Petal prettily shrugged, but what he didn’t know is that one of the things that Ned was known for as in the reason he was known as “the banded eye god” was that he had the gift of an all-seeing eye. He was aware that it was, in fact, Petal that goosed him, and furthermore that she had done it with her tail, that she was still in possession of. He channeled his nature power, to call a vine to smack him upside the rear end.
“Squeak,” the high-pitched noise came from his throat involuntarily. Petal stopped and really looked at him, “Did you just..” Ned looked at his Petal innocently, held up both hands, one of whose still held his, and shrugged his shoulders. Petal was not buying it either. Ned would tell him later that he could communicate with the vines and nature around them, thought Ned to himself. Ned had a feeling that life would never be prosaic, again at least not with his Petal by his side.
It is definitely only the beginning.....
TBC