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an 'i was bored' mini-special.
IP: 82.14.67.140
Posted on February 4, 2012 at 04:08:05 AM by georgia

had the idea so i rolled with it. hope you all enjoy xP

“I’ve never thought about it before,” Thoth stoked the fire gently, frowning at the flames. “But what happens when you trade a coin? How does it give you a power? Where does it go? And where do coins come from?” He looked hopefully around at the room’s other occupants. Penguin the Great Dane was sprawled out next to him, looking like a picture of pure bliss as he soaked up the heat from the fire. His fairy, Thoth’s half-sister Poppy, was lying perpendicular to the dog with her head on his chest as if it were a pillow, gazing absently up at the ceiling. Curled up on his other side was the black cat Sperantia, who had already been lulled into a light doze by the warmth. Her fairy was standing next to the fireplace, slightly apart from the group. Although his face was half-concealed by dancing shadows, Thoth could just make out the beginnings of a frown which coincided with an increase in the volume of Sperantia’s purr. The tension was new and immediate. Thoth could read nothing in Mallos’ carefully controlled face, but not even the most insensitive of people could fail to notice the icy atmosphere. Whether for good or for bad, Poppy was more insensitive than the most insensitive of people. “Well, it’s DAD, isn’t it?” She muttered lazily. “Your dad is dead,” Thoth said, mystified. “And mine hasn’t got anything to do with coins.” “Not your dad or my dad, you dolt.” She glanced up in time to see the puzzled look Thoth shot at Mallos. “Not anybody’s dad. D. A. D. They’re initials, for… I dunno how to pronounce it.” She looked expectantly at Mallos, but it was Sperantia who answered. “Daeniganiaseftigi Anaotisynyko Djniomopetemia.” “Yeah that. The inventor guy, right? Right, Mal?” She threw one of her dog’s chew toys at his arm. He grunted irritably, muttered something none of them could hear and stalked out of the room. Thoth watched him go, noting with interest that they seemed to have hit a nerve – something which didn’t happen particularly often with the Spaniard. “Don’t mind him, all the originals get pissy whenever anyone tries to talk about DAD,” Poppy explained. “He was a normal mortal fairy, one of the first ones in history… only something like the fifth or sixth generation. Before wings evolved. Back in those days, the only way anyone could get powers was by being born with them or asking an original for them. The deities were so overrun with people asking them for stuff that they didn’t have any time of their own. Apparently, Aura was hit the worst – one of the stories says that she held court for a century and didn’t sleep the whole time.” “How do you know this?” “My old caretaker from Etna told me. Anyway, this DAD dude noticed how bad things were getting and he tried to see if he could invent something to help the gods out a bit. He started tinkering with magic and eventually found a way to plant some kind of magic seed thing which grew into a crystal tree which bore emerald leaves and ruby apples.” “Emerald leaves,” Thoth echoed. “Like the ones people give to deities when they want a quest?” “Yep, same ones. In the autumn time, if the ruby apples were still unpicked they turned into gold coins. DAD harvested the coins and realised that there was an inherent power within them. They had a kind of life force of their own. After a lot of years experimenting, he realised that the one thing the coins wanted was to return to their tree, and using their own magic they could achieve that with a wish of a person. When you wish upon a coin, it returns to the tree from whence it came. The burst of magic which is released as it teleports off sorta grants you your wish, as long as what you want isn’t something more magical than the power of the coins themselves. When DAD figured this out, he planted a whole orchard of crystal trees and started harvesting the coins and sending them to fairies around the world. Because people had a way of getting magic for themselves, they didn’t need to be knocking on the deities’ doors every five minutes. The deities were so grateful they offered to grant DAD any three wishes which the power of the coins couldn’t give him. Kinda a bad move, in hindsight, but I guess it was a nice intention. “DAD went off and thought about it, and he came back to the originals and asked to live forever, like them. So they made him immortal and he skipped off, all merry like.” “Hang on,” Thoth interrupted. “Coins can grant immortality. I thought you said they would give him wishes which the coins couldn’t give him?” “Coins couldn’t grant immortality in those days. It’s all explained in the story, I’m getting there,” she waved her hand flippantly at him. “Anyway. Then DAD went off and didn’t return for a hundred years. While he was gone, the deities started noticing a growing problem. Because of the abundance of coins, fairies could get whatever powers they wanted, whenever they wanted – and some of them were becoming almost as powerful as the gods. Some people were beginning to question what right they had to be gods. On top of that, during the hundred year period, some people began to worship DAD instead. So when DAD returned, the gods weren’t overly happy with him. “He said to them, ‘I have come for my second wish. My second wish is to become a god among you. For see; I have been deified and the people regard me as their god. Is it not right that I should join you?’ Which kinda stunned the originals, to say the least. They didn’t know what to do then, because they couldn’t go back on their promise to grant him any wish he wanted, but they didn’t want to make him a god. They was all arguing and shouting at one another, and then through the chaos Mallos says calmly, ‘He doesn’t want to be a god. If he doesn’t wish it, why should we grant it?’” Thoth raised his eyebrows. “DAD was lying? How did Mallos know?” “The stories say he could understand everything about a person just by reading their face,” Poppy replied scathingly, “but I reckon he just had a better grasp of telepathy than the other originals. This was when they was all only young, by their terms, and they didn’t have full control of their divinity by then… it takes thousands of years to be able to control pure magic completely. And I dunno if DAD was lying… I reckon Mallos meant that it was the consequences of being named a god that DAD didn’t really want in his heart of hearts. Anyway, Mallos said this and Aura backed him up, and no one felt like disagreeing with Aura because she had about five times as much control over her power as anyone else, so they told DAD that they couldn’t grant something he didn’t truly wish for.” “Bet he liked that.” “Went ballistic, apparently. Swore to them that he would outlive them all, and when they were dead and gone he would rise as the one true god. Then he buggered back off to his orchard and did a couple of clever things to piss the originals off. Firstly, he took a speck of his immortality – don’t ask me what that means ’coz I dunno – and stuck it in the fertiliser he used on his favourite tree. From that day onwards, immortality has been a gift which can be given by coins. Then he gathered together some ancient rune stones – the oldest form of magic, even older than divinity – and he used them to cast a spell on the trees’ leaves. He made it so that the gods would always crave emerald leaves, kinda like catnip, and set it up so that the originals could tap into the power of the coins if they sent a brave adventurer on a quest or something. Basically, the emerald leaves work in a kind of reverse way to coins, so the gods are still needed in the process rather than fairies doing it for themselves – DAD’s way of sticking his middle finger up at them, I guess. Then he vanished and took his orchard with him. Nobody knows if he died or what – he hasn’t been seen since. After he left, everybody panicked, thinking coins’d just run out without their trees… so people started seeing them as more precious and stopped spending them so much. Old DAD had managed to harvest quite a lot of coins before he vamoosed. We’re all still running on those.” “No new ones have been created?” Thoth frowned. “We’re still running on coin supplies from millions of years ago? How does that work? And how do they end up in Shaman?” “I dunno,” Poppy replied. “It’s just a story, innit? Who knows how much of it is true? Well, I guess the gods do, but they don’t tend to talk about stuff like that. I think they like being mysterious.” There was a brief pause. “Why did Aura have five times as much control over her power as anyone else?” Thoth asked in a slightly smaller voice. “Talent and practice,” Poppy reached up to scratch her dog’s ear affectionately. “Had a natural gift for it, and apparently while all the other gods were out partying, she just sat and focused on trying to control her powers. Took them thousands of years to catch up with her. The originals are all more or less equally powerful now, of course, ’coz their magic is all the same and they can now control it to roughly the same extent… but Aura got to grips with it a lot quicker than the others, which kinda made everyone believe for a while that she was more powerful. Reckon that probably caused a lot of upset with the rest of the deities.” A grin flashed across Poppy’s face as she thought of the potential jealousy and chaos. “Aura was kind of overwhelmingly popular with the general fairy population, and then the other originals didn’t like her much. Not such a hot position to be in, really, with one group fawning over you and the other trying to curse you in your sleep. Not surprised she used to lock herself away with her magic, if it’s true.” “They tried to curse her in her sleep? I thought the originals were friends?” “They’re friendlier now they don’t have to put up with each other so much, living in separate countries and all, but you take a bunch of people with strong personalities and stick them together for a few centuries… well, it ain’t pretty. Time works differently for them too, so they were all a bit immature and hadn’t had long enough to form friendships. One of the reasons the council was formed was to try and bring them all together a bit… before they all split and went their separate ways, they were all fighting and arguing and trying to curse each other. Half of the shit in the Old Testament is ’coz of their disagreements.” There was another pause while Thoth tried to think of a way of changing the subject. “When you say that the emerald leaves are like catnip to gods – ” “Not so much anymore… guess the spell has worn down over time, so they don’t go as crazy for them as they used to. They still really like them, though. If ever you need anything from a god, best way to get it is by waving an emerald leaf under their nose. ’Course, some are harder to negotiate with than others,” Poppy nodded to the door through which Mallos had vanished earlier. “Don’t ever try and negotiate anything with him, by the way. He’s a bugger for screwing people over without them realising. Apparently the spell was never as effective on him as it was on the others, either because he’s not that bothered about god duties or because he’s got more self-control. My caretaker used to say,” she paused for a moment, eying Sperantia. The cat-familiar appeared to be asleep, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was. “My caretaker used to say that Mallos is the freest man on the planet, and therefore the loneliest. It’s kinda ironic that he found his family but lost his freedom at the same time.” Thoth turned back to the fire. “What happens when the coin supply dries up?” “Dunno,” Poppy scratched her head. “Could be bad news for the originals, if they all have to go back on permanent power duty. Or maybe DAD will show up again and smite them all.” That created a worrying thought. “Could DAD have anything to do with the recent rise in the originals’ death toll?” Thoth wondered aloud. “Dunno,” Poppy repeated, her expression grim. “But I reckon the same thought may have struck them. You saw how old Mally reacted by us just mentioning DAD… can’t say I really blame them. If there was a homicidal maniac out there with a passionate hatred for me, I’d be worried too.” “Poppy,” Thoth replied absently, his mind ticking away; “if anyone could turn ordinary people into homicidal maniacs with a passionate hatred, it’s you.” The door burst open to reveal Mallos. He looked no different to how he’d left, except that his hair was slightly damp, indicating he’d gone outside. Thoth has known Mallos for a good portion of his life and is probably better acquainted with him than anyone else in Shaman, but he’s never truly appreciated the Spaniard’s god status before. A slight shiver runs up the child’s spine as he looks into a face which, for the first time, seems to hint at the deity’s true age – an age which, according to the stories, even he doesn’t know. Apparently all of the originals gave up counting long ago. There was a moment of silence which Thoth suspected Mallos was elongating for dramatic effect. “If your discussion is finished,” the Spaniard said coolly, “then it is time for you to go home, before you worry the carpenter.” As probably intended, the simple statement struck a raw nerve in the seven year-old. Thoth leapt up, threw the old man the dirtiest look he could muster and stormed out of the room. Mallos turned to follow him. “Adios, dad,” Poppy called after him, grinning.

DAD's name pronounciation:
Day-nee-GAR-nee-ah-sef-te-jee / An-OW-te-see-nee-ko / DEE-nee-oh-mo-pet-em-ee-ah

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