//------------------------------//
// Job Offer 
// Story: An Equestrian Edda 
// by LordSpur 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Two: Job Offer

“Now it’s over, I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want; or I’m still alive and there’s nothin’ I want to do.”
                        -They Might Be Giants, Dead

"Hey, clear off. Give the man some space!” A man with a slightly tinny Texas twang said. He obviously had some kind of authority, or was at least respected, as the various dead men around me shuffled back to their respective tables. The blonde woman, who I realized now was probably a Valkyrie, nodded at me and said,”I’ll let him give you the new arrival speech, and get you something respectable. House special, how about that?” I nodded, numbly, and she sauntered off.
        The source of the voice stepped up to me. He was surprisingly short, and looked like he would be over 100 pounds sopping wet, but at the same time he had a look in his eye that screamed badass. He wore an old US Army dress uniform absolutely bedecked with medals. Smiling, he offered me his hand, and I shook it. “Hello, I’m guessing you’re the new guy then?”
        I nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s me.” I blinked several times as I inspected this guy. Something about him looked vaguely familiar, like I’d seen him before in pictures or something. “Name’s Geatsen. Seargeat Gus A. Geatsen, United States Marine Recon.” I didn’t know exactly why I was telling this guy my full name and rank, but it felt right. He laughed good naturedly.
        “Nice to meet you Sarge. Saw your entrance performance over on the television, pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself.” 
        He took off his dress cap and sat down at the other seat at my table, and I sat down in my own. The valkyrie who had given me my introduction came back with a tray in one hand. She dropped a big, frothing mug in front of the Texan, and what looked like a hollowed out bull’s horn in front of me. The horn was banded in silver and gold, and filled with a dark amber liquid that was definitely alcoholic, though I had no idea what kind it was. I turned to look at her, drinking horn in hand. She winked at me. “House special, Freyja’s Home-Brewed Mead served old school.”
        She walked away, skirts swishing, and the Texan chuckled and took a draught of his own drink. “She gives that to all the newcomers. It’s kind of a right of passage. It’ll put hair on your chest, I’ll tell you that much.” I nodded, staring down into its depths. What the hell, why not? I took a swig, trying to down all of it in one go. It was a mistake.
        Ho-lee-shit that was strong! What was this, 300 proof? You could take paint off a wall with something like this, most likely followed by the wall itself. I reeled, blinking away tears. I was a marine, so I was no stranger to strong drink, but GOD DAMN!
        He chuckled again. “See what I mean?” The mead left a honey-like after taste on my tongue, so that was a plus. I grinned.
        “So, you said there was a tv here?” I wiped away the small amount of sweat that had formed across my forehead. That was honestly the strongest stuff I had ever came into contact with.
        “Not like any I remember, but I’d guess things have come a ways since I bought the farm.” He smiled slightly, though I noticed that some of his joviality had fled. “They have a bunch of flat screens over by each of the bars. They broadcast any battles currently going on in Midgard, that’s our world, so that we can see who the new arrivals are going to be. And it’s a form of entertainment, I suppose.” He put his drink down. “Besides drinking and fighting, there’s not a whole lot to actually do around here.”
        I looked at the man. I definitely recognized him, I just had no idea where or when. “You mentioned dying. When was that, and would it be too personal to ask how you went?”
        He seemed slightly surprised. “Not at all, I mean, nearly everyone already knows how you did. Congratulations again, by the way. Pulled a fantastic heroic sacrifice, last thoughts being to your wife and kid and all, very touching. I was in showbiz for a while kid, and let me tell you, that performance would have had you thanking the Academy.” He took another idle sip of his beer. “Plane crash, in the Seventies. Civilian one, at that. But apparently the Vals thought I did enough in the war to deserve coming here. Hell, I saw Patton just the other day.  He died in a car wreck. Atilla the Hun, scariest bastard around, died of a nosebleed in his sleep but still ended up here. You don’t have to technically die in battle to wind up here, just prove yourself to be a warrior.”
        It clicked. I recognized him now. The part about dying in a plane crash, the offhanded mention of show business, it all fit together. “Sweet Jesus,” I said, nearly dumbstruck, “You’re Audie Murphy.”
        He simply nodded. “The same.”
        I had a serious freakout moment. I was dead, in VIKING HEAVEN, sharing drinks and shooting the breeze with AUDIE-FREAKING-MURPHY! The man was only the single most badass man to ever live, the most decorated soldier in American history. The guy wrote a book about his war experience, and when they made it into a movie, he got signed to play himself! There’s no level of badassitude higher than that.
        To say that I nearly started bowing and worshiping him on the spot would have been embarrassingly accurate.
        “You’re Audie Murphy! It’s such an honor, you have no idea. You’re one of my personal idols! You’re the greatest soldier to ever live!” My fangasm was coming out of my mouth in a rush of words. I was currently making an abject fool of myself, but in that moment I didn’t care.
        He simply chuckled. “You better not let Achilles hear you say that.”
        A quick tap on my shoulder made me turn around. The valkyrie who had brought us drinks was standing there, looking at me. She looked pissed, and even slightly nervous. “Quit drooling, Vinlander. The Boss wants to talk to you.” I blinked hard. The Boss? I looked back at Audie, and his eyebrows were nearly in his hairline, which implied that this was not a common occurrence. He said nothing, so I got up and followed her.
        She wove her way through the crowded mead hall with the practiced ease of someone who literally did this all the time. As it was, I had a hard time keeping up with her. “Y’know,” I said, catching up to her ducking past a Roman Centurion downing wine from two separate bottles, “I never did catch your name.”
        She gave me a contemptuous look over her shoulder. “I know all I need to know about you, Gustavus Adolphus Geatsen. You wound up here after all. Your namesake should be somewhere around here, drinking himself off his ass, still in denial about where he is and occasionally hitting Charles XII over the head with a chair for ‘losing the empire.’ Luckily he’s one of the last kings of the Old Country we’ve had to deal with for a couple centuries.” That made me blink. I had read up on my history of the Swedish Empire, as I was a military history buff, Swedish-American, and fan of Sabaton, but the mental image of my namesake beating the everloving shit out of Charles XII nearly made me laugh out loud.
        “Any way, my name is Johanna, and rest assured that if you try to get too familiar with me I’ll have your balls for marbles.” The gleam in her eye, and the fact that she was a supernatural being with the ability to choose who lived and died in a battle, made me gulp in fear.
        I raised my hands defensively, scooting between a pair of Russian Cossacks as I tried desperately to keep up with the blonde woman. “Hey, nothing like that. I’m married.”
        She snorted and rolled her eyes, turning her head back towards the direction we were apparently headed. “Hasn’t stopped most men, even the ones who weren’t already dead.” I decided that then was a perfect time to stop making chit-chat. 
        We made our way towards what seemed to be a raised platform against one of the walls. The platform, its stairs, the wall and general area around it was absolutely lousy with trophies, mostly of creatures I had never seen before and I had previously thought didn’t exist. At the top of the platform stood a great, carved wooden throne, flanked on either side by stuffed Frost Giants in warlike poses. Above the throne, three heads were mounted in a triangle. The lower two were vaguely humanoid, with frog like eyes and snake’s nostrils and a mouthful of fang each. Ratty black hair fell from both heads, though the one on the left was significantly longer. The head mounted above both of them was that of a dragon, a massive, snarling, black-scaled, white-fanged, tusked, multi-horned motherfucking dragon.
        I blinked. I had a suspicion of who had donated those particularly trophies to the wall.
        Sitting on the intricately carved throne sat an old man. A long, white beard flowed down across his chest, below a longish nose that looked like it had been broken many times. The man wore a jeweled, norse-style helm, rather than a crown, and a burnished shirt of chain mail under a blue cloak. A pitch-black raven sat on each of his shoulders, occasionally looking like they were whispering into his ears. His single grey eye stared into me, as if staring into my very soul, the empty void in the other stared into nothing at all.
        I knew immediately who I had been brought to see. Johanna had called him “the Boss”, and I guess when you’re in the business of picking up souls from battlefields, the Norse God of War makes an engaging manager.
        Before me, staring directly at me, sat the Wolf-Feeder, the King of Asgard, the Creator of the Nine Realms. I was in the presence of Odin All-Father.

I was in the presence of a literal god.

        “Hello Gus,” he said, his voice shockingly warm and pleasant, like that of a favorite grandfather, “welcome to Valhalla. I have a proposition for you.”
        I fell to my knees. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I was absolutely dumbstruck. This was meeting Audie Murphy to the power of fifty. An entity that I had read about throughout my childhood, who wasn’t even supposed to exist, sat above me, looking down at me for all the world like a bizarre mix of grandfather and upper management.
        Taking my inability to speak as a sign that he should continue, he went on. “I have need of a mighty warrior to serve as my representative, and to fulfill a certain quest for me.”
        I’ve died I thought, my mind simply overloaded with the events of the last hour. I’ve died, and this is my dying hallucination, like Grease. Well, at least this one had a better soundtrack (yeah, I WENT there).
        Johanna kicked me, none too gently, and I suddenly regained the power of speech. Of a sort. “Ah, uh, um. Well, um your… Majesty? Your Deity-ness? What kind of quest are we talking about?” I got up on my knees so that I at least looked halfway respectable, though I still kept my eyes at his feet.
        I heard a rolling chuckle echo through the hall. It took that moment for me to realize that I had been holding my breath.I began to laugh along, completely ill at ease. What’s his game? What does he want with me?
        I brought my gaze up to the All-Father’s face. Our sights met, eyes to eye. “Tell me Gus, how much do you know about My Little Pony?”
        I fell backwards onto the rough wooden floor of the mead hall. This was just TOO bizarre. Okay, obviously that drink Johanna gave me was stronger than I thought. There is no way I’m not absolutely shitfaced right now. At my drunkest, I would not have been able to come up with a completely rat-screwed scenario like this one. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?
        Raising myself back up, I instead opted to go for the safe option. “Honestly, your Godliness? I’m not all that familiar with it. One of the guys I was in Basic with said he watched it, but that’s about it.”
        Odin grumbled, considering. “Well, that is regrettable, but not unexpected.” He turned and looked at Johanna, standing at attention behind me. “Johanna, how familiar are you with Equis?”
        She tilted her head slightly. “Been there a couple of times, sir. Not in the last couple of centuries or so though.”
        The King of Asgard harumphed. “That’ll have to do.” He pointed a finger directly at her. “You will accompany Gustavus to Equis, if and when he agrees to my proposal.”
        She started to protest, but a single glance and lowered eyebrow shut her up faster than a steel trap. “Now, Gustavus, I have an important purpose laid aside for you.” He swept his hand out before him, and a cloud of blue dust rose from it. Within the cloud I could see a bunch of faceless people crowded around a chessboard.
        “We haven’t much time, so I’ll be direct. Discord, one of the Gods of Equis, opened a rift between that world and the others, challenging all the gods of all the realms to a game of henfatafl, to set down a piece and go in for vicarious glory. Last God with a piece standing wins.”
        “And you want me to be your… piece?” I asked, confusion bordering on incredulity creeping into my voice.
        Odin nodded. “Loki, mine own adopted son who is fated to destroy me and all I love, has already put down his own piece. The piece has unleashed the Fenris Wolf, thus hastening the arrival of Ragnarok, and that is simply inexcusable. Loki cannot be allowed to win.”
        So, what, was this the Cosmic version of Cold War diplomacy? Match force with equal force, have a counter move in place for every enemy maneuver?
        Odin sighed. “I am no fool. I didn’t lose this eye for nothing, I gained the ability to see the threads of fate. A fair bargain, if you ask me.” He deflated slightly, resting his head in his hands. “Even if I win the Game, the Fenris Wolf will still devour me, but I hope to use the power I gain to do what I can.” He looked me over. “I know you would consider that a worthy cause, the salvation of the world. One who would sacrifice himself for his compatriots would think no different.”
        The elderly, but still strong and imposing god straightened himself up. “However, I am nothing if not generous to those who serve me well. If you perform this task for me, I will perform a service for you.” He waved his hand through the blue glow-cloud (all hail), and a moving image of my wife Catherine appeared in it, clutching baby Kaleb to her chest in one hand and holding her phone in the other. I watched, feeling helpless and useless as tears flowed freely down her face, her body wracked with uncontrolled sobs.
        “If you do this thing for me, If you can help me defeat Loki’s scheming and come back victorious, I will return you to Midgard. Return you to life, that you might live out the rest of your days with your loved ones.”
        It was difficult, watching my beautiful sweetheart in so much pain. I shed tears of my own. I turned back to Odin and looked him straight in his lone eye. “I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
        Odin nodded, waving his hand through the cloud, dissipating it. “I have your oath then?” I nodded in return. Odin reached to his own arm, slipping off a golden arm-ring worked in the shape of a snake devouring its own tail. Odin tossed the band of gold to me, and I caught it. “Swear on that, then, that your oath may be as eternal.”
        I grasped the large ring in both hands, and said, gathering my strength, “I, Gustavus Adolphus Geatsen, warrior sworn to the service of the United States Marines, do pledge an oath to Odin the All-Father, King of Asgard, that I will achieve the task I am charged with. So I swear, before the sight of gods and by my own power.” The words came tumbling out of my lips, like the ring itself was drawing them from me. The ring glowed slightly and felt slightly warm.
        Odin nodded in approval. “And I, Odin All-Father, do hereby witness your oath and pledge in turn to return you to the care of your family once the task has been completed.” And just like that, it was done. I had literally sworn myself to the service of a god. “Keep the torque as a symbol of your oath, Gustavus son of Karl, last of the Geats. Keep it, and remember. As long as you remain true to your oath, it will aid you in your mission.
        “Now for the real business,” Odin went on. “Equis doesn’t have any humans, so we’ll need to change you to something else on arrival. Hmm, there are ponies, griffins, dogs, dragons, so many choices, so MANY choices.” I looked down at the ring in my hands.
        “Something with thumbs, please.” Was this really happening? Was I really going to a world of pastoral ponies, on a divine mission from Odin himself?
        The god nodded. “Of course, of course. Hah, here’s just the thing!” He looked past me, to the Valkyrie behind me. “Johanna, go find Heimdal, and tell him I’m sending you to Equis in the flesh. He’ll come up with a suitable form for you.” The blonde woman turned stiffly, walking quickly away with an unvocalized hmpf!
        Odin stared at me. “You’d do good to rely on her lad, she knows her way around the area, and has just over a millennia of experience watching combat. If you stick with her, you can’t go far wrong.”
        Odin stood and walked over to me, waving his hands about in a dramatic manner, wrapping me in what appeared to be a cloud of spectral fireflies. “Are you ready?” I nodded. “Alright then, prepare to experience a very strong falling sensation.” He came up to me, face to face, and looked me directly in the eyes. “Remember your oath.”
        I nodded again. “I will.”
        He seemed to agree with me on that part. He began to turn away, then looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, and sergeant?”
        I blinked at him, which I seemed to have been doing an awful lot lately. “Yes, what?”
        A crooked, lupine smile crossed the All-Father’s face. “If you come into contact with Fenrir, don’t run away. That only encourages him.”
        And suddenly, I felt a pit drop out from my stomach, and I was plummeting backwards.
        
        I found myself in a pitch black room that smelled strongly of dust. I blinked, my body feeling oddly stiff. Distantly, a flickering light was coming ever closer. It was the light of a torch, and as it neared I saw it was simply floating to the side of a dusty tan colored pony wearing, I kid you not, an Indiana Jones hat and jacket.
        “Well, what in the unholy name of Nightmare Moon do we have here?”




Achievement Unlocked! Divine Mission
Level Up!
Perk Gained: Covenant Rank I Congratulations! You've made a face-to-face agreement with a Divine Power! As long as you hold up your end of the bargain, you're gonna get some pretty righteous blessings in return.(+5 Constitution, +30% Healing Rate)
Ally Met: Johanna, Junior Valkyrie
Location Discovered: Tomb of Minoses the Great