-Jade-
This wasn’t a volcano, it just looked like a volcano… I smelled fruit juice. So that wasn’t boiling lava below us as we crossed the narrow stone bridge, it was something much more citrus based.
“It’s orange juice…” World of chaos huh? Always something weird and or mind melting, my statement was met with several stares.
“Boiling orange juice, still hot enough to hurt one of you.” Flamberge said after a moment. “I wonder if it’s acidic enough to melt through my scales.”
“Let’s not find out, I don’t want anyone dying on my watch after we’ve come this far.” Sekhet continued to pull the wagon with her tail carefully and we made it across to the Sieve Precarious. “Alright, come on out, I know you are there! You can’t hide from my senses anymore.”
“Well I guess it’s time to give up the ghost… though there are no ghosts here to give up.” The large serpent with an under bite pulled away from melding with the wall and he circled the platform we were on with the Sieve Precarious resting on a pedestal before us. “I’ll find one later and I’ll even ask it nicely to haunt your homes to make it up to you.”
“Sounds like that’ll be fun, so what’s your name?” I loved knowing that I had quite a bit of knowledge on every god I’ve ever met and might meet, I just had to know this one’s name and I’d be able to put it to what I know. “I’m assuming you’re a god, I might know a thing or two about you.”
He was definitely not Jormungandr the Midgard Serpent or else Flamberge would have said something or reacted, he was more curious than anything about the large snake now encircling us.
Gods were dangerous and this guy was cutting off our exit out of here, well for those of us who are stuck on the ground. Which would be me and Maries, while Sekhet, Flamberge and Spitfire could fly. We could still leave using the Sieve Precarious.
“Oh, that would be telling… but I will anyway as I’m not such a stickler. Discord has me running a racket here involving the Sieve Precarious. It’s always fun to see those who are stuck in a rut learning to quickly think outside of the boxes that life forces them into.” He was trying to distract us away from the question, I glared at him. “Stalling tactics not doing it for you? You guys are really quite something else you know! Very well, my name is Veles as much as that means to any of you. I seriously doubt any of you have ever actually heard of me.”
“You’d be wrong, I’ve heard of you… but why didn’t you try to kidnap Arizona?” Now I was receiving a dumbfounded look from the shapeshifting trickery god.
“The horned dog?” Veles seemed a little confused. “Why would I kidnap a horned dog?”
“Arizona’s a cow.” I was stating this like it was entirely obvious to me and everyone else.
“He is? Wow…” Veles seemed entirely mystified that Arizona was a cow, also he got her gender wrong.
“She, Arizona’s female.” Continuing our odd conversation, I was a little surprised that the god couldn’t tell Arizona was a cow or even female. Wouldn’t that be in his wheelhouse?
In fact he looked even more perplexed than before and created a circular screen of magic in the air view Arizona, he took a very long disconcerting look at her.
Arizona was currently glaring across a table at Velvet and they were both eating as they glared at one another, it looked like they were on a very angry looking date at the moment. If one were to call them out on it, they’d probably blush and stammer refusals all the way through to next week.
“Are you sure that’s a cow? Where are her udders, they must be absolutely tiny!” Of course they are Veles, she’s not a peaceful self-milking cow like Grace is.
“She’s not a milking cow, also she exercises a lot and is ridiculously strong. She doesn’t like getting weighty like other cows do.” Why was I currently seeing a longing gaze in Veles’ eyes? He turned to me with an amused and sheepish smile.
“So she’s a really butch cow? That’s quite interesting, but that’s not why we are here. I really don’t kidnap them if they don’t have milking udders.” Breaking out into villainous sounding chuckles, he took a long gaze into me. “Don’t honestly know why one of the trolls kept calling you ‘Crow’, but you seem to know much of me. So inform everyone what you know and I’ll get into my whole spiel when you’re done. Also you have the markings of an exceedingly powerful god on you, I can even get a name from it… Bahamut? Interesting, don’t know a thing about a god like that. Oh and you’re a priest of the sun! At least you aren’t as stuck up like the others that came before you, that certainly earns you brownie points with me. Now get to it, tell these people of my greatness!”
“Everyone this is Veles the confusion god, known for both good and ill. He’s a shapeshifter god and is known for being a trickster, kidnapping cows, stealing said cow’s milk, protecting cows from danger, punishing oath breakers severely, openly opposes the god of war known as Perun and knows how to fight said gods of war with guerrilla tactics.” I sent Sekhet a look and she nodded to me in understanding at what I was hinting at here. Sure she could win, but at what cost? This is a guy who was repeatedly beaten up by a war god and knows how to survive them. “He’s also known for his love of music which means he has probably listened in on every single heart song that has ever been sung, he likes to work with commerce and prefers the open speaking of commoners over nobility and he also controls the elements of earth, water and a bit of life itself as partly being an underworld god. That is how he creates special uniquely made targeted diseases when someone breaks an oath to him. He’s a dark proponent of life, whereas Perun his opposite is a light proponent of death.”
“All very much correct, but why call me a confusion god hm? What have I done that was so confusing?” The large snake flicked his tongue out at me in a jovial manner, the same kind of manner that a happy Marie tends to do when she’s enjoying a good book.
“You upset the balance of the world constantly to prevent the total stagnation that Perun causes by making things too orderly. You guys are pretty well balanced, but it’s not a balance of good and evil.” That seemed to surprise him fairly well, now for me to continue on. “While you and Perun may be in constant conflict, given neither of you has permanently dealt with the other and how often Perun kills you and lets you come back to life, it’s more a matter of principles between the two of you. Tell me, was it Perun who made the golden apple of discord that is used by Eris?”
“Yes actually, she was looking for an angle as a goddess and one of Perun’s apples did the trick. And boy did it ever, old shock and awe Perun’s been really regretting that one since forever!” He laughed loudly while slapping his tail against his body noisily. “You are such an amusing mortal. I wish I could poach you, but I don’t think your goddess would like that. Which is why I’m going to tell you all what you’ve learned on this little journey of yours instead! Everyone that ends up here usually learns something about themselves or the world on the way. Life is chaos and you all certainly understand that well enough, so who wants to go first?”
“Before that I still need to explain why you’re called the confusion god. You see people have legends of you stealing and doing bad things, but there are also legends of you being friendly, personable and dare I say it outright heroic. People most of the time don’t know what to make of you when you help commoners and then do horrible things to nobles. Also he has a habit of kidnapping people a lot, mostly cows.” Of course I was aware of why he did it, we kind of shared some ideals after all. “Veles specializes in being a trickster that causes mostly confusion about why he does the things he does, like this whole setup with the Sieve Precarious for instance. Perun is a murderous war god who will kill you outright if you face him in battle, quite unlike our war goddess who is very friendly, lovable and quite merciful when she feels like it.”
“I try.” Sekhet muttered while rolling her eyes and flicking her ears lazily.
“Yeah, your goddess is much better than that stiff stick in the mud that always gets those in power under his domain. Always stepping on the little guys those nobles.” He cleared his throat and then with a flash of light he shrunk down into a tiny little purple dragon. “Veles is the name, distraction is a game! Not really close friends with Discord, since he can be a bit of a wad sometimes, but I’m willing to stir up trouble with him. Still frozen in stone?”
“Yep, I volunteer to hear what lessons I’ve learned first.” I crossed my arms and waited patiently.
“Well… how do I say this? You already knew most of the lessons we were trying to teach you, you were outside the box the minute you heard good old Quirkenheimer state the rules at the bridge. In fact you seem to understand and manipulate chaos pretty well, considering how you got everyone across the bridge.” He stopped and flew over to hover in front of Sekhet and turned into an Ursa Miniature, he looked like a living teddy bear at that size. “Are you sure I can’t have Jade?”
“Sadly no, but you can drop by Airship Mauled and maybe enjoy the pastime of any gods or goddesses that visit… getting hit with airships in a most painful manner that will eventually be turned into housing or other buildings for those who live there.” All Sekhet did was make the god grin joyfully.
“Sound like fun for me, anyway you did learn a lesson Jade. May I call you Jade? It was that you should never take on a noodle incident with just a knife and a pocket full of dreams.” He smiled cheerily as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a bunch of little white clouds I could physically touch.
“I was wondering what these were.” I stuffed on of the clouds over my head and pulled it back off while blushing. “Yep, definitely random dreams floating around, nothing interesting in these… nope, no sir.”
“Eh, those will disappear when you leave, next?” The amused Veles said as he turned into a tree, a willow, in the middle of our group.
“Oh me, choose me, what did I learn!?” Flamberge offered while waving his claws at the tree.
“You’ve learned to rely on your greatest strengths when all else fails. Also the fact that you can blow up a pumpkin and spread its chunks a good fair distance and the way the troll reacted to that was quite the classic.” Well if this guy wasn’t childish, then he wouldn’t be compared to the likes of Loki. He turned into a timber wolf, looking like he was randomly cobbled out of the tree he previously was. “Next?”
“What about us?” Maries intoned as one.
“You’ve learned that not everyone will immediately see you as monsters.” They reeled back in shock and the wolf continued to cackle as he dove underneath them and came out the other side as looking like Arizona… only as a male version of her. He turned to Spitfire. “So do you want to know what you learned?”
“Nope, this place is a big enough headache as it is.” Tilting her head as she watched him shift into the large serpent with the horrendous under bite again, he smirked down at her and waited. “What were you going to do if Sekhet hadn’t called you out?”
“Life’s no fun without a good scare~. That’s my favorite job, but I’m not mean, especially to cows it seems~!” What Veles sang out loud answered it for me and the fact that he parodied something that I could understand just made me smile, but Spitfire seemed a little confused. “Still going to tell you what you learned anyway. You learned to trust someone you despise, you listened to Jade when she told you how to win the race. Despite how angry she makes you, can you look at Jade and still say that you don’t like her at least a little bit?”
“We’re not friends, but I don’t think we’ll be enemies until we can catch you doing something absolutely illegal.” Sending Spitfire the friendliest smile I can manage, I had the perfect response for her.
“If you can catch me doing anything illegal at all, then that’ll be a good day for you and I’ll have had a good run of making a joke of the Royal Guard alongside the Wonder and Shadow Bolts divisions.” I sent a wink her way, she just gave me a smirk and nodded in agreement. “Anything else Veles? Can we take the Sieve Precarious now?”
“No, first I must marry your goddess if I am to give her access to it, once we’re married I can have you as one of my children of the corny!” He received a large paw to the jaw that laid him out and his head went into the boiling orange juice for a few seconds. He came up and sneezed out a bit of the juice. “What a fine lady with a good right hook, you’re much better than Perun-kun! Willing to trade pantheons with me? My sempai won’t notice me well enough and he’s always so hurtful.”
“I don’t need access to it and I know I can’t touch it, nice try though." Sekhet wheeled me over to it and I picked it up." Also no I’m not doing you any favors and you can’t have Jade.”
“Well fine, see if I make any more passes at you beautiful… darn it!” Veles received a smirk from the large Sekhet who turned around and her tail slapped him fully into the boiling orange juice. “Argh… what a world! I’m melting, I’m melting! You’ve defeated the wicked snake of the chaos realm! Now he will become you’re loyal servant for ever and ever!”
I looked to Sekhet and titled my head at her curiously.
“We’re not doing that. Activate it and just get us out of here already Jade, quickly before he gets any worse to deal with and decides to follow us home!” Rolling my eyes at Sekhet and her fear of an abhorrent admirer that wanted to use her to get to me, I held up the Sieve Precarious and we warped back to Equestria.
-Fizzle-
“Did somebody order a rescue party?!” Jade shouted, earning our attentions.
The Hayburger was returned to reality about an hour after we originally left it.