Summary:A ritual to bring about the eternal of Lord Hod and Lady Sif brings the two Asgardians out of the woodwork Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Central Park dominates the upper end of Manhattan Island but it isn't the only park there by a long shot. On the eastern shore is Carl Schurz park, known for it's views of the East River, and it's dog runs. At night, well, it's not known for much. It borders the upper east side and it's within easy driving distance of the Asgardian embassy, so it's not like a whole lot of criminal activity takes place here. Usually.
Usually.
Tonight it's the site of a meeting. The park is empty but for thirteen people in hoods who are chanting. "Winter's Might, strike down the Light." Over. And over. And over. And the thing is it's actually doing something. There's frost forming on the ground near them despite the humidity of the evening.
Agent Koa turner had left his truck a block back and proceeded here on foot. He pauses when he's close enough to hear what they're doing and rolls his eyes. "What the actual hell are these cretins doing?"
What are they doing? Well they've drawn a circle. An effigy of Hod is placed in it, on a throne. Then placed inside the same circle is an effigy of a dark haired woman with a sword and small shield. Seated on a throne beside Hod. And then an effigy of someone with a spear rammed through him - okay a toothpick but still - placed on the ground in front of the two thrones. All are the size of small dolls. There IS actual magic going on here but it's not very strong.
Koa sighs. This is just obnoxious. He got woken up for this?!
Keiko is late getting home, *again*. Tonight some fool had managed to get themselves locked in their bathroom and she's contemplating brain bleach for what greeted when she finally got the door open.
Or she would be. Instead she's contemplating the poor review she got on Yelp and Craigslist thanks to the goddamn Batman.
Which is why she nearly runs over Koa as she rides her bike through Central Park - perhaps distracted a little by the way her tattooes start to tingle.
Sif had been in the Embassy when the most … unusual sensation started affecting her perception. She can't even really describe it, other than she does NOT like it. Excusing herself, she gets her weapons then starts following the direction that that strange feeling seems to be coming from. It's not that far, and quickly enough she sees the small park and a familiar-looking woman running a small two-wheeled device into an equally familiar man.
Speeding up her pace to a loping run, she heads for the pair to figure out what's going on with them and why they are also here. The Fates seem to be throwing them together strangely frequently.
Ever had a song stuck in your head? Like, a super annoying song, like La Bamba or Mambo Number 5, or anything by that blond Canadian kid from Youtube who looks like a pubescent girl gone horribly wrong? Welp. Tonight it's a chant, accompanied by a small amount of legitimate magic, and it's off key chanting by a bakers dozen of fuckknuckles. And while Hod can't /see/ the circle or it's contents, he's very sensitive to audible cues… like prayers.
Now, usually Hod wouldn't be caught dead this close to the Embassy, however, this night is his terrain, he's running out of options, and he's just been struck with a brilliant idea so blinding in it's stupidity it almost gave him actual sight. Which makes no sense… but then when someone's chanting stupid in your head, you can't be held responcible for some of your ideas.
Hod stands in the darkness of the night, just outside of the circle of light, just managing to keep his teeth from grinding. He once got drunk with Hades in Byzantium, who actually was going by the name Pluto at the time, and for the first time since then he feels he's starting to understand the other god's plight. Hades gets a bad wrap, he's a good dude, a little morose, but all in all a solid hang. But the shit he eats for being a death god, just unbelievable. It's like people forget he rules over heaven /and/ hell, and so he /must/ be a villain. Hod, now hearing the chanting and understanding the shape of, if not the actual intent of the spell, feels real empathy. People havn't prayed to him in a literal age, and those were well intentioned prayers, good ones, ones he actually, occasionally anyway, answered as best he could. Not so much tonight.
He's angry enough he doesn't even notice the other not-praying-people across the way.
The crash of the bike knocks Koa over but doesn't disturb the chanting. He's just picking himself and Keiko up when Sif runs up. "Miss Kurita. Lady Sif." Koa grunts. He eyes the circle, not seeing Hod of course. Hod is well hidden.
"I take it you don't approve of bad cultic chanting?" He asks Sif. "Keiko do you have your staff? I want to break this up before they try blood sacrifice."
A squaking noise from the circle about fifty feet away calls attention to the fact that someone has broken out a chicken. And someone ELSE has broken out a kitchen knife.
"Ugh. Really?" Koa just snaps his hand out and green motes fly into him from the grass which makes sigils glow in the air above his arms.
And then he takes off at a dead run.
Hod will hear the run, of course, and the chicken. But more than all that he feels a patch of grass next to him just die as somthing just rips the life out of it.
"HEY YOU!" Koa snaps. One of the robed chucklefucks stands… and sticks a knife into the agent as he runs up.
"Agent Turner…" Keiko takes the agents hand as he helps himself and her up. "Sorry…" She's watching that circle carefully. "Of course …" That's to Koa regarding her staff. It takes a moment for her to draw the metal rod from her backpack and shake it out.
"Lady Sif. Did you feel it too?" She squints at the group as the chicken appears.
"They've been watching the wrong TV shows. There's a fascinating documentary on Netflix about this …" The staff twirls as he follows Koa. "Agent Turner!"
The staff comes down hard on the guy who just stabbed the Agent, hard enough on his shoulder to stun him. He should let the knife go at least and maybe has taken some serious damage.
"You chose poorly." Is all the small woman says.
"I did, yes," Sif says to Keiko, not really mentally noting the sudden chicken noises — she's nowhere near being used to all of the various noises of this city, so that's no more or less strange than anything else she hears on a daily basis — until Koa takes off at a sprint yelling at people further in the park. She's off after him at the same moment as Keiko, but is faster for reasons, and instead of stopping to deal with the robed person attacking Koa puts herself between the two sorcerers and the rest of the robed figures, sword ready in hand. She's seen then pair deal with far worse than one Midgardian in an overcloak, she knows they can handle it. She is making sure no one ELSE tries to attack them.
Also… that strange feeling is now MUCH stronger, and that annoys her all the more. "You will stop this, now. Or I will show you all how displeased I am." It's about as close as she gets to giving anyone a warning, and she only does so because they're harmless little Midgardians. Jotuns or Dokkalfr would not have been given so generous a chance.
Hod is betrothed to Death, Bor help him, and as the god of Winter is familiar with it's touch… usually it involves more frost though, he admits. So when a chunk of the ground just -dies- next to him, he jumps. "Okay." he mutters to himself, gripping his cane in both hands, "In the immortal words of fourteen year old girls everywhere… double you. tea. eff."
And then there's Sif. He should have approached from the other direction, he's upwind of them currently and can't pick up who all is here. Annoying. Wait. The voices sound familiar but…
The knife comes away from Koa… with actually not very much blood. The hand is slapped away by Keiko's staff and the knife just drops. It's tip is bent and Koa's shirt is cut. But he is not… at the moment, cut himself. He looks annoyed… and then punches the guy.
It's a punch that an asgardian might be… well not proud of but okay with. The victim goes flying back a good thirty feet and then tumbles another twenty.
And then the place is chaos. Sif is here. Keiko is here. A few of the cultists try to run. Some try to fight. The chicken goes bolting off toward Hod. Most of the ones that try to fight aren't armed and don't know what they're doing. They just throw themselves at Keiko, Sif and Koa shouting: "Lord Hod! Lady Sif! Protect us from our oppressors!"
Koa punches another. Superhumanly.
Keiko blinks as the knife drops with the tip bent and Koa doesn't seem to be hurt. A small smile playing at her lips "You've been holding out me, Agent Turner."
The staff rounds around, this time taking the legs from beneath one of the "worshippers". "Are you sure you only want my staff? My spider would scare half of them away, the others Bella would have fun playing with."
She squares off as the mass descends on them, the staff swatting at another as they get close.
The fleeing cowards get exactly zero of Sif's attention, and the ones actually daring to attack her IN HER OWN NAME get confused looks and either swats with the flat of her blade — with actually less force that Sorcerer Turner appears to be employing — or again gentler than normal shield bashes.
"Ignorant mortals," she mostly mutters to herself. "What is this nonsense they're spouting, Sorcerer Keiko?"
Hod wants to know the answer to the question as well! Because it's a good one dammit. And since everyone seems to be doing so well without his assistance… he's going to continue not lending it. For their benefit, obviously. Idly, he toes the chicken to the side as it rushes right at him, they are such /stupid/ animals.
"Little bit." Holding out, that is. "Call whatever you think will get these guys to run away faster." Koa says to Keiko. She hasn't seen most of what he can do but that's because he hasn't had occasion to run into a burning building yet. Or jump in a lake. He gets another punch in and this one tumbles in such a way that he's going to end up right at Hod's feet.
The rest of that fight is over fairly quickly. These are not well trained or well armed people.
"Ow. What are we in trouble for?" One of the sorcerer's groans.
"Sacrificing a chicken without a permit." Koa snarks shoves the cultist with his foot. The fleeing ones have likely GOTTEN away at this point but at least the tugging sensation has stopped.
The WAND agent grunts and look around, letting Keiko answer the question she was asked. Instead he crouches to see what the cult was doing.
"Effigies. For some kind of representational magic. Kind of sloppy but that one looks like you, Lady Sif. Odd. I would have expected you to be seated on a throne next to Thor but… that's not Thor. No eyes. Has to be Hodr…" Which he pronounces 'Hodor'.
"And that one on the ground with the toothpick through it… looks like… not sure. Maybe Baldur."
"I have no idea, Lady Sif…" Keiko doesn't bother calling her animals, she's having too much fun bashing people with her staff and kicking at them. "Agent Turner, you might be a suitable sparring partner, after all."
When the fighting ends, Keiko turns to Sif "It's just Keiko. I'm not a Sorceror. I think … they'd hope they would summon you and Hodor. Would you like to tell them how successful they were?"
Sif steps over to one of the downed Midgardians and lifts him slightly by the front of his robes. "You. Why did you employ such crude means to request my presence?" She even gives a teeny bit of a shake to try to get him to answer. Because, really, that he would be completey unconscious still is just … unfathomable.
She glances up at Keiko with a small frown while waiting for a reply. She needs to ask the two sor… she says she's not a sorceress. Then what is she?
Hod sighs and bonks himself in the forehead with his own cane, that name… they can't even bother to pronounce it properly! Bor's swinging cod, he needs a PR agent. This entire affair is madness, odd, and unreal. The frequency with which he's being dragged into events is past the point of novelty, and he wants answers. Now. Idly he wills Sif to shake that little shit a bit harder, make knowledge rattle out of him.
Sif shakes the man again, a little bit harder.
"L-l-l-lady SIF!" The man isn't unconscioous yet but Sif is working on that. "A-and your honored handmaid…" That'd have to be Keiko because he's looking at her. Koa is still crouching by those effigees.
"W-we were just sending our fervant prayers that you and your Consort, Mighty Hod, would strike down the cruel sun and bring blessed night to the world…"
Keiko knows this man is not Nightfall. Nightfall wouldn't be doing this in a park in a major city. And their rituals aren't directed to Hod or Sif. They're directed to their God. But might Nightfall encourage the gullible to do this? That seems like something they might do. She might be able to think of times that has happened before…
"P-please, we wish only to honor and strengthen you and your… er… very tattooed valkyrie…" Keiko is SO not that…
Koa meanwhile, is still crouching by the effigees. He frowns and fishes his pendulum out of his pocket. Using the stone he quickly inscribes a glowing circle and several marks on the ground. Then, turning the effigees over one by one he spots… huh. There's something taped to the back of the Hod one. It looks like… hair?
Koa lights it on fire and places it in the circle, watching as small amounts of magic rolls off it.
It does have a side effect though. Over by Hod. That HURTS.
Keiko kicks the man "I'm not a hand maiden …" She kicks him again just because she can. "Not a Valkyrie either." KICK
"Who sent you to do this?" This isn't Nightfall but they do work with agents in the city. "Tell me, or I'll let my Wolf have a taste of you." She sounds so … reasonable.
"Agent Turner, what have you got there? Any iconography that might tell us who they are linked to?" The tattooed woman frowns down at the man before bending over him and fishing the pendant from beneath his shirt. "Who gave you this?"
Letting go of the man but still standing over him with her sword in hand, she gestures to Keiko to get her to stop kicking him. "You have been VERY sorely misled, Midgardian. Answer my colleague's question, who sent you to do this? And who gave you the materals?" She points the tip of her sword at his throat, though she has no intention of actually using it.
Hod has no warning. He can't see what's going on. He can't smell the burning hair. He really should have picked his lurking spot better honestly. Bad luck that, but then what other kind of luck does Hod ever have? "Frigg's frozen tits!" he swears aloud, swatting at the back of his own head as if he were on fire and stumbling out of the shadows unwittingly as the sensation of being burn spreads down his spine for a moment.
"OW!" The guy says. He looks terrified when Keiko finds that pendant. It looks like it's made of thin stained glass but it is much, much tougher.
"Th- no one else is supposed to see that. The magos, guru I guess. The one who told us what gods to pray to for a better world." The poor robed guy whimpers. "H-have we displeased you?"
The shout has Koa standing up abruptly and stamping out the doll. Literally stomping on it. That's likely not real pleasant either but it doens't hurt nearly as much. Fortunately for Hod, he isn't actually burned. It just felt like he was burning.
More grass dies near Hod flows into Koa's arm. An Aura forms around it, shaped like a gigantic asp, reared up and hissing as the Agent's eyes narrow… and then widen in confusion.
"You're the blind guy from the park!" Keiko will remember that night. Of course Sif knows who that real is.
Keiko gives Sif a dark look as the woman stops her kicking the man but it's only for a moment. She looks at the pendant and tugs it - the chain snaps - that will hurt - and she straightens.
"Agent Turner…" She holds the pendant out so he and Sif can see it. The glass and the image inscribed on it. A moon eclipsing a sun. "Tell me *everything* about this magos … guru. What they looked like, how they sounded and where you met them."
She nearly drops it though when Hod cries out and she spins, twirling her staff and setting her feet. "Sir? Are you alright?" She says after a moment. The old man from the park.
The pendant is unfamiliar to her, but that doesn't mean much. She's not a scholar, she's a warrior. But then the shout from nearby pulls her attention past Koa and she charges over there, recognizing Hod and reaching to snag him by one arm to pull him closer to the others.
"Hodr, how long have you been here?" She DOES pronounce his name correctly, and she can guess she already knows the answer to her question. But she still has to ask.
Hod is dancing a bit in place for a moment before the pain stops and he shakes himself head to toe, literally trying to shake off the sensation. When the hand grips him he rolls his wrist, his cane coming up and around Sif's own arm and the balled silver end jabbing her firmly in the shoulder just to the side of the collar bone. She's sparred with the other Aesir, this was hardly a love tap, though it appeared to take effort on his part. There were always the rumors Odin had stripped him of the things that make the Aesir the Aesir, there may be something to them if that was any indication. At least he's clearly not lost his combat sense.
"Don't." he says firmly, his brow knitting over the glasses covering his eyes, his tone is clipped and cool. "I'm fine. Stop burning my hair and I'll be better." he answers Keiko, moving to stalk their way, can sweeping the ground before him as he goes, "I've been here since before the lot of you showed up." that answer is for Sif. He finds his way over to the fella Keiko was talking to and he jabs at him with the cane, it takes two tries to hit him, "Answer the lady's questions."
"Um… okay… are you Lady Sif's… acoylte?" Because in his present state would Hod be mistaken for a god?.
The descritpion the man gives is not familiar to Keiko but he speaks of tattoos, and meeting him several times in Harlem near the Studio Museum.
"We met him a few weeks ago. I was introduced by a friend. We… all have our reasons. He was talking to people about how life is terrible and the gods have all abandoned us but there were those who could bring about a new age. The Great Lady Sif. The Mighty Hod. Phobos, the Fearful One…" That's a name Koa's heard before and he quirks a brow as he takes the medallion and throws it down as hard as he can into the ground. Despite being made of glass, it doesn't shatter.
"You can't break it!" The man says with an almost triumphant laugh. "It's as invincible as the bonds of love between Lord Hod and Lady Sif…"
Koa stares at him then at Keiko, then at him, then facepalms.
"You suck at mythology." He groans.
"Sir?" Keiko hadn't missed the Hodr from Sif and she glances between the two. That's something she'll follow up in a minute.
"No, he's not. Do you not listen? Or did the magos' words clog your ears?" She shakes her head, rolling her sleeves up "Tattooes like this? And where they on the arms or on his face and head?"
That seems an important detail to her.
"You won't break it, Agent Turner." The words are flat when Koa stomps though she snorts in derision at the mans words. "Lady Sif, is Hodor your lover?" That's direct.
The staff in her hand twirls again before she brings the end of it down on the medallion.
It … cracks.
Sif is very soundly — and yet, strangely weakly — rebuffed by Hod, and she doesn't try to touch him again. That jab he gave her won't even leave a hint of a bruise. She's honestly concerned about it now. How is Hodr so physically weak?
Of course, then that thought is derailed by the man's 'answers'.
"The WHAT?" Now she looks honestly angry. She stomps over to where the two Midgardians are trying to break the medallion. "Step back." She's going to stab the thing through with her sword as forcefully as possible. Let's see if it can stand up to Aesir strength and an Aesir blade.
"Lady Keiko, there is nothing farther from the truth. Hodr is so disgusted by me and everything I represent he just struck me for trying to grasp his arm. Does that sound like love to you?"
Hod doesn't. Even. Have. Words. He just… doesn't. Wait. Maybe he does. "It's pronounced Hodr." he says firmly, "Though Hod works just fine." prnounced like ode, rather then odd. He then slowly slides down to a crouch, looming over the man on the ground, his hands wrapping around his cane which is imbedded in the earth. He rests his cheek against it almost lazily, adopting a sort of apathetic air of nonchalance as he speaks to the fella who seems to be their source of information. "I am Hod, known by many names. Answer the lady's questions." somehow the command comes across as threatening despite his bland almost benign posture.
Sif's downward strike rings out through the park and finds purchase in the cracks that Keiko has made but amazingly it doesn't break. It's not that thick. It doesn't look that sturdy. It SHOULD break. But it doesn't. Whatever that is made of, it isn't glass…
"On the head. Um, he had tattoos on the head. He spoke of, er, Lord Hodr… who would cast down the old order and bring about the new. And his, um, undying love for Lady-"
"Stop!" Koa says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry I can't listen to you mangle that anymore…"
"Keiko does that detail mean anything to you?"
Keiko doesn't look surprised that the medallion doesn't break when Sif strikes it. Just bends down and picks it up.
"He's a Magi, not a bearer like me." Keiko nods to Koa. "They are usually the ones that … lead, I guess, the parties that come to the cities."
"It might sound like love, Lady Sif. I do not know your customs."
Seeing the medallion SURVIVE, Sif is honestly perturbed. And still flat out peeved at the robed Midgardian's nonsensical ramblings. She's honestly regretting coming out here at all. Keiko's comment is just the frosting on this unpleasant cake, and she levels a VERY unimpressed glare on the tattooed woman. "You insult me, Midgardian."
Hod snorts at Sif, "Don't pretend that courtship and love are the same thing back home, if they were, I'd have a choice in who I would marry." as if any of the Aesir would actually have him. Well. Except the one. "You're not /entirely/ wrong little magician, but no, Sif is enchanted by my big brother's questionable charms, why this idiot thinks we're together is beyond me. And unimportant to the questions at hand."
He stands once more and pulls an actual business card from his vest pocket and holds it out in the general direction of Koa and Keiko, "I'm not staying this close to the Embassy for any length of time, so you kids are on your own. If you find out anything interesting, call me on this number and leave a message with the answering service." because he's not foolish enough to carry a cell phone around that's more sophisticated then a flip open burner. Plus he has no use for one. "I need to be somewhere else." anywhere else is more like it. But at least now, maybe, he won't have to uh… heist… the uh… unheistable…
Koa stands and shakes his head. "I need to call this in guys. We need to pick these folks up." He sighs and heads back toward his truck. "Keiko we need to talk about these guys if your former comrades are going to go stiring up this kind of trouble regularly…"