A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 129

CHAPTER SEVEN: DIRK STRIDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY

LAND OF SNOW AND STARS

There was a dull thump from the dumbwaiter. Dualscar jolted awake, nearly falling off the couch as he did, head swiveling towards where the sound had come from.

The Vantas kid wasn’t here, so he must have been asleep. The Handmaid was asleep on one of the loveseats, a blanket draped over her. Nightwalker was slumped over the table, arms folded underneath as a makeshift pillow.

Dualscar got to his feet, groaning, tiredly making his way to the dumbwaiter. The doors clacked as he slid them open, the pneumatic tubes contained within empty save for the one in the middle. There was a marker on it, a strip of bright candy red, and the cylinder inside had the same marker at the bottom of it.

Carefully, he took it out, claws clinking against the metal. Behind him, the other two stirred.

“Something arrived?” the Handmaid asked.

“Yeah, who’s this from?” Dualscar lifted the cylinder, pointing to the strip of red tape at the bottom.

“That’s from the Signless,” Nightwalker said. Dualscar stiffened.

Nightwalker held his hand out for it, surprise coloring his face. The Handmaid raised an eyebrow. Dualscar looked back down at the cylinder.

“It’s from who?”

“The Signless. Kankri Vantas of Alternia,” Nightwalker said. “Get with the program. There’s a Beforan version of you, there’s an Alternian version of Kankri.”

“You’re in contact with the Signless?” Dualscar asked.

“I’m in contact with the Grand Highblood too.” Nightwalker stalked over to him, snatching the cylinder out of his hands and uncapping the cylinder with a pop. “Not that he’s cooperative. In contact here is a relative term.”

The knight slid a thick scroll out of the cylinder, which caught against the rim of the tube once the top part started to unfurl. Nightwalker clicked his tongue and grabbed the rest of it out.

He set the empty cylinder on the table and unfurled the scroll.

It fell to the floor, and the rest of it unraveled across the carpet, before thumping against the wall, a good chunk of it still rolled up.

“…” said Dualscar, the Handmaid and Nightwalker.

“You said he’s the Alternian version of Kankri?” the Handmaid said.

“Yes,” Nightwalker said, almost regretfully.

“I see.”

“What the fuck,” said Dualscar.”

“Okay,” Nightwalker said, “Let’s split this into threes. Find a spot where the paragraphs split.”

“There’s barely any space,” the Handmaid said.

“We’ll find something,” Nightwalker said. “I’ll go find us some scissors.”

Through sheer luck, there were paragraphs with spaces between them, and they were able to split the scroll with rough evenness, making sure to mark which part came first. Nightwalker had the first part, the Handmaid had the middle, while Dualscar had the last, having opted for that once in case the Signless put his conclusions at the end, so they could skip the rest of the word vomit. Whatever they found, they had a large notebook on the coffee table for them to write the important parts.

So far, what they have is that while searching for Anshu Jaeger, the Signless had instead – with the help of the Dolorosa (Oh, Dualscar had thought when the Handmaid mentioned her) – managed to find people who were connected to her or connected to people who knew her, scattered in different places. Nightwalker made a list of who was supposed to be put where by the Heir’s team, and they’d found that most of the people who’d been scattered were from Earth.

“Jaeger’s also on Earth,” Dualscar said, keeping a nail on the sentence where the Signless had written that down. His other hand grabbed for the pen on the table so he could scribble that down.

Then, he paused.

“Wait, she’s dead, isn’t she?”

He turned towards the other two, who’d similarly frozen and were looking at him, the Handmaid with intrigue, Nightwalker with alarm.

“She’s walking around Earth alive?” Nightwalker asked.

Dualscar scanned the rest of the paragraph. “Doesn’t say here.”

“Shit,” Nightwalker said. “Okay. Let’s put a pin on that. I’ll ask Vantas if he can tell if she’s alive or if she’s just a ghost.”

“So we have everyone accounted for.” The Handmaid picked up the notebook where Nightwalker had scribbled down everyone’s assigned locations on one side, and where the three of them had listed down who had been displaced on the other. “Hal Strider, Sapphrel Angeles, Cecil and Kevin Palmer, William Graham, Elizabeth Fell, Ruben Benzedrine, James Buchanan, Vriska Serket, and Terezi Pyrope are on Earth; Eridan Ampora’s also on Earth, as is Anshu Jaeger. Everyone else who’s supposed to be there was displaced.”

Dualscar made a motion for the notebook. The Handmaid slid it over to him, and he checked the list of the displaced against Nightwalker’s notes:

Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Rose Lalonde, John Egbert, Karkat Vantas, Kanaya Maryam, Damara Megido (Beforus), Roxy Lalonde, Davesprite, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Loki Odinson…

“Wait,” Dualscar said, pointing to the only name on the Earth team that wasn’t on the displaced list. “Where the fuck’s Dirk Strider?”

KISARAGI ISLAND

Kisaragi Island, named after Earth’s Kisaragi Station (“It’s not a real station, by the way,” the stranger had told Dirk, but he’d decided very silently that they – he, actually – was full of shit and so he promptly ignored that.), was the afterlife of this universe Dirk had accidentally found himself in. It was a planet that was not really quite a planet as much as it was an idea, conceptual and sprawling, existing as a flat, shapeless mass on the map of this universe. Time did not pass here in a way that mattered, space was considered a suggestion, and death was a passport to get in through the gates.

“So I’m dead?” Dirk asked, seated across the stranger/sun-god /person in his new set of clothes, which were thankfully a little less crisp-dry and far more comfortable. The stranger had also been kind enough to offer him a pair of dark glasses, in case he was photosensitive. He’d taken them.

“No, you’ve got some time left in you,” the sun-stranger-person said, dull, red, eyes looking up at something over his head. “I can see it.”

“Then how did I get in?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” the stranger said, though his tone suggested that he was anything but interested. “My sister brought you to me after she found you in her ocean.”

Sister – likely the wind, then. A godtier with Breath powers, perhaps. If that was the case, it was likely he landed in a universe whose godtiers already received their reward, not one in the middle of a game.

Dirk held onto the handle of his sword tighter. He’d had it out since the bathroom and the stranger had made no move to take it from him.

“Do we have time to talk or do you want the short version?” Dirk asked.

The stranger shrugged. “We have nothing but time on Kisaragi.”

“What time frame were you from on Earth?” Dirk asked.

The stranger paused. Then, very quietly, he said, “I never lived there. It was long destroyed by the time I was born.”

Very far into the future, then. Possibly even farther than his and Roxy’s point in Earth’s history.

“Know any sea hags?”

The stranger’s lips pulled up to a smile, briefly. “You could say that.”

Okay, so he did come from an earth wrecked by a Batterwitch. Or at least something similar to that. Dirk’s grip on his sword loosened. If that was the case, then it wasn’t likely that this universe had anything to do with the Heir of Blood’s session, since the Heir of Doom’s session most likely went live in the mid to late 2010s.

“Know anything about universal decay?” Dirk asked.

The stranger nodded. “Somewhat.”

Good, that made it easier. Settling in his seat, but still making no move to let his sword go, Dirk told the stranger everything he could remember, from him and the other sessions falling into a completely different universe due to universal decay, to the rifts that tore New York open as aforementioned decay advanced – he made sure to leave names out, of course, just in case. The stranger listened patiently, though he raised an eyebrow at the mention of the Anathema Point.

“I…see,” he said, by the time Dirk was finished, which, judging by the clock on the wall, was surprisingly only half an hour. It helped when the person Dirk was speaking to was so silent, he supposed. “So one of those rifts stranded you here,” the stranger said.

“Yes.”

“And you said you had a deal with this Anathema Point, yes?”

Dirk nodded, “Yes.”

“I see,” the stranger said again. He scratched his cheek. “Our First Guardian…does not like interlopers,” he said, haltingly. “Understandable, of course, as universes are not easily breached, but he also just does not like interlopers in places they should not be in. The living in the world of the dead counts as that, more so if the living isn’t even from this universe.” He clicked his tongue. “He would have made you eat your own intestines if he’d gotten to you first; I imagine it’s a mystery why he hasn’t arrived to skin you alive by now.”

Dirk nodded, again, like that wasn’t disturbing to hear at all, but he was nothing if not immovable against most things.

“I need to consult with my siblings,” the person said, standing. “You are welcome to stay in one of the guestrooms. Pick either one.”

“What, just like that?” Dirk asked.

“Why not?”

Dirk stared at him. It can’t be that easy, surely, especially not when he was seemingly so far away from home. Something’s up. Something’s off.

“What’s your aspect?” Dirk asked.

“Time.”

“Since when did Time look like fire?”

“Always. Heat is part of our domain,” the stranger said. He lifted a hand, and it burst into flames. “I have a specialization in conceptual magic.”

Conceptual magic. The terms were still close to the terms that the Heir of Doom and their team used. Maybe they were influenced? Or were all Skaian universes just fated to use the same magic system?

“Yours?” the stranger asked.

“Heart.”

“Class?”

“Prince.”

The stranger hummed. “Maybe we can send you home faster, then,” he said. “We can work with that. But I need to talk to my siblings first and keep your existence here quiet before our Guardian rips you to pieces. Please make yourself at home.” He motioned to the rest of the house. “If you need me, I’ll be in my study. Down the hall here.”

“Sure….thanks,” Dirk said, tucking his suspicions into his silence.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No.”

The stranger nodded, again, and turned away to leave.

Jegus Grist, if there was anyone more awkward in terms of social interaction than himself, Dirk had just met him. The stranger looked almost like he was escaping, speedwalking out the room and into the hallway. Seconds later, a door slammed shut.

Dirk turned to the clock, strangely written in both roman numerals and trollian numerals. The second hand ticked away, and he counted with it until finally, it hit two minutes since the stranger had left.

And then, like any reasonable person, he bolted the fuck out of the house.

The house he had run from was situated in a large field, isolated from the rest of the town, with the ocean only an hour’s walk away from the backyard. There was still a storm brewing on its horizon, but the town itself looked untouched, sunny and bright, but not hot and overbearing, the weather almost eerily perfect and unravaged by the unrelenting heat brought on by a Batterwitch-destroyed climate.

Dirk was familiar with heat, despite the fact that he’d lived surrounded by the ocean – in fact, the water surrounding him only seemed to increase the temperature during the summer months; the sun and the warm weather were menaces that plagued most of his life, reprieved only by the chill and the dark of Derse, and then the absence of the sun in the medium. His glasses served three functions: a callback to his brother, being cool as fuck, and protection from everything being bright as shit. His wardrobe served the same purposes. He spent most of the daytime indoors, and when he did need to go outside, he went out at night.

Standing outside in the middle of the street with a sun out in full force, no clouds in sight (save for the storm over the sea) was…certainly something. His skin didn’t sting with the heat. His clothes didn’t feel stifling. The soft breeze that blew by was blessedly cool instead of steam-like.

A few people turned to look at him, all of them blank-eyed; he kept walking.

“Cool sword, dude!” a kid shouted. Dirk immediately stored it back into his sylladex.

Someone was checking their mail on the sidewalk, an adult human smoking a pipe; in the yard right next to it was an adult troll, mowing her lawn; to Dirk’s left, four kids sped by on their bikes, yelling at each other about a race – two were human, and the other two were trolls.

The clock in the house had both Roman numerals and trollian numerals.

“You lost, kid?”

Dirk turned. The human adult with the pipe was looking at him, a friendly smile on his face – no, a Dadly smile on his face. He had the look of a man that screamed that he was a Father. A Dad.

“I’m not from here, I’m just visiting,” Dirk said. Thank fuck that weirdo from earlier had given him shades.

“Oh, you from Hivetown?” the Dad said.

Dirk had no fucking idea where that was. “Yeah,” he said.

The Dad, however, nodded, taking a puff out of his pipe. “Well, there’s a map at City Hall,” he said, pointing down the road. “You take the main street downhill and you’ll get to the rotunda. City Hall’s right there, can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Dirk said.

“No problem, sonny,” the Dad said. He turned back towards his house, mail tucked under one arm, satisfied with his Dadly deed.

Deciding it was probably weird if he just started flying around here, Dirk walked down the road on foot, sticking to the sidewalk despite the fact that there were barely any vehicles going down the road and most people were using it as a footpath. The occasional bike passed, as did a few kids on skateboards, but there were no vehicles. Maybe they didn’t carry over to the afterlife – fewer chances of double death by a car accident that way.

True enough, once the road began to slope downhill, Dirk could see the rotunda, bustling with shops and stalls and – on the right side – a massive building that must have been city hall. It was a spotless, ivory white, with a huge dome that he pictured most city halls had (before the Batterwitch drowned them all), and on its roofs were landing platforms that people with wings were taking off and landing on from. Most of them appeared to be trolls, with a varying range of insect wings – from dragonfly wings to butterfly, to moth wings – but a few were insect-winged humans.

Since the society here appeared to be a mix of humans and trolls, they must have been halfling children or offspring of halfling children. Fascinating. Perhaps this universe’s version of the Batterwitch succeeded in terms of genetic modification, but not in completely conquering the planet, then?

As interesting as it was, though, he had to find a map, and it was best not to draw attention to himself, so as soon as he saw the huge map in front of the city hall gates, he made a beeline for it. No use in asking anyone here the logistics of their genetics, anyway, he wasn’t going to see this place again once he got off it.

The map was titled at the bottom left corner in a script he couldn’t read, but below it, as a subtitle, were the words: KISARAGI ISLAND, in the Roman alphabet and the trollian script.

A commontongue, then. With two different species with who knew how many dialects, they’d developed their own common language.

Kisaragi Island’s map was, as the stranger from earlier had said, an amorphous mass of a thing. It wasn’t painted or printed onto a tarp, but rather shown on a screen, and the mass shown on the screen was shifting, ever so slightly, its borders crawling outward and inward millimeter by millimeter. On the bottom left side of the map, with a white background drawn with black ink, was SUN CITY; on the opposite end, the upper right side of the map, with a black background drawn with white ink was HIVE TOWN. Sun City had the symbol of a sun (or was that Prospit?) drawn over its label, while Hive Town had the symbol of a moon (or was that Derse?) above its. The rotunda Dirk was in was 3/4ths of the way inland of Sun City, and by the bottom leftmost corner of the landmass was an empty field marked only with one house:

The Sun God.

Past that house and past the shores were drawn clouds and cartoon lightning. Huh. So there was always just a storm there, Dirk supposed.

Unfortunately, the island’s map didn’t indicate any entrances for the dead or exits for those who wanted to get off of it. Still, having a layout of the place would be useful. Maybe someone here knew where the exit was. He scanned the map again, taking note of the names of the streets and bridges, notable landmarks – and there, on the upper right corner of Hivetown, also at the very edge of the city near the beach, was another house on its lonesome:

God of the Dead.

Perfect. If anyone was going to kick him out of the afterlife, it was the god of the dead. Now, he just needed to get to Hivetown.

There had to be a way to get there fast while on the ground, right?

“Sorry, bud, but all trolley operations are suspended until next week,” the operator said, tipping his hat down at Dirk sadly. He was as blank-eyed as the rest of the dead, but Dirk didn’t need to see his irises to know he was bored out of his mind.

The map had indicated a trolley station westward of the rotunda, which people took to get to and from their destinations much faster, and though thankfully, it didn’t cost money, apparently all of them were suspended today.

“All of them?” Dirk repeated.

The operator sighed with the exasperation of someone who’d worked retail and had to deal with insistent customers every day of his life. Not that Dirk even knew what retail was.

“Trolley operations are suspended every crossing week; all travel must be done the weeks before or done by air,” he recited. “You got a friend with a flight license, they’ll probably let you piggyback; you look skinny enough.”

Shit. By air. The map had marked another station, one for balloons – perhaps that was hot air balloons?

Deciding he might as well take the chance, he made his way to the opposite side of the rotunda where the balloon station was; it was operational, thankfully, with a long line of people winding past the waiting room, all with tickets on hand (did he have to pay for this one, then?). Unfortunately, there was a long line of people and all the tickets were out.

“Sorry, kid, you should have been here hours ago,” the ticket lady said. “All the seats are taken.”

Oh, so the tickets are handed out by seats, not in exchange for money.

“No open seats even until tonight?” he asked.

“No open seats until Thursday,” the ticket lady said, blowing the bubble gum she was chewing and letting it pop. She resumed chewing. “We had to print the Thursday seats in advance. People are rushing to visit loved ones for crossing week.”

“…crossing week?” he hazarded.

The ticket lady paused. She pushed up her glasses, which weren’t really proper glasses as the ‘lenses’ were each made to spell ASS and were bedazzled. Blank eyes stared down at him, olive eyelashes stark against the lack of irises. The ticket lady’s sharp nails, Dirk realized, were not nails but claws. She was a hybrid.

“Freshly departed?” she asked.

“You’re asking if I just died?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty common to get confused about Kisaragi if you just got here, duh,” she said, popping her bubblegum again. “So, did you just get popped into a casket like a happy meal?”

“Yes,” Dirk said.

“I see. Where’d you wake up?”

“Around here,” he said. “Uphill, actually. By the houses.”

“I see, I see. Now, usually, that happens when there’s a family member nearby, so I think your best bet is to go back up the neighborhood and find whoever you’re supposed to know,” the ticket lady – wait, no; Dirk glanced down at her name tag. It read: Hi, I’m CALICO. – Calico, said. “If you still wanna go to Hivetown after crossing week, they’ll show you around.”

“Thanks,” Dirk said. “Just out of curiosity, what’s crossing week?”

“It’s when the ocean level rises in Dusk Valley.” Calico reached down underneath her desk and brought out a table. She pulled up an image of the island’s map, with the shifting borders. There was a line of mountains bisecting the very middle of the island, right where Hivetown and Sun City intersected – Calico traced it carefully with a claw, hovering over the screen. “This right here is the lowest elevation point of Kisaragi Island. So, twice a year, when the tides get high, the water floods the valley.”

She pointed to the little dashes that crossed all over the map, including the valley.

“These little things are rails for the trolleys, and since the railway goes into the valley, when the water rises it’s pretty useless. So, trolley operations are suspended twice a year,” she said. “It’s always the same time every year so people are supposed to know already and are always advised to travel in advance or schedule visits for later, but, hey, even in death, people can be stubborn.”

“And the only way to get to Hivetown or cross over to here is through air?” Dirk asked.

“Yep,” Calico said, tucking her tablet back under her desk. “The ocean around Kisaragi…isn’t really an ocean. It’s more like – ” She paused. “I don’t know if you remember elementary school, but Kisaragi’s not a planet and it’s not a place on any of the planets. It’s just a place that exists in the middle of nowhere. The ocean around it is more like a void. You can’t travel it, otherwise, you’ll get sucked into a black hole, get ejected into deep space, or get eaten by a horrorterror.”

That explains why he showed up on the beach; if he got dimensionally displaced, then at the very edge of the island would make sense for him to be thrown onto.

“I see,” Dirk said. “Thanks.”

“No problem, kid.” Calico threw him a salute, and then knocked her glasses back down onto the bridge of her nose. The bedazzled ‘ASS’es glittered in the sunlight. “Next time you and your family come by, I’ll get you window seats.”

“I appreciate that,” Dirk said.

Though I doubt that’s going to happen, he thought, and then, How the fuck are there window seats on hot air balloons?

There wasn’t a single private vehicle in sight, which meant that hitchhiking wasn’t an option for him. All hot air balloons were the stations’ property, and it turned out that despite the trolley operator telling him to piggyback on someone with a flight license, carrying someone while in flight was actually illegal, due to the accidents it could cause, especially as most people’s wings were only strong enough to carry themselves. With his options dwindling as the hour went on, Dirk sat on one of the benches outside the balloon station, surrounded by people who were still patiently waiting in line. A few of them were armed with sleeping bags, clearly more than willing to spend the night here, and several had already started breaking out their packed dinners and sat down on the floor to eat.

It'd been the same when everyone was underground in New York. Did anyone from back home survive the rips in reality that’d started sucking them in?

As the sun began to set, and then fully disappeared over the horizon, one of the small map screens mounted on the wall of the balloon station switched its color scheme: this time, Sun City was drawn on a dark background with white lines, while Hivetown was drawn on a white background with dark lines. The symbols for the sun and moon also switched: Sun City now sporting the moon and Hivetown, the sun.

Huh. Neat.

He yawned, exhausted from a whole day of walking around and finding nothing. His best bet was still to talk to the god in charge of the dead and get them to kick him out without offering him up to be torn to shreds by their First Guardian, but unless he flew and outed that he wasn’t one of this universe’s gods, then he was stuck here for the next few days until crossing week passed.

God, this sucked.

Standing, Dirk let out a soft huff as he made his way back towards the neighborhood uphill. He might as fucking well.

“Welcome back,” the sun god drawled as Dirk discreetly and quietly opened the front door. Nothing had creaked or hit the wall, the floors hadn’t sounded as he’d hovered over the wood. Nobody was around to see him fly, with the large field around the house.

Dirk slowly turned his head towards the doorway that led from the living room to the dining hall. The fucker couldn’t even see him, how did he notice?

“Are you going to let all the warmth out or are you going to close the door?” the sun god asked.

Dirk paused, and then closed the door behind him.

The sun god was in the dining room, setting the table – two sets of dishes were arranged on it, along with the food, both placed on opposite ends of the table, as far away from each other as possible. The god also wasn’t looking at him, determinedly staring down as he set the last of the food on the table instead of at Dirk.

Yeah, Dirk could work with that. That much social awkwardness could work in his favor.

He took the nearer seat, keeping his eye on the sun god as he did so. The god walked over to the fridge to retrieve something and then tossed him a can of soda.

He turned it around until he could see the label, printed in the local commontongue, but with subtitles underneath. It was orange soda.

Dirk frowned. “How’d you know I liked orange soda?”

The sun god closed the fridge, raising an eyebrow, and then lifted his own can of soda to show him. “I don’t, it’s just all I have. Store was out.”

“Oh.”

The god eyed him for a moment. “Paranoid.”

“I did just get thrown into a completely different universe.”

“That is a point,” the sun god said, taking his own seat on the other side. “How was your trip?”

“…unhelpful,” Dirk admitted. “But educational.”

The god nodded. He inclined his head downward and mumbled something, before reaching over to begin serving himself food. Dirk followed suit, grabbing for the dishes he hadn’t gotten to yet.

“How far did you get to?” the sun god asked.

“The balloon and the trolley stations,” Dirk said. Surprisingly, he could recognize the dishes in front of him, even though he’d never had them before. He’d seen them in movies, though, and these were very much Earth dishes before his time. Curious. How much of Earth’s different cultures carried over to this universe?

“Ah, your timing’s unfortunate. It’s crossing week.”

“So I’ve gathered,” Dirk said, sitting down and taking a bite of one of the meat cuts. His eyes widened slightly behind his glasses. Holy shit. “Is there really no other way to get to Hivetown?”

“Why did you want to go to Hivetown?”

He took a moment to chew down another cut of meat before speaking. “God of the dead can probably boot me out of here and back to my universe.”

“Oh,” the sun god said. He paused. “You know, you could have just said. The god of the dead is my older sibling.”

Dirk stopped midway of shoveling another piece of food in his mouth. “…the siblings you were talking to earlier?”

“Yes.”

“So the whole afternoon, you were in contact with them.”

“It’s what I said I would do, so yes.”

Fuck.

Dirk took a swig of his soda and set it down like a shot glass. “I see,” he said, tersely. “Okay.”

“Was your afternoon enjoyable?” the sun god asked.

He shot the other boy a glare; the god’s lips seemed to quirk up a bit, but it was so slight it could have been Dirk’s irritation suggesting that the god was making fun of Dirk.

“I walked because I didn’t want to get mobbed by people since obviously, if they saw someone flying around and it’s not one of their gods, they’d probably get suspicious,” Dirk said.

“That was a wise decision,” the sun god said. He polished off a portion of his food first before speaking again. “I understand that your circumstances are unpleasant and that you are well within reason to be paranoid, but should you need assistance for anything, perhaps it would be best to ask if I can help.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dirk said.

“Okay,” the sun god said. “With that aside, how was your trip, Prince?”

Dirk clenched his jaw, the irritation of the day returning to him full force. Not even the amazing food was enough to stave the memory of walking through crowds of people off.

“Exhausting,” he said.

“Did you tell your siblings about me?” Dirk asked as the sun-god started tidying the table. He stood from his seat, unsure of what to do – should he offer to help? What was polite here?

“I did. They’re looking into it now. They said to lie low for now while our First Guardian’s still letting you be. If he thinks you’re a threat, he might kill you, so…” the sun-god made a face. “Tacky as it might be, try to seem as harmless as possible.”

Dirk snorted.

“Even us godtiers, unfortunately, can’t match up against a Guardian,” the sun-god said. “I can’t save you if he decides to use you as a chew toy.”

“What’s your Guardian like, anyway?” Dirk asked. It can’t be that bad, right? His universe’s First Guardian was a cat. If it was a bigger beast, there had to be a way to subdue it.

“Very uptight. Obsessed with order. Once slapped my hand with a ruler because I used the wrong fork at a dinner fork,” the sun-god said, with some level of amusement.

Dirk paused.

“Your First Guardian has higher intelligence,” he said.

“Yes,” the sun-god said. “Did yours not?”

“It was a cat,” Dirk said.

“Ah,” the sun-god said. “Ours owns a blog.”

“Ah,” Dirk echoed. “I see.”

An all-knowing and all-seeing creature with intelligence on par or perhaps higher than a human’s.

God, he was so fucked.

Given that he’d spent the last few hours going around the city instead of checking the house out and picking out a guestroom, the sun-god offered him a tour of the house, which was less of a house and more of an estate. There were only two guestrooms, but there were more than thirteen bedrooms on the second floor, all of them taken and all of them with nameplates on the front, some decorated by the bedroom owners and some bare.

“Where is everyone?” Dirk asked, passing by another room with a nameplate, this one bare of decoration. The one right next to it had little paper flowers all around it. “Went home for crossing week?”

“Kinda,” the sun-god said. “But it’s lucky timing that you got here when no one else was home.”

“Is this your house?” Dirk asked. “Or is this a communal house?”

“It’s mine,” the sun-god said. He motioned to a door on the left, with a bare nameplate displaying only the number 3. “But sometimes my siblings and my wards stay over.”

“Are all your siblings godtiers?”

“Yes.”

Huh. “Was your entire session just you and your siblings?”

“Yes,” the sun-god said.

It was a good call for him to not fly around, then, since he would have definitely stuck out as a godtier.

“Anything else I should know about so I don’t accidentally put myself on the chopping block?” Dirk asked.

The sun-god paused. “I’ll tell you if one of my wards comes over. If they do, it’s probably best to stay out of sight if you can help it,” he said. “It complicates things less.”

“And if it’s your siblings?”

“They already know about you, it’s fine,” the sun-god said. “Though, if a guy shows up dressed up in white and bright green, and has like, white hair and green eyes – you know, like radioactive green – you should run. That’d be our Guardian.”

“Noted.”

“If you need anything and you can’t find me in the house, I’m either in the garden out back – ” The god jerked a thumb down the hall. “ – or I’m in my room.” He motioned to the door with the number 3 on it. “I also have a cat and he’s kind of pissy so try not to aggravate him or he’s going to scratch the shit out of you. He doesn’t like strangers.”

Dirk nodded. He never trusted cats anyway.

“The others will probably have figured something for you out tomorrow, so get some sleep if you want,” the sun-god said. “Can’t imagine getting tossed onto the ocean was enjoyable.”

It wasn’t, but Dirk wasn’t about to say that. This was a strange house in a strange place, with an even stranger host.

“Take either of the guestrooms, I don’t care,” the sun-god said. “Or stay up. Just don’t wreck the house while I’m asleep.”

The god shrugged, opened the door to his bedroom to be greeted by an obnoxious meow (“Sorry, sweetie,” he said to his cat.), and then turned in for the night.

This marked the second time that Dirk found himself in a strange house with a strange benefactor, only this time, he had free reign of it.

Of course, he didn’t sleep that night. He snooped around the house.

Funnily enough, he didn’t find anything. Not because nothing was suspicious, but because nearly all of the rooms were tidied up or warded. The library contained nothing of interest, with only a massive fiction section and some books on this universe’s history that he didn’t have time to go through. The study was locked, and when he tried to break in through the window outside, a spell had looped him back to the hallway inside the house again. Trying again resulted in the same thing. The other bedrooms were also locked, and attempted break-ins put him in disorienting loops that made the night crawl on slower than it should have.

By the time the sun rose, the only places he’d been able to check were the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, the common room, the library, the sunroom, the tangerine garden out back, and the front lawn. Nothing stuck out. Every other room that could have contained something of interest was bust.

The sun-god found him glaring down at the living room carpet, though with his glasses on, he probably couldn’t tell.

“You knew I was going to check this place out,” Dirk said.

“No, I just took precautions against a stranger like a regular person,” the sun-god said. “I said not to wreck the house while I’m asleep.”

“You said you could offer help.”

“I said I could offer, not be negligent with the possibility of you invading my family’s privacy,” he said. “Did you need anything urgent?”

Dirk’s glare moved from the carpet to the god. “Information.”

“On?”

“Anything.”

The god scratched his cheek. “I’ll call my siblings and see if they have anything yet,” he said. “At least one of them should be awake.”

Dirk held his glare – though the god wasn’t reacting to it anyway, especially not when he couldn’t see Dirk’s eyes behind the shades – but nodded.

“I’ll make breakfast,” the god said, turning away and heading for the kitchen. “In the meantime, please do not try that again. If you have a question, you can just ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, following after the god.

“What kind of information were you looking for, anyway?” the god asked.

“Anything on how to get on this island and out of it,” Dirk said. “You’re clearly alive, there has to be a way in and out of this place.”

The god nodded, grabbing the apron hung by the kitchen doorway as he passed it. Dirk leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms.

“There is,” the god said. “It’s in Hivetown, so your hypothesis of our local death god being able to help was spot on. There’s a tunnel there – it goes under their house in this world, and under a cemetery in the living world. It’s how the living who have reason to be here get in and out of Kisaragi.”

“Vetted by your death god?”

“Yes.” The sun-god opened the fridge and began to take frozen ramen out. “But I don’t see how getting back to the land of the living helps you here. Your goal is to get back to your universe, was it not?”

“I figured if I could get back to the land of the living, it’ll be easier to dimension hop,” Dirk said. “It was easier to dimension hop while I wasn’t in the afterlife of my universe.”

“That is a point,” the sun-god said.

A soft meow called out from the living room. Dirk turned to see a fluffy, orange cat walk in, golden eyes observing him carefully before sliding over to its owner. Its tail had a white mark at the very end of it.

The sun-god hummed, greeting the creature with a soft, “Hello.” It rubbed itself on the god’s calves and purred.

“That’s your cat?” Dirk asked. It didn’t seem that aggressive. It was smaller than Gcat, and its large eyes made it look more cute than pissy. It didn’t look like it could even claw Dirk’s face off if it tried.

Said cat then turned to him, stared, and hissed.

Ah.

“He doesn’t like strangers,” the sun-god said. “He tolerates them, as long as they keep their space, but he’s always suspicious of them.” The god sighed. “He takes a while to warm up to people. He’s known most of my wards for years and he still doesn’t like some of them.”

“Aren’t animals good judges of character?”

“If said animals aren’t him, yes. The kids get along well with pets, my cat just doesn’t get along well with humans.”

The god retrieved a pot from the cupboard and filled it with water, setting it on the stove so that it could boil. As he waited, he said, absentmindedly, “You’re kind of the same, aren’t you, Prince?”

Dirk stiffened for a brief second before turning to the god. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Always suspicious of people. Never letting anyone in close. Even if you know them for years, you tend to hold them at arm’s length,” the sun-god said. “Yet sometimes you don’t know how much is too much, so when you try, you fumble it and you end up holding everything away from you again, and you tell yourself it’s for their own safety. Sometimes you tell yourself it’s for yours, too.”

“Didn’t know you were a shrink.”

“I have a degree, yeah,” the sun-god said, nonchalantly. “But I don’t practice.”

“I imagine it’s hard to when you’re a recluse who doesn’t like interacting with people,” he said.

To his surprise, the sun-god only smiled at the jab, even though the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, cutting open the noodle pack and emptying it into the heating water. “I do find it exhausting interacting with people.”

“Then why’re you using your psychobabble on me?”

The god shrugged. “Thinking out loud.”

“Stop the out loud part, then,” Dirk said.

The god hummed. He took two cutting boards and two knives and set them on the island behind him. His cat hopped onto the counter, and then on top of the fridge, lazily lying down, eyes alternating between his owner and Dirk.

“Do you know why I immediately asked about your dead man’s deal with the Anathema Point?” he asked.

Dirk tilted his head. “No, why?”

“Because a dead man’s deal invokes Doom abilities, and Doom abilities include systems and structures, and systems and structures are how universes run. Something in your universe tried to kill you or bring you someplace else with that tear in reality you told me about, but instead of ending up there, you got rerouted to this island,” the god said. He stopped for a moment, careful as he spoke next. “Kisaragi is…a place of comfort. It’s an afterlife, yes, but it’s a place of rest, and it’s a place where everyone is supposed to let go of their burdens. This is not the only option for the dead, but it’s the one where people get peace.”

Dirk’s jaw clenched. Luckily, the sun-god wasn’t looking.

“So a guy whose mind is running a thousand miles a minute gets dragged into a gravity well only to be brought here by a possible system error – I’m not saying that is the case, but it’s very likely. You mentioned there was a binding string that looped around your neck, right?”

“Binding string?”

“That red thing.”

“Thought that was that red string of fate bullshit.”

“Fate binds. If anything, it’s an unbreakable connection with something,” the god said. “I’ve reason to believe that was a result of your dead man’s deal, and that it interfered with that tear in reality and brought you here instead.”

He leaned on the island, forearms on the tiles as he looked at Dirk.

“Why’s a troubled man sent to a place of tranquility?”

Dirk pressed his lips to a thin line. “You should really stop thinking out loud,” he said.

“I should,” the sun-god said with a nod. Then he turned to retrieve vegetables from the fridge. “Do you know how to cook?”

“What?” Dirk blinked at the sudden swerve.

“Do you know how to cook?”

“I – nothing that isn’t instant, I grew up after an apocalypse.”

“I’ll teach you, then,” the sun-god said, setting a bundle of scallions on the island. “If you’re expected to fight as soon as you get back to your world, your body needs to repair itself, you know.”

“I’m godtier.”

“Godtier bodies take injury, it’s how they die. Repetitive injury through neglect can still have effects at the moment.”

Fair point. But, still – “You’re doing the shrink thing again, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” the sun-god said. At least he was honest. “But I’m also going to teach you a life skill. This is Kisaragi Island. We’re all about experiencing things we never had in the living world. Consider this a vacation from all your previous duties, a break from the apocalypse.”

The god picked up the knife and turned it until it was handle-first towards Dirk, pointed downward at the floor.

“Time spent on Kisaragi is not the same as time spent in the living world. A thousand years here is a millisecond there – sometimes it doesn’t exist there at all. When you return to your universe, no time will have passed, even if you spend a week here,” the god said. “You can relax, Prince. You know you’ve earned it, don’t you?”

Dirk glared at the knife.

“Or do you not want to make sure your food’s not poisoned?”

“Only for that,” he said, stepping forward to take the knife from the god’s hand. “I don’t trust you.”

“I’m not asking you to,” the god said. “I’m just your interdimensional host.”

He motioned towards the other cutting board.

“Now listen to me carefully, I’m going to teach you how to cook ramen that isn’t instant.”