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Date: September 25th, 2000
Status: Vaguely Public - Sphix, Anathema, Aziraphale, Loki, War, Uriel
Setting: Tadfield Dining Room
Summary: Care to have a bite?

It had been, precisely, one week, and another thirty-three nanoseconds, according to Aziraphale's entirely ethereal* watch.

Not that he was counting.

He had tried not to think about it, and that didn't work; he had tried to think about it, and that went even worse. The only thing left now was to distract himself from it, and all the books in the library did were remind him of his bookshop, and with that the fire, and with that Cr- someone's heroic efforts.

Naturally, Aziraphale did what any angel would do when faced with this situation: he went for lunch, downstairs. It was stubbornly quiet when he walked in - he'd come in a bit early, after all - but it would pick up, he knew. The angel took his newspaper, newly purchased from the front desk, and made himself comfortable.

*It appeared to only keep the hour and minutes, in a grandfather-clock face with Roman numerals, but did far more. 'Appearances were often deceiving' appeared to be a recurring theme this week.

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A little wary at seeing the sphinx again, Anathema smiled. "Lunch, yes I suppose it is my turn to get you something to eat. It is fair after all."

She looked over to the angel sitting at the table and her smile faded. "Are you alright? You seem....sad."

And then yet another familiar face walked in. Loki, with hair this time. At his off hand comment that she and the rest of the girls were beautiful, her smile was brought back to her face. It was good to hear someone say it, especially now that Newt was gone.

She wondered when he would be back. She really did miss him terribly.

"Lucky me," Aziraphale smiled kindly, thinking, dinner and a show, upon seeing the bone-club. He said, instead, "Good food and good company. Or I will once it's served, I suppose. I'm quite all right, myself, thank you for your concern. How are you this day, my dear?" He was addressing Loki, but the question was vague and could apply to any at the table.

Bone-club. Aziraphale tried, desperately, to not stare in shock - he'd met, of the four visitors, all but the one with it, and although he really shouldn't be surprised he was. He was even unsure whether the polite thing to do was to ask about it, or simply leave it, tactfully.

He'd folded away his paper as soon as Anathema had joined him (and greeted each in return as they had sat down) but now his fingers itched to occupy themselves, so he took a menu and perused it.

"Me?" Loki asked appearing honestly surprised at the question. "Oh, I'm always fine. There isn't much that can get to me."

He didn't even consider it a proper lie. After all with all his family except Uriel out of reach and the knowledge that he was going to die soon anyway, what was there that anyone could use to hurt him? Uriel, yes, but that was it and with her daggers Uriel could take care of herself in most situations.

"You do appear a little down, though," he remarked picking up a paper napkin from the table to play with.

He hoped that nothing had happened to the library. If the books had been damaged ... But most likely the not-god was just feeling off. Could not-gods catch colds, maybe?

Working or not, everybody needed a little break every now and then. Especially when they were eating for two, Uriel reasoned. So, with a little sign telling that she would be back soon -- not that there usually was much to do at the front desk most of the time -- she headed towards the dining room. With any luck she could even have some company while eating.

She hadn't, however, expected to meet such a wide variety of people. Seeing Loki, she smiled. He seemed a bit better nowadays -- maybe the medicines were helping at last? At least his hair was growing back.

"Am I allowed to join you, perchance?" she asked, smiling now at the other people gathered. "Or is this a private convention of some sort?" She then nodded at her fellow angel. "And thank you for the lovely present, Aziraphale. Although I must admit I don't understand why you didn't just bring it to me personally..."

"Er, ah," Aziraphale said, turning a slight pink at the ears. "It's not really - there was, er, something that came - sorry. You're welcome to join us, of course, and- look, the serving lad. Hello, dear Wensleydale. Are you here for our orders?"

"Hello, Mr.Fell, Anathema," he replied, nodding to the others he hadn't met yet. "Can I start anyone off with drinks? Or appetizers?" He thought that Mr. Fell looked a bit down, but decided against asking.

"Hello Wensleydale. Haven't seen you in a while," Anathema replied, happy to see another familiar face around the manor. "Um, I'd like a salad sandwhich please and my friend here," she points to Sphix "will have what she wants, but I am paying."

Sphix took a chair and sat down. She settled the femur on the table so that she could keep an eye on it. Her brother, for one, had had the irritating tendency to think of everything as his, and while none of the people gathered here stroke her as a bone thief, with strangers you could never know for sure.

After she was seated Sphix put a smile on her face and looked up at the waiter. ”Wensleydale”, she said, trying the name. It sounded tasty. ”I will have some meat. Raw, please.” Ordering human flesh was out of the question, even in a place like this, even if Apollo had said that they could stop pretending here. After all, it only required one undercover police officer and she would be in trouble. The possibly crazy Brenda had said that there was no need to worry, but the mere fact that Sphix had reason to doubt Brenda’s sanity spoke strongly against trusting her word.

War gave the woman next to her, who was holding the bone-club, a sharp look. Something interesting was going on here, and she wasn't sure what.

"I'll have a steak, medium rare, with all the trimmings."

She'd worked up more of an appetite than she'd realised, and at least if she was eating she might be able to let the rest of the company inadvertently introduce themselves. She didn't really like betraying ignorance of her surroundings.

"Steak sounds good," Loki commented still busy with his paper napkin. Apparently this was a clumsy effort at origami. "Ill have one, too."

Aziraphale nodded, turning his head and whispering, beyond the perception of the table (he hoped) that he'd pick up the cost, actually.

"Why don't you bring us a pitcher of water for drinks, to start, and then I'll also take a glass of milk with my soup and sandwich, please?" He glanced at the pregnant archangel seated beside him, and asked politely, "Are you ready to order?"

"I'd also like a glass of milk, actually," Uriel said, smiling. "And as for the actual food, I'd like rice, chicken, and some salad, please." She almost shuddered at the mere thought of raw meat. Thankfully morning sickness was now a thing of the past, or merely hearing Sphinx order her own lunch would have been enough to send her to the bathroom.

Bran kicked as though to express his opinion about such things, and Uriel set a soothing hand on her stomach. No, she wouldn't touch raw meat even if it wasn't unhealthy for pregnant people. Her son would have proper nutrition.

Wensley repeated the orders on the slip of paper in his hand, double-checking that the orders were right. There hadn't been a table in this large for a few weeks.

"I'll be right back with everyone's drinks," came the reply, and with a nod and a smile, he was back in the kitchen.

Ana watched as Wensleydale walked away and turned her head in Uriel's direction.

"How is the baby doing? Do you need any thing else for headaches, or is everything alright?"

Personally she hoped that everything was alright, it wasn't healthy to take any kind of pill during pregnancy, not even something for headaches.

"Oh, the baby is doing very well," Uriel said, "and the headaches seem to have ceased for now as well. Thank you for asking, though." She smiled down at her stomach, patting it as Bran kicked again. "The baby's been very active lately. So, I may have a very playful case in my hands in a few months -- or one that likes abusing its mother," she chuckled.

Of course, thanks to Bast she knew that she was having a boy, but she didn't want to tell that to anyone just yet. She wanted to keep it her own little secret for a little while longer still.

Anathema smiled widely at hearing that the pregnancy was doing well. It was always a good thing to hear. "Well, may everything go smoothly for you for the rest of the pregnancy."

Loki smiled slightly at Uriel's confirmation that all was well with the baby, but didn't look up from his folding. The finished piece wasn't quite as symmetrical as he'd hoped, but it was recognisable as a ship, if not the Viking longboat he'd been aiming for. It would do.

For a moment he wondered what to do with it, then remembered his companions.

"Here, for you," he placed the little ship in front of Uriel.

"Thank you," Uriel said, smiling at Anathema. Then, as Loki gave her the little ship, she continued, "And thank you, too. It is adorable!" She picked the little ship up carefully as though it was a precious treasure. "Although now I feel a bit like a little child the nice big brother is trying to cheer up," she added then, grinning at the god.

Loki looked at her in alarm. "Why, do you need cheering up? Is something wrong?"

She'd just said the baby was fine, hadn't she? What else could be upsetting her?

Aziraphale felt awful about being relieved that he - and misery apparent - were being left alone that he sat, quietly, nodding to the conversation thus far, and turned to Uriel when she spoke.

"I think it may have been a figure of speech," he said gently, as somewhat of an apology for sending the group's attention her way.

"Loki, my dear, your hair is very - well, you have some. Why the change of style?"

Oh fuck! Did Ezra have to say that right in front of Uriel?

"Well, yes, it grew back and I decided to leave it for now. Seems a lot of people didn't like the way I looked without it."

He shrugged. "I'm trying to figure out what I like better myself at the moment."

Ana smiled. Personally, she had liked Loki withotu the hair, but it did suit him better with something covering up the baldness.

She wondered what had made him decide to shave it off in the first place.

"I like it either way." She said out loud.

Loki gave Ana a quick flirtatious smile.

"Ah, a Lady with taste. And a beautiful one at that."

She was attractive, too, though not in the Viking way. Then again Loki wasn't picky about that. She was the kind of woman that wouldn't catch Odin's interest and for most of his life that had been a go ahead signal for Loki. (Not that he'd never tangled with Odin's type, but those tended to leave him before he was tired of them. Those damn charms of Odin's really weren't fair.)

"It's a beautiful colour," Aziraphale observed, obstinately. "You are certainly able to carry off either style, of course."

He drank from a glass of water that had not been there before.

War looked across and grinned. "I've certainly never understood why people make a fuss about red hair. Shows a bit of a spark in your nature," she quipped, as she winked at Loki. Certainly, with the hair growing back he did look better than he had done with it gone.

"People make a fuss about red hair?" Uriel blinked. Clearly, there were a lot of things in the human culture she had never heard of. With a thought and a shake of her head, she turned her own hair red. "That sounds... unreasonable. It's just a colour, after all."

"It depends on where and when you are," Loki commented with a slight shrug. "It wasn't such a big deal to the Vikings, but the Indians were quite fascinated when we first arrived in America."

His hair colour seemed quite normal and uninteresting to him, but women tended to like it, so he was quite happy with it.

"And so were the African nations, and the Far East, really. The only place that wasn't so surprised at the phenomenon was the Philipines. Really. Oh, Loki, what ever did you think of the explanation for the colour by humans? I always thought it was a bit silly, really. Mutation. They're not, you know, the Z-Men."

"Z-Men?" What in the world? "Oh, do you mean the X-Men? What do you have against them? I think they're quite entertaining."

Just because Loki liked reading books didn't mean he looked down on comics. They were little help when he needed information, but entertaining and on occasion very inspiring.

Anathema snorted in laughter. She had nothing against red haired people. How people could have ever thought it was a mutation was beyond her...yet again she wasn't as old as Loki, and even older, Aziraphale.

"What other theories did they have for red hair?" she asked, amused by the conversation.

The sphinx sat and just listened to the conversation, trying to decide if any of the other people sounded like a police officer. Of course, she had no idea what a police officer should sound like, exactly, which made the task much more difficult. Then a glass appeared out of thin hair and the colour of Brenda’s hair suddenly changed, and the sphinx realised that law enforcement people might just be the least of her problems.

She had seen things appear and change before, but it was always unsettling. After all, if someone could materialize a glass, what would stop them from materializing a spear, going through someone’s heart, or a bullet, inserted right into the brain?

A shiver went through the sphinx, a half unconscious reflect to the threat. If she had wanted - and if she had had less experience managing herself - it would have covered her body in fur and changed her shape. As it was, she just flinched, remaining human.

Aziraphale looked thoughtful. "A great many. Fire for hair, most say, but there's other ideas like the Nephilim's children (perhaps you met Raphael?) or the children of various deities."

He wasn't looking at Loki's hair.

Really.

"Of course that would have to have been very active deities," Loki added with a grin.

So, he might have left the occasional half god around, yes, but surely there hadn't been that many of them. Certainly no more than perhaps fifty. Or maybe a hundred considering the length of his existence? Did grandchildren also count? He almost wished he'd kept an eye on all of the human women he'd bedded through the centuries. It'd be nice to have relatives around, even if they were mortal.

"There's all sorts of red, mind," War added. "Most people could cope with the reddish blondes, but mine tends to stand out." She grinned. "Not that I mind that, of course."

Anathema smiled. "Hair envy. Sometimes I wish mine was something other than plain black." She shrugged "Dying it a different colour though, it always felt like cheating, so here I am with my hair still its natural colour."

"Plain?" Loki couldn't believe it. "There is nothing at all plain about black hair. You know, where I come from black is a very rare hair colour and I've always considered it especially attractive, especially on a beautiful lady like you."

He winked at Anathema. Oh, if only he were a little stronger!

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