neutral_omens | (no subject)

Date: May 1, 2000
Setting: The Manor grounds
Status: Public
Summary: The new year dawns for the pagan calendar, and you know what that means...

Hermes had been gathering wood all day, depositing it in a large pile in a very clear spot on the rolling lawns. He'd gotten up very early, and had spent most of the morning making little flyers. They were on plain white paper, decorated with a box of crayola markers that he'd produced*; still, Hermes was rather a good hand at doodling (he inherited some art in his blood from Apollo), and soon flyers were posted in the most commonly frequented places of the manor. The godling made it all the more mysterious and fun by simply disappearing the flyers off to their appointed place as he finished them. So he didn't even have to leave his room.

There will be a bonfire starting
at dusk to celebrate the new year.
Please come! There will be music
and other fun things!

All the rest of the day, Hermes was outside, running around with Dog and whatever other creatures were outside, and frolicking about the grounds, laughing and generally having what grown-ups would call 'way too much fun'.

As the sun was setting, he lay on the grass to watch it, hands behind his head. Sunsets always reminded him of his brother, and thus made him a bit serious.

"Someday we'll celebrate the new year in Hawai'i," he said, speaking to Apollo, Eros and Dionysus in the manner that mortals spoke to dead or far-away loved ones. "We'll have a big luau with drums and dancing and lots of fun...someday, I promise."

______________________________
*Unlike most people who could just make things appear from thin air, Hermes literally teleported them from somewhere else. He was the god of thieves, after all.

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Luna sat and stared, fascinated by the succubus's smooth movements. She could feel a blush creeping up her cheeks. Of course she'd been told about the birds and the bees - her father had spent a rather ackward after trying to explain it to her before she finally realised what he had been trying to get at, and assured her father that 'she knew all about it - she'd been observing the birds and the bees for quite some time now.'

Power radiated from Ellie, self-assured, and Luna was not surprised when first Hermes, then the man(-shaped being) with the sunglasses joined her. Dark, throbbing, sinuous flows swelled and ebbed with the beat of the drum.

Luna blinked when Ellie kissed Hermes, and licked her lips unconsciously; wanting, but not knowing what or how or why or when.

Her blush came out in its full glory when Crowley ripped Ellie's skirt off, and deepened when she took off her top. Luna released the breath she did not know she had been holding when Hermes shucked off his own clothing, leaving it on the ground. Pressing her lips together, and hoping that she hadn't made a sound, Luna closed her eyes. Almost against her own volition, she felt herself stand up, and the world whirled around her.

Luna began to dance.

At first it was a dance of mimicry, seeing how much of Ellie's smooth movements she could copy, but soon she was dancing on her own. Drumbeats and the soft sigh of the strings urged her on, at first slowly, then surely as she danced the dance of the innocent, the dance of the pure, the dance of the Virgin. The dance of awakening, and of life. For what else could be more fitting, at the beginning of the new year?

Crowley hadn't cared when Hermes jumped into the dance. He had no interest in Ellie apart from the physical immediacy of the moment and was too wrapped up in himself to notice the god's jealousy. Yes, he'd admit to a temporary attraction, but there was only one being he would truly dance with and he wasn't here.

After being gently shunned by the succubus, Crowley got intimate with the music instead, feeling it flooding through him as he moved; his body playing a complicated syncopated harmony to the unheard melody. The demon left himself behind, pulling off his shirt so as to channel the music without hindrance. He was nothing more than a conduit now for rhythm, for the essence of something greater than himself. For a brief frenetic moment, it felt almost like having the Presence back again. Almost.

Horus had been watching the gods and demons from the sidelines, just out of the flickering firelight. He could see the dancing, the driving drumbeats reminding him of older times, and for once trying to remember didn't hurt. Abruptly one of the shadows cast by the fire changed shape and slid deeper into the trees. Once hidden by the trees, for the first time in centuries, Horus danced.

There were two reasons that Wednesday didn't get up and dance with Ellie. The first was: he much prefered to watch Ellie's lithe and sultry movements than to try and accompany them.

The second reason was: Wednesday didn't dance. In his pantheon, the closest things he had ever done to dancing were sex and shamanic trance. While there was nudity here, and he was hoping to get laid later, he felt that the shamanic trance bit was probably a little more welcome rather than him suggesting an orgy.

So it was through the veil with him. Behind the scenes. He went back to his room quickly, digging in the bottom of his chest. He returned to the feast practically within the blink of an eye. In his hands he held his ancient noaide drum, the one Freyja had given him when she had taught him seidre. It was not perhaps the right use for the instrument now, but somehow he figured Freyja, wherever she was, would approve of it being used in this wild dancing.

Settling himself a little ways away from Hermes (Seidre often innvolved same-sex coupling, but Odin still felt a little uncomfortable cuddling up to the blue-skined naked god) Wednesday began to play, his hands caressing the ancient reindeer skins to rhythms that hadn't been heard for centuries. As his beat blended with Hermes', he raised his voice in song:

Gáttir allar
áður gangi fram
um skoðast skyli,
um skyggnast skyli,
því að óvíst er að vita
hvar óvinir
sitja á fleti fyrir.

Gefendur heilir,
gestur er inn kominn,
hvar skal sitja sjá?
Mjög er bráður
sá er á bröndum skal
síns um freista frama. *

*Lines from the Hávamál