Disclaimer: It's just a fanfic. What did you expect?

Can He Do That?

Anoia, the goddess of things that stick in drawers, was not usually particularly interested in the games which the gods of the Discworld(1) played with the fates of men. She didn't like to get involved in their childish arguments over the board that was the whole world. She sometimes thought it had been rather careless of the Creator to leave it in the hands of a bunch of gods. Still, on this rainy afternoon there wasn't really much else to do, so the bored goddess decided to come and watch the others play. She was mildly disappointed to see Fate and the Lady were not playing today. The two were the best players among the gods and their games(2) were the most exciting. Anoia sighed, lit another cigarette and looked around at Offler, Blind Io, Fedecks and some others, apparently halfway through a game. Blind Io sniffed and some of his many floating eyes turned towards Anoia.

'Ah, Anoia,' he said 'Are you going to play with us?'

'Probably not,' she replied 'But I'll watch for a while, if you don't mind.'

And with that she sat down in the empty chair next to Fedecks.

It was quite a boring game, really. In fifteen whole minutes nobody had been accused of cheating, started a fight, threatened to smite anybody else or burned down a major city. Fedecks rolled another six. He seemed to be quite lucky although maybe it had something to do with his reputation as a trickster god. Anoia watched him carefully as he reached for his piece. The tiny man on the board turned gold.

'Can he do that?' Anoia asked, raising an eyebrow.

'I'm pretty sure I can,' Fedecks replied with confidence only a liar was capable of.

Anoia squinted at the little gold figurine.

'What did you just do?' she asked.

'He's, sort of, my avatar now,' Fedecks explained 'But he already sort of was, wasn't he?'

The assembled gods gave him a sceptical look (Blind Io's, coming from four directions at the same time, was quite impressive). Fedecks grinned at them. He had a very trustworthy grin for a liar.

'I can do it,' he said again 'Trust me. It says so in the manual.'

Blind Io let out a sigh.

'All right then,' he said 'Just to make the game more interesting. Your turn,' he added to Offler.

'Wait,' Anoia interrupted. This could be interesting after all. The gods watched as she produced a figurine of a woman who looked a lot like Anoia herself, placed it on the board and smiled.

'If he can do that,' she said 'I can do this.'

The tiny woman held a cigarette in her hand. Its end glowed when Anoia sucked on hers.

XXX

'Praying to us?' Offler said, lisping slightly through the crocodile teeth, as the plate of ghostly sausages appeared in front of him 'You can't do that, Fedecks!'

'Hey, why would you complain about that?' Fedecks replied, passing on the dice 'I'm being nice to you.'

'It's still not a valid move, though, is it?'

'It's in the manual,' said Fedecks.

'Let's check, shall we?' Blind Io suggested.

'All right, let's!' Fedecks said cheerfully 'Does anyone know where it is?'

The gods started to look around at each other and then, reluctantly, rise from their seats. Several of Blind Io's eyes flew out of the room in search of the lost manual. After a while only Fedecks and Anoia remained in their chairs. Anoia leaned over to Fedecks.

'You're sitting on it, aren't you?' she whispered in his ear.

Fedecks leaned to her, as though he was about to answer, but instead he kissed her lightly on the cheek. The surprised goddess nearly jumped.

'Hey! You can't do that!'

There was a moment of awkward silence.

'All right. You can.'

(1) One of the reasons why so many gods had chosen the Disc as their residence is the way the pieces tend to fall off spherical boards. The god of mathematicians(3) has, in fact, designed a flat board to represent the Roundworld at one point, but, since so many people believe that maths is hard, none of the other gods understood how it worked.

(2) Or, in fact, their game, since they had been playing the same one for some years now and neither seemed to be winning.

(3) Yes, there is one. Although to most people he is known as the god of camels for some reason.