Her father's universe is the same as her own, but yet – it is not.
There is no Hogwarts. There is no magical castle on a hill, overlooking a loch full of magical creatures. The air is different – empty, even while Hari feels the sky pressing down on her and heat underneath her toes, two different dimensions so very close together, linked by the Earth around her, that take the place of what was magic in her home universe.
This is my home, now, she thinks, trying to navigate this unfamiliar world. Her task is suddenly daunting and Hari doesn't know how to find him. Her wishes were answered in her universe – her Grace billowed out and turned her world on an axis, so the ones who know her forget she exists and if they do remember her, they think oh, no, Hari's perfectly well.
Hari hasn't even been in her father's universe a day, when she tries to go back.
There is no Veil, though – no tear in space-time for her to take, to use as a shortcut to where her father resides. There is no way back for her, not right now. Hari cries and flies from place to place, hiding from the humans who see a child and not a nephil. The Host hear her weeping on Angel FM and there is a calamity in her head, angels trying to speak to her and arguing with each other at the same time.
"Leave me alone," she whispers, but there's no way for her to unhear some of the things they say. Some angels want to blast her off the face of the Earth. Some want to harness her Grace and use it to overpower the Vessel of Michael/Dean Winchester/Michael-sword and deliver the Morningstar's body/Sam Winchester/Lucifer's True Vessel to the Devil's doorstep.
Hari travels, flying blindly, trying to get away from the angels that are suddenly dogging her footsteps. Her first glimpse of another angel is startling and equally as disturbing – how they curl around the soul of the human they inhabit, possessing their bodies and imprison them deep within their Grace.
The angel had stared at her and for a few moments, everything had been still. For the first time, Hari feels naked – like something is seeing her for the first time and of course, the angel is.
"…nephil. You are not meant to exist," the angel says and it is enough. Hari flies, outpacing them easily. Compared to her, the angel is sluggishly slow and in this world where two dimensions live on the precipice of the third, it is both easier and harder to see others.
They're beautiful, Hari thinks, when she looks across the higher plane, seeing the Grace of many angels across the globe. They are beautiful. It is also the only time Hari does that trick, because the moment she sees them, they see her and the chase is back on. Unlike the angels, though, Hari has a body – her own body, not a human she wears like a set of clothes.
Hide away, she convinces her tail, which slinks away out of sight, disappearing into her shadows. Become one, she says to her heads, that blur and push into one another, moulding themselves into a facsimile of her human features. Hari's other nephilic features – appendages Hari's grown over the years on the other plane of existence, like the half-dozen mouths left of her neck, the extra arms that match as many ribs as she has, the emerald scales that run across her torso and thighs – are easier to push down under her skin, back to where they were before they appeared.
Then a boy looks at her and says, "Wow."
They're in Australia, eating ice-cream at the base of the Sydney Opera House. Jesse says she has to a wear a hat – it's law here.
"It's because we're kids," Jesse says, already half-finished his cone. There's a hat with corks hanging off it on his head, sunscreen smeared messily over his pasty skin. "I pretend to be an adult, sometimes, but I don't like it. I feel too tall."
Hari thinks of polyjuice potion – of how it felt to be tall and large, to be Goyle instead of Hari. She nods. There's an identical hat on her own head. "I know what that's like."
Jesse looks at her and he sees into her head, scrunching up his face at the events of her life. "Your life is weird."
Hari shrugs, "Yeah, but who cares about me? I made my family forget me." Sirius. Hedwig. Professor McGonagall. Madam Pomfrey. Ron and Hermione. Her heart clenches. "What about you? You said you ran away."
"Demons are after me," Jesse says. "Men told me about a war going on, between angels and demons. A demon took possession of my mom and tried to convince me to come with them. My parents are safer with me away from them. You'd be safe with me, though. They're human, you're not."
Hari feels a foreboding, "No, Jesse. Angels are after me. They either want to kill me or coddle me – I can hear them arguing, in my head."
"Can I hear, too?" Jesse asks, though she can feel his power – his restraint is new, being tested every second. "Please?"
"It's loud," Hari warns, "Really loud. It took me ages to get used to it." A week, to be exact. The smidgeon of tolerance she grew towards hearing it was enough for her to work on her shields without being distracted. Even now, though, it's hard.
Jesse hesitates. Still, though, it's clear when he taps into the angel's own personal communication array. Bare seconds later, hands clamped over his ears, he cuts off the connection. Hari lets out a pitiful whimper, hearing his pained yell – every angel in Heaven and Earth must have heard that.
"We've got to go," she mumbles, grabbing his elbow and flying them to the other side of the globe before any angel could follow the source of the cry. Their ice-creams are left to melt on the sidewalk.
The east coast of England is dreary and dark, the ocean off to one side, waves crashing off the base of cliffs. Jesse shivers immediately and Hari conjures him a coat, rubbing his arm.
"Hate to say I told you so," Hari says regretfully, a smile tugging at her lips when Jesse pushes her roughly. "Angel radio a bit too much, huh?"
"I liked Sydney," Jesse grumbles, pulling the coat on and zipping it up with sticky fingers. "Aren't you cold?"
Hari shakes her head, laughter bubbling up out of her mouth, "I went to school in the Scottish Highlands – this is mild compared to winter, there. I didn't even wear a coat, up there. Hermione always fussed over us all. She used to make these bluebell flames and put them in jars for us to huddle around in the corridors."
"Can you show me?" Jesse asks, eyes alight in childish wonder. Hari nods eagerly and raises her hand, summoning her wand at last minute.
Magic is different to Grace. It's instinct by now to summon and banish her wand with Grace, but for wizarding magic, she doesn't even try using Grace to power her charms and spells. Magic is too different – though she's sure she could manage warping reality enough to mimic the effects using Grace. Habit and choice overpowers any want for minimalism.
Bluebell flames are pretty and not a powerful spell to complete. Jesse watches her, awed at her display of powers. The boy seems to forget he has his own to play with, for a while.
Eventually, though, they have to scram again. Jesse opened himself up to being found when he imprinted his psychic voice on all angels in hearing range. Hari flies them to Rome, then Jesse takes them to the Empire State Building, New York. They go from country to country, together, somehow turning it into a game as time passes.
"I bet I can find us somewhere even better to go…" Jesse says to her, thinking hard. "What about Japan?"
Hari scoffs, "You've never been to Japan! How can you go somewhere you've never been?"
Jesse sticks out his tongue and then they go to America again, where Jesse went on holiday once, camping with his parents. But the angels keep following them, following Jesse like bloodhounds – Hari hears nothing of herself on Angel Radio, all drowned out in the face of Jesse's existence.
"I'll keep you safe," she promises her new friend.
In hindsight, that's her mistake.
An hour later, Jesse leaves her a note on a paper napkin saying sorry, goodbye and good luck trying to find her father. Hari scowls at it and stuffs the napkin in her pocket under a preservation charm. Self-sacrificial child, she thinks and oh, doesn't it burn, being left behind? Is this how Sirius would feel, if he remembered her properly? Betrayed? Angry?
She flies blind again and ends up somewhere in America, in the middle of a hurricane. She gasps as rain lashes down, soaking her immediately. The cold is more of a shock than anything and in the distance, she sees cars and lights.
Civilisation, Hari thinks, scurrying across the land towards the motorway. Across it, is a hotel lit up with fancy neon lighting – Elysian Fields Hotel reads off the signage and Hari is nearly run over when she tries to cross, giving into the human side of her that wants to get dry, warm and out of the rain.
"Woah, are you okay?" the driver yells over the thunderous storm around them, after he's parked and out of the drivers seat, pulling his jacket over his head. He moves forwards and Hari does so as well, confused by his very existence. Hari is very, extremely sure that if Hari hadn't seen him with her own two eyes, she never would have known he was there.
Your soul is hidden, Hari thinks as he sees her, reaching out and pulling her plastered form to his side.
"C'mon, let's get you inside!"
"Dean, who is she?" another man yells over the rain, another man who Hari didn't sense. There are souls inside the building in front of them, human beings and others. Hari's eyes whip back and forth between them, fascinated and scared.
"Inside, Sammy!" Dean shouts and then they're half-walking, half-running to the glass doors, barrelling through them into the warmth. "Kid, you alright?" Dean questions her, shaking off his jacket before hunching down to her height. "What were you doing out there in that storm? Where are your parents?"
"Not- not here," Hari answers, stuttering. She stares at him, then realises something strange. Sammy. Dean. She looks between the two men, who found Jesse and told him what he was. "You're them."
Dean frowns, "You know us?"
"You're the ones that helped Jesse," Hari says, convinced and shivering. Being soaked is getting to her – with everything hidden away under her skin, nephilic and pagan less effective at keeping her warm, her human side is coming out more. Hari dreads to think she could get a cold, like this. Colds look nasty.
"You know Jesse?" Sam asks in disbelief, "Jesse Turner?"
"Hello, can I help you?" someone then asks. Hari and the Winchester's look across to where a white man in a red suit smiles at them. One of the hotel staff, Hari recognises, but he is one of the others. Hari sees how his eyes stray from the men to her, eyebrow rising slightly. "Is everything alright?"
"…yes, everything's okay," Hari says, confident and bracing. She stands up straight. "But I'm a little wet. Is there any chance I could be lent a towel?"
"Of course," the man says, getting the attention of a bellboy. Hari squints at his name-tag, reading CHAD. "Get this young lady something to dry off with, if you would."
"Yes, sir," the bellboy goes off, disappearing around a corner.
"Hell of a storm out there," Dean says to Chad, standing up straight. His hand clasps Hari's shoulder and she gets impressions from him that say quiet, threatening, wary, curious. "We were taking my niece here home but got caught out by the weather. We'd like to check in for the night, please."
He gives them an easy-going smile, leading them over to the desk.
"Nice digs, for once" Dean comments, glancing back at the full lobby, "Busy night."
"Any port in a storm, I guess," Chad chuckles, readying the paperwork. "If you could just fill this out, please."
The busboy returns as Dean fills out the forms, Hari slipping around him to take the offered towel. "Thank-you," she says, smiling as she wraps the deep red fabric around her shoulders. The bellboy is another one of the non-human others, who looks at her curiously before reaching over to tug the towel lightly, bringing it further around her neck.
Simultaneously, a note burns against her skin as the bellboy tucks it into her collar.
"Go grab the sleeping boy-wonder," Dean says to Sam gruffly, who looks at Dean as if what he's asking is terribly unfair. Dean raises an eyebrow at him. "You want to leave him in the car? I'm sure he'll thank you later when he dies from hypothermia."
Sam rolls his eyes, "I'll get him." Stomping back towards the exit, Hari briefly pities him before she pulls her towel around her shoulders tighter.
Chad queries Dean, "Will you be needing more than the one room, sir?"
"Yeah, two, if that's alright. Twins, both of them," Dean replies, giving a fake grin, "Road trip with the bros, y'know?"
Chad smiles politely, taking back the paperwork, "Just let me find you some adjacent lodging. One moment."
As Chad turns away, Dean puts a hand on Hari's shoulder again, leaning down to whisper in her ear. A cut on his neck starts bleeding at the movement. "Keep this up until we're in the rooms. My brother Adam won't know what's going on, so as soon as you see the keys, nab one and go get dried off. If anyone asks who you are, tell 'em you're Karen Winchester."
Hari wrinkles her nose, but nods. Karen. Right. That's completely fine…but she might as well go along with the charade. When he stands up tall, she gives him a toothy grin, timing her snatching of the offered key well enough that the man gains an amused expression.
"I'm going to take a shower!" Hari exclaims.
"We'll be eating," Dean says, before Chad adds that there's an all-you-can-eat buffet, with pie. Dean points at him, "Very nice."
"I'll dry off then come join you!" Hari says, the epitome of an excitable eight-year old. Just in time, she runs away, Dean following behind at a more sedate pace with a dripping Sam and another, seemingly-invisible soul.
When she gets to the right room, Hari opens it with the key, leaning against the door to hold it open. The note tucked into her collar reads, 'You were not invited, but you are welcome, youngling'. She sees Dean and his brothers come down the hall and for a moment, she wonders what she's doing. These are strangers. These men could be dangerous.
Jesse trusted them, Hari thinks, the thought niggling in her brain. And he's the bloody Antichrist. But their names are familiar for other reasons, for how the angels shouted about them. Vessels. They were called vessels of archangels, who are destined to come into conflict and destroy the Earth during the skirmish.
Something tells Hari, mainly with how the way the angels spout that kind of stuff so calmly, that there might be a more sensible explanation as to why they haven't said Yes than 'maggot stupidity'.
"Kid, meet Uncle Adam," Dean says shortly, before they hustle into the room. When the door closes, Hari gets her first proper look at him.
At first glance, Adam is different from his brothers. His hair is blonder, his skin whiter – but he's the same height and build as Dean, or thereabouts, while Sam is a giant. Similarly, where Sam has wavier hair, with a kind of awkward middle parting and sideburns, Adam and Dean have short, spiky hair; but Hari can see the resemblance, all in all, even if Sam is the odd one out.
"Who are you? How did you guys pick up a kid in the five minutes between arriving and waking me up?" Adam asks, obviously a little agitated. "Is this normal for you guys?"
"No, not at all – she just knew who we were, out of the blue," Dean says, finally turning on Hari. "Spill. Who the hell are you, kid?"
"Hari," Hari introduces, sticking out her hand. Dean is close enough to shake, but instead he gives it a funny look. Upon seeing it, Hari knows she's not going to get a handshake. Dropping it, she tucks her towel further around herself before taking it off, drying her clothes off with a quick bat of her Grace.
Immediately, the three take a step back, seeing the effects. A gun is drawn.
"What the fuck? Are you an angel? Are you really wearing a kid?" Dean demands.
"I'm not an angel," Hari frowns. "Jesse trusts you. You knew what he was before he did."
"Whose Jesse?" Adam quickly questions.
"Jesse was a cambion," Sam explains, lecturing gently. "Half-human, half-demon. He had incredible powers. When Lucifer rose, his powers were awoken and he didn't know what was happening."
"Jesse's on the run from angels, now," Hari says, sitting down on the nearby bed. She folds the towel on her lap, trying to summon her human maturity of a sixteen-year old. "The demons had no idea who they were tracking, so they never got a hold of him, but he accessed the angel's…I suppose you could call it radio, like I do, or a walkie-talkie frequency. He got freaked out and accidentally told every angel alive who and what he was. He left me behind."
"Not good," Sam mutters. "How is he?"
Hari shrugs, looking at her hands. "Okay. Lonely, I think. We were friends – we played games, hopping the globe. It was fun. He's very brave."
"Yes, he is," Sam agrees, sounding sad. Hari can feel it radiating off him, though Dean is more a haven of guilt.
"Who are you, then? How did you get those powers?" Adam asks her.
Hari licks her lips, "I suppose you could say that Jesse and I are opposites. He's half-human, like me. But where one of his parents was a demon, mine was an angel."
Her words get a certain reaction from each of them. From Dean, there's a curse and some grumbling; from Sam, there's shock and movement as he comes forwards, crouching nearer her, looking at her in a kind of fearful awe; and Adam, well, he takes a step back.
"You're half-angel?" Sam asks, eyes wide. "A nephilim?"
"Nephil," Hari corrects him. "Nephilim is plural. I have nephilic powers and…stuff. I'm trying to find my dad."
"Dad? So…your angel parent possessed a guy," Sam hazards.
"It's actually more complicated than that," Hari smiles tightly. "He was them. He grew up and didn't know he was an angel. Then he and my mother were killed and I grew up with my aunt and uncle."
"Killed?" Sam shares a look with Dean. "Hari, are you sure? Because it sounds like your father Fell from Heaven. That means he would have been human until he found his Grace – his angel powers. If he died…"
"Kid," Dean cuts in, drawing her attention. "How in control of your powers are you?"
Hari frowns. "I'm older than I look. I've been training with my powers for a few years, now. Why? What aren't you saying?"
"Hari," Sam says, shaking his head. "Fallen angels don't miraculously become angels again when they die. They…well, they don't become angels again." He repeats himself, looking chagrined. He doesn't know everything about angels – but he knows more than Hari does, right now.
"He's alive, though, I know he is," Hari says. "If he wasn't, I wouldn't be here in this world."
"This world?" Dean raises an eyebrow.
"I'm from another universe. There aren't angels, there," Hari explains, "It's why the angels didn't know about me until recently. They were looking for me, up until Jesse brought attention to himself."
"Another universe. Right. Well…" Sam stands up from his crouch, stretching a little.
"Food?" Hari suggests, knowing there's not much more to talk about. Sam and Dean exchange a look with each other that talks of a strong connection, glancing over at Adam at the same time. He looks between them, glancing at Hari nervously only once before shrugging.
"Sure, I guess. Food's food."
"I am hungry," Hari licks her lips, stomach grumbling. Dean tilts his head.
"Me too. The guy at the desk said they had pie; and a buffet." He wriggles his eyebrow at Sam, who rolls his eyes at his brother's antics.
They go to the restaurant. Hari fills up her plate, joined by Adam and a little by Dean; Sam however, doesn't, which Dean moans over after being rejected by a pretty woman with the same colouring as Hari.
"You've got a type," Adam jokes, nudging Hari. Dean splutters.
"I am not her dad!"
Hari wrinkles her nose. "He's really not."
"It was just a joke," Adam rolls his eyes over sirloin steak, sipping beer and matching Dean bottle for bottle. Dean has more chips, which Hari takes advantage of, stealing off his plate when he isn't looking. Sam watches in amusement as Dean notices, slapping her hand.
"Go get your own! Buffet, buf-fet!" Dean says it slower, like she doesn't know what one is. Hari doesn't stop stealing chips, though. Her skin is crawling and someone passes them, a someone who like many in the hotel, is other and not human.
Something grazes across her neck, like a papercut. Hari jerks, reaching up to touch the stinging area, fingers coming away bloody.
"Hari?" Sam addresses her, concerned. He reaches over, the table small enough that it isn't a far distance. His hands are soft and warm, but strangely large. One tilts her chin up and towards Dean, the other hovering around the cut. "What happened here?"
"Don't know," Hari puts her fingers in her mouth to suck the blood off, Dean aborting his movements to eat. He reaches for napkins, chastising her like she's a child, cleaning her of the coppery substance.
Well…I am a child, sort of.
It's like Sirius and Remus, except not, because her uncles – her real uncles – treated her like a teenager. They didn't judge her for appearances, not when what made her Hari, nephil-pagan witch, was what brought them together. The closest to coddling Sirius got was their hugs and his way he treated her political enemies with extreme prejudice.
When Hari goes to get dessert – letting her guard down a bit, getting comfortable as banter flows gently between the three brothers, who stutter and slow every so often like it isn't what they're used to – the woman Dean had approached is there.
"Little lion," she says, looking down at Hari with something like curiosity, but dangerous – far more dangerous that the others, like the bellboy and Chad. The woman slips into Hindi the next moment, "Your name means lion, you know. Where are you from, precious?"
"Britain," Hari replies, biting her lip. "Where are you from?"
"India," the woman says, holding out her hand, nails sharp and perfect. "I'm Kali. No-one but us speaks this language here."
Hari looks around. Her Grace burbles in agreement even as she reigns it in, stopping her tail from curling out from where it's been hiding, upset. "What are you? I've never met people like you and the others."
"We're gods, precious," Kali coos, pulling Hari closer as their hands connect, reaching up with her spare limb to curl in a stray hair. She loops it behind Hari's ear, smiling. "But you're a rare bloom. A demigod…and something else, besides. You're doing a very good job at hiding it, pet."
Nerves tickle her stomach. "You can tell?" Hari asks, gripping Kali's hand tightly.
"I can," Kali says, nodding. "The others do, too. They aren't as clever as me, though. You remind me of someone I know."
Hari's heart pounds in her chest. She says her father's Pagan name. "Loki."
Kali looks delighted, but even then, something in her eyes is hesitant. "Yes. Loki. An old…friend. One with many colours and powers. They are your father, yes?"
"Yes," Hari nods. "Do you know where I can find him? We lost each other."
"I don't and I can't, not right now," Kali says, "but what of your mother? What poor soul dared sire a child with Loki the Silver-Tongued?"
"Her name was Lily," Hari says, "I never knew her."
Kali nods, before changing their positions, holding her hand normally rather than clutching it. "I've heard the pie is the best in the tri-state area," she says, back to English now.
"I don't know what tri-state means," Hari confides, eyes landing on a tart topped with fruit and cream. "What's that one?"
"No idea," Kali breezes, before finally letting go of her, reaching to serve Hari one, all to herself. As they disconnect, Hari feels a loss, blinking at the strange feeling. Like pulling a thread from a coat, Hari tries to think of what it could have been, itching her wrist as Kali hands her the tart on its plate.
"Thank-you," Hari says, before Kali ducks down to press a kiss to her cheek, murmuring a short farewell in her native language. Hari grabs a fork on her way back to the Winchester's, Sam immediately pouncing.
"Who was that? Did she know you?"
"Not really," Hari says, eating her pie. She wonders whether to tell them Kali is a goddess, that this hotel is full of pagans – but then she thinks of how Kali spoke to Hari in Hindi, keeping the conversation private. "We're both part-Indian, though. She said she liked my hair."
Adam snorts, "It's a mess."
Hari flushes, glaring at him. She blinks once, Grace reaching out in a burst of colour. "Yours is worse, old man uncle."
That confuses him, up until Sam starts snorting with laughter, Dean's eyes going wide in glee.
"Oh bro," he says, laughing. Adam reaches up, not understanding until he pulls the now-white strands down over his forehead to see. He nearly chokes on his steak.
"My hair! What did you do to it, you little shit?"
"It'll wear off…when I want it to," Hari eats some more of her pie, smug as can be.
"Haha," Dean snickers, "Little prankster- or trickster, even. Sure your father isn't Gabriel?"
Hari nearly chokes on her pie.
"This is all a bit much," Sam says, pacing back and forth. They're in the hotel room again, Dean and Hari munching on the little chocolates left on the beds' pillows. Adam is sat on a chair, elbows on his knees as he watches Sam pace, arms left hanging. "I mean, other universes, nephilim-"
"Try not to say it too much," Hari interrupts, gut twisting. She'd come clean about her conversation with Kali, obviously.
The Winchester's know her father.
The Winchester's know her father.
But not only that, apparently Gabriel is in a female vessel, a 'she' to all the world who looks. A short, stubborn she. Hari suddenly has another mother in place of a father, even if angelic gender is a little on the skewed side. Sam had blushed a bit. Hari was instantly reminded of Oliver's roommate and Remus and felt uneasy.
The Winchester's know her father.
The Winchester's know- know her mother.
"It could attract…attention," Hari continues, tugging at her jeans.
"Yeah, like you haven't already," Dean barks. "Pagan gods. All throughout the hotel. You know, the last pagan gods we met tried to eat us."
"Right and whose to say this isn't a giant honey-trap, meant to feed them?" Sam questions, just as a loud thump comes from the next-door room. "I mean, a four-star hotel on a no-star highway?"
That, of course, is when the wall just about caves in, knocking the TV off the wall.
"What the hell?" Adam shoots up, he and Sam stepping back and away from the wreckage. Alarmed, the group check next door, finding an empty room and an engagement ring on the carpet.
"Something's wrong, here," Hari whispers, to full agreement.
Chad is at the desk when Sam and Hari go out to ask on the couple, Hari playing up the curious kid as she plays with the ring visibly. Chad spies it soon enough, once they make eye-contact. Then, she reaches out with a scant feeler of Grace.
Rome-
It's enough. Chad startles, blinking wildly, before Hari starts speaking in Italian. "Are you eating people, here?"
Chad stares at her, then- a smile, bright eyes and white teeth. "Are you hungry, little one?"
"No," Hari replies, giving him the ring but playing a role she's less familiar with – or try not familiar with, because she's never had to pretend to be a cannibalistic trickster before. "Unless you already murdered them, give them the ring back. It'll freak them out. Humans are funny like that."
Chad chuckles, taking the ring and saying in English, "Thank-you, Miss Winchester. I'll just put it in the lost and found. Don't you worry. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Stomach sinking – lost and found, lost and found, were they just words or are they dead already? – Hari shakes her head, taking Sam's hand as they head back to where Dean and Adam are waiting.
The night goes on.
Doors are locked, men are elephants, Sam and Adam gain slices on their necks identical to those on Dean and Hari's and no matter how many times she tries, Hari cannot fly out of the hotel. The pantry is full of people, yet to be eaten, but there's a pot with an eye in it and Hari throws up in a sink.
Pagans come for them. The bellboy is kind, holding her elbow rather than manhandling her. Hari herself gets something of a stink-eye from Dean, but Sam is clever enough to remember the note she showed them earlier.
I'm welcome, Hari thinks as she's sat down at the table rather than with the Winchester's. But they eat people.
"Dinner is served!" Chad opens the proceedings to applause with a trolley, a human head on a plate making Hari want to throw up. Then, a new pagan in a suit speaks. The label on his suit names him Baldur and if Hari squints, she can see Mercury on Chad's red coat, now.
"Ladies and gentlemen, our guests of honour have arrived," Baldur says, clinking his glass with a fork. "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Although in all my centuries, I never thought I'd see this. This many gods under one roof…now, before we get down to brass tacks, some ground rules. No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath. Oh and uh, keep your hands off the local virgins. We're, trying to keep a low profile here."
The Winchester's murmur to each other, but the pagan gods don't pay them any mind. Hari listens, trying to learn the lay of the land, as it were. What she finds isn't pretty and she wonders if Loki eats human flesh, if he slaughters other pagans and sacrifices virgins for power.
Baldur smiles, congenial and smarmy. "Now we all know why we're here. The Judeo-Christian apocalypse looms over us. I know we've all had our little disagreements in the past. The time has come to put those aside and look toward the future. Because if we don't, we won't have one."
…pretty good speech, Hari thinks and all the while, she takes in information. Baldur speaks and she listens. Her eyes read nametags, eyeing up Odin and wondering who Zao Shen is.
"Now, we do have two very valuable bargaining chips," Baldur says, motioning to the Winchester's. "Michael and Lucifer's vessels, the former by the double. The question is, what do we do now? Anybody have any bright ideas? Speak up. This is a safe room."
Killing them is spoken of and argued – pettily. Very pettily. It grows into a ruckus, especially when the Winchester's try to leave, but Kali finally speaks from where she stands at the head of the tables with Baldur. But even she turns to violence, torturing Chad- Mercury, until Baldur stops her.
Then-
"Can't we all just get along?" in saunters in a woman, nametag reading Loki. Her face is plain, but her eyes are sharp and hazelly-green, scraggly brown hair up in a high pony-tail. In blue jeans and a grey tank-top with a long, green canvas jacket tied around her waist, she isn't as visually impressive as Kali and Baldur – but that's just the outside.
Inside, she's bright.
Hari can hardly take her eyes off her. Loki is hiding, that much is clear, but Hari is looking for an angel beneath the pagan power and she finds it. Her Grace quivers and Loki is hidden by Dean and Adam as Hari regains control, locking down and trying to breathe properly.
"Sam, Dean, new kid," Loki sighs, reaching over to run her hand down Sam's chest, "It's always wrong place, worst time with you muttonheads, huh babes?"
"Loki…" Baldur grits his teeth.
Loki glances over, wiggling her free hand in a half-hello, "Baldur, good seeing you, too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail."
"Why are you here?" Baldur asks, but Kali interrupts Loki's reply.
"Do you know who that is, Loki?" Kali asks, pointing straight at Hari. Loki glances over, blinking in confusion. Her hand drops from Sam's chest.
Hari stares.
"No. Which is a bit unusual. I might not get on with people, but at least I know people. Who are you, candy-pop?" Loki drifts closer, locked on Hari. Behind her, the Winchester's exchange a glance.
Hari bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood. She doesn't know me, Hari thinks, wondering if she's got this all wrong.
"I'm so confused," she whispers, still looking at her father- mother. "You don't know who I am."
Loki looks slightly pitying, then, "Should I, sweetheart?"
"…Loki, right?" Adam clears his throat, gaining her attention briefly. "That's Hari. She's kind of weird. Also ours."
"'Ours'?" Loki raises an eyebrow, looking to Sam, "Adopting kids without me, Samsquatch?"
"Loki," Baldur bares his teeth, "Either tell us why you're here or get out."
"No winning with you, is there Baldy?" Loki rolls her eyes, dramatically twirling around to announce, "The Apocalypse! We can't stop it, gang, which is why I'm here. But first, me and my little groupies here need to have a little conversation. Check you later."