神々の悪戯

"Eh? You don't know my name?"

"Sorry, but…when exactly have we interacted, or introduced ourselves to each other?" Dionysus is rubbing a towel over Apollo's head, and Blue starts heading over to his brother, with what seems like unconscious movement, especially since he's still holding the carton of milk. Then again, maybe his brother likes milk in his hot chocolate?

She drops the packets of crisps and biscuits onto the table not too far from the fire, and notices how Blue is looking at the milk in his hand as though questioning why it's there; she must have been wrong about his brother then. Luckily Thor, now seated but still the closest to the four by the growing fire, grabs the carton from him, putting it in front of himself only to open it a second later, topping up his drink.

"Is there anything you do know about me?"

"Err…Japanese pantheon. Something to do with…water? And this one is your brother," she concludes, pointing at Purple. "Oh, and you like noodles."

"The absolute basics then," Balder pipes up with a soft giggle, which… Actually, that was kind of cute.

"Oi, woman! My name is-"

"That's the second time you've called me 'woman'. Do you even know my name?" The silence would be deafening, if it weren't for the sudden popping of the fire, something flying out to land near Blue's feet, which makes him move around to his brother's other side. She's not distracted enough to miss the way Loki twists his hands away from the direction of the fire, one hand reaching out for a braid, the other for his drink. She also can't help but notice the sudden bout of lethargy he's just acquired.

How easy would it have been to have done the same thing without the limiter?

…

The thought is actually slightly terrifying.

Then another thought enters her head for no reason, or maybe her brain is connecting dots that she hasn't actively recognised.

"We- Ahh…Kusanagi!" That was close. The girl appears practically running from the kitchen, two long chopsticks in hand, which causes Blue to loudly growl and go back to the kitchen himself, grabbing the chopsticks from the Weakling's hand. She's legit allowed to call her that right now, given how easily she gave up the utensils to the god.

"Yes?!"

"We're sleeping here tonight, right? And eating?" She waits for a tentative nod from the young girl. "These two," she jerks her head to the two seated in front of the now roaring fire, "will need warm showers. Are there also changes of clothes?"

"It…it was arranged that there should be, in everyone's rooms."

"Upstairs?" Another nod. "Okay, drink up people. I'm fairly certain you'd like to not be wearing sandy clothes until bed time. In fact, anyone still have their swimsuits on underneath their clothes?" Most of the boy-gods nod, and she can see a smirk forming on Dionysus' lips; he must already know where she's going with this. "Right then. Dirty uniforms off then, pile everything up against the door. Kusanagi, Balder, we're going to need more towels." Nobody moves; she claps her hands, and half of them startle slightly. "Chop-chop! Unless you need me to put some music on for you guys to undress to. I mean, you didn't need it earlier, but if I have to…" She reaches into her short's pocket, ready to pluck her phone out, only to blink as something dark flies across the room, swiftly followed by two more somethings that cause consecutive bangs as they hit the wall.

The fuck! She said pile the clothes, not use them as projectile weapons!

She's about ready to turn and verbally castrate whoever it was, only to immediately spot Dionysus pulling his t-shirt over his head, the button on his trousers already undone, displaying just how low those swimming briefs he was wearing actually were. His boots are still-

Underwear. Was there replacement underwear with the replacement clothes in their rooms? Or (sweet holy fuck, what a time to think of this!), did they not wear any? Had the gods been going around all week without underwear beneath their trousers. Has there been one less layer of fabric between her getting Dionysus' cock in her than she'd thought?

Kusanagi, face visibly red, and Balder, who noticeably trips over the leaf-pattern of the carpet that leads down the hallway, leave to get more towels. Thor walks past her, his tie in his grip, as he grabs one of the few towels already there, heading to the stairs without putting it around his waist or-

A hand covers her eyes, but it's too late, she already saw it, and it's a sight she's going to remember forever. Thor, with that muscular warrior's body, bending over, sliding his trunks down his body. She can literally feel her face going red, because holy fuck. All that skin, and those muscles, and the sheer body confidence, and…wow…

She can hear the fire crackling lightly, the sound of water filling (or emptying), boots running along the ground…

A voice in her ear…

"Only look at me, my maenad."

Then she can see again, and blinking at the sudden return of light and the ability to focus her gaze, she watches him walk, butt naked, over to the towels, grabbing one and lightly flinging it about his hips, before heading up the stairs.

If she tilts her head, and maybe even her whole body, so she can keep her eyes on him for even a split-second longer, no one mentions it, especially with how she walks over to the table, pours some milk into someone's abandoned cup, and quaffs it, before looking at it like she wishes it were alcohol.

"Loki," she calls out, coughing lightly at how the milk has lined her mouth and throat. The god almost jumps, but then slowly lifts himself into view from the couches near the door. "Your brother…" How the fuck does one ask something like this? Especially with how Zeus had-

"He's not my brother," the red-head responds, and wow, isn't that a flashback to the Marvel movies. Adopted brother then, or- "He's been a close friend since childhood though, so we're as close as. Just don't mention anything like that in front of the Allfather." She nods, slowly. If Anthony Hopkins portrayal of Odin had been anything like how the Allfather actually was (are we agreeing that this is real, and the gods are real now? Really?), not speaking of them as kin would probably be for the best.

"Hopefully, I'll never have to meet the Allfather. But Thor… You all know that stories about the gods of various pantheon's have made it down to the mortal realms." There's a near consensus of slightly bobbing heads, even from Apollo and Purple, who are still in front of the fire. "Well, I'm pretty certain, like ninety-percent certain, that they consider Thor to be a fertility god. Is that, in any way, correct?" The red-head messes with a braid for a second, before nodding as he sways his head back and forth.

"He has the ability to bless either a couple, or his current partner, with the definite production of a child in their current…ah…um…"

"Bout of sexual congress?" Hades suggests from the shadowed corner of the room, which makes her jump, because holy hell (and wow, how accurate is that?), she'd forgotten he was even still in the room, given how quiet he had been.

"That's a lot more polite than how I was thinking of putting it," Loki states with a grin, "but sure, current 'bout of sexual congress'." But she's not listening anymore, her planned topic of conversation being about how different pantheons interacted when gods of the same powers were present being completely side-lined.

'Bless either a couple, or his current partner.' Yes, Loki had been talking about Thor, whom mythology recorded as having several children, although their names escape her now. However, she's pretty damn certain that Dionysus has a lot more children, like several multiples worth, with a variety of goddesses or human women, some of whom had gone on to have their own stories and legends. Like, if she's remembering rightly, he's had children with Aphrodite herself, arguably the most beautiful goddess in the Greek pantheon. (She watched Troy, and did her background research, okay? Because do you remember Brad Pitt in that? A bowl please to catch her drool…)

But to bless either others trying for children, or whomever he was with… Could Dionysus do the same? And what's more, was it an active ability, where Thor had to think about causing it, or was it a passive ability, like something always running in the background? Obviously there had to be a way to make it so that he didn't have a child every time he fucked someone else, because the world would be overrun with Norse godlings on holiday otherwise, unless he was having sex that infrequently, but-

"Is it guaranteed though?" she asks herself out-loud, unknowingly interrupting a conversation. And the shackles, these limiters that Zeus had put onto the gods to restrict them using their pow-

Restrict them using their powers, or stopping them from having them in these bod-

But before the shackles… Dionysus had transformed that ivy into a snake, had grown those grapes that they'd both eaten. Both Loki and Blue had attacked Zeus with energy orbs, and yet, almost the very second Zeus had manifested the various bits of jewellery on all the gods, their powers had stopped working. It wasn't that they were human, or that their powers had been removed. Their powers had simply been blocked…or at least the active ones? Hadn't Loki and Blue both tried to attack Zeus for a second time, only for noth-

No, it hadn't been nothing. There had been little sparks around the tips of each of Loki's fingers, a small dribble of manifested water encircling Blue's palm as it rested on the floor. So, the limiters were true to their names; they 'limited' the amount of a god's power that he had access to. Small parts of it were still accessible to each of them, and now she wonders just how Loki had started the fire. Had it been with the long-matches that she can just about see in her peripheral, resting on top of the mantelpiece? Or had he summoned up some of his innate fire, using it to ignite the wood and heat the room? Had that also been how he'd made the fire pop earlier, because it was connected to the initial flame he'd used to cause it? And if he'd lit it with matches, could he still have made it pop? Or is she assuming a connection where there is none?

Hell, maybe it hadn't even been Loki in the end that had lit the fire.

But ignoring all these questions is a very simple one, when you boil everything down; exactly how fertile is Dionysus, and how fertile could he make their coupling?

…

Okay, that's technically two questions, but it still counts!

…

"This is what happens when I don't have my supplies," she states again, dropping her head onto her folded arms on the table.

"Did I miss something?" Blue asks, and she looks up to see him sitting opposite her, chopsticks holding his noodles as he slurps them up, liquid flicking out to drop across parts of the table near him. How messy. Then again, she's been party to a table of six all eating spaghetti bolognese, so she knows it could be messier.

She pauses to look up and around, noting the absence of everyone bar the two of them, and the huge pile of dirty clothes and boots against the wall. The sigh is unavoidable.

"Nothing too bad. When you've finished eating, you should go upstairs and check on your brother. Everyone's gone up to change into non-sandy clothes…although you don't seem to have that problem. Now that's…" And hadn't she been thinking about him and water before? "What exactly is your power again? I remember the whole water-orb attack thing on Zeus, but-"

"You remember the attack, but not my name?"

"Pretty certain he only said everyone's name once…maybe some of them twice." She tilts her head consideringly to the side. "And the attack was definitely memorable." She bites her lip, determined not to laugh, especially at how he tsks and looks to the side, even as he scoops up another mouthful of noodles. Loki had been the only one of the pair to land on their feet when Zeus had repelled the attack, hadn't he?

"Totsuka Takeru," he finally answers. "Shinto kami of the Seas and Storms. Sand…kind of falls under the element of Storms…at a stretch." Shinto…that must be what the Japanese pantheon was called, with kami, given the context of the sentence, being the Japanese word for 'god'. But this is further evidence of the limiters quite literally only limiting their powers, not blocking them entirely. "My brother is Totsuka Tsukito," wait a second, same first name, different famil- Didn't the Japanese have a thing about the big things first? So a clan or family would be bigger than the individual. Blue's name, therefore, is Takeru, with Purple's being Tsukito. They sound weird to her, but she tries to imagine someone of their culture calling their child Christina, or Danielle, or Ryan, or Tiger; those names would probably be equally as weird to them. "He's the Shinto kami of the Moon and Night."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just… I mean, I'm so used to the moon having a female goddess now, that thinking of it having a god… Just…let me get my head around it, okay?"

"…Sure. So what p-"

"WAHHHHhhhh!" They both jump from their seats, running as Balder trips and starts bouncing down the stairs. From the distance, she can hear Loki already calling out to the blond god, who's now on the floor at the bottom of the staircase, half-sitting upright as he puts one hand behind him to rub at his back.

"If there was an Olympic sport, that would have easily scored a solid five…out of ten. The cartwheel was inspired when you got halfway, but you forgot to stick the landing at the end." She holds an arm out to the blond, who looks up at her with wide eyes, before reaching out to grab her elbow; she hadn't noticed, but Bl- Takeru, had done the same. The moment he stands, Balder nearly falls over, but this time it's from laughter.

"Imagine if I actually tried," he gets out between breaths, and she snorts, the mental image of the blond doing backflips and cartwheels across a gymnasium coming to the front of her mind…along with him overshooting the edge of the mat, going straight off the edge, and cartwheeling himself into a wall. Sorry, but…there's just no way something like that wouldn't happen.

"Balder!" All three of them look up, finding Loki halfway over the balcony, looking down at them as his hair flies back and forth, Thor appearing behind him, the undone length of his tie fluttering like gold streamers. "Are you alright?!" The pair quickly make their way downstairs, and as she moves, she catches sight of the pile of clothes.

Or rather, the not pile of clothes.

Somehow, when she hadn't been looking, the clothes had been…taken, washed, dried, and hung? Exchanged with new ones? Whichever, the old ones weren't there, but new ones one, all hanging from a long clothes rail, polished boots on a rack underneath. She has no idea who did it (three guesses, but if you need more than one, you're an idiot), and she sends up a silent prayer of thanks to 'whomever saved her from figuring out what the fuck to do with that mess'. Can she extend her thanks like in Percy Jackson, by burning some of her food?

Because even the basic thoughts about it were beginning to seem like a logistical nightmare. Especially since she has no idea what happens to the dirty clothes back at the school. Like, are they destroyed with new ones made each time? Or are there some sort of invisible laundry fairies that collect from the laundry baskets each night, and putting the clean clothes in their wardrobes every time they leave their rooms. Each seems equally plausible, given the situation.

(Wouldn't it be easier not to worry about the hidden basics in life, like where clean clothes come from, and where your food comes from, if you were in a dream? Or a coma?)

神々の悪戯

After that, everyone else filters back downstairs, looking exactly how they had when they'd left the school that morning, except for Apollo and Purrrkito. Okay, there was no way to style that one out. Tsukito. His name was Tsukito. Those two get large brown blankets thrown about them as she hears Loki complain to Takeru about only making himself food, only to be swiftly told that 'hadn't exactly gone looking for food himself, expecting someone else to bring it to him'.

She is not interfering with a fight between fire and water; she knows that water supposedly douses fire, but that all depends on quantities, and if it turns into steam or not. Boiling hot steam would not be fun to have directed into your face with the fury of an exploding geyser. Yes, she knows they don't have their full powers; she's referencing their temperaments more than anything at the moment.

"Be sure to keep yourselves warm," Kusanagi almost coos out, as she fills their cups with something from a tea kettle; she'd assume tea, except she can't smell it. Balder mentions something about humans catching something called colds, which has her automatically calling out-

"You'd think a god of Medicine would know that!" Apollo cringes before nodding slightly, Tsukito following suit, although if they're agreeing with her of Kusanagi she doesn't want to know.

"Ahhh," Loki begins, even as she wonders what the food situation is supposed to be for dinner? Everyone for themselves? Or try and cook for everyone? "I came because Balder insisted this would be fun, but it's boring." Boy-god has a point. She didn't even get a chance to bring out the beach-toys she'd carried for hours. However, this sounds like the beginning of an argument.

"Loki, there are plenty of fun things to do besides swimming," Balder retorts, turning to face his not-brother.

"That's right, yeah," Apollo calls out, shuffling on the spot until he's facing the rest of the room, and she can already see this going supremely badly. "There's beach volleyball, smashing watermelons, surfing-"

"Those all sound cold." Takerublue has a point (and that was intentional, by-the-way). Given the way the weather is right now, trying to partake in any of that would have people freezing parts of themselves off, like toes and…other miscellaneous body parts.

…

She's referring to ears and fingers; what else would she have been thinking of?

"I know you said I should come, brother," Takeblueru continues (does that sound any better?), but I was stupid to follow you."

"Thor, Balder, let's go." She doesn't blame Loki for wanting to leave either. In fact, if she'd known she wouldn't be going to a beach resort, but simply to the beach, even if she doesn't include the rapid change in the weather, she wouldn't have come either.

Probably. The temptation of Dionysus in a swimsuit…

"Brother, let's go too," Tabluekeru suggests (that one does seem to flow off the tongue a bit easier…), only for Apollo to jump up, blanket flying from his shoulders, declaring that he'll 'find a way'. Then the blond runs out towards the back of the beach-house/mansion, leaving a kind of atmosphere in the room that just screams 'awkward'.

Loki mutters something, which has Balder retorting somewhat sharply, Takeru (okay fine, using his actual name is probably for the best) heading over to his brother, which begins a harsh yet almost silent conversation. Hades hides himself back in the shadows, whilst Thor and Dionysus seat themselves at the table, and Kusanagi…jogs out after Apollo.

What an idiot.

"I swear," she begins, as she slides out a chair to sit by Dionysus, "your brother makes everything revolve around him in the end…and I did not mean to pun like that!" she hastily continues, as she sees the red-head open his mouth to retort. The pun of course being the whole 'sun revolution' thing.

Before anyone else can say anything, Loki is shouting about leaving, about 'not having to wait for Apollo because he has no say over what we do!', and Thor stands from the table, which leads to a whole loudly talking room, before Balder runs off, with Tsukito following behind him, to his brother's completely evident disbelief.

"You know, if the season hadn't changed," she mentions to Dionysus, as Takeru begins a brief conversation with Loki as Thor approaches, "we'd probably still be out on the beach. I'd be lying there, in my swimming gear, watching as you, being nearly completely naked, jumped about playing volleyball, or were all wet and dripping from swimming in the ocean."

"Mmm, I never did get to see which outfit you chose in the end, now did I?"

"Nope, but I think you would have liked it, given your propensity for ivy."

"…Are you clothing yourself in my symbols now?" It leaves his mouth almost like a groan.

"You're disagreeing with my choice?"

"Definitely not."

"I'd call them disgusting for flirting right in front of us," Loki's voice suddenly says, and she finds that she has to pull back from where she was leaning in, ready for a kiss. "But I don't think they even remembered we were in the room."

"You know what?" She responds a bit harshly, because she really had forgotten, given how suddenly quiet they'd gone. Also, she hadn't gotten her kiss, queue sad-face. "When you're actually quiet, you-"

Oh, hel-loooo kiss! That wonderful trick designed by nature to stop someone from talking when words become unnecessary. Or apparently when she was going to say something slightly mean. Okay, maybe more than just slightly mean.

Warm, and gentle, and it makes her all floaty, especially as he rests his hands on her waist, and she can feel his warmth even through her clothes. His scent is heady, that warm-wine smell that practically floats around him as an invisible cloud.

She can ignore the way her stomach grumbles and rolls, but when she loses those lips against hers… Her eyes open to look down on…Dio… Wait, what the fuck? Wasn't she just sitting on her own chair like a second ago? Another grumble sounds, but it's not from her, and she turns her head, noting the three boy-gods across the room; Takeru and surprisingly Loki are facing away from them, but Thor…his golden eyes are practically glowing as he watches them.

Fuck, is this that whole fertility thing again?

"I think," she tries to begin, only to be interrupted by the sound of a- "Was that a horse?" Dionysus groans as he lets his head fall forward onto her shoulder.

"I think that was Pegasus," she just about makes out from his muffled speech, and she rolls her eyes. Apollo making everything about himself again.

"Well, I'm hungry. Someone else is hungry. I need food." She clambers backwards, nudging the table with her backside, before heading back to the kitchen. There had been a lot of different foods in there. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and meat, but most importantly, pasta, and not just the long noodley kind, but shells and spirals and bow-ties. If there are jars of pasta bake, she might be able to stuff some trays in the oven, but that might also depend on if there's any cheese for a top-coat.

Do boy/man-gods eat like human boys/men? Because if so, it might be worth putting out some plates of sliced fruit or something for them to nibble on whilst the pasta cooked.

Urgh, they'd better be thankful she's doing this! Curse her mothering nature at times.

神々の悪戯

Author's Note 18/06/18: Are you not entertained?! (Imagine my voice about an octave deeper as I call out to you from the sandy arena of a Roman Coliseum.)

Still on episode three, but at least we're getting to the final… I want to say quarter, but that's probably a lie. Let's be honest, it's more like the final third.

Word counts are increasing; how do you feel about that? We're up to about four thousand words of story here; too long, not long enough, or just right?

Also, the view count for this story is rapidly approaching the five thousand mark, as well as close to becoming my most viewed story! Thanks to everyone who's making that possible!

As always, ConCrit/Flames, but with explanations please! See you next chapter!