From hereon out, the perspective is going to alternate between Garuda and Vinata.
Disclaimer: There are many things in this world that do not belong to me. Kubera is one of them.
S-C-N-D
Courtship of a Phoenix
…
"Hold up a second, Garuda." Gandharva had his eyes closed in an almost painful expression. The thumb of his right hand rested underneath of his chin while two fingers traveled up the curve of his nose and ended at the knot that formed between his eyebrows. "So you're saying that you had two billion, eight hundred million years to fall in love, and you chose now?" he tossed back his head, green hair flowing like seaweed suspended in the water. His fangs were bared and there was obvious ire contained in his eyes. "Has your brain fallen out during one of your flights? Old friend, you know I'll support anything you do but good lord! Please don't tell me you steal Vinata's feathers and put them in your pocket."
Shuri just smiled and offered, "I think it's good that you're finally being honest to yourself."
Visnu raised a happy finger and chimed, "all you have to do now is spend the next few hundred thousand years convincing Vinata to return to female form."
Garuda stared at them for a long, hard minute. He did a brisk turn before launching himself off the cliff.
"I am not friends with you three anymore."
…
Chapter Seven: The Mating Period
N0 - approx. 420000 years
…
"Vinata, don't you think Garuda's been touching you a lot more recently?"
A red man and a blue woman were sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking colourful birds flying in circles beneath. Kalavinka was there to oversee her newest daughter who was still first stage, and since Cepphus had gone god hunting, Vinata chose to accompany his longtime friend.
"Huh?" he uttered disbelievingly. "No, not really. If this is a matter of power, Garuda and I have always touched each other freely."
"That's not what I'm talking about," she said with a knowing smile. "You touch him frequently and freely, but he never touches you back." She grabbed her chin in thought. "Before, he always had this look when you were around him like you were some kind of pesky insect he wanted to swat. You could clearly tell that he felt uncomfortable when you put your hands on his body."
Vinata stared at her blankly. "I don't get it. What's the difference?"
Suddenly, a mischievous glint appeared in Kalavinka's eyes. She grinned so widely that Vinata had to inch two shoulders away just to make sure that she wasn't going to accidentally knock him off the cliff or something.
"Why don't you find out yourself?"
He stopped. "Huh?"
"Touch him," she stated, gripping Vinata's shoulders with a very serious expression. "Touch him and I guarantee you he's going to lean towards you. It probably won't even be five seconds until he touches you back."
Vinata's brain was unable to process this absurd suggestion. He continued staring stupidly. "…What?"
Kalavinka rolled her eyes. "Don't make me hit you. You know, touch him, like this!" She pointedly poked Vinata on the shoulder six times. "But more gently, like casually brushing your shoulder past his or something."
Vinata narrowed his eyes and frowned, still unable to understand what Kalavinka was asking of him. "But that's so weird. I never brush his shoulders or do anything like you described…"
Kalavinka banged her head against her knees in frustration. "Okay, okay. Then, Vinata, how do you touch Garuda?"
The red man put a finger to his chin and stared skyward in thought. "Well, um, I punch him when I get angry? Like that one time!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands together at the sudden recall, "—that one time I was going to kill that green Ananta Rakshasa and then he swooped in from above and cut her in half before I could do anything. That conceited imbecile! He even had the nerve to offer me the body afterwards. I was so mad, I grabbed his body and flung him into the nearest mountain."
Vinata finished the tale proudly, even dusting his hands off to show Kalavinka his nice handiwork. When he saw Kalavinka's blank stare, he wrinkled his eyebrows and defended, "what? It was a spur of the moment thing. I didn't even know I was that strong. Besides, it's not as if Garuda could be hurt by a mere mountain. Much."
Kalavinka looked away and chuckled darkly. Poor, poor Garuda… she thought, almost wincing at the image of her king's dismay. I am so glad I never fell for Vinata. If only her stupid friend knew that Garuda had not been trying to best Vinata, but had done it in an effort to impress him.
"In the future, I think you should refrain from throwing Garuda into any mountains. It might hurt a little more than you think…"
Vinata's eyebrows lifted slightly. "Oh, did I break a few bones or something? Maybe I'll apologize when I'm in a good mood."
Kalavinka buried her face into her palms. "Vinata, you know what? Just forget it and do the touching thing I told you."
Vinata had a reluctant expression. "What? You're kidding. I'm not going to seek out Garuda for something so stupid."
"Do it!" Kalavinka ordered with a nasty glint in her eye.
Suddenly, a cold shiver passed from the tip of Vinata's head to the bottom of his taloned feet. "F-fine. Sheesh." He stood up, spread his wings and took off in the direction of the mountain where Garuda usually lurked with Shuri, Gandharva and Visnu.
S-C-N-D
N0 - approx. 420000 years
S-C-N-D
"Garuda, man… I've never had as much respect for you as I do now. I'm sorry for everything I ever said about Vinata. I'm sorry for everything I ever said about you. This feeling, it's so good but it's so terrifying. And I—I don't even know what to do. It's like one day, she was Menaka and then, suddenly, she's Menaka."
"Gandharva, I completely understand."
"I know, right?" his blue friend cried, almost shedding tears of joy at their strengthened brotherhood. "I just—nothing makes sense to me right now!"
"Vinata threw me into a mountain a while ago."
"Oh, that's so cruel," Gandharva sobbed.
Garuda nodded sadly.
His friend wiped multiple trails of tears from his blue face. "When I go home today, I think I'll make a necklace of seaweed for her. Menaka always loved making necklaces and bracelets and wreaths of flowers. Do you think I should grow a new field of flowers for her in my territory and tell everyone to call it Menaka's Garden?"
"Does Menaka have the strength of a hundred Rakshasas?"
"No," Gandharva was still rubbing his eyes. "I don't think so… Why?"
"Oh, that's good. If she did, she might throw you into a mountain."
Gandharva paused, lifted his head up and removed his hands from his eyes. Garuda's drooping figure was becoming blurrier and blurrier by the second. With a sob, he launched forward and put comforting arms around his white haired friend. Thus, another round of moaning was started with Gandharva wailing and Garuda nodding in agreement to most of his relationship troubles while lamenting about his own with Vinata.
"Garuda, my good friend, my poor brother, let us drink our wistful spirits away."
With one cup in each Nastika's hand, they prepared to drink themselves into a drunken stupor.
From the bushes, another Nastika and an Original God were staring amusedly at their two hopeless friends. Visnu, as usual, had a complacent smile on his face. Shuri, on the other hand, shook her head at their hopelessness while at the same time grinning brightly because she had always known that Gandharva and Garuda would come to an understanding one day. Her tail wagged back and forth happily at Visnu's feet.
"So we have two lovestruck Nastikas on our hands," she commented. "What do we do with them now, Visnu?"
Visnu's smile broadened into a half grin. "Oh, I was just going to let them be but if you have any better ideas, I'm open to all suggestions."
Shuri glanced again at the white and blue hunched figures. "I don't think we should torture them too much."
"A little pain is good sometimes, especially for Nastikas who seldom feel strong emotions at all."
"You're right. I think I quite like the new Gandharva."
Visnu's grin suddenly broadened again, to the widest that Shuri had ever seen.
"Garuda!"
A blur of red and orange shot up from the ravine, blocking the sun for a split second. Visnu and the Nastikas all looked to their newest guest. Vinata stood on the highest point of the cliff. With the sun shining directly behind his head, he was a silhouette of beauty, of power.
Gandharva and Garuda sobered up immediately, with the latter taking an involuntary step forward and the former staying firmly rooted to the spot. Gandharva tugged on Garuda's sleeve to reassure him that whatever happened, his friends would still be there as support.
"What happens now?" Shuri whispered to Visnu.
There was no questioning the devious mood that the Original God was in. "You'll see."
Vinata looked around in wonder, shedding all of his feathers in a single moment. There were so many of them that Garuda really did contemplate sneaking one into his pocket while he wasn't looking.
"Funny, I swear this place used to be more desolate. Did things change around here in the last hundred thousand years?" Vinata asked before dismissing the scenery with a shrug. "Ah well, hey Garuda, come here."
Garuda went stiff.
"Okay, fine. I'll come to you."
Garuda went stiffer.
Vinata, carefree Vinata almost skipped down the dirt path toward him. Garuda was perspiring terribly in his nervousness. A thousand questions raced through his head. What did he want? Why was he here? Did he know? Oh goodness, oh goodness, he hoped that Vinata did not know about his… feelings. While Garuda acknowledged that it was more than a little crush or an infatuation, he still couldn't bring himself to admit that he loved Vinata.
Suddenly, Vinata grabbed his face with two red hands and Gandharva gasped in half shock, half horror.
"Here's the good part," Visnu muttered.
Garuda was sweating buckets.
"Okay," Vinata sighed exasperatingly. "Before you declare that I'm weird or ask me what the heck I'm doing, it's not my fault, okay? Kalavinka told me to do this. I don't know why she wants me to touch you so much but she just does, so let's just get this over with before she transforms to hunt down and freeze my tail feathers."
His eyes almost popped out of their sockets when Vinata stretched his cheeks out suddenly and painfully. With a foxy grin, he released Garuda and patted his face once. Subsequently, the red man darted around his figure, stroking his arm, poking his abdominals, yanking his feathers, and tickling his neck. Each time Vinata touched him, Garuda felt a few more tears well up in his eyes.
A few metres away, Gandharva cupped one hand around his horrified mouth and held the other out toward Garuda helplessly.
Shuri and Visnu were both shaking uncontrollably in an attempt to contain their laughter.
Just as Vinata reached for his mask, Garuda grabbed both of his wrists sharply and pulled them down with the strongest force he could summon.
"Stop," he ordered.
Hopelessly clueless, Vinata blinked thrice. He tilted his head to one side and scrutinized Garuda's face intently. Garuda's eyes were hard and dark, the darkest grey that he had ever seen them before. One could even say that he was a little angry, with his entire body twitching and his mouth congealed into a small but firm frown. Even his jaw clenched and unclenched subtly as if he could barely hold in his emotions.
"Huh," Vinata mused, snatching his hands away from Garuda's grasp, which turned out to be rather easy. "So Kalavinka was lying."
"What did Kalavinka say?" he almost growled.
"That you would lean into my touch or something," Vinata tried to recall. "And that you touched me more than you did before. I don't think it's anything unusual. You've been a much more bearable leader recently. Still a bad leader, but a bearable bad leader. I think you've actually become a decent enough guy for me to accept you as king."
Visnu and Shuri watched with slightly agape jaws as Vinata's words stabbed into Garuda's heart one by one.
Even after all this, the red man still had a foolish, oblivious grin on his face. He scratched his head while admitting, "but the way Kalavinka put it actually made it seem like you had feelings for me or something!"
Garuda lowered his head until his eyes and mask were covered by bangs. Now, he was the one shaking uncontrollably. Visnu and Shuri's smiles melted off their faces and they looked to each other with expressions of concern. After a nod from Visnu, both of them turned to take their friend away from the person causing him such pain.
But before either Shuri or Visnu could take a step, Gandharva stomped angrily toward Vinata. His eyes were dark and his face was grim, resemblant of a monster on a rampage.
"Oh, hey Gandharva. What's wrong? You look a little more irritated than usual."
To answer him, a blue foot kicked Vinata off the mountain.
S-C-N-D
And this is the point where Gandharva became a goner for Menaka. xD It's a huge time skip, but not much has happened, mainly Vinata hunting Ananta Suras and Garuda tailing him as he does.
Nastika relationships are rather awkward to write about because they can change their genders. There's no real homosexual or heterosexual love between two Nastikas. Of course, biologically only a male and female can actually have kids, but there's really nothing stopping them from liking someone of the same gender. Vasuki likes Sagara, for example, and they're both female as of the present. So I guess it doesn't make a difference to Garuda whether Vinata is male or female. He still likes Vinata either way. He just wants Vinata to be female so they could start a family. :P
Thank you for reading! Please leave a review!
-SCND