Chapter 11: Illusions of Paradise
"I feel we are all islands - in a common sea." - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Northeast of Babylon - 1916
The warm wind blew across the land, ruffling the cloak of the now dying goatherder, he had crawled towards the remains of a small crude sanctuary dedicated to holy Ibrahim before his strength had given out and the sudden illness had claimed his body. Gasping, he watched in fear while below him his whole herd seemed to drop dead from whatever the strange plague that had appeared from nowhere.
"Nergal!" a voice called out from beyond the ruins where the ancient god stood upon the fallen stone walls of the once-mighty temple of E-mes-lam. With interest, he watched when a dark angel appeared and took away the soul of the now-dead human, along with those of the slain goats. There was the sound of fluttering wings and Death momentarily paused to look up at the god of plagues, how she could be everywhere at once had always been a mystery to him? He had once asked her about it in the streets of a great city on the banks of the Nile River. That night, he was only allowed to kill the first born children of those who lived behind the doors not marked with the blood of a lamb and she was not in the mood to explain anything for she was aggravated at what he was doing. "Nergal!" he heard the voice whisper yet again. "It is time."
Ireland - 1916
An almost overwhelming scent of fresh tropical flowers wafted from the kitchen, causing the red-headed goddess to shake her head when her smaller companion jokingly pinched his nose. "Ihi!" she called out even as she stepped into the backroom to confront the voluptuous golden-skinned woman who was standing there in a dress made from some type of barkcloth which had been beaten until it was supple and then dyed tan with brown colored tropical leaves forming a diagonal cross pattern. Although the wrap-style dress covered her waist, her amble breasts were exposed. Around her neck was a necklace of white sharks teeth, while above her right ear there was tucked in her silky black hair a pure white and very fragrant tiaré flower, its heady aroma was what Brigid had smelled.
"Ia Ora na, sister!" the Polynesian goddess excitedly called out while she took Brigid's hands in hers. "It has been too many centuries since we last talked."
"What brings you to the cold north?"
"I come with a summons from Athena, she wishes the council to meet."
"That is odd, did she say why after all this time we are called to gather?"
"It is probably about this war, the humans will destroy everything with their terrible weapons. A few years ago their huge warships even attacked one of my peaceful islands. They bombarded poor Papeete with their huge naval guns and Papeete is one of the most peaceful places known. Leave it to those colonial barbarians to destroy it, my poor Mā'ohi know nothing of war."
Brigid smiled and shook her head for she knew that those islanders that the French called the Tahitiens had a long history of warfare, not only between their own islands but also that they had even invaded the far away islands of Hawaii more than once.
"So now the colonials have taken some of the men away to the Lands of Many Gods, they are going to teach them how to use their mighty weapons and then send them over here to fight in their war."
"They call that place New Caledonia on the human's maps," Fergus said as he entered the room. "The French are combing their colonies for more soldiers to become fodder for the German's cannons."
"Still, what if the warships come back to my islands? Those ships were mighty!" Ihi cried out in despair.
Brigid smiled as she offered the other goddess a seat at her small table and picked up three delicate porcelain teacups from her kitchen cupboard. "They won't return," she said while she poured the tea into the cups. "I read in the newspaper that the Royal Navy had hunted the German's down in the South Atlantic and sank their ships. I believe that the remainder of their overseas fleet is either caught in the harbor by the Japanese or have fled."
"Didn't one of their ships end up stranded in Hawaii and was interned by the Americans?" Fergus added while the leipreachān crawled up into a nearby seat. "We got word from the Menehune that they were on the island." The golden skin goddess looked down at him in surprise. "We little lads have to stick together and so we have our own ways of talking to each other."
"How do you do that?" Ihi asked.
"Magic!" the leipreachān proclaimed with a grin.
"You have magic that allows you to communicate across the world?" Bridgit asked in surprise.
"Rainbows!" Fergus teased.
"Rainbows, like the Rainbow Bridge, used by the cold northern gods?" the tropical goddess said.
"Actually we use short wave radio, it is a human creation," Fergus laughed. "We call the elves in Iceland, who relay our message to the Makiawisug over in the Americas and they send our message to the Nimerigar, who can contact the Menehune. We can talk with the Nisse in Scandinavia all the time and even the Woodarjee in Australia. Then there are the Aziza in Africa and the El Duende who live everywhere that the Spanish..."
"Why would the humans let you do that?" Ihi continued. "Surely they also can hear the signal?"
"We have friends in London," the leipreachān answered. "Some of the humans who hold positions in the government bureaucracy are friends of the Brownies, a familial relationship which goes back before the Romans invaded."
"So there you are," Brigid interjected to the other goddess even while she rolled her eyes at the leipreachān. "Your islands are safe once again. Now take a seat and you can tell me why you are wearing your flower over your right ear, I thought you were married?"
"I'd like to know how you got into town dressed…well, mostly undressed…like that without causing some kind of uproar?" Fergus chimed in.
Lagomorphalla - 2018
There was a loud crashing noise as a table was violently knocked over and several half-naked rabbits bolted down the opulent hallway in a panic. "Ouch!" someone loudly screamed in pain from the room behind them.
Judy Hopps was both naked and sopping wet while she straddled the back of the larger golden-furred hare god, whose arms were pinned behind his back. "HOW DARE YOU!" the grey-furred rabbit doe yelled.
"I can't help myself," the godling whimpered. "I am, after all a god of procreation."
"NOT WITH ME!"
"You are hurting me!"
"I should arrest you for what you tried to do!" Judy snapped even while she twisted his arms further back. "You tried to attack me!"
"I did not…I only wanted to share your bath." Manabozho protested.
"Uninvited!"
"I have always been welcome by the females before, so I just assumed that you wouldn't mind."
"You assumed to slip into my bath while I had my eyes closed and I was relaxing. Did you think I wouldn't have heard you?"
"No, that's not what…"
"Then what do you mean?" she may have been smaller than the godling underneath her, but she was stronger and she held his arms firmly in place.
"We always bath together, it is our custom."
"It isn't a custom where I come from and I've seen what you do during those so-called baths!"
"Well, cleanliness is next to godliness!"
"That's it, you're under arrest!"
"I can't be arrested, I am a god and I am the law. All laws come from me and I am the final judge in all cases brought to court."
A shiny object landed with a thump onto the carpet next to the hare god's ears. They were Judy's police cuffs. "Maybe you should try these?" a voice laughed out. "Except, Manabozho might be kinky enough to enjoy being cuffed?"
"Who the hell are you?" Judy asked before she released the god under her and grabbed a towel. In front of her stood a pure white fox in a dark blue kimono with intricate gold and red floral designs, it was not unlike those she had seen in the Little Amir neighborhood of Zootopia. The rabbit could not help stare in awe because the fox vixen had nine tails!
"Kitsune!" Manabozho grumbled while he sat up and rubbed his wrists. "Just what are you doing in my palace and why are you a female?"
"I came for her," the vixen replied as she pointed towards Judy. "As for being a female, I am many things depending upon my mood or how I am seen in one of many realities where I am worshipped. Now go get dressed my dear rabbit, for we need to go."
"Go where?" Judy asked.
"We are going to try to figure out what caused you and Nick Wilde to be pulled from your reality and we are also going to find that fox."
Judy rushed over to a dresser and began to pull out her police uniform, her fur was still damp but she hurried as she began to dress.
"You look rather sexy as a vixen," Manabozho chuckled while he climbed to his feet and stood next to the fox god. He was still stark naked.
"Shut up!" Kitsune said before she threw the hare god a towel.
"Now tell me what is going on?" the rabbit demanded as she adjusted the dark blue Kevlar chest plate. "Are you going to take me to Nick?"
"As I told you, I am still trying to find that fox, I heard his mother's prayers for his and your safe return. It has been a very long time since I have ever heard a vixen praying for a rabbit doe to be safe, but then again she hasn't been the first fox to pray to me about you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Gideon Grey prayed more than once that you would forgive him for being a bully."
"Gideon? He asked me to forgive him and I did."
"Of course and that is what makes you special. Not to mention that you are also in love with a fox and actually somehow gave birth to his child and that is special too."
"Why does everyone keep telling me that? Nick and I have never…I have never…" Judy was blushing as she stood there.
"That was before and…well, supernatural things are complicated." Kitsune laughed.
"Real complicated," Manabozho chimed in, the hare god had tossed the towel aside and climbed back into the bathtub.
"Complicated?" Judy asked, her nose twitched in curiosity.
"Complicated in that that the son you never had, has a daughter and she is now the goddess of time," the vixen answered.
"I told you!" the hare god called out. "Now can you send in some of my attendants, I am rather lonely in here by myself?"
Both the fox and the vixen gave the hare in the bathtub rather aggravated glances.
"So are you going to take me to Nick or not?" Judy finally asked.
"As soon as we find him, but first I am going to take you to my home. At least where I live on the same planet, reality, and time where I think your fox has ended up," Kitsune replied.
"Wait, you said you think as in you really don't know?"
"I told you that it is complicated," the vixen answered.
"Complicated!" the hare god parroted.
"Complicated, sure…" Judy sighed even while she reached out to take the vixen's outstretched paw.
She suddenly realized that she was now standing in a tall building made from wood. In many ways, it was similar to the homes found in the Little Amir neighborhood of Zootopia. The floors had woven rice straw floor mats upon them and the walls appeared to be lattice screens with translucent white paper.
"This is your home?"
"One of them. It is my home in this dimension," the vixen replied with a smile which widened when two strange-looking creatures entered, they were furless except for between their ears and the top of their heads. They did not have snouts or muzzles but instead had small noses above their flat mouths. With cries of joy in a language the rabbit did not understand, the two creatures rushed towards the vixen to hug her. "These are some of my children."
Ihi is one of the Tahitian gods and she is the goddess of wisdom and learning. "Ia Ora na", is a traditional greeting.
The modern German cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau bombarded the Tahitian port town of Papeete on September 22, 1914. They sank the French gunboat Zélée and the freighter Walküre before turning their guns upon the shore batteries and then the town itself. The German commander, Maximilian von Spee, had hoped to seize the port's coal piles to replenish his squadron's supply, but the French had set them ablaze. After defeating a Royal Navy squadron just off the coast of Chile during the Battle of Coronel, the Germans would attempt to raid Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Both the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, along with the colliers Baden and Santa Isabel, would be hunted down by a superior British naval force in the South Atlantic and sunk.
The Menehune are a mischievous group of little people who live hidden in the tropical forests of Hawaii. Like the Leprechaun, they are industrious and can be either good or evil in their intentions. They may have been the descendants of the tribes who first settled the Hawaiian Island and were defeated when the Tahitians invaded. Similar to the Tuath Dé Danann of Ireland, they fled to the less hospitable parts of the islands where they lived underground.
Irish rebels led by Joseph Mary Plunkett are credited with the world's first "pirate broadcast" transmission when they occupied the Irish School of Wireless Telegraphy at the corner of O'Connell Street and Abbey Street in Dublin during the Rising of 1916 and used a navel short wave radio to broadcast in Morse code: "Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising." However, Fergus is saying that there was already an unofficial radio network used by the many tribes of little people worldwide.
Kitsune are 'fox spirits' which are also shapeshifters. The number of tails that a Kitsune has increases with age and power, in my stories the nine-tailed Kitsune is also the god of foxes. I have read that there are Japanese tales of Kitsune falling in love with mortals and bearing children. The children of such a union often have supernatural powers too.