Chapter 6 #2
He was fairly sure that being a god would not stop the roof, or what remained of it, from tumbling down and crushing him.
What an ignominious end that would be. Not slain by another god, or eaten by a dragon, but killed by an oversized pebble or toothpick.
He edged into the house, careful not to kick or brush against anything that appeared to be supporting the walls or roof.
From one bedroom, he gathered up blankets and clothes, making a bundle in one of the blankets.
He placed the first bundle down and went into the next bedroom.
Something moved beneath the blanket. He gasped and stepped back, almost bumping into a wall.
It was probably a rat.
A furry red head appeared.
Oh no.
Please let it be a cat. But while it was the right size for a cat, it was the wrong color. Cats were orange, not bright red. And their pupils weren’t slitted like a cat’s.
“Oh my god. You are a god, right?” the very much not a cat said.
“Shhh.” Pan hissed at the drak. Where there was one, there was always more unless there were no more because they’d all died in the collapse. For half a heartbeat, he was torn between hoping his luck would hold and a horror of wishing more of his people dead.
As if thinking about the drak summoned them, four more heads appeared from beneath the blanket.
“Fuck,” he swore in English, so they wouldn’t understand, and kept a smile on his face. He switched to speaking Drak. “I am…though, how could you tell?”
“Your aura.” The drak wriggled its furred body out from beneath the blanket and perched on the edge of the bed, with its legs tucked up like a cat.
Its tail curled neatly around its feet. And that’s where things went a little weird because the drak did not have cat feet, it had little human-style feet and hands.
But that wasn’t due to the collapse and lack of magic.
When in their cat form, they always retained their feet and hands.
“Even though it doesn’t seem quite right.
We are not quite right either. We cannot breathe fire,” the drak lamented.
“We also cannot shift,” another drak said, their voice filled with sorrow. “But you can help us.”
Pan gave a pained sigh. “Many beings are unable to shift at the moment. Myself included.”
“Ohh.” All five heads bobbed sagely as if that explained everything.
Pan wished he could nod along and understand what they thought they understood.
“We are cold and there is no milk.” While they had cat-like features, the expressions they pulled were far more human. “And we have no home. Everything is broken.”
Pan crouched down now that he knew he was not going to get a face full of flame for his troubles. “Our world fell apart, and we are now in a new world. The human one.”
“Oh…like in the stories? The one with no magic?”
He didn’t know what the drak stories talked about, but he agreed on the lack of magic. “That is true, there is no magic.”
“And they are cruel, and hunt us? We do not want to be here.”
Pan wanted to blink and bring his world back, but even if all the gods got together, they would not have that power. The creation and destruction of worlds belonged to the old gods…and human science apparently. “We are alive when many others are dead.”
“Will you find us milk?”
There was only one place Pan knew of that had milk, and Linda was in the habit of leaving some out for what she referred to as fairies. However, he wouldn’t wish a colony of drak on anyone. Once they moved in, they never moved out, and they were always underfoot.
“We need somewhere to stay. We need a home,” the one who seemed to be in charge said.
Everyone needed a home.
One of the others clasped their tiny human-like hands. “You are a god. You will make this right.”
He couldn’t make anything right. But he didn’t want to admit that he had no magic and no power. He was just as lost and useless as them.
“Please, will you help us?” they mewed. “We will build an altar in your name and leave offerings so all who see it know your greatness.”
“What is…” Samiah stopped in the bedroom doorway. “Oh.” Her gaze flicked between the drak and Pan. “Do you speak drak, or are you making cat noises at them?”
“I know a little.” He knew all Tarikian languages.
He had learned drak while spending several years trying to negotiate peace between them and a basilisk nest. That was right up there on his list of things to never repeat.
He didn’t even remember how he got caught up in that dispute.
Only that he hadn’t been able to leave until it was solved.
He didn’t remember how he’d solved it either.
Hopefully not in a manner that would cause the drak to hate him when they learned who he was.
Samiah grunted. “We have everything we need.”
Pan nodded. “Do not wait for me. I can find my way up a straight road.”
She walked away and called out to the others.
“I can find you milk.” Perhaps Linda would like the drak. They would tidy the bar for her and help her in the kitchen. Some people found them very good at keeping house…as long as one didn’t mind their constant tampering with things, the occasional singed objects, and red cat fur everywhere.
“Oh, glorious one, we are so very grateful. Will you grace us with one of your names?”
Now that was a problem…because he didn’t know if they would consider him favorably when they knew who he was.
That was the trouble with living for millennia: he couldn’t remember every interaction he’d ever had.
He’d made as many friends as he had made enemies.
And the mistakes he’d made often seemed to travel further than the good deeds he’d done.
If he didn’t need to get his magic back, he might’ve found somewhere to go to sleep for a few centuries until this mess was over. Assuming he could take a deep sleep while there was no magic, but he probably couldn’t. Fuck he was so tired of all this…this dragon shit flowing his way.
Five sets of far too human green eyes watched him.
“I am Pan.”
“Defeater of the basilisk. Defender of the drak. You are one of our favorite gods, for you also tend goats, and goats have milk.”
He smiled. Maybe drak weren’t so bad, especially if they were going to worship him.
However, he hadn’t tended a herd of goats in a very long time, and it had only been because he lost a bet to another god.
“I don’t have any goats at the moment, but I know where to find milk and perhaps a place for you to live. ”
“You are most wise and magnificent.” They jumped off the bed and purred as they rubbed their heads against his legs, almost knocking him over.
Pan closed his eyes and basked in their admiration. The faintest glimmers of magic were there, but they were too fragile for him to touch. It would take more than the worship of five drak. “Thank you.”
He stood. “Come, we need to catch up with the others.” He paused, not sure if he should tell them that his name was a secret. If anyone else spoke drak, they would overhear. Was he doing the wrong thing in keeping his name secret?
If the entire town worshipped him, would his connection to magic come back faster?
Or would they turn on him for not doing anything sooner?
Would the humans bow to him or hunt him?
Last time he’d been in this world, most hadn’t even considered him a god anymore.
He and his siblings had been fairies at best, myth if they were kind, and demons at worst. He wasn’t ready to take that chance with humans.
“Please do not tell others my name.”
“But they should hear of your blessings.”
They should, because they’d be more likely to worship him. “Yes, they should know of my good work, but they cannot know that I am Pan.”
“We will guard your secret with our lives.”
“No, no, you don’t need to sharpen claws.” He did not want a battle in his name. “Speak only of my deeds, not me.” He gathered up the blankets and tried not to trip over the drak as he left the bedroom. He reached for the second bundle, but the drak got there first.
“I can carry it,” Pan reached for it.
“No, we will serve you and you will get us milk,” the drak in charge said as the five of them picked up the bundle and walked upright on two red furry legs.
The drak managed to talk the entire way back to the ogre’s house, and Pan remembered the other reason he didn’t like hanging around drak. They never shut up. Even if he were trying to think of ways to solve the many problems, he wouldn’t have been able to because of their chatter.
They complained about being hungry and thirsty and cold, and then their feet were sore from walking, and they had no shoes.
Their shoes had been lost in the collapse along with the rest of their belongings as they were in a house that was missing.
By the time they reached the house, the others had almost completed the work of propping up the roof.
The cart was sitting in the road, ready to be hauled to the pub and filled with cow.
Noah’s eyes widened at the sight of the drak. “Are they cats or is there something wrong with them?”
Pan was very glad the drak did not speak English, yet.
Most spoke Tarikian but chose not to; instead, they forced people to mew and hope for the best. Fire-breathing, attitude-filled assholes who never shut up, but who would faithfully assist those they deemed worthy.
Which, at the moment included him, as long as he stayed in their favor.
“They are drak. And they also cannot shift. This is their cat form.”
Noah’s eyebrows lifted. “But they have hands.”
“Yes. And they have been complaining about their feet.”
Two of the drak sat on the bundle and rubbed their tiny toes.
“What’s wrong with their feet, aside from the fact that they look like human feet attached to a cat’s body?” Noah asked, unable to look away from the drak.
“Would you like walking around barefoot?” Pan scrunched his toes. The memory of walking barefoot in the human world was rather too fresh.
“Uh, no. Do they need shoes?” Noah said as if he couldn’t believe what he was asking.
Pan glanced at the sky. “Of course they need shoes.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not used to dressing cats.”
Pan scrubbed his hand over his face. “They are not cats. They are drak…they are the kind of being Linda leaves milk out for, except that they can usually breathe fire and shift between cat form and tiny human form. Do you have tiny shoes?”
“Yeah, I know where to get tiny shoes.” Noah grinned. “Nan is going to love this.”
“She will?” While it wasn’t his job to warn people, Noah and Linda weren’t just people anymore. They were friends. “They have asked for milk and a place to stay, but they can be as much of a hindrance as they are a help.”
The drak mewed at him, wanting to know what was going on.
He told them he was negotiating for milk and a place to stay.
“But we do not want to stay with one of his kind. His kind likes the beach and water. We do not like being wet.”
Oh, shit. They saw Noah as selkie, not human. That was not good. “His grandmother is human. She has a tavern.”
“Oh, we like taverns. They are full of people and food.”
And people had pockets, which drak like to pick, and not necessarily for the coin. Their treasures included all kinds of random things, including rings, buttons, ribbons, and beads.
“You look so cute when you’re meowing at them,” Noah said with a smile.
Pan glared at him. “I am not supposed to be cute.”
“Don’t be a dick, take the compliment.”
Was it a compliment? “And how am I supposed to take it?”
“You say, ‘thank you’.”
He was not saying thank you for being called cute. “It would be better if you let me show you how much I appreciate it.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Can we not discuss how much you want to get me into bed while surrounded by people?”
“They don’t speak English.”
“Yet. Besides, I’m sure they can tell from the way you’re looking at me.”
“Does he disrespect you?” the drak in charge asked, flicking out her claws.
“Should we slice him to ribbons?” one of the others said, also revealing claws at the tips of their human-like fingers.
“No he is my…” Fuck, what was a good word to describe Noah that would protect him from the drak without revealing it was only through Noah he could touch magic, and without diminishing the drak’s praise of him. “He is my consort.”
“Oh.” They nodded in unison and sheathed their claws, while Noah remained oblivious to the damage the fire-breathing murder cats were ready to inflict in his name.
The tiniest rush of power sparked through his blood. He had worshippers…now he needed the milk and shoes, or they might turn their claws on him. He hoped Noah was right, and that Linda was agreeable to housing the drak.