Chapter 25: Ch. 24 – A Blessing and a Curse

In the darkness, there was a beat. A rhythm, playing like a metronome. Momo immediately recognized it - that familiar thrumming gong. It was the same noise she had heard weeks ago, when she first awoke in the caverns below the Dawn.

Mortal ‘memory’ is so fascinating. Yes, that’s right, fire those mirror neurons, you funny little creature.

Morgana’s voice echoed in her head, and she jumped. She was surprised to find her body floating, weightless as it weaved through the dark liminal space. She waved her hands around, and it felt like pushing through an ocean current – every movement meeting equal and opposite resistance.

Her thoughts were jumbled, and where she would usually make time for a snappy internal monologue, she found only empty space.

As she floated, she found that the current was beginning to pull her in a certain direction. She swam with it, picking up speed, and was met unexpectedly by a hard wall. She pressed her fingers against it, feeling the brick-like texture.

That wall isn’t very interesting. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Momo’s fingers continued their downward journey regardless, eventually coming upon a soft spot. Caressing her fingers around it, it felt feeble, breakable: a crack in the brick.

Don’t touch that. Touching that would be a very bad idea.

In the normal world, getting ordered around by a God would give her pause. But here, she couldn’t hear her own self doubts. She felt only the exhilaration of movement.

Pushing against the crack, it began to give. She shoved harder, and it split wide open, suctioning her and the entirety of spacetime through it.

Ugh, are you serious? I just had that hole plugged.

As if she were garbage in a spacetime trash chute, Momo rolled through an endless corridor until she was spat out the other end. She landed on her face, her limbs in a knot. Had the normal rules of physics applied, Momo was very confident she’d be dead. Or at least, permanently pretzel shaped.

“Ouch,” she said, craning her neck as she stood. She still couldn’t actually feel pain, but Momo’s innate drive to complain persisted.

Unlike the gooey black nothingness from before, this room was brimming with blinding light. Once her eyes had adjusted, she was surprised to find herself in a restaurant. Not some medieval tavern, either, but a proper Plaza Hotel type shebang. Waiters in tuxedos bustled past her carrying gleaming gold plates, brilliant glass chandeliers hung above every table, and leisurely jazz music was performed by a live band.

Momo gaped. Did she somehow slip and fall back onto Earth?

With a cursory glance around, she quickly answered her own question. A goat-headed man was slurping down tomato soup, bleating with joy as he ate. His sheep-headed companion looked at him with disgust, patting his tomato-covered chin with a napkin.

“Over here, darling!”

A voice broke through the overpowering chatter. Momo looked towards the source of it, finding a woman’s hand beckoning her over. Was it Morgana? It was hard to tell. Her head was obscured by a hundred other frenzied waiters and babbling patrons.

After a full minute of struggling through the dense landscape of tables, chairs, and waiters, she found the correct table. Sitting at it was a tall, red-scaled reptilian man, and a woman who Momo could only assume to be the Goddess. She looked nearly like the Dawn’s statue, but much better dressed. In place of her nightgown, she wore a shimmering black dress, jeweled with obsidian. Her nails were painted red, her pale skin glimmered, and unruly black locks slithered down her shoulders.

“Oh, phenomenal. Two gods can’t even go on a date these days without some rowdy intrusion,” the reptilian man complained, side-eyeing Momo. At a closer distance, she could see his scales gleaning with sweat. He looked like he’d just run a half-marathon. He kept nervously darting his eyes at Morgana, and then away. His foot bobbed anxiously under the table.

I’d be nervous to be on a date with the Goddess of Death, too, buddy, she thought, and then promptly remembered herself. Did she just refer to a god as buddy?

This place made her head feel all swimmy.

“You just had to try that crack in the wall, didn’t you?” Morgana sighed, “It’s fine. I can’t blame a girl for her voracious curiosity. Come, sit.”

“But Morgana, aren’t we—” the scaled man interjected.

“We have all the time in the world, Salazar. Sizzle down. Waiter, a chair, please!”

A waiter materialized next to them on command, fulfilling the request.

“Here, try a frogshell,” Morgana stabbed an appetizer with her fork, offering it to Momo as she sat. Momo eyed it in silent horror. It looked like a typical escargot, except there was a tiny, ribbeting face peeking out of it.

Momo discovered a new personal rule: if the food was still speaking, she would not be eating it.

“I’m okay,” Momo said hoarsely, “where am I?”

“Crashing our date,” the reptile grumbled.

“Oh be nice, Sal. It’s her first time in the Nether.”

“Ah, a first timer? I hope your death wasn’t too unpleasant,” he said apathetically, picking at his food.

“Excuse me, death?” Momo began to sweat. She had already died once. She wasn’t trying to make a habit of it.

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“She’s not dead,” Morgana laughed, and Momo visibly relaxed, “she’s just visiting.”

“Shouldn’t that kill her, regardless?”

Momo un-relaxed.

“Typically, yes, but this isn’t Momo’s first go-around on the life and death carousel. It appears her soul thread has developed some thick skin,” Morgana said, gesturing behind Momo’s head. She tugged on an invisible string, and Momo felt her entire body seize.

“Please don’t do that,” Momo said weakly. It felt like she had experienced the world’s most short-lived heart attack. It was painless, but suffocating. Momo immediately despised the new sensation.

“Sorry, just checking,” Morgana laughed, “but luckily for you, it appears your soul took to my blessing. Congratulations.”

Blessing? Is that what this was supposed to be?

“And what if it hadn’t… taken?” Momo inquired tiredly.

“Then you’d be stuck here. But the Nether isn’t so bad,” she flashed her freshly painted nails, “aren’t they just spectacular? Sometimes I wonder why mortals don’t try and die earlier. The afterlife is all the pleasure with none of the pain.”

Right, Momo thought. She’d like to ask the ladies working at the Nether Nail Salon if they shared that opinion.

“Enough of this interruption. Morgana and I have much greater matters to discuss than your so-called ‘life’, mortal,” Salazar scowled.

Morgana’s amused smile faltered, and she put down her fork.

“Actually, the lives of my mortal subjects matter greatly to me,” she said, pushing her arm through one of the sleeves of her oversized feather coat, “and I am about finished with your disrespectful attitude. We can consider this date concluded.”

The lizard’s eyes bulged, “Morgana, no, I didn’t mean–”

“I will be on my way.”

The lizard’s fear turned hastily to anger, “don’t be ridiculous. You need me. You cannot wage this war alone, Morgana.”

War? Momo wanted to sink into the floorboards. She felt very out of her depth, like a chess pawn that had been confused for a Queen.

Morgana shrugged on the rest of her coat, lifting herself from her seat.

“If this is how you act over such a petty disturbance, then I would've never wanted you as my ally to begin with,” she said icily.

She turned to Momo, her frozen glare transforming into one of kind warmth. Her and Valerica seemed to share this mercurial quality. They could compartmentalize a mood within seconds.

“I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon,” she said, and then lowered her tone to a conspiratorial whisper, “until then, beware of false friends, won’t you?”

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Momo gasped for breath, waking in a fit. Her entire body was vibrating, her skin feeling more like a worn garment than a bodily organ. Pressing her fingers into the warm hay beneath her, she realized she could finally move again.

“Holy shit.”

She didn’t even want to begin to process what had just occurred inside her skull.

Dusk was meowing worriedly at her feet. As Momo raised her throbbing head to check on the cat, she noticed a pile of parchment had landed in her lap.

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