Natural Magic

Chapter 2 - Chicken Soup

The gods of the bolus lived in a state apart from the physical. For those who do not comprehend the deific waveform of reality, it could be described as an apartment. In this apartment, a man with the head of an eagle sat on something here represented as a couch, his feet up on an ottoman, lazily watching images on what was in essence a TV. Behind the eagle-headed god, whose name was Outeb, was the analog of a kitchen table, on which were two mouse-sized mice, white of fur and clad in robes. They were busy coordinating a full-sized quill to write on a piece of parchment.

Stormhaegan stormed in, as only a storm god can, turning the atmosphere tumultuous.

"I'm back from my walk!" he proclaimed. "Don't bother getting up, Outeb, I can see you're comfortable."

Stormhaegen skirted the bird-headed god of travel to sit on the far side of the couch. He waved a hand at the screen across from them purposefully. The image changed.

"I have urgent business," Stormhaegan said hastily to his couch companion. "I hope you don't mind."

"Urgent business?" a voice squeaked. It didn't come from the vegetative deity. One of the mice had squoken. "Are you finally doing something about my prophesy?" it asked scornfully, "The one at the top of your To Do for a millennium now?"

The images on the screen rapidly shifted as Stormhaegan flicked them by, barely allowing each to register. "Yes, your damned list. I said I would get around to it."

The mouse huffed and returned to its scribbling. "It's a miracle the world hasn't drowned yet. Or frozen."

"Or melted," the other mouse added. Outeb watched in stony silence, his beak partly open like an avian filter feeder. Stormhaegen grew impatient, his cosmic power limited by simple disorganization.

"Aha!" he announced. He nudged Outeb and said, "Great advice on the air travel. Missionaries, tactically deployed. Scribb? What am I looking at?"

"It was in the prophesy I wrote for you," said one of the mice.

"I couldn't read your handwriting. Footprints were all in the ink."

The scratch of quill on parchment stopped, replaced with a tense silence. This faded and was followed by a squeaky sigh. "Let me come over there. I'll walk you through it."

They scurried to the TV and climbed up to the screen. The two mice studied the moving picture, a sunny desert vista overlooking a great clay cooking pot, a small ugly humanoid in a chef's hat dancing on an adjacent mezzanine. A reptilian humanoid, its hands bound, was secured nearby.

"That's him," one of the mice confirmed. "Your chosen one."

"That thing in the hat is a kobold?"

A mouse shook its head. "The other one is a kobold."

Stormhaegen panicked.

"I'm too late! Those goblins are going to eat him!"

"No, no," one of the mice said, "This is now. When did you send your herald, his guide?"

Stormhaegen scratched his scalp, stirring the clouds there.

"Oh... Yesterday?"

"Then we need to get you caught up. We can squeeze a day's recap in the few minutes of real time until he makes his appearance."

The scene on the TV started moving backwards.

****

While a gnome and a hermit crab hunted for shells, millions of other things were happening at the same time. There is nothing particularly unusual or noteworthy about this, as millions of things tend to happen simultaneously all the time. For instance, two snails fell in love after a chance meeting while crawling over a garden pumpkin. A convict was wrongly hanged in front of a jeering crowd. A priceless vase was smashed. A stoic achieved enlightenment, the result of years of study. Someone fended off an attacker using a priceless vase which happened to be at hand.