Holly and Mistletoe

[alittlehinky]

The three highland calves that Cricket and Loki own are all named for tender spring flowers, and he's mindful of that as the weather turns from chilly to bitter. Daisy Belle, Dahlia, and Daffodil are very furry and very cold-hardy, though, so they do quite well on milder days, and the snow isn't deep yet. He's brought them outdoors here and there to brush out their coats, and the activity made him think of someone in particular. It was a brief but memorable encounter, with Thymos and his retinue.

No one really gives gifts to the sad and scary gods, Cricket imagines. Not often, not unless they need them specifically.

He lays out the deerhide he was gifted, which he has now tanned and preserved, spreading it over a bale of hay at the end of the animal pen. And he sets out a few small things: a jar of cranberry moonshine, a bunch of holly tied with red ribbon and some carefully selected gifts. For Kuyutha, he bought a pony's chew toy, something sturdy he can bite and fling around. For Athena, a braided sea-grass ball that's probably more for parrots than raptors, but it looks like something she could get her talons in. Last but not least, he's carved a wooden figure of a highland cow and carefully attached scraps of combed-out fur to make it look properly hairy. That one is for Thymos, himself.

"Um...Thymos, I...Dunno if you can hear me," he says, leaning against the fence near the offering, "but these are gifts for you on account of the season. Don't know where to find you, so I was just hoping you'd know if I left 'em for you here. You don't have to come for 'em, even, if you don't want 'em, but I thought it'd be right to offer 'em."

Comments

[alittlehinky]

Cricket's already died once, and been close another time or two. There's a point at which you start to realize you can't direct the world to treat you gently; all you can do is watch what comes your way with open eyes, and maybe respond to it, if you can.

He sobers a little when Moloch talks about his presence never changing, nodding. He's a perfectly mundane human, save for the marks his prior divine encounters have left upon him, but he can feel the heaviness and pain. It reminds him of things he didn't like experiencing, but that ain't the angel's fault. Sometimes things just hurt because that's the way they are.

"I'm mostly the same as any human. Put me in the dark and I might be scared, too, but Winter was good to me once."

It seems like Cricket is fortunate once again in addressing a dangerous entity in a way that makes them disinclined to harm him. He is clearly riveted by the angel's story, though, eyes wide. "It was you in the Labyrinth? You must have so many stories..."

Probably terrible stories, dark tales of torture and human sacrifice. But like Joshua, on a far greater and darker cosmic scale, Moloch does not appear to have asked to be what he is.

"I'm sorry God did that to you," he says, a slight whisper, because he was, after all, raised Christian. The fact that he's about to marry a genderfluid pagan chaos god means he's probably a lost cause as far as the Church is concerned, though. The multiverse is bigger and wilder than the cosmology he was taught as a child.

[bloodysacrifice]

Moloch glanced around where they were standing and sighed a long breath before speaking. "Winter has been good to you every time you survive it."

Moloch had a perspective where survival, no matter how it came or the outcome, was a victory.

"Many entities have imprisoned me, for a time, but sorrow, fear, and death can only be kept at bay for a short time." He always found ways to escape and maneuver around anything that kept him contained. Lucifer was the only one who managed to direct him effectively but his methods were far different than most. "I have seen a vast amount of time as the tenth thing to exist in creation."

Perhaps he is arrogant over that point but there's cynicism to having lived so long drowning in despair. Cricket is right that Moloch never asked to be created and he certainly never wanted to be an angel of darkness, the only one in Heaven.

"I'm not sorry." Moloch brought a more serious tone to bear with these words. "God is a fool when he thought he could bend the darkness against the light. Only the ignorant or self aggrandizing would create two things in union and expect them to destroy one another."

He was talking about himself and Lucifer. He was the Dark and Lucifer the Light. They existed in constant companionship and conflict but one would not survive without the other at this point in the game, or Moloch thought that was true at least.

[alittlehinky]

That comment about Winter makes him smile, because it sounds like something the Old Man might have said. "Awyp. Ain't that the truth. Came close once or twice."

Well. Technically he was murdered, back home, and that's how he got to the Nexus in the first place, but that's a little different.

He looks thoughtful, and murmurs, "Y'know, a lot of folks will talk about accepting death being important, and fear, but you don't hear that much about sorrow. I guess pain of any kind is just...real hard."

For a second he looks afraid again, worried he's offended the angel, but as he goes on, he calms, listening. Cricket is nothing if not a good listener, and a quiet observer. "Sounds kinda brave when you put it that way," he tells him. "And kinda like you're livin' partly just to spite Him, too. Hope that ain't the wrong thing to say. I want to understand, a little bit."

[bloodysacrifice]

Moloch had stilled around Cricket, a calm he only found around Aziraphale and occasionally Beelzebub. To feel that around a human is new but not unwelome in the moment.

"Without the darkness we cannot know the light." Moloch repeated the commonly spoken adage. "Pain and sorrow are the darkness to comfort and happiness."

He's well aware of how those things partner in a cycle, necessary even if he has never really felt happiness.

"Many of the fallen live to spite God." Moloch let out a quiet, cold laugh that caused his teeth to click. "There's an abundance of pride in surviving when the universe itself wants you to die."