It's Not the End of the World (Chapter 1)

Summary: [Escaped demon Tarnish is just trying to live their life peacefully as a small town reporter. Albeit, a reporter that sometimes has an embarrassing habit of absorbing nearby citizens. Whatever their crimes, they certainly didn't deserve the god of justice smashing into their life with all the decency of a bullet.

In a hilarious case of mistaken identity, Tarnish joins a supernatural investigation - or perhaps they'll escape when the god looks the other way. After all, it's not like this case is the end of the world.

...Right?]

Look, I didn’t ask to be born. Well, no one asks, it takes a form filled out in triplicate, signed with the unwavering determination of one’s innermost essence, and sent in to four of the three proper authorities in the Between before a soul gets back to earth. Don’t ask about the mathematical inconsistency and don’t think about it too long. The hives alone take weeks to fade. The point is, just asking wouldn’t get your soul anywhere near the possibility of being born again.

Still I don’t have a soul to reincarnate so I’m not particularly fussed about that. I wasn’t even really born, so maybe the whole statement is moot.

I’ll rephrase, then: it’s not my fault I exist.

There we go.

When the great creator force buggered off in the very beginning of time, it delegated the details of the universe it had created to a vast tyranny of gods. One of the minor gods in this horrendously overpopulated tyranny had the simple task of creating a series of lineages that would eventually evolve into multi-celled detritivore species.

Species that feed on decay and death, that is.

I know, I know, that already sounds evil but it’s just the equivalent of nature’s garbage disposal, given mobile forms. Think earthworms, fungus- even some butterflies! All this and more fun, natural parts of your local ecosystem found in an environment near you.

Then they got fancy.

This particular god was so focused on their duty, they never even bothered to create much of their own physical body beyond the functional. They didn’t socialize, or take union-mandated breaks, or choose a name. All their energy went into the duty they’d been assigned. With that level of devotion, it was a given they finished their task long before any of their brethren.

What if, the thought started innocently, I surprise my tyranny with an ultimate garbage can we will be able to use for any and all failures that may arise while they work on their own responsibilities?

It’s entirely possible I’m paraphrasing, but given that this is my origin story, I feel entitled.

So this industrious god reached into the fabric of the universe with all of the remaining creative power left to them by the first and molded a creature to suit the task.

There were some key traits to include. They had to be pretty because your furniture should all have a common theme. Plus the gods would have to look at them for all eternity and that could get rough if they were an eyesore.

They had to be long living and durable, otherwise they’d have to have a breeding trait and Heaven knows that would be unbearable in the long term. Drama, hormones, and strife. No one needs that.

They had to be numerous - at least one for every god - because there was no need to throw around accusations of favoritism if anyone was left out.

And last but certainly not least, they had to be hungry.

This is where our dear creator went profoundly wrong.

A word of advice: if you have never once experienced a feeling yourself, you may not be the best judge of its intensity in others.

In the process of our creation, the responsible god basically fiddled around in our core instincts and blindly turned the dial for hunger from a calm starving up to eternally empty void of yearning.

But wait! Eventually we would reach our physical capacity for food, no matter how much we craved more, right?

Wait for it.

Our misguided heavenly creator had the brilliant notion that unlimited disposal and containment was an incredibly useful tool with which to equip his newly made slathering hellbeasts. That was easily accomplished by converting our insides to a pocket dimension for maximum storage and linking it to our idea of hunger. Dopamine and other such happy chemicals would momentarily smother the gnawing ache any time we consumed mass or energy. The majority of it whisked away to the pocket dimension with a small amount siphoned to our physical form for upkeep.

Genius!

Foolproof!

Of course, we turned on them within moments of being gifted consciousness. Starving infants with a taste for everything are known for neither restraint nor a deep and abiding understanding of moral philosophy a la Kant and the gang.

On the other hand, being infants in mind, we didn't really stand a fighting chance. The rebellion was short. Over nearly as soon as it began. In fact, the tyranny was only a few bites worse for the wear. We were slapped with the soon to be infamous label of demon and put in a box.

I don’t like to talk about the box.

Suffice to say, we got out.

.

A very long time later, an impeccably smart-suited woman extended an imperious finger in my direction. An amber amulet shone in her other hand as she commanded, “Demon! Begone!”

Man, it was a good thing no one else was in the house. Granted, I hadn’t thought anyone was in the house, hence my somewhat illegal entry through a side window I’d jimmied open minutes before.

“How in the world are you a dryad?” I demanded incredulously, glancing around the ornate dining room. “Where’s your tree?”

This leap of logic was not pulled out of my ass.

There were only a few beings on the face of this planet that could recognize a demon on sight. Another demon, a deep sea anglerfish, or a dryad who had reached at least a thousand years of life. As the offended woman didn’t seem to be doing nearly the amount of flopping I’d associate with an anglerfish, it had to be assumed she was a dryad. I’d moved to a famous logging town to avoid this exact scenario, yet here we were, standing stock-still between the fancy china and a half set table worth more than my yearly income.

Despite the inescapable logic of my conclusion, it had to be noted that dryads couldn’t move far from their tree and there was nothing but saplings on the property. Nothing old enough to even form a full sentence, much less point out a demon breaking and entering half past noon. Odd, but ultimately, I couldn’t give it my full attention. If I couldn’t get at her tree, there were other ways to keep her quiet.

“Look, I’m not here to eat anyone,” I explained in a half-hearted attempt at de-escalation, “I’m a journalist and the family that lives here is involved in a deal with San Vettino’s-”

Eyes widening, I ducked.

A plate flew past where my head had been. Rude. And had there been abalone embedded in the ceramic? How could she just carelessly smash a plate that qualified as a not insignificant financial asset on its own?

“Well, that’s an expensive protest,” I pointed out indignantly.

“Out of my dwelling, demon!” the dryad cried, proving immune to humor. She chucked the amulet along with another priceless heirloom in my direction. I could only dodge and twist my way toward her as a heartbreaking amount of money and broken dreams accumulated on the previously pristine floor.

Grabbing her wrist before she could toss an innocent gilded pitcher to its untimely demise, I pitched my final plea, “I’ve been here three years now, and if you keep up with the news, there hasn’t been a single mysterious disappearance. I’m practically a model citizen!”

“Breaking into my home,” she protested, tugging futilely at my grip on her arm, “is not the behavior of a model citizen!” It was clear she was unswayed by my masterful argument. Which meant I had very little choice in what to do next.

Dryads talk far too much and I’m not all that creative.

I caught the expensive pitcher as the last of her essence swirled into my skin, leaving her clothes to fall empty to the ground, pearl necklaces clattering against the hardwood.

Give me a break; I’m a living manifestation of eternal hunger. It’s a miracle I’ve learned to restrain myself at all, much less hold down the actual job I had finagled for myself. As I contemplated whether or not to go for broke and eat the clothes, too, the doorbell rang.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, absorbing not just the silken clothes but the pitcher I was still holding in an instinctive grab for additional energy. Damn, I hadn’t accidentally eaten anything in decades. If anyone had been around to see that, I’d have been mortified.

Hesitantly, a knock sounded on the heels of the doorbell tapering off. Behind the door came the ominous ripples through reality that meant only one thing: a god was standing on the other side of it.

Despite how it may appear, I wasn’t completely lacking in wit. Thus, I manfully resisted the urge to shout back, “No one’s home!” Instead, I consumed the remaining debris from the floor, left the half set table where it sat, and gingerly eased the window back open.

I just had to climb out and be gone while they were still waiting at the-

“Oh, hello.”

My head hit the underside of the window. I reeled back from my escape attempt to meet the pleasant gaze of this second home intruder. His eyes momentarily caught me by surprise. They weren’t pinwheels of light or horrifying green blobs poking out of his skin. This god had decided on a form that was actually quite plain. His skin was an average brown, hair equally mundane, if well-maintained. If I weren’t a demon, I might not have known he wasn’t the green-eyed human he appeared to be. The surprise god gestured backwards sheepishly, “The door was open; I apologize if I startled you.”

“That’s fine,” I replied automatically, still holding the back of my head and hoping I didn’t look as panicked as I felt. Silence fell over us unnoticed as I tried desperately to think of a way out of this mire pit of disaster into which I’d somehow stumbled.

Gently, the visitor tapped his fingers against the sword at his hip, darting moss green eyes up at me and away.

“You are the dryad Qin, yes?” His tone was hopeful, but barely so, as if he had asked this question already today and been disappointed. “I was sure I had the right address this time.” Oh, right on the money. I was on a roll.

And from who I’d just eaten… this probably was the right address.

“Who wants to know?” I crossed my arms over the nervous tangle of energy in my chest, fighting down a hiccup from a case of guilty indigestion.

His mouth formed words. The words crossed the space between us. My stomach dropped out and my knees felt weak.

Sure, I’d known he was a god from the moment he walked in. The way the universe resettled around them as they moved was a dead giveaway - for demons, anyway. The thing is, there are gods and there are gods. Little gods took care of highly specific niches - like my creator, who specialized in the trash-eaters of the universe. Big gods got whole concepts, the overarching tenets that made up the universe like love or war or mercy.

“My name is Raguel,” I heard in slow motion, the sentence thundering in my head and setting my heart to palpitations.

“Wow.” My voice sounded as if it were underwater compared to the drumming in my ears. This was a god. I couldn’t stop my mouth from going, but I could attempt damage control with how it ran. “You’re the god of justice! I’m a huge fan!”

“Oh,” he colored slightly, raising a hand to his face to hide the blush. “...Thank you, Qin. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The reply was habitual. I couldn’t stop it even as I realized exactly what I was revealing, “Please, my friends call me Tarnish.”

The word almost came out in its usual language, but I wrestled back control of my tongue long enough to keep it in English. He stared at me, brows furrowed in the resulting pause. A nervous laugh escaped me, neck growing hot and my pulse jumping at the chance to slam new and different veins at an excitingly quickened pace.

“It’s my American name,” I explained without actually explaining.

“...Alright,” he said, visibly struggling to accept this in stride. As the god’s internal battle went on between a desire to be polite and growing bewilderment, I may or may not have silently asked the universe for leniency.

Yes, even for a god that left heaven only once a century to dispense holy justice on truly unbalanced individuals, my wobbly deceit was growing hard to swallow. That did not mean I deserved to be purified in divine fire and I was not above groveling to any alternative higher power that would take me.

Before I could attempt to rectify the situation or remember a convenient appointment across town, he sighed, dropping the confusion in favor of a resigned slouch. “I’m sorry. I don’t entirely understand, but this is exactly why I require your assistance. Human culture is… difficult to grasp.”

That… That I could work with.

“Oh, it’s truly no problem- no, it’s an honor, really, to help one as distinguished as you!” I smiled awkwardly, taking Raguel’s hand in both of mine. If I could just get him moving, the momentum might take us to Main Street where I could lose the poor dear in the crowd. I was only slightly babbling as I continued, “I know just where to start getting your wondrous self used to people in a friendly and welcoming environment suited to your specific needs...”

“I’m afraid we don’t have time to ease into it.” His expression was grim, if reluctantly so, and he returned the clasp I had on his hand, “I appreciate your kindness in attempting to give me time to acclimatize, but we must move directly into the investigation. It is a matter of universal security.”

Abruptly the air was charged with tension as Raguel captured my darting gaze and held steady, “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Tarnish? It may be perilous, working at my side, even if you are not directly involved in the case. I know I could not tell you much in our correspondence, but I fear you underestimate the danger. I can move on alone, if necessary.”

I very much wanted to take this out but there was a small problem. Dryads were always, always proponents of justice. Asking that was practically a trap for a tree spirit. Not that the earnest god in front of me nor the dryad he was meant to be asking would have seen it quite that way. He would have been disappointed.

Then, he would start to think.

Gods only really think when things don’t automatically go their way. There was no safe path to say no. Once he started to pick apart the holes in my panicked acting, I’d be doomed.

As Raguel stared soulfully into my eyes in supplication, I kept my expression thoughtful instead of terrified, trying to calm my energies before I accidentally ate a chunk of the hands holding mine. My plan to lose him had been ridiculous, anyway. Dryads couldn’t go far from their tree and I’d have blown my cover all on my own.

“Of course,” I gritted out through a forced smile.

Goddammit, I should’ve left the San Vettinos alone, I chastised myself as Raguel beamed, informing me seriously how courageous I was and how much he appreciated my help. The only real way out was to play along until Raguel left the house to hunt down a lead or interrogate some terrified bystanders. Advice on humans couldn’t be that hard, right? I’d been out for nine or ten thousand years now. My grasp on human culture had to be better than a god’s. I barely remembered to nod in the right spots, still holding Raguel’s hand in what had become a death grip rather than a friendly gesture. He didn’t even flinch.

“The first place we’ll need to navigate is a bar downtown,” Raguel informed me, finally leveraging his fingers out of mine with superior force. “I’ll retrieve your tree. I know you’re unable to move it, yourself.”

What? Was this god going to dig the tree out of the ground and carry it on their back? Where was the energy for that coming from? Oh, no, he was looking at me. Smile, Tarnish.

“Ah, yes, thank you.”

His eyes lit on something behind me and his face brightened with a smile, “There you are!”

The one thing Qin hadn’t thrown at me.

As the god picked up the gnarled bonsai, I wondered if this despair was what divine punishment was supposed to feel like.