Page 46 of The Goddess is Angry
It was also beautifully landscaped with colorful flowers. There was an area away from the playground equipment where Azren’s reapers had brought their dogs. I’d only seen Earth, Hell, and the Netherworld, but they all had dogs.
“Does every realm have dogs?” I asked.
“And cats. People love spoiling their pets. Hades couldn’t stand his family, so he made a realm away from them that became part of that lore. He loves dogs so much that he gave them three heads. They are kind of like the pitbulls of your realm. They look threatening, but if you spoil them the way Hades does, they are terrible guard dogs that are more likely to lick an intruder to death than stop them.
“Some of the realms that are just the gods don’t. They have the animal totems that are associated with them, but they think they are above cleaning litter boxes, walking dogs, or caring for something like that. I’m a cat person. I have a highly recommended service looking after mine while I’m off realm.”
“Azren’s cats arespoiled.”
“That’s where Drake went to high school. He was the best goalie they’d seen in a long time, even before he got his magic.”
Drake’s high school was something. It was a public school like the one I graduated from, but it looked like it got alotmore funding. I got a great education and had amazing teachers, but the building was old, and sometimes major repairs and been shortcuts with patch jobs.
Drake’s high school not only looked like it got proper repairs, but it was beautifully landscaped like the rest of this realm. My high school had trees that had been there for hundreds of years, but this one had flowerbeds that were clearly taken care of.
“It’s nicer than the private schools back home.”
“That’s because we don’t have private schools here. Funding schools is a top priority because we want an educated society. We don’t have people trying to ruin our public schools because they either have kids there or they will have kids there. A few people have tried, but they don’t even remotely have support.
“I don’t like running things. You know how much I hate the headmaster gig. I prefer my dusty books, scented candles, and bouncing theories off smart people. I had to run things on this realm for a very long time before I could step back. I'm involved in this realm because I’m a citizen, but not in a God of Death way.
“I haven’t had to step in andbethe God of Death in over a thousand years. Everything you see is because of some really effective reapers have been running the Netherworld. We do politics a little differently here than what you’re used to. Our politicians are motivated to better health care, labor laws, and wages foreveryonebecause theirs isn’t different from the people they were elected to represent. We have more than two political parties and even the ones I’m not all that fond of can’t drastically fuck up my realm and pull me away from my books without shooting themselves in the foot. This is my place.”
Azren’s house was so Azren. It was a two-story, Victorian-style house, but it was painted black. There were large, colorful, stained-glass windows and Azren didn’t do lawns. They had a native habitat for butterflies and bees. Azren immediately said hi to their plants. Drake rolled his eyes.
“They’ve been doing that since we got back. Azren went off realm thousands of years ago to shapeshift and cut up with Loki and when they got back, the person they asked to house-sit killed all their plants and let the cat out. There hasn’t been a plant murder or cat escape in thousands of years. The descendants of the original criminal are so far removed that tracing themselves back to him would take serious time and research. Azren replanted the garden and eventually rebuilt the house, but they like to bring up the original crime.”
“When I need to take a break from research, gardening is wonderful for relaxing and centering yourself.”
I was learning alotabout Azren. The inside of their house was just like their office. Dark panels, comfy places to sit, and scented candles and books everywhere. A black cat and an orange cat came running in to twine around their ankles.
“I didn’t take you for a pop of color with the cat.”
“I always try to have at least one orange one. They are chaos gremlins who love to snuggle. There’s one shared brain cell among all orange cats, but I haven’t figured if it’s one shared brain cell per realm or they are sharing one brain cell among all the realms. My void cat is a perfect princess who is brilliant all the time and has never once had to go to the vet for eating Yule decorations.”
“We all adore cats in our house. Mags especially. She had one as a familiar the first time she was alive. They were all terrified when she was shifted, even if we adopted them as kittens. They are shop cats at my grandparent’s magic shop now. We could probably get one now that Mags is more of a girlfriend than a familiar and doesn’t need to be shifted as often.”
“Let’s change the subject to your Yule gifts,” Drake said. “Azren will talk about their cats all night if we let them.”
That was…fucking adorable. I spent hours with Azren in their office after class. They’d been rubbing my back and feet while helping me with my magic and we’d kissed several times, but they were still this massive mystery to me. They taught me to traverse the veil and reap an essence if I was with them and could mimic their magic, but all the little details would come with time.
Azren waved their hand and my gifts appeared. I could have done the same, but I put them in my bag since I was spending the night here. The box from Drake was bigger than the box from Azren, but that didn’t really matter. I agonized about Yule gifts for all my guys and had to break out the big guns and get second opinions from Matilda and Mags.
“Open yours first,” Drake said, bouncing in his seat like a kid. “Netherworld rules. Guests open first or it’s bad luck.”
“Same time?” I asked.
Drake gasped like I just kicked his puppy and Azren just chuckled.
“Yule blew up when I brought it over and traditions and lore evolved. It really is considered bad luck for the hosts to open before their guests, not to mention a little rude. Do it for Drake.”
Yule was loud at my house. I had a massive family. We all opened presents at the same time and then shouted over each other to show off our presents. It was chaos, and I loved it. But this wasn’t my home or even my realm, so I could do things differently.
Zion Skinner had been retired for a while, but he was so fucking famous, his dodgeball jerseys were still popular. Drake had gotten me one that had not only been signed by our entire dodgeball team, he got Zion himself to sign it. Zion Skinner autographed memorabilia was rare because if you asked him for one, he told you to get fucked. The only time he didn’t tell someone to get fucked was if a kid asked him and he was rarely available in public to be asked.
I let out this huge shriek.
“Howthe shitdid you get Zion to sign this?”
