Even Immortals Fear the Reaper: Chapter 2
Sweet Taste of Death
The sweet taste of death couldn’t have come sooner. Well, a cigarette didn’t actually taste like death, but it was fun imagining that. I hadn’t been able to smoke during the entire flight over, so as soon as we hit the lobby I had one in my hand.
Shima stood patiently while I exhaled a puff; she didn’t even have a weird or concerned look on her face, instead she seemed thoughtful. That was the advantage to being around other immortals at least. They knew not to tell you something could kill you. If I died, it wouldn’t be my smoking habit that did me in.
“So… you are like my father?” Shima asked.
I sputtered and coughed a few times, accidentally inhaling because of the question. When I had regained my composure I took a puff and eyed the kappa girl. “I’m guessing you’ve thought about how that question means you are asking where Kappa come from?”
Her eyes averted from me, but she still nodded softly.
“Well…” I started and tossed my cigarette down before crushing it under my boot. “When a mommy Kappa and a daddy kappa love each other very–”
I didn’t even get to finish before I saw one of the most serious dead-pan stares I’d ever seen, which was quite the accomplishment. She was clearly telling me she wasn’t a total child.
Maybe she was my kid.
I laughed and picked up my smooshed cigarette, and tossed it to the Ash tray on top of a trash can. I turned and waved my hand for us to leave. So she stepped up next to me, and fell silent again.
“Look. Mizu has the mantle of rivers. She’s a minor diety but still has a mantle of power. That means the only way she can create a kid is by chucking a piece of that mantle together with a piece of someone else. Usually hair, blood, or an item that they’ve been around for a long time. She probably used one of my hairbrushes or any number of things I left with her. It means you got most of my looks, but a piece of her power, making you a kappa.”
I glanced to her and she nodded, but seemed distant in that moment.
I blew out a deep breath. “It’s not like a mother or father kind of thing. Neither of us carried you in a womb, it was more…” I waved my hands and spread them out, “Poof. You exist.”
She looked dejected and lowered her head. I adjusted the strap on my bag and looked away.
“Shouldn’t Mizu have told you this?”
She nodded, “Yes.”
“But she didn’t?”
“She did.” The girl glanced over to me. “But it was a lot more romantic sounding than you put it. Even though she didn’t mention you specifically.”
“Ah.” I elongated the vowel and glanced to a taxi as we stepped outside the airport. “I’m guessing you know where we are going?”
“Yes.” She pursed her lips and glanced in the direction I had. “But we aren’t taking a taxi.”
My eyebrows raised. “Of course we aren’t.”
I shook my head and when I looked back a writhing serpent was descending to the sidewalk outside the airport. “Mizu loves her theatrics.”
Shima giggled, “Try living with her.”
“Oh, trust me. I know.” It was a good thing glamours were natural for pretty much anything born from or given a mantle. I couldn’t imagine what the serpent looked like to someone without a mantle of power, or how it looked for the two of us to awkwardly climb on the back of the creature. Maybe we just vanished and the serpent was glamoured as wind? Or maybe it looked like another taxi? Who knew.
Shima’s face was all screwed up, which made me wonder if she was thinking about the same thing. But as soon as we were settled on the beast’s back and we lifted in the air I realized why Shima had looked off. Her face was practically a pale green when I glanced back at her, just as we took off.
“It’s the winding isn’t it?” I yelled over the sound of the wind. She clung tighter to the beast, and to me, nodding. She must have realized it was better to answer, because she looked even more sick after tossing her head up and down.
I reached at my waist to grab onto her hand.
“Listen to my voice.” I spoke calmly, projecting my voice rather than yelling. “I want you to fall right on down, right away to sleep. You will hold right on to the dragon. You will be safe and sleeping, right on through the whole trip.”
I couldn’t be sure the hypnotism worked but she seemed to slump against my back and I didn’t hear anything from her. It probably wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t been so agitated about the flight.
When the serpent landed I thanked her and pulled Shima down from the creature’s back. I held onto her hand, squeezing it softly as I went to wake her up. “Shima, the trip is finished. You can wake up now. You’ll even be fully refreshed and wide awake.”
I pulled my hand away and she blinked as the serpent blasted some wind around us when taking off.
“That was quick.” Shima squeaked, as she looked around, clearly confused about being on the ground already.
“So where to?” I asked before she could ask anything.
“Um…” She started, a bit disoriented, but pointed to a cave settled between a fork of the stream flowing around us.
I shook my head. “Her and caves. I swear.”
“It’s a lot more homely than it looks.” Shima assured.
“I know. I spent some time with her in her last one.”
“Oh.” Shima glanced up at me. “Well this is her original one, so she’s had a long time to shape it.”
I nodded and we both stood there longer, in the silence.
It was getting awkward.
Especially when she clearly wanted to say something, but didn’t dare say it.
Finally I just swallowed and breathed. “Well… Let’s go.”
She lowered her head and I took one step before I suddenly felt a force slam into my stomach and all the air ejected from me. I toppled to the grass, gasping for oxygen with a small woman laying on my chest.
I took the best breath I could before glancing down and groaning. “Mizu, please.”
She looked up at me with a frown. It was way too cute on that face, with all roundness, watery blue eyes, and a tiny form attributed to ‘Chibi’ if I was a teenage girl who loved anime.
“That’s how you greet me, after what… six or so years? All I get is a please?” She pouted and crossed her arms, still on top of me. It really wasn’t all the surprising to see her in that kind of form, she liked smaller human frames since her natural shape is massive.
It was even weirder to try to explain that somehow that tiny form contained something bigger than the creature we flew on. Glamours were weird like that, manipulating reality with illusion. It could make you think anything was anything else.
I huffed again. “Please, Mizu. You are gonna kill me.”
She giggled. “Very funny.”
Yeah, yeah. Kill me. What a joke. She was about the only one that knew the truth about that. I had been dead for thousands of years.
“Not until you tell me about the bonding experience you had with our daughter.” She was looking at me pretty seriously, which made me think maybe it wasn’t all me that made up Shima’s genetics.
I tried to shrug. “What’s there to say? We took a plane, barely talked, then I smoked and she stayed shy. She nearly puked on the dragon and I bespelled her so she wouldn’t. That enough?”
She rolled her eyes and jumped off me in a single leap. “No fun. Not even tears and cries of papa or mama or something?”
I picked myself up and glanced to Shima. “If I hadn’t known, I would have said she had the mantle of drama, not rivers.”
Mizu hit my shoulder and laughed. “That’s not a real mantle, silly.” Then her eyes bugged out as she did a double glance at me. “Is it?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes, Mizu. That is a mantle.”
It was true. It had been around since the greeks, which meant it appeared around the same time as I did.
She punched my shoulder again and I rubbed it while she hugged Shima with just as much enthusiasm as she had done for me. When their hug was over, she turned back to me with her arm around the kappa’s shoulder.
“You two should come inside.” Her face grew grim then. “We have to talk about who you need to kill.”
My life, ladies and gentlefae.
