the business of being mortal

They were nearly nose to nose, though with the final word she was in far less a state of shock than he. If anything, her aggravation lay in having her fancy little jacket squeezed on.

He loosened his grip, gaze narrowed down to her own. 

"Goddess?"

"What, couldn't you hear me? Yes, 'goddess'. And for heaven's sake, listen when I'm talking, alright? I've said it three times already." She expectedly straightened herself as he stumbled back, catching himself upon the ledge of the counter while simply staring at this woman. This positively insane woman.

It was only a moment after watching her go back to perusing the damage of the shoppe before he muttered, "You're mad. Fucking mad."

"Penelope Anne Vanholme, right?" She ignored his profanity as she kicked a plank of rotten wood. She went about as if it were her own business, whipping out a pocket pen and a miniature notepad from just within her purse. Her fervent scribbling varied from the blunt sincerity of her speech. " Better known as Penny to folks around town. Only child of a baker and his wife, the product of another set of baker and wife, who were products of yet another baker and wife when first establishing this here little establishment so affectionately known as The Rolling Pin. Your grandmother, dear Achilles, knew that this bakeshop was more than just a dream to you in your youth; it's a family heirloom. That's what she always told you -- holy shit, those vents are practically -- wasn't it? That's why she had nurtured your adoration for the culinary arts without a second thought because... well, let's face it. Your mother was too busy chasing after businessmen to really be any good at fostering your dreams."

"Power-brokers," he corrected faintly.

"All the same."

Kneading the bridge of his nose, Achilles finally opened his eyes. He needed... Christ, he needed tea. It was far past tea time, though he wasn't quite sure he would ever get around to fixing any at this rate.

The stranger with the feral black mane bit her lip, smirking at the sight of him. "Well, lookit you. Taken aback a bit, are we? Didn't think I knew all your business, did you?"

"Goddesses don't--"

"And for shit's sake, would you be a dear and please spare me the 'goddesses don't exist' speech?" she hissed, setting a hand upon her hip. "I wouldn't call myself one if I wasn't one, now, would I? Nor would the rest of us. It's such a fuckin' insult every single time."

His sudden bark of laughter left no curiosity for his disbelief, the "goddess" of sorts less than amused. Achilles took the box of knickknacks, shaking his head as his barking ebbed into mere chuckles. Best thing to do at this point was walk away. "So there's more of you lot, then? Alright, miss. You've got me pegged; your cleverness outdoes mine, I'll give you that."

"Why, you-- you don't believe me, do you? Achilles! Hey, Achilles! Y-you come back here --!"

The audacious clicking of heels stomped after him as he left the shop in the far back, taking the narrow set of creaking stairs up to the residential quarters. At the glance of things, here and below threatened to be two entirely separate buildings. Someone must've been living around here...

"Why d'you think I'm here in the first place, then?!"

"I'm sure I don't know," he sighed after setting the box down. The sitting room, which had always been the communal area that each other room fed into, was cluttered at worst, but delightfully more agreeable as far as conditions went in comparison to the shoppe downstairs. The curtains, the same wretched pink and yellow stripes as they had been in his youth, appeared washed and starched; the three windows, each propped open to allow the early evening breeze, along the back wall visibly wiped clear of smudges; the two couches and the loveseat had been refurbished entirely, their ancient fabric still threading to his touch; the dark hardwood at their feet polished, spotless. The hideous pea green rug upon which the varnished coffee table sat was vacuumed and beaten free of mites and tangles. Even the old television had switched rabbit-ears for a respectably-sized flatscreen, though it lay propped up against once of the couches halfway assembled. A sloppily rolled sleeping bag hid beside it.

Someone had been here, and putting in a considerable amount of work. There was no mistake about that.

Abruptly quiet, the woman clicked to his side as she took in the conflicting cleanliness of the living quarters. "For what it's worth," she started suspiciously, plunking her purse upon the coffee table between the lounging furniture. "I didn't have a hand in this, much as I wish I did. I don't suppose you've done anything either?"

"Not at all. You've see me, I just got here."

The two wordlessly accompanied one another as they wandered throughout the second floor. Achilles found himself treading lightly, unsure of what he would encounter despite the acute cleanliness primped around and about. By all accounts the place was comfortable, boasting restored or brand new effects that somehow spruced up yet maintained the coziness he had embraced as a child. 

From the sitting room sprouted a single, rather narrow hall devoid of natural light save for the window at the far end that led to the opposing staircase downward. Four oaken doors, two on either side, sheltered four intimate little bedrooms; each equipped with an antiquated armoire, nightstand, and, cramped into the corner, a desk. For all the fixings, however, only one bedroom possessed a four-post queen squeezed up against the wall.

A profoundly curious Achilles took leave of his snooping before hunkering back down the way he came up to fetch additional boxes. "What did you say your name was?" he wondered aloud on the way down.

"Hmm? Oh, you'll call me Izzy, please..."

She continued to speak, though with the distance Achilles had quite quickly tuned her out until he started back up for the stairs again.

"... in the contract. But we can talk about all that later," she finished, taking note of his work. After he set the box down, they met eyes yet again. 

The dark beauty bit her lip, simpering as he adjusted his glasses once more. "So Izzy. If it isn't money you're expecting, then what do you want? I'm all for free labor, but there's always a catch. Not to mention," he made the trek back downstairs, being sure to adjust his volume as he took up two suitcases by the handles. "You've still not explained why you're here. Assuming you are what you say you are --"

"A goddess," she corrected.

"Yeah, that. Assuming you are one, what's my granny got to do with any of it? What've I got to do with any of it? Careful, I need in."

"It's funny you should talk about labor, really," the dark Izzy quipped as she scooted quickly to the side, plunking down within the downy confines of the loveseat. She propped her brazen magenta heels upon the oak coffee table, leisurely going about taking them off and tossing them to the side. "But I'm here to help you get The Rolling Pin, well, rolling. She enlisted me to aid you in whatever fashion necessary to get this old place off the ground and established as a platform for your career. We signed a contract a few days ago right after her passing. And in exchange for my participation, I get my mortality."

He sighed with a shake of his head, arms crossed. "You're serious about this goddess business, aren't you?"

Izzy threw her head back in something of a mockery, allowing her nimble body to soak itself into the plush confines of the loveseat. Her neckline exposed in its chocolaty contours, those slender shoulders falling back as her erect spine slunk in relaxation. Quite expectedly, the rather spritely pair of breasts lifted themselves naturally at the behest of her arching back. Achilles couldn't necessarily ignore the calcifying parts of him inherently affected by this woman, immortal deity or otherwise. Truth be told it had been several months since he had stumbled into that enigmatic one night stand with the woman from the seminar -- the woman dripping in gold, flesh painted golden brown that danced with the sketches of strange tribal tattoos, cinnamon-flecked hair tightly coiled in in the bun that attempted to tame her -- and even longer than that since he had been in any rendition of a committed relationship. Hell, maybe if he would take the time to shave the sorry excuse of a bristled goatee clean he might even have had a chance if he tried. It wasn't that he was devoid of whatever facets women deemed attractive, but he had been so hopelessly wrapped up in the futile drag that was culinary school he would never know if a woman wanted him or not.

But this one; no, this mad one made it perfectly clear. All she had to do was continue to sit there, lounge there, picking at the imaginary dirt between her hot pink fingernails and simply glance at him as she did now for him to know. 

Achilles cleared his throat as he looked out one of the windows beyond him. Had he imagined the door closing in the shed in the backyard...?

"And what... ahem, how does she give you mortality?" he inquired.

"I've gotta do a bit of labor. Or go into labor, more accurately. That's where you come i-- shh, wait." She glanced behind him, eyes narrowing.

He heard the backdoor open and shut just as she did, his back leaning from off the wall as he turned to the staircase at the end of the hall. The opposite staircase, the one he hadn't traversed in the fifteen years he had been away from this place. He started for it then, booted feet heavy as he nearly raced to peer down to the staircase.

"Jeezis Christ!!!"

The sight of the two women smeared in garden soil threatened to startle him out of his jeans, the man, slapping his palm to his heart. They, too, stumbled in something of surprise, though he was the one who started shouting, "If people don't stop sneaking around in my bloody house! Who the fuck are you?! You know what, don't bother. " He pointed furiously, bewildered at his own twisted fortune, at the door they had just emerged from. "See yourselves out. Get out. Get out!!"

"Well keep your panties on!" That was the short, mahogany-fleshed one, the woman with the smokey grays and the roots that needed re-coloring to match the copper taint of her lengthy, straightened braid. She held up her garden-gloved hand as if to safeguard the quieter broad, nearly shrinking into her shoulders behind the basket of produce weighing heavily within her tawny hold. "You might not know us, but we know exactly who you are, Achilles Vanholme."

For the love of God, this day could not have rendered itself any nuttier than he had found it now. 

She had started to introduce herself when she paused to squint. "Ishtar? What're you...?"

Came from behind him, a chuckle of pleasant disbelief twisting her full lips into a curious grin. "Well, if it isn't Ma'at and Rosmurta. Sent from Mother Watcher to spy on me, are you?"

"Oh, no, no!" 

The timid tawny piped up from behind her vertically challenged shield just then, suddenly enlivened with nerve. "Mother Watcher doesn't know we're here. We signed contracts with your grandmother," she looked to Achilles somewhat anxiously. Her hold on the basket looked to tighten as she shifted feet, viridescent gaze lowering. She motioned for the shorter of the two to move on up the stairs. "We're, ehm, here to help you out around here!"

"I'd argue we've done more than enough of that already."

Izzy -- Ishtar, perhaps? -- snapped her finger, the proverbial lightbulb flickering on above her curlicued halo. "Okay so thanks, yes, but I'm actually the one who's got a contract with Penelope." She snapped again, brows furrowed, before a tattered page of parchment shifted suddenly into her hand. 

The bloody thing went poof! from out of thin air. Fucking. Went.Poof.

He snatched his glasses away, nearly tossing them to the floor at his feet. While Achilles settled his spine against the propped window, head steadied tight in his hands for fear it might fly away along with the rest of his senses, the three had reduced themselves to bickering over their own pieces of parchment, waving it wildly within one another's faces.

"That's impossible," Ishtar argued firmly. "No more than one of us can be assigned to any client at a time. How do we all have a contract with the same damn woman?"

"Gimme that." The short one, he couldn't yet figure to be Rosmurta or Ma'at, snatched Ishtar's paper to inspect for herself. The taller tawny glanced over her shoulder to read along, at which point she wondered quietly, "Perhaps we can go back up, then? Considering only one of us is needed--"

"Each contract is bound with our blood, Rosie. We can't return to Heaven until both ends of the agreement are met, you know that."

"But Isht--"

"That crafty old hag!" Ma'at glared over to the bewildered Achilles while demanding of the feral-haired Ishtar, "And I suppose you wanted mortality in exchange as well?"

"Izzy!" Rosmurta set the basket down, appalled. "I thought you wanted to keep your wings! With all that trouble you started in Palestine, I would think you'd know better than to simply quit now."

"All I know is we can't let him knock us all up."

With that, all eyes fell upon him. Achilles blinked his senses back into rough order, wondering whether or not he should bother to replace his specs upon the bridge of his nose. His azures glanced from sepia to gray, gray then to green. 

He dared to ask, "What, me?" Then his chortle of laughter yet again, though at this point he had begun to dizzy himself with the continual roundabouts of nonsense. "The fuck have I got to do with any of you?"

"Well that's the only way for us to be mortal," came Rosmurta's softened explanation. "A goddess who bears an earthly child renounces her everlasting life the moment it's born. He's not a very informed fellow, is he?" Her giggle conflicted with the severity of the other three and their grave countenances, at which point Rosmurta quieted.

"I see. So I should just wank off and toss my jizz to each and every one of you, then? Is that it?! Granny's signed me on to just... just... fuckin' inseminate everyone?! Hmm?? You know what--?"

In a fit of confusion he moved to slam his seized hand into the replastered wallpaper, only to raise them above his head. Surrender; he had given up on this thing all together. He straightened his back in a feeble attempt to find his footing before reaching for the door to his right, struggling with the knob to even push it open. A hand moved to steady him, but he shrugged the woman's hold off. 

"No one bother me," he warned. "Don't fucking bother me until I wake my damn self up. Alright?"

He hadn't bothered to await any clever retaliations before slamming the door behind him. The single room with the neatly made bed he had managed to pick, and much to the gratefulness of his back. With another two steps he fell forward into the relieving forgiveness of pillows and woolen blankets.

It had been a long day in any case. If he could manage to sleep this off and wake up to his right proper self in the morning, Achilles promised he'd admit himself to the nuthouse. It sure sounded better than what he had waiting for him outside these four walls.