#rue is not uncomfortable at all and latches onto jame like a barnacle
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good omens au of the kencyrath?
Damn RIGHT, Good Omens AU of the Kencyrath.
a devil put aside (for me)
The year is 6000 AC1, give or take a few dozenmonths, when Jame is handed a baby.
This is not, as such things go, particularly commonpractice. Something about Jame makespeople reluctant to hand her babies. It’sprobably her clear and obvious alarm when handed a baby, or any other human toosmall to feasibly navigate itself home without her guidance. It may also be the too-silver shine of hereyes over her sunglasses, and the cat-sharp points of her canines when shesmiles. Regardless, Jame has taken greatpains to make sure she doesn’t look like someone who was cosmically meantto be handed babies2.
“Hail Satan. You’relate, Jamethiel,” Keral observes, and Jame makes a vague gesture—at thegraveyard, at the half-cloudy night sky, at her pristine white car—as if to explain.
“Hail Satan, and stuff, sure. Ran into traffic,” she says. Keral doesn’t often lower himself to dallyingon Earth, and last Jame checked he didn’t totally understand what a car was,although there’s a certain intuitive grasp on things like traffic and hotcoals and slow torture among demons. He seems to have a broad grasp of what she means. Bane, leaning against a gravestone andsmiling his too-wide smile, seems to have a much clearer grasp, but then Banelikes Earth3. “So. What’s, uh, happening?”
“Present for you,” Bane says, holding up an honest-to-Hellbasket, a tidily woven job that looks like something Jame might have seen incommon use seven thousand years ago. Bane lets it dangle from his fingers, rocking a bit, and Keral squawksangrily, jumping forward. Bane closeshis fist securely around the handle and lowers his arm just before Keral canreach him, and Jame thinks idly about how she could be—anywhere but here,really. Maybe somewhere with alcohol.
She’s never understood why Bane and Keral so frequently getassigned together. Probably becauseKeral is uninventive but obsessively devoted to their Master, whereas Bane isalmost human in his creativity but untrustworthy even by demonic standards. There’s some kind of hope that they’ll reineach other in.
All she’s ever really noticed is that Bane enjoys drivingKeral up the wall4, along with everyone else in the immediatevicinity.
“Here, m’lady snake,” Bane drawls, and holds the basket out,teetering, until Jame grabs it.
Jame flips up the lid, because curiosity has always beenwhat Jame does best5, and almost drops it on the spot.
“Oh,” Jame says. Hervoice is a little faint, but even. “It’s—thattime, is it?”
“Finally.” Keralstretches in the corner of her vision, a movement that’s entirely too liquidand disjointed for his mostly-human appearance, and from the sound of hisvoice, he’s smiling, smugly delighted in the way of a demon about to achieve sometruly dire things. “You’ve been honoredby our Master, Jamethiel,” he says.
“Very honored,” Jame says automatically without looking upfrom the contents of the basket. Thecontents didn’t seem to be bothered by Bane’s irreverent handling of them,still sleeping soundly. That did notmake the contents any less alarming.
“About time, too, I was wasting away waiting for it,” Keralsays, and idly bends his wrist back until his knuckles touch his forearm. There’s a pop, then several sharp cracks, andJame looks up.
“Right,” Jame announces, an edge of manic brightnessentering her voice as she snaps the lid of the basket closed. “Right. I’ll just go—do that. About time. Hail Satan.”
And she books the hastiest retreat she can manage, without actuallyrunning away.
Shortly thereafter, there is a shell game, but withbabies. Three fair-haired male babies—tidilycode-named Baby A, Baby B, and the Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer ofKings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Princeof This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness—to beprecise. The Monks of the LugubriousOrder of Saint Gorgo are a sweet bunch, if you ask Jame, but not always themost reliable at subtle communication. Thiswill later be blamed for an enormous amount of trouble.
As far as Father Loogan, head of the order, knows, the Antichristetc. is a scowling and squalling baby with ashy hair, delivered in a moreliteral than euphemistic sense to Caldane Caineron, American diplomaticattache, and his wife. This baby—Baby B—isnamed Gorbel, and will be a terrible disappointment to quite a lot of people butalso an excellent politician6.
Baby A, for the sake of the reader’s peace of mind, isadopted by a kind couple and grows up well out of events, with the kind ofblithely silly nature that only blesses those who have narrowly missed growingup in politics. We shall say that he isnamed Holly, and enjoys riding horses, climbing trees, and Not Being InvolvedIn Politics.
The Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer ofKings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Princeof This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, is abeautiful and even-tempered baby, with pale blue eyes and hair so fair as to bevery nearly white.
His single mother names him Kindrie.
Jame doesn’t call ahead, because she doesn’t believe incalling ahead on principle7, and also because her counterpart isterrible at answering his phone. Shejust shows up, parks indiscriminately half onto the pavement, and startshammering on the door, just above the Closed sign.
No one answers, so Jame snaps and the lock sheepishly undoesitself.
“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” Torisen says from the back room,without looking up from his latest discovery of what appears to be genuine ship’smaps circa the fifteenth century, if Jame isn’t mistaken. His shop mostly stocks books—histories andfirst editions and other things that could make an academic weep if given halfa chance—but she’s never seen him actually turn down an artifact8.
“I just delivered the Antichrist to a monastery and theworld is going to end,” Jame announces as the door locks itself behind her.
The angel at the desk looks up, through the open door intothe shop. Tori and Jame have always lookedalike—she thinks, vaguely, that they looked alike before the War, too, but can’tquite remember why—with inky black hair and silver eyes and very nearly thesame bone structure. He’s allowed hiscorporation to show its age a touch more, with grey threading his black hair,rather than Jame’s perpetual early twenties, but they could still bereflections in slightly rippled water.
As such, she suddenly has an excellent idea of what she musthave looked like, upon being handed the basket.
“Oh,” Tori says.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Tori says, his hands moving slowly, apparentlywithout his instruction, to slide the maps into a museum-grade envelope9. “I suppose that’s that, then. How long have we got?”
“Eleven years, give or take.”
“And then…”
“That’s right.” Torisennods, considering, and Jame collapses into the armchair across from him. “Welcome to the End Times, angel.”
“Hm,” Torisen says, as if he’s still processing this. “Drink?”
“Please.”
Six hours and a quite extraordinary amount of alcohol later,an angel and a demon concoct a supremely questionable plan to save the world.
Spoiler alert: it does not work10.
1 AfterCreation.
2 There isno helping the fact that, apparently, Someone thinks that Jame meant tobe handed babies.
3 In fact Banelikes Earth so much that he is strictly banned from being Hell’srepresentative there.
4 This is not a particular achievement: everyonefrom imps to archdemons enjoys driving Keral up the wall.
5 Jame hasretained certain things from her initial professional dalliance with curiosity,including slit pupils, a streak of black scales from the nape of her neck allthe way down her spine, and a fondness for sleeping in sunlight. Really, she’s just glad she doesn’t hiss.
6 Being apolitician will earn the erstwhile Baby B some fatherly approval at first. Then he’ll go and become a liberal, whereuponBaby B will finish thoroughly disappointing everyone and be much happier forit.
7 Jame got acommendation for the invention of the call tree. She appreciates phones. She also appreciates the upper hand, and justshowing up is better for that.
8 She hasalso never seen him sell one.
9 Jame isvery, very sure that Torisen has been abusing his miraculous abilities for thesake of protecting his books. There’s noother way those maps are surviving being handled.
10 Someoneelse takes care of it.
#kencyrath#chronicles of the kencyrath#good omens#starlight writes stuff#now LISTEN i know that jame as the demon is a very predictable choice#but tori as the angel--restricted and confined by his role and pushing back against the urging of The Good Guys#was too good to pass up#also because this way i can have tori protest 'i don't even LIKE you' and jame sneer 'YOU DO' and I Wanted That#why isn't jame the antichrist you say? because i REALLY like the idea of her and tori needling each other#for six THOUSAND years#and also because narratively speaking it's jame's purpose to destroy the world already she's had her turn#the arrin-ken say it's kindrie's turn on the apocalypse#literally THE ONLY other thing i have figured out is this:#graykin is shadwell#smol!brier is pepper#smol!kirien is wensleydale#and smol!rue is brian#they are kindrie's devoted best friends and partners in apocalypse aversion#brier becomes Uncomfortably Fascinated by those two folks who helped kindrie save the world#rue is not uncomfortable at all and latches onto jame like a barnacle#oh and baby a is holly--aka lord danior! who is SO HAPPY to not be heir to the highlord's seat anymore#that felt Right#oh also the title is from bohemian rhapsody because obviously#queue deeper than the sea of stars#asked and answered#aethersea
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