greek deities

[her_imperial_radiance]

Harley is seven, and he and Elspeth are hanging out in the Québec capital (because the rest of the Golden Coven is doing so), and as is usual in capitals with major wolf villages, she, he, and Jacob stay in village quarters during this time.

The capital as a whole moves less often than it once did, now that people can readily teleport to other sites to handle things there; this is the first time in Harley's life that they've been to Québec for anything other than a brief visit, so it's the first time he's seen the Imperial Alpha house in which Jacob, his imprint, and her fosterling are entitled to live.

They have neighbors. One of these is a seven-year-old puppy boy, who is currently making a snowfort.

Comments

[pythbox]

"Elsie could find out, I bet!" says Harley.

[alicornucopia]

"Would she bother?"

[pythbox]

"...Yeah, why not?"

[Elsie, can you tell what colour Zeus is going to be when he floofs?]

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth pokes her head out of her window, and spends a square for an illusion of Zeus's forthcoming wolf form near where they're playing. He is going to be cinnamon-brown with black feet and a black muzzle, apparently.

[alicornucopia]

"...Hi Your Highness thank you!" says Zeus after a moment's stunned pause.

[pythbox]

Harley beams and waves. "Thanks, Elsie! I love you, Elsie!"

Then he turns his grin on Zeus. "You're going to be a pretty wolf! I wanna hug floofy-you."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, you have to wait five years," shrugs Zeus, "or so, and then I have to find a vampire to trigger me. But then you can!"

[pythbox]

Harley beams. And hugs the non-floofy Zeus, preemptively.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus laughs and hugs him back.

[pythbox]

Hugs!

[alicornucopia]

"You should stay here a while and we can play all the time," Zeus says.

[pythbox]

"Yeah! That'll be fun!"

[alicornucopia]

Zeus grins at him, then disengages from hug and runs off to grab some snow, form a snowball, and hurl it directly at Harley's face.

[pythbox]

Harley beams.

A snowball fight begins!

[alicornucopia]

Zeus is a fierce snowball fighter!

[pythbox]

Harley is too! Also a giggly one.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus has soon invented an elaborate backstory for their two-person war; apparently they are a marooned pirate (Harley) and a shipwrecked navy captain (Zeus) who are fighting for the limited supply of food on their desert island, with coconut projectiles.

[pythbox]

Harley adopts this fiction with enthusiasm. And snowballs.

[alicornucopia]

Zeus has a colorful arsenal of suitable insults for naval captains to aim at pirates, and employs them all gleefully once Harley has adopted piraticality as a character trait.

[pythbox]

Harley-the-pirate finds this endlessly amusing!

[alicornucopia]

Eventually Zeus's father comes home.

Zeus's father does this in wolf form (white with some faint gray markings), so it's a little more notable than it might otherwise be. In perfect accord with wolf village social norms, he unfloofs in the front yard to greet his son.

"Hi, Dad! This is Harley! He lives with the Princess! He's not her kid though! But she takes care of him and she does magic when he asks her and stuff! He's a human!"

[pythbox]

Harley waves.

"Hi, Zeus's dad!"

[alicornucopia]

"Bartholomew," says Zeus's dad. "Or Barry if that's too much of a mouthful." He picks up Zeus. "You kids having fun?"

"He's a low-down filthy pirate and I have to throw coconuts at him, put me down!"

Bartholomew snorts, kisses his son's scalp, and sets him down to make and throw more snowballs. "You have a good time." And in he goes to the deceased dragon that is his house.

[pythbox]

"You live in a dead dragon!" Harley yells after him, and goes back to merrily pelting Zeus with snowballs.

[alicornucopia]

"We killed it for you you're welcome!" Zeus adds at the top of his lungs. Snowballs! An apocalypse of snowballs! Zeus eventually has the clever idea of seeking cover in his fort, where he manufactures a small stockpile and then peeps his head out of the skylight to throw from high ground.