[AL] Emotional Littering

"Oh, come on, you haven't watched the news at all?"

Orva was staring at the plate of food in front of him on the table. It was a most respectable meal, if Cycla said so himself, laden with large cuts of meat from some of the wild wyvern in the north, decorated with various herbs that Cycla had bugged a mortal into growing. Unfortunately, it was getting cold on its plate. Cycla stood next to the table, arms crossed, tail swishing side to side.

It was another second before Orva politely pushed the plate away. "No, I don't really watch it. I know I should. Sorry about that."

"Ugh," Cycla punctuated, leaning over the table to pick up the fork and stab it into the steak himself. "When'd you stop paying attention? That's fucking boring, you used to be really on top of it."

"I know. It just seemed like a waste of time after a while."

Cycla stuffed the steak into his mouth, gesturing at Orva with the fork, voice muffled, "Well you should start. Or, pick it back up. Now I have to explain what happened."

Ew, it tasted so gross. Unfamiliar and gross. This wasn't the normal food Orva ate. Who was the idiot who'd cooked this?

"What happened?" Orva leaned his elbows on the table, staring up at Cycla with too-wide eyes and a too-small mouth. There was something in the way that his shoulders were low that twirled in Cycla's mind.

He huffed and glanced to the side. The north wall of the study was covered in a massive bookcase spanning its entire length, packed to the brim with hardbacks and magazines alike. It was messy, but in a familiar, lived-in way. None of the covers captivated his interest, but he still scanned them anyways, letting his mind wander for a split second. He couldn't remember if he'd read any of these before, and for some reason that was making his skin crawl.

Starsdamnit, why was he having a reaction to that?

"So," he began again, stabbing various leaves with his fork. "Y'know that one legend about the curse?"

"No, I don't. Sorry."

"Glacey didn't teach you anything!" Cycla's voice was, in that moment, closer to a shriek than anything else. "Stupid bitch. He's a stupid bitch, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah," Cycla agreed decisively, shoving the forkful into his mouth and chewing absently. The reassurance was warming, although he couldn't dislodge the voice in his head telling him Orva was lying.

Orva stared for a second longer before glancing to the plate and tapping his fingers on the table. Cycla didn't know what that meant. "Tell me the legend, please."

"Right okay. Anyways so the legend is totally fake, I can tell you that right away, but it's important for... fuck I don't know. I don't really care either. But it's important because I guess it has some relevance. Maybe it's real? Fuck I'm getting offtopic. Okay so the legend is that a long long time ago, like right near the start of the Universe, once upon a time - yeah, like that." Cycla swallowed and resumed picking at the plate. "There didn't used to be any snow around here, none at all. And the ancestors of the mortals and lesser gods and stuff were like... uh I don't remember. One of those generic bad qualities that people always write fairy tales about. Probably hubris or somethin', maybe greed. It's always those two, ain't it?"

"Yeah."

Thank the stars.

"Yeah! So anyways everyone's a sinner and they're sinning it up all over around here. Apparently it was like some rich grassland with some really fertile soil so they were churning out agriculture left and right and got really greedy or prideful or whatever, and starting mistreating the other cities. The other cities got pissed off and went to talk to this entity and that entity was like, godly but more godly than anyone else. Said entity proceeded to blow the place the fuck up."

"Oh, shit."

Cycla gestured with the fork, "Okay, not literally blow up. They like, made a million blizzards happen and they covered up all the farmland and the cities and then it was like, forever snowing and the north got fucked over. But it's basically blowing it up because then they didn't have any food."

Orva nodded, fingers laced together under his chin. "I see. I don't remember that happening."

"Me neither but I don't actually know if I've been around since the very start so maybe it happened in like, year one or something. Do you know?"

"No. I know Glacey's older than I am though."

Cycla hummed, picking up the plate to lick up the dredges of the sauce. It was his favorite part, honestly. Bad form to lick plates in public, though - not very intimidating. More childish.

"What did the legend have to do with the news?" Orva watched the motion out of the corners of his eyes. Cycla stared back.

"Oh, right. Anyways I was just thinking about it because the news was about a new godly god who's more godly than all the other gods. So it just reminded me of the legend. Basically there's a god that's bigger than the Harmonics and Chaotics and I guess he died recently or something and passed on his god-powers to some random mortal. Sucks it wasn't me."

Was that true? Maybe not. Sure, absolute power would be helpful, but it wouldn't be the end-all be-all of every issue he'd been tackling lately or at all in his life. It'd be nice but not perfect. He couldn't think of any issues that could arise but he was sure he'd find something wrong with becoming the Gladar.

Cycla set the plate back down. Orva picked it up and magicked it off somewhere, probably to the kitchen. Neither spoke for a second, Cycla slipping into the chair across from him. Orva drummed his fingers on the table.

"Is that a nervous tic?" Cycla blurted out.

"Probably," Orva replied, tone still as simple as always.

"I don't have any," Cycla grinned, pointing at Orva's hands. "I guess that means I'm not nervous!"

"Or you just don't externalize it."

"No."

"Alright." Orva put his fingers back under his chin. "Tell me more about the news."

"The Gladar - that's the godly god - they're gonna visit every city." Cycla kept his gaze steady. "I guess that means he's visiting me and you, although I wouldn't be really shocked if he just skipped me entirely."

Orva didn't blink. "What will you do when he visits?"

"No idea yet." Cycla put the empty fork back into his mouth. "Gotta plan it out I guess. It'd suck if I planned something really cool and he didn't show up, though."

"I guess that's the risk you take."

Cycla didn't respond. He leaned forwards, tilting his head slowly towards the door. Orva quietly watched his reaction before looking to the door himself. It stood resolute, a tall, wooden block with pretty carvings in the center and a plastic knob. 

It cracked open a split second later and a mortal walked in, engrossed in the clipboard and documents they carried in one hand. "Orva," they didn't even look up, "I really would prefer if you didn't leave in the middle of meetings next time. We were waiting for your verdict on the copyright law rewrite for half an hour before realizing that you'd dropped out of the group chat and you weren't in your office. I-"

Cycla smiled as they finally looked up and met his eyes. He could taste the adrenaline running through him as the mortal's eyes widened and face drained of color, freezing completely in their tracks. Good. Good, just his presence was doing this. It was just so easy to ride on the coattails of what his past self had done.

"Hey there," he said, then turned back to Orva, the fork clattering as it was dropped to the table. "Who's this?"

"Mayor," Orva replied, back to tapping his fingers. "Newly elected, you haven't met this one yet."

Cycla stood, pacing over to them, who shrunk back almost comically. He offered a hand. "Well nice to meet you then! I don't care what your name is so don't bother telling me. There's too many of you to keep track of."

They stared at his hand as if it were a snake. This was what he lived for. The emotions that were welling up in his chest were intoxicating - his own personal drug, maybe. But it was an alright addiction. Maybe it wasn't an addiction. He didn't know, he didn't bother digging into it. Not the point.

"Come on," Cycla prompted, waving his hand slightly, "you know what a handshake is right?"

The mortal quietly reached a hand out to accept Cycla's. He shook with slightly too much energy before letting go and twirling on a foot to rejoin Orva at the table. The other lesser god's expression still had yet to truly change, although he was staring at the mayor now.

"When'd they get elected?" Cycla directed to him.

Orva turned to face him. "A year or so ago."

"Interesting! And you didn't introduce us?"

"Your visits were sparse and we didn't have time, but I'm sorry."

Cycla tapped his hands on the table. "Oh, no, I don't really care. Hey!" he snapped towards the mortal.

They jumped, staring at him still. He grinned and snorted.

"If you had to name one thing, a trait, adjective maybe," he drawled, turning back to Orva, "that defined this one, what would it be?"

He was quiet as he mulled over the question, hands steepled together. Always the hands, Cycla focused on. He wasn't sure why. The face usually told more about people, but that wasn't true for Orva. His hands were the window to his feelings. How many people realized that? Maybe it was just their little secret.

He hoped it was, at least.

And he didn't know why he hoped that. It felt stilted and jerky in his head, that thought, like it didn't belong. But a lot of thoughts didn't belong, and they were easy to ignore. He'd ignore this one just as easily.

"Ambition," Orva answered, his voice a knife through Cycla's mind.

"Oh, you know what," Cycla began, cupping his chin in a hand, elbow resting on the table. "That reminds me of something. Hey, mortal, you ever heard about the legend of the north?"

"Yes," they managed, clipboard pinned to their chest. 

"Tell me it."

They blinked rapidly.

"And close the door while you're at it!"

In haste, they scrambled to slam it shut and slink over to the table. Orva pried the clipboard from them, scanning the details. That was alright. He'd still listen, he was good at multitasking. Cycla had always liked that about him, although he tried not to think about it often.

It was so hard to not care about things.

The mortal's head hung low and their voice was quiet. It took Cycla a few bangs on the table before their tone picked up enough to be understandable. "W-well a long time ago, there were two lesser gods in the north. They ruled the lands around the three lakes, which flooded regularly and provided them with fertile farmland. They grew all the food for the region, and the rest of the north was dependent on their supply. Because of that dependence, the two lesser gods grew prideful."

"Told you it was hubris!" Cycla barked to Orva, who nodded understandingly.

With a tense swallow, the mortal continued, "Th-the lesser gods used their power to push around the others. They made their fellow lesser gods do ridiculous things, absurd sacrifices, to appease them and keep getting food for their people. No other plants could grow here, so they were completely in need of supply from the floodplains. A-after a while the other lesser gods banded together to come up with a plan to dethrone their cruel rulers."

Cycla watched the mortal's gaze dart between the duo. He kept his raptly-entranced smile on his own expression.

"They plotted to poison the two lesser gods with Magninium during a banquet. They prepped the food and laced it with pure magic. When the other lesser gods ingested it, it ruined their own Magninium and it made them cough up bits of it violently. They c-couldn't stop vomiting up their soul. So the duo prayed for help while the others ransacked their city out of jealousy. A being more powerful than the lesser gods heard the prayer and arrived to see carnage and destruction. They knew that it was deserved, but they did not agree with the other lesser gods' greed. In rage, they summoned a thousand blizzards that blew for a thousand years and covered up all the lesser gods, the farmland, and the cities." the mortal cleared their throat. "I-if you dig deep enough under the snow you can apparently find the ruins."

"You know that's fake, come on," Cycla prompted.

The mortal didn't answer.

"Please. I've dug under plenty of snow and there's jack shit around the lakes. And even if there were ruins, I think that story's a load of shit anyways. It's a fairytale that gets told around so nobody gets greedy." his grin widened. "But nobody's poisoned me yet, have they?" 

Orva paused, eyes flicking up.

"No," Cycla prompted, picking up the fork from the table and holding it out to the mortal, "Nobody's poisoned me, have they?" 

"I-"

Cycla stood, slowly, placing one finger on the prongs of the fork. With a blitz of magic, the metal lit up a sickly green, tiny particles visible in the light. "Riiiight. Y'see this food wasn't meant for me, was it?"

"I don't know," the mortal squeaked, ears pinned against their head.

"Yeah, I know." Cycla tossed the fork at them. They scrambled back to avoid it. "You didn't have anything to do with poisoning Orva. Or trying to. Maybe you did, I dunno. Whoever thought it was a good idea is a fucking nematode."

Orva had finally completely lifted his head. "You ate-?"

"Yah, what'll it to do me? Maybe I'll get a little sick but whatever, everyone gets sick sometimes." he placed his hands together in front of his stomach. "Stupid bitch, who made the food?" the mortal didn't respond. Cycla snapped fingers in front of his face. "Hey, bitch!"

"I don't know," they piped up, averting their eyes.

"Don't lie to me," Cycla warned.

Was that giving them too much grace, a warning? They didn't respond anyways, which was fine. He reached forwards to grab their skull like a sports ball and press his fingers into their forehead. They opened their mouth to talk, but no noise came out as Cycla's hand blitzed with magic. 

Their mind was fragile and tiny. Most mortal's were. Sorta sad, but it made sense. They weren't meant to hold a lot of information. Their little heads gave up trying to keep it all in and then they exploded. It was kinda weird, but kinda endearing at the same time. Made it easier to not care about what they thought.

The mortal resisted his invasion, but Cycla methodically took apart their walls as soon as they put them up. Easy peasy. It only took some mild digging and feeble protests before he closed around their memories of the day. Waking up, getting ready, heading into work. Thinking about all the things they needed to discuss. Arranging a meeting, talking to a secretary. Eating a bagel. Typing on a computer. There was almost an innocence to the routine. 

Their cellie rang, but they didn't answer. They drank coffee. They handed off a speech to the revision team. They called Orva and some associates for discussion on a law. So simple, so innocent. No fretting about others' feelings towards them. Ambition was right: there was a selfishness to it, almost a self-centered taste. They didn't care if people hated them. It didn't matter what others thought of them. They knew who they were and they were secure in that.

Before Cycla could even process the jealousy running in his veins, his magic spiked with the emotion. There was a brief flash of harsh light and the mortal screamed. 

He yanked his hand back, blinking at them as they stumbled to the ground and clutched their head, blood seeping out of their ears. Well, fuck. He hadn't seen anything suspicious in their memory bank, at least. Maybe they hadn't had anything to do with the poison attempt.

"Oh, I guess he wasn't lying," Cycla managed, staring at the sobbing heap in front of him.

Orva's eyes were wide, fingers curled tightly around the clipboard. "Did you kill them?"

"No."

"Oh."

Cycla turned to the other, hand relighting with magic, "Should I?"

"I would prefer if you didn't."

The jealous frustration in Cycla demanded that he ignore Orva's request. It'd take a snap of fingers to murder the mortal, to completely fry their brain beyond comprehension and leave them to be mercy-killed by the hospitals. And yet, there was something else in Cycla, a push-pull tug-of-war that told him not to. It wasn't worth the effort.

So much effort. Every day, making sure he never faltered. Every action he took was baked full of effort and knowledge, of manipulation and prediction. Five steps ahead of everyone else - any slower and it'd all fall apart. The perfect mask of apathy covering up the plague of great care. He hated it, every second of it. 

It wasn't fair that so many people weren't bothered, and he was. It wasn't fair that he had to care so much what other people thought. If he didn't then he wouldn't need to keep up this exhausting persona.

But he lowered his hand anyways. "Alright. You know, you should really call some medics for them."

Orva blinked a few times, like his mind couldn't quite catch up. "I will."

"Yeah, good." he handed over the fork. "Here's the evidence of the crime. Jab it into the chef's eyeballs for me."

"I don't think I can do that." Orva took the fork.

"Well just think about it then. It's the thought that counts."

"True," he agreed.

Cycla watched him for a second. Maybe long ago he'd hoped Orva could be something to him. What? A place to let his guard down and stop caring, for even a second, about anyone seeing who he really was? Maybe so. But he couldn't do that, not for a second. That was too much power, too many eggs in one basket. Giving away emotional security to a single person, it was a level of control he couldn't possibly divorce.

He breathed and he felt his lungs hurt. He swallowed and his throat ached. He felt like he wanted to say something, but he couldn't think of a single word to say. Was it fair? Was it not fair? What was he even talking about, anymore? 

Orva was typing on his cellie. Maybe he was calling medics. Cycla could leave and nobody would even remember he was here. It went against all he believed that he cared about, but maybe it was for the better right now. For some reason, he didn't want to take the blame on this one.

"I'll see you around," he blurted out, the tiny fragment of genuinity he could express. "Tell me about when the Gladar visits and how that goes. Got it?"

"Of course, Cycla." Orva looked up from his cellie to stare the other in the eyes.

There were words shared, but neither of them could speak any. Cycla reached up to tug at his shirt collar before flashing a smile. Orva gave a polite nod.

And with that, Cycla teleported.