The Hell of the Nine Realms: Wrath of the Divine

I: The Normalish Lives of Waterbags

A few weeks had passed since that conversation.

Since the event of Jamie's rescue, David had gone (temporarily) his separate ways with everyone. Lizzy was with Jamie and Dylan, Abby was back at UW-Green Bay, Ashley was with her parents, and Raelin was traveling the country.

 David's sixth year at Ebenezer was coming and he had everything packed.

A month ago, he had been staying at Jamie and Dylan's old house, but, for the past few weeks, he had been roaming like a vagrant man.

He had arrived in Madison the morning of 1st of September and decided to enjoy a Mocha Frappé as he passed a coffee shop.

He sat in his booth, reading a newspaper about him, and taking the occasional sip of one of his four coffees. He would've read one of the twenty books (yes, he knew that that was too little to be a lot, but he only had enough money on him for twenty) he had bought in Ferguson, but he had read them all on the way home. During his walk through Illinois, he, at times, wondered if he should've read them slowly, savoring the excellence of them, before thinking he enjoyed them all, so that was all that mattered.

The front of the newspaper showed him a picture of himself as a battered little kid, then would show him being pulled away by his aunt, then him on his pirate ship, on the battlefield calling his army to fight with him, him advising the presidents, then finally him in that Labyrinth, before repeating. He still wondered why someone thought it would be a good idea to figure out how to put gifs in newspapers. It was distracting.

 "Who're David and Elizabeth Reeves?" David looked up from his newspaper. There, standing before him, was a beautiful mixed woman. If David were to guess, he'd say she was Caucasian and part Asian. She had a long flaming mane of red hair, his favorite type of hair color. And, as a bonus, it looked a lot like Jamie's hair when it was still red. Her hair was tied into a ponytail that rested on her left shoulder. She wore a white apron over short shorts and a T-shirt. Her skin was fairly clear and she looked like she had just gotten out of a beauty salon.

 "Oh, no one." David responded, smiling.

 "That's an interesting newspaper of yours." she commented, giving a coy smile.

 "How old are you?""16." he answered, which wasn't a lie. In human years, maybe he was a little bit older. But in Odinson years? He was 16 and a half. "And how is my newspaper interesting?"

 "I could've sworn that I saw one of the pics move." she said, smiling sultry. "Crazy, right?"

 "Yeah, crazy." David smiled back. Yet another reason why such an idea was utterly stupid. The Veil could do a lot of thing, but hiding moving photos on pieces of paper was not one of them. Sure, the mortals had gifs on the internet, but they didn't on their books.

The girl began to walk away and David - wanting to take his mind off Jamie - called her back.

 "6." she said, turning around. "That's when I get off. You can tell me more about yourself, David, then. And my name's Naava Riley, by the way."

 "Cool." David replied.

Naava went back into the kitchen, beginning to imagine how good a date with David would be. He didn't look like anything special when he first entered the cafe, but that was only because of how far away the counter was from the entrance. When she saw him up close, she heard herself sigh dreamily. He obviously hadn't shaved in a long time, as he had messy straight black hair, and a beard that had been allowed to grow so unhindered that it reached his neck. Yet, somehow, he made it work. It didn't look any less handsome because of it. But what really made her go over there was when he took out several books to read for a while before moving to a newspaper.