The Confectionary Chronicles || HP/SPN

Lollies and Loki- CH2

CHAPTER TWO

Gabriel did not receive many prayers these days. Well, not to Loki; there was always a steady stream of prayers to the Messenger of God, humans being clueless to the fact he'd basically done the angelic-equivalent of running away from home aaaages ago. But it wasn't like he actually listened to any of those prayers. Mostly. There was the occasional truly desperate prayer that he'd answer but those were more the type where Loki could deliver some just desserts, so they probably didn't count (being an angel was boring anyway– pagans had so much more fun).

Most of the prayers directed to Loki these days were from eccentric Wiccans, the odd hunter every now and then, an occasional demon-witch (they tended to end up very dead when he got a look at their disgusting souls), the rare demon (who he disliked even more then demon-witches and so ended up even deader), rebellious teenagers wanting vengeance rained down upon their classmates or parents or siblings, one of his fellow gods or goddesses or– very, very, very rarely– someone who was desperate enough for the delivery of justice or punishment that they either actually managed to convince themselves Tricksters could exist to deliver it or they just had nothing else left to believe in.

The prayer he was receiving, the one aimed at Loki, was definitely from a human yet it was startlingly strong in both its absolute conviction in the belief that he existed– a hunter, maybe?– and bizarrely pure, despite the grief-rage-hatred-hatred-hatred burning through the words.

It was an old ritual that took him a moment to recognize– the pronunciation of old Norse was very nearly flawless which made him wonder if it was some sort of academic studying Norse pantheons, one who had perhaps stumbled across some evidence during their studies that made them believe 'Loki' was more then just a myth.

Well, there was no point in wondering when he could just go straight to the source, he decided cheerfully. Focusing on where he could feel the altar (he had to commend the thoroughness of his possible future disciple) he transported himself to it, careful to make himself invisible to the room's occupants and to scan first for any sort of trap– he couldn't see any– before turning to his maybe-new worshipper. And then he almost became visible again in pure shock.

A tiny slip of a girl, probably not even fifty pounds soaking wet, was kneeling before a small, homemade altar. She had a head of the craziest curls he'd ever seen– they were literally pure chaos and the part of him that thrived on chaos wanted to tangle his fingers in them, but that was probably bordering on the Bad Touch zone, because had he mentioned that the kid looked like she was in preschool?

Wide-eyed, Gabriel scanned the room again. It was a child's bedroom, very bereft of toys but absolutely cluttered with mythology books seemingly piled on every surface and the floors, as well as a large selection of Greek tragedies that he was pretty sure she was supposed to be too young to actually understand.

Crossing over to the small, child-sized desk he quietly flipped open the spiral notebook sitting on top of one of the book stacks and came across a very long list of Tricksters that Gabriel doubted even he could have named off the top of his head, it was just that thorough. Continuing to flick through the notebook, his disbelief grew with each new page that revealed detailed, handwritten entries on each of the Tricksters, including their strengths, weaknesses, references to particular myths, legends and plays they were present in, references to academic papers written about said myths, legends and plays and her own shockingly detailed character analysis on each of them.

It... it was almost a bit disturbing, actually, but Gabriel was impressed (something not easy to achieve) by the sheer level of effort and detail the girl had put into her research; she certainly hadn't gone summoning him all half-cocked like most rebellious teenagers seeking some sort of lame vengeance for some petty perceived wrong did. Also, Gabriel found himself experiencing a great deal of smugness that out of pretty much all the Tricksters out there, she had chosen him.