Order and Chaos

0.)

Felus had always had a reputation as the least effective of the gods. For a start, he wasn't much for raining down wrath, instead preferring to give humans what they wanted.

Except, he could only give it to them as an illusion. A comforting illusion, true, but it was nothing like the real thing. So he wasn't even that good at his own domain. Indeed, many gods had taken it as an insult that somehow he hadn't been wiped out before they had. Perhaps because Malcolm hadn't considered him a real threat.

So they wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he had left a cat flap in the afterlife that any old cat soul could wander in through leading to the very soft cushion that served as the seat of his power. They'd just consider it another way he was too lazy to do his job properly.

Not that I knew any of this when I first stepped through. I just wanted a nap. I hadn't had much luck with averting the apocalypse, and figured it might go better after I had a good rest.

Of course, when I woke up, I was Milton Felus, the new God of Comfort. I was also the god of That Gunk Under Your Desk, The Squeaky Noise Your Chair Makes, and other general worthless things that had been filed to Felus temporarily because nobody else wanted them. And I was aware of this because of the general sense of omniscience one gains upon becoming a god.

It wasn't the rush of knowledge flowing into my simple cat mind that was my most immediate concern, though, or that I was now responsible for Discarded Mattress Covers. It was the fact that I was now aware of nine realities at once.

1.)

Of course I didn't tell her about it. What good could come of it? She'd either go mad with newfound power, or bemoan the loss of who she once was and probably go off on some needless quest to get back to normal. Either way, it would just waste time. Time we didn't have, not with the gods still mad at us and an apocalypse on the way.

Besides, it might encourage her to get into a fight at the Meadowlands. We had enough problems without having to defeat our own army.

2.)

"I am Mary Vindictus, heir to Malcolm! And I have come to lead you out of the false comfort of these Meadowlands, so that we may fight for a better world for us all. A world where no one has to be ashamed of who they love, or the color of their hair. A world where there is nothing to fear but the name of Vindictus. A world where you people have some actual clothes to wear, goddammit."

3.)

I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Nothing spoke.

"Nothing is greater than the gods," it said. "Nothing can save you. Nothing lasts forever."

The speech carried on in that vein. I couldn't blame Mary for missing it, though the crowd seemed rather impressed.

But that wasn't why I was here. I was here to ask Nothing for a favor, and when the speech finally wrapped up, I stepped to the front of the church and asked it how I could make an appointment with De.

It promised to get back to me later. That went about as well as could be expected, I suppose.

4.)

I waited. And waited. And waited. The whole time, I had a strange feeling that something was the wrong color, but I couldn't quite place just what.

Finally, Nothing spoke.

"Nothing is greater than the gods," it said. "Nothing can save you. Nothing lasts forever."

The speech carried on in that vein. I couldn't blame Mary for missing it, though the crowd seemed rather impressed.

But that wasn't why I was here. I was here to ask Nothing for a favor, and when the speech finally wrapped up, I stepped to the front of the church and asked it how I could make an appointment with De.

Before it could respond, a bolt of lightning struck the church. I had the strangest feeling Mary had gotten herself into trouble.

And of course, I was right. I had gotten myself into trouble. But it was nothing I couldn't handle.

"Pfft. Lightning? That's all you've got?"

I wasn't worried. Greg had been a god of lightning for less than twelve seconds, of course he wouldn't have very good aim. His efforts to turn my heart away from the fight with touching stories of cephalopods finding love hadn't worked much better.

Really, I don't know why he'd insisted on attacking. Adeline wasn't even under his jurisdiction, from what he'd said. But when a god demands a fight to the death, you don't have much choice but to indulge him.

5.)

I could see the confusion on their faces. They genuinely weren't sure what to do. Or perhaps they were thrown off by just how fully they agreed with each other. Or maybe it was that the numbering was off, but then again, they couldn't count anyways.

After a while, they turned to argue, the same argument repeating hundreds of times throughout the makeshift village. Finally, I heard the nearest ones settle.

"All right," said exactly half of the disaffected soldiers. "I'm going to fight her. You can stay back if you're still going to be wishy-washy, but I'm not leaving without a fight."

And the other half just shrugged, and stepped back, in exactly the same way.

Well. Worst case, half an army was still an army.

6.)

I soon saw the less-committed half of each argument grow angrier, nodding along with the litany of complaints about what Malcolm had done and why should we follow his daughter. As one, the soldiers stopped fighting amongst themselves and turned to face me.

This was not going to be easy.

7.)

She'd asked a good question. Why wouldn't I die? It probably had to do with the fact that I was already dead. Or maybe it was related to the numbers and colors being even more off now.

Not that I had a chance to answer her, not before the ground opened up beneath me. I had escaped the battle, but now I had other things to worry about.

Such as the fact that I was staring at the Nothing.

And it seemed afraid of me.

8.)

"Because I am Nothing," I laughed, and flung a startled Commun at her head. "I consumed your queen, and I will consume you all, and I will be the new god of this world."

9.)

I had a headache. At least this time, I was Milton - just not the Milton I had been at the start.

I was starting to understand. These were different worlds, different possibilities. As Milton Felus, I was observing them all, but could not affect them.

But here, in this ninth world, I was Prince Milton, being tended to by mermaids, and too busy sleeping off whatever the hell I had been drinking last night to provide any sort of mental stimulation to the newly-divine cat poking around in my mind.

Prince Milton didn't really understand what a "quantum waveform" was any more than I did, but I didn't need to. I just needed to leave some ideas in this mind that would stick around when the body woke up. Prince Milton would be the observer who would collapse the possibilities into a single option - it was just a matter of making sure they were the right possibilities to prevent the apocalypse.

So what dreams was I going to give myself while I had the chance?