“I’m Anita,” I smile. I like this guy instantly. He’s got a way about him. A dark sort of ease. Thor, and Bryn both have a kind of authoritarian bent. This brother seems much more chaotic. I like that.
“How have you heard about Anita?” Thor is curious.
“There’s whispers among the brotherhood that someone lost his hammer to a girl,” Cosmos smirks. “Rumor travels fast.”
“Does it? I know it doesn't come from Bryn. You don’t talk to him.”
“Crichton lets the brothers know what they need to know.”
“I will be having words with Crichton,” Thor growls.
“Embarrassed you got shown up by a local girl? Is that it?”
“Are you a priest too, then?” I interject with a question to save Thor from having to rip Cosmos’ head off.
“No,” Cosmos laughs.
“He was defrocked.” Thor seems pleased to offer that information.
“Defrocked,” I snort.
Cosmos’ eyes flash blue amusement. “It’s not as much fun as it sounds. No. I’m pretty much outlaw everywhere.”
“Hey, me too! High five!”
We clap hands overhead while Thor looks on with a dour and increasingly concerned expression. I think he’s finally understanding what Bryn meant about the bad influences in the home, thing.
“Cosmos is a murder and a villainous wretch currently shirking his duties to the Brotherhood,” Thor growls. “Do not make the mistake of being charmed by him. That is a veneer that can be scratched with a thumbnail to reveal a complete monster.”
"You do know you’re selling me to your girl, right?” Cosmos says.
“Don't worry. I’m a one god kind of girl,” I assure Thor. I’m not interested in Cosmos, but I imagine a lot of women are. There's something about a handsome, devil may care, reckless rake of a stranger that makes the blood rise with the potential for terrible decisions.
Thor grunts, and that sound reminds me all over again that I’m not actually his girl. He's not embraced me the way I want him to. He’s keeping me at arm’s length as a sort of hammer related curiosity, good enough to fuck, not good enough to commit to.
“Wow. Temperature dropped in here,” Cosmos notes. The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife.
“I’m going to get changed,” I say, making my excuse to get the hell out of Thor’s presence.
Thor
“So what are you doing with that one?” Cosmos flicks his eyes toward the door Anita just went through. “You going to marry her? Have babies?”
“She's wanted for murder.”
He shrugs, like I knew he would. Cosmos is the walking definition of having no standards whatsoever. “I’m wanted for murder.”
"I don't want to marry you and have your babies either,” I tell him.
“Ouch!”
My feelings are complicated. Obviously I am devoted to Anita. I have no choice - and it is that lack of choice that makes me worry in turn that what is between us might not be fated so much as it might be a curse.
“You overthink everything,” Cosmos tells me. “And that’s what makes you fuck things up. You try to be careful, and you end up fucking things. The girl likes you. Don’t waste it.”
“I don’t think you're the person to give me relationship advice,” I tell him. “When was the last time a woman didn’t run from you screaming?”
He laughs, teeth flashing with amusement. Cosmos is hard to rattle. The world rolls off him. It doesn't matter how many times he commits unspeakable atrocities, kills someone, commits a heinous crime, or just behaves lawlessly, he always seems to get away with it.
“I’m not a relationship sort of guy,” he says. “You, on the other hand, are. Imagine how sweet you’d be with a wife and a family.”
I keep my own counsel, though the truth is such things feel as foreign to me as they do to him. I am not made the way most mortals are. I tried to explain that to Anita, though I doubt I succeeded. I am never going to be a father. What animates me is not like what animates other men. If she is to be with me, she will have to sacrifice all the goodness a mortal marriage could give her. It is not just that she is asking me for my heart. It is that in giving it to her, I risk taking everything from her.
A selfish bastard like Cosmos would never understand any of this. His idea of being with a woman is ravaging her to a breathless orgasm and leaving before she recovers. His partners are always willing, and equally transient.
“Hello, my boys.”
Skathi enters the dining room with her usual elegance and presence. Cosmos waves and bites into some toast. I take her to task.
“You could have told me he was home.”
“I have the same entitlement to be here as you do.”
"You're not even Norwegian!”
“So?”
“Don’t squabble. There is enough room for the both of you here,” Skathi says patiently. Cosmos and I are something like brothers while also being absolutely nothing like brothers. He is not endowed with any special god shard. He is a maniac. He appeals to her appreciation for the chaotic, much like Anita does.