Ase Unn I by Mackinley Clevinger, April 6, 2016
I staggered down the hall as the clacking of metal died down and the soft thump of mail falling onto a carpet mat reached my ears. Mornings never got easier for me, and I was always thankful for the advent of home-coffee machines to brighten up my days. I reached the door and froze, nervous fear racing through my body. One of the letters was pink, with frills… I prodded it with a toe, hoping against hope that maybe it wouldn’t – No, it had hearts on it too. Dammit, someone was getting married. Again. I crouched down, taking a sip of coffee as I collected yet another package of mail asking that I show up and be accosted by friends and their families, and inevitably get asked why I was never the one walking down that aisle.
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and that suits me just fine. I get invited to a lot of weddings; everyone around me just falls in love at the drop of a hat, it seems, but through it all I’ve remained, quite happily, alone. I don’t hold anything against them; I’m glad they’re happy. I just wish I didn’t feel obligated to attend so many damned weddings. I wonder if anyone’s going to catch on that they always tend to find the love of their life after they meet me. Probably not; they’re too busy having the time of their lives to be suspicious of anything, and how is it any different from regular romance if they happen to be more inclined to be together because I was around? I smacked my lips and took another sip of coffee, turning in my slippers to walk back into the kitchen where breakfast was half-made. If it really bothered me, I’d probably have stopped being around people so often.
I put the batter aside, waiting for the skillet to heat up as I drank more coffee, considering having a second cup. Maybe I just shouldn’t go for once, take a break from the average four weddings I attend every month. Would they understand? Probably not. Telling them that everyone I spend any amount of time with ends up getting married within the year would probably draw attention to it. I thunked my head against the cabinet behind me, reaching an arm out to start pouring another cup of coffee. They’re my friends, I love them dearly, but you can only attend so many weddings before you want to throw your hands up in the air and live in a cave far away from society. Turns out that’s worse than just sucking it up and being there for your friends, but the idea can seem appealing when you’ve got three weddings ahead of you. For the third time this year.
Taking a drink of coffee, I poured the batter into the skillet and started cooking bacon. Alright, what do I say when I see them? Congratulations, I knew you were right for each other, of course I’d ‘love’ to come to your wedding? What’s the proper wedding gift again? I snapped my fingers, taking another sip of coffee as I remembered: “Money.” Is the dress… No, it got ruined at the last one. I grinned, surprisingly fond memories of Quince and Mariah’s wedding coming to mind. They’re not always bad, at least, and you get plenty of free food. Need to make sure I’ve got the dates right, don’t want to repeat the Sarah disaster. Should I bring Jason? He makes them easier to bear, but I don’t want to give the wrong impression to anyone… I drained my cup of coffee, setting it down on the counter as I turned to flip the pancakes and shake the bacon. “It’s their problem if they refuse to accept that I’m capable of being happy without anyone in my life.”
I turned away from the cooking food to look at the rest of the mail, ignored in the mental rundown of preparation for weddings that had become secondhand. I leafed through them, stopping at a short note written in jagged runes. My shoulders sagged, and my mouth parted in annoyed surprise. “No, you… It’s been… For fuck’s…” I crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it aside onto the floor, turning the heat off on the oven and moving the skillets off the burners. “I thought they had finally stopped doing this…” I stalked through my home, out of the kitchen attached to the central hallway and past a bathroom and guest bedroom. At the end of the hall a single door stood, leading into my bedroom. Lucky for me, the door had recently stopped shutting properly; I leaned back and kicked it open, satisfied at the opportunity to express my distaste in current affairs. “Who the ever-living fuck are they to judge me?” I kicked off my slippers and removed the bathrobe I’d been wearing, pulling on underwear and clothes as I kept my ears on alert.
I pulled my braided blonde hair out of the t-shirt I’d put on, and stretched my legs out in the loose cargo pants I was now wearing. I cracked my neck on either side as I pulled a closet door open, surveying its contents before pulling out a short dagger. I heard a crash from somewhere in the house, the sound of moving furniture and breaking glass. It was always the same when your mere existence pissed off another old-timey god; send in some hapless mortals with promises of easy ascension, but make sure to give due warning because anything else would be in poor taste. I breathed in deeply, nerves cold as stone, and released the breath as I let my influence spread out and envelop the household. My vision took on a pink-hue as information flooded in from the environment around me. I could feel another influence pressing in on mine, something colder than my own, but that was less of an immediate issue at the moment. I wanted this over and done with as soon as possible, and with as little corpse disposal as there had to be.
I let my influence out, but not in; I wouldn’t need it to deal with the two idiots who were failing to pass silently through the kitchen. I could feel the colder influence resting heavily on them; they’d either been worshippers sent on a mission, or were one step away from being mind-controlled into breaking in here to kill me. They had knives; not ancient, ritual blades, but hunting knives. Probably the latter, then. Who the hell even knew I was out here? There were hardly any oldies left besides me, they just couldn’t fit into modern society and ended up getting axed by some unaware mortal who’d be very surprised to find that they had ascended to godhood out of nowhere. Sometimes the kid-gods got it in their head to ‘follow the old ways’ and got up to all kinds of stupid shit, but to target someone for assassination, first you have to know they’re out there.
Doesn’t matter, though; what does matter is that two men were walking towards my room with nasty intentions in mind, and I couldn’t stand for that. My home, my life, my right to not have people with knives try to kill me. I drifted over the floorboards, silent as I approached the door and stood behind it, listening to the approaching footsteps while holding the dagger in a reverse grip. My room was largely empty, giving me plenty of room to enjoy when not under threat but serving a useful purpose in the event of a fight inevitably breaking out. Bed in one corner, the walls lined with shelves and cabinets interrupted by a closet on the back-wall and two windows on either side. I grabbed a book off of the shelf beside me and threw it at the window on my right, pressing myself against the wall immediately after.
The noise of glass shattering sent the two running into the room, the first man dressed in flannel and toting a knife while the second man – well, boy, really, maybe the first’s son – ran in after him by a distance of just enough for me to step up behind him and cover his mouth with one hand while placing my dagger against his throat without the first man noticing. He stiffened, beginning to panic before I very carefully, gripping him by the jaw, lifted him off of his feet and put him back down without a quiver of a muscle. “The bitch must’ve run.” The first man stuck his head out the window, careful of the glass, looking both ways that he imagined I must have run given the fence lining the yard. “C’mon, boy, we’ll chase her down if we – “ The first man carefully extracted his head from the window, turning around to find me holding a blade to his, I assume, son’s throat. The shock on his face would’ve been funny in different circumstances, but I was pretty pissed. “What the hell are you – “
I silenced him with a glare. Well, I think shoving his son in the back at the same time might’ve shut him up too. I shut the door behind me with a foot and dragged the both of us towards the window opposite him, setting myself to the side of it at an angle that afforded me a view outside. “What are you doing here?” I kicked the boy I was holding in the back of the knee and let go of his mouth, keeping the dagger to his throat as I pushed him to his knees with one hand on his shoulder. “Da, don’t let her – “ His father regained his composure, looking at his son sternly. “That isn’t a she, Danny. Remember that.” He turned towards me, chin jutting out. “We’ve come here to do the lord’s work, and kill you, demon.” I stared at him blankly for a moment. I could feel the influence of another god on them, and apparently this one had a sense of humor. I sighed. “Is there any way in which you’d believe me saying I’m not a demon?” I always hold out hope on these matters, as rarely they come up and consistently return the same reaction.
“We were warned about your devious ways, enchantress and ruler of men’s hearts.” Yeah, someone’s seriously screwing with me if they just made him say that. I pressed the tip of the dagger into his son’s throat, pushing the skin to the verge of bleeding. “You are going to leave and never return or speak of what happened here or about me, or I will kill your son right in front of you.” I prefer being straight and to the point in these matters. “Ridding the world of corruption is more important than any one of us, bitch.” I expected to hear it, but was still somewhat stunned to hear it. “Who told you to come here?” If this was like any of the other one’s I’ve had come after me, he’ll… yep. He took a step towards me, eyes widening and mouth twisting in a grimace. “The will of god led me here.” I’ve heard that exact line out of a man who swore afterwards he was a hardcore atheist; someone was making them do this. I felt for the darker influence lying on each of them, much stronger in the father than in the son, trying to memorize how it felt for afterwards.
I lifted his son by the shoulder, letting him go to hang in the air for a second while I drew my leg back and kicked him, launching him into his father and sending them both sprawling. While they lay on the floor, hurrying to get up and kill me, I extended one palm towards them and spoke my name. “Ase Unn.” Waves of my influence assaulted the dark that had nested within them, replacing the cold with the warmer pink of my influence. I didn’t like to exert my will over mortals; it was bad enough they were always falling in love around me, but someone else had gotten to these two first and I was just balancing the scales. Totally wouldn’t keep me up at night thinking about how much damage I could do if I let myself go back to old ways.
They blinked in shock in the middle of standing up, whatever implanted hatred or mind control they had been suffering replaced with a different feeling entirely: Love. The father stared at his son, horror in his eyes as he replayed what had just happened, and similarly his son looked at his father with tears and a trembling lip. They dropped their knives and rushed towards one another in an intense hug, wordlessly expressing sorrow and forgiveness as I watched and wished they would leave already. After a round of slapping one another on the back, I bent them to my will just a little more. “Leave and forget.” I could see the power leave me and enter the ambient environment, deeper waves of pink spreading through the rose-tinted glasses I always seemed to look through when I let my influence spread out. If I went around like this all the time, I’d be attending weddings every day instead of a few times a month, so it pays to keep it locked down.
They turned and left, pushing open the door I’d shut with dreamy looks on their faces as their memory was rewritten to leave out their attempted murder and anything else to do with me. I remained in the corner of my room, dagger in hand until I heard the front door shut and confirmed that there was nobody else in my home. I sighed, and returned the dagger to its place in the closet. Now I was going to be late for work, hadn’t finished cooking breakfast, had to deal with a new wave of assassination attempts because gods couldn’t just fucking talk to each other anymore, it seems, and I had to attend three weddings this month where I’ll be asked about not being in a relationship like every other one. Oh, and I had two broken windows to deal with as well. I stepped into the kitchen, hoping I could salvage part of breakfast, and my bare foot landed on the crumpled piece of paper.
Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? I didn’t need cryptic messages and attempts on my life, I had enough of that before seeking refuge here. You have failed in your duties. Well, guess what, dick? You failed to kill me. You get to find out how fucked up you can get by a goddess of love. Oh, and I need to get a new dress. That’ll be fun.