O K A Y. Only took me like nine days to get a new computer, so here we go, posting of this story will now resume its daily schedule. This is Part IV, Parts I, II, and III are also available. This scene takes place the day after the previous one–Jack is no longer dying of a divine-level hangover, is the point. Also, please feel free to correct my German, I do not dich the language.
“Hey, Jackie,” Idunn said, already sliding forward a travel cup with an elegant cursive J on the side. Her handwriting would have made calligraphers weep with envy, although her print letters were angular and sharp-edged as blades. “How are you feeling?”
“Eh,” he said with a shrug and an expressive hand motion. “Ich bin gut, aber erschoft.” Jack’s eyes widened at the sound of his own words and one hand flicked up to touch his lips, a betrayed look crossing his face.
“Didn’t know you spoke German, Jack,” Idunn said in a strange voice—careful and calm, as if bracing herself or someone else against an oncoming onslaught. “Wen haben Sie erfahren?”
“I…didn’t?” he said through his fingers, and felt almost shaky with relief when the words spilled out in familiar English. “What the fuck?”
The tension bled from Idunn’s shoulders, a soldier told that the battle was called off and the glory gone for someone else to claim. “I’m sure it’ll make sense eventually,” she told him.
“Randomly coming out with a language I’ve never learned? Yeah, everything is making flawless sense,” he snapped, lowering his hand from his mouth.
“Jackie,” Idunn said, her voice steady as ages. He looked down to meet her eyes, shifting shadows of green and gold. “Do you trust me?”
“Sure,” he said automatically, flashing a smile, and she gave him a look. He relented and admitted more quietly, “Yeah, I do.”
Idunn nodded, as if all questions were answered and all problems solved by his agreement. “Good. Then trust me when I say you’re going to be fine. Don’t worry so much.”
“How do you know?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, and she gave him a rare, full grin, all of her teeth flashing as her eyes crinkled. She looked impossibly young.
“Because you’re lucky, Jackie,” she said, and pushed the mug of coffee forward another inch or so, producing a quarter from what looked like thin air. “You always have been. Speaking of luck,” she added, “Loki gave me this, and I haven’t won a toss on it yet.” She held out the coin, like a little moon plucked from the sky to rest between her fingers as a prize or a trick. Knowing Loki, anything was possible. “Catch,” she said, flicking the coin to Jack, and it thudded lightly into his palm.
He looked at the coin with a faint frown. “What do you want me to do with it?” Jack asked, holding it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger and examining it closely for anything strange, any hint of Trickster magic on it. He had always had a knack for seeing the glimmering sheen of their power left on things they had enspelled or glamoured for their amusement. The quarter looked entirely quarter-like, though, mundane metal embossed with the face of George Washington.
“Flip it, obviously. If Dia as here, I’d ask her to do it.”
“I don’t think this thing is enspelled,” Jack said with a shrug, tossing it from one hand to the other and back again. Idunn gave him a hopeful look and he sighed, positioning the coin on his thumbnail. It was virtually impossible to resist her kind young face when she turned the full force of that expression on someone.
“Call it in the air,” she said as the coin flew off his thumb.
“Heads,” Jack said, and caught the coin, flipping it onto the back of his hand. The eagle and national motto stared up at them, and Jack held it out to Idunn apologetically.
“Flip it again,” she said, and he did it with a sigh.
“Heads,” he repeated, and catch, flip, reveal. This time it showed the profile, steel-silver and proud. “I don’t know what to tell you,” Jack said. “Doesn’t look rigged to me. Maybe you’re just unlucky.”
“Must be,” Idunn said, voice light and easy, holding out her hand for the coin. Something in her eyes looked faintly disappointed, he thought as he returned the quarter, as if she had hoped for another outcome but not truly anticipated it. Perhaps she had simply been eager to blame Loki for her poor luck—he could understand the impulse; the mischief god had been insufferable of late. “Ah, well. Worth checking, I suppose. Three-ten for the coffee, Jackie.”
Jack nodded and dug out his wallet, counting out exact change and tucking it into her palm.
“So,” she said as she held each bill up to the light for inspection. “How much German do you think you speak?”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t know.” He chewed on his lower lip and said, “Ich weiss nicht. But it’s just.” He tapped himself a few times on the temple. “There when I look for it. I thought you said not to worry about it?”
“Not worrying doesn’t mean you can’t investigate,” Idunn said with a smile. “Is it just German? Maintenant parlez-vous francais? Pratar du svenska?”
“How many languages do you speak?” he laughed as he picked up his coffee and took a sip.
Idunn frowned for a moment in consideration, then started ticking them off on her fingers. “English, French, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, German–”
“That’s. That’s a lot,” Jack interrupted. “Should I have asked what you don’t speak?”
“Most African and Middle Eastern dialects, although I’m working on Dari and Pashto, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese have all been giving me some trouble, and Buffalo Woman says I’m hopeless at the languages from this continent at large,” she said without skipping a beat. “Despite her best efforts. I’m sure there are a few others.”
“That’s…still a lot.”
“It’s harder for us to learn languages than humans,” she said, as if determined to dismiss his comment, and brushed her fingertips along her hairline. “It’s taken me a long time.”
The bell over the door jangled as it crashed open and Diane rushed through, a hurricane of black hair and apologies dressed in red.
“Hi, boss,” she said, breathless and wind-wild. “Am I late?”
“No,” Idunn said, blood starting to paint itself like watercolor over the heights of her cheekbones and tips of her ears. “You’re right on time.”
Jack slipped a glance at the clock hanging on the wall and masked a smile with his coffee cup. Diane was pushing the ten minute mark since her shift’s official start time, and from the blush visible beneath her dark skin she knew it. She tugged on an apron, smooth and black over her scarlet t-shirt, and shot Jack a look.
“Aren’t you late?”
“Yes I am,” he said, taking another sip of his coffee. “I am now almost thirty minutes late. But.” He rested the rim of his cup against his lower lip and grinned, wide and wicked. “I also have pictures of my manager at New Year’s. There was a lampshade involved and very little else. So I get to be late to one shift every other week without repercussions.”
“And you’re offended that I check your money,” Idunn muttered as Diane stepped up at the counter beside her. The youthful goddess looked like a doll next to her mortal employee, who was all broad shoulders and tall, sturdy frame—Idunn was short enough for Diane to rest her chin at the center of that crown of braids. They were a matched set, in Jack’s private opinion, tall and short, brash and shy, mortal and immortal. When he won the bet, which was inevitable because Baldur wasn’t nearly as devious as an adopted brother of Loki should have been, he intended to voice that opinion regularly.
“I’ve never forged currency in my life,” Jack protested, and for some reason Idunn awarded him the sort of disapproving look that he associated with being caught out in an egregious lie. “Ever.”
Diane cocked her head at him, skeptical. “The day is still young, I guess.”
Jack gave her a look of profound insult, swallowed half his coffee in one go, and flicked a stray curl of hair out of his face with as much dignity as he could muster. “And goodbye to you, too, Dia. See you, Idunn.”
“Bye, Jackie,” Idunn said, and Diane flickered her fingers in a wave as Jack strode out of the shop.