She'd taken her time after seeing Zeus. As much as Alathea might have liked to rush off and get all of her ducks in a row she wasn't too sure what to think when it came to her dear friend Shamash. Their last meeting had been cut rather short by his speedy exit and she couldn't help but wonder if it was her fault he'd run off. There was no reason for what, was there? She couldn't but her finger on why, and she couldn't ask him and hope to get the truth out of him because she couldn't read him. Damn him for being a Truth God. Damnation was a mean thing for her to do.

But it complicated things.

It made it hard for her to focus, and while the freedom from knowing was thrilling it was frustrating too. A two sided coin. Not that she thought he'd lie to her but she just didn't know. She didn't know if he'd ever lied to her, she might have bended a few rules around him and played the fibs now and then, but lied outright? No.

She could have gone home. Gone to see her father again. Hoped it wasn't awkward and just went back to normal. Was there a normal after such a touching embrace or such an emotional roller coaster? She never had to deal with it before. Avoiding it seemed the best right now for the both of them. Prometheus was not a coddler, and neither was she. That made them blood, didn't it? Even if she'd been made, the similarities between the two grew every time she was around him, or rather she noticed them when she was around him.

She could just as easily avoid Shamash for awhile. She wasn't good with emotions even if she knew what she felt, she didn't understand it. They were friends, who wanted to ruin that or put it into jeopardy by feeling things on a different level? She needed a drink. Something besides wine. Vegas or Miami? France or Ireland?

Maybe all four in a row. No, she didn't need to get drunk. Ireland had some nice pubs, that weren't always over crowded. She was over dressed for a pub and she really didn't care. South of Dublin, hole in the wall, only locals, and her. She settled there, found a seat near the corner and mulled over everything with a nice pint of lager. One, two later. She really needed to tell Shamash about the war being over. Since he'd called her last time it was only fair she did it this time.

"Shamash." She waved her hand to get a waitresses attention. "Shamash, I have news." He'd hear her. She was sure of it. She had no idea what he'd want to drink, but he liked pubs, right?

After leaving Nanshe there had been no other place to go. Shamash could remember the endless hours he'd spent here once upon a time. Endless hours fighting for one thing or another, one cause and one true ideal. Justice. There was no justice here, of course. Burning sands had no justice or pity. Those were human things, and ground-up stone had not a heart with which to feel them. Shamash might have felt pity for them once, the people who lived here, but now all he felt was rage. A burning passionate sort of rage which he couldn't still or quiet. Most only wanted to live their lives. No foreign powers on their soil. Shamash couldn't have agreed more. And even if many of them believed in one god, whatever they called him, Shamash couldn't go on as he had before.

( He couldn't ignore them. )

Daybreak in India found the weather hot and humid. Shamash had worked through the night, the coolest part of the day, to finish what would be his last gift to this palace. Come hell or high water he was leaving today. The only real question in his mind was how much pain he would cause when he departed. Nanshe was adult enough to know what was going on. That did not mean she was going to let him go easily, without explaining himself or his behavior of late. Shamash didn't know if there was an explanation. All he could remember and all he could focus on told him that there was. Telling someone that you felt trapped, that you felt like you were being taken outside of yourself, didn't seem a prudent way of ending what had been a loving relationship. For both of them. Not for the first time Shamash asked himself if he thought he was doing the right thing. Nail between his teeth, staring at those wooden shacks, he didn't have an answer. The children would wake in a few hours. These buildings were for them, and ready for the task that would be coming to their doorstep soon enough.

( Soon enough. )

Since coming to the range, they'd experienced nothing but rain. Of course, what degree of rain usually made a very large difference in how miserable he was. Downpours were a twelve on a ten scale. Light drizzle just a five. The worst part, of course, was not even the misery. No, the worst part was that he was enjoying himself. Sleeping in whatever cave or reasonably dry construct he could make for the night. Carrying his pruning saw over one shoulder, covered in well-oiled leather to keep from ruining the blade. Staring at endless rows of trees to find the ones he was looking for, then dragging what he managed to find behind him - bundled together with as much rope as he could spare from the length he'd brought with him. This was what freedom really felt like. And his thoughts of four days ago, on the roof of Nanshe's palace in India, came back to him. The farther away he was from Alathea, the better he felt. She'd always unsettled him in one way or another, even if he didn't like to admit it. So what he'd experienced - was it that discomfort, or something else? Either way he needed to work through it, but at least he'd know if the frustration he felt was real or not.

( It was going well. )

When he left Alathea his thoughts were in a tangle. He knew from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her that Alathea was an attractive goddess. The sort of goddess who commanded respect. Her manner might have been off-putting to some but her honesty was refreshing. Even in those moments that found him asking if he could trust that honesty, his doubt never truly materialized. Their relationship was hard for some to understand. Hardest of all for Nanshe to understand, no doubt. Shamash felt that was evident by the awkward feelings he'd experienced in her company this very night.

It wasn't often that he felt as uncomfortable as he felt this very moment. Nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. This because first and foremost he wasn't.. he couldn't, no matter what feeling existed there. For either of them. It wasn't in his nature, and gods willing never would be. That didn't keep him from feeling as though... something might have happened, if he hadn't gone then and there. It was going to be easier to tell her about Nanshe someday. Someday, he was going to tell her.

( Soon. )

Typically it wasn't Shamash that did the summoning. There were plenty of willing souls who invoked his name and secured his presence with a smile or a prayer, but today it was Shamash doing the invocation and summoning. Too much of that lately. He was asking for favors he couldn't possibly repay, and while some of them were coming from family others of them were coming from sources that he didn't necessarily want to put himself in debt to. Seated on the edge of the fountains at Central Park in Delhi, Shamash couldn't think of a reason that Alathea would count it as a 'debt', but he was just jittery. Just jittery. Shamash could remember a time when he never would have gone looking for a god, let alone a foreign god. Enlil's departure had changed too much for all of them. All of them.

Too much, sometimes.

It was dark in the park. One person after another wandering away as they gave in to the insistent presence of night. Shamash didn't think Morpheus and the girl that was with him were going to be much use in figuring out what was really going on, right this second, with the Greeks. Not that he was terribly upset by that fact. They seemed to be very much in love and rather harmless. Harmless until the Greeks were brought down on their heads, at which point none of them would have to worry about who was harmless and who was not. Their only real concern at that point would be how and when they wanted to die. A war in the heavens, between two pantheons? The very thought of it made Shamash's skin crawl. If Alathea told him any news which might even be a smidge negative, Shamash was going to have to decide what to do. And that wasn't going to be an easy choice for any of them.

Least of all for Alathea. Her father she'd spoken of before, if in passing. She had family and she worried for them just as Shamash worried for his family. There was only so much one could do, and the Greeks still owed him that favor from long ago. Calling it in to shelter a pair of renegades... no, if they were that important, someone would have come for them by now. So why was he meeting with Alathea, if that were the case? It wasn't just because he wanted her company. Shamash would much rather have been spending time with Ereshkigal or Inanna or a thousand other deities. He needed to know what was going on, and how fast this thing was speeding toward them all. If he didn't discover the truth soon then it would be a surprise when he finally found out, and one thing Shamash hated was a surprise.

Especially in wolf's clothing.

"Alathea."

It was all he said, all he really felt needed to be said. She would hear him, or she wouldn't - if she were busy, he could just go back home and wait.

Nothing made sense inside his mind anymore.

He was going to have to work on that.

"Alathea," he repeated.

“Tug-šag-ga alad-šag-ga da-mu kan-gub…”

How many doors did Nanshe have in her house, no - palace, again? Inanna looked down at her basket of clay tablets, and frowned. It was almost empty, and she still had to cover other parts of the huge dwelling. The doors that led outside were the first one to be done, and there were many of them. In order to get under the door’s threshold, Inanna had to do a fair amount of handy work as well. Building happened to be her domain, so hopefully Nanshe wouldn’t be able to tell that Inanna had ripped up tiles and carpet, along with the stone or wooden door thresholds to place the clay tablets in their appropriate place.

She was working her way from the outermost entrances to the inner-most ones. The goddess would pause to admire the architecture and choice in décor, as Nanshe’s home reminded her of her own back in her homeland. Inanna would mentally mark places that required more work, or could be expanded upon. Nothing but the best, for both Nanshe and her guests. The mortals would definitely notice a new building or a new room that had been built within the day, so Inanna’s improvements were small and could be accomplished by a man in a few hours such as new wallpaper, carpet or new doors. She decided to leave the last one after the threat was over, for obvious reasons.

All this dismantling and repairing had worked up a sweat. She wiped her forehead dry with the sleeve of her surprisingly clean jumpsuit, and swept the few strands of hair that weren’t tied back to the side. This white jumpsuit was made for a man, but she somehow made it look fashionable with a belt of tools and a shiny red hardhat. Inanna didn’t want to scare the kids with her combat fatigues or look out of place working the house with beautiful, but delicate Indian clothing.

Time for the next door.

She stuck her fingers in the gap between the threshold and the floor, and delicately pried the piece of wood out. Once this door was done, she would’ve completed the front end of the house. The foyer was already complete, as well as some of the bedrooms for the women and children. Inanna began to refashion the exposed flooring beneath the threshold, so it could accommodate the two tablets without it being noticeable. It didn’t take long, and it wouldn’t compromise the structural integrity of the doorway.

She placed a tablet on both sides, and began to recite the incantations again.

It was time once again to be away from her home and explore the things that she'd missed and found herself wanting to know. The new world called to her in it's peculiar voice and she found it near impossible to ignore.

She knew it wasn't a bad thing, this wanting to know. She couldn't really expect less of herself. Down to the depths of her heart she was a curious being and all the comfort in her home as she had, it still didn't provide her with the things that the outside world could. The people she could find and get to know, the old faces that she loved to see. Home had things that the World Above didn't, of course, but home would always be waiting.

There was only one person that Ereshkigal knew that could help her with what she needed. One person who would help her and guide her and play with her. Sadly, that was not Enki. It should have been Enki. He was her twin. He should have been her conspirator. As it was, he didn't like her to come out of the Underworld and explore things.

That was fine, because there was somebody else who would be more than happy to see her out and about.

It wasn't hard to lock on to where he was and find him there. Though she had no idea where she was when she got there. Ereshkigal supposed it didn't particularly matter. He was here. She ignored her new surroundings for the most part and smiled.

"Shamash." Was all she said. It was so good to see him.

It wasn't any of his business who Nanshe invited to her home, was it? That was the rub. Shamash didn't think she was trying to make him feel insignificant, but he felt caught up in something he couldn't control. What he could do, he was doing. Etching the alad into clay tablets and staring across the room at nothing, while the children could be heard outside. Removing the police vehicle was no trouble once he'd come back to himself. And now here he was, wondering when it would start. Wondering when it would end. Something told him... something told him that it wouldn't be that bad. Hope, maybe, or just a foolish wish on his part? Truth... the truth was ... complicated. Knowing the truth, hearing it, feeling it in your bones was only half the battle. Making people see it, making people understand it, that was the biggest problem. When you said truth people believed you were talking about philosophy.

( His truth was based on facts. )

Things faded in and out, came to be and were forgotten. An ice pack. Curry. Water. Aspirin. All of it assailed him in dream-like waves, endless shifting things that he couldn't control. Much as the rest of his life, lately, had seemed some sort of dream he couldn't distinguish the real from the unreal. There was silence. A murmured word or two, and then nothing. And at last when he opened his eyes and the world seemed as he remembered it days upon days ago, she was there. Nanshe. She'd fought her way into his heart and taken over without so much as a whimper from him. All-unknowing Shamash had been content to think her odd, shy, too reserved for his company. And somehow she'd turned him into the creature he'd been before. In the ziggurat or elsewhere, when he loved man instead of fearing what man was capable of doing. No one could ever care for mankind like that dimwit Enki, no one could possibly be so whimsically fascinated by it like the ancient one. But Shamash had tried. He'd tried, and he'd gotten precisely nowhere. Nanshe had healed him of that cynicism before he knew it.

There was still work to be done, wasn't there?

( There always would be. )

The first thing he realized upon waking was that everything hurt. Even places that shouldn't hurt, like his scalp. Not his head - which was pounding out a drumbeat fit to send the Mongols to war - but his scalp, on fire. The next thing he noticed was the pain spreading across his face, flowing outward like water. Radiating from his cheek. One of them was resting against a hard, flat surface. The other was fit to explode into flames any second now. Shamash groaned. It sounded like a great ancient creature breathing its last. Which might not, in retrospect, be inaccurate. His sun's rays were beating down on him, flowing into him, surrounding him. His back felt warm. Too warm. His face felt... pain. Only pain. Shamash opened one blue eye carefully, cautiously, as though afraid of what he might see. The world was a blurry thing, ruined and streaked with day-old tears. Something was coming closer to him, something reaching his ears in an increasingly high pitch. His sense were exploding outward, catching more and more of the ambient noise.

( Rushing water. )

Concrete beneath his back. He'd given the bed to Tyr, out of respect for the man's lone hand. That was a hard handicap, in a hard world. Shamash wouldn't have wished it on his worst enemy. There were reasons that he couldn't feel his legs, but he didn't know what they were. The feeling returned on the instant. As if summoned by his thoughts. No headache, not really. Just fatigue. Shamash flexed one hand, then the other, and eventually found himself staring at a bright light. Very bright. Brighter even than the sun to his eyes, so he closed them again and tried to feel the room around him. Concrete floor. Yes, he knew that. The bed was flat but comfortable. It felt like the bed he'd slept on for so many years inside the ziggurat, easy but not extravagant. That led him to wonder what else he could find in the room, but there was nothing. Nothing he could reach from his spot on the floor, at least. Shamash opened his eyes again. Again, that bright light confronted him, and he closed them. It wasn't a hangover. It wasn't a beating. At least, not so far as he could remember. Oh, yes. He could remember. The beating. His nose had been bleeding, hadn't it? What happened after that?

Shamash felt his shirt carefully, with one hand.

( Blood. )

The night had turned into something of a whirlwind. One after another, never stopping to check, never wanting to know where they were going. Shamash had either had too much whiskey, or not enough. But lights blurred together on South Beach, especially when you didn't really care where you ended up. After leaving that club, they went on to another. And another. Somehow they were the life of the party, a one handed bushman-looking guy with long hair and a sword along with a tall and narrow pale man who had too many lines in his face. They never ran out of money. Distantly Shamash's mind told him that they would destroy the U.S. economy if they kept minting their own money, but that was before the transvestite had struck up a conversation with him. They were living the lives that people only dreamed of living in the span of one night, and Shamash was sure that it would kill him. He wrote a note on his chest, in special marker that only appeared under blacklight. Disjointed, crude and upside down - you would have to stand on your head to read the note properly - Shamash had reminded himself never to go out with a Norse god again.

( They were going to ruin him. )