Title: The Insurance
Characters: Eris/Raven
Pantheon(s): Greek/Native American
Rating: PG
Summary: What happened at the trickster's conference, after "A Meeting".
Disclaimer: This is all wynkat1313's fault.



Eris and Raven were sitting on a pile of rubble, in a large conference room at the Marriott. Things had gone far better than what they (or anyone else) had planned. Sure, they were now sitting on the remnants of what had once been whole tables and chairs, but if you had thought that made their convention a failure, you would have been wrong. The very fact that this was all the damage there was, after Loki had made his appearance, was amazing.

"So," Raven said, "what do you think should be done about Loki?"

"Done?" Eris said. "What do you mean, 'done?'"

"You don't think we should do anything about the fact that this mess all began because he didn’t get an award?"

"Like what? Give him one?"

"No, certainly not. But him causing all this trouble will probably make us all look bad."

"Who cares? For the most part, we're already looked down on by the others as troublemakers. What we do against one of our own isn't going to make them come around to our side. It'll just make the others hate and mistrust us, because they’ll think we’ve turned on them."

"You don't care what the 'higher ups' think, but you care what the other tricksters think? That's interesting."

"Only in as much as it means that I am allowed to stay a member of this community."

"I would imagine that to be a 'community,' we'd have to trust each other a little more than we do."

"Well, what other term would you suggest that we use for ourselves?"

"Perhaps, one that suggests a little less in the way of a spirit of brotherhood. It's not as though any of us truly trusts any other, or would help any other ... unless it somehow helps with something else. Anything other than those temporary alliances, we'd be just as happy to be at odds with each other, and try to put a wrench in whatever another trickster is working on."

"I suppose you have a point. What could be more satisfying for a trickster than to get one over on another? I supposed that it would be something akin to what the humans would refer to as 'the Holy Grail.'"

"Yes," Raven snorted, "they just might. But then, they never did understand what that really was."

"Do you think we should tell them?"

"Why on earth would we do that?"

"What a marvelous trick it would be to pull the rug out from underneath them. The expressions on their faces would be worth it."

"But that would mean that there would, feasibly, be people who would not be surprised by the information, sometime in the future. As it is, every one of them is surprised when they find out."

"But I'm sure that we could think of something else at that point. Things present themselves every day."

"Not necessarily anything that is quite of that magnitude."

"We could make it so, if we worked at it a little bit."

"And what would we use? What could be switched around to our advantage?"

"Computers."

"Computers?"

"They've been toying around with the idea of the whole world crashing down because of computers ... whether it's robotics, or just the crash of every system in the world. We could prove to them that it really is true, that it really will happen, by starting the ball rolling in that direction. I like the idea of starting with Apple ... apples can be the bringers of great misfortune."

"You would know, and I'm sure the Trojans were very happy for you proving that."

"They really should've been thanking me for the gift that I gave them."

"I'm quite sure that's how they saw it."

They were quiet for a moment, staring at the rubble that surrounded them. It really was impressive; Loki had done a fantastic job in bringing their convention crashing down into chaos. But it really hadn't been that difficult, in truth. To get a load of tricksters to cross the line into chaos was like throwing a match into gasoline (as cliché as that was). They were all always no more than a few steps from that line.

There were a few others, here and there, who (like them) were still littering the room. Some stood, or tried to find their footing, so they could get a better view of what they'd survived. And there were still others who had also taken a seat, appearing to try to figure out their next move. It was a rare moment of quiet for most of them, who spent most of their time getting chased, or trying to figure out the next thing that would get them chased.

Then, the general manager of the hotel came walking into the room, a look of dumbfounded amazement on his face, as he looked around. For a second, Raven was sure that he was going to start to cry.

"I wonder," Raven said finally, "if we should have gotten the insurance they offered us, when we booked this."