Melinoe reacted to sensing the divine presence in the crowd with all the grace and honor instilled in her by the King and Queen of the Underworld. Which was to say, her first reaction was to duck like she expected someone to open fire. Day-Glo Red, Green and Purple didn’t notice her bizarre reaction, too busy dancing along to She-Bop. Which was a pity, since she’d been dancing to it too with great enthusiasm. Before. Before whoever it was had shown up. She didn’t often ask anything from the Moirae but at that moment she was currently thinking please, please don’t let it be Horkos even though she had no idea why or how Horkos would end up in a Cyndi Lauper concert in New York City. He didn’t even like NYC. Too many lawyers, politicians and celebrities for a god that punished oath breakers.
After a beat she lifted her head and craned around Day-Glo Green to try and catch a glimpse of who it was. On secondary, less panicky inspection, the feel was not familiar. It wasn’t even Grecian. Asgardian? She relaxed imperceptibly, sure it had to be someone she didn’t know on the pure logic that the only person she personally knew in that pantheon was Hel, and Hel was about two thousand percent even less likely than Melinoe to be a Cyndi fan. Unless she was grossly misjudging the death goddess.
Right. So the best thing to do, Melinoe concluded, was to ignore the other presence, as it seemed to be doing her. Maybe they were here because they were fans, too. Mark Twain was right, truth was stranger than fiction. She gradually fell back into the rhythm and joy of the audience. Time After Time began to play, soft, dulcet in contrast. She even sang along to the chorus, confident in anonymity. The presence in the back of her head remained constant, becoming stronger, even, as the other deity approached. Melinoe did turn her head at that, nowhere near tall enough to see over the crowd but unfailing in the direction of the presence. She saw no familiar features, no eyes turned specifically her way. Whoever it was, they were more interested in the show.
Melinoe wasn’t getting a good view of Cyndi from her position, so she slipped through cracks, trying to get nearer to the stage. It made her move closer to the mystery other but it was a price worth paying. She wasn’t trying to bait fate, she really wasn’t. It only happened that the center was somehow less crowded than the sides and provided the most direct path to where she wanted to go. Her usual force field wasn’t working, people weren’t budging to give her space. Figured. The one time she needed the creepy-ghost-goddess vibe to get people out of the way. Maybe Cyndi Lauper was a goddess, neutralizing the powers that be that weren’t based off infectious pop music, glitter, pink laser lights and pink hair—
Pink hair? That in itself was no great wonder, at least fifty girls and ten somewhat androgynous unknowns had pink hair inside the Garden. But somehow her eye happened to fall on a particularly happy-looking woman with pink streaks in her dark hair. Things clicked into place abruptly. She didn’t recognize her, though they might have seen each other in the countless years that passed in immortality. It was something else inside Melinoe that declared that was the source of the hum in the back of her skull.
It wasn’t in Melinoe’s nature to approach gods from other pantheons, not unless they worked in some aspect with the dead. They were the exception, she had no compunctions about tracking them down. The rest, she left alone. Still, she didn’t immediately dismiss the possibility of talking to the unknown goddess. A Cyndi Lauper fan her own age was so hard to find…