In a small area of the endless ethereal darkness of the in between. A sibling argument could be heard. Although these immortal beings will never end their endless quarrels they argue anyway.
“There is no way mortal love can last as long as you seem to preach, dear sister. Even mother and father have grown less fond of one another in eternity. They keep siring those half-blooded pompous morons mortals call ‘demigods’” the male figure spouts off.
“Yooouuu only say that, dearest brother, because you have never landed a single love in your entire eternal life.” The female figure snidely says.
“I have too, there was that one earth elemental queen or whatever we had a thing that went on for a few centuries that counts.”
“Uh huh, what was her name?”
“Uh…” the male figure figeted.
“What was her name, brother?”
“Um… uh… Granius?”
“Her name was Pulvi. Not even remotely close. Which proves my point.” The goddess folds her arms in triumph.
The male figure sheepishly looks down then mischievously mutters “Then put your money where your mouth is.”
“Can you repeat that, couldn’t quite hear you, brother.”
Much louder with a mischievous tone “If you are soo insistent. Put. Your. Money. Where. Your. Mouth Is. Lets put a mortal couple to the test. Give them the gift of immortality. Put them on our elder brother’s project universe."
"He would never say no to more otherworldly heroes. Especially ones backed by us. We just don’t tell him why they are actually there.”
Chuckling through her words “You want to make another bet… fine. You lost the last dozen or more as you continue to doubt mortals. Then again you don’t really interact with your church do you. Fine I accept on some conditions… Herald!!!”
A brilliant scroll and feather quill flashes between the immortal siblings. “Herald this is a bet so keep this between us ok” She says tickling the feather. The feather enjoying the moment of godly scritches then bobs up and down in agreement. The sister continues after giving the quill a brief summary.
“As I was saying my conditions are that we must create our ‘heroes’ through elder brothers hero maker. The only things we change are the aforementioned immortality given at max level so the bet can’t end due to unforeseen outside forces."
"Also I get to pick the mortal couple from any plane across the multiverse. Since you believe they will fall apart given eternity anyways. Anything else you wish to add?”
“Yes, they start on opposite ends of brothers world. Oh and the mortals have to be from somewhere that is devoid of magic.”
“I’m fine with the second but why the first? That’s counter to the bet.”
“Because ‘…distance does not matter with true love.’ as you and your clergy like to spout.”
“Ugh… fine. Herald add it.”
The quill flicks across the page crosses the ‘t’s and dots the ‘I’s then presents itself to the conspiring siblings. After signing, the ‘contract’ brightens then a barely perceivable magical link attaches itself between the two signatories.
“Why is there always an almost imperceptible itch in places you can never reach?”
“It’s there as a reminder also it’s a tiny tear to the devilish hells to punish those that dare to break the contract.” The sister grins. “I thought everyone knew that.”
The brother grimaces then says ”Well pick your mortal couple and I will go talk to our brother.”
“Already done just have to wait for them to die so I can ferry the souls to our brother’s world. Better hurry they don’t have long.”
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William Willow was having a great day by any standard outside perspective. His designs were picked for a number of different contracts by the bosses. Congratulations were given to William by his bosses, his coworkers, the many secretaries, the mail-room people, and even his friends in the janitors gave him a thumbs up. William was good friends with that last group only because he stayed late to finish his proposals then secretly played D&D with them outside of work as they were better company then his own coworkers. ‘Never discount the minimum wage worker’ William would always say ‘Sometimes they contain diamonds in the rough.’ Congratulations was also given by his peers for the greater milestone a decade of marriage.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Unfortunately besides the happy golden thought of his anniversary to his wonderful wife. Dark clouds rained on everything else. William was an extremely smart man stuck in nearly dead end job at at a decent civil engineering firm. Most of his designs wouldn’t ever be appreciated by the general public until finished. Until then his designs disrupted their daily lives with detours and traffic or noisy construction equipment.
He the man who spent his twenties getting degrees in many different fields from most major engineering fields to the most useful sciences. He had it all swimming about his head and yet here he was designing roads, and planning infrastructure most of the usefulness of his designs being forward thinking. The designs only being thought on decades from now being useful in ever expansion of man. Will envied the city building game where construction was near instant. Along with the instant gratification of the cities citizens being happier for the better services.
All of this went through his thoughts as he quickly packed his things to leave the office. He had wife to meet at home and then a wonderful evening celebrating a decade of life together.
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It wasn’t until he got home that the weirdness started. After parking his car he couldn’t help but notice the local power utilities trucks parked near the cul-de-sac. Will couldn’t help but notice that all the rest of his suburban neighbors that didn’t face on to their road had power his actual neighbors and his own home not a single light on. Will hoped that the celebration he had planned wouldn’t be ruined by this unforeseen utility failure.
‘Lowest bidder bullshit I would bet’ Will thought. Will had done a full by the books inspections himself of his families home before buying it. He found plenty of corner cutting on the electrical work, painting the house. He out of pocket paid good contractors known by the engineering firm to rip all the shoddy work out. No way in hell he was living in a house with shoddy work. Couldn’t do anything about the public parts.
Will tried to woo his neighbors but unfortunately the suburban species of ‘Karen’ existed on his cul-de-sac. The stuck up narcissists wouldn’t hear him out. Vindicated at last Will proudly smiled when he saw one of the ‘Karen’ glaring out a window at the utility workers he waved at her then pointed at the utility workers and mouthed ‘Their doing a great job’ she flipped him off for the measure. William laughed and chuckled all the way to open the door from the car.
His laughter died upon entering his home upon hearing crying from the shared office/gaming room he and his wife had. Rushing to see what was wrong he found his beloved wife balled up on the sofa in room covered in pillows and blankets with the loud bawling coming from within “Whats wrong Matilda?” sitting down to one side of the castle of comfort. A low mumble came out from the castle barely audible.
Will smiled “The king of this castle of comfort would like an audience with the queen outside the walls if she pleases.” A pillow wall rocketed away from the comfort fortress almost hitting the king from the breach a melodic sniffling siren spoke from within “As this queen said…sniffle…I was recording and playing an older game on an emulator… sniffle… and just beat a really nasty boss…sniffle…and then the… sniffle… and then the… sniffle… sniffle… fucking power went out!!!” The stronghold exploded into cuddly ruins at the sniffling outburst.
William could only chuckle at the outburst, which promptly got a pillow thrown at his face with deadly accuracy. “Mati of all the things I thought you might be worried about of all days this is what causes you to bawl up?” A singular sad innocent word escapes “Yes?” William leans over real close and then quickly boops Mati on the nose
“And this is why I have been married to you for a decade, now come on you need to be clean and presentable to the grand peasantry of our kingdom motioning to the many scores of gaming figurines adorning the rooms many shelving units and the dirty heretic peons outside our domain” pointing to a curtained window” we have a feast to partake in in roughly” looks at his phone ”two hours time.”
Mati’s eyes go wide in the sudden trivialization of her problems and rushes to the bedroom to get ready. Will just sets an alarm for an hour and sits down to read an unfinished volume of foreign literature.
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Several hours later a wonderful dinner out and without electricity a light-less bedroom dessert the couple are soundly sleep in a quiet home until barest beams of mid-dawn are poking through the windows.
When suddenly as if god spoke it, light exploded in the household causing great havoc, devastation and much groaning from the couple as in very early morning every light-bulb in the house came on at the same time.
Eventually, William loses a short war and is pushed out of bed to turn off the lights to come back to his bed covers have mysteriously disappeared into a blanket slug upon the bed. “Guess somebody doesn’t want their leftovers in the fridge.” Will says as he leaves the bedroom mischief in mind.
A low mumbled sound of concern and defiance escapes the slug but it remains quiet until the low rumble of the microwave starts. With all haste the sounds of a slug being cast off with great difficulty but the beast isn’t in time as the microwave has beeped and time has passed. Only to find the leftovers reheated and on a place setting while the other is pouring milk into a bowl of cereal.
William hiding a smile looks at his wife. “Well that got you out of bed coffee will be ready in a few, nice hair by the way.” A nasty flick is given to the back of Wills head as Mati walks past and sits down. “Well at least the powers back on and more delightfully it’s the weekend.” Through a mouthful of cereal William said “No”
“What?” with innocent eyes
“You know what, I am not doing it”
“But you promised me a week ago you said it was easy to do!”
“That was before I took a sneak peak at your 20k subscriber ‘challenge’ loadout and party structure best of all you have soft locked yourself into the fight by not autosaving before the door. You did this on purpose to make me suffer. Dig yourself out of your own hole.”
“What about my the secrets to that other game you are playing.”
Flustered look in his eyes “I… I can look it up online its gotta be on there.”
“Yeah, if you go look into those awful old community sites and sift through pages of discussion boards good luck on that. I’ll give my secrets up for free no hassle all you gotta do is help me beat one little old boss.”
Defeat in his voice ”Fine, load it up but you have to sit there and listen to my commands.”
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Several hours later of groaning and facepalming later. A sniff is wrought that brings danger to the couple “Do you smell something burning?”