Dark Side of the Almighty

II: The Calm Between the Storms

David James Odinson Reeves and his friends were at a recently opened karaoke club near Madison, enjoying the free lives they had now that no one wanted them dead.

David laughed at what Abby had said. Apparently, NASA had sent a probe called Juno to Jupiter and, while Flora didn't get it, David and the others got it immediately.

So NASA has a sense of humor, David thought.

David quickly stopped laughing when Jamie Azure - David's fiancée - put her head on his shoulder. Her long red mane of hair was tied into a braided ponytail, which showed off the two earrings made of fire and water that David had given to her. She was dressed in navy blue jean shorts, with a spaghetti strapped shirt and sandals. Raelin, Flora, Dylan, Abby, and Lizzy all stifled their laughter.

"You find this funny?" David asked coldly, giving a stare that said I will kill you all, and they immediately fell silent.

David and Jamie burst out laughing, much to the confusion of everyone at their table.

"Oh, I can't breathe." Jamie said, as she attempted to keep herself from laughing. "You should've seen your faces."

"You were like 'Oh no, he's going to kill us!'" David breathed, then kissed Jamie's forehead.

"Dick move." Elizabeth Reeves muttered.

David's smile faded. "Sorry, Liz."

"And, bro," Dylan Azure - Lizzy's now boyfriend - called, making David raise his eyebrow. "I'm right here."

"Okay, and?" Jamie and David asked in unison.

"And I-" Dylan began, but stopped when Lizzy gripped his leg under the table, making him jump. Dylan looked at Elizabeth Reeves, whose expressionless face belied her actual thoughts. She was wearing jeans, a black Nike jacket with the collar high in the air, covering her neck. She had fire-colored highlights in her mildly long black hair and was wearing the ring with Odin's spear on it that Dylan had custom made for her.

"Dyl, you two have had this conversation, haven't you?" she asked her boyfriend. "Just eat your salad."

Dylan looked like he didn't want to drop the matter, but in a few seconds, he obediently began eating his salad.

"So, Dyl-" Flora started.

"Only Lizzy can call me that."

Flora pulled her blonde hair behind her ears, but let one long strand hang loosely over her right eye. She was wearing a velvet dress that David had bought her a few days earlier, as she had just come from a party.

"Ok, sorry," she said in surrender. "But if you don't mind me asking, are you a vegan?"

Dylan swallowed the last piece of his salad. "When your dad is the god of the underworld, you learn a lot about what happens to animals to make the meat you eat," he explained. "And after that, I refused to let my body be a tomb for animals. So yeah, I'm a vegan."

"David seems to not be ashamed of that." Flora noted airily, as she watched David take a bite out of his burger.

"I can't stomach any other source of protein other than eggs and meat." David said when he was done chewing. "Believe me, I want to be a vegan but meat's the only protein I can actually keep down." he looked around. "Hey, where's Solomon?"

Raelin Connelly scoffed, blowing her red hair out of her face.

"Trouble in paradise?" Abby and Lizzy chuckled.

Flora sighed, as this seemed to be a common occurrence. Not that Solomon was a bad boyfriend. He had a lot of things to do since he became a mortal sociologist, thus he sometimes forgot important things. "What'd he do?" she asked.