Diary of a Falafel Lord

Tuesday - War

We were woken up early by Alex with a bullhorn. She was looking terrifying in her gender-fluid flag-outfit (jeans with a checked sweater vest and shirt) with demisexual war paint on her face, and her garrotte looped around her hand. Also, the fact that she was yelling her pronouns and war chants into a bullhorn, to a room filled with sleepy, buff, heavily armed, queer and ally warriors.
Charlie raced around like a rabbit being shot at, giving everyone parcels with their names on them. Gunhilde, to my surprise, was wearing a transgender pantsuit and flourishing cape under her Ancient Greek theatre mask. Charlie wore ace-purple, and TJ sported a military uniform all the colours of the rainbow. Even his musket had a little flag hanging off its barrel, which he waved at the ceiling and fired to wake Mallory.
The waist in my singlet had been let out, the sandals turned into sneakers, and the shorts loosened. Alex summoned Jack out of pendant form and wrapped a scrap of pansexual flag around his hilt.
"I would have brought Ana -" his girlfriend, Anaklusmos, "But there's some weird jazz going down with a god that's been turned into a mortal. It's terrible for her skin and she's so stressed out, ya know."
I didn't argue. Jack could, apparently, communicate with my cousin's boyfriend's sword and was dating her. They'd double dated with Alex and I once, and he'd spent the entire time rattling off cheesy pickup lines as her inanimate form say propped up in a chair. Hey girl, you must be the RIPTIDE, because you sweep me off my feet.
Alex roared her war chants and Charlie served falafel until everyone was awake. TJ, Mallory, Halfborn Gunderson, Alex, and I ate together on a small stage that her room had created. No one spoke. Jack didn't even sing.
"Remember when I gave you that makeover?" Halfborn muttered. Alex smirked.
"If you did it again, Odin would run screaming." Conversation failed again. I ate my falafel. Jack hummed quietly. Mallory made her knives dance around her fingers.
There was a quiet knock on the door. It felt like we had all been expecting it, but the energy in the room changed. It turned electric, terrified, angry, excited. Everyone stared at the door, frozen.
The knocker knocked again.
Alex nodded at Charlie to open it. He scampered across the floor, the only thing moving. I didn't even keep eating my falafel, and my scarf was still.
He cracked it open.
Odin stood there, his dark, bristling beard above tight polo shirt and beige pants, his eyepatch over a gaping hole and scars spidering out from the hole. A raven perched on one of his wide shoulders, and it looked almost as pissed off as its master.
"Alex Fierro." He said in a voice as calm as a spider who know it could kill the human in seconds. "What is going on here?"
Alex stood up. Her ridiculously bright clothes seemed defensive, like she was hiding in them.
"I'm a girl." She said. "Today."
Odin lifted his eyebrow.  "I can see that."
"But on Sunday I was nonbinary, and some days I'm a guy. Or a demigirl. Or pangender. Or a demiboy." She explained slowly.  "And yet. I STILL HAVE TO USE THE GUYS BATHROOM IN YOUR SHITTY PARADISE!"
Alex swung Garry around her head and towards Odin. The snare hissed through the air towards his neck, faster than my eyes could follow. He lifted up his hand and caught the garrotte without looking at it. Alex stared at him, her jaw dropping. Odin lifted his head.
"Do you have to make this hard?" He asked.
"Yes." Alex hissed back. "CHARGE!!"
Odin snapped his fingers. My vision when black, and when it cleared the Queer Army was standing the middle of a grassy field. About twenty metres away from us were 70 of our fellow warriors, but the discriminatory assholes who thought that people should take a dump in the wrong bathroom because of what was between their legs instead of their gender. My head swam for a moment, and I took Alex's hand. Charlie was on the other side, his encyclopaedia hefted on his shoulder.  My floorbuddies were standing around me, holding their weapons up.
We glanced across at the other warriors. They stared at our small, brightly coloured, mass. No one moved.
"CHARGE!!!" Alex screamed.
We charged.
"Jack!" I yelled. "Kill shit!"
Jack had his work cut out. Warriors target the healer on the other side, which makes sense. If the healer is out, then the warriors on the other side can't come back and keep killing people. As the only healer in the QA, the other side naturally and logically decided to slaughter my guts. Jack and I had other ideas, Jack sweeping a wide arc around me as I raced between our warriors and send golden light through broken ankles and fed wounded soldiers guava juice.
Alex and Mallory were fighting back to back, red and green relieving warriors of their heads in deadly-quick blurs of blades and strings. Gore and blood flew off Gary the Garrotte as Alex whirled him above her head and brought him down through a warriors neck. It cleaved straight through, the warrior choking as he hit the ground. Her green hair was filled with red blood and I knew that her flag outfit would never be able to be worn again. As she fought, she chanted the song that I had made her - The Anthem of Alex.
"NOW WATCH ME FEMALE
NOW WATCH ME MALE
NOW WATCH ME BOTH BOTH
WATCH ME NEITHER", interspersed with wild shrieks of "DIE, NARROW MINDED ASSHOLES!" and "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY SUNGLASSES, DICK." They were, of course, the pink number that she love more than me. She turned and spat blood onto the ground, and I think there was half an eyeball stuck to the side of her face.
She looks so hot when she's killing people.
TJ pumped a beserker's chest full of lead as he charged towards the tree that Charlie was perched in, and he leapt out of it with a primal scream to smash the brains out of the warrior that Gunhilde was fighting with his encyclopaedia.
I dropped to the side of a human wearing a nonbinary flag. Their hair was matted with blood and their eyes were dull and open as their stared at me. They coughed, blood on their lips, and rolled aside.
"It feels different." They muttered. "Like I won't come back."
They shuddered as I tried to heal them, but they'd been ripped to shreds inside. There was no coming back from that kind of injury. I caught a glimpse of their eyes rolling into the back of their head as they closed them. There was still a hint of bloody white between the eyelids and the cheekbones, and I slid them shut.
Someone put their hand on my shoulder and I spun, kicking out. It was Halfborn Gunderson, staring out at the battlefield.
"We need to end this, Beantown." He said as he pulled me to his feet. "Look at yourself!"
I glanced down. I was coated in blood and bruises and grass. My silk scarf - appropriated from Hearth - was almost lost under the gore. My bare legs were sliced and turned red and brown, and there was grass and dirt drying on my knees. I probably smelt rank as well, worse than I had on the streets. No one looked much better.
"Sorry. It's a battlefield." I muttered. Halfborn glared at me.
"This is pointless." He said. I looked around.
"I know." I replied, and charged back into the battlefield. Jack zipped back to my side, blade dripping gore. I flicked a bit of hair off his blade and felt some of his exhaustion leak into me.
"I can't keep going, it'll kill you!" He said. "I'm gonna go over there and sing."
"Find Charlie!" I yelled at him. "Where's Charlie!?"
I tried to remember where I'd last seen him...fighting with Gunhilde and TJ by the tree. I wheeled towards the forested patch of the battlefield. Jack pointed his blade the same way and slipped towards it, via the stomach of an enemy Smallminded Asshole.
The sounds of battle raged around me as I ran, slipping on blood and leaping over bodies. A warrior leapt out of nowhere and tried to stab me, his face painted like the American flag. Figures, considering that he's fighting on the side opposing bathroom rights. (No offence, America. I'm sure you're lovely despite your questionable president. Alex says that he should be slowly choked while immigrant children who he kidnapped from their families use cheese graters to relieve him of his body, from his feet up.) I punched the warrior in the belly and kept running.
Ahead of me I could see Gunhilde, using her huge fists to rip the guts out of a warrior. There was a small battle-axe embedded in her shoulder and one of her legs was barely attached to her body any more, it was strapped rigid and she was leaning on it. Holy shit, she must be tough or high. She reached down and pushed the back under her.
"Where's Charlie!?" I yelled. Gunhilde smashed the warrior on the top of his head and pointed left. I hurled myself in that direction as Gunhilde tore his head off.
Something heavy smashed the back of my head and I fell forwards. I felt my skull crack and blood leak out. Frey's powers quickly started healing it. I kicked out and spun to my feet, my attacker falling to the ground. It was Charlie, his grey-white skin turned red.
"Magnus!" He yelled. I hauled him up.
"Charlie! PowerPoint!" I panted. Charlie's brow creased for a moment. My stomach dropped.
"It's done." He said. "It's finished."
"Do you have it here?" I asked.
"On a USB stick?"
"I think Jack takes USB sticks." I said.
"What?"
"Magical objects can do tech stuff sometimes."
Charlie handed me the USB stick - a boringly grey one with the logo of some obscure programming company along the side - and I whistled for Jack. He appeared almost instantly at my side.
"USB stick!" I choked. Jack flipped the end of his handle off to reveal a phone-charging slot and a USB plug-in. I hadn't been sure that he actually took USB sticks, but I'd learnt never to underestimate my sword.
He went limp and fell to the ground. Charlie and I stared at him, steel glinting below mud and blood and grass.
Charlie screamed and I spun. Blood spurted out of his mouth and the tip of a blade poked through his rib cage. The America-Flag soldier pulled the sword out with a sickly squelch. Charlie fell to his knees, trying to lift his encyclopaedia up to attack. America-Flag smirked and lifted his blade above my head.
I grabbed Jack out of the mud and hauled him up to block. Nothing of his exhaustion hit me. The smash of the blades colliding shook me to my core, but I didn't disengage. America-Flag pushed down on Jack, leering. His dark eyes stared into mine, his muscles bulging. He was stronger than me, his blonde buzz-cut uglier than my hair, I couldn't hold my own in a feat of strength to him.
His head flew off and hit a tree. Someone kicked his body aside. Alex snapped her garrotte back to her side and wrapped the bloody loops around her hand.
"Thanks." I said, but she was already crouching over Charlie.
"He's dead." She announced, turning back to me. I stood up. She grabbed a lock of my hair and yanked me forwards into a kiss. My legs went numb and I leant into it. The world could have ended in that moment, and I wouldn't have cared or even noticed. Gods, I have the best terrifying dragon. She let me go and booped my nose "Don't die."
Then she was gone.
How was I expected to concentrate on a PowerPoint after that?
Jack's point stared to glow and I bent down to look at it. Ice blue light spluttered out of his tip, weak and dim. There was a pause. It exploded with light, blinding me. Facts were splashed across the tree in white light, and I shot it towards the sky. The projection splayed across the sky, and I could hear the fighting stopping.

Non-binary and transgender is real
I clicked on Jack's handle, and the slide changed.
Trans women have male hormones even before their transition, and the same for trans men and female hormones.

Trans women have periods before they transition - with PMS

Gender expression is different to sex

Bathrooms are divided by gender not sex

Nonbinary is now recognised as a third gender in America, and yet not in paradise.

It went on. My arm ached from holding it up, the sky was painted with Jack's light. I could hear the warriors dismissing it, but somehow I knew that Odin was listening.
A pinprick of black opened in the middle of the blue sky. I watched as it swelled, expanding until it covered the entire sky. The darkness leaked like ink spilt on paper, eating everything around it. It hit the horizon and started racing towards the battlefield, silently devouring rocks, trees, einherjar. The trees at the edge of the clearing I was in vanished, the darkness leaping between blades of grass until it hit America-Flag's body. I turned, about to run, but my vision went black and I was sucked into Ginnungap. The entire thing look less than thirty seconds.
Not really into Ginnungap, but it felt like it. Everything was silent for a moment, dark and peaceful as the womb. I could barely remember who I was. We'd been fighting...about something. What had we been fighting about? It didn't seem to matter now. I could just...go to sleep. I'd had a mother, what had her name been? And there's been something special about my father. What was my name? I could feel whatever was holding my brain together slowly come apart until I was just molecules...
Reality returned, punching me in the gut and slapping my face.
I slammed back to the present with an unpleasant jolt. Staggering forwards into Alex, I looked around. We were in the Feast Hall of the Slain, Odin standing at the front of the table; looking disgusted with. Helgi and Hunding slumped behind him, like little boys who'd been caught misbehaving. Helgi still looked grumpy, but Hunding looked thoroughly pissed off at his boss and expecting to be punished for it by not only Odin, but by Helgi as well. My heart went out to him.
"Greetings, my warriors!" Odin yelled. His chest swelled with the words, pulling his polo shirt tight. His square beard had been trimmed recently. For some reason, that pissed me off. We could be fighting for our lives, protesting the unfair bathroom policies, and surviving off falafel (actually, falafel wasn't so bad) and he was relaxing and getting his beard trimmed. I pictured him lying in a spa, getting his nails done and hair clipped while he bitched to some hot goddesses about how troublesome it could be to save the souls of the undead and prepare them for a battle that would kill them when they wanted trivial things like human rights. God, humans, eh?
"Hi!" Alex yelled back. Odin frowned. I slipped my hand into hers.
"That...that was a rhetoric, Fierro!" He replied. Alex shrugged. Odin glared at her with his one remaining eye. "It has come to my attention that certain members of this hotel have been...causing trouble with which bathroom they want to go in."
I squeezed Alex's hand to stop her from screaming at him about need versus want. I could feel waves of fury running off him.
Odin glanced around us, determined and angry. I noticed that there were warriors from both sides of our battle. "Hm. Honestly, I couldn't care where you crap, as long as it's not in the halls - LOOKING AT YOU, ERIC. There were definitely non—binary and LGBT relationships and gender orientation when we gods were at our peak. Flannfluga - you call them lesbians - existed, and our Vikings had more than a few fuðflogi with us. Not as many as the Greeks, but still."
Alex raised her hand.
"So I can crap in whichever bathroom I like?" She asked. Odin nodded.
"There is extensive evidence that transgender and non-binary people exist." He said, glancing at me. I knew that he'd seen the PowerPoint.
"And you'll build some more non-binary bathrooms?" Alex asked. Odin turned to Hunding, who looked like a three year old told to share his favourite toy.
"I guess." He muttered.
"And I'll get more say in what goes on here with our Queer Army?" Alex prodded. Odin nodded.
"Alex Fierro, as of this moment you are hereby appointed as Official LGBT Consultant. You'll have privileges to intervene when an LGBT minority is getting discriminated against or looked over, and Hunding will have to listen to you." Odin decreed. Hunding gaped at him.
"W-what?"
Alex turned to me, smirking.
"We'll have a lot of fun now, Beantown." She smirked. "There'll be a few changes."

With fear an apprehension,
Maggie Magnus Beantown, boyfriend of the Official Valhalla LGBT Consultant.