BRENT, NO!

"I've always liked how you looked," Eris panted heavily, her cheerleader outfit pulled up to reveal her creamy breasts.

I mean, here it was, Halftime, and of all the people, the quarterback's girlfriend had picked me! Her soft brown nipples looked invitingly aroused as she leaned back on the bench. "None of the other... Brent... fuck...you have to ... always wanted to see if you were as sweet as you looked.... Come ON! The... table... fog..." Her wings flapped furiously and her eyes went wide as she seductively pulled her short skirt up, revealing the sight of her soaked cotton...

I closed my eyes and shook them rapidly. The Table... in the fog....

"Careful... Brent... careful, you... you can really fuck things up if you let your mind wander. Trust me, I mention the wrong fandom right now..." Eris' voice shook. "It gets ugly. Really ugly. You're treading right up to the line between parody and brilliant. Total tightrope walk. Walk on left side, you fall, walk on right side, you fail. Walk in middle, Squish... Just like grape."

"That's not fair," I complained opening my eyes to once again see Eris with her wild hair, sitting at a lovely chair which was perfectly proportioned to gently rest and support her wings. She smiled in amusement as she took in the slight change in the scenery. She swirled her coffee cup in one hand, before taking a bite of the bagel in her other.

"Yeah, well, life isn't fair, kid, get used to it." Eris spoke around a bite of bagel. "Damn it... there's a better line there... uhm... fuck... what your basis for comparison... dammit, forgot it. Well cut that one. Give me another take!"

I smiled as I watched her roll her neck gently. She was quite lovely actually, and her smile had a playfulness to it that...

Eris suddenly snapped her fingers in my face.

"Focus. Yes, you will get a sex scene with me, but you don't need to start on the foreplay right now. "

"Wait, why can't... what the hell, I mean, I know your... your other name, but for some reason...?"

"Can you?" Eris grinned happily. "Try it. Try saying my name."

"Well, I just don't want to now." I said, plainly. In fact it seemed extremely childish to say somebody's name just to spite them.

"Have you ever said my name? Can you say it? I can say it just fine. Eris, Eris, Eris, Fnord, Eris, Jalapeno, Oregano, Eris, raindrops keep fallin on my Eris, if I could walk that way I wouldn't need to Eris, Tiger Drawers," Eris paused momentarily, popping her mouth twice at me, before resuming "Enyo, Mason, Weasel, Come on Baby needs a new pair of shoes, Chainsaw, Fortune, Chuff-chuff-chuff," She pulled a pistol from somewhere about her person and held it vertically, firing off several shots, "Eris, Strife, So adventurous a tale, Which may rank with most romances..."

"Ok, now you're just being childish... eeeeeerrrrrr..." I slurred the thought, trying to remember what we had been talking about. Oh right, Spices, that's what we were discussing, "Anyway I don't think you can work spices into any song, that's just an internet thing."

"Brent, you realize that you just changed the subject and didn't hear most of what I said." Eris laughed. "It's fine, it's fine, I'll stop trying to get around it. It's not that you're dumb, it's just you can't see it. Your brain just interprets it in a way that makes sense to you Sorry. But there's a reason. This is going to sound weird but... anybody can find you at any time. Anyone. As long as they know what they're looking for."

I glanced about myself looking for a sign of some way that I was being monitored. Some device that...

"It's not on you, it's... it IS you, Brent. I can't explain it more than that. You can be searched. You can be interrogated. Anybody can read your mind, know what you're thinking. But the goddesses are a lot smarter than that, so... they hide who they are. Out of context, outside of knowing everything? This conversation will make absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you can expand your thoughts to include everything, including the thoughts of those connected to this, it's obvious. Sparky's little Frankenstein never bothers with comments. so odds are she won't catch on to what we're doing."

I contemplated what she said, leaning back in my chair. It was nice actually, a deep red cloth that felt good under my fingers. The small fireplace nearby roared to life and a smell of pine needles and chill wafted through the air.

"Heh, Christmas memories, huh? Don't blame you, those are fun, but Sparky stole so much of it. It's not about the scents and smells anymore, is it? It's not about the warmth, the cold, the feel of pine, or of the tearing of paper. Now it's about what you can give to buy back the love you should have been giving all year long. I understand why you'd want to keep that memory alive. It's kind of sweet really, but you really should go back and edit this out. Way too schmaltzy. Especially if you're talking about my old boyfriend, or mister.... WHYYYYY EMMM SEEEE EEEEHHH!" She sang the last loudly, with a slight lisp and held her arms over her head in a "Y" position. "Not doing the rest, not spilling my coffee."

The fire abruptly went out and the chill fog of the path returned. The Coffee was still warm to the touch, and Eris still had her specially created chair, which I believed she greatly appreciated and as such would immediately stop criticizing the decor if she knew what was good for her.

"You don't need to threaten me." Eris groaned, "You want answers? I can tell you a lot, if you want it. But the more I tell you, the less control you have. It's kinda... backasswards, I know, but there it is. I start directing you, you start relying on me, and giving your power to me. I don't want your power, I just want to slide my hands over your cock as you finger me until I come hard. Getting so fucking wet for you... BRENT."

I chuckled as Eris' face went red as she realized exactly what she was saying.

Eris sketched rapidly on the pad on the table once again.

"So... Ok... I figure that we can get you to a point where we can do a scene with Artemis, but people really aren't buying the fog as a world mover. Too close to an actual hallucination, and these days people expect a definite sign that you're cheating. WE need something..."

A few flashbulbs went off nearby and a wind machine started up. Eris dropped her elbows down to cover her notes as a Stainless Steel Vehicle with a strange Cuisinart on the back pulled to a stop on the path. I boggled at the sight, my eyes roaming over the cold mist forming on its surface, before I noted Eris hunting about on the table.

"Eraser... Brent... Give me an eraser... Give me an eraser RIGHT NOW!" Eris practically shouted. I immediately dug in my pocket, and found an eraser which I handed to her. Wait, where had that come... I KNOW NOTHING!!!!! Her hand flew down to the page and furiously scribbled.

"Ok... phew... that was close," Eris commented about nothing in particular. "Don't... don't read back up Brent. We're having coffee. Nothing happened. We're good. Quiet day isn't it. No random cars coming out of nowhere and all the crazy implications that gets into. See, they're like pop up ads. References, I mean. Once in a while they're fun, but you overdo them, and it just gets ugly. You overtax the system. You have to bring in everything that's connected with them, and with that one... you bring in a lot of things that are... Well there's a LOT of bad crossovers with that idea. A lot of things that... just would make the bleed through worse. Last thing I need is to give any of those ideas the chance to get over here. There has to be a way, somewhere, that we can just bend the rules a bit. I checked over the parts I was here, and it's airtight, there's no way we can just wave our fingers and make things happen. Unfortunately, we'd have at least three or four novels worth of exposition before we could ever get around to it with how heavily restrictive these rules are, and we're running out of chapters."

"How bout the map?' I suggested.

"Nice, good try, but there... hang on, when did they complete another ending?"

"What?" I asked quietly.

"Fucking no way, there's... they finished another ending! Sorry, been... I've been really busy, and I hadn't been keeping up. She... Ok... You magnificent bitch! She gave us a way... fuck... of all the goofy ideas... Yeah, well... first off we need to totally take a dinner break."

"What? We're right in the middle..."

"We need to just head out and get some dinner. Good thing there's a Circle K right across the street."

"There isn't a...no wait... no... I know nothing..."

I looked across the path at the small convenience store that I hadn't noticed on the walk up here. It was obviously a prime location, and I didn't question why cars rolled in and out of it at a slow, leisurely pace. I stood from the Table where Eris and I had been sitting, and stepped back onto the path. I quickly crossed the dirt as it melded seamlessly into asphalt, and sat on the Sidewalk Carefully.

Eris mumbled something to herself as she followed after me, her wings neatly tucked behind her, and her skirt flapping back and forth as she walked up to me, notepad in hand.

"Seventeen Forty Five, Seventeen Forty Five..."

She sat heavily onto the concrete beside me and pointed off into the distance.

"Ok, so... the lady in that car over there, said that The Jacobite Revolution was in the year Seventeen Forty Five..."

"So Scotland isn't a made up country, I knew it..." I scrawled the note hurriedly onto a three ring binder that I'd been carrying around the whole time.

As we stood there an very plain woman in her fifties walked past. She was dressed in a convenience store uniform and looked very tired and dejected.

"Excuse me!" Eris called at the woman as she walked past. The woman stopped, and glanced at Eris with a look of customer service exhaustion. She was... just plain. Boring. Nothing interesting about her at all. It was strange really, because I'd never really seen a person who didn't have at least one defining characteristic. This woman was... one that would blend into the background. A person I never would have thought about.

"When did the Mongols Rule China?" Eris asked, tilting her head.

"Check wikipedia, I just work here," The woman shrugged and continued into the store.

"Well... wanna try the Thrifty mart?" Eris shrugged her shoulders and began to rise.

"Sure..." I agreed and began to gather up the last of what we had scattered about ourselves.

The wind picked up suddenly, and I swore I could hear what sounded like a entire string orchestra playing.

The Fog began to roll back in a circular pattern above our heads and the sound of thunder began to roll. Lightning flashes and a column of light emanated from it before impacting solidly nearby and nearly blinding me.

"Woah..." I gasped as Eris and I both looked up, illuminated by some of the brightest light I'd ever seen. It coalesced into the shape of a ... red phone booth. It solidly impacted on the asphalt in front of us, and I could make out the shape of a man within, dressed in a large overcoat and sunglasses.

"Not Bad..." I acknowledged. "Wait... I thought George Carlin was de..."

"Don't Ruin it... just go with it."