The hum of the fluorescent lights in the conference room at the new headquarters seemed almost aggressively normal. Shane looked up at the three people assembled before him. Gary was sitting forward, Amanda beside him, a shared look of nervous excitement between them. Ben, ever the documentarian, was already packing up his camera gear, though Shane knew he'd captured every subtle reaction.
The conference room still smelled faintly like coffee, printer toner, and the cheap dry-erase markers Cory insisted on buying in bulk. Outside the glass wall, the headquarters moved with its usual rhythm—phones, footsteps, distant laughter from the training area—but in here, for the moment, it felt like the world had narrowed down to four people and one impossible decision.
Gary bounced one knee under the table without seeming to notice it. Amanda had her hands clasped tightly together, not out of fear exactly, but because she knew enough by now to understand that whenever Shane called a private meeting and looked this serious, something enormous was about to happen. Ben had one camera bag over his shoulder and a second case sitting on the table, but he was no longer thinking about footage. He was watching Shane the way a scientist watched a sealed reactor.
"Ben, great job on the footage," Shane said, his voice surprisingly steady after the internal whirlwind of the last few hours. "Really captured the—the atmosphere."
Ben grinned, relief washing over his face. "It was something, Boss. Or should I say, Senator-elect?"
Gary barked out a laugh. "Don't start calling him that yet. He'll disappear for three days and come back with another god."
Amanda smirked. "Honestly that's not impossible anymore."
Shane waved a dismissive hand, the ingrained humility of the former roofer still fighting the celestial clarity seeping into his bones. "Let's focus on what's immediate." He pulled up his system interface mentally, the blue light only visible to him, and directed their attention to the new slot that had opened up after the confrontation in the warehouse .
He paused before saying it, partly because he still wasn't fully used to how absurd his own life sounded when spoken aloud.
"Slot number four. Renewed Clarity."
Gary leaned forward, recognizing the familiar ritual, though the terminology was becoming increasingly opaque to him. "What does it do? More power for the speed or the hitting?"
"It's different," Shane explained, fighting the urge to look at Cory's office just down the hall, eager to bring him into this next stage. "It counters what they do. Apex Negativa thrives on division, on feeding people lies until they can't see the truth anymore. This," Shane toggled the skill, letting the soft, internal glow register only on his own senses, "allows me to offer people a chance to see past the noise. To experience true clarity about what's happening around them, free from manipulation or trauma."
Ben's eyebrows went up immediately. "That's not a combat skill."
"No," Shane said. "It's worse for AN than a combat skill."
Amanda gasped softly, touching Gary's arm. "Like… no more red or blue? No more addiction? Just… real?"
"Exactly. It's powerful. And it seems to be the key to meeting the conditions Olaf laid out, too." He looked directly at Ben and Amanda, then Gary. "I want to try it. On you three first. I need to know how it works on people who are already aware of some of the chaos running around us and have the system helping them process it."
Gary's expression changed at that. The joking dropped away. He sat back a fraction and stared at Shane, then at the tabletop.
"You mean…" Gary started, then stopped.
Amanda turned toward him, understanding immediately what he couldn't quite say.
He tried again. "You mean if there's still junk in my head from all that—if there's still stuff in there twisting things—this gets rid of it?"
Shane held his gaze. "That's what it sounds like."
Ben's eyes were wide with intellectual hunger. "A field test? Absolutely. Let's quantify the effect."
Amanda squeezed Gary's hand tightly. "If it can help with all the noise I hear about staying sober, then yes. I want it."
Gary hesitated for a fraction of a second, his gaze reflective, clearly wrestling with the lingering specter of his past manipulations. Then, he nodded firmly. "If this helps cut through the lies, Shane, I'm in. Tell me what to say."
Ben pulled a chair back out and sat again, abandoning any idea of leaving. "No chance I'm missing this."
Amanda let out a shaky breath and nodded. "Me neither."
Shane focused, the system preparing the energy flow. "Would you three like to receive the gift of renewed clarity?"
All three nodded their assent in unison: "Yes."
The moment they spoke the word, a palpable wave of stillness radiated outward, though only Shane felt the systemic connection completing. It wasn't the explosive physical surge granted by the five level-ups; this was a quiet, deep calibration.
The room itself didn't flash or rumble. Nothing cinematic happened. No lightning. No halo. It was subtler than that, and maybe because of that, more unsettling. The fluorescent lights kept humming. Somewhere outside, a forklift beeped in reverse. Yet inside the conference room, the emotional pressure changed all at once, like a storm front had passed and left perfectly clear air behind.
Ben blinked several times, looking not dazed but sharpened, as if every line in the room had suddenly become more defined.
Amanda inhaled sharply and put one hand to her chest.
Gary didn't move at first. Then his shoulders dropped all at once, like he had been carrying a sack of wet cement for years and only just realized it.
Ben was the first to articulate the change. He blinked slowly, his gaze unfocused for a moment, then snapped back, sharper than Shane had seen him even after his last system boost. "I see it. I really see the truth." His voice was awed, almost reverent.
Amanda turned slowly to Gary, her expression transforming from hope to profound understanding. "I see how my sobriety makes more sense now. It wasn't just about the absence of the poison; it was about seeing the structure of the poison itself."
Tears pooled in her eyes before she even seemed to realize they were there.
"It's like…" she said softly, searching for the right words. "It's like I used to think I was only fighting cravings. But it was bigger than cravings. It was confusion. It was shame. It was all tangled together and I thought that was just how life was supposed to feel."
Gary's reaction was more visceral. He sat back, running a hand over his face, his eyes wide and wet. "Ya, I see the real mess I was. Everything else is so clear. All the division and who I was serving when I was messed up. It's… gone."
His voice cracked on the last word.
He lowered his hand and looked at Shane with a kind of stunned gratitude that made Shane look away for half a second.
Ben leaned forward, elbows on knees. "This is bigger than you think, Shane. Or maybe exactly as big as you think, which is worse. This changes media, politics, recruitment, addiction recovery, propaganda resistance—"
Amanda laughed once through the tears. "Only Ben would get spiritually liberated and immediately make a list."
Ben pointed at her. "Because I'm clear now."
That got the first real laugh out of Gary too.
Shane watched them, a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face—not the cynical grin he often wore, but the open expression of the decent man beneath the growing power. This was potent. This could change things from the ground up.
"That's the gift," Shane murmured, finally breaking the silence. "Let's see if we can figure out how to spread this message of clarity." He spared a moment of intense thought about Olaf's recent words—hesitation will get you killed—and resolved that he would not hesitate to offer this gift to those who needed it.
He stood up, nodding to the now-clear-eyed team. "Keep working on the rollout strategy—company first, then the downtown speech next week. I need to talk to Cory."
Gary nodded immediately, wiping at his face and pretending it was just sweat. "Yeah. Yeah, go. We're good."
Amanda squeezed his arm again, this time with more confidence than tension. "We'll start making a list. People who need it. People who would take it willingly."
Ben was already reaching for his tablet again. "And messaging. We need language for this that doesn't sound insane to normal people."
Shane pointed at him. "That's your department."
"Finally," Ben said. "Something impossible I'm qualified for."
Shane walked down the hall until he reached Cory's office, tapping lightly on the already ajar door frame. Cory looked up from his desk, likely deep in the HR paperwork or assisting the political team that defined his current role.
Cory's office looked like a campaign office and a company HR station had been smashed together and forced to coexist. Filing stacks, legal pads, voter demographic printouts, payroll notes, and two half-drunk coffees occupied most available surfaces. Cory himself looked energized, like this kind of chaos was where he naturally belonged.
He looked up over his reading glasses and said, "If this is about the county filing timeline, I've already got—"
"Cory, hold up on the Senatorial prep for just a minute," Shane said, leaning against the frame. "I need to ask you a direct question: Do you want renewed clarity?" He toggled the skill again, the familiar internal prompt ready.
Cory blinked once. Then his expression turned intensely curious.
"Renewed what?"
Cory, never one for undue modesty or fear of the unknown, responded instantly, his political fervor overriding any caution. "You bet! Is this another system boost? Did Ben catch some celestial energy on film?"
"Not quite a boost, more like a decryption key," Shane said, and then activated the skill.
Cory's reaction was immediate and different from the others. Gary had gone emotional. Amanda had gone inward. Ben had gone analytical. Cory, whose entire life had been built around parsing narratives, detecting leverage, and reading public currents, seemed to go physically still in a way that was almost eerie.
The effect on Cory was immediate and dramatic. As the clarity washed over him, the intense, focused energy that fueled his political obsession seemed to melt away, replaced by a quiet comprehension. His eyes flared wide, the shock evident, as if a lifetime of being fed carefully crafted narratives had abruptly dissolved. Cory, the political fiend who absorbed every talking point from his preferred radio personalities, visibly recoiled.
He actually pushed his chair back from the desk.
"What was that?" he whispered, not to Shane exactly, but to the room. "What—"
He looked toward the campaign notes pinned on the wall as if seeing them for the first time.
He looked at Shane, utterly nonplussed. "What was that? The system upgrade? Did you get me something new?"
Shane moved into the office, closing the door quietly. "No, this is new magic. Celestial Magic Slot Four. It wipes away the influence, the propaganda that keeps people divided, the lies they feed us to keep the gears turning. It lets you see straight."
Cory leaned back slowly and stared at the ceiling for a moment.
"That is…" he said, then laughed once in disbelief. "That is the most dangerous political tool ever invented."
Shane didn't disagree.
Cory sat forward again, eyes clearer now but somehow calmer. The frantic edge was gone. The drive remained, but the fever in it had cooled into something more disciplined.
Cory absorbed the explanation, his mind already categorizing the information with the efficiency Shane relied on him for. "That's revolutionary. If we can give that to the entire outreach group…"
"That's the next step," Shane confirmed. "First, though, I want to offer it to the entire Albright Roofing family. Cory, can you gather all employees—everyone on payroll—into the main conference center the day before the announcement downtown? I want them all there. We need to give them a fighting chance."
Cory was already moving, grabbing his phone as if Shane had given him the order to mobilize an army. "Done. I'll clear the schedule for the day after tomorrow. Everyone comes in."
Then he stopped, looked back at Shane, and asked a much quieter question.
"You know what this means, right?"
Shane watched him for a second. "Say it."
Cory nodded. "It means once people feel this, they won't want to go back. Not to addiction. Not to lies. Not to political theater. This doesn't just help people, Shane. It makes the old systems look filthy."
Shane briefly checked his system. A fresh message from Olaf waited, confirming he had seen Shane's message about the new magic. Gather the inner circle at the Center. Big news. Explain in person.
"I need to go now," Shane told Cory. "I'm heading to Olaf's Facility. I have some major updates to share with the core group—about Ragnarok & everything."
Cory gave him a long look, then nodded once. "You know, every time I think this thing tops out, it gets worse."
Shane smirked faintly. "Worse or bigger?"
Cory considered that. "Yes."
The drive to Olaf's sprawling training complex was a rush of adrenaline mixed with the strange calm of his newly upgraded clarity. When he arrived, the facility felt different—guarded, expectant. Olaf had assembled a considerable contingent in one of the secondary lecture halls.
The guards at the entrance recognized him immediately and stepped aside without question, but even in their faces Shane could see the shift in atmosphere. This wasn't just training-center tension. This was war-room tension. Men and women were standing straighter. Conversations were shorter. The whole place felt as if it were bracing for weather only a few people could see coming.
Shane stepped in, recognizing many faces: Erin, looking thoughtful but still slightly distant; Jessalyn, radiating focused intensity; Silas, standing quietly near Hugo; Ivar, Olaf's manager, looking professional but curious; and several of Olaf's known followers—powerful, broad-shouldered men Shane recognized from their residual energy signatures., Jacob, Ragnar and Billy Jack(A Native American placed by Veritas Alpha to assist Olaf) waiting for the briefing.
Billy Jack gave Shane a short nod of acknowledgment, the kind that said more than words would have.
Ragnar looked like he was trying to decide whether this was going to be a sermon, a battle plan, or both.
Hugo folded his arms and said quietly to Silas, "Every time I think I understand what's happening, ten more things appear."
Silas shrugged. "That means you're paying attention."
Olaf stood at a podium, his presence commanding. He gestured for Shane to take the stage next to him.
"Shane has news of a monumental nature," Olaf boomed, his voice echoing slightly in the hall. "News that directly affects the war we are about to fight."
Shane took the center, feeling the weight of everyone's attention, and explained the Norns' message, Ragnarok, and the newly unlocked Celestial Magic slot.
He kept it as grounded as he could. Not because the truth was small enough to make simple, but because half the room needed practical language if they were going to keep up. He explained that Ragnarok was not a metaphor. That it was not avoidable in the simple sense. That he had spoken directly with Verdandi. That Slot #4 was not just another combat trick but something that could break the hold chaos had over people.
As he spoke, the room changed in different ways for different listeners.
The reactions were varied. The Albright crew members, already exposed to the AI and system, looked focused but bewildered by the celestial jargon.
"A magic slot? What does that even mean in practice for a business owner?" Hugo muttered to Silas.
Silas answered under his breath, "At this point, probably taxes and destiny."
Hugo actually smiled at that.
Olaf, however, was captivated by the magic aspect. "Odin's foresight gave me some understanding of temporal manipulation, but this raw magical categorization… I wonder how easy this would have made my life centuries ago."
Jessalyn, ever the keen observer, traced patterns on her arm. "Shane, this 'Renewed Clarity'—it sounds like a tool that directly targets AN's greatest strength: manufactured ignorance. It's brilliant counter-sorcery."
Then Shane posed the question, pointing to the follower Ivar, who had been observing with detached neutrality. "The question is, do you want this clarity? Do you want to see the world as it is, stripped of the narrative you believe?" He activated the skill, the soft, internal prompt waiting.
"I don't know what this is," Ivar said slowly, eyeing Shane with caution, "I trust Odin..but I dont think I'm ready yet.."
A couple of Olaf's older followers exchanged glances at that. Not mocking. Respectful. It took honesty to say no in a room full of people saying yes to miracles.
The rest of the mortals—Jacob, Ragnar, Billy Jack, Hugo, Silas—nodded immediately.
"Yes," Hugo stated, clearly hoping this would clear up his confusion about celestial stuff.
"Yes," Silas confirmed, eager for the clarity that might explain his own lingering struggles.
Jacob nodded more quietly. "Yes."
Ragnar gave a firm, almost defiant, "Yes."
Billy Jack, who had been watching Shane with the kind of steady attention only spiritually grounded people seemed to possess, said simply, "If it helps the people see clean, yes."
Olaf, Erin, and Jessalyn, already knowing the celestial architecture, murmured their affirmation, anticipating a cognitive enhancement rather than a sudden revelation of reality.
The wave of clarity was released.
It moved through the room like a silent bell strike.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
But undeniable.
The mortals in the room convulsed slightly, many stumbling back against chairs. Silas slumped forward slightly before snapping rigidly upright, his eyes blazing with sudden, hard-won focus. Hugo gripped the edge of the table, his brow furrowed in deep, silent recognition of the betrayals he'd endured.
Jacob sat down hard in the nearest chair and stared at his own hands.
Ragnar muttered a curse in a language half the room didn't recognize.
Billy Jack just closed his eyes and breathed once, deeply, as if something he had suspected for a long time had finally been confirmed.
The celestials felt the change differently. Olaf's posture shifted, losing a shade of its recent confusion. Jessalyn inhaled sharply, her sharp eyes gaining a new, almost painful depth.
Then, Erin—Frigg—let out a sound that was half-sob, half-exhalation of relief. "My memories! They're back!"
The room froze around her.
For a second even Olaf looked stunned, and then that stunned look broke into something rawer and older and far more human.
She surged forward, bypassing Shane and launching herself into Olaf's arms, holding fast to the giant man who had been her anchor for the last few months and her husband for thousands of years.
Olaf caught her immediately, like some part of him had been ready for that exact moment for longer than the current age had lasted.
"My beloved," he said, voice low and rough.
Jessalyn looked away for a second, not out of disinterest, but respect.
Hugo leaned toward Silas and whispered, "Okay, that one got me."
Silas nodded, eyes still a little glassy from the Clarity. "Yeah. Same."
The follower, Ivar, blinked hard, shaking his head as if clearing water from his ears. He approached Shane tentatively, his expression shifting from suspicion to overwhelming gratitude. "What was that you gave them? It's like… they look like they woke up from a very long, confusing dream. I apologize for doubting you, Shane. I am ready now. Absolutely ready."
Shane repeated the process with Ivar, who accepted the gift with profound thanks.
This time Ivar braced himself, and when the clarity settled into him he exhaled like a man who had been carrying another person's thoughts in his skull for years.
He looked first at Olaf, then at Shane.
"I should have trusted faster," he said quietly.
Olaf answered him without judgment. "You trusted when it mattered."
With the immediate testing complete, Shane drew Olaf, Erin, and Jessalyn aside, the political announcement and employee training temporarily set aside. This news required immediate divine attention.
They moved only a few steps away from the others, but the emotional gravity of the moment made it feel like a separate room. Erin stayed close to Olaf, one hand still resting lightly against his arm as if she were confirming he was solid and present.
"Olaf, Erin," Shane began, his voice low but intensely serious, "my mother, Verdandi—the Norn of the Present—contacted me. Ragnarok is coming. Soon. She confirmed it's inevitable."
Olaf's broad face sobered instantly, the nostalgia of his reunion momentarily eclipsed by ancient dread. "I know. I have tried for decades to alter the timeline to avoid it, but every path I try to pave only leads closer to Fenrir's jaws."
Erin's expression changed at the name Fenrir, not because it was unfamiliar, but because it was deeply familiar in all the wrong ways.
"And in your visions, Olaf, what do you see of your end?" Shane pressed.
Olaf sighed, the sound thick with resignation. "I am killed by Fenrir, Loki's dam wolf. All my efforts to bind Fenrir and chain Jörmungandr only seem to fuel Loki's resentment, making his role more destructive. I've tried to alter it for years, but I'm trapped in my own foresight loops."
Erin looked down for a moment, then back up. There was pain in her eyes now, but not confusion. Memory had sharpened her, and that made the grief cleaner, not easier.
Shane turned to Jessalyn. "Freya, what do your visions show for you and Ragnarok?"
Jessalyn shook her head, her composure fierce as always. "I see the battles. I see us present on the field, but after the final confrontation, there is only static. Nothingness. No vision of what comes after the end point."
She said it calmly, but Shane caught the edge beneath it. Not fear exactly. Frustration. A seer denied a sightline hated the blank more than the blood.
Shane then looked to Erin, who was still clinging lightly to Olaf's massive arm, a quiet, supportive presence. "Erin, Frigg. Your visions?"
Erin looked up, her expression clearer now that she seemed to be recalling more than just the surface confusion of the last few weeks. "I see the final collapse. And after the chaos, I see Vidar, Vali, Magni, and Modi standing with me. But not Olaf. Not even a remnant of him."
The weight of this prognosis settled over the small group. Olaf and Erin drifted slightly apart, allowing them a moment of quiet, shared history now that Frigg's memories were fully restored.
Olaf didn't step back far, but he did enough to let her breathe on her own.
Jessalyn folded her arms. "That means the surviving shape of the world still exists in some form. It's not comfort, but it's data."
Shane looked around the room again. Silas and Hugo were subtly sparring near the equipment bay, Billy Jack observing intently. The clarity had evidently worked wonders on the nervous energy Silas possessed.
Silas' movement was cleaner now, less frantic. Hugo noticed it too.
"You're calmer," Hugo said as they reset.
Silas blinked, then frowned like he had only just realized it. "Huh."
Billy Jack gave a thoughtful nod. "Mind stops fighting itself, body listens better."
He turned back to Jessalyn, his political ambitions momentarily forgotten in the face of cosmic certainty. "Are you ready to talk about your end, Freya? And what we can do about Loki?"
Jessalyn met his gaze, her earlier flush of embarrassment gone, replaced by the focused warrior spirit he had come to respect. "Sure. Let's talk about how to break an apparent destiny."
Shane gave a curt nod, then waved a hand towards the two, indicating the way out. "Let's head to my place. We can talk politics and fate on the drive."
They exited the training center and walked towards Shane's truck, the paparazzi already sensing a story. A cluster of aggressive-looking reporters and photographers materialized near the perimeter fences, clearly alerted by AN's broader network or perhaps just drawn by the gathering of high-profile local figures.
One of the photographers shouted, "Shane! Jessalyn! Over here!"
Another voice called out, "Are you endorsing him?"
A third yelled, "Jessalyn, are you two together?"
Shane suppressed the urge to transform into Jessalyn's manager again. He needed to embrace the persona of the politician now.
"Ready for the cameras, Jessalyn?" Shane asked, throwing an arm casually around her shoulder as they approached the vehicle.
Jessalyn laughed, a bold, genuine sound that made the flashbulbs pop even more aggressively. "Yolo! I would rather you didn't transform again. It creeps me out thinking you're him, and before you get any funny ideas…"
Shane laughed easily, leaning in conspiratorially, though them dating was becoming public knowledge. "Honestly , Jessalyn, my 'Common Sense' platform suggests the logical partner for a rising political star is the most beautiful, sexy actress in the state. If I wasn't with you, I wouldn't have much common sense left."
She gave him a look that was half amusement, half warning.
"You are getting far too good at saying dangerous things with a straight face."
One of the reporters heard enough to shout, "Was that a yes?"
Jessalyn turned and gave them a dazzling public smile, which answered nothing and everything at once.
They flashed practiced smiles and waves, moving past the security perimeter that was deliberately kept looser than necessary—just enough to manage, not enough to provoke AN into a direct, high-level military response.
Once inside the relative quiet of Shane's apartment near the HQ complex, Jessalyn shed her public composure, stretching languidly. She had made this place her temporary sanctuary since the capital event.
The apartment was clean in the way of a man who knew how to maintain order but had not originally expected company to become a constant feature of his life. Boots by the door. Tools in a corner closet. Clean counters. A few books and old audiobooks stacked in places that still felt more Shane than celebrity.
She looked around with the easy familiarity of someone who had already decided she belonged there at least part of the time.
Shane headed to the kitchen, slipping into a familiar, almost automatic routine. "Steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, and a salad sound good to you?"
"Perfect," she confirmed, sinking onto the sofa.
As he worked the grill outside, the conversation flowed easily, shifting through layers of normalcy and divinity. She spoke of an ancient, politically volatile time when she and Olaf ruled the dead, and he spoke of the satisfying grit of laying foundations for a new roofing company. Just two souls, one ancient, one newly awakened, cooking dinner.
At one point Jessalyn wandered out to the small patio and leaned against the frame, watching him work.
"You really do relax when you cook," she said.
Shane glanced up from the grill. "I relax when something has a process."
She smiled faintly. "That explains a lot about you."
He flipped one of the steaks. "You say that like I'm a puzzle."
Jessalyn crossed her arms. "You are a puzzle. A very dangerous one with nice shoulders."
That got a real laugh out of him.
When they settled down to eat, the serious topics returned.
Shane poked at his salad with a fork. "Ragnarok. Loki is integral, right? His children are central to the conflict—Fenrir and Jörmungandr."
"Yes. Very integral," Jessalyn confirmed. "He's the catalyst for the final collapse, the one who ensures Odin dies."
Shane chewed in silence for a second, then set his fork down.
"What if he was in the reincarnation cycle? Could trapping him slow it down, or even break the necessity of his role?" Shane countered, instantly applying his system's logic to the prophecy.
Jessalyn grew still, searching her millennia of memory for a loophole that wasn't just a distraction. "In theory, yes. But the cycle itself is rooted in the Norns' loom. Unless we can delay the conditions for Ragnarok to start—meaning, unless we can keep all the key players scattered or disempowered—Loki will still be pushed to fulfill his destiny. But if we stop the conditions, then he can be killed or delayed ."
She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed in thought.
"Prophecy hates emptiness," she said quietly. "It rushes to fill missing space. If Loki is absent, something tries to compensate. If the conditions never complete, that compensation stalls."
Shane leaned forward, his eyes alight with purpose. "Something is telling me we need to try. We need Sif, Thor's belt and gloves, and Olaf's horse, Sleipnir."
Jessalyn's reaction was instantaneous and sharp, echoing the warrior in her. "I 100% agree about getting Sif. She is not my blood, but I treated her as my daughter. The thought of her being with that weirdo—Loki—makes me sick."
Her voice carried real fury there, clean and personal.
Shane nodded. "Then we start there."
They shelved the heavy talk, the fate of existence momentarily postponed for the comfort of normalcy. Jessalyn stood, taking Shane's hand, her gesture proprietary and warm.
Shane laughed, a genuine, unburdened sound. "You know, a few months ago, I was in a small house in need of repairs, worried about my crew, and listening to fantasy novels about werewolves, vampires and dragons with AI systems in their heads." He squeezed her hand, looking around his modern, well-appointed apartment. "Now I'm running for the Senate, managing a national company, fighting battles with celestials, and sleeping with a beautiful, sexy celestial actress who is a few thousand years older than me."
Jessalyn laughed first, then pointed at him. "That might be the most absurdly honest sentence anyone has ever said to me."
He grinned. "It's all true."
"It is," she admitted. "And I hate how charming that is."
They broke into a fit of laughter, tumbling onto the bed, the tension of cosmic inevitability temporarily eclipsed by the sheer, absurd joy of their present reality.
For a little while, there was no Fenrir, no Loki, no campaign schedule, no Norns weaving out the end of worlds. Just warmth and laughter and the stubborn, unreasonable refusal of the present moment to be anything but alive.
⸻
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"