Prometheus's Gift XIX - Raven

    The dirty pick-up sped the benighted highway, its weary shocks and frames squawking like excited poultry on uneven pavement.  In the cab a Gray Wolf, 55 kilograms of white and misty majesty, closed his eyes as his ears flapped in the wind.  Overhead the stars seemed to amble along, a will of their own, watching the little motes below.
    Prometheus sat on the passenger side, rubbing his temple and nursing a hangover wrought from the beer Penthesilea fed him earlier that afternoon.  She offered him passage back to the city but he, good and sozzled by the time The Amazons had their fun, instead opted to walk.  To clear his head and get his thoughts in order.  At about the same time he was alone he realized just how far oil and metal could transport flesh and sinew in a very short time.  He was looking at at least a half a days trek (nothing to be thought of in the old days, but modern advances had instilled a certain laziness, even in the gods).  He pushed on, as if he had a choice, putting perhaps one thousand steps behind him by the time night came.  Finally, a motorist slowed to a stop and offered a lift.  There was a powerful pull there, a kinship, he knew it was more than a friendly gesture.
    He knew he had been sought out yet again.
    Prometheus studied the driver, awkward but thankful for the rescue.  Scores of creaks passed, his headache abated some.  He cleared his throat and managed:
    "Hello and thank you for the ride.  To the ageless I am known as Prometheus."
    He just couldn't place this handsome man with waist long, ebon hair and fierce features.  Primal features, a wonderfully savage look unmarred by invasions of the past.  He knew he should know, and for it he felt ashamed.  But the simple fact was:  He didn't.
    "I know," the man replied, eyes on the road.  "Two Spirit Prometheus.  Thief of fire, bestower of delicacies, lover of mortals."  He closed his eyes and smirked.  Many had those tasks, few received proper acknowledgement.  Perhaps least of all him.  He composed and went on:  "The birds have been chirping of your wanderings all week.  They told me you were in the area."
    "Birds-?"
    "Birds of the winds.  Cats of the forests.  Fish of the rivers.  All have much to tell.  If you just stop and listen."  He rolled down the window.  "And they have all been talking of you."
    "Oh that does sound like a most precious gift.  I do wish I had something like that."
    "So do I."  He grinned then showed Prometheus his cellphone.  "Text messaging.  Little birdies told me.  You're the talk of the town, Two Spirit.  Still difficult to find, despite the hour approaching."
    Prometheus sighed then rested his head against the window, wondering what in Tartarus happened.  The hour was indeed approaching, The Gift would demand something be done.  His original intention was to rub Zeus's face in a little something then hand it over, with luck right before his eyes.  Amazingly he and the old poophead had reconciliated.  Sort of.  Even more so, Zeus had given him something to think about.  Then, Brynhildr did likewise.  Then, Jaime.  Then, the rest.  Now it was too late, he was pulled in every direction by powerful, haranguing doubts.  These delays allowed time for word to spread, by now every extant immortal knew of his intent and were on the lookout.  Sooner or later all would find him.  Not by any preternatural power but rather thanks to mortals and their instant, global communications.  Ironic, he smiled, that it wasn't gods but his beloved mortals that laid down his biggest obstacle.
    "Well enough," he said.  "But I still don't have a name."
    "Raven.  Coyote.  Crow.  There are others, depending on the region.  Depending on who tells the tale."  He watched the road, knowing.  Many names, many confusions, the result of oral tradition and a set of ideas that refused to be put down.  Irrelevant, the only thing that mattered was the mortals and their intents for they.  "We are many.  No one spirit could possibly fill the countless duties."
    "Of course.  But forgive me; Ravencoyotecrow is a bit of a mouthful."
    "Yeah.  We'll go with what the mortals and my spirit companions prefer these days:  George."
    "Why hello, George.  It's a pleasure to meet you."  They shook.  "And again, I must thank you for saving me from a rather longsome and lonely walk.  Were you not at the last convention-?"
    "We weren't invited."
    "Oh really?  How rude, I'll personally make sure that doesn't happen again.  If it makes you feel any better, Current Management totally snubbed us, not one showed.  In the end it was a silly excuse to get all liquored up and weep about how the mortals turned their backs on us.  Really, it wasn't much fun."  He smirked, remembering the melee.  The drunken and naked Zeus bellowing challenges to those upstarts Jupiter and Ambisagrus, two cowards he could never seem to find in person.  The confused Toutatis, searching for his strong and crafty warriors.  To say nothing of the ridiculous catfight that erupted between Papa and Durga.  As a joke someone threw a cherry bomb into a toilet, another put glue on the convention seats.  The hotel was ruined by the time they were done.  They couldn't of behaved any more...
    Human?
    "It's okay," George said.  "There is plenty keeping us here."
    "Fair enough."  Prometheus turned then watched the wolf, still enjoying the wind around his ears.  More than a beast, more than an immortal, but not quite human.  Unafraid, he noted, and paying no attention to us whatsoever.  Why in Tartarus should he?  Prometheus faltered then shifted his weight.  "And what of your gorgeous not so little doggie-?"
    "We named him Bill.  He followed us out of the woods a few days back.  I'll welcome his company so long as he wishes to stay."
    "Oh?  Not a divine companion?"
    "Nah.  He doesn't even answer to his name.  He's a typical wolf; he'll bugger off at the first whiff of female or the chance to hunt.  Fickle and unpredictable.  A spirit after my own heart."  George grinned, drifting back to the lush rainforests and clear horizons.  His old rival, of a sort, the clever and wondrous Mouse Woman:
    Oh Raven, she tsked, cleaning his mess yet again.  Why must you insist on all this foolish gullery?
    That I must, he replied.  It is what I do.  I will cease my antics when the mortals wish it.
    Exasperated she turned then fussed her nest.  Then, she turned back and smiled.
    George chuckled, for he knew she, like him, was still smiling to this day.
    "Okay," Prometheus said.  "Do forgive me.  I'm from overseas and I know nothing of the regional coteries."
    George lit a cigarette and remained silent.  He drove ahead, he fell behind.  To the year 1792.  Seagull was the first to see them, from the air, circling their white sails and their white wakes, massive riders of the wind bringing a new religion and a new way of thinking.  Fragmented, the indigenous were powerless to stop the slow and choking death that crept their lands like a newborn cancer.  Convert the savages, the unsunned men said, give them god and show them a better way of life.  God did indeed come:  Over the decades majestic longhouses were replaced by shantytowns, every one with a gleaming cross over an expanding graveyard.  Current Management.  He felt it then as he did today.  He knew what Prometheus had in mind, and to him and his people it could only be a good thing.
    Finding the silence awkward Prometheus looked out the window.  He watched distant houselights and arboriform shadows meander by.  Far too much had come and gone, his gift had brought more interpersonal mingling and wanton insight in the last 48 hours than four millennia of sequestered rule.  What, he wondered, would of happened if instant messaging or the Internet predated fire?  How would things of turned out?  But things aren't so simple any more.
    Or are they..?
    ..?
    At last a distraction presented itself:  Angela Jolie on a billboard, looking perfect and showing plenty of leg (as always), an advertisement of her latest move:1

    GUN LASER SLAYERS.    2

    Her eyes and eerie smile followed them both.
    "Hey," George said.  "Would you happen to know who that is-?"
    "I don't know," Prometheus replied, frowning.  How she always made him frown.  "No solid word from my crowd.  Icarus knows I've been looking.  Haven't your birdies sussed something out?"
    "Squat.  Less than squat and take away some."  He inhaled smoke.  "One interesting thought is that she's a new spirit, birthing into mortal stories as we speak.  A replacement for Current Management, maybe?"
    "I have no idea," Prometheus sighed.  "What do you want, George?  The Envelope?  Some cockamamie story or pithy anecdote to sway me one way or the other?"
    "Nah.  Do what you have to do, Two Spirit.  Mountains, they come and they go.  The oceans changer their shores, rivers change their course.  We're all on the road to our own extinctions, it just doesn't matter in the the end.  What I really wanted..."  He leaned closer with shifty eyes.  "Was to find out who Angela really is, rumoured to be one of your crowd."
    Their eyes fought in the fun way as the pickup rattled.  As one they loosed several laugh-snorts, catching in their throats, shaking both to good effect.  Finally, a proper and uncontrollable laugh took them both...  Bill cocked his head at the silly beings so close to him, his wagging tail joining in the mirth.  A kilometre of fun, a moment of calming, then:
    "Okay, Two Spirit."  George held up a CD.  "You know these guys?"
    Prometheus read the case.  AC/DC, Highway to Hell.  "I only know of them."
    "GREAT band," George said enthusiastically.  "We've all been giving Bon Scott a rough time for bailing out when they were about to go global."  He opened the case then inserted the CD.  He turned the volume up to 11...
    Highway to Hell smacked Prometheus's ears from all directions, he jumped in his seat.  Bill backed down the cab, ears down and whimpering.  George's lips moved, maybe something about moving with the times but he couldn't be sure...
    The dirty pick-up sped the benighted highway.