Aftermath

Most don't believe the gods bleed. But it turns out some do, and that's enough. Proof painted the walls, smeared tables, and...
"Not my meeting notes!" The Keeper exclaimed in frustration. Gingerly grasping a corner of her sacred ledger, the dwarven god of policy and contract lifted an exposed page to let deep purple ichor drip off.
It took a lot to get Keeper riled up, and today had been a lot. The Premiere raising his sword against the Unchallenged and the Axe of the Moon attacking her own father and... Keeper ashamedly remembered herself losing control. "That pretentious fee deserved a good skull cracking," she muttered in justification and contempt.
Keeper displayed none of the prim and dandy of her rival the Premiere. Her practical leather coat and timeworn features symbolized good, hard work, and shrewd negotiation. Only the platinum rings tying up her brick-red beard and the silver rims of her glasses gave any glint to an earthy attire.
Now alone, cleaning up after the Council meeting had turned into outright warfare, Keeper sighed as she stood a chair upright only to have it fall again, a leg missing.
The little table at the far end of the hall fared even worse, if that were possible. Only four had sat there, a fraction of the Council's attendance, and the isolated group stayed out of the fight. Yet deep frosting-filled gashes marred the table's mosaic surface; fetid detritus caked the sounding floor in a rainbow of filth.
Annoyed, the helplessly organized deity fiddled with her calculator, tallying up another loss. This rune-adorned ironwood board featured inlaid gems in rows of 12 which her callused fingers slid back and forth with deft.
"Wait, that's not right. How are there 13?" Keeper counted the row again, flicking one gem after the next to the right until a should-be-stone squished under her touch. "Eew, who's eyeball is this!?" Her cry of exasperation echoed in the empty hall, the only response to her morbid query.
"I doubt Insurance is going to cover any of this," Keeper mumbled to herself, returning to the chair to see if it was salvageable "Not after we failed to invite him to the meeting."
"Will this help?" a soft voice spoke, giving Keeper a start.
Next to her stood a gaunt man in tattered, dark rags and matching bedraggled hair. On his belt, a pair of small white hilted daggers, his only apparent possession. That, and a chair leg he held out in an offer of aid.
"Oh, I didn't realize you were still here, Wraith," she recovered, returning her ledger and calculator to the big table before noticing she was now splattered in the inky blood. "And I just cleaned this coat."
The Keeper didn't fear Wraith as most of her kind did. At least, that's not why she was startled. Even now lacking all powers, the man was unnaturally silent and she had honestly believed herself the last responsive soul in the hall. But his presence did make sense. Wraith was now human once more; a truly rare sight in the great hall. He'd traded in his godhood to save a champion from a fate he knew all too well. While Wraith no longer ruled the Endless Void, every god knew he'd reclaim that crown upon his eventual death. No one would be a willing chaperone save his consort the Pale Maiden, and she was suspiciously absent.
"Wraith you aren't stuck here are you?" Keeper questioned cautiously. "Isn't our wild-haired moon diva taking you back to the mortal realm?"
Eyes suddenly ablaze with fury and despair, the once and future god of the Void bit his lip. "The Premiere took her." His words were innocuous enough, but that gaze told the whole story.
"He did what!?" Keeper's anger quickly rose to match. She scanned the hall as if to see the tragedy that had long since unfolded.
It was one thing for the pompous Premiere to act as Council prince despite the fact that Keeper did all the planning, collected dues to pay for the inevitable disaster, and found competent caterers from the ever-dwindling stock that the Devourer hadn't already eaten. It was entirely another to abduct a fellow god. Clearly, the Covenant had been broken. How much would it cost to fix THAT?
She turned back to Wraith, curiosity outweighing frustration. "If you don't mind me asking, were you two..." Keeper found herself at a loss for words. She interlaced her fingers. When the Wraith mirrored her gesture in response, she nodded. "Well, good for you, I guess?" Strange Bedfellows, indeed.
A clatter from behind and both turned sharply. At one end of the room, priceless bottles of liquor lay broken on the floor. A serving cart swayed precariously, buffeted by a localized hurricane. One single intact carafe hovered above and spun, emptying its contents into the watery gale before the whole mess fell, shattering what little glassware remained.
"Tempest, are you doing OK old boy?" Keeper hurried over to the Old God of the Sea who had finally roused from his stupor. Wraith joined to help, but Tempest waved him away with outstretched vapor trails. Clearly used to his help unwelcome, Wraith retreated.
Keeper's stern expression telegraphed her rebuke. "That temper of yours... I swear Tempest," she paused to find calm, "You let the youngsters goad you and then turn down aid from one of our own."
Tempest billowed, tendrils of mist waving wildly in what seemed more like an excuse than an apology. Keeper never could fully comprehend the elemental god despite eons of exchanges quelling stormy feuds and fostering all-too tentative trade routs. So she was taken aback by Wraith's steady reading.
"He says Squall called him out. They exchanged words I am not comfortable repeating," the Voice of the Void translated before adding his own take. "I expect that upstart sea-god crashed our party. I didn't see him when the Council came to order. Likely he wasn't the only one." Wraith gestured to a finger-print smeared bottle, empty, protruding from a cheap brown paper bag.
Tempest stalled his wild motion, raising limbs of steam in a "See, I told you," motion that even Keeper couldn't mistake.
Shoulders drooping in surrender as the god of order resigned herself to the task at hand. Talking sense into a drunken elemental was just too much, and she was behind herself on how to reunite the sullen voidlord with his missing mate. But new world interlopers who dared attend without paying dues... this Keeper could handle. Returning to the big table, she gently dried the exposed page of her leather-bound ledger. Its malicious figures forever smeared by the blood of recently lost friends, Keeper turned to a new page. Perfectly parallel rows materialized on the blank parchment, severed by weighty columns. Plain but precise headings followed. Tabulating the day's debt again occupied her attention. As infuriating as it was, Keeper could wrap her head around this problem. Accounting, even if for this horrible mess, that was her rock. And it kept her from dwelling on the one who had caused it all.
____________
Wraith stirred from the seat where he'd retired an hour before, squinting as he stared past Keeper and her sacred ledger now mostly free of blood and several pages thicker. She look at him, then turned her head in kind to the long hallway that marked the chamber's exit. Was it darker than usual? It was, and that meant only one thing.
A figure appeared, black against black, waterfall gown swaying with every step. Keeper jumped from her seat, slamming her ledger. Its echo simultaneous with her chair's thud to the floor. She had no patience remaining; made no attempt to maintain poise. Her heavy boots struck the floor like staccato war drums, their beat ending suddenly as Keeper's march halted mere feet in front of the slender god of shadows.
"How dare you return!" she spat, feeling wrath akin to that for the Premiere earlier in the day.
The Mistress of Midnight looked down, hands clasped together and trembling. Gone were the cool smile and unshakable demeanor of her Council meddling. "I need... I need your help," she pleaded with uncertainty.
Keeper was taken aback but her rage recovered quickly. "You ask for aid after lighting the powderkeg that caused this?!" She waved across the ruin.
Midnight lifted her head and unfurled her hands. Keeper readied to make battle, reaching for her ledger or calculator; weapons she'd left on the table impossibly out of reach. Then she saw Midnight's eyes brimming with tears.
A thin finger pointed past Keeper at Wraith who'd approached in silence.
"I need your help," Midnight begged again with more confidence than composure. "My sister..."
Wraith nodded in understanding, walking past Keeper with a gentle pat on her shoulder as he followed a distraught Midnight to the exit.
In final resignation, Keeper's knees buckled, the day's trial claiming victory at last.
Collapsed on the floor, Keeper absently picked at a thin crack in the jasperite. Crafted by her father, this single barrier stone formed a continuous base for the great hall. It was perhaps the most expensive feature of this ancient chamber and an unflagging shield against the realms of mortality.
And as the Keeper looked down the length of her mightly hall, the slimmest of cracks ran end to end.
"For the love of-"