DAO was a small Heavenly agency.
Actually, there was some question about whether it was a Heavenly agency at all. Due to the occasionally less-than-wholly-benign nature of its agents, it actually occupied that grey area of universal administration where one also found the VSCO (Volcano Spirit Coordination Office, responsible for timing and magnitude of volcanic eruptions) and the ODS (Oceanic Disaster Service, which didn’t handle rescue operations afterward if you get my drift). Its second-in-command was actually seconded from Hell, admittedly on a time-share arrangement with several other lesser agencies. It was directly across the road from the Sidhe Embassy, and more than one djinn had built up a healthy working relationship with those free spirits.
Unlike, for instance, the EAH or GRO, the powers granted its agents didn’t permit them to manipulate deities; had Ranma made a wish regarding Saffron, a category five class two demi-god (limited licence, restricted, under investigation for dereliction of duty and potential redundancy), the wish would have been diverted to a more senior agency for vetting. A wish for a Named Blessing from a Major Deity would normally have been rejected outright without even being seen by the Deity in question.
No djinn would have coached Ranma to make that wish, although had he known to make it without coaching they would have been bound to at least try to grant it. Belldandy had an unfair advantage, and while she granted his first wish directly (the werecreature magics had been crafted by a mortal; any djinn could have granted that as a minor wish), she parcelled up the other with the Heavenly equivalent of a covering letter and sent it through her personal h-mail account instead of the one she was borrowing from Jaenna. Another, full-time djinn would have had to come up with some spiel about that being ‘too big’ a wish; the actual power needed was well within the limits of a minor wish.
Bastet was busy. So, when her terminal BONGed she thankfully set aside a long and convoluted appendix to a long, recursive report on a decision she had to make – responsibly – every time someone created a new breed of domestic cat, and read her h-mail. Just seeing the sender’s name brought a smile to her face, and that smile widened as she read the short missive (mortal texts could have fitted the entire message into a thin magazine).
“Well, Bell-chan thinks she has a candidate for my Blessing, does she?” The Egyptian Goddess of Warriors, Children and Pregnant Women leaned back in her leather-upholstered chrome chair and regarded the low ceiling (only five metres at the walls, with a nice, subtle dome). “Now, I could follow Bell’s recommendation, and just give it to him. She wouldn’t have suggested it if she didn’t think he was worthy. Or I could plough through his record like I ought to...” She idly flicked her fingers over the terminal, and pulled up the record linked from Belldandy’s message. “Saotome Ranma, age sixteen, human male... gahh, how does a boy that young get a file that big? Blehh.” After a few moments, she informed the ceiling, “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way, and give him the Blessing that way too if he rates. Which means...” She snapped upright again. “Makeover! Back to the old stone colonnades and short wrappings!”
She snapped her fingers, and the desk before her faded out. As she arose, her chair began a slow and vaguely disturbing morph into something Cleopatra would have been honoured to sit in. She waved her hands in abbreviated arcs as she strolled to her office door, and stuck her head out at the minor Deity doing duty as her secretary.
“Say, honey, could you get a few bodies together? I need to do a formal audience for a deserving mortal, and I’ll need some background colour.”
“Sure thing, Bastet-sama! Who do you need?”
“Not too important who, it’s what. Gotta be able to look old-Egyptian is the first thing. I’ll need at least a couple of huge warrior types to look imposing, and someone to fan me, and a couple of slavegirl types. See who you can rustle up in a hurry.” She looked around at the other occupants of her outer office. “Any of you guys like to sit in?” she asked.
“Mrrr.” “Mew.” “Raowr.”
“Great, thanks guys.”
She turned back and walked to her throne, which was now eighty metres from the huge bronze doors and set on a stepped dais. A vast carving on the wall behind it depicted the emblem of her service as an Eye of Ra, and openings either side of the dais looked out over a sun-drenched desert. As she strode, her fashionable stilettos reformed into practical sandals, her businesslike skirt and jacket turned into the rather minimal wrappings expected of a Queen of Egypt, and she grew to the imposing height demanded of the deities of Kemet. Finally, as she lowered herself into the cushions, her head adjusted to her traditional visage, that of a shorthaired domestic cat.
The cats took up places around her, without consideration of such things as human precedence; a cat can look at a queen, after all. With a KRUMP, an Eritrean God she hadn’t dealt with in a millennium emerged beside her, reforming into his ancient visage, and took up the feathered fan beside her throne with a faint smirk. Other deities and demigods filed in behind her secretary, each donning a seeming of the ancient deserts and a costume to match. One goddess reclined at Bastet’s feet, turning kohled eyes to the doors, and another knelt at her side with a bowl of dates. Four hulking guards, each identical in every respect, took their places.
Bastet looked around at her preparations, and nodded, for they were good.
She gestured imperiously once more, and cried, “Who art thou, who desires My Blessing?”
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(Posted Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:19)
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