[Video]

[crouching_sin]

[Today's video finds Naoya sitting and drinking a cup of coffee. He's bundled up in a green sweater, and he looks fairly amused.]

I thought I'd tell you a story today, for those of you who care to listen. This is a story about the Norse gods, and mistletoe. Let me define a fe things before I begin, for those of you who do not know those terms.


Gods are like… very powerful beings. Think of them like very rare, very powerful Pokemon. Gods in most traditions are similar to humans in the sense that they live out their lives, look similar to people, and have relationships. Generally, they're thought to have certain domains of power.

Mistletoe is a plant with white berries that looks similar to this.

[He pauses to lift up a picture that he's drawn to illustrate it.]

There's a tradition to meet under it to kiss people.

'Norse' refers to a people in my world that lived in the far north. Their culture is mostly known these days for being one that was full of warriors and raiders.


Now, on to our story. One day, the queen of the gods, Frigga, had a dream about her son Baldur - the god of light - dying horribly. Baldur had the same dream, and Frigga set out to see that it didn't happen. She traveled all the realms, making each and every object swear that it would never harm Baldur. Every object swore an oath - except for mistletoe, because Frigga thought it too young and unimportant to swear an oath.

The gods heard of all of the oaths sworn, and played a game where they threw things at Baldur and watched them bounce off. However Loki, god of fire and mischief, heard of this, and found out that mistletoe had not sworn that oath. He took mistletoe and made an arrow of it, and handed it to Baldur's brother, the blind god Hod. Hod threw the arrow at Baldur, which killed him.

Frigga went to Hel, the mistress of the dead, and pleaded for her son back. Hel agreed, on the condition that every living thing in the world weep for Baldur. She went to every living thing and begged for them to weep, and all did - except one. That was the giantess Thokk, and because she would not weep, Baldur did not come back to life.

[He takes a sip of his coffee, before speaking again.]

It's unclear whether Thokk was Loki in disguise or not. Certainly, he'd never tell one way or the other, god of mischief that he is. The fact remains that, though many see mistletoe as a symbol of love, it's in fact the reminder of a dead god.

... Though said god did reappear recently, though that's a story for another time.

I hope you all learned something today.

[Aaand the video clicks off.]

Comments

[styxiedust]

Mistletoe is a parasitic nuisance for trees, they're quite disgusting when you think about it.

[Yep. That's...that's all of Botan's input for that. Of course she'd have that kind of knowledge about things that drain the life and nutrients out of another living thing.]

So I suppose it does make sense that they'd be connected to a deceased god.

[crouching_sin]

I suppose. Dying didn't remove his weakness to it, either - I saw him defeated with a mistletoe phone charm of all things, which is hilarious.

[styxiedust]

Pffft--

[Botan it's rude to laugh at gods, but--]

A phone charm. That's like warding off vampires with a ceramic garlic bulb!

[crouching_sin]

Heh. Exactly. The one I saw recently was defeated with a vial of magical powder, but I wouldn't put it past him to be defeated by something stupid like that.

[styxiedust]

Sounds like it. You think you know a demon or vampire or whatever, and then they get taken down by something like--say--a whistle.

[Firsthand experience there.]

[crouching_sin]

A whistle? I haven't heard of that one. What happened?

[styxiedust]

As a worker in the Spirit World, I'm assigned certain tools for my use in the field. One of them is a whistle whose radius is determined by how much spirit energy I put into it, they're supposed to call demons to you since only they can hear it.

[...]

But apparently Hiei was too close and ended up getting knocked out by the noise instead.

[crouching_sin]

Like a dog whistle, but for demons. Interesting. What sort of demon is this 'Hiei'?

[styxiedust]

Hiei...hnnnn, how do I describe him?

[No, really, how can she?]

Let me start this off by saying even among other demons, Hiei's an abnormality. He's a fire demon born to an ice demon--unfortunately for him, the race his mother came from is all female, so when Hiei was born they realized she had interacted with a man and threw him out.

[It's actually quite sad, though Hiei in truth scares the hell out of Botan and she trusts him about as far as she can throw him.]

He rose up the ranks to S-rank and committed petty thievery over the years, eventually installing the "Evil Eye" onto his forehead, an extra organ that enhances his power and allows him to find whatever he wants. So, what this creates is a demon that can manipulate fire, has three eyes, is very short and very violent. Besides all that, he looks pretty close to a human and spends his time now pushing out humans that accidentally wander into the Demon World.

[crouching_sin]

... That's... quite the strange demon. I suppose it doesn't surprise me that someone like that would strike out into thievery and acquiring power. He doesn't sound quite like any demon I've run into, but I suppose it makes sense for different worlds to have diferent demons.