It took him the better part of five minutes to get that out. Mixed in there was some staring. Some lip-smacking. Some toe-wriggling. Some drool.

“We really will get along famously, I think,” she says with a broad smile. She is swinging her legs back and forth off the edge of the dumpster, looking up at the blue sky. Meciel takes a deep breath, savoring the crisp air. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.

Melkor shifts his weight. Like, the way an iceberg might carve the Titanic out of a fjord. Forward, forward fjord! Ford to the fore! 

Arms limp, he teeters his torso over the edge of the dumpster; cries “Hi ho silver!”; and slides down the outside  face first, languorously colliding with the asphalt.

A door opens and closes behind them and a tall, muscular middle-aged man walks into sight, dressed in chain mail and a white cloak with red cross over one shoulder.  He is carrying a large bag of garbage, and tilts his head to one side upon noticing Melkor. “Hello there,” he says, in a steady, friendly voice. “Need a hand up?”

Melkor, laying bonelessly on the ground, raises an arm and extends it toward the man. “Yesssss. Thank you kindly LARPer.”

Michael grasps Melkor’s hand firmly and pulls him up with the perfect amount of counterweight, easily balancing the garbage bag over his other shoulder. He tosses the garbage into the dumpster.

Melkor flexes his hand. Stings. Dude must be squeezing resistance putty all day and eating cans of spinach all night.

“Hey kid. Wanna join a boy band?” He nods his head back over his shoulder at Meciel. “Co-ed band, technically.”

Meciel has vanished.

Michael notes, but does not react to Melkor’s odd nod. “Not today, I think, but I will keep the offer in mind. Are you alright? That was quite a faceplant you had going.”

Melkor’s like, hmmmmmmm. He’s also like “hmmmmmm…”

“…mmmmno I’m good, that was just my sun salutation. Eyyy tho, you got any crab tacos? This charnel canister lacks all culinary charm.”

Michael blinks, the most surprised he has seemed to be by any of this. “As it happens, my friend Father Forthill, inside, just received a gift of fresh crab meat from a grateful parishioner, and we had just been debating whether to make it into tacos or sushi.” He thinks for a moment, looking hard at Melkor. “Well, I would call this a happy coincidence, but,” he chuckles and gestures skyward, “I have long since given up on believing in coincidences. Would you care to join us for a meal?”

“Awww yeah, everything’s comin’ up Melkor. Let’s feast, chainmailed-skyworshipper — I’ve got the munchies like you wouldn’t belieeeeeve.”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Melkor. My name is Michael Carpenter.” He shakes Melkor’s hand, and walks him over to an old but well maintained blue minivan. 

After a short drive, they pull up to a beautifully maintained classic colonial home with a white picket fence, get out of the car, and walk up to the front door.

Melkor, still shell-shocked, gestures back at the van. “Let me get this straight: you just mount up in your azure explosion chariot, on, like, the daily?” He shakes his head, amused. “Chicago, man.”

“How do they do it where you come from, Melkor?” Michael asks, pausing with his hand on the knob.

He waves airily. “Walking, horses, piggy-back, that kinda thing. Pretty sure I saw a big beefy guy on an elephant once.”

Michael opens the door. “Y’know, I think we had a man on an elephant here in Chicago once, too.”

“Charity, love, I’ve brought company for dinner,” he calls as he gestures Melkor in.

Melkor feels a tingle ripple down his spine as he crosses the threshold.

“Again?” A voice calls playfully from inside the house. “Michael, if I had a carrot or potato for every time you’ve brought unexpected company for dinner, we could feed an entire army.” As she speaks, a woman appears from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. She is tall, blonde, and beautiful, though not in a way that particularly invites unwholesome thoughts. She smiles warmly at Michael and pleasantly at Melkor. If he looks carefully, he will notice that underneath her comfortable, loose clothing, she is broad shouldered and quite muscular.

Could probably start a cult where the only ritual is watching these two do push-ups together.

He reaches out a hand to Lady Skyworshipper for a fist bump. But he pulls it back at the last second to cough into his elbow, and a cockroach gets hacked up and skitters to the floor. Lickety-split he crushes it beneath his heel and grinds it into the flooring.

*heh-hem*, he clears his throat. “Garbage in, garbage out, amirite?”

Charity takes a long beat to process this. Then she nods briskly. “Quite right. Here, I’ll get you a broom to clean that up with.” She grabs a brush and dustpan with well practiced motions, and hands them to Melkor with Very Clear Expectation, also well practiced. Then she looks over at Michael, raises an eyebrow as if to say ‘what have you gotten us into now,’, and walks back into the kitchen.

He looks at the brush. He looks at the dustpan. He looks at the squished cockroach. He looks back at the brush again.

”This is… for like… a cleansing ritual?” 

Melkor is incredibly torn, deep in his gut, between his basic nature as a dude who never cleans shit up, versus his fleshly desire for crab tacos.

Ehhhhh what the fuck is a basic nature anyway?

Melkor sweeps up the smushroach.

He’s instantly overcome by an intense nausea, and urgently inquires of his host where he could find the nearest vomitorium.

Michael claps him on the shoulder. “First door on the left down the hall.”