Eros opened each crate and, one by one, took out the artifacts to be labeled and shelved.
The index system couldn’t be quite as alphabetical as he would have liked, given many of the objects’ names were in different languages. They couldn’t be organized by category because relics of war should never be next to each other, given their nature. They would repel each other like magnets or destroy their neighbors with excessive force. They had to be neutralized by more calming and peacefully-auraed artifacts. They couldn’t be organized quite by origination date, due to some of them existing outside of space and time. The placement of a timeless object next to another timeless object would create a world-melting paradox.
Eros did his best to chronologically alphabetize them by category, from left to right when possible, on the newly numbered shelves, and he created a corresponding rolodex in the same order.
And due to this dizzying non-ordered order, Loki was pleased. Beyond pleased. He loved the organizational structure like it was his favorite joke. Sure, he liked the way he had it before, in absolute chaos, but he thought this way was even better. He said it was over-organized the way taxes and corporations are, to the extent that it becomes a convoluted mess.
“It’s all cyclical.” He lazed on the sofa, ankles crossed, and his heavy eyes glittered. “Chaos eventually coagulates into some form of order, which people overwork in their hands like clay until it devolves back into utter unmanageable chaos, and somehow they still think they’ve got it under control. Like the cartoon of that dog in the burning house saying, ’this is fine’… I think you might have made my day! When this is all said and done and you’ve organized everything, and I have company over, I’ll get the chance to explain how the system works, and their heads will go round!”
Loki chuckled an amused and maniacal laugh at the thought.
Eros sat at a desk with cold tea and a hand cramp from writing out countless index cards. He shook his head and glared at the amused trickster. “You know, you could help?”
Loki grimaced and tapped his finger against the arm of the sofa. “This is more your thing.”
“Actually, all of this is your thing, your collection and- why am I helping?” Eros dropped the pen onto the desk.
“Because you’re being appreciated, and that is the forever-temptation of the gods, to be needed and appreciated. It’s our driving force.”
“Yes. True. But it’s asinine.”
“You’re asinine.” Loki stretched and yawned, and in a different reality there was an earthquake due to it. “If that’s our driving force, or desire, then that’s on you. You’re asinine.”
Eros dramatically dropped his head to the desk. “This room isn’t even half-way finished yet!”
“Well, I suppose you’ll just have to come back tomorrow, won’t you?”
Eros raised his chin an inch to look at the giant creature, who had a wicked smile gracing his lips. He was very attractive with that smile. Despite his scars, tattoos, the bags under his eyes, and the fact that he was still wearing the same wrinkled shirt from the night before. As long as he wore that smile, he was cunningly charming.
“You’re a monster. You did this,” Eros snapped, his mental exhaustion wearing him down.
“I have yet to run into a problem that wasn’t somehow my fault.” His smile twisted into a joker-like grin. “This is fine!”
Eros laughed, shook his head, and rubbed the stinging out of his eyes.
He made his way to the foot of Loki’s couch and asked, “Is this what fighting Fate looks like, then?”
“It’s a long-run game.” Loki tilted his head to the side. “You just spent all day, doing whatever you wanted, thinking whatever you wanted, under your own free will. Those hours will add up, trust me. It may not look like it now, but free will is something you actually get better at.”
Eros only nodded, his mind in no shape to think deeply on the matter. “Don’t bother getting up. I’ll show myself out. Are you going to bed or is that completely covered in junk as well?”
“I’m far too knackered to move from this spot, even if the bed wasn’t currently being used as a table for my collection of spears.”
“You’re a hoarder. Goodnight.”
Loki only nodded and closed his lids.
***
Eros nearly forgot his coat on the way out the door, and he slipped through the streets like in a dream. His head grew heavier and heavier as he walked.
The cool night air was not as refreshing as he hoped it would be. It was stale. He lit the first cigarette he had smoked in hours, but it did nothing for his clarity either. He wondered if the Fates were watching, listening to his thoughts, even though there weren’t many wracking around in his brain. All that was in there was a suddenly overwhelming sense of paranoia.
He daren’t think about how far the omnipotence nor the omnipresence of the Fates went, lest the fear draw him back into the realm of inaction. Not that organizing Loki’s collection was doing much...
Unless Loki was right, and free will was actually something one got better at. Tantalizing as that thought was, Eros didn’t have the mental capacity to ponder it for very long, and he let his paranoia swallow the thought.
But, again... just what he had already seen of Loki’s collection was overwhelming. The height and glory of a thousand forgotten temples and fallen kingdoms was kept safely tucked away inside a cramped townhouse on the old end of New Bedlam. It boggled the mind.
Eros had held in his hands, just today, boxes of cursed treasure, the petrified bones of prophets, and most of the lost books of Alexandria. Then, there would be whatever relics the following weeks would bring. Excalibur and the Holy Grail? The Apple of Discord and Pandora’s Jar? The man even had the bleeding Bowl of Fate, for fuck’s sake! Loki couldn’t even remember whether or not the object on the desk was the Orb of Thesulah or just a fancy paperweight.
Eros stepped into his flat, and immediately poured himself a nightcap before heading off to sleep.
