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Momo the Ripper | Ch. 245 – Fellow Passengers
🕑 Added 2024-01-24 19:50:48 +0000 UTCWith a quick departing speech to those who still lived within the capital—which was mostly the undead, who did not really have the capacity to care anyway—Momo set off on what she was referring to as her one-week self-care sabbatical. By Sumire’s research, it would only take a few days to reach the Twin Ivories via overnight carriage, so the remaining time was pure buffer.
These overnight carriage services were a new thing to Momo, who, before ascending to queen, could barely afford a few meager minutes in someone else’s vehicle. Valerica’s budget for comfortable travel hadn’t exactly been flexible. Actually, the only budget of hers which had been flexible was her bauble budget.
It was too bad Momo had never actually gotten promoted to Dawn Accountant; despite her lack of mathematical ability, she was positive she could have made a meaningful improvement there. She would have likely put more—read: any—digestible food on the cult dinner table.
But that was neither here nor there. Where she was now was in bed, a luxurious bed, wrapped up in layers upon layers of dragonfur, smelling ridiculously expensive bottles of flower incense, and picking Dusk’s bone dust—yes, the cat was shedding bone—out of her hair. It had been about a day since she departed the capital, and, unfortunately for her ego, Sumire had been right in every single way. This felt… needed.
The carriage Sumire had booked for her was sort of like a train without the tracks. It had several compartments for various guests, and each compartment was like a suite: a full bed, draped with regal furs and useless ornaments. A cat bed, a dog bed, a squirrel bed; they were obviously prepared and awaiting any and all types of companionable creatures.
(They even included a small bell that the cat could ring when she wanted her food dish refilled. The bell, if it wasn’t glaringly obvious, had to be removed about three hours in. Momo saw the chef throw it out the window.)
Aside from the chef, the carriage included several drivers, each working in shifts in order to drive throughout the day and night. They reserved the smaller of the sleeping compartments, simple cots stacked like bunk beds, while the guests—aka Momo, and a not-yet-seen traveling companion—would each get a bedroom and a shared dining space.
“Your highness?”
After knocking three times, a lizard woman peeked her head through the doorway. Her name, Momo had come to learn, was Chevri. She was an apprentice to one of the drivers, and one of myriad refugees from Morganium. Her father was one of the chicken priests, and Chevri, very understandably, wanted to get as far away from that lifestyle as possible after turning nineteen.
“Hi,” Momo yawned, rolling her comforter down just enough to greet the lizard. “You really don’t have to call me that. Momo is fine.”
“It’s not about you,” Chevri said humorously, kicking the door open lightly with her heel as she carried in a platter. It was brimming with steamed fish on rice. Not for Momo, of course. The lizard took it over to the cat’s bed, laid it there, and gave Dusk a scratch on the vertebrae. “It’s about Moger. If he hears me referring to the guests impolitely, he’ll drop me from the Ivories. And there’s no way I’m crawling back to,”—she pursed her lips, looking disgusted—“Brother Hencrest.”
Dusk began lapping at the food as Chevri dropped onto the side of Momo’s bed, sighing. She was wearing an apron stained with various splotches of food. Momo could imagine it was tedious to work in a kitchen on wheels. No less one that was making the journey up the rocky mountainside. Momo had been woken up on many occasions to the sound of various cooking instruments hitting the ceiling.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Momo said, a guilty pit in her stomach. Even though she knew it wasn’t her fault that Morganium had been leveled to dust—again—she still felt partly responsible. If it wasn’t for her, Sera wouldn’t have targeted the city in the first place. “If Moger lets you go, I’ll take you on.”
Chevri snorted. “Yeah, to do what, exactly? I’m talentless. I got homeschooled by a chicken fanatic. Do you know what skills we focused on? Translating clucks. I’m not exactly ready for some high-falutin job in the government. I want to be on the road. It’s easier that way.”
The mountains rolled by in Momo’s window. They had only climbed about a ninth of the way towards the first peak, and it was already utterly eye-catching: a sea of evergreen trees dotted the valley below, bathed by a lavender sunrise. It was something out of a van Gogh painting. Her fingers itched to pull out her notebook and etch it to life there—on paper.
“Me too,” Momo said, bringing her knees to her chest. “I never thought I’d say that.”
She had never seen herself as much of a traveler. She had traveled, surely, but never willingly. It used to be compulsory, a necessary evil; her family would haul her from state to state like luggage in the back of their van; then she hauled herself to college, to a state as far away as physically imaginable to her at the time: New York. Then, finally, through cruel fate or maybe muscle memory, the universe whisked her here.
But, in some space between then and now—traveling had become about more than escapism for her. She had stopped staring at the pavement and looked up at the trees. And as it turned out, they were beautiful. Everything… was beautiful.
She kind of wished she could return to Earth with the same eyes.
The train car shook, and Dusk meowed in complaint, her food spilling onto the floor.
“Oh, great.” Chevri rose from the bed, almost as if she had been broken from a haze, and cleaned up the cat’s food. “You’re bad for me, Momo. I always end up staying in here talking to you when I need to get back to the kitchen. Moger’s going to notice one of these days and think I’m sleeping with the clientele.”
Momo blushed profusely. “Oh, no, of course not. I’d be happy to clear that up for him—”
“Kidding.” Chevri smiled cheekily at her. “Not get your ass up and to the dining area. I’ll be serving breakfast in five. I even started experimenting with that dumpling recipe you gave me.”
She headed for the door, and right before closing it, she peeked her out again for a final word.
“And it seems our other guest has finally decided to join us for breakfast today. So don’t go saving leftovers for the cat. I will notice.”
She shut the door, leaving Momo to gaze at it, mouth ajar.
She had forgotten it wasn’t just her on this journey.
—
Momo braced herself on the narrow walls of the carriage hallway as she transited from cart to cart. They were on a particularly rocky patch now, and it felt quite like journeying through the Drake Passage. Everything from the floorboards to the ceiling lamps were shaking like a nervous chihuahua, and it set Momo on edge.
Once she emerged into the dining room, she noticed the chefs had readied precautions against this: everything was taped down, from the silverware to the food. Paperweights were stacked on top of bread, rubber band-looking contraptions held together layers of seafood.
The room was small, and there was only one dining booth. It had two couch seats, parallel to each other, with a table in the middle. Someone had already taken purchase of the seat facing the direction of travel, and was gazing out the window, a hand perched on their chin.
A wide-brimmed hat was covering the person’s face, vieling them from view. But Momo didn’t need to see a face to recognize those horns. They were curved and black, protruding from either side of the person’s headwear.
Those weren’t just horns—those were dokkaebi horns.
The brim of the hat raised, and a tan, lithe face greeted her. One pupil red, the other black.
“Ah. There you are,” the dokkaebi said, and when he breathed out, it looked like a puff of smoke had sizzled up from a volcano.
He rose from his seat, his posture a jagged precise line, and held out a gloved hand.
Completely taken aback, she let him take her hand, and he smiled devilishly.
“Good to meet you, cousin. No introductions necessary, really. You’re Momo, I’m Venice, and Morgana, well…” He pulled at the rim of his hat. “I’m here to invite you to her funeral.”
Comments
Conor McGroarty
Well the only time that has been mentioned that any “gods” have died are the “old gods” who somehow died (along with whatever creation they had) and left baby Morgana alone. So it isn’t like Gods can’t die but the requirements for their deaths should be on the level of reality failure and death. Don’t think we have reached such levels yet so guess Morgana is just sulking that her family/pantheon are being such pricks.
sebsebs
Damn. Thanks for the chapter!
JHD
Are you trying to trick us into thinking she is alive while she is actauly dead or that she is dead when she is actualy alive? It has to be one of the gods fake funerals right? Right?
