Utilitarian Wishes

Angelo had been careful in his choice of cafe. The one he'd picked had, at best, mediocre food with decent service. It was also nearly empty in the mid-afternoon, which was the very reason he'd chosen a cafe that was so subpar. He needed the quiet.

He had no supernatural ability to heal, and so he was left to deal with the side effects of the hearing loss he'd sustained a few days before. Ruptured ear drums were initially painful, but a few days in were more annoying than anything. His ears continued to ring, and while his hearing was coming back, sitting in a crowded cafe trying to hear his companion over the sound of everyone else was a very bad idea.

So he'd picked a quiet place with no background music, grabbed a booth in the back, and settled in to wait. He'd already called and asked Jericho for a meeting, but he'd yet to really explain why.

He could probably guess. Gods were like that.

Jericho was... easy to spot. Laughably easy to spot. He wasn't someone who could be easily missed, considering both his size and the fact that, you know, he was a literal fox.

No, Jericho was definitely not subtle.

He raised his hand, trying to flag Jericho down rather than calling out. He had a hard time modulating his volume, since everything sounded a little bit far away for him. Better not to yell at all, and to avoid the issue entirely. One on one he had an easier time, because he could watch the other person's face for the telltale you're being too loud wince.

He stood up from the booth, offering his hand in a customary handshake. They'd definitely met a few times, and Angelo remembered Jericho fairly well, but he doubted he'd left much of an impression on him.

"Angelo Genovese," he said by way of introduction. "You might remember me as Jude, though. Nickname that's stuck around. I was hoping to talk to you about... power stuff. Your gift and all that."

If Angelo had realized how little Jericho remembered him, he might have made a point to refresh his memory. But as it was, he had a hard time keeping track of what an average person would or wouldn't remember. He'd always had a fairly good memory to begin with, and now that it was perfect... sort of related.

"Sort of both," Angelo said as he slid into his own seat. "I actually have a power that lets me tell the powers of others, but it tends to be a bit... ah, foggy about gods. Gives me a general idea of your purview, but not exact details for how things work. So I know you can give powers, but I want to know if you can... reshape them?"

If not, he already had a backup plan, but it didn't hurt to ask.

This was where it got tricky, but he liked the fact that Jericho said yes and not probably not. Even if it wasn't the way Angelo imagined things going, it was still a yes.

"Right now I have a power that..." Angelo wrinkled his nose in annoyance. He hated explaining it, because he didn't quite understand it, and if he was being honest, that was part of his frustration with the ability itself, "that lets me do some things really fast. That's the easiest way of putting it. It's a new power that I was blessed with, and it doesn't seem to have really... settled, or anyhting like that. It's kind of like a nascent power. I was hoping there was a way to... point it in the right direction. To reshape it, so that rather than being a very unclear, nebulous 'does some things fast and not others', it let me, say, read books fast."

Because that would be useful. Because that would be infinitely more useful than what it currently did, but he couldn't make it work that way, even if he tried.

"I don't know how your stuff works, exactly, but I was thinking you could... tap into your god-power-stuff and shift it the proper way. So it develops like that."

A week? A week. Just like that he'd been more or less hand delivered the explanation for how to handle things. He knew the criteria now, and Angelo let out a groan of annoyance as he sunk down, resting his forehead against the table.

All this time and... just consecutive days? He'd tried doings fifty times in a row to see if they'd activate, and they never had!

"They didn't," Angelo said, lifting his head from the table. "They gave me the power and left, where as most others explained it. I think they assumed the challenge would be me figuring it out, only it was too random. None of my trials lasted long enough to trigger it."

He'd gone up to three days without results and given up there.

"Thank you. That... helps a lot."