Mr Cellophane

When it comes to the Old Slavs, the gods are divided into two teams: team Jav – the good guys, and team Nav – the bad guys. The teams host a wide variety of demons – typical scoundrels, and demigods – mostly some nice creatures who are fond of the gods more than they are of mortals, but do right by the people anyway. They are used to sucking it up – as long as the gods give them a job, a paycheck or an occasional pat on the back, they don’t complain. At least not publicly – fake Twitter account activity doesn’t count.

And yes… there is also Talason.

Talason is a domestic demon originating from the Balkans, who suffers from a bad kind of narcissistic personality disorder. Although he has his own team, or kind, he belongs to, the little mister domestic demon is not satisfied with who he is. He’d like to be something much, much greater than that, greater than Caliph instead of the Caliph, greater than Kanye West, this evil little guy would like to be a god.

He doesn’t favor any particular team, nor gender (if you catch my drift), all he covets is a divine membership card in the top pocket of his coat, or at least a business card with the following inscription in calligraphic gold font:

Talason, PhD, MD, LAPD Occupation: GOD!

Ok, I know, everyone dreams of being something greater, and that’s fine, at least according to life coaches, and if a bad actor from Western movies can become the president of the USA, then Talason can surely become a big shot in Jav/Nav. Especially since he hasn’t become what he is overnight – he’d earned his degree fair and square. And his resume seems rather cool: 

Talason, licensed spirit in charge of protecting public buildings.

Job description: protecting edifices and supervising the construction.

One would say: such a nice job, well-paid, especially in the West – so what seems to be the problem?

The problem is that he considers himself to be more important than the architect, the contractor, the masons, even the clients.

In his mind, he is the Alpha and the Omega of the project, so it really pisses him off that no human can see him, apart from the ones born on Tuesday, and even they see him as nothing but a dark shadow (the legend says that only dogs can see him in his true form).  

Yet, in spite of his invisibility, everyone knows that, whenever a construction site pops up, Talason will be right there, meddling and whispering all kinds of crazy ideas to the masons.

“During the construction phase, masons would measure the shadow of a passerby and build it into the edifice. On these occasions, the masons would use silk thread and the person whose shadow was built into the edifice would die in 40 days.”

Really, who could like such a guy, when you never know whose life could come to an end thanks to his meddling ways? That’s why people avoided walking past construction sites, mothers didn’t let their children play near them, hotties wore turtlenecks, the rich kids of Instagram went back to their parents in the suburbs or demanded to be sent to prison. Life in prison was better than ending up as Talason’s victim.

And Talason… well, he simply doesn’t see it that way. He believes that a tiny human sacrifice for the sake of the building is nothing to fuss about.

Still, I have to admit, while I was reading about Talason, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy. All that studying, all that hard work in the gym, so many skipped dinners and expensive suits, and still no one sees him, apart for the ones born on Tuesday, who see him as a shadow, and dogs, and he’s a cat person…

In the end, his huge desire to be seen and worshiped has driven him insane, and now, instead of a domestic demon dealing death around constructions sites, we are dealing with a domestic demon who does not only kill random strangers, but also thinks that he’s a god.

And the craziest part is that this guy is the Slavic Littlefinger when it comes to plots, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he really ended up being a god one day. Especially now, when he got lucky, and a certain Mercybearer born on Tuesday sees him as a stud, not just a faceless shadow…

To be continued…