Gaius Fabius Magnus liked chatting and cuddling and goofing around with the pretty young goddesses who lived up the road from him, but he never slept with them for two reasons.
The first reason was that he loved his wife and did not want to make her jealous. In fact, they had moved to Orthornavirae because she was dying and he couldn't bear the thought of going on without her. Upon seeing how deathly ill Cornelia was and how distraught Magnus was at the thought of losing her, a priest had told them of a place between Earth and the Underworld where they might remain together. Magnus had sold most of his worldly possessions, freed his slaves, and allowed the slaves to keep everything that he could not sell or carry. The slaves thought Magnus had lost his mind, but they could not talk him out of selling his possessions and going in search of the Virias. At first Cornelia protested that she was too sick to travel, but he swore that it was their only chance to stay together and he begged her to make the trip with him until she finally agreed. They had spent a few weeks in Shotoku and a few decades in Viraemia before finally settling in their current home.
After 2000 years as a married couple, they were not as passionate as they had been in their youth. The long years of dreary weather and the knowledge that they would never have children got depressing sometimes. They got bored. Sometimes a pretty Orthornaviraean would catch one of their eyes. And yet they still shared an unbreakable bond.
The other reason why neither of them ever slept around was because it might produce children. Demigods with one human parent and one Orthornaviraean would always inherit some of their divine parent's powers and use them to create new human diseases.
Sometimes it was hard for Magnus to keep his hands to himself, though. The goddesses of SARS and MERS were absolutely gorgeous and they never complained about being hugged and kissed and petted and teased. They thought it was funny that he called them Sarsaparilla (or Sarsi) and Mercy. Magnus had no real concept of what the diseases SARS and MERS were. He had no idea how dangerous they were, and he tended to imagine them much milder than they actually were -- which also amused the goddesses.
Sometimes the goddesses teased him back, confusing him by teleporting around or turning into animals.
Magnus was swaggering down the street with SARS and MERS, one in each arm like a rock star with a pair of groupies. He leaned in to plant a kiss on MERS's cheek when out of nowhere she turned into a camel and licked him. He cried out in surprise and pulled away while SARS had a good laugh.
He playfully grabbed her. "What are you laughing at, Sarsaparilla?"
Before SARS could respond, they were interrupted by an angry voice coming from an overgrown wall beside them. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING SARSAPARILLA???"
It should be noted that there were not many plants in Orthornavirae because there was so little natural light. There were some mosses, and some viral deities that would take plant-like forms when they rested, but not much else. And yet here was a wall with a vine growing over it...
The vine reached out to grab them and before Magnus could jump out of the way, it was wrapped around his limbs holding him fast. It caught SARS too, though that was probably because she hadn't tried very hard to get out of the way. MERS -- still disguised as a camel -- plodded away to the other side of the street, out of the vine's reach.
"I AM NOT A DISEASE!!!" the voice from the wall bellowed angrily.
Magnus tried to pull the vines off his arms, but he could not pry them loose. They were too strong to break and too tight to simply pull aside. They squeezed painfully tight, cutting off circulation and scratching him with their thorns.
SARS pulled herself loose, apparently having a much easier time of it than Magnus did. "What are you doing, you stupid plant?" she said. "Leave him alone!" She started pulling the vines away from her mortal friend, but the plant fought back, wrapping itself tightly around her throat and wrists, tangling her hair and tearing her dress.
"STOP USING MY NAME!!!" the plant roared. "I AM THE GODDESS OF SARSAPARILLA!!!"
"Do you really think I need to breathe?" SARS asked, apparently not worried about the vines wrapped around her neck. She yanked on the plant hard enough to tear off some of the vines. "Let him go or I'll infect you!"
"Plants don't get SARS," Sarsaparilla retorted. She wrapped a fresh batch of vines around the arm that SARS had pulled free and twisted it with an ugly crack.
"I'll invent a new virus that infects plants, just for you!" SARS shot back, ignoring her injuries. She tore herself free and stepped back, scattering leaves and berries all over the pavement. "Go back to your own kingdom and leave us alone!"
The sarsaparilla plant loosened its grip on Magnus enough that he could finally pry himself free. "I'm sorry I offended you," he said, trying to calm the plant goddess down, but she wasn't really listening. The two goddesses scuffled some more, yelling curses at each other, knocking over a nearby street sign, and splattering the ground with leaves, red berries, and thick dark blood.
The fight was interrupted by a loud metallic creak, and everyone looked to see MERS -- still disguised as a camel -- stumbling over a sign-post that she had accidentally bent by leaning against it. A small audience of other "animals" (probably disguised Orthornaviraeans) had gathered on the sidewalk around her.
Magnus pulled out a knife that he carried, planning to join in the fight and defend SARS, but she told him to stay back. "You'll get hurt."
Magnus looked around, confused. The goddess of SARS had thick vines wrapped tightly around her neck, one of her arms was visibly broken, and blood was pumping from her wounds in rhythmic spurts like she had a severed artery -- and she was worried that he might get hurt? He was a former legionary and he thought of himself as an honorable gentleman. It was supposed to be his job to protect women, not the other way around. "But what about you?" he asked.
She vanished in a puff of fog and rematerialized a short distance away looking slightly rumpled and with a few leaves still stuck in her hair, but much less wounded. "I am immortal." She turned her attention back to the angry sarsaparilla plant. "Go home, Smilax. You've made your point."
"HAVE I???" the plant goddess roared.
"Oh, yeah, you've made your point loud and clear!" Magnus assured her.
"SO YOU WON'T CALL HER SARSAPARILLA AGAIN???"
"Oh, no, definitely not!"
"AND YOU..." The plant jabbed a thorny tendril at SARS. "YOU WILL NOT USE MY NAME???"
SARS shrugged. "I wasn't even using it. You're just being an idiot."
The plant grabbed her and tried to slam her down on the pavement, but SARS teleported out of its grip. "Go home, Smilax. You're just making yourself look stupid."
"SOME OF US DON'T LIKE BEING COMPARED TO DISEASES!!!!"
"I am not a disease," said SARS. "I am the goddess of a virus. Go back to your own kingdom."
The sarsaparilla plant pulled itself loose from the wall and slinked away, muttering to itself something about filthy parasites.
The "animals" who had gathered to watch the fight began to disperse, and MERS returned to human form so she could prop up the sign post that she had bent. SARS picked the leaves out of her hair and straightened her clothes. Magnus put his dagger away and apologized to SARS for getting her into a fight.
"It's not your fault," SARS answered.
They went on their way, but there was one detail Magnus had noticed that disturbed him. Even after he'd had time to catch his breath and his adrenaline had subsided, he still thought it was creepy. When SARS was wounded, her blood had spurted as if she had a severed artery, but it was never the color of arterial blood. He had been in battle and he knew what arterial blood was supposed to look like. It was a reminder that she wasn't human, but it was also more than that. It suggested that SARS, the disease, was much more serious than he had imagined it. If the blood in the arteries didn't have its usual bright red color, that meant it wasn't carrying oxygen. In a human body, that would be fatal. He struggled to wrap his head around why someone would create a disease that did that to people, and why she would inflict it on her own body even if she could survive that way.
He glanced over at the goddess of SARS who was still finding leaves, berries, and thorns tangled in her hair and clothes. She smiled innocently, pretty as ever, apparently oblivious to what was going through his head. He shuddered.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, just a little rattled," he said. "What about you? Are you okay?"
"Of course I'm okay. I am immortal."
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