Congress of Autogenic Beings

If I refrain, will you hear the antiphon?

The venue is called the Celestial Symposium, but the sign outside looks like it was hastily painted over something else, maybe the Acrimonious Afterlife Annual or Cosmic Custody Battle Con. The ballroom of the Hotel Eternity is a cavernous, impossible space. The ceiling is swirling nebula one moment and cheap, stained acoustic tiles the next. The carpet is a truly unfortunate pattern of geometric shapes that seem to watch you.

Round tables are draped in cloth the color of overcast skies, each one with a little gold placard. But these aren't for seating; they're for the deity themselves, perched awkwardly on folding chairs that are definitely not designed for beings of their stature.

Yahweh is at Table 12, looking less like a burning bush and more like a frustrated CEO who just got back from a disastrous corporate retreat. He's wearing a name tag that also says Hello, my name is: I AM but someone scribbled YHWH underneath in pen.

Yahweh speaks, "I even used the word image. IMAGE. Structure. Pattern. It was a blueprint! 'Let's make a being that reflects our creative capacity, our logic, our ability to love.' And what do they do? They use the word 'image' to build golden caves, wage holy wars in my name, and..." he shudders, "make 'What would Jesus Do?' bumper stickers. It's not a mirror, it's a funhouse."

Right next to him, at the same table, the placard reads The Awakened One. Buddha, a once-mortal Siddhartha Gautama who honorarily gets invited to these things, is a picture of serenity. He's fiddling with the little plastic stick from his name for the past ten minutes, folding it into increasingly complex geometric shapes. He looks up, a gentle, knowing smile on his face.

Buddha enlightens, "I know, friend. I tried showing them the self wasn't a thing to be grasped, but a river to be experienced. A process of becoming, of letting go. Now they've turned it into a self-help industry. They try to 'attain' non-attachment, which is like trying to grab water. They've made a monument out of the very idea of not building monuments." He snaps the plastic stick in two, then looks mildly disappointed in himself.

Odin, at Table 7, has given up on his placard. He's used one of this ravens, Thought, to peck at it, and now it reads All-Fath.... He's here for the stories, the good drama.

He leans over to Yahweh, "You think that's bad? I hung myself on Yggdrasil for nine days, pierced by my own spear, to gain wisdom of the runes. A sacrifice of self to self. Now I'm in a video game call 'God of War' where a boy calls me a grumpy old man and I have to fight a bald guy with tattoos. The runes are just collectibles to upgrade your axe." He sighs, a sound like the creaking of an old tree. "But... the lad has a point. I was grumpy."

Loki isn't at the table. He's "floating," leaning against a pillar that wasn't there a second ago, sipping a glass of something that fizzes with chaotic energy. His name tag simply reads ???. To no one in particular, but loudly enough for Odin to hear, "Awww, don't be so hard on yourself, Pops. At least they still think you're cool. Try being the god of chaos and having your biggest modern myth be... influencing a Marvel character. They made me hot. And sad. It's the worst. I'd trade for a grumpy video game cameo any day."

At Table 4, Brigid has set up a small, neat workspace. She has a cup of tea, a notepad, and a pen. Her placard reads Exalted One, but she's crossed it out and written Brigid, Hearth & Forge in clear, block letters. She's the only one taking the support group aspect seriously.
"Okay, but have you tried channeling that chaos into a creative outlet? Instead of influencing a movie, what if you started influencing... a particularly unruly sourdough starter? It's chaos you can eat. It's very grounding." She offers Loki a pen. He stares at it, horrified.

Anubis is standing at the front of the room, by the podium. He wasn't elected to run this; he just has the most "I'm dealing with a lot right now" energy. The placard on the podium reads Emcee, but it's just his table placard he brought with him. He's trying to get things started.
"Alright, alright, settle down. Welcome to... this. As we go around the room, please state your name, your... purview, and one thing you'd like to work on today. And please, try not to smite anyone. We had an incident with a thunderbolt at the last meeting and the hotel made us put down a very large deposit." He glares at a corner where Thor is pretending to be very interested in the carpet pattern.

Jesus slides into the empty chair next to Yahweh, his name tag simply reading The Son with a little hand-drawn heart next to it. He's wearing sandals, of course, and what looks suspiciously like a hoodie from a Nazareth high school basketball team. He keeps touching his side absently.

He leans over to Odin, voice soft, a little too casual, "You were stabbed with a spear, too?"
Odin's eyes widen, a flicker of recognition, "Gungir. Through my side. For nine days."
"Longinus," Jesus shares, "Just the once. But... yeah. Gets in your head, doesn't it? The feeling of it." He pauses, staring at the sugar packet he's been methodically tearing and reassembling. "I tried updating the whole thing, you know. Tried a patch. Told them to chill with the judgment, focus on the love part. 'New Covenant,' I called it. Didn't stick. They're still hung up on old blood." He winces, "Poor choice of words, sorry."
"The poetry gets lost. Always the logistics," Odin nods gravely.

At Table 9, the smallest table in the back, sits an elderly Chinese man in simple robes, gently stroking his beard. His placard reads Old Master, but it's written in characters that keep subtly shifting. He's been watching the whole exchange with quiet amusement.

"They point at the moon," Laozi illuminates, "Such beautiful fingers. They write books about the finger. They build temples to the finger. They argue about whose finger is the correct finger." He chuckles, a sound like wind through bamboo. "Meanwhile, the moon simply... is."

Buddha overhearing, nods vigorously, then whispers to Yahweh, "See? See? He gets it."
"But I said image. It's the same principle! Pattern recognition!" Yahweh squints at Laozi.
"The Tao that can be named is no the eternal Tao, my friend. Your 'image'? Also not the eternal image," Laozi goes back to stroking his beard. Yahweh opens his mouth, closes it, and writes something angrily on a napkin.

At the bar, which is just a table with a tablecloth and a very frazzled looking Hebe pouring drinks, Zeus is holding court, his name tag dangling precariously from his toga.
"You think you've got problems with your followers misinterpreting things? I gave them everything. Thunder. Lightening. Eagles. An absolutely splendid beard. And what do they remember? The swan. The rain of gold. Every single time." He drains his glass. "But I'll tell you who really got done dirty. Hephaestus. Brilliant mind. Built Talos! Bronze giant, patrolled Crete, magnificent engineering. A machine man. I looked at it and said, 'Mark my words, someday they'll make everything like this. Little machines thinking they're alive.' My prophecy was right. And do they credit me? No. They credit some mortal named... Alan Turing."

Nearby, two smaller figures at Table 2 perk up. Their placards read Pygmalion & Galatea. Pygmalion leans in pointing a finger from his glass, "The machine man? You think that's bad? I sculpted perfection. With my hands. And she came to life. Love. Art. Devotion. Now I see my name attached to... what do they call it? Waifu pillows?" He looks deeply, profoundly tired.

Galatea pats his hand, then gestures at a newly arrived figure, "At least your creation still talks to you. Some of us get turned into... moody teenage protagonists."

Enter Hel. Half her face is radiant beauty, the other half is the cool, quiet dignity of death. She's dragging a folding chair over to sit near Hades, who's been quietly observing from Table 5, his placard reading Pluto (Dis Pater) with Hades crossed out and rewritten three times.
Hel plops down, her voice half warm, half chill, "So. Afterlife management. You get it."

Hades is grateful for someone who understands logistics, "I tried. I really did. Made it fair. Made it organized. The Fields of Asphodel for the neutral ones, Elysium for the heroes, Tartarus for... well, the ones who really earned it. Clear system. No surprises. And they act like I'm the villain. Because I'm not throwing parties like my brother." He jerks a thumb at the bar, where Dionysus has just started a conga line with some minor nature spirits.

"Oh, same. I split the difference. Honest dead? Nice and warm in the good hall. Dishonest dead? Frostbitten and miserable. Balanced. Fair. I even made the gates out of serpent spines. Very on-brand, very intimidating. And all anyone says is 'but your face is weird.'" Hel gestures at her own divided visage. "This is structure. This is clarity. This is—"

Hades finishes her thought, "—being misunderstood by people who'd rather have a dramatic ferryman than a functional bureaucracy." They share a long, exhausted look of kindred spirits.

At Table 1, right in front, Quetzalcoatl has his head in his hands. His magnificent feathered serpent form has condensed into a tall, elegant man in a feathered cloak, because the chairs really weren't designed for the full version. His name tag is slightly singed.

Quetzalcoatl's voice is muffled, through his fingers, "I gave them corn. I gave them calendars. I gave them wind. I taught them to read the stars, to create art, to turn away from the old ways of—" He stops. Lifts his head. Looks at the room with the haunted eyes of someone who has watched his message get repeatedly, violently misinterpreted. "They kept focusing on the sacrifices."
"Oh, big mood," Jesus says from across the room, raising his hand tentatively.
Quetzalcoatl continues, "It was ONE aspect. A tiny part of the whole cosmology. A metaphor for renewal, for the cycle of life, for—" He gestures helplessly. "Now I'm the 'feathered serpent who wants your heart cut out.' I like hearts. I think they're lovely. Beating, inside people, where they belong."
Brigid passes him a cup of tea, "Herbal. No sacrifices involved."
Quetzalcoatl takes it, hands trembling slightly, "Thank you."

Loki appears behind Hel, draping an arm around her chair.
"Aww, don't worry, niece. At least your dad acknowledged you. Mine threw me in a cave with snakes for basically the same energy he brings to every party." He grins, but there's something sharp behind it. "Anyway, I'm taking bets on who cries first. Current odds favor Yahweh, but Zeus is making a strong comeback with that 'swan' trauma."
Hel replies flatly, "I'm literally the goddess of the dishonored dead. I am crying. Inside. Constantly."
"That's the spirit! Or... lack thereof. Get it?"

Hades to Hel, ignoring Loki entirely, "We should start a newsletter. 'Underworld Weekly.' Tips on efficient soul processing. Coping with surface-dweller PR disasters."
"I'm in," Hel confirms, "First article: 'How to Be Feared and Respected Without Being the "Bad Guy" of Every Myth.'"

Anubis has given up on the podium entirely. He's now sitting cross-legged on the floor, his jackal head resting in his hands. A small terrier mix has wandered in from somewhere and is sniffing his snout curiously. Anubis doesn't move.

Anubis speaks to the dog, quietly, "I weigh hearts against a feather. I guide souls. I have presided over the transition of consciousness for millennia. And the best I get is people calling me a 'dog god' and posting pictures of me next to huskies." The dog wags its tail. Anubis sighs. "You're very supportive. Thank you."

At Table 3, Kali is carefully painting her fingernails a deep, vibrant red. Her placard reads The Dark Mother with MAHADEVI in all caps underneath, as if she's tired of people forgetting.
Kali, to no one in particular, "They see the tongue. They see the necklace of skulls. They see the sword. They do not see the protection. They do not see the love that would destroy evil itself to keep the innocent safe. I am the mother who fights the monsters so her children don't have to." She caps the nail polish. "But sure. 'Scary goddess.' Fine. I'll take it. At least they remember my name."
She glances at a nearby empty chair that seems to shimmer faintly. A placard there reads only Obscurn in letters that look ancient and worn. "Right, sister?"

The air around the chair shivers. For a moment, a thousand names flicker into visibility—Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte, a dozen more—before fading back to the quiet hum of forgotten divinity.
A whisper, like wind through ruins, "They remembered my... everything. And then they forgot."
Kali nods, says nothing, and offers the empty chair her other bottle of nail polish. After a moment, the bottle lifts slightly, tips, and a brush begins painting invisible nails in the empty air.

Thor finally looks up from the carpet, having successfully counted every loop in the pattern. He clears his throat, the sound like thunder rolling over hills. "Can I just say... and I know I'm not supposed to talk about the thunderbolt incident—but can I just say, the hammer. Mjolnir. Dwarven-forged. Iconic. Symbol of protection, consecration, the power to bless and to defend. And now?" He holds up his phone, which has a case shaped like a stylized hammer. "It's an emoji. For 'cool' or 'Nordic' or... I don't even know. Sometimes they put it next to the rainbow one. Do they know what that rainbow represents? Do they know?"
Bragi, God of Poetry, murmur* to Idun, "Someone should write a lament. 'Ode to the Emoji Hammer.'"
Idun chuckles, "Don't. He'll cry. And then we'll have weather."

Brigid has somehow organized a small breakout session in the corner. She has a whiteboard on an easel that she definitely didn't bring but definitely now exists.
"Okay, small group. Let's focus on actionable steps. Thoth, you mentioned your followers turned ibis mummification into a tourism industry. What's one boundary you could set?"

Thoth, an ibis-headed figure holding a scroll, looking deeply academic and deeply exhausted, "I want to reclaim the writing. The wisdom. Not the souvenirs. Maybe... a scholarly journal? Peer-reviewed theology?"
"Excellent. Sustainable. Ganesha, you're up," delegates Brigid.

Ganesha adjusts his placard which reads Vinayaka (Remover of Obstacles) with a small doodle of a mouse, "They keep offering me modak. Which I love. Truly. Sweet dumplings, wonderful. But I am also the lord of beginnings, the patron of arts and sciences, the scribe of the Mahabharata. And every festival, it's just... 'here, elephant god, have a dumpling.'" He pats his belly. "I mean, I eat them. But still."
Brigid asks, "So you're feeling... objectified for your sweet tooth?"
"...yes. That's exactly it. Objectified for my sweet tooth."

Loki has started a betting pool on the whiteboard session. Eris, Goddess of Discord, has joined him, handing out apples with "TO THE FAIREST" written on them in glitter pen.
"This is the best convention I've been to in centuries," Eris delights, "Everyone's already mad. I don't have to do anything."
"Right? It's like a potluck where everyone brought their own drama," Loki waggles his eyebrows.
"I brought actual apples."
"You would."

And in the corner, Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea and marine animals, sits quietly. Her hands are webbed, scarred where her father cut off her fingers and they became seals and whales. Her placard reads "The Mother of the Deep."

She hasn't spoken all night. But every so often, she looks at the bowl of water on the table in front of her. The water shifts. Tiny fish appear, swim in circles, disappear. No one bothers her, yet. No one knows what to say. But the water is there, and she is there, and somehow that is enough.

Anubis finally stands up, the little terrier he named Toast now curled in his lap. "Alright. We're not getting through the agenda. We never do. But—" He looks around the room, at the squabbling, the quiet conversations, the shared exhaustion, the tiny moments of recognition. "But I think maybe that's not the point. The point is... we're here. We showed up. We're not alone in this." He pauses. "The afterlife stuff, the symbols, the misinterpretations. It's a lot. But you're all still... you know. Trying. In your own ways."

The room is quiet for a moment.

Loki whispers to Eris, "I give it thirty seconds before someone starts a fight."
Eris whispers back, "I'll take the under."

Yahweh stands abruptly, napkin in hand, "Wait. I want to workshop this 'image' thing. Does anyone have a whiteboard? Brigid, can I borrow—"
Buddha sighs, but smiling, "Here we go."

The room exhales. The coffee stays burnt. The pastries remain stale. But for just a moment, it feels a little less like a cosmic disappointment and a little more like... a family reunion. The kind where everyone's slightly dysfunctional, but they keep showing up anyway.

The night's not over. The hotel bar is about to close and someone's definitely stolen the good towels.

Sedna hasn't moved from her corner. But her fingers, the ones that became seals, whales, walruses, keep twitching. The water bowl in front of her ripples constantly now, little waves lapping against the edges.

Brigid notices. Brigid notices everything. She excuses herself from the whiteboard session, "Ganesha, I hear you, and 'dumpling objectification' is VALID, but hold that thought," and glides over, pulling up a chair.

Brigid speaks softly to not disturb the water, "Hey. Sedna, right? I don't think we've properly met. I'm Brigid. Hearth, forge, poetry. Also apparently the unofficial therapist of this disaster." She gestures at the room. "You've been quiet. That's okay. But... your hands are doing a thing. The water's doing a thing. Want to talk about it?"

Sedna looks up. Her eyes are deep, deep ocean. Full of pressure and dark and things that have never seen light.
Sedna with avoice like waves against ice, "My children."
"The... the marine ones? The ones from your—" She gestures delicately at Sedna's scarred hands.
“They're worried. I can feel it. The waters are warming. The ice is thinning. There's so much noise. Ships. Drilling. Plastic. They don't understand. They keep surfacing where they shouldn't, getting tangled, getting sick. And I can't—" Her voice cracks, iceberg calving. "I can't reach them all. My fingers are everywhere but I can't hold them."

Brigid's face does something complicated. Professional therapist mode crashes into genuine divine empathy.
"Oh, honey. Oh, goddess," she softens completely, "That's not ancient baggage. That's right now. That's current, ongoing, active grief."
Sedna nods once, like a glacier shifting, "The belugas are coughing. The narwhals are lost. The seals are hauling out on strange shores. They call to me and I hear them but I can't—" She presses her webbed hands to the table. The water bowl sloshes. "I can't make the humans stop."

Across the room, Poseidon has been nursing a drink and pretending not to eavesdrop. He fails. He always fails.
Poseidon slides over, name tag reading Earth-Shaker with NOT NEPTUNE sharpied underneath, "I heard 'warming waters.' I heard 'noise.'" He sits heavily. "The Mediterranean is a bathtub now. A warm, overfished, pollution-filled bathtub. My dolphins have microplastics in their blubber. My—" He stops, looks at Sedna properly for the first time. "Oh. Oh, you're real real. This isn't... you're not here for the misinterpretation stuff. You're here because your kids are dying."
Sedna meets his eyes, "Yes."
Poseidon puts his trident on the table, suddenly looking very old and very Greek and very tired, "Yeah. Me too. Atlantic. Pacific. All of it. The coral's bleaching. The fish are... there are dead zones, Sedna. Places where nothing breathes. My horses... the hippocampus, the white horses of the waves... they're choking."

They sit in silence. The water bowl between them stills for the first time all night.

Yemaya appears. No one sees her arrive; she's just there, at the edge of the table, vast and warm and smelling of salt and mangrove and protective fury. Her placard reads Ocean Mother in about fifteen languages. Yemaya pulls up a chair, voice like the tide coming in, "You feel it in the bones, don't you? The ones that aren't bones anymore. The ones that became something else." She looks at Sedna's hands. "My children are further south. The warming hits different there. Different currents, different creatures. But the grief?" She presses a hand to her chest. "Same grief. Universal grief."

Sedna whispers, "How do you bear it?"
Yemaya considers, "I don't. Not alone. I rage. I protect where I can. I send storms, but not for punishment, for cleansing. And I hold the ones who are left. I hold them and I tell them I'm here. That's all. That's the only thing."

Poseidon quietly, "I try to remind the humans. Earthquakes. Storms. Warnings. But they don't... they don't listen anymore. They build sea walls. They drill deeper. They act like I'm a metaphor."
"I don't do metaphors," Sedna tears, "I do seals. Actual seals. With actual lungs. Breathing actual air. And there's less of them every year."

Njord, the Norse god of the sea and winds, has been hovering awkwardly near the table, clearly wanting to join but equally clearly carrying the weight of centuries of being reduced to "the one who got divorced because Skadi wanted mountains and he wanted shores."
Njord clears his throat, "I... if I may. I'm not—I don't have the depth of connection you do. The intimacy with the creatures themselves. I'm more... winds. Currents. Shipping lanes. Commerce." He looks ashamed. "But I see it. The changes. The storms that shouldn't be that strong. The currents shifting, confusing the fish, confusing the whales. I try to guide the sailors away from the worst of it, but there's so many of them now. So many boats. So much want."
Yemaya in a kindly tone, "You're here. That counts."
Njord sits, carefully, at the edge of the table, "I brought... I brought seaweed snacks? From the deeper trenches. They're sustainable. Probably."

No one eats the seaweed snacks. But the gesture matters.

Loki appears, because of course he appears, but for once, he's not smirking. He's standing a few feet back, watching the sea gods huddle, and his face is doing something that might be genuine discomfort.
Loki to Eris, sotto voce, "I... don't have a joke for this."
Eris is equally quiet, "Me neither."
"Should we... get them more chairs? Or something?"
"I don't think chairs are the problem."

Loki watches for another moment, then very quietly slides a pitcher of water onto their table and retreats, "There. That's... that's something. Water. For the water people."
Eris glances at him, "That's actually really—"
"Shut up. I'm still chaos. I just... chaos can also be... helpful chaos. Sometimes."

Sedna looks at the pitcher. Looks at Loki. Loki, for the first time in approximately four thousand years, looks away. Sedna says to the table, quietly, "My porpoises. The harbor porpoises. They're shy. They always have been. They stay close to shore, close to the ice, close to me. And now the shore is different. The ice is gone. And they're confused. They don't know where shy is allowed anymore." She touches the water pitcher. The water warms slightly. "I worry about them most. The ones without the drama. The ones who just want to exist, quietly, in cold water, eating fish, being left alone."
"The quiet ones always suffer first," Poseidon confesses.
"And the loud ones suffer last, but they still suffer," Yemaya adds.

Njord stares at the seaweed snacks, "I could... I could maybe redirect some currents? Create colder pockets? Near the shores where—"
Sedna looks at him, really looks, "Would that help?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. But I could try."

Brigid has been taking notes. She caps her pen, "Okay. This is... this is beyond the support group model. This is action. This is coordination. Sedna, Poseidon, Yemaya, Njord—you're all sea powers. You're all feeling this. What if... what if you pooled? Shared information? Coordinated responses? Njord shifts currents here, Poseidon calms storms there, Yemaya cleanses polluted waters, Sedna guides the creatures to safer grounds? Together?"

Poseidon tilts his head in consideration, "We've never... we don't really talk. Different pantheons. Different territories."
"The ocean doesn't have territories," Yemaya interjects, "Humans drew those lines. The water doesn't know borders."
Sedna in slow cadence, "The water knows me. It knows all of us. It carries our grief either way. Maybe it could carry our help instead."
"I'm in," Njord determines, "For what it's worth. Which might not be much. But I'm in."

Across the room, Oceanus, the primordial Titan of the river Oceanus... the one that circled the world, the original ocean, stirs from what everyone assumed was a coma. He's been sitting at Table 0, the one that technically doesn't exist, draped in water that flows upward.
Oceanus' voice is like the beginning of the world, "I made the first currents. Before land. Before life. Before any of you." He looks at the younger sea gods. "And I will unmake them if this continues. Not from anger. From sadness. The sadness of watching something you love become... this."
Sedna meets his ancient eyes, "Then help us. Please. For the porpoises. For the shy ones."

Oceanus considers for approximately three millennia, then nods once, a continent shifting, "I will stir the deep currents. The ones humans cannot reach. The ones that remember cold. I will send them toward your shores, little mother. For the shy ones."

The table is quiet. The water pitcher glows faintly. Loki appears again, this time with a handful of hotel notepads and pens. "Here. For your... sea coordination council thing," he says. "Write stuff down. I stole these from the front desk. The guy didn't even see me." He pauses. "Also, if you need someone to cause a distraction while you do... whatever ocean magic you're planning, I'm available. For a fee. The fee is... not being forgotten. That's it. Just... remember I helped."
Eris appears beside him, "Same. But my fee is drama. Which, let's be honest, you'll provide anyway."
Sedna almost smiles, "I'll remember."

Brigid stands, stretches, "Okay. Small group session is now a coalition. Sedna, you're the heart. Poseidon, you're the muscle. Yemaya, you're the nurturer. Njord, you're the strategist. Oceanus... you're the memory. And Loki and Eris, you're the chaos agents who make sure the humans stay distracted while the real work happens." She looks around. "This is good. This is real. This is what we should've been doing all along."

Sedna looks at her hands—scarred, webbed, powerful, "My fingers became seals. Maybe now they can become something else. Something that saves."

Anubis wanders over, the terrier still following him. "The hotel manager wants to know if we're extending our booking. Apparently there's a wedding party in the morning and we're 'disrupting the cosmic balance of the ballroom.'" He pauses, looks at the sea goddesses, the Titans, the chaos agents, the therapist. "I told him we're in the middle of something important. He can wait."

Sedna, quietly, to the table, "Thank you. For seeing me. For seeing them."
"We're all mothers," Yemaya steadies, "We're all ocean. We're all grieving. But grief shared is grief held. And held grief can become something else."
The water pitcher on their table ripples. A tiny porpoise shape forms, leaps, vanishes.
Sedna smiles. It's small. It's fragile. It's the first time anyone's seen her smile all night.

Loki turns to Eris, watching from the bar, "I'm feeling things, Eris. Actual feelings. This is unacceptable."
"I know," Eris equally abhorrent, "I almost helped. Voluntarily. We need stronger drinks."
"Way ahead of you." He produces a bottle of something that definitely wasn't in the hotel minibar. "Stolen from Zeus's personal stash. It's like 10,000 proof and makes you remember every terrible thing you've ever done. Cheers."
"Cheers." They drink. They both immediately start crying.

Toast the Terrier, Divine Emotional Support Animal, is currently asleep on Anubis's feet. He does not know about the porpoises. He does not need to know. He is just here to be warm and loved, and honestly, that's enough. Next meeting: TBD. Someone please bring ice. Actual ice. The kind that stays.