“This was… unexpected,” said Phil.
“Huh?” inquired Quetzalcoatl, still hovering before Phil and Bill. “What are you talking about?”
“You appear to have… transformed into some type of… giant, winged snake-man, Quinn. I’m… I don’t…”
“Oh, that, right,” continued Quetzalcoatl. “I guess I forgot to tell you guys that I had a drinking problem.”
Phil and Bill tried to respond to, refute, or otherwise process the statement, but found they could only tilt their heads slightly and stare.
“Also, I almost drowned once. There was some serious head trauma involved with that.”
Again, the statement was met only with tilting and staring.
“And, before that, I destroyed Central America, made the llama extinct, and severely crippled the Department of Science’s robot military.”
Phil raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it and retreated back to his comfort zone of slanted, wide-eyed awe. Bill, however, threw in some gaping, just to liven things up a bit.
“Which should bring us up to speed, gentlemen.”
“No,” said Phil, “not at all actually.”
“Are you sure?” asked Quetzalcoatl. “I was thinking that was a pretty solid recollection of events right there.”
“None of your preceding statements actually explain… anything,” said Bill. “How you… grew wings, for example. Or why your legs seem to have… fused together and become a giant serpent’s tail.”
“Oh, that. Right,” replied Quetzalcoatl, looking down at his new mode of ambulation. “Turns out I’m actually Quetzalcoatl, Aztec serpent god of the wind. And knowledge. And arts and crafts, too, I think. I’m the god of a bunch of things when you get right down to it.”
Bill and Phil retreated to their previously established method of discourse, although, this time, they were tilting and staring like no one’s fucking business. It was impressive.
“Seriously, though, you never figured it out? All that ‘be our leader,’ ‘believe in yourself’ horsecrap you guys kept spouting on about? I just assumed…”
“You gave… absolutely no indication that you were… a fallen deity from an advanced, ancient civilization,” said Phil. “I can say that with… utmost certainty.”
“Honestly,” said Bill, “we didn’t think you were even listening to us most of the time.”
“You talked so damn much it was kind of impossible not to pick up something. Anyway,” said the giant, feathered snake god, spreading his wings and blotting out the sky, “you still with me?”
“I… don’t think we have a choice.”
“Yeah, you really don’t.”