Heh heh...

    Little did Skuld know that her bigger half sister was watching her every move...

    "Why that little rat," muttered Urd, "I can't believe that she would try to outsmart me. Skuld should know better by now."

    Right as Urd was about to embark on a glorious counterattack on the unsuspecting Skuld she realized..."AHHHHH, I missed 5 minutes of my soap!" and ran out of the room.

    Skuld looked up, startled by Urd's scream. "That idiot, I don't see what the big deal is with her and that show. I watched it once, that Godai fellow is as stupid as Keiichi."
 
    Keiichi...Skuld's blood boiled at the thought of his name. Why does her sister love him so much? Then again he is a real nice guy..."NO! He's just a big fungushead. Can't even put together a stupid bike," mumbled our goddess.
 
    "Why don't I get a wish," she screamed to the sky. "If Keiichi can have the woman of his dreams at the cost of my sister, why can't I get something?!" The storm clouds rumbled outside as the tears fell down Skuld's face, as they often did on those lonely nights in her room when her pain overcame her joy in making gadgets or tormenting Urd.
 
    Seeking something to occupy her mind, she went to the now empty kitchen.
 
    Belldandy was out shopping. "Why does she like cooking so much?" pondered Skuld.
 
    Right then a voice, a friendly male innocent voice, explained, "Think of it as a machine that is waiting to be put together, with eggs as the gears and milk as the oil."
 
    Without question our goddess understood and encouraged by the sweet voice she started working. One might wonder how Skuld knew exactly how to mix the eggs with the batter or how long the cake needed to sit before frosting it. She herself couldn't tell you. It just happened.
 
    A few hours later Skuld was staring at a beautiful pound cake and tea cut and served for two.
 
    "Why did I do that?" Skuld thought.
 
    "Because you care," said that odd voice out of nowhere. Skuld was getting weirded out. This was all a little too strange, but it seemed to be alright. It seemed natural and the voice, although strange in it's origin, seemed to reaffirm Skuld that everything was just fine.
 
    The door slid open and Keiichi announced that he was home. Skuld walked into the living room with her apron on and the tea and cake ready for two.

    "Welcome home, dear," she said.
 
    Keiichi responded, "It's good to be home, my love. What do you have there?"
 
    "It's a cake and tea I made for us. How was your day?" questioned Skuld as they sat down to eat. Now, Skuld was as surprised as you are that this is happening but when she heard Keiichi's voice as he walked in the house she knew that the mysterious voice was his. She also knew that he loved her, and she loved him. Skuld had to admit it felt odd, but it was too good to question.
 
    Skuld and Keiichi were eating the cake when a loud CRASH resounded from the end of the temple where the TV was located. A voice screamed "NOOOO! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING TO ME!"
 
    Keiichi looked at Skuld. Skuld looked at Keiichi.
 
    "Urd," they said in unison.
 
    Within moments, Urd herself slammed back the shoji so hard that it rebounded halfway back to a closed position. "KCTS IS OUT OF THEIR ALLEGED *MINDS*!"
 
    "Uh... why?" Keiichi asked.
 
    "First, they cancelled 'Seishun Shitemasu.' Then, they replaced 'Escaflowne' with 'SailorMoon.'"
 
    "I like SailorMoon," Skuld protested.
 
    "Dubbed in Esperanto?!" Urd waved her arms around wildly.
 
    "And instead of 'OVAs Tonight', they started showing 'Ed Wood And Imitators.' Then they replaced 'I Dream of Jeannie' with 'The Brady Bunch.'"
 
    "What's KCTS?" Keiichi whispered to Skuld.
 
    "Kami-Chou-TeleV-Suteishion. The gods' Super TV Station. Urd used to be on its Board of Directors until she was assigned here. Remember when we were watching 'Eve of the Festival' and 'Remember My Love' and Urd complained through the whole last half hour that it really wasn't a very good movie? That was on KCTS."
 
    Skuld hadn't liked "Remember My Love" that much either. It was too sloppily sentimental and not quite true to the spirit of *Urusei Yatsura*. But Belldandy loved the movie, so Skuld had endured it.
 
    Now, all of a sudden, she realized that it was a wonderful movie. The songs... and the scene where they burn all the pictures of Lum... and the part where they're dinosaurs... and the ending scene... what a wonderful movie.
 
    Urd was continuing, however. "But now... now... now they've replaced 'Maison Ikkoku' with some new daytime soap, 'As The Toast Burns.' Who the hell is running KCTS now, anyway?"
 
    "After you were banished here, they elected Saga and Ortrun," Skuld offered.
 
    "ORTRUN?! Why'd they elect a martinet like her?"
 
    "I think Barley Byggvir spoke for her."
 
    "He must have been drinking too much of his own beer. I do not *believe* this. I've got to go call the Valkyrjar. Oh, by the way, you need a new TV. I sort of trashed the one you had." Urd stalked off to the telephone. Skuld and Keiichi looked at each other again.
 
    "I apologize for Urd's behavior," Skuld finally said.
 
    "Oh, it's all right," Keiichi said. "She always *means* well. She's pretty fun to have around, and she really does try to make life easier for us. I wish your other sister would do as much."
 
    "*ONEESAMA*?!" Skuld said on a rising note of pure shock.
 
    "I'm not trying to criticize her - she's a wonderful and very intelligent person - but she seems to believe that you've sacrificed your happiness to be with me just because I felt like it."
 
    Skuld's mouth dropped open. "But can't she see that my happiness *IS* being with you?"
 
    A giant wheel of cheddar fell out of nowhere to bounce off Skuld's head.
 
    While she was still blinking, the entire temple began to slowly melt and turn golden. Keiichi smiled before he turned into colored light that vanished, for all the world as if he'd been in a transporter beam on *Star Trek*. The melting sped up, until Skuld found herself sitting in an inflatable raft with two oars on an ocean of melted cheese. From behind her, she heard the sound of clapping. She spun around in the boat.
 
    Sitting on the melted cheese was a small hut with a thatched roof. The door was open, and two women were visible in it. Skuld's aunt Peorth was standing, smiling, and eating out of a dinner pail from the highest-quality dinner pail tree. Seated cross-legged in front of her was another woman with hair as black as Skuld's (although she was considerably older). She was wearing jeans and a T shirt with mottoes such as "When your reach exceeds your grasp, practice jumping," "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly," "If you don't like the game, play your own," "Femina totiens moritur quotiens amittit suos," "Pluritas non ponenda sine necessitate, nisi responsam odit vel ita modo sentit," and "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. Any sufficiently advanced anything is indistinguishable from utter nonsense. Especially when it is sufficiently advanced nonsense anyway." She was the one who had been clapping.
 
    She looked up, directly at Skuld. Her skin was very pale and her eyes were a very dark blue. Her ears were delicately pointed - elven ears, but nowhere near the tendency towards rabbitism that seems to afflict more than half of the anime elven characters. She was not pretty; but her face was so full of animation and character that it would take you a while to notice it. She had a silver emblem on her head, of three interlinked stars.
 
    "Very good, Skuld," she said.
 
    "VAR?" Skuld said. "What are you doing here?"
 
[Norse Mythological Note: Saga is a goddess known for the fact that she drinks every day with Odin in his hall with the sinking bottom. Barley Byggvir is the god of barley and hence of beer. Ortrun is one of the Valkyrjar (vahl-keer-yar), better known as the Valkyries. Var is the goddess who watches over the promises lovers make to each other, sees that they are kept, and punishes those who break them.]
 
    "I was having lunch with your aunt," Var said, "and she was telling me about your sister's lover. She had to give him something, so I thought it would certainly help things if you understood how your sister feels."
 
    "What right do you have to do something like that?" Skuld asked, angry.
 
    Var raised and lowered her eyebrows. The simple description does not adequately express the full scope of the act, which involves raising the eyebrows, then lifting their outer ends (thereby straightening them), then lowering the now straight and slanted eyebrows, and finally dropping them back to human-normal, while maintaining a perfectly expressionless face otherwise. "I asked Morisato-dono and Verdhandhi for permission, as I needed to take templates from them to do it. And it is, after all, my domain."
 
    "But you might have asked me first before messing with my head!" Skuld yelled.
 
    "If she'd asked, would you have let her?" Peorth interjected, in between mouthfuls.
 
    "Well, no, but... " Skuld stopped, uncertain of the support to her argument.
 
    "Your aunt has taught me to be *very* pragmatic," Var said, and grinned. The lopsided grin transformed her face, one eyebrow lifting its end, the other remaining static, and the whole of her face seemingly full of incredible charm. She stood up.
 
    "Now how do you mean to send me back?" Skuld asked.
 
    "Oh, I'm coming with you," Var said. "Mimir says things are going to get really complicated and dangerous at your place within the next week, so I'll need to be there to keep an eye on things." She turned to Peorth. "Thanks for the lunch, Yaga-obaasan. See you in two months!" Var turned back around and jumped into the inflatableboat. Skuld grabbed onto the sides as it bounced alarmingly and sank some inches deeper into the melted cheese.
 
    Peorth shut the lower half of the door. Var waved cheerfully and Skuld reluctantly as the hut moved back a little, turned, and then began to move swiftly through the cheese and rise as it did so. Soon the hut was running (on its chicken legs) on the surface of the cheese ocean, and then through the sky as it faded into the distance.
 
    "Yaga-obaasan?!" Skuld said disbelievingly.
 
    "Oh, that's her other personality," Var said. "The one that usually goes to the iter'conventiones, which is how I know her. Let's see... Japan is *that* way." She began to row in the direction she had indicated, while Skuld sat in the back of the inflatable rowboat and wondered when the day had suddenly gotten so very strange.
 

    Skuld sat rather sullenly in the back of the rubber raft that was sailing in an ocean of melted cheese. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at macaroni and cheese in the same way again, she thought.
 
    In the bow of the little boat sat one of her aunts, the goddess Var, who was talking about something or another that had happened since the last time Skuld had been in the Heavens; but Skuld really wasn't paying too much attention. Instead she sat thinking about how Belldandy and Keiichi could have let Var pull that trick on her. While Belldandy was not a target for revenge, Keiichi just might find that Skuld was not the sort of person you wanted mad at you, especially if most of what you like has to do with machines.
 
    "And then Kami-sama said that henceforth, all Gods and Goddesses should dress in chicken outfits, and that we were never to have ice cream again." Var concluded.
 
    Skuld started a bit, "What was that, Var?"
 
    "Skuld, you have not been listening to a word that I have been saying, have you?" Var asked.
 
    Skuld looked around desperately for an excuse. Failing that, she decided to try something that always seemed to work for Washu on Tenchi Muyo; she tried to look cute and innocent.
 
    Var grinned at the Goddess, "Nice try Skuld, but I live with a bunch of cats, remember? That hasn't worked on me for a long time, a couple of millennia at least. Now what was so interesting that you decided that you needed to think about?"
 
    "Ummmmm, how good cookie dough ice cream is?" Skuld suggested.
 
    "Nice try."
 
    Skuld hung her head a bit, "I was thinking on how to get back at Keiichi for him letting you make me think that he and I were in love."
 
    "And?" Var asked raising an eyebrow. Skuld started to blush a bit; she mumbled something under her breath.
 
    "I can't quite hear you, Skuld," the Goddess said. "And I should remind you, that you are a Valkyrja yourself, so I do want an answer."
 
    Skuld blushed a bit more, "I was thinking on how nice it felt being in love," she said in a rush, almost as if she was afraid to say it.
 
    Var smiled. "I thought so, but that does make what is going to happen a bit difficult," she said mysteriously.
 
    Skuld was about to ask what was it that she meant, when the boat bounced into something. Looking over the side, Skuld realized that they had run into the Temple. In fact, their boat was sitting on the roof next to a very startled Keiichi who had decided to check on the tiles for winter.
 
    Var said simply, "Ah, here we are."
 
    Keiichi said to Skuld, "Hello Skuld, nice to see you back."
 
    Skuld remembered that she was still mad at him; unstrapping her holy hammer she declared, "I hate you!" and knocked Keiichi off the roof.
 
    In the living room Belldandy sighed.
 
    "Let us hope that Skuld will be up to the task," a voice said to her.
 
    "I'm sure she will be, Lord," Belldandy replied.
 

    "Skuld?" Keiichi's voice cut through Skuld's day dream.
 
    Blinking, Skuld brought Keiichi's face, with a look of concern of it, into focus. They were still sitting at the table, her cake and tea laid out before them.
 
    "Are you Okay?"
 
    'I hate you,' flashed through Skuld's mind before it cleared. 'How could I hate Keiichi-san, he is my life,' Skuld's heart reminded her mind.
 
    "I just had the weirdest dream," Skuld replied. "I was on a rubber life raft in the middle of a sea of melted cheese."
 
    "How strange."
 
    "And... And..."
 
    "Yes?"
 
    "And I can't remember anything else," Skuld finished.
 
    "Well if you are fine, I'd better go fix the roof before it gets dark. Thank you for the tea and cake. Just relax, I will give you a back massage when I am done with the roof," Keiichi promised.
 
    After Keiichi had left Skuld racked her brain trying to remember her vision but nothing remained of it, replaced by a friendly innocent male voice, "It was nothing, all that matters is how you feel about Keiichi-san."
 
    At the other end of the temple Skuld could hear her older sister Urd cursing the television. Already missing Keiichi-san, and prompted by the male voice, Skuld got up to look for him that is her life.
 
 
    Belldandy stood brooding on the roof of the temple her two sisters occupied here on Midgard. She knew she was not supposed to be here, but like a child picking at a scab, Bell could not help herself. Belldandy did not understand how Skuld could ruin her life by living with that ... that ... MORTAL! Her anger towards Keiichi frightened Belldandy. She who had never been angry or mad at anyone or anything in the universe, had a pathological hatred of the short motorcycle geek who had ruined her sister's life with his selfish wish. Just the sight of him holding Skuld in his arms had sent Belldandy into a berserk rage more than once. Only the timely intervention of her sisters had kept Belldandy from smashing the boy into so many component atoms.
 
    Lost in her pensive mood Belldandy failed to note Keiichi climbing onto the roof. "Good Afternoon, Miss Belldandy," Keiichi greeted his sister-in-law upon seeing her on the temple roof.
 
    Startled at his voice, Belldandy, stammered out a reply, "What are you doing here?"
 
    "What am I doing here?" Keiichi parroted. "I live here. It is nice to see you. It has been a long time since your last visit. Skuld misses you very much."
 
    No matter what Belldandy did to him or what cruel words she screamed at him, Keiichi could never get himself to be mad at his sister-in-law. Keiichi sensed some great loss so deep in the soul of Belldandy that even she seem unaware of it. Keiichi figured that for some reason he reminded her of that ancient painful loss. If she would acknowledge and let go of it, Keiichi theorized, her anger towards him and his union with Skuld would go away.
 
    "I meant here on the roof." Belldandy replied, trying to recover from being startled by Keiichi.
 
    "Everything Okay?" Skuld's sweet voice came floating up from the courtyard before Keiichi could answer, "Darling, please be careful!"
 
    "Your sister Belldandy is here, Honey-Bunch."
 
    "Older Sister?"
 
    With a swing of her ever present Yggdrasil debugger hammer that would have made Sadaharu Oh proud, "DARLING HONEY-BUNCH THIS!" Belldandy screamed in pure rage as she launched Keiichi into low Earth orbit.
 
    As she frantically waved her arms in a magical spell to slow Keiichi's supersonic re-entry to a gentle landing, Skuld screamed, "Older Sister!"
 
    Keiichi landed safely on the ground. Skuld looked up at the roof.
 
    "What was that for, Oneesama?" she asked.
 
    Belldandy stared at the hammer in her hands as if she had never seen it before. Without answering, she jumped from the roof to land lightly outside the temple grounds.
 
    "Your sister has a bit of a temper, doesn't she?" Keiichi ventured.
 
    "Well, she was made an honorary valkyrja. Maybe she's trying to live up to the name."
 
    "An honorary valkyrja?"
 
    "Yes, for coordinating the mechanical aspects -- " Skuld broke off. She could remember the Valkyrjar's leader, Thrud, holding a long blood-red bead on a gold loop out. 'For coordinating the bio-chips in our horses through the Shalf branch of Yggdrasil, enabling us to know our destination and arrive on time, we name you an honorary valkyrja. Tell your big sister to come party with us sometime, you hear?' Absentmindedly she rubbed a spot on her collarbone where, when she wore the golden necklet of her goddess raiment, a long blood-red bead rested.
 
    Skuld smiled. She could not imagine being any happier than she was now. What was the line from that American show's song? "All our dreams of joy / Seem to come true." She ignored the small, nagging feeling in her middle that said :something is wrong. Something is very wrong.:
 
 
    Outside the grounds, Belldandy was croquet-ing a small rock with her hammer. Not that she usually indulged in such behavior. As a matter of fact, the fury coursing through her was frightening in its intensity. It seemed barely natural.
 
    :it isn't,: something said.
 
    :What was that?!:
 
    Nothing answered.
 
    Belldandy sighed. It was silly. Her fury was entirely natural. Some mortal had taken up with her little sister. HER little sister. Her LITTLE sister. What kind of college guy takes up with a girl who ought to be in middle school?
 
    "A dead one, usually," Urd said, stepping out in front of her.
 
    Belldandy blinked. She hadn't realized that she'd spoken aloud.
 
    "But you forget," Urd continued, "that Skuld is a great deal older than she appears."
 
 
    Keiichi and Skuld had sat down on the engawa for a moment. Skuld moved over towards Keiichi, leaning against him. He stiffened for a moment, and then slid an arm around her shoulders. She relaxed.
 
    "Why doesn't your sister approve of me?" she asked.
 
    "It isn't that she doesn't approve of you," Keiichi began.
 
    "Whenever we're close to each other she gives us funny looks. Even when I'm doing something by myself, like cooking, she looks at me oddly. How is that not disapproving of me?"
 
    "Uh," Keiichi began, "Megumi thinks we're -- uh -- " he was bright red by this point -- "and that you're too young."
 
    Skuld's great intellect took only a moment to decipher this. She laughed.
 
    "What is it?" Keiichi asked.
 
    "Is *that* all? It's easily fixed." Skuld stood up. Her normal clothes vanished, to be replaced by her robes as a goddess. She began to chant in a language that Keiichi had never heard before (to his knowledge) and yet seemed strangely familiar.
 
    Haze seemed to gather around her. She blurred and seemed to -- *stretch*? The haze dissipated, and Skuld smiled.
 
    She was now, to Keiichi's best guess, about Megumi's age.
 
    "Gah," Keiichi said intelligently.
 
    Skuld pirouetted. "You like?"
 
    "Ah. Eh."
 
    "I had this form for a while last millennium."
 
    "Had form?"
 
    Skuld sat down next to Keiichi again. "You understand that my domain is the future, and Urd's domain is the past."
 
    "Gah."
 
    "Oneesama, in the present, is the only one who ages like a human. She's born, gets old, dies, and gets born again. She changes a little from lifetime to lifetime, too."
 
    "Ah."
 
    "Urd and I stay the same. We can be whatever age we want. When I wore this, Urd was doing a motherly act. She eventually decided that a decade or so younger was better."
 
    "Urd? *Motherly*? Mrs. Robinson, maybe; but *motherly*?"
 
    "I think she got tired of it."
 
    "Why did you start wearing a younger shape?"
 
    "So people wouldn't be scared of me. They were scared of me, and I didn't like it."
 
    "Why were they scared of you?"
 
    "Because I was smarter than they were. Because I could put together -- " Skuld stopped. She could put together -- what? She ought to know. Why couldn't she remember? Was it food? She was a good cook. Nonsense, who ever was scared of a good cook?
 
 
    Urd and Belldandy had sensed Skuld's shape-change from where they stood talking.
 
    "She... " Belldandy whispered. "For him... she and he..."
 
    Urd hastily wrapped her arms around her younger sister. "Allow the brat enough sense to make her own decisions!"
 
    "But... "
 
    "She'd do the same for you!"
 
    "But she absolutely hates... "
 
    "Hates what?" Urd asked, puzzled.
 
    "I don't remember..." Belldandy whispered. Something within her repeated :this is all wrong. It's not like this.:

     "Well, whatever. Rish said that a whole bunch of the Valkyrjar are coming to talk with me since I can't come talk with them, so we're going out to Roppongi. See you sometime!"
 
    "See you sometime," Belldandy answered. She waved at Urd as her sister left, then noticed the fallen hammer. :this isn't right....:
 
    :All right, what isn't right? I'm Genzai. If timelines diverge, I'm the first to know. What is wrong?:
 
    :everything. Skuld. Keiichi. You. The hammer.:
 
    This was not precisely helpful. In fact, it was not helpful AT ALL. As Genzai-no-megami (Lady of the Present), she should be able to detect wrong lines. That she couldn't meant that something was seriously wrong -- maybe even in Yggdrasil itself.
 
    "Belldandy!"
 
    "Belldandy!"
 
    "Belldandy!"
 
    She turned. Seated on a rock by the road were three diminutive female figures. On the left, a very worried expression was plain on Holy Bell's delicate face. On the right, Gorgeous Rose (her aunt Peorth's messenger) looked extremely ticked off. And between them, Noble Scarlett had Skuld's exact I-didn't-mean-it-it-isn't-my-fault-honest! look on her tiny face.
 
    :she oughtn't to be here...something's really wrong:
 
    Belldandy frowned again. It was a little odd that Noble Scarlett was out without Skuld, but not enough to be producing that gut-churning feeling.
 
 
    Keiichi reluctantly stood up. "I really should get back to fixing the roof, koishii," he said.
 
    Skuld pouted. "Must you?"
 
    "Yes," Keiichi said firmly.
 
    "Well, don't kill yourself," Skuld said, and walked back into the house to make dinner. As she began getting the ingredients out, her other hand was fiddling with a chain around her neck, from which something had once hung -- maybe something like an egg.
 
    The meal was going together perfectly, as always, when the stove picked that moment to die completely.
 
    Skuld looked around for Belldandy. This was Oneesama's department.
 
    Oneesama was nowhere within detection range.
 
    With a muttered 'hrnnf' Skuld put the dinner back in the refrigerator and ran to get Keiichi's toolbox. She looked at the stove speculatively as she hefted a screwdriver in her hand. This couldn't be *too* hard...
 
 
    Belldandy drew a deep breath. "So I'm not really me, and the real me sent you to me to get me to help me and my friends fix this confused timeline."
 
    "That's correct," Holy Bell said.
 
    "But why is it all a mess?"
 
    "*Somebody* unauthorized hacked into Yggdrasil and started squiggling up this reality, and guess who left a hole open for him to sneak into?" Gorgeous Rose snirped.
 
    "I was dreaming of being awakened!" Noble Scarlett snapped. "Since when are you responsible for things you do in a dream? All I wished for was for Skuld to have more power so I could come forth from that egg!"
 
    "Does it matter now?" Belldandy asked. "We need to make the real world happen again."
 
    Gorgeous Rose blinked. "Don't you care about what will happen to you when this world goes pop?"
 
    "No," Belldandy said cheerfully.
 
    "What's important is that nobody goes mad, as they will if this universe is continued," Holy Bell clarified. "The gap between what *was* and what *is* will disorient them."
 
    "So we've got to fix it," Noble Scarlett added. "And we can't expect much help."
 
    "The one who's the most annoyed by all of this is Var," Gorgeous Rose added with a giggle. "Whoever it was bound her out of this one, and she's cursing fit to make Yggdrasil bend in the wind of her imprecations."
 
    "Kami-sama's sent Peorth to find Nath and ask her to fix Yggdrasil," Holy Bell explained, "but we've got to find the cause."
 
    Belldandy nodded. "And the one of us who was the best at debugging was... Skuld!"
 
    Belldandy rushed back towards the temple, the three angels hanging onto her hair.
 
[Mythological Note (and about time, too): Rish is the name of a valkyrja. (The other ones I could remember were Mist, Goll, and Geirahod. Easy choice, right?) Thrud, leader of the valkyrjar, is Thor and Sif's daughter. The Shalf branch refers to the tower of Valashalf (the first part means "slain," beats me *what* "shalf" is but it fits). Nath is the Goddess of Night and one of the Great Old Ones who've been around since before the year dot, when the world was created. She gave birth to Earth, Day, and somebody else. Rind, Mimir's daughter, seems to be her avatari (which makes her also the mother of Vali and Brynhild). For purposes of this story, she BUILT Yggdrasil with the help of her two sisters/otherselves (one of which is Peorth's mother and the Norns' grandmother). She and Var both refer to Belldandy as "Verdhandhi" because they knew her prior incarnation better. Alfar are beings which -- uh, Alfar is *the best* translation I've ever found for Shinma, okay? If anyone is used to different spelling, I spell these names phonetically most of the time, except for two goddesses who are more properly Peortt and Natt.]
 

    A smile of pure joy crossed Skuld's face as the stove instantly glowed into life, at the precise temperature necessary. She hastily put the food on it and started washing her hands off. That had been... it had been... like cooking, with the parts like eggs and the oil like milk, only even BETTER! She couldn't wait to get her hands on another machine. Or even design one herself. Her fingers seemed to know exactly where to go, like something done for so many times that it had become reflex.
 
    She absent-mindedly took the food off the stove at the proper time, turned the stove off, and carried the food out to the table. She had to tell Keiichi. He'd appreciate the help. She knew he would.
 
    Keiichi came in and sat down, gratefully drinking his tea. "That's hard work," he commented.
 
    "I'll help you next time," Skuld said.
 
    "No, no, that's not necessary."
 
    "But I'd like to... and nothing important is going on, anyway."
 
    Keiichi smiled. It was abruptly wiped off his face as both of them heard the sound of running footsteps.
 
    Belldandy burst into the room. "Skuld! We've got an emergency!"
 
 
    Some time later, Skuld and Belldandy were putting the finishing touches on a very odd machine in the bath room. The three messengers were resting on the side after making thousands of tiny connections within the machine. Keiichi sat at the door to hand them spare parts when they asked and look at the machine peculiarly.
 
    "So what does it do?" he asked.
 
    "These run into the bath here," Skuld explained, "and it, together with my own powers over water, should enable us to turn the bath into a remote terminal for Urdavell."
 
    "With Urdavell," Belldandy continued, "we can scan to see where the problem is located and what it's stemming from."
 
    Keiichi blinked. "Powers over water?"
 
    Skuld smiled at him. "I have power over water. I manifest through it, you'll remember. Oneesama's element is metal/air. She usually manifests through mirrors."
 
    "Urd's is fire," Belldandy said. "She was really grateful when they invented television. She says it's a lot easier to manifest through a screen laden with energy than to have to wait around for sheet lightning or the proper sort of reflective flame."
 
    "Wait a moment! How can you have reflective flame?"
 
    "Certain kinds of spells produce it," Skuld said absently as the machine hummed and began gathering power. "Here it comes!"
 
    In a flash, the two goddesses and three angels were gathered around the bath, peering down into dark depths that certainly had not been there a moment before.
 
    :Where is this reality generated from?: Skuld demanded of the pool.
 
    Keiichi came over and looked in. He had to see this.
 
    Deep within the pool, images flickered in and out. Var and her daughter Lofna, arguing over something; a small child, lightalf or perhaps darkalf, watching them. The same child, older now, arguing with a young female youko. Belldandy hovering over Urdavell. The alf child, grown now, seated with some companions around something like a small replica of Yggdrasil (small being relative, here). Belldandy leaning out of a mirror to startle Keiichi, still with the phone in his hand. The alf, a mocking smile on his face as he backhanded Marller on her cheek. Skuld, rising out of Keiichi's bathwater, scaring the poor human. The alf, playing with images, of Var, of her sister, of Nath, and finally of Belldandy and Skuld's grandmother. Skuld, on the engawa of the temple, screaming her wish to the stormy sky. The alf, within Yggdrasil's halls, a smile on his face as if he was playing some particularly fun game.
 
    "What... " Keiichi said softly.
 
    "He's one of the Free Quarantined Alfar," Holy Bell said equally softly. "They like to play games."
 
    "He decided to interfere with Skuld's destiny, though," Noble Scarlett said. "They're let do as they please as long as they *don't* interfere with the gods or demons. Even if they chose never to serve, as we did, and never to have the possibility of being raised to their ranks, that doesn't mean they're allowed to annoy them."
 
    "All gods and demons trace their descent from alfar," Gorgeous Rose put in. "They can create us, too, but we aren't bound to do their bidding like mortals or ordinary immortals. In an odd way, we're their children."
 
    The three messengers went back to looking at the Urdavell terminal as Belldandy posed the next question.
 
    :Who's maintaining it, and who's the key?:
 
    The darkness flickered wildly for a moment, and then returned, apparently, to its normal state. All that could be seen in it was the reflection of Skuld's face.
 
    "Wonderful, it's busted," Skuld said. "Where's Urd when she could possibly be of use for once?"
 
 
    The owner of a small bar in the Roppongi district of Tokyo was not having a very good day. A whole pack of gaijin women had more or less taken over his bar, and were stretched out over most of the available space drinking everything he had. Most of them were blonde, but there were a couple brunettes and one with silver hair. A bunch of them had yelled for kvass, and he had regretfully told them that he had none of that in stock.
 
    "No kvass?!" one of them had said. "How can you call this dump a bar if there's no kvass?"
 
    Her companions had hastily muttered something into her ear, and she had started drinking her way through the alphabet.
 
    Now the phone was ringing, and one of his best customers was having an argument with a young woman who'd been in there a time or two before. As the bartender picked up the phone, his customer stalked out, leaving the short-haired young woman standing there shaking.
 
    "Hey, Megumi!" the silver-haired woman called. "What's up?"
 
    "My date just dumped me with no way to get home," Megumi said angrily. "Could you give me a lift home, Urd?"
 
    "Sure," Urd said. "C'm'over and party with us."
 
    Megumi stepped over.
 
    The bartender leaned forward.
 
    "Miss Urd?" he called.
 
    "Yes?" Urd said.
 
    "Telephone for you."
 
    Urd stalked over and picked up the phone. Her eyes widened. "Yes. WHAT?!! I see. Yes. I'll be there."
 
    She slammed the phone down. "That was my double-grandmother," she said.
 
    "What's a double-grandmother?" Megumi hissed to the nearest valkyrja.
 
    "She's Urd's mother's mother, as Heid, and Urd's father's mother, as the Supreme of Three Lives." Megumi blinked.
 
    "Anyway," Urd continued, "something's going on with my sisters and one of the JSQC, and I need to get back there AT ONCE."
 
    Rish, a captain of valkyrjar, stood. "The Quarantined Alfar seem to be getting too big for their boots," she said. "We're in it with you. Besides, your friend needs a ride home."
 
    "So..." Urd said, her voice trailing off.
 
    "WE RIDE!" the Valkyrjar yelled. They boiled out of the door, throwing a bag behind them that clinked as it hit the table. The bartender hastily opened it and discovered large, irregularly round, gold coins. He choked.
 
    In the parking lot, a number of silvery-white motorcycles were parked next to each other. Rish invited Megumi to ride pillion with her, and Urd got a ride with some other valkyrja.
 
    "Nice motorcycles," Megumi said. "They look like they'd do well on a racetrack."
 
    Rish grinned. "These aren't like anything you've ever ridden."
 
    Then the Valkyrjar started their Ride. Rish was right. It was like *nothing* she'd ever ridden before. It seemed to bunch itself under her, then spring forward, going at least a hundred miles an hour. The familiar streets of Tokyo blurred around them; then all the valkyrjar were riding through an odd landscape of colors, jagged fractals, wide swaths of watercolor, clouds that appeared and disappeared...
 
    "*Where are we*?" Megumi screamed over the thunder of their riding.
 
    "Between the worlds!" Urd yelled back.
 
    Then it blurred again and they were in front of the temple, coming smoothly to a stop.
 
    Urd ran in. Megumi followed, pausing once to throw back at Rish, "Tell me where I can get one of those, okay?" before charging into the temple herself.
 
    She followed Urd into the bath room, where everyone seemed to be crouched around the bathtub.
 
    "This thing's broken," Skuld explained.
 
    Megumi looked down into the bathtub. It was much deeper and darker than normal, and although Skuld was reflected in it, nobody else was.
 
    Wait a moment! Skuld was -- Skuld was --
 
    "I grew," Skuld explained.
 
    "Really, Skuld," Urd complained. "You say Urdavell's malfunctioning every time it shows a picture of you? Well, come to think of it, that's probably accurate..."
 
    "It claims *I'm* the one maintaining this alternate universe!" Skuld snapped.
 
    "I think you are," Noble Scarlett put in.
 
    "Remember what happened the *last* time you interfered in my business?" Skuld threw at her, then paused. When had Noble Scarlett ever interfered in her business?
 
    "It seems reasonable," Belldandy said. "I think he used one of your wishes."
 
    "Wishes?" Skuld asked. "The only wish I had was for you to accept me and Keiichi."
 
    For a moment, Belldandy glared. Then, looking at her little sister, her face softened, and she said "That one was not granted. It must have been an earlier wish."
 
    "Well, I don't remember it!"
 
    "Of course not," Urd said. "That's *my* domain." She leaned over and queried Urdavell. Then she straightened.
 
    "It was the wish that got you Keiichi," she said, giving Skuld one of her rare (in that direction, at least) sympathetic looks.
 
    "You're lying," Skuld said hollowly.
 
    "No, I'm not."
 
    "Keiichi... "
 
    Keiichi put an arm around Skuld's shoulders. "It'll be all right," he said. "I promised... I promised... " his brow furrowed as he tried to remember *what* he had promised.
 
    "It'll take an Ultimate Magical Circle," Urd said. "You'll need to help."
 
    "NO!" Skuld yelled.
 
    She ran out of the room, into her own room. Picking up a sweater she was knitting for Keiichi, she began to cry silently into it.
 
    She heard quiet steps entering. "Go away," she snuffled into the sweater.
 
    "No," Belldandy said. She sat down next to Skuld and held her little sister in her arms.
 
    "I don't want this to be destroyed," Skuld said.
 
    "But the people will all start going insane," Belldandy pointed out. "Including Keiichi. And you know the Free Alfar aren't supposed to interfere in the affairs of the gods."
 
    "The Free Alfar aren't so bad," Skuld said. "One of them's on my mailing list. He makes all these superspy gadgets, and he complains that agent 007 keeps trashing them."
 
    "As a group, they're not so bad," Belldandy said. "But this one apparently is. At least, he's doing bad things."
 
    "But -- " Skuld cried. "If I destroy this pocket universe, I might lose Keiichi!"
 
    At that moment, the phone rang.
 
    "Hello, Morisato residence," Belldandy said into it.
 
    She stiffened for a moment, then handed it to Skuld. "It's Lady Nath," she said.
 
    "Hello?" Skuld sniffled into the phone.
 
    "Hello, Skuld-chan. What's this about your not wanting to get rid of this bug? You're supposed to help keep MY creation free of little problems."
 
    "I don't want to lose Keiichi! Can you promise that I'll still have him if we take this pocket out?"
 
    Nath took a deep breath. "No."
 
    "Then... then... then..."
 
    "I swear, Skuld-chan, you're acting worse than my avatari-daughter!"
 
    "Which?" Skuld asked nastily. "The valkyrja or the space pirate?"
 
    Nath sighed. "They're the *same person* reincarnated," she said in a tone denoting great patience for the slow-minded. "Same deal with Sigurd, Gudrun, and Sigrun. It must be a great trial to your grandmother that two of her granddaughters turned out something like me and the other one like our mutual sister."

    "Urd and I are not alike!"
 
    "No, Skuld-chan. Urd's like me personality-wise. You're like me intelligence-wise; you should know enough to make the right decision."
 
    Skuld muttered curses at her great-aunt for a while.
 
    "Get your courtesy-aunt Var to teach you how to curse properly one of these days," Nath said cheerfully. "There's a certain rhythm that you're lacking."
 
    Skuld gave the phone a dirty look.
 
    "I saw that, Skuld-chan," Nath told her. "If this wrong timeline goes on much longer, Keiichi will go insane. The future's your domain, Mirai-no-megami. Check it yourself if you won't believe the greatest genius in the Nine Worlds."
 
    "Greatest pain in the nine worlds, you mean," Skuld muttered as she Looked ahead.
 
    And Saw.
 
    "It'll all crumble," she whispered.
 
    "You're the only one who's *really* there," Nath told her. "Everyone else is just shards of themselves. And those shards will drive their real selves insane too.."
 
    "You have it easy," Skuld said angrily. "What have you ever dealt with that you couldn't handle?"
 
    Nath drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Oh, child, don't ask me that.." she said.
 
    "Nath? NATH!"
 
    She'd hung up.
 
    Sometime during the conversation, Belldandy had returned to embracing Skuld.
 
    "Skuld, I know it's hard... " she began.
 
    "Oneesama! All you want is for Keiichi and I to break up! That's why you're going along with this!"
 
    "You're overwrought," Belldandy said. Skuld pounded on her older sister with her fists. Belldandy simply sat there, crooning softly under her breath.
 
    "All I want is to be loved!" Skuld sobbed.
 
    "By caging it?" Belldandy inquired.
 
    Images flickered wildly through Skuld's mind for a moment. Keiichi, smiling as she brought him dinner.Keiichi, winning a race. Keiichi, trying to explain something to her on the engawa over a newly remade bike. Oneesama, working with her in the Heavens. Herself, trying to get Oneesama out of somewhere, to *make* her come with her. Keiichi, possessed by the Lord of Terror as Oneesama stared in horror. Keiichi, synthesizing moon rocks. Herself, crying "Can't she see that my happiness *is* being with you?!" Oneesama, beginning ascension, as Keiichi ran wildly towards her. Her courtesy-aunt Var, clapping as she sat with perfect self-possession on the threshold of an Izbushka floating on a sea of melted cheese...
 
    Skuld straightened. She angrily wiped her eyes. "Okay!" she said. "I'll do it!"
 
 
    It seemed that while she'd been going through an emotional crisis, Urd and the valkyrjar had begun drawing the Ultimate Magical Circle. Apparently they'd all volunteered to help.
 
    "I don't quite understand what's going on," Keiichi was saying from the engawa as Skuld and Belldandy came outside, "but I'll help in any way I can."
 
    "That goes double for me!" Megumi chimed in.
 
    "Okay," Noble Scarlett told them. She was apparently directing the operation. 'Get in the middle here. Don't mess up any of the diagrams. Now, Lady Valkyrjar, take your places in the outer ring."
 
    In less time than it would take to describe, the circle was drawn. The valkyrjar stood more or less in a ring. In the inner circle, Urd, Belldandy, Skuld, Keiichi, and Megumi stood. Holy Bell was perched on Belldandy's shoulder, and Noble Scarlett on Skuld's. Gorgeous Rose sat on Keiichi and Megumi's joined hands, "feeding" them their part. Skuld cleared a suddenly dry throat, gave Keiichi one long look as if to memorize every aspect of his face, and began.
 
    "In the name of the The Goddesses, Past, Present, and Future -- "
 
    "I command you to burn like the flame -- " Urd took up her part.
 
    "Run like the wind -- " Belldandy and Holy Bell added.
 
    "Surge like the water -- " Skuld and Noble Scarlett put in.
 
    "And accept like the earth," the three goddesses and two angels said in unison with Keiichi, Megumi, and Gorgeous Rose.
 
    "Awaken, Ultimate Magical Circle of Protection!" Skuld screamed.
 
    The world came apart.
 
 
    Skuld blinked. It was just after sunset. She was standing in an Ultimate Magical Circle. Oneesama, her messenger Holy Bell on her shoulder, was peering at her anxiously. Keiichi was sitting on the ground, shaking his head as if to clear it of something. Urd was also looking at Skuld. Skuld wondered what was wrong with her or her outfit.
 
    Oh, the chain from which Noble Scarlett's egg hung had gotten twisted around somehow, so that the egg was now sitting on her shoulder. Skuld fixed that.
 
    Noble Scarlett's egg... Keiichi...
 
    Memory hit Skuld rather like a ton of bricks. If Oneesama had not caught her, she would have undoubtedly fallen. Urd was dividing her glances between Skuld and something making noise off to one side.
 
    "Tally-ho!" a yell came from the noise. Skuld risked a glance and saw Var, Gorgeous Rose, Megumi, and half the Valkyrjar in hot pursuit of *something* all over the temple grounds. "Tally-ho!" Rish yelled again.
 
    "Tally-ho?" Skuld asked.
 
    "It comes from a celebrated anecdote about an American fox hunting in England," Urd explained. "He asks his host how he did, afterwards, and his host says, 'Mostly you did fine, but you're supposed to say "Tally-ho!" when you see the fox, NOT "There goes the son-of-a-b___!"'"She left to join in the chase.
 
    Var was yelling, waving her stick, "How dare you meddle with MY work! I'm going to mash you up and feed you to my partners! What the cats don't eat, the tribbles WILL!"
 
    The alf made an oddly whimpering sound as he desperately tried to shift or teleport away and found he could not. "It was only a joke -- " he called.
 
    "IT WASN'T FUNNY!" Skuld yelled.
 
    "Are you all right?" Belldandy asked her.
 
    "Yes," Skuld said. She looked at Keiichi, who was blinking and looking at her in a puzzled fashion. He was nice enough -- actually, he probably wasn't so bad for Oneesama, after all -- but her desperate need for him was completely gone, like a bubble's iridescence after it's popped. "Yes," she repeated more firmly. Then she grabbed her hammer and joined in the chase.
 
 
    Some time later, when it was finally pretty dark, they finally grabbed him.
 
    "It was only a joke," he said.
 
    "Nobody's laughing," Urd pointed out.
 
    "My associates will think it was funny," he said.
 
    "No, they won't," Skuld told him. "You're not supposed to interfere with the gods or demons."
 
    "Her avatari was very rude to me," he said, pointing to Var. "She liked Himiko better."
 
    "Himiko," Var said, "did not try to hurt people and things under MY protection."
 
    "You're as arrogant as Nath," he complained.
 
    "Thank you," Var said.
 
    "Why should we have to pay attention to your rules anyway?" he said.
 
    "You *are* let into the Nine Worlds on quarantine," Belldandy reminded him. "You might have gotten all your friends under tighter quarantine, or even thrown out of this system. There are few enough that you're let into."
 
    "Don't be silly," he said. "What can bind *us*?"
 
    "My, my, there *have* been changes," Var said. "I'm also Syn, Lady of Justice, if you recall. Perhaps I should verify that your opinions are held by the rest of the Jiyuu Shinma Quarantine Con-- "
 
    "DON'T!" the alf yelped as she drew a cordless phone from her purse.
 
    "Oh," Skuld said, "I see they're not."
 
    "I move we send him to one of his associates," Urd said. "What's your friend's address, Skuld?"
 
    "Why would I want to do that to -- well, he *did* pay absolutely no attention to my design for an indestructible underwater wristwatch radio, and that 007 person promptly ruined his prototype, as I could have told him would happen... " Skuld trailed off.
 
    "Sounds good to *me*," Var said, rolling the alf into a package and wrapping him with brown paper and string. Megumi contributed eight stamps, and Var neatly wrote on the largest flat side of the package, according to Skuld's dictation, 'Q, c/o M-5, Military Intelligence, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.'
 
    "Air mail, right?" Belldandy said. She concentrated for a moment, and the package lifted about fifty feet into the air, then shot off in a direction slightly north of true west.
 
    Rish pulled Skuld off a small distance and said, "I have an assignment for you, okay?"
 
    "Assignment?" Skuld asked, watching Keiichi's hand shyly snake out to take hold of Belldandy's. Somehow, it didn't make her as angry as it would have just that afternoon, when she was designing a new type of Mega Skuld Bomb.
 
    "What's that girl's name?" Rish asked, pointing.
 
    "Morisato Megumi," Skuld answered.
 
    "Since you're a honorary valkyrja, plus you're on the spot, I'd like you to evaluate this Megumi of line Morisato."
 
    "Evaluate?" Skuld asked.
 
    "It's been a long time since a human joined the Valkyrjar... it's about time we scouted out new candidates. See if she's fit to be asked to join, will you?"
 
    A very dumbfounded Skuld nodded.
 
    Rish went over to join the rest of the valkyrjar, nearly all of whom had mounted their steeds. Some of them had remained motorcycles, some had shifted with that metallic fluidity into silvery-white equines, and a few had taken on even stranger forms. Rish slung a leg over hers and called to Urd, "We'll fix KCTS as soon as we can. Come paint the town red *properly* with us sometime!"
 
    "Will do!" Urd yelled back as the valkyrjar Rode off.
 
    "Can I stay here tonight?" Megumi asked Keiichi.
 
    "Sure," Keiichi told her. "That is, if it won't be too much bother for you..."
 
    "No, of course not," Belldandy reassured him.
 
    "I'll sleep on the floor if you're out of bedding," Var said cheerfully, the three interlinked stars on her forehead catching the faint starlight visible from Tokyo.
 
    "You're still here?" Skuld said, shocked. "You said you needed to come home with me because it was going to get really complicated and dangerous, but that's already happened."
 
    "I said," Var corrected cheerfully, "that Mimir foresaw that a lot of really complicated and dangerous things were going to happen here within the next week. This makes one down and, let's see, how many more to go?" Her lopsided grin was on full force again.
 
    Skuld let her head fall against her raised palm. What was going to happen next?