Disclaimer: AMG! Is not mine.
Amants: Chapter 2
Love Yourself
The culinary arts classroom at Nekomi Tech, so busy during the day, was eerily quiet at night. Ovens, counters and sinks sat grouped together throughout the room, giving each student their own workstation.
Disturbing the quiet scene, one of the ovens shook ever so slightly. Then again.
Finally, several loud bangs pierced the darkness, and the oven door flew open, disgorging smoke and two figures covered in soot.
Frigga hit the floor hard, coughing and blinking the soot out of her eyes. Behind her, Metheus rolled drunkenly from the stove onto the floor. She took several deep breaths and rolled onto her back, trying to sit up without using her shoulder.
"We have escaped," she announced with a cough. "Splendid."
Metheus coughed and struggled to remain conscious. His wound was already worsening. Hellrider weapons were designed with a particularly wicked feature that prevented wounds from closing and accelerated infection.
"Where are we?" he croaked.
"Earth," she replied. "Although... I know not where..."
"Well, that doesn't help us," he pointed out weakly.
"There was no time to zero in on the correct oven," she explained defensively. "But, at the very least, I think I managed to get to the right city."
"Right for what?"
"My daughters live here," she told him. "They can help us."
Metheus pushed out with his legs and managed to sit with his back to one of the pantries.
"Is it possible for them to track us here?" she asked pointedly.
He closed his eye for a moment and shook his head. "They'll know the realm, and they will certainly send demons to track us, but they won't know precisely where we are."
She regarded him worriedly. "How is thy wound?"
"Bad enough," he croaked. "Yours?"
"I will live."
"You should hurry," he rasped quietly, starting to lose consciousness again. "Your powers will return now that you're away from Hell. Use this time to escape."
"I will do no such thing," she argued. "I'll find my daughters and bring back help." She turned and found the door on the other side of the room. Nodding in satisfaction, she checked the cabinets and found a cup which she filled at one of the sinks. She knelt next to him and held it to his lips. "Drink," she ordered. "I will return as quickly as I can."
"Don't waste your time," he told her. "They will mobilize and come for you."
"Metheus," she said quietly. "You have saved my life, and for that I owe you mine. I will return with help." She stood and turned to go.
"Wynn."
She turned back. "Your pardon?"
His eye locked onto hers, and he smiled softly. "'Metheus' was my cover," he explained. "My name is Wynn."
She smiled back. "I will not be gone long, Wynn," she said. Then, turning, she disappeared through the doorway, leaving the other god to pass out on the floor.
888
They had spent the entire day not quite sure what to say or think to one another. As a result, they now found themselves staring across the table at one another, each with a look like that of a deer caught in the headlights of a car. Sitting on a shelf nearby, a clock ticked, the only sound in the room.
Finally, Keiichi spoke.
"Um... Are you doing it now?" he asked her.
"No," Belldandy replied. "Are you?"
"No..."
Silence returned.
After a few moments of fidgeting, he spoke up again. "Look, this is stupid," he announced. "There's nothing we can do about it. It is what it is. We shouldn't let it ruin our evening."
Belldandy smiled. "Hai!"
"So..." he said.
"So..." she replied.
Why is this so damn awkward? he thought. She's always been able to read my mind. Why is such a big deal now?
She started slightly and blushed. I've never been able to read your thoughts like a book, Keiichi san. Just your emotions.
Oh, crap! I thought that out loud!
Gomen! I didn't mean to hear it!
I can't hide my own thoughts! How am I supposed to... Oh, jeez! Stop thinking, Keiichi! She can hear you!
No, I'm not listening. Honestly... Oh, wait...
"For god's sake!" he cried. "Let's just talk! Out loud!"
"Hai!" she agreed quickly.
Silence.
"So... when I asked Peorth about this, she gave me a long, metaphysical explanation... Could you break it down for me?" he asked. "I mean... How does this work?"
If it is what I... Oh, sorry... "If it is what I think it is, we're going to go through four levels of escalation before epiphany," Belldandy said. "We're in the first stage now, where we can read one another's conscious thoughts. Stage two is when we can sense each other's emotions..."
"You mean like you already do with me?"
"No," she said. "I can sense and identify your emotional state. What we'll be doing is actually feeling the emotions. So if, for instance, you become angry at someone, I would feel that and become angry as well."
So if I were to get...SHUT UP, KEIICHI! he thought.
Belldandy looked at him in confusion.
"Sorry," he said. "Please go on."
"The third stage will give us access to each other's memories," she said. "The fourth, our dreams. And then... epiphany."
"And epiphany..."
"For a moment, we'll be one person," she told him. "It only lasts a moment, though."
He nodded. "Okay... This doesn't sound so bad."
Except for when you see... Silence, Belldandy!
He looked at her quickly. "Huh?" he asked.
"What?" she asked.
"You were thinking..."
She suddenly whipped her head around to look at the clock. "Gomen! It's time to make dinner!" With that, she rushed into the other room, leaving Keiichi thoroughly confused.
888
Her shoulder throbbed painfully as she trudged up the hill, following the sidewalk. Passers by stared, drawn to her odd clothing, but didn't speak to her.
When Frigga reached the top, she stopped to rest, looking down at the wound on her shoulder. Demon blasts were notoriously difficult to heal, and nearly impossible to do so without the help of another god. Hers was already starting to fester physically and spiritually.
She held her hand to her ear and listened for her daughters' heartbeats. They were closer now.
The goddess gave herself another minute before slogging forward again. Her legs felt like wet cardboard, but she pushed forward. Finally, after another quarter-mile, she fell forward against a streetlight, too weak to go on.
"Providence," she whispered. "Providence, help me," she begged.
She blinked as a bright light suddenly filled her vision. Lifting her hand to block it out, she cried out and dropped it as the pain in her shoulder reminded her of its wound.
The light was stationary now, sitting before her.
"Um... Hello?" a female voice asked. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"
Frigga smiled and felt the world darken around her. "Urd," she gasped. "Belldandy..."
Then she collapsed to the sidewalk.
Megumi switched off the headlight on her motorcycle and dismounted.
"Oh, jeez," she muttered as she knelt next to the woman.
888
"Hey! Guys!" Megumi grunted as she trudged into the house, Frigga's arm over her shoulder and only half conscious. "Little help!" she called.
Keiichi found her first. "What's going on?" he asked, rushing to help her carry the woman.
"Who's hurt?" Belldandy asked, rushing into the room. She saw who the siblings were carrying and gasped. "Moder?!"
"Moder?" Keiichi asked with a blink.
Belldandy's thoughts explained it all in a flash of a second.
She's our mother, Frigga, the Almighty's wife. She's a seer.
"Oh," Keiichi replied vocally.
Megumi looked between them in puzzlement. "Huh?"
Keiichi san, put her on my futon!
"Right!" He started pulling the goddess toward Belldandy's room.
Just as Frigga's head hit the pillow, Urd poked her head into the room. "Hey, what's going on?"
Belldandy turned to her, her face a mask of concern. "Moder's here! She's hurt!"
Urd knelt next to the woman. Frigga's head was lolling from side to side in pain. The Norn's fingers gently traced over the burnt area of her shoulder.
"This is from a demonic blast," Urd said quietly.
"I'm sorry, a what?" Megumi asked. "Was she shot? Someone shot your mom?!"
Keiichi looked to Megumi. "Um... Megumi, we're going to need some medical supplies... um..."
Alcohol, Belldandy supplied. And bandages.
"Alcohol and bandages," Keiichi parroted vocally. "Could you run to the store?"
"But if she's been shot, she should go to the hospital!" Megumi argued.
"She hasn't been shot," Urd told her. "By a gun, anyway," she added in a murmur. "We can bandage this up."
Megumi sighed and shrugged. "Okay. If you say so." She turned and left the room.
Once she was out of earshot, Belldandy turned to Urd. "A demonic blast?"
Urd nodded and held her glowing hands over the wound. "They're tuned to encourage spiritual festering. Makes them harder to heal."
Before she could get into the real work of sealing Frigga's wound, the queen snatched Urd's wrist with her good hand.
"You have to help him, girls," she gasped out.
"Who, Moder?" Belldandy asked. "What happened to you?"
"The god who helped me," she said quickly. "He's... he's in a big room with many ovens and sinks..."
"Like a restaurant?" Keiichi asked.
"There... there was a name on the door," Frigga continued. "'Matsuhara?'"
Belldandy felt a surge of awareness in Keiichi and turned to him. What is it?
"There's Professor Matsuhara, the culinary arts teacher at the school," Keiichi told her.
"That must be it," Urd agreed.
Before they could confirm this with Frigga, the goddess had passed out again.
"You two go check it out," Urd told them, once again setting out to heal her stepmother. "I'll help her."
888
Normally, it was difficult to hold a conversation in the Beemer if it was going faster than a few miles per hour, but when you didn't have to rely on your mouth or ears, it was surprisingly easy.
Will she be okay? he asked her.
Hai, the wound didn't appear too serious, and Urd is quite adept at healing.
Keiichi chewed on that as he turned down a side street. Heh, I guess this thing has its advantages, huh?
She didn't answer.
You're really upset at all this, aren't you? he asked.
She glanced over at him. A person's most intimate thoughts should be their own to share. I'm quite upset that my sister and Peorth would take that right away from us.
He stared down at her for several moments. I'm glad.
"What?" she asked quickly out loud.
Damn! I keep thinking things I don't mean for you to hear. What I mean is that I'm glad you feel that way.
Why?
For a moment, he felt a flash of confusion, as if unsure of why he even felt the way he did. He wondered if stage two was setting in.
Honestly? I expected you to be fine with the whole situation. To just shrug it off or see it in some great, wonderful light. The fact that you feel the way you do makes me feel better about feeling that way too.
She blinked at him. Really?
He nodded, but didn't reply. They were pulling into the school parking lot.
888
He had passed out, his back resting against the cupboard. His wound throbbed as it festered from the inside out, troubling his sleep, but he didn't care.
It was over.
One way or the other, the mission he had been sent on all those centuries ago was finished. He had done his part. If he died here, it didn't matter. Frigga was safe.
It didn't matter.
As his slumber brought these thoughts in and out of focus, there was no room left in his mind to detect the thing that silently approached him. He didn't feel the soft movement of air generated by its pitch black bat-like wings or its breath on his cheek as it brought its jaws to within an inch of his face.
He didn't hear it hiss at him, didn't see it raise its clawed hand over his face.
The creature regarded him as it opened and closed its jaws in thought. Its grey eyes betrayed its intelligence. It was no ordinary monster.
Its head shot up as the doorknob turned and the door opened. It hissed.
Keiichi hit the light switch and watched as the fluorescent lights flooded the room, revealing the wounded god nearby.
"He's over here," Keiichi said. Belldandy followed quickly inside.
There was no monster in sight, but from its hiding place, it watched them...
And growled.
888
Once Frigga's wound was closed and the rot cleaned away, Urd left her in Belldandy's room to sleep. Stepping out of the bedroom, she walked through the house toward the kitchen. She heard the front door open and close and watched Peorth enter, patting her mouth with her hand in a drawn our yawn.
"So, how are the love birds?" she asked with a grin.
"That's kind of on hold," Urd told her. "We might have a problem." She quickly explained how Megumi had found Frigga wounded by a demonic blast and how Keiichi and Belldandy were out searching for the god that had apparently helped her.
"Will she be all right?" Peorth asked.
Urd nodded. "I closed and healed the wound. She's sleeping now."
"Poor thing," the dark haired woman sympathized. "Do you think trouble's coming?"
"Maybe," Urd sighed.
Peorth nodded and started for the door. "Skuld is in the garage working on something with Banpei. I'll let them know to be careful."
"Don't go far, okay?" Urd asked. "We might need you, oh great goddess first class." She performed this last part with an exaggerated bow.
"Well, of course you'll need me," Peorth told her with a wave. "I'll be nearby."
Urd smiled as the other goddess walked out. It couldn't have been more than a minute later that she heard Belldandy's voice calling out from the bathroom.
"Neesan! We need your help!"
Urd rushed to the bathroom and found Belldandy emerging from the mirror, dragging something behind her. By the time her sister had fully emerged from the mirror, Urd could make out what it was. It was a blond man in dark, black and grey robes. A patch covered his right eye, nearly obscuring the demonic sigils on his face.
A million questions popped into her head, but she shelved them for the moment and reached out to help her sister. She supported the demon's back while Belldandy pulled his arms.
"Push, Keiichi!" Belldandy called.
In response, the demon came tumbling out of the mirror. The blue light emitted by the mirror started to dim, but Belldandy quickly reached through it and grabbed something, pulling as hard as she could. A moment later, Keiichi fell out of the mirror onto the floor.
"Is this him?" Urd asked.
"We think so," Belldandy replied, kneeling next to the man. "His wounds are severe. Keiichi san, Neesan, help me get him into the light."
The three lifted Wynn up and carried him into the kitchen, placing him gingerly onto the table. Belldandy opened his shirt, revealing the entry and exit wounds just above the hips.
"Hey, what's going on?" Peorth called as she entered the house and noticed the commotion in the kitchen.
Belldandy looked up as the other goddess approached. "Peorth san! Good! Bring me that bowl of water on the counter. Neesan, we'll need Farragut's Extract to draw out the rot."
Peorth picked up the water as Belldandy continued issuing orders like an ER nurse. As she came closer, she could see the right side of the man's face, the patch obscuring most of it. It wasn't until she nearly three feet away that she could see the other side.
She froze.
The bowl slipped from her rapidly numbing fingers toward the linoleum floor. In the brief second between the bowl beginning its fall and it striking the ground, every moment of every memory from a thousand years ago came rushing out of her long-term memory as if it happened only a moment ago.
The glass bowl hit the floor and shattered. The other two goddesses and the mortal looked up at her.
Belldandy's eyes went wide at the sight of her friend. Peorth was as white as a sheet. "Peorth san? Are you all right?"
Peorth said nothing.
"Peorth san?"
When the change came, it was instantaneous. One moment Peorth was rooted, frozen to the spot, the next she had pushed Urd out of her way as she rushed to the man on the table, tears streaming from her eyes as she babbled incoherently in French.
"JE SUIS DESOLE! J'AI MENTI!" she sobbed, clinging a the front of his robes. "JE T'AIME! JE T'AIME! JE SUIS DESOLE! JE SUIS DESOLE!"
"Peorth!" Urd cried, pulling the goddess off the man. "What are you doing?!"
The goddess' blubbering degenerated into a soulful wail that threatened to rend Belldandy's heart. Finally, using all of her strength, the elder Norn managed to pry Peorth off the man and drag her into another room.
Belldandy and Keiichi stood there in shock as Peorth's wailing reached for them through the walls.
"J'AI MENTIIIIII!" they heard her scream one last time.
They looked at one another in utter astonishment. They had never seen Peorth succumb to emotion like that.
Should we go check on her? Keiichi asked.
Belldandy hesitated for a moment, but the needs of the wounded man below her took priority.
Neesan will deal with it.
888
It was like trying to wrestle Slepnir into his paddock in Heaven. Peorth was crazed, blubbering nonsense as she struggled against Urd, who was using every bit of her strength to move her further and further into the bedroom.
Finally, growing weary of the contest, Urd channeled a good deal of power into her slapping hand and let fly!
Peorth's back struck the far corner of the room and fell to the floor. Urd rubbed her hand as the other goddess sat on the floor, breathing as if she had just run a marathon. She stared down at the floor, sobs racking her chest.
"What in the Almighty's name was all that?" Urd asked firmly.
The other love goddess seemed to come more to her senses, covering her eyes with her hand in shame as she wept.
"Peorth?"
"Will he live?" she asked suddenly and, more importantly, lucidly.
Urd had only managed to get a quick look at the demon before Peorth went nuts, but based on what she saw...
"Yeah," Urd told her. "He'll be fine."
Peorth let out a deeply held breath. "Thank you, Almighty," she whispered.
"Look, what's with you and that demon?" Urd demanded, tired of the runaround. When Belldandy was done treating him she could come in here and feed Peorth cookies and tea and hold her hand to her heart's content, but Urd wasn't quite as patient.
"He's not a demon!" Peorth hissed at her. She calmed down a moment later and looked away. "His name is Wynn," she finally said.
Urd folded her arms over her chest. She could tell by the way Peorth said his name just who he was. "By chance, is this the one god you loved with a passion and intensity that a pill-peddling trollop like me could never understand?"
Peorth looked down at the floor, ashamed of the words but standing by them. "Oui."
Urd stepped forward and sat down next to her. "I assume you weren't expecting to see him..."
"I thought he was dead," Peorth whispered hauntingly. She took a breath and considered how much she should say. Urd was a love goddess. If anyone was going to understand, it was her. She had to tell someone. Someone else had to understand what she was going through and why.
"He was a conscript during the Second War Against God," Peorth told her. "And I was still a student, about to choose my role." She smiled. "We were so young, was it really that long ago?"
"So what happened?" Urd asked.
"The typical young lovers stuff," she replied with a half smile. "We had this stupid idea that after the war was over, we'd apply for a guardianship. We'd live in one of the primordial realms where sentient life hadn't developed and just be alone together. And, of course, we talked about marriage... All of it after the war ended."
She took a breath. "A few weeks before the armistice, he came to see me. They had given him a special furlough. And... he told me that they had asked him to be part of a special mission... one that would keep us apart for years... even centuries."
Peorth looked down at the ground and bled a little more. "Spoiled, self-centered bitch that I was back then, I demanded to know how he could think of doing something like that." She looked up at Urd. "The war was almost over! We had all but won! We were this close to fulfilling all of those stupid adolescent hormone-induced fantasies we had talked about." She looked down again in shame. "I thought... I thought he was using it as a way of getting out of his promises. That he had said them to get into my bed."
She paused for so long, Urd thought that was how she was ending the story, but Peorth had more, she just wasn't sure how to say it without bursting into tears.
But weep she did as she went on.
"I told him to get out," she cried. "I cursed him for a coward and told him I wouldn't love a man who would go back on his word. And you know the worst part, cheri? I refused to look at him. I turned my head away as he stood there, shocked and hurt, and I refused to look at him while he walked out the door. I thought he'd change his mind, come back, or that the war would be won and he'd come crawling back home, but instead it was the last time I'd ever see him, and I wouldn't even look at his face!"
She tried vainly to wipe her eyes. "Two weeks later, the war ended. The conscripts came home. And he wasn't with them. When the full impact of what I had done finally hit me, I went numb, totally numb. I couldn't feel anything. I guess it was a way of protecting me from myself, because weeks later, weeks later, when I finally started to feel again, I started to cry, and I couldn't stop. I just couldn't stop crying. Half of my soul had gone to his death thinking that I had stopped loving him, that I thought he was..."
The goddess couldn't take any more, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears falling into her lap.
Urd really wished Belldandy was here right now. She was better at the sympathy thing. Urd was good at getting you drunk to get over your problems. Somehow, that just didn't seem appropriate right now...
Finally, she found something to say that didn't feel forced or hollow.
"You should be happy," Urd told her quietly. "You get a second chance. A lot of people don't."
Peorth looked up at her and tried wiping her eyes again.
Urd smiled. "You can be the first thing he sees when he wakes up. And you can tell him how you feel to his face, one on one."
888
"Okay! I got bandages and hydrogen peroxide!" Megumi announced, carrying the shopping bag into the kitchen. She stopped short as she saw Wynn on the kitchen table. "Who the hell is this guy?!" she cried. "Are you guys opening a clinic or something?!"
Keiichi smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "It's a long, confusing story," he told her. "But for now, how about giving me a ride to the school?"
"The school? What for!? It's the middle of the night!"
"I left my bike there."
Megumi shrugged and put on an "eh, screw it," expression. "Sure, come on," she said.
As the two left, Urd stepped out of the bedroom and made her way to where Belldandy and Skuld were standing. Belldandy was checking Wynn's wound, nodding to herself in satisfaction.
"He'll sleep the rest of the night, but I think he'll be okay," she said with a smile. "How is Peorth san?"
"Getting herself together," Urd told her. "It's a long story. The short version is that this..." She pointed at Wynn. "...is Peorths' ex."
"Oh, my!"
"What I don't get is the markings," Urd told her. "These sigils mark a demon first class, special operator's license. If he's a god, what's he doing wearing them? If he's a demon, what's he doing here at all? I hope Frigga can tell us."
888
It didn't take long for Keiichi to return, barely half an hour, in fact, which was about the same time that Peorth finally emerged from the bedroom.
"What did Megumi say?" Urd asked as Keiichi put his helmet away.
"I think the story I gave her should satisfy her," he said. "She seemed eager just to go home and not get entangled in it, to be honest."
They paused as a nervous-looking Peorth approached the sleeping god on the table.
"Are you all right, Peorth san?" Belldandy asked cautiously.
They watched her reach out and take his hand in her own, her gaze never leaving his face.
"How is he?" she asked, all pretenses of arrogance or haughtiness absent from her voice.
Belldandy smiled gently. "He'll sleep through the night, but he'll be fine. I think it would help if you sit with him."
Without a word, Peorth sat to the god's left and squeezed his hand.
Keiichi yawned and looked at the clock. "Well, I think I've had enough for one day."
Belldandy smiled. "Good night, Keiichi san."
He felt a flash of warmth come over him, wondering briefly if it was her emotions or his. Odds were it was simply the sound of her voice.
"Good night," he replied.
As Keiichi walked down the hall, Belldandy basked in the warmth from Keiichi's last unconscious confession. Her voice made him warm inside.
"Okay, he's gone. Spill," Urd ordered.
"Huh?"
"He'll be asleep in a minute which means you can finally share your deep dark secret!" Urd was rubbing her hands in glee.
"Neesan!"
"Come on!" Urd urged her. "You'll feel better if you talk about it."
"I will not!" Belldandy cried in response.
"What? Are you worried because Peorth's here? She's not even paying attention!"
Belldandy ignored her and started tidying up the kitchen before she went to bed.
"Come on!" Urd begged. "Did you once kill a man in Reno just to watch him die?"
The younger goddess ignored her.
"I know it's something! Come on! What did you do? Cheat on your taxes?" Urd joked. "Forgot to bring back a movie rental? Outstanding library books? Kiss another man?"
She saw Belldandy flinch and realized that, without meaning to, she had struck gold.
"Oh my god!" Urd cried, hand over her mouth.
"It's not what you think!" Belldandy cried quickly.
888
The creature listened to their prattlings and snarled to itself in disgust. These goddesses bored it, and listening to them chirp like agitated birds would not relieve his hunger.
It wanted to kill again.
It needed to kill again.
The thrill, the feeling of power over destiny it felt watching the life drain from the eyes of a victim. That was godly power.
Perhaps he could kill one of them now...
The brunette standing over Metheus was turned inward with her own thoughts. She would never see it coming. One moment she would be sitting there, and the next its fangs would be at her throat, drinking her last breath, watching that final spark of realization in her eyes as it dawned on her that she would never see another moment...
It shivered. It wanted to kill so badly. Its master wouldn't let it kill as often as it would like.
Or maybe one of the hens chirping in the other room...
Or the child goddess down the hall...
Or the mortal...
It hissed. Yes, the mortal would be easy. A quick fix just to settle it down.
But no. It would obey its master and remain hidden.
For now...
To Be Continued...