Disclaimer: AMG is not mine, neither is Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome or Calvin and Hobbes.
Scordatura
Chapter 6
Elegy
Night was starting to fall as Urd followed the gemologist up to the tower office that used to be run by the Dean. She watched as he disappeared behind a thick curtain and announced her.
"A warrior looking for work, my queen," he said.
A woman pulled back the curtain and smiled. Urd, meanwhile, started to laugh hysterically, pointing at the girl's head.
"Sayoko! What the hell happened to your hair!? My god! You look like Raggedy Anne!"
Sayoko Mishima frowned, her hand going self-consciously to her frizzled hair that stood puffed out like a poodle's coat. "It's not my fault!" she complained. "My hair care products are imported from Paris! Once we lost the mail, they stopped coming! I'm forced to make do with dandruff shampoo!"
Urd wiped a tear away from her eye and gasped for breath. "It's only been one day! Oh, jeez!" she cried. "Thanks! That really made my day! I really needed that!"
"What do you want, Urd?"
"She's looking for someone, my queen," the gemologist told the campus queen. "She might be the solution we've been looking for. She's quick and packing heat like I've never seen."
"I'm looking for Skuld," Urd said, finally catching her breath. "Have you seen her?"
Sayoko smiled. "Well, well, well..." She turned and went to the window, beckoning the goddess to follow her. "Take a look," she invited. "Swap City! My city! Where there was despair, there's hope. Where there were zombies, there are people. Where there was darkness, there's light."
Urd looked down at the campfires and bustling crowds throughout the campus. Suddenly, floodlights came on, illuminating the entire area.
"I will do anything to protect it," Sayoko finished. She turned to the goddess. "Today, 'anything' is banishing someone."
Urd rolled her eyes. "You got goons," she said. "Get one of them."
"This is no enemy," Sayoko told her. "She's the savior of our campus. She's the one who got the power to work, who perfected our defenses. She's a hero to those people."
"And we want her gone," the gemologist put in.
"How?" Urd asked.
"I'll show you," Sayoko said. She held up a remote and turned on a security camera. "The sub-basement below Nekomi Tech, Underground. What do you see?"
Urd blinked in astonishment. "I see Skuld riding a robot."
That was only the first thing she noticed. Sure enough, her sister, dressed in a purple outfit, was riding on top of what looked like a beefed-up version of Banpei. She rode up and down several rows of people sitting at tables, just talking. Each person wore some kind of metallic helmet on their head.
"What is all this?" Urd demanded.
"That's where Nekomi gets its power," Sayoko told her. "Bullshit."
"Bullshit?"
"Bullshit," Sayoko confirmed.
Urd blinked. "Oh! Okay, yeah, I get it," she said. "Cows take a shit and release a high-powered gas called methane, and you use that to power Nekomi!"
Sayoko and the gemologist turned to one another. "We should have thought of that," the gemologist said. "Probably would have been easier."
"No," Sayoko said, rubbing her temples. "I mean bullshit. You see, Urd, the human brain is essentially a battery. It holds an electric charge, but that charge increases whenever it's in use, and it's most in use, we've found, when people try to bullshit their way through a conversation."
"EH?!"
Sayoko turned on the sound and zoomed in on two of the men in metal helmets.
"So, if you had a choice," the one on the right said. "Would you give Geordi his sight back or would you make Data human?"
"I'd give Geordi his sight back!" the other replied. "Because he knows what it's like to see, but Data doesn't know what it's like to be human, so he wouldn't miss it!"
"That's stupid!" the first one said. "I'd definitely make Data human!"
"You're stupid!"
"You're stupid!"
The two men started to slap one another.
"Oooh!" Sayoko purred. "A slap fight! Production is going to be up today!" She turned back to Urd. "You see, by harnessing the power of the Nekomi Tech Sci Fi Club, we have managed to power the entire campus... thanks to the technology your sister came up with." She sighed. "However, it's time for her to go..."
"Why?" Urd asked.
"She's drunk on power," the gemologist explained. He pointed at the screen as Skuld and her robot came into view. "The little one is called 'Purple.' The big on is 'Nurple.' They're a team."
"Why do you call her 'Purple Nurple?'" Urd asked, horrified by the entire thing.
At that moment, Skuld's voice came on. "You! You're slacking again! PURPLE NURPLE!"
Urd watched in horrified disgust as the robot reached out and gave the young man a titty-twister.
"AAAAUUGGH!" the man screamed.
"Never mind," Urd said. "Question answered itself. So let me guess, you want to get rid of the robot and keep Skuld?"
"No," Sayoko said. "I think she's worn out her welcome. We just want her to leave."
"The conditions are simple," the other boy told her. "First, no one knows you work for the queen. Second, it's a fair fight."
Urd shrugged. "Or, I can just take her with me and we go home."
Sayoko smiled. "If you think she'll go for it."
888
Hasegawa stopped the Puma and stared out the windshield in resignation. Sitting as they were on top of a hill, they could see the road that led out of Nekomi and the military road-block there that was turning people away. Apache Long-Bow helicopters orbited the roadblock as a not-so-subtle warning to vehicles that would try to run it.
"Damn," she breathed. "We're too late."
"I feel ill," Aoshima said from the back.
Tamiya's eyes narrowed. "I can understand why. You drank half the gasoline we were hoping to get."
"I do not see why it had to be I who sucked that vile liquid from the depths of those abandoned carriages!" Aoshima said indignantly. After procuring hoses, the four of them had found a car with a near-full tank of gas and siphoned it, forcing Aoshima to do the sucking.
Hasegawa growled. "Because you were supposed to be watching for Zekes at the gas station and let one slip up on me."
"I told you!" Aoshima cried angrily. "I cast Mordenkainen's Faithful Watchdog! The foul creature should not have been able to get near us!" He looked away bitterly and stroked an invisible beard. "Perhaps I need more mana..."
"So what do we do now?" Otaki asked. "Run the roadblock? We do have an armored vehicle."
Hasegawa shook her head. "Those choppers would run us right to ground." She sighed. "We're going to need a new plan."
"What about a ship?"
The girl blinked and turned to address the man who offered the suggestion. Aoshima stared back at her.
"Well," he said. "When one must escape a doomed continent, what better way than to take to the high seas?!" He stroked his invisible beard again. "We must simply be on the look out for the giant squid monsters and the lagoon people..."
"Holy crap, did Aoshima just have a good idea?!" Otaki asked, startled.
"Better than anything else we have going for us," Hasegawa relented. "We might be able to find a small fishing boat or something and slip past the Coast Guard. Okay, let's go."
The Puma turned and disappeared into the night, back on the road to Nekomi.
888
"Yo! Skuld!"
The purple-clad genius turned her head and found Urd waving at her from across the basement. She silently ordered Nurple to turn to face her and scowled.
"What are you doing here, Urd?" Skuld asked, her arms folded across her chest.
Urd stepped confidently up to her sister, eyeing the girl's latest robot bastard creation. It was definitely a variant of Banpei, but this one had three-fingered claws ideal for twisting nipples. It tracked her cautiously.
"I'm here to take you home," Urd told her. "Grab your stuff. We gotta go." She turned nonchalantly and started for the door.
"No way!"
Urd turned and blinked. "Huh?" she asked. "Come on! We know you couldn't move without your travel medium, but it's okay now. I'll get you through the zombies. No problem!"
Skuld scowled darkly down at her sister. "I said no way!" she repeated. "I'm not going back there! You're just a mean-head! Keiichi's a cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater! And Oneesama..." She paused. "Well... I don't know what Oneesama is anymore! But I know I don't want to be there!"
"Don't be stupid!" Urd told her.
"Stupid?! Take a look around!" Skuld cried. "While you and Oneesama were thinking up ways to hurt poor Sif, I was here, helping people! What a goddess is supposed to do! I belong here! And they love me here! Right?!"
She turned to the chrome-headed science fiction geeks. As one, they all covered their pecs and nodded nervously, plastering fake smiles on their faces.
"See?!" Skuld asked, turning back to her.
Urd arched an eyebrow. "We don't have time for your little games," she said, exasperated. "I'm your big sister, and you are coming with me!"
"Oh yeah?!" Skuld asked. She pointed at Urd and cried out. "PURPLE NURPLE!"
"Eh?"
888
Sayoko turned and blinked as Urd reentered her office, tenderly rubbing her breasts and wincing.
"Well?" Sayoko asked her with a knowing smile.
Urd stalked up to her. "I want my sister, food, water and fuel!" She spat in her hand and held it up. Sayoko did the same and took the goddess's hand in hers, sealing the deal. "Now you mentioned a fair fight. What did you mean?"
"As it's outlined in the queen's laws," the gemologist told her from the window.
Sayoko pointed out the window, down at a steel cage that looked like an inverted ice cream cone. "The Thundercone," she said. "No Greek Council, no dean, no appeal. Two girls enter. One girl leaves."
"Okay," Urd said, cracking her knuckles. "What do I do?"
888
Belldandy held the viola tightly as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop, her mind a miasma of confused thoughts and feelings. She had watched Keiichi's face carefully as he spoke with Ameri, searching his face for any twitch or sign of what was being said.
After several minutes of what she perceived to be intense conversation, he had handed the viola back to her and walked off without a word. It troubled her. Something happened in there.
Ameri san?
Yes?
She thought about how to broach it. Finally, after two days of failing utterly at duplicity, she decided to simply be herself and be straightforward.
Is Keiichi san going to leave me for Sif?
The viola didn't answer right away, and the delay filled Belldandy with troublesome thoughts.
No, Ameri finally told her. Belldandy... he's confused. As confused as we are... probably more.
I don't understand.
It's easy for us, the viola told her. We already know who we love. We love Keiichi. For him it's worse. He knows in his heart that he loves you. And he knows in his heart that he loves Sif. So whom does he choose?
Belldandy thought on this as she hopped to a telephone pole rising above a group of zombies and then to another rooftop.
Is that why he seemed so tormented after he spoke to you?
Ameri sighed in her mind. He doesn't want to hurt either of you, but knows that he must eventually. It's that or choose neither. You know him. How do you think he feels about the idea of having to hurt one of you?
He must despise it, Belldandy told her. Despise himself... But what other choice is there?
Ameri proposed sharing him, Belldandy told her a moment later. But that's impossible.
Why? Why is that impossible? Ameri asked.
Because... Because of me, the goddess confessed. I can't share his love. You can call me a horrible person if you must, but it's simply the truth.
Is it? Ameri asked. Tell me, Belldandy. If Keiichi chooses Sif, will you suddenly stop loving Keiichi?
Of course not!
And is he expected to simply stop loving you?
I... I don't know...
Ameri sighed. Love isn't a quantifiable thing, Belldandy. It's simply there or it isn't. You can't add up the amount of love a person has for another and declare a winner. So eventually, when Keiichi does choose one of you, the love he feels for the other and the love the other feels for him... will simply be wasted.
Belldandy stopped on top of a flagpole and thought on this. Shaking herself from her thoughts a moment later, she continued her search for her friend.
888
"Oh, you've gotta be freak'n kidding me!" Megumi cried as she stepped up to Keiichi and looked out the gate with him. "Is he serious?!"
Standing at the forefront of a group of zombies across the street, Gary held a bullhorn to his lips and shouted at the temple.
"WE'RE HERE! WE'RE DEAD! WE'RE GONNA EAT YOU! GET USED TO IT!"
The zombies around him replied by moaning in unison.
"WE'RE HERE! WE'RE DEAD! WE'RE GONNA EAT YOU! GET USED TO IT!" Gary repeated it. Some of the zombies held placards the intelligent zombie had made. Some read, "Zombie Rights Now!" Others said "My Name's Not Zeke You Racist, Breathing Scumbag!"
"This guy's gonna be a problem," Keiichi noted.
"Yeah," Megumi agreed. "They're not that bad when they're just unthinking shambling abominations, but you get them a leader and this could end badly."
"Any ideas?"
Megumi gave it some thought. "You got any kerosene left?"
Keiichi looked at the growing horde assembling before them. "Not enough."
"I'll break out the softball bats," Megumi said, heading back to the house. "It's gonna be a long night."
"THE LIVING IN THIS TEMPLE ARE OUR OPPRESSORS!" Gary shouted at his horde. "THEY SIT UP THERE IN THEIR IVORY TOWER, THINKING UP WAYS TO KEEP THE DEAD MAN DOWN! DOWN IN HIS GRAVE WHERE HE BELONGS!"
The zombies moaned.
"NEKOMI IS A TOWN WHERE THE LIVING KEEP THE DEAD FROM REACHING THEIR POTENTIAL! THEY WANT YOU TO STAY IN YOUR GRAVEYARDS AND NOT BOTHER THEM WITH YOUR PROBLEMS! WELL WHO'S GOING TO STAND UP FOR THE DEAD MAN!?"
Keiichi buried his face in his hands and shook his head.
Gary saw him and pointed through the gate at him. "THERE'S ONE OF THE LIVING OPPRESSORS NOW! DEAD POWER! DEAD POWER!"
"Uuuuuuuggggghhhhhhh!" the zombies replied.
"DEAD POWER! DEAD POWER!"
"UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"
Keiichi backpedaled as the zombie mob suddenly rushed the gate, reaching through the bars at him. Knowing this was only going to get worse before it got better, the college student rushed back to the house.
888
Skuld steered Nurple down the path that stretched between two rows of stalls in Nekomi Tech's make-shift flea market and swap meet. It was amazing what a group of people could do in 24 hours' time when faced with being eaten by zombies. Already a new civilization was springing up to replace the old one, a civilization she had helped bring into existence.
The people of Swap City stepped deferentially out of her way as she passed. They loved her. She had brought them electricity, maintained their defenses, and they loved her for it.
She had no desire to go home. After seeing what grown goddesses were capable of, she felt there was no reason to go back, and if Urd tried to...
"SKULD!"
Speak of the devil...
She turned Nurple around and faced her angry-looking sister. People on either side of the street fled the scene.
"I told you," Skuld began irritably. "I'm not going back, and you can't make me!"
"I say we let the law decide!" Urd told her.
"The law?!" Skuld repeated. She laughed. "You really think the law here is going to side with you against me?!"
"What?" Urd asked, smiling. "You afraid to find out?"
Skuld glared. "The people here love me," she said. "They won't let me leave!" She turned and looked up at Sayoko's window. The campus queen was watching the proceedings with amused interest. "Isn't that right, Sayoko?!"
"The law is very specific, Purple san," Sayoko told her. "It sounds like Urd is challenging you. What do you say?"
"I say fine!" Skuld told her. Nurple rose to his full height. "We want justice!" she cried. "We want CALVINBALL!"
"CALVINBALL! CALVINBALL!" the post-apocalyptic survivors chanted. "TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES! TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES!"
Urd blinked. "Wait... Calvinball? What's Calvinball?"
Sayoko raised her hand, silencing the crowd. "Then Calvinball it shall be!"
The crowd roared in approval.
"No, seriously!" Urd cried. "What's Calvinball?!" She had assumed this would be a fight to the death. She'd destroy Nurple, everything would be cool. But this...
A group of survivors took her arms and ushered her to the Thundercone, tossing her inside. On the other side, Nurple entered.
"What's the matter, Skuld!?" Urd mocked. "Can't beat me without your robot?!"
"Nurple will run rings around you, Urd!" Skuld called back from the other side of the cage.
Around them, people started throwing random objects into the cone, masks, brooms, socks and of course... a volleyball.
"So... How do you play this game again?" Urd asked.
Before anyone could answer, Sayoko leapt from her window and grabbed hold of a zip-line that carried her to her own private booth near the top of the cone. She held her hands up, beckoning the crowd to silence.
"Welcome!" she said. "TO CALVINBALL!"
The crowd cheered. "TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES! TWO MEN ENTER! ONE MAN LEAVES!"
"You know the rules," Sayoko said.
"Um... I don't!" Urd shouted.
Sayoko ignored her. "First one to give up... loses... On your mark..."
Nurple took a ready stance.
"No! Really! I have no idea what to do!"
"Get set..."
"WHAT THE HELL IS CALVINBALL?!"
"CALVINBALL!" Sayoko cried.
Urd looked up as Nurple rushed toward her, and the goddess raised her hands to summon a depth charge. Suddenly, the robot stopped, grabbed a pink bath towel from the floor and wrapped it around his head. The robot pointed at her.
"Ha!" Skuld cried. "Invisibility Helmet! Everything is invisible to you, so you have to close your eyes!"
Urd blinked. "Um... what?!"
"BREAK A RULE, AND YOU'RE A TOOL! BREAK A RULE, AND YOU'RE A TOOL!" the crowd chanted.
The goddess looked up at Sayoko who just grinned and shrugged. "Those are the rules," she said.
"What rules!?" Urd cried.
"Whatever rules you happen to make up as you go," she answered.
Urd grit her teeth and closed her eyes. "So when do I get to open my eyes again?!" she called out.
Suddenly, something bounced off her face, knocking her on her butt! She opened her eyes and blinked through the pain, watching the volleyball roll to a stop near the edge of the cone.
"As soon as you get hit by the Calvinball!" Skuld answered with a laugh.
888
The waterfront was dark, but enough light from the moon shone down on the beach to tell the Puma's passengers that there were no boats left. Every vessel that could get someone out of Nekomi had been taken, stolen or Shanghaied.
Hasegawa sighed. "Damn," she muttered.
"I don't see anything," Otaki complained.
"Hmmm," Tamiya rumbled. "No zombies, though."
"They must have left for better pickings," Hasegawa said. They were cruising past one of the public beaches, the sand dunes looking deceptively normal on the shores of the necropolis.
Suddenly, Hasegawa slammed on the brakes.
"Ow!" Otaki cried, banging his head on the driver's seat. "What?! What is it?!"
"There's someone on the beach," she said.
"Yeah, they're called zombies," Otaki told her.
"No, take a look," the girl replied.
Otaki lowered his window to get a better view. True enough, a young woman was sitting at the top of one of the dunes, looking out over the ocean like it was a normal night.
"What do you think?" Hasegawa asked.
"Maybe zombies like to take walks on the beach," Tamiya told her.
"Or maybe she's just a survivor who's gone wacko like Lord Gulstaff here," she said.
"I'm a sorcerer!" Aoshima corrected. "Not a lord."
"We should check it out," Hasegawa said.
"Those things could be here any minute," Otaki reminded her.
"Real quick," Hasegawa promised. "Gulstaff, you stay here," she said. She pulled the shotgun off the dashboard and opened the door. Tamiya and Otaki, hefting their melee weapons, followed.
"How do we know she's alive?" Tamiya whispered as the crept up to the girl.
"We don't," Hasegawa whispered back. "Be careful."
The woman paid no notice to them as the three Auto Club members snuck up behind her. The men raised their clubs while, in the center, Hasegawa raised her shotgun.
Finally, the woman, her blonde hair shining in the moonlight, turned and looked at them with tear-filled eyes.
Hasegawa racked the shotgun and growled. "Say something."
Sif sniffled. "Keiichi sama."
888
Urd couldn't believe she was losing a game as stupid as this. After tapping her on the shoulder three times with the end of a broom, Skuld had declared her in the "Dizzy Zone" and therefore had to spin around until she fell down, leaving her wide open to be hit by the Calvinball.
This is the stupidest game ever! she cried in her head. It's like they're just making it up as they go!
Or maybe...
"This is stupid!" she cried. "You're just making it up as you go along!"
"Sounds like someone wandered into the Perimeter of Wisdom!" Skuld scoffed.
Urd smiled as the rules finally clicked. Nurple rushed toward her, and she held up a finger. The robot stopped a few feet from her.
"If I'm inside the Perimeter of Wisdom, then I get to make a decree!" she announced.
"Huh?" Skuld asked, blinking.
"And I decree that it's Robot Slow Motion Day! All robots have to move in slow-mo!"
"That's crap!" Skuld cried. She saw Nurple begin to move as if he were covered in caramel. "Nurple! Don't listen to her! That's a bunch of cr..."
She was cut off as the Calvinball hit her in the side of the head.
"No questioning the decree!" Urd cried, tying a black mask around her head, concealing her face.
"Urd! No cheating!"
The crowd was going wild at this point.
Skuld started getting nervous. "Oh yeah!? Well... I declare a blackout! You can't see and have to close your eyes!"
"Ha!" Urd replied. "But I'm in the Boomerang Zone, so the declaration defaults on the declarer, which means YOU have to close YOUR eyes!"
"OOOOOOH!" the crowd said in awe.
"Darn it!" Skuld muttered, closing her eyes. "How do I know when you're out of the Boomerang Zone?"
WHAM!
She fell as the Calvinball hit her again.
"Oh... right," she said.
She opened her eyes and looked around, but her sister was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, she felt something slap the back of her head.
"Ow! What the..."
Reaching behind her, she pulled something out of her hair. It was a small, Japanese flag.
"Patriotism Day!" Urd cried from behind her, spinning the Calvinball on the end of her finger. "That means you have to recite the Japanese Constitution until either you finish or you get hit by the Calvinball!"
Skuld swallowed fearfully as her older sister started walking toward her. "Um... 'We, the Japanese people... acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet...'"
She saw Urd start to raise her arm for a hard throw and recited faster in a futile race to reach the end before she threw. "'...determinedthatweshall secureforourselvesANDOURPOSTERITYTHEFRUITS OFPEACEFULCOOP...'"
WHAM!
She saw stars as she hit the ground.
Shaking it off, Skuld got to her feet and saw Urd hopping around the Thundercone in a burlap sack, a bicycle flag held over her shoulder.
"Bag-Flag Zone!" Urd cried as she passed her. "An extra fifty points for me!"
"There are no points!" Skuld argued.
"Then that means I win!" Urd declared. "Fifty to zero!"
"But... But..."
"You concede that you have no points, right?" Urd asked, hopping to a stop in front of her.
"Well... yeah..."
"And I DID say that I have fifty points..." Urd pointed out. "So I win."
Skuld growled and turned to Sayoko. "SAYOKO!"
The campus queens shrugged. "Sorry, she's right."
"But... That's not fair!"
Sayoko sighed dramatically. "But in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, what fairness can be found in life?" she asked.
Skuld growled. Off to her left, Nurple was still moving in slow motion.
"I declare Urd CALVINBALL CHAMPION!" Sayoko shouted. The crowd went wild. "And as such, she may name her prize!"
Urd grinned evilly and turned that threatening smile on Skuld, who gulped and took a step back.
888
"Urd! This is going too far!" came Skuld's muffled cry. Muffled, because she was trying to shout at her older sister through a giant-paper mache head that had been placed over her head... after her hands had been tied behind her back and she had been placed backwards on the back of a donkey...
Grinning, Urd led the donkey down the road toward the temple. They hadn't come across any zombies, and she'd let Skuld go the moment they did, but for now, it was simply too much fun.
"I mean it!" Skuld cried, thrashing uselessly around.
"Oh, relax!" Urd replied dismissively. "We'll be home soon." Now that Skuld was safely in her hands, her thoughts went back to what Peorth had said. "Hey, Skuld," she said suspiciously. "Did you or Sif do anything to screw around with the Law of Conservation of Happiness?"
"No!" Skuld replied. "Um... provisionally..."
Urd sighed. "What kind of provisions?"
"Um... that I'm not quite sure what that would entail?" Skuld tried.
The older goddess reached up and smacked the paper mache head!
"OW!" Skuld cried.
"Did either of you cast any spells or charms to make people unhappy?!" Urd demanded. "Or make Keiichi happy?!"
"Yeah!" Skuld replied. "Yeah! Okay!"
"What kind of spell?" Urd inquired.
"She... um... she called it a... Hmm... What was it?" She drifted for a moment. "Oh! Yeah! It was a 'Fair Fortune' spell!"
Urd blinked in shock. "Skuld! Do you have any idea what the two of you did?!"
Skuld was silent for several moments. "From the sound of your voice," she finally said, "I'm going to have to go with 'no.'"
The love goddess sighed. "The Law of Conservation of Happiness is what balances happiness and unhappiness amongst mortals. Remember when Belldandy got wasted and started granting wishes to every Tom, Dick and Harry in Nekomi?"
"Kind of," Skuld replied.
"Remember what happened to Keiichi?" Urd went on. "He started having awful luck to balance things out! The LOCH is very finicky! What a Fair Fortune spell does is screw with the balance and knock it out of whack! It requires a huge amount of unhappiness to force happiness on another!" She looked around at the necropolis around her and sighed. "It wouldn't surprise me if this zombie apocalypse and that spell are connected!"
Skuld was silent. "Um... our bad?"
Urd smacked the paper mache head again, sending it spinning around Skuld's head.
"OW! Jeez! I'm sorry!" Skuld cried. "But you and Oneesama brought it on yourselves!"
"How do you figure that?!" Urd cried.
"Say what you want about what Sif did, but at least she did it for Keiichi!" Skuld retorted. "Oneesama did... that... with him, and then you came rushing out to rub Sif's nose in it! The two of you raced to the bottom, and you won! Congratulations!"
Urd sighed. "Skuld... Belldandy isn't to blame here, I am. She and Keiichi didn't... you know..."
"What?" Skuld asked. "But... you were telling the truth!"
"Technically... that's true," Urd relented. "Keiichi and Belldandy did sleep together. He was drunk, and they fell asleep together... I worded it so it would be true but would still sound like Belldandy had given up the goods."
"So... Oneesama isn't a slut, you're just a liar?" Skuld asked.
Urd sighed again. "Pretty much."
Skuld was silent for several minutes. It disturbed Urd that she couldn't see Skuld's face, get some hint at what she was thinking. Finally, she couldn't take the silence.
"What was I supposed to do?" she asked her little sister forcefully. "Belldandy loves him! And while that's hard for you to hear, it's something you're just going to have to square with! Now, I like Sif, I really do. But there's no happy ending for both of them. We have to pick one. And I picked Belldandy. And yeah, I lied a little, but it was for her happiness. At least when given the choice, I picked our sister."
"It's not fair," Skuld told her through the paper mache face. "You should have seen her, Urd. Whenever she talked about him. I mean you could see it in her eyes. It was just like when Oneesama talked about him. Like when Oneesama said she trusted anything Keiichi said without question. It was that kind of look. Like no matter what happened, she knew things would be okay, that Keiichi couldn't hurt her. And when you told her those things..." The young Norn broke off. "It was like... like I don't know... That look in her eyes, it was like she was watching Ragnarok... like the whole world was coming to an end and there was nothing she could do to stop it. And I remember thinking, 'Is this it? Is this what love is all about? Who would ever want this?'"
Urd listened and took in her sister's words, chastised by them at the same time. Her little sister had learned and seemed to understand the power love had better than she did.
"I don't want Oneesama to feel that way either," Skuld went on. "No one should have to feel that way."
"Yeah," Urd agreed. "It's a pretty crappy situation, all right."
Together, the two walked toward the temple.