Disclaimer : Ah! My goddess does not belong to me.
Ceroxon asked me if I could do a fusion version of my winter special.
-oOoOoOo-
Sitting at the kitchen table, Skuld was quite frightened by how Hildandy marched around in contemplation.
Every so often, the fused woman stopped, raised a hand, and opened her mouth… only to march around again.
Eventually, Hildandy turned to Skuld and asked, "Skuld, why did you throw bombs at Keiichi and I while we were on our date?"
"I only threw a few bombs to protect Big Sis from how perverted Hild and Keiichi can get! You know they couldn't harm Keiichi! At worst they only ruined his clothes!" Skuld answered.
"You mean the clothes that Belldandy took pride in cleaning because she had planned a date with Keiichi several weeks in advance?" Hildandy asked with a smirk.
"Eep!" Skuld uttered as realization hit her. She slouched down low in her seat as if she was trying to hide under the table.
"Sit back up, Skuld. We're not done here," Hildandy said, gesturing for Skuld to move back up.
"So… what's my punishment?" Skuld asked, as she slowly slid her way back up into the chair.
Hildandy walked over to the freezer and began to search through it. "Why, to eat ice cream! And you won't be allowed to leave until the bowl is empty."
Skuld blinked a few times as she took in the words. A smile crossed her face as she folded her hands in front of her and said in an incredibly fictitious tone of mock horror, "Oh no! Not that! Anything but that!"
"Heh, you think you're so cute. Ah, here it is!" Hildandy muttered as she pulled out a carton. She grabbed a bowl, a spoon, and an ice cream scooper. She continued, "I'm particularly proud of this one. I call it "Hawaii Under Construction!" Quickly filling up the bowl with what appeared to be a greyish-yellow ice cream with dark-brown swirls and blackened flecks, she placed it in front of Skuld.
Oddly enough, it smelled sweet. Skuld instantly decided that was a deception, and that it concealed the true nature of this punishment.
When it became abundantly clear that Skuld was not going to dig in, Hildandy asked, "What's wrong?"
"What… flavor is it?" Skuld asked in a way that suggested she seemed disgusted with what she saw.
"Pineapple roasted over white-hot liquid rock, with a hint of wood ash to taste! Specifically, ash made from the smouldering remains of a Coconut tree, if you must ask," Hildandy cooed. "Now eat up or you'll be drinking it!" Hildandy kept it to herself that Belldandy's culinary standards insisted on processing that last part until it was nothing but the purest salt substitute that could rival any commercial offering.
Skuld looked down at the ice cream and shivered. Burned food never actually tasted that good to her. It was one of the lesser reasons that kept her sticking close to Big Sis.
"I do hope you'll learn to not make hasty assumptions about the affairs of others, Skuld. but in case you ever do, I've made sure that Belldandy will have plenty of ice cream for such occasions!" Hildandy cheerfully said as she patted Skuld on the head. Then, sticking her own face within an inch of the child's, she flashed the young Goddess a wicked grin and said "You know she'll never throw it away, don't you?"
The look on Skuld's face was priceless.
Hildandy backed away and stood authoritatively over the child, with arms crossed. After several moments of pure silence that stood between the two, Hildandy shattered it. With an overly chipper voice, she started, "You know, when I was in the kitchen, I just couldn't stop creating! So if this flavor isn't quite to your liking, I've perfected yet another masterpiece!"
Skuld hopefully beamed as Hildandy took a rather small bowl of ice cream out from the freezer. Hildandy gloriously announced, "This one is my absolute favorite!" Placing the bowl before Skuld, she continued, "I call it... 'Red Velvet Reaver."
This ice cream was a deep red. Not the red that came to mind with something like a Black Cherry ice cream, but a darker tone that one would normally associate with hot fiery food. Even though this was clearly a chocolate-themed dish, there was something clearly not quite right about it. For starters, there was nothing overtly sweet-smelling about this one. Instantly suspicious. Also, as the aroma of this new ice cream wafted up from the bowl, it was sickeningly obvious that the contents of this dish contained some sort of heat-inducing spice, exactly as advertised.
"That… doesn't smell too good," Skuld muttered. Starting to turn a sickly shade of green, her smile eroded to a scowl.
"Oh, you're worried over nothing," Hildandy cheerfully answered. When Skuld let out a sigh of relief, Hildandy said, "While we're connected with either Yggdrasil or Nidhogg, our mortal shells can easily withstand food 500 times hotter than anything Midgard has to offer!"
"Ic-ic-ice cream is supposed to be cold and inviting! Not hot and brutal!" Skuld yelled, pounding on the table.
With a stern glare, Hildandy said, "Skuld, you are a young adult Goddess, not a Mortal infant. Stop pounding on the table."
The side of Skuld that practically worshipped Belldandy made her reluctantly stop. After a moment, Skuld said, "But Urd does it all the time…"
"And do you really want to act like Urd?" Hildandy asked with a raised eyebrow. Then with a neutral expression, she deadpanned, "Huh. Who would have thought?"
Skuld pouted and turned away, arms crossed, and didn't reply.
"So…. which one will be your flavor? Hawaii Under Construction, or Red Velvet Reaver?" Hildandy asked. "Keep in mind that the secret ingredient I used in the latter is the renowned Carolina Reaper Pepper. Usually, venues that feature this great destroyer of tongues typically require that a waiver be signed before their dishes can even be served. The purpose of this formality is for the protection of the establishment, so that you or your family can't sue them in any case, whether that be injury or even death," After pausing a little to allow that thought to sink in, she continued, "... and you know how durable our human shells are even when we don't have magic running through us!"
Something snapped in Skuld. The desecration of ice cream overruled everything else in Skuld's mind as she began to rage.
"RAAAAAH!" Skuld bellowed as she leaped at a slightly surprised Hildandy.
-o-
Some time later, Urd and Keiichi returned to the temple.
"I hope whatever Hildandy wanted to do with Skuld wasn't too harsh," Keiichi muttered, carrying the groceries.
"Eh, Belldandy's gentle love will temper out whatever cruelty Hild has in mind," Urd replied as she opened the door.
Both were surprised to see Hildandy, thoroughly bound and gagged. Not only that, but she was doubled over and hanging up from some sort of miniaturized crane arm sticking out of the wall where the coat hook used to be, by her... panties?
"Who could have done this to you?!" Keiichi asked as he put the bags down, almost dropping them. He then went over to Hildandy, a blush growing on his face when he got a closer look at her underwear. They were absurdly stretched up above her, without any signs of tearing, or even so much as a run. Fortunately, she was thoroughly tied up in so much rope - though God only knows where that much of it came from - that her rear wasn't exposed. 'A small mercy, for her at least,' he thought.
Keiichi turned back to Urd and, with panic rising in his voice, "Someone broke in and did this to Hildandy. Who knows what they did to Skuld?"
After slapping herself back to reality, Urd went over to give him a hand. It only took a moment for her to rip apart the gag. Wasting no time, she asked, "Where's Skuld?"
"She should still be in her room. The punishment I thought up for her involved a choice between ice cream that looked really disgusting and ice cream that seemed really spicy," Hildandy answered.
"Well, I'm surprised," Urd said, "Who would've thought Skuld's love for ice cream could short-circuit her love for Belldandy. Good to know I avoided pranking her like that. Still, I kinda feel bad for you. Y'know, 'cause of the killer wedgie and all,"
"Well, that's just great," Hildandy said, glaring at Urd. "Now help me down, so I can slip into something less painful… unless Keiichi wants me to go commando. I'm comfortable with that, too."
As Hildandy smiled at Keiichi, he froze. A wink from Hildandy made Keiichi's face blush a glowing red. After taking a moment to shake off that mental image, he began trying to lift her up to remove her from the small machine on the wall. He soon discovered that trying to do so without touching her inappropriately was proving to be a lot harder than it sounds. Almighty knows it was hard enough to be called a pervert by the youngest Goddess in the house when he wasn't doing anything remotely wrong. He certainly didn't need to gain any unwanted attention from Urd right now, either. Unfortunately, the little machine she was hanging by kept following every move he made to try to get her off of it.
Urd immediately recognized the uselessness of Keiichi's attempts to free Hildandy. She grabbed the crane arm and ripped it out of the wall. Whatever. It was just one small thing they'd have to fix later. Compared to the damage her own fights with their youngest Sister had been known to cause, that much was nothing. She took a closer look at it before tossing it aside, 'Huh. She must've been really pissed off to create such an overly simplified, single-purpose device…'
As she and Keiichi put Hildandy on the ground, Urd took another glance at her sister's panties. Something seemed familiar about the material, something about the way it had almost instantly recovered its original shape, but she just couldn't put her finger on it… Well, she could, but Keiichi would just pass out, and they may still need him to be awake and helpful. With that thought, she just came right out and said it. "So… what's your underwear made of, exactly?"
"Oh, that? Well," slightly blushing, Hildandy then asked, "Do you remember the day Belldandy qualified for her Valkyrie licence?"
"Yeah… Why?" Urd hesitantly replied.
"Well, do you remember what was left of her uniform when the test was over?"
In a moment of sudden recognition, Urd had finally figured it out. Slapping fist in hand, she said, "Oh, so that's what happened to it? No wonder I couldn't find the blasted thing! I was so gonna take that to work with me the next day and brag to the girls about my cute little Sister!"
'Damnit, I'm letting myself get distracted again!' Urd thought, 'Gotta get back on track'. With a more serious look on her face, Urd turned back to Hildandy and said "Would you like me to have a talk with the little one, then?"
"If you can get through to her, you're welcome to do so," came the reply. "I'm certain that if I try the way I am now, things will just go badly again," Hildandy said with a hint of a sorrowful tone.
"Well, Belldandy by herself would have known not to mess with anyone's recharge medium just to make a point." with a bit of a sneer, she continued, "I can only imagine what I'd do if someone attempted to use my sake to… I dunno... fake a half-assed pepper vodka, or... something like that. You're connected with her, you'd have to know at least that much," Urd said with utmost certainty. Turning back to the Mortal, she asked, "Right, Keiichi?"
Also turning to the mortal in the room, for support, Hildandy then asked, "What about you, do you think I went too far, Keiichi?" Then, she explained, "The Belldandy part of me does sometimes worry that Skuld has been running wild. I just wanted to show her that actions have consequences. I did not want to resort to spanking, and sending her to her room would be pointless with all of the tools and inventions she has in there," Hildandy trailed off, with her head down and her shoulders sinking. On a whim, Keiichi leaned forward and opened his arms, offering a hug to Hildandy. She accepted and let out a single tear.
Resisting her urge to gag, Urd then walked off to Skuld's room. On her way through the rest of the house, she began to notice a disturbing lack of... something. As she approached the door to her sister's room, it finally hit her, 'How the hell do you snap so hard that there's NO collateral damage?' Steeling herself, Urd took one last deep breath and prepared for anything and everything she had yet to see from the young Norn of the future.
Urd couldn't have predicted, in any number of eons, what she saw when she opened the door.
A crying Skuld, together with a disturbed Sigel and a powered-down Banpei, all tied up together back to back on a slowly spinning turnwheel. Various pointless inventions surrounded the wheel.
One such invention was a little speaker box that read, 'Mr. Trivia'. As Urd looked at the speaker, it said, "There are 5 million vending machines in Japan. That's one for every 25 people. To date, none have ever been vandalized."
"Huh… Can I keep that one, Skuld? I kinda want to make the Auto Club's next drinking party a bit interesting," Urd asked.
"Urd! Free me!" Skuld cried out.
"Right, right," Urd replied as she walked over and untied Skuld and her robots. "So who did this to you?"
"Hildandy!" Skuld exclaimed once she was freed.
"Wait..." she said, "No, she didn't exactly say who tied her up..." Urd muttered as she tensed up. She ran from Skuld's room, back to the front door. Seeing that Keiichi was missing and Hildandy was standing there, Urd grabbed Hildandy, shook her, and growled, "Where's Keiichi?"
Hildandy said nothing. Skuld, who had been following after Urd and just caught up, asked, "Why are you shaking that doll?"
Blinking at Skuld in confusion, she looked back at her target. Urd realized that indeed, she was shaking a doll of Hildandy. It had a note on its face that read, 'On another date with Keiichi. Left something to keep you company.'
"That bitch. She tied herself up and gave herself a wedgie, just to get our sympathy!" Urd grunted.
"Wait… you mean... Hildandy did what, now?" Skuld asked, raising an eyebrow. "Why would anyone do that to themselves?"
"Why does Hild do anything? For laughs at best, but always, always to make it easier for everyone to underestimate her," Urd grumbled, tossing the doll away and heading out of the room.
After quickly pulling one of her inventions out of the dimensional pocket at the neckline of her blouse, a rope gun called Mr. Tangles, Skuld smiled wickedly and followed after Urd. She was expecting her older Sister to make a beeline straight for round two, and rope-filled vengeance would be hers. Instead, they stopped in the now unoccupied Kitchen.
"What are you doing?" Skuld asked.
"Gonna see what kind of ice cream you were offered. That spicy one sounded interesting," Urd replied, picking up the dark red ice cream. She took a bite and said, "Huh… Neat."
"Hildandy said it was spicy! A legal waiver needs to be signed before it can be eaten!" Skuld shouted.
"Oh, grow up. Your child form merely has very sensitive taste buds," Urd teased before taking another bite. It was a spiced chocolate flavor, reminiscent of the beverage that Ekchuah preferred. While the flavor was established well within the borders of the savory, it was enhanced by the subtle sweetness of the milk that constituted the ice cream's base. She almost forgot about her mock argument, but that was soon remedied.
"No, it just means your taste buds are dead from all the booze you drink!" Skuld fired back, pointing at Urd. A twitch from Urd's fingers sent the spoon from the other bowl, loaded with a bite of the Pineapple-themed ice cream, flying into Skuld's mouth. Before taking another bite of the spicy ice cream, Urd said, "Aren't you missing something, kiddo?"
The look on Skuld's face went from fear-fueled anger to bliss as shockwaves of perfected flavor ricocheted throughout her entire body. It was a foodgasm the likes of which she had yet to encounter, but her Onee-Sama's technique could clearly be noted within the subtleties of the dish. There was no hint of the "burned" flavor she had feared, but only the sweetness of what she now understood to be caramelized Pineapple, enhanced by a faint saltiness from something she couldn't quite identify. It was, despite its appearance, heavenly.
"Hello, Earth to Skuld!" Urd said, trying to get her attention for the second time, though the youngest Norn wouldn't know that, as distracted as she was by her newest discovery.
Dumbfounded, Skuld pulled the spoon from her mouth and could only say, "I… don't get it. Why?"
"I think I might have an idea," Urd replied. "Can you think of anything you did that would earn you a reminder that 'things aren't always as they appear'?"
Skuld's eyes tracked down to the floor. With her head following suit, the youngest Norn sighed in resignation. Sure, she was pissed off at Hild for putting her through all those mind games, but the love in Belldandy's cooking drove home the fact that it was a legitimate message from BIg Sis as well. She was silent for several moments as she reflected on everything that's been happening lately.
With a sudden moment of insight, Skuld faced Urd once again and finally voiced her conclusion, "So… I need to stop seeing something unpleasant everywhere I look?"
"Kind of," came the reply, "but for now I think it'll be enough for you to just stop seeing anything unpleasant in our Sister's relationship," Urd then continued, "Now, eat up. We've got a counterstrike to plan."
Skuld brightened up considerably. She all but jumped to where the other bowl was on the counter and dug in.
….
…..
….
..
.
-oOoOoOo-
Fun thought for the day:
Like the Goddess Pele, most women have at least these two rules:
Do not remove anything from her home.
When she is renovating said home, get the #&*$ out of the way.
…...
-oOoOoOo-
Notes from HotelKatz :
Ceroxon came up with the character idea.
Worldbringer of Joseun had a number of suggestions for this chapter.
Xindran helped give the chapter a lot of polish and detail.