Chapter 26: The Grand Tour: Prelude

Five years later

Skuld was sitting on a park bench watching little Unn play with Lindy.

Her granddaughter was playing tag with the blond goddess. The girl squeeled with delight as she 'got' her aunt. "Tag, Lindy! You're it!"

Lindy laughed, "Oh no! You're so fast!" Her eyes were bright and warm. The pair continued to frolic in the warm afternoon sun.

Keiichi was standing a few yards away watching them with a critical eye. He was wearing a white artist's smock and a beret. He had one eye closed as he looked past his extended thumb at the playful pair. Then he picked up the paintbrush again and continued to work on drawing Unn's cute pigtails.

Thoriko was sitting next to Skuld. The Daitenkaicho leaned over and said, "Keiichi is becoming quite the artist."

"Yes, he's actually getting rather good." Thoriko was wearing a beige wraparound skirt. By the third trimester her armored battledress had no longer fit her figure. Since giving birth to Unn* she only wore her battledress during the occasional combat op or during official ceremonies. She still continued to wear her golden gauntlets only because they were her limiters. They were hidden under the cuffs of her long-sleeved blouse.

Thoriko crossed her legs as he watched her daughter play. "I admired Keiichi's latest painting of you especially; I think it is quite flattering of you."

She saw the little girl emit another happy squeal as she dodged Lindy yet again.

Skuld replied, "Are you kidding? That painting of me was ridiculous. He made me look like a stupid Walt Disney princess or something."

She asked her daughter, "I don't really look like that, do I?"

Thoriko enjoyed teasing her mother. "That is exactly what you look like in his eyes. He thinks of you as his darling precious princess." Skuld scowled at the remark.

Thoriko decided not to mention to her mother that a few weeks prior Keiichi had drawn a portrait of herself as well. And when she saw it she zapped it with a 500 kilowatt lightning bolt and hissed a dire threat in Keiichi's ear that she would do the same thing to him if he ever dared to draw a portrait of her like that ever again.

Skuld sighed, "Yes, he's a hopeless romantic. He's so adorable that way." Then she leaned in and confided, "I think our world needs more romantics like him, don't you agree?"

"Yes, Mother." Thoriko decided not to make any further remarks on that subject.

Skuld had finished eating her small cup of strawberry ice cream. "Oh, I wanted to thank you again for letting Unn spend so much time with Lindy. They play nearly every day now. It's really helped Lindy's spirits. Just look at them."

"You should thank Halval for that. It was her suggestion."

Skuld nodded. "Yes. I'm so thankful that Halval told us about what was going on with Lindy. I had no idea she was feeling so despondent."

"Neither did I." Thoriko was a bit irritated that a demon had spotted it first, before her own sister or mother. Still, she was grateful for the revelation.

Unn was chasing Lindy in merry circles. The blond goddess laughed exuberantly.

"I think Unn is making her feel like she's a part of this world."

The pair was nearing the lake. The little girl yelled, "Aunt Lindy! Watch me!"

Lindy was happy to take the opportunity to catch her breath. "Okay!"

Unn came to a stop at the lake's edge. Then she extended her arms and concentrated with her eyes tightly closed. After a moment a sphere of water about two meters wide slowly arose from the water's surface. Lindy trotted up alongside her niece. "My, Unn, that's really good! That's the biggest one yet!" The sphere of water floated lazily above them.

Then the little girl giggled as she dropped her arms. Several gallons of lake water promptly fell right on top of Lindy's head, soaking her to the bone.

Lindy just stood there as the water slowly seeped into her dress. Her expression was unreadable. Unn became fearful. She took a step back, "I'm really sorry..." Thoriko sighed and leaned forward to get up to admonish her daughter. But Skuld gently touched her arm to restrain her. "Just wait and watch."

Lindy just stood there in silence.

Then she sniggered.

Then she giggled.

Then she cracked up.

Unn joined in the laughter and hugged her aunt, getting herself fairly wet too in the process.

Skuld tsk tsk'ed. That girl is so mischievous.

Thoriko felt she needed to apologize on behalf of her wayward daughter. "Mother, I'm sorry about that. I'll talk to her later about being more respectful to her elders."

"Eh, no harm done."

Skuld stroked her chin thoughtfully. "But her sigil still troubles me." Skuld was not concerned because Unn's face had sported the same pair of diagonal slash marks above her eyebrows as her demon father, nor was it because those were also the same marks that her mother had.

What concerned Skuld was the color of those marks.

Unn's sigil was not blue like her mother's.

And it was not red like her father's.

The marks on her forehead were green.

When Skuld first saw those emerald marks at her birth it surprised and worried her. Initially she had assumed it was possibly due to an admixture from her parents: the simple interpolation of the component hues. As any painter will tell you, if you mix cyan with magenta you get blue, mix magenta with yellow and you get red, mix cyan with yellow and you get green. So Unn had apparently inherited one complementary color that she received from each side of her bloodline.

At first Skuld had assumed that it indicated that Unn was simply an amalgam with traits that she had received from each of her parents. But Keiichi pointed out that such cross-breedings in the past had always produced a sire that was definitively red or blue, never in-between. Now, it was true that the angel/demon hybrid might sometimes switch back-and-forth between her angel state and her demon state - consider Urd for example - but it was always bimodal. The hybrid's sigil was always either fully red or fully blue.

And then over the years Skuld noticed the color of the marks on her granddaughter's forehead were slowly changing. Skuld finally realized what was happening: the color migrated towards the red or the blue depending on the child's temperament and emotional makeup. Lately they had a bit of a bluish tint, almost turquoise. Unn was still rather mischievious, but she had never hurt anyone with her harmless antics, at least not intentionally.

So it seemed that their progeny's hues would change based on their actions over time. Keiichi said it reminded him of the popular computer video game called Mass Effect, where depending on the choices of the player the protagonist's facial features slowly grew redder or bluer over the course of the game.

Keiichi lowered his artist brush. He looked rather annoyed. "Dang it, I'm not finished painting!"

Keiichi was still only a projection, of course. Being merely a hologram he was unable to interact with the environment around him. Over time Skuld had noticed that this was beginning to frustrate him. It happened whenever he wanted to, say, read a book or use a computer keyboard to explore the Yggdrasil database.

Skuld could have given him permission to borrow her body whenever he wished, but he did that rarely now. It was because he greatly enjoyed seeing his wife from his own point of view. So he preferred to spend most of his waking hours as an external projection. But that meant he couldn't interact with anything.

To mitigate the problem Skuld had designed some voice-activated controls for him to use instead of a keyboard to operate her personal data-terminal. But he was still unhappy about how limited his ability was to manipulate the environment around him.

Eventually she went to work on a new engineering project on his behalf. The result was a unique little device that was now attached to a belt that was wrapped around the waistline of her dress. It looked like a large metallic belt buckle, about the size of a paperback novel. She had to put it there because, although it was fairly small, it was a bit hefty due to the embedded miniaturized nuclear reactor that powered the electromagnetic field projectors.

Skuld taught Keiichi how to operate the field projectors using his mind. The projectors were designed for fine-motor control and only generated about one newton of force. It meant that Keiichi could now lift a pen or a paintbrush, push buttons on a keyboard, even open some doors. It had made a huge difference in his quality of life. It allowed him to take up some hobbies such as portrait painting.

A series of chimes sounded from the carillon tower across the lake.

Thoriko heard it and sighed, "Well, as much as I am enjoying watching Unn play, I need to go to the assembly hall. Business awaits." Thoriko was the current Chairwoman of the Council, whose membership was comprised of all the first-level angels and demons in Asgard. They were still debating Skuld's proposed new Charter.

The debate had been going on for a few years now. The Daitenkaicho was not a member and did not participate. The Council was nominally only an advisory board - its only real power was to ratify amendments to the Charter proposed by the Daitenkaicho, which required approval by a two-thirds majority vote.

In the past any such proposed amendment could only supplement, but not fundamentally alter, the Basic Law of Asgard. But because of the momentous events of seven years ago, Skuld had requested and received permission to replace the Charter with a new one for the unified realm of Asgard and Niflheim.

The proposed Charter was only two pages long. The demons faction had eventually assented after requesting only one minor modification, but it still remained contentious among the old-guard natives of Asgard. So the necessary two-thirds majority had fallen short.

Thoriko stood up and said dryly, "Whatever act I did to deserve this kind of punishment.."

"It's not punishment. Think of it as practice to sharpen your political skills. For when you replace me."

Thoriko was still a bit skeptical about it. "Are you sure? Wouldn't Lindy be a better choice as the new Daitenkaicho?"

" 'Daisekaicho'. It has to be you. And we've already discussed the reason for it several times now: You have the strength and determination to make the hard choices when needed, but you always listen to and consider the advice you receive from your sister and your husband, and that tempers and balances you. And Keld also balances the political side of the equation. It makes you the perfect candidate for the role."

Thoriko was obedient to her mother. "Yes, Mother." Then she sighed, "You do realize it will take a miracle to get the two-thirds vote to ratify your little document."

"I have faith in your powers of persuasion." Skuld crossed her arms. "And by 'persuasion' I do not mean the way you used Mjölnir as a gavel the last time." She was referring to the not insignificant hole that Thoriko had punched into the large granite meeting table, which was was still very visible where she smote it with her warhammer in angry frustration during the last meeting.

"I already apologized for that.."

Skuld ignored her. "Just listen to Lindy and Keld."

"Yes, Mother." The goddess of lightning and wrath stood and kissed her mother on the cheek, then she left.

Meanwhile, Lindy had used her wind elemental powers to blow-dry away the damp from herself and Unn. They were now chasing each other in circles again on the lawn.

Keiichi walked over and sat next to his wife.

Skuld smiled at him. "Taking a break from your art, my dear?"

"Yeah. They're running around too much for me to paint anything anyway."

"Well, that's what little children are. They're perpetual motion machines."

He chuckled as he watched Unn scamper about. "She sure is. What a little squirrel."

"Lindy is doing a good job keeping up with her."

"Yeah, heh."

They kept watching.

Then Keiichi had a thought. Without turning he spoke it out loud.

"You know, I don't think I ever saw Belldandy play with children."

Skuld turned and said, "Oh c'mon. I saw her with kids lots of times. You did too."

"Well, yeah, she watched them play, encouraged them, clapped her hands, healed the occasional scrape and all that, but I never saw her play with kids herself. You know, like Lindy is doing now."

"Hmm, has Big Sis ever just played with kids? Now that I think about it, I've never seen her do that either."

"Did she ever play with you?"

"No, not really." Then she turned and chuckled, "But I was a rather, uh, difficult child, so it's not surprising."

"Point taken. What about Urd?"

"Oh, we played lots of games together. We were sooo competitive. Remember when we got into that huge rubber-band fight**? We'd usually take it too far and something would get trashed or someone blown up. And then Belldandy would come outside and tsk-tsk us. Urd really enabled my juvenile delinquency. Hee hee."

"Don't I know it." Then he asked, "But what about when Belldandy was a child herself? Did she play with Urd? With other kids?"

"Hmm. Well, that was before my time. Let me see.. I know that Urd lived her earliest years with Hild down in Niflheim. When she had grown to the human equivalent of age 6, Tyr dissolved his union with Hild and took custody of her and brought her to Valhalla where he formally introduced her to her new half-sister, Belldandy. Big Sis greeted Urd graciously of course***, but I don't think she and Big Sis ever played together much. Urd was always getting into trouble; she really exasperated our father."

She smiled. "And then I came along. We bounced off each other like the two hellions that we were."

She paused as she recalled a happy childhood memory that involved a jar of peanut butter that she had hidden under a sleeping Urd and the hungry flatulent baby wyrm she lured inside to find it.

"Anyway, Big Sis was a very obedient child, always kind and considerate, singing to trees, healing fallen birds, always offering to help. Any parent would give their eye teeth to have such a well-behaved kid. She's always been that way, you know that."

"But did she ever just play around with other kids?"

"Not that I know of. She might have played by herself, I don't know. But I don't think she ever interacted with any other child goddess except her sister. No, she never played with other children." Then Skuld asked him, "Keiichi, why are you asking about this?"

"I dunno.. just watching Lindy I guess. Look at them. She seems so happy now. And she is a lot like Belldandy."

Skuld looked upon her fairer daughter. "Yes, she is."

Keiichi thought back. "After Lindy came back from Niflheim I had a suspicion that she was feeling a bit melancholy. So as her father I told her she could confide in me any time, about anything. But she never did." He sighed, "She's a very private person."

"Yes. And so was Big Sis."

"I realize that now. If something was bothering Belldandy she'd keep it to herself and not tell me. If I asked her if something was troubling her she'd always confess it to me immediately, of course, but she never volunteered. I think it was because she didn't want to upset me. She was always thinking of others first."

They continued to watch their granddaughter play.

Skuld was thoughtful. "Even Jesus knew how to play with kids. But Belldandy never had that experience while growing up. I never realized that before."

"Huh? Jesus played with kids?"

"I think so, yeah. He grew up with lots of siblings: James, Joseph, Judas, Simon, and their sisters - it was a big family****. As kids I bet they played outside all the time. He really liked children*5. If Jesus was playing with Unn instead of Aunt Lindy, I bet he'd run around and play with her in exactly the same way. But Belldandy never had that human experience, that experience of growing up in a human world with lots of squirrely kids."

She looked down. "Big Sis only watched other children play. She encouraged them, she clapped her hands, she said 'Very good!', but she never played with them like another child would do..."

Keiichi completed her sentence. ".. because she doesn't know how."

Skuld thought, But you do, Keiichi.

They continued to watch the happy pair scamper about the lawn.

Lindy had tackled Unn and was giving her tickle-torture. The little girl giggled and squirmed.

Big Sis would never do that. It's just not in her character. She never had that rough-and-tumble experience of growing up in the messy human world like Jesus did.

And I think she knows it. She knows, perhaps at an intellectual level, that she's missing something, something that she does not fully understand.

While Keiichi was busy watching his daughter and granddaughter play, Skuld touched the spots on her face where the three empty holes had been filled-in on her goddess symbols. She remembered that it happened immediately after she had bonded with her husband. You completed me that day. You changed me and I became a better person for it. You made me softer, merciful, and more compassionate.

Keiichi, Big Sis needs you too. But she needs your other side, your fun-loving and playful side, the side of you that enjoys life for its own sake: the part that loves to race motorcycles, paint beautiful portraits, and enjoy loving someone.

Is that your purpose? To complete Big Sis the same way you completed me? Is it that simple?

They kept watching Lindy and Unn play some more.

Then Keiichi turned to face his wife of 87 years. He asked her, "When do we leave?"

The question caught Skuld off guard. She thought a moment.

"I suppose we can go any time after the new Charter is approved and Thoriko and Keld are sworn in as our replacements. But as I've said before, I don't think we should leave so hastily."

Keiichi remained silent. Skuld didn't need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.

Now it was her turn to face her husband. "Keiichi, I've already explained this. The passage of time works very differently up where she is. We could leave tomorrow, or 10 years from now, or 1000 years from now. It would make no difference from her perspective."

"I know.." He looked down.

She smiled indulgently at him. "Big Sis wanted you to live a full and happy life. I promised her that. For you."

"And we have.."

She looked down. "I'm happy too. She's given us both a wonderful gift. I'm very grateful."

"Me too." Then Keiichi asked her a question. "But there's something I still don't understand. How am I supposed to be with you forever and then be with Belldandy for eternity? Aren't they the same thing?"

Skuld gave him a knowing smile. "Actually, they are rather different."

"They are? What's the difference?"

She thought a moment. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain to a mortal.."

Keiich sighed. She had given him the unhelpful response that he had expected.

She quickly added, "But I think that when you and I go on our little tour that you will gain an understanding of the distinction."

"So you keep saying. You've been hinting about this 'little tour' for quite a while now. I still don't get what you mean by that."

Keiichi had access to all of Skuld's surface thoughts of course, but only when he was not projecting. And there were some deep aspects of her mind that still eluded him. Her notion of a 'little tour' was one of those mysteries. Whenever he touched the node in her mind that held that idea, it simply overwhelmed him. It contained a concept that seemed to be beyond the ability of a human mind to understand.

Skuld was indulgent with him. "You'll figure it out eventually. But for now just be patient."

She waved her arm around them. "Look around you. Just look at it all. It's all so beautiful don't you think? In the future you'll think back upon these years with fond memories."

She smiled at him. "This part of your life will be over in the blink of an eye. Enjoy this time, my love. Don't be in such a rush to leave it. For once we leave we cannot return."

"I know.."

"Good, I'm glad you understand. Being a part of the physical world is a wonderful experience. We should enjoy it while we can."

"Then we will wait. Let's relish this time together."

"Oh Keiichi, you do understand." She looked at him with kind eyes. He is becoming such a wise man.

Her emotions began to well up inside her. Big Sis, I'm starting to appreciate your plan. He really is growing, maturing.

They continued to watch their progeny frolic in the sun. Then he asked, "And when we finally leave the physical world you'll stay by my side?"

Her face became soft. "Of course. I love you, and I'm never leaving you. Not even after we depart this world forever. I promise." She continued to gaze into his eyes.

Big Sis, thank you so much for entrusting him into my care. I'll make sure he is ready. I know it might take literally forever. It is not a burden for me.. No.. It is a blessing. We'll go and see places together during the Grand Tour that neither of us could ever see separately. He can take me to places I cannot go, and I can take him to places he cannot even conceive. I love him so much already, and yet I can't even begin to imagine the kind of man he will mature into after.. after..

She stopped because her love for him overwhelmed her heart.

She leaned in to kiss him.

Keiichi smiled and closed eyes. Then his eyes snapped open again when he realized what was happening.

He yelped, "Skuld, stop! Don't!"

But it was too late. A gentle breeze began to clear away the wall of acrid smoke. Skuld sat up from the ground where the park bench had once stood. She was covered in soot. Her hair was sticking out at random angles like a fright wig due to the residual electro-static charge.

"Argh! I forgot!"

After a minute Keiichi re-appeared. He was chuckling.

"Me too. We were both so in the heat of the moment that we didn't remember about the feedback loop."

Lindy and Unn had stopped playing when the explosion occurred. Fortunately they were far enough away to remain unscathed. Lindy had a bemused smile. Unn was still pointing and laughing.

Skuld sulked on the ground. "I hate you!"

He put his hands in his pockets, "Yeah, this is really frustrating. You gotta fix this.."

Skuld crossed her arms as she sat in the dirt. "Keiichi, it's not that easy. The field generator has to be attached to my body for you to manipulate your projection. But if there is any physical contact while the generator is operating then your projection short-circuits and the field collapses with an energy discharge. We can't have any physical contact unless I can find a way to resolve the issue. And it's not a simple thing to rectify."

Keiichi realized he needed to give his wife some motivation to solve the problem. He bent over and softly whispered some words into her ear, being careful not to actually touch her. Her eyes grew wide as she listened. Then she blushed.

He stepped back with a sly grin. She returned his look with one of her own. "Ooh.. I sooo gotta fix this.. Lemmie think.. grounding won't work.. maybe a capacitor feed.."

Keiichi gave his wife a happy smile.

It was because he was now certain that she would find a way to fix it.

A/N:

* Unn is the Old Norse word for love.

** OMG Chapter 172

*** Season 1 Episode 21

**** Mark 6:3, Matt 13:55-56

*5 Luke 18:15-17, Mark 10:14-16, Matt 19:13-14, Matt 21:6, Mark 9:37