+++++ Ikari Manor. Tuesday, +21.

Once more in his own clothing, Shinji stood at the center of an irregular arc of women. Everyone had come home, as it was nearly midnight, and before anyone would sleep the story would be told. He explained his thinking in the Eva, why he chose to do what he did. He explained his thinking in Ásgarðr, why he chose to do what he did. Lastly, he explained his thinking with regards to Ansuz, why he chose to do what he did. "I understand that my decision may have been flawed. That any of you might have been capable of a miracle. That I should have waited for you. I chose to accept her offer," he bowed formally, "and I apologize for hurting all of you by doing so."

"Always so ready to go back to being abused," Hild declared waspishly. "Sugar, the person who we're going to blame for this is standing near you." Turning her angry glare on Ansuz, she let her venom flow, "You, me, and Frigg are all victims of the exact same bullshit you just pulled with Shinji. You spent aeons uncounted under the thumb of a megalomaniac, and you dare to think we're going to let you do the same to him?"

Unphased by Hild's accusations, Ansuz met her glare with indifference. "To avoid a war none of us will win, yes. To help guide Shinji towards reaching his true potential, yes. To maintain peace within this house, yes." She swept her gaze along the assembled women. "In this room, there are but three women who truly took any small amount of time before they made a life-long promise to him. I do not apologize for seizing the opportunity afforded me, and I do not expect any other here would apologize in my place."

"Nobody needs to apologize to me," Shinji asserted, motioning for people to slow down and relax. "There are likely a great many people who would trade lives with me in a heartbeat, and I know that I am not the easiest person to deal with."

"Few are," Frigg interjected. "Perhaps we should move on, now that we know your thinking." She looked aside at Funaho, sensing a similarly diplomatic mind. "We won't make much progress if we stop and focus on the particulars."

"Agreed." Funaho nodded slowly. "I have had some small discussions with Ansuz, and I believe that her position has some amount of merit. Arguing to separate her from Shinji will only engender ill-will from Shinji for the time being. What I would like to speak of, for now, is the diplomacy of the grander issues. The Empire has just today learned that peace talks are to be hosted here, between Us, Niflheim, and Ásgarðr. Shinji, as has been often the story of his life, is deeply entangled with all three parties now. Husband to Ansuz, husband to Hild, and soon-to-be husband to Us."

Taking her subtle hint, Ansuz pressed her plea, "With the imbalance between us, two Juraians, but only one each from Hel and Ásgarðr, and no possible trust built between any of us, we must expedite a form of power-sharing between Shinji and those natural rulers." She looked to Frigg. "We need another recognized authority from Ásgarðr to join us in marriage."

Frigg pointed over to where their daughters sat in quiet discussions with one another. "He's married to them as well."

"Your daughter is not recognized as a ruler amongst her peers, to say nothing of the kingdom at large," she disagreed. "We need someone who is at least of a standing with me. Someone beloved by our people."

"Your daughter is-"

"I do not have a daughter," Ansuz snapped, the room going cold and quiet. Controlling her volume, she cut the objections short. "You know of whom I speak, sister. It may not be the most elegant solution-"

"I just got free from-"

At this, Ansuz began to glow threateningly. "If you dare compare my husband to our rapist, even in the back of your mind where secrets linger, I will liberate your head from your shoulders before your heart beats again." Surprising her, and everyone else, she felt Shinji's hand gently settle on her lower back. Looking at him, and seeing the compassion she'd never known, she let her aura fade. "You…are right." After a deep breath, she returned her focus to Frigg. "I apologize, without qualification."

As for Frigg herself, she sat back and just sighed. It was obvious that she was formulating a response, and as the pause grew more gravid it caused the discomfort in the room to treble. "No need to apologize to me," she began. "If I were married to someone as kind-hearted as Shinji, I would also become irate at someone seemingly questioning his character. To the point, however, why do you insist that I have to be the third?"

"Because the people looked to you, when Tyr began to lose his mind," Verðandy offered, her tone sorrowful and expression pained. "For most of my life, I have seen the other goddesses look to you for guidance. For understanding. For hope. If you were to join with him," she gestured to Shinji, "they would all accept the peace accords you negotiate without question…no matter how hard it will be for some to swallow things."

Ignoring Verðandy, Ansuz pushed from a different vector, "Are we to tell Shinji that it is only he who must sacrifice? That those of us who have fought for peace are less beholden than him to the inconvenience of arranged marriages? Once we navigate this crisis, once we have the universe truly at peace once more, I will not hold it against you should you decide to quietly divest yourself of his love. You have spent billions of years putting up with the touch of that monster to keep the peace, is a few thousand with the touch of a hero a bridge too far?"

"She will not be forced to accept anything from me," Shinji stated firmly. "If she is against this, I will not force her. If she accepts, but wants me to keep at a distance, I will do so. If she accepts or declines…I will treat her as she wishes."

With her head tilted at a slight angle, Frigg met his gaze with a sad smile. "All the power in the universe, and your first reaction is to venerate those you love. What would you do if I asked you for a child?"

"If we were married, I would…do the necessary things to make it happen."

"And if I were hurt by that child?"

Too naïve to follow along, Shinji frowned thoughtfully. "I would do my best to fix what had gone wrong. If that means sitting everyone down to talk, or…you know, bringing in someone I trusted like Funaho, Ritsuko, or Hikari. You can't, you know…make someone love you, but that doesn't mean that you can't reach a calm middle-ground. I'm trying to do that with Soryu. If she just hates me, I can't fix that…but I can do my best to make sure we work together well."

"Subtle, mom," Skuld huffed out. "You're marrying him, not them. You know as well as everyone else here that if you wanted him to dance naked for you in a vat of excrement he would if that would really make you happy. If you want the unvarnished facts, we're about seventy-eight percent more likely to stop this from devolving into a war that swallows entire galaxies if you marry him."

Reluctant to speak, but afraid of what Skuld had just done, Tsunami lifted her hand slightly to draw attention to her words, "But that is only if you marry him of your own free will. If you allow your misandry to swallow him as well, it will only make things worse."

Shinji stepped in when he saw Frigg's eyes grow wrathful. "If you don't want to, you don't have to." Taking the few paces to put himself between Frigg and Tsunami, he spread his hands helplessly. "I don't understand most of the words being thrown around here, but I don't think Tsunami-san meant to upset you. Are there any other people we could ask? Are you it?"

"She is it," Verðandy answered for Frigg. "Anyone who might have become a threat to his rule was…not around for long. The people once held Ansuz in higher esteem than even Frigg, but Frigg does not have any peers in our society."

Pushing herself to her feet, Frigg walked slowly over to stand in front of Shinji. "She's right, unfortunately." Looking along his entire body, she frowned at what she saw. "How do you keep it at bay?" Meeting his eyes, she expounded, "The hate?"

"I don't know," Shinji answered honestly. "Some of it is what I learned by talking to Subeki, some of it is seeing what happens when people around me let it go out of control…some of it is just knowing that I have people around me that truly care for me. I try to fill my thoughts with them. With Maya's scent, or Nanako's laugh, or Ðandy's struggle against her own pain. If I'm too busy thinking about how to help everyone, I'm too busy to let my mind go back to thoughts of him. Maybe it's just how I see things. Maybe I'm full of shit, and I'm completely clueless." He shrugged, spreading his hands and shaking his head. "Nobody came and saved me. Nobody walked into that home and offered to help me. My parents abandoned me, I never had any friends…I don't want anyone else to have to put up with that ever again. If I'm busy…the bad stuff stays away."

Carefully laying one hand on his chest, Frigg asked him in the silence of his soul, Do you swear, on everything you hold dear, that you will give anything and everything you have towards bringing peace to the universe? Her eyes narrowed as he winced, feeling him think of affirmations instead of hearing him speak to her in turn. "Why is it you cannot speak in your own mind?"

"Literacy, or the lack thereof," Funaho announced. "He is gaining ground, and will someday be able to speak to us as we do to him, but for now the volume of words we take for granted is just not present in his consciousness."

After a lengthy pause, Frigg sighed. "I will marry you, for now." Patting his chest, she gave him the same sad smile she had earlier. "If you prove to me that you are worthy of me, and if I manage to not scare you off, we'll see if 'for now' will become 'forever'."

The sound of a lock shutting tight echoed in Shinji's heart for a moment. "I…will do everything in my power for you," he promised. "All you have to do is ask."

"I will give what I have to you, for as long as you prove worthy of it." Standing on her toes and pressing a kiss to his cheek, she gave him a friendly hug. "And we'll both be patient with one another, ok?"

Returning the hug, he began to relax. "Thank you."

"Touching," Hild harumphed, "but we're still going to have a bit of a problem."

Tightening her arms around Shinji briefly, Frigg stepped out of the embrace and looked to Hild with a raised eyebrow. "I see two possible routes, neither any better than the other." Holding up one finger. "You accept that the popular opinion regarding Niflheim is that it is, at best, lightly curtailed mayhem." Holding up a second finger. "You let him complete the set."

"You want me to rule alongside my daughter?" Hild then pointed to Ansuz. "When Queen Bitchface of Bitch Mountain here refuses to even recognize Urðr's sister exists?"

"A shared paternity does not make someone family, witch." Ansuz's voice remained even, her anger restrained for Shinji's sake, "Your daughter chose her side, and if I am to speak truth she chose the correct side." When Hild's brow knit, she let out a cold laugh. "Do you genuinely think I would not have destroyed Ásgarðr if it would have spared everyone his lecherous ways? Had I been given the freedom your daughter possessed, I would have overthrown you, Doublet System be damned. I would have depopulated both realms if it meant those that remained would breathe free air."

Hild stood up, one eyebrow cocked and her arms crossed beneath her chest. "You would have died trying."

Unimpressed, and even less concerned, Ansuz closed her eyes and shook her head with disappointment. "Perhaps I ought to have made things clearer before this point." An aura of undeniable power blasted outward from her, pushing everyone but Shinji back either into their seats or further into the same. "I did not spend my time in my prison idly wishing for a hero to save me." The aura grew more intense, beginning to crush the walls of the room. "I did not sit daydreaming of a day in which I might find someone strong enough to save my people." The frames of house and furniture began to bow outward, only to suddenly snap and blast away, leaving a sphere of rage. "I studied. I prayed. I learned just how strong we were meant to be. My goal, witch, was the power to overthrow anything and everything that threatened the peace." She then gestured calmly to Shinji. "Were it not for him, for the good fortune that brought someone like him here, to this point, this would not be a discussion." Quieting her aura, and snapping her fingers, she remade the room to as it had been before her demonstration. "I cannot be threatened. I cannot be defeated. Do not test me, for you will lose."

Even Washu was beyond impressed. "With all of that strength…why were you still incapacitated?"

"You should know that strength alone will not move the universe. While not of the same pantheon, you were still once a full goddess capable of manipulating creation itself. The curse placed upon me could not be bulled over with sheer will. It required that someone so full of…." She sighed. "It is entirely likely that it required Shinji. I do not believe that there is another with his strange combination of hope, despair, love, and hate." Looking to him with a fond smile, she concluded, "I read his spirit, his mind, and realized just before I would have killed him that there isn't a lying bone in his body. He would do everything he promised, and more…for a woman he had just met. That unlocked the last barrier between me and what you just witnessed…I have a reason to not go fully insane and tear this universe to the ground to save it from itself."

With an all-new set of concerns, Funaho decided it was time to break for the evening. "Perhaps we should all meditate on what it is we are willing to concede, for the sake of a lasting peace. It is apparent," she eyed Ansuz carefully, "that we will not lack for a mechanism to enforce it."

"I agree," Frigg declared. "It is up to Niflheim to decide how it wishes to be seen at the table, and that decision does not involve me." Standing back up and eyeing Ansuz hard, she kept whatever it was she had been thinking to herself and vanished from sight. The room quickly emptied after, many people not wanting to ignite the tinder that it seemed they'd all walked into, and Hild in particular not wanting to push the issue and risk the fallout being blamed on her.

Washu stood up, walked over, and calmly hugged Shinji. "It's good to see you up and about again. Maybe try not to die so often, hmm?"

Returning the hug, he softly chuckled. "I don't think I have as much control over that as you think I do. Thank you for doing what you could to keep me from dying…." In a quiet voice, he whispered, "I love you."

Her heart filled once more, she smiled as she broke their embrace. "I love you too." Looking up into his eyes, she reached up and ran her thumb down one cheek. "Don't let her bully you, ok?"

"I do what I must to ensure that the proprieties are maintained," Ansuz offered, maintaining the distance she'd been at. "But only so long as the peace we seek remains unborn. If he is seen to shift too far towards any one group, it will taint the perception my people hold of him. I allow you to touch him, unwed, out of respect for your position as a goddess. You and he viewing one another as equals can only help, so long as you and he do not seek to undermine the other two points of our triumvirate."

"We don't," Washu snorted out with a laugh. "He wants to learn things he was kept from, I want to watch him grow past the boundaries others set for him, we both want to spend time testing the durability of a variety of surfaces while-"

Blushing hard, Shinji whispered out, "Washu!"

"Hey, you're the one who said you liked it when we used the study desk in your-"

Letting out a warm laugh, Ansuz motioned for Washu to stop. "I believe I take your meaning. Perhaps we'll just call it a 'unique form of worship'?"

Feeling much calmer now that she had a better grasp on how Ansuz was when the stakes weren't so high, Washu dropped a mockingly graceful curtsey and took her leave. "I believe I like that euphemism. Get some sleep, Shinji. I'll handle setting up the negotiations. No offense, but you don't know the first thing about it."

"Why would I be offended?" Shinji scoffed. "I know I don't know anything about negotiating."

"But you will learn," Ansuz assured him. "Beneath the layers of enforced ignorance, there is a brilliant mind. You may never be a master of negotiating, but you could certainly become a jack." Turning her focus back to Washu, she inclined her head in a friendly manner. "Good night. Thank you for volunteering to take on this task."

With a smirk and a wink, Washu opened a portal and waved lazily as she sauntered through. After watching the portal close, and now alone in the room with Ansuz, Shinji set aside his mask of youthful hope to look at her sternly. "Threaten my family again, and I will not hesitate to stop you." He moved so that his shoulders were square with hers. "You could have made your point without the destruction. You terrified Skuld and Ðandy and the only reason there wasn't a fight was because Funaho ordered Misaki to stand down. I do not have many rules that I insist on, but of anything I think that's the one I care about the most. Nobody threatens my family…and both 'nobody' and 'family' include you." Of all the reactions he expected from her, being proud of him was the last.

"As you say, husband. I will limit my use of force to defending myself, and our family." Two steps put her before him, and with a slight lift of her heels, she pressed her lips to his. The kiss was exploratory, a way to see how he reacted, and she was well-pleased when he leaned into the kiss as much as she had. Stepping up against him, she hugged him tight and laid her head against his chest. "Thank you."

While confusion was almost Shinji's default state, he felt he deserved to let himself be thoroughly confused here. "I…w-what?"

"You waited until we were alone. You did not yell at me. You kept the warning to just that, instead of making it a threat. You defended your family." With a morosely happy sigh, she added, "You didn't hit me."

His heart felt like it weighed a ton. There was so much wrong with what Ansuz had done today, and yet he knew just enough about her situation to justify letting her work through it at her own pace. "I wouldn't ever hit you, so long as I don't have to in order to protect someone else I love. I mean…nothing is ever absolute, but I promise you that if I do hit you there will be a reason and either an apology or a death."

"Mine or yours," she agreed. "We must protect others from us, for we alone have the power to defeat anything."

The statement further eased his anxiety. She understood his mind, and now he had someone that could act as a check on his growing strength. "We have several rooms that aren't occupied, if you would like to stay here. I can probably get a hotel room, if that'd be better for you. I…I just want to make sure you're comfortable."

With a soft smile, her fingers curled into his shirt. "Husband, my place is by your side."

"I…uh, I didn't…you know, uhm…." Blushing, he looked away. "It would be rude to assume anything."

"You have met the requirements of good manners." Freeing one hand, she used two fingers to guide his face back to her. "I would like to sleep next to a man that actually understands love."

He had spent his first day of 'freedom' curled into a tiny ball on a bed in a dark, dingy, apartment with no toilet, shower, or functioning light source. He would not make her spend her first day of freedom alone. Nodding with a grunt of affirmation, he stepped to the side and gestured towards the stairs. Walking up to his room with her on his arm, he set the direction and let her set the pace. There was a kind of giddy serenity wafting off of her as she looked at the décor, shifting to a warm contentment when her gaze passed his. As he walked past the closed doors of those that lived on the second floor, he felt his own calm wavering. He wasn't built to do the things asked of him. He wasn't the kind of man that wanted to live the life he was living. Each and every one of the women behind those doors deserved everything he had to give…and he could only give them a pittance of his full attention.

You will have to work harder than anyone, this is true, Ansuz's mind spoke to him with empathy. But I did not make my point about sacrificing simply to push Frigg to do what she must. Every woman here must decide for themselves if they can sacrifice one dream to realize another. Time, in your mind, is so limited. Highborn Juraians can live for thousands of years. Their royalty will live as long as their trees do, and their trees are nigh eternal without care and affection. With? It is no exaggeration to say that you will be with Their Majesties for all time. What is a month when compared to endless aeons?

It was entirely possible that his perspective was skewed. That his humanity limited his vision. It was also entirely possible that he would never adjust. She spoke the truth, though…he would work harder than anyone to be worthy. His thoughts changed from the constant anxiety about the issue to preparing to enter his room. Opening the door for Ansuz to walk through, he noticed that the window had been left open to allow the room to breathe. "It might seem weird," he began as he stepped through and closed the door behind him, "but I like the cold."

"Oh I adore it," Ansuz agreed, taking a walking tour of the room and everything in it. "The way that your skin feels so alive, the way that you can wear just enough clothing to not feel exposed without sweating profusely. Give me endless winter over summer, please and thank you."

The change in her personality, from the more reserved and proper to this almost typical womanhood threw him off for a moment. "I, uh…I've never known winter. I like the cold because it was always boiling hot where he kept me."

Pausing in her motions, on the other side of the bed from him, she looked at him with the familiar refined grace she showed to the world. "He is dead. His memory only lives on in your mind, and that is not where he belongs. These things shaped your past, but your future is so much brighter!" Working the buttons on her dress, she began to undress. "We will work together to put those things in their place, you will come to me when you need to speak of them, and I will do what I can to fill your mind with more," the dress came free, slipping to the ground and exposing the feminine form perfected, "pleasant things."

He felt his mind almost shut off, the thin tendril of conscious thought solely dedicated to not becoming an unrepentant lecher. Lowering his gaze, his autonomic processes began operating what had been left for it. In a dead, empty, voice he recited, "I am sorry, I should not have been looking. It is my fault, and I am ready to accept the consequences of my actions."

Not a woman to be undermined by such things, Ansuz walked around the bed and put herself before him. Standing as she was, where he had no choice but to look or turn his head, she looked into his eyes and announced, "I want you to look, husband. I want you to see what I am offering to you." With a snap of her fingers, she undressed him completely. Now, without barriers, she let her hands work their way up from his hips to his chest. "Scars are a sign that we have survived. They are not anchors, dragging us down." A bit more life came into his eyes, and she took his hands and placed them atop her own chest. "We survived." His cheeks reddened, delighting her further. "Let's soar the skies, together." Using his hands, still cupping her breasts, she pulled him towards the bed. When she felt her calves touch the sheets, she twisted her hips and dropped him onto his back and landed astride his hips. "I have seen into the very depths of your soul…and you are not the bad man you castigate yourself over. You look first, and always, towards peace. You led me up here with every intention to sleep wherever I asked you to, never once with a thought towards what most men would be mindlessly salivating over." Working her hips ever so slightly, she felt him begin to stiffen properly. "My own trauma involves what I am doing right now. I choose to not let it direct my life. I choose to not let him dictate my life." Skillfully teasing further reaction from him, she watched his internal argument patiently. "Join with me. Show the dead what pleasures life could have brought them had they not chosen depravity. Give me a taste of what he denied me."

It was, to his knowledge, what husbands were meant to do. She was not asking him to hurt her. She was not asking him to do something he hadn't already done before. She was asking for his help. He had his concerns, but none of them were unusual or different than they normally were. With a slow, careful, nod he gave her permission to start things off. "What would make you happy, then?"

It was her turn to blush lightly. Biting her lower lip, she danced her fingers along his torso. "I would like to try being on top."

+++++ Ikari Manor. Wednesday, +22.

After trying for several hours to sleep, and not getting anywhere, Shinji sat up in bed and carefully moved to get up.

"Can't sleep?"

Looking back at the source of the only half-awake voice, and once again finding his emotions tangled by the appearance of a woman he was beginning to think would have helped him avoid so many mistakes, he reached over and gently caressed her arm. "I'm going to take a walk, try and clear my head."

"Shall I accompany you?"

"No, no…you get some sleep." Sliding his hand down to her own, he lifted her knuckles and kissed them. "If I can relax my mind, I'll come back."

Her features lit up with a joy she hadn't experienced in just shy of forever. "I am ever a thought away, my husband."

Letting go, Shinji stood up and picked out some clothes that wouldn't be harmed if they got slightly damp. After he was dressed and down the stairs, he caught sight of Verðandy sitting at the dining room table alone. A brief debate regarding whether his presence would be welcome was cut short by his determination to not let anyone suffer alone, and so he walked through the false doorway and leaned against one side. "Can't sleep either?"

Starting in surprise, her face showed several key emotions that even Shinji couldn't miss. She was happy to see him, then she was sad, then she was upset at herself, then she was angry, and finally she was resigned. "No, my lord, I cannot."

With a frown, Shinji asked, "My lord? Is that…do I have a new title or something?"

"You sit upon the Throne of Ásgarðr. You are wed to the two most powerful Goddesses to ever exist." Her tone grew quiet, "Someone such as me should never-"

"What do you mean 'someone such as me'?" Instead of the far more common desire to assuage, he began to feel a level of irritation that he couldn't explain. "Ðandy, you're my wife. You've saved my life repeatedly! Why would I ever want you to…to…. No. No calling me 'my lord'. I have a name, it's pretty easy to say. If you don't want to use that, then…find something like Hild uses."

"I am your wife?" It was Ðandy's turn to become irate. "Yet you spend your first evening home attempting to give me a sibling? You let my mother, your wife, treat me like I don't exist? I was a fool to ever think that-"

Slapping one hand on the table, he made the entirety of it leap into the air several centimeters. "What do you want me to do? Go back on my word, or treat her like she's diseased? Would you have been happier if I let myself die? Washu, Hild, Ritsuko, and who knows how many others couldn't put me back together. Washu even left me alone with her, hoping that I could be put back together. I took her offer because it would bring me back to all of you!"

"I would have asked you to at least think about talking to us about it!"

"How? For all I knew, I wasn't going to last another five seconds, let alone minutes. It felt like someone was ripping my skin off and sewing it back on backwards. It felt like I was encased in fire while freezing to death. Tell me, damn it, what the fuck was I supposed to do when I could barely remember my own fucking name?!"

Shooting up from her seat, she declared, "I hate you!"

Before Shinji could react, while the statement itself hung between them like a black hole, sucking all the air from the room, Holy Bell popped out of Ðandy's soul and delivered what was likely the first and only full-handed slap of Ðandy's life. "You know that is a terrible lie! You love him so much you can't stand it! You are a goddess! You take it back, right now, and you apologize to him."

"N-no," Shinji pled quietly, reason returning to chide him for losing control over the anger that had been broiling for weeks. "Please, no hitting. I…I shouldn't have yelled at her. I'm sorry Ðandy, I really am. It's-" He cut off as she dropped down to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Rushing to her side and pulling her into a comforting embrace, he did his best to soothe her, "Shh, shh, shh…it's ok. It's ok. You have every right to be frustrated. I," he sighed, "I understand what it's like to find out that your parent doesn't care about you. I'm sorry. I should have tried to be more understanding, instead of snapping at you."

Holy Bell settled on his head, her dander still raised. "The situation is frustrating, but that's no excuse for her to lie to you. She knows good and well that you would do everything in your power for her. She also knows well and good that life is no fairy tale. We take the good with the bad."

"But we support one another through the bad times," he challenged her without heat, "and that means both ways. It's not all about me, or her, or you, or anyone else. She's hurting, and that sometimes means that I need to take my lumps. She'll make it up to me when she's more stable."

"Will she?"

Surprised at her statement and the challenge it implied, he frowned up at the Angel on his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that she's regressing. Do you know the last time she cried? It was so long ago that the stars that exploded to provide the material to make your star hadn't yet themselves been born."

"All that means is that she never felt comfortable-"

"Shinji, I love you. I love you with all of my heart. You need to understand that you're endorsing behavior that is destructive." Front flipping off his head, she stood right before his face. "Do you know what happens when a goddess lies?"

"No."

"It becomes reality unless rebuked and proven wrong." She pointed down to Ðandy. "She knows that. She is looking to take the easy way out by making everyone hate her so that she has justification to give up on her heart. She wants to wallow in misery, because standing up for herself and taking what's hers is too hard. What happened when you were forced to choose between going to help Rei or doing your job?"

He did his job. He knew that he had a team behind him, that they would do anything they could to help Rei and Asuka. He knew his part, and he trusted his friends. "I leaned on my friends."

"And it was the hardest thing you've ever had to do. To knowingly run away from a friend in need, to make sure that there would be a tomorrow for everyone. Did you hold it against Rei? Or did you go down into that dreadful place and free her from that prison she was in?"

He would not leave Ðandy to her sorrow. He would not hold her valid emotional responses against her. But he also would not ignore the woman closest to her heart. "Let's take a walk." Heaving Ðandy to her feet, he braced her so that she could lean on him while they moved to the front door. "I think you need to be reminded of how much I love you, and I think you need a chance to cry this out so that we can get back to working as hard as we can." He glanced to Holy Bell. "As a team."

Reclaiming her place atop his head, Holy Bell accepted the plan as workable. "We will work together to set this right."

+++++ Shore of Lake Ashi. Wednesday, +22.

It had been several hours, with Verðandy sobbing as she clung to Shinji's arm while they walked along the quiet lake shore. She had yet to speak, yet to even try, but still she managed to seem both ashamed and appalled at her behaviour. Shinji had taken the opportunity, whenever it presented itself, to quietly assure her that he was not going to just throw her aside. That he wanted to hear her side of things. That he knew from experience that there was never only one side of any story. It was during one such reassurance that his words gave her a chance to respond in kind. "I'm lucky to have had you and Holy Bell enter my life, regardless of how it happened," he said with a warm smile.

"It was not luck," Verðandy coughed out, her voice raw from sorrow and anger. "I was sent to distract you. To sew discord."

"I don't remember you sewing anything," he replied. "I know you apologized to Funaho and Misaki. I know you tried to keep things from devolving into chaos. If he wanted you to cause problems…well, you certainly didn't do a very good job of following his plan."

She chortled, a sick and raspy sound. "Messing up what my parents wished for is probably the only thing I've ever done well."

"I don't know, I seem to remember you somehow managing to balance precisely in my lap in such a way that it felt like you were pulling me up into you."

Blushing and smiling in equal measure, she squeezed his arm in reproval. "It was surely not that adept. I am not nearly as skilled as-"

"I have not, am not, and will not compare any of you," he interrupted with a firm tone. "Each of you is a gift more precious than any I might have dreamed of. I might be frustrated by you from time to time, and I might wis…have preferred that each of you had been given a partner of your own that could fulfill you the way you do for me, but I wouldn't give any of you up for the world. I don't care what this Order wants to parade before me. I don't care what anyone says about us. I am yours forever, end of story."

Pulling him to a stop, she turned him around so that he was facing her directly. Seeking something in his face, his eyes, she slowly begun to shake her head from side to side in disbelief. "You…truly mean that."

"If you want me to write it down and sign it, I will. If you want me to record it and play it over the entire MAGI-net, I will." If this was what it would take to get her to calm herself, he'd think it a cheap price. "I'm just as lost as you, Ðandy…and I am very sorry that what I did earlier hurt-" He stopped when she placed the tips of two fingers against his lips.

"I do not hate you." The statement felt stronger than a simple repudiation of her words. It felt like she was correcting the flow of the universe itself. "I could never hate you." Taking a long, slow, breath she finally admitted a truth she'd kept locked away from herself, "I…do not think my mother is entirely wrong."

"…Ok…." While Shinji's instinct was to tell her that it was most certainly not right to treat her the way that Ansuz had, he muted himself to let her speak what she would.

"I could have done more to free her. More to help her. More than just…just sit there and talk to her about the world as she slipped further and further from it." Under her breath, she added, "I could have opposed my father."

Could she have? Shinji wouldn't want to bet on it. A nigh-all powerful god isn't someone he felt was easy to simply tell to fuck off. Though, he admitted, he himself had done a reasonably good job of doing as much when Tyr had tried to hurt Hild. What had been the difference? Was it the lack of familial proximity? The need to protect someone that had done so much for him from someone that had hurt so many? The situations weren't analogous to one another, that much he knew. "Maybe you could have, maybe you couldn't. That you didn't doesn't give her the right to treat you like garbage. It doesn't give her the right to frighten you. It's not my place to say what either of you should or could do better…but I did make it clear to her that she will not threaten or hurt anyone in our family again."

"That she is one you consider family is the only reason I haven't rectified this particular error, husband." Ansuz's cold voice floated heavily towards them in the cold morning air. Her approach on soft, silent, wings ended just past arm's distance from him. "Had you wished for company, I believed I said I was but a mere thought away."

Three different avenues of response presented themselves to him, only one leaving him in the position of mediator instead of dictator. "When a woman I love is hurting, I feel it is my duty to do what I can to help them, wife." Straightening his spine, hardening his gaze, he looked at the latest woman to join his life impassively. "Ðandy needed to speak with me. She needed to hear from me that despite our union, she still holds my love as well."

"She needed to know that family is made of people who have your back, right or wrong, thick or thin." Hild sauntered up from the other side of Shinji, pulling Ðandy's back against her in a hug. "Sugar has a big enough heart to overlook a lot, after all. Some people might be better off aspiring to his example."

"My husband's ability to overcome his lesser nature is something I admire, witch. It is not, however, something I wish to nurture. He is a King. An Overlord. An Emperor. He will need to learn, soon, that forgiveness is not always a virtue." Ansuz took the extra step forward, placing herself alongside Shinji, facing the daughter she repudiated and the woman she'd replaced. "Our hand holds countless lives, and to focus on the few would be to condemn the many to worse than death."

Shinji placed his left hand where it was visible to everyone, pressing it downward in a call for the conversation to remain conversational rather than confrontational. "What I am is barely an adult. My responsibilities, right now, include defending this planet against aliens and learning how long division works. I am not stupid enough to ask everyone to get along…but I am going to insist that we stop calling each other rude names. Hild is also my wife, Ansuz. Ðandy is also my wife. Ignore each other if you want to, I don't care, but all you are doing by sniping at one another is making long division even harder on me." He prayed that the comedy of the statement would soften the blow of his demand.

Barking out a laugh, Hild at the least managed to see the attempt at humor for what it was. "Fair enough, Sugar. If you don't mind, I'm going to take my new daughter here and go find her sister." When Ðandy looked back at her, confused, she grinned and winked. "Hey, if people are going to throw away perfectly good daughters, I'm going to start collecting them. I always wanted another kid, and you turned out ok enough." Pressing a kiss to the top of the blue-blonde Norn's head, she sobered enough to ensure that her declaration was taken seriously, "You're my daughter now, and I am very proud of you for surviving the shitstorm that was your life. Let's go find Urðr."

It was a good idea to him, and so Shinji encouraged it with a broad smile, "Be safe."

"When have I ever done anything dangerous," Hild asked with faux innocence, before disappearing with her new daughter in tow.

Once more alone with Ansuz, Shinji sighed out loud. "Please…please, can we please not start fights within our own team?"

"They are not on my team," his new wife stated blandly.

"They are, however," he looked straight at her, "on mine." Placing his hands on her shoulders, he tried to connect with her emotionally. "What do I need to give to you to get you to put your anger aside until we stop being attacked by the Angels? To just…ignore them until we can take the time we need to unfuck everything that Tyr has fucked up?"

Looking up at him with approval, she stated her terms, "If you so desire to see a reckoning, then I will allow it…so long as you gift me a ring." Holding up her left hand, she showed him the backs of her fingers. "One made by your own will, imbued with the desire you have to see me happy." Her determination mirrored his own. "Use the System Force. Learn to trust it."

"…A ring?"

"A ring." Her mouth shifted to a knowing smirk. "Never underestimate the power of a physical symbol of your dedication over a woman's emotional state," she added. "We, as a gender, tend to largely enjoy being able to show others of our gender that the man we have chosen is wise enough to put thought into how best to decorate us."

Not understanding in the slightest, he slowly nodded his head. "If I give you a ring, one that shows you how badly I want you to be happy…you'll give me what I'm asking for?"

"Yes."

"Ok." Blowing out a low whistle, he tried to think of how a ring would look to fulfill the requirements set before him. "If the first attempt doesn't work, please just understand that I'm trying here, ok?"

"I will not hold practice attempts against you, husband. That you recognize you are imperfect is a glorious gift to me in itself."

After meeting Tyr, he could believe it. Closing his eyes and focusing on the wording, he put his hand out before him palm up. "I wish that I had a ring to give you that…let the whole world know how badly I want you to know how I feel about you." Feeling a new weight in his palm, he opened his eyes and saw an impossibility. Before he could close his hand to hide the near nauseating sight, an apology already forming on his lips, he was relieved of the object by Ansuz herself.

"Well now," she purred, "isn't this just a delight?" Holding up what could only be described as an infinitely interlocking series of Penrose Triangles constructed of fractally woven toroidal Möbius strips, she nodded in satisfaction before sliding it onto the ring finger of her left hand. "Most satisfactory. I-" Unprepared for an assault on what she believed was quite likely the safest place in the entire universe, she was slow to raise her defenses.

The gap in her preparedness was ruthlessly exploited by the Thirteenth Angel, Bardiel. The fungal amalgamation of growths shot out a weblike tentacle from where it had taken advantage of the lake to crawl close enough to strike. Reaching down Ansuz's throat, to her lungs and stomach, it anchored itself deep in her core to allow for a continued assault even as Shinji used his Light Hawk Wings to reduce its main mass to little more than base atoms.

"What the fuck is-" Knowing this was beyond his skill, he called for help from those he trusted most instead of continuing to swear fruitlessly, "Funaho!" Instinct had him look back to the manor house, hoping to amplify the cry for help. He was met with another confusing sight, a hazy, blackened sphere floating between him and those that might aid him. The orb had some few defects within its otherwise perfect darkness, the reflected lights of the stars above twisted and distorted by physical laws he knew nothing of. There was no doubt in his mind that this was a foe. With Ansuz already in danger, and others likely soon to come, he allowed his defensive instincts to kick in and lashed out with a perfectly aimed slice of his sword into what would later be explained to be the shadow of the Twelfth Angel. Between the time of the attack and Shinji's realization that he had connected with nothing at all, the true form of the Twelfth Angel appeared beneath him. A void, a gap in reality between dimensions, swallowed him whole in an instant and disappeared.

Funaho, supported by nearly every able-bodied fighter within the manor, arrived to find only Ansuz choking to death on the Thirteenth Angel. Their love, the young man who'd called for their aid, had completely vanished along with the Twelfth Angel.

+++++ Author's Note:

RE: Curveballs.

I don't know what you're talking about. I never put curveballs in my stories.