I haven't gotten any response from my prereader, yet (I only finished this
today) but I'm putting this out to the FFML cor comments, criticism and for your
pleasure.
James
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: More Human Than Human.txt
More Human Than Human
Part 1
by JJC
---
Oh! My Goddess! is property of Kosuke Fujishima. This work is a piece
of fiction intended for personal use. No commercial use of this piece
is intended or allowed.
---
Belldandy hummed a nice little song to herself as she folded
freshly washed linen. It was mind-numbingly-boring work, something that
most mortals -- and quite a few dieties -- would have found
distasteful. It didn't bother her too much, though.
Keiichi had attempted to do the laundry a few times -- he had
wanted to do his fair share of work. Unfortunately, his attempts at
washing clothing had turned all his underwear pink. Urd also tried to
help a couple times, but she only ended up creating an extremely messy
situation -- all the clothes in a six kilometer radius of the temple
attempted to fold themselves regardless of whether they were being worn
by people at the time. Skuld made an automatic washing machine that
worked just fine, except for a few little details -- it tended to blow
out the entire city power grid from time to time.
*There! All done.*
In retrospect, it wasn't that much work after all. If it was a
really heavy load, there was always the option of just magically
cleaning the clothes.
Belldandy smiled to herself ruefully.
*Just because you can do it, it doesn't mean that you _should_ do it
all the time, 'neechan.*
She had told Urd that time and time again. Urd never listened to her
on that point. Come to think about it, lots of people never took her
seriously. She carefully maintained a facade of unearthly serenity in
an attempt to balance Keiichi's near constant exposure to the arcane
and esoteric that life with goddesses brought about. She knew the
heavy price that many a mortal had to pay for living with gods.
Sometimes Belldandy wanted to scream out at the world in frustration.
Oh, Kami-sama! There was only so much that one could take!
Keiichi was out at work -- probably doing some ridiculously hard job
that gave little pay. Something that he "got" from the motor club
grapeline. Oh, Keiichi. This was the man that utterly defined humble.
*She loved him. He was trusting, kind, ti... ti... timid...
Wait a second.*
Belldandy blinked for a second.
*Maybe that's why our relationship hasn't gone anywhere! Someone has
to take the aggressive stance.*
She had to talk to someone about her situation.
---
She hesitated before knocking on Skuld's door. When she heard no
definite answer she decided to open up the door carefully.
Belldandy peered around the door frame, "Ano... Skuld-chan... What are
you up to?"
The young goddess sat in front of her desk, bashing her head into the
keyboard. A mess of cardboard and cellophane sat upon Skuld's rumpled
futon in the carton -- "Windows 2000:Server Edition".
"Skuld-chan," scolded Belldandy firmly, but gently, "What did I say
about installing software?"
"Arrrrrgh! I know! I know! Don't install completely new packages on
production systems. Do it on a test system!," wailed Skuld, "'Nee-
chan! I'm sorry! I couldn't resist!"
Belldandy wrapped her left hand around the door's edge and pivoted
herself into Skuld's room. She put her right hand into the mess of
cables, breadboards and other electronic detritus. She drew her hand
back with a small black rectangular object held between the tips of the
index and the thumb. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners and her lips
stretched wide as she threw a mischievous grin at Skuld.
Skuld looked up slowly, tears smearing her rounded face. Skuld blinked
away the remaining tears and stared at the object in her sister's
hands, a joyful expression spreading across her face.
"You made a backup??!!! Oh, Onee-sama! You're the best!" cried out
Skuld.
Skuld hopped off her chair and smothered Belldandy in a massive hug.
"It's all right, Skuld. I made this backup disk image last night when
you went to the software store. It wasn't too hard to guess what
you were going to do."
Skuld looked up at Belldandy. It wasn't fair! She knew this was gonna
happen??!! She quickly mentally revised her view of her big sister.
Belldandy was sugar and spice, but today, she had a hint of Tabasco
hiding behind those gentle eyes.
"Skuld. I wanted to talk to you about something," Belldandy breathed
softly into Skuld's ear as she patted Skuld's back.
Skuld suddenly loosened her grip on Belldandy and scooted back a few
steps.
"You know about Urd's bike? Oh man! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to take
the brake assembly off!," panicked Skuld, "Well, not all the way..."
Belldandy chuckled. Her light peals of laughter softly echoed off the
paper and wood walls of the room.
"Oh, Skuld! It doesn't have to do with that. I have some personal
things to discuss, and I think you should have some input. Besides,
Urd needs to learn some humility sometime..."
"Okay 'nee-chan. Whatcha want to talk about then?"
Skuld sat down on her futon, tossing the trash over to a large trash
can in the other corner of the room. She patted the futon with her
right hand, motioning Belldandy to sit down with her other hand.
Belldandy came into the room and sank onto the futon. Skuld wrapped
her arms around Belldandy's left arm and rested her head on Belldandy's
shoulder.
"Well, it's about me and Keiichi..."
"Hmph! He better be keeping his hands off you, Belldandy! I don't
want his grubby fingers all over you."
"Skuld, that's not such a nice thing to say about Keiichi!" admonished
Belldandy. "Besides, that's what I want to talk to you about."
"Huh?"
"Well, um. has it ever occurred to you that I want Keiichi to have his
'grubby fingers' on me?", asked Belldandy as she looked at Skuld out of
the corner of her eye.
Skuld looked at Belldandy with a shocked expression on her face.
"Waah! It's just that boys are so 'icky'!"
Belldandy smiled.
"Skuld-chan, when you're older, you will start to understand.
Skuld pouted.
"That's not fair, 'nee-chan. That's what Urd's always saying!"
Belldandy cocked her head and stage whispered, "Well, Onee-chan is occasionally
right, you know."
Skuld smiled at this comment.
"I agree. Just don't tell Urd that I said that. Why are you asking me for
advice anyway? I thought Urd was the most 'experienced' of all of us."
"Well..." Belldandy stammered as she blushed gently. "She's a little too
experienced. I don't want to scare Keiichi by being too forward."
The edges of Skuld's eyes sparkled a bit.
"'Nee-chan, I can absolutely say that you are in no immediate danger of being
too forward with Keiichi anytime soon."
Belldandy lowered her eyes.
"Then why do you continue to interfere with my relationship with Keiichi?"
Skuld flinched at that question.
"Well. It's not you that's being too forward. It's that pervert. uh, sorry, uh
Keiichi."
Belldandy turned her head away from Skuld and looked up at the ceiling.
"Do you honestly believe that he's being too forward? Or are you afraid of
something, Skuld-chan?"
Skuld stayed silent for a few minutes. Then she spoke.
"To be honest, I don't want him to have you. You're my big sister. I can't
just let some mortal walk into our lives and take you away due to a freak
accident."
"What if I said that I wanted a mortal to take me away? Skuld, you're being
very selfish. I'll always be your big sister. I'll also be Keiichi's companion
for life. Not by cosmic fluke. Not against my will. I want to be with him,
don't you see, Skuld-chan?"
Skuld looked very old and tired for a second.
"Yes, I guess I do," whispered Skuld.
Belldandy looked back at Skuld and gave her a tight hug.
"Thank you so much Skuld."
Skuld sniffled a bit, wiped her eyes yet again, and then gave a very tiny smile.
"Well, I guess you should go to your Keiichi, then."
Belldandy squeezed a Skuld a bit tighter to finish up the hug and then got up
and walked out of the room.
Skuld sat on her bed for a few minutes and then went over to tinker a bit with
Banpei's interface computer.
---
Urd was busy (literally) congratulating herself on her chemical and magical
prowess.
Two mini-Urds were sitting on the edge of her lab counter, kicking their legs
back and forth, cheering her on.
"You're the best, Urd!"
"Yes, you are! Yes, you are!"
"Go, Urd!"
She had just completed her most foolproof potion yet. It was a perfume that
would drive men's hearts into a lustful overdrive, and then taper off, leaving
them in an eternally amorous state.
Those puny mortals at Pfizer and their Viagra had nothing compared to Urd.
A knock on the door brought Urd out of her little dream state. The two mini-
Urds scrambled to get the door, huffing and puffing as they struggled to slide
the massive door open.
Belldandy was standing in the hall.
"What's that, you're working on, Onee-chan?"
Urd quickly hid the perfume vial behind herself and passed it to the two mini-
Urds. The two mini-Urds hopped off each other and scurried into Gan-kun's mouse
hole with it.
"Ahehhehheh. Nothing, nothing. Uh, come on in, Bell-chan," said Urd as she
motioned for Belldandy to enter her room.
Belldandy came in, pulled a lab stool out toward herself, and sat on it.
"I have a favor to ask of you Onee-chan."
"Sure, Bell. What do you want?"
"Please stop trying to push Keiichi. He's going at his own pace. If you keep
on trying so hard to get us together, you might make a mistake that you are
going to regret in the future."
Urd looked indignant for a second and stood up from her stool with her arms
akimbo.
"I'll never make such a mistake, Bell!"
Two mini-Urds came tearing out of Gan-kun's hole, around and over Urd's feet,
and out of the room with a perfume covered mouse with wild eyes chasing them
with spread arms.
"Come back, my loves, my beauties! Gan has much love and can surely share it
with both of you!"
Belldandy raised her eyebrow.
**Zot!**
The sound of a very high voltage electric arc incapacitating a small mammal
echoed through the temple. The two mini-Urds came back into the room, dragging
a crisp and blackened, unconscious mouse by its back legs into the mouse hole.
"As you were saying, Urd?" Belldandy said as she tried to conceal her giggling
with her hand.
Urd's righteous expression was replaced by a wry grin.
"All right. I'll lay off for a while. I'm warning you though, if nothing
happens in a month, I'll get back in the mix, I can assure you."
"That's fine for me, Onee-chan."
---
Keiichi was curious why only the hallway light was on when he got home. It
didn't matter too much, he could smell Belldandy's cooking from outside and
quickly stowed his shoes and slipped on a pair of slippers as he entered.
The only other light was a soft glow coming from Bell's room. Keiichi wandered
in the open door and saw that Bell's table had lit candles and plates laid out
for a formal dinner for two. Keiichi turned around to go and wash up, wondering
what was going on.
---
end part 1
to be continued...