Just something I wrote a while back which I decided to
polish up and send out.

Hope ya'll like it!

Ranma 1/2 by Rumiko Takahashi
Oh My Goddess! by Kosuke Fujishima

Scream for Ice Cream!
----------------------------

 The dark haired girl stood outside the window 
of the ice cream shop. She wore a blue striped, 
white one-piece swimsuit and had long, dark hair 
done up in a loose ponytail which fell well below 
her waist. She had three triangular markings on her 
face, and appeared to be young, perhaps fourteen or 
fifteen years old. Sweat poured down her body and 
darkened her swimsuit in long streaks, but the 
young girl appeared to feel no discomfort from the 
heat, or was ignoring it very well.

 Her face and hands pressed against the 
frosted glass of the shop. The heat of the mid-
summer sun beat relentlessly down from a perfect, 
cloudless sky and she could feel the chill from the 
icy delights contained inside against her cheeks. 
She imagined that she could hear the ice cream 
calling to her: "Skuld, Skuld, eat me Skuld, I'm so 
soft and creamy and cold....", and perhaps she 
could -- she was a goddess after all.

 Skuld moaned softly as she watched the girl 
at the table in front of the window. The girl 
slowly raised a spoon of pristine vanilla ice cream 
to her face, then slowly slipped the spoon between 
her lips, allowing the cool creamy delight to melt 
slowly in her mouth.

 "Ohhhhhh... icccce creammmmmm...."

 What she wouldn't do for ice cream right now! 
A cone, a cup, one of those impossibly tiny sample 
spoons! Chocolate, Rocky Road, Butter Pecan -- she 
didn't care. Even sherbet would be perfect on a day 
like today. What was a trip to the beach if she 
couldn't have her ice cream?!

 She was a goddess, after all! If she wanted 
ice cream, she'd have ice cream! But Belldandy had 
made it clear that there was to be no more printing 
of money, coining of coins, or conjuring of 
currency of any sort. And her magic wasn't good 
enough to do the job, anyway.

 Of course, she'd been given an *allowance* by 
Keiichi before coming to the beach. How humiliating 
for a goddess to beg for money from a *mortal*. But 
they'd been at the beach since ten in the morning, 
it was at least a quarter of twelve by now, and her 
money was gone. How could they possibly put her 
through this? She hadn't had ice cream in the last 
half-hour! The pain!! The agony!!!

 Skuld closed her eyes and relaxed, allowing 
her body to press against the glass of the shop. 
She ignored the dark glances of the man behind the 
counter, the wide eyed stares of the boys inside 
and the harsh looks of their girlfriends as she 
felt the cool air conditioned chill of the shop 
pass through the glass and the swimsuit she wore 
and cool her heat ravaged, ice cream deprived body.

 She opened her eyes and stared again at the 
dish of ice cream on the table in front of the 
window. Half eaten now. Soon it would be gone.

 Skuld snarled at the thought of anyone but 
her enjoying the icy caress of the sweet and 
innocent treat. She'd show them; Urd, Keiichi and 
Belldandy! She'd have her ice cream soon! Mark her 
words!

 Thoughts of revenge melted from Skuld's brain 
as a new customer took a seat at the table before 
her. Ohhh -- triple hot fudge and caramel sundae 
with whipped cream and nuts! Skuld writhed in 
pleasure and pressed her body against the window as 
ice cream dreams carried her further and further 
away into fantasy. 

-*-

 Something was disturbing Skuld's reverie. She 
wasn't sure what it was at first, but gradually she 
could make out a tune being whistled with vigor, if 
not skill.

 As Skuld turned her head to find the source 
of the noise, she wiped her mouth with the back of 
her hand, scraping off the dried drool which had 
accumulated at the corners. She saw a red-head with 
a pigtail in a swimsuit jogging up the road towards 
her. The girl was about Skuld's height, but looked 
to be a little older, and quite a bit better... 
developed. The girl smiled brightly at Skuld as she 
passed the young goddess, then entered the ice 
cream shop. Skuld leaned her head back against the 
window and was disappointed to see that the table 
in front of her was empty again. She rested her 
forehead against the window and closed her eyes.

 After a short while, she heard a knock on the 
window. Slowly Skuld looked up to see the red-head 
sitting at the table in front of her. The girl was 
rapping the window with her knuckles as she watched 
Skuld. When the girl was sure she had Skuld's 
attention she smiled, and motioned for Skuld to 
come inside.

 Skuld considered the girl's invitation for a 
moment before deciding she really had nothing to 
lose. She left the window and entered the shop. The 
wall of cool air in the shop invigorated her 
sunburned body. Not quite as good as ice cream of 
course, but better than nothing.

 As she walked around the corner towards the 
seating area, the man behind the counter frowned at 
her. "I thought I told you not to come back unless 
you have money. I know you don't have any money, 
I've been watching you stand in the window and 
annoy my customers for the last two hours!"

 Skuld spun on the man and was about to let 
him feel the heavenly wrath of her hammer when she 
heard a cheery voice behind her.

 "Don't worry Mr. Manager! She's with me!" 
This statement was followed by an impossibly high-
pitched girlish giggle.

 Skuld turned her head and saw the red-head at 
the table waving wildly and generally looking cute 
enough to attract the attention of every man in the 
shop.

 The manager frowned another moment before 
shrugging. "Whatever, as long as you're with a 
paying customer."

 The girl at the table watched Skuld as 
sheapproached. When Skuld was standing in front of 
her the girl smiled, and spoke.

  "Hi. I'm Ranma."

 Skuld stared at the red-headed girl for a 
second then finally found her voice and introduced 
herself. "My name's Skuld."
 Ranma's smile got a little smaller. "Are you 
OK? You looked pretty spaced out."

 It took Skuld several seconds to process 
Ranma's words. Finally they seemed to make sense to 
her sun-addled brain. "Really?"

 Ranma frowned. "Yeah, really! Sit down and 
drink something."

 Skuld stared at the floor and scratched the 
back of her left leg with her right foot. "Well, 
like he said, I'm broke. That's why I was standing 
outside." Skuld looked up at Ranma. "Thanks for the 
offer, but I really should be going."

 A strong hand grabbed Skuld's arm as she 
turned to leave. She looked back and saw Ranma 
smiling at her again. "I'll treat you if you can 
stay a while."

 Skuld's face slowly brightened until she was 
smiling again. "Are you sure?" 

 Ranma nodded. "I'd really prefer not to eat 
alone." She looked a little red faced. "Its 
embarrassing. Besides, if I'm alone all the guys 
will hit on me. It won't be as bad with you here."

 Skuld felt happy for the first time today. 
She hadn't expected a complete stranger, and a 
mortal at that, to be so friendly. Skuld sat down 
and smiled at Ranma happily as the girl flagged a 
waitress down.

-*-

 Skuld pushed her chair back from the table 
and rubbed her stomach in contentment. She smiled 
as she looked at the remains of their binge. The 
table was littered with dishes, spoons and half 
empty glasses of soda. Across from her Ranma was 
intently scraping the last bit of melted ice cream 
and chocolate syrup from the bottom of a bowl. A 
streak of chocolate ran from the corner of the red-
head's mouth and down her chin.

 Ranma licked her spoon and winked at Skuld. 
"How're you feelin' now?"

 Skuld just smiled back at Ranma and patted 
her stomach again contentedly. "Great! I thought 
I'd *never* get enough ice cream to satisfy me."

 Ranma laughed. "No such thing as 'too much' 
ice cream!"

 Skuld was amazed that she had met a human who 
exceeded her capacity for ice cream. It had been a 
close battle, but Skuld had finally had to concede 
defeat to Ranma's superior skill, and stomach. She 
felt that for the first time since she'd come to 
Earth, she'd found someone who understood her.

 Ranma stood and stretched. "Be back in a 
sec'. Gotta go visit the little boy's room."

 Skuld laughed. "You mean little girl's room, 
right? You don't want people thinking you're a 
pervert."

 Ranma laughed nervously and rubbed the back 
of her head. "Oh yeah, little girl's room, right!"
 As Ranma disappeared, Skuld looked out the 
window at the afternoon sun. The rays of the sun 
were streaming through the window directly into her 
face, so she reached into nowhere and pulled out 
her spectacles, adjusting the knob on one side to 
filter out the sunlight. She had built them herself 
to help locate system bugs, but they also made a 
pretty mean pair of sunglasses.

 When Ranma returned a few minutes later, 
Skuld turned to look at her. She nearly jumped out 
of her seat at what she saw. Now that she wore her 
spectacles she could see the ghostly image of a 
young man superimposed over Ranma. Skuld could see 
his resemblance to Ranma in his face, and their 
eyes were identical. For a minute she sat and 
stared at Ranma. Then Skuld saw the brightly 
pulsating energy tethers running from the ghost 
image to the red-headed girl.

 Skuld reached up to adjust her spectacles 
again. Ranma, who had taken her seat again, looked 
at the girl and smiled. Skuld smiled back, a little 
uneasily.

 Now that she had reset her spectacles, Skuld 
was gathering more information on Ranma. Around the 
ghostly image of the young man, Skuld could now see 
words, floating in tight spiral lines around the 
tethers anchoring the image to Ranma. The words 
were written in golden characters, burning brightly 
with green flame. Skuld quickly began to decipher 
the writing.

 Standard curse headers... hmm... shape 
shifting... hmm... Ah! Oh, no! Such a horrible 
fate. It depressed Skuld to think of her new found 
friend suffering under such a horrible curse. The 
gods could be unkind. Uh... well... sometimes. 
After all, she was one. She certainly hadn't cast 
this curse, and she just couldn't see Belldandy 
doing something like this.

 Thinking of all the warped gods and goddesses 
she knew who could have done something so cruel to 
such a kind person as Ranma, Skuld decided it must 
be Urd's fault. No one else could possibly be this 
diabolical. Besides, wasn't everything really Urd's 
fault when you got right down to the meat of the 
matter?

 Skuld considered her options. Maybe she could 
help. She couldn't grant Ranma a wish, that would 
violate her limited license. But, she was the 
system debugger for Yggdrasil, which left her with 
a certain amount of leeway. 

 Checking to be sure that Ranma was occupied 
watching the sunset, Skuld again reached back into 
nowhere and pulled out what would appear to most 
people to be a small hand held calculator. It was 
actually her remote debugging terminal. 

 Skuld quickly downloaded the data her 
spectacles had gathered to the terminal and set to 
work. A few minutes later she smiled in 
satisfaction. There, that should take care of 
Ranma's problem. Now to upload her changes.

 Ranma stood and turned to face Skuld, still 
smiling. "Well, its getting late. I'd better get 
back in time for dinner. Kasumi's cooking tonight."

 Skuld stood and took a step closer to Ranma. 
Skuld smiled at Ranma and hugged her. "Thanks for 
the ice cream. You really are a lifesaver!" 
 As she hugged Ranma, Skuld pressed her 
terminal to her friends back and started the 
upload. Almost immediately she could see the change 
take effect in the curse's code. There! It's done!

 They smiled at each other for a second before 
stepping out of the shop. They each turned and 
walked in opposite directions along the street.

 Skuld smiled and skipped along, singing 
softly under her breath. It felt good to do a good 
deed. No wonder Belldandy was always so happy and 
Urd so grumpy. Skuld liked knowing that for once 
her skill was really going to help someone. 

 Sure, Ranma might never know who had cured 
the curse, but Skuld felt her heart beat lightly, 
thinking of the joy that Ranma would feel when she 
found out she'd never turn into an icky old boy 
again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Steve Pardue
spardue@zebra.net