Perfect Detail
An 'Ah! My Goddess' fic


Any and all C+C is appreciated. You can contact me at
sommer@3rdm.net

At Larry F's at:
http://lwf58.tripod.com/fan_fiction/d_b_sommer/index.html

Or R+C books at:
http://dbsommer.rcbooks.org

And also Angcobra is now storing all of my fics, at
http://s5.sexshare.com/~angcobra/dbsommer.html

Standard disclaimer: I don't own any of the Ah! My Goddess characters. They
were created by Kosuke Fujishima. Dark Horse owns the rights to the manga
distribution in the U.S.

Author's notes: Something a little more somber than what you might expect
from me.

No prereaders this time out, so be forewarned.


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chilled night air blown off the river breathed down Yoshi's neck, seeking
warmth yet only succeeding in making him shift uncomfortably while it
continued ever onward, unaffected. Tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose
until they were standing on end. He felt cold, colder than he could ever
remember in his twenty-two years of life. It was curious, since no more than
half an hour ago he was numb to the chill in the air, numb to everything,
for that matter. But now the situation had changed as he remained standing
perfectly still, shivering. He paused to reflected just how inadequate the
light windbreaker he wore was for this frigid December evening. He supposed
it should not have mattered, not at this point. The cold would be ending
soon enough. Sooner, if he so desired. Oh, there would be a few moments of
intense, probably painful cold, but then it would drift away and he would
experience it in decreasing amounts until there was nothing left to feel, or
so he assumed. It was what he had heard others say, and what he believed.

Despite this reassurance, one of his hands found their way to his collar and
pulled it forward so that his neck was no longer subjected quite as openly
to the elements. The motion did little to shield him from the cold, but at
least it served to allow the hairs to lay flat against his skin once more.

Lights reflected off the water down below. A vast sea of city manufactured
stars twinkled from over the edge of the toes of his boots. His feet were
warm, the only part of him that still was. At least he had possessed enough
sense to wear decent footgear to walk through the couple of inches of snow
that had accumulated during the course of the day. It was going to be a
white Christmas this year, the first in the last five. On the upside, most
people didn't want to deal with the snow and, between that and how late in
the evening it was, avoided the park. Now only silence greeted him, save for
the faint whistling of the wind. In the summer it was the opposite. The park
had gained a reputation as a place where young lovers could sneak away from
prying eyes, fleeing into the night to find some quiet spot far from the
beaten path for a  romantic tryst-

A shuddering shook Yoshi's body, one far worse and more violent than any
brought on by the chill in the air. A burst of  pain escaped his lips, a sob
that sounded more like a cough as it wracked his form. The world wavered as
a sheen of water fell over his eyes. Keeping a firm grip with one gloved
hand on the bridge's railing behind him, he moved his free hand up to his
face and rubbed his eyes as best he could. The worn leather made a poor
handkerchief and did little more than smear the tears across his face. He
looked back and forth across each side of the bridge, but still no one had
appeared. An omen, perhaps, one that told him this was what he was meant to
do.

Again Yoshi's eyes sought the water below. The lights still danced across
the surface as the wind continued to blow, paying no heed to his discomfort.
So much like the rest of the world, when he thought about it. It occurred to
him as he stood there, regarding obsidian depths that could have they
reached two hundred feet down instead of a mere twenty from as far as he
could see into it, that no matter what the priests at his temple contended,
the world really didn't care about you. Whether you were there or not,
everything would continue on uninterrupted as though you had never existed
to begin with. It was a startling revelation to him, to fully understand the
concept as it latched on and all but shook him on his somewhat precarious
perch, but if there was ever a moment where one would have a moment of such
clarity, this was it.

His attention fully returned to the river below. Despite the cold
temperature and the snow that had fallen, and was now continuing to fall as
it started snowing again, the river had not frozen over. Either the current
was too strong or the water too warm. It was fortunate for him it had not.
Had there been ice, it would have meant a change of plans. Not that he had
spent much time planning this, it was sort of a spur of the moment decision,
though once it came he realized it had been bubbling beneath the surface the
entire time. Every other avenue he could think of had been tried. This was
the only option left that would bring an end to the suffering. The only one.

Yoshi closed his eyes and drank deeply of the frigid air. He swore he could
feel a coating of frost form on the inside of his lungs. That was all the
air held. There were no soft scents of warming fires or roasting food. No
smell of people gathering together in groups to enjoy the festive season.
Just cold and loneliness in equal amounts. There was only one other thing
that seemed to be there, just at the borders of his perception: the cloying
scent of jasmine perfume. It was an illusion, of course, but not a new one.
Once it had not always been so. Once, an eternity ago, it really was there,
teasing him, seducing him and succeeding time and again. He had never grown
desensitized to it, never failed to bask in the scent. But then everything
changed. It left abruptly, disappearing in a heartbeat. In the beginning it
lingered, becoming less noticeable as other smells, none ever so sweet,
drowned it out until he could smell it not longer. It was shouting in a
cavern, listening to an echo that dwindled ever softer into the distance
until it became unheard. Though if one tried hard enough, believed strongly
enough, they might convince themselves they could hear one last sound even
when it had drifted into nothingness long ago.

He breathed again to find that jasmine, but could not bring himself to sense
it. The last echo had long since departed. All that was left was the cold
and loneliness, and a hint of a lilacs.

"Cold night."

"AH!" The woman's voice coming from not more than five feet from him, and
worse, right at the edge of the bridge, shocked Yoshi enough that he lost
his grip. One hand slipped completely from the ice cold metal of the safety
rail and for a moment he hung on the edge of the precipice, a soft caress
away from going over altogether and plunging into the icy depths below.

But the wind, that cold, heartless thing that had seemed to taunt Yoshi all
night, made the difference as it blew hard into his face. That little bit of
force was enough to allow him to fall back and regain his balance. He
clutched onto the rail tightly, a wrought-iron life preserver.

Still frightened by the unexpected nature of the near plunge, Yoshi's wild
eyes darted to the previously unseen speaker. The comment came but a handful
of feet to his right where no one had been a moment before. The first
thought that struck him as his eyes fell onto the woman, who leaned over the
railing and looked idly in his direction, was that she was a goddess
descended from Heaven, come to deliver him from oblivion. She was beautiful,
her appearance easily rivaling that of any woman he had met in person. Dark
skin contrasted sharply with platinum locks that were just a shade darker
than the snow around them. Several loose strands danced behind her head,
playing softly in the wind. She wore a long red coat rimmed in white fur
around the neck, cuffs, and bottom. The white reached just below the knees
of legs that managed to be shapely despite being hidden by the material
around them. Brown leather boots hugged her firmly, stopping mere inches
below the edge of the jacket and showing just a hint of skin that was every
bit as dark as that of her face. The only odd thing about her was the white
plastic bag that was slung over her shoulder, the bottom sagging from an
object within.

He looked back and forth across the bridge, but she was the only person in
sight. "Where'd you come from?!"

"Trust me, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." Her smile held a mix of
sarcasm and amusement in equal amounts.

She couldn't have been there. He had seen no one. Even as distracted as he
was, he would have heard her approach, especially crunching down on the
newly fallen snow; he was certain of it. His head whipped around to see if
anyone else had intruded on his solitude, but there was no one in sight.
There was no noise to indicate others were approaching. Even the sounds of
the city sounded diluted from where he stood.

Surprise finally departing, he regained some measure of composure and
realized what the situation looked like, and why the woman would have
silently stalked towards him. He drew his body away from her, though after
the near fall his hands refused to leave their secure grasp of the railing,
which meant all he did was lean to the side. "If you get any closer, I'll
jump."

"Don't worry. I couldn't stop you from falling even if I wanted to. Has to
do with rules of conduct and such. I'm not allowed to do it for a stranger
like you, not in a situation like this." She gave a helpless shrug.

Fear still ruled, him, fear that she was lying and would lunge forward to
prevent him from the only course that was left. "So what are you? Morbid
curiosity seeker? Want to watch me jump to my death because you've never
seen anyone die before?"

She made a face, her lips pouting slightly and marring her beauty. "I've
seen more than enough death in my time, more than you could ever want. I
know it's a natural part of life and all, but still, I don't need my face
rubbed in it."

Her words bore the weight of truth. There was something about them that hung
in the air, a grim acceptance of pain that Yoshi thought he had mastered
until he found himself perched on the edge of a bridge looking down at cold
waters that would suck him down to his death.

"Then why are you here?" he finally asked.

She gave another shrug, this one far more casual. "I thought you might want
someone to talk to."

For the first time in almost a month, a laugh nearly escaped Yoshi's lips.
It was all so... surreal. But he caught himself and instead gave out a
terse, "I am about to jump off a bridge. I'd say it's a little late to talk
to someone."

"Nah, it'd be too late if you already jumped. Before, though, there's still
time to talk."

He was making fun of her. He was about to leap to his death and she stood
there making light of the situation. Tears welled in his eyes at how anyone
could be so callous, and direct such uncaring at him in such a moment. "I
don't want to talk to you!"

She looked put off by the comment. "Fine, be that way."

"I will!"

Surprisingly, she made no move to him, instead she looked off in the
distance, her eyes seeming to focus on something far off. Despite the fact
these were his last moments on Earth, his curiosity refused to be ignored
and forced him to follow her gaze and see what she was staring at. There
appeared to be little of interest. All Yoshi could make out was a large
Christmas tree standing in front of a jewelry store that was just outside
the boundary of the park.

"I really don't care for Christmas." The woman's voice sounded as distant as
the tree.  "You'd think for someone like me, with my lineage, it'd be my
favorite time of the year, and in some ways it is. I do like the joy, the
parties, the sake, the mistletoe. And of course there's the whole reason of
why we celebrate it, very important to me and my... co-workers. But
underneath that veneer of good feelings and cheer, well..."

Unconsciously, Yoshi found his head nodding in agreement.

The exotic beauty's eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "I guess it sort of
has to do with feeling as though I'm not as happy as I should be. Sort of
like things could be better, so I don't really have anything to celebrate."

Yoshi continued nodding his head sincerely. "Yeah, I know what you mean.
I... Hey! Why am I talking about this with you?"

"I brought it up?" she ventured.

"I thought you said you were trying to talk to me, but you're doing is
talking about yourself."

The woman shifted uncomfortably. "Well, part of the reason I tried to get
you to talk to me was so that I could talk to you."

"What?!"

"Well, it's not like you have anywhere else to go or you wouldn't be here,
would you? I sort of like having a captive audience."

"I... I could jump."

"Nah. No one's plummeted to their death because they talked to me, no matter
what nasty rumors Mara might have spread. She's one of the more annoying
things in my life, by the way. Good friend, but she works for the
opposition. A pity, but that's the way of things. Keeps things interesting,
I'll admit."

This new tangent offended Yoshi for some reason he couldn't understand.
"You're getting off the subject."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." Though her words were in apology, they lacked
a feeling of sincerity.

Yoshi asked, "Do you always go looking for people about to commit suicide to
talk to?"

"Nah. You were convenient. I do have a couple of sisters I can talk to, but
I don't know. One's too young to understand, and the other is... Well, this
is one thing I don't think she'd understand. It's just not in her nature.
She's too optimistic. So I find myself surrounded by people but with no one
to talk to."

In answer to her apparent depression, Yoshi found himself hesitantly say, "I
know what you're saying, I mean about no one really understanding."

Seemingly appeased by the young man's sentiment, the woman returned to
gazing out in the distance. The silence reigned for a full minute, each
person staring at the tree that lay so far away.

"So what was her name?" the woman asked without looking in Yoshi's direction
.

The question came some unexpectedly, especially since the woman's attention
seemed riveted elsewhere, Yoshi found himself reflexively answering.
"Mariko. But how did you know..."

She turned to look it him, causing him to trail off. "That look in your
eyes. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Only one thing can cause it.
Believe me, I know. I've seen it staring back at me in a mirror on more than
one occasion."

"You don't know what I'm feeling!" Yoshi's body shook from anger. A torrent
of words was on the tip of his tongue despite his previous reticence. For
some unfathomable reason, he felt an urge to tell this woman how wrong she
was for equating any pain she had ever felt with his own raw, overpowering
emotions. "She was... she was everything to me! We went out for a year.
Every single day was so much better than any I had before. Every other woman
I met before was nothing compared to her. She was perfect. She was smart,
had a great sense of humor, was attractive, and we got along perfectly
together. We hardly ever fought, and it was only over minor things. We
enjoyed a lot of the same things. We never got tired of being in one
another's presence. A day didn't feel complete unless I got to see or talk
to her at least once. We laughed together, sometimes even cried together. It
was... it made me feel whole."

He began sniffling and tears welled in his eyes. Never before had he
considered it acceptable to cry in front of anyone else, especially
strangers --his father had been firm about that-- but now he couldn't help
himself, not when laying his emotions so bare.

"So she died?"

He shook his head fiercely. "No, though if you had asked me even a month
ago, I'd have said that was the only thing that could separate us. It came
out of nowhere. We were having dinner at this new restaurant her sister
recommended, and suddenly she blurts out she wants to break up, that things
weren't working anymore. It didn't make any sense. Everything was perfect. I
know it was. I loved her. I would have known if something was wrong!"

"Was it over someone else she met?"

Again his head shook vigorously back and forth. "No. I think that would have
been easier to deal with. I mean, at least then I could have told myself she
was leaving me because she was misguided enough to think there was someone
else out there who loved her more than I did and she'd be happier with him.
But she was telling the truth. She wasn't breaking up with me because of
some guy she was seeing on the side. She wanted to break up because I wasn't
good enough for her. It was all my fault. It didn't matter that I was a
better person with her at my side than at any other point in my life. It was
me that wasn't enough to satisfy her and make her feel the same way I did
about her.

"I tried talking her out of it, but she had already made up her mind. I
tried reasoning with her for weeks, but after a while it became obvious she
was uncomfortable with me trying to win her back. I wanted to keep trying as
long as I had breath in my body, but even after what she did, I couldn't
stand the idea of making her suffer. So I broke off all contact. I thought
maybe if I made a quick cut the suffering pass faster. It didn't. She's
still there, even when she's not. I can feel her around me, and it's more
than I can bear. She was the center of my universe. Without her, I can't go
on, no matter how hard I try. And now it's come to this." He looked
mournfully at himself, the bridge, and then at the murky river below.

The woman's voice sounded distant as she spoke once again. "His name was...
well, he was a singer. I suppose you could call him a troubadour. You know
what they say about musicians? Well it's all true. In my case, he left me
for something else. A song, if you can believe that. Though what he was
really leaving me for was his dreams. It was hard, being discarded for
something that you can't really compete with. You can't make yourself more
attractive or a better catch, not against a dream. I hate losing without
being able to fight back. In the end, I let him go in search of his dreams
with my approval, but only because, like you, I couldn't bring myself to
make him suffer the way I was. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel."

The words stung him. The audacity of the woman was unbelievable, intruding
on his moment of grief with this. "Stop comparing yourself to me! You can't
know how I feel!"

The woman gave a laugh, one that was bitter and full of scorn. It was made
all the more potent by the ugly sound coming from someone so attractive. "Oh
Father, save me from twenty-two year olds who think the world is at an end
because they had a big break up with a girl, as though none of the other
five-plus billion people in the world have been through the same damn thing.
I've got news for you, pal, people that don't have at least one major failed
romance in their lives are by far the exception, not the rule. Don't think
just because you're miserable right now that means no one else has ever been
as depressed as you. You aren't unique in any way. A lot more people know
exactly what you're going through than those that don't. So don't stand
there dancing on the edge of a bridge and try pretending you're some kind of
martyr for the concept of love because you don't want to deal with a chunk
of misery that almost everyone goes through. You're not. You don't see
everyone else plunging to their deaths like a bunch of lemmings when someone
they love breaks up with them, and there's a reason for that."

Yoshi looked down at the water, feeling chastised when he thought he should
have been angry. His self-pity, which --with the woman's berating-- was what
he realized he was feeling, cowered away from the reproach. It was amazing
that instead of words of consolation and sympathy, it was admonishment that
was getting through to him, making him look at things from a different
perspective. It wasn't even so much the words themselves as the weight
behind them. Each word weighed heavy with resentment and anger, carrying
with it the woman's emotions. It was like being force fed empathy, and he
found it impossible not to swallow.

A new gust, more powerful than any yet, chilled him and seemed to freeze his
doubts into ice, leaving only the ever present feeling of depression still
raging in his breast. His eyes invariably found their way back to the dark
surface of the river, and his purpose for being there reasserted itself with
three times the strength as before. "You don't understand! There's no one
else that can ever take her place. She gave my existence meaning. She was
the only woman in the world for me. My one true love. If she's not by my
side, there's no point in going on. Not without her!"

In a heartbeat, the woman's demeanor shifted completely. Where before she
had expressed at least a hint sympathy, or contempt, at what he was saying,
now there was anger. Pure, unquestioning anger.

For the first time since she had mysteriously appeared she moved, walking up
to him. As she drew closer, he suddenly understood what it was that made a
deer freeze in a pair of oncoming headlights. The woman's glare trapped him
as effectively as if someone had nailed his feet to the bridge. Once she
stood next to him, with only the railing separating the two, she drew her
hand back, then brought it forward. The slap across his face was hard enough
to leave a hand print across a cheek already reddened by the bitter
temperature. The blow also served to nearly topple him from his precarious
perch. It was only with a burst of agility that surprised Yoshi himself that
he was able to re-center his body's weight and kept from going over the
side.

"Are you trying to kill me?!" he shouted once certain he had regained his
balance, and hoping that he was braced well enough to prevent a second blow
from succeeding where the first had failed.

"How dare you! How dare you think kami-sama hates you so! I'd like to take
whoever came up with this idea of people only having 'one true love' and
throttle them."

"What are you talking about?!"

For a moment, he thought she was going to slap him again, but after a moment
of internal struggle, she seemed to resist the urge and settled for giving
him an angry stare.

Slowly, with carefully measured words, she said, "Do you honestly believe
that stupid idea about there being one and only one person in the entire
world that you are destined to fall madly and permanently in love with? That
your entire existence and future romantic life is predicated upon locating
this one woman out of billions and that you can only know true happiness
with her?"

He didn't like the way she phrased the question, but he couldn't find
himself to argue with it. Instead, he gave out a faltering, "I... I guess.
Sort of."

She made a snort, her breath billowing out in a cloud of steam. "So what
does it mean if someone can't find this supposed 'perfect match' among the
billions of people out there? Or are they supposed to meet no matter what?
Then why are there so many people that never marry and are perfectly happy?
What about every other relationship people had? Are they useless, pointless
exercises always destined to fail before they've begun because this isn't
the one true love that they are destined for? Or maybe they're just a sort
of practice run? Would that make the feelings unreal? Is that how you think
of the first girl you ever went out on a date with. The first one you
kissed? The first one you made love to? Were all the words of caring you
shared with them nothing but a pack of lies since they weren't your 'one
true love'?"

Each question spurred memories of those girls, as though each event with
them had occurred but moments ago rather than the years that formed the gulf
between then and the present. Suddenly Yoshi was sitting in a restaurant
with Miaka back in seventh grade, nearly throwing up on their date with how
nervous he was. Kachinko later in that same year, behind the bleachers after
the school soccer team had lost another game. Her consolation kiss made his
team's loss completely forgotten. Manami, the first girl he had formed a
serious relationship with during their senior year. It was an act of
desperation on her part to salvage a relationship that was in its dying
phase. The move only added two months to its life before a tearful end, but
the memories of the passion they shared in that heat of the moment would
never be forgotten.

His senses seemed to remember as well: the scent of Miaka's heavy perfume,
the first time he had noticed such on a girl, now hung in the air instead of
phantom jasmine. The taste of honey of Kachinko's lipstick mingled with his
sweat danced on the tip of his lips. The soft feel of Manami's body against
his own coarser skin as they ground together in copulation. It was a
sensation unlike any he had felt before, each one bringing back memories of
the girls and the feelings he had for them at those single moments in time.

Anger and bile rose to his throat at the very idea of what this woman was
proposing. "Of course I meant what I told them, even if the relationships
didn't work out in the end! I never lied, not to any of them!"

The woman gave no indication of hearing as she continued on, as unrelenting
as a storm. "What about the people that die? What about some seven year old
that dies in a car wreck without ever thinking members of the opposite sex
were anything but annoying? Is there now someone out there that can never
meet their predetermined 'true love' when they get older because they died
in an accident? Or was this now dead child never destined to have a true
love and so came into existence without one? Yes, Kami-sama can be callous
sometimes, but do you honestly think he's capable of that sort of cruelty, a
life without hope of love?"

Again he found himself assailed with questions he had never considered and
prodded for answers he hadn't devised. "I... I don't know. I guess not."

She smirked in open satisfaction at her perceived victory. "He isn't. Oh,
life is unfair, but not that unfair. You want to know the truth? I'll tell
you. There is no such things as 'true love.' Love's like any other emotion:
it all comes in degrees."

"Degrees?"

Her mood seemed to brighten slightly. "Oh yes. It's all about degrees. There
are variations on it, of course. The love you feel for a woman isn't the
same you feel for your parents or siblings, obviously. But the love you feel
for someone you casually dated once is the same kind as what you feel for
someone you marry for life; you just feel a lot more for one than the other.
Don't let anyone try telling you otherwise. The intensity you feel for
someone might trick you into thinking it's a whole different kind of love,
but it isn't. The root of it is the exact same thing. One's not more 'true'
than the other. They're all true. Each and every one."

Yoshi found himself hesitating at the idea. "I'd like to believe that. It's
funny, but I think you're right. I never loved anyone as much as I did
Mariko, not anywhere near it, but I've definitely been in love before. It
just never felt exactly like this. Breaking up never hurt as much as it did
this time."

"Like I said, the difference is in the intensity, not the base feeling."

"Maybe," Yoshi conceded ever so reluctantly, but months of misery would not
be so easily suppressed. All the depression rebelled at the new thoughts and
tried again to reassert a position of dominance. "But it hurts so much.
Nearly every minute I can feel it inside of me. It doesn't seem to ever go
away or give me a moment's peace."

Most of the scorn left her voice and she sounded more sympathetic, like when
she had been reminiscing about her own past. "Yes, it hurts. It's supposed
to. It shows you cared. You're supposed to feel rotten and depressed and
miserable for a while. The more you care the longer it usually lasts. But
guess what: it's temporary. Give it enough time and it'll go away and just
be a distant memory, like all the girls that came before her. You know, the
ones you hadn't given a second thought in months? It's happening even now. I
bet even if you tried, you wouldn't remember a lot of the time you shared
with Mariko. Maybe a night here where nothing memorable happened. Or a
couple of walks in the park where it wasn't sunny or rainy. Several dates at
restaurants where you can't remember what you talked about or ordered, or
even the name of the place or what she was wearing.

"It all adds up, and eventually only the most important memories will be
remembered, and even then you'll only recall having certain feelings about
them rather than actually feeling those emotions like you are now. New
memories bury the old, no matter how hard you try to fight it. It's a
healing process that takes time. The only question is how long it takes.
Sometimes a little while, sometimes what feels like forever, but it happens.
In time."

Again, terrible truths. Even now those inexplicably powerful memories of
past romances that Yoshi remembered so vividly only minutes before had
drifted back into the depths of the past. "But I don't want to forget her. I
loved her. I want to remember exactly what I felt, how I felt, about her
forever, even if it does hurt so much."

The woman spoke again. If ice had a voice, it would have sounded just like
her. "Oh no you don't. You most definitely do not ever want to wish for
that. Be happy you can give up your memories to the past rather than having
them remain with you forever. There's nothing worse than remembering
everything and not being able to ever forget. New memories pile on top of
the old until all the decades feel like one extended yesterday. It's more a
curse than a blessing, being able to remember everything in excruciating
detail, every scene with perfect clarity. Even the cherished ones will feel
tainted since you know they all end in tragedy. Being able, no, being forced
to remember exactly what it was like, to see how the sun strikes his face,
the wind blows through his hair, his hand feels around my shoulders, his
ability to make me warmer inside than I could ever manage on my own, is a
sort of continuous pain. Every soft smile and gentle kiss feel like they
were given only a moment before when it was really years ago, and the truth
is he abandoned you so very long ago, and that memory of rejection is as
fresh as the others. It's pain.

"It makes letting go difficult and forgetting impossible. And with each new
failure, the burden becomes greater until every time you think of the past
it feels as though your back will shatter and there's never any way to seek
relief by purging yourself of what has happened. And the next thing you
know, you try everything you can to live solely in the present, even going
so far as to live vicariously through others and playing matchmaker for them
so you don't have to feel the pain of yet another failed relationship added
to your collection. Given a choice, I'd take being able to forget everything
instead of having to remember it all every single time. Be satisfied that
you can lose your memories, for there is no greater misery then being forced
to remember everything in perfect detail."

Yoshi didn't understand how it could be as she said --the ability to
remember everything the way she described it was impossible-- but at the
same time there wasn't the slightest doubt in his mind she spoke the truth.
He could only imagine the misery that being able to remember everything
caused, and despite the fact they were not his own feelings, he could feel
her pain dwarfing his own.

He looked down at the river below. It beckoned him no longer. It was just
water. There was no peace, not real peace, to be found there. That was not
to say he was cured: he was still miserable since Mariko remained in his
heart, a gaping wound. But now he had something he lacked earlier. Now he
had hope for the future. And in the end, he knew that was all he really
needed.

Going from one extreme to the other, Yoshi held a brief vision of slipping
and plunging into the river now that he had found the resolve to deal with
his situation through other means. Gingerly he stepped over the railing,
turning away from the woman and giving his full attention to his handholds
and footing until he was securely on the proper side of the rail. He shot
one last glance at the river. Only minutes had passed since he had paused,
mentally preparing himself to take the fatal plunge, but it felt like years.
He was tired and hungry. For the first time since that final dinner with
Mariko, his appetite had at last returned.

In gratitude, he decided to ask the woman if she was hungry and wanted to
get something to eat, though he would make it clear that he held no romantic
interest in her. There was an unearthly aura radiating about her, making her
feel unapproachable in those terms. Just asking if she wanted to dine with
him took a great deal of courage on his part. And there was Mariko. He had
found the determination to deal with his feelings concerning her, not found
the actual solution to them yet. Besides, from the sound of things, this
woman carried at least as much emotional baggage as he did, and he was wise
enough to know that two miserable people could rarely make each other happy.

Yoshi turned to talk to her, still trying to figure out how to phrase the
question without sounding like he was asking her on a date, when he
discovered his companion was no longer there. He spun in a circle, looking
all around, but somehow she had disappeared from sight in under five
seconds. Again he was struck by the impossibility of it all. This time he
knew for certain she could not have walked off without him noticing; he was
not that drained from the experience and inattentive to the world around
him. If anything, he was more aware of it now than at any other time in his
life. He looked down at the snow covering the bridge to see which direction
she had walked off in order to pursue her.

The snow was as virgin as when it has first fallen, with only his tracks
giving any indication that anyone had been on it in hours.

A hallucination. That was the only explanation. He was losing his mind and
only dreamed that a mysterious beauty had appeared out of nowhere and had
kept him from making what would have been the stupidest mistake of his life.
He needed treatment, immediately.

Just as Yoshi was about to wander off in a daze, his eyes fell upon
something hanging from the railing. He had overlooked it, searching so hard
for the woman that he had disregarded anything that wasn't her. The plastic
bag dangled there, moving slightly in the wind, though the weight of the
object inside kept it from spinning greatly. He walked over to the bag and
quickly undid the simple knot that suspended it in mid-air.

Inside was a container of Rocky Road ice cream and a note attached to the
top. The writing was sloppy, as though the author was in a hurry. It read:

'I've found that ice cream tends to make things better. Figured you could
use it more than me.'

It was left unsigned.

"Ice cream in the middle of winter? Why not?" Not knowing what else to do,
Yoshi slung the bag over his shoulder, intent on going home, eating the
whole thing, and getting the first decent night of sleep in months.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Damnit, Urd! How could you forget the ice cream?! It was the whole reason
you went out in the first place!"

Urd, Goddess of the Past, snapped her fingers. "I knew I was carrying that
thing around for some reason, but it slipped my mind."

"I can't believe you're so irresponsible!" Skuld briefly considered what
device she had in her room that would gain some measure of revenge from her
older, incompetent sister.

As the clothing shrinker raced to the forefront of Skuld's mind, Urd grabbed
the young goddess in a headlock and proudly proclaimed, "That's right! I'm
the irresponsible sister, and don't you forget it! Now watch in horror as I
make sure it sinks into this thick skull of yours."

"Ah! Not the noogies! Not the noogies!" Skuld protested even as Urd
proceeded to rub her knuckles across the top of her helpless sibling's head.

Watching the scene from the kitchen, Belldandy commented to Keiichi, "It
looks like Urd's feeling happier now. I'm glad. She seemed pretty down the
last few days. I wonder what cheered her up."

"Probably wrecked havoc with someone else's lovelife for a change." Keiichi
shook his head and winced at yet another holiday where it appeared he would
never get a quiet moment alone with Belldandy.

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Fini.

Well, haven't done an A!MG, fic in a while, and this is definitely different
from 'The Visitors' in every way. Did this one a bit different from usual,
in doing some later parts of the conversation first and as I got stuck
writing earlier ones. Made meshing them together a bit hard, but I find
myself not dissatisfied with the results. Not sure how this one will go
over, since it reads as something of a short speechfic rather than something
with an actual plot, IMO. An irony, since I generally skip over stuff of
this nature when it comes to reading, yet found myself compelled to write
this. That and it was short, and since I haven't had a lot of time to write
anything longer and I wanted to do get at least a little back into the swing
of things. This idea that was simmering in my mind for a while and, for me,
it's best to get the ideas out when they stick around for a while, lest they
clutter things up. I did like using the idea of being Goddess as the Past a
double edged sword for Urd, though. Don't read much A!MG fanfiction, so I
don't know if the concept has been done before.

Hope to do more C+C before I go on to my next writing project, which will
likely be longer. Depending on the muse, we'll see how things go.


D.B. Sommer

P.S. And remember boys and girls, if you don't get the new admin C+C, you
might ah, accidently get bumped off the list, and we wouldn't want that now,
would we? ^_^

---"Abuse of power? Isn't that something weak people made up to try and keep
those that are bigger and stronger than them from acting like they're bigger
and stronger, therefore negating the whole purpose of being bigger and
stronger?"---

Captain D'Amour "TWPOS II: The Wrath of Monetkahn"








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