"The I that succeeds in becoming the universe overcomes man's central, 
abstract terror, the root of dread in his heart, which is the sense of separation 
and isolation from the world, and hence of a surrounding cosmic, indistinct 
hostility. Cosmic dread shows the need for self-identification with the world. 
The usual diagnosis--lack of love-- is formally correct, but sounds hopelessly 
sentimental since the idea of the fusion of the microcosm with the macrocosm 
is lacking."--Elemire Zolla

Tokyo-3 had been saved again, and it would live to greet another day. All across the town, everyday people searched to get their lives back in order, and find a reason to keep their will to live: desire, fear, and all the colors of the heart in between. Humanity, and the river of its life, was far away from the mind of Ikari Shinji. For a moment or for an hour, he had managed to steal away from it all. Most of all, he had eluded its pain, the pain that seared his life, over and over. Whenever he blindly groped for something greater than he was alone, the pain came. Never triumph, rarely wisdom. Only pain was forevermore.

This would be his last encounter with pain, and he had made sure the encounter would be brief. At his elbow by the bath was an empty glass that had held bourbon whiskey until a moment ago. Clear, pure water warmed his body to its core, and supported his heavy aching limbs. As naked as he had been born, his only companion in the bath was a kitchen knife, its blade curved like a woman's hip.

Drowsily, he rolled his fingers around the knife's handle and held it to his wrist. To his vague surprise, he found it difficult to muster any kind of force in his arm. Well, he thought, never mind it all. I only have to go so deep.

Aloud, he said, "God..."

The sound of the word reverberated off the walls of the bathroom, the ceramic womb.

"God..." he said again, reverently, almost sarcastically, "this is your last chance. If you want me to live, let me know now."

Well.

The part of Shinji's brain that still wanted to live and endure was overjoyed by the bright flash of light that came from the surface of the water, right between his knees; but the rest of him, the majority of his brain, was shocked to the point that it lost total control of his bowels. And no amount of faith, of prior enlightenment, could have prepared him for the humanoid figure that appeared, shouted "RAPIST!" and knocked him over the head with a mallet.

When he came around a few minutes later, Shinji was plenty woozy, and there was a nasty lump on his head; but considering that his entire theological system had been upended like a turtle on a banana peel, he was doing remarkably well. He tried to sit up, but a light hand on his forehead pushed him back down onto the pillow his head lay upon.

"Shh," said a gentle, unfamiliar voice. "Don't rush yourself."

Shinji opened his eyes. The speaker was a young woman, with long flowing hair, a blue or black color. Three marks or tattoos were on her face. She had an aura about her of gentle serenity, underlain by a youthful energy Shinji found himself captivated by. She must be some kind of holy person, he thought.

"Who are you?" he mumbled.

"Are you feeling all right?" the woman said. "Would you like to try sitting up? Yes?"

"All right," Shinji acquiesced. The strange woman wrapped a supporting arm around behind his back and helped him up into a sitting position, then slipped the pillow around behind him as he leaned against the couch. Shinji saw he had been dressed in his school uniform, with a white undershirt below his button-down.

"Would you like some tea? It wouldn't be any trouble for me. In fact, I'd kind of like some myself."

"Whatever. No, wait." He grabbed hold of the sleeve of her robe as she turned away. Caught, she turned back to him. He was wide enough awake to read the undercurrent of fear and apprehension in her manner. "Who are you?" he said directly. "And how did you get here?"

"Um...sure you wouldn't like the tea first?"

"No!"

Whether it was just the bizarre circumstances of their meeting or the girl's simple manner, Shinji delivered the single word with uncharacteristic bluntness. So the she sat down by his sprawled legs and lowered her eyes in shame. "My name...my name's Skuld. This is going to be a little awkward to explain to you...I'm...I'm a goddess."

"Eh?"

"I'm a goddess. Er, here." From out of the folds of her robe she drew a business card. In words of embossed onyx upon thick gold leaf, it read:

Shinji sighed and rubbed his head. "You know, this whole thing is so absurd I almost believe you. But why did you come into being in my bathtub?"

Skuld giggled girlishly and put her hand to her head. "Um, I don't know 100%. My debriefing packet..." At this, she handed a manila envelope to Shinji, who fingered it dully, "...says that you invoked the Holy Name of God under 'extenuating circumstances'. Now, thing is, usually invocations or desperate situations are handled by other goddesses, or even angels. But there's these 'extenuating circumstances'. That means that there's a security breach going on, and it revolves around you, see. So I've been dispatched to save your spiritual bacon and plug up the security breach."

"Ah." Shinji drew back his legs and sat Indian-style. "And why did you hit me over the head with your mallet?"

Skuld blushed. "Um, 'cause I do that a lot. Sorry." She glanced toward the kitchen. "How about that tea now? Can you stand up?"

"Yeah." Shinji struggled to his feet, but as soon as he was upright the room around him started swimming. Unbidden, Skuld slipped herself under Shinji's arm and helped him toddle out to the kitchen. She stood a good number of centimeters taller than he did, but by hunching over she could also take his weight against her trunk. He could feel her body moving to and fro below her robes with every step. "Sorry," he said, then quickly added, "to be an inconvenience."

"An inconvenience? Of course you're not an inconvenience, I was sent here to SAVE you, Shinji!" She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and Shinji dropped into it heavily: his cares were returning to his shoulders. Skuld frowned. "Shinji...why did you do it? Why did you try to kill yourself?"

He slipped his head down to the tabletop, but he didn't cry, not quite. He had lived with shame long enough to bottle it up a little longer. "Skuld-sama...I feel terrible. I feel so alone, and angry, and sad. Two days ago...I almost killed my best friend."

"What? How?"

"How...oh, where to begin." He groaned, but focused on his words for reassurance. He didn't want Skuld, someone he had just met, to see him cry. Shinji told her his story: about his arrival in Tokyo-3, his manipulative father, the quiet girl who he had piloted for, his drunkard guardian and abusive housemate. The tea was ready by then; Shinji took a sip to steady himself before he could tell about the bully who had become his friend. The tea was strong and full of flavor, good black tea. Skuld simply held her mug and listened as Shinji finished.

"So now, all the other pilots are in the hospital, Touji was at death's door until earlier today. My father won't speak to me because I wouldn't fight. Misato-san got caught in the accident that made the Evangelion go berserk. And I haven't done anything. I...felt like I was so alone, and so weak and small. I just wanted it all to end.

"I almost killed him myself. That afternoon, I almost hijacked the EVA to go kill my father. But I couldn't do it. I...I just went along with what I was supposed to do. I didn't have the guts to go tearing through the Geofront after him. It seemed like it would be as easy to kill myself as him. I'd been planning for two days, Skuld-sama. I wanted to get myself ready and do it this time. And...that's all. That's my story."

Skuld's eyes were filling with the tears Shinji wouldn't let run. "Shinji...I mean, I still don't understand. What's stopping you from patching things up with your father? Or getting things right with Asuka and Misato? Killing yourself...when you're dead, you won't have any opportunities to do anything. THINK about it! Tomorrow, or today even, you could change the whole world. You have a lifetime of opportunities. There is NOTHING stopping you, Shinji."

He was quiet for a long time. The tea cup in his hands, still mostly full, was growing cold. Finally, he spoke. "No. It's different for me, I'm a mortal. I don't have a tomorrow, Skuld-sama. I mean, I only have a few tomorrows. You? If you screw up, you can wait ten thousand years for someone to cool down and then apologize. I'm stuck with about 30,000 tomorrows, about five-and-a-half thousand of which are gone. What's the point? It'll be easier for me to wait until my father kills me than to wait for him to listen. Then I'll be dead and the whole issue will have taken care of itself."

"That's all in your mind, Shinji," Skuld pleaded. "Just if you had a little faith...if you could only see how much change you can create...you know what?" She poked him emphatically in the chest. "You need a wish. That's what you need."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Your life needs a kick in the pants like flowers need sun, that's what I mean," she declared. "Your life stinks. And nothing, and I mean nothing, can bring about a new life like a good old-fashioned wish. How about it?"

"A wish?" he said softly. "Like you hear about in fairy tales?"

"Uh-huh. You name it, I'll grant it." Skuld smiled. "But only one. No cheating. And make it count."

"Make it count..."

"Sex" was what he thought about first, but that only lasted 15 seconds or so. Shinji looked back across time at his life. Some joys, many heartaches. Days of loneliness seen like someone else's photographs. Dead days with no reason to be except force of habit. And then had come the days of Project EVA, and the bone-crushing responsibilities he had been forced to take on. The pain, like herds of horses running through the sky. It was only within the hour that he'd tried to end it, after all. Now he had the chance to bend Heaven's will, literally, to take away the pain...to replace the pain.

"Skuld-sama," he sighed, "I feel so alone. I want to be loved. I want to feel someone every day in my life who can make me happy, and who I can make happy also. I wish...I wish that there was someone in this world who I loved, and who could love me, simply and honestly."

"Is that what you want?" she asked. "Think carefully, Shinji."

"It's what I want," he replied earnestly.

"All right," Skuld said. She sat down on the table, closed her eyes, and rolled her head back.

Her jaw went slack. Bright white light poured down from the heavens onto her body. Her hair floated into the air, and the edges of her robes fluttered with spirit wind. Almost beyond what the human ear could manage, Shinji thought he could hear choirs singing praises in tongues unspoken by the human voice. Then the light faded and the wind died down. Skuld's head naturally fell back to a neutral position. Her big brown eyes opened gently, and they were rimmed with concern.

Dully, she said, "Your wish has been denied."

"WHAT?" Shinji shouted, leaping to his feet, almost knocking the chair over.

"I couldn't do it, Shinji. Your wish has...erm...you have a 407 error. One second." She looked through her robes, pulled out a notebook and glanced quickly through the pages. "407...407--got it! 'Antetemporal fulfillment error'. That means that your wish has already come true. So...there is someone for you to love already, Shinji."

"What? I...I don't...I can't believe it. No. I..." Shinji let the words die. So many emotions fought for control of his mind. Someone could love him. Someone did love him. Did someone love him? Who? But he'd wanted just a simple, caring, uncomplicated love--he didn't fully believe such a thing could exist. Who could it be? Did Skuld have any way to find out?

"I'm telling you the truth! There's really, really someone out there for you."

And to think that, less than an hour before, he had tried to kill himself...

"Skuld-sama, who is it? Who loves me? Or could love me?"

She shrugged. "I don't know that. I'm not omniscient, I'm just a goddess. Hey, don't look so down." Skuld gave him a light punch on the shoulder and a warm smile. "I'll help you find her. I promise."

"Really?"

"You bet!"

"Th-thank you, Skuld-sama, you're very..."

"Just call me 'Skuld', Shinji. I don't mind."

Shinji smiled a weak smile. "All right. Thank you, Skuld."

Before Shinji could say another word, the telephone rang. Pen-Pen waddled to the receiver, squawked a greeting, and brought it to Shinji.

"Uh-huh. Hello? Oh! Tou-san!" Shinji clapped his hand over the mouthpiece and said in a loud whisper, "It's my father, the Commander. Hello? Tou-san? What is it? Now? No, I just...er, got out of the bath. Yes. Yes, I will. OK, goodbye." He hung up and explained, "That was my father. He wants me to come down to the Geofront for a meeting. "All right!" said Skuld, ignoring the melancholy in Shinji's tone. She hopped down off the table and pounded her fist into the palm of her hand. "That way, I can meet everyone in your life in one shot."

"Eh? Skuld-sa--er, Skuld, I don't know if they'll let you into the Geofront."

"Aah, Geofront, schmeofront. It's no problem," Skuld chortled. "Is that a pocket in the front of your shirt?"

"Eh? Uh, yes..."

"Voila!" In a flash, Skuld had shrunk to ¹/₁₆ of her normal size. "Chibi-Goddess Skuld, in the handy petite size!" With a giggle, she jumped into Shinji's shirt pocket and curled up. "Just try not to bounce too much, Shinji. I don't think I get motion sick, but I don't want to find out."

Oh, great, Shinji thought, I've become a goddess- smuggler.

Lest they attract attention, Shinji and Chibi-Skuld held their silence en route to the Geofront. Shinji walked. He was too self-conscious to take the bus. The presence of a goddess in his shirt pocket felt like a displaced erection. More than that, his suicide attempt earlier in the day made him feel as though he were somehow impure, marked in such a way that nobody could see but everyone would suspect. Human contact was anathema. He was oblivious to the irony.

Some time later, Shinji and Chibi-Skuld arrived at a security checkpoint to the Geofront. Nobody noticed the object in his breast pocket, and his passage wasn't arrested until he was on the far side of the gate.

"Ah, Ritsuko...er, Dr. Akagi..."

"Shinji, you're running late." The blond scientist, prim and austere, stood with her arms crossed in front of her with obvious irritation. "We've all been waiting for you down in the conference room. What took you so long? Didn't you take the bus?"

"Er, no...I was walking..."

"Please have some consideration for others from now on, Shinji. Come along." They walked off into the depths of the Geofront to an unmarked elevator. Akagi pressed a button and stepped back, tapping her foot impatiently and watching the floors slip by.

Shinji felt a weight on his right shoulder. A moment later, Chibi-Skuld whispered directly into his ear, "Scratch one."

"Eesh!" Shinji hissed, which was as close to "Get back into my pocket before the security cameras pick you up!" as he could manage in Dr. Akagi's presence. A few moments later, the doors opened and Akagi lead them to their destination.

As the doctor had said, Shinji and Akagi were the last two people in the conference room. Chibi-Skuld peeped out of Shinji's breast pocket and glanced at the varied faces around the room. Who could Shinji's true love be? she mused. Aside from Dr. Akagi, there were four other candidates in the room. Two were girls Shinji's own age, a redhead and an albino girl with ice- blue hair. There was a woman approximately Dr. Akagi's age, and another, younger woman. Chibi-Skuld realized that all four women were bandaged, and made a note to ask Shinji why at the first chance she got. What a rough job, she thought. Of course, it's not like I haven't taken down some vicious bugs in my day, but...then again, I'm not mortal.

Shinji had taken his seat. At the front of the room was an older man, looking much like Shinji's doppelganger. Chibi-Skuld was amazed to see the man in action. He betrayed absolutely no emotion; yet his body was lithe and dynamic, moving from pose to pose with scalpel precision. His voice, when he spoke, was deep and deliberate. "We will now begin the meeting. With the destruction of two of our most important facilities, NERV has been forced to change its directions slightly. First slide. As you can see in this satellite photo of the Nevada desert, the destruction that took place within the past week is total. There has been no attempt to salvage any materials, because we will find none. Next slide. In this photo..."

Chibi-Skuld shuddered. What a calculating man. I can see why he and Shinji don't get along...he hasn't got time to be bothered with Shinji's problems.

The meeting, an outline of NERV's future directions for research, took a little over a half hour and meant as little to Shinji as it did to Chibi-Skuld. After about 25 minutes, as Dr. Akagi took over speaking, Chibi-Skuld tugged on Shinji's shirt front to attention. "Psst! Try and talk to one of those girls after the meeting."

"Eh?" Shinji glanced around, but nobody was paying too much attention to him; so he whispered back to her, "Why?"

"Maybe one of them's your true love!" Skuld whispered encouragingly. "We just gotta find out, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I suppose," Shinji replied. "I mean...shoot. Of course."

He raised his head and tried to focus on what the people around him were discussing. It did no good; the future of NERV was of no real interest to him. Of course not, he thought sullenly, it doesn't matter whether I'm alive for its future. Wait...

He thought back to Chibi-Skuld in his pocket. Her words had offered him some hope, just as she had promised. Now there was the chance that his life could mean something more. Somewhere, there was someone who he could reach out to. Someone he could turn to when the pain overwhelmed him, someone he could protect and receive love from.

But it's not going to be that easy, he replied to his own mind. Nothing in my life ever is. Love. Piloting. Is that it? Skuld just came out of the blue and offered me a wish, my father suddenly re-entered my life and gave me a chance to save the world. But I don't want to have to fight. I just want to go on leading a normal life. Does that mean...does that mean I really don't want love, either? What's so bad about love, anyway? I'm not risking my life for it. What am I risking?...

As with all things, the meeting came to an end, riding on the wings of summaries and good-byes. Shinji stood, stretched his cramped limbs and took a single step for the door; then a hand fell on his shoulder and seized him.

"BAKA! Where WERE you?"

"Ah, hi, Asuka..."

The pilot, still full of vitality despite her recent injuries, smacked his left temple with her open hand. "You idiot. The Commander himself called you, I SAW him phone you. And then you just piddled your way over here, and made me sit around in this dark stuffy room, TRYING not to fall asleep, for three quarters of an hour. What took you so long, anyway?"

Shinji gulped. "Uh, I was in the bathroom. I was in the bath, actually. When he called."

"Oh." Asuka slowly crossed her arms and let a wicked smile grow across her face. "You were beating off, weren't you?"

"...uh?"

Asuka laughed. "Shinji, you pervert! And your father called you, and then you had to start all over, didn't you? You're repulsive, Shinji. That's what you are."

"I am not repulsive!"

"Yes you are!" she cackled. "You're a sick little boy, and...and NOW YOU'RE MAKING ME LATE! You're standing here telling me all about your masturbation, and Misato-san's waiting for me. How could you? Hentai! Hmph!" And Sohryu Asuka Langley swept out of the room, leaving Shinji silent and empty in her wake.

"Scratch two," he growled.

"Erg!" Chibi-Skuld popped back out of his pocket and gave an unsatisfying thump of fury to his collarbone. "What is her problem? She just blew you off like...like it was her duty to deflate your ego! That's so mean."

Shinji nodded as they walked out. "She can be nice. Sometimes. And we've had some conversations that went all right. But...but I don't know how I could ever get through to her."

"And you said you wanted just a simple relationship."

"Huh-uh. Oops! Incoming!"

They had happened upon the Commander talking to Ayanami Rei in the corridor. He broke off and walked away as Shinji approached, and Rei remained, standing in the corridor like a single piece of crystal cast by the ebbing tide. Although his father was still so close by, Shinji felt pulled by a sense of duty to his own causes. He spoke to Rei. "Ah...good day, Rei. How are you feeling today?"

"I am well today," she replied, though the bandages all over her body belied the statement. She said nothing more.

"Um, good. So am I. Er, have you been recovering well from the battle?"

"Yes."

"Is that so. Good. Um, am I going to see you in class tomorrow?"

"You may. I cannot say at this point in time. It is the Commander's decision."

"Fine." Shinji had the feeling that several parts of his body were in clamps that were being slowly squeezed the longer he talked. "When will you know?"

"Tomorrow, presumably."

"Tomorrow. All right. It was nice to talk to you, Rei."

She gave no reply.

Shinji walked back the way he came. As soon as he was out of earshot he groaned, "Scratch three."

"Who is that girl?" Chibi-Skuld asked from Shinji's shoulder.

"That was Rei. She was the one my father used to get me into the Evangelion the first time," Shinji growled, reliving the pain. "She thinks that the world revolves around him. But...it's not like she's inhuman or something. She smiled at me. Once."

"Once?"

"Yeah."

Chibi-Skuld tapped her foot and sighed. "She's smiled at you exactly once, and that proves she's not inhuman. I don't get it, Shinji."

"It...it just shows that she's a real person. Just a little misunderstood." They had reached an elevator, and Shinji selected a floor that would lead them to Misato's car. "It's like everyone here is like that. Not quite right. Not quite in tune with reality. Me, too. I wish there was someone who was normal enough for me to relate to, and get close to."

"That was your wish, Shinji."

"Oh, yeah, right." The doors parted and Shinji stepped out into an underground parking lot. The only car there was a blue hot rod. Waiting expectantly at the driver's door was a woman in a dark sleeveless dress and a bright red jacket. Her arm was in a cast.

"C'mon, Shinji-kun!" she shouted. "We need to get home, and I'll need you to shift gears for me."

"M-m-m-what?" Shinji stammered. Inside his shirt, Chibi-Skuld facefaulted.

"Shift gears. You don't think I can drive a manual transmission with this, do you? I'm not that good!" Obediently, Shinji walked around to the passenger's side and slid into the seat. Katsuragi Misato started the car, flipped on her sunglasses, and gritted her teeth. "Besides, you'll need to learn how to drive one of these days soon enough. Reverse. There, see? That wasn't so bad."

They began backing out of the parking space. "Uh, Misato?" Shinji asked. "What's the hurry to get home?"

"Quick, first. There's a new squid ramen recipe I want to try. Second!"

"Um, Misato..."

"Third!"

"...do we have any squid ramen around the house?"

"It's not a recipe for ramen, exactly, more..."

Shinji swallowed. Hard. "More what?"

"More like a salad. First!"

"Shift gears better, baka!"

Shinji's palms were moist with sweat. "Uh, is it OK if I get dropped off at the..."

"Second!"

"...park? I'm still kind of feeling..."

"THIRD!"

"...woozy. You know."

"The park? Sure. FOURTH!"

Three minutes and 27.07298 seconds later, Shinji staggered out of the car, and it sped off. The sun was setting over Tokyo-3, bathing the park in a red light, giving the leaves of the trees a warm brown they might never again show in the new world's climate. A group of school children ran along one of the graveled pathways, shouting and laughing as they passed by a young couple. Skuld and Shinji walked side by side, making for the large pond in the very center of the park.

"That was your CARETAKER?" Skuld gasped. "Good grief! Does she have ANY idea about proper operating speeds for a machine like that? How much does she pay for maintenance every year? I feel sorry for that transmission. Oh, and you too, Shinji. I mean, who ever heard of having the passenger shift gears?"

"But that's how she is, Skuld," Shinji said softly. "She wants to be a good person, I know she does. It's that she gets it wrong..."

He fell silent as they reached the pond. The sun was right at the treeline on the far side. It was like a blood teardrop, falling with divine grace, with the gentleness of sacrifice or menarche. On the waters below it, the red light was reflected, distorted by fine ripples. The blood became wine, to soothe the stomach and the soul; or else a springtime cherry, an autumn chrysanthemum. Opposites, life and death, waxing and waning, the shallow and the profound, balanced upon the black horizon, if only for a moment in a day in a lifetime.

Finally, Skuld found some words. "I've been alive a very long time. You know how we do it? How we live? There's some immortals who've fallen from grace, see. It's because they can't find joy in the mortal world anymore. They start worrying about pride and justice and so-called 'concerns'. Not about the important things, you know. Like sunsets. Like walks in the park. No matter how old I get, if I can find magic in everyday things...I feel like I'll be all right. I do, you know."

"What's it like to be a goddess?" Shinji asked. Before Skuld could begin, he pointed over to the side of the lake. "Look, it's a Kakigouri salesman. You want some shaved ice?"

"Yeah! I'd love some!"

Shinji ordered azuki flavor, while Skuld chose strawberry. They sat at on the edge of the pond and watched the sun fall behind the horizon. Skuld kicked off her shoes and dabbled her toes in the water, while Shinji kept his feet on the wall. The ice wasn't very cold, and it was melting quickly, so they ate fast at the risk of stomach aches.

"What's it like to be a goddess...well, what I was saying a moment ago, about how gods have fallen? It's because Heaven requires so much administration. The really big, tricky issues, like how fusion takes place in stars and the distribution of matter across space-time, those are all ironed out. Now, what I deal with is with the small perturbations in reality that have cropped up over the last 15 billion years or so, basically since matter cooled down out of pure energy. When we get these bugs, I use my hammer here like a probabilistic boot to the head."

Shinji blinked. As his right hand kept trying to stick a spoonful of ice into his mouth, he said around it, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mm-kay. Pay close attention." Skuld pulled out her hammer as she inquired, "Do you know about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? The idea that if you look at a particle, you change its nature?"

"Uh-huh, that sounds familiar."

"You're in good shape, then." She drew an X on the head of her mallet. "As long as an anomaly in the space-time continuum has not had any contact with matter, it's got a blind spot. So I can whack it with my hammer and it ripples out of existence. It's no longer a probability, it's an actuality, and I take out the actuality through divine intervention. But unless you're in deep space, these bugs are gonna have had some kind of influence with matter."

"That's a problem, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I don't want to try explaining it to you without a pencil and paper." Shinji took their ice wrappers, stood up and threw them in the garbage can a few meters away. When he returned, Skuld returned to her thread. "I like the job, and I don't like it. I like getting out of the ordinary. I like having a big project to tackle, sitting down, braining it out, and then getting it done with. I'm not the kind of girl who can work on seven things at once, you know. The problem is that that's what I have to do. I have to worry about bugs in the system here, bugs in the system there...some days, it drives me batty. I can't figure out whether I should go over here and take care of that problem first, or do this one right here in front of me."

Shinji nodded slowly. "How do you do it, Skuld? Every day, I mean."

"I have my sisters. I'm the youngest girl. And...I mean, my big sister is kind of pushy sometimes, and my older sister, she seems like a bit of a goody- goody. But they're both the best people I know. They're always there when I need someone to talk to...and I try and be there for them, too. It...it always seems like my life's a little richer, having them around."

"Is that what love's like?" Shinji asked. "My mother died so long ago, and my father's not close. And...well, I'm only 15. I don't know that I've experienced love."

Skuld smiled. "It's so much more than being there for others, Shinji. I'm divine, I'm a goddess, but even I don't have the words for what love is. Come on...hasn't there ever been someone who you just wanted to be around? And you couldn't ever put it into words, but everything they did just changed your life so much?"

He thought about it very carefully, and the sun moved down in the sky. Finally, he shook his head. "I don't think so. Sometimes...it's strange, but when I play my cello, things are a little like that. It has a warm, golden outside, the wood is so beautiful; sometimes when I play it I feel like I'm playing the living tree. And the strings aren't metal, they're not catgut, they're a living creature too, pulled from the neck down to the base. And the creature's ready to spring, but then I take my bow, and I coax it to sing, to tell the stories of the forest it called home a long time ago. I hold the instrument like it was some ancestral memory that my subconscious mind torments me with in my dreams, but I've tamed it, and it enflames me, and we put the passion into the structured notes of Bach, fighting between structured notes to come alive...there have been days, Skuld, when I lived through my cello. But never through people."

Ikari Shinji fell silent. There was an evening star in the sapphire sky, and there was a light in his eyes. Skuld was staring at the young man with her mouth open wide. "Shinji..." she whispered.

Shinji's gaze faltered, and he cast his eyes down to the waters. "Skuld," he said, no louder than she had, "I...I..."

"...yes?"

"I..."

The last rays of the sun slipped away. Shinji looked steadily at Skuld. "I didn't intend for all that to come out, not like that," he said, "but it is how I feel, sometimes. I...don't think I'm always a good guy to be around. And I don't know how to love a person. But I want to."

Skuld nodded absently. "What you said scared me, Shinji. Both what you said, and how you said it. It was beautiful, but...you're right. You're not a normal person." A thought struck her. "Isn't there anyone normal in your life? Ah...I'm sorry, that sounded kind of rude."

"No, it's all right," he replied. "You've met most of the people in my life today. Misato-san, Asuka, Rei, Ritsuko-san..."

"What about your friends at school?"

"There's the class rep, I guess. But she's more Asuka's friend...and she's got a crush on my friend Touji, anyway. So she's not the one."

"Mm." Skuld idly kicked at the dark waters. "Haven't you ever known anyone else?"

"I sat next to a girl named Junko in third grade. We talked sometimes. But that was a while ago. I think she lives in Yokohama now." Shinji dropped down beside Skuld at the water's edge. "The thing is, Skuld, you're really the only person I've ever talked to like..."

As the sun disappeared, the land and the waters cooled differently; and so the one cooled faster than the other; and the difference in heat produced turbulence, produced chaos. Tiny changes in warmth and coolness grew to become eddies in the atmosphere, spinning around and across each other, then whipping outwards to form a light breeze that rippled the waters, and made them skip softly up to the concrete embankment.

It was the same breeze that ruffled their hair, the mortal's and the goddess'.

A strand of hair fell across Skuld's face, blocking her view of Shinji's expression: apprehensive, confused, so innocent. Skuld brushed the interfering hair out of her face, only to have it fall back. She brushed again, with no more success.

Then Shinji reached forward and touched the strand. She felt his fingers; she could almost feel them through the hair itself. Each knuckle, each fine hair on his hand, she could feel each of them through her quivering cheek. As he moved the hair behind her ear, he brushed the curved outer edge, tracing it down to the lobe. It was a gentle, an exciting touch for her.

And he let his hand fall dead onto the ground.

Her eyes widened. He shrank. There was nowhere to go. Not the lake, not the land, all of reality had compacted into four square meters where the two were. Shinji felt terrified. So small a world. So mysterious a girl. Inside, his own heart was breaking. The pain was worse then death itself, because he kept on living.

His crying burst out of him, riding on the bilious wave of his insecurity. "Skuld, I'm so, so sorry, I never should've dragged you into this, I can't believe..."

"Shinji, whatever are you..."

"...I've done something so stupid, what? What is..."

"...apologizing for? Did I do something..."

"...the matter with you? I never should have..."

"...wrong? Shinji, don't--don't you like me? What's..."

"...said anything at all. I'm worthless. I...."

"...the matter with you? Please?"

"...wish I hadn't done MMMPHR!"

"DON'T SAY IT!" she screamed as she launched a hand over Shinji's mouth. The blow carried him backward and onto his side, bending so far he fell. Skuld's own nervous energy carried her forward to catch Shinji's chest as they fell into the pond, its dark waters catching them with a terrific splash.

Skuld was the first up to the surface, gasping excitedly for air she didn't really need. After a few deep breaths she had regained her self-possession. She looked left and right. Shinji was nowhere to be seen.

"Shinji?" she asked with a flutter in her voice.

"Mffgldrm!" he replied from the vicinity of her right hand. Skuld glanced down. Her hand was still firmly over Shinji's mouth, and showed no signs of letting go no matter how tightly she held onto him. Skuld lifted him onto his feet and released the boy, patting him on the back as he gasped and gagged.

"I took a noseful there," he managed to say once his breathing was back to normal. "You, ah, surprised me."

"I guess I kind of over-reacted," she admitted. "But I didn't want you making a wish there that would take everything back."

"Uh?"

Their eyes met, despite the darkness. Then their hands met, twenty tender fingers intertwining and wrapping round each other. His hands felt colder than hers. After all, he was mortal.

"I need to know, Shinji," she whispered as quietly as the water around them. "How do you feel about me?"

"I don't know," he answered her, "because I never felt like this about anybody. You're fun to be with, and you have nice eyes. But..."

"...but I nearly drowned you, huh?" she moaned softly. "I didn't mean to."

"Skuld..."

"Yeah?"

"I...I actually kind of liked it. Kind of." He took a small step closer to her. "Not because I'm wet or because I got water in my lungs. But you got me out of that line I'd sunk into, and nobody's done that for me before.

"Thank you."

Skuld blushed, and the smile that spread across her face in the twilight was like a diamond mine in the depths of the Earth. "You really are pretty sweet, Shinji. When you open up."

"Skuld..."

"Mm-hm?"

"I don't...I don't know how things are going to work out, but, and this is going to sound pretty stupid, but, if you're not too busy, would you...would you stick around? And, maybe, be my friend? Because, I mean, I'm still confused about all this, because it's all so fast, and I've never felt this way, but it's really strange, you're you, and...and I'm just me, and I'm still, well, kind of scared by all this, and I don't know what all you have to do as a goddess and everything, but I like it, I like you, and I don't like it because I'm scared, but I think I like it more than I don't like it, so..."

"Shinji, I said I would."

He was almost smiling. "But how'm I going to explain this to everyone?"

She laughed, and the sound of joy flew across the lake's surface. "Never fear!" To prove her point, she flexed a muscle proudly. "Skuld the Goddess has a plan like none other!"

And so the next morning, a new transfer student was sitting next to Ikari Shinji in their homeroom period.