Ikari Gendou had his faults, Yui knew them well. For instance, whenever he used a toothpick, he always shot little bits of food all over the place. When he wore boxer shorts, he had a tendency to put them on backwards and only discover his mistake when he had to pee. She liked these little quirks, they reminded her that she had married a human being, no different from any other person.

His greatest fault, however, was that he had no idea of the value of money. Like a lot of other people, men especially, Gendou wished for nothing more than to live in an ivory tower, above the trifling cares of this world. In high school, when she was working for an industrial chemical company, Yui had first met these isolated men and women, and felt pity for them. Not contempt.

In their first year of marriage, Yui had realized that Gendou was keeping a few secrets from her. She had talked to him about it in her gentle way; and he had admitted to it, openly. They were professional secrets, he had told her, things that were dangerous for a person outside of a certain sphere to know anything of. He was her new husband, and so she had trusted him.

It began as a prank, almost. Gendou was more than happy to let her control the purse strings of the family. He never noticed when sums of money, 9,000 or 10,000 yen, disappeared from their checking account. When he would go away on business trips, she would often do a little freelance work, and she saved every penny from every article she edited or picture she sold. As time went by, her "prank" became moves in a chess match. Gendou would pay for her semi-conscious pain. Yui would be avenged into the third, or fourth, generation.

The money went into a trust fund in the name of Ikari Shinji. The man who managed it for her was from a very old company her family held close ties to. Originally, her instructions had been for Shinji to receive the money when he came of age, but circumstances--and a little divine intervention--had served to bend the rules.

It wasn't a terrific sum of money, but it bought them a few conveniences. She had found a job teaching elementary school up in the mountains of Hyougo, north of where Koube was underwater. They had enough money to make a down payment on a small house with a large lot near the school. She also bought three bicycles so they could all get around town. Friends helped her pick out a new wardrobe. She bought clothes and a new stereo for her son.

For her houseguest the goddess, she bought a croquet set. They all thought it was a terrific present.

It was a beautiful summer evening. "Summer" only referred to how long the daylight was and what constellations were in the sky. Ikari Yui was sitting by the pond in her yard, listening to the calling cicadas in the twilight. She took another sip of her tea and contemplated the stars in the Heavens. Part of her wanted to know the names of the constellations, and part of her wanted simply to revel in their beauty.

The cares of Earth and the desires of heaven, she thought. We're always slaves to our desires, wanting everything and never really stopping. I suppose that this is all a dream, and someday this dream will end. But I'm happy. My family is happy. That's what's important, here and now.

"My family," she had called them. Skuld never had a reason to leave, and Yui was grateful for the goddess' presence. Sure, she'd never had a problem with cockroaches in the kitchen, for example. But more than that, it was having Skuld around that she loved. Skuld, who liked to talk over a cup of tea. Skuld, who made Shinji smile. Skuld, who was standing right above her holding a bundle wrapped up in a handkerchief.

"You awake?" she asked.

"Sort of," Yui replied. "What's up? Where did you and Shinji go off to this evening?"

"Down by the river," Skuld said. "We collected some mushrooms for dinner tomorrow night. I'll wash them and put them in the refrigerator."

"Thank you so much--wait! Wait!" Yui roused herself as Skuld turned away. "Are you sure they're safe to eat?"

Skuld nodded. "I gave some to Shinji-kun. He's still breathing, see?"

She pointed to the side of the house, which Shinji was staring at intensively.

"Baaaad mojo," he muttered in a babbling slur, "baaaad mojo."

"Skuld!" screeched Yui, "you fed Shinji psychedelic mushrooms? WITHOUT THINKING? Without checking in a BOOK? We have to get him to the hospital!" she said, running to collect Shinji from his hallucinogen-induced state.

"Oh my goodness gracious!" Skuld gasped. "I'm so sorry! I thought they were all right! Well...we still have these frogs, see?"

Copyright 2000 Daniel Snyder. Permission granted to duplicate in any digital/binary/e-mail format; however, any physical printout is strictly prohibited. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the intellectual property of GAINAX. Ah! Megami-Sama! is the intellectual property of Fujishima Kosuke. Obscure Kodomo no Omocha references are the intellectual property of Obana Miho. "Shinji sips a drink with his ladyfriend" and "Shinji and his ladyfriend watch the sun go down" are the intellectual property of Oddzilla Productions. The Gendou Position (tm) is an unregistered trademark of Ninja Crowbotics.

Skuld's poem is an anonymous poem from the Manyoushuu anthology. Kenneth Rexroth's translation is as follows:

On Asuka River
Maple leaves are floating.
On Mount Katsuragi,
High upstream, they are
Already falling from the trees.

Translation copyright 1974 Kenneth Rexroth. Published in his anthology, "One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese".

Author's note: Don't those wish fulfilment stories bug you? Where Shinji gets a spine and falls in love, and Rei develops a personality and some amity, and Asuka calms down, and Misato starts behaving like an adult, and Gendou gets the carrot pulled out of his butt, all for no apparent reason whatsoever? Consider this, then, a kind of a satire. Or don't.