Meet The Gang

Well, it sure looks like today's gonna be another wet one here in the fish tank! Ha ha, just a little goldfish humor there, folks. Every day's a wet day.

I'm Carlotta. I'm a fish. And I talk, and think, and write, and have other intellectual pursuits. So don't laugh; fish don't have good senses of humor. Zippy is my pet. Well, okay, I guess its the other way around...but not in my little world.

I've been chewing on these stupid rocks all night. Where's Zippy with my food? Damn it, I'm starving. I guess calling for pizza is out of the question. Maybe I'll nibble on these nice leaves here. Rats, I forgot the plants are plastic. Artificial food. Chalk another one up for the ape. I imagine Zippy serves friends wax fruit!

"Hey there, fishie! How are you?" Zippy grinned.

"Humph! For your information, I'm famished. Starving. Weary. Hungry. Wasting away to almost nothing."

"You are not!"

"Okay, but I have the munchies."

Zippy was just about to get Carlotta some fish grub, when Janeless Lament knocked on the front door. "Hey there, Zip-ness! Like, how's it falling?"

"Into place, I guess."

"Coolness. Mind if I come in out of the cold?"

"It's seventy degrees outside."

"Babe, everywhere's cold when you think you're from Venus." She stepped in. Carlotta groaned loudly. "Hey, how's the little talkin' fishie?"

How to describe Janeless? Well, let's just say that dumping her into a river would be illegal in most areas.

"Carlotta, you remember Janeless, don't you?"

"Do I remember Janeless? How could I forget that great day when she had a runny nose but not a tissue and decided to remedy her situation by hanging her face over my tank!"

Janeless sniffed. "I'm sorry. But you sure hold a grudge."

"You did this last week, foolish ape."

"I'd be mad too if you snotted all over me," Zippy said.

"Don't be gross!" Carlotta snorted.

Janeless changed channels. "Fishie, I have a question for you..."

"Uh oh."

"I promise. It's not too dumb."

"You don't know what my thresholds are."

"Can I ask you something or not?"

"If you must."

"How do you know you're female?"

Excerpt from By Way of the Dodo...

Carlotta turned bright red. "What...do...you...mean?"

"Just that. See, by looking at you, I wouldn't know. So I was wondering how you can tell."

"I don't know! I just can, okay."

"How?"

"Well, how can you tell you're female? I sure can't!"

At this point, the conversation was getting to be too much for Zippy. She threw three slices of leftover pizza into Carlotta's tank. The fish shut up.

"What the gerf kind of fish is she, anyway?" Janeless asked.

Zippy peered into the fish tank. Carlotta had a golden body, with ruby-red fins, a violet tail, and dark blue eyes. Actually, Carlotta was Her Imperial Highness Princess Carlotta, in line for the throne of the water planet Xanthus 12. In the midst of a political coup against her father the emperor, Carlotta had been sent to earth. But by some bizarre stroke of fate, she had ended up in the pet department of Fluffy's. That's how Zippy got her...for seventy-nine cents.

"Uh, she's a...rare species of goldfish from Tanzania."

"Wow. Now that's really Perdue."

Janeless wore a barbarian smile.

"What's with you?" Zippy asked.

"Do you notice anything different?"

"About you?"

"Yeah."

"You smell better than usual."

"Thanks. I showered. But other than that."

She hadn't lost or gained any weight...Janeless was as scrawny as always. She hadn't pierced her ears again. There were no new tatoos on her arms. Zippy didn't see it. "I give up. What'd you do?"

Janeless frowned. "You can't tell?"

"No, I can't."

"You can't tell I had my hair dyed electric violet?"

"Janeless, your hair's always been purple."

"No, not purple. Bogus, Zippy! It's violet now. See?"

Zippy saw no real difference in Janeless' hair color; it was still dark purple. Poor thing! She'd been taken again. Zippy bit her lip in invocation, and Janeless' hair became a brilliant mane the color of Carlotta's tail. "Yeah, okay. I see it now."

Janeless, thinking her hair had been dyed correctly the first time, was oblivious to the
magical change. "I have another surprise, too!" Janeless grabbed the zipper of her snakeskin jacket. "Now don't go squirrely on me. Are you ready?"

Zippy nodded.

Janeless unzipped the jacket to reveal a neon-yellow t-shirt underneath. The words "Sugar Bangs" were printed in paisley across the front. "Is this Perdue, or what?"

"Wow! You guys got your own shirts!"

"Pretty bitchen, isn't it? This guy in Purgeberg is printing them up for us. We're selling them at the gig for ten bucks a piece."

"Cool."

"So, are you coming or what?"

"Am I coming where?"

"To hear us play at the Summit Club tonight or what? We're gonna be like Party Central."

Party Central, in Delaware Valley terms, loosely meant any place where more than five people would gather at a time.

Zippy had to shudder at the thought of a Sugar Bangs concert. They group couldn't quite play their instruments; the amplifiers were always turned up twice as much as for other bands; Nuclear Vikki often jumped into the audience and attacked; and rare was it when Ginger could remember all the lyrics to a song.

Zippy supposed a magic without a sense of ethics could have turned them into the greatest most popular rock band in the world. Zippy wasn't such a magic. Success was something they needed to achieve on their own, however improbable it was in their case.

Yet Janeless was her friend, and this was their first concert with the new shirts. Besides, Zippy reasoned, she could always change the music for her own ears into something she could listen to. "I wouldn't miss it."

"True to the Trickster"

I've been working at the story of Loki and all the legend that surrounds him for a while.  Lately I got the idea to weave in a "romance" with his long suffering wife Sigyn.  Here's a peek.

Burning ice and biting flame.

Sigyn wielded her sword and shield for the last time, her heart packed with ice and her spirit buried under drifts of snow. Never had the walls of Sessrumnir seemed so cold, so constricting. She had stood here in Freya's great hall so many times before. Yet in those times she had been a Valkyrie, one of the sacred thirteen. Today, she would reliquish that power forever.
Kneeling before her, prepared to take her sacred oath, Brynhilde's eyes glowed bright with promise and awe. Sigyn had no doubts about this candidate. Brynhilde was one of Odin's own daughters, and had proven herself worthy in battle. She would make an exceptional Valkyrie, perhaps even the best.

What accursed fate would that day force Sigyn to resign from the circle of Valkyries and become the unwilling wife of the most despised god in Asgard? Freya herself, the great goddess, ruler of the Valkyries, had pleaded with Odin to reconsider his command. Surely someone else could be found to marry Loki the Trickster, the Lord of Lies! But Odin, in his high chair above all the gods of Asgard and all of creation, could not be dissuaded. Sigyn, and only Sigyn, could be Loki's wife.

Meeting the goddess's glistening eyes, Sigyn knew Freya felt no great joy in this day, either. They had served long together, and Sigyn was as much of a friend to Freya as anyone. But both knew the divine law. One could not be married and serve as Freya's warrior priestess. Odin's decree that Sigyn would wed the horrible Loki was the beginning of her torture and the end of her days as a Valkyrie. Perhaps this Sigyn resented more than the forced union.

But all was not lost. On this day, Sigyn would join the Aesir and become a goddess in her own right. That had been Odin's reward to her for suffering these marriage arrangements. Even if Loki were worse than reputed, Sigyn would never get the chance to become a full goddess again. And so, she had agreed to marry Loki.

Sigyn looped the shield onto Brynhilde's arm and pressed the hilt of the sword into her hand. Now it was done. Brynhilde had become a Valkyrie by the grace of Freya.

They left Freya's hall in procession, with Freya herself at the head. Sigyn, veiled and bowing her head, followed the goddess, and the Valkyries followed her. In this way did they come into a larger hall, a hall which joined Freya's Sessrumnir to Odin's Gladsheim. There the goddesses Idunna, Sif, and Frigga waited to greet the bride.

Sigyn raised her head and looked around at the goddesses and Valkyries around her. All wore faces of stone, dismal expressions belying their inner forboding. She almost laughed as she thought these proceedings were more like a funeral than a marriage celebration. "Where is the funeral ship?" she said, her voice forced to be light. "When will you load my corpse onto the ship and set it ablaze?"

Running her fingers through her cropped hair, the goddess Sif sighed. Her suffering at Loki's hands had brought about this marriage in the first place. Loki had crept with the night into the palace Sif shared with her husband Thor and cut away all of her beautiful golden hair. As punishment for his mischief, Loki would now be forced to marry. "You can hardly expect us to be happy on this day," Sif said. "I would that Odin had simply killed the beast outright than try to tame him through marriage."

"But there is reason to celebrate, for on this day Sigyn joins the Aesir and becomes a goddess," Freyja said. "To celebrate, we each have a gift for you. No woman shall ever receive wedding gifts such as these."

"Indeed." The tiny Sif smiled at Sigyn. "You are a goddess now, my sister, and among the Aesir. As such, you will need to keep watch over Midgard from your own hall. Therefore, my present to you is your own World Eye, through which you will be able to see the happenings in the mortal realm. May you be blessed."

Sigyn believed she would burst with the thrill she felt. Her own World Eye! She would have her own window on the world of man. Her new status as a goddess of the Aesir became more of a reality. "Sif, my deepest thanks," she said, hugging the little goddess. "I will use the World Eye and serve the mortal as best I may."

Smiling, Sif nodded, and then stepped back to let Frigga embrace Sigyn. "Lovely lady, your marriage will not be an easy one. You know well that you are marrying the most difficult of bridegrooms. For that reason, I make patience and temperance my gifts to you. I enable you to cope with the trials of Loki with love and tenderness, and I pray that by being the best of wives, you might come to tame the Trickster."

Such a gift was a blessing, indeed. Sigyn had been unable to reckon how she could live with the monster Loki and keep peace. Frigga would make that possible. "My thanks to you, Mother," she said, enfolded in Frigga's arms. "I will do as best I may."

Now Idunna, the Lady of Youth, stepped forward. She cradled a small golden chest in her arms, with the world tree Ygradrisil engraved on the lid. "As my gift, I give to you the Apples of Youth," she said, patting the chest. "Of these you and the Aesir will eat, and you remain young and strong forever."

Her hands trembling, Sigyn took the golden chest from Idunna. "How am I worthy of such a gift?"
Idunna's full lips turned in a smirk. "You are marrying Loki. You need all the power you can get."

Sigyn looked down at the chest in her arms as Idunna continued. "At the end of a feast in Asgard, your duty will be to feed an apple to each of the Aesir. And worry not, for no matter how many apples you give away, you will always have more in store." Idunna's face turned stern. "However, it is a great responsibility. The evil Giants will be anxious to steal these apples from you for themselves, and your husband is half of giant blood. Keep your wits, Sigyn, and guard these apples as you would guard your life."

"And so I shall." Sigyn exchanged a tender embrace with the goddess, wondering in Idunna's warmth and beauty.

Finally, Freya approached Sigyn, with tears of solid gold falling from her eyes. Freya's eyes focused on the charm which hung between Sigyn's breasts. The simple disc, inscibed with a seven-pointed star, protected each Valkyrie from the lusts of men. So long as she wore the amulet, and none but the goddess Freya could remove it, a Valkyrie need never lie with a man she did not desire.

Sigyn feared her heart would break. To part with the amulet was to part with her life as Freya's maiden forever. But she supposed there was no hope for it. A woman could not be a wife and a Valkyrie. Sigyn lifted her hair and turned her back to Freya, intending to return the amulet.

But Freya shook her head, and her tears stopped. "You may keep your amulet, Sigyn. Call it my wedding gift to you."