"Well," Sukuu said matter-of-factly, "maybe not literally bring him back, of course. He’s..." Her voice stuttered. "He’s probably long dead by now. I mean...he never figured out how to live as long as me, and it has been 2,000 years..." She shook her head. "No matter. Your are at the very least helping me to get my revenge."
Mika’s voice spiralled upwards. "Are you insane? Who are you people? What are you talking about?"
Taika gently tapped Mika’s shoulder. "Earth girl."
"No way!" Mika shrieked. "This is all just a dream! For God’s sake, tell me what’s going on!"
"It’s best," Taika said gently, "not to ask her. She’s never told any of us."
The trembling voice stopped her. Mika turned and looked at Taika. The young woman looked back at her without any contempt and repeated, "Don’t ask right now."
Mika blinked, and nodded. Taika let her go roughly, nearly shoving her to the ground, and spun on her heel. Her voice was cold and strained. "I’m going to bed."
She stalked out quickly, braid flying behind her.
Mejiro stepped forward. "Taika..."
"Don’t follow me!" she called back.
Mika looked at the others. "What..."
"Like I know," Mejiro mumbled. "I gave up trying to figure her out a long time ago."
"I know!" Jellybean piped.
Everyone looked at her. Jellybean crossed her arms and nodded. "It’s because of the penguins."
"Penguins?"
"Yep." Her voice took on a lecturing tone. "You see...the penguins are taking over and Taika’s jealous."
Sushi blinked. "Jellybean..."
Jellybean spread her arms and started spinning around in circles. "Pen-gy, pen-gy, pen-gy, pen-gy, pen-gy..."
"I’m going to bed too," Mejiro said suddenly, and backed out slowly, staring at Jellybean like she might be contagious. Everyone stampeded out after him. Jellybean stopped spinning and stared. "Where’d everyone go? Hey!" She ran after them. "Sushi! Wait! You never told me what it’s like to be a puppy!"
Calisto ran through the Eternal Realm, waving at the snowy white birds over her head. "Stupid animals! If you don’t get them away from me, I’m going to roast them on a barbeque spit!"
Serendipity smiled faintly, and ran her fingers over Ganneth’s hair. He looked up at her and smiled faintly as she held out one arm and Acacia settled on her hand. The fairy queen clicked her tongue at the bird, then slowly lowered her arm so that it hopped up to her shoulder, white tail feathers mixing with her long black hair.Ganneth’s smile widened, and he looked back at Calisto, holding out his arm for the other of Serendipity’s pets. Calisto glared at him and opened her mouth, but something interrupted her.
"Would you kindly keep it down?" Loki asked from where he lay , lifting his head slightly off the pillows. "I’m trying to rest!"
"Why Calisto," Serendipity said with quiet amusement, "that’s the second time you’ve done something to weaken Loki’s health."
Ganneth snickered, and Calisto whirled on him. "Oh, I suppose you think you can afford to laugh, sitting there at that witch’s feet, oh royal lapdog!"
Ganneth stiffened, and Serendipity asnwered quietly, "At least I have a lapdog, and it’s wasn’t stolen from my ruling cousin."
"Would you two quit talking about me like I’m not here?" Ganneth yelled. "My God..."
"Such language!" Casseopia cried from where she sat gazing at herself as usual.
"Really," Calisto added, "a child your age shouldn’t speak thusly."
"I’m not a child!" Ganneth yelled furiously. "I’m only a few decades younger than you!"
"And a woman of such low status shouldn’t use such formailty," Serendipity inerjected.
"Oh, would you shut up?" everyone yelled.
The two birds started and flew across the room, settling on the perch near the giant golden snowglobe.
Mika splashed some water on her face and looked in the mirror. "Amazing how things can change so quickly," she mused. "Only a few hours ago, I was just doing this before I took my brother out. Now...I’m here."
"That was an intelligent observation," a dry voice interjected. "That was just so deep. About as deep as a piece of paper."
Mika turned, and stared. "Oh...."
She moved her mouth, but nothing came out. Taika sighed dramatically. "What, psycho killers can’t wear silk pajamas?"
"Well...no..." Mika fumbled, "but that wasn’t what I was..."
Jellybean ran up behind Taika, her short blue hair tied up in a ribbon for the night, yellow nightgown flying. "Taaaiiiikaaa!!!!!!!!!!!"
The tiny girl threw herself at Taika, who ignored her and didn’t bother catching her. It made no difference-Jellybean caught herself by latching on to Taika’s two long pigtails and swinging around to face Mika. "Hey! It’s you again! ...Wait, I thought you were human, how come you look like a fish?"
Mika finally took the hint and closed her mouth. Taika moved her head and Jellybean went flying off her hair and crashed into the sink. She looked up, unfazed. "I like fish. It’d be cool to be a fish. They can swim and float and breathe underwater and do sommersaults and they taste good! I like penguins, too. I’ve never seen a penguin but I know what they look like. They look like fish with beaks and they don’t taste good. At least I assume they don’t, I’ve never eaten one. I’ve never eaten a fish, either. But that’s okay. You only eat stuff to gain it’s powers and fish never took over the world. I wonder if penguins ever took over the world? I think it’d be fun to be a penguin ‘cause then I’d be the penguin queen and they’d let me rule over them all! Taika, wasn’t you emperor a penguin? There are emperor penguins, right? Mika, do you have penguins?"
Mika blinked. "Um..what?"
"Taika, I bet you’d make a good swing. Your hair’s so fun to play with! It’s all long and purple and stuff."
Mika’s face creased. "Jellybean, you should calm down a little..."
"I wonder if there are parks that penguins play in. Taika could be a jungle gym! She could be the official penguin weapons shop! No, she should be a slide. A penguin slide! A slide that looks like a penguin and it should be blue like my hair not purple like Taika’s because I like blue more. I like yellow, too. Mika, you like yellow, right? Everyone likes pink."
"I don’t..." Mika started.
"That’s a shock," Taika said.
Jellybean rambled on, standing up and running in circles around the other two girls. She started to sing. "Penguins! I love penguins! I like fish! Penguins eat fish! There once was penguin who ate a fish and took over the world and had a zoo with a pet centaur named Melon..."
"Jellybean," Taika interrupted in a low voice. Jellybean stopped, looked at Taika’s face, and her smile faltered. "Sorry for swinging on your hair."
"How on Earth did you do that?" Mika asked, incredulous.
Taika shot her a death glare. "Don’t even remind me that I’m supposed to kill people from your planet, okay? I just did, that’s all." She grabbed one of her long pigtails and held it out. "And don’t think that just because I’ve got these in makes me any less of a spy. Got it? It’s just easier to get the knots out in the morning when I pull my hair back at night."
Mika nodded meekly.
Sukuu walked in then. "Oh, Mika. I was hoping you’d be in here. I should probably show you where everyone’s sleeping."
She turned and walked right back out. Mika hesitated, looked at Taika’s face and Jellybean’s lackluster smile and followed Sukuu out.
The sorceress led her down a long corridor to a marble staircase. "This is the way to the kitchen and my work rooms, should you ever need to find me. I’m down there most of the day. This way, please."
They turned down the hallway and Sukuu pointed out again the dining room, parlors, and library. "Mostly spellbooks in there," she added. "You probably wouldn’t be interested."
They stopped at the foot of another staircase. Sukuu started up. "The rooms are all up here-well, the guest rooms, anyway. Mine and...my rooms are in another wing."
Mika walked up the stairs behind Sukuu, who began pointing out rooms again. "That’s another washroom...that one downstairs isn’t the best, it’s mostly for my scribes. That room across the hall is Sushi’s. He’s the only one who really need to be close, in case he blows something up and needs to get rid of the evidence. Next to his is where Amaru stays when he’s not at his house. The one next to the washroom is a closet. That’s where Taika keeps the bodies."
Sukuu stopped and looked at Mika, who’d gone pale. She rolled her eyes. "I was kidding."
"Oh," Mika said in a whisper. Sukuu sighed, and continued on.
"The room by the closet is Jellybean’s.She used to be in Amaru’s room, but after she kept bursting in on Sushi at all hours of the night to have him grant wishes, we made her move out. After he blew out a window trying to make her fly, I figured it was enough. Across from there is Mejiro’s room, and at the end of the hall is Taika’s. The room by Mejiro’s...right here..." Sukuu stopped, and opened the door. "...is yours."
Mika nodded and walked in. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. "I hope this is all a dream. It’s too much to take."
"What’s too much too take? You can never take too much. Except this one time, I took too many stuffed animals but I didn’t take enough clothes and so none of the penguins liked looking at them and it was sad because they were dissapointed so I guess I really didn’t take enough instead of taking to much are you planning on answering me?" Jellybean asked as she appeared next to Mika.
Mika blinked. "Um...what?"
Jellybean began to dance a little jig. "What’s too much to take? Are you going to answer me or not?"
Mika sighed. "Eveything. My world is so much different now than it was a few hours ago, and...and...and..."
"Welcome to Nieva," Jellybean said. "It’s the same for everyone. But you’ll get used to it. We did."
Mika looked at Jellybean and smiled. "Wow, you can be pretty profound for a..."
"Melon!" Jellybean suddenly screamed, and launched herself out the window. Mika blinked agian. "Never mind..."
She lay back on her bed, and closed her eyes. "What a day...maybe when I wake up, I’ll be back home..."
Mika’s thoughts drifted off into sleep, and the floor exploded.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Mika’s bed fell through the now-non-existant floor and crashed to the ground in mass of blankets and plaster. Mika clawed her way out of the covers and looked around, wild-eyed. "What now?!?"
"Mika? Mika!" Mejiro burst into Mika’s room and ran in. "Mika, what ha-!"
He fell through the non-existant floor as well onto Mika’s head. Sushi finally pulled himself out from under all the plaster and groaned. "It didn’t work..."
"Hiyoooooo Melon!" Jellybean cried as she and the centaur appeared in the middle of everything. The pixie glanced around, smiled broadly, and flung herself into the melee. "Can I play too?"
The room filled with bubbles and Jellybean giggled as she bounced on the bed. Sushi crawled over the covers towards Mika and Mejiro. "Are you two all right? I swear, the ceiling wasn’t supposed to dissapear, the table was!"
"What’s going on?" Sukuu asked as she and Amaru entered. Taika followed in, surveyed the situation, and grinned evilly. "You four, get a room."
Sushi blushed, Mejiro quickly jumped to his feet, MIka covered her face, and Jellybean looked at them, perplexed. "What? What? I don’t get it."
"The only thing this needs," Taika muttered, "is a nice helathy dose of flaming wreckage."
"No fire!" Mejiro, Sushi, and Sukuu yelled.
" Sukuu sighed, and rubbed her temples. "Well, then. Sushi, you mixed up the sentences again, didn’t you?"
"No!" Sushi protested. "Just the last two words!"
Sukuu waved a hand and the ceiling reassembled itself. "All right. Now, Sushi, see if you can’t teleport Mika’s bed back to her room and that horse into the field."
"Centaur!" Jellybean and Melon both protested.
"Would someone please tell me what’s going on?" Mika whimpered.
Taika rolled her eyes. "No authority whatsoever...it’s all magic talk, Earth girl. Ignore it, it’s too deep for that pretty little head of yours."
Mika looked down at her hands.
"See what I mean?" Taika said to Amaru. Amaru said nothing. He was too busy looking at his hands and trying to be noncommital.
"Yo, Amaru? What’s up?" Taika’s lips twitched, and she tapped his shoulder. "You don’t look so hot."
"I’m fine," Amarua answered quietly, voice a bit strained.
&Damn." Taika dropped her hand, tossed her braid over her shoulder, and left. "I’m going back to bread."
"Bread?" Mejiro asked. Jellybean giggled. "I like waffles!"
"Yeah, bread. I’m hungry."
Amaru continued looking at the ground. "I’ll go with you."
"Nah. Stick with my baby brother here. He needs help with the ladies."
"Quit saying that!" Mejiro shrilled.
"What, the brother thing or the girl thing?"
"Both!"
"Marhmallow yakero yakero yakero!" Jellybean sang.
"Will you all just shut up?!?quot
Everyone turned and looked at Amaru. He shook his head. "You’re driving me nuts!"
Taika blinked, and her lips stretched into an evil smile. "I’m not hungry after all."
Sushi had turned anoher interesting shade of green. "Sukuu, can I just go to bed?"
"Why? You’ve got all this to-" Sukuu looked at Amaru, and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Go to bed."
Sushi nodded, scrambled over the wreckage, and crashed into the table he’d been trying to make dissapear. He went flying, and slammed into Amaru’s knees. Jellybean giggled madly. "Sushi-samma yakero yakero yakero!"
Amaru didn’t move. He looked at Sushi, and frowned. Silence rang in their ears.
"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing?"
Amaru flung Sushi into the nearest wall, eyes blazing. "Get away from me! Shit, what the hell were you thinking? Are you retarded?"
Mika’s eyes widened, and Taika positively beamed. Sushi crawled up, and cried out. He grabbed hishand, tears leaking from his eyes. "Ow...."
"Whiner!" Amaru yelled.
Mika stared at the blood dripping through Sushi’s fingers onto the floor, and the red ont he piece of glass he’s put his hand on. "Oh God...I hate blood..."
Mejiro grabbed her arm, and pulled her up into his arms as she fell over. "Oh, great. Mika, don’t do that! Wake up!"
"She even faints like a bad cliche," Taika muttered. Her eyes were trained on the blood as well. "Little red dots...little red dots all over the floor...."
"Knock it off, Taika!" Mejiro yelled.
"Go take care of sleeping beauty, bro." Taika moved closer to the glass, swept it aside, and smiled at Sushi maliciously, fangs bared. "I’m busy."
Sushi wailed. "Sukuu!"
Sukuu sighed, and shooed Mejiro and the unconsciou Mika out the door. "All right, you two. Get Mika into bed. I’ll handle this."
She let out a long suffering sigh. "Again.".
Mejiro turned to look back at her, and the door closed just as Jellybean began singing again.
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