Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ What Begins and Ends ❯ What Begins and Ends -- Past ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

"Life is like a sock. It never turns quite the way you want it to, and it almost always wrinkles toward the end."


With the changing of the seasons came the changing of moods in the Etherealm - the place where one may go when one dies; Heaven, Hell, or purgatory - and its mighty or not so mighty inhabitants strutted and pranced and preened themselves in a grand display of body language and verbal language; they were, of course, waiting for something. The great gathering had not been issued by one being, but by several, and why things happened that way is uncertain even now; but the story continues as such. Among the massive seething crowds one tiny figure huddled, alone, hands clasped together in prayer. To pray in the Etherealm is common, yet mockery all the same; once in the Etherealm, many believe, one is 'once in the Etherealm,' or unable to leave it again.

Yet the figure knew, as a few precious others did, that the general belief was not true. One had already fallen.

Surely, and the thought was horrid, it could happen to another.

This one small figure was actually very old; or her memories claimed her to be so, at least. Her visage was one of a child only a handful of years of age; her eyes, like her memories, however, were dim, the skin at the edges of them crinkled. But, as said before, the moods of every being were changing - so her eyes were gradually brightening, the age gone with so many other things that cannot begin to be stated. The prayer ended with a last - the last - crowning phrase: "Now and again, so on and forever, amen."

And so, Forever blinked and became Peorth, goddess First Class, license unlimited. Her figure was no longer tiny, nor could it be called small; contrarily it was so becoming those of the male gender around her began to salivate. Yet none of them made any attempt at an advance, for they knew it would turn out either fruitless or extremely painful - oh yes, even the calm and collected Archangel Azrael, the Angel of Death as he was called in some mortal legends, had to gather his wits before approaching and greeting with limited enthusiasm the newly-arrived goddess.

"Peorth," he acknowledged to an accompanying tight-lipped smile. His wings quivered and rose with his eyebrows - both white, both lightly feathered. "What a pleasure to see you here again."

"Ah! Don't lie to me, Azrael; you're positively squirming in discomfort at the mere sight of one who resembles opposition." Peorth's voice was smooth and like the flow of water over glass. She smiled at the Archangel minutely before continuing, "You do not value my presence here. You know what this child is to me and what it will do to this world. However, the Almighty absolutely prohibits you from intervening in its development. Your corruptive ways are of no use any longer."

"Peorth," Azrael warned, "you are trespassing in a forbidden area of my territory. I will slay you should another wrong word - "

"Oh, shut up," she snapped. "You cannot destroy me or kill me. I am ever-living. I am Forever."

And the statement was true as long as truth reigned. Peorth wore little for she saw no reason for clothes in a realm fashioned by a man and run by men at the head; of course, journeying beyond the Etherealm without much clothing was also to her benefit when dealing with the male mortal fools. Her body was shapely were it needed to be and muscular where it needed to be in equal portions; her eyes were dark, holding dominion and strength and weaknesses alike, and her hair appeared short at first - also dark, but not and never so much as her eyes. It cascaded in a thin gleaming stream over her shoulders and down her back, ending somewhere just above her thighs.

She was beautiful, and she was Forever.

She was also the Almighty's trump card; a weapon so powerful even he shrank back when she was angry, his great hands motioning in gentle, pacifying ways. As she was Forever, she could wipe out the entire Existence in the twitch of one little finger and feel no remorse - she would not die, she would experience no pain at the billions and trillions of lives lost under her own expense. In her palm, if technical terms were considered, the universe rested, and should she tighten her grip or adjusted it even slightly, pandemonium would ensue.

Not that Peorth didn't favor pandemonium.

Of her nature there were two main factors: her reign over pandemonium and chaos, and her extremist's loyalty to the Almighty. As with pandemonium and chaos she could be a fickle person, never satisfied with staying in one place or the extent to which an operation had been performed; and as with an extremist's loyalty to the Almighty, she never wavered in her faith for a long period, even if she was furious and wished momentarily for all to begone. Such was a weakness of the goddess Peorth - she could not abandon the Almighty, and the way things were, to mutinous souls even existent within the borders of the Etherealm, abandonment might have been the best route to success among the universe and its many neighbors.

Peorth turned from Azrael, eyes on the immense domed structure that was the focus of every being present at this convention, and glared for all she was worth - note that this was quite a goodly amount --; of what was happening in there at such a moment she cared not, for she knew what it would do to her status and how the others might think of it in the years to come. Another glazed, cautious glare, and the crowd before her parted slightly so she could get a better look at the entrance to what she supposed was the equivalent of a gargantuan mortal chapel, save it was much more lavishly decorated and mounted on its crown was not a cross, but an odd Norse rune - the thing was probably older than Peorth herself. She squinted, blinked, and shuddered, whispering the words to herself quietly, "Given the time, I'd say it shouldn't be much longer…"

And it wasn't much longer at all: a few seconds later the crowd lapsed into a stunned silence, for emitting from the chapel was a high-pitched hum, growing louder by the moment and more intense with each drawn breath. Peorth reeled, clapping her hands to her ears to ward off this sound and the peak she knew must eventually be struck. A higher note than the rest quavered in the still air; an explosion of light and color of the entirety of the spectrum engulfed the Etherealm and then withdrew within the span of a heartbeat, though nothing of the sort existed among the immortals. And the crowd surged forth, crying, "God? Goddess? Demon? Demoness?"

But Peorth knew - oh, how she knew! And it was none of the above. She pushed her way through the crowd anxiously; she did not want to be anywhere near that child, that horrible, beautiful thing that was both her niece and the source of her torment for centuries to come; that was an oxymoron in itself. She wanted nothing to do with it.

Yet who would dare have anything to do with one who was none of the above? One who was half of a goddess and half of a demoness?

And so Past was born, shunned by Forever and hated by the majority of the Etherealm. She came to live at the base of the World Tree because of this hatred - it was called Yggdrasil, this tree. Past built a well and sat by it, staring down into its depths to pass the time; when she gave it a name, she took that name too. And that name was Urd.

Urd was Past, and Past was Urd.

She was a commodity to What Would Be Time. She was a halfling.

She was the First of the Norns.

And she was one of the many immortals who would bring hell to Morisato Keiichi when Time began.