Being Dysfunctional Has Never Been So Much Fun
Short #1: Best friend

Beatrice the Golden Witch was bored; mind-numbingly, brain-breakingly, indescribably bored. Being the great Golden Witch was fun for a few hundred years, but after one thousand it just grew old; even if, physically, Beatrice didn't.

There was, quite literally, nothing to do in the meta world. Nothing save drinking tea, arguing with Gaap about unimportant subjects neither of them really cared about, or thinking of suitable names for the spider that was scuttling round the inside of Beatrice's tea cup.

Beatrice wasn't sure how the spider had gotten there. She must've missed the critical moment when the spider fell inside whilst she was examining the dirt under her fingernails. However, Beatrice was- strange though it sounded- beginning to come rather attached to the ugly little creature. According to various myths and legends, witches were unable to touch spiderwebs because it caused them great pain, but Beatrice was sure that didn't apply to magical spiders in Purgatorio.

The way the poor, helpless spider kept trying to crawl out of the teacup, even though it would, inevitably, overbalance and tumble over on its back with its legs flailing in the air, was so cute and endearing.

Beatrice knew that feeling well. The poor spider was trapped, unable to do anything. However, despite the odds stacked against it, it refused to give up. The spider kept on going.

You could never give up. No matter how much pain built up inside your heart, you had to persevere. Otherwise life would defeat you. That spider seemed to know that better than anyone.

How poetic…

Beatrice smiled softly as she surveyed her arachnid friend. It had taken her at least five minutes but, finally, she managed to think of a suitable, grandiose name for such an inspiring insect.

…That being said, were spiders even insects?

Virgilia would probably know. Virgilia knew all kinds of trivia. Not that it really mattered.

The spider was to be dubbed Terrence Alfred Hector Oliver Nimrod the Third- but Terrence for short. Indeed, it was a lofty title, but Beatrice the Golden Witch felt the brave little spider deserved it.

Beatrice reached forwards, ready to help the spider out of its teacup prison, when-

"Milady, I just- kyaaaah! Spider! Spider! Kill it kill it killitkillitkillit!"

Beatrice gave a squeak of surprise, drawing her hands away from the teacup at lightening speed as- without warning- a blade of red light pierced through the delicate china. The teacup shattered on contact. It broke into pieces, the shards flying across the room and skittering to the floor.

Beatrice stared in horror, holding her hand to her chest, her heart thumping a mile a minute. Her wide blue eyes stared at the smooshed, incredibly dead form of her former best friend. Then- very slowly, her lower lip trembling, feeling rather more depressed than she should have done- Beatrice lifted her head.

She glared at Leviathan in anger.

"Urgh. I hate spiders... A-and those myths about spiderwebs hurting witches are really scary! Uuwaah..." Leviathan trembled in fear; trying to avert her eyes from the squished spider remains and bits of broken china scattered on the floor. As she spoke, her red sword began to disintegrate into nothingness. "Anyway, Milady, I was going to ask-"

But the look on Beatrice's face made Leviathan pause. Beatrice looked as though she'd just been slapped across the face. In fact… w-were those tears in her eyes?

"Milady, what's wrong?" Leviathan asked, her voice tinged with worry.

Beatrice sniffed.

Then she said, her voice accusatory, "You're a murderer!"

"W-what are you talking about…?"

Beatrice's eyes narrowed. If looks could kill, Leviathan would have been a smush of innards and organs on the floor just like poor Terrence.

"You killed Terrence Alfred Hector Oliver Nimrod the Third! You're a murderer! Get out of my sight!"

Leviathan didn't need to be told twice.

a/n: Hi~ Welcome to my newest 'endeavour' XD It sounds so epic when I phrase it like that, hehe~ XD Basically, this is a series of umineko oneshots that feature around the meta world crowd. That is: Beatrice, the stakes, Gaap, Virgilia, Ronove, Lambda, Bern, Cornelia, Gertrude, Dlanor and Will. I'm not sure if the last four count as 'meta world crowd', but they will appear in this collection, so nya XD~~ There will be a few random pairings thrown around here, but mostly these stories will be light-hearted humor, with maybe some darker humour or more sentimental stuff thrown in to balance it out :D

I am pondering how many oneshots to add to this collection, though. Should I do 50 or aim for 100? 100 is nice number, and I have a lot of characters to work with and loads of character combinations, so… Well, we'll have to see XP I've done about 23 oneshots for this collection already, I just held off posting the story because I wanted a nice Beatrice-centric oneshot to start off XP

Anyway, I apologize for the long rambly a/n. Future chapters won't have such long a/ns!~ -sweadrop-
I hope you enjoy it for however long it lasts, be it 50 or 100 chapters ^_^;;

~renahhchen xoxoxo

22/12/2011 update:

Rewrote bits and pieces of it, got rid of spelling errors. Also, ... the collection features pretty much all the characters of umineko now, not just the meta crowd. And it'll probably be about 400 shorts long... XD;