A/N:

This story is told from Lind's POV.

Chapter 1: That Was Supposed To Be Me

I mean, there I was, finally getting my totally cool epic heroic death scene. I was saving the whole universe, all of Yggdrasil, and all of Heaven - and everybody was watching me - Tyr, Odin, Hild, Thor, Loki, Freyr, everybody, and it was so cool.

And then Belldandy just had to step in and mess up my cool death. Literally. She stepped right in front of me and took the shot.

Argh! That was supposed to be my swan song!

You see, I am the living embodiment of the fourth kind of love, called agape (ah-gah-pay). Webster's defines it as 'selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest of the four types of love'. That's me.

I was supposed to take the shot and save Heaven, not Belldandy. I mean, it's my dang job. It was why the Almighty created me in the first place!

Everybody in Heaven knows that Belldandy is the living embodiment of an even higher kind of love, the fifth one, called [redacted].

So she trumped me.

For her to die like that, right in front of Keiichi, to literally die in his arms like that, it should have been me. Grumble.

So at that moment I Bonded them. I mean, what else could I do?

You see, we first class goddesses are kind of special. When you get up to our level we become a sort of, well, an abstraction really. We're not real people.

Now, Keiichi, that kid is a real person. So is Urd (she's only second class). But high level entities? Beings like Peorth, myself, and Belldandy? We aren't what you would consider 'people'. Not really.

Take Peorth for example. She is the living embodiment of the third kind of love, called eros, that is, intimate or romantic love. It is not necessarily sexual (though it often is).

Because we operate at such a high level we have some weird deficiencies. For example, I was totally clueless about eros. I didn't even realize that Peorth was always hitting on me until after my 950th birthday. Before then I thought the mutual washes in the bathtub were for hygiene.

I was totally clueless right up to the moment when my husband took my virginity from me.

Looking back, it was pretty funny. I pointed at his thing - I had never seen one before - and screamed like a little girl. Then it felt to me like a pleasurable attack, and I almost killed him by accident, my defensive reflexes. (I am very dangerous. There is a good reason why I almost never am seen interacting with mere mortals: They don't survive long in my presence unless I really restrain myself.) I ordered him to tie me up first. It was for his protection.

I've since mellowed out quite a bit, and he doesn't need to tie me up any more (much). You can probably tell that I've changed a bit. I'm more mellow now. I'm not quite so insanely dangerous all the time. It's because my husband and his bondmate have both rubbed off on me. It has to do with that Bonding I was forced to do on the two of them.

Where was I? Oh yeah.

Like I said, Belldandy jumped right in front of me and took Hild's final shot. That whole thing, Hild's ingenious plan, was so epic. I mean, Hild was going for it. Totally. She was gunning for the whole enchilada, taking on the great Daitenkaicho, Tyr, himself. That girl has stones, I tell you.

So we were all gathered together for the big dénouement up in Heaven. Basically, Hild's plan was to replace Tyr with Belldandy, put her on the throne Upstairs, and then pull her strings from Downstairs. It was a clever, clever, plan. Her best. That she would intentionally die making it happen was just a minor inconvenience for her. She wanted it all. Her endgame was to rule Heaven through Belldandy while taking over her daughter's body to rule Hell as Urd.

But Belldandy just had to go and wreck everything. So, Hild is now dead. And Urd is now Niflheim's caretaker until a more suitable replacement can be found. And Belldandy is also dead. And I'm alive with my new husband.

Dang it! This is so totally messed up!

So anyway, like I said, as Belldandy lay dying in Keiichi's arms, I Bonded them. I had no choice. I'll explain that next.

A/N:

This story is a humorous counterpart to my big honking huge epic sprawling galactic romance mystery fic, The Final Act of Haruki Suzumiya. Both stories explore the concept of [redacted] and share the same central thesis: that [redacted] is really [redacted] from the perspective of [redacted].