The Weapon - Resurrection - part 31
By Diana the Valkyrie
Reconciliation
Update: 07/07/2003 to valkyrie05



We were still staying at Matty's place, and I stretched out on the bed she'd
made up for me, with Wendy wrapped round me. We were whispering to each other,
as one does. I mean, as two do.

"You were great today," I told her. "Mmm, aren't I always?" "And so modest."
She tickled me a bit, so I curled up and tried to keep her hands off my body.
We wrestled around for a bit, and then she said "Matty's daughter." "Yes," I
replied, "Donna. We could talk to Fiona tomorrow, if you like. But I think I
know what she'll say." "What?" "Wait and see." "No, tell me now." "Wait and
see." "Tell me or I'll ... " "You'll what?" "I'll get it out of you, you saw
today how good I am at that." "Oh, what'll you do, drop me from five thousand
feet? Squeeze my heart?"

I felt her thumbs creep up my sides, and come to rest under my armpits. "Last
chance," she said.

I considered my options. I could try to push her away, I could counter-attack,
or I could surrender. I tried to counter-attack, my hands on her breasts, my
thumbs rubbing her nipples. She let me do it, but then her devastating
onslaught began. I lasted about ten seconds before I tried to scream, only to
find that one of her breasts was smothering my mouth, and I could barely
breathe. "I don't want you waking up the children," she said. "Mmmpphh,
mmfff," I said, wondering how I was going to surrender now. "You give up?" she
said. "Mmmphh." Her thumbs dug a little deeper into my armpits, she'd found
the exact place where the nerves came together, and she was rubbing it. My
arms were like jelly, and my lungs couldn't get enough air. "Mmmph," I said
again, and the world began to spin around me.

"Are you OK?" was the next thing I heard. "Huh?" "You passed out, are you OK,
David?" "Oh yes," I answered, pulling her closer to me. "Oh yes, yes. Yes yes
yes" "So what will Fiona say?" "Fiona will tell you to do nothing, that they
have to work it out between them, if they can." "Yes, that's what Duncan
thinks."

"That story you told the children." "Yes?" "Was it really like that?" "Well, I
sort of cleaned it up a bit, they're only kids." "You cleaned it up?" "Mmm, I
left out the parts where the orbits of the black holes around each other
interpenetrate with each other's inner orbital quantum levels, and I left out
the emission of electromagnetic radiation, starting with low frequency radio
and gradually rising to high frequency gamma rays." "Well, of course you
would. But what about the important part, they really made you just for us?"
"They didn't make anything, they had a baby, and that was me, and it wasn't
just for you humans, they also did it for themselves. And for me." "But it
means you're stuck here, you can't go travelling and making theorems and all
the stuff you said the People do." "It's only for a little while, just until
you're all big enough to look after yourselves." "Only a little while? How
long." "Oh, a million years tops. Then I'm outta here. Me and Duncan."

I thought about Wendy soaring through the galaxy, devising beautifully elegant
mathematical theorems, and I shivered. She felt that, and pulled me closer.
"Cold?" "Sort of." "Sort of?" "Thinking about you flying through the galaxy."
"Want to come with me?" "I don't have to answer that right now, do I?" She
hugged me, and we lay there silent for a while.

"You've never done that, have you?" "Done what?" "That gravitational laser
thing you told the children about." "No, I'm what you might call a virgin."
"Do you wish ... ?" "Plenty of time for that, David." "Yes, but do you wonder
what it's like?" "Of course I do. But I'll do it one day, when I meet my
prince." "Princess." "Whatever. We only have one gender."

"How much damage does it do to the star, when you, you know?" "Quite a lot. It
doesn't usually wreck them totally, but it does mess them up for a while.
Stars are quite stable, though. If you knock them about a bit, they usually
recover. And we always make sure there aren't any planets, so no-one gets
hurt." "For some reason, I keep thinking about elephants mating in the
jungle." "Whatever turns you on, baby."

"Wendy, if your prince turned up tomorrow and asked you to fly to another
galaxy with him, would you go?" "No way. I have a duty here first. He'd have
to come back later, maybe a million years or so. Are you worried about
Humanity losing it's Guardian?" "No, actually, I was more concerned about me
losing my Wendy." She wrapped her cape around us both and whispered in my ear,
"I will never leave you", and I drifted off to sleep with her arms around me,
and the scent of her hair filling my breath.

. . .

Next day, we visited Fiona again. And I discovered that I didn't know as much
as I thought I did. Wendy asked her about Matty's daughter, Donna, and the
divorce. I thought she'd tell Wendy to keep her nose out of it, but I was
wrong. Still, I had the comfort of knowing that Duncan had got it wrong, too.
"You have to consider everyone, it isn't just young Donna and her husband.
There's also the two children. Divorce is very bad for them." "But living with
feuding parents is also bad," I pointed out. Fiona looked at me, and replied
"Yes, but I don't think they will. Look, Wendy, here's what you should do."
She told Wendy to fetch both of them to Delhi, to the bungalow. "First Donna,
give us an hour, then her husband. Then give us two hours, and fetch the
children." "Are you sure this will work?" I asked her. "No, of course I'm not
sure, you can never be sure when you're dealing with people. But it's worth a
try, what have we got to lose?" Wendy flew off, and I thought about the way
Fiona seemed to take charge of any situation, telling people what to do, and
the way that it seemed so natural to do what she said. It wasn't that she was
over a hundred, and it wasn't that she was a senior ward nursing sister. It
was something inherent to her personality.

Why are all the women in this family so dominant? Please don't answer that.

Wendy came back in an hour with Donna, who rushed into the bungalow for some
major hugging with her, her. Um. I nearly said grandmother, but she wasn't
actually related at all. I think, having met Fiona, the best word would be
"Matriarch".

After the greetings were over, Donna sat facing me and Fiona, while Wendy flew
off on the next part of her mission. "So what's up about you and Joe," asked
Fiona. Donna looked at me. "That's David, he's Wendy's friend, she's chosen
him to be her, um. Well, it doesn't matter exactly what. Friend. You can talk
in front of him." Donna looked back at Fiona. "Joe, he ... He. Er. With
another woman. With one of my friends. Some friend she turned out to be.
Bitch."

I was glad Wendy wasn't listening to this. Or was she? This would confirm her
opinion that all us humans ever did was try to hurt each other. "And that's
why you want a divorce?" asked Fiona. "Me? No. It's Joe that wants the
divorce." "So you'd forgive and forget?" "No, you know it isn't that easy. I'd
try to forgive, or at least to tolerate, but it isn't the sort of thing you
can actually forget. But Joe's basically a good guy, he was tempted and he
fell. It happens. It doesn't have to mess up our whole lives, and the
children." Fiona nodded, and turned to me. "So how are you getting on with
saving the world? I saw Wendy on the TV yesterday, she seems to have turned
the UN upside down." "Yes, she has rather. And she did it so publicly, it's
hard to see how they could back off from their public committment." "You know,
if there's one thing that would make my mind easy before I die, it would be
knowing that Wendy had gotten us all out of this hole we've put ourselves
into. Because I know people want to work together, it's just a matter of
giving them the opportunity to do so." And she looked straight at Donna. Donna
dropped her eyes, and quietly said, "Yes, people do want to work together."
And I realised we weren't talking about the Great Depression, suddenly the
subject had switched back to the family problems.

Then Wendy arrived carrying Joe.

As soon as he arrived, he vomited. Some people don't take to well to air
travel, I guess. "Wendy, I hope you were gentle with him?" asked Fiona. "Of
course I was!" she looked a bit offended at the very suggestion. I gave him
some water, and he soon perked up. Fiona took the lead. "Joe, you're wanting a
divorce?" Joe looked up at Fiona, then at Donna, then at Wendy. He looked
scared, and I can't blame him, surrounded by those three. "Wendy, go do the
next part," said Fiona, and Wendy flew off obediently. Why isn't she like that
all the time? "Now then, Joe. Tell me why you want a divorce. You want to
marry this other woman?"

"No, no. That was just a big mistake. You know, I was tempted, and, and. Well,
there's no excuse. I don't deserve Donna. I've hurt her, and she's right to be
angry with me ... " "Oh Joe, I'm not angry. Well, I was, yes, obviously, but
that was just the heat of the moment, and I felt so, so, well, never mind. But
I'm not angry now."

Fiona stood up. "Come on, David, you and I are going for a walk. Wendy, join
us as soon as you've finished what you're doing." Wendy wasn't there, and
there was no way she could hear what Fiona just said. Not to mention the fact
that sound only travels a mile in five seconds. And other stuff that makes it
impossible. On the other hand, I've also learned that you have to be careful
about any sentence that includes the words "Wendy" and "impossible". And I
knew she could hear. And I remembered her explanation of how she did it.

Fiona and I walked slowly down the road. "They don't need us now," she said,
"sometimes all you have to do is get people together, get them talking, and
get yourself out of the way." "Wendy asked me if I'd like to travel around the
galaxy, do you know what she meant by that?" "She probably meant it
literally." "Oh." "How's your sex life?"

I blushed. I'm not used to centenarians asking me about my love life. "It's
OK," I said. "OK? Is that all?" "Well, all right, it's better than OK. But we
still haven't actually, you know." "Give it time, you've only known her, how
long?" "Twenty three years and five days." "Right." "And I've been in love
with her for most of that time." "Even when you hadn't met her?" I nodded.
"Oh, you poor boy," she said. "Maybe I'm exaggerating, Fiona ... " "Call me
Fee, most people do." "Fee, maybe it was just a bit of a crush. You know, I
saw her as, like, the Ultimate Woman, you know? Unattainable, on a pedestal,
almost like a Goddess, although not how the Church of the Holy Guardian does."
"Yes, she can be a bit like that." "But then I saw her crying. Goddesses don't
cry. Crying over her lost love, the pain of separation. And then she wasn't a
goddess, she become human to me. Well, not human. But a person. You know?"
"She's definitely a person, David. And she's definitely not human. Some folks
have a problem with that, they think that only us humans are people. It's like
a long time ago, when folks thought that only pink people were people. Or that
people with a different culture aren't people. It's something you can see if
you look up through the centuries; a gradual acceptance of a wider definition
of "people". And Wendy just extends that further."

"Did you see the wings on her?" "Yes, nice touch, I thought. Without making
any untrue claims, she's drawing on a common mythology." "Myths are so
important, Fee, my subject area is 'The semiological effect of the Guardian
mythos'". "I won't ask what that means, I'm sure it's terribly clever." I
laughed. I was pretty sure that she knew exactly what it meant. She continued,
"Probably the greatest gift that Wendy offers is a reinforcement of the
feeling that there is a God, and he does care about us." Right, she definitely
understood my ideas. "Not a God," I argued, "but something with greater power
than we have, and you can see her power, she displays it all the time. And we
know that there's more like her out there somewhere. And she was sent to us to
be our Guardian, that gives us hope that there is a reason for our being
here." "A false hope," said Fiona, "but sometimes that's better than no hope."

There was a sound like a giant beating of wings, and a strong wind blew
Fiona's dress around. I looked up, and there was Wendy, hovering above us,
those great wings beating steadily like a gigantic ornithopter. "Showoff,"
said Fiona.

Wendy landed, and folded her wings around herself like a cloak. Then she made
them disappear. "Practicing," she said. Fiona laughed. "I delivered the kids,
Donna and Joe are playing with them now. Fee, I think you've done the trick
there, Matty will be so pleased!" I turned to her, "Fee, you're a genius." "Aw
shit," she said, "wain't nuffink. Wendy, they can stay here for a few days,
you and David probably want to go visit Rosetta."

We were a thousand feet up and rising fast by the time I got out "Good idea".

. . .