The Universe's Mixer

It took him by surprise every time he walked by the place where Beauty's cottage used to sit. It still sat there though the energy that the cottage used to emmitt was gone. It was, instead of being a place of real fairy tales and dreams, quaint and cute. In a sense, it was gone.

Abe didn't approach where Beauty had lived. Instead he walked by every day and paused to take note of the loss of the woman, the fairy tale woman who had so graciously and enthusiastically let him into her life.

Today, specifically, was a different sort of day. Today he had a side pack of all of his belongings gathered from his temporary residence at the park pond. In his webbed hands held the book Beauty had given him, Tennyson. Yet another loss to mark the long dead author's works. Who knew, though Abe, Tennyson himself might show up in The City one day. Perhaps he could get his book signed.

This day was different, though, because Abe finally decided to make the leap (no amphibious joke intended) to living in an actual structure. As petty as it seemed, he simply didn't feel sophisticated living in a pond. He had recently seen in the residential columns in The City paper a townhouse with a large bathtub and access to a saltwater pool.

If the stipend The City provided kept being as regular as it did he'd have no trouble keeping up the rent. He thought, maybe, for a moment he was settling here. As if he was giving up on finding a way back he had made himself far too at home with the idea of this...place as a permanent arrangement. And, indeed, maybe he'd put off getting a living arrangement beyond the stagnant pool water because of just that perception.

But he decided ultimately that, as the first Buddha, he needed to have no distractions of need to keep him centered. If he did figure out a way to leave the City or contact Hellboy, Liz, or anyone in his previous universe then he would be more likely to do so if he was well fed, well sheltered, and not hiding every time a family came by to go to the park. The stress wasn't worth it.

Abe sighed as he took one last glance at the quaint though lifeless cottage before heading on.

Wash usually loved puzzles. The reason for this was because he was good at them. He was good at predicting the way things would work if you put them one way as opposed to the other. He was good at fitting things in. He was good at math; he was DAMN good at math!

But as he sat on the grass inspecting the big pieces all the way to the little pieces he found himself getting more and more frustrated with the wreckage of Shuttle 2. Burns were everywhere effecting the structure of the material, a material that was not really available at the local tool shops.

Most of what was annoying him at this moment was the aesthetic bits. This was because he had looked at the non-aesthetic quite important engine-y, propulsion-y, vital-y bits and had immediately given a long string of chinese and hobbled away to something he thought would be a little more easier to deal with.

He threw the piece he was inspecting across the lawn past Oswin's crouched form with an explosive, primal yell.

"Wo de ma he ta de fen kuang de wai sheng dou!"* he yelled. And then, as he laid fully in the grass with his hands over his head he muttered, "Zao gao..."**

(*Mother of God and all her crazy nephews)
(**What a mess)