For what was touted to be the party that would make the World's Fair outside look like a three-year old's half birthday bash, it was rather dull. Freyr had heard about it from someone who'd been on his boat, who'd heard about it from another person who'd been on his boat. ( Now Freyr was starting to question the generally solid judgment of his drunken boat people. )

Bast stared around the room she was in, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, as she tried to take it all in. She had never seen anything like this place, and she'd been all over. She'd ridden crocodiles down the Nile, she'd pounced goddesses in fields, she'd met a dragon named Fatima in her new mother's home and lived to tell the tale. She'd seen so much stuff, but she'd never seen anything like this. She didn't even know what this was, except for one thing:

( It. Was. Awesome. )

The trip back to Aset's temple took longer than usual, mostly because the little goddess with her was constantly distracted by anything that moved. Be it insect, fish in the Nile, or just the wind catching the reeds, her curiosity and restless nature just seemed to take over. Aset could tell she was going to have her hands full, but she also knew it was going to be worth it.

( From the moment Aset had found the young Bast... )

Bast was having the best time! It had all started in January of that year, at an event called the Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. While she hadn't had any direct influence in causing that rally, she'd certainly been in attendance. And her approval had possibly spurred what happened afterward, with the counterculture growing and spreading in the area. More and more people kept showing up in The Haight, seeking the ideas that had been put forward.

( Really, Bast thought, it was about freedom )

It had been ten days. Ten, whole, boring, stupid, bland days. Bast could tell that Isis was starting to get worried. She kept walking around rooms in circles when she thought nobody else was there. Even the crocodile that her adopted mother kept around to run the house seemed even more out of sorts than usual. Fatima had already snapped at Bast four times today and she'd only been awake for two hours or so. Maybe three. And if something didn't change, she was going to be stuck with an eleventh day of boring, stupid and bland nothing to do, not to mention cranky adults.

( That was it. )

There were still a few things Ahti didn't understand, like why she looked the way she did when not in human form. Her Creator had never been very clear on that; something about variety as she recalled, which was just stupid. She also didn't get why after the waters of Nun receded, so much had to be left as desert. Who's brilliant idea was that? And there was plenty more that escaped her understanding. But perhaps the one thing that she really didn't comprehend was why women continued to put themselves through nine months of feeling sick and uncomfortable to produce a child.

Oh, she knew that it was necessary to keep the human race going. Reproduction wasn't really a choice in that sense. But some women actually seemed to enjoy being pregnant. It was there that Ahti lost all comprehension. Like the woman she was watching a short distance away, who was forced to hold her belly for support as she carried her basket home from the market. Ahti would have expected her to be quite cross, but instead the woman was smiling and humming a tune.Just looking at her it was obvious she was ready to deliver any day.

( Which was just what Ahti was waiting for. )