You can never go back home...

(From Nukees. Click on image to see full-sized image.)

It's been eight weeks since my last tangent on Nukees, and Darren Bleuel has managed to keep us on our feet this entire ride. Whether it was Gav being given the Guinness Touch (which he lost soon after turning a certain serpent into beer - I guess Bacchus prefers to drink beer, not be drunk as beer) or finding Cecilia sitting in Ma'at's apartment, Bleuel has managed to keep his audience guessing as to what's going on.

We've just found out. Lurking in the background of panel 3... is Thoth. Ma'at's husband.

And Ma'at truly looks (pardon the pun) heartbroken. It seems obvious that she remembers Gav. But with her husband lurking in the background, she can't greet him or flirt as she did last time. But there were clues, littered throughout the comics. The heart under glass (reminiscent of the rose in Disney's Beauty and the Beast). The fact that Ma'at's studio apartment is now has a second room (I doubt Thoth was hiding in the bathroom this whole time).

When we first saw Ma'at, it was at a time when Gav was interested in dating Jeannie (the bartender of his favorite bar). He'd woken up in her bed after drowning his sorrows (his ex-girlfriend told him off in the middle of court and he kind of realized that his dream of possibly at some point getting back together with her was just that - a dream).

And he realized. Two toothbrushes. Jeannie has (or had, rather) a boyfriend. The whole near-death dream of Ma'at could be considered just his subconscious telling him that Jeannie (like Ma'at) had someone else. (However, Jeannie, like Ma'at, also likes Gav a lot, and enjoys flirting with him.)

Time's gone on, and Gav let a chance to date Jeannie go by. (I mean, the girl all but told him she was still single... though Teri (Gav's psychotic little free-roaming AI) did torment him a bit during that time, so perhaps Gav also was afraid of asking Jeannie out lest it be Teri doing another illusion.) When asked, he said his long-term relationship needs are reserved.

At first, I thought he was talking about reserved for Jeannie herself. But now I'm wondering. Could he have been talking about Ma'at, even then? Did he so fall in love with her during his last near-death experience that he has been staying out of relationships, out of a sense of duty for Ma'at?

When Gav finally met Ma'at this last time, she pretended not to know him. She refused to meet his eyes. And Cecilia was there. But... why Cecilia? What link does she have to Gav, and to Ma'at? Well, Gav did accidentally mistook Cecilia for Ma'at. And Cecilia seems fond of Gav... maybe even more than fond. In a creepy stalker kind of way.

I feel rather bad for Cecilia. The poor girl seems rather alone, and is unsure how to make friends. Gav doesn't mind her that much, partly because she was willing to go along with his plots (if there's one thing Gav loves (outside of Ma'at) most, it's a willing lackey). But I still wonder. There's not much in common between Ma'at and Cecilia. In fact, Cecilia almost seems to be the polar (bi-polar? *grin*) opposite of Ma'at.

But Ma'at is giving her Gav's heart.

I mean, how else can you see that? She's not yelling at Cecilia for taking it. She's telling her to take it and run. She's passing Gav's heart to another to keep for Gav. (And this gets stranger and stranger as well... because if this is all in Gav's head, if this is just the synapses going out, one by one, and causing weird hallucinations while Gav dies, then why are we seeing things from Cecilia's perspective, or from Vainamoinen (please excuse the lack of dots above the letters) earlier?

The kicker will come if Cecilia later tells Gav of this weird dream she had of meeting him and this goddess and finding his heart.

Darren? You've definitely still got it. And while part of me thinks the story has gone on far too long, the storyteller in me applauds you for telling such a detailed and superb story (which also reads much quicker when you just go through the archives rather than waiting day to day for each update *grin*).

Still... like most of Nukees fans, I feel rather bad for Ma'at. She's been forced to turn away one she loves dearly... and to send his heart to another woman. It's a tale Vainamoinen would sing about, no doubt.

Robert A. Howard
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