Yume Ga Yume Nara...
(If the Dream Was a Dream...)
Part Two

By Mia Koji/Yagyu Nasuti

"Ah!" Yuli jumped back from the stove, and shook his right hand, blowing on it.

"Yuli!" Mia ran into the kitchen, and protectively put her arms around the boy. She pulled him away. "Get away from there!"

"Mia!" Yuli sounded overjoyed to see his guardian of sorts awake. "I'm making you breakfast! See?!"

Mia let go of Yuli, and rushed to the stovetop. "You could start a fire, Yuli!"

"Naw, not me!" Yuli smiled proudly as Anubis walked into the doorway.

Mia took the handle of the frying pan, and rushed it over to a sink. The eggs inside the pan (shells and all) were smoking and charred. She frantically turned on the faucet, and the water hissed as it evaporated on the hot surface.

Mia coughed, and fanned away the smoke and steam. "Oh, Yuli...!"

"Is everything alright in here?" Anubis stood idle in the doorway, left with no choice but to watch the chaos in the kitchen.

Mia scraped off all of the burnt egg from the pan, and shut off the faucet. "Everything's just peachy here!!" she dried off the pan,and spun around to go back to the stove, when her left foot landed smack-dab on a broken raw egg. Surprised by this, Mia's foot slipped, but she caught her balance, but at the price of jamming her right heel into the cabinet below the sink.

Both Yuli and Anubis flinched as Mia's frying pan was dropped to the floor.

"Oh...!" Mia put her hands to her ears, and then threw them down. "Yuli..." she sighed.

"I'll clean it up! I promise!" Yuli pleaded.

Mia bent over just a bit to touch the bottom of her left foot. "...." she felt the slimy egg white and yolk between her fingers. "That won't be necessary. Go sit down, Yuli."

"But--!"

"Just for a moment, Yuli." Mia pulled off a paper towel, and dampened it. She wiped her foot clean, ignoring the throbbing in her right heel.

"Do as she says." Anubis kindly suggested.

Yuli looked behind him, and up to the warlord. He frowned, and put his arms behind his head casually. "I wasn't going to argue. Besides, I don't have to do as you say..." he walked over to the chair Mia sat in the night before. His short legs dangled off the edge cutely, as he swung them back and forth.

"Yuli, get out a big bowl for me..." Mia finished cleaning up the floor.

"Okay!" Yuli jumped at the chance of getting out of his seat. He opened a drawer, and got out a decent-sized glass bowl.

"Don't drop it!" Mia stood, smiling.

"I won't!" Yuli replied, putting it up on the dinette table.

Mia took her eyes off of Yuli, and turned them to Anubis.

Anubis straightened completely as they got eye-contact for the first time that morning.

Mia smiled at him. "Well, why are you standing there? Sit down, you're blocking the doorway!"

Anubis took a few steps inside. "Ah."

Mia walked over to the refrigerator. "You eat eggs, don'tcha?"

Anubis couldn't help but notice the skeptical look Yuli was giving him.

Mia closed the fridge door with her hip, and didn't wait for an answer. "Well, if not, you're outta luck, it's really all we have..."

Anubis sat down across from Yuli, and tried to avoid eye-contact with the boy.

"Scambled all right?" Mia asked, breaking open an egg into the bowl in front of Yuli. A nervous smile appeared on her face. "Oops. Guess I don't have a choice. Scrambled it is!"

"Ooh! Can I scramble it?!" Yuli begged.

"Sure." Mia smiled at Yuli, and handed him a wisk. "Stir it good!"

"All right!" Yuli got to work on scrambling the egg in the bowl.

"Okay. Let me start cooking your egg, and you can beat up mine." Mia took the bowl, and poured the egg into the skillet. She checked to make sure the fire was off, and brought the eggs to Yuli.

Anubis watched silently with a smile as Mia taught Yuli how to break an egg.

"See how I just tap it hard enough to crack it? Now get your thumbs and--no, no! Not all the way in! Just a bit, like this..."

Anubis chuckled quietly to himself at the sight of both of Yuli's thumbs swallowed up in the egg shell.

The two youths looked up to Anubis with wide eyes.

"What's so funny?" Yuli frowned,the egg beginning to drip through his thumbs.

Anubis tried to keep his laughter contained, but now Mia could clearly see that he was laughing at them.

"Hey!" Yuli proudly cried. "Cut it out!"

"Is this...this is what defines the mortal world?!" Anubis leaned over the table, in pieces over the scene.

Mia's brow furrowed. "Excuse me?"

Yuli was fuming by now.

Anubis was able to catch his breath. "I'm sorry...it's just...how foolish you look."

"Take that back!" Yuli snapped.

"Yuli!" Mia silenced the child. "He dind't mean anything by it." Mia gave Anubis a "look", and then looked back to Yuli. "Pull the shell apart."

"I know." Yuli pulled apart the shell, and the insides dropped into the bowl.

Mia broke open the one she held, and took both of the shells. "Okay, now beat them good!"

"Okay!" Yuli picked up the wisk next to the bowl, and began stirring.

Mia dropped the shells in the sink, and wiped her hands on a towel. She felt relieved that Yuli's attention was off Anubis. She grabbed a spatula, and turned on the fire beneath the skillet. She began to cook the eggs, and tried to think of what to start doing today. What was she working on the night before? Hmm...the night before...night before..bit by bit, her memories of last night were coming back to her. A numb feeling came over her as she remembered--OMIGOSH!