Once upon a time there lived three sisters. They had lived together for many a year, and would 
for many a year yet. By day they slept in each other's arms and dreamt fat and satisfying dreams 
which painted smiles on their lips and fluttered their eyelashes. By night they combed out each 
other's hair and dicussed their fat and satisfying dreams and how best to make them a reality.
The three sisters were each long and slender and beautiful to others of their kind, and though
 they were old they yet looked young. They had scrabbly nails and tearing hair and smiles which 
slashed out from their white and blue faces. They amassed sharp and shiny junk in a huge pile in 
the bottom of their sea garden, for it was on the sea bed where they lived, and there ruled the 
terrain which stretched out from the mortal city of Gotham, out to where the first of the 
mal-de-mers staked his territory and gobbled up whoever crossed his path.

By the way, the three sisters were daemons.

They had been given the territory on the sea bed by their Favourite, who had forbidden them from 
leaving until such a time as he said they could, and who had long since forgotten the three 
sisters whose slender blue bodies wailed around rusted anchors and whose nails scrabbled on the 
bottoms of ships and caused sailors to toss and turn where they lay at night, dreaming strange 
blue dreams of half remembered tears and the sea which cried for them to join it, but which 
smiled underneath.

For a time, the sisters were content, for they had each other, and they had the sea. They had 
their sharp and shiny junk, and the occasional purple thought which drifted down to them from 
above and which fed them for months when whole souls were not in abundance.
But then there came a long time when no frail mortal body crashed through the surface to join 
them, and one by one their dreams grew thin and unourishing. The sisters grew lonely, for though 
they could take their pleasure from each other, each longed for the company of a tremulous male 
body and his more vulnerable soul, and they worried the mossy rocks and tore uselessly at the 
space of sea with their scrabbly nails.

Then one day, one by one, the three sisters looked up and gave a keening cry of joy, for drifting 
down through the endless blue wine towards them was the pale and bleeding body of a mortal man, 
and one by one, the three sisters left their rocks and their seaweed gowns and drifted up to meet 
him, and they took him in their arms and stroked him tenderly with pale and clammy hands and 
admired him and cooed in voices which sounded like seaweed scrapping the belly of a ship. They 
pulled him down to their rock cavern below and tore his clothes gently from his body and sucked 
out the bullets which pocked his soft belly skin and licked his wounds mended.

This mortal man was like no other they had seen before, for his face was the visage of their own 
kind. His long and sinewy body was cold and white and his wild screaming hair was as green as 
their eyes and their seaweed gowns. His face was beautiful to them and they kissed it and bit it 
and licked it in rapture, delighting in the red smile which stretched like a slashed throat 
across his face and dreaming in his purple eyes as they lifted his lids to take a peek.

But when they stepped in and snuffled around his soul, lust was forgotten and love burned their 
wrinkled green hearts, for he was like their Favourite, and a thousand times more, though he was 
young in his Birth to Darkness yet and had performed his work but three times thus far. Still 
they could see that the thin and magnificent creature was destined for Greatness and could 
perform such deeds as their Favourite had never done, and his mind stretched forth like the 
depths of the ocean and was an inviting,swirling mass of trickery and savagery, two things the 
three sisters could never resist. They each longed to plunge headfirst into that mass, and lose 
themselves in a cool and whispering stream of sensation, and their green eyes cut at each other 
as they prepared to fight over who should keep the beautiful mortal as their own.

But even as they clutched him each to their icy white breasts, and danced in the shadow of his 
madness, their hearts grew more wrinkled and black, for they knew it would be a sin against all 
which they believed in to keep this splendid creature below in the brine with them, where he 
would never be able to fulfill his potential, never be able to put others of their kind to shame 
with his acts they would never dare perform, never thrill them from where they squatted in the 
sand and saw through the eye of mortal minds what he did to dazzle his own weak species.

Tears tore from their eyes and went dancing through the murky waters which engulfed them, but 
still they clung him to their breasts and stroked his body with loving and lustful hands which 
grew hot even on the mossy sea bed of Gotham's polluted waters. They shared him for a night and 
their hearts grew green and plump, and once again their slender bodies slipped and twirled and 
they knew their dreams that day would be fat and satisfying.

But now they wanted him to go back from whence he came and fulfill everything that they saw for 
him. But as they toyed with his long white body one last time they remembered that his dazzling 
soul was trapped within a fragile and damageable body and their wails rose from them as they 
remembered how he had come to them, bloody and dying, and how the next time they would not be 
near to revive and renew.

It was then they decided to give him his gifts, so that he might be all that he could be.

The first sister, who was the eldest and wisest, ran her scrabbly nails once over his taunt white 
body and said in a voice like churning water;
"I give thee, Beautiful Evil, the gift of strength, so that whenever you may suffer an injury 
fatal to the rest of your species, you shall recover in full, and also that you shall age slowlty 
and almost none and return to glory to once again play the soulstrings of your mortal companions"
And so saying she leaned over and kissed his red mouth, breathing the gift in as she did so.
The second sister, who was the most thoughtful, stroked him once with her clinging blue hair, and 
said in a voice like waves breaking;
"I give thee, Seductive Evil, the gift of long life, by which I mean that no hand, mortal or 
otherwise, shall be able to slay you, despite how close they may come. As the means breaks 
forward to give the final blow, it shall be stopped, and you will continue resplendant to frenzy 
to madness your mortal companions"
And so saying she bit his pink nipple and breathed the gift into his bloodstream as she did so.
The third sister, who was the youngest and most playful, tugged at his green hair and wrapped 
longing legs around him, and said in a voice like ice melting;
"I give thee, Intelligent Evil, the gift of fear in others, so that all who know you shall 
understand what you are and of what you are capable, and deep within their chambered heart they 
will tremble before you and their eyes will grow wide and their genitals will shrink and their 
souls will scream though they may stand unwavering in their bodies, and having this within them 
will enable you to stride forward and wreak havoc amongst your mortal companions"
And so saying she bent down and blew delightedly into his navel, thrusting the gift in as she 
did.

So finished they played with him once more and their laughter fell flat in their airless 
surroundings and bounced off their white mortal treasure. Then together the three sisters floated 
him up to the shore and covered his body with kisses and nibbles and dripping, weedy hair which 
clung to his skin for they still did not want to leave him.
But his mortal lungs had filled with air and his luscious purple eyes were beginning to open, so 
with a last longing look the three sisters clambered back down into the water and sank to the 
bottom to once again collect sharp and shiny junk and comb out their hair and discuss their 
dreams, all of which were fed to obescity by their gifted white mortal.

The Joker awoke slowly on the shore, his wet and naked body shivering in the sharp air of 
Gotham's night, watery images of sharp blue faces and stroking, encouraging hands dancing in 
front of his eyes like memories.
He sat up with a start when the solid pictures filled in and they were true memories, of his last 
and most recent dance with the Bat, how he had eluded him finally, but not the police and then 
his ears and nose had been filled with water and he remembered nothing more - did he?
He'd been shot. But looking down at his skinny frame he saw nothing that vaguely resembled a 
bullet wound. Not one. No pain. No scars. His skin was as moonwhite and bone flawless as ever. No 
- except - there were soft pink marks all over him, decorating his skin with tiny imprints of 
teeth and for a moment he wondered, but only for a moment. He had left the pondering of mysteries 
behind only a short while ago, but he felt no longing for them anymore. Only a few things 
mattered now - proving the Joke. Making the Joke. And of course - the tall, dark and gruesome 
Batman. He desperately needed to be shown the Joke. So many ways to do it as well - he had better 
get started, before time ran out.

He lifted himself gracefully to his feet, unafraid even in his nakedness, tall and slim but 
shockingly strong in the dim blue of the Gotham night. He ran a hand through his thick green hair 
then let a slow and snakey smile grow across his face. But he wouldn't run out of time. Wasn't he 
young? Hadn't his dance with the Batman started only a short year ago? And wasn't he blessed with 
an imagination as wide and bloody as his handsome smile? Joker knew he wasn't going to be running 
out of time anytime soon. There was so much to do, so much to reveal to this thick lidded world, 
and he was the one to do it. He had the power - the vision - the ability to do it. There was 
nothing that was supposed to stop him. In fact, Joker felt a great deal stronger, a great deal 
healthier, than he had in a long time. As he began to pad happily along the sandy beach, 
whistling softly under his breath, Joker had the sudden feeling that he had been Blessed.

He stopped hiw whistling and his walking, and threw back his head and let loose a shout of 
laughter,a crazed and happy yet completely mirthless sound, which leapt into the sky to come 
tinkling back, smashing and throwing itself far and wide.

Down below the gelatinous inky blue sea, the three sisters shuddered in ecstasy to hear it.


© Harley Quinn, 1999 (harley_quinn@cheerful.com)