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The Vision of Escaflowne: A Return to Gaea
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Part Seven -- Eidolons
               

Love, it was you who said, 'Murder the killer
we have to call life and we'd be a bare planet under a dead sun.'
Then I loved you with the usual soft lust of October
that says 'yes' to the coming winter and a summoning odor of balsar.
          
                              Anne Stevenson



*****

     Celena's gregariousness was fickle in nature. Sometimes she
gorged on talk and noise so the silence wouldn't make her dwindle
into nothing; sometimes her only salvation was in clinging to silence
and stillness so she wouldn't drown in noise. Allen called the quality
birdlike although he had never explained what exactly that was
supposed to mean.

     And now she couldn't even ask because her brother was miles
away and above her head, aimed for places unknown except that they
were frozen and dangerous. But then again, Allen also wasn't here to
lecture her about sneaking out of dinner just to laze around the
gardens.

     The sky was purple-black. She would have thought it dusk
colored except dusk had already come and deepened into night and it
was now much closer to dawn. Celena sat on the ground, hands
splayed behind her to support her weight. Idly, she held a hand out in
front of her and clenched it into a loose fist except for her thumb
which she held out in front of her to block the Mystic Moon, and
closed one eye so the satellite disappeared completely. Celena put her
hand back down again uneasily, wondering if that was what she really
wanted.

     "I once asked Hitomi what the Mystic Moon was like," Dryden
said behind her, not startling her because the harmonics of his voice
were too even and mellow to ever startle anybody. "She couldn't
answer, in so many words. I suppose it was my fault in phrasing the
question. It covered too much for any answer to be satisfactory."

     "It must be hard to convey everything you mean by 'home'."
Celena replied, patting the ground beside her. Dryden accepted the
invitation and sat with his legs loosely folded at the knee and spread
out at opposite angles, like wings.

     "Couldn't take civilization any longer, huh?"

     "I very seldom enjoy it."

     "Van can't physically tolerate it, I think," Celena said, with a
little, nostalgic smile. "You can see his will to live slowly draining out
of him until he's left twitching and destitute at the end of a party."

     "You care about him very much, don't you?" Dryden said,
meeting her eyes, a bit more seriously than she was used to.

     "Not the way you mean." Celena stretched her arms above her
head. "He's more like a little brother than anything else. And, well, he
*trusted* me. He was the first person to really trust me and *believe*
in me after I came back. It was the most amazing thing, it was like
being given permission to *live* again, especially when everything was
so confusing and scary. So I promised myself that I'd do whatever I
could for him in return, you know?"

     "Not exactly," Dryden said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Celena had learned over the past few days that Dryden answered every
question carefully. "I can't really -- it would be condescending of
anyone to say they're familiar with your particular experience. Me, I
grew up being cared for by nurses and tutors who had nothing
compared to me, and it made me determined to help people who
deserved my luck but didn't have it. Does that make sense?"

     "Perfectly."

     They spend a few moments in friendly silence until Celena
remarked idly, "It's sort of funny, when you think about it, that our
whole world is on the brink of chaos because two crazy kids in love
just needed some quality time -- are you all right?" she asked as
Dryden frantically began to cough.

     Dryden thumped his chest a few times and cleared his
throat."Fine, fine. Sorry." He ran a hand through his hair, casually. "I
just realized I had to marry you was all it was."

     Celena laughed, clear and low. Dryden joined in almost as a
harmony.

     "I was serious," he added.

     "Oh, I hoped you weren't," Celena moaned, scowling and
pulling her knees up to her chest. "I was beginning to really like you
and now you have to go and ruin it."

     "I'm not sure if I follow your logic, dear one."

     "Not to offend," Celena said with a sidelong look that was
more rolling her eyes to the side instead of up than anything else. "But
your spur-of-the-moment marriage declarations have proven to
be....short-lived and unsuccessful in the past."

     "Ah, the good lady refers to Millerna," Dryden said, dry but
not unpleasant.

     "Indeed she does."

     He sat back on his hands the way Celena had when he found
her that evening, staring at the stars with a wry, wistful smile. "Odd
how that seems to have happened over a lifetime ago. I was so
starstruck then, idealistic. Being young is heartbreaking to remember
when you're older. I was going to prove that intelligence could replace
anger forever, that diplomacy could make war archaic. I was going to
win the love of a beautiful woman. Being a successful merchant and a
humanitarian means only that you're a good tradesmen with a social
conscience. I didn't have the first idea how to go about ruling a
kingdom but every conviction that I did. And I was so wretchedly
wrong about all of it. Not in principle -- Van proved me right in that,
although if you had told me that back then I would have laughed until
I choked -- but I'm not the one to do it. So I'm sticking to what I'm
good at now, and there's no shame in that."

     "As for Millerna.... she's a remarkable lady, and I'd defend her
tooth and nail to anyone who might say otherwise.... but now it's hard
to think of her in any way other than how you think of Van. She was
so delicate and reserved, or so I thought -- back when I thought you
could learn everything there was to know about a person after five
minutes of conversation if one were as smart as I."

     "Quite modest of you. And I'm hardly reserved."

     Dryden rolled over on his side, his elbow crooked so he could
support his chin on his hand like he was on a chaise lounge or
something. "Anything but," he agreed. "And that is one of the things I
love about you, darling Celena."

      Celena's pulse thumped once very hard in her throat before
going back to normal. She felt very foolish and very giddy and even
more foolish for feeling both.

     Dryden continued, "I know how silly this must seem, but I
wouldn't have said anything if I didn't think my sentiments weren't in
the slightest bit reciprocated. Besides, you know yourself -- you
couldn't bring yourself to love, let alone marry, anyone who would
dream of going about it in a traditional way. You are a creature of
drama, of spectacular and unexpected pronouncements."

     He sat up a little and held her hand. It looked pale and delicate
in his, only a little bigger than his palm. It probably wasn't a perfect fit
but she wouldn't know what one felt like; and his hand was warm,
solid, and Celena liked the way it felt in hers.

     She asked, "Do you drink?"

     "Alcohol?" Dryden explicated, not missing a beat. "Not by my
own inclination and then almost never to excess."

     "No gambling problems?"

     "Not that I know of."

     "Do you want children?"

     "I don't think I'm quite grown up enough myself to have them
just yet, but I'm not adverse to the idea."

     "Have you ever, er, strayed in your affections?"

     Dryden sighed. "I cannot tell a lie. While courting Reselle
Newslan, I was discovered kissing Susara Hemnoir on the cheek."

     "On the *cheek*? How old were you?"

     "Thirteen."

     Celena bit the inside of her bottom lip, restraining the stirring
of a marveling that wanted to bloom right away. "You thought telling
me that was important?"

     Dryden shrugged. "It was the answer to your question."

     Celena bit her lip again harder this time, preparing herself for
sharper stuff. "And you don't mind that I was-"

     And all of a sudden, she could see herself reflected in miniature
in his dark eyes as Dryden gently cupped her cheek. "I never met
Dilandau. I barely knew who he was or what he did. But I know you,
Celena, and you're right here."

     Celena turned away from his hand and his eyes. She thought
she might curl up and cry and that was very funny because she also
wanted to jump up or dance or anything like that just for the sake of
moving, in order to feel the joy of movement. 

     After a minute she sighed like it was punctuation and stood up,
brushing off her skirt "Okay, let's do it."

     Knees drawn to his chest, Dryden looked up at her, surprised
but compliant."Now?"

     "Good a time as any. There's bound to be a place still open in
this country that will marry us without much fuss."

     Dryden rose too, kissed her and withdrew to offer her the
crook of his arm. Dawn wasn't far off. Dew made the air smell like it
does after rain, like freshly turned soil and unmined potential.

     "You know this means Allen will be your brother-in-law."

     He said gravely, "See the sacrifices I am willing to make for
you, my love?"

******

     Sarine had forgotten how cold it was on Icarus, especially in
the main hall and especially when dressed in a Draconian maiden's
traditional linen. At least she had been allowed to wear coats and
scarves when she was younger. The cold up here was a very thin kind,
thin like a knife; she waited to grow accustomed to it each visit but
never did. 
     
     The Draconians around her weren't providing much body heat
despite the masses assembled. The freeze must have gotten into their
veins long ago. Myra wasn't improving the environment with her
report either. Sarine's mother -- ever a chameleon -- was speaking in
stark terms and a cool voice; the few times they had conversed while
she was on Earth, Myra had sounded so warm. Which had to do with
the surrounding weather, not whom she was speaking to, and Sarine
should stop letting that bother her since that was just the way things
were.

     "It has been prophesied-" an Elder started.

     "Prophecies are not foolproof, especially when they predict
something desired for generations. And this one no longer seems
applicable."

     "Are you saying that our work, including the contributions of
your daughter and yourself, is not as significant-"

     "With all due respect, I am only saying an heir is no longer
ours to produce," Myra said.

     Sarine felt her nails biting into her palm and forced her hands
to relax.

     "The girl can be disposed of."

     "She has attachments on Earth. It will look suspicious."

     "What of that?"

     "He would never forgive us." When Myra switched the subject
instead of arguing it through, she was admitting something although
what exactly was hard to tell.  "He will not cooperate if he feels he is
being manipulated or used. He would, however, be willing to
negotiate if we dropped our current tact and approached him plainly.
He is too used to wielding force to allow-"

     "But this isn't about force!" Sarine shouted before she could
stop herself. 

     A hundred or so Draconians turned to stare at her
reproachfully for speaking out of turn. Sarine stood up carefully, and
tucked her hands behind her back to keep from fidgeting. Couldn't
turn back now. "I mean... I have spoken with him and he does not
seem entirely opposed to following the original plan to its
conclusions."

     Myra was looking at her appraisingly, but Sarine couldn't tell
what the judgement was. "During our communications, Sarine, you
and I discussed how this is not a case of failure of the operation, only
that situations are such that the operation could not possibly succeed
no matter how flawlessly it was being executed."

     "Any self-respecting agent can adapt themselves to
successfully complete a mission, let alone a mission that was the only
reason you were born in the-"

     "And you are not adapting, Sarine," Myra said, almost like a
mother would.

     Sarine clenched her hands into fist when she felt them start to
shake. "I'm not giving up! This can still be done! *I* can still do this!
And you can't nullify a motion if a key member of its implementation
isn't willing to do so, and you know it!"

     The members of the assembly were exchanging glances. They
were not uncomfortable, exactly, but public matters were for public
discussion and private matters were for private discussion and the two
were clearly blending together here.

     Myra stood tall, meeting Sarine's eyes. It was the way she
looked at everybody, the way she had always looked at Sarine. "This
will not end well."

     Sarine drew her own shoulders back. "It will be executed as it
was decreed and it will end in the same way."

     She wouldn't back down. She didn't think she *could*. If Van
had lived up to his part in the prophecy, Sarine had to live up to hers.

     ...and the scene fazed out into white, noiseless static, and
Hitomi woke up, flustered and sweaty like she always was after that
sort of dream.
                                                 
     She settled back under the covers eventually; shivering, as the
heat of waking turned into cold, cold you would use to freeze
something inside yourself that just refused to die, and the blankets
weren't enough.

******

     He was remembering a day when the link between them had
been particularly strong and they both had been reading, which made it
easier to think in words instead of memories or sensations, and so they
had had the closest thing they could to a conversation.

     *Ne, ne, Van. Listen to this.* She was playful, the equivalent
of Merle ready to pounce.                    
 
    *Yeah?*

     *In my textbook it says that hearing voices in your head is a
symptom of being crazy* An echo of the actual quote underneath her
voice, complicated and filled with words he didn't understand. *What
do you think about that?*

     He wanted to play too, but he had a headache and work to do,
and the temptation to do otherwise was making him grumpy. *I
dunno. What am I supposed to think?*

     *Van~!* said in the way she said 'hmmph!' which was always
indefinably endearing. *You're supposed to think whatever it is you
think.*

     *I think you don't want to concentrate on what you're
supposed to be doing, is what I think.*

     A few bubbles of sheepishness floated towards the surface and
popped; his dodges had piqued her genuine curiosity. *You're more
interesting than studying. Do you think you're crazy, Van?*

     She wouldn't stop until he considered the question, so he did.
*No, I don't think I'm crazy. But it wouldn't matter if I was, as long
as I could be a good ruler*

     It subdued her immediately, but the sudden introversion made
him think twice about brushing her off.

     *Van?* she offered after a time, quietly.

     *Yes?*

     *I don't think we're crazy either. At least not because of this. We
might be crazy in a lot of other ways, but not because of this.*

     It made him smile, then and now.

     Myra paused fractionally when she noticed the smile, so he
smoothed it over. Myra gave him a look, but continued the lecture
on... something. Probably the portrait gallery they were walking
through.

     Someone had explained to him that the daylight lasted longer
the farther north you were, and he wasn't able to measure how long
they had been there. The sun had been out when his body had simply
shut down from exhaustion and he had dreamed about Folken. It was
still out when he had woken up. Whether night had passed in between
or not he didn't know. Being lost was not an integral part of Van's
makeup and he didn't like it.

     After Myra and Sarine's initial overtures, the Draconian's
ultimatum hadn't been brought up again. Instead, they seemed to be
taking him on some sort of sightseeing tour of Icarus, which was
frustrating nearly as much because it was as bizarre as it was pointless.
They had let him visit Hitomi after he had demanded too. To their
credit and his relief, she was fine - pale and cold and bored from being
shut in a room - but not hurt. He had spent a fairly odd half-hour with
his head in her lap, describing his childhood memories in non-sequiturs
as Hitomi stroked his hair until a guard had made him leave. If it were
anyone else but Hitomi, it would have been an embarrassing display of
weakness, but Hitomi always seemed to think that his lapses into
frantic confession were a strength in themselves.

     "...And usually people stop daydreaming when I insert
references to spotted dalmatian-hyena hybrids into my lectures, but
you're just so completely lost in your thoughts that even that's not
working, right, Van?"

     "Ah," Van replied distantly.

     Amazingly, after only three hours of this, Myra began to lose
her patience. "Being a brat stopped being an effective method of
getting your way once you hit puberty, Van."

     "I'm not a sulking child," Van said, sounding nearly collected
enough to convince someone who had just walked into the
conversation that he had not been a sulking child. "I just refuse to
listen to people who kidnap me and Hitomi."

     The furrows of irritation lining Myra's mouth and forehead
smoothed over. She looked sympathetic and compassionate; she
looked exactly like Hahaue did holding out her arms in welcome and
comfort when Van cried, and he lost the exchange because of that,
even though she thought he had won.

     "Oh...Van," she said, softly. "You're right, you know. And the
sad thing is that I'm the best friend both you and Hitomi have here."

     A corner pocket of intuition warned him that he should pay
attention to her now.

     "What does that mean?"

      In an oddly teenaged gesture, Myra leaned back against the
wall where the gold gilt was chipping off, but the carvings were ornate
enough to still be visible. "It means I'm the only council member of
any standing who's campaigning to send you back home. And they've
only pretended to listen to me this long because I've headed this
project for the last thirty years."

     He had known that, but having to face it was frightening.
"Then what are you planning to do with Hitomi?"

     Myra didn't answer.

     "What will happen to her if I agree? What will happen if I
don't?"

     She looked at Van now, her eyes dark like gypsy eyes, like and
unlike Hahaue's, and for the first time he could look at her and see
both the familiarity and dissimilarity to Hahaue, see that she wasn't a
clone or an imposter, just related.

     "I don't know you very well, Van," she said. "And I doubt if I
love you like a good aunt should. Humans on Earth have some
interesting theories about love and having to earn it even between
relations, which I'm rather inclined to agree with. But I did love my
sister, loved her dearly, and if nothing else, you're family, and that
stands for something. And, regardless of any other roles I might have
been playing at the time, I was Hitomi's teacher for four years, and I
*did* become attached to her. I would even venture to say that I love
her, that she's earned it. So, I swear to you, Van, that while I have any
power or influence I will not let her be hurt or used as a pawn, as
much for my sake as for yours."

     Van didn't know what to say, except maybe to thank her. But
he didn't think he was ready to say that either, so silence settled
between them like an agreement until a voice said, very quietly, "I
thought that might be it."

     Sarine was standing slightly behind one of the columns
supporting the portrait hall. She looked something like a portrait
herself, that numb and detached. 

     "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, automatically, still pale and
drawn, as if her mind were too blank to do anything but fall back on
formalities. Shock -- he remembered. Hitomi would call this shock.
Sarine continued in stops and starts, as if the valve separating thought
from speech had shut down. "I mean, I was pretty sure you were
arguing for something other than the plan, and I thought maybe you
were trying to hurt me.... but it's just that you don't care enough to
think about me either way, do you... you just wanted to help him...
because it would help her... a *human*...And all this time I thought it
was because I was just half *Draconian*... but no..."

     "Sarine," Myra said, and her mistake was in saying it as a
warning.

     Sarine looked up, cheeks flushed. "No! All that work - and -
and - sure *she* can't be a pawn, but my whole life... what, what am I
supposed to be now? I won't just let you throw me away, either of
you! And, and, I'm *not* sorry I interrupted!" She finished, almost
triumphantly, and fled the room without another word.

     And Myra seemed almost confused as she stared at the spot
where her daughter had just been. She stepped forward with one foot,
but it was a singular motion, more of a statement than an intention.

     And Van knew he should do something, except that *he* wasn't
the one who could do anything, and all he could do was think about
how funny it was that the things that decided destiny and fate were
domestic -- family and anger and knotted, confused and confusing,
love.

     When Myra regained her composure, she was reserved. "I'm
sorry you had to see that, Van."

     "Folken was always Hahaue's favorite," Van said before he
could think about it.

     Myra turned her head swiftly, expression startled and slightly
angry. "What-"      

     "I mean, she loved me, and I always knew she loved me," Van
continued, matter-of-factly. "But she loved Folken more. He was older
or they got along better or something. I wasn't enough to fill his place
when he left."

     "This isn't a matter of favoritism, Van," Myra began.

     She was lecturing, and that was just too much. "How the hell
can you explain to me before you even talk to her?"

     Myra, for the first time since he had known her, did not look
like she knew the answer.

***** 

     Hitomi was fairly certain that in her position a more interesting
person would waste away elegantly or figure out how she and Van
could escape. But she had never claimed to be anything more than
ordinary, so Hitomi simply slept.

     It might have been a coping mechanism or a symptom of
depression, she would readily admit, but she still thought it had more
to do with being so cold and how the only real source of warmth was
under the covers. Besides, she was terribly tired. So Hitomi slept,
mostly in fits of uneasy dozes, the kind with vivid dreams you wake up
from with a little jerk because you think you're falling.

     So when she woke up with a start, certain she was being
watched, Hitomi had expected the conviction to be the tail end of a
dream although it turned out to actually be true.

     When the girl noticed Hitomi was awake, she wiped her eyes
with the back of her hand and sniffed. And stared at her.

     "Uh...hello?" Hitomi said a little thickly, sitting up and
smoothing her hair over.

     The girl just kept staring at her with hard eyes. She looked
familiar, and now Hitomi remembered having seen her once or twice,
mainly in dreams, and that she had been presented as a threat that
wasn't at all dangerous.

     Hitomi swung her legs around the side of the bed to face the
girl -- Sarine, something provided for her. Sarine. "Can I help you?"
It wasn't the right thing to say, but she had nothing else to offer.

     Sarine pursed her lips but they still trembled. She was shaking
all over, Hitomi saw now, as if she weren't steady enough to support
herself upright, but the steeliness in her eyes hinted that anger was part
of
it too.

     Hitomi's instincts took over. "Here, you look like you're
falling over. Come on, sit down." She tugged on the girl's wrists
gently, and Sarine folded into place beside her on the bed, like a
ragdoll but didn't react otherwise. Hitomi felt her forehead. "Do you
need something to eat?"

     The girl's gaze focused on her for the first time. Although it
was still blurry, there was definitely something else there besides
shock, something nakedly hostile and horrifically fascinating,
concentrated like the core of the flame. Hitomi was almost frozen by
it, hypnotized the way cobras were supposed to hypnotize you. She
put her hand down, slowly and uneasily.

     "I-I should have gone to the high council," Sarine murmured,
sounding dazed despite the narrow intensity of her expression. "I
know I should have, I knew, but... I didn't know what I could say...
about Myra... about-about you -- and I realized that I had never really
met you even though you had ruined everything... and that seemed so
funny... and I needed to see..."

     Sarine was shaking harder now, not from unsteadiness now, the
vague, lost quality evaporating in the heat of fury. 

     "How dare you!" The accusation was both a shriek and a sob,
and Sarine raised her hand and slapped Hitomi across the cheekbone
hard enough for something to crack.

     Hitomi cried out --

     at the pain but not at the pain, not at *this* pain, not from *her*
pain, because with the blow she felt the force behind it, she saw, she
*knew*...

     Loneliness, cold and deep and biting like splintering ice; a
purpose, a destiny that was everything, that was a purpose in itself. A
tool, a puppet which -- cruelly, inexplicably -- had been given a mind
and a soul; a secret and guilt, guilt with every bedtime story and royal
proclamation; being too good for one home and not good enough for
the other.

     A lifetime of walking through empty hallways, of waiting,
waiting, waiting; playing different roles for so long who knew if there
was anything underneath the costumes, but it was all for the purpose,
the glorious, the stupid, the *right*--

     and then and then and now it was time, and he might not be so
bad, this might not be so bad, and they would love her and be proud of
her and her mother would

     and hope was snapped at both ends, and there was nothing and
there would always be nothing as there had only been nothing before--

     Hitomi's face was still turned away from Sarine by the force of
the blow. She could hear the other girl panting.

     Hitomi turned back and said in a still, small voice. "It isn't fair.
You're right."

     Raw emotion that had been nearly coming off of Sarine like
spurts of electricity simply evaporated, leaving Sarine looking like she
had been punched in the stomach. Her mouth hung open, just a little.

     "What you've gone through. You didn't deserve it. Any of it.
It must have been horrible." Hitomi's cheek throbbed and she could
feel herself beginning to cry, but she continued, not quite meeting
Sarine's eyes. "It wasn't fair at all; it shouldn't have happened to you.
You must have been so brave. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair; I'm so
sorry all that happened to you."

     Sarine looked almost horrified. She sat limply now, as if the string
that had been keeping her upright had been cut.

     "That's... that's not fair," she said, tremulously. "You can't...
you can't just..."

     And Sarine began to cry in thick, guttural wails; and she accepted
Hitomi's offered comfort as if she were grateful for it.

******
     
     Condensation clung to the instrument panel in the control
room, and frost was etched onto The Crusade's portholes. Allen
doubted it would get cold enough to affect the propellers or the engine
before they reached their destination, but a few men had volunteered
to perch on the flats by the landing skids to watch for signs of such
things. The vessel had been traveling at a steady clip for most of the
journey and, except for the sails, there was not much else to attend to.
Most of the crew was huddled in the hull to keep warm, playing cards
and resting up for whatever would happen next.

     "About three thousand costas 'til Icarus," Gaddeth reported
absently, lounging in a chair in the control room. Allen, standing next
to him with folded arms, nodded.

     "Are we plannin' to land or just lower altitude or what when
we get there? Just want to be able to prepare."

     "To be honest, I have very little idea of what will happen," said
Allen. "We will just have to be alert and wait and see."

******

     When Sarine wasn't in the main hall they were rather relieved,
but when she wasn't in her quarters, Myra began to look worried, and
when she wasn't in the music room, which Myra claimed was a
favorite haunt, Van began to feel it. And when Myra stopped dead in
the hallway then wheeled around on her heel to stride in the opposite
direction, Van somehow knew that she was headed for the room
Hitomi was being kept and that Sarine would be there.

     Fortunately, the door was unlocked, and they nearly bent its
hinges opening it. For all their hurry, they found both Sarine and
Hitomi sitting on the cot. Sarine's head was on Hitomi's shoulder as
Hitomi rocked lightly back and forth, one hand resting on the back of
Sarine's head. Sarine was crying, but they were leftover tears, the
runoff after a storm. She was trying to talk, mostly unintelligibly, in
between hiccups and sniffles, to which Hitomi would murmur things in
reply or make a soft sound of assent.

     Thinking about what Folken had said last night about Hitomi and
what she did best, he was quietly surprised he had not expected to find
this scene.

     Hitomi looked up and blinked. "Tsuka -- Myra-san?" And then
her gaze flickered to Van and she stiffened as if fighting the reflex to
get up. "Van!"

     Hearing her mother's name, Sarine nearly hopped away from
Hitomi with one last explosive sniff. She eyed Myra warily, but she
seemed too drained to be very angry anymore.

     Myra, for her part, seemed close to tears herself; she was smiling
so she couldn't have been sad, maybe it relief or a sort of thankful
pride. She walked over to the bed, to her daughter. Sarine backed
away, unconsciously, rubbing the already tear chafed skin under her
eyes. 

     Myra just looked down at her for a minute, then leaned
over and hugged her, tightly. Sarine stiffened, with an intake of air that
might or might not have been a gasp, then melted into her mother's
arms, burying her head in her chest. 

     Maybe it was the position, or her earlier divulgences, or the fact
that he just realized how youthful Myra was, but it occurred to Van
that Sarine must be young -- barely older than he had been when he
had met Hitomi, barely more than a child.

     Hitomi watched the two of them for a moment, appreciative of
special times even if they were not her own. Then she got up, and Van
didn't know if he had walked over to her, or if she to him,  or if they
had met somewhere in between, but he was holding her and her head
was nestled underneath his chin and everything was all right.

     When Myra drew away, she cupped Sarine's head gently
between her hands. "I have a few things to attend to," she said quietly.
"But when I get back we are long overdue for a talk."
               
     Sarine blinked, taking this in. She nodded. 

     "Where are you going?"

     Myra stood up fully and turned around to raise an eyebrow at
Van, whom Hitomi was already giving a meaningful look about being
rude.

     "Just to take care of a few odds and ends," she said. "Before
you both go home."

******

     Niabi looked like the sort of person whose domicile could be
featured on the cover of a interior design magazine, and Seiko loved
her in part because her apartment was actually as messy as his own.
She was also the sort of person who taught her boyfriend to refer to
her as a 'person' not a 'girl'; he, in turn, had convinced her to quit
smoking so Seiko figured they were pretty much perfect for each
other.

     One of the ways the balance between them worked, a key one,
was that Seiko was the romantic and Niabi was the skeptic. That
usually suited him just fine except for times like this when she was
trying to convince him that yesterday had been an acid flashback.

     "But I've never *taken* LSD," he pointed out.

     Niabi shrugged, adjusting the grocery bag full of clothes in her
arms. "So maybe he was a cosplayer. Maybe Hitomi's been secretly
cosplaying or something, and she's been too embarrassed to tell us."

     "She only agreed to go to that convention with me last year if
neither of us was dressed up. Besides, I've never seen a character
wearing the outfit that guy had on."

     "Maybe he's an original cosplayer."

     "An original...What would be the point of cosplaying as an
original character?" Seiko said, exasperated at how girls sometimes
just did not get the point.

     "Look." Niabi shrugged again. "All I'm saying is that there's
got to be a... saner explanation than... What were you saying it was
again?"

     "I wasn't saying it was anything!" Seiko started waving his
arms; Niabi sidestepped away from him to protect the grocery bag.
"All I said was that Hitomi came to my place with this weird guy
wearing weird clothes who didn't speak Japanese, and she seemed sort
of upset and she hasn't returned the stuff she asked for like she said
she would, so we should go to her place and see if everything's okay!"
                         
     Niabi pressed a finger to his nose. "Seiko, honey. Inhale."

     Seiko went cross-eyed trying to focus on it, and they both
giggled a little.

     "Good morning, young scholars!"

     They must not have heard the professor come up behind them...
What was her name -- Seiko had never had a course with her, but
Niabi had taken a few and liked them, and the professor was some sort
of mentor to Hitomi. She was sexy in that older, sophisticated, I-am-
so-far-out-of-your-league-you-might-as-well-be-playing-tee-ball way.
He had never noticed that before, funnily enough, and how did she
take care of all that hair?

     "Tsukawa-sensei!" Niabi bowed to the sound of brown paper
bending and crunching.

     "I'm glad I caught the both of you together. It will make things
much quicker." Tsukawa looked up, blinking at the summer sunshine.
"Outdoors, though. Ah, well, suppose it can't be helped."

     "...wh..." Niabi replied.

     Tsukawa looked back at them. It might have been a trick of the
light, but Seiko could have sworn her eye's were shaped like a cat's.
"I must ask a favor of you. It won't take more than half a day, you will
be in absolutely no danger at any time and you will be helping Hitomi,
and possibly an entire planet, immensely. Will you do it?"

     "...uh..." Niabi elaborated, the take-charge one.

     It wasn't the shape of Tsukawa's eyes that made Seiko think
of cats, it was the expression in them. There was an unrepentant
arrogance, an unquestioned feline superiority that made it very plain
that asking was merely a formality. In the end, it didn't matter whether
they agreed at all.

     Seiko knew there was a great deal he didn't know about. The
universe didn't really need to be making that point as clear as it had
for the past two days. If this woman were just crazy they'd probably be
able to figure it out before she could seriously hurt them, and if she
wasn't...

     Then they would probably be passing up something really cool.

     "Sure," Seiko said brightly. 

     He had been expecting Niabi's whack in the stomach and took it
full-force. He deserved it, really.


     "Wonderful!" said Tsukawa, ignoring Niabi's inferred
objection. And then there was wind, half sucking him up into a
vacuum and half pushing him up from bellow, and a bright *bright*
light...

     He was lying face down on something very hard and craggy
with grit, feeling like someone had taken him apart and glued him back
together improperly and blinking at what for all the world seemed to
be fluorescent lighting. The air was slightly cooler than the muggy
summer humidity he had been walking in. Niabi -- or someone who
could groan just like her -- was to his left.

     "Again I'm *terribly* sorry about this disturbance," Tsukawa
said, sounding nothing so much as like a flight attendant. "The light
and temperature will regulated for your convenience, and you will be
returned to your home planet in a few hours time. Leaving this cave -
you are both in a cave, by the way - will expose you to elemental
conditions in which the average human would die in under thirty
minutes. I would recommend asking Hitomi if you have any questions
upon your return. Thank you!"

     She was gone before they were able to stand up and confront
her, which they really should have expected.

End Part Seven