AUTHOR'S NOTE: Chapter Two. Had to throw in some anime in here, since I haven't done any fanfic writing over in the Inu-Yasha or Evangelion boards in like, forever. Got to keep my hand in.

CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST OF THREE SPIRITS, NOT VERMOUTH

When Kat awoke, it was so dark that she could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of her chamber, until suddenly the Triad clock tolled a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy, pants-soiling ONE.

Light flashed the room upon the instant, and the curtains of her bed were drawn aside by a strange figure, one that she recognized from anime. Like Kat herself, the figure's skin was pale, pale almost to the point of transparency, but unlike Kat's blonde hair, this woman's hair was bright green. Her eyes were green, young and old at the same time. She held not a branch of fresh green holly in her hand, but a neurohelmet of a much different design crooked in the hollow of her arm.

Kat blinked, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again. "Are you the spirit, ma'am, whose coming was foretold to me?"

"Yes," the regal woman replied.

"Who and what are you?"

"I am Miriya Parino, the Ghost of Battletech Past."

"Waaait a second. Miriya Parino was never part of Battletech, she was from Robotech!"

Miriya slapped her across the face. "Silence, dog! Harmony Gold won the lawsuit, so here I am."

Kat came up, angry. "Apparition or not, you just struck my royal face, and I'm going to--" She stopped. "I'm going to stay very still and try not to wet myself at this rather scary looking knife that just appeared at my throat."

"Smart. Don't mess with a Quadrono warrior.

"
"Okay, okay--are you the Ghost of Battletech Long Past?"

"No, otherwise I would be Getter Robo. Your past, Katherine."

"Katrina."

"Whatever. The things that you see with me are shadows of the things that have been; they will have no idea we are there." Kat then made bold to inquire what business brought Parino there. "You are a blonde,"Miriya replied. "Your welfare, bimbo. Get up and follow me!"

It would have been in vain for Kat to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, the thermometer a long way below freezing, that she was clad but lightly in her slippers and pajamas, and that she was feeling surly. As usual. Miriya's knife and her willingness to use it, however, was not to be resisted. She rose, but finding that the spirit made towards the window, Kat clasped its purple flightsuit in supplication. "Wait a minute. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm only mortal, and it's a long way down."
"Touch the heart of a Zentraedi warrior," said the spirit, "and you shall be upheld in more than this--over a bit, that is not the heart of a Zentraedi--there you go."

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood in the busy streets of a city. It was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here, too, was Christmastime. Miriya stopped at a certain ornate door, and asked Kat if she knew it. "Know it?" Kat exclaimed. "This is New Avalon--the Davion royal hall!"

They went in. At the sight of an older man sitting behind a desk, Kat cried in great excitement, "Why, it's Dad! Good old Dad, alive again!"
Hanse Davion laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands, stood, laughed, and called out in a rich, jovial voice, "Hey there! Katherine! Peter!" A living and moving picture of Kat's former self, a young woman just shy of her teens, came briskly in, accompanied by her huge brother, who kept tripping over his own feet.

"Peter, my brother," said Kat to Miriya. "There he is, in all his klutzy glory. He was very much attached to me."

"Attached?" asked Miriya.

"Oh yes."

"And where is he now?"

"Search me. In some monastery or other. One of my advisors tried to get him to start another galactic war."

"Oh, is that all?" Miriya said imperiously, and smacked Kat upside the head, Gibbs-style. "Now shush."

"No more work tonight!? Hanse was saying. "Christmas Eve, Peter, Christmas Eve, Kat! Let's have the shutters up, before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

"Who says Jack Robinson anymore these days?" Peter asked.

Hanse smacked Peter upside the head, Gibbs-style. "Hush, son. I'm the Prince around here. Clear away, my children, and let's have lots of room here!"

"Dad," the young Kat pleaded, "we have armies of servants. Why not get them to?"

"Because work builds character," Hanse replied.

So they cleared away the various things in the throne room--furs, swords, paintings, 'Mechs, Michael Hasek-Davion's ashes--and it was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if dismissed from public life evermore; the floor was swept and watered; the lightbulbs were changed to something more festive; fuel was heaped upon the fire (Peter thought avgas worked best); and soon the throne room was as snug, warm and dry, and as bright a ballroom as you would desire to see upon a winter's night. Yes, there was free beer and food, too.

In came a fiddler with a music book, and went up to the lofty dais of the throne, and made an orchestra of it, belting out Cotton Eye Joe. In came Melissa Steiner-Davion, one vast, beautiful smile. In came Victor, looking regal and dashing (Kat soured at the sight), and little Yvonne, beating her brother over the head with her plush fox, yelling "Pika! Pika!" at everyone until they laughed or hit her. In came all the young men and women employed in the palace. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend the milkman. (And no, particular has nothing to do with sexual persuasion. The milkman's just weird, okay?) In came Jaime Wolf, crashing the party as usual. In they all came one after another: some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling, some slightly tipsy, some on their ass. Away they all went, twenty couples at once; hands half round and back again the other way, down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate groping--er, grouping. Old Hanse, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler knocked back a pint of porter and got progressively more stewed.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was ice cream, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there were pot pies, and there was ramen, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and ramen, when the bombed fiddler struck up Dragula. Then old Hanse stood out to dance with Melissa. They had their work cut out for them with this traditional Christmas tune: three or four and twenty pair of partners, people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking. People that would kill other people over a rock they could plant the Federated Commonwealth's flag on. Damn straight.
But if they had been twice as many, four times, old Hanse would have been a match for them and so would Melissa. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of term. A positive light appeared to issue from Hanse's calves.

Wait a second. Hanse's calves? Was Dickens high when he wrote this?

Anyway, they shone in every part of the dance. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would become of them next. And when old Hanse and Melissa had gone all through the dance, Hanse cut, and cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs. Honestly, folks, I didn't make this part up.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Steiner-Davion took their stations, one on either side of the door, and, shaking hands with every person indivdually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the family, they did the same to them, and thus the cheerful voices died away and the children were left to their own beds and chambers, to think about all the loot they would get the next morning.

"I always wanted a stuffed Ein for Christmas," Kat remarked dreamily.

Miriya bitch-slapped her. "A small matter," said the spirit, "to make these silly nobles so full of gratitude and beer. Hanse has spent but a few pounds of your money--three or four billion C-Bills, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Kat heatedly, and speaking unconciously like her younger, not her older self, ?it isn?t that, spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our lives light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost some real money, not such a paltry sum.? She felt the spirit?s glance, and stopped.

"What?" Miriya asked. "Am I wearing my flightsuit backwards again?"

"No, nothing like that," Kat sighed.

"Hmm? Something?"

"No, no--I should like to be able to say a word or two to my youngest sister just now, that's all."

"War is hell and peacetime is even worse. Let's move on before the plot congeals." This was not addressed to Kat, or to anyone whom Kat could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again, Kat saw herself. She was older now, a woman. Nor was she alone, but sat by the side of a handsome, scarred young man in a gray uniform, in whose eyes there were tears. They sat in a steel gray chamber, a transparisteel window looking out over a sea of stars.

"It does not matter, quiaff?" he said softly to Kat's former self. "To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me, and if it can comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"Vlad," the other Kat said, "I've known you for like two hours. What idol has displaced you?"

"A golden one. You fear your brother too much. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, Greed, engrosses you, quiaff?"

"I had nobler aspirations? I came here to screw over my brother by making a peace treaty with his enemies. Have I ever said otherwise?"

"In words, no. Never," Vlad admitted.

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere of life, another hope as its great end."

"I see Mike Stackpole is writing you again."

Vlad pretended not to hear the other Kat. "If you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a poor, Clan warrior Khan, or, choosing him, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do, and I release you back to your realm. With a full heart, for the love of her you once were." Vlad threw the book over his shoulder. "Well, enough of the hearts and flowers surat crap. Let's get naked."

"Spirit!" the present Kat cried. "Remove me from this place!"

"Why?" Miriya asked. "It's getting pretty good."

"Please, spirit! I beg of you."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said Miriya Parino. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"
"Get me out of here!" Kat exclaimed. "I can't bear it! Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!"

"As you wish." Miriya head-butted her, and Kat, overcome by an irresistible drowsiness and sudden headache, and further of being in her own bedroom. She had barely time to reel to bed before she sank into a heavy sleep.