Shattered Elegance: The War of Laputa
Chapter 10
Onayi's culinary skills continue to grow under the tutelage of Christa and Satomi. Yukai has decided to work in the shop instead of the kitchen.
Today, Yukai is sanding a piece of laminated wood, a damp bandana over his mouth to keep the dust from entering his lungs. Evidently the trees are much smaller in Laputa than in Vendoa, and the Laputans make big pieces of wood by gluing together many smaller ones.
Chobasi is beside him, working on another. He is sad, almost crying when a hand gently settles on his shoulder. He looks up, "Hotana," he says, "Thanks for teaching me. Am I doing okay?"
The woodworking master says, "Very well, child."
"Child?" he moans, "Only ten and I'm already having my midlife crisis." He grunts as he pushes his chair back along the beam he is working on.
"This is Oyagata," Hotana says, "He's a bridge builder. You must be doing really well if he's come to inspect your work."
Chobasi pauses, looking at the beautiful four foot long piece of wood.
The muscular Oyagata picks the piece up and weighs it in his hands, "It is lovely," he remarks, flipping it over, "And this is the nicest web channel I've seen in a long time." He sets it down, then pats Chobasi on the shoulder, "Do you still have friends in Vendoa?"
"Sir, they marched everyone to Tekiton!" he bawls, "They'll catch what I got there ... and their lives will be ruined just like mine ... And it hurts ... we have to save them!"
"We will," Oyagata says, "would you like to help?"
Yukai takes notice, "Help, how?"
"We'll explain at lunch break," he says. He smiles at Chobasi's impressive piece of wood, "This could be a part of it." He sets it back down.
He takes Hotana aside and explains, "We don't have a lot of time, so you'll need to train each in a small part of making these, such things as mixing the glue, setting the pieces. You know the details better than I. These are parts drawings," he hands the woodmaster a rolled sheet of paper.
"Lucita?" he gasps at the seal. He opens it and after a glance, says, "Like for a two hundred foot bridge, but..." he notices how thick the stack is, and feels the royal consistency of the paper and print. "What is..."
"The print quality?" Oyagata asks, "The capital's core lithography is pretty impressive, no?"
"The king is ordering a bridge?" he looks around it, "These ... are all different sizes ... and these are-?"
"Skin panels," Oyagata clarifies, "And it's the queen's-"
"What kind of strange bridge is this?" the woodmaster asks, flipping through the pages.
"A flying ship," Oyagata says, "To fly to Tekiton and rescue the children there."
"Is it is bad as-"
"Dinner's ready!" Satomi squeals from the entrance to the shop floor, startling Hotana with her good cheer, "Queen Lucy's with us. She'll be making a special announcement," Satomi is jumping excitedly on her toes as she says this. Twoscore children and half a dozen prospective parents set aside their tools and dust masks to follow her.
"They're pretty jumpy," Hotana remarks as he follows them.
"This time last week they lived in a shelter with a kitchen staff who couldn't care less about the quality of the food," Pazuu says from Oyagata's side, "and that little girl jumped into the Laputan style head first. She'll vanish right into that recipe book at this rate!"
"How do you know, little wagon boy?" Hotana scoffs.
"Lucy busted me out of Hinoa two years ago," Pazuu says flatly, "How do I know ... sheesh."
"Oh?" the woodmaster balls up his hands, "How dare you!"
Oyagata puts a hand on his shoulder and says, "Please try to be his friend. He's only had three hours sleep in the last two days learning how to fly and designing the ship."
"Sorry, sir," Pazuu says as he takes a seat in the mess hall, "We Vendoan kids stick together or go bonkers. I've been both."
Both Onayi and Yukai sit down at the same circular table as Pazuu and Oyagata. As Satomi takes the handles of a meal cart, Christie gently rests a hand on her shoulder and says something. Satomi looks over at Lucy and gets a warm smile, then jumps with glee and races between the tables towards the boys.
"Oh!" she squeaks as she reaches her seat next to Onayi, almost falling over, "It's so wonderful to have adults who actually like me!"
"What do you mean?" Onayi asks, "Kutsui's caretakers liked you."
"Oh, pu-leeease!" she groans, "Kutsui's caretakers liked me like a pet, always wanting me to stay out of trouble and never letting me help even to sweep the floor like you boys. Making me read the same fairy tale storybooks over and over and taking away my pencils. I had to really hide them, Onayi." She smiles, kicking her legs and hitting the unusually large Oyagata in the shins, "Ooh, sorry," she blushes. Turning back to Onayi, she continues, "Kristie lets me help cook, she wants me to grow up to run a restaurant in her village. I think she's actually excited about me." She pauses for a moment.
"Trying not to get your hopes up about being adopted?" Pazuu asks.
"Adopted?" she asks, "I hope she takes me home. It's great to have somebody like me like that ... but I'm," she seems sad.
"Vendoan?" Pazuu asks, "To a Laputan like that, it doesn't matter. You're not Vendoan anymore."
"How do you know?" Satomi squeaks.
"Because," he says softly, "I'm not Vendoan anymore either. Lucy wants us to build a flying ship to fetch the kids they marched off to Tekiton, there's a picture."
Satomi follows Pazuu's finger towards the serving line, where the beautiful Queen Lucita unrolls a plot of the ship.
More and more of the children are staring at the strange, bird-like beast the queen and woodmaster struggle to hang from a flimsy easel, remarkably, almost oblivious to the meal carts weaving between the tables, consuls and servants setting plates of delicious food in front of them.
"Many of you miss your friends in the Kutsui and Hinoa shelters, right?" Lucy starts projecting her soft voice. "They have been marched to Tekiton, where they now sleep in tents under rainy skies and work in shifts to build dangerous devices that explode to kill our soldiers. It is very dangerous work, in dirty and awful conditions. And they still get the same food as they did at Kutsui, if not worse."
"How could it be worse?" Yukai whispers. With a quick glance around, he can tell many of the other kids are wondering the same thing.
"Ima, Pazuu wa-" she pauses for a moment, "Sumimasen." God, what's happening to me? She closes her eyes and her shoulders bob with a sob. She has this dread that this strange condition that now so frequently isolates her from her people is progressing from sporadic to continuous, and that it may soon be permanent. Once she can understand the hurried whispers of the children again, she starts again, "Right now, Pazuu, over at that table, is designing a flying ship to go to Tekiton and save your friends. This is what we have so far," she gestures to the easel.
"Subarashii no tori!" one of the youngers squeals, a small girl. As she becomes the center of attention at her table, she nervously mutters, "Gomenne."
"You can help build it," Lucy continues nervously as she wanders between the tables, "if you want. You can help us save your friends. Pazuu, Hotana and Oyagata can train you, if you want to grow up to build these, or machines and wagons." She has wandered over to their table, "Some of you are good at cooking," brushing the shoulder of a blushing Satomi, "Others at bridges and wagons. You can be good at anything in Laputa."
As lunch continues, she quietly comes over to the sobbing five year old girl.
"Sorry about her rudeness," the older girl says, "We try to explain things to her, but she can't understand us. Everything she says is gibberish. I have no idea what's happened to her. It started when-"
Lucy suddenly can't understand the obsequeous elder.
"I'm sorry," the little girl squeaks as Lucy gently strokes her hair, "Nobody understands me, anymore. I'm so scared."
Lucy puts a finger over her own mouth and whispers slowly, "Wakarimash'ta. Watashi wa Lushii des'." I understand you. I'm Lucy.
"How did you?" the elder asks, "Can you understand her?"
"What's her name?" Lucy asks.
"Ochiru," the elder says.
"Ochiru," Lucy says, "could be all of us in these sad days. Ochiru." Not a name: a word. Falling. "How long has she been like this?" Lucy asks.
"Since we left Kutsui," the elder says, "I told you that already."
"You can trust me," Lucy says to Ochiru, who is petrified, probably not understanding her, "I'll take you to the herbalist, see if there's anything he knows. His name is Bishop."
[From the movie: "Mama, I'm falling" is a common line. Also, wierd things happen when Sheeta falls. Ochiru is actually named after a character from Haibane Renmei: Rakka, another Japanese word for falling. The name Bishop came out of nowhere; the android of Aliens has this name, but I don't think that's where the inspiration came from.]