Author's note: I take a sick kind of glee by not showing what Tenchi and co. are doing, but I was dead serious when I said (in the first chapter) that I would focus on Ayeka and Ryoko (this is why I avoided using them too much in the first 6 or so chapters, so they'd have star time later). I don't want to spoil the story, but let's just say that there will be plenty of surprises in store! Anyway……
Fixing A Hole
It was darkest dawn by the time the winds stopped howling and the rain stopped pouring, and it took another good hour or so before the weather returned to normal. Of course, this was rather impressive, considering that the entire ordeal had started after noon the previous day.
Both Ryoko and Ayeka were fast asleep by some miracle, though their mattress was damp and the cave was quite cold. Stiffly, Ayeka opened her eyes first and noticed Ryoko still snoozing, although a look of peace was hardly on the other woman's face. With a sigh, Ayeka realized that she was no longer asleep, and gently tapped her comrade's face.
"Ryoko." The other woman stirred and groaned, but made no effort to rise. "Ryoko, wake up. Wake up. It's morning already." Ryoko mumbled something, and whispered a nasty word under her breath. Ayeka, unimpressed by the pirate's language, shook the woman gently until her eyes were opened. Ryoko moaned in exhaustion as she saw the princess there beside her.
"Whaddyouwant?" she slurred. Ayeka frowned but ignored the "charming" woman.
"It's time to get up, Ryoko. Come on, the storm's over." With a fierce jaw-stretching yawn, the pirate stretched her limbs like a cat after its nap, and several body parts were scratched. Her ankle, which had been fixed by a sickening twist and a makeshift splint, seemed to be all right. Silently smacking her lips, Ryoko barely managed to crawl out of bed. She very much resembled a zombie as she trudged towards the mouth of the cave.
Outside, after getting used to the glare of the rising sun, the damage that the hurricane had done could be seen. Scattered sand was the least of their worries: trees had been overturned, knocked over, and even yanked out of the ground. Fruit was scattered about like confetti at New Year's, and several light stones were in places they normally would not be. It was a terrible mess, but nothing particularly bad, since the only construction on the island was……
"Oh, crap!!" shrieked Ryoko. "The house!!!" Snarling, Ryoko ignored Ayeka's orders to stay behind and bolted off towards the large tree where their house had been. As she soared through the jungle, she could see the true devastation that the hurricane had caused: sickeningly, almost a fifth of the entire jungle had been flattened or tossed around, and while finding food would be somewhat easier, there would also be less trees around to harvest it from.
Ryoko came to a screeching halt when she arrived at the tree where they had built their home, and her heart sank to her ankles. The entire cabin had been whisked from the top, and now it laid in utter ruin on the surface. The wooden walls had been shattered into splinters, the roof was torn to pieces, and to add insult to injury, the stone fence that prevented Ayeka from falling out had been thrown onto the house, as if to hurt it even more. The only good news was that, through some miracle, the tree was still standing.
But Ryoko's heartache and rage did not end there. Turning around to examine the rest of the beach, she discovered that the gigantic SOS sign they had built was now destroyed. The bonfires that sent out smoke signals had been blown away, and any and all emergency signals they had built were things of the past. As Ayeka ran after her to surmise the damage, Ryoko finally snapped.
"NO!!!!" She roared out to the heavens, daring for the storm to come back for a rematch. "NOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE MOCKED LIKE THIS!! DO YOU HEAR ME?!?! I WILL NOT BE PLAYED A FOOL!!! YOU HAVE ALREADY BROKEN ME BY RUINING THE CRUISE AND WASHING ME UP ON THIS ISLAND, BUT THIS!!!" She growled, and kicked at her ruined cabin with all her might.
"THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!!! DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE?!?! DO YOU WANT ME DEAD!?!?! HUH?!?! THEN COME ON OVER HERE AND FACE ME!! COME OVER HERE AND KILL ME IF YOU CAN, YOU WORTHLESS COWARD!!! COME HERE AND FACE ME!!!!" The maniacal woman screamed out so loud, it cracked the mountains and pierced the heavens. Ayeka had to shut her ears in order to avoid growing deaf.
"Ryoko!! Stop!!!" But not even her loud voice could contend with Ryoko's, and the vicious woman began firing blasts at the sea and sky before her. Great massive explosions rocked Neptune's domain, and the demonic woman screeched so loud she cracked stone, but the storm did not return to fight her again.
"YOU MANIACS!!!! IT'S A MAD HOUSE!!!" Ayeka stormed forward suddenly, knowing that only one thing would be able to snap Ryoko out of her demented hysteria. Deep down inside the very pit of her mind and heart, she asked for forgiveness as she raised her hand into the air.
SMACK!!
The stinging blow stunned Ryoko, causing her to jerk backwards a few steps. Cringing, Ryoko gingerly rubbed the place where she had been struck. A fine red welt now marred her face, and hot tears of pure rage clogged her eyes. Ayeka glared at Ryoko, but for the first time ever, it was not out of hate.
"Miss Ryoko!" she barked. "You need to snap out of it!! I know how hard these past few days have been, and I know how hard that you have worked! I myself would very much like to shed tears now, for it seems as if Fate truly is mocking us--first by marooning us on this beastly island, and second by destroying everything we have worked so hard to build! And I realize your rage, perhaps more than you might think!
"But this is not the time to lose our minds! We need to get over this tragedy! We need to show Fate and Nature that we are stronger than that! We need to prove to them, and to ourselves, that we can work together and conquer this injustice! We certainly don't need to be… challenging the weather to a battle to the death!!" She sighed, slightly flustered from her speech, and left Ryoko to absorb what she said.
The pirate merely stared back at the princess, an unreadable emotion on her vacant face. Her mouth hung open slightly, and her golden eyes ceased to shine. Her throat tightened as she swallowed, and finally, after about a minute of silence, she finally spoke.
"You're right," she said softly, her voice very hollow. "I'm just… mad, that's all. I really put my heart and soul into surviving here with you, and… well, this was the results of my effort. But, you're right: I can't let this bug me. I've gotta stop acting so stupid and get over it. Huh."
The pirate sighed, and a smile finally showed up on her face. She gazed warmly at the princess, a deep feeling of respect and admiration plain on her face. Ayeka mirrored this same look, and perhaps in that brief moment of time the girls might have been friends.
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I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in,
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go.
I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door,
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go.
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Of course, Utopia does not always last forever…
"Here, hold this!"
"You know very well that I cannot carry such a heavy load!"
"Then why don't you beef up those pencils you call arms?!"
"WHY YOU…!"
"No! Put this here and THAT there!!"
"Who do you think you are?! You put it over here!"
"You idiot!! The roof will collapse if you place that there!"
"Good! Maybe it'll land on your head and I'll finally have some peace!"
"Only if it lands on your head as well!"
"WHY YOU--!"
"HEY!! You put that hammer down!"
"Stop--STOP!! Stop cutting, you fool! ACK, you're cutting it completely off!"
"I am not! I KNOW what I'm doing, fool!!"
"No you don't! Look! You're sawing it off!"
"I'll saw YOU off!!"
"WHY YOU--!!"
"Hey, easy on the sharp objects!"
"Easy indeed!!"
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And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right.
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong.
See the people standing there who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don't get in my door?
----------
All in all, the girls somehow managed to repair their house without killing each other. Of course, since their relationship seemed to have gone back to square one again, things took much longer than expected--roughly a month passed before a second cabin could be built on the top of the tree. The debris left by the first one was either cleared out or else thrown away, so that took time as well.
The girls also repaired what damage the weather had done to their SOS signals. But instead of displaying a gigantic …---… on the sand, the letters SOS were built so that any passing plane would see them easily. Wood was gathered for a bonfire again, and on occasion the girls would sent out a smoke screen to indicate that there was life on the island.
As if to mock them even more, one single airplane managed to pass over the girl's island while they were still making the cabin. Of course, all arguments stopped once they heard the engines, and Ryoko and Ayeka flew outside the tree to signal the plane. Unfortunately, the SOS systems had not been repaired yet, and nothing the girls had at the moment could call down the plane. Sadly, or perhaps angrily, they gave up as the plane vanished and resumed building.
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I'm painting my room in the colorful way
And when my mind is wandering
There I will go.
And it really doesn't matter if
I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong.
Silly people run around, they worry me
And never ask me why they don't get past my door!
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Now, it took them a good solid month to complete their new house… but what do you suppose went on during that time? Many stories revolved around that slow period of disagreement and recovery, some of them humorous, others touching, and some just plain bizarre! What sort of stories could have sprung out??
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I'm taking the time for a number of things
That weren't important yesterday
And I still go.
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go.
"Fixing a Hole" by P. McCartney