I'm sorry to have left this story for so long without updates. Part of the problem is that I'm very unsatisfied with some of the connecting chapters here. I've worked and reworked them and I still don't think they flow properly. I do wish someone would license, translate and release Mon Colle Knights, or at least someone would fan sub it! It's so much easier to write fan fiction when there is something solid to work with! Ah well. Please bear with me and the weakness of some of these chapters. I hope that on balance this still becomes a good story!
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Chapter Five
"It really is amazing! If I didn't know better, I'd think he really was just a human being!" Hiiragi declared.
"Yeah. Both Mondo and I are in his class too. I wonder how he's going to be as a teacher?" Rachna wondered.
"Well, he does know Mon World inside out. Better than me, perhaps...no...that's not possible! I'm the foremost expert on Mon World!"
"Oh, dad!" Rachna giggled. "It isn't a competition!"
"True, true," Hiiragi agreed. "Still, the power necessary to change Gabriolis that way. It must have been incredible!"
"It was, dad. It really was." Rachna's reply was a little sad.
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She was running late for her first day of the new term. She really knew she should stop dawdling, figure out where she was and find her first class, but the sky was that particular shade of blue that was her favorite. She slowed and lifted her eyes to gaze at the sky while her feet still carried her in the direction she hoped she would lead to where she was supposed to be.
She collided with someone.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" Arms closed around her helping her to keep her balance. She looked up into the face of her rescuer and lost her breath.
His eyes were just a shade or two darker than the sky she'd been staring at. Deep auburn hair just a little too short to curl surrounded his face. His skin was like purest alabaster, and his face...was the visage of an angel.
Shaking herself out of her poetic thoughts she exclaimed, "No, I'm sorry! It was my fault!"
"No, I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going..." the gorgeous man replied.
"I was looking at the sky!" they both finished.
"Really?"
"You were?"
They laughed a little nervously at the questions asked in unison.
"It..." the woman began hesitantly, to make certain she wasn't interrupting him again, "It is my favorite color right now. I wasn't looking where I was going. Not that it helps, I'm lost anyway." she muttered.
"It is my favorite color too. Doesn't it look...inviting somehow? Like we could...somehow...play in the sky?" he laughed a little at his odd question.
"No...I think I know what you mean," the woman replied slowly.
He looked down into her face and didn't find the half-expected condescending expression he feared would be there. Instead, he thought she really was understanding what he was trying to say, though he wasn't quite certain what he meant himself.
"I...uhm...need to find this classroom..." she struggled a little to free her hand from the loose hold the man still had on her from saving her from falling down.
"Oh! Pardon me!" he said as he set her back on her feet and let his arms fall away from her shoulders.
"You wouldn't happen to know where room 14D is?" she asked reading the paper clasped in her hand.
His smile was delightedly sweet. "Follow me. It's across the hall from my room," the man replied.
"Amazing! Saving me twice in two minutes!" she laughed. "I'm Selene Daniels."
"Gabriolis Knight," he responded.
"So well named!" she laughed. "Nice to know I have a knight so close by if I need it!"
"Just across the hall!" Gabriolis surprised himself by agreeing.
"So...what do you teach? I try to teach the English that the children find sooo boring!" her imitation of a child almost whining was right on the mark.
"I teach Mon World Studies," Gabriolis admitted.
"Oh! How interesting!"
"Well, here we are," Gabriolis indicated 14D. As promised, his room, 14A, was just across the hall.
"Good luck!" Selene called out breezily before entering her room.
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"I must say, both of your papers are the most interesting for me to read!" Selene observed.
"More casserole, Miss Daniels?" Professor Hiiragi offered. Selene shook her head 'no' rather emphatically and glanced across the table to smile ruefully into Gabriolis' eyes. She broke her gaze before either of them started laughing. "So you grade your papers on how interesting they are? Isn't that a bit...unprofessional?"
"Professor Hiiragi, first of all, I've asked you to call me Selene," Selene began. She paused to give him a chance to offer her the use of his first name. Some variation of this conversation played out almost every time Mondo and Rachna's teachers had occasion to pay a social visit.
"It won't happen," Rachna advised. "Dad is very proud of his degree!"
Selene hid her smile. "Very well, then. Professor, of course I grade the papers on the basis of grammar, construction, relevance and all the other things you'd expect. It's just the papers that Mondo and Rachna write are more apt to wake me up, rather than to put me to sleep!"
"I see, I see," Hiiragi stood up and started pacing about the dining room. As this was their sixth time as dinner guests in Rachna and Mondo's home, neither Gabriolis or Selene found anything weird in the Professor's mannerisms. Well, they were weird, just not worth worrying about.
"And your class?" Professor Hiiragi turned abruptly on Gabriolis. "They are doing well in their Mon World Studies course?"
"Reasonably well," Gabriolis replied. "They have a few deep-seated views about some aspects of Mon World that are incorrect, but over-all they are doing quite well."
"'Incorrect'? 'Incorrect'?! I taught them about Mon World! What is 'incorrect'?!" Hiiragi huffed.
"First of all the balance. They have the erroneous view that it is maintained among only four Realms..."
"Earth, Air, Fire and Water!" the Professor interrupted. "What's wrong about that?!"
"You are completely discounting the delicate, interdependent balance of the Realms of Good, Evil and Time since all three impact on the cardinal elemental realms..." Gabriolis paused to take a breath and marshall his thoughts.
"Oh, heavens!" Selene exclaimed accurately reading the beginnings of one of the somewhat heated discussions that Hiiragi and Gabriolis loved to indulge in. "Realm-speak! Why do we always wind up on this topic whenever we have dinner here?!"
She stood up, put her hands on her hips and glared at both debaters. "Neither one of you knows how to simply reach an agreement on this do you?" she demanded.
"He's wrong," Gabriolis said flatly.
"He doesn't know what he's talking about," Hiiragi stated at the same time.
"Uhm...Professor?" Mondo spoke up.
"Yes, Mondo?"
"He uhm...probably does, if you know what I mean." Mondo fanned both his hands out to his sides and tipped his head toward Gabriolis.
"Ah, yes! I keep forgetting! It's the coloration change, you see, it throws me off!" Hiiragi stammered.
"What the heck is that gesture supposed to mean?!" Gabriolis demanded of Mondo.
"Uhm...that you are an official teacher of Mon World Studies and not just a dabbler as dad is!" Rachna hastened to explain.
"'Dabbler'? 'Dabbler'?!" Hiiragi stuttered.
"Come on, Dad!" Rachna hauled on her father's arm to make him follow her. "We should do the dishes and see if there are enough left-overs to make lunches for Miss Daniels and Mr. Knight!"
"You know they are going out somewhere else to actually eat dinner," Mondo observed as Professor Hiiragi, Rachna and he waved good-bye to Gabriolis and Selene. "Wish I was going with them!" he added in a low voice.
"Yes, they just don't appreciate our cuisine!" Hiiragi replied. "Why, Mondo! I thought you loved our cooking!"
At the end of the long driveway, Gabriolis placed his arm on Selene's shoulders and drew her closer to him.
"Aww!" Rachna gushed. "So romantic! Mondo, why don't we ever walk that way?!"
"Because people would look at us funny and try to break us up. We will...when we are a bit older!" Mondo promised.
"Oh, Mondo!" Rachna leaned into his side.
"So it appears the spell on Gabriolis has had a perfect effect," Hiiragi noted. "He doesn't recall his life on Mon World at all, he thinks he is a person born on Earth, and he has fallen in love. As Spectra Angel wished, he has found his peace at last."
"Yeah. It's a quiet, though happy, life for Gabriolis," Mondo agreed.
"It's kinda too bad he had to forget all about himself to find it," Rachna mused. "But I am glad he did find it! We better get our homework done, Mondo. We have papers in both of their classes due at the end of the week!"
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Author's notes -
I'd been getting bogged down trying to write about the romance between Gabriolis and Selene. Quite honestly, it's not important to the story, so I finally stopped. As long as this chapter serves to demonstrate that Gabriolis has settled into a quiet life on Earth as a teacher, and has fallen in love with a human woman, it's served it's purpose.