Assassin's Silver:
chapter three
by YamiHikari
Disclaimer- *sigh* Again, I don't own Demon Diary nor its characters, and if Aysel is stolen and you're the one with sticky fingers, you are in DEEP, DEEP trouble.
YamiHikari's Note- Good grief, I'm listening to the Orphen soundtrack _again_. Well, Last Kiss, to be specific, over and over for no apparent reason. -_-;; Well, I do like the song... Eh, nvm. Anyway, no more family history for a while, or did I say that before? Ah, well...
- - - - - - - - - -
Aysel didn't speak to any of the residents of the castle for at least a week, and completely ignored Eclipse for three. No one mentioned the scars again, and the trio never really found out from the elf whether they had been caused by magic. When she did begin to answer small, unimportant questions, she still stayed rather anti-social, preferring the woods to the rooms. When she was in the castle, usually it was in the library.
This was one of those times. Grimacing slightly at the huge amounts of dust that erupted when the book was laboriously tugged out from its tight-packed fellows, Aysel opened it at the table and idly scanned its pages. Nothing interesting here. Why would this book be of such importance to Menefer? There was nothing in the books, no records, no ideas, no fictional accounts, no eyewitness accounts, no nothing. In fact, it was just a book filled with blank pages.
'Wait.' She glanced at the pages again, then smiled. Dipping the quill pen into the ink, she carefully drew a rune on the first page and waited.
The ink flowed through the pages, and words appeared. She flipped the pages again, and they were filled with information. Useful information. So this was why this demon book was so important to her lord.
"Lighter Copy, diamond 4[1]."
Daylight streamed in through the windows and, within seconds, there was an almost exact replica of the book lying next to the original. The new one, however, was made of the light. Placing one hand on it, she called up an air spirit. After a minute or so, she shrank the copy and handed it to the spirit which fluttered its twirling little way to the window and out.
She walked out of the library after replacing the book in its place on the shelf. A few steps later, she stopped. "If you're quite finished skulking about and pretending to be sneaky, you three can come out and ask your questions face-to-face." Turning to meet the rather shame-faced demon lord and his two human "minions", she raised her eyebrows. "Well?"
Averting their gazes guiltily, they stammered out excuses like "wanting to see if the library was free" or "just walking around" and the like. A half-smile crossed her face as Aysel watched them contradict each other.
When she raised a hand to silence them, they all abruptly shut up and waited anxiously. She was almost sure when this was over, they would run fast and far. "If you're going to tell a lie with two or more people in your group, at least consult each other first and make up _one_ story that's the same, not twenty different excuses."
They still waited, though not as much on edge as they had been. Aysel considered the prospects of this. She was bored, and needed something to occupy her time in-between trying to find information for her lord. Perhaps this would help. She moved past them and stopped at a spot some ten feet away. "You all breathe too loud. I heard you clearly from about here, but perhaps my hearing is better that yours, so that may account for it. Also..."
The rest of the day, it was like a game. They all tried to see how close they could get to one person without them noticing, or if they could possibly startle their target by sneaking up on them all the way.
~
"AAGGH!!"
"Gotcha." The redheaded swordswoman grinned triumphantly. Then it was her turn to yelp as the pale hand of Aysel descended upon her shoulder.
"I told you, keep an eye out behind you. Cleric, get out of those bushes."
Chris grumbled as he emerged from the shrubbery behind her, brushing stray leaves off his tunic and out of his black hair. "You're too good at this..."
Raenef, who had been Erutis's target, suddenly asked, "Where'd you learn this?"
Looking distant, the elf replied, "It was a game I used to play with my brother."
"Oh. Your family must miss you, now that you're gone."
She seemed vaguely pained. "It's the other way around..." The tone implied end of subject.
Still, Raenef persisted. "Moh-ya[2]? What you mean by that?"
"I mean exactly what I say."
"Ow." Erutis had kicked him. He reached down to rub at the spot on his shin. "I see."
She didn't think about it. She didn't think about supple bows of wood and waxed strings and shafts of arrows and their stone or metal heads. Archery was one thing that she had never taken up, and she had her reasons.
Then she stopped trying not to think about it and asked, almost cheerfully, "Does anyone know what's for dinner?"
"No clue. Who does the cooking around here anyway[3]?"
"You don't know who does the cooking at your own castle..."
"Nope." Happy smile.
"Oh Mab..."
~
Ten minutes later, the gang had been persuaded to assist in a project of the elf's, and were making... an atrocious mess in the kitchen.
"No, I don't think that a battle-axe will be necessary for cutting the vegetables. Where'd you get that thing anyway?!"
Chris shrugged, and attempted to heft the insanely large weapon for another whack at the vegetables –which were pulverized by now; you can only do so much with a big, dull blade that hasn't been sharpened in ages-, narrowly missing slicing off Raenef's nose by half an inch from sheer weight and momentum. The demon lord was white from head to toe, but still normal colored on the back, with a rather sticky mixture of water, flour, and sugar. He was having some difficulties moving, as the concoction was stiffening.
"'elp. So'one, peas 'elp..."
"What? Speak up, I can't hear you."
"He said 'Help. Someone, please help', which I'm assuming means 'Someone please help me get away from this madman before he lops off my head with that thing'," translated Aysel as she dragged Rae out of harm's way.
"'ank 'oo."
She stopped dead when she saw Erutis's creation. The sword master chipped away a rough spot, then stood back and surveyed it proudly. "Well? It's good, isn't it?"
"Nice. You'll have to teach me sometime, but... we don't need an ice sculpture for soup; bisque, chowder, bouillabaisse, consommé, or otherwise."
Raenef had managed to wash his face and hands free. "Those words... they all just mean 'soup', right?"
"Different kinds, yes. You don't need to know the differences," the silver-haired elf added hastily as Raenef opened his mouth for another query.
"Oh." He shut it. Then he sniffed the air. "Is it just me, or does it smell like a steakhouse in here?"
"It doesn't-"Erutis paused as Raenef wandered by, in search of the source of the elusive scent. "Actually, I think it's you."
He looked baffled. "I haven't been _near_ any meat," he protested.
"Wait... what did you wash yourself off with?"
"It kinda _looked_ like water, but I couldn't really see, so I just used it anyway. It's in that pot over there." He pointed as best he could with a shirtsleeve still solidifying.
Aysel sighed. "That... was the soup stock. You just washed yourself off with beef broth... ... you should go wash off, otherwise it'll _really_ smell..."
After he had disappeared, presumably to the lake she had found before, as there hadn't been any other visible water sources, the elf asked the two humans, "Is he always like this?"
"Pretty much, but not _as_ bad. But maybe it's just 'cause he's in the kitchen. I mean, all sorts of bad stuff happens in the kitchen."
Thunk! Another carrot had met its death at the hands of the next High Cleric of the temple of Rased. Tugging it free, he added, "I've heard a couple stories about some people who got killed in their kitchens, and their ghosts haunted the place forevermore."
"Wow, four syllables. You sure that didn't fry the few brain cells you have left?"
He scowled at the redhead, who was in an uncooperative mood after having to take apart her hard work. "Shut up. It's not my fault you were stupid and thought we need a... a statue of a _dragon_ made out of ice. You're just jealous because _I'm_ doing it right, genius that I am, and _you're_ not."
Erutis threw a piece of ice at him. Halfway across, it froze in midair, the crystalline shape reflecting bits of light and dripping little droplets of water, then dropped as the two gaped.
"Now now. If we work hard, we can finish this in five minutes, and it'll be ready in half an hour. Can you two handle being at least civil to each other for that long?"
Ah. It was her doing.
"Fine." They glared daggers at each other after saying the exact same word in unison.
"Good." The faint glint in the elf's eyes was ever so slightly unnerving, and they unconsciously backed up a step or two, then abruptly began to at least look busy. "Because I might have had you suspend the both of you by your ears from a handy tree-branch until you _did_ learn. And we have quite enough mashed carrot, Chris," she informed him, just a wee bit too late, with a faint quaver in her normally smooth voice.
Unable to stop in mid-swing, the last victim died after the war had been declared over. It was a rather messy death as well; carrot juice splashed all over in a half-foot radius.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Sile-
"You... are _DEAD_!" Erutis suddenly shouted, after the shock of being covered in carrot blood finally wore off. She lunged the short 6 inches to Chris, intent on at least _trying_ to throttle him. Unfortunately for her plans of destruction and quite possibly murder, he had seen the danger coming, and, with reflexes sharpened after a couple months spent with sudden mood changes and violence, had grabbed a ladle and was attempting to fend her off with it.
The ladle that had formerly been hanging off a cabinet knob pulled the cabinet door outwards, and as cabinet doors were usually shut for a reason, the reason why this one had been shut was all too clear.
Pots, pans, and dishes that had been thrown into the wooden cupboard willy-nilly came crashing down on both their heads. Did this stop the two combatants? No, it didn't. The utensils were simply used as more weapons, some of them projectile. Thank Mab that the Frying Pan of Doom[4] wasn't among them.
The laughter that Aysel had been suppressing the entire time that they had been in the kitchen escaped, although it was unheard by the opponent. After she had regained control of herself, she narrowly avoided getting hit on the head with something that turned a chair into a poached egg on contact[5]. That was when she decided to do something about the two, who were both yelling insults so loudly at each other that you could barely make out what the other was saying.
Idly calling a rope of wind from the air, she shoved her way in between them, lowered the rope about one, then the other, and tied them both into chairs. Without waiting for a spoken command, the rope holding them down joined together and pulled the two chairs back to back and connected quickly enough that black and red hair bashed into each other and their owners were temporarily dazed. She gazed down at them impassively.
Then she lowered her face down to their level, and said, "You two are going to stay there until you've learned to be patient with each other and like it. Or else."
"No one's ever finished that threat. Or else what?"
Standing back up again, she shrugged. "Who knows? 'All sorts of bad stuff happens in the kitchen'."
The very blandness of the words was what really got to them, and they both shut up and tried very hard to stay quiet and not think about all those lovely gadgets and doodads in the kitchen, like those knives, and that strange little twisted metal that was all pointy and looked like it would be more at home in a torture chamber than in a kitchen, and the can opener, a.k.a. a big pointy metal thingie that you used to bash open the tops of what cans you had with.
"This 'project' of yours was simply to get those two to behave? I feel I should inform you that it's a lost cause."
She whirled around. That blasted demon was idly standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Abruptly, the half-smile that still remained on her face disappeared switched to a glare about as cold as the piece of ice that remained on the floor from when Erutis threw it, but it was slowly melting in the light of the sun.
"Shut up."
With those two enormously original, well-thought out parting words, she disappeared[6].
"Hey."
Eclipse turned, partway between walking away. Chris tried to tug at the invisible bonds that kept him in the chair. "Would you get these off? It's cutting off the blood supply to my hands."
He turned again. "Find your own way out," was the cleric's only reply as the demon walked away.
Chris swore.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- having no spells other than "Dark Arrow", "Magic Shield, circle nine" and "Ice Blade", I was forced to do LOTSA research and stayed up very late figuring out all that I could about the magic system of Demon Diary, and had to make up some stuff. Attack for elementals is "crescent" followed by the level number, defense is "circle" and other stuff, like making a weapon or copy or something else, is "diamond". It was a really sad first attempt at making a spell, but still... as Raenef commented, "Dark Arrow" is corny too. (AAAH! Don't hurt me, Eclipse or Eclipse fans! I love him too!) The reason I didn't use a spell for the air ropes is that it just seems too simple to be worthy of an incantation.
[2]- "moh-ya" basically means "Huh? What? Wha? Eh?" in Korean.
[3]- Since the little parody in book 3 seems to be just that, a parody, Eclipse is not the known cook in the castle. But still, who DOES do the cooking ANYWAY!?
]4]- The Frying Pan of Doom is NOT my idea. It is Patricia C. Wrede's, and it's basically an enchanted frying pan (it's a weapon) that turns people (or things) into poached eggs. It's the last story in Book of Enchantments.
[5]- ehehe, look at [4]. ^.^ odd place for such a devastating weapon to turn up. (OMG, everyone RUN! It's a FRYING PAN!)
[6]- I seem to be poking fun at my original character, and I think I am. This always happens when I read too many Terry Pratchett books...
YamiHikari's Note- anyone who reviews, I LOVE YOU! Well, as in ai, not koi, like ai= friendship. Yah. I'm probably confusing people. Or not, I can't read people's minds. Does anyone notice that this is the second chapter in a ROW that I've ended with Chris? And Eclipse made me think Orphen on... one of the chapters on the second DVD, can't remember which at the moment, and I can't check, as I've decided to give up watching anime for Lent. This, however, does not mean that I can't read manga, but I need money to buy more, since the library doesn't have all that I wanna read... *crycry* anyway, ja!
chapter three
by YamiHikari
Disclaimer- *sigh* Again, I don't own Demon Diary nor its characters, and if Aysel is stolen and you're the one with sticky fingers, you are in DEEP, DEEP trouble.
YamiHikari's Note- Good grief, I'm listening to the Orphen soundtrack _again_. Well, Last Kiss, to be specific, over and over for no apparent reason. -_-;; Well, I do like the song... Eh, nvm. Anyway, no more family history for a while, or did I say that before? Ah, well...
- - - - - - - - - -
Aysel didn't speak to any of the residents of the castle for at least a week, and completely ignored Eclipse for three. No one mentioned the scars again, and the trio never really found out from the elf whether they had been caused by magic. When she did begin to answer small, unimportant questions, she still stayed rather anti-social, preferring the woods to the rooms. When she was in the castle, usually it was in the library.
This was one of those times. Grimacing slightly at the huge amounts of dust that erupted when the book was laboriously tugged out from its tight-packed fellows, Aysel opened it at the table and idly scanned its pages. Nothing interesting here. Why would this book be of such importance to Menefer? There was nothing in the books, no records, no ideas, no fictional accounts, no eyewitness accounts, no nothing. In fact, it was just a book filled with blank pages.
'Wait.' She glanced at the pages again, then smiled. Dipping the quill pen into the ink, she carefully drew a rune on the first page and waited.
The ink flowed through the pages, and words appeared. She flipped the pages again, and they were filled with information. Useful information. So this was why this demon book was so important to her lord.
"Lighter Copy, diamond 4[1]."
Daylight streamed in through the windows and, within seconds, there was an almost exact replica of the book lying next to the original. The new one, however, was made of the light. Placing one hand on it, she called up an air spirit. After a minute or so, she shrank the copy and handed it to the spirit which fluttered its twirling little way to the window and out.
She walked out of the library after replacing the book in its place on the shelf. A few steps later, she stopped. "If you're quite finished skulking about and pretending to be sneaky, you three can come out and ask your questions face-to-face." Turning to meet the rather shame-faced demon lord and his two human "minions", she raised her eyebrows. "Well?"
Averting their gazes guiltily, they stammered out excuses like "wanting to see if the library was free" or "just walking around" and the like. A half-smile crossed her face as Aysel watched them contradict each other.
When she raised a hand to silence them, they all abruptly shut up and waited anxiously. She was almost sure when this was over, they would run fast and far. "If you're going to tell a lie with two or more people in your group, at least consult each other first and make up _one_ story that's the same, not twenty different excuses."
They still waited, though not as much on edge as they had been. Aysel considered the prospects of this. She was bored, and needed something to occupy her time in-between trying to find information for her lord. Perhaps this would help. She moved past them and stopped at a spot some ten feet away. "You all breathe too loud. I heard you clearly from about here, but perhaps my hearing is better that yours, so that may account for it. Also..."
The rest of the day, it was like a game. They all tried to see how close they could get to one person without them noticing, or if they could possibly startle their target by sneaking up on them all the way.
~
"AAGGH!!"
"Gotcha." The redheaded swordswoman grinned triumphantly. Then it was her turn to yelp as the pale hand of Aysel descended upon her shoulder.
"I told you, keep an eye out behind you. Cleric, get out of those bushes."
Chris grumbled as he emerged from the shrubbery behind her, brushing stray leaves off his tunic and out of his black hair. "You're too good at this..."
Raenef, who had been Erutis's target, suddenly asked, "Where'd you learn this?"
Looking distant, the elf replied, "It was a game I used to play with my brother."
"Oh. Your family must miss you, now that you're gone."
She seemed vaguely pained. "It's the other way around..." The tone implied end of subject.
Still, Raenef persisted. "Moh-ya[2]? What you mean by that?"
"I mean exactly what I say."
"Ow." Erutis had kicked him. He reached down to rub at the spot on his shin. "I see."
She didn't think about it. She didn't think about supple bows of wood and waxed strings and shafts of arrows and their stone or metal heads. Archery was one thing that she had never taken up, and she had her reasons.
Then she stopped trying not to think about it and asked, almost cheerfully, "Does anyone know what's for dinner?"
"No clue. Who does the cooking around here anyway[3]?"
"You don't know who does the cooking at your own castle..."
"Nope." Happy smile.
"Oh Mab..."
~
Ten minutes later, the gang had been persuaded to assist in a project of the elf's, and were making... an atrocious mess in the kitchen.
"No, I don't think that a battle-axe will be necessary for cutting the vegetables. Where'd you get that thing anyway?!"
Chris shrugged, and attempted to heft the insanely large weapon for another whack at the vegetables –which were pulverized by now; you can only do so much with a big, dull blade that hasn't been sharpened in ages-, narrowly missing slicing off Raenef's nose by half an inch from sheer weight and momentum. The demon lord was white from head to toe, but still normal colored on the back, with a rather sticky mixture of water, flour, and sugar. He was having some difficulties moving, as the concoction was stiffening.
"'elp. So'one, peas 'elp..."
"What? Speak up, I can't hear you."
"He said 'Help. Someone, please help', which I'm assuming means 'Someone please help me get away from this madman before he lops off my head with that thing'," translated Aysel as she dragged Rae out of harm's way.
"'ank 'oo."
She stopped dead when she saw Erutis's creation. The sword master chipped away a rough spot, then stood back and surveyed it proudly. "Well? It's good, isn't it?"
"Nice. You'll have to teach me sometime, but... we don't need an ice sculpture for soup; bisque, chowder, bouillabaisse, consommé, or otherwise."
Raenef had managed to wash his face and hands free. "Those words... they all just mean 'soup', right?"
"Different kinds, yes. You don't need to know the differences," the silver-haired elf added hastily as Raenef opened his mouth for another query.
"Oh." He shut it. Then he sniffed the air. "Is it just me, or does it smell like a steakhouse in here?"
"It doesn't-"Erutis paused as Raenef wandered by, in search of the source of the elusive scent. "Actually, I think it's you."
He looked baffled. "I haven't been _near_ any meat," he protested.
"Wait... what did you wash yourself off with?"
"It kinda _looked_ like water, but I couldn't really see, so I just used it anyway. It's in that pot over there." He pointed as best he could with a shirtsleeve still solidifying.
Aysel sighed. "That... was the soup stock. You just washed yourself off with beef broth... ... you should go wash off, otherwise it'll _really_ smell..."
After he had disappeared, presumably to the lake she had found before, as there hadn't been any other visible water sources, the elf asked the two humans, "Is he always like this?"
"Pretty much, but not _as_ bad. But maybe it's just 'cause he's in the kitchen. I mean, all sorts of bad stuff happens in the kitchen."
Thunk! Another carrot had met its death at the hands of the next High Cleric of the temple of Rased. Tugging it free, he added, "I've heard a couple stories about some people who got killed in their kitchens, and their ghosts haunted the place forevermore."
"Wow, four syllables. You sure that didn't fry the few brain cells you have left?"
He scowled at the redhead, who was in an uncooperative mood after having to take apart her hard work. "Shut up. It's not my fault you were stupid and thought we need a... a statue of a _dragon_ made out of ice. You're just jealous because _I'm_ doing it right, genius that I am, and _you're_ not."
Erutis threw a piece of ice at him. Halfway across, it froze in midair, the crystalline shape reflecting bits of light and dripping little droplets of water, then dropped as the two gaped.
"Now now. If we work hard, we can finish this in five minutes, and it'll be ready in half an hour. Can you two handle being at least civil to each other for that long?"
Ah. It was her doing.
"Fine." They glared daggers at each other after saying the exact same word in unison.
"Good." The faint glint in the elf's eyes was ever so slightly unnerving, and they unconsciously backed up a step or two, then abruptly began to at least look busy. "Because I might have had you suspend the both of you by your ears from a handy tree-branch until you _did_ learn. And we have quite enough mashed carrot, Chris," she informed him, just a wee bit too late, with a faint quaver in her normally smooth voice.
Unable to stop in mid-swing, the last victim died after the war had been declared over. It was a rather messy death as well; carrot juice splashed all over in a half-foot radius.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Sile-
"You... are _DEAD_!" Erutis suddenly shouted, after the shock of being covered in carrot blood finally wore off. She lunged the short 6 inches to Chris, intent on at least _trying_ to throttle him. Unfortunately for her plans of destruction and quite possibly murder, he had seen the danger coming, and, with reflexes sharpened after a couple months spent with sudden mood changes and violence, had grabbed a ladle and was attempting to fend her off with it.
The ladle that had formerly been hanging off a cabinet knob pulled the cabinet door outwards, and as cabinet doors were usually shut for a reason, the reason why this one had been shut was all too clear.
Pots, pans, and dishes that had been thrown into the wooden cupboard willy-nilly came crashing down on both their heads. Did this stop the two combatants? No, it didn't. The utensils were simply used as more weapons, some of them projectile. Thank Mab that the Frying Pan of Doom[4] wasn't among them.
The laughter that Aysel had been suppressing the entire time that they had been in the kitchen escaped, although it was unheard by the opponent. After she had regained control of herself, she narrowly avoided getting hit on the head with something that turned a chair into a poached egg on contact[5]. That was when she decided to do something about the two, who were both yelling insults so loudly at each other that you could barely make out what the other was saying.
Idly calling a rope of wind from the air, she shoved her way in between them, lowered the rope about one, then the other, and tied them both into chairs. Without waiting for a spoken command, the rope holding them down joined together and pulled the two chairs back to back and connected quickly enough that black and red hair bashed into each other and their owners were temporarily dazed. She gazed down at them impassively.
Then she lowered her face down to their level, and said, "You two are going to stay there until you've learned to be patient with each other and like it. Or else."
"No one's ever finished that threat. Or else what?"
Standing back up again, she shrugged. "Who knows? 'All sorts of bad stuff happens in the kitchen'."
The very blandness of the words was what really got to them, and they both shut up and tried very hard to stay quiet and not think about all those lovely gadgets and doodads in the kitchen, like those knives, and that strange little twisted metal that was all pointy and looked like it would be more at home in a torture chamber than in a kitchen, and the can opener, a.k.a. a big pointy metal thingie that you used to bash open the tops of what cans you had with.
"This 'project' of yours was simply to get those two to behave? I feel I should inform you that it's a lost cause."
She whirled around. That blasted demon was idly standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Abruptly, the half-smile that still remained on her face disappeared switched to a glare about as cold as the piece of ice that remained on the floor from when Erutis threw it, but it was slowly melting in the light of the sun.
"Shut up."
With those two enormously original, well-thought out parting words, she disappeared[6].
"Hey."
Eclipse turned, partway between walking away. Chris tried to tug at the invisible bonds that kept him in the chair. "Would you get these off? It's cutting off the blood supply to my hands."
He turned again. "Find your own way out," was the cleric's only reply as the demon walked away.
Chris swore.
- - - - - - - - - -
[1]- having no spells other than "Dark Arrow", "Magic Shield, circle nine" and "Ice Blade", I was forced to do LOTSA research and stayed up very late figuring out all that I could about the magic system of Demon Diary, and had to make up some stuff. Attack for elementals is "crescent" followed by the level number, defense is "circle" and other stuff, like making a weapon or copy or something else, is "diamond". It was a really sad first attempt at making a spell, but still... as Raenef commented, "Dark Arrow" is corny too. (AAAH! Don't hurt me, Eclipse or Eclipse fans! I love him too!) The reason I didn't use a spell for the air ropes is that it just seems too simple to be worthy of an incantation.
[2]- "moh-ya" basically means "Huh? What? Wha? Eh?" in Korean.
[3]- Since the little parody in book 3 seems to be just that, a parody, Eclipse is not the known cook in the castle. But still, who DOES do the cooking ANYWAY!?
]4]- The Frying Pan of Doom is NOT my idea. It is Patricia C. Wrede's, and it's basically an enchanted frying pan (it's a weapon) that turns people (or things) into poached eggs. It's the last story in Book of Enchantments.
[5]- ehehe, look at [4]. ^.^ odd place for such a devastating weapon to turn up. (OMG, everyone RUN! It's a FRYING PAN!)
[6]- I seem to be poking fun at my original character, and I think I am. This always happens when I read too many Terry Pratchett books...
YamiHikari's Note- anyone who reviews, I LOVE YOU! Well, as in ai, not koi, like ai= friendship. Yah. I'm probably confusing people. Or not, I can't read people's minds. Does anyone notice that this is the second chapter in a ROW that I've ended with Chris? And Eclipse made me think Orphen on... one of the chapters on the second DVD, can't remember which at the moment, and I can't check, as I've decided to give up watching anime for Lent. This, however, does not mean that I can't read manga, but I need money to buy more, since the library doesn't have all that I wanna read... *crycry* anyway, ja!