Author's Note: Ellenlome, you gave me the Haru avatar, here's something in exchange. Have a safe trip home.

TO BRING HER BACK

Rainbows emerge not before, but after the rain.

"Haru, why is everyone treating Shizuku as if she's still alive, even though she's lying on a stone bed and has funeral flower arrangements around her?"

It was the morning of the third day after the battle at the island, and the vistors from the other worlds who had chosen to stay for a little while more in the Kingdom were at the Cat King's Castle, their travel having been facilitated greatly by the sorceresses' liberal use of portals. Haru had been given her old room back, while the others were billeted according to their liking, in as far as that could be accommodated.

"Because some of the cat nobility are superstitious, and King Lune had to placate them by giving her the treatment one would normally afford the dead. Otherwise, they threatened to raise a big fuss over it. She's not dead," Haru answered Muta's question from her windowside seat. They were sitting in one of the castle's tea-rooms located on the upper levels, having just finished a late breakfast with Toto, the Baron and Machida. "At least her physical body isn't anymore, thanks to Yu-baaba and Zeniiba's magic. The first thing they did when they realized what had happened was to give it life again—you were still knocked out then, I think. Then Grandma Zeniiba went after... sensei's departing spirit and tried to retrieve it and put it back in her body. According to her, sensei didn't want to return and put up a fight. Zeniiba, she fought back and something got messed up and now sensei's spirit has retreated into a world of its own, refusing to come out for fear of being dragged back here or finally being thrown into the afterlife. That's why Nausicaä-hime and Nigihayami Kohakunushi are going to try and see her, and assure her that no matter what she chooses to do, no one will ever force her again to act against her will."

"What was that 'one question' thing the old crone was talking about?"

Haru shrugged and gazed out at the countryside. "I don't know. Only Nausicaä-hime and Haku know what the question is. Zeniiba never made it very clear. I think it has something to do with Shizuku-sensei making a choice."

Muta thanked her for the explanations and left the room. He hurried to the elevators and went down to the ground floor. He had to see Loriel, because she was leaving for New Lorum in the afternoon. She had announced her retirement from being the Mistress of the Fort the previous day, much to the Cat King's surprise.

He found her just leaving King Lune's audience room. She smiled at him—she seemed to be doing that a lot the past few days—and clanked over to where he was.

"Are you going?" he asked, as he gave her a perfunctory nod.

"Later," she chuckled in her weak, raspy voice. The doctors back at Fort Lorum had been astonished at the severity of her wounds and at her survival and rapid healing. They were sure that her being a vampire had something to do with it, though the spear in her heart should have killed her in the pirate lair. "Why are you so intent on kicking me out of here?"

"I'm not. I..." Muta laughed shamefacedly and scratched his pate. "Well, I just want to spend as much time as I can with you while you're here."

"Goodness, I'm not stopping you, am I?" said Loriel, reaching up and linking her arm in his. "Do you have anything to do? I'd like to walk in the gardens," she suggested, reaching into her wine-colored velvet uniform and taking her sunglasses out of an inner pocket and putting them on.

Muta replied that he was free for the moment, and a few minutes later they were in the gardens behind the Cat Castle, where Seiji and Shizuku had also walked, imbibing the heady perfume of countless blooms thriving under the summer sun.

"Loriel... why are you retiring? I think New Lorum still needs you."

"No, I think it's time someone else took up the reins. I might come back if I'm needed, but for now, I'm going to be very busy punishing Phaecis."

"You mean you're going to torture him?" Concurrent with her announcing her retirement was her insistence that the cat monarch turn the Pirate King over to her keeping. Lune had reluctantly agreed, but refused Loriel's suggestion to let Phaecis live at her estate, a small cabin in the woods and parcel of hilly woodland land some distance northeast of New Lorum.

"No, not really. I'm just going to give him a gift." She looked up at Muta and bared her teeth in a wide, sinister smile that, together with the incongruous sight of her sunglass-wearing face, made a cold weight settle about his shoulders. "The gift of eternal unlife, and he'll have all the time in the world to ponder on his past actions, and no one to bully or hurt, because he'll spend his days looking out of a cell. Even if he escapes, he'll be ostracized by everyone he meets, even his fellow criminals. He'll be alone, Renaldo. Really, really alone."

Muta looked aghast at her. "You're cruel."

"I never said I was a good person," the Captain said in a soft voice, as if she was telling him the absolute truth about her and had expected his reaction and was resigned to it. "He deserves it. Look at all the people he and his gang have killed and robbed over the past couple of years. My crew, as well. When I let him go before I thought he'd change, but he didn't. Not in the parts that mattered."

"Are you sure that's wise? You'll be creating someone stronger and bigger than you. And immortal, to boot."

"Oh, Renaldo." Loriel gave his forearm an affectionate pinch. "Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"Yeah," snorted Muta. "Like you took care of yourself in the pirate lair."

"He surprised me, and I had to protect you. He won't be able to do that to me again."

Muta plucked a nearby flower as they passed it and gave it to her. "A red globeflower?" She smiled impishly. "Does this mean you love me, Renaldo?"

"W-what? What are you talking about?"

"One gives this to a crush... So red, as red as blood, red as deep, passionate love..."

"W-well, I didn't know that!" Muta stammered. "I just took what I could get. Gimmie that!" He tried to snatch the flower from Loriel's hand, but she easily avoided his swiping paw. She laughed hoarsely.

"I was just kidding! I know you didn't!" She took a sniff of the bell-shaped bloom and threw it up at his face. "You want it back, here!"

Muta caught it and stared as she withdrew her arm from his and began to walk away. Underneath his fur he blushed.

"H-hey! Wait, I didn't mean to—oh, tabbies!" He trotted after her.

------oOo------

"All set?" the Baron asked, stepping back from Toto and scrutinizing his handiwork, namely the small leather pack he had strapped onto the crow's back.

"Yes. Thanks, Baron." The avian turned round. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

The Cat nodded. "I'm sure I will be, in due time." To his chagrin (and the others' astonishment), Louise had had a long talk with him when they had arrived at Fort Lorum and told him she wasn't going to accompany him any further. She said she wanted to look after the members of the Phaecis Gang who were left.

"I've been with them for years," she had said. "Most of them aren't so bad, once you get to know them. I'd like to help them get back on their feet after they've served their sentences."

The flabbergasted cat nobleman had immediately taken her hands in his. "But Louise, if you stay here King Lune might change his mind about not convicting you as well. And I always thought–"

"That I was going to drop everything and come with you and live happily ever after?" she finished for him. "Not likely. I wasn't dead all these years, Humbert. I still lived. I have some things I must take care of, King Lune or no King Lune." She pulled her hands out of his grasp and caressed his cheek. "Don't look so," she said gently. "When the time is right, I'll come to you. Then we can be together and start living again."

The Cat took her hand and kissed it. "And I vow that nothing will interfere with our wedding this time. Nothing."

"Humbert." Louise pulled his face towards hers and gave him a kiss. "You still want to marry damaged goods after all this time?"

"Yes! I'm not so undamaged, myself." The Baron had suddenly found tears threatening to spill from his eyes, and he tugged Louise into his embrace, their first in more than fifty years.

When they had broken away from each other Louise had looked down at her outfit and laughed. "The first thing I need to do," she proclaimed, "is change my clothes!" She poked a finger through the hole in the middle of her jacket. "I look positively indecent!"

"I can have some made for you," the Cat said. "You needn't worry about that."

"Mmm. And I suppose you'll have me looking just as I did before. It's alright, Humbert. I still have a sufficient selection. The Doctor was quite tasteful in his choices." Her finger pressed upon the small hidden vial hanging by its chain around her neck. It contained what was left of the crystal that had housed the evil cat's soul, shattered by the nobleman's sword at the same time he had pierced her heart.

The Baroness pulled her digit out and absent-mindedly smoothed the lapels of her paramour's tuxedo. "We really need to update the cut of your suits, my dearest."

"But I like my clothes just the way they are," the Baron complained. "And I can't have you looking like Haru."

Louise cocked an eye at him. "Why? Is there something wrong with the way she dresses?"

"No, it's just that I don't believe her style would fit you."

Louise mulled over that for a moment, then said, "When you can, I insist on you telling me exactly what you did with her."

The Baron swallowed. "Why?"

"So I can figure out how mad I'm supposed to be with you."

"Louise..."

"No. However on earth you feel about her, there are some things that just shouldn't have been done. Look at what you did to the poor girl. You must make amends for that and help her fix her love life. I'm sorry to tell you this, Humbert, but it's partly because of what you did that I'm not coming with you. I refuse to rebuild our relationship using her bones and the blood of her bleeding heart as brick and mortar. Fix that, and I'll return to you as soon as I can."

I'll return to you as soon as I can... Her last words echoed in his mind as Toto stretched his wings.

"Well, see you in a month or so, Baron."

"Wait, where were you going again?"

The crow sighed. "Ibaraki-ken, to my friend's family, to tell them he's gone. Then to Europe and England, to do the same for my other friends. I also need to see if Sturmvogel has any kin I should inform of his passing."

"Oh. I'm sorry I forgot."

"It's okay, Baron. You and Haru have been looking frazzled lately, a lot more than old lard-belly has."

"That obvious?"

"Yeah."

The Baron slapped the grotesque's side. "Well, take care, friend. I hope you can come back in time for the party."

"I'll try. So long, Baron." Toto took off.

The Cat watched him dwindle into a black dot against the fluffy clouds. He then spun on his heel and made his way down the turret. He needed to talk to Haru. He was sure he knew what was troubling her.

------oOo------

"I-I already told him about us," Haru said in a soft-but-not-so-calm voice. The Cat had found her still in the drawing-room where he had left her and Muta half an hour ago. "H-he's not taking it very well. I asked him to forgive me, but he never answered."

"Haru... damn, I'm so sorry I got you into this!" He rubbed his forehead in frustration.

"It's okay, Baron. I chose to be with you, and I don't regret my decision. I'll just have to try and make him see things from my standpoint." A forlorn look appeared on her face, and an opalescent sheen grew in her eyes. "Somehow."

"Would you like me to talk to him?"

Haru sat up. "No! That would only make things worse."

The Cat stood up from the chair he had been sitting in and joined her in looking out the window. "Jealousy is tough to fight, but I'm sure he'll eventually come around," he tried to reassure her, taking her hand in his and kissing it.

Haru blinked rapidly. "Oh, I really hope you're right."

Of course, that had to be the moment when the wood-paneled door to the tea-room opened, and Kei Machida, accompanied by Moon the black cat (who was now as big as the rest of them), stepped in.

He froze as Haru quickly pulled her hand out of the Baron's. "It's not what you think!" she blurted, her face going pale with fright.

Machida was silent for a heartbeat. "I've got my own eyes, Haru, and I know how to use them, thanks," he said in a flat voice. "So that's why the Baroness didn't return with the rest of us. It's still you two, isn't it?"

"No! No, you're wrong! It isn't—"

"Anyway, I just came to tell you there's a call going out to anyone who wishes to use a portal to our world. Thought I'd just inform you. I'm going to use it."

Haru stood and began to walk to him. "You mean you're leaving?"

"Yeah. It looks like I'm not needed here anyway."

"Kei-chan..."

Before Haru could reach him he turned his back on her and exited the room, leaving Moon to look at her and the Cat in pity before following Machida out the door.

------oOo------

As can be imagined, relations between the young lady and the cat gentleman were also strained by the incident, and Haru spent a restless night in her room, unable to sleep. Von Jikkingen had managed to solve his main problem, but where did that leave her? Not only was she in trouble with Machida, she also had to deal with the things Shizuku-sensei told her, things that threatened to overturn her nice little world and dissolve her sanity.

That night she had a visitor. As she lay tossing and turning in her bed, there came a soft knock at the door. Grumbling, she got up and answered it in a flurry of irritated silk and mussed dark-brown hair.

"Look, it's nearly midnight, and I want to­... Princess Nausicaä?"

The wind-rider, dressed in her own version of sleepwear—a simple baby-blue dress and slippers, with a strange mushroom-shaped, chin-strapped hat faced with jewels sitting on her head—looked apologetically at her. "Hi. Um... could I talk to you for a while?"

I wonder if she does this to her own people, Haru wondered. Trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, she bade her come in.

"What do you want to talk to me about?" Haru asked, shutting the door.

"Well, I was just in Grandma Zeniiba's room, listening to her talking and... you know, don't you? Shizuku Amasawa told you?"

"I... yes, she did."

"How do you feel?" To Haru's surprise Nausicaä seemed genuinely concerned.

"I don't know how I want to feel," she replied. "Sometimes I feel very afraid, that I've been living a lie all my life, and if I close my eyes long enough I'll fall over the edge of the world and disappear. Sometimes I think she was still lying to me when she... left. Ojou-sama, I just want her to be alive and well. If not here, then in her own world. But she told me..." Haru's voice trailed away into silence as she recalled Shizuku's words.

In the dim starlight and moonlight of the room, Nausicaä put a hand on the melancholic girl's upper arm. "Come with me," she said. "I'll tell you my own story."

------oOo------

"And that's how I came to meet him. I'm not trying to be boastful or anything, but I'm glad I met him and learned the truth under kinder circumstances than you did." Standing there in the darkness of the parapet, Haru watched the girl from the Valley of Wind's eyes shine as she looked out at the nocturnal fastness of the surrounding Cat Kingdom. "I had no idea where I was, or what I was doing over Tokyo, of all places, but I needn't have worried. I was heading towards him all along."

Haru looked at her bright eyes and shy smile. "You look like a girl who's just had her first boyfriend proclaim his love to her."

A small grin escaped Nausicaä's lips. She smothered it. "What can I say? I knew from the first that I loved him. You shouldn't be afraid. Shizuku-san gave you life, and it's beyond her power to take it away from you. In fact, she's the one who needs help now." Seeing that her words had scant effect on Haru, Nausicaä laid a hand on her back and continued to try and reassure her.

"Haru," she said earnestly, "she only set the wheels in motion. Your world now runs under the stars, just as her own does. Your world is as real as hers is, only a vast expanse of time and space and... emotion separates it from your own. She cares for you. Don't ever doubt that."

"She... she did say that she put a lot of herself into me... oh, sensei..." The young woman looked down at the cool white-painted stone she was leaning on. "I-I still don't know what to think. It's all so overwhelming... but thanks for talking to me about it."

"Glad to help. Haru, with the intertwining of your lives you'll never look at the world the same way again, but that doesn't mean the change has to be bad." A breeze made Nausicaä's headcovering balloon slightly to the side; it swirled around Haru, toyed with her hair, spoke to her of the faraway lands the Princess and the others had come from. Never in her lifetime would the only daughter of Naoko Yoshioka have thought about meeting them, of there being times and places beyond even the magical Cat Kingdom itself. It comforted her greatly to know she had friends—for so she knew them to be, now—existing even beyond the walls of the universe and the cosmic clock that governed it.

"Hime-sama, how did you get back to your own world?"

The quietly happy expression disappeared from Nausicaä's face. "That's a longer and more tragic story. If I were to tell you that, we'd still be standing here when the dawn came. All I'll say," she said in her soft voice, "is that nothing—and no one—is forever. Not us, and not our... parents and loved ones, so we should cherish them while we still can. A bride-to-be named Chihiro Ogino once told me that, long ago."

------oOo------

The Princess accompanied Haru back to her room and gave her a cheery 'good-night' before she closed the door. As she made her way down the corridors to her own room, she reflected that not even Shizuku herself, as she had found out from Zeniiba, knew the complete truth. It was just as well, she decided. Haru could barely seem to handle what she already knew. There would be time enough later to tell them both. That is, if she and Haku could make their way into the fortress of the absent writer's spirit.

And Angel... how she wished she could see her again. All she wanted to do was ask the wingéd girl about her future. But every time the opportunity presented itself, Angel either dodged her words or opted to vanish into the sky, never giving up the answers the Child of the Wind sought.

One of these days, Angel, she had vowed the last time the mysterious girl had escaped from her, I'm going to catch you and make you tell me what I want to know. Who are you? Where do you come from? Why do you keep on saving me, when all seems so lost and hopeless?

She opened the door to her room and found her roommate sitting up in a long-armed rocking chair, reading a book from one of the libraries downstairs.

"Where were you?" asked Kushana, again dressed in a white shift, all set to go to sleep. A cup of something steaming was on the small round table beside her chair. "I was beginning to think you'd snuck off and left us behind again." Of all the people from their world who had come to the island in response to the plea for help, only she, Nausicaä, Asbel, Selm, Charuka and Chikuku were left. The wind-rider had told her to send the Royal Corvette and its unbelieving men back to Torumekia, and she acquiesced, putting Kurotowa in charge of them.

"Just fly into the brightest cloud you see," Nausicaä had told Setoru, who in the intervening years since the Dorok-Torumekian war had decided that it was much safer being an aviator rather than an infantryman and accordingly changed professions. He also happened to be the copilot of the huge bi-winged craft. "You'll end up in our world. Trust me." The Corvette did just that and was never seen any more, so Nausicaä and everyone with her assumed it had successfully crossed back into their world.

Nausicaä's companions were amazed at the flying craft's disappearance, asking her how such a thing could be possible. All she answered was, "That was how I left our world." To her sorrow, Asbel had decided the accompany the Torumekians home, probably to keep himself away from Kushana and reduce the tensions everyone felt when the two were in the vicinity of each other. The Gunship he had left in a shed near where Howl's humungous winged castle had set down, a dark, smoking, creaking contraption almost as big as the Cat King's palace.

Nausicaä walked over to her bed and sat down on it. "I just had a talk with Haru Yoshioka," she answered the Queen-Regent. "Like you, she refuses to believe in what she's found."

"What? Oh, no, I'm beginning to believe that there's truth to what you've been saying. But I still want to see it with my own two eyes."

The wind-rider lay down on the soft mattress. "Tomorrow, then, if you're still up to it: I'll show you briefly where I had gone. Good night."

"Good night." Nausicaä pulled the covers over herself, while the White Witch of Torumekia continued her reading.

------oOo------

The two ladies weren't the only ones up that night. In the Cat King's bedroom Yuki was also awake, leaning against Lune, who was hugging her.

"It's not funny! I was so worried about you," she protested.

"There, there," the King said, "I didn't mean anything by that comment. I'm fine. I was rescued, so you shouldn't cry any more, Yuki." Endeavoring to change the subject, he commented, "I'm just glad that you're okay, after what my father did. I'll talk to him about that."

"Don't be angry at him, darling," Yuki pleaded, sniffling. "It was my idea to use myself and Shoukichi as bait for Phaecis' spies."

"What?"

"Well, we couldn't live in peace with them still around, could we? So we talked about it and eventually hatched our plan. Shoukichi called on a few of his folk to help us, and voila! We managed to capture them without any bloodshed."

Lune pondered over the revelation. "You know, I shall have to stay at home more now."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Who knows, you might get it into your head to take over my kingdom next, wife of mine."

"Lune! That's very mean of you."

The Cat King guffawed. "Just joking." He swept Yuki up in his arms and carried her to bed.

------oOo------

The Lady Eboshi watched as two of her warrior women chorused a sugary greeting to the good-looking wizard in the ruffled white shirt and fitting black pants as he passed by them in the corridor. He smiled at them and returned their greeting, then went on his way.

"Isn't he handsome?" gushed one as soon as he was out of earshot, clapping her palms to her cheeks and closing her eyes.

"He sure is!" sighed the other, casting a furtive glance at the retreating, oh-so-delectable backside. "Much better for a roll in the hay with than my no-account husband."

"Toki, Usemi," said the Mistress of Irontown in a mildly scolding tone of voice, "I wouldn't fall for him if I were you. From what little I know of him, he's just as liable to tear your heart out of your chest and eat it, as love it."

The woman with the black hair bound up under a net and wearing the red-and-blue lamellar armor blanched. "Really? As in chomp, chomp—" she mimed tearing a piece of meat to pieces "—eat it?"

"That's what I heard."

The two women of Tatara-ba looked at each other for a moment.

"Think he'd go out with us?" Toki asked her companion.

"I wouldn't know. Gosh, Lady Eboshi, please teach us how to act like court ladies, so we can approach him."

"Aw, who needs that?" Toki drawled glibly. "I'll just tell him straight out myself."

"Hmph. You really think he'd like to be with a smelly and rough-mannered woman such as you?"

"Hey! I am not smelly!"

Shaking her head and smiling, their one-armed leader turned her back on them and walked away. She had to admit Howl was very handsome, and had very beguiling manners. Maybe she'd have a go at him before she left for their world, as Ashitaka and San and those wolves of hers had already done. It had been a very, very long time since she had the company of a man.

------oOo------

Shiho Amasawa rolled over in bed and managed to disturb Youji. He groaned and opened his eyes.

"Anata, you're still awake?"

The black-haired older sister of Shizuku gave him a nod and a sad puppy-dog look. "I was just thinking about imouto-chan and your little brother. I'm very worried about them."

Youji sleepily put an arm around her. "Hey, the Baron said he'd find them, didn't he? Don't fret. Try and get some shut-eye, that's a good girl." Youji gave her a peck on the cheek and cuddled her closer.

Shiho sighed, closed her eyes, and tried once more to go to sleep. The crickets were loud in the night, outside Chikyuuya.

------oOo------

After the three days Seiji still insisted on keeping his vigil near Shizuku. Zeniiba was beginning to regret that she had ever given him hope that she would return. He was hollow-eyed and disheveled, and had to be reminded to do simple things, like eat and bathe and even sleep. Most of the time he just sat in his chair, thinking of who-knew-what.

Howl came up to the kinder twin that night as she stood at the room's periphery, watching the young man slowly destroying himself with his grief.

"I cannot find any trace of the Shizuku Haru's world had," he reported. "It's as you say: when the real Shizuku came into it she subsumed the other one and took her place. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them."

Zeniiba grunted. Sometimes she wished she could transfer this burden she had taken up onto another person's shoulders, but there was no one who could possibly handle it. Howl was too young and impetuous, Madam Suliman was too dangerous a person to ask for help from, the Witch of the Waste was useless, and greedy Yu-baaba had abandoned her for the moment and flown back to Aburaya, to check on the bathhouse and her son Bou. Rin the fox-spirit had gone back with her, and Haku had taken Chihiro home, so for the present she was with no one save Kaonashi, who chose to spend his time silently caring for the mourning young man, at the advice of Mrs. Kusakabe, who left immediately via Nekobus for the Cat Bureau and then her 1950s abode after the meeting in the pirate lair.

"We must also find a way to deal with this Seiji," she told Howl, holding up the small red-leather book with clasp she had been reading. It was Shizuku's journal. "Even though I've read her entries, I still can't determine where reality stopped and story began!"

"Here, let me have a look at that. I have some experience such things." Howl took the book from her and opened it. The frontispiece was a beautifully written 'Scarlet Diary' in gold script above 'Shizuku Tsukishima' in black calligraphic jinmei kanji.

"I know that. That's why I wanted your help."

The wizard skimmed the pages for two minutes or so, then said, "I can't either. Could I borrow this, so I can look at it more closely?"

Zeniiba nodded. "Oh, the troubles that woman caused! Why couldn't she just have gone in peace?"

Howl frowned. He had come across exuberant passages in his perusal of the book, thoughts and words full of life and love and longing, and statements which seemed like hints to the tragic secret Shizuku had been hiding. The old witch's annoyance made him feel both sad and irritated.

"Zeniiba, if you had found a way to remain alive, after a fashion, and put off death for a little while, wouldn't you take it?"

"I wouldn't. Everything has its season, and everything has its end."

Howl paused and examined her as he twirled the journal upright in his hand and made it disappear with a sparkling flash. "You know, you and your sister are more alike than you think."

------oOo------

"Lusheeta, please! I don't understand why you're so cross with me!"

"Ooh... for the last time, Pazu, I didn't like the way you volunteered to help those two old women look for their spell ingredients so quickly. Maybe you want to stick around because you've got your eye on one of the other girls, hmm? Who is it? Nausicaä? Kushana? Eboshi? One of her fighters? That Haru girl? Or—heaven forbid—Sophie Hatter?"

"Hey! I'm no wolf! And I don't like women who can't stand a little dust and grime–"

"Are you implying that I­–"

"I mean you don't get on my case if I come home dirty from a mining job. Besides, Howl would probably kill me if he found out I was going after his girlfriend!"

"We should've done what Auntie Dora did and gone home."

"I don't know... I kind of like the sight of you wearing those jewels. I don't think I want to sell them, like she's going to."

"Faugh! Pazu, I'd rather you sell them, so I won't have to see you working so hard out in the fields."

"Sheeta... I could say the same to you, you know."

"Pazu..."

"Hey, why're you crying? C'mere, let me wipe those... '"Do you love me, John?" she asked.'"

"Not that silly opera again!"

"Well, it got you to smile, didn't it? I figure it's been too long since we've last had something like that. '"You know I love you, darling," he replied. "I love you more than song can tell. You are the light of my life: my sun, moon, and stars. You are my everything. Without you, I have no reason for being." And then, there was silence, as two lovers sat on a park bench, their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Once more, she spoke.'"

"Heehee... '"How much do you love me, John?" she asked.'"

"'"How much do I love you? Count the stars in the sky; measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon; number the grains of sand on the seashore; impossible, you say?"'"

"Ghhrrrk. That was terrible."

"It wasn't terrible... Sheeta?"

"Hmm?"

"I'll tell Zeniiba I've changed my mind."

"No, don't. I'll come with you instead."

"Huh. Okay, if that's what you want. Now snuggle up against me and sleep in my arms."

"That's so sweet of you—"

"Because you're pulling the bedsheet over to your side all the time."

"Pazu!"

"Ow!"

------oOo------

The woman sat at the water's edge, staring at the weak yellow ball that was her sun, sinking into oblivion at another day's end. She barely knew her own identity: much of her knowledge, her self, had been burned away by her fight with that horrid old woman, who had tried to capture her. She didn't know where this place was, or what she was doing here. All she knew was that she was safe. No one could ever hurt her while she stayed here. And, in return, she could never visit harm on anyone else. She had the hazy idea that she'd done a bad thing, but the particulars escaped her every time she tried to focus on them, fish skittering away from the net of her mind.

In the dreams she was having since she got here—whether it was yesterday, or an eternity ago, she couldn't recall—she dimly remembered missing someone, a man whose name she didn't know. All she knew was that he played a violin. And the image of a boy-child also played in her dream-mind, and whenever she saw it her heart seemed to echo with distant pain.

She spent her days by the seaside, trying to figure things out—who the man was, and why the sight of the child should make her feel so sad. Yet always, always, the truth seemed to hover just beyond her reach.

She sighed. There would be another sunrise, and she could spend all her time doing this again tomorrow. Standing up, she looked one last time at the vast mountains surrounding her island in the middle of its lake, before turning and heading for the giant closed lotus bud that she now called her home.