When the sound of ringing glass that sang through the halls of Chateau Aiguille finally came to an end, the vast, rose bedecked double doors at the end of the long entrance hallway opened up with a great groan. Emelia and Ildon were on the other end of the hallway, near the castle gates. Through the distant open doors, she could see a grand throne of rich red framed by a vast nest of what looked like gracefully carved thorns of deep black. The look of it alone touched Emelia with a chill that struck deep inside her.
Ildon started towards the room and Emelia followed.
"Um, aren't you going to just teleport there?" she asked, staring down the vast distance between them and the throne room.
"It is disrespectful to teleport directly into a mystic gathering, especially one of the Charm Lord's."
"How about if we just teleport outside the room and walk in?"
Ildon stopped in his tracks and stared down the great length of hallway that still stretched between him and the room. "Sometimes I envy you humans." Before Emelia could ask why, he grasped onto her hand and they were next to the immense open doors. Emelia reappeared feeling the soft touch of a rose petal against her nose. The scent was lovely, filling her with a strangely relaxed sensation.
They entered, where a host of people were gathered. The first thing that struck Emelia was that, unlike everywhere else in Chateau Aiguille, it was actually bright in here. Banks of bright white crystals on towering poles and high braziers illuminated the vast room.
Most of the assembled were mystics. Wherever one stood, beautifully ornate jewelry caught the light. The twinkling of precious gems and metals accompanied every movement. Luxurious hair of exotic colors dominated the room: green, purple, white with streaks of lavender, blue, raven black. While most of the mystics looked human, there was just something about them that made it obvious that they weren't. Emelia couldn't quite place it. It was nothing she could see or even name, just a feeling, really. Whatever it was, Emelia knew that she was in a sea of strangers and she really didn't belong here. Even the dress she had picked out seemed terribly simple and out of place compared to all the finery around her. She looked all around for familiar faces.
A girl in a white gown and shawl greeted her and Ildon just inside the gate. "Hello, Ildon. Hello, it's good to have you here," she said in a soft voice, nodding to Emelia. She smiled gently. "You must be Emelia. Lady Asellus has talked so much about you."
"So I've heard. Who are you?"
The smile deepened. "Princess Gina." She curtsied. "How do you do?"
There was something strange about this girl. She seemed out of her element among all these mystics. Even the gown she wore seemed too big for her. The thought of a child playing dress up in her mother's clothing came to mind.
That wasn't entirely fair. Physically, Gina didn't look much younger than Asellus and Asellus wasn't much younger than Emelia. Put together, Emelia didn't think their years would add up to even seventy. It was the way Gina carried herself: very gentle, shy, and overwhelmed by her surroundings. Inexperience was the word, Emelia thought. "Oh. So what did 'Lady' Asellus say about me?"
"Mainly, she reminisces about the time you spent together. What you did, what you said." Gina's smile faded a bit. "I have to admit, I'm a little jealous. I wish I was there with you and Lady Asellus back then."
"Believe me, you don't. Those were dangerous times, right Ildon?"
The green haired mystic nodded. "Yes, they were. Were you there when Princess Lion or Ciato had attacked us, I fear you wouldn't be here with us today."
Gina sighed. "Still, you must have shared so much with each other. I even envy you and the time you spent with her, Ildon." She turned to address Emelia again. "She said you are a very steady person and very little throws you. You're always calm, you always know what to do." Gina folded her hands in front herself and looked to the side. "The way she sounded, she seemed to have looked up to you. Like a big sister."
Emelia laughed. "She said that?" She blushed. "You're kidding. If anyone filled out the big sister role, it was White Rose. Where is she, anyway?"
The gentle smile disappeared abruptly. Gina cast her eyes down. Even Ildon suddenly looked more grim than usual. "You haven't heard."
"Princess White Rose is no longer with us," Ildon intoned.
Emelia stood silent, staring at Ildon, shocked. White Rose and Asellus were inseperable. There wasn't a moment when she didn't see one without the other. "I'm. . .I'm sorry."
"She could come back," Gina said hopefully.
"What?" Emelia said, now confused.
"Princess White Rose is not dead," Ildon answered. "She's been trapped in the Dark Labyrinth. Lord Asellus has been trying to free her for months, but without success."
"Dark Labyrinth?" Emelia repeated, still confused.
"It is a prison dimension. Lord Asellus, White Rose, and I were sent there by Orlouge. We escaped, but not without a sacrifice."
"I see."
Ildon nodded and held his hand out to the throng of people collected within the great room. "In any case, I believe that there is a party we are supposed to attend," he said suddenly, walking away. Emelia wasn't quite sure, but she took it as a sign that Ildon didn't want to talk about White Rose anymore. She'd never seen Ildon upset about anything, but she was pretty sure she'd just seen him upset now.
She nodded and again looked around for familiar faces. She found two, two who also saw her and waved her over. As she drew closer, the sad news of White Rose was cast to the side by the sight of old friends. This was a party, after all, and wasn't a time to stew in bad feelings.
"What's up, gun girl? Didn't think you'd make it."
"Hey, blondie, nice to see ya again."
Emelia fixed a wry smile at the only two faces she recognized in this whole room. They were also about the only humans who were in this room, though there was one other with them whom she didn't recognize. They were dressed up in old fashioned tuxedoes, looking utterly ridiculous, especially since they opted to keep some of their usual accessories.
Gen still had a headband wrapped around his forehead and clapped Emelia on the shoulder. A dark green bottle of Facinaturu's finest was in his hand. It looked like Gen had already chugged down more than half of it. "Look at you. They dressed you up nice. You fill out that dress like nobody's business." He took a swig of the bottle and wiped his lips.
Emelia rolled her eyes. "Wish I could say the same for you."
Lute actually looked a little more in place in his suit, if he only wasn't wearing that weird looking cap on his head or had his guitar slung behind his back. With his blue hair, he actually might have fit in among the mystics. Or not. "Guess the whole gang's here." He pulled out his instrument and plucked an experimental string. "How 'bout a tune?"
True enough, Asellus's human gang was here. Including the stranger among them, that made four. Not much of a showing. Guess Asellus didn't have time to make too many friends while she was on the run. "Who's this?" Emelia asked, gesturing to the unfamiliar face among them.
"That's Charlie," Gen said. "He's a pilot. According to him, he helped Asellus and White Rose bust out of this region in the first place."
Arms crossed the whole time, the orange haired pilot smirked, twin tails of his bandana trailing behind him. "I also gave them a ride back. Well, Asellus in any case. Don't know what happened to White Rose, though I'm guessing it was bad the way Asellus looked."
Emelia nodded and turned to the two she knew. "Is it just me, or are we a little out of place around here?" She looked around at the various mystics, gathered in various cliques. She couldn't help but notice quite a few of them staring in their direction and then turn and talk to each other.
Gen stuck his eye down the rim of the bottle, peering at the remaining contents before taking another drink. "Don't know what you're talking about."
Lute shrugged. "Guess mystics only mix in with their own kind. White Rose must have been a freak."
"You know," Charlie said. "I swore that I'd never come here again. Twice. I think after this I'll swear a third time. These people don't know the meaning of entertainment."
"Third time's the charm," Lute said, starting a tune.
"So what happened to you guys after you left?" Emelia asked.
Gen looked into his bottle of wine again and seeing that it had been drained to the last drop, started flipping the bottle in midair casually, catching the fragile glass without even looking at it. "Well, after I got my ass kicked by that Lion chick, I took a month off to learn how to feel again. Got mixed up with a bunch of mecs after that. I think I might have saved the universe from total destruction or something, I don't know."
"And you, Lute?"
"Things were feeling a little too hot for me, after meeting up with Miss Lion," Lute said, his fingers expertly strumming his instrument. "Didn't want to end up like Gen. So I wandered around, met some folks just as queer as either of you two, loved a little, lost a little, had fun, had to run." He blinked and stopped playing. "Then I fought a giant robot."
"What do you mean by 'queer'?" Gen demanded.
"Strange. You know, queer. What about you, Miss Emelia? You stuck with Asellus the longest. What happened to you?"
"We ran into a couple more mystics. White Rose and Asellus had their usual weepy moments and such. We wandered a little, touring the regions, seeing the sights and all that. We hooked up with Ildon," Emelia immediately looked around the party and pointed him out. He was talking to another green haired mystic in powerful looking armor. "That's him, the one with the long hair. He was sent to help us, which was a good thing, cuz not long after we got into a scrape with some high and mighty mystic named Ciato. After that, I had certain obligations to meet with some other people and had to leave."
"Oh, so you don't know what happened to White Rose?" Lute asked.
Emelia shook her head. "She was still with Asellus when I left them. The way I heard it, she got sent to prison, or something."
Lute reared his head back in surprise. "Prison? For what? Can't imagine White Rose doing anything illegal."
Emelia shrugged. "Mystics have some weird ideas on what's a crime and what's not."
"Well, you know who I think is queer," Gen said, now swinging his bottle aimlessly through the air, "I mean *real* queer. . ."
"Hello," a gentle voice said from out of nowhere. Everyone immediately spun to see Gina standing in their midst. No one had seen her coming. Everyone issued one word greetings.
"Hey."
"Hello."
"Hi."
"Miss."
There was an awkward silence. Gina's smile slipped for a moment and she cleared her throat gently and looked to Emelia. "That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Miss Emelia. You know, I believe that was one of the dresses designed for Lady Asellus when she arrived here."
"Oh?"
"I used to work as a maid for a master tailor in Rootville." Gina cast her gaze to the side as she smiled faintly at the memory she was invoking. "I used to put this in front of me in front of a mirror and wonder what it would look like on me." She angled her head. "Mainly I wondered how it would look on the Sleeping Prince."
"Sleeping Prince?"
"Oh, yes. Before Lady Asellus awoke in Facinaturu, she'd been asleep for a long time. At the time, no one knew who she was, or even that she was a she. All people knew was that there was a sleeping prince of the mystics in Chateau Aiguille, waiting to wake into the world. I used to dream about who that prince would be and meeting him."
"Looks like you've come a long way," Gen said.
Gina nodded slightly. "I suppose."
"Sure you have. You're all good friends with Lady Asellus, right? And she's lord and master over all these guys around here." Gen took a look around him. "You're in good with someone in high places. I'd say that's a big step over tailor's maid."
Gina cast her eyes down. "Still, I feel like I know so little about her. I wasn't with her when she escaped from here. We only talked once or twice before she made her escape. I know so little about her adventures outside of Facinaturu. But you were all out there with her while I was stuck in Rootville, pining over her. Sometimes I wonder if this is all a dream."
"Hey," Lute said, gently touching her on the arm. "You weren't missing out on much. She was just some gal tryin' to live out her life like anyone else."
"While being hunted down like a dog," Emelia added.
Gina was silent for a time, gaze lowered ever so slightly before she shook her head and lifted her head. "She seemed so different after. . .well, after she recovered her strength from beating Orlouge, I noticed how different she was from the last time we talked, before she escaped from here. I always wondered just what happened out there."
"What? She's not telling you herself?" Gen asked.
"She tells me some things, but it's just not the same as actually being there. Besides, I can't help but feel that she's left out a few details from her stories. I just wish I knew what happened out there."
"Well, truth be told," Gen said, flipping his bottle the way Emelia could flip her guns, "I haven't even seen the girl since I got here."
"Me, neither," Lute said.
"She did seem a little different," Emelia admitted, fingering the delicate broach around her neck.
"What?" Gen exclaimed, a little put off. "You talked to her? What, she's too good to say hello to me?"
"I'm sure she's very preoccupied," Gina said apologetically. "There are a great deal of responsibilities in being Charm Lord." She eyed Emelia's necklace intently and spoke in a tone that desperately wanted to change the subject. "That's a beautiful piece of jewelry you have there. Did Gozarus make that for you?"
"Who?" Emelia looked down at the gift she'd received from a total stranger at Trinity Base. "No. This is mine."
"It's lovely," Gina said, leaning closer to look at the tiny figure centered below Emelia's neck.
"Hey," Lute said, his attention drawn. "Is that the Yorkland angel?"
"Yes," Emelia said. "So everyone keeps telling me."
"Well, I'll be. You don't find too many of those around these days. Mostly old folks are the only ones who even talk about it. Ma used to talk about the angel all the time."
"What's the big deal?" Gen asked, eyeing the golden image. "She's got a nice figure and all, but what's she done to get all the attention?"
"Aw, see, I'm not sure about the whole story, but the way Ma tells me, it goes like this. Yorkland today is a pretty sleepy little place, most people leadin' simple lives, everyone pretty laid back. According to Ma, Yorkland wasn't always like that. Like a long time ago, and I mean a *long* time ago, Yorkland was ruled over by some big evil. Some folks say it was an ancient civilization, others say it was a demon, others say it was some mystics, some just called it plain ol' evil. Anyway, this whatever it was ruled over Yorkland, taking what it pleased, doing whatever it wanted to the people living there. As you might imagine, people were a real stressed out, upset bunch. They were scared all the time, flinching at everything that moved, tempers flaring, fightin' with one another. Some just gave it all up and went to serve the evil. It was so bad, hardly anyone could do anything for themselves. Not a good time to be in.
"So one day, this angel comes to Yorkland. She's all kind and stuff, brings comfort to the downtrodden. But most important, she brings peace of mind to the people. People say that just by being there, she kept all the fears, the doubts, and the worries from getting to the Yorkland people. No matter what this evil did to 'em, the people just kept their peace of mind and went about their lives the best they could. It ain't long before the evil just ups and leaves everyone in peace.
"Kicked his ass, huh?" Gen said.
"Nah, nothing like that. The way the story goes, this evil fed off of the conflict and the fear, anger, and overall bad feelings running through everyone. With everyone all mellow, there's not much this evil could do 'cept take a hike. After that, everyone worshipped this angel. Even built a big ol' church in the mountains. Ma always said that when times were tough, you just pray to the angel to give you a clear mind. Course, looks like most everyone's forgotten about it by now."
"Yeah? I think that's got a lot to do with all the booze flowin' in and out of that place."
Lute laughed. "You could be right."
Gina nodded enthusiastically. "That's a fascinating story, Sir Lute."
"Aw, just Lute."
"Sometimes I wish I had a goddess like that to call on."
"Oh?" Gen asked. "Life ain't all roses here?"
Gina stifled a laugh, not sure if that was meant to be a joke or not. She was about to speak but suddenly cast her gaze to the center of the room. Asellus had just materialized there. Gina immediately left the humans and made a beeline for her Lady.
Ildon started towards the room and Emelia followed.
"Um, aren't you going to just teleport there?" she asked, staring down the vast distance between them and the throne room.
"It is disrespectful to teleport directly into a mystic gathering, especially one of the Charm Lord's."
"How about if we just teleport outside the room and walk in?"
Ildon stopped in his tracks and stared down the great length of hallway that still stretched between him and the room. "Sometimes I envy you humans." Before Emelia could ask why, he grasped onto her hand and they were next to the immense open doors. Emelia reappeared feeling the soft touch of a rose petal against her nose. The scent was lovely, filling her with a strangely relaxed sensation.
They entered, where a host of people were gathered. The first thing that struck Emelia was that, unlike everywhere else in Chateau Aiguille, it was actually bright in here. Banks of bright white crystals on towering poles and high braziers illuminated the vast room.
Most of the assembled were mystics. Wherever one stood, beautifully ornate jewelry caught the light. The twinkling of precious gems and metals accompanied every movement. Luxurious hair of exotic colors dominated the room: green, purple, white with streaks of lavender, blue, raven black. While most of the mystics looked human, there was just something about them that made it obvious that they weren't. Emelia couldn't quite place it. It was nothing she could see or even name, just a feeling, really. Whatever it was, Emelia knew that she was in a sea of strangers and she really didn't belong here. Even the dress she had picked out seemed terribly simple and out of place compared to all the finery around her. She looked all around for familiar faces.
A girl in a white gown and shawl greeted her and Ildon just inside the gate. "Hello, Ildon. Hello, it's good to have you here," she said in a soft voice, nodding to Emelia. She smiled gently. "You must be Emelia. Lady Asellus has talked so much about you."
"So I've heard. Who are you?"
The smile deepened. "Princess Gina." She curtsied. "How do you do?"
There was something strange about this girl. She seemed out of her element among all these mystics. Even the gown she wore seemed too big for her. The thought of a child playing dress up in her mother's clothing came to mind.
That wasn't entirely fair. Physically, Gina didn't look much younger than Asellus and Asellus wasn't much younger than Emelia. Put together, Emelia didn't think their years would add up to even seventy. It was the way Gina carried herself: very gentle, shy, and overwhelmed by her surroundings. Inexperience was the word, Emelia thought. "Oh. So what did 'Lady' Asellus say about me?"
"Mainly, she reminisces about the time you spent together. What you did, what you said." Gina's smile faded a bit. "I have to admit, I'm a little jealous. I wish I was there with you and Lady Asellus back then."
"Believe me, you don't. Those were dangerous times, right Ildon?"
The green haired mystic nodded. "Yes, they were. Were you there when Princess Lion or Ciato had attacked us, I fear you wouldn't be here with us today."
Gina sighed. "Still, you must have shared so much with each other. I even envy you and the time you spent with her, Ildon." She turned to address Emelia again. "She said you are a very steady person and very little throws you. You're always calm, you always know what to do." Gina folded her hands in front herself and looked to the side. "The way she sounded, she seemed to have looked up to you. Like a big sister."
Emelia laughed. "She said that?" She blushed. "You're kidding. If anyone filled out the big sister role, it was White Rose. Where is she, anyway?"
The gentle smile disappeared abruptly. Gina cast her eyes down. Even Ildon suddenly looked more grim than usual. "You haven't heard."
"Princess White Rose is no longer with us," Ildon intoned.
Emelia stood silent, staring at Ildon, shocked. White Rose and Asellus were inseperable. There wasn't a moment when she didn't see one without the other. "I'm. . .I'm sorry."
"She could come back," Gina said hopefully.
"What?" Emelia said, now confused.
"Princess White Rose is not dead," Ildon answered. "She's been trapped in the Dark Labyrinth. Lord Asellus has been trying to free her for months, but without success."
"Dark Labyrinth?" Emelia repeated, still confused.
"It is a prison dimension. Lord Asellus, White Rose, and I were sent there by Orlouge. We escaped, but not without a sacrifice."
"I see."
Ildon nodded and held his hand out to the throng of people collected within the great room. "In any case, I believe that there is a party we are supposed to attend," he said suddenly, walking away. Emelia wasn't quite sure, but she took it as a sign that Ildon didn't want to talk about White Rose anymore. She'd never seen Ildon upset about anything, but she was pretty sure she'd just seen him upset now.
She nodded and again looked around for familiar faces. She found two, two who also saw her and waved her over. As she drew closer, the sad news of White Rose was cast to the side by the sight of old friends. This was a party, after all, and wasn't a time to stew in bad feelings.
"What's up, gun girl? Didn't think you'd make it."
"Hey, blondie, nice to see ya again."
Emelia fixed a wry smile at the only two faces she recognized in this whole room. They were also about the only humans who were in this room, though there was one other with them whom she didn't recognize. They were dressed up in old fashioned tuxedoes, looking utterly ridiculous, especially since they opted to keep some of their usual accessories.
Gen still had a headband wrapped around his forehead and clapped Emelia on the shoulder. A dark green bottle of Facinaturu's finest was in his hand. It looked like Gen had already chugged down more than half of it. "Look at you. They dressed you up nice. You fill out that dress like nobody's business." He took a swig of the bottle and wiped his lips.
Emelia rolled her eyes. "Wish I could say the same for you."
Lute actually looked a little more in place in his suit, if he only wasn't wearing that weird looking cap on his head or had his guitar slung behind his back. With his blue hair, he actually might have fit in among the mystics. Or not. "Guess the whole gang's here." He pulled out his instrument and plucked an experimental string. "How 'bout a tune?"
True enough, Asellus's human gang was here. Including the stranger among them, that made four. Not much of a showing. Guess Asellus didn't have time to make too many friends while she was on the run. "Who's this?" Emelia asked, gesturing to the unfamiliar face among them.
"That's Charlie," Gen said. "He's a pilot. According to him, he helped Asellus and White Rose bust out of this region in the first place."
Arms crossed the whole time, the orange haired pilot smirked, twin tails of his bandana trailing behind him. "I also gave them a ride back. Well, Asellus in any case. Don't know what happened to White Rose, though I'm guessing it was bad the way Asellus looked."
Emelia nodded and turned to the two she knew. "Is it just me, or are we a little out of place around here?" She looked around at the various mystics, gathered in various cliques. She couldn't help but notice quite a few of them staring in their direction and then turn and talk to each other.
Gen stuck his eye down the rim of the bottle, peering at the remaining contents before taking another drink. "Don't know what you're talking about."
Lute shrugged. "Guess mystics only mix in with their own kind. White Rose must have been a freak."
"You know," Charlie said. "I swore that I'd never come here again. Twice. I think after this I'll swear a third time. These people don't know the meaning of entertainment."
"Third time's the charm," Lute said, starting a tune.
"So what happened to you guys after you left?" Emelia asked.
Gen looked into his bottle of wine again and seeing that it had been drained to the last drop, started flipping the bottle in midair casually, catching the fragile glass without even looking at it. "Well, after I got my ass kicked by that Lion chick, I took a month off to learn how to feel again. Got mixed up with a bunch of mecs after that. I think I might have saved the universe from total destruction or something, I don't know."
"And you, Lute?"
"Things were feeling a little too hot for me, after meeting up with Miss Lion," Lute said, his fingers expertly strumming his instrument. "Didn't want to end up like Gen. So I wandered around, met some folks just as queer as either of you two, loved a little, lost a little, had fun, had to run." He blinked and stopped playing. "Then I fought a giant robot."
"What do you mean by 'queer'?" Gen demanded.
"Strange. You know, queer. What about you, Miss Emelia? You stuck with Asellus the longest. What happened to you?"
"We ran into a couple more mystics. White Rose and Asellus had their usual weepy moments and such. We wandered a little, touring the regions, seeing the sights and all that. We hooked up with Ildon," Emelia immediately looked around the party and pointed him out. He was talking to another green haired mystic in powerful looking armor. "That's him, the one with the long hair. He was sent to help us, which was a good thing, cuz not long after we got into a scrape with some high and mighty mystic named Ciato. After that, I had certain obligations to meet with some other people and had to leave."
"Oh, so you don't know what happened to White Rose?" Lute asked.
Emelia shook her head. "She was still with Asellus when I left them. The way I heard it, she got sent to prison, or something."
Lute reared his head back in surprise. "Prison? For what? Can't imagine White Rose doing anything illegal."
Emelia shrugged. "Mystics have some weird ideas on what's a crime and what's not."
"Well, you know who I think is queer," Gen said, now swinging his bottle aimlessly through the air, "I mean *real* queer. . ."
"Hello," a gentle voice said from out of nowhere. Everyone immediately spun to see Gina standing in their midst. No one had seen her coming. Everyone issued one word greetings.
"Hey."
"Hello."
"Hi."
"Miss."
There was an awkward silence. Gina's smile slipped for a moment and she cleared her throat gently and looked to Emelia. "That's a lovely dress you're wearing, Miss Emelia. You know, I believe that was one of the dresses designed for Lady Asellus when she arrived here."
"Oh?"
"I used to work as a maid for a master tailor in Rootville." Gina cast her gaze to the side as she smiled faintly at the memory she was invoking. "I used to put this in front of me in front of a mirror and wonder what it would look like on me." She angled her head. "Mainly I wondered how it would look on the Sleeping Prince."
"Sleeping Prince?"
"Oh, yes. Before Lady Asellus awoke in Facinaturu, she'd been asleep for a long time. At the time, no one knew who she was, or even that she was a she. All people knew was that there was a sleeping prince of the mystics in Chateau Aiguille, waiting to wake into the world. I used to dream about who that prince would be and meeting him."
"Looks like you've come a long way," Gen said.
Gina nodded slightly. "I suppose."
"Sure you have. You're all good friends with Lady Asellus, right? And she's lord and master over all these guys around here." Gen took a look around him. "You're in good with someone in high places. I'd say that's a big step over tailor's maid."
Gina cast her eyes down. "Still, I feel like I know so little about her. I wasn't with her when she escaped from here. We only talked once or twice before she made her escape. I know so little about her adventures outside of Facinaturu. But you were all out there with her while I was stuck in Rootville, pining over her. Sometimes I wonder if this is all a dream."
"Hey," Lute said, gently touching her on the arm. "You weren't missing out on much. She was just some gal tryin' to live out her life like anyone else."
"While being hunted down like a dog," Emelia added.
Gina was silent for a time, gaze lowered ever so slightly before she shook her head and lifted her head. "She seemed so different after. . .well, after she recovered her strength from beating Orlouge, I noticed how different she was from the last time we talked, before she escaped from here. I always wondered just what happened out there."
"What? She's not telling you herself?" Gen asked.
"She tells me some things, but it's just not the same as actually being there. Besides, I can't help but feel that she's left out a few details from her stories. I just wish I knew what happened out there."
"Well, truth be told," Gen said, flipping his bottle the way Emelia could flip her guns, "I haven't even seen the girl since I got here."
"Me, neither," Lute said.
"She did seem a little different," Emelia admitted, fingering the delicate broach around her neck.
"What?" Gen exclaimed, a little put off. "You talked to her? What, she's too good to say hello to me?"
"I'm sure she's very preoccupied," Gina said apologetically. "There are a great deal of responsibilities in being Charm Lord." She eyed Emelia's necklace intently and spoke in a tone that desperately wanted to change the subject. "That's a beautiful piece of jewelry you have there. Did Gozarus make that for you?"
"Who?" Emelia looked down at the gift she'd received from a total stranger at Trinity Base. "No. This is mine."
"It's lovely," Gina said, leaning closer to look at the tiny figure centered below Emelia's neck.
"Hey," Lute said, his attention drawn. "Is that the Yorkland angel?"
"Yes," Emelia said. "So everyone keeps telling me."
"Well, I'll be. You don't find too many of those around these days. Mostly old folks are the only ones who even talk about it. Ma used to talk about the angel all the time."
"What's the big deal?" Gen asked, eyeing the golden image. "She's got a nice figure and all, but what's she done to get all the attention?"
"Aw, see, I'm not sure about the whole story, but the way Ma tells me, it goes like this. Yorkland today is a pretty sleepy little place, most people leadin' simple lives, everyone pretty laid back. According to Ma, Yorkland wasn't always like that. Like a long time ago, and I mean a *long* time ago, Yorkland was ruled over by some big evil. Some folks say it was an ancient civilization, others say it was a demon, others say it was some mystics, some just called it plain ol' evil. Anyway, this whatever it was ruled over Yorkland, taking what it pleased, doing whatever it wanted to the people living there. As you might imagine, people were a real stressed out, upset bunch. They were scared all the time, flinching at everything that moved, tempers flaring, fightin' with one another. Some just gave it all up and went to serve the evil. It was so bad, hardly anyone could do anything for themselves. Not a good time to be in.
"So one day, this angel comes to Yorkland. She's all kind and stuff, brings comfort to the downtrodden. But most important, she brings peace of mind to the people. People say that just by being there, she kept all the fears, the doubts, and the worries from getting to the Yorkland people. No matter what this evil did to 'em, the people just kept their peace of mind and went about their lives the best they could. It ain't long before the evil just ups and leaves everyone in peace.
"Kicked his ass, huh?" Gen said.
"Nah, nothing like that. The way the story goes, this evil fed off of the conflict and the fear, anger, and overall bad feelings running through everyone. With everyone all mellow, there's not much this evil could do 'cept take a hike. After that, everyone worshipped this angel. Even built a big ol' church in the mountains. Ma always said that when times were tough, you just pray to the angel to give you a clear mind. Course, looks like most everyone's forgotten about it by now."
"Yeah? I think that's got a lot to do with all the booze flowin' in and out of that place."
Lute laughed. "You could be right."
Gina nodded enthusiastically. "That's a fascinating story, Sir Lute."
"Aw, just Lute."
"Sometimes I wish I had a goddess like that to call on."
"Oh?" Gen asked. "Life ain't all roses here?"
Gina stifled a laugh, not sure if that was meant to be a joke or not. She was about to speak but suddenly cast her gaze to the center of the room. Asellus had just materialized there. Gina immediately left the humans and made a beeline for her Lady.