Author's Note: Quick note here - 'Stasis' means unchanging state, so when Aerie puts on a stasis it means she froze whatever she put it on, sans ice. In ancient Greek, stasis means civil war, and in modern Greek it means bus stop, but I don't write in either of these, so Aerie is not applying either a civil war or a bus stop.
Disclaimer: That which I own includes numerous characters and storylines of my own, the exclusive right to use Trisak and Aerie in stories even if I don't own them, a green dress that looks like a sack that I sewed the other day, a chipped crystal decanter, a bag of hula skirts, and many elusive pencils. It does not extend to any copyrights whatsoever and certainly not to ownership of the Inu-tachi. I have said this and so may not be sued if Takahashi ever gets it into her head to do so. Does anyone think she actually reads fanfic?
NefCanuck: I was kind of thinking she didn't know English…. But yeah, whichever, Aerie was lucky. You seem to agree with everyone else, and so the consensus is, Kirara's here and has been.
medlii: Hee. Missed chapter twelve? Thank you! I'm glad it's funny! It's a newly discovered skill. Yes, not good at all. Kileb has a penchant for world conquest, which it is to be hoped Naraku won't be picking up, eh? The elves weren't all in chapter seven, Lel just appeared in Aerie's flashback. Bwahaha, chicken ate my homework! I know it's bad form to laugh at your own joke, but I get a kick out of that chicken.
biggest anime fan: Know you won't get to read this right away, what with the internet down and all, but that's OK! Heehee, I've been drawing Kileb lately…too bad our scanner doesn't work. Oh well. It wasn't this chappie I said was boring, it was ch. 4 of Sam's story…which has actually improved, although it's all about Ro and thus in a different style than the last three mostly were…. I'll send it to you when your e-mail's back up. Anyway! Hee. Yeppers, you're in the author's note! And I think you're staying. Awww, yes, I like it when he takes care of her like that. So sweet.
Kileb: Um, I like you too. Hi. Will you buy me something to eat? I'll buy next time, after I've conquered somewhere and have something to buy food with. Promise! charming smile
Ahem. By the way, I'm afraid he's going to go on being evil in the story even though you like him. When the plot calls for him to do really mean things, he's going to do them…. Anyway. Don't feel stupid about not remembering Lel, it was a really teensy appearance. Not even really an appearance. He's the one who was trying to smooth over the blown-up pub thing in Aerie's flashback. Thanks for all the compliments! Pshaw, I'm really not all that good! I'm not! blushness
Ear-Tweak: Oh, I did? Sorry I forgot. Thank you, come again! Sorry this took so long!
Ganheim: I know, I know, I was just kidding. My English teacher is a bear about proper usage of quotations, so it just came to me. Otherwise: OK, the consensus is that Kirara is here. Sorry, I've abandoned you, haven't I? I'm sorry, I'm just lazy, and reading your chapters is such a lot of work, because they're so long and I have to keep going back and rereading things to make sure I understand them. XD Forsythia. Yes, I know, when people use words badly, whatever language they're in, it's positively painful. I feel your pain. But I like these words, they feel more specific than the translated versions. OK, thanks. And I didn't really mean to fire my beta, she may not notice much, but it would be mean to fire her. Hasta luego!
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"No, I do not want you to have a look at it!" Inuyasha's frustrated shout rang through the woods, making this the second day in a row that the inu-tachi were connected with the silencing of birds. The chicken, which had decided to adopt them, flutter-hopped onto his head and he shook it off with a snarl.
"Ok, ok!" Aerie replied, "I just thought maybe I could give you a hand with it! I'm not all that secure with you being one-armed and all."
"Sesshoumaru manages well enough with only one arm, Aerie-sama," Miroku pointed out, scattering the coals and kicking earth over the remains of the fire.
"True," Aerie agreed, electing to give up on Inuyasha and moving to Miroku's side, "he does. And it isn't like Inu-kun is left-handed, so that's alright, he can still fight."
Miroku blinked at her and her hand went to her mouth, immediately realizing her own slip of the tongue.
"What did you call me!" Inuyasha demanded.
Aerie retreated, hands in the air, knowing she had made a mistake. "Nothing! I mean, it wasn't important! It's just something we used to call you. It's meant to be a term of affection!"
Inuyasha leaned close to her, glaring her full in the face as if searching her soul, then turned away, folding his arms. "Keh."
"Whew," Aerie breathed, sitting down very abruptly on the grassy side of a hillock.
"Aerie-sama…" Miroku said, "you do know that 'kun' is usually a superior-to-inferior form, don't you?"
"Yes," she admitted, "it just slipped out. We used to call him that when we were talking about you guys. It really was meant as a term of affection, like with good friends. Even if we aren't, really. In Kagome's and my time, it's used among male students." She felt the houshi's sharp eye on her, and knew he was going to say 'we?' any second now, and press her to explain with whom she used to discuss Inuyasha. "While we're on the subject of honorifics," she said hurriedly, "about the 'sama.' You really don't need it, just call me by my name? It reminds me too much of…of someone else." Of the way Trisak used to 'milady' her every other sentence. Before she was a person in her own right to him.
"Very well," said Miroku, making the decision not to pry for the moment. He sat down beside her with his staff leaning on his shoulder, staring off into the distance with the vague look he usually got when he was being patriarchal. "Aerie. Someday, I hope, you will trust us enough to tell us the whole truth."
Aerie bit her lip. "It isn't really about trust, Miroku-dono," she said, "it's just…well, it's a lot of things, really. There are other people's stories that aren't mine to tell, and I'm afraid telling you would make you see me differently, and I don't know if I'll be believed, and," she flashed a grin and swept her hair back, "I want to preserve my aura of mystery."
"I still hope you will tell us some day," Miroku replied with a smile, standing. He paused and looked over his shoulder at her. "And if you are simply Aerie, then I must be Miroku."
"Alright, Miroku," she said, "and, you know…." He cocked his head, waiting. "If you treated Sango like you treat me – you know, like a, a friend? – I think you'd get along loads better."
Miroku stared at her until she flushed and looked away. "Look, I'm sorry," she mumbled, "I just hate seeing you two miss each other in the dark because of that stupid habit of yours. Forget I said anything. It's none of my business." She got up and went to help Kagome with her backpack. Perfect. She'd managed to be rude to both the grown guys in the party before they'd even gotten moving. She thought she'd hang with Shippou and Kirara and the chicken today. They were much easier to get on with.
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"Why did you flee?" Naraku asked Kileb for the thousandth time.
"I told you, Theatre Basement," Kileb replied, looking up from the lanyard he was plaiting, "I'm not ready for a head-on conflict again yet. The girl set me back several months last time I encountered her, and the time before that with the help of an army she spoiled the work of centuries. Very annoying." He gave an engaging smile and put his head to one side, as if to indicate that even the annoyingness of having had several centuries of work destroyed was not enough to put him in bad temper or damage his judgment.
"I see," said Naraku.
Kileb nodded, tying off his latest little project and then holding it up and peering at it as if wondering what in the world to do with a lanyard now he had one. "It's what they call a tactical withdrawal. But now we need to advance the next step."
"An attack, you mean." Naraku said calmly. He was glad the discussion was on relevant topics now. Having been nagged for two hours to demonstrate his ability to play the bagpipes after their 'tactical withdrawal' had not improved his temper.
He looked over at Kagura, lingering by the door. "You may go," he directed, tired of having her here listening to the conversation. He wished he'd never so much as heard of Kileb, especially when he was calling him Theatre Basement and trying to persuade him to give a bagpipe concert and singing. Gods, that singing. Off and on and usually quite quiet and cheerful, but so annoying. Of course, if you listened to the lyrics you got a whole new layer of confusion. Sometimes he was singing cheerful little numbers about the sky or young love or something else like that, and sometimes they celebrated death and destruction and the loneliness of someone who has had everything that means anything to them carefully and artfully stripped away. And both were treated with exactly the same sort of glee.
Kagura left as she had been told, and Kileb called after her, "and send Lelentaeli in if you see him."
"Did you get it?" Yanagi asked Kagura as the latter emerged. She had been waiting in the hallway, scrubbing the floor anytime someone happened to look but drawing out the job as long as she could. They went to the first bend in the hallway before they talked anymore. Doors are not wholly efficient sound barriers.
"Yes, to my surprise," Kagura replied. She held up the key that she had stolen from the distracted Naraku earlier that day. He was distracted because of his flaming haired ally, who since reducing Rani to bloody fragments had been vague and odd and polite to everyone he met. They, of course, were all scrupulously polite to him. No one forgot how dangerous he was, even when he was invading the kitchen and giving Yuriko, the cook, advice about spices.
"Well done," Yanagi said, taking the key. "You shouldn't be surprised. I train a good pickpocket, and he'd hardly have been expecting you to take this."
Kagura regarded the key, which Yanagi had described to her by its matching of the lock on the door they planned to open. However it had been that the girl had both known about the door and gotten a good look at its lock. She was growing used to Yanagi knowing everything. "Are you sure this is the right one?"
Yanagi nodded. "Positive. This is the only new key for the only new lock. Trust me. I know this castle like I know my own heart." Kagura winced inwardly , and Yanagi closed her eyes for a moment. The wind's sister was her ally. There was no point to alienating her. "Let's go," she said. "Kanna?"
"On the other side of the castle," Kagura replied, utilizing her ability to locate any of her 'siblings' instantaneously. "Upstairs. No threat."
"Right," Yanagi said. A girl, younger than herself, in a purple kimono, came around the corner. Her eyes were wide and nervous but her expression was set. "Ah, Kyoko, good. Take over this floor and run for it if they come out." She clapped Kyoko on the shoulder. "You're a brave woman, Kyoko. Thank you." Kyoko smiled back and bent to pick up the brush and pail. She had a dangerous task for which Yanagi had requested volunteers rather than demanding it of anyone, and she was proud to have received four of them. She had chosen Kyoko for her speed and skill at getting away quickly. Yanagi was beginning to worry, though. Her pack was handpicked, and success depended on smooth operation, but there was contention arising. They were splitting on the issue of Kagura. Some resented her for having used the bodies of their dead in her Dance of the Dead, while others agreed with Yanagi that she was more fellow prisoner than oppressor. Yanagi shook her head. Back to work. "Kyoko will tell Amarante, who will run for us and tell us that Naraku's not in his room anymore, and we'll try to finish up fast just in case." She told Kagura. "We won't be caught." And, Kagura flabbergasted at what they were doing, they invaded Naraku's private sub-dungeon chamber. "Faugh," Yanagi said, lighting her torch, as she reached the bottom of the ladder, "this place reeks."
"You'll hear no arguments from me," Kagura replied, slipping down beside her, her bare feet under her long kimono hitting the ground silently. The place was not as bad as it had been on her first visit, full of the grotesque form of the disempowered Naraku, but it was hardly a treat to breathe the air down here, either.
Yanagi rubbed her hands together. "Alright. Let's get cracking."
"Are you sure about this approach, willow-girl?" the youkai-hanyou-windwitch-whatever (and you'd better believe it gave her headaches trying to figure out how she was suppose to be classified) asked.
"Quite sure, wind-woman," Yanagi replied. "Do you have a better plan?"
Kagura shook her head. "No. Let us begin."
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Lelentaeli walked down the hallway toward the chamber he had been instructed to return to at this time. Actually, walked does not do justice to the way he moved. He looked as though someone had glued a ramrod to his spine and told him that making any noise at all was punishable by death. He passed a girl in purple scrubbing the floor and when she looked up at him gave her a faint smile and then looked away quickly, as if ready to deny ever having done it. He knocked sharply on the door to Naraku's chamber.
"Ah, Lelentaeli, come in!" called Kileb. "I see that Kagura did not find you, but you are here in good time, as always."
Lelentaeli entered and bowed. "Orders?" he said woodenly.
Kileb smiled. "Very good," he said. "Here for your orders. Very well. These are your orders." He dictated them. Lelentaeli bowed, said, 'It shall be done,' and departed. Kileb looked fondly after him. "Look at him. You'd never guess he spent three hundred years despising me." The smugness of one who has his enemy doing his bidding was just evident in his tone, along with something that sounded like almost fatherly pride.
"How do you do it?" Naraku asked. He knew how he had gotten hold of Kohaku, but that hinged partially on Kohaku not knowing that Naraku had done anything to hate him for. If he could get such a performance out of Inuyasha, now….
"A little bit of fear, a little bit of hope, a little bit of self-hatred, and a lot of pain," Kileb replied. "And a pinch of cinnamon."
It may or may not be of interest to you that he was, in fact, telling the truth about the cinnamon.
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Inuyasha and Kagome had a fight over something or other around noon. It began with the chicken's fondness for Inuyasha's head and his desire to wring its neck and have it for dinner, but it didn't stay there. They said a great variety of things they did not really mean. Inuyasha did not bring up Kikyou this time. Kagome bitterly resented the fact that she could not go home in a huff because they didn't know where they were. She was exhausted. She had lost a lot of sleep staying up with Aerie, and Inuyasha could carry neither her nor her bag with practically no skin on his back. She fell back to walk with Sango, who was allowing Inuyasha to lead. They were still lost. Inuyasha appeared to be operating on the theory that if they kept going in the same direction long enough, they would bump into something they recognized.
This theory had not yet produced results near dusk, when they encountered a spider-youkai, a tsuchigumo, to be precise, with a shard of the shikon no tama. It was the first battle for a shard they had had in a while, and it was rather a surprise to find another so soon after having gotten that one from Rath-tama. Shikon no kakera were growing few and far between.
"There can't be many left," Sango remarked, petting Kirara's head as they sat about a fire after the battle. The chicken was sitting between Shippou and Aerie on the far side of the fire from Inuyasha, having finally learned its lesson. It was too late to go on, although the spider had been an easy opponent. Inuyasha had not even bothered to draw Tetsusaiga, just delivered the killing blow with his claws after Sango's boomerang had crippled the immense thing with a special fury. It was entirely too much like the spider Naraku had used to draw her family to his castle. "Shards," she clarified now, "can't be many shards of the jewel left out there. This could even be the last one in circulation."
Everyone looked at the little crystalline bit of danger contemplatively. "Well, if that's so, so much the better," Miroku commented, "no more villages will be drawn into this mess."
"Yes," Kagome agreed. "That's one good thing."
Aerie nodded slowly. Do you feel responsible, Kagome? She almost asked. For the people who get hurt because of the shards your arrow spread over this island? But she kept her mouth shut. She was very proud of herself. She grinned.
"What are you smirking about?" Inuyasha demanded. She had tripped, bumped into his back hard, and caused him to yelp in a thoroughly undignified manner midafternoon, and he was still mad at her.
"Oh, nothing," she replied, his bad mood sliding off her like water off a duck, "just thinking. Inuyasha," she said slowly, addressing him as if he were a rare species of butterfly or moss that she had unexpectedly discovered in her lunch pail, "I'm afraid I'm going to be forever asking you questions. Hanging around you lot is too good an opportunity to pass up."
"What is it this time?" Inuyasha groused. He was growing used to her. Probably too used to her.
Aerie was pecked by the chicken and stuck her tongue out at it. "Catch me feeding you any more crumbs," she told it, before looking back at Inuyasha. "Just assuming this is the last freelance shard, beating Kouga and Naraku for their bits is all that's left in the way of getting the whole thing put together. Once that's done – what will you do?"
A silence descended. No one had asked Inuyasha that for a good while now. Everyone wanted to hear the answer. He was stonily silent, glaring into the coals. You could just make out that he was pondering ferociously, and not hypnotized, if you looked closely. "Because you won't become human, of course." Aerie said, when she deemed he'd had long enough to think, "Your reason for doing that is gone. And personally I don't think you could have survived a settled life anyway, you probably would have lost your marbles. But using it to become a full demon…. I doubt that's what you want anymore. For plenty of reasons. You'd have to get it away from Kagome, for starters. And then there's that whole bloodthirstiness thing…" She shut up and got pecked by the chicken again. Quit while you were ahead.
"I don't know," Inuyasha admitted gruffly, through his teeth. "I don't know what I want. Good enough for you, miss nose?"
"You should think about it, then," said Aerie serenely, tossing her hair.
Inuyasha scowled and tucked his fists into his sleeves. "Keh. Like it makes any difference without the whole Jewel anyway."
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The watcher nodded slowly, a grin stealing across his face. All right, this he had to get in on. This was going to be almost as easy as the original point of all this, and a load of fun. She still didn't know he was here. Getting slow these days, eh? He settled back on his heels to wait for them to go to sleep.
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Aerie woke up in the middle of the night to the feeling of potentiality. Power was building up for something…something that had to do with wishes…. That's funny, she thought, it feels like it's coming from over by Inuyasha…. I wonder what he could possibly be doing at this time of night….
"Sproinkle," said Inuyasha distinctly, obviously asleep. She couldn't see him saying anything along the lines of 'sproinkle' otherwise. She wondered what he was dreaming.
She sat bolt upright.
Inuyasha was asleep, and there was a huge potentiality building around him. Either he was having one heck of a powerful dream – unlikely for several reasons, 'sproinkle' not the least – or something was taking advantage of the fact that he was asleep. He wouldn't even be able to tell that there was power swirling around him. Now that she was properly awake she couldn't feel it either, actually. It was just in the receptive in-between state of half-wakeful-ness that she'd been tuned to the right mental station. Still, her eyes were open now, and there was no mistaking that there was a figure bending over Inuyasha where he was asleep on the far side of the darkened clearing.
"Hey!" she protested. People didn't go around bending over people she was travelling with and doing funny things to them without so much as a by-your-leave! She hurled the first and second things which came to mind at the far side of the clearing, the first being a big rock and the second being a strong stasis, intended to freeze the nightcreeper in his or her tracks.
Inuyasha wound up being the victim of both. The lithe little figure beside him turned, tearing through the stasis as if it wasn't there, and the rock just plain missed and hit Inuyasha hard on the chest, waking him up. Before he had time to do anything but let out one loud curse, the stasis hit him, and he went rigid, staring helplessly at the sky with his eyes thrown wide.
OK, that was the bungled rescue attempt of the decade, Aerie admitted to herself privately, as she jumped up to face the intruder. She was mentally running through good, sturdy things she could do, when he'd already torn through her stasis like tissue paper. The rest of the tachi was waking up now, or at least, Sango and Miroku were. Kagome was stirring, and Shippou slumbered on.
"Don't bother," said the invader with a grin in his voice, a nimbus of electric-blue light gathering around his hand and illuminating his face, "I taught you everything you know."
"Trisak?" she gasped.
"The same," he replied smugly.
"Why'd you come sneaking up at night like this?" she asked, confused. "And…what were you doing to Inuyasha?" Trisak tried a charming half-smile. "Tell me." She commanded ominously.
He told her.
The inu-tachi awoke rather earlier than they'd planned to, to the sound of Aerie shouting, "You just can't do things like that! It's the worst kind of meddling! I thought you said you were supposed to stay out of mortal lives most of the time!" while a five-foot stranger with wings like a dragonfly protested,
"You're one to talk! It was just a bit of a joke! I was just giving him his choice! I wasn't going to do anything!"
"Don't give me that! You weren't going to tell him, were you? So it was thoroughly nasty! Do you know how often he says things he doesn't mean? You could have gotten him to turn himself into a cockatoo!"
"Has he ever said he wants to be a cockatoo?" Trisak asked with interest.
"Well, no…" admitted Aerie. "That was just an example! My point remains that – oh. Good, um, morning, everybody."
"What's going on?" asked Sango. "Who is this?"
"Um, this is Trisak…" said Aerie, "biggest dope in the multiverse, let me tell you. Tris, these are, in descending order of size, Miroku, Sango, Kagome, Shippou, and Kirara. And a chicken."
"Pleased to meet you," Trisak said, with an engaging grin and a bobbing sort of bow.
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH INUYASHA!" Kagome exclaimed from his side, where she had evidently gone first thing when she realized he was still lying down. Miroku, Sango, and Shippou moved to see. "He's all stiff and he's just staring at the sky and he's not breathing!"
Miroku looked at Trisak, eyes narrow. "What did you do?"
Aerie raised a hand. "Eh-heh. That was me, actually." Everyone stared at her. It felt like being at the front of the class when your lame science-project volcano has just produced the explosion of the century and covered everyone in red-dyed vinegar froth. "But it's just a stasis! It'll come right off, and he'll be fine!"
"So take it off," Miroku recommended.
"Only if he promises he won't rip me into pieces before I get a chance to explain everything," Aerie replied guardedly.
"How is he to promise that? Or indeed say anything at all?" Miroku asked, looking toward Inuyasha's static form.
"Uh, true. OK, if Kagome promises."
"He won't," Kagome assured her, "I still want an explanation."
"Right," said Aerie, and took the stasis off.
Inuyasha bounded upright, face dark with rage. He did not like being made to feel helpless. In fact, he loathed it. "You bloody wench!" he growled, going for her. The reason he did not say something stronger is that this is a K-rated fic.
"Osuwari, Inuyasha," Kagome directed. He was introduced to a new patch of ground. It had a rock in it. The rock broke.
"Hard head," Trisak commented admiringly. Aerie gave him a pointed look. "Whaaat? Oh, I have to explain? You're the one who froze him!"
"You're the one who came up with and attempted to implement that crazy plot! You can tell them about it!"
Trisak sighed. "Alright, fine. You're a hard taskmaster, milady."
Kagome watched the two impatiently, waiting for them to get to the point. Aerie was telling Trisak not to call her milady and to start talking, the story wasn't going to get any less stupid. Apparently she knew him rather well. No one would talk to a new acquaintance like that. Not even Aerie.
"Let's all sit down!" suggested the stranger brightly. He was a bit short even by Japanese standards, about five centimeters shorter than Kagome, and had very curly hair that made her think of chocolate and twinkling blue-grey eyes and a grin. He was wearing all green and brown in some really old Western style, sort of like the 'elves' that had attacked them, only with a vest. And, she saw as he sat down, he had wings, shining transparent ones like a dragonfly's. Strange. Maybe he was a dragonfly youkai or something. That might explain it. Was there such a thing?
Everybody sat down, or in Inuyasha's case sat up. Miroku put some kindling and a few bigger pieces of wood on the fire, throwing jumping light on the circle of expectant faces.
"Well, you see," said Trisak, "it started with me getting away from some lunatic who wanted to duel with me, but that's not important. Important bit starts when I sat in the bushes outside your camp and happened to overhear a conversation regarding a magic bead."
"Eavesdropped, you mean," Aerie put in.
He chuckled and shrugged. "I am what I am. Anyway, I overheard –" He broke off, looking up. "What the…."
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And so what Trisak was doing to Inuyasha you will have to wait until chapter fifteen to find out! Haha! And what Yanagi and Kagura are doing you will also have to wait to find out! And exactly what Kileb told Lelentaeli to do you will also have to wait to find out! I'm evil! Heehee! Haha! Kihiii! And sundry other forms of evil laughter. Contact the Clarinetists for lessons. Yes, Lelentaeli & co are really very nice people. Kileb's just really good at enslaving.
Trisak: Hurrah! My debut! Well, not really, but I finally get to meet these people in plot instead of in Authors' Notes!
TrisakA: You know, these Authors' Notes make me wish I hadn't stolen your name. Is it hard to read with the one-letter difference, peopleses?
Trisak: Serves you right if it is. Name-thief!
Aerie: Why is everybody mad at me, too, that's what I want to know!
Miroku: No one is mad at you, Aerie.
Inuyasha: Yeah right, monk!
Trisak: Anyway, I want to hurry up and rescue Lel' already.
Aerie: Ditto!
TrisakA: Wait on it, wait on it….
Trisak: What, are you sadistic?
TrisakA: It's a story; I can't make things easy for you guys! Especially him! I think he's going to be my angstiness factor, because I don't know how to write without one!
Shippou: Meany.
TrisakA: Am not!
Shippou: Are so!
TrisakA: Am not!
Shippou: Are so! And you smell funny!
TrisakA: Am not! Do not! Anyway, Tris, Kileb's the one who's sadisitic!
Kileb: Am not.
Company: Are so.
Kileb: These are the days / Of miracle and wonder / This is the long distance call / The way the camera follows us in slow-mo / The way we look to us all / The way we look to a distant constellation / That's dying in a corner of the sky / These are the days of miracle and wonder / And don't cry baby, don't cry / Don't cry.
Company: cricket, cricket
TrisakA: Please sing your Paul Simon elsewhere, Kileb.
Kileb: Where?
TrisakA: Over there, see? Biggest anime fan has tea.
Kileb: Oh! Hi baf! Have an extra cup::makes for baf while singing: It was a slow day / And the sun was beating / On the soldiers by the side of the road / There was a bright light / A shattering of shop windows / The bomb in the baby carriage / Was wired to the radio –
TrisakA: Shut up! I didn't realize how sick that part of that song was until I heard you singing it! It's supposed to be kind of mournful, everybody.
Yanagi: Can we have lunch now?
TrisakA: Sure. Wow, these Authors' Notes no longer have much connection with the story, do they? Must remedy that…. Anyway, please review me! Pretty please! Even though I took…wow, almost two months, summer months, to write it! In my defense, I don't get hold of the computer very often when I'm at home with my sister. She can sit in this chair for ten straight hours reading fanfics and still have no intention of stopping when Mom turns her out to check her e-mail.