8: I Never Knew Lost Was Such A Nice Place

Mysa felt wind whistling through her ears, as if she was moving really fast, but if she was, she couldn't tell. It was all black around her, and she had no sense of where she was, though she assumed she was falling, because she could feel nothing under her feet. For a moment, she wondered where Hiei was, but gave up and just enjoyed the feeling of plummeting. After all, it is an enjoyable feeling, otherwise we wouldn't have rides that are made just to make you fall from great heights. I love those rides... anyway:

Hiei was bewildered. 'Hasn't this... already happened!' The edges of the dream pushed on his conscious, but he didn't really pay attention. Back in the room, he had been listening to Mysa, but had only half believed what she was saying. Now he was falling, and he didn't know what was going on, only that he was in a lot of pain, as if he had just been cleaved in half.

Together they landed on a soft surface: a giant mound of clothes. Mysa shrieked and slid off the pile, her shriek of surprise becoming one of joy. "Whee!" With a thud, she landed feet first on the ground, only to be knocked over by Hiei, who had followed accidentally. The clothes under him had given way after Mysa had slid by. Roughly pushing him off, the human quickly got to her feet, and stared at the landscape.

"I never knew Lost was such a nice place. No wonder..." She ended her sentence abruptly, startled by a thought that occurred to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hiei's spiky hair, and she turned to look at him.

And just as quickly turned away, her face on fire. "Uh... Hiei... Do you think it's a bit breezy here!" She squeaked out.

Hiei was still in a huge amount of pain, and was greatly irritated at Mysa for asking such a stupid question. "What the hell do you mean!" The sensation of being cut in half was so strong that Hiei looked down. "WHAT THE FUCK!" He shouted, and jumped into the nearby pile of clothes, only his head sticking out for air. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, BAKA!" Mysa glared in his general direction.

"How would I know! Are you saying that your being naked is my fault!" Reaching blindly around her feet, she grabbed the first thing she touched and threw it his way. "Have some decency and put some clothes on!" She walked in the opposite direction, giving him privacy.

Unfortunately for Hiei, the only thing that fit him was a small girl's kimono that was bright pink and neon green in color. (A/N: Oh, man, my ribs hurt... I can just see him dressed like that! Shit! He's attacking! Run! There's a tiny pink and green man attacking me!) Because the writer is mean to him, she made this so.

"Hey, you dressed yet! We have a sword to find, if you don't remember!" Mysa shouted from a small distance away. His face burning with embarrassment, he climbed out of the pile, as Mysa walked back into the clearing. "I said, are you dre... Oh my (place choice here)! What the hell are you wearing! It's hideous! No wonder someone lost it! Argh! It offends my artist sensibilities! You're like a moving eyesore!"

"SHUT UP ALREADY!" A vein popped in Hiei's forehead. Mysa had a hand up in front of her eyes to protect them.

"Well, you look horrible! Isn't there anything else you could wear! ANYTHING!"

"NO! THE WRITER IS EVIL!" Mysa blinked at him behind her hand.

"What are you talking about? What writer?" Hiei blinked as well.

"Um. I don't know. But this is the only thing that fit!" The pain in his head felt like it was becoming worse. Wearily, he asked, "Where are we?"

"We're in Lost, of course. This most certainly isn't Syrin's place, and I don't know anywhere else that would have giant piles of clothes in it, so it makes sense that we are now lost, and no one on earth knows where we are. That's how we got here. No one was thinking of us at the time we disappeared. Very dramatic entrance, it has. I knew we would get here."

"How did we get here?"

"We got lost. I knew we were lost, and you must have believed what I was saying too, because you're here. Though, you look kinda green... are you okay?" He snarled at her concern.

"I'm FINE." And slowly, as her words sank in, he started to fully believe that they were indeed lost, and the pain began to subside. As Mysa stood off to the side, thinking, Hiei's pain fully dissipated, as did Kurama's and Botan's lingering feeling that he was still in the house. Mysa came to life.

"Alright. We're here. So now what? We start looking for the sword, right? But where do we begin?" As she started to search the clearing, (the pile of clothes was surrounded by woods, okay?) a large clap of thunder sounded over head. Mysa's head jerked up. "Hey! That was impressive! I didn't know it could storm here! Hm... I wonder where I could find an umbrella..." She started to sift through the pile of clothes.

"Why would an umbrella be in there?" Hiei scoffed. Mysa shrugged.

"Because it wasn't in the bushes." An umbrella was thrown at her back, and she whipped around just in time to catch it. "What the heck! Why'd you throw this umbrella at me, Hiei!" The fire demon glared at her.

"I didn't do it. If I had, you wouldn't of had time to turn around and keep it from hitting you." Mysa's eye twitched, but she opened the umbrella and put it over her head.

"Yeah, right. Well, for being both a liar and a jerk, you can just stand out in the rain!"

Hiei: --x "I AM NOT A LIAR!"

"But you're a jerk! Okay, whatever you say!" Something bounced off her umbrella, and she smiled evilly at Hiei. "It's started raining."

But the rain never came down.

Instead, what did come down was a shower of lost socks and mittens.

"What's with this place?" Mysa wondered out loud, as she put away the umbrella, and started to climb a tree.

"Where are YOU going?" Hiei asked her. Untangling one of her straps from a tree branch, she answered,

"I'm going to get a look at the sky, to see if this storm will be a quicky. And, maybe, there will be this big sign saying, 'THIS WAY TO MAGICAL KILLER SWORD!' Maybe." She chuckled as she got the strap loose and continued making her way slowly up the tree. Suddenly, she was snatched up, and pulled through the branches to the top. "WHAT THE" was all she had time to say; then she was at the top, clutching to the swaying peak of the tree. Hiei was perched next to her, smirking. "WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT, YOU JACKASS!" She asked, still panicked.

"You were going too slow." Suddenly, his sword ripped through the kimono, and it fell to pieces around him. He had his own clothes on underneath it. Picking up the shreds, he hurled them with force toward the pile. Soon another pair of hands joined him.

"(Place choice here), that thing was ugly!" Mysa was clinging to the thin bit of trunk with her legs, and throwing the disgusting pink and green thing down. When that was done, she re-wrapped her arms around the trunk, and glared at Hiei. "Getting rid of that thing was worth risking my life." She shuddered dramatically. "As an artist, it should be my right to kill whoever made that thing, but I can't. At least not today. Today, I'm lost, stuck up high in a tree with a psycho in the middle of a storm of socks and mittens. Perhaps tomorrow I shall be swimming in the stars with a bunch of rabid couches, who all want to eat my ears so that they can become mice. Well, one can hope..." A sock bounced off her head, and she caught it in her hand automatically. "Hey, this sock belongs to me! I lost it three months ago in the dryer at Syrin's house! Hm... I have an idea...I know that this sock, and only this sock, is at my house, in the third drawer down in the dresser in my spare room, right next to the purple sock pair on the left side." The sock in her hand disappeared. "HOLY SHIT! LOOK AT THAT! IT'S GONE!" Mysa couldn't believe it. It worked! She tried something less specific, and grabbed a mitten. "I know this is at my house." It disappeared as well. And, though she wasn't thinking about the sock anymore, it didn't come back. "This place... is weird." Now that she wasn't busy being scared, annoyed, curious, or hateful, she took sometime to look around.

"Oh my... Hiei, look. It's so... beautiful." She had big googly eyes, as she looked over the treetops. The sun was just setting (don't ask me how it got to be so late), and the clouds looked as if they were melting into the horizon. It was gorgeous. (I absolutely love the sky. I think it's best when it has clouds though, not when it's just bare. And my favorite time to watch the sky is at sunset, when it's the most colorful... sunrise is okay, but the colors are a bit too pale for me to consider that time of day my favorite time to sky gaze)

The sun was a glorious orange yellow, with a thin tendril of gray cloud stretching across it's middle. Vibrant, rich tones of red and orange colored what sky could be seen, and dyed a few of the lighter clouds a warm pale pink-peach color. The setting sun made it look at if the rim of the world was on fire. The forest stretched into the horizon, and far off to their left they saw the dim sparkle of water. Mysa supposed it was an ocean. The trees of the forest stood out in stark detail against the sky, every branch and leaf not consumed in the 'fire' was independent and could be seen clearly.

"Hn." Was all Hiei said. Mysa didn't even roll her eyes at him; she was totally entranced by the sky.

"I wish I had my paints and some paper." She whispered in an awed voice. Hiei sneered.

"Are you so feeble minded that you have already forgotten why we are here?" He asked her in a disgusted voice that finally snapped her out of her reverie. "We are supposed to be looking for a sword; I thought you wanted to save your friend." Musa sighed heavily, and reluctantly tore her eyes from the beautiful sight.

"You're right, and I will save her." 'She's all I've got', the human continued rather irrationally in her thoughts. "Anyway, do you see anything that would give an indication of where this sword will be?"

"No. And there shouldn't be. We want to find this thing first. If it's location were obvious, someone closer to it then us could get to it before we do."

"How are we supposed to find it then?"

"How you find everything, baka. We look for it." Hiei growled. Mysa glared at him.

"You just did this to point that out and make me look stupid, didn't you. Well, there's no one here but us, and I don't care what your opinion of me is, so this was completely pointless." She started to climb down out of the tree, then stopped abruptly, and shot him an angry look. "And no more 'help' in trees. It may be slower, but I prefer getting out of stuff by my own steam. At least this way if I fall, it will be an accident, not you tossing me out." She continued on her way out of the tree, slowly but surely, branch by branch, forced to stop every now and again to untangle a strap or chain.

Hiei, already on the ground, waiting, slightly amused but mostly disgusted by the human's slowness. He was waiting to see her fall, if truth be told. One of her chains had just tore off on one end and wrapped itself around a thick branch without her noticing, entangled in all the smaller twigs. Mysa, oblivious, kept moving, and Hiei watching in satisfaction, sure she would be pulled off balance and fall.

'Now, if I take my foot out of this crevice, I think I could reach–' Mysa finally felt the tug on her pants. 'Not again! Oh, no it ripped! It's so far out there! But if I tear off this end too, there will be a giant hole in my pants...' Without thinking further, she pulled herself up and onto the branch where her chain was stuck, balanced on the very tip. She didn't hold onto anything, not that there was anything to hold onto. All the other branches were too far away.

Hiei was shocked. The human, who until now had been very klutzy, had just leapt like a monkey to a branch that should have been at least five feet out of her reach, and sat, perfectly composed, on the tip of a branch that had narrowed to about a half an inch thick. It should have broke under her weight. With the same grace and ease, Mysa 'fell' back to where she had been before and continued clumsily out of the tree.

'You, Mysa, are an idiot. How are you going to explain that away if Hiei saw? You're supposed to be a normal human, remember! You already took a chance with the sword–'

'Oh, shut up. Even if he did see it, it doesn't matter. I'll tell him I was in gymnastics or something. He thinks I'm just a regular human, he'll buy it.'

'You're making a mistake. I don't think he will.'

'You're just stupid. He will. And then I can get away with a little more.' Silencing the other voice, Mysa did a little flip out of the tree, and landed on her feet, grinning at Hiei. "Gymnastics can be boring but useful sometimes", She said to him.

'What does she think I am, an idiot!' Hiei thought furiously to himself. But if he played along, she might get really sloppy, he could give some proof of something to Botan, and be rid of this damn human. So he merely glared at her, picked a direction, and started walking. After tucking the loose end of the chain into the waist of her pants, Mysa jogged a bit to catch up, then fell into step beside him.

"So, where are we going?" Silence. "Shouldn't we be finding a place to camp? It's almost dark, and I'm not fond of the idea of wandering around here at night when a whole bunch of hit men could be after us." Suddenly, he was in front of her, and she ran into him.

Shoving her away, Hiei began shouting. "You think! Because you took so long in that damn tree, we now have even less daylight to find a place! Since you're human, it'll have to be a hidden place; you'd be useless in a real fight." He sneered. In a flash, Mysa had her sword unsheathed, and held it up in front of her.

"Wanna say that again?" She growled. He looked contemptuously at her.

"Have you forgotten that I've already beaten you?" She snorted at him and waved the blade mockingly under his nose.

"That little bitty practice match? Of course you won. I was playing, as if that wasn't perfectly obvious. After all, you didn't even get scratched, now did you?" He turned his back on her and her katana and started to walk away.

"That's because I'm better then you, better then a human could ever hope to be." The demon said.

"And you're so sure I'm human?" Mysa chuckled. Hiei whipped around, but she wasn't there. She was behind him. Smirking, Mysa tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around, drawing his katana as he did so, forcing Mysa to bring hers up sharply to avoid losing her head.

"What the hell are you?" He snarled. "You shouldn't of been able to do that." He hadn't felt a breeze, but somehow she had gotten behind him, and he hadn't seen her either. To top it all off, she was grinning at him.

"I'm just a human, remember? Just a human." This time she walked away, whistling, and started searching through the trees, looking for a good camp. Grudgingly Hiei followed, though he was sending off monster vibes of anger. It stopped 'raining'

Mysa was starting to feel guilty about the prank she pulled on him. It had to be humiliating, that she had gotten in easy kill distance without him noticing. Especially since he had that superiority complex. It was just about too dark to go any further when they stumbled onto a perfect camping sire. A good sized clearing surrounded a huge boulder, with a small, clear stream running nearby in the woods. There was just enough light left to collect some wood for a fire. Mysa had already gathered it up when Hiei pointed out snidely that the fire would draw unwanted attention to where they were.

"That may be so, but it would be better to die fighting then to die from cold, now wouldn't you agree?" She said mildly, ignoring his tone. Then she stared blankly at the pile of wood. She didn't know how to light it. "Matches. Need some matches." She muttered. A large box of matches came whistling out of some bushes a little off to the right. Yelping, Mysa ducked, and the box continued on to Hiei, who caught it with ease. Like lightening, he was on his feet, katana drawn. In total silence, he waited for whomever they were to show themselves... he didn't want to go running into an ambush (Ha! The matches flew out of a bush... ambush... okay I'll be quiet now).

Well, that's what he would have done if Mysa hadn't gone charging off into the woods screaming, "Who's there! Show yourself!" As a vein popped in his forehead, he followed the damn human, though at a slower pace. Then he heard a scream, and rushed to the source.

Mysa was kneeling on the ground, hunched over. She had a stunned look on her face, as if she had just been run through.

"Mysa!" Hiei shouted. She turned her face toward him, and the shocked look became one of joy.

"I'm fine! 3" Hiei fell over. "But remember earlier, how I said I wanted my paints and some paper? Well, look!" She stood up, and showed him what she had been hunched over. It was a huge mass of tubes of paint, and a thick notebook of blank paper. Some pencils were nearby. She smiled brightly at him, but the fire demon only glared at her. Mysa blinked. "What?"

'I should kill her!' Hiei thought angrily to himself. How dare she actually make him worried about her! 'Damn human, getting all worked up over paint!' "The next time you scream, make sure you're dying." He finally said to her, sheathing his katana and walking back to camp.

When he was out of sight, Mysa let her shoulders sag. Now she had only made him angrier at her. But she couldn't help herself, when she saw the paints, it had just sent a bolt of joy through her brain. Mysa had been less then truthful when she had admitted to her obsession. 'Well, it's not like I was going to hand out that information to a complete stranger!' She wasn't really addicted to swords–well, not entirely. What she was really obsessed with was... art. All true forms of art. Cooking, singing, painting, and especially katana's, the arts of how to use and make them. The only true art form ('true art form' defined by what she had to try) she hadn't tried her hand at was writing. And that's because of... 'Mother.'

With an angry shake of her head, Mysa straightened her shoulders. She didn't care about Hiei, she didn't feel guilty about lying to him, and she DID NOT care about her mother! Writing had just never struck her fancy, that's all.

Staring off in the direction Hiei had gone, her anger faded a bit. She should try to make him less mad at her. They were stuck together until the mission was over. Or one of them died.

Whatever came first.

Yeah, she should try. If they got in a fight, she didn't want her back unprotected just because she had made a joke on him. Not that she really thought he would do that, but how well did she know him? 'Whatever.' She wasn't going to make amends today, she decided, and headed back to the clearing. The fire was lit, and as soon as she set foot within the 'camp'. Hiei darted up a tree. He would have been in one before, but he wanted to make sure that the human would be smart enough to come back to camp, rather then wander around in the dark all night.

Settling down on a cozy branch, Hiei became honest with himself. The reason he hadn't killed her back at the paint thing was not because of Botan or laws. It was because the woman presented an infuriating mystery. Where did those scars come from? What was up with the black mist? How did she get hurt? When the mist had healed her, how come it didn't make the scars go away? How did she move that fast earlier? How come he didn't see it, or sense it? Her aura was human, she had no spirit energy, no demonic energy. And how come he couldn't read her mind? As he prepared himself for a sleepless night on watch, the questions ran around his brain. He didn't pay attention to what was going on down in the clearing.

Mysa picked up a stick, wrapped a sheet of paper around one end, and stuck the paper covered end in the fire. This caused the green stick to catch quicker, and when the end was properly lit, she wedged the stick into a crevice in the rock. 'Makeshift lightbulb.' She settled below it, and started sketching the sunset, every detail that she could remember going into the drawing. Soon, she started painting it in, but suddenly stopped.

She didn't have the right color for the cloud. She didn't even have the colors to make the right color. "If I had some silver, I could probably do it." She muttered out loud. But it seemed she had no choice. Though it pained her to do it, she was going to have to change the cloud color–

"No, I think a light grey with a drop of gold would serve." Said a voice from quite close to her. She shrieked and jumped, but quickly shut herself up.

"Are you dying?" Hiei said from his tree, irritated.

"No." Mysa choked out. 'But I think I'm going insane.' She continued in her thoughts. "Just a bug."

"I hate to contradict you, but I am no bug." The voice said. Mysa gaped at the owner of the voice.

"I can see that." What it was, in fact, was an arm. Made of dirt. That talked using it's hand. "So... are you real or am I crazy?"

"I am quite real. And if you think you're going crazy, you're handling it very well." Well. Such a nice hand... arm... thing.

"I've been a lot worse then crazy." Mysa didn't know what else to say. "Um... so what's your name?" The arm fell over.

"I am a human arm made out of dirt. You expect me to have a name... why?"

"I guess you're right." ... "Uh, could you be anything other then an arm? It feels really weird to be talking to one."

"It took me a hundred years to get this shape! It's the only one I have, so I apologize, but you're rather out of luck."

"Ah. Sorry." Silence. "Hey, if you're dirt, how come you talk and look like an arm and... can you see?" The hand waved the questions off (the arm equivalent of us rolling our eyes).

"Yes, I can see. I'm enchanted dirt, of course. I come from the mystical land of Avalon. A traveler stumbled upon my home, and wanted a cheap souvenir, so he scooped up a jarful of dirt." The arm bowed. "Say muah (Don't know how to write it properly). He lost me in his travels, and I had no idea where I was, so this is where I ended up. Lost."

"How can you hear with no ears, and see with no eyes?"

"I just said I'm ENCHANTED. That easily explains everything."

"I see. Well, I'm Akira Mysa, the demon in the tree is Hiei, and we're... on a quest." She finished, with a twisted smile. "Are you the one who tossed the matches and put the paints where I could find them?"

"The umbrella too."

"Oh. Oops. Anyway, why'd you do that?"

"Um... uh..." The arm stuttered, then whispered so softly that she almost didn't hear, "... I think you're cute."

"Aww! That's so sweet! Impractical, but sweet!" She smiled at the arm. "I know a name for you! We can call you Hans! Sound good?" The newly named Hans did an arm version of a shrug (I'm too lazy to figure out one, so use your imaginations).

"Better then Arm-Thing, which I have been called by others." He bowed again. "Hans Dirte, at your service. If it's in Lost, I know where it is, and can bring it to you."

"Really! You've just made my life soo much easier! Hans, do you have any... magical swords of death lying around?"

"Several! Just a minute." Hans sank into the earth. Mysa walked over to the tree Hiei was in.

"Hey, Hiei, guess what?"

"You've grown a brain."

"Harsh! No, I've had one for a long time. And, I've gone and saved us a lot of time while you were just sitting there. I just met an enchanted arm made out of dirt, who's bringing us the magical sword of death." Hiei's face suddenly appeared in front of her, hanging upside down from the tree.

"Do you know how stupid you sound?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But it's true." Right then Hans came back, in little pieces,

each piece dragging a sword. Mysa raised an eyebrow at Hiei. "See? Either I'm right, or we're being attacked by dust bunnies." She walked away and sat next to the pile of katana's. "Hey, Hans, is this all of them?" Picking one up, it glowed green, and evil thoughts bombarded her brain, so she quickly dropped it. Hans reformed into a arm, and said,

"Yes. Well... there is one more, but... for some reason I couldn't get near it. The part of me I sent after it lost contact, and it isn't here, so I don't know what happened." Mysa groaned.

"That's probably our sword. Just in case..." She eyed the pile. "Do you have a place where we can hide these?"

"Sure do!" With a rumble, the ground under the pile gave way, and the swords sank into the earth. When the last one was a foot below the surface, all the dirt that was pushed out of the way by the katana's piled back on top, and soon it looked like nothing had happened. "And I'll leave part of me here to keep watch on it." A small pebble dislodged itself, and rolled over to the buried pile.

"All set, captain!" It squeaked. Mysa blinked.

"Hans, you rock! And though I hate to ask more of you, after you've already done so much..."

"It was no problem, Mysa-San."

"Mysa is fine. But, could I ask another favor of you?"

"Anything." 3

"Could you take us to the sword that you couldn't bring here?"

"Of course! However, I noticed that you move at a much slower rate then I do. Though it only took me a couple of minutes to get there, it would probably take you..." Hans thought. "A week. Perhaps more." Mysa fell over.

"Is there any faster way to get there?"

"Not above ground. If you move at the speeds you demonstrated earlier, you'd have some issues, because you couldn't see me when you're moving that fast."

"Why not?"

"To keep up with you at that speed, I'd have to be underground."

"Oh. That does present a problem." She yawned. "But that's a problem for tomorrow. Right now, Syrin's safe, and I have a picture to complete. I think I should finish my painting, sleep, and we can start out tomorrow morning. Good with you, Hiei?"

"Hn."

"I guess that's a yes in grumpy short people language." She ignored the popping vein and the twitching eye. "Now, you were saying about light grey and gold?" Mysa and Hans spent the next few hours on Mysa's painting, until the stick burnt out. Hans, being a gentlearm (gentleman), then went to get Mysa a tent to sleep in, with a sleeping bag and everything, he promised. All of him went, because he had to find 'just the right one'.

"Told you there was an enchanted arm made out of dirt. Isn't he sweet?"

"How can you tell it's a he?"

"His name is HANS. Boy name, boy arm. Besides, he thinks I'm cute. Because of that, I'd prefer to think him a guy. And he doesn't complain when I call him 'he' or anything, so he's cool with it... What's with that look?" Hiei: O.O

"He thinks you're cute?" Mysa/--x\

"That's why he's helping us."

"Because he thinks you're cute."

"I'm not evil to everyone, just jackass, stuck up, short, blind, possibly gay, sonofabitch demons." Scary smile. "And yes, MEN tend to think I'm cute. But, since you seem to disagree, I'm sure you won't mind agreeing to sleep out here, even though I asked Hans to get one of those nice two room deluxe tents?"

"Like I was going to sleep in it anyway. It's much better out here, without ugly humans clogging my sight, and with a fresh breeze to carry away their disgusting smell."

"Still persisting in thinking I'm human?"

"Well, you're not demon, so obviously you're human. An odd one, but human. I've known stranger." Mysa bared her teeth in a 'I hate you, kiss my ass' smile (if you don't have one you need to get one).

"I suppose by stranger you mean Kuwabara, who you're probably in love with." Hiei was just about to strangle her when Hans arrived back in the clearing.

"Found it, Mysa! A perfect... am I interrupting something?" Hiei was running across the clearing to where Mysa was. (Hans is really fast, remember? So he can see all this) Slipping under the ground, he reappeared right where Hiei was about to take his next step, and snatched his ankle. Hiei fell flat on his face (Hans also happens to be really strong. Why? He's enchanted. That easily explains everything). Mysa busted out in laughter.

"Hans! You are the bomb! That was totally awesome!" Hiei was scratching furiously at Hans, but it did nothing, because as fast as he clawed Hans away, Hans returned. (En-CHAN-ted! Singsong voice) Even chopping at him with his katana had no effect.

"Now, why would you be trying to hurt Mysa?" Hans said.

"I'm NOT trying to HURT her! I'm trying to KILL her!"

"I can't have that, you see. I happen to think she's a very nice person. Will you please stop that? You can't get loose that way. It doesn't hurt. It's just annoying." The demon started struggling to get out of Hans' hold. Mysa smiled at Hans.

"Thank you, Hans. That was very sweet of you." With one last laugh at Hiei, she entered the tent (I dunno how it got set up... I mean, "En-CHAN-ted!") and got herself ready for bed. Folding her clothes into a neat little pile in the corner, she snuggled into the sleeping bag, and promptly fell asleep (I wish I could fall asleep that fast).

Hiei and Hans stayed stuck together in the middle of the clearing for a few more hours until Hans had gotten a promise from Hiei that he was okay now, and wouldn't try to kill Mysa anymore, under pain of a dress.

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WritingWoman: Wearing a dress is excruciatingly painful for me, more so then death. I'm rather comfortable with the idea of death. Dresses... not so. And since Hiei ALSO couldn't care less about his own death, dress seemed a fitting substitute. Did anyone else notice that if you said Hans Dirte like Dirte Hans, in Japanese tradition, it sounds and looks like Dirty Hands? Um. Anyway, tune in next time to find out what happened to that poor lost pebble! Oh, and Mysa, Hiei and Hans too. Them too. I'm just more worried about the pebble, myself.