Kyou Kara Maou : The Trouble With Trolls
Summary: Wolfram's attempt to bypass Maou Wedding Curse with a small family ceremony, backfires when an uninvited relative arrives - the Troll Mother.
Disclaimer: I have no rights to Kyou Kara Maou, of course.
Author's note: you may want to refer to the map of Shin Makoku on my homepage link.
Please review.
Chapter 5 : The Fens
Wolfram had had vague good intentions of visiting the Krist Fens for nearly 50 years, ever since his father helped him weave a baby basket for his half-brother Efram, for it was Efram's mother's homeland. This intention got a boost when he adopted Bertram, Manfred's son by Efram's mother's sister. But, it also offered further procrastination – he hoped to go with both boys when Bertram was older. Well, I'm here now, and with Efram and Bertram, to boot, he thought.
As the sun had risen in Bielenfeld, a barge emblazoned with the von Bielenfeld phoenix had pulled up to the castle pier to take them downriver, along with a stunning number of Bielenfeld blue potatoes from the family plantations. This humble vegetable was the foundation of the family's vast wealth. Lumpy sacks, piled to the gunwales, were bound for common laborers' tables in far Dai Cimmarron and Freiburg and Caloria. The human cargo was offloaded a couple hours later at a platform, at the edge of a vast freshwater marsh. By and by, they caught another riverboat up a tributary of the Donza River to Krist, where they bought provisions and a couple light canoe-like boats to set off into the Fens. Fortunately, their poles and paddles were only backup equipment. They were fitted with maryoku-driven paddles for their main propulsion. And as they glided along silently on placid narrow waters, the grassy freshwater marshes of the rivers gradually turned into the lumpy herb-dominated fields of the true Fens.
And Wolfram had to admit, the Fens weren't so bad. He'd always imagined their vast soggy expanses as dark dank jungle, overgrown with clawing fetid undergrowth under lowering grey skies, with drifting creepy mists carrying whiffs of rot. In fact, the late afternoon they arrived was bright and sunny. The Fens stretched before them riotously green, adorned with all manner of wildflowers, with a sprinkling of forested hillocks and low ridges. Of course, there were shining potholes of water everywhere, and lots of canal, man-made or natural. But it was very pretty, and the water clean and fresh.
"Hoy, Wolfram!" Efram called, from the other big canoe. "We need to get off the main waterway before we reach town."
Wolfram, who'd been dozing companionably with Bertram, looked askance at the horizon – 360 degrees of it – and saw not a soul, not a hearthfire's smoke, not a sign of human habitation. This is a main waterway? "What town?"
"Fenburough – it's about 10 miles that way," he answered, pointing to an anonymous stretch of horizon somewhat right of their present canal. "It's the biggest town in the Fens. Anyway, right here's the narrowest crossing. Pull over to the left – we need to carry the canoes to Ductwater."
And true to his word, Efram had picked a narrow portage point. It was only a mile across boot-sucking swamp, with cleverly designed canoes weighting a mere hundred plus pounds apiece with luggage, not to mention three babies. And as the shortest of the adults, no matter how strong his partners, the canoe's weight always fell disproportionately downhill to Wolfram. The alternative of carrying a canoe between Efram, Annissina, Greta, and himself, wasn't very tempting at all.
By the fourth portage, up a ridge to their chosen campground, Adelbert and Brendan simply insisted the two of them do all the canoe-toting. There was a smooth clearing with fire circle already established, and soon the inveterate camper Brendan and his able child assistants had a cheerful fire going. Günter was teaching Greta and Annissina to cook the crabs that Efram and the boys had caught along the way. Adelbert played with Frieda and Bertram. Unneeded for the moment, Wolfram decided to take a stroll on the blessedly not-wet ground of the ridge, and go for a bio break. Efram tagged along.
"Didn't really need help on this one, otoutou," Wolfram said with a smile.
Efram shrugged, but put a finger to his lips, and pointed to keep going. So they walked farther than Wolfram had intended in the dark wood, until Efram stopped at a location that looked not obviously different than any other. He pulled out a little whistle flute he almost always wore around his neck – a Fen memento, he'd said. He played a brief melody, a tiny sweet sound that wouldn't reach back to the campfire, amidst the chorus of singing birds and frogs and insects of the Fens.
"Hello, Efram the fire pixie, Wolfram the pretty vixen." The voice came from all around Wolfram – not all around all at once, but as though it had circled around them. Though, that didn't seem quite right. The voice was musically sweet, soft and clear, a man's clear tenor perhaps, or a woman's low alto. Wolfram steeled himself, then realized he'd left his sword back on a canoe.
"Hello – have we met?" answered Efram.
"Of course. You seek easier passage? Follow me." The last was said directly behind them, suddenly just a foot or so away, and Wolfram spun to look.
So did Efram, and cried, "Garena!" And hugged the boy – girl? – in front of him. The child was a good foot shorter than Wolfram – who claimed to be five and a half feet tall, but wasn't, quite. She – he? – wore a shift or tunic, arms bare, legs bare below mid-thigh, and no shoes. Her blond hair was long, worn in many braids, tight to the head and then dangling below. In the dark wood, Wolfram could tell nothing else.
"How do you know us?" asked Wolfram, no longer much on guard since Efram knew the child. But to call them by their father's yank-their-chains nicknames seemed very odd. The child simply turned away, beckoning them follow. Efram followed right away, but Wolfram grabbed his arm. "How do you know… her?"
"Shh, just follow for now. I'll tell you later. It's safe."
The child stopped at a spot where they could see through the trees down into the fens a little. She pointed until Efram and Wolfram both nodded that they saw, a strange canal that began out of nowhere, and turned to the left soon after, after which it was invisible again. Wolfram realized that from pretty much other standing point nearby, they wouldn't be able to see it.
"How far, Garena?"
"I tell you tomorrow when you change again. But you go when you've eaten, tonight. You stay on that water all night."
"Why do we go tonight?" asked Efram.
"To see Tariel before the trolls."
Efram tensed. "Then which way avoids the trolls?"
"All ways you meet trolls," said Garena. "All ways tomorrow."
"Will Tariel help us? Against the trolls?"
"We do nothing against trolls. But seeing Tariel helps."
"How do you know our names, Garena?" Wolfram inquired again, not sure whether he expected an answer, but alarmed all the more.
"Tariel," replied Garena with a shrug. And with that, the child turned into the woods and disappeared.
"Pixie, who's your little friend?" Wolfram asked.
"A wood nymph," replied Efram. "I don't know what relationship there is between Garena and Tariel, but Tariel is the one who bore Friedrich and Emeraude."
"She's still alive?" asked Wolfram in shock. "Do Uncle Friedrich and Chichiue know?"
"Yes, they know, and Aldrich," replied Efram, "but… we call Tariel 'he'. Some wood nymphs are both. Garena we call 'he' as well, though I don't know whether he's also a she. I'm surprised… that Tariel wants us to visit. Usually he doesn't. And there's no way to reach him unless he wants us to – these pathways can't be found without a guide. It may not even be there by morning. We should start walking back. We have to get on this canal tonight to see Tariel before the trolls catch up with us."
"Yeah, about that," said Wolfram, planting his feet and crossing his arms. "This random wood nymph you called with your whistle – from a race everybody thought was extinct – knows our names and that trolls are after us and let's take this water and meet the trolls tomorrow. Efram, start talking…"
Efram sighed. "But you can't tell the others. We went for a walk, we saw the water, and… I recognized it. It's the way to a relative's house – true enough - and goes way deep into the fens with no portages – we can take it while most of us sleep. OK?"
Wolfram just kept arms crossed and glared at him.
"Wood nymphs see the future and past and present all together, Wolfram. They can't see very far into the future, because there are too many ways branching from now. But Garena said 'all ways we see trolls tomorrow'. That really does mean all possible ways from now. But for some reason, it's better if we see Tariel first."
"And you believe him?"
Efram stared at him. It looked like he considered many possible answers, but he settled on, "Wolfram, do you trust me? With your life?"
It was similar to something Wolfram had said to Efram once, embarking on a dangerous mission in the pirate islands – did Efram believe that Wolfram would die for him? Wolfram looked down and considered. "Alright. If you're sure."
"I'm sure. We will meet trolls tomorrow. The best future that Friedrich's parent can see for us, is if we go visit him first. There, for some reason, or else he would have come to us instead of sending Garena."
Efram's ruse worked. The rest finished dinner while Adelbert and Brendan ported the canoes to the water Efram directed to them, and they spent the night gliding through the Fens on a canal no one else could see.
Dietrich woke up crying several times. He was worried about his father, and kept seeing scary futures in his dreams that he didn't understand. Brendan told him they weren't real, as everyone told children, and distracted him onto other things. Wolfram fell asleep wondering whether that was quite true. Perhaps some descendants of wood nymphs really could see possible futures, but loving adults taught them not to look.
oOo
That evening, Troll Mother terminated the meeting abruptly. "I'll think on what you've said, Shinou's Maou Yuuri, and we'll talk again tomorrow. And you think on this: I claim Trondheim and Gratz, Walde and Bielenfeld, outright."
She turned to Aldrich, who stared woodenly into space, and added, "By the way, my friends have spotted Danny's boys, in the Krist Fens."
She rose, and said, "Come along, Dorie. We'll leave Rickie to explain things to Shinou's Maou for tonight," she added toward Aldrich in sorrowful… contempt.
"Ah, OK. May I be excused, Gwendal?" asked Ted, at a loss. He was entrolled so sky-high he'd missed where this meeting took a sudden hostile nosedive.
"You don't need Shinou's Gwendal's permission, dear," explained Troll Mother. "You're a general in the troll army now."
"Oh. Yeah. Hey, sorry about that, guys," said General Teodor von Trondheim, the top peacetime general of Shin Makoku. He removed his rank insignia and left them on the table. And walked to the balcony door to leave with Troll Mother.
She turned for a parting shot at Aldrich from the balcony railing. "I'm very disappointed in you, Little Rickie. I'd thought you a bit cleverer than this. And more trustworthy. I expect you in my room one hour before dawn." And with that, she picked up Ted and stepped off the balcony into the night.
The dining room rang with silence, as the men sat reeling from the rapid-fire shocks.
What did I say? thought Yuuri desperately. I thought it was going well… 'We have much in common, Troll Mother.' 'I doubt that very much, Wolfram's Yuuri.' No, I was still Wolfram's Yuuri then… Trust, establishing trust…
Aldrich rose from his seat like a man under a spell, and headed for the door.
"Aldrich," said Yuuri, rising, "I'm sorry –"
"Hush, Yuuri," Manfred said softly, hand on his arm. "That was too much all at once. Let Aldrich deal with what's easy, first, and work around to the harder things."
"There are maps in the situation room, aren't there?" Aldrich said absently. "I suggest we reconvene in there, Sire, gentlemen." And he led the way, this evening in flawless formal Lord's attire, the french-braided blue and yellow hair harmonizing well with the bright Bielenfeld blue cloth decorated in gold, though the colors were too gaudy for a man his size. Yuuri thought sadly that though childlike, he looked better in the blue cambric nightgown that came only halfway down his shapely shins. Of course, his face looked like a white mask at the moment.
"Manfred, please draw as many curtains as possible across those windows," Aldrich requested, voice still abstract and soft. He pulled out a map of Shin Makoku and the thin tracing paper they used to mark over maps. With no spare hand to hold the paper, he anchored the corners with paperweights and used a stick of graphite – they didn't encase pencils in wood here – to trace the outlines of Trondheim, Gratz, and Walde, though not Bielenfeld, and several rivers, with a broad double line for the great Donza River, central artery of the Shin Makoku Federation. He also traced an area in Trondheim which Yuuri had assumed was a nature reserve, but now realized must be the troll treaty lands from the Great Troll and Goblin War.
Aldrich stood and stared at this intently for a few minutes. Then said, in a gentle voice still somewhat dazed, "Sire, gentlemen, the question at hand is our first offer and our last."
"I note Walde is a contender and Bielenfeld not, Lord Bielenfeld," Gwendal observed sourly.
Aldrich ignored him, and asked mildly, "Conrad, where are your people concentrated?" He was asking the locations of human and half-Mazoku communities within the three domains he'd outlined.
Conrad took a pink crayon – Frieda's broken Crayola – and marked a town on the Trondheim-Walde border, another in mid-Walde, a third near the Walde-Krist border, and did a rough area fill on the most remote areas of Gratz. Those tended toward the Trondheim border.
"Thank you," Aldrich murmured. With a green crayon (he practiced first in the margins), he lightly traced and striped the Krist Fens, which were just south of the contiguous chunk of Gratz, Walde, and Trondheim, without direct access to the Donza. Then he selected a red crayon and finally drew in Bielenfeld's borders, spanning both sides of the broad Donza and cutting off Wincott from the rest of the Shin Makoku federation. Bielenfeld he striped in red. The long narrow neck of Gratz reaching to the Donza, he also shaded red, continuing with red hatching all along Gratz' Bielenfeld border. He hesitated, and simply drew a light red line along the Gratz-Wincott border past Bielenfeld. "Bloodbath zones," Aldrich explained softly. He handed the red crayon to Gwendal. "Please draw them for Walde."
"What?" demanded Yuuri. But he already knew the answer. Aldrich was drawing in red those areas which were simply not in anyone's power to concede to the trolls – they would go down in bloodbaths. Aldrich hadn't left Bielenfeld off the consideration list to protect his home, per se. It simply could not be ceded. Nor could the fertile lowlands of Gratz bordering Bielenfeld. The populaces would fight to the death regardless of what any idiot in Shin Makoku or Gratzberg or Bielenfeld Castle said. Wincott had never struck Yuuri as a particularly militant domain, especially not compared to its neighbors. But Aldrich was applying different criteria – fighting abroad was a very different matter from protecting one's home. But!
"I have no intention of ceding any of this land to Troll Mother," Yuuri asserted.
Aldrich nodded vaguely and watched Gwendal shade in the killing fields of Walde. Unsurprisingly, the fertile, heavily settled Donza banks were solid red, pretty much matching up to the red areas of Gratz, but over a much wider swath of land. There was a section along a tributary of the Donza reaching to the Fens which was left unshaded, and the innermost border with Gratz. But the triangle nestled between Trondheim and the Krist Fens he shaded red.
"Are you sure that's an island?" asked Aldrich, pointing to the lonely triangle by the Fens. One of Conrad's pink human settlements sat nestled within it.
"This is nearly virgin forest," explained Gwendal, of the white area separating the interior island of red from riverbank Walde, "and that freshwater marshes."
"That's a shame," said Aldrich faintly. "Manfred? Anything to add?"
Manfred took the green crayon and shaded a section of Wincott at the remote corner with Gratz and Trondheim. Then he hesitated, and picked up a red crayon. He outlined the entire border of Krist, with red cross-hatching across the border into the red zone of Walde and all along Trondheim. Krist was also a highly militant domain. Hesitating again, Manfred drew a red dot slightly into Trondheim, with a triangle connecting it to Krist – the major city of Kriegsbad. "Kriegsbad wouldn't concede, and Krist would back them, would be my guess. Anything else in Trondheim, Aldrich?"
Aldrich shook his head. "I don't know. But the Lord Mayor of Kriegsbad is Ted's cousin. They'd be fighting each other in the streets, first." He traced a finger reluctantly around the apparent edges of the most-we-could-concede areas. With the Fens as a bridge, the white area of Walde reached the Donza. "I'm no military strategist, Manfred – what's it worth to us to keep them off the Donza?"
Manfred sighed. "Worth a war, certainly. With those areas… they've already almost cut off Bielenfeld and Wincott. If they try to cut off the Donza to Bielenfeld's agriculture, you've got angry militants to the north and a lot of hungry people downriver. We need to keep them off the Donza."
Aldrich nodded and sighed. "Alright. So that's the scenario, Sire. There exists some part of this area we're willing to concede. The full areas she has asked for, would be a bloodbath that we cannot concede. She hasn't asked for those green bits, so we don't offer them, but they are more acceptable to us than the areas she has asked for.
"Now, the bright side of this is that trolls are nice people." Gwendal and Conrad looked daggers at Aldrich. This time Yuuri sympathized with them. Aldrich continued, "There's no need to actually run the battles, if the outcome is agreed. My guess is that we have to concede Trondheim, but that's not enough – because in truth, she probably already has Trondheim. It's not ours to give her. How much of this next tier of area," he traced the could-concede area, sadly including the red areas of Walde and Trondheim, "depends on whether we have a battle plan with 80 percent or better chance of winning. If we have such a plan, she'll concede the point. But if she thinks our chance of success is only, say, 60 percent, she'll say, 'Well, dear, let's try it and find out.' And the red zones – are a bloodbath. We fight whether we stand a chance or not."
"My guess wouldn't reach 50 percent," said Manfred, who'd served as Adelbert's strategic aide until his medical retirement.
"Why are you here, Manfred?" demanded Gwendal, peevishly. "You –"
"Lord Aldrich needs him here, and the other side on this negotiation hasn't objected," cut in Yuuri. "That's good enough for me. Gwendal."
Gwendal glowered, but conceded to Yuuri's wishes.
"Our human allies could help, Yuuri," said Conrad. "That could bring the chances up… I don't know about 80 percent. What we need, is a general. And that… we don't have." He and Gwendal looked at each other morosely, and Yuuri felt true fear. Never in all the time he'd been Maou, had Gwendal and Conrad been seriously afraid to fight. Those red areas on the map they called 'bloodbaths' suddenly looked very red indeed.
"A general would be good," said Aldrich abstractedly. "Normally, Sire, you'd go through channels, asking for recommendations. And the best man would turn you down. Fortunately, you don't have time for all that. Von Dienst of Bielenfeld is the best. As his liege lord, I can simply order him to do it. Although… I thought I already had. Manfred, could you please go ask Chichi if he's heard from von Dienst? If he's gotten misplaced… we have a problem. Thanks." Manfred hurried off.
"Sire, I have to object," said Gwendal, as the door closed after Manfred. "You're putting too much power in the hands of Lord Bielenfeld, who is more than sympathetic to the trolls. He's running your diplomacy, and now you're allowing him to run your military as well."
"I'm willing to entertain other suggestions for general, Gwendal," allowed Yuuri. "Though I see no cause to question von Dienst's integrity." Yuuri knew von Dienst – Wolfram trained under him, and Adelbert considered the man his superior as a general. "He would be Shin Makoku's general, not Lord Aldrich's, wouldn't he? And if not him… who? Yourself, drugged and locked in a tower? Lord Aldrich? I think our next best is Conrad."
Aldrich said, "Well, Conrad. Sire, with all due respect to your Chancellor, there's no point in locking him in a tower. He knows nothing of how to fight goblins and trolls, the way his father did. And I was a training officer in the military. I've never killed anybody, nor taken a single troop into battle."
Gwendal sighed, and agreed reluctantly, "Conrad's certainly our only present option. Though he knows goblins and trolls as little as I do… I imagine he's immune to entrollment, and already commands our core trollproof troops."
Aldrich nodded, thoughtful. "Conrad's idea of human allies was interesting. Sire, could you really get our human allies to fight in a civil war within Shin Makoku?"
"Fight to settle it? No," said Yuuri. "But to enforce a truce for negotiations to proceed, and provide arbitrators – yes, certainly."
The door opened while he was saying that, and Manfred returned, with von Dienst and his perennial sidekick Griesel in tow. Von Dienst having overheard that last, grinned, and said, "I was counting on it. Good evening, Sire, Your Lordships."
Aldrich's face broke into a genuine smile. He grabbed von Dienst's hand to shake. "Oh, you're a welcome sight, Squire! I was starting to worry the other side nabbed you."
"Yes, sorry about that. You have your Lord father rather tucked away from it all – we were just chatting over tea. I didn't know your meeting had broken up until Lord Manfred came to inquire."
"So did Chichi and Manfred fill you in on the gist of things here? I understand you've chosen retirement, but this time, I fear the situation is dire. With deepest apologies, I must ask you to take the top general's position for Shin Makoku –"
Von Dienst waved this away. "My liege! Don't trouble yourself! Your father's held me on reserve for this job for fifty years now. He ordered me to make myself 'obscure and eccentric' and stay out of the troll's sight." He placed a large valise on the table, and opened it. "And come up with plans, of course, as your 200th birthday present, nicely delayed… Ah! Yes, here it is." Rather than plans, von Dienst pulled out a large stuffed animal, with a bow on top and a card. "For you, Lord Aldrich."
Aldrich reached for the large black plushie grinning. "A mokona?" He read the card aloud,
"'Dearest Aldrich, Happy belated 2nd century birthday. We figured the day you needed von Dienst, you'd need some cheering up. We love you. Friedrich and Manfred. P.S. The general is from Friedrich. Manfred got you the mokona.'"
He laughed out loud and pressed his face into the stuffed animal. He admired its long ears with pink satin insides and an earring, its long floppy feet, its egg-shaped body tapering neckless into a pointy head. He lay his head back down on the creature, smiling warmly at Manfred. "He's perfect, Manfred. Thank you."
"I realize time is pressing, my lord, but… I've had that thing for over thirty years now. What is a mokona?" asked von Dienst. Yuuri was glad someone else asked.
"Oh, trolls keep them as pets. They're pretty smart, smarter than dogs. And they love to dance. They stick their noses into the air and flap-flap with one foot then the other, and waggle the round bottom, and spin around," he demo'd the mokona dance as well as he could with one hand, putting the plushie on the table. Manfred helped, and Aldrich laughed out loud. "Oh! They always made me laugh when they danced."
"They sound charming," said von Dienst. "Why didn't you ever bring one home to Bielenfeld?"
"Oh, no. No, no. They stink to high heaven. Carrion feeders. Franklin kept a few when we were little, and I'd play with them right after their baths. They're cuddly, and danced for us. But when it came time to feed them – yuck. The plushie kind are much better." He laid his head on his mokona again and shared a soft sad smile with Manfred. Yuuri could imagine Aldrich and Franklin as small boys, giggling and playing with freshly washed dancing pets, happy days to be a young part-troll.
"Do they dance to music?" asked Conrad.
"No… Well, yes. You sing to them," answered Aldrich, looking strangely at Gwendal. And he began to sing. Until that very moment, despite all these troll goings-on, Yuuri hadn't really perceived Aldrich as being non-human, or rather non-demon. Even troll-silly, he at most seemed childish. But this singing was something no human vocal equipment could produce. He had a beautiful clear tenor, that sang a fairly normal song with Trollish words, fast and rowdy. But there was a second song behind it, like a continuous woodwind – no separate notes, no breath stops, just a keening on a harmony with the first melody, in an alto voice an octave or so higher.
At first he just danced the plush mokona to the song, but then he paused the song and murmured, "Gwendal trosh, whirl for me," and Gwendal began dancing a whirling dervish. Then Aldrich turned to von Dienst, and said softly, "Squire von Dienst trosh, dance for me."
"Mm, no, thank you, Lord Aldrich. A potent demonstration, however."
"Stop it, Aldrich," Conrad bit out, fists clenched, in agony looking at his brother.
"In a moment. I'm sorry, Conrad, but I'm not just being cruel. I needed to test von Dienst – who passed with flying colors, as expected," he paused to do a seated half-bow at von Dienst, who returned it. "But I also need all of you to know just how easy and thorough this is. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we now know that Gwendal is the only part-goblin in the room. I didn't need to let you hear my singing – I could have done this subvocally. Sire, I suggest it's past time to leave Gwendal out of our deliberations, or have him submit to Lord Wincott's potions.
"Gwendal trosh, stop dancing. Gentlemen, please notice his body's state." Gwendal was gasping for air and wobbling a little from dizziness. "Gwendal, trosh, walk over to the windows. Notice he's in a new location," Aldrich got up and crossed behind Manfred to stand by the wall, no longer holding his mokona, "and the people in the room are rearranged. It doesn't matter, he won't realize any discontinuity. If he was about to say something, and it's no longer appropriate, he won't. If he regains his self-control in another room, he'll invent himself a memory to cover the discrepancy. His entire memory, right down to the physical level, is gone. You'll see an unconscious eye scanning – watch for it – as his brain reorients. But consciously, nothing.
"So watch carefully please for that eye scan, gentlemen, and note the gasping and dizziness instantly disappear. Gwendal, trosh, forget these instructions. And wake up on the count of daar – ada toar daar, trosh."
As promised, Gwendal's heaving gasps and dizziness were instantly gone. His eyes tracked back and forth quickly. Then apparently having decided he must have walked to the windows for a reason, he peeked out. Turning back and seeing everyone staring at him, he scowled and said, "What? Aldrich, if you're done playing with your toy, it's about time we got General von Dienst's opinion on the map problem."
oOo
Please review? Pretty, pretty please?
Black mokona like Manfred's present to Aldrich appear in the anime series XXXholic (also Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, which I haven't read/seen). Black mokona plushies can be ordered on eBay, so you can see pictures there. But the mokona on XXXholic is highly intelligent and eats human food and guzzles sake and beer. The closing sequence where the mokona dances is just too cute.