Title: Dear Lady Celi...
Author: DaystarsMom and Sayoko Bizen
Rating: T
Characters: Everybody, pretty much
Summary: Part 6—A surprise substitute columnist has advice about, well, everybody. Dueling! Elopements! Electronic equipment! Kissing! OK, advice about kissing.
Disclaimer: Good grief, it's fan fiction. Of course it's Not Ours.
Dear Lady Celi
by
Sayoko Bizen and DaystarsMom
A Special Notice from the Publishers: Lady Celi is temporarily
unable to write her advice column. In her absence, we have arranged
for a guest columnist whom we hope will be acceptable.
Lady Celi:
As the person I normally consult for advice is the source of my current problems, I thought I'd give you a shot.
Despite an intellectually fulfilling relationship that's lasted centuries, my best friend and erstwhile lover has just taken up with an ovine animal! In preference to ME! What am I to make of that? All right, I cheated on him once, but that was fate, and besides, he couldn't exactly get pregnant and continue my line. (Though I wouldn't put it past the new kid—he might just be powerful enough to make that blond brat carry his children.) Anyway, 4,000 years seems an unreasonably long time to hold a grudge.
I doubt that you can help, but saying my piece in a nationally circulated magazine has certainly made me feel better.
The Big Boss
Shinou:
If you'd bothered to pay attention, you'd know that I'm subbing for Lady C. for the time being, so you're stuck with my advice after all. And my advice is this: Stop whining. It makes you sound like "that blond brat," and pretty soon people are going to start wondering whether possession cuts both ways.
Intellectual fulfillment only goes so far, as you'd realize if you'd been the one reincarnating over and over for the past 40 centuries. Besides, it's not as if I dumped you. If you're up for a threesome, you know where to find me.
The Great Sage
Dear Whoever Is Writing This Column For Lady Celi:
Everybody has gone nuts!
My, um, friend that I was so worried about suddenly dropped everything when I told him I was taking a trip without him! All I wanted was for things to go back to the way they were, but it's gotten worse! He doesn't follow me around, he's not trying to learn baseball, he won't even talk to me! He's holed up at the Shinou Temple, and the rumors have him making time with, um, this other guy who I guess is nice enough but he's way older and he's kind of a spy and...and...and I don't like it! Especially since there are also rumors about him and my best friend and this sheep.
Then this foreign guy showed up with a boatload of flowers. And when I say "boatload," I mean literally—his yacht was stuffed with the things. It took the maids the whole day to find vases for them all. I didn't get to talk to him about it, though, because my daughter picked right then to ask me to go up to the Shinou Temple with her tomorrow. She's been sneaking off at odd times for a while, and I think she's been going to see Ulrike. I'm afraid she wants to become a Shrine Maiden, and she's too young to make that kind of decision!
Before I got that straightened out, I found out that my chief, er, subordinate has challenged my bodyguard to a duel! For no reason! And they're brothers! My bodyguard is really bummed about it. I have to do something to stop it, but how can I when I don't even know why it happened in the first place and neither of them will talk to me about it?
My other adviser is no help; he's going around wringing his hands and wailing. He can't seem to decide whose side he ought to be on and he won't talk to either of them. I heard he's been seeing my bodyguard (which kind of squicks me—those two just don't belong together!), so I understand why he's upset, but he seems just as worried about my, er, other subordinate. And I can't even find out if what I heard is true, because my best investigator hasn't been around for weeks!
And then this guy who's been kind of an outlaw or an exile (sort of like Robin Hood, only different) arrived out of the blue and locked himself in the infirmary. My advisor (the one who's wailing, not the one who's going to have the duel) wanted me to blow up the door and arrest him, but the healer lady poked her head out and said if any of us disturbed her patients she'd have to take steps. I don't know what she meant, but she sounded pretty scary. They're still in there, though they did let the maids bring them a breakfast tray this morning.
My big brother has finished his vacation and gone home, just when I could have used his help with all this. Now Lady...um, this gorgeous older lady I know has disappeared; the maids found a note in her room this morning that said something about eloping. Which is about what I'd expect from her, actually, except that there's this inventor lady who has also disappeared, and I have a really bad feeling about it!
Help!
Really, Really, REALLY Worried.
Dear Shibuya—
Honestly, you people are all idiots. And your idea of impenetrable pseudonyms is laughable. It's all very amusing to watch, and I'd let you go on stewing in your own juice, but the Shinou Temple is already getting crowded with people wanting advice or an ally or escape or a ton of Earth-type electronics, and I can see that my sheep and I are never going to have any peace unless and until I straighten the rest of you out. It's a good thing Lady Celi left me this column before she ran off with that FanFan of hers. (Yes of course I helped. Somebody had to marry them—that's what eloping is about.)
OK, first off, Wolfram isn't interested in Yozak at all. He's spending all his time at the Temple because he's depressed. He's depressed because he's in love with you. I'll just repeat that: He's in love with you. Got that? In. Love. With. You. Madly, passionately in love. And if you would stop being such a bone-head, you'd realize that you are just as much in love with him. (Which, by the way, is the real reason you don't like those rumors about him and Yozak.) Instead, you've somehow managed to convince him that you want no part of him in any capacity, friend or fiancé, which is why he's mooning around up here trying to get a little distance to "recover and move on."
So the first thing you need to do is come up to the Temple and give him a thorough kissing. You don't have to say anything (you'd probably turn red and get tongue-tied if you tried, so it's just as well). Just kiss him. Thoroughly, not a mere peck on the cheek. (If you need more specific directions, check with me when you get here.) I guarantee that he'll perk right up, especially if you start talking wedding dates, and don't give me any of that "but he's a guy" crap. You've known better than that for months; you just haven't admitted it. And look where that got you! If you don't want an encore of all this—and the risk of losing Wolfram for good—you'll be honest with yourself and take care of this now.
Bring Conrad with you, if you can. He's not just bummed about fighting a duel with Gwendal; he's also pining after Yozak, who's been avoiding Blood Pledge Castle ever since Gunter started looking for a new romantic interest. (Yozak's the only one of you who has the sense he was born with. I almost wish the gossip about him and me was true.) Conrad has probably heard the same rumors about Yozak and Wolfram (or maybe the ones about Yozak and me) that got you upset, which is mostly what's wrong with him. If you can't pry Conrad away, take Yozak back down to Blood Pledge with you and lock the two of them in a room together for a while. That should do the trick for them. Just don't walk in without knocking after you unlock the door. Even if it's been a couple of hours.
As for the duel—have you really not figured out that Gwendal is upset about the way Gunter has been chasing Conrad these past few weeks? Well, I suppose you've had other things to worry about, so it's not really surprising. The whole reason Gwendal came up with this duel thing was to impress Gunter and steal him back from Conrad. I thought that was obvious.
Anyway, what you do is, you tell Gunter to go use all his influence to get Gwendal to retract his challenge, and then leave them alone together. It'll probably work best if you tell Gunter that Conrad and Yozak are an item, right before he goes in to talk to Gwendal. He's sure to get flustered enough to say something about it to Gwendal. That should scotch the duel and settle the pair of them, both at the same time.
Just in case, though, have Greta with you when you go to meet them when they come out of the room. Tell her that if the two of them don't look happily stunned, she needs to ask Uncle Gwendal if he's slapped Gunter yet. Even if the answer is "no," that ought to give Gunter the idea that Gwendal is attracted to him; based on his recent behavior, Gunter can handle things from there.
Speaking of Greta, I can safely assure you that she has absolutely no interested in being a Shrine Maiden. The only thing wrong with her is that she's worried about her parents. Fix things up with Wolfram, and your daughter will be fine.
Leave Adelbert and Gisela alone. They need a little time to sort out their relationship, and it'll be a lot easier if nobody gets in their way. Safer, too. Besides, you really want Gunter to be in a good mood before anyone breaks it to him that his daughter is thinking of tying the knot with anyone, let alone Adelbert.
As for me and T-Zou, all I have to say is that my sex life is none of your business.
Oh, and Anissina hasn't gone missing, and she certainly hasn't eloped with Lady Celi. She went to Earth with your brother Shori, with a little help from yours truly. I got tired of sending Shori back and forth every ten minutes for a new load of gadgets to give to her. (Don't tell me; you didn't notice that romance heating up, either.) I predict that Anissina and Mama-san will get along like a house afire; she'll end up making a splendid Queen of the Earth Mazoku, with all the high-tech toys she could ever want. And Shori will be a hen-pecked husband. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Signed,
Smarter Than All Of You Put Together (Which Doesn't Take Much), a.k.a. Ken Murata
P.S.-Oh, and one more thing. Stop writing to advice columns. It'll just get you into trouble again. Trust me on this one.