And that was how their friendship began; through little words, nouns that were only a part of a complete language, but still broadening their worlds. That evening, July 17th, 1989, during the highlight of the Kyoto Gion Matsuri Festival, Alexandra Palone and Fuwa Shotaro became instant friends. They talked in the side street for quite some time, sharing their languages, only ending their conversation when a distraught Miss Marina found Alexandra and shepherded her charge back to her home, Shotaro trailing behind the two of them. Marina only noticed his existence when the two said goodbye at the door, but shook her head and thought nothing of it.. The next day, he showed up there, ready to play with his newfound friend, and Marina didn't have the heart to turn him away.
Elizabeth was part bewildered by this turn of events ("children" was a subject at which she had never been particularly proficient) and part indifferent (she meant what she had said: her daughter could do whatever she wished.) In the end, Elizabeth concluded that it was for the best that Alexandra had made a Japanese friend. Personally, she refused to speak Japanese with her daughter, and the woman she hired to watch her seemed content to follow that precedent. And, as Catherine's disposition towards Elizabeth's "love child" grew worse, and Elizabeth's own attitude towards her became correspondingly worse, the fact that there was one person who liked Alexandra for herself was, arguably, the only thing that saved her emotional stability.
Elizabeth, during this time, was managing a handful of businesses, which was what paid the bills, but that didn't take up much of her time. The majority of her energy was channeled to the negotiations with the Palone family, trying to fight for her place among them. Catherine resisted her on every turn, and the more time elapsed, the more unstable Elizabeth's position became. She became paranoid of the idea that somewhere, there was an attractive girl hanging off Antony's arm, a harlot that would someday usurp her. She hunted down news of the Palone family, viewing each and every photo and film of them at public events, and didn't rest even when it seemed that her husband attended escort-less. She lost sleep, she lost weight, she lost her patience.
Time dragged on, for her. For her daughter, it flew.