Eleventh Night:

A Tale of El-Hazard.

Shayla-shayla, the youngest of the three Chief Priestesses of the Muldoon Temple, woke up groggily as she became aware that someone was crawling into her bed. Since there was absolutely no way that the one person she wanted to come to her bed was going to do so, it was rather likely that it was someone else, and Shayla was relatively sure of that person's identity.

"Alielle," Shayla muttered in a sleep-thick voice, "get the heck out of my bed. I've told you before, I'm not `that way', got it?"

The small figure who had laid down in Shayla's bed said nothing. Nor did she move.

"Have you gone deaf or something?" Shayla yelled, and pushed at the little body. It moved, but not out of the bed. Shayla was about to get up and bodily eject Alielle from her chamber when she realized that something was not right.

Her hand, the one that she had shoved Alielle with, was wet. But whatever the liquid was, it wasn't as clammy as sweat. Shayla raised her hand to her nose, and sniffed.

Her hand smelled of blood.

Shayla-shayla instinctively ignited the lamps in her room, and yanked away the covers that Alielle had wrapped herself in. The small, purple-haired imp was naked, and her back was a mess of blood and welts .. as from a ...

"Oh ye immortal gods ..." Shayla whispered.

Some time therafter, as Shayla washed and bandaged the girl's injuries, the wall of silence that Alielle had erected became too much to endure. "Will you please tell me what the hell happened?" she asked.

Alielle remained mute as a stone, except for her occasional whimpering noises whenever Shayla touched the wounds on her back.

"Please, Alielle ... I want to know who did this to you ..." So I can beat the living CRAP out of her ...

Alielle just shook her head.

"Come on, Alielle, it's me, Shayla-oneesama, remember? You like me. You like everybody, or at least every reasonably attractive female of the same species, but you really like me. Can't you trust me?"

At the very least, this got a reaction out of her. Alielle appeared to consider this statement. For a moment, she looked like she was about to start crying ... then she shook her head, and whispered, "Would it be okay if I slept here tonight, Shayla-sama?"

Not "oneesama". Just a respectful honorific. Shayla felt herself wither a little inside, even as she nodded.

What am I gonna do? Shayla-shayla thought as she wandered aimlessly through the Palace that morning. This is not the sort of thing that they teach you to deal with when you sign up to become a warrior-priestess!

The Temple of Mount Muldoon had become a refuge for women across El-Hazard, and Shayla was pretty sure that at least some of her "sisters" had experienced the sort of thing that Alielle had gone through ... although more probably with men, although that failed to make the situation seem any better. Worse, probably.

The only strategy I've got for this sort of thing is to burn Fatora to a crisp! But I don't think that would really improve matters .. I need help. Miz is busy trying to get married to Fujisawa-sensei, or I'd ask her what to do ... this is probably her department after all. I could ask Afura ... if not for the fact that I'd rather eat glass than admit to any kind of incapacity to her. How am I gonna get Alielle to open up to me? I'm a warrior, not a counselor!

She passed Makoto in the hallway. "Good morning, Makoto," she said absently.

He grunted in response, apparently lost in thought.

Now if I were as pleasant as Makoto is ... or at least, as he usually is, I'd have no problem getting Alielle to open up to me ... she really likes him ... even though ...

That's when the Idea struck her, and she spun on her heel. Makoto was turning the corner, and Shayla dashed off in pursuit.

She had almost caught up to him when Nanami stepped out of a doorway, still in her nightshirt, with some sort of stick in between her teeth. The two slammed into each other, and went crashing to the floor .. the noise of which collision apparently failed utterly to distract Makoto from his thoughts.

"Would you please watch where you're going?!" Nanami yelled at Shayla.

"I'm really sorry, Nanami, but ..."

"You're sorry?! Do you have any idea how long it took me to make this thing?" Nanami continued, holding up the two pieces of the now-broken stick, one of which had some sort of wet bristles on the end.

"What the hell is that?" Shayla-shayla asked, curious despite herself.

"It's a toothbrush, what does it look like ... say, what are you doing, charging around the palace this early ... running after ..." Nanami looked down the corridor just as Makoto turned another corner. She then turned back to look at Shayla with pity written all over her face. "Oh, Shayla ... you've got to get over him ..."

"What?" Shayla asked, incredulous.

"It's just the way things are, y'know? We both lost. Worse, we both lost to Ifurita. That makes it worse, I think; I mean, if it had been somebody who was still around, like the Princess, then it'd be easier; one of us would have a chance, at least ... but she's gone, and he won't ever be able to forget her ... uh ... is something wrong?"

Shayla had made several attempts to interrupt Nanami's monologue, and had finally been reduced to staring at her, feeling her face get redder and redder in mixed anger and embarrassment ... until finally, she shrieked, "YOU IDIOT! This isn't about me and Makoto! This is about me and Alielle!"

Nanami stared, wide-eyed, at Shayla for several moments, her mouth moving silently. "Oh," she said at last. "You finally let her seduce you, huh?"

Shayla collapsed to the floor, slamming her face into the ground a few times, before springing back up. "No, you ... you ... bakayarou! I don't have time to explain it to you! Get your head out of the gutter, dammit!"

She resumed the chase, leaving Nanami in the dust.

Finally, she caught up to Makoto as he was standing in the Palace gardens, staring up at the Eye of God. Of course, where else would he wind up, she thought savagely, then got her temper under control with difficulty.

"Makoto ... -san?" she said, quietly.

He turned, a bit startled. "Oh ... good morning, Shayla-shayla. How are you?"

"I'm fine ... but I have a little problem."

"Oh? Anything I can help you with? Right now, I'd do just about anything to be useful to somebody ..." he finished, suddenly sounding bitter.

So she explained to him what had happened the previous night. He was shocked and stunned. "I knew that Fatora was nasty, but to beat someone who's as dedicated to her as Alielle ... that's terrible!"

"I have a funny feeling that it went a little further than a beating, Makoto." She shared her suspicions with him.

Makoto was now outraged. "That's horrible! That's worse than Galus! That's worse than Jinnai!"

"So ... will you help me talk to Alielle?" she asked, hopefully.

Makoto suddenly seemed to shrink in on himself. "I ... I'm sorry, Shayla, but I'm kind of busy ... maybe if you talk to the Princess ..."

"No, dammit, you're not busy! You just said that you'd do anything to be useful to somebody! Be useful to Alielle!"

"But ..."

"Your attitude sucks wind, Makoto! For the past three days, all you've been doing is wandering around in a funk, staring up at the Eye of God, and leafing through old books! Your obsession with Ifurita is really starting to piss everybody off! We realize that you're in love with her, even though I don't see anything lovable about that ... thing!"

"That's not fair!" Makoto shouted. "She helped save the world!"

"Before which she wreaked havoc across El-Hazard, including the destruction of a city and all its populace! Makoto, just because she turned good at the end doesn't wipe away the horrible things she did, now and in the ancient times! Don't you understand that?"

"Yes," Makoto said softly. "I understand what she was ... more than any other being in the universe could, Shayla ..."

"That link of yours ..." she muttered. "Yeah, maybe your power was what let you open her heart ... but it was your compassion that made her fall in love with you!" Just like me ... she thought, as she turned away. "And that compassion hasn't been in evidence a lot lately ..."

Makoto stared at her as she stalked away. Before she stepped out of the gardens, she turned to look at him once more, with a strangely pitying expression. "Think about it Makoto: if you keep on this way, if you find Ifurita ... there may not be anything left of the man she loves."

And then she left.

Makoto turned back to gaze at the Eye of God. They don't understand. None of them. It wasn't just a "one-way" link. In pouring all my humanity into her, I had to accept some of her ... coldness.

It hurts.

How many thousands of lives had she snuffed out in the ancient war? Even she hadn't known, but it had begun to wear on her. Her makers had never intended for their creation to develop a soul, let alone a conscience ... but she had. She hadn't known that what it was, of course; she'd thought it was only weariness ... not the guilt and shame that it actually was. And the loneliness ...

So alone ...

Only in those handful of hours after they had rescued Fatora from Jinnai's citadel had either of them known peace. They had sat in the bed chamber set aside for her, neither saying a word. Words would only have gotten in the way.

And then ... she had been gone. Taking his place as the sacrifice to prevent the Eye of God from firing. He'd sworn to come after her even as he felt the staff -- her staff, her link to him -- grow cold in his arms.

He could only rarely stand to touch it now.

Did you hear me, Ifurita? he thought, suddenly. Do you know that I'm coming to find you?

Do you know that I love you?

What if Shayla's right? What if I'm letting my quest to find her poison me with guilt? How can I fight something like that?

When Shayla came back to her room after her unsuccessful talk with Makoto, she found Alielle curled up on the windowsill, staring at the clouds. Again she felt the surge of anger when she looked at the wounds on the girl's back. Gods. What kind of monster would do such a thing? But since the anger wouldn't help matters, she beat it down (not easy, for one so used to letting her rage have reign over her thoughts), and tried to draw Alielle out of her shell once more.

She stuck to safe, nice topics, but no matter what she said, Alielle only replied in monosyllables, if at all. It was one of the most frustrating things she'd ever experienced.

After a while, she heard a knock at the door. She went and answered it.

"Hi," said Makoto. "I'd like to talk with Alielle?"

Shayla blinked, and stared at him for a few moments, before she stammered out an affirmative, and stood aside to let him in.

"Hi, Alielle-chan! How are you today?"

Alielle turned to give Makoto a weary smile, and her eyes bugged out and jaw dropped.

It had been, Shayla mused, something of a shock to see him in his old disguise as Fatora, complete with wig and flower in his hair. He hadn't worn it since that night that Galus had exposed his identity, as there really hadn't been a need ... but nonetheless, he was a remarkably beautiful woman ...

"Makoto-chan!" Alielle gasped out. "You shouldn't be wearing that! Fatora-sama will be ..."

"Angry?" he asked. He gave it some thought. "You're right. It was just a bit of nostalgia, I guess." He took off the wig, and pulled a chair up to the window. "Fatora-sama can get pretty mean sometimes, when she's angry, can't she?"

Shayla-shayla began to slip outside the door. "Well ... only a little ..." Alielle answered, almost whispering.

"That's okay, Alielle-chan ... I know what it's like to have someone you love angry at you."

"You do?"

Shayla stood outside the door, not wanting to listen in on the conversation, but not wanting to leave them unsupervised either.

"Oh yes. Ifurita was terribly angry with me the first time I synchronized with her, remember?"

"Well, yes ..."

And so they talked. And in the fullness of time, Alielle admitted that what Shayla had believed had gone on between her and the Princess had actually taken place ... although she assured Makoto that it had been all her fault, and that it would never happen again. Makoto gently pointed out that even once had been a very bad thing.

By the end of their talk, Alielle was crying into Makoto's robes, and neither Makoto's nor Shayla's eyes were dry ...

"She's sleeping," Makoto informed Shayla a little while later, as he stepped out of the room into the corridor.

"What are we going to do?" Shayla asked quietly.

Makoto was silent for a long moment, gazing at the wig that he held in his hands. "I'm going to have a talk with Princess Rune ... she trusts me, I think, and I hope I can convince her that this sort of behavior can't be tolerated, not even in her sister."

"I'll come with you," Shayla offered.

Makoto flushed. "I would ... appreciate that. I'm not looking forward to repeating ... the details." He looked up, then, and smiled, hesitantly. "And I want to apologize to you, too."

Shayla blinked. "Whaffor?"

"For having been such a jerk lately. You were right, in the garden. When I go to find Ifurita ... I want to be the person I was when we met. Or as close as I can get, at any rate. Thank you for pulling me back from the edge, Shayla-shayla."

Shayla smiled broadly, not letting her own disapointment show. I hoped ... oh well. There's still a chance. "You're welcome, Makoto. You wanna go see Rune now?"

"Oh God, no. I have to get changed first, I can't go to see her in this!" He gestured down at his dress.

"Right," Shayla said, her smile genuine now. "I think the black dress is a little more ..." she got out before descending into giggles at Makoto's spectacularly ugly expression.

"You aren't upset about my telling Rune, are you?" Makoto asked Alielle later that evening, as they lay in bed.

Alielle stared up at the ceiling. "I miss her."

Fatora had announced, not long after Shayla and Makoto had paid their visit to her older sister, that she would be going on a goodwill tour of all the kingdoms of El-Hazard, which was expected to take about a year. She had departed immediately.

Rune Venus usually gave people the impression of being a reed in a swift flowing river, buffetted and barely able to hold herself together. Like many surface impressions, this didn't begin to scratch the depths of the personality and strength of will that the elder figurehead ruler of El-Hazard posessed.

"Maybe when she comes back, things will be ... different between you two," Makoto suggested.

"Nope. Probably not. She never changes ... but it's good to hope. Anyway, it's nice of you to let me sleep here, Makoto-chan."

"You can stay here as long as you want, Alielle-chan."

"Don't get ANY ideas, though."

Makoto smiled, despite himself. "I wouldn't think of it. Sweet dreams." He turned onto his side, and was asleep in moments.

Alielle waited until she was sure that Makoto was quite completely unconscious, then slowly slipped out of bed, and began to pad across the floor and out the door.

How DARE they.

Princess Fatora stared at the slowly receeding city of Roshtaria as the caravan to which her private airship was attached started its journey towards Barsantia, a city state about two days distant.

How DARE they interfere in my right to punish her for her misdeeds! She is mine! Mine to reward, mine to chastise!

"Mizuhara Makoto ... you will PAY for the insult you have given me," she hissed.

Dark plans began to form in Fatora's mind. With the Bugrom threat gone ... perhaps there is no longer a need for there to be two princesses in Roshtaria...

The door slammed open. Makoto jerked awake. "Huh?"

"Makoto!" Shayla-shayla roared, clad in an almost translucent nightgown, carrying Alielle under her arm. "She tried to sneak into my room again!"

"Huh?" repeated Makoto, who was not fully conscious.

"I'm sorry, Shayla-oneesama ... I was just lonely and ..."

"Well, by the gods, it's not going to happen again!" Shayla marched over to the bed, dropped Alielle on it, and marched back to the doorway, where she proceeded to drop down to a sitting position, keeping the bed in her view as she did. "I'm going to stay right here and make SURE she doesn't sneak into my room ANYMORE!"

Makoto stared at her, his eyes agape. "You are staying ... IN MY ROOM?!"

Shayla nodded forcefully, her eyes hard. "It's the only way!"

"Wow! What fun! Maybe we should invite Nanami-oneesama to the slumber party too!"

Makoto groaned.

The End
(For Now)

After some harsh but fair criticism from the Magical Girls Fanfic Review Team, I decided to review this story to see if I could improve the ending. In doing so, I realized that I had fallen into the classic writer's trap of telling what happened, instead of showing it. While that's not completely eliminated in this revision (i.e. the confrontation between Fatora and Rune), I'm a bit happier with this version. Thank you to Mika, Akiko, Natsumi, Ferris, Akira, Penko and Peter Ward for their suggestions. (ESPECIALLY Natsumi. She's dreamy. ;)

Before anyone asks, yes, I know that appearing to a rape victim in disguise as her rapist is probably not the wisest thing under any circumstances. But these are *very* unusual ones, okay? (And I'm not saying that Alielle was raped, but I will say that it wasn't much different ...)

How long will it take for Makoto to figure out the workings of the Eye of God so that he can go and get Ifurita? 994 days from the end of the series. This gives me lots of room for my stories. (Many kudos to those of you who have guessed what I'm referring to. ^_^)

The Magnificent World of El-Hazard, and various characters both native and foreign to it, were created by Hiroki Hayashi and Ryoe Tsukimura, and brought to North America by Pioneer LDC. The preceding story, while incorporating aspects of this motion picture held under copyright by others, is copyright 1996 by Chris Davies.

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