"You look fine, hime-sama," Juna assured her, tearing herself away from the sight of Tokyo's nighttime vista. She watched as the Princess folded her arms at the elbows and raised her hands. "Well, perhaps the sleeves of that sweater are a bit too long," she added as her eyes came to rest on the empty armholes in front of Nausicaä's face.
Katsunari stood from one of the cream-white living room seats and walked up to their visitor. "Here," she said, pulling the sleeves down to Nausicaä's wrists and adjusting the rest of the garment. "See? It's okay. Now let me have a look at you." She stood back and eyed Nausicaä critically. "You look so--"
"Cute," Yuuki finished helpfully as he emerged from the kitchen doorway, holding a fast-disappearing burger in one hand and a bottle of chocolate milk in the other. The Princess was decked out in a bright-yellow sweater with zigzagging red and blue stripes across the front of it, and wore a pair of hip-hugging jeans belonging to Katsunari. Her feet were shod in a pair of cat-headed house slippers--they were the only ones left in the apartment.
"Yuu-kun!" admonished Juna, getting up from her windowside chair as Nausicaä blushed. "That's no way to speak to royalty!"
Nausicaä waved a hand. "Ah, it's okay, it's okay. I've never been too big on titles and stuff." She gestured to a seat. "May I?"
"Of course," said Katsunari. Nausicaä sat down.
"Here you will stay," said Juna, the faraway look once again in her eyes, "and rest from journeys. At least until that portal comes around."
"You must be hungry," Yuuki said. "I'll go fix you a supper." He disappeared back inside the kitchen.
"I can't thank you enough for helping me," said Nausicaä. "I've been looking at the things around me for the past couple of weeks, and sometimes wonder if I'm dreaming and will soon wake up. Then I remember how peaceful I feel ever since I got to this world, and wish I would never do so anymore."
"I felt the same way sometimes, when I was still sick," said Katsunari quietly, sitting on the living room sofa. She related how sometimes she'd find herself in some pleasant dream, only to wake up and once more face the unrelenting reality of her sickness, and how she'd cry at the thought of having to live in the harsh, unforgiving world again. "But I somehow got along, with the help of my friends and family," she continued, "and so I'm still here, and I find new hope in each day of my new life. And for that I am extremely thankful."
Juna turned to face her old schoolmate, and her eyes seemed to bore right through Katsunari. Will you tell her about the time you almost got killed by a Raaja?
Katsunari made an almost-imperceptible shrug. And let her know that I was the girl who killed several SEED personnel and that you almost had to kill me? No way. "Ah, Nausicaä-hime," she said, "there's been something I've been meaning to ask you, if you don't mind."
Nausicaä signaled acquiescence.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"W-what? No, I don't." A smile flitted across her face as a thought crossed her mind. "Well, there are a couple of boys asking for my hand..."
"So? Haven't you answered any of them?"
Nausicaä sighed. "When you're as busy as I am, you don't have time for fun, much less love. Sometimes I wish I were a little girl again, and remember what it was like to run in the fields and let the day pass by without a care."
"So do I," said Juna. "It must be hard for you to be regarded as the savior of the world."
Nausicaä grew quiet and contemplative. "Don't call me that, please. I have very unpleasant memories about that label." Her mind wandered back to when she and Asbel were leading a caravan across a desert, and one by one the people in it started to die, and her despondency over their deaths had gripped her like an iron glove that she could no longer find the strength to spring open. She had raved one night about how she couldn't take it any more, about how she couldn't stand the strain, and went on to revile the desperate people they were leading, until Asbel had been forced to slap her back to her senses and remind her that her life was no longer her own, that she was beholden to the many who had died to save her because they believed in what she stood for.
"I'm sorry, Asbel," she had told him back then, weeping at the solemn memory of Kushana's fallen horseclaw riders, at the Wormhandlers who had slain their own brood so they could follow her without encumbrance, at the Valley people who had given up fighting for their freedom at her say-so. "I almost let the load slip from my shoulders. I will never, ever let it slip again."
The Princess emerged from her reverie to find Juna Ariyoshi's dark eyes gazing piercingly into hers. You are young, for such a heavy burden, came the voice in her mind.
So are you. It is the price we have to pay, to stand up for the things we believe in. Deep within her she heard her ranting voice screaming at Asbel, Morning? Morning? There will never be another morning, do you hear me? It will be night, forever and ever! and was once again filled with shame at what she had said then.
The host to the Avatar of Time said nothing, and let Katsunari's chatting fill in the void, until a thought came to her.
"Nausicaä-hime?"
"Hmm?"
"You did say you came here for a party, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Then it wouldn't be out of line to turn this stay of yours into a vacation, wouldn't it?"
Nausicaä considered a moment. "I suppose not."
"Then maybe Ka-chan and I can show you what it means to be a child in this world."
A smile grew on Nausicaä's lips. "I'd like that, I think. Then you could answer the many questions I have about your culture."
------oOo------
Yuuki Goami emerged from the kitchen bearing a tray laden with all the food he could prepare, arranged as eye-pleasingly best as his ungentle hands could make it. He took one look at the three girls, sitting close by one another on the plump living room sofa, giggling and preening like a bunch of junior-high schoolers, and chuckled. He silently placed the tray on the dining room table and backed out of there, for he knew that if he stayed Katsunari would soon have him wearing rollers in his hair, blusher on his cheeks, and badly-applied lipstick on his lips.
(Posted Wed, 23 Mar 2005 00:00)
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