Together Nausicaä and Angel landed in front of the red lamp post which stood some distance away from the upward-curved, red-railed footbridge that connected Aburaya with the rest of the land. Their sudden appearance caused everyone passing by to stop and gawk at them. These included several frog-men workers, a couple of Kasuga gods who had previously decided to venture out in the daylight and amuse themselves in the nearby town (which, like the bathhouse, was alive with activity), and one of the fat white beady-eyed daikon radish gods, whose two elephantine tubers--the ones which hung from the bottom of his pudgy head--twitched with curiosity at the newcomers.
"What is this place?" Nausicaä asked as she studied the tall, multi-tiered house-like structure, bewildered by all the attention she was getting from the surrounding beings. The sound of falling water reached her ears.
This is the place I'm supposed to take you to, replied Angel, folding her wings. She pointed. Cross the bridge, and you will meet someone else whose duty it is to guide you.
"Eh?" The bystanders, their interest satisfied, began to move again. "You're not coming with me?"
Angel shook her head. I will not cross the bridge. It is not allowed me.
"Then... this is goodbye, isn't it?" The Princess' face fell as she spoke.
Nodding, Angel placed a hand on Nausicaä's shoulder. For now, at least.
"Will I see you again? Will you come to the next party?"
Perhaps. Perhaps not, the girl answered cryptically, a soft smile showing on her lips. Don't be sad, Nausicaä. Our destinies lie on different paths, but our friendship surely transcends time and space. We will meet again. Then, without another word, she opened her wings and beat them in powerful flaps, ascending slowly into the sky in the grip of her self-made anticyclone. Farewell.
And so the wind bears me to another time and place, Nausicaä thought. And then leaves me there. "Goodbye!" The Princess waved vigorously as Angel continued to rise. "Thank you!" She watched the being wave back once, then soar further into the heavens and proceed on her way.
Nausicaä stood and gazed into the blueness until it swallowed up her friend. She felt a special kinship with her. Aside from loving to fly as much as she did, the wind-rider had heard the rumors buzzing around, that she and Angel were somehow connected to each other. Was it true? Or was it just someone's fanciful invention? There was only one person who knew the answer, and she couldn't ask him now, not with her being so far away from him... With a heartfelt sigh she turned and prepared to walk across the bridge, then spied something white and shining on the ground where Angel had stood.
It was a feather. Picking it up, the wind-rider looked at it for a few seconds, hearing an echo of the laughter and endless flight contained within, before placing it in the pouch at the small of her back. Then, together with the rest of Aburaya's incoming customers, she crossed the footbridge. She watched the white flag with the 'Abura' kanji waving at the side of the building as she approached.
------oOo------
At the front doors, flanked by a retinue of long-haired women in formal robes--like the ones Nausicaä had seen in Japan--and frog-men dressed up in immaculate blue coats and white hakama, stood an old lady of prodigious girth, with a massive head crowned with white hair done up in a tight bun. She wore an elaborate slate-blue dress, a pair of round golden earrings, and a gold choker on her neck. At its center was a large table-cut gem that reminded the Princess of a Tiara river stone. The gnarled hands the old lady rested at her sides and their pointy-nailed fingers bore still more glinting and winking cabochon jewelry.
"Greetings, Princess Nausicaä daughter of Jhil of the Valley of Wind," she proclaimed formally, bowing. "We have been expecting you. Welcome to the bathhouse Aburaya. I am Yu-baaba, owner of this establishment."
Her manner was so grave Nausicaä felt she had to imitate her. She put her hands at her sides and bowed back. "I am honored," she replied. "Could someone please tell me what I'm doing here?" she added plaintively.
"All in good time, Child of the Wind," Yu-baaba assured her, smiling. Her big teeth did little to assuage Nausicaä's anxiety. "Let me introduce to you some of my people, whom I have assigned to take care of you during your stay here. One of them I think you already know."
She stepped aside and revealed three people standing behind her, one young man in blue-and-white robes and two women in red. One of the women--the one with the golden trim on her uniform and the secretive smile on her face--seemed awfully familiar to Nausicaä.
"This is Haku, my... associate," Yu-baaba said as she gestured gracefully at the man, her voice grating, her expression changing to one of annoyance for the briefest moment. "He will help you go home at the end of your stay. And these two will attend to your needs while you're here. This is Rin, and this is..."
"Chihiro!" Nausicaä exclaimed as she finally recognized the handsome young lady standing in front of her, jumping in joy and running past Yu-baaba to grasp her hands. "Chihiro, is that you?"
The woman nodded and her smile grew wider. "Nausicaä-hime, welcome."
"But... but you're so much older than when I first met you!" said Nausicaä in rapt wonder.
"Yes, I know. We've met several times since then, but you've yet to experience that." Chihiro inclined her head slightly. "I think you'd better go back to Yu-baaba. You're upsetting her."
The wind-rider looked behind her to see a crimson flush staining the old woman's cheeks. Her massive body fairly trembled, the large mole-like mark between her eyebrows pulsed, and Nausicaä realized she must be embarrassing her by interrupting what had appeared to be a carefully-prepared reception. The various bathhouse workers surrounding her suppressed their sniggers and giggles at their boss' discomfiture. They tried hard to remember Kaonashi and being eaten, but instances like this, when the old hag was out of sorts, were few and far between, so any chance of humor was relished and welcome.
Nausicaä bowed deeply after she had rushed back in front of Yu-baaba. "I'm so sorry," she said contritely. "I was just so happy seeing Chihiro again."
Yu-baaba continued her impression of a shaking, ready-to-explode volcano a second more, then said, "It's alright. Welcome, Princess Nausicaä, and we hope you'll enjoy your stay here, however brief it may be." This evidently ended her prepared spiel, because the various beings lining the edges of the lane chorused a cheery, "Welcome, please enjoy your stay," and bowed in unison.
"Thank you. I will," Nausicaä replied with a return bow, and Yu-baaba stepped aside to let her walk to Chihiro, Rin and Haku.
"I leave her in your hands. Take good care of her," the bathhouse owner reminded them, "or the person who wrote me that letter will be very angry. And if he gets angry at me, I'll never forgive you three. Even you, Chihiro, although you're supposed to be a guest right now, and not a worker."
Chihiro bowed. "Yes, Granny." Then they turned around and led Nausicaä past the silkscreen-decorated vestibule and into the depths of the bathhouse. Yu-baaba followed them, and the rest of those who had welcomed her came after.
"Che, did you smell her? She stinks of the human world," said one of the few appalled slug-spirit women to Aniyaku as they all walked back into Aburaya.
"That's why she's here, you dolt," admonished the manager. "So she can rest and have that washed off her before she goes back to her world."
"Don't you think Yu-baaba's been acting a bit strange lately?" asked another of the yuna. "She's not so mean anymore."
"That's probably because of that letter she received. You know, the one she lectured us about." The mysterious missive had been seen arriving by Yu-bird one night, and the old woman had not quite been the same since. No one except she knew what it contained exactly, but the appearance of a large stack of gold bars in front of Aburaya the next morning--addressed to the boss herself--and small bags bursting with real gold dust for all the workers had cemented the fact that Yu-baaba and the rest of the household staff, letter or not, were going to treat this potentially rich treasure trove with the utmost care. "Personally, I think she's afraid of whoever sent it."
------oOo------
Juna ran far out into the surf and cast her net, watching it unfurl itself and disappear with thin sparkling splashes into the iridescent blue water. Then, after waiting several seconds, she tugged on the line attached to her wrist to close and retrieve it, and was pleased to discover five fish wriggling in its folds.
She placed her catch in the basket hanging around her waist, careful not to let their slipperiness betray her. She was happier than she had been in a long time. The Toki no Shizuku in her forehead had been strangely dark and quiescent ever since she had arrived here on Mayan Island. She had no powers, could no longer transform into Arjuna, and discovered--to her guilty delight--that she could indulge herself in some of her former bad habits, like eating heavily-processed foods. Tinned corned beef and tepid cola had never tasted so good.
Nevertheless, she wasn't about to go binge on them. Sara had told her that she was to go back home, and she couldn't very well show up in front of Chris all polluted and weak once more, could she? He'd just leave her stranded in the Japanese Alps again, to 'purify' herself. The fact that she was even alive to imagine such a scene was another reason why she was happy. After all, who else in the whole wide world had apparently managed to survive a point-blank atomic explosion? The thought had entered Juna's mind earlier that she was now the human equivalent of a cockroach, and she broke into peals of laughter at the image until Sara pointedly asked her if the blazing tropical sun had fried her brains, and to be careful lest she cut herself with the knife she was using. That got her to shut up, and she went back to scaling the fish she had caught.
The Mayan village was a small, idyllic place, and Sara a kind, if somewhat taciturn, host. In exchange for her stay Juna helped with the chores, as part of what was now a three-girl household. She caught fish, gutted and cleaned them, gathered fruit, collected firewood, and did the washing; her efforts freed Sara to tend more to her duties as shaman-in-training and make more of the the curious love sticks that seemed to be an integral part of the island's romantic traditions: you offered one to the person you fancied, and if he or she accepted it, then you two agreed to go out on a date, which often led to other things... In addition, she answered all the questions Sara's younger sister Mao and her friends had about the outside world and its unusual and wondrous ways. It seemed that few, if any, outsiders came to the island. Mostly the men left for greener pastures and brighter futures, never to return, so the villagers consisted mostly of women and children, and old folk. There was a decrepit, broken-down generator in one of the huts, plus wires for electricity, and even a dish antenna for communication with the outside world, but all were beyond Juna's ability to repair.
When she had first arrived some of the villagers had looked askance at her, a foreigner, but the young shaman--about Juna's age, as it were--seemed to command some respect and assured them that she was innocent of their suspicions and worthy, as far as she could tell, of their trust. The people bowed to her judgment and welcomed Juna into their village.
Early into her stay, Juna noticed several of the local boys and men eyeing her with interest. From what Mao divulged, they were enamored of her pale complexion and different features. In fact, so enamored that when she had first gone out to fish with Mao under the sun she received repeated warnings about getting sunburnt, and heard several of the men complain about her skin getting tanned. One of the boys had even offered her a blanket to shield herself with. Juna found herself secretly liking the attention. The ironic thing was, she was just another girl in Japan, even though she was the Avatar of Time; here, though she had no powers and was just another mortal, she was was special, through no fault of her own. That definitely made her happy.
It somehow seemed to not matter to her that she was, for the present, stuck here on Mayan in the early part of the year 2007. At night, as she looked out the open windows at the stars, she idly wondered if she had an alter-ego in this world, and if she had, was it still living in Kobe? She wished she could turn into Arjuna and fly back home to just have a peep at herself. But... no. From the smattering of information she had received from Sara and the other villagers, there had been a great war involving much of the world. She fervently hoped that Kobe had been spared any damage.
She looked down at her entire catch and decided that it would be enough for them for dinner. Shutting the basket lid, she turned around and waded back through the waist-deep water to shore. Waiting for her on the blinding white sand was Mao.
"Are you done?" the energetic girl asked.
Juna nodded. "Is this enough?" She lifted the basket lid with one hand as she brushed particles of sand off her slightly too-big blue shorts with the other. It had been lent to her by a generous soul.
"Oh, no, not scud again," moaned Mao. "I'm getting tired of this." She reached in, grabbed the small, torpedo-like fish and hurled it back out into the water.
"Hey! I worked hard to get that!"
"Don't worry about it," Mao chirped. "You know, I think I'll persuade big sister to get us some a'ahi from one of the fishermen later. I'm sure you'll like it."
"What's a'ahi?"
"I don't know your name for it. It's a fish with yellow fins." Looking back in the basket, the young girl exclaimed "Yeek! What's this?" She reached in and carefully extracted a spiky, puffed-up piscine creature.
"Oh! Hey, that's fugu!"
"Is that what you call it? We can't eat this! You wanna commit suicide?" She threw the small puffer fish back into the water.
"Sorry. I didn't recognize it earlier." Juna waved sadly as her deadly catch arced through the air and landed in the water. "Bye-bye, fugu-kun. You know, Mao, some people consider that a delicacy where I live. An expensive one."
"Well, we shun it here. Hey, you've got a ray too!" Mao looked up at Juna. "What are you, some kind of magician? You don't usually find these out in the surf."
"Yes," Juna said, trying out her best mysterious smile. "I can call up any fish you want."
"I don't believe you." Mao eyed her skeptically. "If that's true, then catch a raira for me."
"What's that?"
"A shark."
"No way! What do you think I am, crazy?"
Mao was about to reply when they heard their names called. She and Juna looked to see Sara waving at them, miming that it was time for lunch. Mao waved back, and under the tireless, unblinking gaze of the spread-winged tori-no-hito statues standing behind the rise that marked the end of the beach and the beginning of the land she and Juna set off for the house, still ribbing and joking with each other. Halfway there, the Avatar looked down at her dripping shirt and was glad that Sara's rough-textured homespun wasn't transparent when wet.
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(Posted Sat, 28 May 2005 01:22)
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