Actually I started this on April 1st, but I realised that I would
not be able to finish before midnight so I merely sent that 'Crisis of
Infinite Bubblegum' teaser.  
	Now I finally remembered it and finished it off.
	How quickly can any of you guess the tie-in?

HTG
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Japan; Now:

	Cologne gazed upon the mountaintop shrine and smiled slightly to
herself.  Part of her realized she had been avoiding this, her activites
and obligations in Nerima serving as a convinient excuse to avoid coming
to this place, but things were too calm and her heir to competent to
procrasinate any longer so she took a train from Tokyo to this distant
rural district.

	Now that she had arrived here for the first time, the Joketsuzoku
elder realized the quiet wonder her youngest daughter must have felt when
her wandering foot took her here all those decades ago.

	Her daughter....

******
Joketsuzoku Villiage; mid-1950s

	"<Honored Mother,>" Fei Lin said softly, "<I fear I have made a
minor error in judgement.>"

	Ku Lon simply stood in silence as she gazed upon the young woman
who stood before her in threadbare and travel-worn clothes still covered
in road dust.

	"<A _minor_ error in judgement?>" the older woman said sternly as
she gently poked an abdomen obviously swollen with child, "<I would very
much like to know what you call a serious blunder.>

	"<Explain.>" the Elder commanded "<Now.>"

	"<Well,>" Fei Lin began after a deep breath, "<I heard about Japan
from some of your old stories and when my wanderings took me near the
coast I decided to see if I could swim for it.  I made it just fine but
some seawater got into my pack along the way, I mean I made sure all my
medicinals were dried off _in_ the tent....>"

	"<Never considering what effect salt water has upon some herbs.>" 
Ku Lon concluded with a sigh, "<I suppose I should be fortunate you
didn't fall ill before returning.  Now I would hope you have some idea who
the father is.>" 

	"<Of course I do Mother!>" Fei Lin burst out before being cowed by
another Glare, "<He was some sort of shrine-keeper in the local mountains,
a widow with a small daughter.  I mean, I hadn't planned anything more
than staying there for a few nights and helping him in the fields but well
he was quite handsome and seemed so upset about his wife that one night
when we had a few drinks....>"  The younger woman trailed off and blushed
at her impulsivness. 

	Ku Lon looked at her daughter's rather chagrined expression,
unconciously comparing it to the looks of trauma on the faces of woman
refugees in similar physical a decade ago... as well as those of disgust
and self-loathing on warriors returning from wanderings in less peaceful
times.  It was obvious Fei Lin's only error was an honest mistake and her
foreign lover was blameless in the issue.

	"<You obviously intend to keep the child.>" Khu Lon observed, "<I
hope you realize what that intails.>"

	Fei Lin sighed as she contemplated losing the freedom she enjoyed
for the past 24 years.  Like it or not, if she kept this child she'd have
no choice save to settle down and grow up at last.  Then she smiled softly
as she stroked her belly. 

	"Xi Qua," she murmured, "<I like that name....>"

******

Japan; Now:

	Cologne's subconcious took in many details about her surroundings
as she sat in the neatly kept living quarters near the hilltop shrine.  If
one asked her (assuming she saw reason to answer truthfully) she easily
locate the skilled eavesdropper on the roof as well as the clumsier one
outside, identify the odd sensation she had come to associate with
electronic servallence, and point out the subtle... distortion floating
within sight of the window.  The elder was not paying any more attention
to these things than they warrented at the moment however. 

	All her focus was directed to the comparatively old japanese man
that owned the shrine as he bowed low before her in a manner usually
reserved for the vassal of an offended noble.  Cologne frankly had little
idea how this man would react when informed that he had sired her
granddaughter some 40 years ago, but begging forgiveness was fairly low on
the probability curve. 

	"... Fei Yin said she had take precautions madam." the grey-haired
man said as he pressed his forehead against the floor, "If I had any idea
that she was pregnant I would have wed-"

	"I assure you that there was no harm done young man." Cologne
sighed, "The both of you were willing, the damage to her contraception
was her fault, and our women do not consider prior 'experience' a thing
of shame.  Indeed, Xi Qua was almost two when Fei Lin finally wed."

	"Fei-chan." The old man sighed wistfully as he slowly sat up, "Is
she well?  And... her daughter, she must be a fine woman."

	"I am sorry," Cologne said sofly, permitting very real pain to
show in her eyes, "Fei Lin fell honorably in battle some 16 years ago... 
and your daughter died of injuries taken then a year later. 

	Cologne contemplated those events nearly two decades past with a
combination of sadness and wonder.  The ifreet that half-mad Uigur had
died to summon in the nearby mountains decided that the Joketsuzoku were
Chinese enough to be devoured, and it's power was such that even the
arcane skill of all the elders could barely contain it's fury for more
than a few moments.  But when the collapse of one of the elders freed the
ifreet and all seemed lost, a half-japanese woman fresh out of the
child-bed stepped before the creature and summoned forth power unlike any
the Joketsuzoku had even known.

	Power enough to burn out even Xi Qua's well trained body and leave
her bedridden for the rest of her short life.

	Power enough to make the legendary Saffron quail in fear.

	"Did you mention... something about Xi Qua having a child?" the
shine keeper asked, shaking Cologne out of her reverie.  When the
Joketsuzoku elder looked past the rectagular spectacles to reply
negatively, she saw the man's genuine grief of the deaths of a kind woman
he would have grown to love given time and a daughter he never knew... and
alongside it an equally real worry, calm calculation, and a wisdom beyond 
the years of any human she had known.  

	As the old woman considered her answer she came to two
conclusions.  Firstly, despite the sencerity of his willingness to do
right by his lover and thier daughter, there was another reason beyond
fondness and honor which compelled him to keep close tabs on his
bloodline.  Secondly, she was _several_ centuries too early to pull a
genuine fast one on this odd priest.

	"Yes" Cologne stated at length (politely ignoring the question),
"Xi Qua did have a daughter before she died.  Her father and I have pretty
much raised the girl, and I've been training her as my heir."

	"Is she travelling with you?" the shrine keeper asked with an
eyebrow raised in curiosity.

	"Not precisely." Cologne temporized, "We've been staying in Tokyo
for the past several months due to personal business, indeed more hers
than mine, and I'm afaid she had to stay there to mind my restaurant.
Are you certain you cannot come back with me to meet her?"

	"I wish I could madam," the old man said as he gazed out the
window at a particular tree in the distance, "but I fear my duties here
prevent that...."  As he trailed off his eyes shifted from the window to
the door.

	Cologne simply raised an eyebrow as she quietly pulled her pipe
from her pack and bounced it off a particular spot on the door.  The old
man merely nodded in appriciation while the pipe landed within Cologne's
reach as a muttered cry of suprise and pain made itself known. 

	"Tenchi!" Masaki Katsuhito called in a stern voice.

	"Um... yes 'Jiichan?" said a rather handsome youth with
close-cropped hair as he opened the door and poked his head into the room.

	"Tenchi, you have a cousin in Tokyo I think you would like to
meet...."

******

Elsewhere:

	"So the GP will not interfere."

	"I've taken care of the interception, and once the only officer in
that system gets there it will be over one way or the other with no
evidence linking the deed to our houses"

	"I still say it's too risky.  The abduction of someone like her
isn't the kind of thing we can trust to mercenaries... assuming she's
even the one we seek." 

	"I assure you that she's the second one.  The Royal Mongrel has
been keeping a close eye on the boy, but the female has _never_
approached Funaho since we traced her to that island."

	"Besides, nothing on that primitive mudball is capable of stopping
even the rabble we hired from making off with her.  With any luck she'll
be ours to play with shortly, and at worst at least the Royal House won't
be able to use her against us." 

The End of the Beginning