Eighteenth Night:
                            A Tale of El-Hazard

    "... for lookye; Lodoss must ne'er be one, or mist shall --"

    "Darkness."

    Makoto looked up from the tome, and blinked.  Afura Mann didn't look 
in his direction as she ran her finger along the spines of a number of 
books in Roshtaria's Great Library.  "Excuse me?" he asked politely.

    "The character that you translated as `mist' actually means 
`darkness'.  There's a passage later on where it talks about the *that* of 
the hearts of the people who despoiled the author's homeland, and it 
doesn't make any sense to talk about the mists of a heart."  She paused, 
then turned to smile faintly at him.  "It's *poetic*, but it doesn't mean 
anything."

    "Then ... you've read this book?" Makoto asked.

    She nodded.  "A while ago.  I've got a copy back home."

    "Then do you know if there's anything about --" he pounced, and 
watched her shake her head once.  Makoto sighed and set the book down.  
"This was one of the small pile of books that Dr. Schtalbaugh pointed out 
that didn't seem to belong to any nation of El-Hazard," he explained.  "I 
hoped that it might give me some sort of a clue ... *something* to go on."

    "Well, Mizuhara-san, I'm sorry, but there's nothing about travelling 
through dimensions in that particular tome."  Afura walked over to the 
table where Makoto sat to look at the book.  "It *is* apparently from 
another world, just like you are ... but whoever the poor madman who wrote 
it was, he didn't know anything about how to walk between worlds."

    Makoto pushed his chair away from the table, and stood up to stretch.  
Afura heard the sound of joints cracking as he did.  "So ... what did you 
come to the palace for, Afura-san?" Makoto asked as he slipped a hand into 
his shirt to rub his shoulder under his blue jacket.

    "I'm helping with another one of Miz's plots to get Fujisawa-sensei to 
marry her," she replied offhandedly, examining the other contents of the 
desk.  "Ah!  Here's the problem," Afura noted, picking up the translator's 
dictionary.  "The poor girl who wrote this bit of drivel lost her mind 
midway through.  She'd sprinkle poetic expressions in amongst the actual 
meanings ... supposedly, if you combined all her mistranslations in order
of appearance, they either produced a bit of erotic poetry in our language
about what she and her lover had done one fine day, or a long rambling
explanation in theirs about why she'd killed him."

    Makoto gulped.

    "Or so goes the legend," Afura noted, setting the dictionary back 
down.

    Part of Makoto urged him to inquire about the plot that she'd 
mentioned, but another part made him ask, "Afura-san ... why did *you* 
read this book?"

    Afura looked at him oddly.  "Because I wanted to.  Why else?"

    "Well, I mean ... you'd have to spend hours working with this 
translation guide, and --"

    "I had a much better one," she interrupted.

    "-- but still, what did you hope to find out --"

    "Whether or not it was interesting."  She smiled at his confused 
expression.  "Mizuhara-san, I like to read.  Back at the temple, I have so 
many books that I don't have enough room in my chambers to keep them ... 
to say nothing of the temple library."

    "Wow ... you're a real scholar ..."

    "No," Afura said firmly.  "I'm a priestess.  Schtalbaugh is a scholar 
-- he reads and he also *writes* about what he reads."  She began to leaf 
through the pages of another book -- "The Lore and Legend of the Land of 
the Sephiroth" -- that Makoto had planned on getting to later in the day.  
"I could just lose myself in reading something like this, sitting 
peacefully and pouring over the words and the thoughts.  I'd never be a 
good scholar -- I'd have to be reading and thinking about what I was 
reading, constantly.  I could never do that."

    "So you became a priestess instead ... so you'd have lots of time to 
read?" Makoto guessed.

    "Well, that and I had the rare talent that the job demanded," she 
said, smiling wryly.  "But you're not far wrong, Mizuhara-san."

    Afura looked up, then.  "Now, if I'm not mistaken, the plans that Miz 
set in motion will be falling down around her ears, and Fuji-chan --"

    "FUJI-CHAN?" Makoto asked, incredulous.

    She let out a deep sigh.  "Mizuhara-san, I've asked this of Shayla, 
and I was hoping you'd be willing to do me the same favor; if I ever 
become so besotted with someone that I start giving them a petname,
please end my life."

    Makoto stared at her for a moment, unsure if she was joking or not.

    "In any event, Fujisawa will doubtless be heading for the hills ... 
time for me to go and help pick up the pieces.  Good luck with your 
studies, Mizuhara-san ..." she tossed over her shoulder as she started for 
the door.

    "Um -- Afura-san?"

    She looked back at him, a single eyebrow lifted in inquiry.

    "Um ... I'd like to walk with you, if you don't mind."

    Afura shrugged, and started walking again.  Her stride was a bit 
longer than his, so Makoto had to rush to catch up.

    He finally worked up his courage when they were in the hallway.  
"Afura-san ... do you do a lot of counselling, at the temple?"

    She considered.  "My share.  Technically, that's Miz's area of 
responsibility, and she's rather good at it."

    "Really?"

    "She gives wonderful advice to the lovelorn, Mizuhara-san."

    He gave her a look.  She shrugged.  "Those who can't, teach.  And 
besides, this is a very strange world we live in, where neither men nor 
women can see things which are very close to them."

    Makoto blushed.  "I'm not *that* bad, am I?"

    "I wasn't talking about you in particular, Mizuhara-san.  You're not
even the worst offender for that that I know about."

    He swallowed.  "Afura-san ... I have to talk to you about 
Shayla-Shayla."

    She paused, and let out a deep sigh.  She turned to look right at 
him.  "All right."

    "I ... I know that I didn't realize that she was in love with me at 
first, but ... but I'd really have to have been blind to not understand 
how she felt by the time we went on the raid to rescue ... Princess  
Fatora," he added, almost spitting the name out involuntarily.

    "True enough."

    "But I thought for a while that she was over me ... but recently, 
I've been getting hints that she just ... isn't."  He was silent for a 
moment.  "Is she?" he asked hopefully.

    There was only one answer Afura could give him, and it hurt to see the 
hope in his eyes die as she answered, "No."

    "Dammit," he muttered quietly, turning away.

    "Makoto," Afura said, using his personal name for the first time that 
she could recall.

    He looked back to her, clearly upset.

    "Nobody *ever* gets over their first love, Makoto.  I've talked with 
old women who remembered, as vividly as they did the faces of their 
husbands, the faces of the boys who gave them their first kisses under the 
stars.  But people come to terms, and go on with their lives.  I mean, 
take a look at Rune Venus.  You think she wasn't hurt by finding out what 
her `Galus-sama' was, or what he actually thought of her?"

    "Well, of course, but --"

    "But do you see her lying around crying about it?"

    "I don't see her very often at all, Afura-san," he replied with a 
flash of humour.

    She acknowledged his point with a nod.  "But when you get down to it, 
she, like any other *healthy* person, isn't letting her sadness over 
losing him ruin her life."  Afura paused to let that sink in.  "You were 
Shayla's first love, and she hurts because she didn't `win'.  She's 
stubborn and competitive -- probably moreso than any other person that 
I've ever met -- but she's also healthy in that way, so *eventually*
she'll acknowledge that she lost.  Probably in a `bland roots' sort of
way, but --"

    "When you say, eventually," Makoto interrupted, "just how long are we 
talking here?"

    "Going somewhere in a hurry?" she asked with a cool smile.

    He gulped.

    "The point is, she won't do something crazy because of you," she 
concluded, "so you don't have anything to worry about.  All right?"

    He nodded, and Afura turned to start heading down the hallway once 
more.  She could hear, in the distance, Miz wailing that her sweetheart 
had once more run off.  And under that, she heard Makoto mutter, "What if
*I* do something stupid?"

    "Like what?" she asked casually.

    Makoto looked up, startled.

    "I have very good ears," she told him without any trace of false 
modesty.  "What sort of stupid things are you thinking about, Makoto?"

    He hesitated, which told her much of what she wanted to know.  "I 
haven't been making *any* progress with the Eye of God ... and ... what 
if, some night, a year or so from now, when I haven't made any more 
progress than I have now, I --"  He fell silent.

    "Mizuhara-san," she said calmly.

    The implications of the return to formality were not lost on Makoto.

    "I don't believe that.  I don't believe that you could ever hurt 
Shayla *or* Ifurita like that.  I don't believe that Shayla would *let* 
you do that.  And I don't believe that you could believe that you'd do 
that, knowing how she looked at you there on the Eye of God."

    She fell silent, and Makoto spent several moments studying his shoes.

    "But I'll tell you what, Mizuhara-san," she said softly, stepping 
close to him.  "I'll make you a promise.  If you ever *do* hurt my sister 
like that, I will tear your heart out of your chest."

    For a moment Makoto wondered if he'd heard her correctly.

    "And I wouldn't enjoy doing that.  So, being the nice person that you
are, you'll do whatever you can to *avoid* making me do that.  Right?"

                                  THE END
                                 (FOR NOW)

Author's Notes:

    This one's for Andrew Huang, who wondered about Afura Mann's 
personality.

    The element of air is associated, in mystical theory, with "thought", 
much as fire is associated with "passion", and water with "spirit".  But 
that's not where the idea for Afura's passion for reading comes from -- it 
is derived from watching the preview of the episode of the El-Hazard TV 
Series ... sorry, the episode of "Wanderers:  El-Hazard", as Pioneer is 
calling it, which introduces her, wherin her huge collection of books is 
revealed.  (Watch, the TV series will reveal that she's using them to 
press flowers or something.  Sigh.)

    But the concept that Afura might be the most "intellectual" of the 
Daishinkan was *vaguely* suggested, I think, on the Fifth Night of the 
series, when she was the Priestess who was discussing matters with Dr. 
Schtalbaugh.

    I would like to apologize for taking so long for this, and for not 
doing the story about Jinnai, Diva, and the Bugrom that I *wanted* to do 
as my next El-Hazard story, but when the muse says "Write this", it's hard
to say no.  Maybe next time ...

    No, there are no prizes for correctly identifying the origins of the 
two books that Makoto was looking at.

    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 1997 by Chris Davies.

    Nobody Sue Me Okay?

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"Damn it all, how am I supposed to sit here and wallow in self-pity and
disgust with all this racket going on?" -- Yuusaku Godai, Maison Ikkoku.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html