Well, still cutting through backlogged stories. I'm C+Cing this as I read
it.

Alan Harnum wrote:

This story take places after the first series of OVAs, and can,
I suppose, be considered a sort of alt-uni because of this, as it
ignores for the purposes of its story any of the events of the
second OVAs or the TV series.

Well, the TV series is an alt-uni from the OVAs. Sort of like Tenchi OVA
and TV. I doubt if it will detract from the story in any way.

    "Do you want me to leave the candle?"

    "No.  I'm all right without it."

    The bed creaked again.  The door closed.  Footsteps, then
silence.  This time, sleep was dreamless and peaceful.

Hmm. An interesting beginning.

* * *

    Despite this, Nanami was bored.

    "Try some of this," Fujisawa-sensei slurred, pouring a
glistening alcoholic beverage the colour of a sunset into her
cup from a fluted glass bottle.  The beverage smelled like a not
entirely pleasant mix of plums and cherry blossoms, and Nanami
eyed it dubiously.

    Fujisawa hiccuped, and grinned drunkenly at her.  "It's
de-licious.  I won't tell anyone you're under age."

Hmm. Part of me wonders if he would do this. He does seem a bit protective
of Makoto and Nanami. Still, a very minor quibble.

    "She isn't, here," Miz pronounced.  "We don't have >age-of-majority

laws!"  Then, she proceeded to giggle as if it

were the funniest thing anyone had ever said.  While she hadn't
consumed _quite_ as much as Fujisawa--

Well, some people aren't lushes. ^_^

Nanami suspected that no

one at the celebrations had done that

I wonder if his liver has also become super-strong as well.

--she was still obviously

drunk and had been hanging off Fujisawa-sensei's arm all night.

As though she needs that as an excuse.

    Nanami hoped that her teacher didn't do anything stupid
tonight.  People did that sort of thing when they drunk.  Which
was one of the reasons she wasn't.  Still, to be polite, she
sipped the foul-tasting liquor, and fought the urge to spit it
back into her cup to allow herself to swallow it.  It dropped
down her throat and into her stomach like a piece of heated lead
shot.  A rather pleasing warmth began to spread throughout her
body.  "Not bad," she said.  It wasn't entirely a lie--it tasted
awful, but it felt good.

Not much experince with alcohol, eh? ^_^

    "I am NOT!" Shayla said.  She stood up, sat down again,
tried to stand, and then contented herself with lying down on the
ground on her back.  This forced the servants carrying food and
drink to step over her as well as the half-dozen other celebrants
who had passed out around the long table.

Heh.

    Nanami unconsciously touched the golden chain of the small
medal she'd received in the ceremony.  Of the three of them, she
deserved it the least.  Fujisawa-sensei was brave even without
his super-strength, and Makoto had practically become their
leader by the end, but the only thing she'd done was be lucky
enough to be able to see through the Phantom Tribe's illusions.

And thereby saved Makoto from an assassin at the hot springs and busted
Galus's little deception, both key elements in the war. It might be a
passive ability when compared to the others, but it was important.

    "Don't be sad, Masamichi," she soothed.  "After all, he was
sent here by her.  Which means they will meet again some day.  I
think."  She sniffled.  "Maybe."  Quite suddenly, she began to
cry.  "Oh, it's so sad!  Don't ever leave me, Masamichi!"

    Fujisawa-sensei let out a soft, gentle snore.

Hehehe. Nice to see at least a little humor at the start. Though with you
there's no telling when it'll disappear. ^_^

    Across the table, Afura sighed and rolled her eyes.  Nanami
stood up.  Her legs were slightly wobbly, but she felt fine
otherwise.  "I'm going to go find Makoto."

    "I'm coming too!" Shayla declared, but made no effort to
rise.

    "No," Afura said, "you're not."

    "Am too!" Shayla said, still making no effort to move.

You know, the worst thing is I've been in states similar to that myself
and you really do believe you'll be getting up.

 The

arguing voices followed Nanami as she left the revelry of the
banquet hall.  She passed beneath a vine-twined archway, close to
the dais where a dozen musicians played unfamiliar stringed
instruments and oddly-shaped flutes.  The music was atonal, and
deeply, heart-rendingly sad.

    Makoto would be in the gardens, in all likelihood.  It was
the sort of place someone would go to be alone.  The gardens of
the Royal Palace were enormous, however.  It might take her a
while to find him.  Well... it wasn't as if she didn't have the
time.

    The gardens of the palace were very different at night from
the day, as the diurnal flowers closed their bright petals and
slept to await the sunrise, and the night-blooming flowers opened
silkily

slikily? I dunno. Sounds inappropriate there, for some reason. I'd almost
prefer you skipped in adverb there altogether and just went with 'opened
in cool...',
But again, this is a minor quibble.

in cool colours of black and purple and silver.

I'd go with 'black, purple, and silver.' But that's more of a style thing
than anythng else.

Colours? I take it that's the Canadian way of spelling things? Things like
that and seeing 'centre' spelled that way usually throw me a bit.

    As she'd expected, the gardens were nearly deserted,

Ah, so horny nobles don't go sneaking off to the gardens for a little
basic naughtiness, eh? ^_^

and the
only people she met up close were a trio of tipsy nobles, two
women and a man, walking arm in arm.  They offered her a pull

>from the flask they shared between them, but she rejected it politely and
made

her way down one of the spiralling pathways that led inwards
like the motions of a whirlpool towards a splashing fountain.

I'd cut that into two sentences. Seems a bit long and by the end it just
feels awkward.

Hearing a familiar giggle, she peeked over a hedge.  "Alielle?
Have you seen..."

    "Find you _own_ lover, commoner!  We've only just started!"

Oops. Guess I was wrong.

    Nanami sat down on the lip of the basin and stared at her
reflection in the water.  Seeing Alielle and Fatora in such a...
comprising position had hammered home to her how lonely she was
here.  She missed her friends and her parents, she missed going
to school... she even missed her brother, at least for when he'd
simply been an annoying nosy creep instead of a power-hungry
warmongering psychopath.

Yes. I'd certainly qualify that missing part. He's pretty much gone over
the edge of redemption by now with the little war he helped lead.

    The reflection of Makoto's face swam beside hers in the
basin of the fountain.  He had come up behind her without
making a sound.  Ifurita's Power-Key was in his hands now, as it
always was.

Nice touch.

    "Hey, so do I."  He reached down and trailed his fingers in
the water, breaking the image of their faces.  "I miss my mom and
my dad.  I bet they're worried about me.  Heck, by now the police
are probably looking for all of us."

    "I never even thought of that," Nanami said.  "They're not
going to find us, though."

Not unless they get a major upgrade in equipment, they aren't.

    Makoto made a helpless gesture with his hands.  "Maybe time
passes differently here.  Maybe we've only been gone for a few
hours back home.  Or even a few minutes."

    "Maybe."

He could always point out that Ifuruta had been buried in the ancient past
back home, yet only left El-Hazard a day or two ago, so it's pretty safe
to assume it's possible somehow.

    "All the friends we've made?"

    "They aren't really my friends, Makoto."

What does she define them as then? Acquaintances? Just curious.

    "Sure they are!  Alielle, Shayla, Miz, Rune..."

    "Makoto, those are your friends.  Well, except maybe
Alielle, but you know how she is."

heh.

    "Do?"

    "About the wedding."

    As any intelligent man would have done in the situation,
Fujisawa suffered a combination of mild amnesia and mental
paralysis.  "Wedding?"

Hehehehe.

    They stumbled into the room together.  Well, Miz stumbled,
and he made sure she didn't fall.  Like most of the nicer
apartments in the palace, this one was high-ceilinged and
spacious, with a large canopied bed and furniture in the ornate,
flowery style that seemed to dominate in Roshtaria.  In one
corner, a creeping vine had long ago overgrown its lacquered
basin and made a slow ascent up the wall, until one entire side
of the room was covered by it.  During the night, the flowers
bloomed in tiny bright spots of blood red and vibrant blue.  Fold
upon fold of gauzy silk curtains served to divide the room from
the balcony beyond that overlooked the garden; those were pulled
back now, letting in the vague sounds of the continued
celebration and the perfumed scents of the gardens, and allowing
them to see the stars dotting the night sky.

Nice imagery. Here and throughout the fic.

    "So," Miz said, half-sitting, half-falling onto the bed,
"Where's this private stash you were promising me?"  She laughed,
and lay back to stare up at the canopy.  "I'm thirsty."

Actually getting her so drunk she passes out would be a good move on his
part. It'll buy him some time.

    Miz shook her head.  The motion nearly caused her to have to
lie down again.  "I won't get sick.  I'm perfectly fine."

    Fujisawa repressed a sigh and poured a half-cup for her, and
a full one for himself.  Their fingers touched as he passed it to
her; Miz let the contact remain for a second longer than she had
to, and then pulled away with a smile.  He sipped his wine
glumly; it tasted like water to him, with none of the pleasant
alcoholic buzz it should have had.

Hmm. Ordinarily I approve of the use of semicolons (a piece of punctuation
which few seem to use nowadays). But I think you are overusing them a tad
in this piece. I'd keep the second one in the above paragraph, but ditch
the first and seperate them into two sentences.

    Jinnai pulled a comb from his pocket and ran it through his
hair a few times.  "What we need is another secret weapon.  One
that lousy Mizuhara can't take away from me."

Heh. well, that was his plan in the second OVA series, even if you aren't
using it.

    Lemulla pulled down her hood, exposing a bony, emaciated
face framed by a wispy cloud of white hair.   "I come wherever
and whenever I am needed, Prince Nahato.  The Lord of Deeper
Shadows guides me."

    He fixed the old priestess with a cold glare.  How _dare_
she come here uninvited?  "You're not welcome here, and neither
is your Lord of Deeper Shadows.  Go back to your temples and
your chanting, Lemulla.  Lord Gallus would want nothing to do
with it."

Ah, a new villianess for the series, no doubt.

    Gently as a leaf that drifts to earth from the highest
branches of a tree she fell, endlessly, eternally, knowing
without knowing how that she would meet her love again, for oh so
brief a moment after ten thousand years of solitude, and then
what, she did not know, for his memories did not include the fate
of her futureself, of what she would become.

    Through the endless nights, she would dream only of him.
Her hope, her life, her love.  The memories he had given her
would carry her, against all doubts; they would meet again.

    Ahead, away, a light.  Sensors wake, bring forth the life,
the sight, the self.  The end of the journey, so little time?
What then was this, no memory of Earth was this, thus so cold
and barren the world that she has come to?  But wait, no world is
this, a mere pocket carved out within the blackspace between the
worlds, an existence where ought there to be no existence?
Wrong, wrong!

I'd put a line break between the two paragraphs here, even if the above
was just a dream.

    Makoto woke up with a sharp scream, clutching the Power-Key
to his chest.  His pillow and sheets were soaked with sweat, and
seemed almost a second skin so tightly did they cling to his
body.  His hands ached from gripping Ifurita's staff, which he
was certain he had left leaning against one post of the bed when
he retired.

    The centrepiece was the Great Altar itself, half as tall as
a man and thrice that in width.  It was bare of decoration and
smooth as a mirror, an austere monolith surrounded by the
glittering shine of golden artifacts and bejewelled statues.  The
Phantom Tribe had culled many treasures from the earth to craft
their devotional articles, but the Great Altar had been left
free--had resisted, in fact--any such adornments.

Hmm. Interesting.

    "Lord of Deeper Shadows, I cry my woes unto thee," she
murmured.

And somewhere, in the eternal darkness, the Lord of Deeper Shadows said,
"Oh bugger. I hate it when they whine to me. Can't anyone just call upon
me to ask how I feel?"

    The air droned with a whispering of many voices, and the
space around her and the altar was bathed in a coruscation of
black lightning that made every hair on her body stand straight
on end.  And from the grey stone of the staff, at the centre of
which a black pulse could now be seen beating like the slow
rhythms of a heart, the voice and visions of the god came unto
her.

Hmm. More forboding.

Author's Notes:

Another step for me here; after two years of writing nothing but
Ranma fanfics, I'm finally branching off.  I've always liked
El-Hazard for the Arabian Nights flavour, the memorable
characters, and its ability to convey the feeling of an epic
storyline in a very short time.  I have not, however, had
sufficient ideas up until now with which to write a fanfic.

I also hesitated because I haven't seen anything beyond the first
OVAs.

Heh. That's still the best thing to work with. Sort of like Tenchi and the
OVA's of that IMO. The first stuff is still the best.

A nice read. Obviously the start of something that feels like an epic.
(Not that I would ever figure you as an epic writer, nononono.) Look
forward to seeing more.

D.B. Sommer