I have a message from another time...
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presents
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
- SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 2 -
Interlude at the Hotel Monolith in C# Minor
Benjamin D. Hutchins
(c) 2001 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2405
5:21 PM
ROOM 212-41, IMPERIAL HOTEL MONOLITH
NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI
The golden and scarlet lights of New Avalon twinkled and
glittered through the great panoramic windows of Room 212-41. From
this side of the building, a person standing at those windows could
see the Entire State Building's Gothic spire, the southeast corner of
the Aztechnology Pyramid, Knights Field, the Battledrome, Morgan
Arena, and about half of the grid of broad downtown streets. In the
distance, the lights of Mathews Memorial Spaceport could be seen, and
their reflections in the lake. The golden glow suffused the room,
giving it a feeling of warmth even with the room lights on.
Utena Tenjou stood at that window, looking out at that view,
smiling thoughtfully. Behind her, through the open connecting doors
to the adjacent room, she could hear Corwin Ravenhair bustling around,
sorting out shopping bags and luggage and generally doing the kinds of
things a person does when taking temporary possession of a hotel room.
She waited until he was done with all that and put his head
through the connecting doorway, then turned and smiled at him.
"You were right," she said. "The view -is- spectacular from
up here. Better than from the Entire State Building."
Corwin grinned. "It's the sightlines. The Monolith has the
best location in town." He glanced at his watch. "You ready? We've
just got time for dinner before the game."
"Sure."
Ever the gentleman, he held Utena's coat for her as she
shrugged into it, and as they left the room she took his arm, smiling.
/* The Tubes "She's a Beauty" _Outside Inside_ */
They'd been together all day, having left Corwin's father's
house on Morgan Lane that morning for a day of shopping and
video-gaming at the Avalon Centre Galleria, followed by a session in
the simulators at the Battledrome. Now they were bound for dinner at
Yahagi's, the sphere's finest Italian restaurant, and then a Razors
game at Morgan Arena, before spending the night, just for the sheer
hell of it, in adjoining rooms on the 212th floor of the Imperial
Monolith, arguably the galaxy's finest hotel. As programs went, Utena
reflected as Corwin guided his antique Griffon limousine toward the
restaurant, it would have made a fine date, if they were dating.
But of course they weren't. (Hadn't been, in fact, for a
little over nine months.) The notion would have struck them both as
quite absurd. Clearly, such a thing was impossible. Utena was far
from available, being engaged to be married to a girl with whom she
found herself quite irretrievably in love; and at any rate, Corwin,
being a year and a half her junior, was much too young for her.
Of course, the girl in question was on the other side of a gap
that appeared unbridgeable, and Corwin, the son of an immortal hero
and a goddess, was hardly an ordinary fourteen-year-old. But still -
don't be ridiculous. He was handsome and honest, strong and kind, an
altogether wonderful friend to have - but that's all he was. And he,
he might well think that Utena Tenjou was the most beautiful girl he
was ever likely to encounter in his life, and very probably the most
admirable as well, but that didn't automatically make his intentions
dishonorable. She'd told him months ago that it couldn't be, and he
prized her friendship above all his other possessions. And after all,
her loyalty was one of the things about her that he loved - how
hypocritical would it have been of him to turn around and con her into
-dating- him?
No mistaking, though, Utena liked being with Corwin; she'd
learned that fairly early on in their friendship. He was the only guy
she knew who could really make her feel... well, like a -girl-,
without at the same time making her feel mockingly patronized or
greedily coveted. He had a sort of old-fashioned gallantry about him
which yet accommodated her own quirks - no, more than that, reveled in
them. He accepted (welcomed!) her for what she was, sharp edges,
occasionally-unwise bluntness, rough-and-tumble tomboyishness and all.
She liked his ability to hold doors for her without making her
feel as if he considered her too helpless to open a door for herself.
He liked her ability to laugh out loud, head thrown back, without any
of that silly mouth-covering giggling that Modern Girls thought was
seemly. They made a good team. Over the course of the year they'd
known each other now, each had learned a lot from the other, and
enjoyed almost every minute of it.
As they had almost every Friday for the past three school
terms, and more often during the holidays, they ate dinner together,
talked, laughed, enjoyed each other's company, and reflected how lucky
they were that they didn't have to do all this in the grim and
constraining structure of a Relationship. What a dire thing that
would be.
Yes, indeed.
The Razors and the Detroit Red Wings took a one-all thriller
almost all the way through sudden death overtime before newly traded
Razors goaltender Rene-Philippe Target (poor Roy Chernow; Utena and
Saionji had recieved a mock-heartbroken little note from him when
Target was traded, telling them, as Avalonians, to take good care of
the goalie) saved his team with an absolutely heart-stopping glove
save, then belted the clearing pass straight into an utterly gorgeous
two-on-one cross-ice setup that allowed Mark Guarick to blast home the
winning goal with 0:07 left on the clock. Utena and Corwin cheered,
slammed a high five, and counted themselves lucky to have the kind of
buddy you could go to a hockey game with on a Thursday night.
Still riding the high from the game, they went back to the
Monolith, stowed the Griffon, and rode the elevator back to the two
hundred twelfth floor.
"I'm too wired to sleep," Utena announced as they entered Room
212-41, "and anyway, it's still too early. Not even ten yet."
"We could go to a movie," Corwin said. "Or bowling or
something."
"Nah," said Utena. "I'd rather stay in, have some quiet
time. We've been around other people all day. Why don't you call for
that cheese platter from room service and we'll see what's on TV."
This he did, then sat in one of the room's comfortable
armchairs, munching Cheeses from Around the Galaxy and an Assortment
of Very Special Crackers while Utena did random stretching exercises
(some of them very interesting indeed) and surfed the channels for
something watchable. They talked about this, that and nothing at all
during the dull parts of the dial, laughed uproariously at the
ten-thirty episode of "Iron Chef" (featuring Corwin's Aunt Bell as
Iron Chef Tomodachi), warned the hapless teenagers in about ten
minutes' worth of some horrible slasher flick not to go through those
doors, and caught the last three innings of Game 7 of the 2404 World
Series on the Classic Sports Channel.
"Oh my God, they put that on -TV-?!" Utena burst out as, there
on the Toronto Raiderdome Jumbotron during the Seventh-Inning Stretch,
her very own effort, languorous and luxurious, was immortalized for
all time.
"Looks that way," said Corwin with a grin. "Not bad, not bad
at all. And I've been watching you stretch all night."
She gave him a return grin and insisted, "It's important to
stay limber," before starting on a series of standing hamstring
stretches.
As she did so, Utena wondered idly why she was starting to
feel a little nervous. It didn't make any damn sense. She was having
a wonderful day in the company of one of her favorite individuals.
There was no reason for her to feel edgy, and yet, just on the fringes
of her consciousness, it was like there was an alarm bell ringing.
Maybe it was the mental inactivity of watching TV.
"Hey," she said, flicking off the set. "Let's play a game."
"OK," said Corwin, and he got up and went to the little table
near the windows.
They played not one but several games, losing small amounts of
money to each other at several card games before breaking out the
Pente set Corwin had bought for her earlier in the day, then switching
that out for a game of Lying Bastard Scrabble. This, Utena managed to
win with "myxtogogic" ("it means 'of or pertaining to the teaching of
the mixological arts'").
By now it was one in the morning; yawning a little, Utena went
to brush her teeth and change into her pajamas. Corwin did the same
in 212-43, then came back to say goodnight.
"What, you're going to bed already?" Utena asked him. "Don't
be a piker, it's only one."
Now this, Utena noted to herself, was just damn peculiar. She
sounded like a frightened child trying to be brave, asking him to stay
as though she were suddenly afraid of being left alone. What the hell
was the matter with her tonight?
Shaking her head, irritated with herself, she climbed up onto
the bed, arranged the pillows against the headboard, then propped
herself up a bit to one side of center and patted the coverlet next to
her. "C'mon, let's see what's on the late movie."
Corwin did not need to have his arm twisted.
In an hour, the lights were out, and the two sat, leaning
comfortably against each other, Corwin's arm snug and warm around
Utena's shoulders. They were illuminated by the grayish flicker of
the TV as they watched a heavily dramatized movie purporting to depict
the founding of the Wedge Defense Force and its first altercation with
GENOM Corporation.
"Corwin?" said Utena softly.
"Mm?" Corwin replied.
"I had a really good time today," she said. "Thanks."
He grinned. "You're welcome," he said; then, in a slightly
more serious, softer tone, he added, "Happy birthday, Utena."
Then, with what for him in this respect was a display of
startling boldness, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
Or at least he would have, had she not turned to say something
to him at that exact moment and inadvertently presented her slightly
opened mouth instead.
For a second, they looked at each other across the small
distance separating them, surprise in his eyes, startled realization
in hers.
For all that she scoffed publicly at the notion of herself and
Corwin as a couple, Utena -had- thought about it, off and on, from a
daydreamy sort of in-a-perfect-world perspective. He was handsome,
strong, and rapidly maturing into a fine figure of a man, and Utena
was only human. Moreover, she was a healthy human of a passionate
nature, and her tastes ran (the very special case that was Anthy
Himemiya notwithstanding) to men of the type he was fast growing into.
As for Corwin, he'd never made any particular secret of the fact that
he thought she was captivatingly beautiful.
So, in addition to their mutual affection, there was a
definite physical tension, and it grew with their every meeting. She
knew it, he knew it, and neither denied it. Deny that they could be
in capital-L Love, yes; deny that invisible energy, no. It would have
been like denying the Moon's pull on the oceans of Earth.
Instead she sublimated it, using the energy that it produced
to make their slightly-self-consciously non-romantic relationship
stronger, knowing he did the same. Since the summer, they'd even
grown comfortable enough with it to banter lightly about it, as they
had earlier in the evening. They eyed each other speculatively across
a gap that, under normal conditions, both were conscious of and both
confident that they'd never cross.
These conditions, though, weren't normal. They'd been
together, alone among crowds of strangers (and how curious that that
could, in some way, feel more intimate than actual solitude), for the
entire day. It was Utena's birthday, a time for marking one's place
and reflecting. She'd been alone for more than a year, she didn't
know if Anthy were alive or dead, and Utena's efforts to find a way
back to her, if she were anywhere at all, had been futile. Utena
couldn't admit it to herself yet, but she was starting to wonder,
somewhere deep down, if hope could survive.
And here was Corwin, her beloved friend (yes, by God! she
-did- love him, one way or another - there could be no more
pretending, not on that score, not now), who never wanted anything but
happiness for her. He'd been so good to her, made her feel so
special, the city was so beautiful - here, now in this one fragment of
time, triggered by that accidental kiss, Utena's barriers between
reality and speculative fantasy collapsed, and she was overcome.
Her eyes closed and she fell against him with a soft, aching
sound.
Corwin's head swam. All he'd meant to do was give her an
innocent birthday kiss on the cheek - all right, and in so doing smell
her hair and savor that tiny instant of greatest nearness to her - and
here she was in his arms, her hands sliding across his back, her mouth
insistent on his. He'd kissed her before, a couple of times, mostly in
foolish, vertiginous moments that had been swept away by the times
that gave rise to them as quickly as they arrived; but that was never
anything like this. His constant awareness of her exploded into a
sort of hypersensory phenomenon, a synthesis of all the sensations of
her body against his, the heat of her nearness, the powerful, dizzying
scent and taste of her.
Utena's fingers raked across his chest, clawing at the buttons
of his pajama top. His right hand slipped under her top, sliding
across the smoothness of her back, as the fingers of his left combed
through the thick hair at the back of her head. If Corwin had been
thinking clearly, he might have noticed that her movements were a bit
odd - a strange combination of hesitancy and haste. For a moment she
paused entirely, seemed on the verge of drawing back; then she made a
harsh little noise of frustrated need and tugged at his shoulders,
pulling him down upon her.
And then, with a shattering suddenness like a brick through a
plate glass window, everything went wrong.
Utena froze, stiffening, her hands on his shoulders suddenly
pushing instead of pulling. For an instant Corwin failed to notice,
until she tore her mouth gasping away from his and cried, "Wait - stop
it - NO!"
Still drugged with her, his conscious mind barely ticking
over, he nevertheless registered the change then. That one last
syllable stopped his heart for a split-second, and with the
instantaneous obedience of a machine he released her, scrambling back
almost as if she had suddenly burst into flames. Not quite fast
enough; her fist lashed out and smacked solidly into the corner of his
jaw, knocking him clean off the end of the bed. He sprang upright,
scrambling up onto the far corner again with blood in the corner of
his mouth and an expression of infinite shock.
Her beautiful face was twisted with a combination of fear,
rage and remorse that was so out of place on that face it stabbed him
to the heart just to see it. The sight erased instantly the heat that
had been boiling up within Corwin, and the confused shock that had
started to overlay it, and replaced both with a cold sense of dread.
Almost babbling, he said breathlessly, "What - I'm sorry -
What's wrong? - I didn't mean - you - I - "
Realizing he was heading toward incoherence, he stopped
himself with a vicious effort of will. With a deep breath he forced
himself to some semblance of composure, then said in a much calmer
tone than he felt, "Utena, I'm sorry. I had no right... "
"Be quiet be QUIET!" Utena snapped. She sat rigidly upright,
arms wrapped around her chest, knees drawn up and clamped together, her
whole body shivering violently. "It's, it's not your fault, not your
fault, just, just let me be... "
Confused anew, frightened himself, Corwin reached out a hand
to try to comfort her. She flinched away as if from a blow, making a
tiny raw noise of terror, a spark of something ancient and ugly
crossing her eyes. Stricken at the thought that something he did
could ever make her react that way, he backed as far as he could get
without falling to the floor again, and sat cross-legged, waiting, in
an agony of indecision. He desperately wanted to apologize, to ask
again what was wrong - for he was starting to get the fearful idea
that, whatever was happening, it wasn't all to do with what had just
happened - but she'd asked to be let be, and so he would let her be.
In fact, maybe he should get the hell out altogether, since it
was obvious that what he'd done had caused this. But he dared not
leave her completely alone - the look on her face as she stared down
at the covers before her made him fear for her, and besides, he didn't
want to give her the idea that he was abandoning her in a huff because
she'd stopped him from doing something he shouldn't have been doing in
the first place.
Slowly, Utena seemed to come back to herself, her shivering
slowing, then stopping, the wildness fading from her face. She ceased
to sit rigid; first she slackened, then fell onto her side and curled
into a ball, holding her knees against her chest. She started
muttering angrily to herself.
"... thought I was -over- that, more than a -year- ago for
God's sake... "
Carefully, tentatively, Corwin eased a little closer to her.
She looked up at his movement; he froze. Then, slowly, her eyes
crying out for gentleness, she nodded, and he approached. With
exquisite care, as though she were made of thin glass, he put out a
hand and placed it on her shoulder. She winced a little, whimpering,
but let it stay there.
"I'm sorry, Corwin," she said softly, in a tone of raw and
complete misery. "I shouldn't have... it's... "
"Shh," he said. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I had no
right to do that. I know the rules, damn me. You were right to stop
me."
"I... no... it's more than... " Utena shook her head. "I
can't... I'll be back," she said, then got up and went into the
bathroom.
Corwin watched her go, listened to the shower start running.
He lay back with a huge, gusty sigh, hands behind his head, berating
himself. No wonder she was upset; he'd taken advantage of her. She'd
been riding the glow of a great day, the lateness of the hour and the
pleasant memories they'd spent the day building had made her warm and
sentimental, and he'd gone and kissed her. It was a bit - well, OK, a
lot! - gratifying that she'd reacted that way at first, but damn it
all, he'd had no right to start something like that. He felt like
dirt. He wondered fearfully if he had lost her friendship, her trust,
by making a stupid grab at something more, and what he would ever do
if he had.
He supposed he ought to get up, go to his own room, and try to
make peace in the morning. But she'd said "I'll be back" as though
she expected him still to be here when she returned. He dabbed idly
at the stinging corner of his mouth and wondered what the hell he
should do.
Corwin dithered about it until he heard the shower stop, at
which point he decided he'd decided to stay. He reached to the
bedside stand's control panel, killed the TV, blacked the windows,
turned on the nightlight, and toggled the Do Not Disturb light on
outside the door. A few minutes later Utena came out of the bathroom,
her hair toweled but damp, pajama top misbuttoned, and stood by the
side of the bed for a few seconds regarding him with an entirely
unreadable expression.
"Should I go?" he asked softly.
She stood, wavering, the uncertainty clear on her face. He
slowly rose, climbed down from the bed, and stood facing her.
/* Joe Satriani "The Forgotten (Part Two)" _Flying in a Blue Dream_ */
"Utena," Corwin said, his voice soft but charged with emotion,
"I'll leave if you want me to. I overstepped my bounds and I'm sorry.
But before I do, I want you to know something."
He stopped, took a deep breath, then lowered himself to one
knee before her, his head bowed.
"I love you, Utena Tenjou," he said, "on whatever terms you'll
have me. I know that you're your own prince, and I wouldn't challenge
that - it's one of the things I love about you - but even princes need
knights to support them. If you'll let me, I'll be your knight. I'll
ride alongside you and help you get past this. My strength, such as
it is, is yours."
He raised his face, wet with tears of his own. "I'll never
knowingly tell you a lie. I'll never, -never-, do anything to
deliberately hurt you. I'll never do anything to you that you don't
tell me you want."
The corner of his mouth had stopped bleeding; without a
moment's hesitation, he tore the skin at the edge of his left index
fingernail with his teeth, then held the wounded finger solemnly up to
her. Fresh blood, black in the dim light, trickled down over the pad
of his fingertip.
"All this I swear," he said, "on my own blood."
Utena gazed silently at him for almost a full minute. Then,
slowly, hesitantly, she reached out, took his hand in both of hers,
and softly kissed his bloody fingertip, tears rolling down her face.
"Corwin... " she whispered. He rose to his feet, and she fell
into his arms again. It was different this time, as different as
night from day, and he understood and responded accordingly. He fell
back onto the bed with her, cradled her in his arms, let her beat her
fists against his bare chest, and arranged the covers over them for
warmth. His mind whirled. The last time he'd seen anyone like
this...
... a year ago...
... Kaitlyn.
Dread's cool finger touched his heart again. Oh, All-Father,
-no-, he moaned inside. Has this happened to every girl I love?
Corwin held Utena a little tighter, meaningless, instinctive
murmurings coming from his lips, and she worked out whatever it was
over the space of the next couple of hours, alternately trembling,
raging, and sobbing before finally lying quiet and spent in his arms.
Finally, she looked up at him with a weak, wan smile and said
in a softly wavering voice, "I suppose I should explain what that was
all about, huh... "
"You don't have to," he told her.
"I want to."
"That's fine. I just wanted you to know you don't have to."
Her smile became a little stronger. "That's just like you,
isn't it?" she murmured. "You're sweet. You don't deserve this."
"I stepped on the mine," said Corwin softly, "I clean up the
mess."
Utena actually mustered a chuckle for that, then fell silent
for a long time. He stroked her back gently, waiting, not prompting.
Finally, she told him.
"I told you," she said, "about Anthy's brother."
"Mm," said Corwin.
"Well... there are a couple of things I left out. One
day... not too long before I found out what he really was... he took
me for a ride in his car. He had to deliver flowers to somewhere, it
doesn't matter where, and he asked me to go along. I thought we were
friends, it sounded like fun, so I went. We ended up going to an
amusement park, staying the night at a hotel. You could see the park
from the hotel room window."
Corwin didn't think he liked where this was headed.
"We had a lot of fun," she said, her tone hushed and
reminiscent. "It was a good day. I never liked him more than I did
that day. And that night... well... " She shrugged, a helpless
little gesture. "He seduced me."
Corwin closed his eyes, breathed through his nose, tried to
stop his big powerful hands from clenching into fists.
"I thought he loved me, I guess," Utena went on softly. "Or I
thought I loved him. Either way, he wanted me, and I... I let him
have me. It was so -strange-. Like I didn't want to do it, but... I
didn't feel like I had a choice. It was like something that had to
happen whether I wanted it or not. I can't explain it. There was no
violence, no force - just that day and his eyes and my head was
swimming. Somehow he made me feel like I... I -owed- it to him. So...
I didn't want to, but... I gave him what he wanted.
"Afterward, even before I found out the truth about him, I
felt awful. Like I'd... betrayed someone. Or everyone. His
fiancee... my mysterious prince... my best friend... myself. I kept
asking myself, How did this happen? I only came here to help him
deliver some flowers. What the hell happened? What am I going to do
now?"
Utena paused, took a long, shivery breath and let it out
again. "Everything changed after that," she said. "I tried to tell
myself that it was all right, that I was just overreacting, that
everything would be fine... but whenever he was near, after that, I
felt a subtle sort of wrongness. He still wanted me, and he was
still... still so beautiful, and still so charming, that I was
tempted... but I never let him. I came close, a couple of times, to
convincing myself that I was just being silly, to go ahead and maybe
try to -enjoy- it this time, but... " She shook her head, then fell
silent, her story told.
Corwin said nothing, his face still but his mind spinning.
I'll kill him, Corwin thought as his mind raced in circles.
If I have to breach the veil of the Tenth World with my bare hands, if
I have to suffer the censure of the Aesir Council, I don't care how
long it takes, or how far I have to go, or what I have to give up to
get there. I will hold Akio Ohtori's life in my hands and I will see
it ended.
I swear it on my mother's light.
Utena waited for a few minutes. When he still didn't speak,
she felt the tears rising again; her voice breaking, she said, "I
apologize," and started to pull away from him.
Somehow, he managed to convey that he didn't want her to go
without making her feel like he was restraining her, and she stayed.
"For what?" he asked hoarsely. "Being raped?"
"No," she said, not quibbling over his blunt choice of words.
"For being so messed up. For ruining a beautiful day. For... leading
you on and then pushing you away."
"The day was still beautiful," Corwin said, his voice softer,
gentle now. He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek and
added quietly, "And anyway, you didn't lead me on. I crossed the
line, not you."
"It was an accident."
"It was a liberty."
Utena reached up a hand to trace the line of his jaw, prickly
with evening stubble. "You're entitled to a few liberties," she said,
and very tentatively kissed his rough cheek. "It's just, I... " She
shook her head. "It was a day like this one, and... suddenly it all
came flooding back. It doesn't make any sense, I could never compare
you to him, but suddenly it was like I was back there and it was all
happening again." She gave a wry chuckle that turned into a sob and
said, "Ironic, considering how often I wish I -were- back there... "
That was as far as Utena got before something inside her broke
loose again, this wave composed mostly of grief for her missing love,
guilt over having almost betrayed her, and a crushing feeling of
uselessness for having been unable to find a way back to her. Again,
Corwin could offer little in the way of reassurance. He took all the
blame for the second part onto himself, telling her that it was all
his fault, that she would have stopped him anyway before that last
fateful step was taken, that he would have realized what was wrong
himself in another minute or so.
For the rest, though, he could only hold her, whisper to her,
trying to smother her pain with nothing but the sheer weight of his
sympathy. He could only tell her again and again that that it was all
right, that he was sure Anthy was safe and waiting for her someplace,
that he would help her find that place, that - most ancient of
soothing, meaningless platitudes - everything would be all right.
And, amazingly, that seemed to work; at least until the next
wave. They passed the rest of the night this way, riding one wave of
emotion after another, catching fitful bits of sleep here and there,
until finally, at near-dawn, they crashed through into a deeper
slumber.
Just before slipping away, feeling as hollow and spent as if
she'd just run a marathon, Utena remembered a night, several months
before, when the two of them had done something similar; only then it
had been Corwin's soul rubbed raw and her sheltering arms and soft
words trying to soothe away the pain. She wondered if he had felt as
safe as this when their roles had been reversed, then snuggled closer
and finally, blissfully, fell into a peaceful sleep.
The front desk woke them at eleven, calling to remind Utena
(who was the only one registered to this room, after all) that
check-out was at noon. Somehow, she managed to speak coherently to
the desk clerk despite all the events of the previous twenty-four
hours crashing in a tidal wave through her memory; then she hung up,
lay staring at the phone in disbelief for a moment, and rolled back
into the arc of Corwin's arms, her left hand on his chest, just where
she'd been when she'd finally fallen asleep for good.
"They're throwing us out?" he murmured with a faint smile.
Utena nodded. "One-hour warning," she replied.
"Hrm," he said, and turned fully onto his back, his right arm
flopping down alongside him. "Ow," he remarked as something in his
back cracked. "Memo to self: sleeping in the same position for an
entire night... or morning... or whatever... is bad."
"Under the circumstances," said Utena softly, "I can't
complain."
Corwin turned his head to regard her, then smiled and did his
best to hug her with the arm that was still under her. "I suppose
not," he said, and kissed her on the forehead.
It was strange, and it struck them both at the same time how
strange: after the previous night's near miss and all its
consequences, here they lay in each other's arms, and there was no
awkwardness, no looking away or shuffling apart, as if moving
furtively away from each other now would somehow balance the time
they'd spent in contact. There just didn't seem to be any need of
that. It reminded Utena of that morning in Toronto, the first time
she'd awakened to find herself embracing Kaitlyn; there was that same
sensation of warmth, contentment, and safety, devoid of all the usual
sniggering connotations that waking in another's arms carried with it.
But then, in a way, what they'd spent the previous night doing
was -more- intimate than what they'd almost spent it doing. The
thought gave Utena pause. She glanced up from her contemplation, her
eyes met Corwin's, and somehow she could see that he'd just had the
very same thought.
They smiled at each other, and then got up. Corwin crossed
the room to the side of the window, stretched, yawned, and pressed the
button that switched the window from double black to one-way. Sharp
winter sunlight streamed into the room. Utena padded over, raising
her hands overhead with fingers interlaced and cracking her back first
this way, then that, and admired the view.
It had snowed again during the night, while the pair of them
challenged the last and greatest of Utena's demons, and New Avalon
glittered in the noonday sun, the Monolith's sightlines just as
spectacular in the day as the night. A New Avalon Police Department
jetpack cop, jaunty in his blue leather cavalry jacket and the
rudder-equipped helmet that made him look like an old-fashioned hood
ornament, zoomed past the window, the blue and red lights on his
epaulets flashing, on his way to bring a little justice to a zeppelin
pilot with quirky ideas about his place in the traffic pattern.
Corwin and Utena turned and looked at each other in good light
for the first time since they'd switched the room's lights off and
settled down to watch late-night TV. They held that gaze for a few
moments, until finally, Utena said what they both were thinking:
"We look awful."
Corwin nodded, chuckling. He didn't know how he looked,
although the stiffness and soreness of parts of his face gave him an
idea, but Utena looked... well, like she'd spent most of the night
before crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, then dark-ringed, and
bloodshot, her face blotchy, her hair a complete disaster. Her pajama
top was still misbuttoned.
"I guess we'd better get ready to go," he said at last. Utena
nodded, and they turned to go their separate ways, she to the bathroom
and he through the door that led to the adjoining room he hadn't
used. As they reached the doorways, both paused, turned, made eye
contact; then they both laughed softly, turned again, and went about
their business.
In his own room's bathroom, after brushing his teeth and
showering, Corwin stood in front of the sink and surveyed himself in
the mirror. Unlike Utena, he looked as if he'd been punched in the
face, -then- spent most of the night crying. His face wasn't blotchy,
though, just bone-pale - except for the black bruise at the corner of
his mouth and the purpling ring around his right eye.
He combed his hair, which was as pointless an activity as
always, then dressed, gingerly pulling first t-shirt, then sweater
over his battered face. It wasn't such a bad bruise compared to some
of the whompings he'd taken in combat training, but it stung, all the
same. His finger hurt, too, but then he -had- bitten it until it
bled, so he supposed it had a right to. He treated it with the room's
first-aid kit. It occurred to him that the back of Utena's pajama top
must be smeared with blood; he made a mental note to replace the set.
Then he packed up his toiletries and yesterday's clothes in
his overnight bag, phoned the front desk for a bellbot to take their
bags down, collected his coat, left his keycard on top of the TV, and
went next door.
Utena was just emerging from the bathroom, dressed in her red
Martian Army fatigue trousers, just pulling a scarlet-flecked black
rib-knit sweater over her head. Corwin had given her the sweater for
her birthday, and this was his first opportunity to see her in it;
despite everything, he found himself pausing for a moment to take her
in, a little smile playing at his lips. Utena raked her hair free
from the collar, shook it down her back, then surveyed Corwin with a
wry smile of her own.
"Well," she said, "now you look like -clean- hell, anyway."
Corwin chuckled.
Utena crossed to him, her face going serious; he tossed his
coat on the bed and took both of her hands as she reached him.
"Let's not blame ourselves for things we almost did," she said
softly. "OK? Almost doesn't count. We cried about it last night;
now let's let it go."
Gravely, Corwin nodded. "OK," he replied hoarsely.
"There's something I want you to know, though," she went on,
her voice dropping further. "It's hard for me to say, and it might be
hard for you to hear, but I think we both have to. After all we've
been through, after Worcester and outer space and Asgard and last
night, I don't want there to be anything but total honesty between us,
nothing but truth. Ever."
He nodded again. "I want that too," he whispered.
"OK. So I have to tell you this, and you have to listen to
it." She raised her eyes to his; there were tears in them again,
but they didn't flow, not yet.
"I love you, Corwin. I've fought against it for a long time,
because I didn't know how to reconcile it with the love I have for
Anthy... and I still don't know that, but I've realized that I can't
go on denying it just because I don't know what to do with it."
Speechless, Corwin just gazed back at her - they were the same
height now, almost exactly - his eyes saying everything that his voice
couldn't.
"It doesn't change anything," Utena went on. "That's the hard
part. You've... I can't put in words all that you've done for me.
You've healed me. You've made me believe again, made me -myself-
again. You've made me as complete as I can be without Anthy...
but... " She trailed off, unable to phrase the one great caveat.
She didn't need to. Corwin nodded slowly. "I understand," he
said, his voice the barest of whispers through a throat so tight that
the pain made his eyes sting. He coughed, then said in a slightly
more audible tone, "And I -will- help you find her... if you'll have
my help."
Utena nodded, those pent-up tears finally finding their way
down her face - but they weren't tears of sorrow, at least not
completely. She let go of his hands, took that last half-step
forward, and hugged him as hard as she could.
"Of course I will," she whispered. "Of course I will."
They pulled themselves together after that, washed their faces
again, and left the hotel, grateful that in-room check-out spared them
from the reactions, however subdued by professional veneer, of the
staff to their appearance. Neither spoke until they were in the
Griffon and heading for the exit from the parking garage, when Utena
turned to Corwin and said,
"So now you're my knight."
Corwin grinned. "That's right," he replied.
"My Iron Knight," she added, patting the Griffon's dashboard
with a smile.
Corwin, still smiling, guided the big black car up onto the
Central Expressway, heading north for Crescent Heights, and the
silence was a comfortable one, as theirs had nearly always been. Once
they were up to highway speeds, Corwin shifted into fifth, then left
his hand on the knob for a moment before slowly removing it and,
hesitantly, offering it to his passenger.
"Listen," he said tentatively. "I know we can't... can't be
lovers. But... I'm willing to be everything -but-... "
Without hesitation, Utena took the offered hand, lacing her
fingers tightly with his, and smiled at him reassuringly - since she'd
just been trying to think of a way to say the same thing.
"Works for me," she said. "So whatever bothers you, bring it
to me first. Whatever happens, no matter what, we'll help each other.
OK? That's the kind of friends I want us to be. Always."
He squeezed her hand and smiled, his bruised face looking
fresher in the clean light of this beautiful winter's day.
"Always," he replied, and settled back a little more behind
the controls, his left hand gently gripping the top of the wheel.
After a few more minutes, he chuckled, eyeing his shiner in
the rearview mirror, and added, "Maybe we should tell Dad we got
mugged."
Utena gave him an odd look for a moment, then burst out
laughing, and a moment later, he followed her lead.
/* Michael Kamen "End Title Theme" _From the Earth to the Moon_ */
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presented
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
FUTURE IMPERFECT
- Symphony of the Sword No. 2 -
Interlude at the Hotel Monolith in C# Minor
The Cast
(in order of appearance)
Utena Tenjou
Corwin Ravenhair
Focusing Crystal
Benjamin D. Hutchins
Catalyst
Anne Cross
Range Safety Officer
John Trussell
Weapon Support Crew
The EPU Usual Suspects
The Symphony will return