I have a message from another time...
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
presents
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
- SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 5 -
Fourth Movement:
Try, Try Again
Benjamin D. Hutchins
with Anne Cross
Philip Jeremy Moyer
(c) 2013 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2410
TENJOU ACADEMY, CEPHIRO
It occurred to Utena Tenjou midway through Wednesday that she
and Corwin were a little bit dumb.
The realization came to her while she was standing off to one
side of the Quad, watching while a group of uniformed student volunteers
drilled at emplacing and removing the chairs. They were turning to it
with a will, trying different formations and combinations to find the
most efficient way of undertaking that complicated task. The chairs
were not mere mortal folding jobs, because that was not the way things
were -done- at Tenjou Academy, but the student battalion, under the
cheerfully booming foremanship of Kardon Felz, were slinging them around
as though they were being paid for it.
All over the campus, student groups under the direction of
various delegates of the Prince and the Pillar were making things
happen, cheerfully, efficiently, with a minimum of tsuris or fuss.
Though they were under a great deal more time pressure now than the
first time, Utena and Corwin were having a -much- better time, because -
in their own world, surrounded by their happily-pitching-in friends and
colleagues - they were able to put their heads down and kick it all
school-project stylee.
<This is brilliant,> she told him by Lens. <We should've done
it like this the -first- time. How dumb are we?>
<Pretty dumb,> he agreed with a mental smile. <But we mustn't
tell any of the grown-ups. If nothing else, it would hurt Mom and Dad's
feelings to know that we -know- we should've done it ourselves all
along.>
Utena laughed. <Yeah, I suppose you're right. How's your end
coming along?>
<Got the arrivals timetable just about worked out, on to
finalizing the menu next.>
<Well, I'll let you get back to it. I think Kard has this under
control, I'm going to go see how your mom's getting on with the Veil
Gate. Love you.>
<Love you too,> thought Corwin, sending her a psychic kiss.
(This was a trick reserved for advanced Lens users; get it wrong and you
could end up mentally smooching every Lensman on the network, which
would be embarrassing on a level not previously within the scope of
human understanding.) He came back from the conversation to note
someone entering Utena's study in East Hall, which he'd borrowed as his
office for these preparations.
"Hey, Keiko," he said. "What's up?"
"Hey, boss," said Keiko Sonoda. "There's a... squad of kabuki
commandos or something at the main gate. They're asking - well,
actually, sort of demanding - to come in and 'secure the premises'."
Corwin cocked an eyebrow at her. "... kabuki commandos?"
Keiko shrugged. "I dunno, man, they're dressed like a SWAT team
and they're wearing makeup like Gene Simmons. What would -you- call
them?"
Corwin thought that over for a second, then blinked and grinned
as he realized what she must be talking about. "Oh!" he said. In one
smooth motion he rose from Utena's desk chair, vaulted her desk, and
darted out of the room, down the hall, and out of the building. Keiko,
puzzled, ran after him as he jogged down the hill, around the school
buildings, past the fountain, and to the gate.
Sure enough, just as Keiko had said, there was a small group of
colorfully costumed women there. They were indeed dressed like
commandos, in green tactical jumpsuits under black composite body armor,
and they did have full-face makeup, mostly flat white with stark black
and red accents meant to exaggerate their features and make them look
fierce. Corwin had always privately thought what it really did was make
them look -adorable-, but he was smart enough that he had never
mentioned that to them out loud.
"Ha -haa!-" he cried delightedly as he approached, his arms wide
in welcome. "It's -true!- The Warriors of Kyoshi, live and in person
here in my very own little universe. That can only mean one thing!"
"Greetings, Corwin Ravenhair," said the one in the lead with a
short bow. "We have come to secure this place in advance of the
Avatar's arrival tomorrow."
Corwin grinned. "So she -is- coming," he said. "We weren't
sure she'd be able to make it." Then, after a moment's consideration,
he added, "Although, if she's not here yet, how did -you- guys get
here?"
"Your world's High Priestess was kind enough to furnish our
veilbender with the correct spirit pathway," said the lead Kyoshi
matter-of-factly.
Corwin eyed her. "Since when did the Kyoshi have a bender on
staff, Maki?" he said.
Maki smiled slightly, but didn't answer. Instead, with a faint
rustling as of an animal crossing a thicket, a small creature emerged
from her shoulder-length auburn hair and walked out onto one of her
shoulders. It resembled a cross between a mouse and a very small
monkey, and appeared to be wearing a necktie. With great ceremony, this
remarkable figure produced a tiny business card and offered it to him
with a bow. Corwin couldn't read it without a magnifying glass, but he
didn't need to, because - to his profound surprise - he recognized the
creature who had given it to him.
"Chu Chu," he said reproachfully, then grinned. "You and Anthy
have been holding out on me."
"Chu," agreed Chu Chu gravely.
"With your permission, milord - " the Kyoshi leader began, but
Corwin interrupted her with a wry grin.
"C'mon, Maki. It's me."
Maki nodded, her face perfectly serious. "Yes, yes it is. It's
you: Corwin Ravenhair of the Aesir, god of mecha, Pillar of Cephiro, on
the doorstep to the very seat of your demesne." She let that sink in
for a moment, then went on, "As I was saying, milord - "
"I'm not going to win this, am I?" Corwin asked.
"No, milord."
Corwin sighed. "Very well, carry on."
"-With your permission,- milord," (for Maki was nothing if not
dogged) "we shall assess the security needs of this installation and
make preparations for the Avatar's arrival."
"Go ahead, but make sure you talk to Tsuwabuki," said Corwin,
angling a thumb over his shoulder at the White Tower. "He's the
seneschal here, and he can be touchy about the campus. Wizards. You
know how they get."
Maki, who did not particularly know how wizards got, received
this intelligence with a grave nod all the same, bowed again, and led
her corps past him toward the tower. Corwin caught a couple of them -
ones he didn't recognize, at the back, presumably new recruits since the
last time he'd seen them - breaking formation slightly to watch him as
they passed by. He nodded to them with a cordial, "Ladies," and then
chuckled as they stepped up their pace and faced front with what he was
pretty sure were blushes hiding under their makeup.
He grinned at Keiko, who had noticed them as well, and said
affectionately, "Heh heh, rookies." Then, whistling cheerfully, he
headed back up the hill to East Hall.
/* Michael Giaccino
"Life's Incredible Again"
_The Incredibles_ Music from the Motion Picture (2004) */
The rest of the day passed as the last two had done, in a whirl
of work but no particular feeling of pressure. On some level, Corwin
kept waiting for that to come, but it never did; task followed task in
an unbroken but steady stream, and he was able to get into a rhythm as
he tackled them. By dinnertime, he was able to put the work aside with
a clear conscience and head down to meet the others in the central
dining common. East Hall's kitchen and dining facilities would be put
into action on the morrow, but for tonight, he and the rest of the gang
would eat like they were students again.
When he got there, about half of the common was taken up by
actual students getting in their evening meal. Utena's logistics
volunteers were formed up in the other half, getting a few final
instructions and tips from their commanding general - most of them
hanging on the Rose Prince's every word, even the prepositions. Corwin
folded his arms and leaned back against the archway from outside,
smiling fondly. A moment later Anthy joined him, and for a minute or
so, they just stood there at a safe distance and watched Utena work.
"Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job,
here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft ladies,"
Corwin mused.
Anthy chuckled and replied, "Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping
for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness."
Corwin gave her an eyebrow-arched little smile. "I don't know
if I'd go that far," he allowed.
Utena finished up issuing her final orders for the day,
dismissed the troops, and then came over to join them with a broad grin
and an arm to put over each of their shoulders.
"I was telling Corwin earlier, we should've done it this way all
along," she said as they went to the table where the rest of the old
gang was already installed.
"Yes, you should," Anthy replied.
"Why didn't you tell us if you already knew?" Utena wondered,
but Anthy only smiled.
"I have to let the two of you make your own mistakes," she said
sagely. "It's the only way you learn."
Corwin laughed and disengaged to take a seat. "Hey, Mitsuru,"
he said, nodding across the table to Tsuwabuki. "You getting along OK
with Maki and her crew?"
Before Tsuwabuki could reply, Kardon Felz let out a booming bark
of laughter and said, "Are you kidding, boss? Those girls are -into-
our boy MT." He elbowed Tsuwabuki and waggled his eyebrows. "Fifty
zorkmids says they stash him in their luggage and take him with them
when they leave."
"Thank you, Kardon, that will be all," said Tsuwabuki dryly.
"Of course, Master Tsuwabuki," Kardon replied, wide-eyed. "At
once, Master Tsuwabuki." Wielding an imaginary teapot with exaggerated
delicacy and an extended pinky, he went on, "Would you care for more
tea, Master Tsuwabuki?"
"I -will- turn you into a frog, Kard," Tsuwabuki grumbled,
reddening.
"I think it's cute," Anaximandra Drax put in from a couple of
seats to the other side of Tsuwabuki. "Not what Kardon's doing," she
qualified after a moment's thought. "That's just his usual juvenility."
Kardon sketched an elaborate seated bow to her. "Your servant,
my shadowy flower."
"I mean the way the outlanders react to Mitsuru," Ana went on as
if he hadn't spoken. With a faint, sly smile, she added, "Particularly
the greenest ones."
"No pun intended?" Kardon joked, drawing a giggle from Peri
Took.
"I'm sure Commander Maki and her colleagues are only extending
professional courtesy," said Tsuwabuki a tad stuffily.
"You want to watch yourself with that one, Mitsuru," Corwin
smilingly cautioned him, reaching for the basket of rolls. "She bites."
"And just how would you know that?" Utena wondered archly.
"I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that my
response may tend to incriminate me," Corwin replied, buttering a roll.
"I always forget how much I love the rolls in this place," he observed
after the first bite.
"Don't change the subject," said Utena mock-severely.
"Too slow, already did," Corwin cheerfully rejoined, and
everyone laughed.
THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2410
The next day, the first wave of guests began arriving. This was
mostly made up of the couple's closest acquaintances beyond the first-
generation and Cephirean Duelists: Corwin's old gang from Koopman High,
most of the current Jeraddo Duelists, and a few folks from further
afield.
A little after lunch, Corwin was back in Utena's office,
beavering away at the last of the work he had to get done, when he
suddenly looked up as if he'd heard something in the distance. Smiling,
he put down his pen, got to his feet, and left East Hall, heading not
for the main gate this time, but up the white stone stairs to the plaza
that lay before the entrance to the Forest of Secrets.
Nothing much appeared to be happening here when he arrived. He
stopped at the top of the stairs, not approaching the forest entrance
itself, and waited.
Moments later a breeze kicked up from nowhere at all, blowing
outward from the sealed stone gate, ruffling his hair and the sleeves of
his jacket. Without being commanded by the usual presentation of a Rose
Seal to the lock, the fountains on either side of the path began to pour
water into the trenches, filling the plaza with cool mist that the
breeze whipped into a billowing fogbank. Along the walls to either
side, above the gushing fountains, the old decorative torches sprang
spontaneously to life. On the far side, hidden from him right now,
Corwin could hear the grinding of the gate's ancient mechanism working.
Within the fog, he saw something move, a cyclical flickering, as of
vortices in the mist or revolving doors.
Amid those vortices, the form of a young woman appeared out of
the mist. Slim and athletic in jeans, ugg-like boots, and a fur-trimmed
blue leather jacket, she had medium-length dark hair drawn up into a
high ponytail and sidelocks, dusky skin that would have put a native
Cephirean in mind of the people of the Shalharan desert, and a look of
composed, eyes-closed serenity on an open, forthrightly pretty face.
She carried a midsize duffel bag strapped tightly across her back, its
strap pulled to its shortest length, so that it wouldn't flop around as
she moved. She did this with a fluid but surefooted motion that was
part martial artist's kata and part dance, completing a pattern that was
at once ancient and unique to this one moment.
When she finally came to a halt, she was perhaps two paces in
front of Corwin, facing him. Behind her, the fountains ceased to flow,
the breeze halted, the torches went out; by the time the mist had
settled, the gate to the Forest had closed again. Smiling, the woman
opened her eyes. For a moment, they glowed a featureless white; then
the glow faded away and revealed that they were a piercing pale blue,
not too different from Corwin's own, and like his they twinkled with
merriment.
She removed a set of wireless earbuds, tucked them away in her
jacket pocket, then declared, "Corwin!" and grabbed him up in a bear
hug. At six-foot-two and possibly still growing, he overtopped her by
several inches, but she had the powerful shoulders of a swimmer and,
arching her back, easily lifted him clean off the ground for a moment.
"Hooph! Look at the -size- of you!"
"Hey, you made it!" Corwin replied, picking her up momentarily
in turn when she'd put his feet back on the ground. Then, releasing her
and stepping back, he added, "I've never seen the veilbending dance
before. Is it weird if I say I could watch you do that all day?"
She grinned sarcastically at him, loosened the strap of her
duffel bag, and let it down, adjusting it to a more comfortable position
at her side. "On the day before your wedding? Probably."
Corwin laughed and offered her his arm, which she took in a
friendly way as they walked away from the Forest gate and back toward
the stairs. "They actually let you off the farm!" he remarked. "We
weren't sure even -you- would be able to swing it."
"Maki wasn't happy about it," she said wryly.
"I know," said Corwin with a mischievous wink.
"So this is the place, huh?" she asked as she walked with Corwin
down the stairs.
"This is it," Corwin agreed. "Tenjou Academy, the school at the
center of the world." He gestured expansively with his free left hand,
taking in not just the school but the green and pleasant land beyond.
"Welcome to Cephiro."
"Not bad," she said with an appreciative nod. "Not bad at all."
At the bottom of the stairs, they met Utena, who did not seem
particularly taken aback to find her fiance with another woman on his
arm. This was only fair, since she, in turn, had another man (or at
least a dragon) on her shoulder. Or she had, until Nall, with a cry of
delight, decamped for the newcomer's shoulder instead.
"Oh, there you are, Lantar told me you were headed this way,"
Utena said to Corwin, and then, with a broad smile for the woman
accompanying him, "You must be Korra."
"Awwww yeah," said Nall. He took a couple of laps around her
neck, then climbed up the back of her head to perch on top. "Accept no
substitutes."
Korra, in her turn, didn't seem to think there was anything
strange about that. She paid the little dragon no mind as she replied
cheerfully, "I'm afraid I must," releasing Corwin's arm to shake Utena's
hand with both of hers. "And you're Utena, of course. I've heard so
much about you."
"Likewise," said Utena. Once the handshake was complete, she
fell into step on Corwin's left and said, "We missed connections on
Zipang last summer."
Korra rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me," she said. "Honestly,
-pirates?- It's the third century, people!"
"Aw, man, was that what the problem was?" Corwin asked,
disappointed. "You should've called us!"
"We loves us some pirate-fightin'," Nall agreed, scampering back
down to her shoulder.
"Jeez, you're hyper today," Corwin remarked. "Have you been
eating Anthy's sherbet fancies again?"
"No," said Nall unconvincingly.
Korra giggled. "Man, I missed you guys. And to think I was
afraid you might've changed on me."
"Well, that's what you get when you -avoid- us for six years,"
Nall huffed, jumping back to Utena's shoulder.
"I wasn't avoiding you," said Korra, frowning. "My life is...
complicated." She sighed. "Speaking of which, no word from Leonard?"
Corwin shook his head. "Nope. Pretty sure Master Windu and the
crew back on Alderaan know more or less where he is and what he's up to,
but they aren't talking. He's probably at a pretty ticklish phase of
his training by this point."
"Well, I've been -there,-" Korra mused, nodding. "I hope he's
finding what he needed."
Corwin smiled. "He will. Len always lands on his feet."
"I was beginning to wonder if there was some kind of
conspiracy to keep you and me from ever meeting," said Utena wryly as
they crossed the Quad.
"Actually, there was," Korra admitted.
Utena raised an eyebrow. "... I'm sorry?"
Korra sighed. "It's a long story. Basically, there's an
organization in my world whose leaders think they know better than I do
what I should be doing. After you guys had your, uh, adventure here,"
she went on, gesturing generally around to Cephiro, "word got back to
them somehow, I'm still looking into that, but anyway, they were afraid
that if you and I ever actually crossed paths, something revolutionary
would happen." She scowled. "So they've been gaming my schedule. For
the last five years." Shaking her head, she went on darkly, "They're
all fired now." Something seemed to occur to her then, prompting her to
add hastily, "Uh, fired as in clean-out-your-desk fired, not... you
know, firebending fired."
Corwin chuckled. "That must've been an exciting day at the
office. Did you at least blow out some windows?"
That brought a slight smile back to Korra's face. "Actually, I
let them explain it to Kyoshi."
"Oh man," said Corwin. "Missing that is going right to the top
of my regret-for-the-rest-of-my-life list."
"Anyway!" said Korra, making a visible effort to brighten up.
"I'm here now!"
"Speaking of Kyoshi, whose idea was it for the Warriors to
come?" Corwin wondered.
"Compromise," said Korra. "Besides, Maki would never have
forgiven me if I let her miss this. She had a hard time believing
you're not still that little boy who made her go train surfing on her
first day off the island."
"I guess I made an impression," said Corwin, smiling.
Korra rolled her eyes again. "You permanently warped her
understanding of the phrase 'perfectly safe'. Anyway, what's the plan?"
"Well, I've got an hour or so's worth of work left to do, and
then, Grand-dad mirabilis, I'm in the clear," said Corwin.
"And I - "
"We," said Nall importantly.
" - should be done right around then too," noted Utena.
"The gang from Jeraddo's planning to come across in a while,"
Corwin went on. "They'll have the afternoon to look around and get
settled, then we're going to have a big friends-and-family feed at East
Hall and watch Hockey Night in Canada."
"Why am I not surprised you can get that here?" Korra asked
rhetorically. She thumbed up the strap of her duffel bag and added, "Is
there someplace I can stash this?"
Corwin nodded. "Sure, we're putting everyone up in East. I
have to go there anyway to finish my work, I'll show you to your room."
"I'll come find you when I'm done with the last of my stuff,"
Utena told Corwin, then leaned to give him a kiss before breaking
formation and heading off toward the Tower. "It was great finally
meeting you!" she added to Korra with a wave.
"You too!" Korra called after her. Then she turned to Corwin
and said, "OK, good call." At his questioning look, she went on, "I've
been wondering for -years- now if she could really be as great as you've
made her out to be in your letters." She grinned. "Early days, I
admit, but so far signs point to yes!"
Corwin laughed and took a little skipping punt at a loose pebble
as they walked. "I'm so glad you approve," he said, less sarcastically
than he might've.
"I have to say," Korra teased, "you don't really present the
appearance of a man under pressure."
"Well, yeah," Corwin agreed. "The thing is, Utena and me, we
already -did- most of the -hard- parts. In reverse order, even." He
grinned. "That's kind of been a theme for us right along."
"That sounds familiar," said Korra.
"Hey, I'm a genius, but I never claimed to be smart," said
Corwin with an offhanded shrug.
"Why aren't there any students here?" Korra wondered as Corwin
showed her into one of the single rooms on the ground floor.
"East Hall isn't a dorm, at least not any more," Corwin
explained. "It's Utena's official residence here in Cephiro. Well, all
of ours, really. Anthy and I are supposed to have our own, but she
never bothered to have the Priest's Tower in Tenchuu rebuilt, and I'm
not even sure -where- the previous Pillar lived." He shrugged. "We
like it here, anyway. Here at the Academy is where it all happens."
Korra put her bag down on the bed, took off her jacket, and hung
it over her shoulder by a bent thumb. "You always did like to be where
the action is," she said with a smile.
Corwin shrugged. "I had many restless spirits among my
formative influences," he said with mock gravity; then he noticed the
shirt she was wearing and laughed. It was a sort of close-fitting
singlet, sleeveless but high-collared, a style that she'd favored for as
long as he could remember. This one was a rich medium blue, and the
front of it bore a graphic that appeared to be a god's-eye-view
representation of some kind of game court. Over this was superimposed
orange and white text in a friendly font: GET BENT!
He looked more closely at the small print underneath the main
slogan. "2390 Professional Bending Championship, eh?" he said. "Were
you in that one?"
"No, no," Korra assured him as she followed him back out of the
room and down the hall. "Well after my time. My boys made it to the
semis that year, though!"
As he got back to work in Utena's office, Corwin mentally marked
the time and made a silent bet with himself as to how long it took Korra
to get bored and wander off. In the event, it took nearly an hour,
which was quite a respectable showing for her - though, in fairness, 45
minutes of that was spent reading the library's copy of So You Didn't
Know There Were Ten Worlds. Once she'd finished that, he made note out
of the corner of his eye as she got up and patrolled the room a couple
of times, checking out the spines of the various books on the shelves,
played idly with the armillary sphere for a minute or two, and then
nonchalantly shrugged her jacket back on, sidled toward the exit, and
slipped out of the room. He smiled and started on the last of the
documents he had to complete.
Four minutes later, as he was finishing it up, Korra returned to
the room at a run, looking a bit startled about something. Corwin
finished the paper, signed it, put it and his pen down, and gave her a
curious look.
"Uh... I think something funny is going on with your world
here," she said.
Corwin blinked. "I hadn't noticed anything... " he said.
"Well, just - come with me."
Now looking intrigued, he rose and followed her out the back of
the hall, into the courtyard-cum-garden Anthy had arranged for the
Academy groundskeepers to prepare when they'd officially taken East Hall
as a Trinity residence.
"OK, so," said Korra, "one of the things I like to do when I get
to a new world is run a couple of quick tests and see how bending works
there. First time I went out into the 'greater galaxy', things were...
weird. So I came out here and saw the pool, and thought, OK, let's
start with a little waterbending... " She composed herself facing the
swimming pool in question, then made a tiny gesture.
The full contents of the pool heaved itself out of its tiled
concrete enclosure and hovered, a single quivering mass of water,
a few feet in the air above it.
"... what do you put in the -noodles- around here?" Korra
wondered.
Corwin gave her a patient look. "Put, the pool, back," he
said, calmly enunciating each word. "Showoff."
Moving with exquisite, even anxious care, Korra returned the
water to its correct location, then turned to him and said, "That is NOT
supposed to happen. I mean, that's got to be what, 1400 tons of water
in there? I don't mean to brag here, but I'm the best living
waterbender I know, and even I shouldn't be able to bend that much water
that casually - if at all! - without being in the full Avatar State."
She scratched her head quizzically. "So what the heck is goin' on?"
Corwin mulled this over for a moment. "Well," he said, "I've
never been 100% sure how bending works, mind you, but the thing about
Cephiro is that everything paranormal here sort of... goes to 11. The
old sorceries work better here than they do back home." He chuckled.
"Welcome to my world - no pun intended. That's the kind of thing I'd be
doing in Midgard -all the time- if I didn't have this," he said,
flicking a finger against the silver cuff earring he wore on his left
ear. "... Which gives me an idea."
Utena and Nall arrived a few minutes later, having started with
the study and worked their way back, to find Corwin and Korra... well,
Utena wasn't really sure what they were doing. Sitting cross-legged on
the grass just off the concrete patio surrounding the pool, she got that
much, but what the tape measure and the set of calipers that lay
discarded nearby had to do with anything she wasn't sure, nor why Corwin
(who was leaning very close indeed) was peering intently into Korra's
right eye with a look of grave, almost professional concentration on his
face.
"Uhhh... " said Utena from the doorway. "Don't take this the
wrong way, but, what're you doing?"
"Aura assay," Corwin mumbled, his brow furrowing. "Daaaamn,
that's a lot of past lives."
"I know, right?" Korra replied with a wry half-smile, careful
not to move her head.
"Must be like a telephone switchboard in there sometimes,"
Corwin mused. "How do you sleep?"
"Most of the time they stay in the Spirit World," she replied.
"The visions do get annoying sometimes if I don't lay down the law,
though."
Corwin's brand flashed with a chiming sound. Satisfied, he sat
back, spread his hands, and murmured a few Norse words. Light gathered
in the space between them, condensed into a brightly glowing circle, and
then splintered outward in flickering golden rays, leaving behind a
faintly circuit-traced silver ring. He plucked it from the air with a
smile, peered through it at Korra for a moment, then handed it to her.
"Here, put this on," he said, then got to his feet and added,
"Unless bad guys attack the wedding, then definitely take it off. And
holler so I know to get the camera," he added cheerfully while taking
her free hand and hauling her to her feet.
Korra put on the ring, looked thoughtfully at it, and then
turned to the pool and gestured. A narrow column of water rose from the
surface, shimmering in the afternoon sunlight, then plopped back into
the pool as she released it.
"That's more like it," she said, grinning. "Thanks, Corwin."
Corwin gathered up his measuring tools. "Well, I can't have you
tiptoeing around trying not to wreck the joint," he replied as they
crossed the garden to join Utena by the door.
"Ah," said Utena with an I-get-it expression. "Overclock
problem?"
"Big-time," Korra confirmed. "This is quite a place you guys
have here."
"You haven't even seen the best bit yet," Nall told her, taking
to her shoulder again.
"C'mon," said Utena with a follow-me gesture, "the gang from
Jeraddo's about ready to come across."
They left East Hall and started across campus again, heading
back toward the Secret Forest. Partway across the Quad, Nall noticed a
glint of reflected sunlight from something in Korra's top jacket pocket.
"Hello, what's this?" he said, ducking down to pluck out the object that
had caught his eye. "Oh ho! You've reached the iPod Age in Diqiu now?"
"Hey!" she exclaimed, making a grab for him, but he eluded her
and leaped to Corwin's shoulder, prize in forepaws.
"Let's take a look at your playlist, shall we?" said Nall
mischievously.
"Give that back!" Korra protested, but not, Utena noticed, very
vigorously, nor without a smile.
"Big-Band Hits of the 170s," Nall observed, pawing at the little
brass-and-mahogany player's clickwheel. "Nice. Lots of Dirk Daring,
the Daring Dirk of Derring-Do, no surprise there." He leaned back
slightly, face in a feline frown. "Southern Water Tribe -throat
singers?-" He shrugged. "Rock on... whoa, -hours- of Pro Bending with
Shiro Shinobi. Is this like your whole career?" He looked up and
cocked an eyebrow at her. "Narcissist." Korra scowled at him, arms
folded, but failed to be convincing. Grinning, Nall went back to his
investigation. "The complete works of Blues Traveler, wasn't expecting
that... " He blinked. "All 12 seasons of Lovebender?" He looked up
from the display again, an exaggerated look of concern on his face. "Is
somebody lonely?"
Smirking slightly, Korra made two small gestures. The first
caused a sudden, focused gust of wind to snatch the player from Nall's
paws and deliver it to her free hand; the other summoned up a miniature
cyclone that swept Nall from his perch on Corwin's shoulder and spun him
halfway across the Quad before he managed to fight free and wing his
way, somewhat unsteadily, back.
"What maniac gave you thumbs?" asked Korra mock-ruefully,
buttoning the player back into her top pocket.
"See the kinds of things you miss?" Nall replied rhetorically,
resuming his station above that pocket.
"Man, don't rub it in," Korra said, pouting. "I'm not holding
it -against- the White Lotus. They mean well, and they did kind of have
a point. Not about keeping us separated," she added as Utena looked
faintly miffed, "but there -are- certain risks involved whenever I leave
Diqiu. But still, I mean... " She sighed glumly.
"It still bites?" Corwin suggested sympathetically.
"Yeah, it bites," Korra agreed. "I missed you guys' entire
courtship!" Smiling wryly, she added, "Which I'm sure was -epic- in
-every way.-"
"Eheh," said Corwin.
"It had its moments," Utena admitted.
A look of plain delight erased the last traces of glumness from
Korra's face. "Ha! You both do that hand-behind-the-head thing!" she
cried, mimicking the same gesture. Corwin and Utena glanced at each
other, reddening as if caught doing something naughty. Korra laughed
gaily, the momentary mood shadow forgotten. "Made, for, each other."
They took the stairs - the "scenic route" - up to the dueling
floor, to find Anthy and Chu Chu waiting for them there. When he caught
sight of the necktied monkeymouse on her shoulder, Corwin silently made
the "I'm watching you" sign to him, drawing giggles from Anthy and
Korra.
"Oh hey!" said Corwin, thumping himself in the forehead with the
heel of one hand. "Before everthing starts getting -crazy- busy around
here, I need to introduce you two." He stepped to Anthy's side,
gesturing between her and Korra, and said, "Korra, meet Anthy Tenjou,
High Priestess of Cephiro, frequently the only person in our entire
circle who knows what she's trying to do." Utena giggled at that; Anthy
gave her a faintly, indulgently reproachful look, though she'd smiled at
the remark herself. "Anthy, this - at long last - is Korra, of 'once
when I was five' fame."
With a cordial smile, Anthy bowed slightly, which was about all
the bowing her present condition allowed for, and said formally, "I'm
very pleased to meet you at last, Avatar Korra." Then, her smile
becoming warmer, she added in a more personal tone, "I was starting to
wonder whether you were Corwin's -imaginary- friend."
Korra laughed. "There have been times in the last six years
when I was tempted to wonder that myself!" she admitted; then, composing
herself, she enclosed her right fist loosely in her left hand and
inclined her upper body respectfully. "It's an honor, Lady Anthy."
"The honor's mine, I assure you," said Anthy, resuming something
of her diplomatic tone from earlier. "Welcome to Cephiro." Then,
dropping it again, she put a friendly hand on Korra's arm and added,
"One day soon, you'll have to tell me -your- version of the Great Sky
Bison Hijack of 2397."
Korra coughed and had the good grace to look slightly abashed.
Utena arched an eyebrow at Anthy, who returned only a sunny smile, and
Corwin laughed, then pointed a mock-chiding finger at Anthy and said,
"You never told me Chu Chu was from outside Cephiro."
Anthy smiled serenely. "You never asked," she replied, and then
turned to begin the process of opening the Rose Gate for their guests.
"She's got you there," Utena observed.
They didn't have magic in the Cephirean style back where Korra
came from, but she'd been around long enough and seen a sufficient
number of Big, Important Things that she easily recognized the Tenjou
Academy dueling floor as one, and doubly so for the stone door which
stood off to one side. She'd been expecting some kind of fancy
incantation, or at the very least a focus ritual of some kind, and so
she was a bit disappointed when Anthy just walked over to it and, well,
-opened- it, like a regular door. Regular doors didn't tend to pour out
quite so much white light when opened, though, nor produce a warm breeze
laden with the scent of roses, so that, at least, was satisfyingly
mystical.
A group of young people emerged from that light and walked,
blinking in the bright sunshine, across the short walkway that led to
the dueling platform itself. Standing by the door, Anthy greeted them
as friends, as did Utena and Corwin when they reached the floor. Korra
didn't know most of them, but that stood to reason, and she didn't point
it out aloud, because it would've been stating the obvious and it would
probably have caused Nall to chide her again for her long absence. She
did recognize Corwin's sister Kaitlyn - a grown woman now, poised and
confident, with the same quiet little smile she'd had of old - but the
others were strangers to her. Some, like Kaitlyn, had plainly been here
before. Others just as plainly hadn't, if their looks of astonishment
and wonder when they beheld the place where they had just arrived were
anything to go by. As they arrived, they dispersed onto the platform,
looking around as if not entirely convinced they were where they were.
One in particular, a tall, green-eyed girl with long black hair
and a cycling jacket, stood frozen for a moment as though in shock, then
ran to the edge of the platform and had a look over the edge. When she
turned around, she had a look of gleeful amazement on her face, which
didn't seem accustomed to wearing that kind of look somehow. Laughing,
she ran to another of the newcomers, an elegantly dressed girl with
sandy brown hair, and seemed to surprise (but delight) her by catching
her in one of those full-turnaround can-you-believe-this hugs. Their
friends looked on with an air of fond indulgence, which only intensified
when the black-haired girl seemed to catch herself and then hastily
composed herself, glaring around as if daring anyone to acknowledge what
they'd all just seen. No one did, but they all declined with such
obviously fake innocence that the sandy-haired girl gave a merry laugh
and hooked an arm around her furiously blushing companion's waist.
Korra had no context for any of that, though she could guess at
the basic outline. She was a little distracted by the tiger, anyway.
"You've got to be Kaitlyn's," she observed as she went to one
knee before the great striped cat.
"Yep," said Nall. "This is Serge. Look alive, Stripes, you're
in the presence of greatness here."
"Shush," she told him, petting the tiger. "Hey, Kate," she
added as Serge's mistress disengaged from the growing little crowd and
walked smilingly over. "Let me guess: best birthday ever?"
"Christmas," Kate said, kneeling next to Serge and putting an
arm over his massive shoulders. "How've you been, Korra? Been a long
time."
"-Too- long," said Korra ruefully, leaning to give Kate a one-
armed hug. "Corwin and I were talking about that earlier. We're, uh,
going to try and not let it happen again. But I can't complain, in
general." She smiled, taking in the other woman's air of calm
contentment. When last Korra had known her, Kate had been a nervous
teenager, plagued with a terrible stutter and retiring to a fault in
consequence. She still wasn't what Korra would call flamboyant, but it
was evident now that the former condition had gone, and it seemed to
have taken the latter with it.
"You look like you can't either," she added with a grin.
"No, no indeed," said Kate. "I've learned to always keep an eye
out for the other shoe? But things are going very, very well right
now."
"That's great. I'm really glad to hear it," said Korra. "You
de - whoa! Hello."
This last was in response to another big animal which had
appeared from the crowd. This appeared to be a large wolf-like
creature, not quite as massive as Serge, but impressive all the same -
and nearly as arresting to look at, too, as his shaggy fur was a
peculiar and decorative shade of blue not normally found on canids.
He'd threaded his way through the forest of legs, spotted the tiger, and
moseyed over to say hello, then spotted the Avatar and decided to
introduce himself with a bit of a licking.
A few paces away, where Shizuru Viola and Natsuki Kruger still
stood apart from the crowd a bit and enjoyed the view, Shizuru noticed
this and, with a chuckle, drew Natsuki's attention to it. The black-
haired girl blinked, went a bit red in the face, and left Shizuru to
march over and cry sharply,
"-Duran!- Off!"
The wolf glanced back over his shoulder, saw that his mistress
appeared to be angry, and disengaged with what, on a wolf's face, was a
rather comically sheepish look.
With the half-defiant expression of someone who is mortified but
doesn't really know how to express that, Natsuki went on, "I'm, er, very
sorry about that." She scowled at the wolf. "And a bit shocked. Duran
never behaves that way!"
"Aw, it's OK," said Korra, scruffling Duran's head. "He's just
a big friendly guy. Aren't you?"
Duran assumed the sphinx position on her right (mirroring Serge,
who had already done so on her left, to Kaitlyn's amusement) and made a
contented growl.
"Well, that's... the thing," said Natsuki, too bemused to remain
indignant. "He normally... uh, isn't."
"I kind of have a way with animals," Korra admitted,
straightening up and brushing at her pants. "Hi, I'm Korra, by the way.
I've already met Duran," she added with a grin, extending a hand.
"Natsuki Kruger," said Natsuki automatically, shaking the hand
mostly on autopilot.
"You'll have to excuse Natsuki," said Shizuru as she stepped up
alongside her lover with a calm smile. "She's unaccustomed to things
challenging her Weltanschauung so blatantly. I'm Shizuru Viola. A
pleasure to meet you. Are you one of Corwin's relations, by chance?"
Korra's grin became a trifle wry as she replied, "Not by blood,
but close enough."
While that was going on, Corwin was over on the other side,
greeting two of the last arrivals through the Gate.
"Hey, killer!" he said cheerfully, giving his childhood partner
in crime Kaname Sterling a big hug, then turning to dispense another for
Lindsey Willows. "Lins! Glad you guys could make it. I hear the crew
had to hunt you down a little. Hope we didn't drag you away from
anything too vital."
"Nah, just downtime at the beach," said Kaname casually - a
little too casually, but in a way that told Corwin it was best not
pursued at this time.
"Nothing we can't get back to," Lindsey confirmed. "Besides,
miss this?" She looked around. "Never miss an excuse to come here."
She held up her left hand, comparing the rose seal pattern on her
Duelist's signet ring to the floor on which they stood. "Where it all
began, right?"
"You have no idea," said Utena with a grin. "Hey, where's your
bodyguard?" she asked Kaname.
"Had to report back to the home office," Kaname said.
"Besides," she added wryly, "Natsuki's here, so I've met my quota for
gun-toting crazies anyway."
"She seems to like it here," Lindsey observed with an impish
smile.
"You'll have to introduce me," said Corwin. "I saw her at
Alumni Day, but the new girl took her away before I could say hello.
Speaking of which - " He turned and made a big overhead wave, beckoning
everyone to settle down and gather 'round. "Excuse me! Can I have your
attention for a second? Thanks. Hello! This is the part where I go
into Host Mode and make sure you all know each other, but there are a
few of you -I- don't know yet, so for the moment, I just want to say hi,
I'm Corwin, and:" He made a sweeping, two-handed gesture taking in the
whole crowd, the platform on which they stood, and the blue-sky-fluffy-
clouds vista beyond. "Welcome to Cephiro!"
East Hall bustled in the next few hours, as the Trinity of
Cephiro showed their newly arrived guests to bedrooms (of which the
building, as a former dormitory, had no shortage), then left them to get
settled, rest, freshen up in the palatial bathrooms to be found on each
floor, explore the campus, or network amongst themselves as they saw
fit. The members of Order of the Rose's local chapter appeared as their
classes ended, joining the overall scrum; many had friends among the
Jeraddo contingent already, and others were intent on making more.
Midway through the afternoon, Corwin's school friends from New Avalon
and the alumni from Utena and Kaitlyn's first Duelist "generation" began
appearing as well. Corwin, Utena, and Anthy seemed to be everywhere
that afternoon, discharging their duties as hosts and renewing or making
acquaintances of their own as they went.
Korra made the rounds as well, slightly amazed at the number of
lives Corwin and his friends had touched in the years the White Lotus
had spent conspiring to keep her out of circulation - and this, she
knew, was only a part of the overall guest list, though by far the most
-personal- part. If, as a predecessor of hers as Avatar had once told
her, a person's worth was best measured in the quality and loyalty of
his friends, then Corwin was doing all right.
Nowhere was this more in evidence than at the dinner gathering
early that evening, when those who had assembled so far filled the ex-
dorm's grand refectory with cheer and goodwill, and many toasts of good
fortune and fair weather for the couple of the hour. Korra had been to
actual wedding receptions that weren't as festive as this pre-ceremony
gathering.
After dinner, some - tired out in spite of the early hour, or in
some cases having come from widely offset time zones - retired to bed
with further expressions of friendship and preliminary congratulation.
Others, with similar sentiments expressed, weren't heading to bed just
yet, but - heretics - didn't particularly care for hockey and so were
taking themselves off to look after other matters. The rest adjourned
to the hall's common room, to cram into, on top of, and on the floor in
front of and around an assortment of sofas, loveseats, armchairs, and
ottomans while Utena and Anthy cheerfully distributed big bowls of
popcorn and various beverages. Corwin went to the front of the room,
bent to turn on the giant holovision set, then thought of something,
snapped his fingers, and darted from the room while the set powered up.
He was back less than a minute later, slightly out of breath,
with a folded bundle of blue fabric under his arm. Kneeling, he fiddled
around for a few moments with what looked like a homebuilt cable TV
receiver tucked in under the base of the holoset. The virtual screen
fuzzed for a moment, then came up with a blinking block-text banner
reading
EARTH ALLIANCE TELEVISION UNWITTINGLY PRESENTS
HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA^wTHE NORTH AMERICAN FAR NORTH DISTRICT
(I KNOW RIGHT??)
LIBERATED BY BIG TIME SPORTS!
(LIVE HOLOSTREAM STARTS IN 04:49)
A mix of cheers and boos greeted this screen. Someone called
out, "Oh come on, Hockey Night in WHAT? The EA makes -everything-
lame," to which there was much laughing agreement. Corwin picked his
way through the floor-sitters and -lyers to the rightmost of the three
couches forming a slightly bent row at the back, where Anthy, perched
sidesaddle on one of the arms and looking quite comfortable there in
spite of her obviously well-advanced pregnancy, was saving him the spot
at the end.
Korra had wedged herself crosslegged into the corner between
that couch and the middle one, ending up with Nall in her lap, Serge
sprawled in front of her like a breathing tiger rug, and Duran with his
head by one of her knees. Corwin paused before sitting down and handed
her the blue bundle of cloth, saying,
"Here! I got you this for Christmas like four years ago, just
on the off chance."
Then, grinning, he jammed himself in between the arm of the
couch and Utena, who was barely able to give him enough room without
moving Wakaba, Kate, and Juri so much they pushed Miki off the other
end. Korra, intrigued, unfolded the bundle, then laughed as she
discovered that it was a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, customized with the
number 00. This she pulled over her head, momentarily discommoding Nall
by dropping the front hem over him. As they got themselves rearranged,
Shizuru looked over from her perch at the edge of the end of the couch
to her right, noted the name stitched across her shoulders, and said in
an intrigued tone,
"Your name is 'Avatar'?"
Korra grinned up at her. "Nah, it's just what they call me back
home. It's kind of a long story. I don't actually -have- a last name.
We don't bother with 'em in my tribe."
"Oh? Interesting! Where are you from, if you don't mind my
asking?"
"Shizu," said Natsuki from behind her. "C'mon, the game's
starting in like 20 seconds, we haven't got time for life stories."
Shizuru glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. It was a
relatively new development for Natsuki to feel comfortable enough with
their relationship to sit with her this intimately in an even semi-
public setting, and the last thing she wanted to do was annoy the poor
girl now that they were so cozily situated, so she nodded graciously and
said, "Of course. Another time, perhaps?"
"Sure," said Korra, and then a touch wryly, "only I don't know
if you'll believe me!"
/* Dolores Claman
"The Hockey Theme"
_Hockey Night in Canada_ (1968) */
Either because its bureaucrats had recognized a potential public
relations nightmare in time to avoid committing it for once, or simply
because no one had considered it very important, the Earth Alliance
government had left Hockey Night in Canada largely alone, apart from the
mandated change in its title to reflect the 2406 abolishment of Canada
as a country. The only real difference was not in the coverage itself,
but in the change of the national anthem played at the beginning of the
game. This got another round of boos from the assembled Duelists and
friends, many of whom struck up their own chorus of "O Canada" to drown
out the EA's rather bland tune.
Once the puck was dropped, and the Toronto Maple Leafs and
Winnipeg Jets had gotten on with the business of trying to bludgeon each
other into submission, all that fell by the wayside anyway. The EA
could fool with the letterhead all they wanted, but Canada was still
Canada and hockey was still hockey. For whatever reason, this contest -
though of no particular note in terms of the season standings or
implications for the postseason, and not waged between two teams with an
especial rivalry - proved to be fast-paced and intense even by the
standards of the 25th-century NHL, and within minutes the whole room was
rocking to the shouts and cries of the suddenly partisan viewers.
One source of amusement that immediately and unexpectedly
appeared was that Toronto had a player named Gerhard Kruger. This
worthy's name drew a cheer every time he was mentioned by the play-by-
play man, particularly when it cropped up in some phrase that was
amusing when taken out of context - which seemed to happen often,
because Kruger was one of the team's main playmakers, seeming always to
be on the scene whenever anything noteworthy went down. Every time it
did, those nearest to Shizuru and Natsuki noticed that the former was a
little more tickled, the latter a little more uneasy.
This came to something of a head near the end of the second
period, when one of Winnipeg's forwards went steaming across Toronto's
blue line with no defenders in sight but for the Leafs' much-harassed
goaltender.
"It's a classic breakaway, Svensson is -flying- out there," the
play-by-play man (the venerable and still wondrously excitable
"Professor" Jim Everard) cried. "The Leafs are scrambling, caught in
the middle of a shift change - " Suddenly, a blue-clad figure appeared
as if out of nowhere, charging up behind Svensson like a freight train
and whacking the puck away from him, then smashing him into the boards
with a thunderous hip check.
" - TAKEN FROM BEHIND BY KRUGER!" Professor Jim bellowed,
disbelieving.
"Oh -Natsuki!-" Shizuru cried, drawing her startled lover's arms
tighter around her. "So bold!"
"SHIZURU!" Natsuki blurted, blushing bright red, as the whole
room disintegrated in laughter. Held firmly by Shizuru's grip on her
arms, hemmed in by the couch arm on one side and an in-actual-tears-of-
mirth Kaname Sterling on the other, she had no hope of escape (nor, in
all honesty, did she really want to), and could only mutter and go on
blushing as Shizuru vamped a bit more.
Things quieted down a little bit at the end of the period, as
the commentary team brought in a couple of outside experts and spent the
intermission analyzing the action thus far. After forty minutes of
full-throttle play, the game stood tied at two all, so there was plenty
of action to analyze.
Utena was pleased to discover, when they went to the studio
camera, that the color commentator on the game was -that- Karin Torborg,
the one she'd seen playing (and decking a couple of Ottawa Senators) for
the Leafs in the first hockey game she'd ever witnessed. She realized
with a mild shock that that had been almost five years ago. The thought
gave her one of the day's only pangs of discontent, as she found herself
wishing that Kyouichi Saionji were here. He'd been with her at that
game - they'd discovered ice hockey and their own fledgling friendship
together that night - and it didn't sit well with her that he'd
disappeared, not just from her life, but, as far as she could tell, from
-everyone's.-
At first she'd assumed he'd gone on another long-range
assignment for the International Police, but when she'd put the question
to Gryphon, the agency's chief and her own adoptive father, he'd denied
it. Utena firmly doubted that he would - or even could - lie to her
about such a thing, so she considered that matter settled, but that left
the perplexing question of where the hell he -had- gone, and for what
purpose. It was not, of course, entirely unknown for Saionji to just go
walkabout, but he hadn't done it for -ages,- and his friends had all
hoped that those days were behind him now. It was one of the very few
black marks on this week that he wasn't around.
She glanced to her right, at Wakaba, and sighed. Wakaba gave
her a questioning look; Utena shook her head forget-it and returned her
attention to the screen. She knew Wakaba was upset about Saionji's
absence too - more so than anybody else, probably - and she didn't want
to dredge all that up, not here, not now. Getting more proactive about
tracking the dipstick down after the wedding was done with was near the
top of her to-do list anyway...
"And I'll tell you something else, Jim," said Torborg
enthusiastically, gesturing to the playback screen behind the studio
desk. "Kruger has been -very- aggressive tonight."
"Mmmm, yes she has," Shizuru purred, snuggling back against
Natsuki a little more.
"What in the world has - " Natsuki started to mutter under the
laugh that got; then she bit off the rest of the question and growled at
herself as she realized, belatedly, that it would be -daft- to utter the
phrase "gotten into you tonight" at this moment.
She'd stopped herself too late, though; Shizuru was on her
wavelength, and didn't find it at all difficult to guess the rest of the
question. She chuckled throatily, looking back over her shoulder with a
mischievous twinkle in her scarlet eyes, and drew breath to reply,
Natsuki was sure, with another innuendo.
Something in Natsuki Kruger snapped, and - a bit rashly - she
suddenly decided that, rather than let Shizuru say whatever she was
about to say, it would be better to just kiss her.
So she did.
And a great cheer arose from those assembled, as though the
Leafs had just scored the go-ahead goal, for anyone who had been paying
attention had realized half an hour ago that this was Shizuru's ultimate
objective anyway. That said, even Shizuru seemed slightly surprised
for a moment that it had -worked-, before accepting it as her due and
leaning into it.
"There," Natsuki said decisively when she'd finished the kiss.
"Now -behave.-"
"Mmm, you'll never settle me down -that- way," said Shizuru,
facing front again, and Natsuki forehead-faulted against her upper back
with an I-give-up grumble.
"Aw, relax, Nat," said Lindsey, reaching across Kaname to pat
Natsuki on the shoulder. "You guys are adorable."
The teenage girl sitting propped against the front of Corwin's
couch, in front of Kaitlyn - possibly the youngest person in the room -
looked away from the scene with a mildly embarrassed grin and a faint
blush on her face, then glanced back a little bit guiltily. When she
did, Korra caught her eye and gave her a conspiratorial little wink,
which deepened both the grin and the blush as she glanced away again.
Cute kid, Korra thought. I wonder whose student she is?
Kaitlyn's, most likely.
The Leafs and Jets kept at each other with full intensity
throughout the scoreless third period, which was possibly the most
exciting twenty minutes of utter futility anyone in the room could
remember watching, and then for the first three minutes of overtime -
when, in an ending that by this point struck many of those present as
inevitable, Gerhard Kruger blasted in the winning goal for the Leafs.
"SCOOOOORE! And it's KRUGER getting the JOB done!" Professor
Jim roared.
"Kruger's been getting it done all night long, Jim!" Karin
Torborg concurred.
Natsuki had, by this time, passed clean out the other side of
her earlier embarrassment; now she just raised an ironically triumphant
fist in the air and forestalled all comments by remarking, "Yes, yes,
thank you. I am amazing."
People were still laughing about that when the double door to
the hallway opened. The two figures standing there didn't enter the
room, but instead remained in the doorway, scanning the crowd as if
looking for a particular person.
"Hey, you guys!" said Utena, rising (with some difficulty) from
the couch. "I thought you weren't coming until morning." She looked
disappointed. "You just missed the game." Looking more closely, she
tilted her head thoughtfully and added, "What's the matter?"
For the two new arrivals - Hikaru Shidou and Fuu Hououji, two of
Utena and Corwin's fellow Rune Knights - looked like they had just run
to East Hall at full pelt from somewhere inconveniently far away; they
were flushed and out of breath and Fuu's hair was uncharacteristically
disordered (as opposed to Hikaru's, which was characteristically so).
Fuu, bent over with hands on knees and still catching her breath, didn't
reply, but Hikaru managed to say,
"Hi, Utena, sorry, we -were- planning to come over in the
morning, but - is Nall here?"
"Hello!" said Nall. Sensing the urgency in Hikaru's voice, he
scrambled around Korra's hip, up her back, and onto the top of her head
(eliciting a ticklish little wriggle-and-squeal in the process that he
would normally have paused for a moment to savor). "Right here. What's
the matter?"
"We need - to talk - to you - outside," Fuu panted.
"Uh... " With a shrug, he unfurled his wings and took to the
air, darting across to alight on Hikaru's slightly more stable shoulder.
"OK?"
"Something we can help with?" Utena wondered.
"No, no," said Hikaru with a completely unconvincing attempt at
casualness. "Nothing you guys need to worry about. Everything's fine!
It's really, really... fine." Hikaru stepped back, gesturing Fuu back
with her, and closed the doors. Just before they met in front of her
face, she grinned nervously and said, "G'night!"
There was a momentary pause as everyone in the common room
glanced at selected others in skeptical puzzlement.
"Wow," said Utena. "That was about as convincing as me in the
same situation."
"OK, so... " Nall inquired as the two Rune Knights raced back up
the stairs to the Forest, "what's going on that's so important you had
to come and drag me off one of my favorite laps?"
"Why haven't you answered your phone all night?!" Hikaru snapped
in not-really-reply.
"It's in my room," said Nall. "Does it look like I have any
pockets at the moment?"
Hikaru made a grumbly noise of annoyance. "We've got to get you
a Lens."
Nall shook his head. "There's too much larceny in my soul."
"Can you be serious for like five seconds?!" Hikaru demanded.
"I could if you gave me a good reason," Nall replied, a trifle
huffily. "So far all you've done is drag me out of a happenin' party
and yell at me! And where's Umi? If any of you girls gets to do this
kind of thing to me it's her." He looked from Hikaru's determined
expression to Fuu's, which had a similar set of jaw, and it began to
dawn on him that something major indeed might just be afoot. "... Oh."
"Yeah," said Hikaru shortly. "Oh." She skidded to a halt
before the door to the Forest. With one hand she seized the handle, and
set the mechanisms in motion; with the other, she plucked Nall from her
shoulder by the scruff of the neck and dropped him to the ground. "Now
get changed, we're going back to Midgard."
By the time Utena, Corwin, Anthy, and half the gang from the
common room got to the dueling floor (where, disconcertingly, it was
broad daylight), they found it empty and silent, the Rose Gate closed
and dark. Anthy stood by the door for a moment, her hand against the
stone, then turned and said,
"They went back to Midgard. I can reopen the Gate to the same
destination if you want to follow them... "
Utena opened her mouth to reply, but before she could make a
sound come out, Wakaba had said, "Nah."
Blinking, Utena turned to her. "What?"
"They've got it, whatever it is," Wakaba reasoned. "Hikaru
might try to brazen it out if she was in over her head and didn't want
to admit it, but Fuu wouldn't have gone along with that. She must
figure the three of them can handle it."
"What if she's wrong?" asked Utena.
"If they need help they'll call," said Wakaba. She put one arm
over Utena's shoulders, the other over Corwin's, and started herding
them back toward the stairs. "In the meantime, they obviously didn't
want you guys to get too worked up about it. On the night before YOUR
WEDDING." Seeing that they weren't convinced, she sighed and went on,
"OK, look, -I- will go and see what's going on, and if I think they need
more backup than me, -I'll- call. K? Lensman's honor." Turning them
loose, she reached into the small crowd of onlookers and dragged out
Tsuwabuki. "I'll even take Mitsuru with me."
"Hey, I didn't - " Tsuwabuki began to protest.
"(Shut up and come with me,)" Wakaba growled, twisting his arm
slightly.
"Sure!" he agreed.
Utena directed a level, skeptical gaze at her oldest friend,
then smiled slightly and said, "OK, OK. Go check it out. But you call
me," she added, brandishing her Lens, "at the -slightest- hint of
trouble. Got it?"
Wakaba saluted. "Got it. C'mon, Mitsuru, let's ride." She
glanced to the slim, dark-haired figure who had been standing next to
Tsuwabuki before she'd dragged him out of the crowd. "Is your
girlfriend coming?" she asked offhandedly.
Tsuwabuki reddened slightly. "She's not - " he began.
The girl - one of the rookie Kyoshi Warriors Corwin had noticed
when they'd first arrived, out of uniform, a big-eyed, fresh-faced
specimen of perhaps 14 - blushed slightly as well as she interjected
with feigned stolidity, "My place is here."
A grinning Korra clapped her on the shoulder and said, "Oh,
g'wan, Izumi. See a little of the big universe." With a slight roll of
her eyes, she added, "I'll make do with just the OTHER nine for a few
hours."
Izumi blinked, then said hesitantly, "... As you wish, Avatar."
"OK, Anthy, three to beam down, I guess," said Wakaba with a
grin.
Smiling indulgently, Anthy opened the Gate and gestured them
through like a doorman at a fancy hotel. "Good luck. Let us know if
you need help."
"Will do!" Wakaba agreed cheerfully. "C'mon, you guys, let's go
see what's what. Night, all! We'll be back in the morning. Don't
worry about a thing. Everything's gonna be A-OK."
And with that, and a Nixon-at-the-chopper wave, they were gone.
"Uh... -huh,-" said Utena dubiously. "Well. I guess the show's
over."
Everyone trooped back down the stairs again, and upon leaving
the Forest, dispersed, most of them heading for bed with a last round of
well-wishes and see-you-in-the-mornings. By the time they were halfway
across the Quad, only Corwin, Utena, Anthy, and Korra remained, making
their way at a leisurely pace as they chatted.
"Well," said Korra, "that bed you showed me earlier beckons, but
I think I've still got enough steam to do my evening forms before I call
it a night."
"I've got a thing I need to do down at the Tower... " Corwin
mused.
"And I'm in the mood for a good view and a calming cup of tea,"
said Anthy with a smile.
When they reached the tower, Anthy and Utena bade Korra
goodnight and went up in the elevator, bound not for the apartment at
the top (where once, long ago, they had lived, but which was now
Tsuwabuki's domain), but instead the Student Council offices. Corwin
told them he'd join them presently, then went down the stairs off to one
side of the lift cage instead. Curious, Korra followed him down a half-
flight, around the 180-degree turn of a landing, and down six more steps
to a large, imposing iron-bound door.
When he got there, he glanced back over his shoulder with a grin
and spoke seven words that, Korra discovered, still had the power to
give her a bit of a thrill, because they'd been the on-ramp to good
times on several previous occasions:
"Hey Korra - want to see something cool?"
He didn't wait for her answer, having asked merely as a matter
of form. Instead, he worked the door's massive iron lock without
touching it, using a gesture that had a whiff of metalbending about it.
The door swung open onto a darkened room, releasing a gust of warm,
humid air flavored with a sharp but not unpleasant tang of machine oil.
With another smile back over his shoulder, Corwin stepped into the room
and snapped his fingers. Big industrial lamps blazed on across the
ceiling, filling the room with white light.
Korra stepped in after him and looked around, wide-eyed. They
were on a metal catwalk about halfway up the walls of a very large
square room, its walls the same featureless white stone as the outside
of the tower. A few paces in front of them was a semicircular control
panel, all brass-rimmed gauges and big black levers and knobs. Spread
out across the floor below them was the biggest, most dizzyingly
complicated machine Korra had ever seen, and that - given that she lived
in the most populous city of a rapidly industrializing Level 5
civilization, had connections high up in that civilization's leading
technology company, and generally considered herself a leading-edge kind
of girl - was saying something.
"Wow," she said. "OK. I don't know what this IS? But I'm
impressed. Just want that on record."
"This is the heart of our revolution," said Corwin. "It's a
computer. You might think of it as a sorcery machine. It automates the
cosmic maintenance and stability functions that the Pillars of Cephiro
used to have to do by hand." He put his hands on his hips and surveyed
his creation with evident pride. "It's the engine that runs the world."
Korra eyed him for a second, then grinned. "Oh," she said,
without any evident sarcasm. "Right. Of course it is." Walking to the
catwalk railing, she leaned out a little and took a closer look at part
of the whirling, clattering mechanism, then turned a questioning look
back to him. "Did you come down here just to show it off to me?"
"No," Corwin said, "that's an added bonus." He sat down on the
brass stool at the console, cracked his knuckles, and turned one of the
big knobs a couple of stops, then began typing on the mechanical
keyboard in the center of the console. "I'm adding a small patch to the
operating image." With a grin, he added, "Making extra-sure we have
good weather in the morning."
Korra laughed. "That's cheating."
"Pillar's prerogative, good weather for his wedding," Corwin
replied.
"So... " She turned and leaned back against the rail, her
elbows resting atop it. "Is that the deal with you and this world? Are
you something like me now?"
Corwin shook his head. "Nah, not really. You're supposed to be
a dynamic agent of balance. That doesn't quite map to -any- of our
jobs exactly, but I think Utena's probably closest. Me, I'm the Pillar.
I can make adjustments, but as the name suggests, I'm really only here
to keep the ceiling up."
Korra frowned thoughtfully. "Gonna be honest: That sounds like
a terrible job."
"Oh, it is," Corwin agreed. "It's the dullest mythical position
ever invented. You're basically Atlas with a better wardrobe
department." He reached and cheerfully dinged a bellhop's bell set into
the upper panel of the console. "Which is why the first thing I did was
automate it!" He typed away for a moment as she favored him with an
indulgent don't-ever-change smile, then added, "Actually, I automated
-all- our jobs. I'm not sure the girls have noticed yet. Maybe they
just think things are slow lately. Anyway, that's why we can leave for
extended periods without things falling over. Otherwise we'd have our
own equivalent of the White Lotus constantly texting us all OMG IT IS
RAINING FIRE WHERE R U."
Korra snorted. "Technically, my world -can- get by without me.
I mean, it's the nature of the beast: Years go by between one Avatar's
passing and the realization of the next one, and things keep running
fine." She paused thoughtfully. "For certain values of fine."
Corwin chuckled. "Cephiro has no such luxury, I'm afraid. The
Pillar before me was distracted - not dead, not even sick, just thinking
about other stuff - for a few years and the place damn near went up in
flames."
He finished typing, considered his entry on a display that
appeared to be made of a little matrix of bronze flags, then nodded and
pulled a slot-machine-like lever next to it. With a satisfying
mechanical CHUNK and a cheery ping! from the bell, the machine accepted
the update. Corwin switched the knob he'd turned at the beginning back
to the position it had been in when they arrived, got up, and said,
"And, well, I think about other stuff a -lot-." He grinned.
"Hence the machine."
He locked up and went with her as far as the elevator. There,
in the midst of a long, long lost-time sort of hug, he said quietly,
"Weird conspiracy aside, I'm glad you're here."
"I'm glad I made it. Even if I still can't quite believe why
I'm here," Korra added with a rueful chuckle. "Just the other day you
were completely ignoring Maki in favor of taking apart my Satomobile."
"I haven't changed that much," Corwin assured her. "Nowadays
I'd ask her to join me."
Korra gave a soft snort at that. "OK, I can see that," she
conceded. Giving him one last squeeze, she turned him loose and said,
"G'night, Corwin. I'll see you in the morning." She dashed at a
sentimental tear, unconsciously waterbending it into a little puff of
ice crystals, and thumped him on the shoulder. "Don't run off."
"No worries there," said Corwin, pressing the button for the
elevator. "I'm in this for the duration. Now if I just knew where the
hell -Nall- ran off to in such a hurry," he added wryly, "I'd be all
set."
"Your friend seemed like she was on top of it," Korra said.
"Besides, Izumi's young, but she knows what she's doing. I'm sure
they've got things completely under control."
// Somewhere:
"THIS WAS NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND!"
"SHUT UP AND RUN THEY'RE GAINING!"
//
"With Wakaba," said Corwin portentously, "that's half of what
I'm afraid of." The elevator arrived. Corwin smiled to show that he
wasn't entirely serious about that, tagged her shoulder, and stepped
into the lift. "Night, Korra. See you in the morning."
The doors closed between their parting wave; Corwin rode it up
to the council office level, went through the offices, and found Utena
and Anthy at the table out on the balcony, sipping from teacups. On the
table between them stood a gleaming silver Gothrian samovar, a gift from
Kardon Felz when he had first joined the council. Standing next to this
was a card folded into an A-frame. Corwin picked it up and examined it;
the writing on it was so excruciatingly neat and precise that at first
he took it for a machine-printed font.
"'From the newest to the eldest, I hope this meets your
satisfaction,'" he read. "'S.V.' Hmm." He put the card down, walked
around to the other side of the table, and seated himself; by the time
he'd taken his seat, Anthy had poured him a cup of tea, which he thanked
her for, picked up carefully, blew across the surface of, then sipped.
"Hmm. Not bad at all." He smiled wryly. "The new girl's a bit odd,"
he mused, "but polite. And she does make good tea."
"She has a real gift for comic timing, too," Utena pointed out.
"I noticed that," Corwin agreed.
"I like your imaginary friend, Corwin," said Anthy. "She
reminds me of Utena. A grown woman with the best parts of a child in
her." She smiled. "An old soul with a youthful heart."
Corwin chuckled. "She'd like that," he said. "Korra has a
-very- old soul. Nobody knows the exact number, but there have been
-hundreds- of Avatars, maybe thousands, and they're... each has a
unique, individual spirit, but they're all incarnations of the same
soul. Somehow. Or possibly the other way around." He shrugged. "Aunt
Bell could probably tell you how that's supposed to work, but I'm not
that kind of god."
Utena looked like she might be about to say something, but
before she could speak, a faint sound of music drifted up to the balcony
from the courtyard below. Smiling, she got up from her seat and went to
the rail, leaning against it on her elbows with her hands folded around
her teacup. Corwin and Anthy joined her, all looking down into the
courtyard, teacups in hands.
As she left the tower a few moments earlier, Korra was thinking
about hunting down that dojo she'd seen earlier to do her evening forms.
She was in the habit of making the last thing she did before bed, if she
could arrange it, a little quiet work with one of the many martial arts
she'd mastered over her long and colorful life. This was a habit of
very long standing, having been formed during her childhood training as
recorded history's youngest-ever practicing Avatar.
When she got another look at the smoothly paved circular
courtyard in front of the tower, though, she decided she didn't really
need to bother with the dojo part. Instead she took off her jacket,
laid it on the stone planter by the tower entrance, then dug around in
the pockets and found the miniature speakers that went with her Cabbage
Corp Brassica personal music player. She set the player up on the lip
of the planter, next to her jacket, then cued up one of her evening-
workout playlists, walked out to the center of the courtyard, and began
her evening constitutional.
/* Glenn Miller and his Orchestra
"Moonlight Serenade"
Bluebird B-10214-B (1939) */
She started on familiar ground, with the slow, controlled
circular motions and sure, careful steps of basic waterbending
exercises. She wasn't actually bending any water - there wasn't any to
speak of in the immediate vicinity - but that wasn't the point of the
present exercise. These early, basic exercises were a warmup, unwinding
the various tensions of the day from her body and mind. Even a
pleasant, relaxed day like today would leave behind its little cares,
and slipping back into these very-well-worn forms was a way of shrugging
them off again.
"You know," Utena mused to Corwin as the three watched Korra
work, "I'm starting to wonder about you."
Corwin blinked. "... I beg your pardon?" he said.
"Well, look," said Utena, her tone of voice - slightly at odds
with her opening remark - easy and equable. "You remember the first
time we went to Asgard?" Corwin knew this question was too preposterous
to be anything but rhetorical, so he just nodded and let her get on with
her point. "I asked you if all the women you knew were as beautiful as
the Valkyrie I'd seen. Who were, at that point, let's see... your mom,
Vigdis, Kijana, and Lenneth. And you said something like, 'Uh, yeah, I
guess.' Closer to home you had Achika, Reiyna, Dorothy, the Utonium
girls - at least one of whom has a -huge- crush on you, by the way, you
probably never noticed... "
"She told me," Corwin put in. "Last spring."
"Oh. Well, good for her. That kind of thing takes guts,
believe me. Did you at least kiss her?"
Corwin went a little red, recalling that in fact he hadn't, but
it had been a near thing. "Uh... well, no."
Utena shook her head with a patient sigh. "Typical," she said.
She leaned back to look at Anthy across his back. "Hopeless. He's
hopeless."
Anthy nodded sagely. "Entirely," she agreed, then sipped her
tea and added, "Nearly as much so as you, my love. You're very well-
matched."
Corwin chuckled. "Zap," he murmured cheerfully, offering a fist
for her to bump without looking.
"ANYway," Utena plowed on, ignoring the point scored, "then
there's your 'cousin' - "
"Mirai?!" Corwin blurted. "When you and I met, and don't think
I don't know where you're going with this, she was -eleven.-"
"Yeah, you didn't hear the quotation marks," Utena went on
breezily, "as I was saying, your 'cousin' Kaname. She's a lot like me,
you know. Enough so that I'm shocked she didn't have you walking into
doors long before I ever came along."
Corwin turned to face Utena, leaving his right elbow on the
railing and putting his left hand on her shoulder. "Wait, where -are-
you going with this?" he wondered, sounding a little concerned now.
She smiled. "I'm not jealous and I'm not feeling inadequate,"
she assured him. "It's just a thing I'm trying to -explain- to myself.
You've grown up around all these incredible girls and women. A lot of
your -best friends- are girls and women. And yet -I'm- the first one
who ever made you realize why there's a difference? Without trying to,
or even realizing I -had- for a while?" She shrugged. "Having a hard
time getting my head around that lately."
"Is it really so difficult?" Anthy wondered mildly. She crossed
behind Corwin, putting her teacup down on the table as she passed it,
and went around to the far side of Utena, then took her arm and leaned
against her shoulder. "You revolutionize people's lives, Utena. It's
what you -do.-"
"Y'know, she's got a point," said Corwin, facing front again and
doing his best to get his left arm around both of them.
Unaware of the discussion she'd inadvertently caused high above,
Korra was coming to the end of her warmup when she noticed that she had
acquired an audience at ground level.
Anne Cross had been on her way to the kendo club's dojo as well,
her sword on her shoulder, when she heard the music coming from the
tower courtyard and went to investigate. There she was surprised to
find Corwin's friend from out of town - Korra? - doing what looked like
martial arts kata to the sound of old-timey big-band music. The music
was coming from a small player perched on the edge of the planter by the
Tower door, and Anne paused for a moment to examine it. She'd never
seen anything quite like it; it was obviously something akin to an iPod,
that ubiquitous, ancient but curiously timeless gadget, but it was made
of dark-stained wood, with shiny brass corner caps like an antique desk
and a clickwheel that seemed to be made of bronze. It was connected to
a pair of miniature speakers, also wood-cased, their grilles painted
with a stylized design of a white flower. The art style reminded her of
mahjongg tiles.
Having satisfied her curiosity in that regard, she returned her
attention to the device's owner. Anne's low-level telepathy could sense
nothing from her, but the girl wasn't surprised by that. Korra was
plainly an accomplished martial artist; she'd have mental focus to
spare. Right now she was doing what Anne took to be tai chi: graceful,
flowing, mostly-circular movements, smooth and relaxed, being extremely
particular about the placements of her hands and feet without seeming
particular about anything at all. Anne had little experience in such
matters, but she found it restful to watch - perhaps even slightly
hypnotic.
The tai chi sequence (if that's what it was) and the calm,
pleasant jazz track ended together, plainly not by chance; Korra stood
still in the middle of the courtyard for a moment, her breathing slow
and regular, eyes nearly closed, perfectly composed. Anne felt an
unaccountable urge to slip away before she was noticed - as though she
were intruding somehow just by being there.
Then a much peppier, up-tempo swing number began, and the whole
tableau abruptly changed.
/* The Benny Goodman Orchestra
"Don't Be That Way"
_The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert_ (1950) */
Korra's eyes opened, twinkling slightly in the light of the
courtyard's corner lampposts. She gave no overt sign that she'd noticed
Anne, who was off to her left; just smiled, a little mischievously it
seemed to Anne, and when the song's four-second opening fanfare ended,
she began to move again. Her movements this time were very different -
swifter, flashier, with a definite 'pop' at the end of each, the
footwork deft and a little percussive. There were still some swirling
motions, but her arms extended much further from her body, and the
kicking was definitely -not- tai chi. What she was doing still looked
like kata as much as dance, but for a different, more aggressive martial
art. Anne wondered if it might be kung fu. She hadn't seen that in
person before, but she'd seen it in films and always found it
interesting.
Live, it was even more interesting - and became moreso still a
minute or two into the song, when Korra got sufficiently into the groove
that the 'pops' at the ends of her moves started to include...
... fire.
Anne's eyes went wide. For a second she thought she might've
imagined it - the first few were just sharp little puffs at the ends of
mimed punches and palm strikes - but there could be no doubt of that
after Korra did a move that looked like a wheel kick and drew a
dazzling, momentarily persistent crescent of white-orange flame in the
wake of her heel. Faced with that, Anne couldn't suppress a gasp of
astonishment. Korra, finally registering that she had an audience,
completed the move's follow-through on autopilot, then turned to face
the source of the gasp, smiling as she recognized the girl she'd assumed
must be Kaitlyn's student earlier.
"Oh, hi," she said. "Sorry, didn't see you there. Hope I
didn't scare you," but as she said it, she realized that the girl looked
anything but scared. She looked... -delighted.-
"Are you a pyro?" she asked.
Korra blinked, momentarily parsing the word as short for
"pyromaniac" and considering smartass responses, then realized that she
probably meant "pyrokinetic" - the word in the 'big universe' for
psionics who could make fire with their minds.
"Not exactly," she said, "but close enough for most purposes.
You're Kaitlyn's K-ryuu student, right? I was going to ask her to
introduce us in the morning. I'm Korra."
Anne nodded. "I'm - my name's Anne," she said, almost
stammering with nervous excitement. Then, frowning at herself, she
composed herself and bowed deeply. "Anne Cross, Journeyman of the
Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu."
"Nice to properly meet you," Korra said, still smiling. She
returned the bow, not quite as deeply, with one fist clasped in the
other hand before her, then went to the music player and paused it. "To
answer your question, I'm not a psion in the conventional sense," she
said. "I come from a world where some people are born with the power
to manipulate - we say 'bend' - one of the classical elements. What you
just saw me doing was firebending." She chuckled. "That's why I'm
outside. Fire outdoors? Usually better than fire indoors."
Anne looked slightly disappointed. "Oh," she said. "I
thought... well, never mind. I apologize for disturbing your workout."
"Ah, don't worry about it," said Korra casually. "I try to do a
little work every night before bed, just to keep my edges sharp. Always
time for conversation." She hopped up on the planter next to her player
and gestured for Anne to take a seat on the one at the other side of the
door, a few feet away. "Are -you- pyrokinetic?"
Anne nodded. "Yes," she said. "But I've never done anything
like what you just did. I can set stuff on fire - sometimes without
meaning to," she added wryly, "and I've figured out how to use it with a
few K-ryuu combat moves, but... what you did looked so -natural.-
Kaitlyn-sensei's taught me a lot about myself since I started training
with her, but she's not a PK. I've never -met- another PK. So I
thought for a second... "
"That I might be able to show you a few moves?" Korra finished.
Anne nodded, looking a little glum. "Well... I could try," said Korra,
grinning. Anne blinked, looking up at her. "Hey, fire's fire, right?
I'm not sure it matters so much where it comes from." She hopped down
from the planter, restarted her music player, then tilted her head
toward the courtyard. "C'mon and let's see if I can't help you out
some."
"Uh-oh," Utena observed as she, Corwin, and Anthy watched the
two figures below them return to the courtyard. "I think Juniper has
just discovered the Avatar. This could lead to excellence or serious
injury."
Corwin laughed. "Or both. Both is always an option with either
one of them."
"OK," said Korra as she and Anne reached the middle of the
circle. "Here's the first stance my firebending sifu taught me." She
took up a position Anne remembered from the beginning of the kung fu-
like part of her earlier workout: feet planted, front knee bent over her
foot, back leg straight with the toes pointed forward. Her right arm
was drawn back along her side, with her hand in a loose fist; her other
arm was outstretched and slightly bent, with an open hand, palm outward
facing. Anne did her best to mimic this stance. Korra nudged her back
foot until the toes pointed a little further forward, prompting a mild
protest from the tendons in Anne's ankle, then resumed the starting
position herself.
"Now this is a simple move, usually the first one firebenders
are taught," Korra went on. "Don't try to do it yourself yet - we'll
get back to it, but for right now just watch what I do." Moving quickly
and with a taut economy of motion, she took a step forward, her foot
flowing in sort of a reverse crescent motion along the ground, and
essentially switched the positions of her arms, drawing her left fist in
and thrusting the right forward in a fast, fierce punch that ended with
a snappy turn-over of the wrist and fist. With an audible thump, a puff
of flame shot out from from her strike when it stopped, travelling a
couple of feet before dissipating.
"Now you try it," she said, resuming her starting position.
Anne considered what she'd seen for a moment, then copied the movement
as best she could. It was a little sloppy, and a little hesitant, but
she thought it decently executed, all the same.
"Not bad," Korra said. "You have good instinctive form - and
maybe a little martial arts training?" They grinned at each other.
"Try it again."
With a nod, Anne returned to neutral, took the ready stance, and
threw another hard, choppy punch. This time the movement was smoother.
"Good. Put your hip into it a little more, though. The power should
come from your center, not from your shoulder."
Anne tried again. It felt better, like Katsujinkenryuu kata
when she was starting to get it. No fire happened, though. She glanced
at Korra, who told her, "It will flow more when you get it right.
Firebending is less constrained. You're fighting yourself; don't tense
up so much - that's more like earthbending." Anne tried it again,
focusing on her hips and the motion of her center; smoother still,
and this time it felt much less choppy, but still there was no fire.
She wondered if she should be giving the fire a mental "push", the way
she did when she was trying to ignite something. The next time Korra
said "again", she tried that, but what she got wasn't a puff of flame at
the end of her arm; instead, she managed only to set a lower branch of
the tree across the courtyard on fire.
"Oops," said Korra cheerfully. Without appearing to give the
matter conscious thought, she made a gesture with her hands as if
shaping something spherical, then thrust her open palms forward. A gust
of wind rattled the tree's branches, blowing out the small fire Anne had
set. At Anne's startled look, she grinned and said, "Airbending."
Anne looked impressed, but puzzled at the same time. "I thought
you said your people could bend -one- of the elements."
"Aha, nice catch," said Korra. "Most people back home aren't
benders at all - maybe one in a hundred is born with the gift. But
you're right, the ones who -are- born with it can only bend one element.
Historically, it seems to depend mostly on where you come from, though
that's changing as Diqiu - that's what we call our world - becomes more
cosmopolitan. But there's always -one- person in the world, the Avatar,
who has the potential to master -all- the elements." She smiled wryly.
"This time around, that happens to be me."
"Oh," said Anne thoughtfully, and then, "You must be important."
Korra laughed. "Some people think so," she admitted. "It gets
pretty heavy sometimes. You know - real fate-of-the-world type stuff.
But I'm just a person. I sweat and suffer and doubt myself sometimes,
just like everybody else." She shrugged. "I learn, I teach, I do the
best I can do. That's all -anybody- can do. Doesn't make me special.
Now," she said, moving briskly on. "What was different about that last
one?"
Anne explained about the mental nudge she'd given her power,
which had produced the unexpected - but, she noted ruefully, not exactly
uncharacteristic - effect.
"Hmm," said Korra. "OK, I'm going to make a couple of
assumptions here, stop me if I'm getting things wrong or making you
uncomfortable. You're pyrokinetic and, from the looks of you, human."
Anne nodded. "That must have made you a pretty hot property, no pun
intended. I've tangled with the Psi Corps myself a time or two - I'm
not their preferred flavor, but they don't know that to look at me.
Sometimes I meet one who takes airbending for telekinesis, for instance.
How old are you - 15?" Another nod. "How long were you on the run?"
Anne looked at Korra as though -she- were the psychic one. "Two
years," she said.
Korra nodded, not smiling now. "Your first experiences with
your power must have been -terrible,-" she said. "Fueled by fear and
anger. Painful and scary."
Anne nodded slowly, her eyes huge.
"Fear and anger -will- power firebending," Korra mused. "For a
while, during my predecessor's tenure as Avatar, our world was out of
balance and the going wisdom was that they were the prime constituents
of the Fire Within... but they're not. They're shortcuts. Cheap
imitations." She touched Anne's forehead gently. "I think you know
that, deep inside, and it's holding you back. You strike me as the kind
of girl who prefers to do things right or not at all, and you know -
your instincts tell you - that the way you first met your power wasn't
the way it was supposed to be. That makes you unwilling to really
engage with it. Makes you feel like it's something that has to be
contained. Chained down inside you."
/* Barney Bigard and his Jazzopaters
"Caravan"
Variety VA-515-1 (1936) */
As she spoke, she started moving again, in a very-slowed-down
version of the first kung fu-like kata Anne had seen her doing. After a
moment, Anne began moving as well, imitating the maneuvers to the best
of her abilities, feeling the rhythm within them.
"The thing is," Korra went on, "real firebending isn't about
fear or anger. It's about inner drive. Hope. -Life.- Fire is the
element of power. It's the only element that's -alive- in its own
right. Real firebenders pretty much carry the sun inside themselves
wherever they go."
Still matching her slow, purposeful movements, Anne smiled
slightly. "I like that," she said.
"The key to real control in firebending is breath," said Korra.
"The moving around - the muscle part, my old sifu called it - that's
just steering. You draw on the fire in the first place with your
breath. Breathe deeply in through your nose... " She demonstrated.
"... and slowly out through your mouth. Good. Get a rhythm going. Not
too fast, the goal isn't to hyperventilate. You'll know it's the right
pace when you can feel your inner fire glowing on the inhale, like a
forge when the smith pumps the bellows." She wondered why Anne smiled
slightly at that simile, but passed it by and continued instructing.
"Don't force it. When it clicks, you'll know."
They kept going, moving faster as the pattern repeated and Anne
got more comfortable. She was a quick study, and Korra was enjoying the
impromptu lesson - it had been a long time since she seriously attempted
to teach a novice-level student anything. The White Lotus had long
endeavored to keep such aspirants at bay, insisting that the Avatar's
time was far too valuable to be squandered on the teaching of beginners.
She added that to the list of things she'd have to remember to ignore
them about when she got home.
The next time they got to the place in the pattern where
something like that flowing punch happened - in this case, it was an
open-palm strike - the two were moving nearly in sync, and both launched
little fireballs a short way across the courtyard.
"Ha!" cried Anne, delighted. "I did it!"
"Way to go!" said Korra, giving her a high-five that turned into
a hand clasp. "Not bad for a first attempt. You've got potential.
With a little work, you could be a first-class firebender."
"Even though I'm not really one at all," said Anne, feeling
comfortable enough now to go for mild sarcasm.
"What you just did was fiery and bendy enough for me," Korra
told her. "Anybody has a problem with that, hey, I'm the Avatar." She
shrugged. "They gotta deal with it."
Anne laughed at that, then yawned, covering it with the back of
her hand. "Sorry," she said, a little embarrassed.
Korra's response was to perform the kind of colossal yawn that
put Anne in mind of Sergei settling down for a nap. "Nothing to be
sorry for," she said with a smile. "I don't even -know- what time it is
for me. Interdimensional jet lag." She grinned. "School's out for
today. Sifu Korra has to get to bed."
Anne glanced at her watch, blinked at it in dismay, then nodded
agreement. "Definitely bedtime."
"Are you staying with the rest of the gang in East?" Korra
asked.
"Mm-hmm," said Anne.
"I'll walk over with you, then," said Korra. She put on her
jacket, stopped her music player, packed it and her speakers up in her
pockets, and the two of them started walking toward the distant dorm.
"I always liked firebending," said Korra conversationally as
they crossed the quad, "which is weird because I'm a waterbender by
birth, and Avatars usually have the biggest problems with their opposite
elements. But no, I had my big block about airbending. I guess I just
gotta be me."
"You do seem like that sort of person," Anne agreed with a
small, crooked smile. Korra glanced at her, then giggled.
"Master Tenzin, my airbending teacher, said it was the element
most closely opposed to my personality type, which I suppose makes
sense." She smiled a wistful, nostalgic smile. "He always used to say
I'm stubborn like an earthbender."
"Your world sounds amazing," Anne said.
"It has its moments," Korra agreed. "Sometime after the
wedding's done with, you guys should come visit. I've been trying to
open the place up more to the outside galaxy for -years.- It's slow
going, but I think I'll have more backup once Maki and her gang file
their reports on this visit," she added with a grin. "When he gets a
minute I'll talk to Corwin about setting it up. He and I have a lot of
lost time to make up for." She grinned again. "There's a firebending
academy in Republic City, where I live. You could take classes. You
and a couple dozen other firebenders around your age, I bet that'd take
away a little of that alone-against-the-universe feeling."
"A couple dozen - wow. I think I'd like that."
"Well, then, we'll have to see if we can make it happen. If
Kaitlyn's OK with it, of course. I don't want to steal her student,"
said Korra with a mischievous smile. "It's bad form."
Anne laughed. "I think she'll be up for anything that decreases
my chances of burning the house down," she said, then agreed, "But it's
only polite to ask."
They reached East Hall then; Anne's room was upstairs, so they
parted in the stairwell just off the front vestibule.
"Thanks for showing me what you did tonight," said Anne. "It
was really... amazing."
"Not a problem," said Korra. "I meant what I said, you've got
potential." She put her hands together in a slightly different gesture
than her earlier enclosed-fist bow, open hand upraised atop the opposite
fist. "This is how firebenders salute each other," she explained. "So
you won't forget your first teacher," she added with a wink.
"Goodnight, Anne."
Anne imitated the salute, smiling. "Goodnight... Sifu Korra."
Anthy, Utena, and Corwin got back only minutes after them, and
didn't have as far to go once they parted in the hall. After their
first wedding attempt had ended in chaos, Utena and Corwin had decided
that it would be silly to repeat the traditional "pretend you don't know
each other" rituals of the evening before the wedding. They were
sleeping apart, but only the width of the -hallway- apart, not in
completely separate areas as they had on Babylon 6. He kissed both
women goodnight, told them he would see them in the morning, and retired
to his single room, pleasantly weary and - unlike last time - entirely
pleased with the day.
This time we're going to get it right, he thought as he climbed
into bed and drifted almost immediately off to sleep. No backsies.
Where the hell is Nall?
Utena stood at the window, looking out at the campus of her
namesake academy, for a few moments after changing for bed. It was the
same view she'd had from this window many, many times before, in the old
days, when life hadn't always made sense, but had always at least been
interesting.
She decided, not for the first time, that nostalgia was
overrated. She much preferred life as it was now. It still didn't
always make sense, and it was still always at least interesting, but
nowadays it was so much more fun most of the time.
She turned back and laughed quietly at the sight that greeted
her. It was their room, their old room, the same as it had ever been.
Anthy in the lower bunk, Chu Chu sacked out in the top drawer of Anthy's
desk, and the upper bunk awaiting Utena, covers drawn back, pillow
plumped just so. Back in time - except without all the stupid parts
brought back.
Utena bent and kissed Anthy's forehead. "Good night, Anthy,"
she said quietly.
"Are you nervous?" Anthy asked, not really in reply.
"No," Utena replied truthfully. She climbed up into her old
bed, drew the covers up, and turned on her side. "I probably should be,
but I'm really not. I guess I got all the angst out of my system the
first time around. Now? It's all good." She laughed. "Maybe
Earthforce did us a favor after all."
"Maybe," Anthy allowed. "Good night, my love. I'll see you in
the morning."
FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2410
The last of the guests began arriving early Friday morning,
before anyone in the wedding party was even out of bed. All the
drilling and training in logistics and etiquette that Utena and
Tsuwabuki had subjected the student volunteers to paid off, as the
assembly of the wedding venue and the wrangling of the great volume of
last-day arrivals all went off without a hitch and without any need for
direct supervision by the wedding party themselves.
Korra was up at eight o'clock despite her fairly late turn-in
time; after a bit of meditation and a quick shower, she was ready to
face at least the first part of the day. She dressed in regular street
clothes, figuring she'd have plenty of time to get changed before the
main event, picked up her SavoyBook, and headed down to the refectory to
see if there was anything doing for breakfast.
There was, and there were a handful of Duelists and friends
breakfasting there already. A few more filtered in while she sat at the
far end of the main table, working on a bowl of cereal, a glass of
lychee juice, and some toast with one hand while catching up on the news
from back home via the Zipang VPN gateway. Nothing much going on, which
was good. No news, as ever, was good news when she was out and about.
The last thing she wanted was for the White Lotus to be able to point to
some stupid thing that would've happened anyway and tell her they told
her so when she got back.
She was flipping through the sports section of the Republic City
Tribune's website, checking up on the spring training results in both
baseball and pro bending, when something large and furry loomed up on
her right and broke her concentration with a cold, wet nose.
Even now, so many years after her old friend had (as she
preferred to think of it) left to scout out the Spirit World ahead of
her, Korra's unconscious reaction to this was to remark, "Aagh, Naga,
stop," and fend the creature off without looking. Only when her hand met
a much coarser pelt than Naga's sleek white coat did she blink, look,
and say, "Oh. Right. Good morning, Duran."
"-Duran!-" Natsuki cried from the doorway. "Again! What is
-wrong- with you?" Rushing over, she gestured the wolf angrily to heel,
then said to Korra, "I'm sorry about that. Again." Managing a wry
little smile, she went on, "You were certainly right about having a way
with animals."
"Actually, that was a really nostalgic moment," said Korra,
petting the shamefaced wolf with an indulgent smile. "I can understand
being concerned about pet control," she went on to Natsuki, "but don't
get too upset on my account. I've been glomped by -way- bigger
animals." She chuckled. "You want to -really- wake up in the morning
sometime, get licked by a sky bison you didn't hear coming up behind
you."
"I'm sorry, a what?" asked Shizuru curiously as she arrived
behind Natsuki. "I think I missed the beginning."
"Sky bison," Korra said. "They're - well, here, I'll show you."
She slid down a little bit along the table so that Natsuki and Shizuru
had room to sit on either side of her, then pulled over her laptop and
opened up her photo archive. Clicking quickly through pictures of
unfamiliar scenes and people, she muttered, "No... no... I really ought
to organize these things better... c'mon, where are you. Wait, there's
Ikki, so these must be Air Temple - aha! Here we are." She clicked the
picture she'd found to fullscreen display. "See? Sky bison. This
one's called Mogi."
"That's... impressively big," Natsuki admitted, regarding the
photo. It showed a huge and shaggy animal, roughly the size of a bus,
standing next to - honestly, looming over - a white-haired but spry-
looking woman dressed in saffron and yellow.
"Fascinating," said Shizuru. "They have six legs."
"Yes they do," agreed Korra.
"Why are they called sky bison?" Natsuki wondered.
"Because they can fly," Korra said, as though that were the most
natural explanation in the world. When Natsuki responded to this with a
skeptical look, she grinned and clicked to the next picture. "There we
are. A rare shot of Mogi in action." She grinned and explained, "He's
been scientifically proven to be the laziest sky bison in the world."
The new photo did indeed show the same creature, indisputably
engaged in something that looked very much like flight. It appeared to
be an aerial photo, showing the bison, with the white-haired woman
perched cheerfully just abaft its head, at a fairly respectable altitude
over a sunlit harbor, the skyline of a large city spread out in the
distance beyond it.
"I think I want to be a paleontologist on your homeworld," said
Shizuru slowly as she regarded this photo. "It would be very
interesting to determine how such a thing evolved. Assuming they aren't
engineered?" she inquired.
Korra shook her head. "Nope, they're all-natural. Sky bison
are the original airbenders - they're who the Air Nomads learned from."
"That sentence made absolutely no sense," Natsuki observed
matter-of-factly.
"I suspect we're missing the cultural background, Natsuki,"
Shizuru told her mildly. "My apologies, Korra." With an impish smile,
she added, "As you saw last night, I can't take her anywhere."
"-You- can't take -me- anywhere?" Natsuki objected.
"No need, you're both right," said Korra. "Sorry, I haven't
left home in a while. I'm not used to being around people who don't
already have the backstory. See, it all ties into the answer to the
question you asked me last night, that we didn't have time for. And we
still kinda don't," she added with a grin, "but I can give you the short
version, anyway, if you've got a couple of minutes."
Shizuru smiled. "I'd like nothing better."
At the other end of the table, the Trinity had drifted in about
quarter to nine, while Korra was still on the sports page. This would
have been catastrophically late on any normal wedding day, but none of
them seemed concerned as they waved good-mornings to various friends,
took their seats, and started in on breakfast.
"Been thinking about what you said last night," Corwin said to
Utena as he buttered his waffles.
"Which part?" Utena wondered, sweetening her coffee.
"About the other girls I know."
"Oh ah. And?"
"And I don't really know," Corwin said, shrugging. He poured
syrup, then put the little pot of it back in its rack in the middle of
the table and said, "I mean... Achika was always going to be Len's girl,
we all knew that before any of us even knew what it -meant-." He sawed
off a waffle corner. "Dorothy was my friend, and definitely a girl, but
also my responsibility. Reiyna and I just aren't each other's type.
The Valkyrie were part of the background hum. Buttercup... was kind of
scary sometimes. And Kaname's just always been Kaname. I dunno." He
grinned at her. "I guess I don't have an answer for you."
Utena grinned back, then gestured with her chin to the far end
of the table, where Korra was by now deep in conference with Shizuru and
Natsuki over something on her teak-and-brass laptop. "What about her?"
Corwin looked at her as if she'd gone out of focus. "Who,
Korra?" he asked, as though there were someone else over there Utena
could possibly mean. "Uh, no?"
"Why not, though?" Utena wondered, then went on with a cajoling
grin, "I mean, seriously. I'd seen her in your photo albums before,
obviously, but pictures don't do her justice. They can't capture the
dynamism of her. The... the... " She made a gesture to Anthy. "Help
me out here."
"The two-fisted how-much-fun-ness," Anthy suggested, smiling.
Utena recognized that her wife was in a puckishly unhelpful mood
and cut her losses with a smiling nod. "That'll do," she said.
Corwin knew he was at least partially being teased at this
point, and decided to tease back. "Hmm," he said, as if seriously
considering the question. He regarded his old friend - now having an
animated conversation with Shizuru involving fighter-pilot-style so-I-
flew-it-like-this gestures - thoughtfully, then said, "Y'know, you're
right. She -is- pretty awesome."
Leaning back slightly in his seat, he went on as if warming to
the idea, "She's smart, she's tough, she's funny, she's good times, she
could -totally- keep up with me, and, jeez, I mean, just look at her."
He nodded appreciatively. "Yep. She is the complete package, all
right. All anybody with a working brain or heart could ever want."
Utena's grin slipped slightly into I-may-have-opened-that-door-
a-little-TOO-wide territory.
"Oh!" said Corwin as if just remembering something. "And she
was there when I was born."
Utena gave him a curious look. "What, as in, in the room?"
"As in standing about there," said Corwin, pointing to a
theoretical spot about two feet away, "practicing the ancient and
honorable Southern Water Tribe art of midwifery."
"Oh." Utena blinked. "Oh! Ohhhh."
Anthy giggled. "Nall, too?" she asked.
"Nall, too," Corwin confirmed, then added with a wry laugh,
"Don't you figure that explains a few things?"
// TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 2391
NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI
The small, bedraggled white creature - not particularly avian-
looking, apart from its soggy wings - finished wrestling its way out of
its egg, then flopped full-length on the slab of ice on which that egg
lay and heaved a sigh of equal parts relief and exhaustion. Then, to
Korra's momentary astonishment, it - he - spoke, in a high, clear voice.
"That was -hard,-" the dragon hatchling remarked, evidently to
himself. "And I'm all -wet.- And it's -freezing- in here." He got
unsteadily to his feet, blinking around at the newly-entered world. "Oh
well, one out of three's not - oh 'ello."
"You -talk?-" said a beautiful, brown-skinned, blue-eyed woman,
whose face was thus the first intelligible thing the young dragon saw.
Then, smiling, she went on before he could reply, "You're a dragon, of
course you talk. Hi!" Without further preamble, she wrapped him up in
a warm, fluffy towel (learning experience #2: NOT being cold is ALSO
pretty good) and gave him a comprehensive cuddle while scrubbing his
head dry. "I'm Korra. And what's your name?"
The dragonet blinked thoughtfully. "Haven't got one yet!"
//
Utena laughed, then sobered and said, "Speaking of Nall, isn't
he back yet?"
Corwin shrugged. "No sign of him so far that I know of," he
said. "I figured after breakfast I'd organize a search party."
"No need," came a familiar voice from the doorway. Everyone in
the refectory turned to see Nall, in his white-haired but youthful human
form, entering the room, looking disheveled and tired. Behind him came
the rest of the group which had left Cephiro the night before, looking
in similar condition - and they had Umi Ryuuzaki with them, no better
off than any of the others.
"Morning, everyone," said Nall with an absent wave for the room
as he trudged toward the head of the main table. As he passed Korra, he
bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek without breaking stride,
remarking, "Hey, gorgeous." Then, reaching Corwin's side at last, he
slumped to the bench next to him and said, "What's up, guys. Sorry, no
wedding today. Best man's too tired to... man... bestly." He blinked
blearily at a bowl one of the dining hall attendants placed before him.
"Is that oatmeal?" he asked, then slumped face-first to the table (and
not into the oatmeal only because Anthy reached and hastily moved it
aside) and began snoring.
"He just needs a nap," said Umi apologetically.
"We ALL need a nap," Hikaru complained.
While various people gathered around and tried (all at once, and
without much success) to find out what had happened to the group, Korra
sidled around until she stood between Corwin and Nall's seats, then bent
down and closely examined the side of Nall's face that wasn't pressed
flat against the tabletop.
"Sooo... this is Nall," she said, as if still processing the
idea.
"Uh-huh," said Corwin.
"Nall has a human form."
"Yeah. Didn't he ever mention it?"
"No," said Korra lightly. "No, I'm afraid it must have
completely slipped his -mind- to mention that he's capable of assuming
human form now. There must not have been a good time to bring it up."
She put her hands on her hips. "For instance, last night during the
game, when he was climbing into my lap." She gestured to the pitcher
standing in the middle of the table, drew the water out of it, shaped it
into a ball, and poised it over Nall's head, keeping it in place and in
shape with a delicate, rhythmic motion of one hand. "Anybody need him
woken up?" she asked with a slightly nasty smile.
With a vaguely affronted frown, Umi stepped between Hikaru and
Fuu to reach the table on the other side of Nall, passed her hand over
the water sphere, and murmured quickly under her breath, "(spiritsofthe-
northletthiswaterbeascrystalorstone.)" Korra blinked, startled, as the
water instantly froze solid; Umi plucked it from the air and set it back
in the pitcher.
"Leave him be," said Umi testily. "He's had a difficult
morning."
"... uh, OK," replied Korra, bemused.
"Doing what, Umi?" Anthy wanted to know, but Umi only shook her
head.
"I'll explain later," she said. "It's not important right now."
She turned to Utena and Corwin. "What -is- important is that you two
need to get dressed! Unless you plan to get married on a baseball
diamond."
"Say, that's an idea," said Utena offhandedly, but Umi ignored
her and, shouldering her way none-too-diplomatically past Korra, leaned
to speak into Nall's ear. No one heard what she said, but a moment
later he quivered, then seemed to collapse into his familiar flying-cat
form, which she picked up and arranged, still asleep, on her shoulder.
"He'll get more out of his nap this way," she said to Korra's
puzzled look. With a fond, tired smile, she dropped her mostly-affected
dudgeon and petted the little dragon's head tenderly. "I'm sorry I was
rude. To us," she said, gesturing to the wilted little group she'd come
in with, "this is the -end- of a long day. You must be his friend
Korra. I've heard so much about you. I'm Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky."
"Oh!" said Korra. "Of course." She made the Water Tribe salute
again, fist in hand, and bowed slightly. "I -am- Korra, yes. And I
wasn't really going to get him wet... at least not for long." She
reached and gave Nall a little scritching of her own. "He -did- fail to
mention his human form, though. At least now," she added archly, "I
have a better idea what he meant when he said you were his 'very special
friend'."
Umi went a little bit red. "Did heeee," she said with
exaggerated casualness. "Wellll." Then, turning back to Corwin and
Utena, she resumed some of her previous bossiness and snapped, "What are
you still doing here? Go get ready!"
"Eh, it's a waste of time," said Wakaba before either could
speak. She slid onto the bench beside Utena, an arm over her shoulders,
and said, "I didn't realize it before, but I can see clearly now that
this marriage is doomed before it begins. Might's well not bother."
"What?!" said approximately everyone (awake) within earshot.
"Wakaba - " Utena growled, twisting out from under her old
friend's arm to glare at her.
"It's obvious!" Wakaba said, gesturing to the shocked pair.
"Look at them! It'll be a -mixed marriage.-" She picked up Utena's
coffee and sipped it casually. "Never gonna work!"
Utena and Corwin looked at each other, completely baffled - then
realized what she was getting at and broke up laughing, as did Wakaba,
Anthy, and - after a moment more's befuddled consideration - Korra and
Fuu.
It took Hikaru - who was, after all, tired, and not that good at
identifying subtexts at her most alert - a few seconds longer, but
(unlike Umi, who was in no mood, and Tsuwabuki and Izumi, who lacked the
proper background to get the joke at all) she pieced it together in time
as well. Both Utena and Corwin were wearing baseball jerseys, home-team
white, with the numbers of favorite players on the backs. Utena's was,
of course, #46 of the Boston Red Sox (who, since time immemorial, had
not put their names on their home uniforms): the number of pitcher
Consuela "Coco" Martinez, the heroine of the 2404 World Series and still
a key part of that team's starting rotation.
Corwin's, on the other hand, was that of #15, Delia Petrovskaya,
the hard-charging, evidently indestructible second basewoman of the New
Avalon Knights.
"That was mean, Wakaba," Hikaru sighed when she'd finished
laughing.
"It -was- mean," Utena agreed, rising, "and it's going in your
permanent record." She reached down and mussed her friend's auburn
hair. "Anyway, Umi's right. Time to dress for the show. You ready,
rocket boy?"
"Anywhere, anytime," Corwin replied, getting to his feet.
Bowing to his friends, he added with a smile, "Don't wander off. Good
stuff coming up in a bit."
The guests half-jokingly referred to on the manifest as the
"token grown-ups" started arriving at a little after ten and, along with
those who had already arrived, needed to be seated. Out on the Quad,
Kardon Felz and his crack team of chair deployers had completed the
conversion in record time, just at the moment when the Einherjar ushers
arrived from Valhalla and began that process. It was all running like
clockwork.
Watching the process from the sidelines, Lindsey Willows turned
to Tsuwabuki and asked him, "How did you ever get all these people back
together in one place - let alone HERE - on such short notice?"
Tsuwabuki grinned. "Wasn't easy!" he said.
// MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2410
NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI
"Gentlemen," said Skuld Ravenhair cheerfully. "Thanks for
coming. I have a little job for you."
Sitting at either end of Skuld's living-room sofa, her guests -
a stocky man in jeans and a cream cable-knit sweater, and a skinny
specimen in a brown pinstripe suit - glanced at each other and shared a
private smile. When Skuld said that, they both knew, it could mean
anything from a field test of some wackily harmless piece of equipment
to a full-dress pan-galactic emergency.
"Corwin and Utena have decided to make the second attempt at
their wedding sooner rather than later," Skuld went on. "This is a good
thing on many levels, but it does leave us with a slight logistical
problem. As such," she went on, glancing from one man to the other,
"I'm afraid that for take two, I'm going to have to ask you to do more
than just show up."
"I thought that might be the case," said Don Griffin with a
smile.
Skuld nodded. "Here's the guest list," she said, handing him a
datapad. "We need all those people on site by 10 o'clock Avalon
Standard Time this Friday morning, the twelfth. The problem is," she
added, grinning, "not all those people are -available- at 10 o'clock
Avalon Standard Time this Friday morning. That's where you come in."
"Ooh," the Doctor mused, thumbing down the list. "That could
get complicated... " He looked up from the datapad. "Where are we
taking them? Babylon 6 again? Could get -very- complicated."
Skuld shook her head. "No, they've decided on a different
location for the second attempt. Someplace where there's much less
chance of fouling anybody's timeline if you have to collect them from
earlier in the week." She handed each Time Lord a data module. "You'll
need these."
"What are they?" the Doctor wondered, eyeing his.
"Coordinates for the Veil Gate Corwin and I are building in
Cephiro," Skuld told him. "Don't transpose any digits, or you'll crash
into the crystal sphere."
The Doctor and Don looked at each other, then grinned.
//
With 45 minutes or so to go before the ceremony was set to
begin, Amy Pond and Rory Williams were taking the opportunity to have
another look around the campus. It was a beautiful day, the weather
brilliantly clear and unseasonably balmy, with a pleasant edge of
springtime cool still in the air. Hand in hand, they were crossing the
little round plaza in front of the White Tower, just enjoying being at
large and together in a place as pleasant as this, when they suddenly
stopped, glancing first around and then at each other. At the same
moment, they'd both heard an unusual but instantly familiar sound.
Without hesitation, they dove for cover, piling behind the
wisteria, and from this vantage point watched as the bulky blue shape of
a London police callbox appeared in the middle of the courtyard. A
moment later, the door opened and a tall man in a brown coat emerged,
beckoning cheerfully for others to follow.
"Right this way, step lively now," he said in a vague impression
of a carnival barker. "Mind your step." Laughing, a bleach-blonde
young woman in a letterman's jacket edged past the stream of slightly-
baffled-looking wedding guests who were emerging to help him point
people at the Quad.
"Well," Rory mused quietly, "that's definitely Rose. I don't
recognize -him,- but who else could he be?"
Amy nodded. "It's the Doctor. An earlier model. I've seen
this one before."
"Where?" Rory wondered.
"In Pompeii."
Rory gave her a puzzled look. "When were you in Pompeii?"
Amy rolled her eyes at him. "Guess."
He accepted this as his due, then said, "No, I mean - "
"I don't remember exactly," she said. "You weren't with me on
that one. I assumed you were in Gaul or something."
"Hmm," said Rory thoughtfully. "Alone in AD 79? Cappadocia, I
think."
"Anyway, he didn't notice me," Amy told him.
Rory nodded and watched Rose Tyler and the Doctor cheerfully
direct traffic. A few moments later, slightly to the pair's surprise,
another TARDIS - this one in the shape of a Pepsi vending machine -
arrived next to the Doctor's. From this one emerged a smiling, stocky
man in a long green coat and a slim brunette with what appeared to be a
small purple dragon perched on her shoulder.
"We know you have a choice in interdimensional time travel,"
said the man in green cheerfully as another group of guests emerged from
his TARDIS in his wake, "and we'd like to thank you for choosing the
Time Lords. We hope to see you all again - "
" - In a few hours when you need to get back home," Rose
finished for him, and, laughing, they high-fived.
"Look at how -young- she is," Rory murmured.
Amy nodded. "Mm. Long before our time. We're all out of
sequence. Best we try not to be noticed."
"Historically, you have a harder time with that than I do," Rory
observed wryly. She swatted at his shoulder, and together they slipped
away.
Corwin's parents arrived at 10:30, having been (jokingly)
requested to keep themselves out from underfoot until as late as
possible. They came by the Rose Gate, not with one of the Time Lords,
and so they came down the stairs from the Forest of Secrets rather than
up from the lower campus.
They arrived to find the Quad engulfed in an orderly hubbub,
with dress-uniformed Einherjar and Tenjou Academy student volunteers
managing everything smoothly and calmly. The moment they reached the
bottom of the stairs, Wolfgang (Beagle of the Lens) left Gryphon's side
and darted straight for the front of the seating section on the
left. For a second, Gryphon wondered who the Lenshound was in such a
hurry to say hello to - there was any number of candidates here today,
though one of the main ones, Utena herself, wouldn't be in evidence out
here just yet.
A moment later he had his answer, as a figure broke away from a
conversation with the Shannon twins to hunker down and greet the dog.
Laughing, Gryphon and Skuld crossed to wait their turn.
"Who's a good Lensbeagle? -You're- a good Lensbeagle," said
Korra, scruffling the furiously wagging hound. "Yes you are. Yes you
are!" Then, straightening up, she spread her hands in welcome and
declared, "Gryph!" She considered giving Corwin's father the same kind
of hug she'd greeted the son with upon her arrival in Cephiro, but as
they were both fully decked out for the wedding at this point (and she'd
already had to discreetly airbend some beagle hair off her dress), she
decided against it. "Remind me," she said, grinning, and Gryphon
nodded, knowing what she meant.
"Look at -you,-" he said, taking her in. He had known Korra for
nearly 19 years now - all of Corwin's life - and he could count the
number of times he'd seen her dressed in anything fancier than a T-shirt
and jeans on one hand. Admittedly, they'd only seen each other every
six or eight months -before- the recent six-year drought, so his
statistical sampling was not all that large.
All the same, the sight of the rough-and-tumble Avatar in the
traditional finery of her native South Pole, all rich dark blue fabrics
and spotless white fur trim, with a gleaming gem like a piece of
polished ice below the notch of her high collar, was atypical enough
that Gryphon just had to admire it for a moment. She had her hair done
differently too, mostly down in back, with a jaunty little white cap of
a type the name of which he couldn't remember. Wolfgang ran a lap
around her feet, then sped off to say hello to Serge.
"You guys shine up pretty well too," said Korra, gesturing with
a grin to Gryphon's IPO dress uniform and Skuld's radiantly white-and-
scarlet Asgardian robes. "Of course, I knew Skuld would, she's a woman
of class and distinction," she added with a wink, "but you're usually
such a disreputable character, I half-expected you to show up in jeans
and an old rock T-shirt."
"For which neither Corwin nor Utena would fault me," Gryphon
pointed out, "but I suspect Anthy would disapprove, and I know Bell
would."
"And you don't want to risk -that,-" Korra agreed. "So how have
you guys been?" It's been ages. Corwin and Nall already gave me a hard
time about that, by the way," she added wryly.
"And well they should," Skuld remarked, grinning.
Korra shrugged ruefully. "Yeah, well, not exactly my choice,
but let's not get into that right now... "
Gryphon nodded. "Can't complain," he said. "Busy, but you know
how that goes."
"Brother, do I ever," Korra agreed as they crossed back toward
the first row of chairs. Then she hesitated, feeling a momentary
discomfort. There was something she felt she needed to say, sooner
rather than later, but she was reluctant to risk the cheerful mood by
raising it. On the other hand, if she left it, it would just get more
and more awkward to bring up later, and anyway, if there was anyone who
would understand, it was this man.
So, pitching her voice so it wouldn't carry to the crowd they
were approaching, she put a hand on his arm and said, "I'm sorry about
Kei. Corwin told me in one of his letters... I know it's well after the
fact now, but if there's anything I can do... "
Gryphon smiled, only a little sadly, and patted her hand on his
arm. "Thanks," he said. "It's been tough, but I'm getting by, with a
lot of help from my friends."
Kaitlyn arrived on the Quad shortly before her father, and after
finding her seat and posting Sergei to mind it, she made her way over to
the space off to the right where the Tenjou Academy Student Orchestra
was setting up. She had been repeatedly assured that she would get to
take this particular occasion off, that everything was under control,
and she didn't doubt it. She'd heard Tenjou Academy's orchestra before,
and she knew it was a quality ensemble. So it wasn't out of some sense
of territoriality or a desire to interfere that she went over there; she
just wanted to scope things out a little, maybe chat with their
director, see if there was anything she could offer in the way of help
or advice without being too overbearing about it.
After all, she and Miki -had- written most of the music they
were going to be performing.
When she arrived at the little riser on which the conductor's
podium had been erected, though, she saw that there was no need whatever
for concern. Tenjou Academy's student director, standing so that Kate
had her in slightly less than profile, was unmistakable to her - a tall,
slim girl with very curly dark brown hair falling heavily about her
dress-uniformed shoulders, head bent in concentration at a very familiar
angle over her master score, the long, slender woodwind-player's fingers
of her right hand idly twiddling her conductor's baton as she read.
Seeing this young woman poring over her compositions, Kaitlyn knew they
were in good hands, hands she knew well and could trust - because she
had, in large part, trained them.
"H-Heather!" she blurted, so shocked that she stumbled over the
first phoneme in a way that had become rare for her of late. The girl
at the podium straightened and turned to face Kate, her fair-skinned,
dark-eyed face breaking into a wide smile.
"Kaitlyn, it's good to see you," said Heather McClellan,
stepping down to embrace her. "Surprised to see me?" she asked, her
smile becoming a touch mischievous.
"Very," said Kate. "I thought you'd gone to Hotohori."
"I did, for a year," said Heather, "but word reached me about
this place's University Division last summer, and I thought, well, that
sounds interesting. I already don't speak Japanese worth a damn, what's
one more step outside my comfort zone?"
Kate laughed. Heather had been one year behind her in high
school, and was the most talented clarinetist she had ever known; she'd
been first chair in WPI's extremely competitive student orchestra from
the day she arrived on campus (which, it occurred to Kate now, was the
same day Utena did). When the school folded at the tumultuous end of
that school year, she'd been one of the few Earthborn students to make
the leap to Satori Mandeville Memorial for the next. The following
spring she'd been among the first volunteers to play at Utena and
Anthy's wedding in Asgard. Fearless, musically dedicated, and always
willing to try anything twice ("in case not liking it the first time was
a fluke"), she had been part of the backbone of Kate's orchestras right
through the latter's 2407 graduation, then succeeded Kate for her own
senior year.
Kate had just decided not to mention that she'd passed up
Hotohori University's offer of a scholarship to their conservatory of
music in large part because they would have ousted Heather from her post
in that program to make way for her, when Heather brought it up herself:
"Besides, Hotohori's Trustees were getting ready to demote me
and hand my orchestra over to some upstart transfer student from Nekomi
Tech, I mean, I ask you." Putting her fists on her hips, she went on,
"Was I supposed to just stay there and put up with that kind of
treatment?"
"... Er, well," said Kate awkwardly, but then Heather laughed
and clapped her on the shoulder.
"Relax, I know it was you they were making an offer to," she
said. "And I figured you wouldn't go for it! But, you know, a front
office that would even consider such a thing... "
Kate nodded. "I wrote them a very touchy letter about it," she
said. "Which must have stung all the more when you'd already taken
another offer yourself," she added with a smile.
"One can hope," said Heather airily, "but it would probably be
petty. At any rate, if you get a chance to talk to your brother before
I do, thank him for me, will you? It's a great honor for an outworlder
like me to be called on at a moment like this. Mind you," she added,
tapping the score with her baton, "with material this good to work with,
it'd be hard for anyone to screw it up."
"Flatterer," said Kate. "I'll leave you to it, but
congratulations, Heather. You deserve it."
"Yes I do," Heather replied positively; then she giggled and
hugged Kate again. "Thanks. Now, I'm under strict orders to keep you
off the risers during the ceremony and the dancing after lunch, so do me
a favor and stay in your seat until then, or you'll get us both in
trouble."
Kate laughed. "Sounds like a plan. I'll be good, I promise."
Over on the other side of the Quad, Anne Cross was standing with
a small group of the Valkyrie, trying not to feel self-conscious about
the fact that she was all got up in her Order of the Ash finery again.
Of course, in this crowd today, the real trick was not feeling
UNDERdressed. The Valkyrie had pulled out -all- the stops and done
themselves up in their corps' really -ancient- uniforms, a style few of
the current members had ever worn, and those so long ago they could
barely remember what the occasion had been. Beyond them, everyone here
who had a dress uniform to wear was wearing it, and that, in Corwin and
Utena's circle, included several royal personages.
The thought suddenly struck Anne as funny, and she laughed as
she looked around the Quad and tried to count up the guests who met that
criterion. Next to her, Gunnr Brynjelfr - away from whom Anne had only
just become able to tear her eyes, so amazing did she look in her
ancient Asgardian garb - gave her a curious look.
"What's funny?" she wondered.
"It just occurred to me how many princesses are here," Anne
said. "Look, there's Princess Jessica of Salusia, and Crown Princess
Amanda of Gamilon; Achika Shannon is a princess of Jyurai... "
"Cousin Peregrine's father is Thain of the Shire," Aeryn
Stonefist put in.
"I guess that counts," Anne agreed. Turning to Gunnr, she
added, "And -you're- a princess of Bergheim, I've just remembered."
"Pff, -barely,-" Gunnr objected. "I'm, like, TWENTY-NINTH
princess of Bergheim. The place would have to get hit by a -comet-
before I'd ever get anywhere near the throne."
"Doesn't matter, still a princess," said Anne airily. "Anyway,
it's funny because of Utena. She's Prince of Cephiro because she
decided when she was little that she wanted to be a prince instead of a
princess. You know - rescue instead of being rescued, and stuff. I
wondered if it's ever occurred to her how many -badass princesses- she
knows. That's why I was laughing."
"When you put it that way, it -is- pretty funny," said Gunnr
after a moment's thought. "You'll have to point it out to her at the
reception, see what she thinks."
"I might just do - " Anne began; then her voice trailed off as
she stood looking in surprise at a group of people who had just arrived
on the Quad.
She had noticed the paramilitary-looking girls in green and
black the day before, but hadn't paid them much mind. With all the
August Personages on campus for this occasion, security details were
going to be a fact of life. Amanda Dessler had (in addition to Rina
Dragonaar, who would have been invited in any event) a brace of her
Romulan guardsmen with her, for instance, and though they were keeping a
-very- low profile to avoid invoking the princess's wrath, there had to
be at least two agents of the Royal Salusian Crown Protection Service
around.
It took Anne a moment to realize that these ten must be -those-
girls, because they looked dramatically different now. They were still
dressed in black armor over green, but where before the green had been
modern battle fatigues and the armor high-tech composite of some kind,
they now wore curiously elegant emerald-green robes - kimonos, in fact -
under intricately constructed armor that looked like it was made from
panels of lacquered wood. Each wore a katana through her broad,
elaborately knotted obi, and each had a subtly unique golden headdress
upon her painstakingly coifed head.
Most striking of all, they were all made up like kabuki players:
stark white facepaint with bold red lips and accents over the eyes,
their eyebrows exaggerated black slashes. They hadn't been sporting
-that- look when Anne had noticed them earlier. Coupled with the very
upright and confident way in which they carried themselves, the makeup
gave them a fierce and dauntless aspect. In spite of their obvious
youth - the oldest one, the auburn-haired girl who was evidently their
leader, couldn't have been more than a year or so older than Corwin, and
the others seemed to range down to not much older than Anne herself -
they gave every appearance of being an elite and formidable little
force.
"Wow," said Anne. "I wonder who -they- are?"
"Oh, hey, cool," said Gunnr. "Kyoshi Warriors. Somebody
important from Diqiu must be here."
Anne blinked. "Diqiu? That's - oh!"
"What?"
"See the woman over there talking to Chief Gryphon and Skuld?"
Gunnr looked, nodded. "The one in blue?"
"Her name's Korra. We talked a while last night. She said
she's from Diqiu. She's what they call the Avatar."
Gunnr's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah, OK, that's about as 'important
from Diqiu' as you get. Dang! What brings her here?"
"She and Corwin go way back, apparently." Anne smiled, enjoying
the rare sensation of knowing something about Corwin that one of the
Valkyrie didn't.
Gunnr disappointed her slightly by greeting that revelation with
a shrug and a, "Well, that figures," but it was still a pretty enjoyable
moment.
"How do you know about the - what did you call them?"
"Kyoshi Warriors," Gunnr told her. "They come from an island
called Kyoshi, hence the name. We've got a bunch of their alumnae in
Valhalla. Master swordswomen, tessenjutsu experts, great freerunners -
they're good times." She caught movement at the front and nodded to
Anne. "Looks like they're calling us to order. You better get to your
seat." She leaned and gave her a quick kiss, careful not to smudge
either party's makeup, then winked and enjoyed the little blush it
raised as she went on, "I'll catch up with you later."
"You better," said Anne with a grin, and then she went to take
her seat.
The ceremony itself began without a lot of preamble, in keeping
with the minimal-fuss approach its planners had taken throughout. On
the dot of 11 o'clock, as the bells of Tenjou Academy sounded the hour
from the White Tower some distance behind the seated guests, Corwin and
Utena appeared - together - in the grand doorway of the Academy's main
building (still named, in honor of the school's original founder, Ohtori
Hall). Off to the side, the brass section struck up a triumphal
fanfare.
/* John Williams
"The Olympic Spirit"
_Summon the Heroes_ (1996) */
It hadn't taken much consideration for Utena and Corwin to
decide what to wear the second time around. They were both keeping the
fantastic clothes Corwin's Aunt Bell had made for their first attempt in
their respective arsenals, against some future ultraformalwear
contingency, but for this version, it was obvious to both of them early
on that they should wear the highest level of Cephirean finery they
could find. In Corwin's case, this was his black-and-silver Rune
Knight's armor, in its most advanced and ceremonial form, painstakingly
polished and fettled until its every surface and buckle gleamed. At his
side he wore Ragnhildr, the Dannen Ironbridge sword Utena had
commissioned for his wedding-gift, and at his throat, fastening his
armor's rich black cloak with its circuit-tracery lining, was the silver
rose Utena had given him two days after first meeting him, on the first
Christmas Eve she'd known him.
For her part, Utena had dusted off the Rose Prince's traditional
uniform - the same one she'd worn for her -first- wedding, and (a bit
unwittingly) the evacuation of Qo'noS - then frowned at it, called Anthy
in, and made some modifications. It was still white, trimmed in touches
of scarlet and black (a very similar color scheme to the one favored by
Corwin's mother, coincidentally enough), and still had the jacket in the
time-honored Tenjou Academy style, but the red-lined cape was longer and
fuller than before, and - to the mild surprise of everyone present -
she'd dispensed with the trousers in favor of the sleek knee-length
skirt and black tights she'd worn as part of her Valhallan ensemble on
the first attempt. She had the Valkyrie shock-cap gloves on, too, and
the same modestly-heeled shoes, and her Asgardian wedding-crown. Like
Corwin, she wore a sword, her part of the sword exchange they'd
performed after their Babylon 6 ceremony had dissolved in the confusion
of the Tau Ceti incident.
Another pair of figures descended the stairs from the Forest,
meeting them in the clear area at the stairs' base. One was Anthy; for
this version of the ceremony, conducted here in the realm of which she
was High Priestess, she couldn't possibly have escaped -some-
involvement in the proceedings, as she had in the Midgardian attempt.
Like the bride and groom, she wore clothing few present had ever seen
her in before: rich, elaborately draped and folded robes in a
combination of smoky blue-grey and midnight blue. She, too, wore a
crown, one wrought from mystic roses symbolizing the six traditional
sorcerous elements of the Tenth World. With a beaming smile, she
greeted them both, first clasping Utena's hands and kissing her, then
doing the same to Corwin.
The other person who descended from the Forest to meet the
wedding couple was a tall, slim but broad-shouldered, elegant but
somehow indefinably tough-looking blonde woman whose fur-edged finery
put many in mind of the various maternal relatives of Corwin's who were
seated up forward on the left side of the gathering. She wouldn't have
looked out of place among the Valkyrie, even on this day.
It was this woman, not Anthy, who spoke, as the rest of the
wedding party - those who had served as Corwin's and Utena's attendants
the first time - arranged themselves in a curving line behind the
couple.
"Good morning, everyone," she said, her voice pleasant and
sturdy, like its owner. "My name is Presea. I am the Master Smith of
the Tenth World. My craft, my art, my responsibility and my privilege
in this world is the making of fine, strong, beautiful, and functional
things. As such - " (here she smiled a little archly) " - you can
probably guess why Lady Anthy called upon me to bear witness here today.
"But truly," she went on after the quiet murmur of laughter had
rippled its way around the Quad, "my purpose here, for all that it's
symbolic and appropriate, is also a bit of a fiction." This got faint
sounds of consternation from a few, sage nods from others, and she went
on, "Because I'm not really here to -make- anything today. -We- are not
here to witness the -creation- of anything. Rather, we've all gathered
to acknowledge, to celebrate, what already is. A fine, strong,
beautiful, functional thing... that made -itself.-"
Corwin and Utena, smiling privately, turned to face each other.
Raising their right hands, they linked them together as if they were
about to arm-wrestle. Presea stepped back to make way for Anthy; with
quick movements, her long fingers deft and precise, the High Priestess
drew a long, narrow strip of something flexible from her sleeve and tied
their hands together with a handsome and elaborate knot.
"Corwin Ravenhair. Utena Tenjou," said Anthy, her voice soft
but perfectly clear to everyone present, her tone kindly but ever-so-
slightly fey. Next to Gryphon at the front, Anthy's niece Raven felt a
chill rush up her spine. She'd never heard her aunt's witch voice
before, and she recognized it instantly. But for the different natural
timbres of their voices, it was very like her own.
Corwin and Utena nodded to Anthy in turn as she spoke their
names, still smiling, and she went on, "Master Smith Presea speaks the
truth. The two of you are already bound together with a tie far beyond
any we might convince ourselves we can create in a simple ceremony."
She put her right hand on Corwin's shoulder. "You are the Pillar of the
Tenth World," she said, then placed her left hand on Utena's shoulder
and continued, "and you are the Prince, the Pillar's strong right arm.
Your destinies run on parallel tracks regardless of anything we say or
do here today."
Her smile becoming faintly indulgent, Anthy went on in a less
formal, more personal tone, "And you were lovers - lovers in the purest,
most beautiful sense - long before he who would be the Pillar ever set
eyes upon the world whose happiness he would come to embody."
As both parties reddened slightly and gave the Priestess
slightly sheepish smiles - Anthy expected they'd have put their hands
behind their heads, if they hadn't been tied together - she raised her
voice to address the full gathering again and said, "So there will be no
inquisition this day. To ask you now whether you intend to love,
cherish, defend and support one another for the rest of your days would
be folly.
"However, as your High Priestess, I would be remiss if I did not
ask this one thing of you. Do you both, as Pillar and Prince, truly
believe - without question or shadow of doubt - that the strength of
your bond will make stronger in turn the world for which we three share
responsibility?"
With the kind of smile that said he took the matter very
seriously, but was still all-encompassingly happy, Corwin looked her in
the eye and replied, "Yes, I do."
Anthy turned her intent but kindly gaze to Utena, who was
reminded powerfully of strange and elder times; but she, too, was
smiling seriously as she answered without hesitation, "Yes, I do."
The Priestess held her gaze upon the Prince for a moment, turned
it back to the Pillar, and then smiled upon them both.
"Then I am content," she said, and, stepping back and to the
side, she gestured elegantly for Presea. "Master Smith," she said, "do
your duty."
Presea stepped into position, placing both her hands over Corwin
and Utena's lashed-together ones, and the magically sensitive members of
the audience felt the tingle and prickle of a nearby Working as the
Master Smith, the Pillar, and the Prince all closed their eyes and were
surrounded by a beautiful golden light. Her face set in a look of
intense concentration, Presea bowed her head over their hands, murmuring
low in an ancient tongue. The glow brightened, spiking with a
shimmering sound; the brand on Corwin's forehead, and the Aesir mark
carefully painted upon Utena's, shone brightly with the sound.
As the marks lit up, so too did the strap with which Anthy had
bound their right hands together. With a yellow-orange glow like molten
iron, but without evident heat, it seemed to melt and flow, pulling down
away from their hands and reshaping itself into brilliant bands
encircling their right wrists. Presea opened her eyes and, stepping
back, removed her hands. As she did, the glow dimmed and faded, leaving
in its place not the ceremonial tie, but a broad, gleaming band of some
lustrous silvery metal around each wrist.
Corwin and Utena raised their hands a little and regarded these
new symbols thoughtfully for a moment; then, lowering them, they leaned
together with their hands still linked between them and shared a long
and soulful kiss that struck some of their onlookers as curiously
chaste, considering.
With a vaguely indulgent smile, Anthy waited for them to finish,
then turned them to face the crowd of their friends and well-wishers,
declaring, "Ladies and gentlemen, your Prince and your Pillar."
/* Toshihiko Sahashi
"The Ultra Brothers' Theme"
_Ultraman Moebius and Ultra Brothers_ (2006) */
On cue, the orchestra's brass struck up a different fanfare:
also triumphal - perhaps even more so - and rampantly, indomitably
cheerful. Pink-faced and beaming, the two walked back toward Ohtori
Hall through the cheering, applauding throng. When they reached the
path leading off the Quad proper, they found it lined on either side
with uniformed people: the Valkyrie, numerous Duelists, certain of the
Einherjar, many of Corwin's relatives, all of whom - with a kind of
cheerful solemnity - formed the longest sword arch Corwin thought he'd
ever seen for them to pass under.
At the far end, hustling into position with the precision and
grace for which they were renowned throughout their homeworld, were the
Kyoshi Warriors, their katana arched with edges upward. When they
reached the end, the last two of the Kyoshi - the most senior, Maki, and
the most junior, Izumi - abruptly lowered their swords, crossing them in
front of the couple and halting their progress. Corwin was slightly
surprised by this; it was traditional, but somehow he doubted the Kyoshi
Warriors, of all people, held with the archaic and patronizing act which
customarily followed it. He looked curiously at Maki, on his left, and
was startled to see that, though smiling as broadly as anyone here, she
was also crying, tears streaming down her face. He'd never realized
their makeup was waterproof.
He had only a moment to register that before she leaned forward
and kissed him, murmured congratulations in his ear, then resumed her
place. On the other side, Izumi wasn't crying and didn't kiss Utena,
but she did lean in to offer more formal congratulations and press a
small object into her hand. Their work done, the two warriors raised
their blades to let the couple pass.
There followed the obligatory Official Photographs, taken in
front of the grand fountain just inside the Academy gates. Even this,
traditionally one of the most dreaded of all the standard rituals of a
wedding, was fun and painless. Chip Mui, Corwin's friend since grade
school and self-professed first worshipper, took his job as wedding
photographer to the gods very seriously, but in his case this manifested
itself as a fierce determination to create photos everyone would fondly
remember having posed for, rather than the sort of neurotic tyranny for
which wedding photographers were usually known.
In the earlier stages, during the ceremony and even the setup
phase beforehand, he'd been seemingly everywhere, flitting here and
there to capture the action from various inspired angles and get candid
shots people would marvel at later on, but even then he'd managed to do
the job without intruding on the occasion. This was his big moment -
probably his greatest challenge as a lifelong shutterbug - and he rose
to it magnificently. Corwin, standing for the Official Portrait, made a
mental note to find out what hideously pricey piece of equipment Chip
particularly lusted after - he knew there had to be one, photographers
always had one - and acquire it for him to go with his thank-you card.
Following the photo shoot, everyone adjourned to long tables in
the Grand Ballroom for a light but delicious lunch, during which time
Heather relocated her orchestra onto the small stage at the far end;
then Kardon and his furniture-moving crew swung into action again,
clearing away the tables and chairs with the speed and precision of an
army breaking camp so that the formal dancing could begin without delay.
Both bride and groom were in great demand during this phase;
after their ceremonial first dance together (which was far from their
actual first dance together, but), they circulated through the crowd,
handed off from guest to guest in an intricate round of cut-ins and
exchanges. Both, of course, danced with the High Priestess (briefly at
the same time, employing what was essentially a solo technique on Lu
Durgo's native Cargg), and then branched out.
This, when they'd planned the day, had been the part that had
seemed the most like it could end up being work - having to make sure
everyone who needed to get danced with got danced with, and doing it all
in the space of no more than an hour to an hour and a half, depending on
the flow of things. In the event, though, no complicated accounting was
required; it just sort of... -happened-, without Corwin or Utena really
having to think about it. They danced with friends, with relatives,
with the handful of more-or-less strangers who were there as plus-ones.
Looking back on the occasion later, Anthy would always single
out in her memory one particular moment that she thought captured the
occasion for each of her lovers. One was the elegant minuet Corwin
danced with his quarian friend Tali'Zorah (and the beautiful dress she
was wearing over her iso-suit, which for some reason had made Corwin's
father pull an epic double take when they took to the floor). The other
was Utena's cheerful whirl about the ballroom with Corwin's Uncle
Balder, the Aesir's shining sun god, who had boldly defied convention in
coming to this once-proscribed world for the occasion.
At the same time as the latter was happening, Kaitlyn was taking
a break. As she stood by the one table left in the corner and sipped
from a glass of water, she noticed that Corwin had been buttonholed some
distance away, just out of earshot, by Frey Lightwalker. She frowned at
the sight, aware that Corwin and Frey had not had the smoothest of
relationships lately. In fact, she'd been vaguely surprised that Corwin
had even invited him to the second wedding attempt after all that had
passed between them in recent months; she supposed he was simply more
gracious than she was, because she certainly wouldn't have.
Kate wondered whether Frey were complaining about Balder's
presence in the Tenth World, but decided against it; whatever they were
talking about, it didn't seem to be an argument. Frey's face was grave,
and so, as he listened to what the Vanir prince was saying, became
Corwin's, but it didn't appear to be a confrontation. In fact, once
Frey's piece was apparently said, Corwin - after considering for a
moment - put a hand on Frey's shoulder in what looked for all the world
like a reassuring gesture, after which Frey bowed politely and took his
leave.
Corwin, still looking preoccupied about something, walked over
to the table and picked up a water of his own, then sipped at it idly
while his eyes roamed thoughtfully around the room.
"What's the matter?" Kate asked him quietly.
"Hm?" Corwin asked, drawn back from some inner place. "Oh.
Nothing we need to worry about. Just... family stuff." Seeing the look
of concern on Kate's face, he smiled. "He's not going to drag everyone
back to Asgard and put the place on lockdown again." He finished off
his water, put the glass down, and took her hand. "Let's dance."
Interspersed with the various friends-and-family moments were
those in which one or the other would take a turn around the floor with
various of the Dignitaries and Token Grown-Ups whom they hadn't had a
chance to meet before the ceremony. Corwin was slightly surprised to
discover that most of the diplomatic staff from Babylon 6 had made a
point of attending the second go, in spite of the inconvenience doing so
must have presented. Utena was equally taken aback to find herself
dancing with Klingon Chancellor Krojaar, who, she would have thought,
had a somewhat more important -civil war- to attend to - and after him,
with none other than B'Elanna O'Brien, decked out in the full ceremonial
dress armor of a Klingon Defense Forces engineering officer.
/* W.A. Mozart
"Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G Major (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)"
I: Allegro
K. 525 (1787) */
"Well, well, Lieutenant O'Brien," she said with a smile, taking
in the half-Klingon's rank bars. "I hope it won't offend your warrior
spirit if I lead."
B'Elanna grinned. "I wouldn't have it any other way, Commodore
Tenjou," she replied. "I saw your report from Tau Ceti," she added a
few moments later. "Wish we could've been there with you, but a KDF
bird-of-prey crashing that party would probably have raised a few
eyebrows."
Utena laughed. "Yeah, I doubt your CO would have gone for it,"
she said.
"Are you kidding? I had to talk him out of it," said B'Elanna.
"Commander Kruge is a huge fan of yours."
Utena gave her a skeptical look. "... Seriously," she said.
"Seriously!" B'Elanna assured her. "He - oh wow, who's that
with Corwin?"
Utena turned to look, then smiled. "Her name's Maki," she said,
then added wryly, "Another of his old girlfriends he didn't know about."
"Old girlfriends -he- didn't - ohhh." B'Elanna chuckled. "He
has a lot of those, doesn't he?"
"Some guys got it and don't even know it," said Utena
cheerfully.
When the song ended, the orchestra didn't - as most probably
expected - proceed to the next movement; instead, after a murmured
exchange with Corwin, Heather turned back to them and started issuing
instructions. While they sorted themselves out, Corwin and Maki, still
in full uniform, went to the middle of the ballroom and stood facing
each other, their expressions grave. They almost looked more as though
they were about to spar than dance.
/* Reinhold Glière
"Sailors' Dance"
_The Red Poppy_ (1927) */
The music, when it began, was fast-paced, urgent, but neither
party moved. Utena, moving off to the side to give them room with
everyone else, smiled to hear it; it was the beginning of one of her
favorite pieces of orchestral music, one which she'd first heard on a
byegone spring trip to Toronto. Only later had she discovered that it
was one of Corwin's favorites as well. It didn't surprise her that he'd
requested it now, but being as familiar with it as she was, she could
only assume that something special was about to happen.
Twenty seconds into the piece, the driving introduction ceased,
and for a moment there was silence; then the music resumed again, its
pace much slower, and Corwin and Maki broke their tableau and began to
dance.
It started out as a deliberate, almost lugubrious affair, the
steps a series of decisive advances and retreats. Maki's facepaint made
her expression seem defiant, like the haughty, slightly disdainful look
on a tango dancer's face, and indeed there was something of the tango's
character, not in this dance's steps or movements particularly, but in
the back-and-forth, challenge-and-response dynamic it had, the way she
seemed alternately to accept and reject him as they moved around the
floor. Corwin's face was serious too, but he couldn't quite stop the
little grin from breaking out around the edges of the mask.
As the song went on, the tempo picked up, and with it the speed
and the fanciness of the dancers' moves - until it became apparent to
anyone watching who had a lick of martial arts training, and there were
quite a lot of those in this room, that they -were- basically sparring.
This became more obvious a minute or so in, when the music suddenly
jumped up another gear, Maki produced and unfurled a pair of golden
metal battle fans from within her uniform, and things started getting
really rather furious - but entirely harmless - out there.
It ended a little like a tango, too, with Maki striking a
dramatic pose in Corwin's arms, one of her fans behind his head, the
other outstretched to the side, her head tipped back as if offering
herself for vampiric ravishment. For a second, as the explosive final
note echoed around the room, nobody moved; then applause broke out, led
by a delighted Korra and a cheerfully whistling Utena. Corwin presented
his dancing partner like a pairs figure skater might, letting her take
her bow before him. Maki was flushed, blushing so furiously a hint of
it could be seen even through her whiteface, as she bowed deeply to the
room, then to him, and quit the floor, tucking her fans away in her
sleeves.
"You guys have done that before," said Utena mock-accusingly as
Corwin joined her.
"Once," Corwin said, "a long time ago. On my last visit to
Diqiu... " He thought back. "... say five months before you and I met?
July of '04."
"Was that before or after the train surfing?" Utena wondered.
"Next day," said Corwin, grinning. "She claims that piece is
similar in structure to a traditional song the Kyoshi use for training.
I don't hear the resemblance myself, but then Kate always told me I have
a tin ear."
A short while later, with the end of the formal dance, most of
the "Dignitaries and Whatnot" portion of the guest list departed. This
was as close as Corwin and Utena got to a formal receiving line, as they
stood by the ballroom's grand entrance and bade a fond farewell to
everyone who was leaving at this point. Most but not all of Corwin's
maternal relations were in this group, including his grandparents, who
bade their grandson and granddaughter-in-law a farewell that surprised
some of the onlookers with its kind, even tender, informality. Frigg,
in particular, had struck those present who didn't know her as a polite
but rather cool and remote figure, and to see her hugging and kissing
first Corwin, then Utena, goodbye in such a warm and loving way was an
unexpected development.
Once that was done, those who remained - a subset of the overall
guest list closely matching the one which had been on hand for Hockey
Night in the North American Far North District - gathered just outside
the ballroom to find out what their next move was. Korra stepped away
from a conference in the corner with Maki and the rest of the Kyoshi
Warriors, crossed to them, and asked,
"Hey, Corwin? How much does the Academy spend on landscaping in
a year?"
Corwin blinked. "... I've never been asked that before," he
said. Then, turning to Tsuwabuki, he asked, "Mitsuru, you know
-everything,- what's our groundskeeping budget here?"
Tsuwabuki smiled and replied over-formally, "Loath as I am to
spoil my reputation for omniscience, my Pillar, I'm afraid I've no
idea."
"Hmm," said Korra. "Utena? Anthy? No?" Baffled headshakes
all around. "Well, I'll do my best not to -utterly- total the Quad,"
she went on. "I think it's about time for the Displays of Martial
Prowess."
"Sounds good to me," said Corwin, smiling. Utena and Anthy
nodded agreement.
"Great. You guys head up there, then, and I'll catch up in a
minute."
The tradition of including martial displays in wedding
celebrations was an old one in Asgard, and since the first Duelist
wedding - that of Utena and Anthy - had been held in the Golden City, it
had seemed only natural at the time to follow it. It appeared that it
had thus become a tradition at Duelist weddings as well, although, in
fairness, this was only the third one to be held since the Duelists'
Society's founding (the second, that of Amanda Dessler and Devlin
Carter, had taken place the summer after the Tenjous'). It suited that
particular peer group's temperament and sense of dramatic occasion.
Hand in hand, grinning like kids, the Trinity led the way back
up to the Quad. Kardon and his crew had completely cleared the space
after the ceremony, once the orchestra had broken down their setup and
decamped to the ballroom. It was now back to the way it had always
been, a green space bounded by a walking path and bisected by the
flagstoned walkway connecting the back of Ohtori Hall with the stairs up
to the Secret Forest.
Korra arrived a few moments later, dashing over from East Hall
while various Duelists and other interested parties were doing stretches
and warm-ups on the Quad. She'd changed from her formal dress into
different garb, more suitable for what she was about to do, though her
new clothes also bore the traditional hallmarks of her native Southern
Water Tribe: baggy, fur-trimmed trousers, those mukluk-like boots she'd
been wearing when she arrived, and a tight-fitting, sleeveless sea-blue
top that looked like (and in fact was) a one-piece swimsuit, her hair
back up in its accustomed high ponytail.
She stood for a moment on the paved path, regarding the Quad
with a thoughtful air, and then called for everyone to clear the area.
Once this was done, she closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment,
becoming utterly still...
... then, shifting into a wide, well-planted stance, she took a
single step forward and stamped one booted foot in the center of a
flagstone, her open hands making sharp, choppy gestures. The ground
trembled, then leaped, as slabs of greyish stone seemed to erupt from
beneath the turf and cover it, arranging themselves in a neatly
tessellated pattern that matched the paving of the central walkway.
This rippled out from the walkway to the far edges of the Quad,
reminding some of the onlookers of the turning of those mechanical-tile
signs that announced the times and destinations in railway stations.
Her mouth quirking in a satisfied half-smile, Korra spread her hands,
palms upward, and raised them sharply; at the Quad's edges, ledges of
the same grey sandstone burst upward from the ground beyond the
perimeter path, stopping at precisely calculated heights to form
terraces for spectator seating.
Her onlookers stared in amazement for a few moments at the arena
she had wrought out of the Quad; then, at first hesitantly and then
enthusiastically, they began applauding.
"Thank you," she said, raising her hands in a self-deprecating
gesture. "Thank you. I also do amphitheatres for Xian Jiang in the
Park."
Nobody but the Kyoshi Warriors, and maybe Corwin, got the
reference to the 14th-century Earth Kingdom playwright, but that was
fine with Korra. She just turned to Maki, bowed fist-in-hand, and said
to her, "Take it away, Commander."
Maki bowed in return, with her hands at her sides, then walked
out onto the newly paved battlefield, pivoted, and addressed the crowd.
"Good afternoon, everyone," she said. "For those of you who
don't know me, my name is Maki, and it's my privilege to be field
commander of the Warriors of Kyoshi Island." Smiling, she went on,
"Before we start, I want to thank the members of the Order of the Rose
for their hospitality this week. They've extended us every courtesy
while we've been guests in their world."
Then, while some applauded the local Duelists, she stopped
smiling and pointed straight at one of them, adding flatly, "Except
you."
Kardon Felz blinked, looked to either side, then pointed
questioningly to himself.
"Oh, don't look so innocent, Mr. Felz," said Maki scornfully.
"I've heard all about your little jokes, and I assure you, my comrades
and I are neither clowns, nor mimes, nor an interpretive dance troupe.
We don't juggle or jump through hoops and we're not here to amuse you."
She gestured to her fellow Kyoshi Warriors, who had formed up at her
side into a tight little defensive group, all of them glaring fiercely
at him. "We are an ancient and well-respected order of warriors who
have fought to protect the peace and security of our homeworld for
generations, and you have insulted not only us, but all our ancestors
and predecessors with your feeble attempts at humor."
Kardon had actually gone pale by this point, completely
convinced that he had really managed to offend his Order's guests. The
young Gothrian fancied himself the last of his homeland's ancient
chivalric order, the Knights of Gothria, and was frankly mortified at
the thought that he might, with his innocent jests meant mainly to
needle Tsuwabuki, have insulted a genuine warrior heritage of a similar
kind.
Maki, of course, knew all that. Tsuwabuki had made certain she
was well-informed. She kept Kardon pinned on her severe gaze for a
second long, just long enough for him to start trying to stammer out an
apology, then went on, "In your world, as in ours, there can be only one
remedy for this."
So saying, she drew a white rose from one of her dress kimono's
broad sleeves - provided to her, along with the intel about Kardon's
background, by Tsuwabuki earlier in the afternoon - and tossed it to the
ground at his feet.
Kardon blinked down at it, then looked up and stared at Maki.
She took a green rose from her other sleeve and fixed it to her chest
protector, then smiled at him and said in a much more good-humored
voice,
"Defend yourself, sir knight."
/* The Cult
"She Sells Sanctuary"
_Love_ (1985) */
Kardon looked down at the rose again, then knelt, picked it up,
and fitted its stem into a slot on the breastplate of his Gothrian dress
armor, specially provided for the purpose. Side by side, the burly
young man and the petite green-clad girl walked to the middle of the
arena, then moved several paces apart and turned to face each other.
Kardon reached to his belt, drew his hand-and-a-half sword - like the
armor, an heirloom from his father - and saluted her with it, crusader-
fashion. Maki didn't draw any of the several weapons she had about her
person; just bowed and awaited his first move.
It wasn't long in coming. As he set himself and began rushing
toward her, Maki saw that she wasn't to be disappointed by this contest.
Though a big, well-built lad made bulkier by his plate-and-mail armor,
Kardon moved well. He was light on his feet and his movements had a
measure of grace as he feinted to her right, then swept in from her
left. Either that big sword was lighter than it looked or he was a very
strong young man indeed, the way he was able to command it. As she
ducked back out of the way of his opening strike, Maki smiled slightly.
These Duelists might just live up to the hype that surrounded them.
She started the duel with her tessen, the twin metal fans which
all Kyoshi Warriors mastered in honor of their founder and namesake,
Avatar Kyoshi (1807-2037). With these and her superior agility, she
could have kept Kardon at bay virtually indefinitely, but they lacked
the reach she needed to prosecute a really effective offense against his
excellent swordsmanship. In an actual fight she'd have been able to
strike at the joints of his armor and his unprotected head, but in the
narrower context of a Rose Duel, she needed more than the fans could
give her - particularly after he'd managed to strike one of them from
her hand with a ringing counterblow that sent it spinning across the
arena.
Undaunted, she backtucked away from his next strike, a
decorative aerial move that served as cover for her own counterattack.
While airborne, she collapsed her remaining fan, converting it into a
dense and surprisingly effective throwing iron, then hurled it at him as
she went over the top and uncoiled into a handspring. He caught the
glint of sunlight from its gilding and barely dodged; it whispered past
his breastplate, nearly knocking his rose away. While he was off-
balance, Maki landed on her hands, pushed off, and sprang back to her
feet, her sandals making a soft hiss against the smooth pavers of the
arena as she slid a few feet away.
With her right hand, she drew the katana from her obi. All the
Kyoshi Warriors carried these as well, though not all of them were
really adept at their use. For them, its purpose was primarily
ceremonial, as for example in the sword arch that concluded the wedding
ceremony earlier. For Maki, it was a weapon of choice. At home, she
was widely known as one of the finest swordswomen in the Earth Kingdom.
Now she whipped the blade through a short flourish around her, its
highly polished surface glittering, then set herself to meet Kardon's
charge as he raced across the space between them.
Now this was a straight-up swordfight, and Maki's style as a
swordswoman was somewhat less acrobatic than before, but she was still
faster and more agile than Kardon. Not as much so as a person might
have assumed, looking at them both in repose, but on the other hand, he
wasn't as much stronger as appearances would suggest either. Those
present would've been hard pressed to decide who would have won a
genuine, life-or-death battle between these two. As it was, Maki just
managed to defeat him, taking his rose in a brilliant pass that saw his
own effort fall no more than an inch short.
Puffing for breath, Kardon sheathed his blade and bowed to her,
saying as gallantly as he knew how (and he'd been raised the heir to an
ancient chivalric tradition, so that, all onlookers had to agree, was
pretty damn gallantly), "I am bested, milady. Please accept my apology
for the offense I have caused you and your corps with my halfwitted
levity."
Maki put her sword away and smiled slightly before returning the
bow and replying with elegant Kyoshi Island formality, "Your apology is
accepted, Sir Kardon. An excellent bout. You are a fine swordsman."
"You are too kind, Commander Maki," said Kardon. Then,
grinning, he handed her the fan she had thrown at him, which - unnoticed
by her - he'd picked up at some point during one of their subsequent
turns round the arena. "I believe you dropped this."
Maki blinked at it, then smiled at him and tucked it away.
"Thank you," she said.
"That's one for the visiting team," Wakaba Shinohara declared
cheerfully. "Who's going to step up and fight for the honor of the
Order of the Rose? You, sir!" she said, pointing to Tsuwabuki; then she
traversed her accusing finger and trained it on Izumi. "And you!"
By Utena's side, Anthy smiled and made a small gesture, causing
roses to appear on the two combatants Wakaba had nominated as they
stepped, glancing in surprise at each other, from the laughing crowd.
Wakaba ushered them to the center of the arena, then stepped back and
announced, "Standard rules, no magic - HAJIME!"
Tsuwabuki and Izumi gave each other one last baffled look; then
he shrugged, smiled, and drew his scimitar, she grinned and produced her
fans, and they set to work.
/* Corner Stone Cues feat. Daniel J. Nielsen and Peter Scaturro
"Ten Years Kashmir Mvt II (Orch & Perc Mix)"
_Corner Stone Cues Presents: Eton Path_ (2009) */
Tsuwabuki's victory was by an equally narrow margin, and then,
at the cheerfully autocratic direction of Wakaba, they worked their way
through the full corps of the visitors from Diqiu, each paired against a
Duelist either from Cephiro or the Jeraddo chapter. By the time it was
all said and done, the score stood six to four in the Order of the
Rose's favor, though all agreed that at least one Duelist win (that of
Peri Took over the Kyoshi Warrior called Konomi) had been plain luck.
Following that, the Warriors regrouped without opposition in the middle
of the battle square and put on a formal demonstration, as they often
did for appreciative crowds back home.
Following that, enjoyed by all, came the main event:
demonstrations by and duels between the emeritus Duelists from Cephiro
and Midgard, the warrior women of the Valkyrie, and anyone else who
cared to join the queue. Anne Cross and Gunnr Brynjelfr showed off
their cooperative marksmanship, shooting their way through an impromptu
hazard course consisting of various large fruits on pedestals
temporarily earthbent up from the arena floor for the purpose by the
Avatar. Amanda Dessler dueled, and narrowly defeated, Jessica d'Alkirk
in what everyone watching immediately dubbed "the Princess Battle".
Anne was back on the floor a little while later for a demonstration of
kata with her master, which was presently joined by Kaitlyn's father to
make it three generations of Katsujinkenryuu on show at once.
When this turned, inevitably, into a duel of K-ryuu masters,
Anne excused herself to the sidelines to cheer Kate on. Unlike their
clash at Anthy and Utena's wedding, though, Gryphon managed to win this
one, though it was a near thing, and thrilling to behold. His reign as
king of the Quad looked like it might be short-lived, though, as - in
answer to the chants of her colleagues and the goading of her wife and
husband - Utena Tenjou stepped into the ring against him next.
Utena and Gryphon had fought a total of five Rose Duels at this
point, each conducted in the course of some special occasion or another.
Utena led the series three to two. All were renowned throughout the
Duelists' Society as epic clashes, to be sorely regretted by anyone who
had managed to miss them, and this one was no exception. They held
nothing back, fighting as if the future of something very dear to them
was on the line, though the broad grins on both their faces put the lie
to that. When it was over, the Chief had barely managed to even the
score, and then everyone had to take a break while Korra resurfaced the
arena.
/* Ramin Djawadi
"Pacific Rim (feat. Tom Morello)"
_Pacific Rim_ (2013) */
Other Valkyrie, guests from across Midgard, and various and
sundry Duelists faced each other over the next hour or so, in some cases
revisiting old rivalries, in other cases forging new ones, and
occasionally just satisfying idle curiosities. Juri Arisugawa and Miki
Kaoru put on a clinic that Wakaba jokingly declared should have been
billed as a fencers' mating dance, making Juri blush. Boba Fett and
Sakura Byakuro demonstrated that, properly motivated by a Valkyrie
swordswoman and a Romulan with a vibropike, a commando and a ninja could
get along and work together. Corwin's Uncle Thor showed why they called
him Ironhammer as he and Mjollnir put paid to a similar stone-block
tactical course to the one Anne and Gunnr had faced, only without the
fruit. And in one of the most eagerly awaited matchups of the day,
Sumire Kanzaki of the Hanagumi and Shizuru Viola showed that two women
with preposterous polearm skills could indeed fight a Rose Duel without
anyone getting killed, but only if they did it outdoors.
By midafternoon it seemed as if everyone present had taken a
turn on the Quad, either as part of a duel or a demonstration. Even
Anthy, though her condition (and, perhaps more to the point, others'
concern about it) prevented her from taking part in a duel, couldn't
resist showing off a little. Sitting in the front row of one of the
terraces and watching as the High Priestess demonstrated her skill,
Korra took note of that skill and the gracefulness of her movements,
even in the ninth month of her pregnancy. Anthy's defense would, the
Avatar's practiced eye told her, probably have been damn near
impenetrable, and the smooth circular steps of her staff dance reminded
Korra powerfully of one of the ways of moving she had been trained in
herself.
The lady's a natural airbender, she thought, smiling slightly.
When she'd finished, Anthy made a gesture that was part bow and
part curtsey, a thing Korra had seen other women among the Duelists do,
and then retired with a smile to her spot next to Utena as her friends
and colleagues cheered. For a moment no one moved, as various groups
conferred among themselves. Then, with a broad grin, Utena put her hand
on the middle of Corwin's back and propelled him into the arena.
"Ladies and gentlemen, your Pillar has taken the floor!" Wakaba
bellowed. "As we know, none born of Cephiro can hope to defeat him
here. We need an outlander to take up this challenge! Who among our
visitors will face him?"
A few people from both the Midgard and Asgard contingents looked
like they might be willing to give it a shot, but before any of them
could speak up, Utena's voice rose above the murmur of the crowd,
declaring gaily,
"Korra!"
The person she'd nominated gave her a vaguely startled look,
then smiled, got to her feet, and sprang down from the terrace. On her
way past the grinning Prince and quietly smiling Priestess, she turned
to the latter and said, "Lady Anthy, may I?"
Anthy looked slightly puzzled, then understood, smiled again,
and handed the Avatar her staff with a gracious nod. "Please, be my
guest," she said.
"Thank you," said Korra; then, hefting the weapon in her hand,
she strode out onto the floor toward Corwin. Rosenjäger, Anthy's
Draconic warstaff, was a bit heavier than the similar items Korra was
used to back home, but it would do nicely; as she approached Corwin, she
whirled it in her hand like an oversized majorette's baton, then spun it
around her shoulders and into the crook of her other arm, holding it
across her back.
"I always knew this day would come," he said mock-solemnly; then
he called his own, very similar staff to his hand and squared off
against her.
/* Michael Giacchino
"The Incredits" (00:00 - 04:37)
_The Incredibles_ Music from the Motion Picture (2004) */
The ensuing duel was perhaps the oddest one the spectators had
seen all day. Amid the lengthening afternoon shadows, Corwin and Korra
displayed two very different ways of using the same weapon. His
technique was powerful and straightforward, derived directly from the
dragons' way of battle, with whirling overhand strikes and a broad,
firm, planted stance. Though ready to move in any direction at any
time, he let his opponent come to him and adapted his tactics
accordingly.
Korra, on the other hand, was -always- in motion, her footwork
lighter, nimbler. At times she seemed barely to be touching the ground
at all. She kept moving not just her borrowed staff but her whole
-self- in circles, walking around Corwin as if perpetually trying to get
behind him. As they took each other's measure and got more comfortable
taking chances, each tried various gambits to break the other's guard or
outmaneuver the other, but as their offenses adapted, so did their
defenses. They seemed fairly well-matched as the pace picked up and the
moves got more flamboyant - until, through some silent communication,
they suddenly agreed to take it up a level.
After one ringing clash of staves, both sprang clear, whirling
through complete 180-degree turns to come out of their follow-throughs
facing each other. Korra made -another- turn, twisting her staff around
her body and bringing it up in something like that uppercut slash
Shizuru Viola was so fond of. By this time, Corwin was around 20 feet
away, though, and no one among the spectators could see what she hoped
to accomplish with that.
As she swept it through the strike, though, the staff carved a
distorted wake in the air, and with a hissing crack, a crescent-shaped
shockwave limned with condensation slammed toward Corwin. At the very
least, it would blow him off his feet; at worst, well, a few in the
crowd had seen the kind of injuries that could be inflicted by
compressed air. They knew it was nothing to sneer at.
Corwin's reaction surprised them almost as much, and seemed to
surprise Korra most of all; he set his feet in a wider-than-usual
stance, whirled Stick above his head, and then banged one of its metal
ferrules down on the stone paving in front of him. Ahead of the point
of impact, as if knocked upward by the blow, a triangular shaft of stone
burst up from the ground and intercepted the shockwave, cleaving it in
two so that its halves would blast up harmless clouds of dust on either
side of Corwin.
Korra lowered Rosenjäger and stared at him, blinking. "Did you
just - "
Grinning, Corwin took a stamping half-step toward her, his
bootheel striking the ground with a ringing sound, and the paver under
Korra's feet jerked upward two feet on a column of rock, throwing her
into the air. Reflexively, she broke her fall with a whirl of her own
staff, rolled through the impact with the ground, sprang back to her
feet, and kept staring at him in disbelief.
"Where did - " she sputtered, then shook her head and grinned,
her arctic-sky-blue eyes glittering with glee. "Oh it is ON," she said.
And with that, the Avatar gave over restricting herself to
airbending forms, tossed Rosenjäger cheerfully back to its beaming
owner, and unpacked her whole arsenal on the Pillar of Cephiro.
He weathered the first storm, using Stick and various bits of
the arena to throw aside the worst of her opening salvos of air blasts,
rocks, and firebolts. When she pulled up the buried pipes that had
supplied the Quad's lawn sprinklers, metalbent their valves open, and
started putting the campus water supply to use as well, however, he
decided that he'd better call for backup.
"Rune Knights!" he bellowed, narrowly dodging a serpentine
stream of what he knew from experience was very cold water. "To me!"
On paper, this should have made the battle fairly even, or even,
given their advantage in numbers, tipped in favor of the home team.
Each of the original three Rune Knights was mystic master of one of
Cephiro's traditional elements, which corresponded reasonably closely to
those of Diqiu. Hikaru Shidou was Knight of the Flame, Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky
the Sea, and Fuu Hououji the Storm, which was close enough to Air for
government work; and though the Cephirean table of arcane elements did
not include Earth, in practice, there was Iron, Corwin's own purview,
and Korra had already seen how that translated. Further, the three
originals - all master swordswomen - were a battle-tempered team, able
to cooperate instinctively and creatively in ways that impressed even an
experienced Avatar.
On the other hand, it soon became apparent that they had little
real -understanding- of their elements. To Korra's eye, they were like
she had been early in her career, when she'd first moved to Republic
City: well-grounded and highly skilled in the mechanics, but lacking
that essential underlying connection to the elements as spiritual
phenomena. They still thought like -sorcerers,- as though they were
simply casting elementalist spells. Of the three, only Fuu really had
a glimmer of a deeper understanding, and she didn't seem that -certain-
of whatever insight she might have acquired.
-Someone- had taught Corwin earthbending, or something very like
it - the style he was using was almost entirely unlike the one she'd
been trained in herself, but there were definite, if weird, echoes of
the Earth Kingdom in some of his moves - but the others were winging it,
as though self-taught. They were good, but not great, and greatness was
what it would have taken to get the better of the Avatar this day.
The turning point came when Umi, perhaps losing her patience a
little, unleashed her Sapphire Whirlwind technique, summoning up a
watery cyclone and sending it hurtling across the battlefield. To her
considerable shock, Korra's response to this was to walk right into it,
grinning, and be swept up.
"Oh, crap," said Corwin -
- and the cyclone suddenly unraveled, breaking outward into a
surging wave that swamped the Quad and washed all three Rune Knights
clear to the base of the stairs before receding, like surf on a beach,
to pool restlessly in a depression Korra made for it in the corner.
"Hey, thanks for all this extra water, Umi," she said, gesturing
it up into a shimmering column.
Umi sat up, sputtering, and shoved her long blue hair out of her
face. "How did you do that?!" she demanded.
Korra tried and largely failed to look nonchalant. "You didn't
even try to keep hold of it after you sent it after me," she said.
"Rookie mistake." Then she let it splash down into its holding pool and
made a curious, gang-sign-like gesture, arms bent, hands flat, pointing
out to either side, adding with a smirk, "Water Tribe." Behind her, the
assembled spectators cheered as the soggy Rune Knights got to their feet
and smilingly acknowledged their defeat.
"Hmm," said Korra thoughtfully, regarding the Quad and the
water. "Are we about done with the fightin' floor here?" she asked the
group in general.
The consensus was that they were - nobody felt a burning need to
try and top what they'd all just seen. Besides, the afternoon was
drawing in. There was still an hour or so before dark, but the shadows
were long and the lampposts were starting to come on around campus.
"Well then," Korra said once the verdict was in. "Stand clear!"
Everyone stood back, watching curiously. She stood for a moment
on what had been the Quad's perimeter path, hands folded, eyes closed,
as she had before she'd remodeled the Quad into a dueling area.
This time, when she moved, it was with another of those quick,
percussive gestures. The central twenty feet or so of the path dividing
the Quad in two abruptly sank into the ground, creating a shallow
trench. She raised her hands, flattened palms outward, and pushed them
apart in air; with a great rumbling noise, the two sides of the trench
pushed outward, retracting into the ground on either side like the
halves of a sliding door and leaving a four-foot-deep, twenty-by-forty-
foot pit in the center of the Quad, its edges terraced like the
"bleachers" ringing the arena. With less violent gestures, she called
out the water from its holding pool in the corner, then drew more from
the lawn sprinkler pipes, filling the newly opened void in a few
moments. In a nice, artistic touch, she brought the grass back to the
surface in the space between this new pool and the original perimeter
walk, evidently none the worse for its adventure. Then, as a final
flourish, she struck a different stance and played a jet of fire over
the water's surface until the new pool steamed gently in the slanting
late-afternoon sunlight.
"OK!" said Korra cheerfully, wiping a thin film of sweat from
her forehead with the back of one arm. "Everybody into the tub!"
No one had jumped in right away, of course; that sort of thing
wasn't done. Most of the onlookers had taken part in the demonstrations
at some point and gotten all hot and sweaty - no condition in which to
be entering a public bath. Most of them set land speed records for
reporting to the nearest available shower, then getting into swimwear
and back to the Quad, though.
Divested of his armor and casual in warmup pants and T-shirt,
Corwin was standing at a urinal in the East Hall ground floor gents'
with his swim trunks and a towel around his neck, taking care of a
little preliminary business, when a familiar but entirely unexpected
voice suddenly said from right behind him,
"So!"
"Aah!" he replied, pleased with himself for not starting
violently and losing control of the proceedings.
The speaker appeared from behind him, flopping against the tiled
wall next to the urinal in a casual slouch, and grinned lazily at him,
arms folded across her chest. She was a cheery-looking, round-faced,
tiny girl, evidently in her middle teens, with thick black hair bound up
in a style that made it look much shorter than he knew it really was.
Her eyes were a very pale mint green, their pupils hazy, and she didn't
really seem to be looking at him, or indeed anything in particular. She
wore the dark blue ceremonial uniform of a page of the Pillar's court,
an archaic office resurrected specifically to give a common livery to
the Einherjar who had come from Valhalla to serve as ushers, except she
seemed to have misplaced the boots somewhere.
"Did you do it like I showed you?" she asked, apparently not
concerned at all about where they were or what Corwin was doing.
He scowled at her, then replied, "Uh... yes."
"And?"
"Took her completely by surprise."
"Awriiight," she said, putting up her right hand. "Up top."
When nothing happened after a few seconds, she frowned and said, "Hey.
Do NOT leave me hangin' here."
Corwin sighed. "Toph, do you realize where we are?"
Toph smirked at him. "Uh-huh, and as ever, I'm missing the
show." She waved a hand in front of her eyes, unblinking.
Corwin paused for a moment to count silently to five, then
replied, "Yeah, well, then you know why I'm not going to high-five you
right now."
"Whatever," said Toph, returning to her folded-arms slouch.
"Listen, I had an idea for a movie. Me and your sister, right?
Zatoichi meets the Blind Bandit. Imagine the POV shots... "
At this point Corwin just gave up and let her talk, finished
what he came to do, walked past her to wash his hands, and left the
restroom. She followed him out, still trying to persuade him that an
action buddy comedy about two blind martial artists would work if shot
mostly in the first person. Naturally, there was someone just passing
the door as they emerged; Kaname took note of the situation and stopped
short, staring.
Corwin gave a long-suffering sigh and said, "You guys probably
haven't met. Toph, my childhood pal Kaname Sterling. Kana, this is
Toph Beifong, old friend from Valhalla, she's blind and has no manners."
Surprised as she was, Kaname still had enough presence of mind
to respond to his bluntness with a chiding, "Corwin!"
"What?" asked Toph, unconcerned. "Those two things are true and
also true. Kaname Sterling, huh? Fourteen to one. I lost some gold on
you, girl. Your freshman class photo made you look like you've got some
initiative. Or so I was told," she added with a sarcastic grin.
"Fourteen to - what?"
"Toph, this is my world," said Corwin darkly. "There are places
where they'll -never find you.-"
"Right, I'm supposed to be scared of -you,-" Toph replied
dismissively. "Listen, you know Gudrun Truemace?"
"I've... seen her," Kaname said slowly, not sure where this was
heading.
"Ask her about the 14-to-1 thing," Toph told her, clapping her
more or less on the shoulder. "It'll be fun."
As Kaname, now hopelessly confused, went on her way down the
hall to the ladies' showers, Corwin went the opposite way toward the
men's. Not very to his surprise, Toph followed him.
"I hate you," he said.
"No you don't," Toph replied. "Oh, speaking of, Katara sends
her love. I tried to get her to come with, but she says Herself has to
be properly prepared for that kind of thing ahead of time. Blah blah
something about chakras, you know how she gets. Am I rolling my eyes?
I wanna be rolling my eyes indulgently."
Corwin looked. "Yes you are, and it's a shame she didn't come.
Not only would I have liked to see that meeting, and her in general, we
could've used her help when Umi decided flooding the whole frickin' Quad
was a good plan."
Others, however, were much more enamored of the eventual outcome
of the Quad flooding; and indeed, once he'd had his shower and reported
back to the Great Hot Tub himself, Corwin found himself warming (as it
were) to the new modifications as well.
"This is the awesomest thing that has ever happened at this
school," Lantar ibn-Zaleh declared, his head lolling back against the
curbstone at the edge of the Quad's new artificial hot spring. "Can we
keep it, Mitsuru?"
"Please?" Keiko Sonoda seconded.
"How are we supposed to keep it heated without a firebender on
campus?" Tsuwabuki wondered idly.
"You're some kinda freakin' wizard," Kardon told him. "You'll
figure something out."
At the other end, Korra lounged in a corner and told Hikaru
Shidou, "No, seriously, you guys have got potential. I'll tell you
what: If you three can swing a trip to Diqiu this summer and feel like
doing some work, I can hook you up with some great bending masters."
"Would that even work?" Umi wondered. "I mean, what we do isn't
the same."
"What do you think, Anne?" asked Korra with a smile.
A short way down, Anne Cross nodded. "It's worth a shot!" she
agreed.
"You don't have to decide right now, it'll take me a while to
set it up on my end anyway once I get home," Korra told the Rune
Knights. "Just think about it. I think you'd learn a few things, and
you'd definitely have a good time. Republic City's a happening place in
the summer."
"Where exactly -is- your homeworld, Avatar Korra?" Fuu wondered.
"Just Korra is fine," she said, giving the young blonde a
friendly grin. "Diqiu is... do you know where Zipang is?"
"A Japanese colony in the Enigma sector," said Umi. "It's not
that far from Hyeruul, where - " She caught herself, then went on a
little awkwardly, "... my family's from."
Korra nodded, letting the hesitation pass - not her business to
pry, whatever had caused it. "Diqiu is... well, it's the same planet,
really, just... hey, Corwin, how would you explain the deal with Diqiu
and Zipang?"
"Five degrees counterclockwise on the zorth axis," Corwin
replied; he hadn't really been listening, as he was nearly asleep.
This left Hikaru and Umi none the wiser, but Fuu brightened and
said, "Oh my! That sounds fascinating."
"Uh... " said Hikaru, looking puzzled.
"Basically," Fuu explained, "that means Korra's homeworld is a
sort of... -time shadow- of Zipang. Physically the same planet, but
with a different, independent existence. Not a full-fledged parallel
universe, much less a wholly separate cosmos like Cephiro, but two
worlds coexisting in virtually the same time and place, unaware of and
unaffected by each other."
Korra nodded. "There are a few natural nexus points, where it's
possible to cross the veil from one to the other. We and the Zipangi
started stumbling across them a few centuries ago, not long after Zipang
was first colonized. It took people a while to figure out what was
going on, but eventually cross-traffic became fairly routine. The
Zipangi don't advertise us, though. There are a lot of good reasons why
Diqiu isn't eager to become common knowledge out in the 'big universe'.
The bender population's the big one. Can you imagine what the Psi Corps
would do if they found out about us?"
"Get killed en masse, hopefully," said Umi sourly.
Korra chuckled. "Very possibly, but we really don't want it to
come to that. We've had a world war or two of our own, internal to
Diqiu, and nobody wants that kind of thing to happen there ever again.
So we... try to keep it on the downlow. People who leave Diqiu and
travel in the big universe claim they're from Zipang. Which isn't even
technically lying, in some sense," she added with a wry grin.
"Well, I'm game," said Hikaru. "That sounds awesome."
"Your little brothers will pitch a fit if you run off to another
alternate universe," Umi quipped.
"I'll just tell them I'm going to train with a swordmaster on
Zipang," Hikaru said. "I mean, I'll tell -Satoru- what I'm really
doing, but... "
"He'll be cool with it, at least," Umi agreed. "What about you,
Fuu?"
"I don't think I could pass up such an opportunity in good
conscience," Fuu replied. "And you?"
"Oh, you know me, I'm always up for adventure," said Umi
breezily. "Wouldn't miss it."
"Great!" said Korra. "I'll give you my email address, and we
can work out the details when we get closer to summer vacation."
Raising her voice slightly, she called, "Hey, Corwin, are you awake?"
"No," Corwin replied, not opening his eyes.
"Oh. Well, I guess I'll ask you where you learned earthbending
later, then."
"Do that," Corwin agreed.
"OK, kids," Wakaba announced, slipping back into her self-
imposed role as mistress of ceremonies. "I'm making an executive
decision. On your little cards it says nap time's from 3:30 to five,
but the Displays of Martial Prowess ran long and then there was
unscheduled hot springs action - for which we are all very grateful,"
she hastened to add, to much applause and muted cheering. "Therefore,
nap time is hereby extended to six PM. Spend it here, spend it in bed,
spend it on a bench down in Saitou Park, whatever you wanna do, just be
back in the Grand Ballroom at six." Turning to Miki Kaoru, she added,
"Miki, you'd better go and tell the kitchen staff we're pushing back
dinnertime."
"Why me?" Miki asked, failing to budge from his spot between
Kaitlyn and Juri.
"Because you're perfect," said virtually everyone.
Miki sighed. "Oh, very well," he said, getting to his feet.
Few of Corwin and Utena's friends really believed that, after
parting from the gang in the hot springs at a quarter to five, they
really had gone back to Corwin's queen-bed room in East Hall and -had a
nap,- but in fact they had. This didn't stop a few of their friends who
were hanging out in the East Hall common room from giving them a round
of sarcastic applause when they emerged, to which they replied with red-
faced, self-deprecating thank-you-we-know-we-rule waves. As they met up
with Anthy in the lobby and left the hall, they reminded themselves
sternly that such friends were one of the great blessings of life and
should under no circumstances be disintegrated.
As the trio were crossing the Quad (the Great Hot Tub still
steaming in the cool evening air, wisps of vapor rising picturesquely in
the lamplight), they met Korra, who said, "Oh, hey, I was hoping I'd run
into you guys before dinner. I meant to ask you earlier - are you
headed anywhere special for your honeymoon?"
Corwin and Utena looked at each other and shrugged. "Not
really," Utena answered. "I mean... we're -already- somewhere pretty
special," she added wryly, gesturing around at the campus. "We figured
we'd just... y'know, hole up in East Hall and kick back by the pool for
a couple days."
Korra grinned. "-Great,-" she said. "That's perfect. How'd
you like to come back with me?"
Corwin blinked. "To Diqiu?"
"Yeah! You two could spend a couple nights in a fancy hotel in
Republic City, really tourist it up, and Anthy can stay with me and the
gang on Air Temple Island. I was thinking of asking Kate if she and
Anne would like to come too. Six is about my limit for a direct
crossover. Heck, if you have time, you could spend a week or two."
"The first part sounds great," said Corwin, "but I'm not sure
about the last... "
"I'm due next week," Anthy explained with an indulgent smile.
"These two won't be comfortable with that unless we're no more than six
or seven inches from a major medical center."
"Oh!" said Korra. "Well, hey. You'd be in good hands on the
island. The Air Nomads have some of the best facilities around, and I
don't like to brag, but I've delivered a baby or two in my time," she
added, winking at Corwin. "Worst comes to worst, Yugoda Memorial is
right there. Best hospital in the United Republics. Only five minutes
away by sky bison (well, OK, eight if we take Mogi)."
"That sounds perfect," said Anthy before either Utena or Corwin
could comment. Taking Corwin's hand, she added, "I'm sure Corwin would
be honored for his daughter to be helped into the world by the same
hands that helped him."
Korra blinked at her, then eyed Corwin narrowly. "... I think
you may have left a few details out of your letters," she said.
"Er, well, y'know," said Corwin awkwardly, free hand behind
head. "A gentleman doesn't boast... "
She kept the fishy look on him for a second longer, then
couldn't stand it any more and laughed, clapping him on the shoulder.
"That's true," she conceded. "Well, hey, congratulations."
Smiling around at the three (Corwin abashed, Utena blushing, Anthy
serene as ever), she added, "Man, you guys are even more complicated
than I -thought.-"
"We're a work in progress," Anthy agreed, then took Utena's hand
with her free one and went on with a wider smile, "but they say the best
artworks are always a bit unfinished."
Korra grinned. "You're right, Corwin, she -is- the one who
knows what she's trying to do. So we're good, then? You'll come?"
Releasing her lovers' hands, Anthy surprised Korra slightly by
offering the Water Tribe salute to her. "I would be delighted to accept
your very kind invitation, Avatar Korra," she said formally, though
still with a smile. "As will these two, once they remember where they
left their tongues."
"Well, I - sure! That sounds great," said Utena. "If you're
really sure - " she began, looking at Anthy, but the look in her wife's
eyes stopped her without a word. "Right, right, sorry. I'll learn not
to do that someday, I swear."
Anthy kept her on the hook for a second longer, then smiled.
"But that day will probably not be today," she said. "And yes, I'm
quite sure."
"I'm definitely in," Corwin said, "if you're sure it won't cause
another shitstorm with the White Lotus."
"You let me worry about the White Lotus," Korra replied casually
as they all set off for Ohtori Hall. "After the talking-to they got
from Kyoshi the other day, I don't think we'll have any problems with
them, anyway."
Dinner was simultaneously less and more formal than lunch. Less
because those guests who remained were generally of a closer circle, and
everyone was dressed down, refreshed after spa time and a nap; more
because lunch had been quick and unprogrammed by design, the better to
get to the Formal Dancing, and this, as a more leisurely meal, gave
people opportunities to make speeches.
Here, then, at the top of dinner, was one of the few genuinely
melancholy moments to enter into the proceedings, and - to the surprise
of a few - it was Utena who introduced it, standing up and gesturing for
quiet, a glass in her hand.
"I... -we-... have had a wonderful day today," she said,
glancing with a smile at Corwin. "It's been everything we could've
hoped for. And it's not over yet," she answered a few concerned
expressions with a grin, then sobered and continued, "But before we go
on... I think it's important that we take a few moments and remember
those who couldn't, for whatever reason, be here to share this wonderful
day with us."
"Hear her, hear her," Thor declared.
"Some were kept away by duties or other promises," said Utena.
"Some are, well, we don't know -where- they are. A few... " She
paused, closed her eyes, then opened them again and went on, "A few are
beyond our reach. But they're all in our hearts." She raised her glass
and said in a clear, ringing voice, "To absent friends!"
"Absent friends," murmured many around the tables, raising their
glasses in return.
As Utena returned to her seat, Anthy leaned toward her and
murmured, "(That was very well said, my love.)"
"(Thank you,)" she replied with a slightly wan smile.
It wasn't until the meal was over, as people lingered over
desserts and a final beverage, that anyone else rose to speak. When
someone did, it was Nall, his grin a trifle awkward. "Well, uh... hmm.
I gather it's traditional for the best man to have something snarky and
funny to say at this point. And some of you may know that I'm not
normally at a loss for snarky or funny." A laugh rippled around the
room. "Tonight, though, I'm afraid my heart isn't really in it, so... "
He shrugged. "I guess I'm just gonna have to be sincere. Sorry."
(That got a comically exaggerated sound of disappointment from some
quarters.)
"Corwin and I," the dragon went on, "have been together for -
... hang on, that sounds weird. Well, the hell with it, it's true.
We've been together our whole lives. We were -born- together,
practically, in the same room on the same crazy afternoon. It's been
our destiny to stumble along pretty much the same path ever since. Now,
you understand, I haven't always been right at hand to supervise, so
he's managed to get into some trouble here and there, but for the most
part I'd say he's turned out all right.
"I always assumed I'd be speaking at his wedding one day, so
you'd think I would have prepared some remarks - I mean, I've had 19
years to do it. But no. Because I could never, in a -hundred- years,
have predicted who he'd be marrying, or where, or how they'd meet.
There was a time when I thought he'd probably have to build his ideal
woman himself, because there was no way nature was going to put together
somebody that smart, that brave, that tough, and above all that patient
by itself. Not with only 13.8 billion plus or minus 37 million years to
work the problem. But what can I say?" he added with an eloquent shrug.
"I was wrong." He gestured toward Utena, who sat hand-in-hand with
Anthy on one side of her and Corwin on the other, giving him a wide-eyed
look of surprise. "'Cause there she is."
Nall let the moment sink in for a second, then grinned and went
on, "And then he went and married the -pink- one, which shows you what
-I- know, but what're you gonna do."
There was a moment's shocked silence, and then the room broke up
with laughter. Anthy raised her glass (of mineral water, naturally)
with a sardonic smile to her complimenter; her other hand was busy
collaborating with Corwin to keep Utena from sliding out of her chair.
When the Rose Prince could at last breathe again, she struggled
back upright in her chair, wiped tears from her eyes, raised her own
glass to Nall, and declared with a grin, "I'll get you for that one day,
dragon."
"I look forward to it, milady, with all my tail," said Nall with
a courtly bow. "To Prince Tenjou! She's all right."
Cheers and applause greeted these sentiments, as well as a wave
of hearty agreement. As Nall returned to his seat, Wakaba stood up,
prompting Utena to perform an exaggeratedly theatrical facepalm.
"Yeah, yeah," said Wakaba cheerfully, waving the gesture away.
"Technically Kate's supposed to do this, but I pulled seniority. I
haven't known Utena quite as long as Nall's known Corwin," she explained
to the room, "but I -have- known her since the fourth grade. Nall was
around when Corwin finally discovered girls," she added with a smirk,
"but -I- was there when Utena finally discovered she -was- one." Around
the back of her hand, she stage-whispered mock-confidentially, "She was
very disappointed."
Utena went very red at the laugh that got, though it was the
kind of red that went with an unsuppressable grin.
"And, well, as you see, she got over that - kind of," Wakaba
went on with a wink. Then, becoming suddenly serious, she went on, "But
it wasn't easy. The International Police Space Force's motto, as many
of you know, is 'Ad astra per ardua', which might be translated: To the
stars the hard way. That might as well have been coined specifically
for our Captain Tenjou, because it's not in her to get anywhere any
other way. She got from where we started together, all those years ago,
to where we are now by walking a long, rough road.
"The roughest part of it, she had to walk alone," said Wakaba
soberly. "But just when it seemed like it had become an impossible
struggle, two people appeared who would help her come out on top. One
was Kaitlyn," she said, putting a hand on the shoulder of the young
woman sitting next to her, "who would give her the strength to keep
fighting even when it was no longer clear to her what she was fighting
-for.- And the other," she said, locking eyes with the man sitting next
to Utena, "was Corwin... who changed the game so she could win it." She
raised an admonishing finger. "Not so -he- could win it. Remember
that. So -Utena- could.
"And that's why you're not going to hear any jokes out of me
tonight about how he doesn't deserve my best friend: because he does."
Wakaba cracked the first smile she'd shown since her opening joke, a wry
little one aimed at Anthy, who nodded and raised her glass with a smile
of her own. "My best friend, and -her- best friend. He's earned the
chance to be happy with them both." Raising her wineglass above her
head, she declared, "Gentlemen and ladies, to the Iron Knight!
Swordforger, Enginemaker, Mender of Shattered Hearts, Witchfinder
General to the Prince, and Pillar of the Tenth World! To Corwin!"
"CORWIN!" the room agreed.
Wakaba slugged back her wine and returned to her seat, grinning.
For a moment nobody moved; then, a bit further up the table, Korra rose.
"Those are going to be a hard couple of acts to follow," she
mused, "but I'll give it a shot. I realize most of you don't know me,
and I won't take up much of your time," she added with a self-
deprecating smile. "Truth is, I'm not coming to this from quite the
same place as Nall or Wakaba. I've known Corwin for as long as Nall
has; slightly longer if we're splitting hairs," she added with a wink
for the dragon, "but I missed a lot of the really good parts. And I
barely know Utena at all. We only met yesterday for the first time."
Turning slightly, she faced Corwin, Utena, and Anthy, a little
way up the table. "But that doesn't mean I haven't been watching from
the sidelines. OK, from the bleachers," she admitted, drawing a laugh.
"I think Corwin and I may have kept my homeworld's postal service in
business for the last few years, and you all know what a busy time
that's been on this end." That got a small laugh; when it was finished,
it was a smiling but serious Avatar who went on,
"So I've heard the stories, and I'm pretty good at reading
between lines. And I can see the evidence of what these three people
have accomplished all around me," she said, with a gesture that took in
not only Cephiro itself, but at closer range all of the Trinity's
friends and relations.
"When I was very young," Korra went on, "I was taught by an old,
old friend that to have a truly realized spirit, one must be decisive;
serve justice; take an active hand in shaping one's destiny; do whatever
it takes to protect what one stands for; and when faced with a seemingly
impossible problem, look for another solution - because there always,
always is one." She smiled, a little sentimentally, and added, "I don't
have to tell YOU where these three stand in those respects.
"And though I can't really be said to have had a hand in any of
it," she finished, her eyes shimmering a little in the chandelierlight
from above, "I'm proud of him - of them all. So proud of what they've
done; what they've made; what they -are.-" She paused for a second to
collect herself, then raised her glass with a bright smile and said
simply,
"Here's to Cephiro's Trinity. Here's to love."
The agreement with that sentiment nearly brought down the house,
and nobody saw fit to challenge it as the capstone to the evening's
benedictions.
With dinner over, Kardon Felz and his Furniture Team swung into
well-drilled action one more time, clearing away the tables for a second
time and securing the Grand Ballroom for action. This time, though, it
wasn't Heather McClellan's student orchestra that set up on the small
stage at the room's end. Now it was time for Kaitlyn to shake off her
unaccustomed inactivity and get back to work. She had enjoyed the
entire day, but if she was honest, this was the part she'd been looking
forward to all along. She'd never say it out loud - it would hurt the
feelings of too many people who'd gone to a lot of trouble to give her
and her band the day off - but there it was.
Not all the sardonically-labeled "grown-ups" had left after
lunch and the formal dancing. Corwin's parents and his Uncle Thor were
still here, for instance, and then there was Mordin.
Mordin Solus was a salarian, one of Corwin's several long-
standing contacts in the mad-science-and-badassery industry, and a
friend of Utena's as well since an adventure in the Quarian Union some
years before. Now, standing at what appeared to be a deejay deck off to
one side of the stage, he was announcing the plan for the final phase of
the festivities. Hearing him talk, Wakaba faintly regretted that they
weren't having an auction.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Hope you're prepared for last stage of
proceedings. Saved the best for last! Live from the City of New
Avalon, the Art of Noise!"
And without further ado, there they were - Kate and her band
(or, as Kate often preferred to put it, Kate and Azalynn's band), older
now than when Utena had first watched them perform in small venues
around Worcester, the lineup rather different, the stage setup
moderately rearranged... but the soul, that was the same, and she felt
herself grinning uncontrollably as the pumping beat of the very first
Art of Noise song she'd ever heard, their traditional show-opener before
the Battle of Titan, filled the room.
/* Journey
"Higher Place"
_Arrival_ (2001) */
She grabbed Corwin and hauled him onto the floor, not that this
required much effort. Before, during the formal phase, they'd been
elegant and courtly, all decked out in his gleaming armor and her
shining whites; they'd looked mature and fully in command of the day,
like the royalty that (in some sense) they were.
Now, in cargo shorts, sneakers, and their mismatching baseball
jerseys, their hair disheveled, grinning widely, they looked like
teenagers (as Corwin still was)... but, Tsuwabuki noted with a smile
before he was whirled into the melee himself by Izumi, very happy ones.
Inaudible below the amplified sound of the band, they sang the chorus to
each other as they got down:
And I try
I try to reason why
Don't you know I can't go on this way
Baby please don't walk away
There is this place
Where I toss away my pride
So you can see that I'm the one
To take you to a higher place this time
Kate spun them straight out of the opener into "Behind the Wall
of Sleep". In the middle of the dance floor, Corwin and Utena caught
their breath, still grinning; kissed each other; and went their separate
ways, diving off into the scrum in either direction to do some hardcore
mingling.
The Art's first set rolled on for half an hour or so of almost
exclusively fast-paced rock. Toward what Corwin expected, having been
to a lot of their shows, would be coming up on the first break, he
looked around his immediate vicinity, but didn't see Utena. Since she
was generally not hard to pick out of even a fairly dense and heaving
crowd, this momentarily puzzled him - until he, at about the same time
as everyone else, noticed that she was up on stage, standing next to
Kate at her keyboard stack and looking somewhere between cheerfully
embarrassed and cheerfully determined.
The Art finished "Sabotage", and then, while parts of the band
rearranged themselves a bit behind her, Kate led Utena out to the
standing mic she used when not playing her keyboards and said,
"So! Five and a half years ago I got this new roommate, and she
started coming and helping out at our gigs. She didn't play an
instrument and claimed that she wasn't very musical, but I always
thought she had a pretty good voice." Kate grinned a little wickedly.
"So this is a little project I've been working on in our spare time
since then. Let's see what you think."
Then, clapping Utena on the shoulder, Kate said something to her
that nobody heard and retreated to her keyboard stack. As she fiddled
with settings, Utena stood at the mic and did her best not to look at
the crowd. Behind them, sharp-eyed observers - which was most of them -
saw that Miki and Dorothy had left their usual places, relinquishing
them to their -original- inhabitants - Princess Amanda of Gamilon and
her husband-consort, Devlin Carter of Earth. This caused a bit of a
frisson; Amanda and Devlin hadn't been permanent members of the Art in
years, and had made guest appearances in only a handful of shows since
their departure.
They slipped right back into their places, though, as Kate put
her hands to the keys of her main board and, with Moose MacEchearn
backing her on his bass, began playing a piano line so familiar that it
raised a cheer all by itself.
/* Journey
"Don't Stop Believin'"
_Escape_ (1981) */
The cheer died away, though, as the line came around to the
beginning again, and, visibly composing herself, Utena took a breath and
began to sing.
Just a small-town girl
Living in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going anywhere...
It was the first song the Art of Noise had ever played, before
they even -were- the Art of Noise: a Lynn Minmei and the Marauders
standard, one of several unofficial anthems of the Wedge Defense Force
in its golden age. It showed comprehensively that neither Amanda nor
Devlin had lost a step, that Moose still knew exactly what he was doing
in between them, that Azalynn and Kaitlyn might just be the greatest
guitarist-and-keyboardist team around...
... and that Kaitlyn was right: as she got accustomed to the
unfamiliar task of performing in front of a crowd and settled into it,
Utena Tenjou did have a pretty good voice.
When, weeks ago, she had finally prevailed upon Utena to make
her singing debut at her own wedding afterparty, Kaitlyn had intended
for the number with which she made that debut to be "I Think I Like It".
Over the years, it had become the Art's standard "Welcome Guest Artists"
tune, because it rocked and because Kate, Miki, and Azalynn could cover
a multitude of vocal sins with the harmonies during most of the song if
need be. Utena, though, had insisted on "Don't Stop Believin'", because
of its connections to the very earliest origins of the Art, because she
liked the message, and - in a perverse way - exactly because it left the
lead vocalist standing right out in the open for virtually the whole
time. Remembering that, Kaitlyn had nearly laughed aloud when Wakaba
had mentioned that Utena had to do everything the hard way. It would've
been both inappropriate for the moment and hard to explain.
When they finished, the tumult was matched in intensity only by
Utena's grinning blush as she thanked them, thanked the band, and quit
the stage, after which they went for the first of their breaks. As was
her habit, Kate stayed at the keyboards and played some solo pieces
while the rest of the band took a breather.
Korra found Corwin standing off to one side, arms folded, just
smiling around at the room. It was a sentiment she recognized at once:
he was trying to write everything he saw to a permanent memory, capture
the moment for revisitation later on. She left him to it for a bit,
doing a similar sort of thing with the experience of seeing him do it;
then he noticed her and smiled, tilting his head to indicate that she
ought to come on over and talk if she was of a mind to.
"Hey," she said, stepping up and leaning against the wall next
to him.
"Hey," he replied, tapping a fist casually against hers.
"You said I should ask you later where you learned
earthbending," said Korra, grinning.
"Well," said Corwin, but before he could go on -
"That's all me," said Toph's voice cheerfully, and this time
Corwin -did- start violently.
"How do you do that?!" he demanded, turning to face her.
"It's not that hard when nobody's paying attention," Toph
replied offhandedly, sauntering around him. She'd ditched most of her
page's uniform somewhere since last he'd seen her, and now was sporting
only the pants - rolled halfway up to her knees - and the heather-grey
undershirt. "By the way, those boots that go with this uniform? Ought
to be a -war crime.-"
"You're one of the Einherjar," said Korra thoughtfully, noting
what little of the uniform Toph was still wearing. "You taught Corwin
earthbending? Are you from Diqiu?" She looked more closely, brow
furrowing in thought. "Do I -know- you?"
Corwin palmed his face. "(Oh, well played,)" he muttered to
Toph.
"Relax, she's a big girl, she can handle it," Toph told him.
"You don't know -me,- but we do have a few mutual friends... in a
challengingly metaphysical sort of way." Polishing her fingernails
theatrically on her shirt, she added nonchalantly, "I used to be pretty
tight with your predecessor... "
Korra looked thoughtful for a moment; then her eyes went wide
with realization. "You're -Toph Beifong!-" she blurted.
"Couldn't even get out of it by dying," Toph confirmed.
"I... wow. It's really an honor to meet you. An...
-unexpected-... honor," Korra added with a significant glance at Corwin,
who shrugged. "I've heard, and read, a lot about you. Even saw a
statue of you once." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Although you
were... taller... in that."
"It's an afterlife thing," said Toph, still nonchalant.
"And you and Corwin are friends."
"Yeah, we go back," said Toph. "Not as far as -you-, but... "
"Funny how he -never mentioned you,-" said Korra pointedly, her
words addressed to Toph, but everything else aimed straight at Corwin.
Toph shrugged. "He's got a lot of friends," she said. "Also, I
think his mom was afraid you'd be freaked out if you ever really put two
and two together about Diqiu and Valhalla."
"I'm... actually trying to stop myself from thinking very hard
about it right now, to be honest," said Korra.
Toph nodded. "Probably the best plan," she said. "It's the
kind of thing that calls for quiet reflection. And possibly a lot of
plum wine," she added.
"More of a lychee-juice girl myself," said Korra. She grinned.
"I have to say you're much more adorable in person than that grumpy-
faced statue at Metalbender Central," she quipped, causing Toph to
summarily dismiss her by popping up the flagstone on which she stood, as
Corwin had done during their duel earlier. Giggling, the Avatar airbent
herself lightly back to the floor a few paces away, gave Corwin a
sardonic little salute, and then turned and - as the band returned and
struck up "Close But No Cigar" - started dancing with a surprised but
not displeased Hiroshi Morisato.
/* Thomas Dolby
"Close But No Cigar"
_Astronauts & Heretics_ (1992) */
"Kindly fix the floor," said Corwin dryly to Toph. When she had
done so, he took her in his arms (drawing a startled yelp, then a grin)
and added, "And now let's pretend for a moment that you're -not- an
escapee from the St. Spyridon Home for the Terminally Unkempt and
dance."
"I always forget what a good dancer you are," Toph observed
contentedly after a few bars. Then, cocking an ear, she registered what
Kate was actually singing:
You came close
Close but no cigar
You didn't miss by far
You know you came this close:
Close but no cigar
Some people sing love songs
Everybody's got one
This isn't my love song
It's more like my love-gone-wrong song...
Toph smirked. "You think Kaitlyn's trying to tell me something
there, sport?"
Corwin rolled his eyes, having forgotten (as he often did) that
she couldn't see him, and replied, "Keep dreaming, Beifong. She doesn't
even know you're here."
"I could fix that," Toph offered cheerfully.
"Behave."
Elsewhere in the crowd, it slowly occurred to Hiroshi that Korra
was regarding him with an increasingly quizzical expression.
"What?" he asked.
"Something seems different about you," she mused, then shrugged
with a self-deprecating laugh. "Stands to reason, right? Six years...
how've you been, Hiroshi?"
"Oh, you know," said Hiroshi casually. "Never a dull moment."
"I bet," she said. "And your sister?"
Hiroshi snickered, gesturing off to the right with his head.
"Heh, if you can pry her away from Tom Palmer for a couple of seconds,
you can ask her."
Over by the far corner balcony stairwell near the entrance,
Kaname Sterling was taking a break from dancing to talk with Lindsey
Willows and Chip Mui. Lindsey had been right, taking a break from the
beach and coming here had been a good idea after all. She was busy
conveying her appreciation (and ignoring Lindsey's "I Told You So"
expression) while perusing proof images of the day's photos on Chip's
datapad.
"Oh, definitely gonna need at least five of those," she said.
"Listen, though, you'll have a website to allow us to pick extras later,
if we change our minds, right?"
Chip grinned. "Don't worry about a thing, Kaname, it's all part
of the plan when we get back to New Avalon."
Kaname nodded. "Good, good... hrm..." Past the top of the
datapad, she caught a glimpse of a distinctive figure at the drinks
table. Part of her mind had been worrying at something Corwin's strange
friend Toph had said all evening, and the sight of one of the Valkyrie
at the bar brought it back to the top of the stack. "Hm," she said. "I
need to get a refill." She handed the pad back to Chip. "Great work,
Chip, I'm looking forward to the prints. If you'd excuse me?"
"Oh, sure, Kaname," said Chip agreeably.
"My turn next," said Lindsey cheerfully, taking the pad and
diplomatically not pointing out that Kaname's glass was half-full.
Kaname only really knew the Valkyrie in passing, thanks to her
long association with Corwin, but the wavy chestnut hair of Gudrun
Truemace was easy to spot in the crowd, and she didn't have any trouble
homing in on her.
She made small talk for as long as she could stand it, which
wasn't long, and then got straight to the point: "So earlier, I ran into
Corwin with this weird little Einherjar girl, and she said to ask you
about 'fourteen-to-one' and that I'd cost her money." Kaname gave the
taller Valkyrie a pointed look. "Know anything about it?"
Going suddenly red-faced, Gudrun coughed, and looked remarkably
sheepish for a half-jotun. "Erm... right. Actually..." She glanced
over at her nearby compatriots. "(Help me out here, girls...)"
Three of the Valkyrie - tall, silver-haired Brynhildr, wiry
little Aeryn Stonefist, and perky blonde Lenneth, probably the one of
them Kaname knew best - gathered around. If Kaname was intimidated at
all by the group of warrior women forming up to either side of Gudrun,
she didn't show it. She supposed that part of the reason was because
her entire maternal line was composed of warrior women themselves, and
she found herself instinctively straightening, as if an equal, in their
presence.
"OK, so, what's the deal here?" she demanded.
"Well, uh... " said Gudrun awkwardly.
"You see," Brynhildr said, then stopped, considering the next
words with a frown.
"We kind of... " Aeryn began, then trailed off as well.
Lenneth, seeing that Kaname was starting to get that someone's-
going-to-get-punched look in her eyes, drew a deep breath and then said,
all in a nearly-unfollowable rush, "After Corwin's 13th birthday party
we were hanging around in the banya and Hildy said you know it's only a
matter of time before he notices we're all women and Aeryn said one of
us will probably have to put the poor boy out of his misery and then
Hildy started taking bets and before we knew it we had a whole pool
going like for fantasy baseball and there was big money involved I'm
talking big, BIG money and it all sort of got out of control and it's
Hildy's fault."
Aeryn blinked at her. "Damn, Lenny," she said, impressed.
"Breathe. Deep breaths."
Kaname took a few moments to pick apart the speech in her mind,
then nodded, comprehension dawning. "Ohhhh, -riiight-. That thing with
the chalkboard. He didn't think it was that funny, FYI."
The Valkyrie exchanged sheepish looks; then Gudrun conceded,
"Yeah, OK, maybe it was kind of a dick move."
"Uh-huh," Kaname agreed, then paused. "So... just out of
curiosity, you understand, who -were- the leading candidates?"
"Well, by the last official rev of the leaderboard, the shortest
odds were on the Pink One, obviously," said Aeryn, "but Gin Shepard
maintained a strong second place, and Lenny here came in third."
"I was robbed, I tell you," Lenneth pouted.
Kaname laughed. "-Commander Shepard-?! Oh, -man-, Corwin
wouldn't have survived one -night- with her. To hear Aunt Maia tell it,
she's a sexual krogan." She frowned as something occurred to her.
"Wait a second, Utena isn't a Valkyrie."
"Well, no, but be realistic," said Brynhildr dryly. She
rummaged in an inside pocket of her uniform tunic for a second, then
came out with a small roll of parchment. "Suffice it to say," she mused
as she unrolled and consulted it, "all our faces were red when Gudrun
managed to sweep the bowl with her dark horse pick... "
"Give me that," growled Kaname, and without further ado, she
snatched the scroll from the Valkyrie second-in-command's hand and
speed-read her way down its face. "I - ... a parchment with scrollbars?
OK... let's see. You guys, fine, wonderful... " she mumbled, sinking
into a reverie of concentration. "Aeryn, I think you might have sold
yourself short... sorry about that, I just realized... Buttercup
Utonium, 10:1, paren, 25:1 he survives." She snorted. "Maevis
Copperwing, I don't even know who that -is-... Clarissa Broadbank,
crossed out. That's cute... "
The Valkyrie glanced nervously at each other. None took up the
implied challenge to explain to Kaname that "crossed out" didn't mean
what she thought it meant on that list.
They wouldn't have had time, anyway, because one of the entries
further down brought Kaname up short. "... wait a second. -Ayame
Sterling-?" She looked at them accusingly, her face going red, and they
at least had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed by the accusation.
"You were matching them up when Ayame was -ten-? Spirit of Light..."
Visibly embarrassed now, Aeryn replied, "Well not RIGHT THEN, I
mean it's a PROCESS... "
"Keep in mind this -is- Corwin we're talking about," Lenneth put
in. "We didn't know, he MIGHT have dithered around pointlessly until
like -2420- and then suddenly gone 'Oh. My. GOD they're DIFFERENT'."
Brynhildr nodded. "After Christmas 2404, that seemed like an
increasingly remote chance, admittedly, but when the list was first
compiled? A distinct possibility."
Kaname held the hard glare on her for a second, then relented,
sighing. "I must reluctantly concede you have a point there." She gave
the list one last look, then blinked and narrowed her eyes. "Wait a
minute, this doesn't say 14 to one, it says -140- to one!" She looked
up from the dataparchment again and glared at the assembled Valkyrie,
all the color coming back to her face. "Seriously?! I'm one of his
oldest girl, audible space here, friends! We were practically
inseparable in the third grade! I know stuff about him he's never told
anyone else!" She waved her arms in inchoate fury. "We got -arrested-
once! And I'm 45 points below -Princess Komand'r of Tamaran?- He
doesn't even KNOW Kori's sister." She rolled the parchment back up and
shoved it into Lenneth's hands. "This list is bunk."
Lenneth looked at Brynhildr. "Y'know, she's kind of right.
Especially now, I mean, it's been over for months."
"True." Brynhildr sighed, taking the parchment back. "I kept
it as a memento of times past, but perhaps it wasn't as funny as we
thought." She unrolled the list again, regarded it sadly, then pressed
her thumb to the end of the spool until it blinked red and a soft chime
was heard. "There." She turned it around to show Kaname that its face
was blank.
"Fine. Well, that's settled." Looking sternly around at them,
Kaname went on, "I trust you'll give Corwin no more grief over this? As
Lenneth said, that boat has sailed."
Aeryn laughed. "Believe me, if we did, we wouldn't have to
worry about Corwin on our case, we'd have to worry about -Utena.-"
"And -Anthy,-" Gudrun put in. "And I for one am not gonna risk
that, trust me. I don't need -another- svartelven witch-curse," she
said ruefully.
"You have our word," Brynhildr said solemnly, "the Corwin Bowl
is officially a closed matter now."
"Well... good," said Kaname with a decisive nod. "Glad we got
that sorted out." She nodded coolly to the Valkyrie, and with a final,
"Ladies," turned and started back toward Lindsey.
"So," said Aeryn thoughtfully as they watched her walk away.
"Who do you think will be the first lucky mountaineer to scale -that-
cliff face?"
"I've got ten kronor - " Gudrun began.
"I heeeaaaar yooouuuu," Kaname sang without turning around.
"Or not," said Lenneth.
For the Art's second break, a new thing occurred: Off to one
side, between the band's off-center setup and Mordin's deejay deck,
another group of musicians filed in and started setting up.
"Ladies and gentlemen, our special guests," Mordin announced.
"Direct from Lost City of Oranbega, Baron Zoria and his Circle of
Horns!"
Korra blinked, looked more closely at the robed figures with
their gleaming instruments, and gave a delighted laugh. "Well, I'll
be."
"What?" Nall wondered.
"First 10 or so years I lived in Republic City, Baron Zoria and
his crew were the headline act at the Velvet Palanquin. I used to sneak
down there every chance I got to hear them. Then one day they just
weren't there any more. I didn't find out they were from Outside for
years."
/* The Angel City Dixieland Band, Chris Tedesco & Jeremy Zuckerman
"Hittin' on All Sixes"
_The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One_ (2013) */
Once the Baron and his men were situated, they wasted no time
launching their first number, a peppy New Orleans-style hot jazz tune.
Smiling broadly, Korra grabbed Nall's arm and hauled him bodily onto the
floor. "OK, dragon, time to show you how it's -really- done."
Nall wasn't his best dancing to this kind of music, but he was
always up for a challenge, and Korra was so good at it she made up for
any faults he might've possessed. After half a minute or so, he was
sufficiently into the groove that he could stop devoting all his
attention to what he was doing and notice that she was giving him a
speculative little grin.
"What?" he said, a little nervously.
"You know," said Korra mischievously, "if you'd told me, I'd
-totally- have let you sit on my lap while human." She sighed
theatrically. "Ah well, too late now."
Nall reddened slightly, then recovered, gave her a sly smile,
and said sympathetically, "Aw, don't worry, Korra, there'll be other
hockey games. You'll just have to be patient."
Korra laughed. "I'll hold you to that, dragon. If you somehow
manage to clear it with Umi."
Corwin and Utena danced to that song too, and the next one the
Baron and his jazz wizards unfurled; then they retired to the sidelines,
where Anthy was sitting in a comfortable armchair provided by Kardon and
his crew, smiling happily.
"How you holding up?" Utena asked.
"I'm fine," Anthy told her.
"You sure? Not getting tired? We can head to bed any - "
"Utena," said Anthy gently but firmly. "Stop fussing. A, I'm
fine, B, I'm not tired, C, I'm not ill, and D, -it's your wedding.-"
She smiled. "I'm an adult, I'm fully capable of putting myself to bed
if I need to. And I hardly think I'll be doing that in the same place
that -you- do tonight," she added. As Utena blushed - she genuinely had
not thought of that - Anthy went on archly, "I don't think Corwin is
ready for that yet."
"Uhh... no," Utena agreed, hand behind head. "Prrrobably not.
(I'm not sure -I- am,)" she added under her breath.
Still smiling her reassuring smile, Anthy patted her arm.
"We'll get there, my love. We'll get there."
"Get where?" Corwin wondered, arriving with three frosty glasses
of iced tea.
"Uh, nowhere!" said Utena hastily. "Nowhere special. You
know... just... -place.-"
Corwin gave her a skeptical look, then handed her one of the
glasses and bent to provide the other to Anthy.
"We should've put this off a couple weeks so you could dance,"
he mused, but she laughed.
"I doubt I'll recover -that- quickly," she said indulgently.
"Honestly, you two, stop worrying." Raising her hand with pinky tucked
under thumb, she said in a cheerful mock-schoolgirl tone of voice, "I
solemnly swear that I am having a wonderful time in my own way."
Utena laughed, bent down, and kissed her, as did Corwin when it
was his turn. "OK, OK. I'm sorry. I'll stop fussing." She raised a
finger. "But you let me know if there's any problem."
Anthy opened her mouth to protest that she was doing it again,
caught herself, and grinned, pointing at her. "Aah, well played, you
got me that time," she said.
Nall sloped past just then, and Corwin darted out a hand and
caught his collar.
"What! Hey! Nobody saw me, you can't prove anything," said
Nall.
"Listen, I need to ask a favor," said Corwin.
"Is it the kind that sees me walking across a desert, climbing a
mountain, or getting arrested in Texas?" Nall asked.
"No, it's the kind that sees you taking a nice train ride and
then having a lovely vacation."
Nall grinned. "Then ask, O my brother."
Corwin explained about Korra's plan for the next few days. "The
only thing is, the chest with Matalde's egg in it is way too unwieldy
for us to take across. So I figured what -you- could do is take it to
Zipang and come over to Republic City on the train."
"Hmm," Nall said thoughtfully. "Sure, I can do that. I'm sure
nobody will notice a guy lugging a banded ironwood chest that says
CAUTION CONTENTS EXTREMELY HOT in dragonscript on the lid."
Corwin clapped him on the shoulder. "Great. Tell you what, I
won't tell Lhakpa you're coming or what you look like now. Then maybe
you have a chance of getting all the way off the ferry before the chase
begins."
Nall snorted. "You're too kind."
The Circle of Horns finished their set, but stayed in place;
Kate and the Art's third set was designed to take advantage of their
presence, with horn parts and a few bluesier tunes.
/* Hugh Laurie
"Tipitina"
_Let Them Talk_ (2011) */
The one they opened with was -very- bluesy, starting with a
leisurely piano solo by Kate on the school's concert grand and only
bringing in the band when the tempo picked up. Only then did people
notice the tall, lanky figure in the crumpled black suit who had joined
them, leaning against the curve of the piano in a casual slouch and
playing a gleaming black Gibson guitar.
The lyrics didn't make a ton of sense - something about a lady
named Roberta who was apparently a bit of a lush - but none of that
mattered with the Circle of Horns on top of their game, Kate rocking the
piano and Miki a very convincing Hammond B3 keyboard voice, and none
other than M. Jean-Jacques Ragulin drawling along in a curious French-
flavored approximation of a 20th-century bluesman accent while he played
that beautiful guitar.
More blues-rock and jazz followed; Ragulin stayed with them for
the whole set, the Circle dropping in and out as needed.
The next time Corwin saw Utena, after he'd finished a dance with
Buttercup Utonium, she was over by the table where the snacks were,
regarding a small round object. For a second Corwin thought it might be
a piece of melba toast, leading him to wonder A) why Utena had one and
B) why she was contemplating it that way, until he got closer and saw
that it was a small piece of wood.
"What's that you've got there?" he wondered.
"I'm not sure," Utena said. "Izumi gave it to me when she and
Maki stopped us under the sword arch." She gave him a little smirk and
added, "You probably didn't notice 'cause Maki was kissing you."
"I probably didn't," he agreed without rising to the bait. "Can
I see?" She handed it to him; turning it over, he recognized it
immediately and smiled. "Aha."
"Aha?"
"It's a pai sho tile. That's a game they play in Diqiu - sort
of a cross between mahjongg, chess, and klin zha." He held the tile up
so that the design painted on it was facing her. "This is the White
Lotus."
"Isn't that the name of the outfit that kept Korra from meeting
me?" Utena wondered.
Corwin nodded. "The same."
"Hmm. I wonder what it means."
"I think it's an invitation," Corwin said. "The Kyoshi Warriors
aren't part of the Order of the White Lotus, but they often work for
them. They're like... sort of a combination of Salusia's Crown
Protective Service and the 3WA, only on a smaller scale."
"And no hot pants," Utena quipped.
"More's the pity," Corwin agreed. "Anyway, I think Izumi - "
He noticed something happening past her and blinked. " - hmm."
"What?" Utena asked, then turned to see that Korra had joined
the others on stage; she stood by the end of the piano with Kate's stand
mic in front of her, and had something in her hand that, at this range,
it took Utena a moment to identify as a harmonica.
"Hi," said Korra with what looked like a slightly sardonic
smile. "Just so you know, this song is... not directed at anyone in
this room."
/* Blues Traveler
"Run-Around"
_Live from the Fall_ (1996) */
And so saying, she led the way into a medium-tempo number with a
solo on the harp she held, then moved it aside and sang,
Oh once upon a midnight, dearie, I woke with something in my head
I couldn't escape the memory of the phone call and of what you said
Like a game show contestant with a parting gift
I could not believe my eyes
When I saw through the voice of a trusted friend
Who needs to humor me and tell me lies
Yes humor me and tell me lies
And I'll lie too and say I don't mind
And as we see so shall we find
And when you're feeling open I'll still be here
But not without a certain degree of fear
Of what will be with you and me
I still can see things hopefully but you
Why you wanna gimme a run-around?
Is it a surefire way to speed things up
When all it does is slow me down?
Corwin laughed. "I'm pretty sure I know who it -is- directed
at," he murmured in Utena's ear, then handed her back the White Lotus
tile.
For the third break, the Art and the Circle of Horns both left
the stage and surrendered it entirely to their -next- guest artists:
none other than Zach Stephens and the Port Jeradar Surphony Orchestra,
who launched immediately into a blazing cover of "Ghost Riders in the
Sky" in the style of Dick Dale and his Del-Tones. They played a six-
song mini-set, and Zach stuck around to pitch in on the beginning of the
Art's fourth and final turn on the stage.
Kate and the gang put everything they had left into this closing
set, determined to give this day the sendoff it deserved. As they had
the year before to close out their impromptu show at the Hellfire Club,
they finished with "Dive Into Me" - but then, unexpectedly, Kate cajoled
Utena back onto the stage to take part in an encore, which was the first
point at which several people realized that they hadn't played "I Think
I Like It" yet that night.
/* Boston
"I Think I Like It"
_Third Stage_ (1986) */
Possibly thanks to the cover of the harmonies, or the secure
feeling of being surrounded by the song's requisite phalanx of
guitarists, or the lateness of the hour, or just because she'd already
confronted the novelty of the experience head-on, Utena didn't look at
all nervous or self-conscious for her second foray into the world of
lead vocals. She looked confident - fully on top of the moment - and no
one could miss the ear-to-ear smile on her face as she stood between
Kaitlyn and Azalynn at the center mic, with Amanda and Miki in echelon
to either side of them, hitting the harmony without apparent effort on
the final verse.
Oh, doesn't love say enough when you realize
People try to come off so tough all to fantasize?
Changes taking me through the night
I finally see the light, I've opened my eyes
Those changes can open your eyes...
Kaitlyn and Amanda kicked the outro around for a bit, for old
times' sake, and then wound it down to a silence that was instantly
swamped by the applause and cheers of this, probably the most on-their-
side audience they were ever going to have.
"Thank you!" Utena declared, flushed with success and the sheer
perfection of the moment. Raising a fist in the air, she cried into the
mic, "We did it! Wedding accomplished!" Then, laughing, she tried to
hug the whole front row of the band at once and mostly succeeded, Kate
under one arm, Amanda the other, with Miki in the middle and Azalynn
springing onto her back, legs around her waist.
"And it couldn't have worked without all of you!" Utena
continued. "From me and from Corwin, thank you all -so much!-"
Still squashed into the group hug and in no hurry to get out of
it, Kaitlyn followed with, "That's it for the Art of Noise tonight!
It's been a privilege! Thank you!"
Utena partly released Kate so that she could gesture to Mordin,
who stood at his podium off to the left with a broad salarian grin and a
preposterous set of earphones on. "Mordin's here to spin some tracks!"
she announced. "We're gonna head out in a bit, but you guys can stick
around as long as you like! Thank you once again from the bottom of my
heart. We love you guys! Good night!"
Twenty minutes later, after packing hastily and then running a
gantlet of hugs, kisses, teary-but-happy late-night goodbyes, and
whatnot ("Hey," said Gunnr to Anne with a wink, "don't do anything I
wouldn't do, keeping in mind that I would totally do a cute firebender
if I had the chance"), a small group climbed the stairs from the Quad to
the Forest of Secrets. Faint sounds of the continuing party drifted up
from the campus below as Corwin, Utena, Anthy, Kaitlyn, Serge, and
Juniper all made certain they were fully squared away, with rucksacks
and duffel bags secured and ready to travel (in the case of Anthy's
small travel bag, snugly strapped to Serge's back).
"OK!" said Korra cheerfully, facing the others as they gathered
at the top of the stairs. "Everybody ready?" Everybody was. "Great.
We'll be crossing two veils, one back to Midgard and another to Diqiu,
but I'll do all the work. All you guys have to do is follow me. Don't
worry about a thing. I won't let anything happen to you. All right?"
Nods all around. Smiling, Korra took off the ring Corwin had made for
her the previous day and tucked it into an inside pocket of her jacket,
then composed herself, closing her eyes in concentration.
/* Jeremy Zuckerman
"Prologue"
_The Legend of Korra: Original Music from Book One_ (2013) */
For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then the breeze Corwin
had noticed when she arrived began again, blowing inward this time,
toward the door to the Forest. The ground beneath their feet thrummed
with the activation of the door's great hidden mechanisms; the torches
ignited; the fountains began to gush, filling the trenches and raising
the mist, within which one could catch faint flickers of swirling
movement.
Korra opened her eyes; they were glowing, all detail washed out
by white light. Anne gasped softly in wonder at the sight. With a
little smile, Korra winked at her, then drew a breath, turned, and began
to walk the intricate circular steps of the veilbending dance. Drawing
together into a tight little group around Serge (who was entirely
unconcerned), hands linked all around to be sure no one got lost, Corwin
and the rest followed her into the mist, which swallowed them all up.
A few seconds later, the fountains stopped; the torches guttered
and went out; the wind died away. When the mist cleared, the door to
the Forest stood closed and silent once more...
... and the plaza before it lay empty.
Far below, the party went on, long into the night.
/* Boston
"Can'tcha Say / Still In Love"
_Third Stage_ (1986) */
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited Can'tcha say you believe in me?
presented Can'tcha see what you mean to me?
UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
FUTURE IMPERFECT Every day I think of you
- Symphony of the Sword No. 5 - You're on my mind
Fourth Movement: Some things in the past
Try, Try Again Are better left behind
Every night I dream of you
The Cast The images as clear as day
(in order of appearance)
Utena Tenjou Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Kardon Felz Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Corwin Ravenhair You know that where there's a will
Keiko Sonoda there's a way
Maki Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Chu Chu Cant'cha see what it means to me?
Anthy Tenjou Don't leave me alone tonight
Mitsuru Tswuabuki 'Cause I still love you
Anaximandra Drax
Peregrine Took We've had our time apart
Nall Silverclaw And I knew right from the start
Natsuki Kruger I could never change
Shizuru Viola The way I feel about you baby
Sergei We can sit here all night long
Kaitlyn Hutchins And separate the right from the wrong
Duran But love won't wait
Kaname Sterling
Lindsey Willows Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Professor Jim Everard Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Karin Torborg You know that where there's a will
Wakaba Shinohara there's a way
Anne Cross Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Hikaru Shidou Can'tcha see what you mean to me?
Fuu Hououji Don't leave me alone tonight
Izumi 'Cause I still love you
Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky
Skuld Ravenhair Ooh, ooh, still in love with you
Donald E. Griffin You know I need you baby
The Doctor To stand by me
Amy Pond Can'tcha see I need you baby?
Rory Williams I'm still in love with you
Rose Tyler
Katherine Griffin Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Lockheed Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Benjamin D. Hutchins You know that where there's a will
Wolfgang there's a way
Heather McClellan Can'tcha say you believe in me?
Gunnr Brynjelfr Can'tcha see what you mean to me?
Amanda Elektra Dessler Don't leave me alone tonight
Jessica d'Alkirk 'Cause I still love you
Aeryn Stonefist I love you...
Presea
Charles P. Mui /* Joe Satriani
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya "Ten Words"
Frey Lightwalker _Super Colossal_ (2006) */
Krojaar epetai-Korgoth
B'Elanna O'Brien
Frigg Fjorgynsmaer
Odin Winterbeard
Juri Arisugawa
Miki Kaoru
Boba Fett
Sakura Byakuro
Thor Ironhammer
Toph Beifong
Lantar ibn-Zaleh
Mordin Solus
Azalynn dv'Ir Natashkan
The Hon. J. Maurice MacEchearn IV
R. Dorothy Wayneright
Devlin E.D. Carter
Hiroshi Morisato
Brynhildr Silverspear
Lenneth Winternight
Baron Zoria and his Circle of Horns
Jean-Jacques Ragulin
Zach Stephens and the Port Jeradar Surphony Orchestra
with
more or less everybody else
and introducing
Korra
(she's the Avatar
you gotta deal with it)
Written by
Benjamin D. Hutchins
with
Anne Cross
Philip Jeremy Moyer
and the aid of
The EPU Usual Suspects
featuring the usual profusion of sources,
and in this case particularly
Avatar: The Last Airbender
and
The Legend of Korra
created by
Michael Dante DiMartino
and
Bryan Konietzko
The Symphony will return
E P U (colour) 2013