EL-HAZARD : MORTAL ENGINES

                        by Alan Harnum

                 Chapter Seven - Four Sea Interludes
           
El-Hazard is a copyright of AIC/Pioneer LDC.  This story, 
however, belongs to me, and I request that you don't publicly
post or archive it without my permission.

This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive
at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic.  I can be reached by
e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org

* * *
     
     The sun began to set over the sea.

     Soon, it would be over.
     
     Nahato floated, and watched the deadly grace of the sea
dragon as it approached.  The undulating movements of its 
fish-scaled body seemed to coincide with each gentle roll and dip 
of the waves.  An almost dead calm had fallen upon the Sea of
Tears in the presence of the monster; the winds had died to
nothing, so that the waves which had battered him and driven him
beneath the surface now became soft caressings that bobbed him up
and down like a buoy.

     Tears, both of agony and grief, still lay upon his cheeks.
But calm had fallen on him, too, in presence of the terrible
majesty.  The dragon moved closer, sea-spume jetting from 
between triple-rowed teeth as it exhaled; great steaming breaths
that Nahato could already feel as hot winds, even at this 
distance.

     For the first time, he was staring his own death in the 
face, only to find himself unafraid.  It would be quick and
painless--he'd be a mere morsel to those vicious jaws.  Or so he
told himself.  But then he felt a warmth at his waist, soon 
sapped by the chill of the sea.

     He'd wet himself.  Like a little child.  And as the dragon
drew closer, and gazed down at him with saucer-sized black eyes 
equally empty of pity or light, Nahato realized he was terrified.  
He didn't want to die.

     "Perfect night," he said, softer than a whisper.  "O, Lord,
if you would save me, save me now."  He forgot his denial of
moments earlier; he believed again, if believing would save him.

     A hand touched his cheek.  Another went around his chest
from behind.  The gesture, so intimately familiar from Gallus,
shocked and comforted him at the same time.

     "Be not afraid," an age-withered voice whispered in his ear.
"He has heard you."

     "Lemulla."  Impossible; he'd seen her sink below the waves,
arms and legs bound with Deva's unbreakable threads.

     "You think such bonds can hold one such as I?"  And she
laughed, treading the water in time with him.  The sea dragon was
mere feet away, even more massive than he'd thought--alone, the 
vicious wedge of its head was twice his size.  An involuntary
whimper escaped him, the sound of a tiny, frightened animal.
     
     "How?"
     
     Lemulla did not answer.  The hand clasping his cheek moved 
away, and she ran one long-nailed finger down the tight threads
that bound his arms.  They fell away as if before the sharpest
blade, and were carried away upon the waves.  Speaking softly to 
him as she did, words beyond his understanding, Lemulla massaged
life back into his numb arms as they floated together on the sea.  
The cold eyes of the dragon watched them from nearby.  Nahato saw 
then how the black of its eyes flickered and roiled, shadows over
shadows.  He was in the presence of his god, or at least the eyes
of his god watched him from behind the gaze of this hapless 
vessel.
     
     "Drink."  And Lemulla's left wrist was pressed to his mouth, 
as the waves rocked them to and fro.  He'd done it often enough 
with Gallus; he bit hard, breaking the skin, and sucking in the 
salty blood that trickled forth.  It should have parched his 
throat further, but it did not; he felt refreshed as if he'd 
drunk from a spring of clear water.

     "Drink," he whispered in reply, soft as if they were lovers,
and brought his own left wrist to her wrinkled mouth.

     "No."
     
     He winced.  That was not how it was supposed to go.  
"Drink..."
     
     "You have drunk of me."  She touched her wound to each side 
of his face.  "That is all that is needed.  The line goes on."

     The arm around his chest went away, and Lemulla moved out in
front of him with easy strokes.  She smiled, white hair tangled
damp and wild around her thin face

     Nahato felt suddenly afraid again.  "What's going on?"
     
     "I failed," Lemulla explain calmly.  "I let the Staff of
Deeper Shadows fall into the hands of outsiders.  There is no
forgiveness for one such as I from our god; the more that is
given, the more that is asked.  Now you must take up the office,
and retrieve the staff."

     "I can't--"
     
     "You will."
     
     They were the last words she ever spoke.  The jaws of the     
dragon yawned wide as a cavern; the head plunged.  Lemulla made
no sound as she was caught up and shaken, so that her body
cracked up and down like a whip.  Nahato heard the snap as her
spine broke, and then all the other sounds, the tearing of flesh
and the splatter of blood upon the waves, was drowned out beneath 
his own screaming.     
     
* * *

     Once, when Nanami was very young--about four or five, she
couldn't remember exactly--she'd woken up to find her brother
standing silently in her room, watching her.

     What are you doing, Katsuhiko? she'd asked.
     
     And he'd replied, very seriously, I had a dream that 
something bad happened to you, and I wanted to see if it was 
true or not.

     That memory came back in an instant when she woke up, to
find her brother watching her with a frown on his face.  There
was a sense of rocking, as if the room were moving up and down,
and her head hurt terribly.  The last moments before 
unconsciousness--the wave sweeping over the deck, the inadvertent
scream, choking on salt water, blinding pain as she struck the
edge of something--came back a second later.

     "You little creep!"  
     
     She was upright and had her hands around his throat so
quickly that the frown didn't vanish until about a second after
she began throttling him.  Katsuhiko might be older, but he'd
always been a skinny little wimp, and he'd never won a single
fight with her when they were kids.

     Katsuhiko gasped and choked, fingers clawing at her wrists.
His face began to turn blue.     
     
     An irresistible force grabbed her left arm and pulled her 
off her brother.  Fingers cold and slick with sea-water clenched 
tight enough around her forearm to cut off her circulation, and 
she was swung off her feet as her attacker yanked the captured 
arm above her head.

     With a growl, Nanami kicked back as she rose, and bruised 
her heel upon a steel-hard shin.  The assailant, much taller than 
her, lifted her higher.  An inadvertent squeal of pain escaped 
her as her arm twisted.

     Her brother drew two deep breaths of air, then spoke.  
"Don't hurt her, imbecile!  Just restrain her."
     
     Nanami was dropped like a rag doll.  Her feet hit the floor
badly, and she would have fallen, except that the hideous 
strength of that hand grabbed her by the shoulder.

     "I am not designed for restraint."
     
     Something cold and sharp touched the nape of her neck, as 
the voice, without any feeling in it, sounded in her ear.

     "You're _designed_ to do what I tell you."  Her brother
extracted a comb from his pocket and began to rearrange his
dishevelled hair.  "And while murder between sibling rivals has a
grand and glorious tradition, history, literature and drama have
all shown that it seems to come for a bad end for the murdering
sibling."

     Nanami looked back, out of the corner of her eye, and saw
the light gleaming off the featureless oval of Lethiaphan's face.
Curling strands of green hair like seaweed were plastered to that
blankness, but the Demon-God did not seem to care.  She gulped
fearfully, as her brother continued to pontificate.
     
     "And generally the sibling is a rival for some position or
another, instead of just being on the rival side because of some
adolescent infatuation--"

     "Infatuation!  You jerk, what would you know about male-
female relationships anyway?"

     "Nanami, please have some respect.  Don't talk when your
older brother is talking."

     "You couldn't order me around when we were kids, Katsuhiko,
and you can't do it now, even with all the demon-gods in El-
Hazard!"

     His face turned an ugly red, and his eyes narrowed.  
"Nanami, while I don't want to see you seriously hurt, I've got 
little objection to having you unconscious again."  He took a 
step forward, until his face was only inches from hers.  "Now 
shut up, please, or I'll have my new toy render you so."

     A particularly hard stab of pain within her head convinced
Nanami of the advisability, at least at this time, of staying
quiet.
     
     "And I don't just have a demon-god."  He threw a pointed
glance towards one corner of the small room, where Lethiaphan's
trident leaned beside a plain metal staff with a dull jewel atop
it.  "Perhaps two, if I can find whatever that other staff is
supposed to fit into.  I've also got a ship full of Bugrom.  A
ship made of Bugrom, for that matter."  He tapped a wall the
colour of bleached bone, and Nanami saw that it had the same
slick, artificially organic look to it that the Bugrom soldiers
she'd seen did.  "I've also got dear Queen Deva, who's just
recently proved herself useful for something more than sitting
around and looking decorative."

     "What about your Phantom Tribe pals?" Nanami asked 
sarcastically.  "You don't have any morals at all, do you,
Katsuhiko?  One day they're trying to destroy the world, and the
next day you're teaming up with them."

     His narrowed eyes turned cold, cold enough that she grew
frightened of him.  No, not of him, she corrected--Katsuhiko by
himself wasn't scary, it was only with all his helpers that he
became a threat.  "That was a... mistake.  I've rectified it."

     "Oh?  What'd you do, throw them overboard?  'Cause there
wasn't really anywhere else you could have put them."     
     
     "Actually, yes."  And he laughed.  "That was exactly what I
did."     
     
     The way he said it made her actually fear him, then, and not
just the power he had acquired.  They had been Phantom Tribe,
yes, but they were still living things... and he talked about it
like someone else might talk about disposing of garbage.

     "You're pale, Nanami."  He stepped back and looked at her
appraisingly, hands on his hips.  "Are you feeling all right?"

     "Yeah."  She cast a glance back at the faceless, motionless
form of Lethiaphan.  The hands holding her shoulders could have
been those of a statue.  "Can you ask it to grip just a little
less tight, please?"

     "Lethiaphan, let her go."  The hands instantly released her
shoulders.  "Restrain her again if she tries to touch me."  He 
grinned.  "Unless it's to give a sisterly embrace to her big 
brother, of course."

     "I'd rather embrace one of your Bugrom," Nanami said dryly.
     
     "Perhaps you would, right now," Katsuhiko agreed cheerfully.
"But you'll come round, in time.  Welcome to my side, Nanami."

     "I'll never be a part of your side, you psychotic maniac."
     
     His voice turned chiding.  "Nanami," he said, "what would
our parents say?  What would Father say?  'Success is the measure
of virtue.'"

     "Bastard," Nanami whispered, turning away from him.  She
couldn't bear to look into those cold eyes any longer.

     Someone knocked on the "door".  When Katsuhiko called out
for them to enter, the door didn't so much swing open as flow
open.  One of the Bugrom, antenna twitching atop its saucer-
shaped head, walked in, and gibbered at Jinnai incomprehensibly.

     His eyes widened.  "What?  That's impossible."

     Gibber, gibber.
     
     "Impossible!"
     
     Protesting gibber.
     
     "Oh, well, if you insist... but it's still impossible."  He
turned his attention back to her.  "Come up on deck, Nanami.
Apparently, there's something in the water you should see."     
     
* * *

     A breeze blew gently through the long grass atop the cliffs
that rose hulkingly above the beach, and descended the stepped
walkway wind and rain had hollowed out in times out of mind.  It
made tiny waves upon the grainy beach sand, and then broke upon
the stern of the overturned fishing boat before it could touch 
the girl who sat with her back against the bow, braiding her 
long hair.

     The sun was going down in the west, pale through the 
overcast, and El-Hazard's two moons were visible in the sky.
This was the transitional moment between day and night, a
powerful time.  

     Agile fingers worked slowly and precisely on the braid, and
all her attention seemed focused upon it.  This was not true,
though, for the braiding was a distraction.  The sea was the true
fascination--her green eyes stared at the dark swells of the
waves in the distance, followed them intently as they broke upon
the beach, and then looked out to the growing shadows upon the
horizon.

     She finished the braiding and rose up, to smooth out her
dress and brush granules of sand from within their folds.  The
sea rippled like silk, cold and dark, grey like the sky above was 
grey.

     Up on the cliffs, the sounds of the grass rustling changed
slightly, so she drew up the scarf bunched at the back of her
neck over her hair, and let her braid hang down over one 
shoulder to cross her chest.  Soon, a man came walking down the
path from cliff to beach, feet crunching on the thick grains of
beach sand.

     "Perra?"
     
     The girl turned.  "Yes, Father?"
     
     "It's time for dinner."
     
     "Sorry, Father.  I was watching the sea."
     
     "Oh.  It's nice tonight, isn't it?"
     
     "Yes.  Are we going to take the boat out tomorrow?"
     
     "I'm not sure.  It's a little early in the season.  It might
be better to work on the fields."

     She hesitated, and then said, "I think we should take the
boat out tomorrow."

     "Did you have another dream?"
     
     "No."  She shook her head.  "Not a dream.  Just a feeling."
     
     "Not all that men feel is sent from God," her father quoted.
     
     "God speaks to the pure heart," she quoted in reply.  They
smiled at one another, and he touched her shoulder.

     "We'll take the boat out tomorrow."
     
     A bigger wave than usual hit the beach with a crash, and the
spray came dangerously close to soaking them from head to toe.  
They stepped back, and the girl shivered.

     "Something wrong?" the man asked.
     
     It took a time for her to answer, as if the words had to
journey a great distance before they were spoken.  "There will be
visitors, soon."
     
* * *
     
     The sun had set, and night had fallen upon the sea.
     
     Twinned upon the rolling surface of the water, the two moons
of El-Hazard rippled like mirages in the desert in the wake of 
the cutter's passage.  Makoto leaned over, hand on the railing, 
and watched their swimmings in the depths.  He'd always conceived
of the ocean as blue, but the lights of the boat and the night
sky showed how false that was--the ocean was a mirror, and now it
seemed the dark reaches of space lay below them.  Only the boat 
riding upon the surface prevented them from falling down into 
those infinite depths, to tumble forever among the stars...

     Uncomfortable, he turned away, and walked down the short
flight of stairs from the top of the cabin to the deck, where
Fujisawa-sensei sat, legs crossed and eyes closed.  Lethiaphan 
was a dull, focused ache, a wound that would not heal.  In 
almost the opposite direction, he could feel Mardruk's sleeping 
presence.  Not Ifurita, though--he had no sense of her at all.

     "How you doing, Makoto?" Fujisawa asked.  
     
     Makoto sat down before answering, and cupped his chin with 
his hands.  "I'm worried about Nanami.  Though I guess everybody
is."

     "Yeah," Fujisawa agreed.  "Don't worry, though.  We'll get
her back."

     I wish I could share your confidence, sensei, Makoto 
thought.  He touched Ifurita's Power-Key where it lay beside him.
"Do you think the plan will work?"

     The teacher grinned.  "Of course.  We were stupid before,
coming at it one at a time.  This time... Miz, Shayla and me will
hit it all at once, giving Afura time to fly you in so you can
shut it down."  His eyes opened fractionally.  "You can do that,
right?  The whole plan depends on it."

     "I can do it," Makoto said, with an assured tone he didn't
actually feel.  The whole idea seemed logical; he'd turned 
Mardruk on, so he should be able to find the corresponding
"switch" within Lethiaphan's internal systems that would shut the
Demon-God of the sea down, but the fact that he'd never actually
done it made him nervous.  What if the internal systems had some
sort of defenses?  What if Lethiaphan could somehow fight back
against being shut down?

     Too many questions without answers to make him happy, but he
didn't see any other way.  They had to stop Jinnai--whatever he
was up to, it couldn't be good, especially if the Phantom Tribe
were involved--and get Nanami back.  

     "Jinnai won't hurt her," Fujisawa said.  "He's a delinquent,
but I don't think he'd hurt his own sister."  He paused.  "Would
he?"

     Makoto stared uncomfortably at the smooth surface of the
deck.  "I don't like to think he would.  But he's really changed
since he came to El-Hazard.  He didn't used to be so... 
sociopathic."

     "Maybe he just hid it better."  Fujisawa rubbed his unshaven
chin.  "It's a lot easier to be a monster here."

     "A lot easier to be a hero, too."
     
     Fujisawa shook his head ruefully.  "Especially when you get
powers like ours."  There was a note of regret in his voice.

     "Something wrong, sensei?"
     
     "Nahh."
     
     "No, really."  Intuition struck him.  "Is it about how our 
powers are changing?"
    
     "I should have been dead," the lanky man muttered, seeming 
to ignore the question.  "I got cocky, thought I could take it on
by myself... and it ripped me apart."

     "You didn't get cocky, sensei," Makoto pointed out.  "You
were just trying to protect Miz."

     To Makoto's surprise, Fujisawa laughed.  "I see she's told
you the story too, huh?"

     "Multiple times," Makoto's said drolly.  
     
     "She wants to marry me."  There was, Makoto thought, a tiny
note of fear in the teacher's voice.  "And I don't understand 
it."

     Alielle, who was currently piloting, called back from the
helm.  "What are you talking about?  Is it something 
interesting?"     

     "Nothing, Alielle," Makoto replied.  Lowering his voice, he
edged in closer to Fujisawa.  "Well, I guess she thinks you're a
good guy.  Why does anyone love anyone?"

     "Back on Earth, would she look twice at me?"
     
     Makoto had no answer.  The possibility of returning to Earth
had nagged at him before, but had been subsumed since Ifurita's
loss by the question of her return.  What would it be like to go
back, leave behind the friends he'd made, leave behind the beauty
of this place... go back to Earth and be normal, perhaps, unable
to communicate with machines at the touch of his hand...

     "Makoto?  Makoto?"
     
     He shook his head, broke free from the trance of staring 
into space.  "Sorry, sensei."

     Fujisawa unfolded his gangly legs and drew one up to his
chest.  "Back on Earth, I wasn't anything special.  I was..."

     "Don't be so hard on yourself, sensei," Makoto said firmly.
"You were a good teacher, and there's nothing to be ashamed of in
that."

     "Yeah, maybe."  Fujisawa shrugged.  "But, you know, right 
now, I should want a cigarette so bad I ought to be shaking.  I
smoked for twenty years.  But I don't want a cigarette now.  The
very thought of it makes me feel sick.  Same with drinking.  I
mean... I wasn't really an alcoholic.  Maybe I had a bit of a
problem, but, I mean... I'm rambling, aren't I?"

     "A little."
     
     One of Fujisawa's hands gestured helplessly while the other
clasped his knee, as if the motions could somehow make what he
wanted to say clearer.  "What I'm trying to say is, back on Earth
I had these... problems.  Addictions.  And when I came here, the
only way I could be of any use was to control myself... now I 
don't even have trouble controlling myself.  I couldn't drink if 
I wanted to."

     Makoto frowned.  "You know, I didn't understand that.  Why 
does your power have a restriction on it, and mine doesn't.  
Neither does Nanami's, as far as we could tell."  He shifted
nervously, the thought of Nanami making the dull throb of 
Lethiaphan's presence suddenly flare.  With Mardruk in the
background, he felt as if his head were being used as a radar
unit.  Oh, Ifurita, he thought with a pain that cut his heart,
why can't I feel you too?

     "Maybe Katsuhiko's powers only work if he acts like a 
delinquent," Fujisawa muttered.  They both laughed, but without
much humour.  Worry for Nanami, always present if seldom voiced,
sapped any real desire for merriment.

     "Maybe--" Makoto began, and then stopped.  Footsteps echoed
from behind the door leading down to the lower deck of the boat,
as someone climbed the stairs with a light tread.  Shayla opened
the door and stepped out onto the deck.  "Hey."

     Makoto raised his hand.  "Hi, Shayla."
     
     "Hi," Fujisawa echoed.
     
     "We need you down below," Shayla said, turning her eyes to
Fujisawa.  "Afura wants to make some adjustments to your role in
the attack plan."

     "Okay."  Fujisawa rose.  "Later, kid."  Shayla stepped to
the side to let him go below.  He closed the door behind him.
Alielle's humming as she piloted the cutter reached back and
intruded into Makoto and Shayla's silence.

     Shayla fidgeted uncomfortably, then spoke.  "You okay, 
Makoto?  You didn't get hurt in the battle, did you?"

     "No," Makoto said.  "Are you okay?"
     
     "Umm... yeah, fine."  She laughed falsely.  "You know me."
     
     "Oh.  Okay."  If Shayla didn't want to talk about it, he
wouldn't pry.

     Instead of leaving as he'd expected, though, she sat down
heavily on the deck, keeping what seemed like a slightly 
too-great distance from him.  She sighed.

     "Don't they need you to discuss the plan?"
     
     The red-haired priestess shook her head.  "Not right now.
I'm basically mobile artillery.  I'm going to keep it harried, so
it can't counter Miz's water manipulation.  That will let sensei
get in close, and he should be able to keep it occupied while
Afura flies you in.

     "Are you worried about Nanami?"
     
     He blinked at the non sequitur.  "Of course.  Nanami's been
my friend since I was just a little kid.  Katsuhiko too, although
the last few years..."

     "You're trying to tell me he wasn't always such a psycho?"
     
     "No.  He was always really competitive, and liked to try and
be the best at everything.  Got bullied a lot in grade school.  
But then..."  Makoto fell silent and stared out at the blank sea.
"I probably shouldn't tell you this."

     "Aurghh!  That's not fair!" Shayla snapped, grabbing at her
spiky crimson hair in frustration.  "Starting out with a 
beginning like that and then stopping!"

     "It's mostly because I don't really know what happened," 
Makoto said, putting aside his hesitation.  "Over the summer
break between junior high and high school, Katsuhiko and Nanami
had to go away somewhere with their mother.  That was when he
really changed."

     "And you never found out where they went?"
     
     He shook his head.  "Neither of them ever told me, and I
didn't want to pry.  Nanami seemed really sad for a while, but
then she got better.  Katsuhiko just got..."  Unable to come up
with the right words, he shrugged and fell silent.

     Shayla edged closer.  "Did you ever speculate?  I mean,
about what happened?  Any guesses?"

     "Shayla," Makoto chided gently, "this isn't the kind of
thing I should be telling you anyway."  It really wasn't, too,
he told himself.  It wasn't any of Shayla's business, even if he
did have his own guesses as to what had happened.

     Someone sniffled nearby who was neither Makoto nor Shayla.
The two of them looked up, Makoto in time to see something moving
so fast it was merely a blur, Shayla in time to get bowled over 
by Alielle's embrace.

     "Oh, how sad!  A friendship lost through mysterious
circumstances.  Hold me, sister Shayla!"

     "Get off me!"
     
     "Alielle, aren't you supposed to be piloting the boat?"
     
     A moment of silence fell, so quiet they could hear the waves
slapping against the keel, and the faint voices of the others
rising from the deck below.

     "Oopsie!" Alielle said.  She disentangled herself from
Shayla and hurried back to the helm.  Shayla scrambled to her
feet and retreated below while attempting to rearrange her
dishevelled clothing.

     Makoto stood, taking up the Power-Key as he did, and walked
over to join Alielle at the helm.  Like a lot of the vehicles 
he'd seen on El-Hazard, the cutter Gannan had lent them--smaller 
than the Godswind, but still a fair-sized ship--was directed not
by a wheel but by the hands of the pilot upon two rounded crystal
orbs perched atop small pillars.  From the reading Makoto had
done, the orbs channeled psychic energy from the pilot to provide
both impetus and steerage.

     "Are we still on course, Makoto?" Alielle asked as he
approached.  

     He shook his head.  They'd been moving on a course 
identical to that taken by Lethiaphan--and, presumably therefore,
by Jinnai's vessel--but Alielle's distraction had thrown them off
of it.  He reached out with his power, which felt rather like
trying to summon up the memory of a face, and found Lethiaphan.
Doing so made his mind feel greasy and queasy.  He told Alielle
how to correct the course, and then fell silent.

     "I'm sorry, Makoto," the petite girl said after a moment.
"I just got lonely up here, and wanted to talk to someone.  I
completely forgot I was supposed to be piloting the ship."  She
giggled.  "Silly, huh?"

     Her good cheer was infectious, and lifted Makoto's own
spirits slightly.  He smiled.  "It's okay, Alielle."

     "I wish Fatora was here," Alielle muttered.  "None of the
other girls like me.  Especially Shayla."

     "I think they're just frightened by your exuberance,"
Makoto said, trying to phrase it as diplomatically as he could.

     Alielle sniffed.  "Fatora always says I don't have any
subtlety.  But then, she says she likes that."

     "Fatora's... quite exceptional in some ways."
     
     "She is, isn't she?" Alielle said with a note of pride.  
"I'm so glad to be her primary lover."

     "Err... ahh..." Makoto fought to keep a blush from his face.
"I'm glad she let you come along with us, while she went back to
deal with the situation in Gannan."  The 'situation' consisted of
trying to explain how so many men and ships were lost in what
should have been a simple search-and-capture mission.  Makoto
suspected royal relations with Gannan might take a while to
recover.

     "Fatora understands you need a guide," Alielle said.  
"Someone who knows El-Hazard.  And the priestesses... they live
rather cloistered lives.  Sequestered in their remote seminaries
for years and years, with only other women--their teachers and
their fellow students--for company, hours of rigourous lessons
that leave them tired and sweaty at the end of the day, so that
only a long communal soak in the hot springs can relieve them..."  
She paused.  "Actually, it doesn't sound so bad."

     Makoto tried, and failed, to imagine Alielle as a priestess.
"How do you know so much about it?"

     "Fatora tried to join the Muldoon sect as a priestess.  That
was after she got rejected by the Kreshien sect and the Trewdau
sect and..."

     "I get the idea.  I guess they rejected her too?"
     
     "Actually, they wouldn't even let her into the monastery.  I
heard they barred the gates.  So she just went to the Roshtarian
Academy, like Princess Rune did.  It's co-ed, admittedly, but,
still, some of the stories I've heard..."

     The sound of the cabin door opening interrupted conversation
again, and Makoto looked back to see Afura walking slowly across
the deck.  He hurried to meet her, leaving Alielle at the helm.  
"Afura, you should be resting.  You need to recover as much as 
you can before..."

     "I'm fine," Afura mumbled.  Blue-black bruises decorated her 
cheeks and jaw like painful flowers.  "We need to talk about the
plan with you, Makoto.  Let's go below."

     As they turned and began to walk towards the stairs leading
to the lower deck, Afura stumbled and almost fell.  She caught
herself with a hand on Makoto's shoulder, groaning as she did.

     "What's wrong?"
     
     "My left knee is pretty battered," the wind priestess 
explained in a pained voice.  "It's been giving me trouble."

     Makoto couldn't stop a note of annoyance from entering his
voice.  "Then why are you walking?" 

     "To prove I still can," Afura answered through gritted 
teeth.  "Don't worry about me, Makoto.  I can keep it under
control."

     They went below, leaving Alielle humming to herself at the
helm.

END OF CHAPTER SEVEN