Oh dear, surreal by you. ^_^ Well, here we go:

[Counted Days]

Year one had been a failure. An abysmal failure.

It had stopped halfway. Who had ever heard of a year that just seized up and
stopped like that.

Year two had been more hopeful.

It made it to June.

Hours turned to days turned to weeks

turned to months

That's the way it usually works

There was a pause then, as the older man walked beneath the canvas
sun-shade, and took a seat on a closed cooler. He drew a cigarette from
a pocket and lit it, taking a long, deep drag. When he exhaled, the
smoke blew out in a long plume. In the dead air, the plume hung still,
slowly expanding along a flat, curved plane, much like a crane's
feather. "I think so," he said at length. "I'm not sure, yet. I might
have gotten myself a partner. I'd like that."

Kietaro: I wouldn't.

Seta: You have the same choice in it you always have.

Keitaro: *Sigh* That's what I thought.

[Meddler and Warrior]

Well, I guess who they are.

"Alcohol dulls all pains."

Tell that to your liver. :)

 The other woman allowed a grin to flit across

her face for a moment. "You're avoiding the issue."

"Not entirely. His path draws along many lines, some which bring him
closer to me, others to you."

"And the rest?"

"The sky, the shore... the dragon palace.

Mutsumi: I was thinking more along the lines of a Turtle Palace.

Kitsune: No one was asking you.

 Perhaps even the pillar of the

heavens. Who is to know the ultimate conclusion?"

God: THAT WOULD BE ME.

"She would, I think."

The swordswoman stiffened, one hand dropping to her sheathed blade.

My, stiff and sheath used in the same sentence and not in a lemon. Will
wonders neevr cease? :)

"Oh-ho! You think that if the right cards are played, he could be another
Sakata Kintoki, do you?"

The swordswoman dropped her hand from her weapon and blushed darkly.
"Goldenboy

Oh? Can't get that one out of your mind. eh?

[Earth and Sun]


But the more he did it, the more the movement became a relaxing manta,
and the sound a soothing whisper. It wasn't until the tip of the shovel
hit something solid that he paused, realizing that more hours had passed
since he had become accustomed to digging. The sun had passed behind a
stand of tall palm trees, giving him shade, and a cool breeze rustled
his tank top, making him wonder as

at (I think you wanted there)

 > He looked up sharply, smiling when he saw the older man. "I think I did,"

he admitted.

Keep it away from Sarah. She'll just break t over Kei-chan's head. :)

"Alright, then why don't we see what you found?"

More ancient turtle ruins?

He nodded, shifting his grip on the shovel and carefully scooping more
sandy earth to one side. A small wooden chest was revealed, with brass
fixings.

chest, with brass fixings, was revealed (sounds better to me)

 Crouching, and lifting it carefully, he studied it, frowning.

"What's this?" he asked, cocking his head to one side.

"Many things," the old man said quietly. "At the moment, nothing. Were
you ever given a box?"

Keitaro: Once. A friend named Pandora gave it to me. Things didn't turn out
too well, though.

"If 'this'? I cannot spot what changed." She blinked, raising a hand and
tossing the cigarette away from her as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"But it was something, and something, I think, that was not meant to be.
Were things otherwise.... But our role in this play is nearly done, and
I'm left taking care of a house of meddlers."

Heh. Such a cruel fate.

Attempting to get into the college for so many years... if he had gotten
in the first time, then he would be nearly done by then.

Sad but true.

"I know what you feel, Kei-kun," she said, taking another step closer to
him. "I failed, too."

Again. So much alike. *Sigh*

She smiled at him, a hint of... sadness? No, that had to be an
illusion... or maybe it was for her own testing failure. "Would you like
to come with me?"

He blinked, shaking his head, and was about to refuse, but.... "I... I...
I don't want to go home yet. Well... okay, Mutsumi-chan. Let's run away
together."

Heh. First Naru, now Mutsumi. He'll run away with anyone, the slut. :)

Before she could say anything else, the animal, too, crumbled into ash,
fading into nothingness before her very eyes.

Oops.

"I'm sorry, Kitsune," she said, shaking her head. "What were we talking
about? I must not be paying attention -- I just forgot everything!"

"Nothing to worry about, I assure you."

It was for the best.

"I think you don't see everything that there is on that issue," a fourth
voice said, this one from a darker-skinned young woman as she too
appeared, sitting on the peak of the roof just behind the swordswoman.
"What harm as

has

she wrought? All her mischief was merely that, you realize."

The Kitsune merely smirked, while an errant breeze played with the
swordswoman's hair.

Heaving a pained sigh, the swordswoman shook her head. "It pains

two 'pains' close together. I'd drop the first or change it to something
else.

"Yes," the woman leaning against him sighed. "So many of us in one
place... we make it less real, I think. It is not always a good thing."

True. The area was so very dreamlike for a good portion of the series.

"Such is the nature of these things," the swordswoman mused. "I can only
imagine that it was not meant to be this way."

"It wasn't," the Kitsune assured her. "But I'm not sure where it went
wrong, either."

Where it went wrong, or is it merely changed? That is the question.

"What warning would that be?" the more timid of the young women asked.

"Motherhood may not suit you."

My, how foreboding.

***

[Another Homecoming]


But the building before him was not the building he remembered. Casting
about, he realized that the other buildings, too, had changed. The name
of the street, the address... those things were the same, but it wasn't
the home he had known.

Oh dear. Has he been gone for so very long?

With trembling hands, he opened the box, and vanished, nothing more than
a crane feather drifting down to mark that he had ever been there.

Oops. Didn't see that coming.

***
"Your servant, of course."

"In some capacity. More importantly, what was done, here, can be undone."

"Would you undo it, so easily?

think you can drop that comma

"A truce, where all of us may win the game, if on the surface it would be
the dreamer who won."

How devious.

Author's notes:

This is (somewhat) the result of a conversation with Edward Simons. One
half of it is my impression of the series, the other is Mr. Simons's
commentary on what the names of the various characters meant. Now if
anyone understands this, I'll be impressed. If you can guess who Suu is
the daughter of, I'll be impressed even more.

Nope. But I'm not up on my Eastern Mythology, so I think I can be forgiven.

Nice work. A bit hard to follow, but it had to be that way, and I understood
what was going on, or at least I think I did. :)

D.B. Sommer

--
Brian Randall
--
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, thanks to a
kind grant from the Larry F foundation:
http://www.rakhal.com/florestica/durandall/index.html
--
Together. Allegiance or death. BIGFIRE!
--
Haiku of my lament:

Forgive my spelling,
my U.S. education,
is the source of blame.


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