Daisy in the Fringe

Dear Diary,

Once we was up, some samurai feller came by and said he was looking into what had happened with Prince Nobunga.  After a bit it became clear that he had his own ideas of what he wanted us to tell him, and Dusty gave him just what he wanted.  Turns out that it’s a really big deal in these parts to kill an emperor even if he is possessed by his evil demon wife and has just killed the previous emperor before him.  So the investigator feller worked Dusty around to saying that Prince Nobunga had been killed defending his dad (funny that, seeing as the biggest threat to his dad was him) and we just stood by and watched.

Oh well, I suppose there ain’t much harm to it if it keeps us out of trouble, seeing as everyone knows what really happened anyway.  Though I reckon everyone would be better off if the true story came out.  But these Nihonese do things their own way.

After that we was invited to a big conference where they was gonna choose a new emperor.  That was a lot of talk-talk and a lot of politics, some of it about how the folks from Yamato had schemed with Nobunga though I didn’t understand the details of that and really I found it hard to follow anything that was going on.  But by the end of it Prince Nariaki was the new emperor, just as everyone knew he would be, and they all thanked us for all that we’d done.  Then he asked us if we wanted anything as a reward.

Nobody seemed able to think of much that they’d want.  Nobody but me, that is.  I told Nariaki that I’d like a ship that me and Geoffry could make into a traveling clinic that we could take around the villages of the Fringe to help take care of folks who never get to see a doctor at all.  Emperor Nariaki said he’d see what he could do.

I don’t know why nobody else wanted nothing.  Not even Dusty, and she usually has something she’s scheming for.  But I reckon folks are still too unsettled by all that happened, and they probably don’t have a big dream like I do anyway.

Dear Diary,

After the fighting was over, Geoffry and me went to the clinic where they was taking all the soldiers and did what we could to help the wounded.  There was no shortage of wounded, and no lack of things to be done.  It may have been a short war, but there was plenty of hurting to go around.

It was hard work caring for the hurt, hard and messy, the men bleeding and oozing all sorts of ugliness.  There were men who had been cut and men who had been burned, men shot and blowed up and damaged in pretty near every way you can imagine, and we did our best to put them back together as best we could.  By the end of a full day of nursing, working hard by my Geoffry and even taking some patients all on my own, I was so tired I could hardly lift my arms.

But I kept going as long as the patients kept coming.  And though we lost some, too badly hurt for us to do anything but ease their pain as they passed, we saved a whole lot more.  And while the work was hard, I was glad to do it.  It helped make up for the people I’d killed, and putting a hurt man back together is a lot more satisfying than smashing up one who’s whole.

When the new patients stopped coming and the Nihonese doctors was able to handle what remained, Geoffry and me went back to the rooms that the others had snatched, a pair of palace suites that nobody else was using.  I was exhausted after all the fighting and the patching up of folks, but tired as I was I was dirtier still, seeing as I was covered with blood from the fight before I even started patching up wounded which ain’t a clean job.  I don’t reckon I ever been so filthy as I was then, and Geoffry and me chased everyone off from the bathroom and settled into the big Nihonese tub together.

It felt good to wash away the grime, and Geoffry scrubbed my back until I was scoured clean as a frying pan under steel wool.  Then he held me in the hot water while I let loose my tears.  He was awfully worried about me, had been all day, and he stroked my hair and rubbed my back and all over, and before long I started to calm down.  We took one last rinse, then found a big fluffy bed to sleep in and I cradled close to my Geoffry for the first time in days, too tired to do anything but sleep.

It’s morning now and he’s still snoring.  I reckon I should get up and see how Dusty’s doing.  She took an awful fright yesterday and I reckon she must still be pretty shook up.  I probably should have stayed with her yesterday instead of working in the clinic, but the wounded seemed to need me.  She’ll probably snap back quick, she always does, and I’ll find some way to make it up to her.

Dear Diary,

I’ve seen my first war now, and  I only hope it’s my last.  Although it was an awfully small war and only lasted about a day, it sure was ugly.  I don’t want to think what a great big war spreading over planets and years would be like.

Turns out after all we’d been through, we had to go back in the palace after all.  So we got Lady Miyo and the other wounded to the Iron Falcon, got our guns, and went back in.

I took one of them beam rifles that the gray soldiers had.  It shoots a treat, much better and more quiet than my old machine gun.  All you got to do is point it and pull the little trigger, hardly more than a switch.  That’s all it takes to make a living man dead.

Oh diary, it don’t seem right, how easy it is to kill a man.  All you got to do is point the rifle and pull the trigger and you put an end to all the man ever was or ever will be.  All the years of training, all the work his momma put into feeding and cleaning and raising him, all that he loved and hated and dreamed.  All gone with just a little pull of the trigger.

Last night I killed three men by pulling a trigger, guards who just happened to be in our way as we went to free Lord Toda’s men.  They tried to stop us, them and a few others, even shot at us and hit Hank and Prometheus, so we killed them and they didn’t shoot no more.

And that’s not even counting Prince Nobunga and his wife.  I reckon I feel kinda sorry for them.  I mean, Prince Nobunga didn’t ask to have a demon possess him, and I surely doubt his wife asked to have that horrible slug thing inside her head.  They might have been nice people without evil things chewing away at them, the sort you’d enjoy sitting out in the evening and swapping a story with.

But at least I worked up a sweat killing the royals, swinging my sword like that.  It only seems right that killing a person should take some effort.  Cause just pulling a trigger, that hardly seems enough to end a life.

And oh, we freed Toda’s men.  They rescued Nariaki and ended the war, though it took more killing.  But it wasn’t us doing the killing that time, and I sure am happy for that.

Dear Diary,

Oh diary, I don’t know if I like this adventuring life.  Sometimes it’s all exciting, but sometimes it’s just plain awful.  And now’s one of the awful times.

We set watches before going to bed, but somehow that didn’t do no good.  Because when I woke up I was lying on the floor all tied up.  Ever since that time when the Bochley brothers tied me down in the basement of the Cow and Plow nothing’s scared me as much as being tied up, and waking all wrapped in ropes threw me into a panic.  I thrashed about trying to get free and pretty near passed out when I found that I couldn’t break my bonds no how.

After a bit of that I got hold of myself and looked around.  And then things got worse.  Dusty was tied naked to a table in the middle of the room and Prince Nobunga, all dressed up like an emperor, and a wicked woman who I took to be his wife were talking about where to start in on slicing her up.  Lady Michi was there looking scared and the Prince and his wife were telling her all sorts of nasty things to do to Dusty.

I didn’t know what to do.  There weren’t no way I was gonna get out of them bonds but I had to seeing as there weren’t no one else around to help.  I was just starting to fret myself back into a fit again when Lady Michi came over by me and slipped a little knife into my hands.  That at least gave me something to work them ropes with, though it sure was awkward, my hands being behind my back and all.

It took some time to get my hands free and all the while Dusty and Michi was telling nasty stories to Prince N and his wife, stalling for time.  After a bit Dusty even started in on singing, which really kept their eyes on her.  I don’t know how she ever got up the bravery to sing at a time like that.  I never could, even if I could sing.  But she kept on going, even though it took me a confounded long time to get free, and she was still going as I rose as quiet as I could to my feet, which was still tied together.

I’d noticed one of them samurai swords sitting on a nearby shelf, so I did a little flip to take me next to it, pulled the sword, and cut loose my legs.  About then Prince N noticed me and drew his own sword.  We had a bit of a dust-up and I cut off his arm and he collapsed on Dusty, spraying her all over with his blood.  Then Dusty shouted to watch for the wife, as she was the really evil one of the pair, so I cut her head clean off.  And I was just about to start relaxing and see about freeing Dusty when things got really ugly.

First off, the princess’s head flipped over onto Dusty’s belly and started chewing on her.  That got Dusty screaming, and she grabbed at the head to yank it free.  (Dusty had gotten her hands free somehow with help from Michi.)  Then Prince Nobunga stood up and drew his short sword and, looking mighty spry for a feller who’d just had an arm chopped off, he took a swing at me and sliced me right through the belly.  That hurt so much that I had to drop my sword.

Meanwhile Dusty pressed her Artemis symbol into the head and said something to the god and the head blew up like a firecracker in a pumpkin, sending bits of brain and skull everywhere.  But there was some big vile white slug thing living inside like the worm in the apple and it dropped down onto Dusty’s tummy and starting trying to dig its way in.

Dusty really started screaming then, and I grabbed the slug thing and pulled it off her.  Then Prince Nobunga yelled at me to put down his wife (and if he was happy to be married to that slug thing, he sure had strange taste in women) and then took a swing at me with his short sword.  But I blocked it with the slug thing, and the sword sliced right on through, cutting it into halves that gave a last wriggle before settling down dead.  And when that happened, he fell to the ground himself, unmoving.

Well, I didn’t want him getting up again, so I grabbed up a sword and chopped his head clean off.  About then Hank and Prometheus burst into the room.  They freed Dusty and helped her on with the princess’s kimono.  And then we found the old Emperor’s body lying on a bed in the corner, all chopped up something fierce, so I suppose Nobunga was emperor when I killed him and it was me and not Dusty that was meant to kill an emperor after all.

I felt sad for the old emperor, seeing as he was such a nice old gentleman.  But there weren’t no time for grieving, so Hank and Prometheus led us back the way they came down a short staircase.  I put one arm each around Dusty and Michi and helped them as best I could, seeing how shocky they both looked.  Truth to tell, I wasn’t feeling much better myself, but I reckoned I had to keep it together till I could get them to safety.

As we was going down the stairs, Hank told how the menfolk was all in their room when a secret door opened and the Daughter of Heaven’s servant showed up and asked for help.  They went off and fought some samurai and found the Daughter of Heaven all cut up on a bed and Geoffry was there tending to her now.  I started forward a little quicker at that, though Dusty and Lady Michi weren’t able to go but so fast.  I wanted to see Geoffry so, and when we got to the room where he was I just threw myself in his arms and started to bawl.  Then Hank led us back down a secret entrance and got on the radio.

We’re all in some secret passage now while Hank is figuring what we should do next.  He talked with Captain Olo and they got a plan to fly us right out of here.  That sounds good to me, but now he’s talking with Lord Toda and it sounds like we gotta go back into the palace for some fool reason.  That’s gotta be crazy: they don’t know how horrible it was back there and now there’s shooting and a whole civil war going on and they want us to run back into it and I’m already cut and I don’t want to fight no more!

I don’t know what I’ll do.  Even Dusty is scared and Dusty never gets scared and Michi looks like she’s about to faint.  And Geoffry keeps telling me that it’s gonna be all right and to just take a deep breath but I keep breathing and it ain’t all right cause I’m all covered with blood and I don’t like being covered with blood especially when a lot of it’s mine like it is now.  Oh diary, I just want to go home – I don’t want to be an adventurer no more and I don’t want to be an ambassador or a knight of Isis or anything but my Geoffry’s wife, and I never ever wanted to be caught up in the middle of a war in some strange place where they don’t even speak my language anyway.  But that’s where I am now.  And I don’t know how we’re gonna get out, but Hank is calling and I got to go now.

Dear Diary,

It’s the next day now, and things is getting worse.  They won’t let us out of our room, and that means that we’re separated from the menfolk.  If we didn’t have our radios we wouldn’t know what was going on with them at all.  They’re only around the corridor, but the guards (all silver men now, not Lord Toda’s fellers) won’t let us out to go see them or nothing.

Course, I can’t talk to Geoffry at all.  A radio is all well and good for most people, but if all you can do is hand-talk it ain’t no use at all.  I sure wish he was here – things feel safer when he’s around.

We’re hearing all sorts of strange rumors of big things going on in the palace.  They say Lord Toda killed a couple of Prince Nobunga’s men and fighting is spreading all over the place.  But the guards don’t know nothing and all we can do is wait.

We’re gonna set a watch tonight, though I don’t know what we can do if things go bad.  But I sure hope things get right soon.