So here it was: Ilysa had finally managed to leave the caravan behind and now
stood within the halls of the Temple of the Burning One, more commonly called
the Temple of Fire by the peasants and common folks of Sankria who held both it
and its counterpart in awe. And, to her complete lack of surprise, she found it
to be much the same as life outside the Temple.

"Keep your eyes to yourself, will you?" she said angrily.

The red-robed young man's gold-brown eyes blinked. His chiseled face registered
a moment of shock before smiling. "I apologize, my lady." He *sounded* sincere,
at least. "On my word, though, not an ill thought crossed my mind. I was looking
as... as a poet might, I suppose. Like one looks at a sunset, enthralled." He
paused, and Ilysa almost thought he was afraid to go on. "You are quite
beautiful," he said, a bit quickly, and his eyes suddenly dropped to Ilysa's
knees, as if there was something quite remarkable about them.

"And who are you, that your word should be worth anything to me?" she retorted
hotly. She didn't know if the blood rushing to her cheeks was of anger or not.
She had never had time for romance. To tell the truth, she had suspected the
whole concept some invention of optimistic minds, or perhaps a trait inherent in
only a destined few. No, she knew lust, and this didn't seem it.

He smiled. "If it's fine with you, my name's Averny."

There was a long stretch of silence. A cluster of red-clad initiates swept past
them, chatting among themselves.

"The prince?" Ilysa felt suddenly poor, ignorant, and thoroughly common.

He chuckled. "Strange quirk of fate, that," he said lightly. "I guess that's
what happens when your father happens to be king."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Gates of Time

An Improfanfic begun by Lady Brick

This chapter by Stuart Lem

Chapter 5 -- "Time Enough for Death"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How many times could Ilysa fall for a prince? Yumina thought angrily. The fall
of a nation loomed before them, the lives of thousands would be forfeit because
of the two Temples' grab for power, and darker consequences than any could guess
hung behind everything, manipulated by Beliel... and Ilysa and Averny flirted.

"Exactly what I'd do," Yumina muttered sarcastically.

She considered the situation before her again. The Temples of Fire and Light
would be plotting and maneuvering at this very moment, hoping to seize power
through their respective prince. Meanwhile, Daric and Averny would lead happily
naive lives, believing nothing would or could go wrong. Ilysa would quickly
plummet into a deep love for Averny, loyal to the point of death. The king
would, at the worse possible moment, die of poison--Yumina guessed that that was
Beliel's work, and her guesses surpassed most human "facts."

Then there would be, inevitably it seemed, war, death, and chaos. In that order.
And, given the slightest chance, the Master of Shadows would rule.

Yumina, obviously, could not allow this to happen.

All this crossed her calculating mind in a matter of seconds, and Ilysa still
stood there as Averny tried to convince her that it was not necessary for her to
call him "His Majesty." Idly, Yumina gazed into Ilysa's mind.

Yumina could not directly read thoughts; the mind was much too complex for that.
To her eyes, the mind appeared as some ever-evolving, ever-branching organism,
like an alien tree, so vast that Yumina sometimes called it a World-Tree. She
supposed it was a better name than most: humans were notorious for believing the
world was only as big as they comprehended it to be, only as complex as they
fathomed. In some sense, a human's mind was the limit of his world.

Every mind appeared unique to Yumina's eyes, twisted and towering as only the
times and trials of each person could render it. Ilysa's was slender still, and
though its bark sparkled with a continually shifting myriad of colors, as hers
always had in any timeline, they seemed darker, as if grays and browns had
tainted the brightness.

Level after level of stretching branches thrust out from the main trunk. Some
were long and thin and had hundreds of twiggy fingers. Some were dead or dying,
decidedly black and rotten, while others grew nearly as thick as the trunk
itself. Thousands of crystalline leaves, with fewer similarities to real
leaves than the World-Tree had to real trees, sparkled in some omnipresent
light like great snowflakes of ice. Worries, dreams, memories, plans, emotions--
they were all there somewhere.

Yumina could discern much of it if she spent the time, but she had studied Ilysa
intently before, and none of the base personality seemed changed. Of notice were
only the thick luminescent limb of scarlet and the feverish quivering of
numerous leaves and branches. The first was Ilysa's grudge against the Temple of
Light; the second, the shuddering of infatuation or love or whatever she reacted
to Averny with.

None of it aided Yumina with the problem at hand, though; as it was, the battle
would still come, and, if past experience had taught her anything, Daric,
Averny, and Ilysa would all manage to get themselves killed.

Unless....

Unless only one prince lived when the king died. The conflict between the
Temples could be easily defused if only one prince lived when the king died. It
would be tricky; blame for the death must not rest with either Temple, or war
would still break out.

It would have to be Daric. Ilysa would protect Averny with her life against any
unforeseeable occurrences.

Yes, Yumina decided. Given the situation, it was a good plan. She examined it
carefully, poking and prodding it, but it seemed solid, as far as she could test
it. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best she could produce, and no plans were
perfect. She flitted away through Space, leaving Ilysa and Averny to flirt to
their hearts' desire.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was night. There was no moon, and the trees loomed like thick pillars of
night about the circle of the caravan. Stars shone softly in the sky, however,
above the clearing, twinkling silently.

On the lumpy ground beneath those stars, Joy slept fitfully. She was a delicate
girl of sixteen years, ethereally thin with large gray eyes. Everyone in the
caravan knew her, and they couldn't help but love her and pity her. She, like
all the rest, was a wanderer, homeless and nearly penniless. Her father had been
executed before her eyes when she was only eight, and her mother and her had
barely supported themselves after that. Her father had never been bad, she
believed, not truly bad. Rough, but no worse than many.

Joy opened her eyes suddenly from some unremembered dream and saw the stars. It
had concerned her father somehow; the dreams always did. It had been so
senseless, so random, and it was the randomness that haunted her almost as much
as his death.

He had been drinking that night, but he always visited the tavern on the
weekends and got drunk. She hadn't liked that about him, but it had never made
him bad in her eyes. But that night was different. He had made some lewd comment
about the queen--he had seen her in his youth, when she was still alive, and
told everyone (except his wife) that she was the most beautiful woman he had
ever seen. He would also add, with a wink, that that was saying a great 
deal.

But that night, a guard from the Palace had been there and heard him. The
soldier had rebuked her father, but her father had decided to pick a fight with
him. This, Joy had realized, was another of her father's faults: pride.

Then, finally, somehow, for the stories varied greatly, the fight ended, and the
soldier had laid dead.

The soldier had turned out to be a close companion of the king's. Joy's father
had been executed a week later. The execution had been regarded as an example
and a warning to all of "the king's justice."

It seemed to Joy that a demonstration of the king's mercy would have been more
apt.

Joy quickly scolded herself for the thought. She should be nice. Nice and good.
That's what she wanted to be. Everyone saw her like that, as precious, delicate,
and innocent as a newborn baby. She hated the dark thoughts that night brought,
the thoughts that whispered insidiously in her mind, remnants of the long-buried
hate she couldn't release, that, somewhere deep within her, she didn't want to
let go of. Her feelings for her father were too intertwined with it. She was
scared to let go.

"Forgive me," she whispered feverishly to the stars above. She imagined they
were glimpses of the Shining One, shining through pinpricks in the sky. "Forgive
me, forgive me. But why? Why daddy?" Her body shook silently with tears, like a
leaf quivering in a breeze. She blinked through tears at the stars for a long
time, then closed her eyes.

Eventually, dreams overtook her again.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yumina stood over Joy, waiting for her to fall asleep. She could have let Time
flow past more rapidly, but she didn't. She waited.

Joy's gray eyes had been sad when she had looked up at the stars, but it had
been a sadness apart from the tears. It was as if they held a permanently tragic
aspect which neither smile nor laughter could ever completely erase. Even Yumina
thought her delicate; it seemed that humanity, though ever diverse, molded
itself from certain basic patterns, similar body frames and structural aspects,
combined with an unidentifiable essence, but there were very few like Joy. There
had been, were, and would be others like Joy, certainly, but they were a rarity
in History, as if they were presents of sublime beauty, like wildflowers so
fragile they cannot survive in the harsh, wild world, yet a few still bloom,
regardless.

And those same gray eyes sought the stars for peace, even as Yumina's blue ones
did....

Joy would work perfectly, Yumina decided, pushing away some vague feeling which
had no bearing in her plan. Joy had magical talent, untested as of yet. Her
caravan was very near to the Temple of the Shining One. And, most importantly,
she held a hatred for the royal family, but not a rage. Yumina needed the hatred
in order to influence Joy, but rage would be easy to detect if Beliel was
watching the Temple for any reason.

Yumina would influence that hatred. To influence a person counter to their
nature caused mental problems for the person, as well as unpredictable
consequences in Time. Any intrusion at all by the supernatural into the natural
cause and effect of the human's world sent new ripples of cause and effect
previously unknown into the world, but Yumina could use subtle maneuvers--the
heightening of emotions or memories, or the influencing a decision that could go
either way, for example--and the subsequent ripples affected only the person.
After that, the new ripples melded into the person's own line of cause and
effect, and was assimilated.

Yumina could not, however, kill Daric herself. Well, she *could*, but the
results could be disastrous, and, in any case, it was not her way to interfere,
directly even now, with so much at stake. It was not *her* world to exploit as
she pleased. She was but a caretaker.

But then Joy fell asleep, and Yumina whispered to her, to the fragile limbs of
her mind. Dreams arose and began to dance like rainbow fireflies about Joy's
World-Tree, illuminating its intertwining structure, like a cobweb of glass. At
times, the dreams illuminated patches of dark growth, the blight of hatred Joy
feared to release.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mom," Joy said quietly.

The caravan was packing up in the early morning grayness. Joy owned only two
tattered dresses of soiled blue and a sheet she covered herself with at night.
Her mother had little more, except that she also carried an old bow that had
once been Joy's father's. Her mother had become very good at shooting their
dinner, out of necessity.

"Yes, Joy?" she said, a bit concerned. Joy talked little enough, even to her.

"I... I had a strange dream last night. More than a dream." Joy's voice came
cautiously, full of some mysterious meaning. "I saw myself at the Temple of
Light, and I created big displays of bright lights, and I felt... happy." Her
lips curled in a small half-smile, but her eyes remained untouched. "Never mind.
It's silly."

Her mother grasped Joy's bony shoulders suddenly. "Joy, look at me." Joy raised
her gray eyes. "I had the same dream. You were surrounded by light, and stars
sparkled in your eyes, and in your hair." She ran a finger through Joy's long
chestnut hair.

Joy nodded.

Her mother looked at her for a long time. Joy wished she wouldn't. It made her
feel like everything depended upon her--she was her mother's greatest
possession. "What do you think, Joy?"

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"You want to go, though?" Joy couldn't read her mother's voice. It was
breathless. Maybe she was excited. Maybe she was scared, too.

Joy nodded again, slowly.

Her mother's hands lifted from her shoulders. She looked at Joy solemnly. "I'll
let the others know we're leaving."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yumina watched Joy and her mother leave, then drifted away to that place outside
the world where she could study Sankria. The tapestry lay before her, immense,
its minute threads intertwined in level after level of unfathomable complexity.
As she considered it, a thought that had occurred to her before came: she
wondered if she could look closely enough, perhaps, that the threads might not
be threads, but something else instead, utterly complex. Something like the
World-Trees.

But that did not matter now. What did matter was the subtle movements among the
tapestry--some were initiates of Darkness, puppets of Beliel. She zoned in on
the Palace and felt a sharp air of dark anticipation among the mundane worries
and joys of the Palace.

Yumina flitted through Space to the king's chamber. She gazed into the king's
mind and saw a corrosive blight, orange and pussy, clinging to him. Poison,
time-delayed to distance the culprits from the crime. Beliel had pushed his old
plan forward. The king would die tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.

Yumina would have to accelerate her plans accordingly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joy and her mother stood facing one another on the top step of the Temple of
Light. A vast marble building rose behind her, and thick white pillars framed
her on either side. She had passed what the students lovingly called the MAGE
(Magical Aptitude Gauging Exam). A woman had tested her, though the High Priest
usually did so, or so Joy had been told. She had given Joy words to a simple
spell--the conjuring of a luminous orb--and had paced around Joy as she had
tried nervously to recite the words. She had done it, eventually, on her seventh
try, and a marble-sized orb of light had appeared before her. It had shimmered
and shaken like her pale body under the woman's scrutinizing stare before it
vanished seconds later.

She was weak, but she had been accepted.

Her mother's eyes were pools of water, her face contorted oddly to keep from
crying. Joy couldn't meet that face, those eyes. Just yesterday morning they had
left the caravan, and this afternoon she would become an initiate of the Shining
One. She was excited and very scared, and in her mother's face she saw her own
fears and anticipation laid bared.

"...and don't let anyone harass or hurt you," her mother was saying. "They might
never know, but you're better than they are. If they knew you, they'd know. If
anyone hurts you, or tries to, come back, Joy. Don't let them hurt you or treat
you wrong. I'll be waiting for you, Joy, so if they do...." Her voice failed
her, and she pursed her trembling lips, struggling to control herself.

"I know, Mom," Joy said quietly. She wished her mother wouldn't cry, at least
not so she could see her. "I'll come back and help you all when I'm done. And
you can come to visit."

Her mother threw her arms around Joy. "I'm so proud of you," she whispered
fiercely into her ear. Joy clung to her. Her slender frame shuddered--it was
almost more than she could bear.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yumina idly watched Joy part with her mother, but her mind was elsewhere. The
king was on his deathbed. He would be dead by this evening, and Yumina, with all
her powers, could not heal the sick or raise the dead. Messengers would be sent
out tonight, bearing the news to the princes. They would arrive by morning.

It had to happen tonight, before either Temple could make a move.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That evening, Joy looked over the crowded dining room, a bowl of soup in her
hands. A white robe too large for her hung on her shoulders, and a white sash
rounded her slender waist. She stood uncertainly, not sure where she should sit.
She knew no one.

"Hey!" Joy's head turned reflexively toward the voice. A young man with
brilliant blue eyes was looking at her from a nearby table, motioning with his
hands. "You can sit with us if you're not looking for anyone in particular."

Joy nodded, walked over to the table, and sat down. "Thank you very much," she
said quietly. She didn't look at the young man. She concentrated on blowing on
her soup to cool it.

"You're new, right?" the man asked. She nodded to her soup. "What's your name?"

"Joy." She took a spoonful of soup--it was better than anything she had had for
awhile.

"That's a unique name. I like it. My name's Daric. Well, Daric the Warmonger if
Phair had his way." The people nearby laughed.

"What he really wants to be called is 'Your Majesty,'" another said, teasingly.
He jumped to his feet and kneeled at foot of Daric's chair. "Can I clean your
shoes, Your Majesty, please? I'll use my tongue, really, I will." Daric gave him
a stern look, and the other burst into laughter and rolled onto the floor.

"You'll have to excuse him," Daric said apologetically, giving his rolling
companion a sidelong glance. "Seriously, being prince sometimes just isn't worth
it," he added, smiling.

If he had expected the clever remark to calm the girl, it failed him miserably.
Joy bolted upright to her feet, and stood very till. "Are...you...you the
prince?" she asked, her voice trembling.

The table grew quiet, and Daric looked up and her, concerned. "Don't worry. You
don't have to be scared. I'm not go to order you to do anything. I'm just a
regular person, really. We're all equal here." His hand touched her arm gently,
and she flinched, jerking her arm away.

Without another word, she walked away, her arms stiff at her side.

"You left your soup!" Daric called after her, unable to think of anything more
comforting to say. She kept on walking. "See what you did!" he said to his
companion, who stood on his knees, watching Joy leave.

"Well, she just doesn't know how to take a joke," he said in his defense.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, Yumina stood over Joy as she slept on her cot. The king was dead.
That Joy had met Daric was not of Yumina's doing for she had been away,
concerned with other matters. It wasn't Beliel's either, she was sure; Beliel
rarely manipulated those without power of some kind unless it was for his own
personal pleasure. The meeting had been the work of a force even Yumina couldn't
control or predict: Chance. But it could very well work to her advantage.

Yumina had already prepared one other thing, and now all seemed ready. She
viewed Joy's mind and found the slender limbs clothed in thick fog, smothered by
doubt, so many doubts. Where there was doubt, there was the possibility of
decision, and Yumina planned on influencing that doubt.

She whispered gently to Joy's World-Tree, and dark dreams materialized from the
mist. They shot through the mist and around the tree, illuminating limbs
sporadically with their dark glow, flickering in and out of the maze of
branches. The dark blight seemed to hum in resonance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joy woke suddenly, sweating. She blinked furiously, trying to make out the sky
above her, hoping to catch the glimpse of the stars. Where were the stars?

No, she was in the Temple of the Shining One, and there was no sky above her,
only an unfamiliar ceiling. She wanted the stars, but her room had no windows.
It was dark except for the faint light that slipped through the cracks around
her door.

She got out of bed, but she didn't know if she was allowed out of her room at
night. Maybe she wasn't supposed to be out. She was only a first year, brand-
new. Maybe she didn't have privileges.

She stood for a long time considering, hugging herself. In the darkness, she
couldn't distance herself from her dream, her nightmare. It had been the same
one as before, her at the Temple with the lights all around, and she was happy,
but a body had laid before her, dead. It had been Daric, Prince Daric, and it
had seemed good; vague, shadow-like relics of happiness, of joy, clung to her
still.

"I don't like the dark thoughts. I don't want to think them. I want light and
stars and mom," she whimpered to herself. She squeezed herself tighter.

She needed the stars, and she would find them.

She had on only a thin, gossamer white nightgown that the Temple had supplied
for her. They were making more dresses her size. Joy just pulled the sheet off
her cot and pulled it around her like a cloak.

She opened the door slowly, and it creaked so loud and long that it seemed like
a sustained groan. The hallway glimmered eerily with shimmering orbs of light
hanging over the torch sconces. She wasn't sure of the way. There were open
courtyards somewhere--she had seen them when she had been shown around--but the
place was big. She didn't remember where they were exactly.

She thought there was one on the far end of the dining hall, so she turned left.
The hallway was empty and silent as night in the open never was. Joy thought she
might be the only person alive. Her bare feet stepped noiselessly across the
cold floor. The gentle trailing of her sheet was the only sound.

She turned into the dining room. Rows of empty wood tables sat guarded by rows
of empty chairs, both waiting. They seemed cold and hard in the unnatural light.
Something shone dully on one of the tables.

Joy walked over to see what it was. It was a knife, used for cutting meat, she
guessed. She wondered if she should return it to the kitchen.... Maybe when she
came back.

She crossed the dining hall and silently looked into the hallway beyond. At one
end, close by, soldiers stood, talking quietly. The door behind them was shut
and barred. She jerked her head back into the dining hall.

"I shouldn't have left my room, I shouldn't have," she whispered between gasps
of air. The sight of soldiers had frightened her. She seemed to remember people
talking about the Temple of Fire attacking here before.

She returned to the knife. There wasn't any harm in returning it, was there? She
picked it up. It felt heavy in her tiny hand. She walked over to the kitchen
door. It wouldn't open. It was locked. She'd just leave it where she'd found it
then.

She turned around and froze, gasping for breath again. The table where she had
found the knife...she had sat there...next to the prince. The same table.

The dream flashed through her mind again.

Joy stood motionless. "No, no...," she whispered.

She saw again, as if before her, her father's head on the executioner's block,
his still-living eyes locked on hers. It had been his idea to name her Joy. She
had turned away at the last moment--she couldn't watch the last moment, it was
too much....

Joy shook her head furiously, whimpering.

"Don't let anyone hurt you, Joy," she heard her mother say. "Don't let them."

Joy never knew how she found the way. She remembered only the eerie lights, the
rustle of her sheet trailing behind her, the rasping of her shallow breaths, the
thumping of her heart against her chest, the growing wet spot at the sheet's
corner where she kept wiping her eyes. She remembered feeling as if she was
being drawn by some evil beckoning she couldn't resist, a beckoning that a tiny,
hidden place within her didn't want to resist.

Then the door stood before her, a wooden monolith waiting to open to some
unforeseeable future. She stared at it and time passed. Her free hand curled
into a tiny fist.

She knocked.

The knock seemed loud, like a horrible, crashing din, though it barely made any
sound at all. She knocked again, harder, louder. She looked to either side,
expecting guards. None came.

She waited, trembling slightly. She wiped her eyes again. The knife felt
slippery in her sweaty palm.

She couldn't muster the nerve to knock again. She couldn't bring herself to even
consider opening the door.

There was a movement inside. A groan.

"If that's you, Phair...."

Steps. Joy's breath quickened. Her chest hurt from the thumping of her heart.
The door opened. It didn't even creak.

Daric, eyes bleary and hair disheveled, blinked several times at Joy.
"What...?" He scrubbed his hair furiously. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry," she said as if the words were more precious than life. Her gray
eyes filled with tears.

Daric smiled sleepily. "Sensitive girl, huh? Really, it's fine. I've gotten all
kinds of responses to being prince, since the day I was b--"

Cold metal slid into his gut.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't going to be enough.

Yumina saw it instantly. Daric wasn't dying fast enough. He was looking stupidly
at his wound. Joy trembled violently. The knife dropped from her hand with a
clang.

Daric would be healed. He was in the middle of the Shining One's Temple, center
of defensive magic; of course he'd be healed. It would be worse for Sankria
than if he had never been attacked; tensions would be raised, blame placed on
the opposing Temple, perhaps with more vehemence than ever before.

"Again," Yumina whispered.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just wanted to be nice, nice and good, that's all. I'm
sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to. I didn't want to, I didn't, I'm sorry...." Joy
was crouched, curled into a ball. At Yumina's suggestion, her hand twitched,
then moved no more.

"Do it!" Yumina urged.

Joy's hand reached for the knife. It was pulled back violently, with a sob. "No,
no, no...I'm sorry! Why, oh why, why, why? I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry...."

Daric was recovering--he began to mutter words to some spell.

Yumina did something she had never done before: she imposed her will upon
another.

She bent the limbs of Joy's mind like a tempest wind, like some incredible
gravity, to the desired outcome. In agony, sobbing, shaking, Joy's hand found
the hilt of the knife. Her fingers squeezed around it, clutched it.

She straightened herself, stood, unfolding herself against her will.

Then she lunged.

A soul-rending scream issued from somewhere deep within her, a sound only one
such as her could make, one who despite her delicacy--perhaps the very cause of
her delicacy--experienced all of reality, every joy and pain, smile and sorrow,
head on, flinching, bending to the very point of breaking, but always head-on,
full force. The depth of emotions ignored and disguised by others lay naked
within her, and she felt every smile and every tear like a tremor of the 
earth.

It was a scream of utter terror, of one who realizes that her actions are no
longer her own, of complete helplessness, of one who gazes full upon the
darkness lurking within her and cannot stop it, of one who sees everything her
slender frame could hold slip from her command, against the very grain of her
being.

The knife slid between ribs into Daric's heart.

The limbs of Joy's mind bent...bent...broke, snapped, splintered into shards.
Long, black cracks streaked up the trunk.

Joy collapsed to the ground. She convulsed pitifully, sprawled upon her sheet.
Her nightgown and sheet were splattered with spots of blood. Slowly, very
slowly, she pulled her limbs toward her, pulling the sheet around her, like the
bud of a flower closing up.

To Yumina, she looked like a mangled marionette.

Some terrible emotion began to well up deep with Yumina. It was icy, dark. Doors
began to open along the hall. The Temple was awakening.

Yumina flitted outside. She needed to see the stars.

The plan. She concentrated on the plan. The plan had gone perfectly. Only a
letter left to plant in Joy's room, and there was time enough to do that yet.

Yumina sighed, the only evidence of the emotion lurking within her. She looked
up at the stars, but she didn't see them. She saw Joy's gray eyes. The breeze
seemed to softly echo her scream.

It was for the greater good of Sankria, she reminded herself. Joy was only one
human. It was for the greater good.

Those words hadn't always sounded so hollow.

THE END
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Author's $1.37, having adjusted 2 cents for inflation:

First and foremost, would like to thank Mechalink and Lady Brick for pre-
reading, Mechalink again for bugging me until I wrote for Impro, and Calculus
for allowing me to split my story in two (which it was begging to do).

Second, I would like to apologize wholeheartedly to Joy, where ever she may be.
It's a rough live being a fictional character.

Third, I wrote this story hoping to elucidate why and how Yumina does what she
does. Hopefully, I accomplished some of this and will be able to successfully do
more so in the next chapter.

Well, that's it. Please send any adulation, criticisms, tirades, fan mail, death
threats, or general helloes to stuartlem@hotmail.com.

Thank you!

Stuart Lem