Vincent Seifert wrote:

A Paradise Built for Two

an El-Hazard fanfiction by Vince Seifert (seifertv@csus.edu)

El-Hazard characters and situations are copyright 1995, 2001 by
AIC / Pioneer LDC, Inc.  This work is not intended to infringe
those rights.

This story follows "Caryatid", but is not dependent on it:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/other.htm#caryatid

I didn't have to wait long. :)

     Makoto looked for himself; that certainly appeared to be the
case.  The swimmers and sunbathers swam and sunbathed; the food-
stand owners called out their wares; an octopus pot hopped along
farther up the beach, pursued hotly by an angry girl and luke-
warmly by a panda; but no one was near them, and no one was
looking in their direction.  "I guess not, but still...."

Heh. I see you couldn't resist the Ranma cameo. :)

     Makoto vanished.  An instant later, so did Ifurita, the
beachgoers, the beach, the sea, the sun, and the sky.

Ah, I knew it was too good to be true.

     The face was leaking.  The water fell on his own face.  It
felt good.  Then the stench smote his nostrils.  "Urgh."

Suggest: 'The water fell on his cheek.' to avoid repetition of 'face'.

     "What the HELL is the MATTER with you?  You're laying in
your own filth!"  The face receded slightly, and the bed shifted.
"Open the window," Nanami's voice commanded someone else.  "Let's
get some fresh air in here."

Suggest: 'You're lying in your own filth.'

     Nanami stared in horror at Makoto's sunken features and
wasted body.  There was food and drink nearby, apparently
untouched, and that was certainly consistent with Makoto's
condition.  "How could this happen?" she muttered.  She glanced
at Rune Venus, slumped in the arms of a couple of her handmaidens
by the door; there wasn't a whole lot of point in chastising the
ruling princess until she recovered from her faint, and maybe not
even then.  Her attention was diverted by the other figure on the
bed.

Chastising Princess Rune? Sounds kinda ecchi. :)

Seriously though, what has she actually done to deserve that? It's not
her fault, nor her place to see that Makoto is well taken care of; she's

a ruler of a kingdom after all.

     "He's DYING!"

Over-reacting a bit, isn't she?

     "I will see to it that he doesn't go this long without
maintenance again," Ifurita assured her.  "You should understand
that I don't want him to die either.  If I'd realized he was this
fragile, I'd have warned him.  I thought he knew his own
limitations."

Ah, the fateful words of addicts (and their unfortunate dependents).

     Nanami gritted her teeth.  "You're missing the point!  While
he's with you in this dream world, he's not doing anything real!
He's not bettering himself, he's not seeing his friends--"

I have a serious point to raise. When Makoto crafted the false worldfor
Ifurita, he did it while she was falling into the center of the Eye of
God (if I remember correctly). In other words, he did it more or less
in instants. So this mental holidaying might not actually require
1-for-1
time intervals with the real world.

I considered this for my scenefic, then discarded it as irrelevant for
such a short piece. However, since you're telling a longer story, it
might be something you want to point out, refute, or modify. Perhaps
Makoto learns how to speed things up as a solution: "Dream
Holidays - Experience a lifetime in only one day for 7500 yen!"

      Rune Venus stopped and turned, looking very serious.
"Nanami, it's not a question of letting her.  No power I command
can prevent her, not even the Eye of God.  I really don't see why
you can't grasp that."

Hmm, I'd say Rune Venus is being less than forthcoming about theEye of
God. After all, it survived the Holy Wars in much better
condition than Ifurita.

     "I can."  Nanami sighed and slumped.  "I just don't want
to."

     "Well, I don't think Ifurita is lying; this really was
Makoto's wish, and may continue to be, whatever we think of it.
We can only imagine what it's like... perhaps, if we were offered
the chance, we'd lose ourselves in a dream world too."

Nanami: That's it! That's the solution. We'll get Makoto so busyoffering
dream lives to other people that he won't have time to
escape himself! Just think of the amount of money we'd make.

     "Lousy."  His hand lifted from the water and reached out.
"I want to go back...."

Boy, is he ever addicted.

Suggest: '... reached out to her.'

     Ifurita sighed.  "All right, but just for a little while."
Her hand met his, their fingers interlacing.  Just before the
link took her, she fixed her mind on her ultimate goal.  "You
will live on within me," she whispered.

So she's storing up false memories of him to replay when he'sgone?
That's kinda... twisted. I like it. :)

     "It's not far from here, actually, but it no longer exists.
It was destroyed in the wars.  Fortunately, I got to see it
first...."

Ifurita: Actually, I was the one who destroyed it, but let's notgo
there.

     ~~~~~ end A Paradise Built for Two ~~~~~

Good story; much better and more involving than mine. :)

While I mentioned a piece from Makoto's viewpoint earlier as
possible closure, I'm no longer as certain that it would be as
captivating or interesting as these pieces from other viewpoints.

Looking forward to more.
Phil.


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