FicWad

Disclaimer: Chrono Trigger and all its attendant goodies belong to Square-Enix. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Further information can be found in the header for Chapter One.

Thanks go out to Xyn at fanfiction.net for catching my typos. Spellcheck and I will be having a long talk.



"You've done so much for us already," Nadia said for what Lucca believed was the third time. "You really didn't have to feed us breakfast, too." Her protest might have been more effective if she hadn't been buttering her third muffin.

Dettle shook his head. "It's our pleasure. Sometimes I think we get more visitors through the closet than through the front door."

Lucca doubted that, considering that she and Nadia made for a grand total of five, but there was no sense hashing out the hyperbole when the wonderful world of bacon was beckoning. Now that she was clean, fed, and properly rested for the first time in days, Lucca could almost forget everything that had led her to this point. She had never traveled through time (which was impossible, of course), and all she was doing now was taking a much-needed break from her work to enjoy breakfast with three friends who just happened to be a runaway princess and two imps, and the burn on her scarf was from an accident with an oxyacetylene torch.

Then she caught herself trying to remember how Crono had liked his eggs, and her earlier musings turned her stomach.

Last night hadn't been any better. Although she had composed herself before Nadia came back, Lucca had later jolted awake from a series of nightmares and found herself so tangled in the sheets that she'd needed help getting loose. Nadia, naturally, had wanted to talk about it. All Lucca had wanted to do was lie awake until the phantoms faded from her brain, and even that hadn't worked; she was still plagued by images of a Robo who had a human skeleton and sprayed her with blood when she opened up his head.

Lucca didn't want the bacon after all.

"More coffee?" asked Greggan.

As she nodded, making something that she hoped qualified as an appreciative noise, Lucca let her gaze drift from the imps to the now-tidy closet. The math was obvious, and Greggan and Dettle already knew something about the mechanics of time travel, but somehow it seemed wrong to involve them. Whether this stemmed from a genuine desire not to destroy their happiness was something Lucca didn't want to consider too carefully.

The concern elbowed its way to the front of her brain regardless, and Lucca almost laughed as she realized, I'm afraid of Gaspar.

"Don't mind her," Nadia said, her kick starting Lucca out of her thoughts. "She's just tired. Things've been pretty rough lately."

"Hey, I'm waking up." Lucca guzzled a mouthful of coffee, nearly scalding her tongue in the process. "Ouch. Right. I just need to caffeinate myself a little more."

There were questions she should have been asking, specifically regarding the Ozzie line, but it was difficult to collect her thoughts with the specter of Gaspar looming over her. We took your life's work, and Belthasar's and Melchior's, and now I've shot it all to pieces. Did Gaspar have his Time Egg back now that it had never triggered anything, or did it exist in the same meta-timeline that Lucca wobbled along?

Questioning Dettle and Greggan suddenly seemed more much appealing.

"So," Lucca began, swirling her coffee to cool it, "does the name 'Ozzie' ring any bells for you guys?"

"Of course," said Dettle. "That's basic history."

"I meant Ozzie VIII." The imps looked blank, but Lucca persisted, "Big and purple? Probably scrubbing counters at the mayor's house?"

Greggen shook his head. "The Ozzie line ended more than two centuries ago. It's a famous cautionary tale in these parts."

Oops. Guess he hadn't spawned yet. Frowning, Lucca took a sip of her coffee and asked, "Does it bother you that I didn't know that?"

Greggen shrugged. "We've lived here quietly for almost three decades. We've had all the excitement we'd ever want, and we're quite content to keep our noses in our own business."

Dettle leaned over and stage-whispered, "Actually, we're terribly nosy. But we figured out yesterday that whatever you're up to is a lot more complicated than we want to know."

"Well, maybe you're nosy," said Greggen.

There was no longer any question of dragging the two of them to the End of Time, and Lucca was appalled by how much relief she felt. Why did the mere thought of going before Gaspar now make her blood pressure rise? While the disappointment on the Guru's face would sting, it couldn't possibly be worse than Lucca's disappointment in herself. Since when did she entertain such irrational fears?

Of course, there was always the possibility that Gaspar would have no idea what was happening in the timestream, or that he would be helpless to repair it. Maybe what Lucca couldn't handle facing was the potential death of hope. Or maybe I'm just too arrogant to admit that I'm failing.

Lucca had accidentally broken a vase in a shop in Porre when she was five (in all her realities, she was fairly certain), whereupon the owner had pointed to a sign that read, "You break it, you buy it." When she had protested that no one would ever want a broken vase, her father had replied, "Sweetie, that's the /point/."

Any connection the memory had to her present situation was tenuous at best. It was, however, the only lesson Lucca had ever received in personal responsibility that wasn't preceded by an explosion and followed by half a dozen caveats. Moral education in the Ashtear household was a tricky prospect in any timeline.

A pinch registered on her thigh as Nadia said, "It's a genius thing. Sometimes her eyes completely glaze over. Like jelly donuts."

"And on that appetizing note, we should probably get going." Lucca gulped the rest of her coffee, then said, "Thanks again, guys. I hope-" I don't ruin your lives, history doesn't iron out you of existence, killer robots don't pop out of your closet- "to see you again someday." Behold my tact.

After a final exchange of pleasantries, along with a warning regarding the closet and power surges, Lucca and Nadia were on their way west with a plastic baggie full of muffins as a parting gift.

They had just made it out of sight of Greggan and Dettle's house when Nadia said, "Okay, spill. Who's Melchior?"

"The guy who made the Masamune and your pendant. I'm pretty sure I told you that." Lucca paused as an idea sank in. "He's the Guru of Life, too, and an expert on Dreamstone."

Nadia nodded. "Sounds like we should pay him a visit."

"Way ahead of you. And he lives along the route home."

As they crested the hill overlooking Melchior's house, Nadia said, "Ooh, I just thought of something! Did you really have to kill that Ozzie?"

The troops had already scattered, and Sandorino had already gone on alert. Even if the cowardice gene had skipped that particular Ozzie generation, an impressive show of fireworks probably would have been enough to make him retreat. But Lucca hadn't been looking for non-violent alternatives.

"I may," she said slowly, "have been a little bit trigger-happy." If we can use the term to cover strutting around like the biggest badass ever to master Flare.

"Well, what if that's /it/?" Nadia bounced from foot to foot. "All we'd have to do is stop you from killing Ozzie! Then no one has to die at all and-"

Lucca waved a hand to cut her off. "Even if we manage to jury-rig a Red Gate, there's no way we're going to get more than one shot at fixing things. I don't know if I could risk everything on those odds." Hoping to forestall the inevitable argument, she added, "But it's not like we have a Gate now, so let's burn that bridge when we come to it."

"Don't you mean 'cross'?"

Instead of answering, Lucca took out her notebook, opened it to a page near the beginning of her narrative, and passed it to Nadia. "Here. Read this part and tell me what's missing."

Pursing her lips, Nadia skimmed the text. When she looked up, she said, "I'm not sure what you mean. There's not a big gap or anything."

"Then what color was Leene's hairpin?"

"Coral." At Lucca's annoyed look, Nadia shrugged and said, "Well, it's kind of an heirloom. I've worn it to some really boring ceremonies."

"Look, that's not the point. The point is that I didn't write it down, and now I can't remember." Before Nadia could point out that she knew now, Lucca went on, "Do you ever listen to those mystery series on the radio? The ones where the big clue that makes everything clear is just some little detail that most people don't notice?"

Nadia nodded. "I always guess the butler. It's right about half the time."

Despite herself, Lucca was intrigued. "What about the shows that don't have a butler?"

"Then I guess secret butler assassins."

"Your brain is a strange and terrifying place." Lucca paused to shake her head and get back on track. "Anyway, I feel like I'm in one of those shows. I'm afraid that I'm forgetting to record the important things because I won't even know what's important until the detective has everyone in the drawing room and starts pointing fingers."

Nadia frowned, then yelled, "Butler attack!" and pounced on Lucca. Both girls went tumbling down the hill in a noisy, grass-stained tangle before rolling to a stop at the base.

Once she'd gotten her breath back, Lucca straightened her glasses and said, "Sometimes I wish you weren't so aggressive about trying to cheer me up."

Nadia grinned, apparently aware of the twig collection she'd begun in her hair. "Oh, come on. You can't say that wasn't fun." As she helped Lucca to her feet, she added, "And I can help you remember. I'm good with stories."

"Maybe later, then." A convenient change of subject was at hand, and Lucca wasn't about to waste it. "That's Melchior's house over there, so you might want to get his backyard out of your ponytail."

As Nadia made herself a little more presentable, Lucca tried to work out whether this Melchior would have any reason to consider her a menace to society. Most of her time at this reality's Millennial Fair seemed to have been spent glowering at the people who refused to come near the Telepod, so the odds looked promising. And without Crono, she had never been inspired to build a robot battle trainer. So nothing running amuck. Good.

Hoping that a better opening line than "Hello, former Guru of Life, how are you with Belthasar's handwriting?" would come to her, Lucca rapped on the front door.

"Come in!" called a reassuringly familiar voice. Lucca led the way inside, where Melchior beamed at her over the sword he was polishing. "Ah, customers! Could I interest you young ladies in a weapon or two?"

Before Lucca could reply, Nadia blurted, "Hey, that's the creepy old man who tried to buy my pendant!"

Gee, and here I thought I'd be the awkward one.

Melchior peered at them over his glasses. "You both look rather familiar," he said, laying the sword on his table. "And that pendant is more familiar still."

Lucca nodded as she dug through her knapsack. "It should be. I didn't try to blow you up at the Fair, did I?"

"'Cause it wouldn't really have been her," Nadia added helpfully. "It would have been crazy other-Lucca. Do you have one of those big blue things?"

"Nah, I don't remember him having a Nu. He's more of a Dreamstone guy."

When Lucca looked up, notes in hand, Melchior was giving her a look that her memory connected to the time when she, Crono, and Marle had dropped both halves of the Masamune and a chunk of Dreamstone on his kitchen table. Questions were probably not forthcoming.

"So can we leave it at 'long story'?" Lucca asked.

Melchior nodded and sighed. "It's a strange world we live in, and I'm an old man. I'm afraid my curiosity isn't what it used to be."

"Gotcha. We need your help, though." Holding out the sheet that posed the question of who controlled time, Lucca said, "I need to know if you can make heads or tails of this. I promise it's important."

Melchior accepted the page and drew in a sharp breath. That was quick, Lucca thought, and she wondered if it was the handwriting or the content that pointed unambiguously to Belthasar. All things considered, handing Melchior the insane ramblings of his former friend and colleague probably hadn't been the best way to remind him of the life he had lost.

"I'm sorry," Lucca said, and she found that she meant it.

There was a long silence, during which Nadia cast worried looks from Lucca to Melchior. At last he said, "Just answer me this: Is he still somewhere in this world?"

When Lucca shook her head, Melchior sighed. The creases around his eyes seemed to deepen. "Then I suppose it doesn't matter. Let me see..." Once he had smoothed the paper against the table, Melchior squinted at it and began to trace his forefinger over the text.

Lucca tapped Nadia on the shoulder and angled her head at the stairway. Neither of them spoke until they were safely in the basement and unlikely to break Melchior's concentration.

"He must be so lonely," Nadia said, leaning back against the bookshelf.

Lucca shrugged. "He's thirteen thousand years away from home. I don't think 'lonely' really covers it."

"I don't just mean that he's in the wrong time. He lives so far away from everyone, and all he's got is-" she reached over her shoulder and selected a text at random- "Babbitt's Illustrated Index of Alloys. That's just depressing."

"He likes making weapons," Lucca pointed out. "That's probably what keeps him going."

Returning the book to its resting place, Nadia said, "Well, that's depressing, too. You said he was some kind of Guru of Life, right? Why would someone like that make weapons?"

"Well, the Guru of Reason went mad, and the Guru of Time lives outside of it." Lucca slouched against the worktable, which triggered a fuzzy memory of processing the Dreamstone. "If it makes you feel any better, one of Melchior's weapons was kind of alive."

"No, that just makes it creepier." Nadia's expression softened as she ran her thumb over her pendant. "But he made this too, huh?"

It was fortunate that Nadia was feeling more contemplative than chatty. Her posture rang too familiar, and Lucca was busy struggling to keep it from overwriting an image of Marle. The context of the memory was still clear enough (walking together from the Millennial Fair to Crono's house to fetch the clone, grateful that Ayla was around to keep the mood from bottoming out), but things fell apart when the group stopped in front of the green door and Marle's hand cupped the pendant that Crono had been keeping for her.

Marle was fast becoming a blur and a shadow in Lucca's mind, a doppelgänger of Nadia. Only a few patches stood out around the edges, little things like the songs Marle made out of access codes, the elaborate bows she tied with Crono's bandana, and the way her ponytail stuck straight up when she cast a spell. It wouldn't take long for Nadia to absorb even the most specific anecdotes into herself, and Lucca's histories would fold together like hot steel under a hammer.

"And then we all put colanders on our heads and had a tea party with the molemen," said Nadia. When Lucca blinked, she added, "Honestly, I think I need a shock collar for you."

Shaking her head, Lucca stepped away from the table. "Sorry. Things just keep setting me off, I guess." Before she could ask what Nadia had been talking about prior to the colanders, Melchior's voice summoned them upstairs.

Either I seriously zoned out, or he's seriously good with Belthasar's handwriting. Or, if her luck held, Melchior had been unable to make any sense of the document. Trying to keep her pessimism out of her expression, Lucca emerged from the stairwell.

Melchior's expression suggested that he was trying to keep his memories at bay until he could be alone with them. "I've done what I could," he said, sliding a page of tidy handwriting across the table. "The lines in archaic script were simple enough to translate, but some of the abbreviations are outside my comprehension. And I believe that the lower right-hand corner is taken up primarily by pictographs."

Lucca had a sudden vision of herself in an unfinished basement, chalking up the walls and floor in a private language of gibberish. No way. Not me. Forcing the image away, she said, "Thanks. This means a lot to us."

"An old man needs to feel useful. Perhaps I should be thanking you." Melchior smiled, but his voice grew wistful. "He was always such a brilliant engineer. Gaspar used to say that he knew the mind of the universe, but not the heart. Of course, Gaspar always preferred the cryptic."

Nadia glanced up from studying the translation. "Are you saying this isn't cryptic?"

Frowing, Lucca peered over her shoulder and glimpsed several mentions of "slipstreams" and "boundary layers," as well as repeat performances by "shells."

Melchior caught her expression. "Translation is one matter," he said, "and interpretation another. Shall I explain to the best of my understanding?"

"Absolutely," Lucca replied as she took a seat and pulled out her notebook. Nadia abandoned the paper and looked on expectantly.

Melchior set the original document in front of him and began, "Much of this is based off the research we did together, which makes it much easier for me to understand his connections. He seems to have concluded that time can only be traversed by going outside of it- basically, that a portal is not so much a tunnel through time as a path around it. Instead of trying to forge the river, one builds a bridge."

Lucca nodded. "So the energy isn't focused directly against the timestream."

"Correct. By assuming that different, timeless planes exist, one can create paths without hollowing out the space-time continuum. Observe." He tapped his finger against the top of the table, then waved his hand in the air before maneuvering it underneath the wood. "Convenient, yes? Otherwise, I'd have to drill a hole through a piece of furniture that I'm otherwise quite fond of."

Nadia perked up. "So all we have to do is get outside time, and we can go wherever we want?"

"Theoretically, yes," Melchior replied, "but the amount of energy required to transcend to and return from another plane would be enormous, to say nothing of the strength of will required to navigate it. It would be well beyond human capabilities."

Lucca twirled her pen and said, "But if you happened to be a super-powered alien parasite or a dying planet-"

"Theoretically, perhaps." Clearly Melchior didn't want to pursue that line of thought. "But what is within the grasp of humanity is the ability to exploit pre-existing tunnels. Belthasar sought to apply aerodynamic laws to the navigation of these paths, which, I believe, would explain most of the stranger references here."

A hastily sketched visual aid captured the gist of the idea, and a slight modification brought it into line with Lucca's experience. "I've got one for you," she said, closing her notebook and holding it parallel to the table. "Let's say I want to get through here. So I make a bridge, right?" Lucca tapped the top of the notebook with her free hand, then swooped around to tap it from the bottom. "Well, if this thing's moving, then my path would only work for an instant. Kind of a one-way ticket." She raised the notebook, leaving her free hand stranded. "But if this other plane is moving parallel to ours..."

Melchior nodded as her hand followed the notebook upward, darting easily from top to bottom along the way. "That's what Belthasar seems to have decided. Rather than serving as gateways between two specific events, these passages would allow one to traverse a given span of time."

And if some Gates didn't come out red, we could leave things there. Lucca steepled her fingers in front of her as she asked, "So how do we explain the portals that do connect specific events?"

"Butlers?" suggested Nadia. When Lucca and Melchior turned to stare at her, she gave them a sheepish grin. "I was feeling left out."

Melchior quirked an eyebrow at her before turning back to Lucca and saying, "I assume that you have evidence of such a thing, correct?" At her nod, he continued, "Then I won't waste time trying to disprove it. The best answer I can offer based on these notes is that Belthasar discusses 'planes' in the plural. If we posit the existence of a static plane..."

"Then we're still off in wild theory land, but at least we have a working model." Lucca scrawled a few more lines in her notebook before reaching for Melchior's page of translations. "I know I was going to ask about something else."

Nadia raised her hand. "The 'shells' thing. What's that about?"

"On that count, I am less certain." Melchior indicated the portion of the sheet that he had accused of being populated by pictographs. "They might refer to something needed to travel through the timeless planes, most likely some sort of psychological or spiritual protection. Something to amplify one's willpower to superhuman levels, perhaps."

Dreamstone. The thought had scarcely crossed Lucca's mind before she wrote it down, then surrounded it with pyramids for good measure. What was it Masa and Mune said? That they embody dreams? It was only the faintest shadow of an idea, but all she had to do now was experiment with light sources until the silhouette came clear.

Lucca's foot tapped erratically as she returned the papers and pen to her knapsack. "Thanks," she said, barely managing to conceal a grin of anticipated accomplishment. "You have no idea how much this helps."

"I'm almost afraid I do." Melchior lowered his glasses and gave her a hard look. "Be careful with Dreamstone."

"Will do." Lucca stood, waited until Nadia had offered her own thanks, and started for the door.

They were almost out when Nadia snapped her fingers. Sliding her empty quiver off her back, she dashed back to Melchior and asked, "So do you sell arrows?"



Lucca managed to reclaim her gun once Nadia grudgingly admitted that she had enough ammunition to last for a while, but there was no need to have bothered. The cave turned out to be populated solely by rodents, none of which did anything more threatening than squeak and dart away.

"Well, there used to be a monster in here," Lucca said as they came to the end. "Big. Blue. Very pointy."

Nadia grinned. "Kinda like that boulder, huh?"

"No, seriously, there was. I just can't remember its name."

"Rocky?" Before Lucca could protest, Nadia added, "Nah, I believe you. I'm pretty sure this place got cleared out a few years ago after something ate one of our ambassadors."

Lucca snorted as she swung her legs over edge of the whirlpool. "And you say international relations are boring." The water tugged at her boots like an eager puppy, and she had a fleeting fancy of her footwear being flung out ahead of her. My own little harbingers.

Giving the pool a skeptical look, Nadia asked, "Are you sure this works?"

"Yeah. I just don't remember what the trip's like." Before rationality could intrude, Lucca took a deep breath and slid down into the vortex.

One painful bout of disorientation later, she was coughing and sputtering on a wet patch of grass, trying to determine which direction all the gravity was coming from. Okay, so I probably didn't forget that so much as repress it.

A high-pitched noise announced that Nadia had followed. Still wheezing, Lucca sat up to watch the princess make a spectacular airborne arc before crash-landing several feet away. Loose quarrels rained down after her.

"Eight-point-five," Lucca said. "Clumsy dismount."

Nadia groaned, coughed up a mouthful of water, and rolled over onto her back. After a moment of staring dazedly at the sky, she broke into a grin and announced, "That was /fun/!"

"You worry me." Deciding that she had regained enough of her balance, Lucca stood and began gathering the scattered arrows. The squelching sounds at her feet alerted her to a more immediate problem, and she sat back down to remove her water-logged boots.

Nadia sat up and stretched her legs in front of her, clearing her throat as she pointed at her sandals.

"Enjoy it now," Lucca muttered. "Next stop's the Cursed Woods." Once she'd poured the seawater from her boots, she stood and tried to wring out her clothing. None of her efforts made her feel any less briny.

"At least the muffins are okay." Nadia retrieved a handful of quarrels and added, "You think we'll be dry by the time we get to Frog's place?"

They were still dripping when they trudged through Leene Square, where they ruined the mood of at least one romantic picnic, and they were still noticeably damp when they crossed Zenan Bridge, where the leader waved them through before Nadia could open her mouth. The unpleasant moistness of it all would have bothered Lucca much more if she hadn't been so intent on dredging up memories of Dreamstone.

As they reached the marshlands around the Cursed Woods, Nadia asked, "So are you depressed-quiet, tired-quiet, or crazy-scheming-quiet?"

"Got it in three." Lucca paused to swat a mosquito. "It's not really a scheme yet, though. I'll let you know when it's time to argue again." Before Nadia could take offense, she said, "But what matters now is getting Frog to leave his self-pity party."

Nadia clapsed her hands behind her back and looked thoughtful. "Are frogs ticklish?"

"Right. So I'll handle the talking."

When they reached the bushes that obscured the entrance to Frog's hovel, Lucca cupped her hands around her mouth and called down, "We're back!" The warning was for everyone's benefit; if Frog was sulking, he would have a chance to compose himself, and if he was on alert, he would be less likely to commit random acts of self-defense.

"After you," said Nadia. "Since you're talking."

Lucca descended the ladder slowly, trying not to let her expectations run too far in either direction. Her thoughts drifted instead to a foggier version of her childhood, to a day when Crono had inadvertently discovered her fear of frogs. "I don't get it," he had said, in a voice that Lucca could no longer imagine. "What's so scary about frogs, anyway?"

She hadn't told him, because she didn't know how to explain the terror of seeing something fat and green spring out of a mud puddle toward her face. Coming as it did right on the heels of her jack-in-the-box trauma, the incident had left Lucca a very skittish three-year-old.

But the truth had been too embarrassing for a twelve-year-old to admit, so she had told Crono that frogs carried leprosy and sucked blood like leeches. Their next science class had been interesting.

At least the jack-in-the-box thing went away after Dad helped me dismantle one. Maybe I should have done that frog dissection, after all.

Lucca threw the emergency brake on that train of thought as she reached the bottom of the ladder. As casually as she could, she turned and called, "Anybody home?"

Although it took her eyes a moment to adjust, Lucca noted that the gloom was nowhere near as pervasive as it had been on her last visit. Thick candles had been arranged so as to illuminate every corner of the room, and the dirt floor had been raked smooth. The flash of light on steel caught her eye, and Lucca followed it to find Frog standing tall at the head of his table, his sword drawn in salute.

He met her gaze steadily. "For Cyrus."

The proper response was probably to return the salute in somber heroic silence, but Lucca counted it an amazing display of restraint that she didn't squeal and snatch him up in a hug. Instead she grinned and said, "I've missed you."

"Oh, thank goodness!" Nadia darted forward in a white blur, stopping just short of tackling Frog. "We were so worried," she gushed, "and I'm so glad you're not crazy or trying to kill us or just moping in the corner like..." She trailed off as Lucca cleared her throat, then straightened and put on her most regal expression. "You're a true knight."

Frog bowed and said, "Waste not such precious words on me," but his tone evinced more etiquette than self-loathing. In the flickering light, his kneeling form looked almost human, and Nadia's disheveled hair and clothing appeared smooth. With a little calligraphy, they might have made an epilogue.

And that's why we leave it at "happily ever after." Not wanting to inject her cynicism into the moment, Lucca crept into the corner near Frog's bed. Exactly where he kept the Masamune's hilt was a lost memory, but she could make an educated guess.

The conversation resumed behind her.

"I had considered that thou wouldst not return."

"Yeah, sorry about that. We were a little held up." All the sovereignty had gone from Nadia's tone, but Lucca preferred it that way. The sound of crinkling plastic filled the air. "Muffin?"

As Frog politely declined, Lucca swept her arm under his bed until her fingers brushed against a wooden box. She drew it out carefully into the light to find that it was made of polished teak and showed no signs of neglect. So how often do you torture yourself with this thing? she wanted to ask, but the question was much too cruel to voice. Besides, Lucca heard a tiny voice in the back of her head whispering something about glass houses and stones.

The box opened silently on its well-oiled hinges, revealing contents that gleamed against a dark piece of velvet. Gently, almost reverently, Lucca wrapped the cloth around the Masamune's hilt before lifting it. The sudden lack of voices alerted her to the fact that Frog and Nadia had noticed what she was doing.

Frog's voice was dry. "Shall I assume that thou hast good reason to meddle with my possessions?"

"Don't get mad at her," said Nadia. "Lucca's got this thing where she's not good with people."

"Do /not/," Lucca returned before realizing that she wasn't helping her case. "Well, Nadia's got it too. We have the combined social skills of an adolescent chimp."

"Actually, I'd say we're more of an orangutan."

"On a mad quest for bananas."

"And true love."

"Of bananas."

Frog looked from one girl to the other before sighing in resignation. "'Tis of no consequence. What need hast thou of the Masamune's remains?"

Half the remains, you mean. "I have an idea," Lucca said, turning the hilt so that the jagged remains of the blade caught the candlelight. "Who's up for a trip to the Denadoro Mountains?"