Yasuko gently stroked Aerda's head. "Don't you worry about Colleen."

"But-"

"Things have, umm, changed. Here now, let me manicure your nails."

Aerda rested her hand on Yasuko's left forefinger, and Yasuko picked up her brush.

Kondo was talking with Yamas.h.i.ta when Yasuko arrived at his boarding house. "...The wings were all right without reinforcing them with an aluminium rod. And the embossing work is really good. When I dry brushed in the highlights it got a lot more interesting. Actually, I wanted to try some pearl powder, but I wasn't sure if the stuff I usually use would work on these polymers...Yasuko, you're late."

"Sorry."

"There's someone here to meet you-" Kondo opened up a cardboard box on the floor.

Galba sprang forth, and Yasuko gasped.

The three of them bent and studied the prince, their faces looming like round moons over him.

Galba glared up at them. Dressed in rough clothes befitting an adventurer, without apparent fear, he whipped out his sword and faced them down.

Yamas.h.i.ta said, "He's cool..."

"Isn't he, though?"

He wasn't quite as s.e.xy as in Yasuko's character sheet, but he'd been a.s.sembled and painted with Kondo's characteristic precision. Galba's skin was finished a manly bronze. He seemed a little grimy to Yasuko, but Kondo's use of highlights and shadow had brought out his three-dimensionality.

Yasuko noticed, for the first time, that the figure's hair and overall feel resembled Doi. Of course,given that she'd designed Galba, that wasn't really a surprise, she told herself wryly.

"Well, Galba," she said, "let me show you Aerda." And Yasuko gently lifted the village girl from the wicker basket she'd been cradling carefully. "Aerda, you can come out now."

Cautiously, Aerda climbed out of the basket, eyes wide.

"Whoa!" The two boys gasped, gratifyingly.

But Galba was staring, dumbstruck, at the beautiful girl. "Aerda...?"

On hearing the voice, Yasuko caught Kondo's eye.

He said, "Kaneo Shirasawa." Another actor.

Galba sheathed his sword, and slowly approached the village girl, striding across the worn and frizzled tatami rice matting on the floor.

"Galba...Galba, is it you?" The girl's voice was trembling. She stared at Galba, as if dazzled.

But then she looked down, and curtsied. "Congratulations, my lord. You have recovered your original form..."

It was a line from the scenario. Galba the dragon had belonged to Aerda. But now Galba was a prince once more, and in this scene Aerda had to behave formally to him, to convince herself of the gap that had opened between them.

"Thank you, Aerda," said Galba. "I owe everything to you."

"To me?"

The three students glanced at each other. This latescenario Galba figure would "remember" that it was Aerda who had restored him to his former self. But Aerda, programmed for the middle of the story line, still didn't know it herself. It was odd, thought Yasuko, watching these two people plucked out of time from different points of their destiny, trying to interact. And yet that destiny, it seemed, remained fixed, even so.

Or did it?

The prince held out his hands, and she timidly laid her tiny right hand on top of it. "Aerda. You're very beautiful. I hardly recognized you."

Kondo whispered, "Now that isn't in the scenario."

Aerda shook her head, embarra.s.sed.

Yamas.h.i.ta had produced a crumpled CD store paper bag. He dragged the princess out unceremoniously and plopped her on the tatami floor. The blue of her clothes was harsh, ridiculous.

Galba, seeing her, cried out, "Colleen!"

Yasuko watched, enthralled now.

How about it, Galba? Isn't Aerda lovely? Far lovelier than Princess Colleen-and she has a beautiful heart as well. You don't have to stick to the story. Tell her quickly. Tell Aerda you love her more than the princess.

But Galba ran to Colleen's side, and kissed the hem of her skirts.

Aerda's hand fell. Her brown, shimmering eyes were wide open.

Galba embraced his princess.

"Hot stuff," murmured Yamas.h.i.ta. He was actually blushing.

Aerda had grabbed hold of Yasuko's skirt. "Yasuko," she said. "Let's go home."

Yasuko couldn't help herself. "No! Why has it got to be this way? Look at her! Her eyes are different sizes. Her eyelashes are blotchy, her eyebrows are c.o.c.keyed. There's nothing pretty about her, not her body, not her clothes-"

The boys were watching Yasuko, stunned, mouths hanging open.

"But that doesn't matter," Aerda murmured. "Don't you know that, Yasuko? Galba loves her, and that's all. No matter how she looks, how ugly she is, his love won't change...Didn't I love Galba even when he was a dragon?"

Galba had eyes only for Colleen. Just as Doi only had eyes for Masami. No matter how much Yasuko prettied herself up, she could never be Masami. And no matter how lovely Aerda became, she would never be Colleen.

Aerda placed her hand on Yasuko's fingertip. "Don't cry," she said. Her little hand, so tiny it couldrest easily on her finger, was so very soft, so very smooth, and so cold it broke Yasuko's heart.

"I shouldn't have brought you here," Yasuko said.

Aerda was studying her. "I haven't lost, Yasuko. I know that Galba is Galba no matter what he looks like. I know that all those gentle things about him, those wonderful things about him, will never change.

And look at me! I'm proud of myself, Yasuko. But-"

"Yes?"

"Please give me back my freckles."

That night Aerda slept beside Yasuko's pillow. She used a washcloth for a coverlet. Yasuko could not hear the figure breathing through the night. But still she felt a profound peace, and was soon asleep.

"They found a bug in the NNP," said Kondo.

It was the evening of the next day.

"What kind of bug?"

Kondo fell silent. On the phone line Yasuko could hear a waitress's voice taking orders, and a background murmur of people. He said, "Come down to the coffee shop, as quick as you can. I've already called Yamas.h.i.ta."

"What kind of bug, Kondo?"

Kondo sighed. "When did you make Aerda?"

"...It was the 8th."

"Six days ago, huh? Then she's only got four more days."

"What?"

"It's the NNP. It dries up in ten days."

Yasuko turned around. The freckled girl had her back turned to her, and was intent on reciting a Chinese poem. When she turned a page she looked like a miniature sailor handling a great paper sail.

Kondo said, "Yasuko-"

Aerda smoothed down the new page, and smiled up at her Giant.

Apparently, Kondo said, His.h.i.tomo had considered going ahead with a full launch of the NNP figures-even if they only lasted ten days-because they thought kit fans had such short attention spans that a week or so would be enough for them. But somebody had pointed out that these otaku kids got extremely attached even to figures that didn't move. When "living" figures began to die, all over the country, it would be a public relations disaster. So His.h.i.tomo had decided to recall the trial figures they had sent to their prize winners.

Even Yamas.h.i.ta had a pained looked on his face. Yasuko was twisting and twisting the coffee shop's yellow napkin in her hands. Kondo glared.

"So what are they going to do with the figures?" Yasuko snapped. "Pulp them?"

"I don't think they'd do anything like that," said Kondo, but his eyes were oddly dead, Yasuko thought, like a fish's. "His.h.i.tomo say they're very sympathetic toward our feelings. Apparently they're already testing some kind of drug for extending the life of a.s.sembled figures. The sensitivity of the sensors on their skin will degrade, but-"

"And you believe them?"

"Come on, Yasuko," Yamas.h.i.ta said, concerned, embarra.s.sed.

"Yeah!" Kondo said. "I do believe them. And I'll tell you why. They want to keep the merchandising rights. So they do think this situation can be resolved, Yasuko-"

"But the figures-our figures-are going to die? Aren't they?"

Yamas.h.i.ta gulped down the cold dregs of his coffee. "Yasuko, we're all going to die someday. And it's not as if these are people-"

"You've seen them. You've seen the way they interact. How can you say that?"

Kondo cut her off. "This is getting us nowhere. I think we should return the figures to His.h.i.tomo.

Better to at least have some hope, to bet on the new medicine. Instead of having them die before oureyes." He glared at Yasuko, challenging her to disagree.

The white light of the street lamp poured through Yasuko's window, lighting up their two faces, small and large.

"Aerda?"

"What is it, Yasuko?"

"This Chinese poem. You were reading it the other day, weren't you?"

"Ka Zan Ki? I like that one. All about how he was thinking of the one he loved one night, and when the reed screen in the window moved, he thought maybe she'd come to him... Waiting by the window, just like us. Unrequited love is just so sad."

There was something moving in the air, beyond the window. Silver, rustling, like leaves.

Yasuko whispered, "But tonight's different."

Gliding in upon the light, its soft wings spread to their fullest, flew a dragon: the dragon that Kondo had thrown toward Yasuko's room from the back alley.

Aerda gasped. "Galba!"

It was a muscular, magnificent dragon, wings and scales aglitter. It came to light on the darkened window sill. When Aerda sprang to his side, the pattern that Yasuko had so carefully painted along the hem of her skirt twisted and turned. The dragon gently caressed the girl's head with a curled foreleg.

But Aerda stepped back. "It isn't Galba."

"It is, Aerda. It really is."

"Oh, Yasuko. Doesn't he have his princess now? Don't talk about silly dreams like that."

"I don't mean the Galba you met before. It's the Galba you loved, the Galba that loved only you. It's Galba the dragon." The dragon, of course, implanted with the appropriate chip..."He said he's decided to be with you forever."

"You're lying!"

"It's true. And you have to go with him, Aerda."

Aerda looked from one to the other, the girl's face, the exquisite dragon. Yasuko saw how her movements were a little stiff, restricted. Aerda was already growing old. "I won't go," she said.

"You don't understand-"

"What about you, Yasuko? It's as though I'm leaving part of myself behind."