Halt," said the elegant diplomat, "when you asked me to marry you, did you think we could just sneak off to a glade in the woods with a few close friends and get it done?" Halt hesitated. "Well, no...of course not." As a matter of fact, that was exactly what he had thought. A simple ceremony, a few friends, some food and drink and then he and Pauline would be a couple. But he felt that it might not be wise to admit that right now.

There are always risks in battle. It's a dangerous business. The trick is to take the right ones.' [said Halt]. 'How do you know which are the right ones?' Shigeru asked. Halt glanced at his two younger companions. They grinned and answered in chorus, 'You wait and see if you win.

He had lost control over his own body, he realized dully.

You know, one of these days, I'm acctually going to take offense if people keep throwing out these slurs. And then things are going to get rather ugly. When we Skandians do take offense, we do it with a battleax.

Come closer, Kurokuma. It's quite safe.' Horace shuffled closer to the edge... 'Quite safe, my foot,' he muttered to himself. 'And what's this Kurokuma you keep calling me?' 'It's a term of great respect,' Shigeru told him. 'Great respect,' Shukin echoed.

What was that, Kurokuma?' asked one of the escorts riding near him. The others chuckled at the name. 'Nothing important,' Horace said. Then he looked at them suspiciously. 'What's this Kurokuma business?' The Senshi looked at him with a completely staight face. 'It's a term of great respect,' he said. Several others within earshot nodded confirmation. They too managed to remain straight-faced. It was a skill the Nihon-Jan had perfected. 'Great respect,' one of them echoed.

It was not polite for a Temujai general to allow his emotions to show.