Author's Note: This is a weird little piece I wrote the day after I first watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky (about eight months ago). I was kind of in a strange mood at the time, I think, and it sort of oozed over into the writing. I was also inspired by a scene in the chapter entitled "A Very Frosty Christmas" in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I only realized this in my third or fourth time reading it, but Rowling was actually drawing a parallel between the Minister's and Harry's conversation, and a garden gnome trying to pull a worm out of the ground. For example, at a part where the Minister is putting the pressure on Harry, the gnome pulls harder on the worm. I tried to do something similar with this, though naturally I didn't do it half as gracefully as Rowling did. Still, kudos to you if you identify/understand the parallel I'm trying to make ;) Anyway, this oneshot is set after the movie, and is sort of my idea of what would happen with Sheeta and Pazu. Enjoy (though I won't blame you if you think this is really weird)!

Sheeta sat on the roof, absent-mindedly casting breadcrumbs across the red tiles. White doves clustered about the crumbs, pecking to their hearts' delight. Sheeta, however, paid no attention to them, choosing to gaze out over the valley instead. It was a place of rugged beauty, the shadows long and wet in the morning sunlight and only a few tendrils of smoke rising up from the town nestled at the bottom of the valley. Smoke already billowed up from the chimney a few feet to her right – but then, it usually did anyway. One would expect no less from a house belonging to a blacksmith.

Sheeta's fingers scraped the bottom of the bowl in her lap, and she blinked, looking down to find it empty. She put the bowl on her head like a hat and lay back with her arms behind her head, watching the clouds and trying to find shapes in them. She saw a horse, which turned into a dragon, which molded imperceptibly into a mighty airship, which sunk into a mere mound of water vapor again.

Sheeta sighed.

"Sheeta! Breakfast!" called a voice from inside the house.

"Right!" she called back, sitting up again and pulling the bowl off her head. She took one last look at the cloud, then lowered herself through the trapdoor and down the ladder that led into the house.

The main room, the one they used for sleeping, eating, and just about everything else, was a complete mess – mainly because Sheeta hadn't felt like cleaning recently, and her only companion was much too busy in the forge all day to bother. He always insisted on cooking breakfast (as if he didn't spend enough time in front of a fire anyway, she always thought), for some reason Sheeta chose not to fathom.

"Been feeding the birds?" Pazu asked cheerfully as he looked up from sliding a perfectly round fried egg onto one of the two plates on the cluttered table.

Sheeta nodded mutely, casting her gaze over his familiar features: the tousled brown hair, the wide grin, the honest eyes...

Pazu laughed, "You've got breadcrumbs in your hair, Sheeta!" He reached over the table and pulled one out, then popped it into his mouth.

As they sat down to their meal, silence settled over the table. Sheeta didn't feel very hungry, but she ate her egg all the same, knowing what pains Pazu had probably gone to for it to be so perfectly round. She wasn't sure why he did these things. Maybe it had something to do with his mechanically-minded thoughts; with Pazu, everything had to be perfect. Well...not everything. One glance around the room was enough to tell one that he wasn't too fussed about certain things.

"You're awfully quiet this morning, Sheeta," Pazu said, taking a gulp of milk.

Sheeta set her fork down and watched the points prick the golden bubble of yolk in four places. "There's something I want to ask you, Pazu," she finally said, and she noticed that her voice was, indeed, quiet. She glanced up at Pazu's face and saw that he was waiting expectantly. She looked back down at her plate and saw that the yellow liquid of the yolk had oozed halfway across her plate. "Can I go back to Laputa?" she asked in an even quieter voice.

She looked up in time to see a strange, unreadable mix of emotions in his eyes. He smiled at her, but the emotions still swimming in his eyes made it seem a little forced. "Sure you can. I've finished that airplane, you know; we can make the journey as soon as we get prov-"

Sheeta shook her head, interrupting him and watching the yolk cover the rest of her plate. "No. I mean...I want to go there alone."

For several long moments, there was only silence. Then, soft and stunned, "Alone?"

Sheeta nodded.

"But...you'll need someone to fly the airplane for you."

"I've watched you enough times by now that I know what to do." The yolk had completely flattened by now.

Neither of them moved. They were both, as far as Sheeta could tell, staring at their plates. Finally, Sheeta moved enough to dip her fingertip in the gooey gold yolk. Feeling a sudden savage hatred for that yolk, that perfectly round egg, she pressed her entire palm into the yellow substance and brought it back up sticky, as though covered with yellow blood.

"Er...Sheeta? What are you doing?"

She found herself on her feet, tears blurring her vision, holding out her sticky palm to him. "Is this what you want? Because this is me!"

Pazu merely stared at her for the longest time, his face blank and emotionless. Tears rolled down Sheeta's cheeks, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. She gritted her teeth when Pazu made no move whatsoever, and was about to draw her hand back when she found it suddenly encased between both of his.

"I'll take you to Laputa myself," he said quietly.

For some reason, this made any restraint Sheeta pretended to have simply slip away. She slumped forward onto the table, one long braid trailing in her glass of milk, the other in the honey, and egg smearing all down her front. She noticed none of these things however, and simply bawled over the toast.

"You haven't been sleeping well lately," Pazu said as he wrung out her long, brown hair.

"How do you know?" Sheeta asked, sitting on a chair in front of him.

Pazu laughed. "As if I couldn't tell from the way you acted over breakfast!" Sobering a little as he toweled down her hair, he said, "I've heard you tossing and turning at night too. Something's troubling you, isn't it?"

Sheeta didn't answer as he set the towel aside and began brushing her hair instead. At first he seemed content without an answer, but when the brush and his fingers had crawled their way up to her scalp, he said gently, "I could probably help you, you know."

She reached back and touched his hand in her hair, and their fingers interlocked among the brown strands. "I don't want to leave you," she said, "but I...I think you'd be better off without me."

Pazu pulled his hand out of her hair and moved to squat in front of her. "Now what would make you think something like that?"

Sheeta looked at him seriously. "Everything I've ever done has just hurt you. Even when I try to stop hurting you, I end up hurting you anyway."

"That's not true!" Pazu retorted.

She looked away sadly. "You're just being nice."

Inexplicably, he laughed and said in a tender voice, "Yes. I'm being nice." He pulled her close to him, pulled her right out of her chair and onto the floor. He was a miner, mechanic, and blacksmith, so his shoulders were broad and his arms strong. Maybe it was a by-product of working in front of fires all day long, but his chest was very warm as well. She felt safe in his embrace, and she knew from experience that he would do his best to protect her from anything and everything that would try to harm her.

"I'll take you to Laputa," he said a second time.

"You won't...leave me there alone, will you?"

"Not even if you asked me to."