There was no answer from the floor, where Wufei sat in resolute silence. Aiming the stolen minicorder's projector at the metal wall, he continued to review the specs for their rebuilt gundams. He was in no mood for yet more noise from the irrepressible American. It had been three days since Barton had come with the Oz guards to lead Yuy off to another dogfight, and in those three days Wufei had become painfully familiar with the consequences of Maxwell's boredom.

"You're into books, right? Tell me a story?" Duo wheedled.

"No."

"C'mon, please?"

There was an edge of hysteria in his voice--the confinement really seemed to be getting to him. Wufei relented a little, though reluctantly.

"A story about what?"

"I don't care. The man in the moon. Anything!"

"It's a rabbit," Wufei said absently.

"What?"

The Shenlong pilot continued flicking through the minicorder's images, but answered. "I said, it's not a man in the moon, it's a rabbit. The moonhare."

"Says who?"

"Five billion Chinese, Maxwell."

"This I've got to hear. How did a rabbit get on the moon?"

"Will you be quiet and sit down if I tell you the story?"

He flopped down obediently, legs crossed, eyes expectant. "See? All set. Hit it, Wu."

"That is not my name."

An elaborate sigh. "Fine, fine. Chang Wufei, please proceed."

"Well. Once there was a hero named Yi, who made a name for himself as an archer before wanting to become emperor. He built a palace for a powerful goddess, the Western Motherqueen--"

"You have got to be kidding. She couldn't come up with a better name than that?"

"Not a good goddess to mock, Maxwell--she's fierce. And it's not her fault her name doesn't translate well."

"Okay, okay."

"The goddess liked the palace so much that she rewarded Yi with a great gift: a pill that would make him immortal. But before he could take it, he had to undergo a year of meditations and exercises to acclimate his body and spirit to the change. Yi's wife, Heng O, was very worried--she feared immortality would warp him, making him proud and cruel. One day, though he had hidden the pill very well, she found it. Yi came into the room suddenly, and before she could collect herself, Heng O had swallowed the pill herself. And she was not sorry, because now she wouldn't have to watch her husband change into something he had never really wanted to be. But her body was not ready for the magic, and suddenly she found herself rising into the air. Higher and higher, beyond Yi's reaching hands."

Wufei's eyes were very distant, and very sad.

"Well? The rabbit?"

"I'm getting to that part. Heng O kept rising until she reached the moon, where she fell to the ground. The pill was still burning in her throat, and she tried to cough it up. But only the cover would come up, and when she spat it out onto the moon dust, it turned into a white jade hare. Anyway, that's what we see, when we look at the moon. A rabbit with a mortar and pestle."

"What's the pestle for?"

Wufei regarded Duo with some suspicion; since when did Maxwell hold still for detailed explanations of anything that didn't involve high-powered explosives? He was actually managing to look interested, which had to be a testament to his extreme boredom.

Somewhat cautiously, Wufei continued. "The mortar and pestle can represent different things. Some versions of the story say that the rabbit uses them to grind ink for Heng O, now that she's the Moon Lady. But he also measures time with his grinding. And the moonhare himself can mean different things, too. In some of the stories, the rabbit is the one element of yang in the yin of the moon palace--the one light in the darkness, just as there is a three-legged crow in the palace of the sun. It's a matter of balance. Sun and moon, taiyang and yueliang."

"What did you call it?"

"Yueliang."

"Yoo-ay-lee-ang?"

"Almost. Listen to the tones. Yueliang."

"Yueliang. And that's 'moon'?"

"Moon."

"What's rabbit?"

"Tu."

"Yueliang tu?"

"Close enough." He returned Duo's grin with one of his own rare smiles. It was surprising that the American was even trying--but then, Maxwell had picked up Japanese quickly enough, once he decided he needed to take Yuy on in his own language. Maybe he wasn't all noise, after all--not quite, anyway.

"So this moon lady, she still lives there, all alone with the big white rabbit?"

"In some stories, yes. In some of them, she has seven moon-maidens to attend her. And in other ones, Yi himself becomes the sun--the incarnation of yang--and is able to visit her every month."

"Guess he became immortal after all."

"We all have a duty to fate, Maxwell." That sadness, again.

"But he gets conjugal visits, huh?"

"You could call it that, I suppose. And the other goddesses visit her, too, I expect."

"There are more?"

"Every river, every town has its deity, Maxwell. But there are some major ones: the Jade Emperor, who rules over heaven and earth. The Western Motherqueen, who gave Yi the pill in the first place. Nataku, who is Justice. And Guanyin, of course."

"What does she do?"

"Guanyin is the Goddess of Mercy. Mothers have shrines to her, because she looks after children. And she hears petitions from mortals."

"Oh, yeah, we have one of those. Like an intercessor--someone to pray to when you're in trouble?" Duo's hand went almost unconsciously to the chain around his neck. "But ours is named Mary."

Mary. Meiran. Could justice and mercy ever be the same? The phonetic coincidence, like the whole conversation, stayed with him even as they found slightly more bearable positions on the metal floor and tried to sleep.

When they awoke again to the cell's dull light, it took a moment to realize what had changed in the room: the background hiss of the ventilators had stopped. Their air had been cut off. Not good.

They waited for a long moment in silence, but the emergency systems didn't power up. Calmly, Wufei estimated the volume of the room, the rate at which the two of them were using air. They would not have long, but it would be at least an hour before oxygen deprivation rendered them unconscious. Whose decision was this, he wondered. Not a hero's way of dispatching the enemy, but he had long since stopped expecting heroism from Oz.

His calculations were interrupted by the sound of Maxwell's increasingly erratic breathing. He had moved well away from the wall, as if there were more air in the middle of the room, and was looking up fixedly as if afraid the ceiling was about to start closing in.

"They turned off the _air_? Great. Just great. And the hamsters fall over in their cage. There go our little legs, up in the air."

"Ni hushuo, Maxwell. You're overreacting, as usual. There is air, and there will be for some time. I suggest you calm down, if you want to live longer."

He wasn't listening, eyes huge with panic. "I don't want to die like this. Not in a box."

Still wildly scanning the room, he wasn't watching the floor under his pacing feet--and then he missed one of the metal steps and fell, coming down hard on both knees. His fingers reached for his collar, as if pulling at it would do anything to open his constricting throat.

With an exasperated sound--any activity was a waste of air--Wufei slid over the floor to him. "This is irresponsible; your histrionics are using up valuable air. What kind of training did you have, anyway? Panic is not a productive response to this situation."

Duo laughed hysterically, "Guess not. But then, you never spent much time hiding in a crawlspace as a kid, did you? Dirt to the left of you, dirt to the right of you, hoping Oz's boys would leave before you all suffocated--that's not productive of much, either."

"Come on, Maxwell, you spend half your time in the cockpit of a gundam, and it's much smaller than this room."

"Not the same. Like wearing a suit, n-not like being in a box. Besides, there's _air_ in Deathscythe. . . ." He trailed off in a near-sob, choking on the words.

Wufei watched in alarm as Duo slid into a full-blown panic attack, gasping for air. Of course. This was every claustrophobic's worst nightmare. And this was his--friend? His friend. He had to do something.

A possible solution finally occurred to him--if the American had ever needed an intercessor, it was now. He caught at the cross where it swung against Duo's dark tunic. "Look. Maxwell, look. Focus. Say the prayer. Come on. What are the words?"

"H-hail Mary, full of grace...blessed art thou...."

His voice was shaky, but the rhythm of the words was forcing him to stop hyperventilating. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very long prayer. "...pray for us now, and at the hour of our death. Oh, God, I don't want to die like this."

"Stay with me, Maxwell." The manacles greatly hampered his movements, but Wufei took Duo's imprisoned hands and laid them on his own chest. "Feel me breathe. Now, you try. Slowly. Say it again, one word at a time."

The pale hands were clammy against his chest, shaking uncontrollably, but Duo tried. Head down, he murmured the words over and over, and gradually his breathing slowed to match the motion under his hands.

Almost out of time, now. They had been sitting like this, forehead to forehead, for what seemed like hours; and then Duo made a small sound, like a sigh, and swayed on his knees.

Wufei shifted to look closely into his face; the wide hyacinth eyes seemed to be trying to ask him something. Then they slid shut, and Duo slumped forward against him. As best he could, Wufei gathered the other pilot up into his lap, and sat almost as if rocking him to sleep. This was a positive development, he reminded himself, compulsively smoothing the already-smooth braid. Unconscious, his body would make the best use of the available oxygen. Wufei knew this, but--

He looked down, stupidly, at the drops of moisture on the back of his hand--he hadn't realized he was crying. As the lights in the cell seemed to dim even further, his mind hesitantly framed words that had once been familiar:

<Blessed Guanyin, Compassionate Lady, Mother of Mercy, who watches over children far from home. This one is the light in our darkness--help him breathe. Let there be enough air. And let him still be breathing when something happens to get us out of this. Qing ni, Guanyin.>

Sitting back against the wall, he closed his own eyes and began the meditations that would slow his vital functions to an absolute crawl. And he waited, against all hope, for the hiss of returning air.