Ten years ago
Two armies of toys were scattered across the living room floor of a small, urban apartment. On one side, closest to the window and the box air conditioner, was a squadron of stuffed animals, each equipped with a cut-out cardboard sword wrapped in tin foil. Close to the door of the apartment was a platoon of action figures and dolls, poised and ready to take on the invaders from the other side of the apartment. Aside from the drone of the air conditioner and the distant sounds of traffic, not a sound could be heard.
Until a loud shout rang through the apartment and a small, red t-shirt-clad girl burst out from behind the couch, shouting, "OH NO, THE BATTLE HAS BEGUN!"
Throwing herself into the center of the two armies and likely skinning her knees in the process, she swiveled around in a circle on the floor, eyeing up the commanders of the respective forces: a Barbie with a choppy blonde haircut and a broken pencil and yarn nunchuck taped into her hand and a scruffy raccoon wielding a foil broadsword. "Or has it?" the girl announced melodramatically. She laughed darkly and sat up, arms folded as she regarded the enemies. "The Fuzzies and the Guys have hated each other for years? Why? Just 'cuz they can, I guess," she announced to no one in particular, swiping the Barbie into one hand and the raccoon into the other. She knocked their weapons against each other and emulated the clangs and groans of battle.
After an epic conflict, she tossed them both aside and stood up. She twisted one brunette pigtail around her finger with a sly smile. "But oh no! A new enemy has arrived for them! Today, they must join forces or they will die!" She leapt onto the couch, vaulted over the back of it, and dropped onto the floor on the other side. Rummaging around under the couch, her hand closed on a cylinder of smooth plastic—a vacuum attachment. With further searching she found a dumbbell, a magazine, and a candy wrapper. She groaned and pulled her arm out from under the couch with a huff.
"Lyra, mia figlia, are you okay?" called her mother's voice from the kitchen.
Lyra clambered back over the couch and plopped onto it upside down, her legs hooked over the back of it. "Mama, the Fuzzies and the Guys have fought so much. I need a new enemy for them."
"I'm sure whenever your father visits next, he'll have someone new for your little friends to fight." Lyra heard her knitting needles cease and watched her mother enter the living room and regard the scene with a sense of amusement. "My, my. A war?" Her mother guessed, a twinkle entering her dark eyes.
"This is serious!" Lyra flipped herself upright, feeling the euphoric feeling of blood rushing out of her head. "Look at them! They always fight each other."
"Maybe you should mix up their armies," her mother suggested. She approached and adjusted Lyra's shirt, which had hitched over her stomach. "Make some of your fluffies—"
"Fuzzies," Lyra corrected with a pouty huff.
"Of course, the Fuzzies. Make one of them into a Guy, perhaps?" she asked.
Lyra regarded her army. "Maybe not."
Before her mother could answer, there was a knock on the door. After a moment of silence, Lyra's mother cursed under her breath. "I forgot! We're having guests today." She glanced up at her living room—filled with scattered dolls, action figures, and stuffed animals—and down at her ratty white shirt and cotton shorts before sighing. "I will ask them to mind the mess, I suppose. Yours and mine."
Lyra didn't quite understand what her mother meant by that. She clambered into the couch and peered over the arm of it as her mother carefully crossed the apartment to answer the door. What sort of guests could her mother be having? One of their neighbors? A relative? Whoever it was, it had to be another Italian, because her mother answered the door and began greeting the guest in rapid-fire Italian.
"Ah, Signore Briccone! I hope you mind the mess." She held open the door, and Lyra peered over the arm of the couch as two strangers entered her house. One was a man, about her mother's age, with a gaunt face and slicked back black hair. His skin was the same, warm olive shade as her mother's—another Italian. A child, about her age and of ambiguous gender, hung sullenly by his side. Their hair was flaming red and chin-length, and their skin was almost flawlessly white. Signore Briccone isn't that kid's dad, is he? Lyra thought, frowning. They look so different.
Signore Briccone laughed—the sound seemed false to Lyra—and simply shrugged. "If homes were always clean, I suspect that no one would be living in them." His accent was much stronger than her mother's. He held out his hand to her, clearly expecting a handshake. "You may call me Giovanni."
"You may call me Norma. It's nice to meet you, sir." She pumped his hand. Lyra frowned; this exchange seemed rather American for an apartment in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Upon releasing his hand, she crouched to eye-level with the redheaded child. "Hello, there. And what's your name?"
Giovanni began to answer, but the redhead cut in quickly with, "I'm Silver." Lyra noticed he spoke in English, with an accent that was not quite Italian.
With a sigh of defeat, Giovanni responded, "This is my son."
Lyra's mother turned to look at Lyra, who shrank down into the couch. She sighed good-naturedly. "That is my daughter, Lyra. No more than five minutes ago she was racing around in here with her toys, yelling and shouting."
Giovanni pushed Silver forward gently with his hand. "Silver, go play with Lyra. Make a friend or two." Before he could protest, he and Lyra's mother entered the kitchen, closing the door partway.
The children sat quietly. Lyra regarded Silver curiously. In spite of the heat, he was wearing a black jacket, trimmed in red, that was too long for him, as well as dark gray pants and black sneakers. Lyra looked at her own t-shirt and her shorts. "Aren't you warm?" she asked curiously, in English.
He looked at her blankly. Lyra frowned and repeated herself slowly. "Aren't you warm?"
Silver plopped on the floor. "No…no English," he mumbled back to her in English.
"But you introduced yourself in English. And your name is English. Silver's not an Italian word," she argued, now hanging over the arm of the couch. The boy didn't respond to her. He simply looked at her as though her head had started spinning. Maybe he only speaks Italian? Lyra understood far more of her mother's native language than she spoke; why had their parents left them alone together if there was a chance that they couldn't even communicate?
Lyra repeated her question for the third time in Italian. This time, he seemed to understand. He glared at her. "No. I'm not."
She supposed he wasn't. He wasn't sweating or anything. "Oh. That's alright, I guess. So you only speak Italian?" she asked.
"No. I just don't speak English," he grumbled.
She sighed. He was grumpy. Maybe he was too warm but his body just wasn't showing it. "You guys are from Italy, right? I think Mom said we had new neighbors that moved from Italy like she did."
He didn't answer. Had she said it wrong? Before she could try and correct herself, she watched as he picked up an action figure of hers, a black-clad ninja wielding a sword. He examined in his hands. "That's my ninja," Lyra said, flipping herself off the arm of the couch and landing on the ground with a solid thud. "You can play with him if you want. There's a button on his back that makes him spin his sword."
"It's a katana," Silver corrected her brusquely. "Not just some 'sword.'" Nevertheless, he perused the toy for that button and pressed it, making the ninja's sword spin.
Lyra shrugged and picked up her raccoon with his tin foil sword, adjusting it in his paw. She watched Silver fiddle with it, brushing some of his hair behind his ear. "I've never met a boy with hair as long as yours."
"Why does it matter?" Silver asked, glaring at her.
Lyra puffed her chest out and crossed her arms. He was getting annoying already and he hadn't even been here for five minutes. "I'm just curious. Sorry.
He had the palest gray eyes Lyra had ever seen; she wondered if he was named for his eyes. "While we're pointing stuff out, I'll put some stuff out. You look kind of Asian for an Italian."
"Oh, it's cuz my dad is Japanese. My mom is from Italy," she explained, fluffing her pigtails. "You don't look Italian, either. Why are you so pale if you're from Italy, then?"
"Maybe I'm not that Italian," he challenged her.
Simultaneously they got to their feet and stood across from one another in the carnage of toys, arms crossed as they glared at one another. He was only an inch or two taller than her at most, but seemed skinnier than Lyra, as though he skipped meals. She looked him in those pale eyes and scowled. "Why are you so grumpy with me?"
"Because you ask too many questions," he responded.
They were almost nose to nose now, each refusing to back down. "Because you're weird," she responded with a huff.
"You're weird!" Silver retorted. Their foreheads conked together and they both backed up, rubbing at their foreheads while continuing to glower at the child across from them.
After a moment, Lyra started to laugh. This situation was ridiculous; there was no need to be in each other's faces. If she was going to be stuck in this apartment with him, they might as well do something. He looked at her, confused, as she held out her hand to him. "We're both weird. We should be friends," she said. "I'm Lyra."
"Your mom said that," he grumbled. However, he looked at her hand and tentatively shook it. He introduced himself again, this time in Italian. "I'm Silver. And we're not friends,"
"I think we should be!" Lyra exclaimed. She clenched her hand around his and dragged him over to her pile of toys. He protested as she added, "Come on! There's a war going on here! We have to fight!"
He eyed up her army of toys. Coolly, he picked up the ninja. "I don't go easy on weaklings."
Lyra pouted before snatching up her raccoon with his sword. She turned her face into a mask of stern ferocity. "Neither do I."
Present Day
Venice was oftentimes viewed as a city of love, a place where romance and history hung around every corner and radiated from every street lamp. No statue was without a story, and every building was haunted with ghosts from ages past. To a newcomer, the canals seemed a quixotic roadway without understanding that the very canals that brought people into the city were also slowly dragging the city back into the sea.
It was in Venice that Lyra stood, overlooking one such canal with a pensive frown on her face. An ocean wind stirred her hair, whisking strands into her face and freeing lose strands from her messy braid. She gave a sigh and slicked her hair out of her face. Mere days ago, she had been jubilant, practically bouncing off the walls of her apartment and driving her mother batty with her excitement.
Ever since she had arrived in this city, she had felt particularly unwanted.
The intention had been for Lyra, newly graduated from high school and free for a summer before college, to travel to Venice to help her aunt out in her antique shop. She was pregnant with twins, and Lyra wanted to provide additional help to a shop run primarily by her aunt and her husband.
Upon arriving, however, she discovered that she wasn't as needed as her mother had made it out to be.
After she had settled in, moving her belongings into a spare bedroom in the apartment above the shop, Lyra sat down with her aunt in the stuffy kitchen. It really struck Lyra as to how similar her aunt looked to her mother; there was a fifteen year age gap between them, with Lyra's mother being the elder sister. It reminded her of when her mother was young, a time when her shining brunette hair glimmered free from grays, and her skin glowed a warm, taut olive. "So, I'm all set up. What do you need help with in the shop?" Lyra asked, drumming her fingers excitedly on the table. She was proud of how smoothly her Italian flowed, sounding almost like a native speaker.
"We need to talk about that," her aunt said as she leaned back and rested her hands on her round belly. "I gave in about two weeks ago and hired some help. We have a pair of university students working for us. My back and feet hurt all the time, and I broke down and did it."
Lyra's drumming ceased. She folded her hands into her lap and gazed at them. Did they not trust her to appropriate help because she was a foreigner? "Oh."
"We could still use your help around the house and in the shop before lunchtime Wednesday through Friday," her aunt said helpfully. She reached out to Lyra and patted her shoulder. "Look at it this way. You'll have plenty of time to explore the city."
Lyra looked up and forced a smile at her aunt. I feel like the purpose of my being here has been totally ignored, she thought, but out loud she responded, "Of course. Just let me know what you need me to do."
Presently, Lyra peeled away from the railing surrounding the canal and smoothed her braid. "Well apparently she didn't need much," she said to no one in particular. It had been two days since that chat, and aside from scrubbing the kitchen floor and getting groceries for her aunt, she had very little to do. It was nine in the morning on a Monday, and Lyra was wandering through the city. She felt as separated from the tourists as she was from the locals, a quiet ghost flitting between worlds.
It was here that she ambled down the street, amidst a crowd of tourists, when she realized how many languages she heard. She caught a few words of Spanish and Japanese, languages she had rudimentary knowledge of, and a myriad of other languages she couldn't even begin to recognize. I'd love to understand it all, she thought, marveling at the variety of people she saw. Her frustrations momentarily forgotten, she immersed herself into the crowd of people.
A pair of middle-aged Indian women, one tall and sturdy and the other short and curvy, in colorful saris chattered excitedly about something. A trio of tall, northern European boys with matching white-blonde hair were showing each other pamphlets and maps, nearly running into every person they walked by. A black woman in sharp business attire spoke in rapid-fire French on her phone.
While Lyra watched the woman talk, she noticed a glint of red through the window that her raised arm made. It was red hair, long and messy, draping down over black-clad shoulders. In that moment, Lyra remembered her childhood friend. She opened her mouth, about to call his name, but in an instant that glint of red vanished again, down a side street.
That probably wasn't even him. It's been so long, she thought. For all I know that was a woman. I didn't get that good of a look.
In spite of herself, she cut through the crowds, spouting off apologies in the languages she knew, to that side street. She thought back to her childhood, to a place a sea and an ocean away, when times were far simpler.
Nine years ago
"Silver, where do you go to school? You don't go to mine. I never see you get on the bus or walk over there in the morning."
It was a damp fall afternoon. In the park across the street from the apartment complex they both lived in, Lyra and Silver were on the swings. Nearly a year had passed since they first met; nearly shouting at each other's faces in Lyra's living room. Since then, whether Silver liked it or not, Lyra had constructed a nearly inseparable friendship between them. Lyra was always running up those three flights of stairs that separated them and knocked on the door, demanding that Silver come over.
He never seemed entirely enthusiastic about it, sometimes spending a large portion of the time trying to argue with her over ridiculous things, but she found that he never said no to going out and having fun. His father certainly never seemed to tell him no when it came to spending time outside their apartment.
He looked over at her, his face maintaining that grumpiness that she had become so familiar with. "I'm homeschooled."
"Whoa. You get to stay in your apartment and go to class? That's wild," she said, digging the toes of her bright pink rain boots into the mud below them. "Is your dad your teacher?"
He shook his head. "No. I have a tutor. Does my dad look like a teacher?"
Lyra supposed that was true. Giovanni looked more like a villain from an action movie than one of her teachers. "How would you know what a teacher looks like if you're homeschooled?" Lyra challenged him.
Silver groaned and tipped his head back. "Don't be stupid. I watch movies and TV and stuff."
"At my house. What if it's all just a…um…conspiracy? What if teachers are actually all just giant robots and the shows and movies we watch are just what we want you to see?" she asked with a goofy grin, swinging sideways to knock into Silver.
He swung out of her way. "I'm not stupid like you, so I wouldn't believe that."
She leapt off her swing and grabbed his, bringing him to a wild halt in the middle of the park. "Take that back! I'm super smart, you jerk!" Silver was dumped unceremoniously from the swing, nearly landing on his butt in the mud. He grabbed at Lyra, who laughed and darted away.
"Get back here!" He shouted, this time in his developing English. Silver charged after her as she darted up the play equipment. She got to the top and froze. I didn't mean to go to this section! The highest point of the playground equipment only had a fireman's pole and a climbing wall separating the tall platform from the distant ground.
"Got you!" Silver grabbed at Lyra, and she ducked under his arm. The movement threw her weight backwards, and she started toppling.
"Silver!" she shrieked, trying to regain her balance.
Before she could fall, she felt his hand snag her raincoat, yanking her back onto the platform. His pale eyes were wide, his chest heaving. Lyra felt her own heart beating rapidly. Her throat was tight with tears at the thought of a near fall; she looked away. There was no way she'd let Silver see her cry.
He reached out, as if to comfort her, but instead lightly palmed her forehead. "Don't be stupid like that again."
"Well don't come running at me like that!" Lyra demanded.
Silver rolled his eyes and sat down on the platform, peering out at the playground. City traffic crawled on all sides, but the sound was oddly distant. "Was I supposed to run away instead?" he questioned, his voice suddenly serious.
Lyra shook her head vigorously at him. "Nuh-uh! You're my friend. You don't get to run away…but, I guess if you do someday, you should tell me first," she remarked, sliding her back down the bars to sit across from him. "Don't be such a doofus, Silver."
"Says you," he said, but she noticed his mouth quirking a little. "I meant in the game, you know. I'm not running away in real life. I promise." Silver paused, seeming to realize that there was sentiment in what he said, before hastily adding, "You didn't hear that. Pretend you didn't hear that, or I'll kill you right now."
Lyra giggled and rested her face in her hands with a blithe smile. "But I totally did."
He slowly stood, eyes blazing. In spite of this, there was good humor in his eye. "Well, Lyra, it's time to die. Hope you planned a funeral or something."
"You stop that!" With a shriek of laughter, Lyra hopped to her feet and peeled back toward the swing set again. Her best friend sure was a silly boy sometimes.
Present Day
All that work, and he just disappeared in the end, anyway.
Lyra found herself in a tangled mess of alleyways, distant from any nearby canals—a rarity on this particular isla. Leaning against a wall to catch her breath, she peered at the old walls bordering her on all sides. The flash of red hair had been so brief, and she'd seen it around two corners before she had ended up in this secluded location, alone.
"Ah, dio mio," she muttered to herself. "I suppose I only followed it because I was bored, anyhow."
Lyra crouched to adjust the straps on her sandals before meandering off, trying to swallow the disappointment that had risen within her. In spite of his promises, Silver had taken off a long time ago. No, he hadn't run away. Lyra was unconvinced that his father hadn't totally torn the family away from America because of his supposed criminal connections; yet, in a strange way, the betrayal from Silver ran deeper, regardless of whether or not it was his fault.
For the first time in a long time, she was again wondering actively where Silver Briccone had gone.
A/N: Hello, hi. It is I, Mars. I am publishing here again, in the name of my longest standing OTP. Yeah, even with the fancy new games out that I love, I still find myself gravitating back toward these eggheads every now and then.
This piece has been oddly cathartic for me at times, which is good. There are some things in my life that are messy and unresolved, and this piece is a good way to work it out.
So, just some quick notes for clarity: Lyra is Italian/Japanese. Her mom was an immigrant from Italy, her dad was a first-generation Japanese-American, and Lyra is the happy product of that that happens to be a cool kid from America. Silver? You'll have to wait and see.
Also, please forgive me if my inserted Italian is ever bad/seems suspiciously more like Spanish than usual. I started learning Spanish before learning Italian, and so yeah they cross a bit at times. Whoops. -.-"
Bear with me on update speed, as this is a bit of a crazy time in my life (end of the semester).
Until next update, take care of yourself. If you celebrate a holiday at this time of year, enjoy it and spread the cheer!