disclaimer: Vincent and Ayako are my children. Besides the usual: original figures are borrowed, no money, just for pleasure.
explanation: originally a contribution for a challenge, now the prelude to a complete FF
warning: two OCs; you must recognize the three Schwarz yourselves
thanks: tough, for words and help

A letter friend wished a FF, she can understand – so I started to translate from German to English. And as you see, my school English is a little bit … rusted? Thus I am in search for somebody with better knowledge, who may read the chapters' beta. Maybe … somebody is interested? -smile-

Night meeting

Peoples' before the building, I where in, hurry bad-tempered above the sidewalks and get slowly out of my sight. It has started to rain and if I may believe in the quiet sum of the fluorescent lamps over my head, it is getting dark. A timer, I suppose bored.

Fear in the darkness?'

Quiet amusement accompanies my thought. You must know, I have pursued this track for a long time and the view of an end of my hunt moves me into a certain high-level mood. I can almost taste the triumph. My attention moves, until the lifeless suite stands in her centre once more. The steadily less becoming people on the street become to a shade of themselves, there and from no meaning. A wristwatch ticks a little bit on the right from me, otherwise pleasant rest rules.

Steps sound on the hall, I have noticed him already before. Strain, when he enters the entrance hall, relief that nobody has asked for him. Such a fool! Now, in his nearness, he makes it so easy for me to follow his track.

The steps become pure and die away. He knows himself in wrong security. I smile vaguely and free myself from the wall in my back, to attain more elbowroom. Six steps to cross the room in my back, two other to pass the door – and me. He will, I know. He will look for the cat, which usually greets him at the door every evening. I hear the quiet click of the door handle. One step, two, three …

Do you know the exciting feeling of adrenalin, whipped through the veins?

--

The rain place down on my face, chilly and reassuringly. Tight drizzle, which is drifted by strong gusts in clouds' about the asphalt. I go a few steps', count them in thoughts', and turn to the left. The same procedure, again and again, until I stop a few streets' further and start to wait once more. Before and behind me the wind rushes trough isolated treetops', detaches dying sheets' of the branches' here and there and lets them spin to ground. They let me think of another, sunny autumn day, Ayako has told me about. How the leaves', red and yellow and orange sparkling, dance, whirled up in spirals' by the air, over and over again. And as they land in the gutters in the end, get lumpy to an ugly, yellowish-brown mass from rain and car tires'. Ayako has told to me also this and I remember well her highly gifted voice, which has suddenly taken a rather urgent sound.

I shift my weight and cram my hands into the pockets' of my coat. The rain soaks slowly trough my clothes' and lets me shiver. There are no more passengers' on the street, just one car drives past me. The quiet noise by the tyres', rolling over the film of lubricant on the street, accompanied from the monotonous hum of the engine, wins slowly in volume, past me within a short moment and dies away in the distance. In the following silence, with her rain drops' falling from the sheets and the rushing of the rain clouds, the world looks twice as empty. Twice as lifelessly. Whether I am too early?

I am used to wait. Sometimes it appears to me, my whole life exists for nothing other to do then waiting. Waiting for the next decision, the next draw or just the next step. It doesn't matter me. Mostly. Stepping aside one step, I bump with the left shoulder against a lamppost, maybe also a street sign or a traffic light. It doesn't interest me, what it is like. I scatter my attention straggly and don't pay attention to the little things in my immediate surroundings. This behaviour annoys me, hardly I have realised it, and I stop in a puddle, from my starting point already three steps away now.

I am nervy today. The cold of the night soaks too fast into my body and lets me shudder, I become impatient, wait tensely for the noise of the approaching car and I have trouble to stay quietly. This may not seem strangely to you, in consideration of the weather and the late hour, but for me these are bad signs. Habits, which I have already filed long ago, and I don't think to take them again.

And then, from one second to the other, I feel it quite clearly.

Imminence!

From where? I pull my hands from the pockets, being anxious to move me slowly. It pulls me still to the left. Closer to the city centre or away from it? From which direction I have come? For a too long moment I am completely out of orientation, only inspired by the thought to run away. At the same time stiffly like a gazelle, which can look at her reflexion in the eye of a lion. But I am no gazelle!

Instinctive a growling makes his way trough my throat and ends at my jawbones, I pressed on each other. I am not quite defenceless, even if the fear creeps with spider legs over my back and bits itself in my nape. And one of my weapons is called control.

From where? From the right? It pulls me to the other direction, so I turn to the right and try to find the faceless origin of my feeling. I can't see anything, only feel that something approaches. The wind stands favourable, I pick up the scent. And find nothing. I am irritated and try it once again, with the same shattering result: there is no track, by which I can orientate myself. Serious concern joins to my instinctive fear. Is the distance too long?

I admit towards you without wrong shame, that I, if I had been able to, would have moved back. Would have run away. It would have been the most reasonable behaviour. But I am not able to and thus I wait, while something sneaks up to me. Distorted world! The moments' stretch, while I hold out and try to recognize. Then, finally, he gets in my view.

,Out of control!'

The first thought which rages trough my limbs', frightens me even stronger than the not tangibly menace before – and at the same time tremendously fascinating. Now I can see him and I would have been surprised, the sight would have corresponded to what I have expected. No cold blue, also nobody aggressive red, but an unsteady, dirty brown, as if all colours of a paintbox had been mixed indiscriminately with each other. I have never been confronted with something similar. He approaches, slowly, but not hesitating. His presence still fills the street and I … I hold out, enthralled, blandished. The gazelle in the eye of the griffin. A carriage approaches behind me.

--

"Have everything gone well?"

Ayakos voice breaks after few seconds of the on both sides silence through the stillness in the carriage. Her voice sounds pleasantly in my ears, softy, darkly, velvety. The voice of a narrator. I hear them with pleasure. But I am too agitated to listen to her now. She bends to me, when I answer nothing. Takes with slender, strong fingers for my glasses and pulls them from my nose. I turn my head in her direction, because I know, that she will be glad about it. And I can feel how she smiles.

"Taciturn as usual, Vincent?"

I lean my head at the side against the disc. Ayako allows it to go through if we are alone and when I have a strenuous day behind myself. She likes herself well in the role of the backer and demonstrates her high rank mostly with small gestures. As well as just. And I can like it.

"You are completely sops. Should I put the heating higher? You properly tremble."

"Certainly!"
,Dearest Ayako, even you can be on the wrong track.'

She knows me well, almost better than herself, and nevertheless, a small part of my being remains also for her concealed. It is neither the cold which gets me trembling, nor she calculates on the fact, that I would use an offered excuse. This is one of her few attractive weaknesses', which masks a steel hand behind, which doesn't hesitate to strike also once. The quickly increasing warmth inside of the carriage put me visibly to sleep and the strain in my body decreases. The rain has stopped knocking on the roof, the lights' of the city pass us before my internal eye and by the way I register, that we don't drive in the direction of my flat let. So to her, also well.

--

"What do you think?"
"The type is a little bit damaged in his head. Should I look after him?"
"No. Tell Farfarello, we will go."

End

(Continuation in: "Chains")