Not much to be said—this is intended to be a Christmas fic with no spoilers for anything that's likely to ever get an official English-language translation. It's set in the past of DGM—about seven years before current (five before the start of the series) and main warning here is that it's all in Tyki's PoV. Oh, yes, and we've got Reverend Marvin the Ultra-Calvinist. No offense to Calvinists is intended.

Advent

By Ryo Hoshi

First Week, Sunday

Tyki leaned back, using his roll of belongings as a makeshift pillow. It wasn't likely from the sound of the argument towards the front of the station-turned-refugee-camp that any of them would be getting better soon. Really, the way humans were, paying so much attention to the rules and not thinking a jot about what the reasons might be—he was indifferent enough to preachers who chose his sort to preach to, as most, in his experience, were either of the belief that they had ended up on the bum due to moral failings—well, alright, perhaps in Tyki's case—or were utterly insane, but...

He vaguely remembered something about Jesus having been rather clear that one wasn't supposed to hold the Sabbath too holy to do necessary things.

Taking basic care of the various flotsam and jetsam stranded in the mountain town by the snow, in Tyki's opinion, did count. The local politicians—big fish in tiny ponds, who sounded like they thought they were as important as, say, his brother—seemed to think it an awful imposition for the tracks to have been taken out by the snow on a Sunday, and for the train stuck in the station to have so many people on it...

Tyki had his doubts that those officials would have bothered sending anybody to have started digging the train out until Monday, too—it was sheer luck (minor problems with the engine) that had meant that the train hadn't been caught in the avalanche that'd taken out the tracks. As it was, they'd heard the rumble-crash during in the false-dawn of the tracks being taken out. At least the train's engineer had the sense—or, perhaps, caution and experience, his accent did sound local—to have sent somebody on ahead to check to see if that had been the tracks, because otherwise it would have been a rather nerve-wracking trip down, backwards, and expecting that another train might well manage to come before they managed to make it to where they could pass word along.

That it wouldn't be coming—snow had buried the tracks, and it'd be at least a day after the snow (still falling) broke before another one could come—would have been somewhat nicer to hear if they'd not only found out when the town's mayor had to be talked out—in detail—of simply dumping everybody who'd been outbid on the local inn's handful of rooms onto the next train, to be somebody else's problem. True, it had managed to smash the hopes of those who could afford the detour—or could detour, which, aside from asking the Earl or Road for a rather hard-to-explain lift, he and his friends couldn't—but at least it meant the Mayor had to admit that they perhaps ought to be fed...at which point it was quite definitely past noon.

Well, at least they did have the money to—if they could manage to find shelter—last out, and Tyki had taken care of calling to notify the mine they'd been heading to that the rail line out had been cut.

He'd also taken advantage of it to place a call to the Earl, to let him know that he was going to be a touch unreachable. The Earl had been understanding—cursing God perhaps some, but that was normal—and informed Tyki that he was going to get a sweater for Christmas, if he was still stuck there, because it was cold in Northern Europe. He hadn't complained, really; they both knew that if the train had been caught in the avalanche itself...well, he probably could survive, but it'd not have been a pleasant experience. Particularly given that, apparently, the quality of the local government was the sort that tended to occasionally please the Earl—it didn't have the good-doer tendencies that could so regularly generate great tragedies, but its lazy, hands-off form of incompetence was good for petite tragedies, and tended to simply not notice minor things like Akuma that didn't get too ambitious.

Besides, the great tragedies—the ones that produced lots of Akuma—would require dispersing the new Akuma quickly. The Order wasn't that oblivious as to fail to notice when most of a small town disappeared, and tended to get amusingly paranoid. More amusingly, of course, the fewer of the Akuma were still in town for their arrival...

Still, if he was going to take advantage of there being an Akuma or two in town he could 'ask' for a room at, it'd take a little scouting first (especially as Akuma had very poor self-control, especially the lower-level ones) to have a good cover...and to make sure it was the only real choice.

But it didn't really matter until after the arguing idiots finally decided to let those of them who hadn't managed to get those rooms at the inn leave to try to find some other sort of lodging. Or maybe decided to let them sleep in the station—it made Tyki miss living with his brother to listen to these petty officials argue. Cheryl, whatever his feelings towards humanity were (aside from rather well-hidden), had a definite and, to his fellow Noah, open opinion on how soon the incompetent ones ought to meet with something appropriate.

He'd never really thought about it, before, but he was starting to think that Cheryl probably did have a point; incompetent humans could be annoying. Couldn't they at least be allowed to go get food? Tyki felt annoyed enough at having to put up with that local minister (he'd honestly have preferred somebody from the Catholic Church, some of the nuns were cute) who had, with a battleax of his wife, directed a bunch of dour matrons in distributing what was, in a vague sense, soup. He'd been rather amused to notice that not even the traveling clown, whose knee-jerk politeness even in the face of the utter brattiness of his son's behavior had been impressive, had been really able to feign gratitude for the heated, tinted water doled out with a side of emphatically High Calvinist sermon.

Aside from a certain morbid curiosity on what those folks would come up with to serve their 'guests' for dinner and if the harangue was going to continue on the established theme of You're All Sinners Bound for Hell, he would rather fend for himself. Well, himself and his friends—and if he had to slip out, after dark, to find something then he might grab a bit extra. Something to trade with the others who might be staying there would be good...and the traveling clown was, now that his son (Allen?) had gone to sleep, happily keeping the various younger children amused and distracted from complaining.

They'd only really had Eeze for a while, but they had all already gotten attached to the five-year old. It'd be a while before he was really big enough to help much, though he certainly had a talent for inducing strangers to give him useful things (and it wasn't really begging, because Eeze never really asked as much as looked yearningly) and he seemed to not really have registered, yet, that he was orphaned... That had helped out one of the few times the Earl chose to make an incognito visit, right after they'd taken up caring for Eeze, and were staying at a particular camp with a particularly good cook—according to the Earl, the man had once been the head chef of a five-star restaurant before a taste for fast company did him in, and the food (which was the reason given for the visit) certainly supported it.

Eeze had taken to the Earl—and the Earl to him—with that strange sort of easy grace that happened whenever the Earl was playing human. The topic had drifted, without apparent aim, over to Eeze's parents...whom the five-year-old considered to be Tyki, Momo, and Clark.

At least Momo and Clark did not bother teasing him for long with what the rest of the conversation revealed about the young boy's view of the world, and maybe (soon, he hoped) Eeze would be a little...better about certain facts of life.

Besides, that had only happened once. And it'd been really good booze—just a lot stronger than they'd all expected, and they all learned an important lesson when it came to drinking in dockside dives.

Tyki perked slightly, leaving his memories, as the officials' conversation got more energetic for a little. He only caught the gist of it—and that they apparently were not even willing to consider at this point letting the poor souls stranded in the station out to try to find their own shelter for the night—and, with only a brief thoughtful glance at the sky to gauge the time in comparison to his own experience with bureaucratically-inclined politicians when his brother wasn't around to prod, decided that he might as well go to sleep.

He'd need the rest if he was going to slip out later to find food, and he trusted that Momo or Clark would wake him if, by some miracle, the idiots running the show currently realized that the people they were talking about might enjoy getting a chance to at least take a walk.

《※》

Dinner had been barely worth waking up for—it'd been another bowl of 'soup,' though at least this one had something beyond a brief acquaintance with a bone and was closer to actually being soup than the one served for lunch. Tyki was vaguely willing to admit that, if it wasn't for the fact that the people serving were so indifferent as to give everybody the same size bowl regardless of age (or size), he likely would have simply given Eeze his share and slept a little longer. The minister's sermon to go with the meal had been as he'd predicted, with the somewhat added amusement of the man taking the audience's lack of enthusiasm as yet more proof that they were not among the elect saints.

Somebody—not Tyki—had muttered, just loudly enough to be heard by all, that if the reverend was going to be in Heaven, then Hell would be the better place to go.

Nothing in the way of bedding had been provided, aside from what had been on the train and in the station—and the train's crew and the stationmaster had been clear that the young and old really ought to get first choice at the it, as it would only get colder. A compromise had been reached without much discussion, though, as most had ended up finding people willing to share body warmth—it didn't hurt that very few of them had been able to stay complete strangers, even though a few had certainly tried to. Allen's hostility towards the idea of curling up with his father for warmth had been confusing. Less confusing had the couple and their daughter who were traveling to, according to their daughter, visit her gramps; from what they had brought along, though, it seemed rather likely that the visit might be a long one. (Tyki suspected, from how sometimes the girl's parents would talk to her in a language other than English, why; the parents certainly seemed packed for a sea voyage, and religious persecution was a classic enough reason...)

Tyki waited until everybody was deeply enough asleep to slip into the station's men's room. He'd checked, earlier, to see if it had a window big enough to serve as an alibi if anybody noticed he left—not that he was going to climb out of it, he fully intended to simply walk through the wall but a plausible explanation was always useful in his White side's life. It'd not really been a bad enough day to let his Black side out, short of running into the enemy and perhaps not even then. He was hungry, and a fight was unlikely to be particularly good for his purpose in being out at all.

The town rested in a dip—not exactly a valley—between two ridges. It was a bit hard to tell if that or the factories that seemed to be the reason it wasn't a mere whistle-stop (which it clearly had been not too terribly long ago) were behind it being just enough warmer that the streets weren't snowbound. He knew, vaguely, that towards the other end of town there was some sort of river (Tyki was not terribly interested in geography when it wasn't about to result in employment) but that was mostly it, and that he only knew because, from what he'd overheard, the bridge over it had been the part of the tracks destroyed.

He noticed, quickly, that the buildings past the block or two beside the rail station were all built to patterns. The section of stand-alone houses were all transparent variations on the same basic structure, differing mostly in gingerbread and paint. More towards the center of town, there was an austere church with attached house in front of a very manicured square, with nearby stables. This seemed to be where the plans of the town—and it was quite clearly a planned town, here—had chosen to place the stores. There were several, almost giving the illusion that they were owned by different people (like they would elsewhere) but the effect was rather ruined by the fact that they all bore the same name—Lord Lister—on the signboard. It somewhat amused Tyki to note that, on a few of the older signs, the title had definitely been added later; his own claim to a title was probably more legitimate, despite his own illegitimacy. His mother, at least, had been of noble blood.

Of course, if he really cared he probably could easily enough determine how the man, likely the owner of the mill town, had gotten his title, but...

He carefully checked the stores over. From the signs he could see through the windows, it looked like Lord Lister liked paying in scrip. He'd had enough experience with that sort of employer that even his White side didn't feel particular guilt in...liberating some food—carefully, of course. He glanced to make sure his timing was good—he had a good enough idea what time the shifts in a factory town started and ended, and the clock on the church's tower said it was safely in the middle of the graveyard shift—and he'd not need to bother with witnesses...

He blinked. He hadn't really expected to see the clown's bratty son out—while slipping out of the station, even with it locked up for the night (if it had been the mayor instead, he'd have been very happy), would not be that hard if you had some acrobatic skill and the boy's small size, he'd not missed that the boy only had use of his right arm. It was clear that the boy hadn't expected to see him out, either.

...Tyki was just glad that he could be quite convincing when he wanted, and that the boy was willing enough to let somebody else run the worse of the risks & play lookout—which, usefully, spared Tyki the need to check before walking through the wall on his own errand and moreover ensured that he would not need to dispose of the boy. Neither side of him was especially inclined towards random slaughter; at least the Order was interested enough in keeping their war hidden from view that, should he kill somebody from it, the overall hassle would be less. Stray corpses—ones that the Order wouldn't cover up—just caused more trouble than the temporary (though great) satisfaction it offered, especially when his White side would be in town for it.

Besides, it was easier to haul back more loot—carefully selected, so it'd not be missed too soon—with the boy's help, even if it did mean sharing some. His friends would anyway, and at least the boy's father had helped keep Eeze from minding the situation too much.

Tyki admittedly would probably have agreed with him getting a share; Eeze was still learning to read, and...

There did not seem to be a local newspaper to offer him to practice on. Maybe he could ask the Jewish family if they could lend some reading material?

He didn't really think much of the boy's willingness to be convinced to slip back in first. That he'd find himself very glad that it was faster to go through the wall to reach the men's room than to go around on the inside, though, was unexpected. He supposed that the boy had wanted to make sure he'd get what he considered his proper share of the loot, not that Tyki was too inclined to actually cheat him on this—too much bother, especially the boy had all of the bread. He understood—perhaps all too well (his 'father'—his mother's pimp—losing the vague interest he'd had in him when another whore bore a child undoubtedly his own spawn)—what might be behind that...

What was a complete surprise, however, was being hugged, suddenly and tightly, by a man who looked like the Earl. "Neah! I've found you!"

Tuesday

The only thing that had gone particularly right since Monday morning was that the reverend and his biddies did not come to provide 'soup' and sermon for breakfast, today. Loaves of slightly stale bread were almost universally agreed to be preferable.

The man—Allen called him Mana—had stuck close to him, apparently entirely and completely convinced that Tyki was his brother. Even if the man was...actually managing to make Jasdero and David seem rather sane; apparently Allen wasn't his son, but...if you believed what he was saying (and Tyki didn't) his dog. Tyki was (mostly) certain that the American twins had never gotten that confused, not even the time Jasdero had not only turned up as David's date for a ball wearing a (rather lovely) low-cut ballgown and a suspiciously authentic figure...

Tyki felt guilty for the brat's current mood. The redhead might not be a Noah, or one of his friends, but he hadn't meant to do take away Mana from him. He knew what the odds of a young child surviving on the streets on their own—they'd taken in Eeze after his father died for more reasons than just because Eeze had lost his father saving Clark's life in a cave-in. Allen—if that was his real name and not merely what Mana called him—had not only his youth going against him but a crippled arm. (From the way he hid it, Tyki wouldn't be too surprised if it turned out to be deformed as well. He'd grown up hearing stories about strange deformities a friend of a friend of the story's teller had seen, natural and unnatural...)

Some of them, he believed, especially after some of the places he'd gotten to visit as Cheryl's brother.

At least they'd been rather successful at protecting Eeze as much as his father had from the particular cruelties the streets could hold for a young child. After watching Allen watch his 'mother' and Mana sullenly for the day, when it came time to settle down for another night sleeping in the train station, the five-year-old had outright insisted on curling up with Allen.

It had, it turned out, helped some, even if the boy—despite being maybe twice Eeze's age—was clinging to him like a younger sibling might. It was a lot like he had been, when...

(Offering to start working, anything, just to get to stay—he couldn't claim his mother's protection, she had died years ago and he understood now that her pimp had only kept him this long as a placeholder for the newborn. It wasn't true that you couldn't buy love; the love of man who gave him his surname was bought with money, and little else...and he was willing to help Tyki earn it.)

It was too easy for Tyki to understand the boy's feelings.

The pair had, though, quite successfully managed to ensure that Tyki and his friends didn't mind that much the revelation that—until the train could go somewhere else—they would be staying in the station as there wasn't a place in town outside of the lone inn that took lodgers. It seemed that the town was one that rarely enough got visitors who actually had any need for lodging, and even if they all pooled to rent a house that was not an option unless they chose to get a job at the mills.

The mills, at least, were always hiring. The terms, though—well, nobody there cared to stay until when their first payday would come, months off. Even if, somehow, neither of the blocked sections of tracks were clear by the spring, the combination of the pay (reasonable—if it was paid more regularly) and their choices of where to buy from were enough. Tyki knew that there were some jobs he simply would not stoop to, and working at in a mill was one of them.

He knew too much about what could go wrong in a factory, both from various visits to hospitals (not for himself) and from tales shared by the Earl. The Earl was quite fond of them—it was so tragic when a child got caught in the machines, or the like, and there was often enough somebody who would want the machines' victim back... Tyki was rather certain the Earl's fondness would decrease if any of the Noah happened to become one of those machines' victims. In Tyki's mind, there was something distinctly worse to being killed by cold, indifferent machines; at least the Akuma were doing what they were meant to when they killed humans.

...He was not quite to the point of wishing one would take care of Mana, or using a Tease to cause a nice, apparently-natural death for the man, even if his mental condition might make it a bit of a kindness. It was not, exactly, that the man seemed convinced that he was this 'Neah' person—to have mistaken Tyki for his younger brother.

It was...

He was used to his own elder brother's antics. He didn't like some of them, but Cheryl was his elder brother and now that he actually had a family he was damned if he was going to let it go, even if Cheryl sometimes was...well, Tyki had experienced worse.

Getting clung to without a hint of sexual tension was...nice.

Mana's sanity was the main problem. That he looked disturbingly like the Earl, Tyki could deal with. (He had, somewhat, occasionally, wished he dared do what Road did. It did look like he was fun to hug...) That all of this had Allen unhappy...well, he had no intention of stealing the boy's father-figure from him. Tyki was not his brother—he quite happily admitted that did not get much pleasure from causing harm for its own sake, and certainly never enough for it to be worth the effort.

Tyki was willing to put up with it, for now. If Mana insisted on following him once they could leave, though...and it was nice to have a bit of extra warmth at night.

Wednesday

Wednesday marked the first day that they were not blocked from leaving the station. It'd snowed overnight, and the reverend had come back for another sermon and breakfast session.

Tyki was wondering how many variations the man had on You're All Sinners Bound for Hell and if any would be particularly amusingly creative instead of some type of insulting. This time the man had chosen to focus on the women who were not traveling with a male relative on the train—which translated to all, not including the Jews. Tyki did not appreciate the reverend's assertion that a female who was not accompanied by a male relative was automatically a whore. He was certain that if Road was there—she did enjoy occasional trips out on her own, and even Cheryl had to admit that Road could take care of herself—she would have killed him rather horribly for it. As it was, he was quite certain that none of the women on the train were whores, and even he could sense how badly the suggestion that they were went over.

They might well have actually done him in—and done so worse than Road would have—if the reverend hadn't had enough sense to end the sermon quickly. Tyki wasn't quite willing to bet that the man had realized the effect the sermon was having, but apparently he knew enough to tell when he was inspiring a self-directed lynch party.

Which was a shame. Tyki would have been rather happier with the company if they had been, though Eeze was a bit young to introduce to that aspect of life. So, really, was Allen, unless the woman had a fondness for prepubesent boys, but Tyki had rather too much experience with the type to have much fondness for them. Road insisted she'd met a man who actually was good despite the age difference, but Road had been around for twice as long as he had—and had more time to meet such. He didn't ask if Cheryl was the one she'd found; he didn't want to know.

He'd also, admittedly, have been all for the female lynch party. Sermons with nearly every meal for days was not what he considered to make for pleasant meals. He'd been through worse—a guest of Cheryl's who had ended the night in a ditch somewhere and not missed for days, with a funeral with much fake tears—but not repeatedly. And not without some satisfaction. (The widow had been quite merry, younger than her late husband and easily & enjoyably consoled.)

It'd not been quite enough to kill the enthusiasm for it finally being admitted that they did deserve to get a chance to see the town, without having to slip out.

Tyki found himself being dragged out to the market square by Mana, who apparently intended to see just how bad the place was for street performers. If the reverend was any indication, it probably wasn't worth visiting on purpose—but the clown seemed to feel that it was at least worth going to see if they could get a few coins for their trouble. It'd worked out well for Tyki and his friends, though; Mana had been not too hard to convince to include Allen in the performance (a better take was always worthwhile) and one of them would have had to stay behind and keep an eye on Eeze anyway while the others looked to see if there was some bit work to be picked up.

He settled to watch Eeze and the performance, apple in hand, and planned to get more later—if he could slip out at night again.

Saturday

The morning came with, after the sermon, an announcement from the stationmaster. It was, initially, rather more welcome than the sermon, as they all had expected to hear that the snow-buried tracks had been cleared. There had, after all, been occasional breaks in the snow where they were during the week, so there was reason to hope that they could be able to leave the town soon.

Unfortunately, the news was rather disappointing. While they had gotten breaks in the snow where they were, the buried tracks were at a higher elevation, and to the north—and there the few breaks in the weather had not been long enough to start digging. The only thing that made it still the more appealing route out of town was the fact that the railroad was reporting that the tracks taken out by the avalanche might well not be repaired before spring—the stationmaster proved more informative this time than before, admitting finally that the particular section of tracks destroyed was a bridge, and it'd been concluded that the bridge simply would not hold up to the weight of a train. The town was not entirely isolated—there was a road leading out, though at this time of the year it was not one to be traveled on foot. It was too cold to sleep out, and too far to the next settlement to reach it in a day on foot.

There was already some discussion among the stranded passengers of seeing if they could arrange a lift.

Tyki agreed with his friends and Mana—who seemed quite determined to stay with 'Neah'—that they ought to do the same. There was little enough in the town to do, and Tyki hoped somewhere larger would give him a chance to shake the mad clown. His friends might think it hilarious, but Tyki didn't think Mana would be good to take along while trying to find somebody interested in a bit of fun between the sheets.

Not, exactly, that he minded going a whole week between... It merely was that it was the longest it'd been since he'd lost his virginity. Tyki was finding it annoyingly strange; he was not going to stay he didn't like it, but...

It would take a little extra effort to slip out at night unnoticed. Maybe, if it took longer than the weekend to find somebody willing to give then a lift out, it would be worth that extra effort...

Still, for now, he was willing to give himself a little longer to figure out if he liked this break. Besides, as long as Allen remembered that he was not to teach Eeze his bad habits—Tyki had not felt guilty in the least about suggesting leaving Allen behind if he was going to insist on corrupting the younger boy—it was really rather enjoyable to watch them play together. Eeze had been around miners all his life—and crippled miners & former miners were not a rare sight.

Some had even been around Allen's age.

It'd been actually rather amusing to watch Allen's expression when he'd patiently explained that to him, too. Tyki wondered a bit how the boy could have not encountered crippled kids before—it was definitely not due to being too sheltered, which was the only explanation Tyki could imagine, and he'd seen the occasional kid whose limbs were left looking like the sole reason they were still on at all was because their parents had been too poor for even that much doctoring... They tended to end up keeping them covered too, unless they were making a living begging—and even then, the uglier deformities ended up staying covered.

Really, could he be blamed for being a bit curious about how the boy's arm looked?

Though he had enough experience to guess rather well what to expect, morbid curiosity tended to stick.

He frowned slightly as he noticed a bit of yellow at the edge of the field the pair of boys were playing ball in—they had agreed that Allen's useless left arm compensated for his size advantage over Eeze—and headed to get a better look. He'd seen that shade of yellow and that texture before, and if he was seeing it right he did not want Eeze to see...

Tyki cursed as he got a better look, and at Allen's look—the redhead clearly was pissed at the adult breaking a rule he'd imposed on him—told him to get Eeze away from there and get Momo or Clark to find a policeman. The boy hesitated a little, before it sunk in that the man Mana had latched onto was serious (and asking him to do something important), and then hurried Eeze off.

It was, Tyki couldn't help thinking, a waste of what looked to have been a rather pretty woman.

In the Next Chapter: The Second Week of Advent. Tyki goes to Church & the local police prove to be as competent as the other examples of the local government Tyki has met so far.