Author's note: Hello all. First, to those who follow my series The Gift of Life, you're probably wondering what I have been doing and what am I doing posting a new story instead of updating. I apologise for the disappearance, but school started and I won't be back until Christmas break. This story was written in the midst of work, and it just took so much out of me nowadays to write a chapter of The Gift of Life, so I opted for something easy that flowed with inspiration. Nonetheless, thank you all for having supported me all this time. Rest assured that I will be back to finish up the series. This story is actually within the Gift of Life universe, but to all who didn't read that series, it is still fine to read this story as a stand-alone, except that it may get a little confusing towards the end and it might make more sense to read Gift of Life alongside. Also, I could not for the life of me figure out Albafica's nationality, so I stuck with Switzerland. If anyone has any idea where he's from, please do tell me for future references. Enjoy.
P.S.: Depending on whether inspiration strikes and whether conscientious time-management allows me, I may write a full blown story for this pairing within the same universe. Don't count it yet, though.
Disclaimer: I do not own Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas or its characters.
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Home
Not many people knew this, but Manigoldo Feliciano often dreamt.
The other day, he had dreamt of golden Italia. He saw rolling hills that stretched till the far indigo mountains, lush green grass like silk under his feet, and the bluest sky in all the places he had ever been. There was a breeze light as the wings of a swallow, and in it he could smell rosemary and oregano and the white lilies from a back garden, so long ago in a forgotten memory behind a white veil somewhere in his heart. There were rows upon rows of flowers, maybe a stone wall covered in moss and wild daisies. Maybe there used to be a face, too, although he thought perhaps he had forgotten who it was. Only the scent of rosemary remained, a sprig in his buttonhole pressed by a hand he could not remember. He dreamt of Napoli, of Venezia, of ancient Roma. He dreamt of cobble-stoned streets dressed by the blindingly white Italian sun, of little balconies covered in ivies and hanging baskets of little rainbows of flowers, of a moonlit gondola ride before the Piazza San Marco, of a lazy afternoon spent on the roof of a church just watching white doves taking flight from a lone clock tower pointing proudly towards the sky. Why the stealing, the fighting, the hunger, the cruelty, the indifference that had haunted his childhood never entered dreams like these, Manigoldo knew not, but secretly, deep inside, he knew he was grateful for the small mercy.
Other times, he dreamt of the war. He dreamt of flags tearing a gaping gash into the bleeding sky, of proud horses dressed in heavy armour before falling without seeing their endless plains again, of blackened faces staring from ditches littering the battlefield, gazing on unseeingly with dead-fish eyes, of red-stained nights spent in the makeshift infirmary listening to screaming and howling and calling for beloved mothers, of freezing winters trudging through the snow with no shoes and barely a shirt on his back, of a broken doll forgotten somewhere by roadside as smoke rose into blistering dusk… Nights like these, it was too much. Manigoldo had only one way to deal with it; he woke with a scream, eyes wide and terrified and feeling small and helpless all over again. He was strong, but not on nights like these, when the stench of gunpowder and rotting flesh overwhelmed the scent of rosemary and of golden Italia, leaving his stomach churning and bile rising in his throat. Nights like these, Manigoldo stayed awake till morning, a neglected cigar between his lips and a cheap, old, rusty tin cross clutched tightly between trembling fingers.
There were also other things that he dreamt about. He dreamt of the old man who had rescued a child almost having his hand cut off from being caught stealing. He dreamt of how he had looked up, bruised eyes narrowing just to breathlessly take in a huge, benevolent, gentle shadow engulfing him. Father Sage was so big then; he was bigger than the whole world Manigoldo had known, and he was so strong he pulled a future criminal from the depths of despair into what he had become, an Oberst, a soldier, a man. Sometimes Manigoldo also saw dusk coloured hair hiding away a bashful smile that lit up a gloomy afternoon the colour of heaven. Then he would, without fail, see a brilliant child with eyes not unlike his own and a grin that could have taken on the world – and perhaps he did; just in his own way. Other times, there might have been a brotherly figure, a man straightforward as a sword who would ruffle their hair and tell them stories of passionate España, of tomato vines vibrantly red in a land where the sun never set, of the sway to the staccato of castanets, of the emerald sea that blended into the sky into the end of the world.There was a roof over their head; sometimes, there was even a Christmas tree decorated in the extravagant way the Prussians did. He could not remember very well, but maybe, just maybe, those times had been the best of his life, a roaring fire, a dinner with nice enough food, a quiet prayer, and a white, white night that brought him to faraway lands, droning in the baritone of Father Sage's tales of his travels.
But most of all, Manigoldo dreamt of the reason why he had survived the war, had crawled through freezing mud and clinging lush, had stepped on crying and begging bodies to just go on, keep going on, and return. He dreamt of home, his everything. He dreamt of a fall of hair coloured like sunshine, of dark eyelashes that brushed against rosy cheeks. He dreamt of a beauty mark that reminded him of a lone tear like a dew drop upon the morning rose, of a silence that trickled into his soul to fill the emptiness within his heart with exuberance like nothing he had known before. Nights like these, Manigoldo was almost happy he was alive, lost where dreams and memories and fantasies met. There was a green house that was so different, yet which reminded him painfully of his golden Italia and his forgotten sprig of rosemary. Rows upon rows of roses, red, burgundy, coral, yellow, pink, blinded him with reflections from the early light. Yet even amongst the flowers, there was a bright white spot that stood out like a lost angel, eyes blinking and lips forming a small, private, brilliant smile that took the breath from Manigoldo and pulled the ground from underneath his feet. Other nights, there was a fourteen-year-old bar fight with flowing beer and wild laughter ringing like bells. In reality, Manigoldo may have had his nose broken the moment he stopped in his track, distracted by the impossible grace upon a kick like a swan descending on still water. In his dreams, though, time always stopped in that single moment, and rewound, and played again, in all the glories of a youthful grin betraying none of the quiet beauty underneath. Very rarely, though, if Manigoldo was very lucky, there would be a kiss like new snow upon his forehead, followed by liquid eyes that moved like spring water. He would dream of the acceptance that never happened, of the quiet romance that never bore fruit. He would admire a smile that killed like a thousand bullets to the heart, feel the slide of heated skin upon his own, listen to a lullaby in a language he never knew in the dead of night, taste everything and nothing he had ever wanted, and remember how the scents of rose and rosemary branded themselves upon his memories like red-hot iron. Nights like these, Manigoldo played the fool he had sworn never to be, because somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew with bitter sweet realisation that gouged a hole in his soul that this was never the truth. He kept on dreaming nonetheless, again and again forgetting why or how he was unhappy, and woke up feeling another piece of his heart falling away into dust, gone, forgotten, discarded.
His home crashed and burnt, yet at the same time, he kept coming back to it, running head-long into it like an idiot, revelling in how his insides gnawed away until all that was left was a longing so profound it almost became a physical ache. Most nights, nearing the break of dawn, when the owls have tired of their cries and the songbirds have yet to wake, Manigoldo lay, half-awake, half-lost, trapped in a recurring memory that he almost wished was a fantasy. Eyes that gazed into his like a knife to the spine, numbing and blistering all at the same time. Words that took the colours away from his world despite the easy grin he had carefully plastered on, despite the thorough preparations he had made for himself, despite every silly, stupid, foolish hope against hope he had clung onto like a drowning man his buoy within a storming ocean. It was the night before he left to join the Austrian army, on the top of a hill so close to the night sky he could almost reach out and scoop a handful of tiny, twinkling stars like the sand on the Mediterranean beach. The air was chilly outside their heavy coat and scarf, but as they lay side by side, Manigoldo swore he could have taken everything off and still feel warm and heady in this happiest, saddest, best, and worst moment of his life. The rejection passed like fresh wave of air into his lungs and a slap to the face all at once. Manigoldo could have staggered, could have hurt, could have fallen to his knees like a defeated soldier and never get up again, but he did not. Instead, he looked up at the night sky, attempting to trace where the Aurora Borealis would have appeared had this been a mountain top in that snowy northern country. With a grin that broke his heart, he turned to his companion and asked about cheese chunks the size of cart wheels, about the best chocolate in the world, about the tales that the northern wind whispered into crackling fireplaces, about pine woods that sang like a gentle sigh on nights like these. And he watched, oh how he watched, doubtful eyes turned just that tad bit misty, before glazing over in a memory far, far away. Manigoldo probed, kept probing, and probed some more, until words flowed and downturned lips quirked in the littlest of smiles, and the night air warmed into sweet wine on which he drank himself into oblivion.
Home. His home. His reason to live, to die, to fight, to return.
'You love but once.' A certain man had said, straight as a sword, eyes on the far horizon where his beloved España might be.
'Home is where the heart is.' Another man, younger than himself, yet with a heart-wrenching grin that took on the whole wide world, had also said, before throwing his own life to sun-drenched afternoons.
Manigoldo laughed at himself and his silly dreams and fantasies and memories. 'What a boring thing to remember,' he said. Outside, snow was still silently piling up, reflecting a starry sky so near to his window he could almost reach out and scoop a handful of tiny, twinkling stars like the sand on the Mediterranean beach. Tomorrow, he was going south, and south meant only one thing.
Manigoldo raised a boisterous tankard to home, dreams, and unrealised, foolish, bitter, sweet, aching, beautiful love.