a/n: and now for the lamest chapter in the whole thing so far. i liked the idea of a cute little Kanna and her apathetic mother, but i don't think the execution came off right. also, i had forgotten about the show-within-a-show The Happy Little Elves from the Simpsons, which makes The Happy Little Reyvateils sound like a cheap uninspired knock-off. oh well. and there's other issues too. but hope ya enjoy, anyway.
Ep. 9: How Do You Say "Put It In" in Hymmnos?
Meanwhile, back in the bad old days of 3758 A.D., when Cynthia was still churning out smelly diapers for her mother to change and little Leyka was imitating her dad's sword practice, having a blast wielding about a magical girl baton like a deadly weapon while Luca could only facepalm as she looked on...
A four-year-old, pocket- -
Eh?
Whaddya mean pretending to wield a sword doesn't fit Leyka's image?
Oh, come on. Surely she couldn't have spent all of her earliest years as a whiny crybaby. There must've been moments when her preschool aggressive side reared it's cute ugly head...moments when she found it more enjoyable to drop-kick Gergo than hug him dearly. Which was precisely why Luca wouldn't let her play with Goro - - one never knew when Leyka's play switch would flip from "Love & Peace" to "Lacerate & Punch". Which irked Mom to no end when Leyka whined that Luca wouldn't share. Which impelled Mom to force Luca to share by threatening either to send her to bed without dinner that evening, or to give her some "re-education" on good behavior by making her watch an episode of Metafalss' most notorious children's program, The Happy Little Reyvateils, a show so badly overrun with moralistic messages, smiling positivism and squishy personalities that hemorraged relentless do-gooder cheerfulness that even at Luca's tender young age it made her skin crawl. Which always got Luca to comply pretty quickly, but also sent her into fits of mother-hating angst - - Leyka never had to watch The Happy Little Reyvateils, but that was because Leyka was Mom's favorite. Which occasionally spurred Luca to interfere with Leyka's Goro-playing by sitting on him, claiming she just needed a soft spot to sit on at that very moment. Which prompted Leyka to protest that there were pillows on their beds that Luca could sit on, as she tugged fruitlessly at the stuffed Pippen pinned down by Luca's pouty patoot. Which prompted Luca to counter that the pillows were too far away. Which drove Leyka to call for reinforcements by crying out, "Mommmmmmm!" Which forthwith got Luca's butt off the Pippen, as well as got a hand clapped over Leyka's mouth as Luca hissed, "Okay! Okay! You can play with him! Just don't call Mom!" and then proceeded to occupy herself nonchalantly in case Mom came stomping to investigate. Ahh...such a joy to watch young sisters playing together.
And before any of you deeply hardcore Ar tonelico fans out there protest, 'B-But, Luca wouldn't treat Leyka like that! She loved Leyka! That was why she plotted and schemed to find her by any means necessary, using and manipulating others to her advantage in her search!', bear in mind that this was before Leyka had been so rudely hauled off by the Grand Bell, at a time when Luca had no reason to suspect that Leyka would suddenly be punished with a very long and nasty Time-Out in a cold, dark I.P.D. lab. One doesn't appreciate what one has until it's gone...
"Not me," professed Infel, making a sudden appearance in the narrative for no logically plausible reason. "I appreciated Nenesha for everything she was worth in all the times we shared together."
Yeah, and you're still bitter about it now that she's gone, so, bad example. Now go away - - you don't have a place in this fic. But you do get to have a role in a different one...if it ever gets written. So, see you then.
Infel's face darkened. "I know what you're talking about. And that fic idea of yours is insanely stupid."
So? At least you get to team up with Nenesha again, eh? Now will you please go away if the narrator hands you a cute Nenesha plushie made by Tomy?
"I'm not a little kid!" Infel bristled. "You can't placate my sensibilities with a stuffed toy!"
Fine, fine. We'll just do this the hard way, then.
Suddenly, a gigantic weight marked "16 TONS" came rushing down upon Infel's head. She dodged just in time, then fled the scene as more 16-ton weights crashed down behind her while yelling something in the Pastalia dialect about fanfic writers all being a bunch of otaku idiots. Hypocrite. You oughta see some of the doujin works she's written. They're pretty tasty.
Uhhh...where were we again? Oh yeah - - bad old days, four-year-old pocket-something.
A four-year-old, pocket-sized version of Kanna Ileris, complete with feisty strawberry blonde pigtails, but at her present age accessorized with cute poofy Poms at the hair ties - - which lent a huge boost to her d'awwww stats - - held her mother's hand as they walked down the Pastalian streets of the Tsuruya shopping district. She'd only been here a few times before, and her curious green eyes looked about her in wonder and fascination. Her mother had only been here 584 times before, and her listless brown eyes looked about her with dreariness and irritation. Sucks to be old, eh? Well, Kanna's mother wasn't exactly old by age, though she was pretty old at heart - - broken, dispirited, and generally sick of life and sick of being a mother. She had never even wanted children to begin with. Lucky you, Kanna-chan.
Glumly dragging her offspring along, the pale-skinned, bedraggled mother frowned as she quietly prayed, Please dear Goddess, just let me get some damn shopping done today without this kid being a pain in the - -
"Aspwin?" mini-Kanna piped up.
"Huh?" her mother slowly mumbled.
"Aspwin, Mama? Do you need to take aspwin again?" the little tyke burbled, seeing the pained, pathetic bag of blah that was her mother's face. Which was actually her mother's normal face any day of the week, but most days Kanna didn't notice because, for one thing, she didn't know any different - - she thought it was normal for mothers to have an aura of sickly, dying puppies. And for another, she didn't see her mother much at home, being constantly booted out of their run-down apartment and told to go play outside in the rubble.
Her mother was taken aback. "No...uh, sw-sweetie. I'm perfectly fine," she said with all the vitality of a vacant and overgrown parking lot.
I gotta do a better job of hiding all my pill-taking from this kid, she said gloomily to herself as she blankly turned away from those inquisitive green eyes.
Little Kanna wasn't buying it. Her four-year-old spidey-sense told her that Mama was about as fine as a sack of dead dandelions. She never called her "sweetie". But seeing her mother acting two steps away from zombie-like didn't really worry or upset her. More like it just pissed her off. Well, perhaps that's kinda like being upset...in a feisty way.
What?
You didn't think little girls her age could get pissed off? Heh, watch; it's adorable.
Kanna-chan's chubby face hardened into a darling little scowl as she pouted fiercely alongside her oblivious mother. Her footsteps became footstomps, her pink-and-white-sneakered feet hammering into the airmetal grating beneath her. And just for good measure, she squeezed her mother's hand a few extra PSI harder. Even those cute Poms in her hair somehow looked a smidge grouchier.
For a short ways they walked together like this - - baggy-eyed mother, sour-faced youngster. Kanna-chan even thought at one point that The Happy Little Reyvateils could probably teach her stupid mother a thing or two about being honest and telling the truth. Then the stomach-twisting nausea set in. Quickly she tried to put those frighteningly happy girls out of her thoughts. Watching the show had always made her physically ill and sick to her stomach.
Mercifully, a few moments later her pained eyes suddenly locked upon an item of interest. A colorful mural decorated the outer wall of the traditional weaponsmithing shop of the Grand Bell. Go fire up the game and pay a visit to Pastalia City if you don't recall what this is in reference to. Do it now. NOWWW! Or...continue reading if you like...ahem. It was a modest mural of simple design and muted colors, yet nevertheless it absorbed the attention of her unsophisticated young mind and made her forget all about those torturous smiles of glee. Whew. Anyway, what Kanna found most puzzling about this bit of Grand Bell graffiti was the string of odd white characters at the mural's lower edge.
"Mama, wha's dat?" she chattered, pointing at said characters.
Mama just kept walking.
"Mama! Wha's dat?" she chattered much more loudly.
Mama just kept ignoring.
"Mama! Wha's! Dat!" she insisted.
"Sushi," her mother mumbled without even turning to look.
"Dat's not sushi, Mama! Wook!" she hollered, angrily anchoring her feet down and pulling back on Mama's hand to make her stop.
Mama sighed...a heavy, weary, soul-draining sigh. Creakily she turned herself about, centimeter by centimeter.
"WHAT?" she said with a thud, sounding about ready to bring down a frying pan on those cute pigtails.
"Dat!" fumed Kanna, pointing.
"Hymmnos language."
"Hym-mos...?"
"It's what Reyvateils say when they sing. Now, come on!"
But Kanna had turned to gaze at the intricate lettering. Her attention was riveted.
"Or don't. I don't care. Later," her loving mother said casually as she turned and shuffled away.
Not really bothered or concerned by her mother's departure, Kanna-chan continued to ponder the Hymmnos characters. After all, it wasn't the first time Mama had walked off with a 'Later' and left her standing alone somewhere in a public place. She was used to it. Just like she was also used to hearing those three little words - - I don't care - - from her mother's lips. Just another day in Kanna's happy little family.
C'mon, don't pity her, now. You know she turned out all right. Sort of.
Anyway, in the space of four seconds Kanna's facial expressions went from fascination, to puzzlement, and finally to frustration over trying to grasp the seeming complexity of the Hymmnos characters. And Reyvateils were supposed to be able to sing this? To her post-toddler brain, it looked hard. Really hard.
"I don' wanna be a Weyvateiw," she said at last, with a haughty toss of her head. And with her nose proudly in the air, she marched off in search of her rain-cloud mother.
Fourteen years later, Kanna the Reyvateil was busily grumbling internally at what Fate had dealt to her. Fate has an extremely sick sense of humor. Fate should sign up for Dive Therapy.
Wearing an expression of utter misery and disgust, she felt about ready to puke. Riding the Souffle Axis while one was in impending need of a diquility installation was never a good idea. Every bump, every jostle, every clackety-clack of the train ride sent nausea rippling through her frame. Why, oh why hadn't she taken care of it earlier when she first felt the need coming on hours ago? But she already knew why.
Because it's a Frelia-damned pain in the ass, she griped to herself.
Yet now, even the advertisements plastered inside the train only seemed to be mocking her misery. One diquility ad in particular showed a calm-looking Reyvateil bathed in a gentle light, seated in a relaxed and tranquil pose with one knee raised, her bared leg accenting her naturalness and beauty...theoretically inviting the viewer to trust in the naturalness and beauty of the product. And to one side of the peaceful Reyvateil, written in a feminine font, were the words:
Sakura DiQ
For a Smoother Installation
'Smoother' installation...install this... the sickened Kanna thought sourly, surreptitiously flipping off Sakura DiQ and the calm-looking Reyvateil. Burl stood beside her, concerned over her present state. The others were quietly rejoicing that Kanna hadn't the energy to constantly exercise her loud mouth for once.
"Kanna...you okay?" Burl asked.
"...Do I look okay?" she breathed.
"Well..."
Duh.
"...I mean...is there anything I can do for you?"
"...Yeah...you could let me puke on you."
Burl gave a polite laugh...one of those half-hearted laughs that's intended to help lighten an uncomfortable moment but instead just makes one sound like a total dork.
"Well that's not exactly what I meant..."
"Then don't talk to me," she exhaled, adding, "Please, just...not right now."
Burl grew quiet. Kanna saying please? She must be feeling really sick. Likewise, this kind of joke must be really lame, because it's been rehashed throughout comedic history.
Finally they arrived at their destination. Soon as Kanna was off the train, she made as steady a beeline as she could for the nearest public restroom to insert a life extender into herself. Burl offered to help but she insisted on doing it alone. She never was satisfied with how Burl handled that thing, anyway. Double entendre can be fun.
In a dilapidated nearby park that looked like it was more frequented by drug dealers than by children, she found just the place. Icky-looking, but at least it offered privacy. Quickly she stepped over to the women's side.
"Ohhh..." she heard a girl moan from within.
Kanna froze.
Not exactly the kind of thing she wanted to hear coming from a restroom like this. She paused in the doorway, listening, hoping that perhaps she had simply misheard. For a few moments she heard nothing.
"Aa...aahh!" she then heard the girl's voice cry, followed by a sharp, gasping intake of breath. Then an exhalation of, "Nnngh..."
Joy. Sounded like something was going on in there that she would rather not know about. Kanna was so thrilled that she frowned irritably.
Yet her eyes bugged out a little at what she heard next - - a male voice, low and soft, as if hoping not to get caught.
"Is it hurting?" he said.
"A little..." the girl replied in a ragged voice.
"Sorry..."
"Mmmm...!" the girl grunted, sounding half in pain, half in pleasure.
"Maybe we should stop?" the guy said uncertainly.
"No, don't!" the girl gasped. "We have to finish...uhhh...!"
"You sure?"
"Yes, j-just finish it! Nnnghh-hh...!"
Kanna almost walked off out of sheer embarrassment. Seemed like some Reyvateil and her partner were already doing a diquility installation here. At least...she really hoped it was just an installation.
But walking off would mean having to find another place. The men's side? No way. Yet there wasn't time to go anywhere else. Kanna already felt herself to be in a bad way. If she put it off any longer, she might collapse...then she really would need Burl's help with the install. And that was just...
So, in typical Kanna-style, she went for the gusto. "'Scuse me! Comin' through! Gotta take care of some business here!" she boldly announced, striding in and picking a stall as far away as possible from where she perceived the couple's sounds to be coming from.
"What the - -?" the guy said with a start.
"Ah! Careful! Ow ow ow ow!"
"Sorry, sorry!"
Kanna felt bad for the poor girl. Maybe startling them like that wasn't such a good idea, she thought as she adjusted her clothes to an indecent degree so she could insert the stupid thing. Fumbled installations were no fun, she knew from experience...and that guy sounded like he was fumbling all over the place now.
"Goddess it sucks being a Reyvateil," Kanna found herself muttering as she wobblingly rejoined her companions.
"Feeling better?" Burl inquired.
"Peachy," Kanna said wearily, looking hung over.
For a moment the narrator thought about putting a few words in Kanna's or C.P.'s mouth about diquility sometimes taking a while for the Reyvateil to feel the full effect. But being that everyone in their group should know this by now from having watched Kanna and Cloche go through it several times already, he opted to avoid having C.P. look stupid by making such an amnesiac comment.
"Thank you," said C.P.
As for Kanna, she plainly was not in the mood for making a bit of exposition.
"Got that right, fatso," she murmured.
Yet poor Kanna, having so rudely insulted the fanficcer who had written her very feistiness into being, quickly discovered that there would be a price to pay for her insolence...as a forgotten childhood terror was suddenly thrust back into her face.
"Hey, hey, Kanna!" Cloche bubbled happily. "Check this out! They're making a comeback!" And in her hand, centimeters from Kanna's eyes, was a plushie likeness of Rikkey the Reyvateil, host of The Happy Little Reyvateils, which Cloche had just purchased from a nearby vendor.
"Good morning-morning!" Cloche squeaked in a horrid tone like tortured mice, gleefully imitating Rikkey's infamous catchphrase.
Kanna's visceral reaction was immediate. Her stomach sank and gave a violent twist; she could no longer hold it in. Rushing to a nearby railing, she lost her breakfast and her lunch over the edge in a burst of hacking and gagging. Have fun blowing chunks out your nose, Kanna. Grin.
Meanwhile, on a level somewhere below...
A happy young couple strolled down a secluded alleyway shaded by the towering structures above. Between them they carried a clear plastic umbrella, and together they walked beneath it as the lovey-dovey sky shone down upon them.
"Why are we carrying an umbrella, anyway?" the girl laughed easily. "It's not like it ever rains in Metafalss!"
"Well, ya know..." the guy grinned sheepishly, it being his idea. "It's kinda, like, just a thing that lovers do, ya know?"
The girl began blushing like mad, laughing even more. "Oh, you! What kinds of things are you saying?" she said, giving the guy a light slap on the shoulder.
Such was the moment when Kanna's sicky-juice hit their umbrella like giant dollops of nasty mustard. Fabulous. They could even see every bit of it too, above and below, as they stood stunned in the aftermath of the sudden downpour. No, it may not rain in Metafalss. But it occasionally does vomit.
Back up above, Cloche had a confuzzled look on her face. Heh, typical.
"Did I do something wrong?" she wondered, clutching Rikkey uncertainly. Then she turned and faced the others. "All I did was show her the doll I bought..." she said, holding it up.
Lance and Burl both recoiled. Burl could only babble "Eeeee-hee-heee!" nonsensically as he threw his forearms up in defense, while Lance looked half-panicked. "Put that thing away, Cloche! It gives me the jeebies!"
"Whaat? But it's just a Happy Little Reyv - -"
"NOOO! Don't say it!" he blustered, slamming his hands over his ears. "Those things are evil! Pure evil in the form of six-year-old little girls!"
Cloche frowned. "No they're not! It was a cute show! It was happy and fun and I liked it! Besides..." she added matter-of-factly, "they're not all six. Rikkey here is eight."
Lance gave Cloche a long, icy, suspicious stare.
"So that's what happened to you. That's why you're so...it all makes sense now!"
Now Cloche was getting pissed. "That's why I'm so what? What's wrong with liking a show?"
"That show wasn't normal, Cloche," Burl said tremblingly, backing away from Rikkey and her eternal grin. "So not normal..."
"So what're you saying? That I'm not normal?"
"W-Well..."
"Oh, fine!" Cloche said, stamping her foot. Then she turned and stomped off, ranting, "Forget it! As usual, everybody thinks I'm stupid!" as she went.
"Way to go, fellers," C.P. said to them after Cloche had gone. "You just hurt a girl's feelings."
"Don't say fellers," Lance countered. "It makes you sound old."
"Nice try. But you won't get to me that easily."
"Meh...well, what about you, C.P.? You didn't say anything about Cloche's plushie, but didn't the horribleness of that show creep you out?"
"I didn't watch Telemo shows as a kid."
Lance thought he heard just a touch of pride in C.P.'s tone, so he thought he'd try poking fun at her over it. He never learns. "Oooo-OOO-ooooh! Let me guess, you never watched the Tele 'cause you were too busy practicing your fighting techniques all the time, eh?"
C.P. stuck a finger in his face. "And how many times have I saved your butt for precisely that reason? You're welcome." Then turning with a flourish, she too walked off, though coolly and unhurt, to let Lance ponder his own idiocy for a while.
"Why?" Lance drooped as she sauntered out of range. "Why can I never win against her? Whyyyy?"
"Because she's a badass, and you're not," said Burl simply.
Lance sighed and made a pouty face. "Meeh-meeh mh meeh myeeh-myeeh, meeh mh myeeh," he copycatted.
~.~.~
A few weeks later, it was Cloche's turn for an installation! Oh joy! Are we having fun in the Pippen Pub today, Cloche?
"Be quiet..." she mumbled, her head buried in her arms atop a dingy old table in the dark lounge, her drink untouched. With her, it always came on suddenly. Luckily, she wasn't very prone to collapsing. Unluckily, it still made her feel like her whole body had been smashed in a waffle iron.
Lance noticed that his partner was feeling poorly - - surprising. Anyway, he figured it would be kind of him to inquire upon her general state of health. And with a lady in such obvious distress, the situation also called for a measure of gentleness and chivalry.
"Yo, Cloche, ya feelin' all right?" he blurted, banging sharply on the table her head lay on a couple of times. When at first she only responded by wincing, he called out, "Yoo-hoo, Clochie-poo...Ar Ciel to Cloche," and banged the table a few more times for good measure.
"Dooonnnnnn't!" Cloche finally whined. It was a long, drawn out, pitiful-sounding whine, too, the kind of whine that tends to evoke more irritation than sympathy and just makes one want to choke the moe out of the whiny teenage girl.
"Wow, that was really annoying," Lance grinned. "What's the matter?"
Cloche mumbled something indistinctly.
"What?"
"D'ql..y," she mumbled a little louder, looking embarrassed.
"Sorry, didn't hear..."
"Diquility!" she blared irritably.
"Ah...is it that-time-of-the-three-months?"
She knew he'd say something like that. "Just hush, I don't feel good."
"May as well take care of it now, Cloche," Kanna advised.
"Don't wanna..." she whimpered, sounding very much like a chokable Hitotsubashi Yurie.
"It'll only get worse..."
Cloche sighed deeply. "I don't wanna do it tonight. I'm not in the mood."
Lance sniggered. Kanna gave him a dry stare.
Minutes later, Cloche finally resigned herself to the inevitable. She dragged herself out of her chair, languidly snatching up her bag. "Can't take it anymore...gonna go put it in," she muttered.
"Don't'cha want me to give it to you?" Lance smirked.
"I'll do it to myself, thanks." She walked off gingerly, headed for their room at the inn a couple of buildings over.
"She'll do it to herself..." Lance was chortling. "Have fun!" he called after her.
"Shut UP!" she fired back over her shoulder.
"Sheesh," Kanna said blandly. "She could die, you know, and here you're crackin' stupid pervo jokes." She sucked down another swig of booze, her pigtails looking more tipsy than feisty now.
"What's the big deal?" he said blithely. "I just thought I'd help her install. It's in the middle of her back, you know...kind of a hard-to-reach spot," he finished, meaning her installer port.
After a pause, he couldn't resist adding slyly, "At least it's not in a really embarrassing place like someone I - -"
"I'm leaving," Kanna said abruptly, getting to her feet and clumsily knocking a chair aside as she haughtily walked off. These girls sure do walk off a lot in this episode. Anyone keeping count?
Once she was safely out of earshot, Lance pointed jealously at Burl. "Four centimeters away from her other installer port! Lucky!"
"Ahhh...if only you knew what it was like to do her installations..." Burl said with a smug, dreamy grin.
P.S. And what of C.P.? Well, she was just quietly glad that she was still wholly human. After all...one installer port for her to deal with was hassle enough.
Don't remind me, she thought flatly.