Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch. First off, I want to apologize for how long this story has taken for me to continuously get back on track. I always seem to do this where I post a few chapters, take a long break that is beyond inexcusable, and then say I won't do it again when I go right around and do it. I feel like an alcoholic who says he won't drink but goes back and does it anyways, knowing it's wrong. Time got away from me, personal issues, school mainly, a play, general laziness, and the fact that this chapter has required more careful planning and scrutinizing than anything else I've written so far for this story, but I digress. We'll be hitting some heavy topics to keep in line with the depressed modicum it feels like Syrenet follows, transporting ourselves to the guys and their vacation at the cabin. It's time to know a few of our characters very well. My review replies!
Maxcy Leland- I pretty much thought of that twist last minute, but since I introduced Midna in Chapter 7, I needed a role for her and since Link's death was planned for last chapter since the beginning, Corrin would've had her executed, so this allows her to stay along for the long haul (or until I kill her...) *shhh* And good question! You'll get an answer to that very shortly. Aw yippee, I'm glad you're warming up to Robin! She's going to be everyone's rock in this story, and mine too, as when she's around, the scene is partially more lighthearted lol. Hope this chapter makes up for the wait.
Retronym- Here's the thing Retro, it isn't super uber fast by my standards, and all of my erroneous breaks in between here and there does little to help my case. I would type out every single chapter of Syrenet in one sitting but my hands can't do that, my brain surely can't, and I like my readers to get a chance in actually catching up in the piece, if that works. Your story is already very good, so don't be dissuaded. Leave that to me. Link isn't our main villain, far from it. A simple stepping stone and pawn in someone else's game, my dear friend. Glad you liked it!
So, settle down kiddies and strap yourselves in. This shall be quite the ride but I expect, but this is the chapter that I feel will show off the skills I've learned this year as a writer and it is a good introduction into the spring season where this story is going to take prime dedication and focus (although my Game of Thrones fanfiction Dark Choir will be there too, I shan't forget that story lol). Enjoy Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch. Featuring a depressed blonde, a cheerful brunette, one bluenette who has PTSD, and one bluenette who needs beer cans and friends.
Shulk stares at the refrigerator in the cabin's kitchen, gaze glazed over as if he's mulling over the fact the pictures dotted all over the pallid canvas could very well represent he and Fiora's old life. Before she... before she... he blinks, swallowing the depressed thought with the taste of sharp whiskey in a blue electric raspberry solo cup. No matter how hard he tries, his diamond eyes flicker over the photos of the president and the senator of New York. Corrin Etch and Cloud Gladwell. He's unsure why she has yet to change her name since the marriage and all, but since Shulk values his life halfheartedly, he isn't a betting man and does not want Corrin to chop his head off with a glare should he pose the question.
There's a picture of the couple, before Corrin's political victories, arm and arm, showing their great dental smiles in Cancun, tagged right in the center of the fridge. Shulk sneers at the photo, Cloud's sunbeam hair and perfectly tanned arms hugging Corrin in a vice as they smugly grin for the camera. He sloshes some of the whiskey in the cup at the picture. "Screw you and your perfect life, madam president. What do I get, huh? Just a life full of mistakes and wrong turns. Fiora was you, you know. Then you ripped that all away."
He imagines her standing in the foyer of the cabin, with her fluorescent pile of hair blowing in the wind, her puckered smile, her genuine hug she'd give him... Shulk feels a tear lapel down the side of his cheek, and to suppress the whim of human emotion, something in which he hates doing, the blonde clenches down on his tongue till the taste of lucid copper fills his mouth.
Shulk must've been doing the deed of biting down on his tongue for quite sometime as Fiora dissipates into an actual human body, that of Pit, the brunette walking forward with concern lacing his features. "Shulk?" he asks gently, placing a hand on the commander's shoulders. "Are you alright?" Pit is young, which Shulk intones darkly that he wants some of that youth, and because of his ability to be fit and youthful, he's charming and elusively kind in an angelic sort of way.
He gives a forced smile, raising his cup somewhat like a drunkard. The irony is, he is a drunkard right now. "Nothing," he assures the kid. "I've been looking at the photos and they bring memories back."
Pit follows the gaze to the refrigerator, soft porcelain eyes lowering themselves to the floor after a moment. His white wings bristle against his back, the ones he adopted from that costume party that one Halloween which he has yet to take off. The brunette looks back at Shulk, face darkened and serious. "Good or bad memories, Shulk?" he asks concernedly.
All the Alpha commander of Syrenet can do is raise his cup once more, downing the rest of the bitter and satisfying liquid with a relinquishing sigh. He heads for the entrance to the cabin, turning back to face Pit in the shroud of darkness that is the kitchen. "I can't tell, Pit. It all depends on the empty cup and my emotions. Right now, it's bad. It could be any other emotion come five minutes from now if that's how my mind wants to work..." He turns away from the technician, exiting out the front door of the house.
The brunette runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. He'll never understand the enigmatic blonde. Perhaps that's why he is known as an enigmatic human being. Pit rolls his eyes, mutters something about deranged hermits and whiskey, and vanishes further into the cabin, looking for a particular item.
On the porch, Shulk crumples the cup in his hand and throws it out onto the lawn. He lets out a loud yell to the sky, scaring the other two occupants on the porch half to death. On his right, Marth is sitting in a chair, a book in his lap as the bluenette scans the pages for a dashing tale of knights in shining armor. Or perhaps he's reading a book on astrology... Shulk hardly cares. Sitting in a rocking chair even further down the white picket fence porch is Ike, the man guzzling at the ever iconic Bud Light grasped in his hands.
Shulk quips a smile. Ike and beer are so synonymous with each other. If Corrin demands the gentlemen have to come up with a project logo, like a trademark brand for Fruit Loops' toucan, or an insignia for a sports team like the New York Yankees, Shulk knows where to find the man. The blonde also keeps in his head the fact that Ike Forgenson has quite the heart if you know how to dig down deep enough.
Ike has his phone clutched in his hands, playing the latest app that came out, and he's been on it like a teenage boy who can't stop texting his girlfriend. He lets out a chuckle, seeing the litter in the lawn; weeds and blades of grass start to cover up the solo cup like it is a lost memory. "You going to pick that up?" he directs his statement at Shulk, eyes twinkling.
The blonde stretches his arms back and lets out a satisfying gasp as the buds of tension pop in his joints. He lets out a resounding, "Nope!" The sound carries off into the wind, rocketing and reverberating around like metal pans and thunderstorms.
"Well, I recall a certain someone telling me the very same thing the day Roy arrived in D.C... about picking up their garbage." Ike's tone is jesting, Shulk knows it, but the blonde is unable to decipher why his face flashes a look of grimaced pain.
"That was different," Shulk responds, an air of indifference surrounding him. "We were inside a government paid building provided for us. Roy didn't need to think of us as slobs, like the little defunct group we are."
"We aren't that defunct..." Ike groans into his hands.
Marth decides that this is the most amazing and perfect time to throw himself into the conversation by closing his book, placing it on his lap. "Oh no, Ike, we're dysfunctional alright. Lucina says in my ear all the time that if I wasn't her actual soldier, she'd haywire my brain."
"Well that's because you and your depressing talks over your nightmares causes everyone to either fear you or pity you. And after awhile, pity starts to turn into anger."
Shulk plops himself down onto the steps of the porch, bare feet getting tickled by the waves of grass blowing in the breeze, listening and grinning as Ike and Marth go at each other like squabbling birds or cats, if cats had perky, high-pitched voices. The two bluenette men argue over the degree what is constituted as depression, dysfunctional behavior, and defection. Shulk wishes the solo cup could reappear in his hands as a full cup of bourbon this time, and he realizes that the words his colleagues are fighting over all begin with the letter D.
Huh. The more you know.
Someone else joins the gentlemen on the porch, placing a new clear glass in Shulk's hand. The commander looks up to see Pit smiling down on him, a hand holding a glass outstretched. Shulk takes it begrudgingly. "That better be vodka..." he grumbles. He sniffs it, finding a surprising lack of alcoholic smell to it. It's a gift people are born with, the man believes. Shulk takes a sip, almost spitting it out. "Good lord in heaven, Pit! What is that stuff?"
Pit cannot try to hide his smile even if he tried. "Water, Mr. Roberts. You should try it sometimes." The blonde wonders why everyone in the building alternates between calling him by his first name or his title. It is annoying. Find one and stick to it.
"You don't need to call me a mister anything," Shulk tries dejecting the courtesy. "I'm hardly a gentleman. I'd go as far to say I'm even a man."
Marth and Ike's fight goes back down to simple accusations and sticking out your tongue at each other because you can't figure out what else to fight over when an alert pops on Ike's phone, given Marth gave up on them - phones, that is -, Pit has his inside, and Shulk turned his off last night and lost it ever since in the cabin. Ike sets his beer down, reading whatever notification came up. The other three men watch him in amused silence before he starts to break out into literal laughter. The laughter Shulk can only describe has hearty, with a hand over your stomach, the other wiping away tears you get from crying. It causes a neuron to fire off paranoid messages in the blonde's head. Ike hardly laughs, despite being a quote unquote 'nice guy'.
"What is it?" Pit asks, standing up to lean against one of the porch posts.
Ike scrolls over the notification once more, giving himself some time to regain his composure. He can hardly contain his laughter. "Roy- Roy got compromised in Boston..." he says.
Marth blanches. "And you have the audacity to laugh at that? God, Ike, the beer is getting to your head."
Shulk mirrors Pit's position by standing, arms crossed over his chest. "And?" he inquires. The man has only known Roy for two weeks, give or take, but he's still a new recruit, he's still new to the family, and he belongs in that particular family. The boy, though Roy Arcadia can hardly be considered a boy, is fresh meat in a dangerous political landscape like the labyrinth of Washington D.C, so for Ike to laugh, it is cruel, especially by the bluenette's own standards.
The commander of Charlie Squad holds a finger up to recollect the details. "Firstly, Corrin's assumptions about Link Collins were correct. The man is a rat. Or, should I say was a rat."
"Was?" Pit echoes. "The guy's dead?"
"Yeah. Shot in the head, nonetheless," Ike shrugs. "He got duped!"
"How?" Marth stirs uncomfortably in his own chair. He's been sitting for too long, he almost resembles that of a wax statue at times when he gets immersed in a new book.
Ike looks at his comrades. "Link had a very important meeting, and Roy got caught right in the middle of it," his gaze turned to Marth. "You remember that Sheik Braring girl? She's the one who orchestrated Oklahoma City... well, he was her latest client, selling her great merchandise like flamethrowers, grenades, and other lovely weapons. Roy's mission, which Shulk detailed for him, was to see whether or not Link's accusation of playing for two different teams was true. Sure enough... it was."
"Then what happened?" Shulk yelps, clenching the railing. He's scared for what comes next, if Ike's original statement is anything to go by. "You said that Roy's cover had been blown. What happened?"
"Link tortured the redhead into spilling information," Ike answers. "He plays a few mind games with Ness, starts to nearly mutilate Roy... and Snake swoops in to save the day, with a little bit of help from within."
"Within?" Marth frowns.
"It turns out that the FBI themselves had their own little mole in the covert ranks of Link's bodyguards, a girl named Midna Nye. She was trying to get some dirt on Link but was proving to be unsuccessful. In drops Roy, not even two days later, and he's digging in a damn goldmine. Link acted all reckless, and Snake killed him for it."
"What- what of Roy?" the commander of Alpha Squad steps closer to Ike, a lowered hand outstretched over the white wood, as if his body movements are to be any assuage against his crippling fear.
"Roy's fine," Ike responds, and the light in his eyes goes out as he mulls over the injuries. "He's got a cut near his thyroid which may require real surgery... a stab wound in the leg, and a concussion."
Pit tugs at his collar, face gone white as his blizzard wings. "I'm- I'm going to go splash my face with some water. I'll be back guys."
Marth and Shulk watch the techie shrug off into the house, almost like a kid rejected by Santa Claus. The two direct their attention back to Ike who has reached the end of the notification. "Who's it by?" Marth poses the question. It isn't like he's not believing the words being read to him, the guy just would like some confirmation and a way to quell the booming heart inside his chest.
"Report written by FBI director Snake Karlo, sent out to all Syrenet and FBI agents about an hour ago. Because we're out in the middle of God knows where, we have bad signal reception, and I just got the email." Ike turns his phone off, placing it on the table next to the rocking chair.
Shulk is not letting his comrade off the hook that easily, and he slinks up the stairs and down the railing to Ike's side, eyes wide and bright in a blazing fury, akin to that of a supernova. The blonde is trying to formulate the words to express his anger. He's never been one to find something to always say. When Corrin drops the news of his now dead wife in his lap one afternoon while sharing Starbucks, he cries for over an hour. When there's the addition of a dead baby in the mix, the sobbing turns into mourning that lasts a month. When his bonus gets cut while he's working seventy hours a week straight out of college to help his ailing mother dying of cancer to have an easy go, he's crying to his girlfriend at the time - no Fiora - and lets life move on. But here? He wants to give Ike a little bit of his mind, and if the bluenette minds, well, he can go and deal with it somewhere else.
"Explain yourself. Now!" Shulk demands.
"Excuse me?" Ike retorts.
"You never said why you found Roy getting compromised to be funny? I don't think you ever mentioned in the ten plus years I have known you that there's humor to you in the potential loss of life with someone you know in the Syrenet world. Because, trust me Ike, we've lost quite the number of coworkers and brothers and sisters in this whole project!"
Ike's face turns a shade of purple, half from embarrassment, the other in putrid anger which causes him to stand up, getting in Shulk's grill, so close their noses practically spark electricity off of each other. "I find it even funnier, Shulk, that you, just two weeks ago were doubting the kid alongside I after you had just met him. I'm not happy Roy got his cover blown, we don't know the whole story. I reckon he made a rookie mistake and is now going to learn from it. I may have a nice heart and all, Shulk, but I have a backbone and realize how important it is to have your sides covered."
"But to laugh at receiving the news?" Shulk raises an eyebrow, backing up slightly as the blonde is partially intoxicated and he isn't a good fighter when he's drunk. "That's a whole new side to you."
The bluenette hangs his head low, quipping another classic grin that causes Marth to snort in disgust, rolling his eyes. "Shulk, I don't think you ever got a special visit from madam president when you were in the hospital. Corrin marches into my hospital room at near midnight one evening while I was recovering to preach the gospel to me on this fancy idea she had. She wanted a new recruit, and I was all for it. She starts getting into using that person as one of Link's ruses to possibly blow a fuse, and then I call her bluff. Corrin knows, as she's that type of woman, how Syrenet would look when fresh meat is thrown to the wolves, but she didn't heed my warning. I said the whole operation would blow up in her face, and she said I'd be eating crow two weeks from when the recruit arrived," Ike picks up his phone, checking the date. "I can now look at her in the face and call her bluff like I did back in the hospital room. It had nothing to do with Roy, Shulk. I think the alcohol is muddling up your brain."
Shulk lets Ike's words ebb over his ears before the blonde falls back onto the porch, a wild ruse of laughter breaking through and piercing clouds like jets. The two bluenette men watch with a distant expression, Ike going over the things he'll say to his boss once the man recovers. Shulk stands back up, wiping tears from his eyes. He's unstable, rocky, but caring all the same and there's nothing the blonde can do about it. Ike purses his lips to respond, but Marth beats him to the punch.
"What in the hell was that?" Marth's gaze is sharp, fiery, and void of all warmth. He particularly dislikes people moving about in front of him as if they're being exorcised of demons that aren't stirring within their soul.
All the commander of Beta Squad gets in return is a hapless shrug. "I just love that I got proved wrong by Ike once again. Here I am thinking that Ike is laughing because of Roy's poor misfortune, which you got onto him for! But..." his expression falters. "It looks like I'm wrong as per usual," Shulk twists his body around, looking for his solo cup. "Where is my drink?" he roars.
Shulk shuffles off back inside, however the man then stops at the entrance to the cabin. Ike and Marth stir in their seats. "Yes?" Ike prods gently, knowing full and well the blonde has something to say, he's just afraid to say, he's afraid to say that whatever may come out of his mouth will reverse the change of time, most likely.
"I lied..." Shulk says, voice hoarse, the complete antithesis of the voice full of vibrancy and vibrato as he laughed.
"Lied? About what?" Marth asks gently, hand going for the book. He's a man who can read and listen at the same time, except when Ike puts his shoes on tables which the guy really likes to do for some reason, but that's a different story for a different time.
The commander of Alpha Squad returns to his perch on the porch, head distended, shoulders down, eyes losing their sparkle. "I lied about saying how Fiora and I couldn't have kids. When she died..." his voice catches in his throat, and several tears start flowing. Ike reaches into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled up tissue. He hands it to Shulk who takes it eagerly, dabbing at and around his eyes. "Fiora was several months pregnant with someone- someone else's child..." he begins to sob.
Instead of Marth feeling partially elated at knowing Fiora could in fact bear children, it is the first part of Shulk's last sentence that causes him to freeze and then snap in a bucket of boiling rage. "Someone else's child? She cheated on you?" His hands are clenching the side of his chair, knuckles white as the chair's paint, the porch's paint, and the seething fury that is blinding his vision.
Ike admonishingly places a hand on his comrade's shoulder, pressing him back down in the chair. His friend's skin is bristling with warmth underneath his light shirt, the former's fingertips are cold and senseless, sending nerve wracking shudders down Marth's body. "I hardly imagine that's the case. Shulk?"
"She opted to be someone else's surrogate," Shulk explains, voice nearly impossible to hear over the gusts of wind blowing over the cabin. "This lovely couple, God, I can't even remember their names, came up to us all those years ago when Fiora and I were vacationing out in Arizona. They are boggled down in children, two at their heels, the dad holding one in his arms, the mother holding two... that family had five kids while Fiora and I couldn't even have one. It turns out the two of us had been staring at them all while we were waiting for our flight..." Shulk cracks a grin. "We were so jealous of them, even though I imagine that woman, whatever her name was, went through the worst of pains to produce the kids she held so lovingly. We hadn't looked into the options of being a surrogate because Corrin didn't like us having kids, which is understandable. Family- family triumphs over a mission sometimes," the blonde catches his words off, looking into the distance. Ike tries following his friend with wherever he is staring at, but it must be something beyond the world of the living, an afterlife somewhere perhaps, where there are gilded and golden streets covered in glitter and diamond gemstones. "Fiora and I agreed, shook hands, and two weeks later we get a call from her doctor that a specific sample from some man in Washington state had a very lucky surprise for us all. We did the process, and it worked... Fiora had a kid..." That, however is all the man can take before collapsing into a pool of tears, sobs racking his entire body as Shulk slides down the railing to sit in a heap at the end of the porch.
Neither Marth or Ike move until the former puts his book down again, leaning forward so his hands are on his knees. "Do you want to go and lie down? We don't have to go out to eat, if you don't want to, Shulk."
"No," Shulk wipes at his nose, pausing the crying momentarily. "I've already checked every nook and cranny in this cabin; there's no food. I don't think Cloud has vacationed here in eons. Several eons," he then corrects. "I don't know all too much about how surrogate mothers work and stuff, but the couple were more than fertile, which they had said to us one evening over dinner when Fiora and I were off. They said we could keep the child, just the one, if Fiora hated child birth," he laughs again, and this time it is a true laugh that is airy and light. "I have never met a woman who actually liked child birth until after it was over and that had a squealing ball of joy, all red in the face, in their arms. We settled on naming her Delilah. Fiora personally had many other names, but because we were so lucky to have even met the couple, we wanted their, that being the couple's, opinion. They gave us a whole list of options- Mark, Joseph, Josephine, Dane, Jeremiah..." he breaks off to give a snicker. "All these guy names, even when we told them it'd be a girl... so they then settled on wanting to name her after famous songs and..."
"You get Delilah," Ike jokes along with the blonde.
Marth glares at him. "Not the time..." his gaze reads.
Shulk stands, feeling much better once again, though not by any work of his own except spilling privy information. "Yeah. Fiora and I were going to have quit Syrenet once the baby had been born. It was just a few more months, too," his expression hardens again, causing Marth to tense as he feels the man is about to cry again, and the crying is all for a good reason. "But I can no longer complain and wish about having a kid again, right? It was just a fairytale. And I'm glad it ended."
He finishes his speech abruptly, nodding, storming back inside the cabin. Marth exhales, runs a hand through his hair, and then goes to sit on the steps facing the open expanse of the cabin's front lawn. Ike follows suit, finishing his beer, leaving it sitting on the table. He sits down alongside Marth and the two warring Oklahoma buddies stare off into the bone beach blue expanse of sky.
The cabin is nestled in a nice crook of the forest surrounding them. Emerald leaved trees rise high above the foreground, the tips stretching towards the halcyon sun light bulb with longing. A lake rests about a hundred yards from the cabin, which is surrounded by other dense woodland, and Marth swears he sees a cottontail of a rabbit blur by in the wood. Everything is so calm and serene, it almost reminds Marth of home. Home. The word is foreign in his mind. He's unable to pinpoint home exactly, as it has been so long since he actually went back to where he grew up. Home used to be a town in the rural state of South Dakota where you witnessed thunderstorms and tornadoes be created in the blink of an eye, do some destruction, and then those phenomena of nature vanished back into the belched black expanse of sky in which they came from. Marth is used to sitting on a tractor, tilling the soil for his dad's farm, and letting the sounds of nothing fill his ears except for motorized tractor noises. He's lonely, and when the bluenette is introduced to the big city slicker, the taxis, the skyscrapers, and all the people, he's unable to move and emote any other emotion than awestruck, reverential wonder.
He's unsure whether or not to say Syrenet is home now, that D.C is his true place of residence. There is nothing warm about the slate cube that towers over the D.C skyline. Corrin says there's a hearth for everyone in the government in that building, but all Marth feels is cold dearth, a death that stirs in the walls and whispers from the floors. It reminds of a library, a place meant for enjoyment, that is abandoned with rustled pages from books free floating in the oak prison.
Ike lets out a belch, and immediately blushes. "Excuse me..." his face goes as scarlet as the gorgeous sunset.
Marth smirks, and stares outward into silence. He is frontier gazing. It is a little activity he coins the term of once when he was in college; you plop your keister on a patch of grass somewhere and just stare up and outwards. It is enjoyable and passes the time. Although his friends mutter that it is nothing more than mere watching the clouds, the bluenette shakes his head and quips a smile as if he has one of the most amazing secrets to tell in the entire world. Frontier gazing is looking beyond the clouds, by imagining the vast stretch of land further than that, into the constellations of space and purely being in everywhere at once. The frontier has evolved from the Wild West.
"That one smelled..." Marth waves at the air around his nose.
"Whatcha doing anyways? I'd like to have some company while we're out here, y'know," Ike jests. "I'm lonely," he says, his tone sounding slightly wounded.
"I'm frontier gazing." his friends responds, and he leaves it at that. Marth places a hand underneath his jaw and looks into the spaces between the trees, the ripples underneath the water, the plumes of dust from a critter stampeding around on the ground. He's content. Ike, however, is not. He isn't as... deep, which is a word the commander of Beta Squad would be okay using.
"Frontier what?" he repeats, brow furrowed in confusion.
"Staring at the horizon and what lies beyond it," Marth answers. "It's fun. You should try it sometimes."
"That's funny. You said the same thing about reading and I think we all know how that one ended up, Marth."
Marth shudders from the wind, and kicks the step on the porch as he swings his legs back and forth like he's a toddler once more. He rolls his neck on his shoulders until it cracks. The pain is not worth it in the end. "That's because you never want to try something new. All I see you do is drink beer, fire guns, and be nice to everyone around you, " he remarks snidely, bringing his knees to his chest. Ike opens his mouth to snap out a harsh retort. "Easy there tiger, I didn't say there's anything wrong with that either."
Marth sighs, and lets himself readjust the needed pieces inside his skin, whilst trying to submerge the unwanted rest into the blue of his bloodstream to clot until he once again has room enough. Only when he has a mind to once again allow that process will it happen again, that's how it has to go. He imagines that he's stuck in a tub with dirty water that lapels the side of the tub, a stinky mess that reeks of copper, flesh, more copper, and even more flesh. Marth jokes inside his brain. "Maybe I really, just really need a bath."
The dirty water from the tap is cool, smelling like dirt and damp growing things you find on the sunrise sides of dilapidated buildings, rotwood barn houses, secret pathways behind the garbage dump. It splashes up his forearms, wetting his rolled up sleeves, stinging his cuts and soothing heated bruises. It's almost as if his mother, lord he miser her, was tenderly kissing him, slowly and softly enough where it's almost as if her lips were phantoms.
An amniotic lull fills Marth's mind, hushing the worst of the wordless murmuring, leaving the world muted save for his own heart beat and a dull, surf like a roar echoing in his ears. It's why he doesn't at first notice the rustling, or the sound. Prowling shapes that don't quite reflect in the mirror startle him now, unlike before when he was used to them.
He winces, shutting his eyes, the sound of shrapnel filling up the void there. Ike's voice is a muffled shout, then fragments of a grenade interrupt the shadow of Marth's vision.
Too lost in thaw of the waters, the sudden noise - the opening and slamming of stall doors, restless pacing of heavy boots - comes through a condensed decade of time that stood still and when it finally reaches him, he clenches the side of the tub. It is all Marth can do to ignore the nervous jolt down his spine, and he can't stop the pit opening up in his belly, a portal to black seamed faces with deadlight irises. He tries to keep his attention on the water circling the drain, the imaginary drain that is getting interrupted by the explosions of a battle that have never existed.
He turns off the faucet, the rusted knob whining shrilly. The smoky walls eat the sound to end all and leave only an afterthought that couldn't even be called a memory in his ears.
The farthest stall from the door cracks thunderously closed, when in reality it is Ike stretching and turning to face his best friend, rebounding harshly into the stone divide, momentum bleeding off into an abused swing. Marth looks at Ike in a fake mirror, he's actually just facing him like another normal human being, dark eyed and carefully blank; without his contacts he can't see the lines that make up Ike's expression, but there's a guilty shuffle, jacketed shoulders shrugging awkwardly. "Sorry..." Ike mutters. He hasn't apologized in quite some time over things that are entirely out of his control.
Flicking excess water off his hands, Marth turns and leans the small of his back on the porcelain basin, on the back of a new step, chin tilted down to keep away the scattering sun glare streaming from holes in the roof. "S'alright," he answers. Then, Marth frowns. "What are you sorry for?"
"For not realizing you were in trouble until it was too late," Ike groans into his hands. "You were suffering because of Oklahoma City and I'm going about my normal day like a jolly fellow, and you're at Syrenet falling apart, trying to build yourself back together and I wasn't there for you. I know we had that conversation at like four in the morning already kind of alleviated this, but it doesn't hurt me to say it again. I'm supposed to be your best friend, the guy watching your six, and I couldn't even do that."
He tastes pennies, the gritted stink of copper and rotting blood. Ike licks his lips, trying to get the taste off. Marth nods, unsure of what to say. "I'm not mad at you. I should've said something earlier, too."
Ike grins wrily, a crooked flash of teeth behind thinned lips. A loaded smile stamped in unpleasant sodality. "Slipped my grip with what I said. I'm not..." he tries speaking. Marth looks at Ike, and thinks he is made of feathers, twisted and warped out of line which are insubstantial everywhere but alongside his shadow; rust scratches into his ribcage like a recursive disease, breath swelling over sounds he has no control of, over voices he has no name for, and Marth imagines him being pulled taut. Soldered and stitched over and over and over: no real repair in sight. The smile fades, all the lines on his face collapsing to hide behind his hands. "I just can't think straight. I'm sorry, I'm-"
The split light along the floor and walls wavers as if candle flame breathed on by cool winter winds, bony limbed trees scrape loudly over the tin roof, and it feels like the silence has cracked and begun to run over all those raw wounds. "You don't have to apologize. It's fine to leave it as is." Marth shoves his still damp hands into his pockets, staring back at the horizon. And he means it as an affirmation, forgiveness.
And he finds that he means it.
Marth then changes his thought and presses his forehead against Ike's shoulder. Ike gently, though unsure of whether or not this constituted as inappropriate, places his hand on Marth's right shoulder, giving him a slight squeeze, till he retracts and both men look off into the horizon.
All is calm, and this calmness lasts for a good thirty seconds before Pit bustles back out onto the porch, completely out of breath. Both men turn around, faces that of bewilderment.
"I finally found it!" Pit exclaims wildly, eyes jubilant and triumphant.
"Found what?" Marth asks.
The boy is holding a box that is a good ten by ten, propped up by one leg and both arms. Pit turns the entire box upside down and dumps its contents onto the porch. Ike and Marth's gaze is met with heaps and heaps of golden tinsel, the decorative Christmas lace falling out and piling up in a fluorescent lemonade mountain. Ike gags, holding his nose. "It smells like a rat died in there!"
"It probably is like twenty years old," Pit says, though this is no deterrence towards him. "I heard rumors from Robin that Cloud and Corrin left some of their old Christmas stuff at this cabin and so I decided to go sleuthing. This white porch is completely boring, and I think we need some color."
"So you picked yellow. And... only yellow," Marth rubs his head. "Great choice."
"Hey, it took me like three days to find this sucker."
"You realize that we are staying at Cloud's cabin... their private getaway, Pit," Ike speaks slowly to the Syrenet technician as if slow speech is going to get the message any clearer through his skull. "We don't own this property and I don't think they'll be too keen on the fact you went through and made a mess of their decorations... nor the fact you personally spiffed up the place, no matter how drab and boring this cabin is. Do you want us to get fired? I kind of like my job, dude!"
"And it isn't even Christmas!" Marth points out.
Pit huffs a tuff of mahogany hair out of his eyes, his orbs sparkling with satisfaction and pure bliss. "I don't care. Let me decorate! We're having tinsel on the porch!"
"Just wait until Shulk gets a load of this..." Ike snickers to his partner in crime, elbowing him in the ribs.
As the sun slowly starts to set, Pit races around the porch, tinsel following him in a diverted wake of gold. He pins and laces the decorative spokes of plastic and thread along the railing and down the steps. A good chunk of the pile is dedicated to surrounding the window panes and windows in a halcyon trim, and it turns out that this particular set of tinsel is special in that it lights up.
The sun has sunk beneath the sky far enough. Pit's grin is devilish and wicked. He flicks a switch inside the house, the porch erupting into a Broadway stage of bright lights, golden trim, and Christmas bliss. Marth and Ike stumble back together, the former smiling and the latter just watches, cerulean eyes wide and soon he starts smiling too, clapping over his head.
"Wow! It looks really good, Pit!"
Ike digs into his pocket for his phone, going to the camera app. He snaps a picture of the porch, Pit standing in the middle, hands thrown up to the air as if he couldn't give a single care in the entire world. His face emotes genuine joy and Ike cannot help but cry somewhat at seeing the dreary cabin, which is meant to be the means of an escape, lit up so perfectly.
Marth squeezes Ike on the shoulder. "For all the sadness we endured on this mini vacation, I swear this makes up for it tenfold."
The commander is hard pressed to argue.
The trio laughs, and their laughs whip into the wind of their tale of tinsel on the porch.
All, even if it is just for a single moment, is right with the world.
And there we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #11: Tinsel on the Porch of Syrenet. And yippee, it is the longest chapter at 7k! Well, so far, as there may be chapters way down the line that are even longer than this one, but oh well we'll get there. I think this has been my personal favorite chapter from the four conversations that all happened in one lineate scene... and that the heartbreaking truth is, these four gentlemen are all hurting and Syrenet is doing little to help fix that. When I originally thought of the chapter title, it was going to be something beyond random, but I feel like, now, looking it that there is an evolution of sorts to be had- it nicely introduces us to some main players in Arc 2, which is only going to get worse from here on out folks. I also hope this chapter was more than worth the wait, as I again supremely apologize for taking so long (I don't know what is with me these days lol)
I also have a new poll on my profile! Just like when I wrote Icarus Chronicle, I had a poll on your favorite main characters in Icarus Chronicle because of a small cast of eight to ten characters. Because Syrenet has an ensemble cast of seventeen, I listed all of them, in which there is a spoiler alert for one character who hasn't been revealed yet, but all the same it is there. Go cast your vote, which you are allowed to pick your four favorites, if you even have any at this stage of the game! And please review! I'd love to respond to more reviews next chapter given how much I brought up, but I digress. I'm planning on Sunday / Monday being the next day for an update, with Chapter #12: Ness's Mistake. Uh oh... anyways, thank you so much for reading! I hope you all have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!
~ Paradigm of Writing
