Hello readers, here we are with chapter XXIX! This is a nostalgic chapter, but I liked writing it the same for I made Cross and Maria appear after a very long time ^^ Hope you'll like it!
Soundtrack for this chapter:
"Thousand words" the English version from Final Fantasy X- 2
"Call me when you're sober" by Evanescence
"Jesus" by Gackt
DISCLAIMER: I don't own DGM, if I did Kanda would have been the main character, Leverrier wouldn't have been an hopeless bastard and Allen would have ended up with Road after a few chapters. And Cassandra would have ruled them all XD
CHAPTER XIX—HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
Morning, place unknown
Cross' health was getting better: now he wasn't obliged to remain in bad all the day, but he could even walk for while and sit beside his gentle nurse as he was doing in that moment. He adored to brush her long hair with his calluses hands and feel their softness against his rough fingers; that simple gesture was able to make him forget all the difficulties and the pain that was surely waiting for him once he would be able to fight again.
Yes, he wanted to fight again, he starved for action and yet, even if his body was going to heal, what would he be able to do? His weapon, Judgement, had abandoned him, and his other weapon, Maria, wasn't his tool anymore: she had come back to real life and he couldn't say to be displeased by it. He kept on caressing her hair, noticing that she had never complained for it since she had come back to her real self. It was strange.
When he had met him the first time, she was a stubborn, proud, woman, she never allowed him to touch her at that time, not even to kiss her beautiful hand, nothing. And now she was there, letting him do more or less as he pleased without voicing a single word of complain. Unable to suppress his curiosity, Cross asked her the reason of her changing.
"Do you remember the first thing you told me when we met?" she asked in response.
"Of course I do," he answered, "I told you: Miss, you surely have a broken heart, I can understand it just by looking at the way your eyes are gazing out of the window. Please, let me fix that lovely broken heart of yours. That's what I said and you walked away without saying a single word, refusing to dedicate me a single glance." He accused.
"And do you know why did I walk away?" She asked with patience, her controlled voice similar to a soft melody, "I ran away because you treated me as a broken doll. You didn't want to understand my feelings, you just wanted to "fix" what you thought was wrong in me. You were no different from my father or the villagers, You were a ridiculous, dangerous, banal man to my eyes and I had no interest at all in you." She made a little pause, as to allow him to reflect on what she had just said.
"But many years have passed since then, many, many years, and I saw other sides of you. You changed since that time and my opinion of yours changed as well. That's all there is to say." Cross smiled involuntarily at her words: "Are you trying to say that you like me now?" he asked with that boldness which was a peculiarity of his womanizer side.
"Don't think so high of yourself, Cross Marian," she replied with her habitual coldness, "to me you'll always remain a mere commoner." She declared haughtily, but the ex-general could guess the shadow of a smile skim her lips and he smiled as well.
"Why are you smiling like an idiot now?" she asked annoyed.
"How can you know that I'm smiling?" he replied with suspect, "Aren't you blind since birth?"
"Yes, I am, but I can perceive the change of the aura surrounding you." She declared and quickly moved to rest her hands on his face, caressing his deformed profile which wasn't covered by the mask anymore:
"See?" she asked, "I was right when I said you were smiling. I can still perceive the corner of your lips turned upward."
"How shrewd of you." he commented, a wide grim painted on his face, and then he lowered his head to kiss her fiercely. Maria didn't stop him, but she didn't even kiss him back. She let him do as he pleased, unmoved and cold as a statue. Cross wondered with sadness if she had ever known the passion, if she had ever lost her composure. he asked to himself for the umpteenth time if he could be the man able to awaken her from that horrible calm. He hoped so, he had thought so the first time he had seen her, and yet there were moments when he doubted he could ever succeed.
He knew that even if he had pinned her down she wouldn't have opposed; even if he had begun to kiss her everywhere, even if he had undressed her rudely, she wouldn't have said one word of complain, she wouldn't have moved a muscle to stop or encourage him. She would have undergone it in silence feeling nothing. Oh, if there could have been a way to make her feel what he felt! Cross would have done everything to see a genuine laugher escape from her red lips, he would have surrendered the whole world to feel her shiver with passion, just for once, only once...
His Maria, his princess, his doll, that's how he had always thought of her, but was she really his? Had she ever belonged to someone? When he gazed into her blind eyes and lost himself in that deepness without end, he realized that she could never be own by anyone because she had never belonged to herself in the first place. It was painful, so painful that he just couldn't keep that thought for himself:
"You never thought of your life as something you could dispose of as you wish, didn't you?" he asked sadly.
"I'm not like you, Marian," she answered with the same coldness of before, "I've never been that arrogant, but you compensate me with your selfishness. You claimed for yourself the right to dictate other people's life besides yours."
"Again with that story?" he sighed, "You will never forgive me, won't you?" he asked.
"You destroyed me, Marian, you cursed me and condemned me to this Hell. Do you think this is something one can forgive?".
"I saved you," he replied stubbornly, "otherwise you'd have died."
"You should have let me die." she declared and there was something definitive in her voice. Cross shivered at those words and the worst was that there was no rage in her, not even while she was accusing him; all he could perceive in her was a cold logic and indifference. Yes, she was accusing him, but he had the feeling that deep inside she didn't really care about what he had done to her and that was worse than anything else. Still, he replied the same: "I couldn't let you die," he said, "because you were beautiful, you were young, and you knew nothing of the world. I couldn't let you die before you could find out how wonderful life may be. I don't care if you hate me or if you want to kill me: I won't regret it. If I was to choose now, I'd do it again." He confessed with a solemnity which was extraneous to him.
Maria didn't care to answer back.
In a secret palace, Rome, evening
Leverrier turned around him his worried eyes feeling everything but at ease. It was always like this when he came to that place, the palace where every question could have been answered if only its owner would have liked to. The problem was that the man who lived there was jealous of his secrets and would never reveal them, but after so many years at his service the Commandant had gotten used to take into action orders that made no sense to him.
He was in the waiting room now, walking and walking on a precious carpet, unable to sit down and calm down himself. The more he read the diary of Christine Leverrier, the more he felt his doubts increasing: was he really doing the right thing? Why had that girl disappeared without leaving a single trace? Did something really right and holy exist? Not that he really cared about it, he didn't regret anything of what he had done until that moment, but he couldn't help but wonder. He hated to have doubts. Of course, if the owner of the palace had received him immediately, he wouldn't have been there torturing himself with his own anguishes, but he knew that he still had an hour or so of waiting before a butler would appear and say: "Monsieur Leverrier, you can enter."
The commandant knew that the man he had come to meet wasn't busy or something, he was just making him wait because he thought it appropriate and that was all. The time he had to pass in the waiting room had the aim to remind him who he was going to meet and how inferior he was to him. A sadistic habit, if you want my opinion, but if you're the Pope, well, then you can allow yourself to do more or less everything and no-one will have the courage to blame you. Indeed, it was the Pope himself that Leverrier had to meet.
Finally the butler entered the room and said the exact words he had expected him to say. The man quietly instructed the Commandant to follow him and Leverrier obeyed. Always the same words, the same scenes, since the first time he had come there twenty-five years before. He couldn't help but find the whole matter a bit ridiculous.
He finally entered a dark baroque room decorated in the Italian style of the seventeenth century. At the end of the room there was a golden throne and seated on it there was an old man. He must have been more or less seventy, Leverrier thought, but he seemed exactly the same of twenty-five years before. He had some more wrinkle, but for the rest he didn't look older than last time he had seen him, the Commandant observed. He bowed in front of his superior and waited for a response of any kind.
" Commandant Leverrier," the Pope ordered smiling gently, "can you imagine why you are here?"
"Because you called me, and I'm only a faithful servant of His Holiness." He answered, obedient.
"Oh, please, Malcolm!" the old man laughed in a low voice, "Why are you so formal? We're here to discus a very private matter, aren't we?" Leverrier nodded in response for he didn't trust his voice.
"Have you get rid of Allen Walker already?" The Pope asked.
"His Holiness, I understand you're worried about that boy, but he's one of the Hearts, I can't kill him! If I do, we'll have no chance against the enemy!" He protested, but the old man made an annoyed gesture to order him to be quiet:
"That's no true and you, as my faithful Commandant, should know this. God won't let us loose, don't worry, but we have to eliminate the dangerous elements." He said with decision and Leverrier had no choice but to lower his head even more, symbolizing submission.
"Besides this, aren't you forgetting something, Malcolm?" the Pope added after a brief silence, the quiet smile shining on his face once more. Leverrier stiffened: he knew this moment would have come.
"There is a pact between your family and the Order, don't forget. Every woman born in the Leverrier family will be given to the Order as soon as she becomes eighteen. How old is your daughter now, Malcolm?" the old man asked with a smile of fake gentleness.
"Seventeen." The other answered with a faint voice while he kept on staring at the pavement of cosmatesco marble.
"Oh, so she has just some months still and then her moment will come."
"Yes." Was all the Commandant was able to say. He wanted to add something, but it was as if he had something struck in his throat which was strangling him.
"But you know we can avoid this if you were so gentle as to eliminate a dangerous element for the peace we're trying to reach."
"I know His Holiness and his generosity." Leverrier said, but his voice trembled as he was pronouncing the last word. He was sweating hard and he felt something like anger rising inside him, anger towards the man his family had swore loyalty to! Unthinkable. There was no way he would have broken an ancient oath, but he also didn't want to sacrifice his young daughter! He had seen her when she had just born; he had heard her when she had pronounced the word "dad" for the first time, her first word; he had seen her smiling at him when she was just an innocent baby and heard her light laugher; he had seen her growing and becoming a beautiful young woman; he had comforted her when she had cried because mother had disappeared, and now he had to betray her and give her up to death?
Can exist something worse for a father than to know that he has to sacrifice his daughter for the sake of the people he has to protect? Now Leverrier knew how Agamemnon felt when he was asked to kill Iphigenia by the oracle of Delphi. He knew and he would have liked to never known such a horrible thing.
He had swore, he had swore to serve the Black Order to protect humanity and the life of his daughter was part of that oath, a means through which they would be able to save more people from the Millennium Earl, but how could he swear to protect the world if he couldn't protect his own family? Was the world worth the sacrifice of his beloved ones? Leverrier wondered, but there was no answer to that question, no solution he could grasp. New questions, instead, came into his mind:
Was the Order really able to save the world?
In all honesty, Leverrier didn't care what means the Pope was going to use if they would guarantee success, but if the result was uncertain then things changed. He didn't want to sacrifice what was dear to him for nothing, he didn't want to loose anything to an hopeless cause. He was the kind of person who acts only when they have a reason to do so, one of those people who don't do anything for nothing and he was fine like this. He had never wished to be a better person as his dear subordinate Link did; he just thought that this was the best he could be in that kind of world and he didn't wish for anyone to pity him, or to forgive him. Redemption held no meaning to him, for he never regretted anything.
Meanwhile, the Pope had started laughing merrily: "You're always so obedient, Commandant Leverrier! It's a pleasure to speak with you." He declared and the French man bit his tongue not to remind to his superior that he had been the only one talking while Leverrier had just nodded in agreement.
"You can go now," the Pope ordered, his blue eyes sending lightings of intelligence, "but make sure that Allen Walker won't be able to harm us. Better, wait for my instruction: I'll personally plan something about this delicate matter." The old man added. Leverrier could do nothing, but bow and left the luxurious palace. He just wanted to get away from there as soon as possible and to keep on reading the diary of Christine.
From the diary of Christine Leverrier…
April 20th, 1743
Today a mysterious man arrived at the Manor who claimed to be Lord Cheryl's nephew and Road's cousin. Can you imagine who is he? The terrible Amatus, obviously! Yes, the same Amatus Lady Lulubell and Lord Cheryl were secretly speaking about some day ago and that's not all: you won't believe me, but he's very young and beautiful too.
I wonder why do all the members of this family be terribly charming in a way or another (be it because of their physical appearance or because of their charisma), this fact alone would be enough to make them look suspicious and I now understand the reason why my father and his Order of madmen fear them. They're powerful, far more powerful than any other noble family can expect to be and that's because their influence isn't due just to their social position. There is something else in all of them, something indefinable and yet overwhelming that conquers people.
Returning to Amatus, I guess you yearn to hear more about him. There is not much to say: this morning, when I descended for breakfast, he was already there with the other members of the family and the atmosphere surrounding them was very tense. Anyway, as I entered in the room they all smiled widely and Road graciously introduced me to her cousin.
He's a veeeery beautiful man of twenty with blond hair and blue eyes, just like me, but what makes him irresistible are the angelic innocence, the purity, painted on his face and his smile! When he bowed and smiled to me I believed that Heaven's door had been opened and that an angel had descended among us mortals. His eyes are clear and wide as those of a child, deprived of any shadow of deceive or guile, and his smile is so warm, so beautiful, that makes him shine as if he was something more than a common human being, something that I never believed could exist in this word. His manners were perfect as well and his voice very pleasant, it remembered me of the roar of a cascade for it has the same intensity, the same force and the same genuine freshness. I'm sorry if my description seems extravagant, but I really am at loss of words, there are no human's expressions apt to define him.
Why have all the members of this family be this astonishing beautiful? And how can someone demand that a girl in the bloom of her youth as I am should remain unmoved by such a show? Impossible. And indeed I didn't look at anyone but him for all the morning, unable to take my eyes off. At the beginning I thought that Amatus was a strange name, especially for a man, but now I must admit that it's completely justified in his case (Author:"Amatus" in latin means "beloved". It's ironical for him to have such a name considering that he's the disciple of hate ).
Like Lord Tyki Mikk, Mr Amatus possess a charm that goes beyond the physical appearance, but though they're the most beautiful men I've ever seen, they're very different from each other. Lord Tyki Mikk is fascinating, gorgeous, his presence contaminates you as a poison and captures you, seduces you, so that you can't help but love him. Sensuality escapes from every word of his tempting lips, from every pose of his, his smiles evokes confidence and arrogance, his voice makes a woman's blood run cold inside her veins.
Mr Amatus instead seems innocent and pure. It's not his charm that makes him handsome, his beauty resides in his perfect features, in the kindness of his voice, in the warmth of his smiles, in the purity reflected in his clear eyes. If I can say that Lord Tyki incarnates the fascination of evil, then Mr Amatus is the reassurance of goodness. An angel and a devil. How can these two be related by blood? It's one of the mysteries of life, I suppose.
Anyway, let's abandon my stupid metaphors. I need to return to the facts.
When Road introduced him to me calling him Amatus, a ring belled in my mind and yet I couldn't believe that beautiful young and the troublesome man Lady Lulubell feared to be the same person. The information I had of the two just didn't coincide, the angel in front of me looked the opposite of how I'd imagined Amatus to be.
Still, of course, that was only the first impression, and one should never trust the first impression. So, when he asked me to accompany him for a walk in the Manor's gardens I gratefully accepted both because he was handsome and because I was curious.
You must think that during that walk I found out something terrible about this mysterious man, something that would justify Lady Lulubell's fears, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't find anything suspicious about him; instead I discovered we have a passion in common: the love for the roses of every form and shape. My personal favourites are the blue roses, while he prefers white ones. It seemed weird to me to talk with a man, a stranger, about flowers, but I have to admit that it's been pleasant and he seems a very agreeable person, kind and ready to listen to others. I like him a lot and I hope so much we'll become close friends soon! Maybe even something more than friends, I'd like to add, but I must not forget the reason why I'm here in England, and at Kamelot's Manor in the first place. I must remember that I'm not here to seek for a husband, but to clear all suspicions upon Road's family.
Dear goodness, I said it as if it's an easy task! Well, in the case you misunderstood, it is NOT an easy job, not at all! It's a real Hell: everyone is so gentle towards me that I feel like a traitor to spy on them, I feel as if I was stabbing them at their back. And yet I'm not, I'm doing my best to help them instead, am I not? Don't you agree with me, my diary? I'm helping them, right?
I should stop once for all with this mental mess, I should just do what my father ordered me to, but I can't stop wondering if what I'm doing is right or wrong. I'd like to cry out "who cares?" and yet I don't, I can't, I won't! I DO CARE for my acting to be rightful in front of me and God and it's not enough for me to know that these are my father's orders. Who cares from where the orders come if they're wrong?
But are they really wrong, or not? Which side I should line up with? I wonder.
Abandoning my mental crap and returning to Amatus, I don't have anything more to say about him for he had affairs to look after in the afternoon and I didn't had the chance to meet him, but I'll surely see him again in the next days and he will surely attend to the ball! I'm so excited…
My battle plan for the future now consist in asking some information about Amatus and Tiky to Road and to wait for what will happen next. It's not such a great battle plan, I have to admit it, but it's still better than nothing, right?
Christine Leverrier
April 21st, 1743
Dear diary,
this morning I spoke with Road about the matter I introduced last time. Road was doing her piano exercises and the two of us were alone in the room, so I took advantage of the situation to ask her something about her gorgeous uncle and her awesome cousin.
I began the conversation casually asking if they often return to Kamelot Manor. You'll be wondering why I used such caution. It's not that I fear her to suspect the real reason I'm here, but I didn't want her to believe I have some interest in her relatives: I don't want her to think of me as one of those low class women who go searching for a rich husband!
So I started the conversation with a question I believed to be innocent and reasonable enough, but she made a fool out of me, literally, for she smiled knowingly and asked:
"You already are in love wit them, aren't you?" she asked with sparkling eyes and can you imagine how did I react? Since I am an idiot, I blushed. Good Lord, Christine, you could have done or said one thousand things, so why did you blushed as little girl facing her first crush? Because I am an idiot, of course.
Anyway, immediately after I blushed, Road started to chuckle, entertained by my embarrassment. The worst part is that I couldn't blame her for I'd have done the same if I was at her place! Still, she said something of the kind:
" Don't worry, my dear Christine, it's just natural, everyone falls in love with them, both women and men! It's almost embarrassing to have people like them as relatives: no-one ever notice me though I'm not half bad!"
" What are you saying?" I immediately replied with courtesy, "It would be impossible not to notice you! You are always in the middle of people's attention."
" Not when they're present." She sighed as if she thought she had no chances against those two, " But I'm fine with that because I love them both very dearly, especially Tiky. Who do you prefer instead?" She asked me shamelessly.
Now: it's true I like Road very much; it's true that she's probably my best friend, but sometimes I really think she is too straightforward. We are in the eighteenth century, it's true, but it still exist some moral! Where have the secret lovers gone? What's about romanticism? Still, I managed to answer to her, somehow, but all which came out from my mouth was a: "I still don't know them well, I don't know what to say… I'll tell you as soon as I have an idea, right?"
Road seemed satisfied with my promise (thanks God! She can be very nosey sometimes…) and closed the conversation assuring me that: "she would have been very happy if I ended up marrying one of them".
It's useless to confess, my good diary, that I felt very relieved thanks to her words. I don't have to worry about her disliking me for flirting with Tiky or Amatus: that's sure a relief and it will help me a lot with my inquiry as well. I need freedom for acting!
Still, the most interesting part of the day didn't took place this morning, but in the afternoon. It was a sunny day and since Road was busy with her lessons I decided to spend some time occupying myself with my favourite pastime, which means wandering in the big gardens of Kamelot Manor. This is where I met Mr Amatus. He was shining, as always, the light of the sun falling gently on his golden hair making him even more astonishing than he usually is.
He greeted me with the cheerful kindness which is one of his main characteristic and we started walking together and talking. We spoke about English literature and I have to admit that it was a very interesting argument though I don't know much about the matter. Most of all we debated about Shakespeare. We absolutely don't agree about which among the Shakespearian tragedies is the best. I think the Othello is absolutely the most intriguing, but he kept on speaking of Richard the Third.
"There is too much blood and hate in that tragedy." I told him, but he immediately replied:
"Too much blood and hate? Isn't the Othello the same? The jealousy, the suspicions and Iago's hate take the main character to strangle his own wife! Isn't this the most terrible proof of the power of hate?"
"It is, but it also shows that innocence always wins at the end: Desdemona's purity is proved and…"
"And they all end up dead and happy," he interrupted me, " is this that you wanted to say?" he mocked me with kindness, but I replied angrily:
"No, they surely are not happy but they're still innocent! Richard never was good; there are no innocent characters in Richard III!"
" And Othello is innocent instead to your eyes? He, who killed his wife refusing to hear her prayers?" he asked with curiosity.
"But he was fooled and he recognizes the truth at the end! Only his body is guilty of the crime, his soul was saved the moment he killed himself." I answered. Mr Amatus looked at me with a funny look in his eyes. He seemed so strange to me in that moment, but I have to confess that even then he was unnaturally beautiful, so much that it took my breath away.
Not even on the comedies we could find an agreement: he prefers "A midsummer night's dream" while I think the "Twelfth night" is better.
We argued a lot, but the atmosphere was never tense between us and he was always so pleasant, even when he didn't agree with me, that I just couldn't help falling in live with him. The passion he shows when he speaks enlightens his eyes in a charming way and every word he pronounces proves his intelligence and his education. He's adorable, just adorable. If Road was to ask me now, I wouldn't have any doubt about who's best between him and Lord Tiky.
You know why? If Lord Tiky had invited me to walk with him in the gardens I would probably accepted, but I would have been frightened the whole time by his seductive manners, by his imprudence, his self-confidence, while with Mr Amatus it felt just natural, as if he was an old friend. His beauty doesn't make you feel uneasy as Lord Tiky's does. Mr Amatus is not frightening, he's not scary, and he makes you feel safe instead. Something I didn't feel since a long time.
You know, my good diary? I think I can love him. I know that it may sound awkward since I've known him for only two days it's undeniably true: I can love him.
Confusingly yours,
Christine Leverrier
Author's notes—Tragedy against comedy
In this author's notes I wanted to speak about the choice of the Shakespearian works Christine and Amatus argued on. I didn't choose them by chance. There is a reason if Christine loves the Othello and Amatus Richard III. There is a meaning hidden in their choice. Try to find it and send me a review or an e-mail with your supposition! I'm so curious to hear your opinion… Still I felt vey uneasy while writing that part because I still hadn't read all Richard III (though I've read all the others I've spoken about and many others) and I fear I wrote something which is not correct about that play.
Concerning the link of my blog, instead… I found it's impossible to read the link, so I posted my drawings on DEVIANTART!
Please, go seeing them: my nick is "ErisMalloy". I'll try to post new pictures at every chapter, so please, go seeing them! Here I post the link (WHICH I'LL POST ON MY PROFILE AS WELL):
.com/
Till now I've posted a picture of Cassandra, one of Angel's face, and one of Sara.
REVIEW!
Goodnight to you all…
Eris92
