Azure
by furaiken@aol.com
It's ten to seven on January second, and the snow has just finished falling. This year, we had no snow on Christmas, and the garden in front of the International Police Station is barren and a sickly straw color, dulled by the crisp, cold winter days. As I step up the walkway, I can see the thick blanket of snow glittering like precious gems over the death of the previous season. I am wrapped in my blue cloak, bearing the seal of the International Police Station, a knit scarf tied over my mouth.
The first rush of warm air is always the most reassuring; though each one taken after that leaves a sting in my chest. I can feel the heat in my cheeks, flushed with the sharp bite of the winter air. I step inside the office, brush off my garments, and continue down the vacant hallway toward my office. The familiarity of the desolation does not surprise me. I pass each door; once again I am one of the first ones to arrive, and there is hardly anyone to greet.
The clock chimes seven a.m., ringing in harmony with the click of my door. The sound echoes off the walls and through the spacious interior. There is no carpet, except for a single blue oriental rug beneath my desk. The tile is decorated, clear of tarnish and soot; and there are two chairs facing either side of my desk. The curtains are pulled open, revealing the newly fallen snow. I pull the scarf from my neck, hanging it neatly on the hook beside the door, followed by my cloak. I take the time to make sure to brush out the wrinkles, as it's easier to take care of them before they form. My morning tea is already set on my desk, complete with cream in a beribboned crémier matching the cup at its right; the mail stacked in a pile beside it. Such preparation is an indication that Bernard must be here as well; he's pleasantly punctual once again. I straighten my hair, brushing it from my gaze as I take a seat across the room, shuffling through the papers with chilled fingers. The memos are the same, some are notices of newly instated bills, others, requests; the pile has already been carefully picked through, the junk mail disposed of. I sort through it, weeding out the unnecessary: those I do not need to reply to in all due haste. There is a letter from Ms Cloudberry tucked between the notice of a new bill and a personal request from Judge David Mustaine. I warm my fingers over the foggy steam rising from my cup of tea as I inspect the inscription.
Her handwriting is lovely. The curves of the letters are over-exaggerated, resembling the finesse of ancient Chinese calligraphy. The quality of her decorative characters do not account for her... 'loudness', however. She is always persistent, no matter what the circumstances. She insists that I write her every three weeks, and if I fail to comply, she sends me a letter asking me if I've 'died'. I make a mental note to reply to her message; lest I oblige to the consequences.
There is a pen before me, but I decline its invitation, and instead, I reach for my rapidly cooling tea. The flavor is dimmed with two spoonfuls of the cream at my side. Though I do enjoy the bitter taste of Earl Grey, I find that I'm quite the unadventurous type so early in the morning.
The silence shifts as Bernard enters, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. "Do you need this week's agenda, Sir?" he inquires, straightening his posture. He is a tall, thin man, and his white hair is brushed to accompany the clean fit of his regalia. His nose is round and his forehead is flat and square. His eyes are a dull brown, peaceful, as if he were a doe. He bears the sigil of the International Police Force, dressed formally and soundly, in nothing brighter than my fellow officers wore. He is good natured and polite, even if he possesses an extra forty years upon me.
"Euh..." I glance at the list, and then at my teacup, blue bands painted across the antique porcelain. "I would rather my tea not go cold," I raise the cup to my lips once again, and then dip it toward him in a single-sided toast.
He offers me a knowing smile, "The morning paper, perhaps?" he suggests as an alternative.
I contemplate this option, weighing it in my mind among the other priorities that have been occupying my mind since I got myself out of bed. The paper may be nice, and it may prove as an interesting form of entertainment and a release for the moment before I head out to take the next rendezvous. I shift in my seat, straighten my voice and offer a flawless smile to my secretary. "Thank you, Bernard, but I believe I have a report to write." I have procrastinated long enough. If I wait any longer to write a summary for my superiors, then questions would arise, and the two of us cannot afford anymore attention then we are already receiving; especially not due to my inability to deal with the consequences of my actions. I never write reports late. Ever. There has never been a time, in my memory, that I have turned in something of importance past due.
"It is not like you to leave your priorities hanging by a thread," his voice causes my thoughts to still, as if he was reading them directly from my mind. I steady my gaze and focus upon him.
"I am usually not at a loss for words," I counter smoothly, the tension beating furiously in my ears. He knows, he knows and he's going to tell everyone. How ridiculous. Fortunately, I am able to maintain my immaculate façade without much difficulty. Bernard has delivered every report I have ever written, and he knows each one that needs to be done, and each that has already been delivered. I square my shoulders as I force myself to relax, realizing that he meant naught but concern. He knows, however, not to push me any farther, even if he does acknowledge that something is disturbing me.
"Did you find the artifact?" He queries, his hands hanging at his sides, as if he be waiting to receive an order.
"No," I say, raising my cup to examine my reflection in the surface of the tea, watching as the ripples distort my image, "we found nothing." My words are truthful, but I decline to recite the rest of the events honestly. "The Commander knew that it was only a rumor. It's a puzzle to me why he pursued it." I set my tea back on the table. I had found much, much more that day than an artifact. Despite my fascination with them, the knowledge that I have been searching for all this time is far more important than a relic of the Old World. I believe I am just aware of my loneliness now, more than any other time in my life. The feeling is sickening; it leaves me with a hollow lump in the pit of my belly. The taste at the back of my throat is nauseating, and I am anxious; anxious for what, I don't know. However disgusted with my inability to control this emotion, I am pathologically satisfied with it.
Bernard chuckles wryly in reply to my comment. "I will take my leave of you then, Sir, if I may. I'd like to glance at the paper before we review today's schedule." He crosses his hand over his waist and offers me a quaint bow, and before I can oblige to his comment, he is gone. Once again I am alone.
With a heavy sigh and the weight of reality now upon my fingers, I glance across the smooth surface of my desk. My hands hesitate, burdened heavily, before pushing the mail away in a neat pile, labeling it as my second priority. I draw a clean pad of paper from my desk. I have never been at a loss before; the words have always come, even when the situation proved to be impossible. Writing a report without displaying my personal hardships would be... challenging. Needless to say that I have no qualms with myself, and I hardly ever reach a point of logic that cannot break my cycle. I have found, from my recent discourse with the half-breed gear known as Dizzy; and the last breath of Justice, that there may be more I deliberately overlook then I catch. Dizzy had explained that despite her heritage, she wished for nothing but a quiet, lonely life. She did not wish to be a Human. She did not wish to be a Gear. I had gone that day to show her to the world. It had become discernible after speaking with her that the
world was not ready to face a case of another self-reliant Gear. Justice had already jostled each individual city into a panic, and as much faith as Dizzy had in humans; she only wished that she would not cause such a commotion.
Sir Johnny Sfondi of the Jellyfish Pirates had picked her up, whisked her away to make her his princess. The man is noble, and I can admit that, but the way he conducts business is not a manner with which I agree. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, as the organization calling themselves "The Postwar Administration Bureau" decided to clone me (not resembling me to the slightest), and create fake bounty lists of those who had been cleared; I have come to the decision that adhering a verbal contract with Sir Sfondi was not an unwise one. My pen taps incessantly against the surface of the paper. It is vital that I remain publicly oblivious to this organization and their actions. It will make second-guessing them and thwarting their crimes against humanity easier. To think that Sol simply wished for me to turn my eyes and...
I bring the pen so hard down against the paper that I crush the tip and leave a long, unattractive scar through the center. I remember him no matter what I am thinking about. My senses always twist, associating completely unrelated things to him. To think, all this time, that this unidentifiable emotion had always sat like a cloud above my head. To think that every time that I...
I can't even finish my thoughts correctly. They all stagger and redirect toward the unmentionable. It affects my speech, my thinking; all in ways that would not usually be swayed. My tongue slips and I can feel the coil of anxiety follow the bile in my throat down my chest. There are times I can feel him beside me, when the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and my thighs tremble. I turn to inspect my pen with a sudden fascination. There was only so long that I could deny it. I could not turn from it forever, even though I thought I had. The realization had come like a blow from a gun. Sharp, like a pinch. It pierced through my chest, stopping my heart and stilling my breath. The day is still a paradox in my mind, separate from time around it. It has confused me and lead me astray. There had been a time where I thought that I could take on the world, however… I was not ready to face the man that had betrayed me so long ago.
I remember that the sun was high, but winter had already come, and the bright orb remained comfortably out of reach from the bitter cold. I remember that I had divided my men into four groups to scout the terrain. I remember the trees were broad and barren, reaching from the ground like skeletal corpses, opening their arms toward the Heavens. It was a week before Yule, and those who accompanied me were eager to return to their families for celebration. I had thought of the briefest way possible to direct my troops to finding whatever artifact was rumored to sleep deep in the wood. Moving in a circular motion, we were to spiral outward in four different directions. Due to the odd number of individuals, and after much protest from my men, I took the southern path alone.
We were going to meet at five for supper and to finish setting up the rest of the camp that we declined to when we arrived. If one of us found our objective, then there would be no need to set up camp for the night. We all rushed toward our objective, not once stopping to think that we overlooked some isolated corner of the forest. I could hear the sounds of the cardinals calling cheerfully to one another -- speaking of seeds and pinecones, of the direction that the wind was blowing. The rustle of the bare branches was a serenade with the wild life that had moved back to this desolate place, once filled with a hundred milling bodies focused purely on destruction. The soldiers that had given their lives were now ash beneath my feet. Burned because there were so many, and the smell was so sickening that it was impossible to live with it. I thought of the lives that were there, of the footprints that touched the ground. Of the gears and the humans and the blood. I remembered them for that moment. I prayed for them because no one else would.
Thirteen years ago, there had been a village here.
It had been a strong village, poor, but full of people who had had lives that they had wanted to live; people who probably had not been ready to die.
It was the shadow of a forest now, and the nogistalia broke into a thousand pieces, layering memories upon quietus. I could see the plausibility of a relic from the ancient world residing in this wood, but I could not begin to think of how we'd find it. It was like looking in a haystack to find a single needle.
I trailed toward the end of the forest, where some of the debris from the former years still lay. There was no sight of the relic that I was searching for, so I thought it was in my best interest to turn back and report to my men, so they could return home to be with their families. I thought second of it, for just an instant, my heels turning in the hard, frozen ground; something had set off a silent alarm in the back of my mind.
I felt a familiar rush come over me at that moment, one that I had remembered feeling before; it was the same feeling that I had gotten not too long ago, the feeling of someone that I had met before. I traveled further into the debris, my feet pounding against the rocklike undertow. There were few twists and turns, the barren trees giving me no signal as to what had suddenly heightened my senses. It was in a small clearing that I found not what I was originally searching for, but something that despite my troubles, I could not avoid. It was the remnants of an old stone building. It had been constructed from heavy slabs of slate, piled and welded together with magic. The great structure had fallen sometime during the Crusades, and the brush and leaves already making seem as if it had carried the grace of two hundred years ago. The naked trees were paving a pathway to the moon. Beneath the pale sky of the newly fallen twilight there was a silhouette. A creature that I would remember even if I had gone blind; I could recognize his scent and his presence that eluded me.
I could see the thin trail of smoke curling from him, coiling toward the full moon like the relics of an extinguished flame. Fingers rose to the sky, curling and strangling the angels that brought the dusk, stilling their mantra to silence. He sat in contemplation, or perhaps there was nothing going in his head. Perhaps it was just another night to live through, no different from the night after. His presence irritated me. To think that Sir Sol Badguy would rather sit pointlessly staring like a child into nothingness than strive to use his strength for the greater good. I knew if I approached him, that it would end the same way that every other one of our meetings had ended. I could not find it in myself to speak civilly with this man, nor could I bring myself to turn away. So I remained suspended in the moment, knowing it would be best for me to walk away, but I still could not find enough strength to lift my feet and turn away. I knew nothing I said to him would matter. In the end, despite what I said, he would always leave me alone. I did not want to believe that our meetings were mere coincidence. They came sporadically, but all too often. There was something that God wanted me to do... Perhaps it was my inability to kill him that caused our constant convergence.
There was a certain serenity around him, in the way that he sat perfectly still. The long, disarrayed mane was pulled into a long ponytail that hung limply over his shoulder. I could tell, even from my vantage point, that he did not put much care into it; yet another reason to be annoyed with him. He never took care of himself; he was always too lazy to. He had never even bothered to look decent when addressing the Holy Order, me, or Sir Undersn. His clothes were wrinkled and travel worn. They bore the RIOT symbol -- some cheap brand of American clothing -- which was sloppily embroidered into the back of his vest; it had begun to unwind from the rips and tears that it had endured. His slim hips and broad shoulders looked better in Holy Order attire. He was built like animal, tall and dark, an exotic curve at the corners of his eyes. I could see him breathing from my place; hear his heartbeat thrumming in my ears – irregular, sporadic, and low like the bass octaves of a piano. There I was, standing behind him, presented with the option of stilling it, but finding myself unable to make a move.
"Gonna stand there long, boy?" He said, finally; I was unsurprised by his manner, and he was unsurprised at my intrusion. I came to realize that I was growling, and it roared into a crescendo as he spoke. The rough song subsided to a throaty grunt as I replied. It was unintentional; however, when I heard him speak I became closer and closer to losing my reserved expression. It was dangerous to accidentally yield to my aggression. The second time he spoke, a bestial rumble accompanied his words, "You should be heading back home... they're gonna come looking for you..." He trailed off into a slur of words, sucking on the cigarette that hung over his lower lip, the pipe bent through the center. He was looking at me from over his shoulder, slumped inward, as if he was receding into his own private realm. He looked like he was staring right through me,
Like he didn't want to see me.
I kept my calm, even though I would've fancied giving him a more violent reason to pay attention to me properly. "I was not following you," I began, making sure to clear that little misconception, speaking more sharply than I realized. Sol turned with a knowing smirk, his expression filled with some sort of morbid conceit. I was no longer a bother to him, nor was I an adequate threat. He looked irritatingly satisfied. "I do not want you to get wrong idea," I continued, my tones turning more harsh and trained the further I spoke. There was no reply, I supposed I wasn't important enough for him to address, so I spoke again, holding my ground, daring him to make a move. "My men are in this forest, you know that, it is in your best interest that they do not find you." It was a weak, but competent threat.
"You know then?" He interrupted me and turned his back to me. He seemed nonchalant about the entire idea.
"It was not that difficult to realize," Just to accept. Sol had brought up a sore point that I didn't want to face. I knew what he was, and I had known. He never seemed to have lost his humanity to me. His actions could be irritating, yes, but there was never a time when he was anything less than human to me. In some ways, I felt as if I were betraying him whenever I escaped the thought; I felt as if I was betraying my God when I admitted it. He was Sol to me, and perhaps that was a sin. I kept it my own secret, hidden far away, and decided that it wasn't in my best interest to deal with it. Perhaps he knew that I wouldn't say anything, and perhaps that's why he never brought it up. Or, he was embarrassed. Like Dizzy, was it really his fault?
The moment I saw him opening his mouth, I knew what he was going to say. The same repeat of his former statement; as if saying it again would make me leave. Perhaps he thought I was inept, and unable to understand him. He spoke to me as if he was speaking to a boy. "Then you should --"
"I am not the child that you left seven years ago," I said sorely, cutting him off abruptly. I had caught his attention for the moment, proving once again that I had the capacity to still catch him off guard. He didn't seem amused, he just returned to his cigarette as if I hadn't said anything at all. I decided not to get physical about our differences. I hoped that it wouldn't be obvious that I was blatantly changing the subject. Perhaps in some reserved part of my mind, I hoped that I wasn't making him sad. The fact remained that I had never really seen Sol that sad. Then again, I hadn't really ever seen Sol passionate about anything. It all seemed the same to him, the black and whites of the pleasures and pains of the world blurred to gray mediums. "May I sit with you?" I requested, my tones calmed from our previous disagreement. If I couldn't turn away from this man, it would be in my best interest to join him, and try to get along with him.
"…Don't care," He drawled, reaching to take the cigarette from his lips and inspect it as if it were the first thing on his mind.
There was a moment where I stopped myself, where I took a moment to think of turning right then. I can't say it would have been better for me that way, as I do not pride myself in ignorance; but it was the moment that my world changed, and that I saw something in Sol that I hadn't seen before. Perhaps because I was blind, and only wished to see the way that he invaded my own ideals. He was certainly a threatening man, though I had never been afraid of him, myself. There was a way that he glanced off past the village and into the trees; like he was waiting for something to come to him. I couldn't help to think that he was meeting with someone here. I frowned quietly, "Am I disturbing anything?" I asked, cocking my head backwards to glance over at him. The thought brought a fierce feeling of protectiveness. Who could he be meeting, way out there, in the middle of nowhere?
Sol looked unamused, his expression unchanging. "Hn. Do you haveta ask me that?" He sucked on the end of the cigarette. I was always a bother to him in some fashion. I was always the one who was the nag, the enforcer, breathing down his neck to do one thing or another. A few times, I had even gone as far as to lock him in the brig because he had deliberately disobeyed my orders.
"You could be more tactful about it," I explained truthfully. Sol never had any tact, with anything, even when he was supposed to be professional. It was part of Sol's overly lax personality, I suppose. "Then again you were never one to change." I added, though I felt as if I were making excuses for him. "What I meant was, are you meeting somewhere out here?" I continued to elaborate, feeling as if I had to explain everything in full detail for him to properly understand my motives. I felt as if I was talking to a child.
"I don't have anyone to meet," he said without clarifying further. He was always vague about everything, so much so that I had to henpeck him for further details. Was it such a nice night, that he just decided to stop there and watch the sky? Some part of me doubted it, and that same part thought it was possible that perhaps... he was following me. It was definitely a thrilling, yet a completely implausible circumstance. I banished the thought from my mind. I couldn't help but think that I annoyed him with my constant ranting. However irritating I was to him, it didn't matter; because he needed it, because he was that sort of lazy, rude, utterly impossible person to deal with. There was a long, tranquil silence between us; and my eyes drew across the bare branches and up to the frozen sky. The night was getting chilly, and the nip of the air caused me to shiver unintentionally. I did not wish to show any weakness in front of him. There he sat beside me, his legs sprawled in front of him like an ungraceful mule in slumber, the cigarette poking unceremoniously from between his lips. His arms were bare, and he did not seem to find the air too cold for comfort. The words that we spoke of Sol's meetings brought other thoughts to my mind. I had never seen Sol with anyone else. Sol always traveled alone, by himself. There was no room for anyone else. It brought a question to my mind, one that I had been wanting to ask him for a long time. "Do you regret meeting me?" I asked quietly, keeping my gaze averted to the sky, beyond the frigid, numb world and to the stars. I wanted to know... if I was just an irritation to him, another stupid person to deal with.
He seemed to take my question into consideration, though his expression was still dulled by the color of the evening sky. The shadows danced off his worn features, over the glint of the metallic headband and down the profile of his face. "Look, kid, I ain't out to get you." He gazed out through the trees, lazy-eyed, as if he weren't talking to me at all. "What happened with the Holy Order... just another way to kill time. It wasn't anything about you. Got sick of it, is all. Just another way to finish what I started." He sounded bored with it. He sounded bored with the war that had divided humanity, the war which millions had died, which the humans almost lost. The people I saw killed, the families that died, the innocents that fell; the people that shouldn't have been in the war in the first place. I remembered them; I remembered their faces, their expressions, their lives. I remembered one of the soldiers that smiled and me and shook my hand when I met him. He said it was a pleasure to finally meet the 'great Ky Kiske'. Then he went off into battle and died. It was what I had witnessed for the entirety of my life, ever since my mother had been slaughtered by a Gear when I had reached the tender age of six.
How dare him. How dare he say this to me; how dare he think, for a moment, that he could just walk away from everything that everyone held dear. He could stand in the sidelines and not care, and walk off, and do whatever he wanted because he had enough power to do so. All the people that needed him had died. I was disgusted, and I felt nauseated with the prospect. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, or the way that he didn't seem to care if he won or lost, regardless of the consequences. Even at the expense of the world, he was still hounding whatever biased ideal that clouded his brain. It made him blind. It made me loose my temper. Perhaps I was disappointed in him; or I perhaps I was just more infuriated with myself and my constant carousel of trying to please him. I had come to the conclusion that nothing I could do would please him -- nothing ever would please him. By my means, by his means; he'd always look back, express whatever contempt he had in an inelegant snort and be on his way. No matter how out of my way I went, or how difficult the task was. I was never good enough. As hard as I tried, as many times as I stumbled over the same rocky path that only lead deeper into an unmarked wood. It didn't matter to him; none of it mattered to him. He didn't care that he had stolen our sacred artifact, disgraced my Order, disobeyed my commands, and soiled the name of Sir Kliff Undersn.
I could feel the anger bubbling at the base of my belly; the rage that haunted me whenever I faced him, whenever he held back. These feelings toward him that I had -- violent and unreserved -- somehow were still left misunderstood. I could feel it rising at the base of my throat, choking my voice. It suddenly spilled out in a swarm of confusion. "Why then?!" I asked, coarsely; my trained tongue slipping as the words rushed from it, "Why did you enter the tournament?! Why did you challenge Justice?!" I needed an answer -- some sort of closure that would tame the adrenaline rushing to my brain. I didn't want to be left suspended like a disobedient child.
My companion took his time, gauged my reaction with a lazy snort. And then he turned to me, met my eyes with the passion of a wild cat. It was everything he kept reserved inside. Something he shared with someone else. Something he had with others that were not-me. It was there, deep, deep down, and I could see it; and I could tell how he hid it from me. I could see what he didn't want me to. A low rumble graced his quiet voice, though did not deny me of response. "Whaddya think...?" He inquired, drawling each word distastefully. There was no change to his demeanor, no indicator that he felt it any more or less as he expressed it. He was quiescent, casual as he always was; "...thought I could've die."
And so the world was too much for him.
For a moment, the world became too much for me as well. I could feel my shoulders draw inward, and my back arch. I didn't expect that from him. Then, I never expected anything I received from him. He caught me off guard like I wasn't ever used to being caught, ever. I was always on top of things. My decisions were flawless, my army had been built upon pebbles into great boulders, we had turned streams to rivers and straw to gold; I was the boy who defeated Justice. Through all these great feats that I had performed, I felt distant inside. These things that I did, everything that I had felt and performed up to this point was insignificant to him. I had never noticed it, no matter how blatantly obvious it had been. This man, who was irresponsible, boorish, and absolutely impossible to deal with… had me at his whim. He had saved me countless times, rebelled against my order because he thought he knew better. For ten years my opinion of him never wavered. His appearance never changed, not since Sir Undersn had introduced us so many years ago; it was the first time that I noticed it. The shape of his face, the high cheek bones that curved delicately into his jaw. He hadn't changed. In ten years, time had stilled around him. He moved with the same hidden elegance; talked in the same slur, as if he were too lazy to speak in complete sentences. The scar near his pinkie was still in the same place, his presence was still warm, a glowing ember in the chill of the gradating dusk.
I sifted through my memories for something to counter his words, but it was no attack, and trying to reassure him through prayer seemed... insignificant. It was so difficult to fathom. The offhand way the words dripped from his lips was a painful insight to his own suicide. This man's life that I so desperately wanted to be a part of wasn't something that he wished to keep. He wanted to die. There had been times, too; when I had wished death upon myself. I had thought the world would be a better place once I had gone, that the people I was acquainted with would have an easier time if I simply disappeared. I had never felt it to the extent in which I could not draw myself from the fantasy. I had never pointedly fled into a battle that I did not know I could win. There were still things I needed to do, battles I needed to win, and people that needed to be saved. There was still this man, sitting beside me, crying desperately for company. Who didn't want my company. Someone who, perhaps, had already forgotten how to be alone.
If I could not help one person, the one person that I wanted to help more than anything -- then what could I do? Was changing the world worth losing a single life? If I could not save him, then nothing was worth it. There was no one else that I would trust. No one else that I would still stand by, no matter how many times he betrayed me. He was disgusting in many ways, he wouldn't listen to me, he smoked, I swear to God that he drank; he was lazy, boorish, rude, undignified, disgraceful, disorderly, like a juvenile convict and completely devoid of most common sense. He had walked away from me seven years ago. He left, without a word to me. He left me, and I never knew why. I thought, maybe, that there was something wrong with me. Was I too childish to earn his attention? There was no one else I trusted more than him. No one else that I ever would. I realized that I loved this man. So much that he transfixed me when he had said nothing at all. His apathy was intoxicating. His laziness was stunning. The scent of cigarette smoke and sweat was more appealing then I had lead myself to believe. I had followed him my entire life, and it had taken me ten years to realize that what I was looking for in him had been there all along, I was just too afraid to take the leap toward it. I could feel the guilt tug heavily at the lump in my throat. I was in love with a man. I was in love with the one man that I was positive not to have any redeeming qualities. The entire ordeal left me breathless and disconcerted.
The fact that I am now, and somehow always have been, smitten by this man are still mysterious me. The world hasn't ended. I don't know whether to be more embarrassed over the fact that I am in love with a man, or that it took me ten years to realize it.
When I look back at it now -- at all the times that he had walked into my life, strolling casually, with a thumb always tucked in his pocket. The way he berated me whenever we met, even by coincidence. He always treated me like a child, and I had always strived to be better than him. I had already reached my personal goals; I thought that I could meet his. I had never thought of what I would do after I had soared above him. In a way, I already was, and I hadn't once realized it. Sol was too tangled in his own cycle of self-destruction that I had already stumbled in front of him.
We sat in silent contemplation. His cigarette had already burned out, though he did not reach to flick it away. My own movements were hesitant at first, though he did not seem to care. I touched my hand to his bare shoulder. He neither encouraged nor discouraged my caress. He was warm. I was well aware of the feeling of his skin, but it remained a surprising sensation. I could feel the faint movement as he breathed, the swell in his chest as he inhaled. I was not comfortable with the thought of being able to do nothing for him. There was never a time that I had stepped back from anything and let it pass me by. The world was far too large, and there were things that I couldn't step away from. This goal that I had been pursuing for much of my life was not going to be swept away with the same tides that had swept Sol to sea.
We spoke no more that night; though I wished to tell him how I felt, I knew it would leave me nothing but unsatisfied. I do not know if he understood my motives, or if I came off as nothing but an annoyance. For a moment, I was able to put aside my rivalry with Sol Badguy and focus purely on comforting the man that had been by my side since my promotion.
The Heavens had mirrored the shadows, turning a dim shade of indigo. The world was so large, that even the stars burning billions of miles away seemed nothing but insignificant pinpricks in a vast echo of nothingness. The sky always seemed brighter when the sun was crossing through it. There was a thick desolation about the emptiness that night. Perhaps because I realized that I was much more hollow than I thought I was. I had done many great things, but I had not partaken in the daily routines that made life worth living.
It was the call of my men that crumbled the tranquility of our joining. I hadn't a clue how long we had been together. Sol had already brought himself to his feet when I had turned my head toward the voices. My hand had brushed over his shoulder, and across his hip as he stood, and it remained suspended as he swung the Fire Seal over his wide shoulders. I lifted myself to my feet slowly afterward, though he made no movement to look back at me.
I stepped toward him; my arms swayed at my sides, falling with the silence of the twilight. The stars were high, and the night air was cold and vital in the way that I had never known this world to be. He was glowing in the shadows of the foliage, a blazing haze beneath the grays of the canopy. His face was worn like a noble king, and his steed was the passing wind that he never mounted. Defying nature in each heavy step, though he walked in harmony with the sounds of the nocturnal creatures making their nightly rounds. He walked like he carried the world on his shoulders; and I could have sworn that I had seen that saturnine expression once before;
It was on the faces of my men in the war. It was the expression of those who sought solidity in their existence; it was the kind of hope that I had never thought I'd find in the exotic movements of Sol Badguy. The feline elegance that I had never taken the time to notice in the decade that I had been acquainted with him. Even when I pursued him so candidly, did I step back to look at anything except the way that he continually displaced my temper. It was hard to believe that he had me, for the moment. He could have taken anything from me that night, and yet all he did was walk away. I would have stayed with him if he had asked -- thrown away my duty to take the time to comfort him; to be the one person in the world that listened when he decided that it was time to break.
I felt strange that night, completely cognizant in a world that was cradled in the arms of Morpheus. It was more real to me then any event in my life ever had been. I felt odd as I watched him trail into the darkness, odd because I was unsure of my own accomplishments. I felt a dissonance toward my impact on the world.
I was lonely.
I was lonelier then I had ever been in my life.
They say that the pathway to Heaven is paved in thorns. There is no way around it. We all walk with bloodied feet, and the closer we get to God, the more blood we lose. There is no one that I know who is closer to God than Sol. There is no one that I know that has watched thousands of those who have stumbled and fell, and not quite made it up to Heaven. There are those who get there by force, who start off strong, but are staggering by the end. Then there are those who find their resolution as they are able to see the end of the pathway. To watch everyone pass you, and to stand still in front of Heaven, not being able to follow, -- it must be heavy.
I have now taken up writing my letter to Ms. Cloudberry, assuring her of my health. Though she wishes to be in my company in the next few weeks, I must explain to her that I haven't a vacation until April. I have a strange feeling that she will write back and tell me that she has our week planned out. I fold the letter carefully and slip it into an envelope, sealing it with the red stamp of the International Police Station.
The clock reads a quarter to eight, and Bernard returns with my third cup of tea and an updated version of the current bounty list. His smile is quaint, but knowing, -- and he takes the letter as I hand it to him, telling him that it needs to be sent of as soon as possible. "This is the fourth one in the last five months," he comments to himself, turning the letter over in his wrinkled hands. "If I wasn't mistaken, I would think that you fancy this young lady."
I raise my brow to him. His words come of no surprise to me, with the letter parted from my hands; I take the list and turn it over to browse the contents. "I haven't the time for that sort of thing," I comment casually, scrolling through the names of the hunters that have captured the listed criminals. The scent of a new cup of tea is pleasant.
"It would not be fair to the young lady," he adds, surprised as he reads the address. "...And China is such a far place to travel to." His eyes move from the letter, and he straightens his voice. "It is not my place to say. Though I do believe that you need a companion, Sir Kiske. I know it is lonely here, sometimes."
I do not lift my head from the names printed on the list, though the familiarity of one bearing the tag 'anonymous' catches my eye. My lips quirk into a knowing smirk. I do not say a word; managing to keep my secret to myself. "Call Sir Crue and Sir Corabi please, Bernard. I have reason to believe that we will be having a visit from number twenty-nine." I pat the back of my hand on the list and turn to look at him, the smirk growing into a smile. He nods quickly as he is dismissed, holding the red sealed letter in his hands as he follows my command.
My eyes draw back to the parchment on my desk, the hundreds of names scrawled over the thick, brownish paper. The bounty of James Hetfield was brought in at two twenty-three a.m. on December twenty-fifth, 2184 in Lyon by someone bearing the bounty account 'anonymous'. He is close. I take up my next task by grabbing the end of the paper on the nearest notepad, ripping it from the metallic coil at the top and scribbling, almost unintelligibly:
Sol. I stop for tea at a café on the corner of Bosquet and De La Bourdonnais at four o'clock every evening. If by chance you decide to join me, it will be my treat.
I fold the note carefully, creasing it down the center and tucking it beneath another scripture. James Hetfield's accomplice is still free and most likely close by. I decide to take my chance, have faith in my God, and deliver the note to the Police Station in Lyon in hopes that Sol will perhaps stumble upon it. It is a leap of faith, I realize, and there is the chance that I will be waiting and he will never come.
The higher the sun rises, the paler the sky becomes. My sun has already passed zenith, and is creeping toward the horizon, causing the landscape to glow; each cloud dimmed with a golden shadow. He now walks in the shelter of the night, under the veil of newly fallen snow, wandering through a world that cares little for him.
I turn my head to watch the snow fall through my office window, in union with the breeze and twisting in a tranquil dance to meet its comrades. I had planned out my life until now, dancing through the air, helping those who are in need, carrying out the Justice that God wishes for the world. I hadn't noticed the one who was most in need of me. Was this justice? Was this fair? Could I continue my life knowing that the further I stepped, the more I betrayed the one person who needed me the most? I had been enraged at him for seven years because he left me, I had not paused in my anger to come to the conclusion that perhaps he needed me; that perhaps it was I who was betraying him. I was blind toward his dependence on me, and he too was blind on his dependence. He had one intention in mind, and knew not of his own loneliness.
I don't know how long it will take for my sun to rise again; but as I watch the snow fall on this cool January morning, I put to rest my childish ambition, my need to be a hero, and my qualms with Gears for the greater good of the one person that I wish to save. There is a man who needs me. Someone out there that depends on my decisions, no matter how far across the horizon he might be. There is no room for denial in this world, and no time for me to make excuses for my emotions. I have caught myself in a cycle of lies, and I can always excuse myself with the prospect that he was deliberately trying to hurt me. When the lies build up, they become the truth. I would meet with him in the same state of mind, and I would believe him to be trying to hurt me before he even made a move. In the end, I became the thing that I hated. I had been the one who was trying to hurt him, because I was afraid that he was going to hurt me again. I may not understand his pain fully, and I doubt that I ever will; but no matter what happens,
Tomorrow is a new day, and the sun will rise again, once again just out of my reach, peaked in the center of the azure sky, as I watch the shadows of my fingers travel across the points of light. I want to protect him, as long as I have the ability to. I want to be by his side.
by furaiken@aol.com
It's ten to seven on January second, and the snow has just finished falling. This year, we had no snow on Christmas, and the garden in front of the International Police Station is barren and a sickly straw color, dulled by the crisp, cold winter days. As I step up the walkway, I can see the thick blanket of snow glittering like precious gems over the death of the previous season. I am wrapped in my blue cloak, bearing the seal of the International Police Station, a knit scarf tied over my mouth.
The first rush of warm air is always the most reassuring; though each one taken after that leaves a sting in my chest. I can feel the heat in my cheeks, flushed with the sharp bite of the winter air. I step inside the office, brush off my garments, and continue down the vacant hallway toward my office. The familiarity of the desolation does not surprise me. I pass each door; once again I am one of the first ones to arrive, and there is hardly anyone to greet.
The clock chimes seven a.m., ringing in harmony with the click of my door. The sound echoes off the walls and through the spacious interior. There is no carpet, except for a single blue oriental rug beneath my desk. The tile is decorated, clear of tarnish and soot; and there are two chairs facing either side of my desk. The curtains are pulled open, revealing the newly fallen snow. I pull the scarf from my neck, hanging it neatly on the hook beside the door, followed by my cloak. I take the time to make sure to brush out the wrinkles, as it's easier to take care of them before they form. My morning tea is already set on my desk, complete with cream in a beribboned crémier matching the cup at its right; the mail stacked in a pile beside it. Such preparation is an indication that Bernard must be here as well; he's pleasantly punctual once again. I straighten my hair, brushing it from my gaze as I take a seat across the room, shuffling through the papers with chilled fingers. The memos are the same, some are notices of newly instated bills, others, requests; the pile has already been carefully picked through, the junk mail disposed of. I sort through it, weeding out the unnecessary: those I do not need to reply to in all due haste. There is a letter from Ms Cloudberry tucked between the notice of a new bill and a personal request from Judge David Mustaine. I warm my fingers over the foggy steam rising from my cup of tea as I inspect the inscription.
Her handwriting is lovely. The curves of the letters are over-exaggerated, resembling the finesse of ancient Chinese calligraphy. The quality of her decorative characters do not account for her... 'loudness', however. She is always persistent, no matter what the circumstances. She insists that I write her every three weeks, and if I fail to comply, she sends me a letter asking me if I've 'died'. I make a mental note to reply to her message; lest I oblige to the consequences.
There is a pen before me, but I decline its invitation, and instead, I reach for my rapidly cooling tea. The flavor is dimmed with two spoonfuls of the cream at my side. Though I do enjoy the bitter taste of Earl Grey, I find that I'm quite the unadventurous type so early in the morning.
The silence shifts as Bernard enters, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. "Do you need this week's agenda, Sir?" he inquires, straightening his posture. He is a tall, thin man, and his white hair is brushed to accompany the clean fit of his regalia. His nose is round and his forehead is flat and square. His eyes are a dull brown, peaceful, as if he were a doe. He bears the sigil of the International Police Force, dressed formally and soundly, in nothing brighter than my fellow officers wore. He is good natured and polite, even if he possesses an extra forty years upon me.
"Euh..." I glance at the list, and then at my teacup, blue bands painted across the antique porcelain. "I would rather my tea not go cold," I raise the cup to my lips once again, and then dip it toward him in a single-sided toast.
He offers me a knowing smile, "The morning paper, perhaps?" he suggests as an alternative.
I contemplate this option, weighing it in my mind among the other priorities that have been occupying my mind since I got myself out of bed. The paper may be nice, and it may prove as an interesting form of entertainment and a release for the moment before I head out to take the next rendezvous. I shift in my seat, straighten my voice and offer a flawless smile to my secretary. "Thank you, Bernard, but I believe I have a report to write." I have procrastinated long enough. If I wait any longer to write a summary for my superiors, then questions would arise, and the two of us cannot afford anymore attention then we are already receiving; especially not due to my inability to deal with the consequences of my actions. I never write reports late. Ever. There has never been a time, in my memory, that I have turned in something of importance past due.
"It is not like you to leave your priorities hanging by a thread," his voice causes my thoughts to still, as if he was reading them directly from my mind. I steady my gaze and focus upon him.
"I am usually not at a loss for words," I counter smoothly, the tension beating furiously in my ears. He knows, he knows and he's going to tell everyone. How ridiculous. Fortunately, I am able to maintain my immaculate façade without much difficulty. Bernard has delivered every report I have ever written, and he knows each one that needs to be done, and each that has already been delivered. I square my shoulders as I force myself to relax, realizing that he meant naught but concern. He knows, however, not to push me any farther, even if he does acknowledge that something is disturbing me.
"Did you find the artifact?" He queries, his hands hanging at his sides, as if he be waiting to receive an order.
"No," I say, raising my cup to examine my reflection in the surface of the tea, watching as the ripples distort my image, "we found nothing." My words are truthful, but I decline to recite the rest of the events honestly. "The Commander knew that it was only a rumor. It's a puzzle to me why he pursued it." I set my tea back on the table. I had found much, much more that day than an artifact. Despite my fascination with them, the knowledge that I have been searching for all this time is far more important than a relic of the Old World. I believe I am just aware of my loneliness now, more than any other time in my life. The feeling is sickening; it leaves me with a hollow lump in the pit of my belly. The taste at the back of my throat is nauseating, and I am anxious; anxious for what, I don't know. However disgusted with my inability to control this emotion, I am pathologically satisfied with it.
Bernard chuckles wryly in reply to my comment. "I will take my leave of you then, Sir, if I may. I'd like to glance at the paper before we review today's schedule." He crosses his hand over his waist and offers me a quaint bow, and before I can oblige to his comment, he is gone. Once again I am alone.
With a heavy sigh and the weight of reality now upon my fingers, I glance across the smooth surface of my desk. My hands hesitate, burdened heavily, before pushing the mail away in a neat pile, labeling it as my second priority. I draw a clean pad of paper from my desk. I have never been at a loss before; the words have always come, even when the situation proved to be impossible. Writing a report without displaying my personal hardships would be... challenging. Needless to say that I have no qualms with myself, and I hardly ever reach a point of logic that cannot break my cycle. I have found, from my recent discourse with the half-breed gear known as Dizzy; and the last breath of Justice, that there may be more I deliberately overlook then I catch. Dizzy had explained that despite her heritage, she wished for nothing but a quiet, lonely life. She did not wish to be a Human. She did not wish to be a Gear. I had gone that day to show her to the world. It had become discernible after speaking with her that the
world was not ready to face a case of another self-reliant Gear. Justice had already jostled each individual city into a panic, and as much faith as Dizzy had in humans; she only wished that she would not cause such a commotion.
Sir Johnny Sfondi of the Jellyfish Pirates had picked her up, whisked her away to make her his princess. The man is noble, and I can admit that, but the way he conducts business is not a manner with which I agree. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, as the organization calling themselves "The Postwar Administration Bureau" decided to clone me (not resembling me to the slightest), and create fake bounty lists of those who had been cleared; I have come to the decision that adhering a verbal contract with Sir Sfondi was not an unwise one. My pen taps incessantly against the surface of the paper. It is vital that I remain publicly oblivious to this organization and their actions. It will make second-guessing them and thwarting their crimes against humanity easier. To think that Sol simply wished for me to turn my eyes and...
I bring the pen so hard down against the paper that I crush the tip and leave a long, unattractive scar through the center. I remember him no matter what I am thinking about. My senses always twist, associating completely unrelated things to him. To think, all this time, that this unidentifiable emotion had always sat like a cloud above my head. To think that every time that I...
I can't even finish my thoughts correctly. They all stagger and redirect toward the unmentionable. It affects my speech, my thinking; all in ways that would not usually be swayed. My tongue slips and I can feel the coil of anxiety follow the bile in my throat down my chest. There are times I can feel him beside me, when the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and my thighs tremble. I turn to inspect my pen with a sudden fascination. There was only so long that I could deny it. I could not turn from it forever, even though I thought I had. The realization had come like a blow from a gun. Sharp, like a pinch. It pierced through my chest, stopping my heart and stilling my breath. The day is still a paradox in my mind, separate from time around it. It has confused me and lead me astray. There had been a time where I thought that I could take on the world, however… I was not ready to face the man that had betrayed me so long ago.
I remember that the sun was high, but winter had already come, and the bright orb remained comfortably out of reach from the bitter cold. I remember that I had divided my men into four groups to scout the terrain. I remember the trees were broad and barren, reaching from the ground like skeletal corpses, opening their arms toward the Heavens. It was a week before Yule, and those who accompanied me were eager to return to their families for celebration. I had thought of the briefest way possible to direct my troops to finding whatever artifact was rumored to sleep deep in the wood. Moving in a circular motion, we were to spiral outward in four different directions. Due to the odd number of individuals, and after much protest from my men, I took the southern path alone.
We were going to meet at five for supper and to finish setting up the rest of the camp that we declined to when we arrived. If one of us found our objective, then there would be no need to set up camp for the night. We all rushed toward our objective, not once stopping to think that we overlooked some isolated corner of the forest. I could hear the sounds of the cardinals calling cheerfully to one another -- speaking of seeds and pinecones, of the direction that the wind was blowing. The rustle of the bare branches was a serenade with the wild life that had moved back to this desolate place, once filled with a hundred milling bodies focused purely on destruction. The soldiers that had given their lives were now ash beneath my feet. Burned because there were so many, and the smell was so sickening that it was impossible to live with it. I thought of the lives that were there, of the footprints that touched the ground. Of the gears and the humans and the blood. I remembered them for that moment. I prayed for them because no one else would.
Thirteen years ago, there had been a village here.
It had been a strong village, poor, but full of people who had had lives that they had wanted to live; people who probably had not been ready to die.
It was the shadow of a forest now, and the nogistalia broke into a thousand pieces, layering memories upon quietus. I could see the plausibility of a relic from the ancient world residing in this wood, but I could not begin to think of how we'd find it. It was like looking in a haystack to find a single needle.
I trailed toward the end of the forest, where some of the debris from the former years still lay. There was no sight of the relic that I was searching for, so I thought it was in my best interest to turn back and report to my men, so they could return home to be with their families. I thought second of it, for just an instant, my heels turning in the hard, frozen ground; something had set off a silent alarm in the back of my mind.
I felt a familiar rush come over me at that moment, one that I had remembered feeling before; it was the same feeling that I had gotten not too long ago, the feeling of someone that I had met before. I traveled further into the debris, my feet pounding against the rocklike undertow. There were few twists and turns, the barren trees giving me no signal as to what had suddenly heightened my senses. It was in a small clearing that I found not what I was originally searching for, but something that despite my troubles, I could not avoid. It was the remnants of an old stone building. It had been constructed from heavy slabs of slate, piled and welded together with magic. The great structure had fallen sometime during the Crusades, and the brush and leaves already making seem as if it had carried the grace of two hundred years ago. The naked trees were paving a pathway to the moon. Beneath the pale sky of the newly fallen twilight there was a silhouette. A creature that I would remember even if I had gone blind; I could recognize his scent and his presence that eluded me.
I could see the thin trail of smoke curling from him, coiling toward the full moon like the relics of an extinguished flame. Fingers rose to the sky, curling and strangling the angels that brought the dusk, stilling their mantra to silence. He sat in contemplation, or perhaps there was nothing going in his head. Perhaps it was just another night to live through, no different from the night after. His presence irritated me. To think that Sir Sol Badguy would rather sit pointlessly staring like a child into nothingness than strive to use his strength for the greater good. I knew if I approached him, that it would end the same way that every other one of our meetings had ended. I could not find it in myself to speak civilly with this man, nor could I bring myself to turn away. So I remained suspended in the moment, knowing it would be best for me to walk away, but I still could not find enough strength to lift my feet and turn away. I knew nothing I said to him would matter. In the end, despite what I said, he would always leave me alone. I did not want to believe that our meetings were mere coincidence. They came sporadically, but all too often. There was something that God wanted me to do... Perhaps it was my inability to kill him that caused our constant convergence.
There was a certain serenity around him, in the way that he sat perfectly still. The long, disarrayed mane was pulled into a long ponytail that hung limply over his shoulder. I could tell, even from my vantage point, that he did not put much care into it; yet another reason to be annoyed with him. He never took care of himself; he was always too lazy to. He had never even bothered to look decent when addressing the Holy Order, me, or Sir Undersn. His clothes were wrinkled and travel worn. They bore the RIOT symbol -- some cheap brand of American clothing -- which was sloppily embroidered into the back of his vest; it had begun to unwind from the rips and tears that it had endured. His slim hips and broad shoulders looked better in Holy Order attire. He was built like animal, tall and dark, an exotic curve at the corners of his eyes. I could see him breathing from my place; hear his heartbeat thrumming in my ears – irregular, sporadic, and low like the bass octaves of a piano. There I was, standing behind him, presented with the option of stilling it, but finding myself unable to make a move.
"Gonna stand there long, boy?" He said, finally; I was unsurprised by his manner, and he was unsurprised at my intrusion. I came to realize that I was growling, and it roared into a crescendo as he spoke. The rough song subsided to a throaty grunt as I replied. It was unintentional; however, when I heard him speak I became closer and closer to losing my reserved expression. It was dangerous to accidentally yield to my aggression. The second time he spoke, a bestial rumble accompanied his words, "You should be heading back home... they're gonna come looking for you..." He trailed off into a slur of words, sucking on the cigarette that hung over his lower lip, the pipe bent through the center. He was looking at me from over his shoulder, slumped inward, as if he was receding into his own private realm. He looked like he was staring right through me,
Like he didn't want to see me.
I kept my calm, even though I would've fancied giving him a more violent reason to pay attention to me properly. "I was not following you," I began, making sure to clear that little misconception, speaking more sharply than I realized. Sol turned with a knowing smirk, his expression filled with some sort of morbid conceit. I was no longer a bother to him, nor was I an adequate threat. He looked irritatingly satisfied. "I do not want you to get wrong idea," I continued, my tones turning more harsh and trained the further I spoke. There was no reply, I supposed I wasn't important enough for him to address, so I spoke again, holding my ground, daring him to make a move. "My men are in this forest, you know that, it is in your best interest that they do not find you." It was a weak, but competent threat.
"You know then?" He interrupted me and turned his back to me. He seemed nonchalant about the entire idea.
"It was not that difficult to realize," Just to accept. Sol had brought up a sore point that I didn't want to face. I knew what he was, and I had known. He never seemed to have lost his humanity to me. His actions could be irritating, yes, but there was never a time when he was anything less than human to me. In some ways, I felt as if I were betraying him whenever I escaped the thought; I felt as if I was betraying my God when I admitted it. He was Sol to me, and perhaps that was a sin. I kept it my own secret, hidden far away, and decided that it wasn't in my best interest to deal with it. Perhaps he knew that I wouldn't say anything, and perhaps that's why he never brought it up. Or, he was embarrassed. Like Dizzy, was it really his fault?
The moment I saw him opening his mouth, I knew what he was going to say. The same repeat of his former statement; as if saying it again would make me leave. Perhaps he thought I was inept, and unable to understand him. He spoke to me as if he was speaking to a boy. "Then you should --"
"I am not the child that you left seven years ago," I said sorely, cutting him off abruptly. I had caught his attention for the moment, proving once again that I had the capacity to still catch him off guard. He didn't seem amused, he just returned to his cigarette as if I hadn't said anything at all. I decided not to get physical about our differences. I hoped that it wouldn't be obvious that I was blatantly changing the subject. Perhaps in some reserved part of my mind, I hoped that I wasn't making him sad. The fact remained that I had never really seen Sol that sad. Then again, I hadn't really ever seen Sol passionate about anything. It all seemed the same to him, the black and whites of the pleasures and pains of the world blurred to gray mediums. "May I sit with you?" I requested, my tones calmed from our previous disagreement. If I couldn't turn away from this man, it would be in my best interest to join him, and try to get along with him.
"…Don't care," He drawled, reaching to take the cigarette from his lips and inspect it as if it were the first thing on his mind.
There was a moment where I stopped myself, where I took a moment to think of turning right then. I can't say it would have been better for me that way, as I do not pride myself in ignorance; but it was the moment that my world changed, and that I saw something in Sol that I hadn't seen before. Perhaps because I was blind, and only wished to see the way that he invaded my own ideals. He was certainly a threatening man, though I had never been afraid of him, myself. There was a way that he glanced off past the village and into the trees; like he was waiting for something to come to him. I couldn't help to think that he was meeting with someone here. I frowned quietly, "Am I disturbing anything?" I asked, cocking my head backwards to glance over at him. The thought brought a fierce feeling of protectiveness. Who could he be meeting, way out there, in the middle of nowhere?
Sol looked unamused, his expression unchanging. "Hn. Do you haveta ask me that?" He sucked on the end of the cigarette. I was always a bother to him in some fashion. I was always the one who was the nag, the enforcer, breathing down his neck to do one thing or another. A few times, I had even gone as far as to lock him in the brig because he had deliberately disobeyed my orders.
"You could be more tactful about it," I explained truthfully. Sol never had any tact, with anything, even when he was supposed to be professional. It was part of Sol's overly lax personality, I suppose. "Then again you were never one to change." I added, though I felt as if I were making excuses for him. "What I meant was, are you meeting somewhere out here?" I continued to elaborate, feeling as if I had to explain everything in full detail for him to properly understand my motives. I felt as if I was talking to a child.
"I don't have anyone to meet," he said without clarifying further. He was always vague about everything, so much so that I had to henpeck him for further details. Was it such a nice night, that he just decided to stop there and watch the sky? Some part of me doubted it, and that same part thought it was possible that perhaps... he was following me. It was definitely a thrilling, yet a completely implausible circumstance. I banished the thought from my mind. I couldn't help but think that I annoyed him with my constant ranting. However irritating I was to him, it didn't matter; because he needed it, because he was that sort of lazy, rude, utterly impossible person to deal with. There was a long, tranquil silence between us; and my eyes drew across the bare branches and up to the frozen sky. The night was getting chilly, and the nip of the air caused me to shiver unintentionally. I did not wish to show any weakness in front of him. There he sat beside me, his legs sprawled in front of him like an ungraceful mule in slumber, the cigarette poking unceremoniously from between his lips. His arms were bare, and he did not seem to find the air too cold for comfort. The words that we spoke of Sol's meetings brought other thoughts to my mind. I had never seen Sol with anyone else. Sol always traveled alone, by himself. There was no room for anyone else. It brought a question to my mind, one that I had been wanting to ask him for a long time. "Do you regret meeting me?" I asked quietly, keeping my gaze averted to the sky, beyond the frigid, numb world and to the stars. I wanted to know... if I was just an irritation to him, another stupid person to deal with.
He seemed to take my question into consideration, though his expression was still dulled by the color of the evening sky. The shadows danced off his worn features, over the glint of the metallic headband and down the profile of his face. "Look, kid, I ain't out to get you." He gazed out through the trees, lazy-eyed, as if he weren't talking to me at all. "What happened with the Holy Order... just another way to kill time. It wasn't anything about you. Got sick of it, is all. Just another way to finish what I started." He sounded bored with it. He sounded bored with the war that had divided humanity, the war which millions had died, which the humans almost lost. The people I saw killed, the families that died, the innocents that fell; the people that shouldn't have been in the war in the first place. I remembered them; I remembered their faces, their expressions, their lives. I remembered one of the soldiers that smiled and me and shook my hand when I met him. He said it was a pleasure to finally meet the 'great Ky Kiske'. Then he went off into battle and died. It was what I had witnessed for the entirety of my life, ever since my mother had been slaughtered by a Gear when I had reached the tender age of six.
How dare him. How dare he say this to me; how dare he think, for a moment, that he could just walk away from everything that everyone held dear. He could stand in the sidelines and not care, and walk off, and do whatever he wanted because he had enough power to do so. All the people that needed him had died. I was disgusted, and I felt nauseated with the prospect. Maybe it was the tone of his voice, or the way that he didn't seem to care if he won or lost, regardless of the consequences. Even at the expense of the world, he was still hounding whatever biased ideal that clouded his brain. It made him blind. It made me loose my temper. Perhaps I was disappointed in him; or I perhaps I was just more infuriated with myself and my constant carousel of trying to please him. I had come to the conclusion that nothing I could do would please him -- nothing ever would please him. By my means, by his means; he'd always look back, express whatever contempt he had in an inelegant snort and be on his way. No matter how out of my way I went, or how difficult the task was. I was never good enough. As hard as I tried, as many times as I stumbled over the same rocky path that only lead deeper into an unmarked wood. It didn't matter to him; none of it mattered to him. He didn't care that he had stolen our sacred artifact, disgraced my Order, disobeyed my commands, and soiled the name of Sir Kliff Undersn.
I could feel the anger bubbling at the base of my belly; the rage that haunted me whenever I faced him, whenever he held back. These feelings toward him that I had -- violent and unreserved -- somehow were still left misunderstood. I could feel it rising at the base of my throat, choking my voice. It suddenly spilled out in a swarm of confusion. "Why then?!" I asked, coarsely; my trained tongue slipping as the words rushed from it, "Why did you enter the tournament?! Why did you challenge Justice?!" I needed an answer -- some sort of closure that would tame the adrenaline rushing to my brain. I didn't want to be left suspended like a disobedient child.
My companion took his time, gauged my reaction with a lazy snort. And then he turned to me, met my eyes with the passion of a wild cat. It was everything he kept reserved inside. Something he shared with someone else. Something he had with others that were not-me. It was there, deep, deep down, and I could see it; and I could tell how he hid it from me. I could see what he didn't want me to. A low rumble graced his quiet voice, though did not deny me of response. "Whaddya think...?" He inquired, drawling each word distastefully. There was no change to his demeanor, no indicator that he felt it any more or less as he expressed it. He was quiescent, casual as he always was; "...thought I could've die."
And so the world was too much for him.
For a moment, the world became too much for me as well. I could feel my shoulders draw inward, and my back arch. I didn't expect that from him. Then, I never expected anything I received from him. He caught me off guard like I wasn't ever used to being caught, ever. I was always on top of things. My decisions were flawless, my army had been built upon pebbles into great boulders, we had turned streams to rivers and straw to gold; I was the boy who defeated Justice. Through all these great feats that I had performed, I felt distant inside. These things that I did, everything that I had felt and performed up to this point was insignificant to him. I had never noticed it, no matter how blatantly obvious it had been. This man, who was irresponsible, boorish, and absolutely impossible to deal with… had me at his whim. He had saved me countless times, rebelled against my order because he thought he knew better. For ten years my opinion of him never wavered. His appearance never changed, not since Sir Undersn had introduced us so many years ago; it was the first time that I noticed it. The shape of his face, the high cheek bones that curved delicately into his jaw. He hadn't changed. In ten years, time had stilled around him. He moved with the same hidden elegance; talked in the same slur, as if he were too lazy to speak in complete sentences. The scar near his pinkie was still in the same place, his presence was still warm, a glowing ember in the chill of the gradating dusk.
I sifted through my memories for something to counter his words, but it was no attack, and trying to reassure him through prayer seemed... insignificant. It was so difficult to fathom. The offhand way the words dripped from his lips was a painful insight to his own suicide. This man's life that I so desperately wanted to be a part of wasn't something that he wished to keep. He wanted to die. There had been times, too; when I had wished death upon myself. I had thought the world would be a better place once I had gone, that the people I was acquainted with would have an easier time if I simply disappeared. I had never felt it to the extent in which I could not draw myself from the fantasy. I had never pointedly fled into a battle that I did not know I could win. There were still things I needed to do, battles I needed to win, and people that needed to be saved. There was still this man, sitting beside me, crying desperately for company. Who didn't want my company. Someone who, perhaps, had already forgotten how to be alone.
If I could not help one person, the one person that I wanted to help more than anything -- then what could I do? Was changing the world worth losing a single life? If I could not save him, then nothing was worth it. There was no one else that I would trust. No one else that I would still stand by, no matter how many times he betrayed me. He was disgusting in many ways, he wouldn't listen to me, he smoked, I swear to God that he drank; he was lazy, boorish, rude, undignified, disgraceful, disorderly, like a juvenile convict and completely devoid of most common sense. He had walked away from me seven years ago. He left, without a word to me. He left me, and I never knew why. I thought, maybe, that there was something wrong with me. Was I too childish to earn his attention? There was no one else I trusted more than him. No one else that I ever would. I realized that I loved this man. So much that he transfixed me when he had said nothing at all. His apathy was intoxicating. His laziness was stunning. The scent of cigarette smoke and sweat was more appealing then I had lead myself to believe. I had followed him my entire life, and it had taken me ten years to realize that what I was looking for in him had been there all along, I was just too afraid to take the leap toward it. I could feel the guilt tug heavily at the lump in my throat. I was in love with a man. I was in love with the one man that I was positive not to have any redeeming qualities. The entire ordeal left me breathless and disconcerted.
The fact that I am now, and somehow always have been, smitten by this man are still mysterious me. The world hasn't ended. I don't know whether to be more embarrassed over the fact that I am in love with a man, or that it took me ten years to realize it.
When I look back at it now -- at all the times that he had walked into my life, strolling casually, with a thumb always tucked in his pocket. The way he berated me whenever we met, even by coincidence. He always treated me like a child, and I had always strived to be better than him. I had already reached my personal goals; I thought that I could meet his. I had never thought of what I would do after I had soared above him. In a way, I already was, and I hadn't once realized it. Sol was too tangled in his own cycle of self-destruction that I had already stumbled in front of him.
We sat in silent contemplation. His cigarette had already burned out, though he did not reach to flick it away. My own movements were hesitant at first, though he did not seem to care. I touched my hand to his bare shoulder. He neither encouraged nor discouraged my caress. He was warm. I was well aware of the feeling of his skin, but it remained a surprising sensation. I could feel the faint movement as he breathed, the swell in his chest as he inhaled. I was not comfortable with the thought of being able to do nothing for him. There was never a time that I had stepped back from anything and let it pass me by. The world was far too large, and there were things that I couldn't step away from. This goal that I had been pursuing for much of my life was not going to be swept away with the same tides that had swept Sol to sea.
We spoke no more that night; though I wished to tell him how I felt, I knew it would leave me nothing but unsatisfied. I do not know if he understood my motives, or if I came off as nothing but an annoyance. For a moment, I was able to put aside my rivalry with Sol Badguy and focus purely on comforting the man that had been by my side since my promotion.
The Heavens had mirrored the shadows, turning a dim shade of indigo. The world was so large, that even the stars burning billions of miles away seemed nothing but insignificant pinpricks in a vast echo of nothingness. The sky always seemed brighter when the sun was crossing through it. There was a thick desolation about the emptiness that night. Perhaps because I realized that I was much more hollow than I thought I was. I had done many great things, but I had not partaken in the daily routines that made life worth living.
It was the call of my men that crumbled the tranquility of our joining. I hadn't a clue how long we had been together. Sol had already brought himself to his feet when I had turned my head toward the voices. My hand had brushed over his shoulder, and across his hip as he stood, and it remained suspended as he swung the Fire Seal over his wide shoulders. I lifted myself to my feet slowly afterward, though he made no movement to look back at me.
I stepped toward him; my arms swayed at my sides, falling with the silence of the twilight. The stars were high, and the night air was cold and vital in the way that I had never known this world to be. He was glowing in the shadows of the foliage, a blazing haze beneath the grays of the canopy. His face was worn like a noble king, and his steed was the passing wind that he never mounted. Defying nature in each heavy step, though he walked in harmony with the sounds of the nocturnal creatures making their nightly rounds. He walked like he carried the world on his shoulders; and I could have sworn that I had seen that saturnine expression once before;
It was on the faces of my men in the war. It was the expression of those who sought solidity in their existence; it was the kind of hope that I had never thought I'd find in the exotic movements of Sol Badguy. The feline elegance that I had never taken the time to notice in the decade that I had been acquainted with him. Even when I pursued him so candidly, did I step back to look at anything except the way that he continually displaced my temper. It was hard to believe that he had me, for the moment. He could have taken anything from me that night, and yet all he did was walk away. I would have stayed with him if he had asked -- thrown away my duty to take the time to comfort him; to be the one person in the world that listened when he decided that it was time to break.
I felt strange that night, completely cognizant in a world that was cradled in the arms of Morpheus. It was more real to me then any event in my life ever had been. I felt odd as I watched him trail into the darkness, odd because I was unsure of my own accomplishments. I felt a dissonance toward my impact on the world.
I was lonely.
I was lonelier then I had ever been in my life.
They say that the pathway to Heaven is paved in thorns. There is no way around it. We all walk with bloodied feet, and the closer we get to God, the more blood we lose. There is no one that I know who is closer to God than Sol. There is no one that I know that has watched thousands of those who have stumbled and fell, and not quite made it up to Heaven. There are those who get there by force, who start off strong, but are staggering by the end. Then there are those who find their resolution as they are able to see the end of the pathway. To watch everyone pass you, and to stand still in front of Heaven, not being able to follow, -- it must be heavy.
I have now taken up writing my letter to Ms. Cloudberry, assuring her of my health. Though she wishes to be in my company in the next few weeks, I must explain to her that I haven't a vacation until April. I have a strange feeling that she will write back and tell me that she has our week planned out. I fold the letter carefully and slip it into an envelope, sealing it with the red stamp of the International Police Station.
The clock reads a quarter to eight, and Bernard returns with my third cup of tea and an updated version of the current bounty list. His smile is quaint, but knowing, -- and he takes the letter as I hand it to him, telling him that it needs to be sent of as soon as possible. "This is the fourth one in the last five months," he comments to himself, turning the letter over in his wrinkled hands. "If I wasn't mistaken, I would think that you fancy this young lady."
I raise my brow to him. His words come of no surprise to me, with the letter parted from my hands; I take the list and turn it over to browse the contents. "I haven't the time for that sort of thing," I comment casually, scrolling through the names of the hunters that have captured the listed criminals. The scent of a new cup of tea is pleasant.
"It would not be fair to the young lady," he adds, surprised as he reads the address. "...And China is such a far place to travel to." His eyes move from the letter, and he straightens his voice. "It is not my place to say. Though I do believe that you need a companion, Sir Kiske. I know it is lonely here, sometimes."
I do not lift my head from the names printed on the list, though the familiarity of one bearing the tag 'anonymous' catches my eye. My lips quirk into a knowing smirk. I do not say a word; managing to keep my secret to myself. "Call Sir Crue and Sir Corabi please, Bernard. I have reason to believe that we will be having a visit from number twenty-nine." I pat the back of my hand on the list and turn to look at him, the smirk growing into a smile. He nods quickly as he is dismissed, holding the red sealed letter in his hands as he follows my command.
My eyes draw back to the parchment on my desk, the hundreds of names scrawled over the thick, brownish paper. The bounty of James Hetfield was brought in at two twenty-three a.m. on December twenty-fifth, 2184 in Lyon by someone bearing the bounty account 'anonymous'. He is close. I take up my next task by grabbing the end of the paper on the nearest notepad, ripping it from the metallic coil at the top and scribbling, almost unintelligibly:
Sol. I stop for tea at a café on the corner of Bosquet and De La Bourdonnais at four o'clock every evening. If by chance you decide to join me, it will be my treat.
I fold the note carefully, creasing it down the center and tucking it beneath another scripture. James Hetfield's accomplice is still free and most likely close by. I decide to take my chance, have faith in my God, and deliver the note to the Police Station in Lyon in hopes that Sol will perhaps stumble upon it. It is a leap of faith, I realize, and there is the chance that I will be waiting and he will never come.
The higher the sun rises, the paler the sky becomes. My sun has already passed zenith, and is creeping toward the horizon, causing the landscape to glow; each cloud dimmed with a golden shadow. He now walks in the shelter of the night, under the veil of newly fallen snow, wandering through a world that cares little for him.
I turn my head to watch the snow fall through my office window, in union with the breeze and twisting in a tranquil dance to meet its comrades. I had planned out my life until now, dancing through the air, helping those who are in need, carrying out the Justice that God wishes for the world. I hadn't noticed the one who was most in need of me. Was this justice? Was this fair? Could I continue my life knowing that the further I stepped, the more I betrayed the one person who needed me the most? I had been enraged at him for seven years because he left me, I had not paused in my anger to come to the conclusion that perhaps he needed me; that perhaps it was I who was betraying him. I was blind toward his dependence on me, and he too was blind on his dependence. He had one intention in mind, and knew not of his own loneliness.
I don't know how long it will take for my sun to rise again; but as I watch the snow fall on this cool January morning, I put to rest my childish ambition, my need to be a hero, and my qualms with Gears for the greater good of the one person that I wish to save. There is a man who needs me. Someone out there that depends on my decisions, no matter how far across the horizon he might be. There is no room for denial in this world, and no time for me to make excuses for my emotions. I have caught myself in a cycle of lies, and I can always excuse myself with the prospect that he was deliberately trying to hurt me. When the lies build up, they become the truth. I would meet with him in the same state of mind, and I would believe him to be trying to hurt me before he even made a move. In the end, I became the thing that I hated. I had been the one who was trying to hurt him, because I was afraid that he was going to hurt me again. I may not understand his pain fully, and I doubt that I ever will; but no matter what happens,
Tomorrow is a new day, and the sun will rise again, once again just out of my reach, peaked in the center of the azure sky, as I watch the shadows of my fingers travel across the points of light. I want to protect him, as long as I have the ability to. I want to be by his side.