Title: Angel's Fall
Part: 3/?
Author: focsfyr
Pairing: TasukiChichiri
Warnings: yaoi, AU (reincarnation), angst
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Fushigi Yuugi, or the movie "Fallen" from which I drew my inspiration. No copyright infringements are intended.
Archive: my site, fanfiction.net (pen-name D. focsfyr) and the ML archive. Anyone else, just ask
C&C: loved
::thoughts::
emphasis and the occasional sound effect
Too many shadows, whispering voices,
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what, how much have you got?
Have you got it together?
If so, how often?
Which do you choose a hard or soft option?
-Pet Shop Boys "West End Girls"
ANGEL'S FALL
Genrou trudged dispiritedly down the empty street, droplets of misty of rain clinging to his hair and eyelashes.
The noon-time sun was completely hidden behind a dull, gray layer of clouds. Everything seemed muffled in an air of pervasive gloom. The street was empty of all but an unlucky few who hastened their steps in hopes of reaching their destination before it really started to rain. Whatever the reason, though, the lowering clouds withheld their burden, yielding instead a light drizzle that worked its way into every opening in Genrou's heavy leather jacket.
The redhead grimaced as the wet hem of his pants slapped damply against his ankles. A bead of water trickled down his face and hung on the end of his nose.
He snorted and shook the offending drop free.
Genrou absolutely hated weather like this. It was just dismal and damp enough to make you uncomfortable, but not enough to warrant the use of an umbrella or rain jacket. To his way of thinking, if it was going to rain it should actually rain, 'cause you can play in the rain, but you just can't play in the overcast. [1]
Of course, it'd be much nicer if it didn't rain at all. Fun as it could be, rain was inevitably a pain in the ass...especially when it seeped into a backpack full of books and homework. This was a far cry from the Indian summer [2] they should be having this early in October.
Finally sighting his goal, Genrou cut across the campus' sodden lawn, heading for what he thought was the Cultural Sciences building. He didn't really know who he should talk to, but he figured an anthropology professor would be a good place to start. If he was wrong and this wasn't the right place, surely someone could tell him who he should go to.
He deliberately scuffed his shoes along the pavements, leaving steaks of grassy mud in his wake.
There had to be someone around here that knew something about ancient languages. He, himself, had heard enough similarities in the intonation and speech patterns to identify part of the man's speech as being middle-eastern in origin. There'd also been a smattering of what sounded like an old form of Japanese, and bits of a language that seemed to hover somewhere between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. Some parts had even born a passing relation to Hungarian, a language he recognized only because Chuin's mother had a tendency to curse in her native tongue.
The squeak of Genrou's shoes echoed loudly in the hall as he made his way up a flight of stairs. Where was everybody? This was supposed to be a school, not a mausoleum!
He squeaked his way down another hall; counted the doors as he passed. One, two, three, four—classroom, classroom, lecture hall, copy room—ten, eleven—nineteen, twenty, twenty one, stairwell; up another flight, down another hall. Darkened class after darkened class, all the way to the end. Then—
Aha!
328
DEPT. OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Prof. Diana Chakavartula
Genrou shifted his weight uneasily, debating whether or not to knock. He hadn't seen anything to indicate that there was a single person on campus. All the classrooms were dark, the halls were silent. Even the faint hum of the lights seemed terribly loud, and the screech of his damp shoes was enough to make him positively cringe.
Leery of breaking the stillness, he nonetheless rapped softly on the door.
No answer.
He pressed his ear to the door...was that movement he heard? There was no way to be sure. For all he knew, Miss Chaka-whatever had a lizard or snake or something, and that was making those tiny shush-ing noises.
He knocked again, louder this time.
It echoed.
This time, the noise from the room was more pronounced—a soft shuffling of papers and the scrape of chair legs on the floor.
A softly accented alto voice said, "Come in." He did.
The woman who rose to greet him was breathtakingly lovely, with smooth, cocoa skin and piercing hazel eyes. A thick, black braid was coiled tightly at the back of her head, and would have fallen past her hips if allowed to hang free.
"Professor..." Genrou began, hesitating over how to pronounce the foreign name.
"Diana," [3] she said. Her high-cheeked face lit up with a polite smile, and her eyes were alive with mirth. "Hindi names can be difficult to pronounce if you don't speak the language. Just call me Diana."
The hand she extended had a good firm grip, with just a hint of roughness that betokened hard work. Strong as she was, though, she had bones like a bird. He found himself reluctant to squeeze her hand too tightly for fear of crushing it.
"Nice ta meetcha," he said, "I'm Genrou."
"Well then, what can I do for you, Genrou? I wouldn't have thought any student would pass up a day off just to pay a visit to a teacher."
Well, that solved the mystery of the vacant buildings. "Umm..." The redhead shifted uncomfortably, "I've got a kinda—interesting—situation, and wanted to know if you knew anything about ancient languages and translation. And if the answer is "no," if you know anyone who does. I mean, I know you've got stuff to do and classes an' all—"
Subconsciously he was aware that he was starting to babble, but there was something about this...this striking woman that radiated an unsettling degree of poise and power. This was not a woman to offend; and coming from someone who grew up in a whole family of strong women, that was saying a lot.
He broke off his sentence abruptly as she held up a hand in restraint.
"I take it you have a specific linguistic selection in mind. Do you have any clue as to the language? Or the time period it comes from?"
Genrou blinked and shook his head. "I recognized a coupla types of languages, but they weren't in any dialect that I could really understand."
"And do you want to know what the language is, or a total translation?"
"Both, if possible."
Diana nodded, brows drawing together in thought. Then she abruptly turned and began leafing though a stack of papers on her desk.
His eyes caught a glimmer of light as she turned; a ruby chip inlayed in gold nestled in the curve of her finely drawn nose. The stud couldn't have been much larger than the head of a pin, but the faceting made it shine like a young star.
"Ah, he is here today," she announced triumphantly, "Good. Let's go!"
Before Genrou could even draw breath to ask who, she'd thrown a shawl around her shoulders and whisked out the door. The flustered redhead hurriedly followed, his footsteps completely masking the soft swish of the woman's feet.
Outside, the rain fell heavier than before, but was still too tenuous to be worth making a dash for shelter. She led him down a series of small, shielded paths, barren trees and evergreen bushes doing little to shelter their bodies from the weather. After a few minutes, Genrou found himself forgetting the rain as the mood of the terrain crept into his mind. Rain-darkened branches interlaced above his head, skeletons standing starkly against the overcast sky. Eerie and menacing, they snared and entrapped, clutching him tight to the undergrowth in a relentless grip. Caging him.
"We're here."
Surprise eased the tight band of pressure around his chest, as he belatedly registered the rapid flutter of his heart. He peered ahead into the gloom. Sure enough, there was a building nestled in among the trees.
But there was a lingering feel of smothering closeness that even entering the stone building, with its shiny new floors and multi-paned windows couldn't shake. There was still a simmering anticipation, like lightning waiting to strike. It set his senses on full alert despite the knowledge that it wasn't necessary.
The Indian woman led him to the rear of the building, moving lightly as a shadow as the wide windowed walls gave way to a darker hallway and the windows vanished altogether. "This building abuts a steep incline," she said, "It's actually built on what used to be a creek bed, and this end of the building extends right into the side of the hill. A number of the science classes meet here because it stays a great deal cooler, even during the summer months, so it's easier to maintain the cool temperature needed to work with certain chemicals."
They ascended an open, circular stairway that seemed to extend far past the highest level of the three story building. They reached the third floor and climbed on past the roof and the layer of sod that covered it. The occasional narrow window offered only fleeting glimpses outside.
It occurred to Genrou that those slim openings brought to mind images of medieval castles with arrow-slits, designed to allow archers to shoot from within the building without exposing themselves to enemy fire. It also made it impossible for any but a child to slip in through the apertures; or perhaps a very small adult, without much bulk to their frame.
Without warning, the stairway ended in a wide-open room with long tables set around the edges, and a domed roof that obviously opened to allow viewers to use the telescope that dominated the center of the room.
::An astronomy tower? I thought we were going to see a linguist!::
"Ari! 'Jun! You guys here?"
Diana's cry went unanswered for a moment, but then was met by a deep, rumbling "In the back room, Dee!"
Diana's eyes brightened and she swept through an unobtrusive doorway, Genrou following close on her heels. But while she rushed forward to embrace the room's occupant, he stopped just inside the doorway and looked up—and up, and up...
::Damn! That guy's gotta be at least six-foot eight! Maybe taller.::
The huge bear of a man who had the delicate Professor wrapped in—well—a bear hug, could have filled the red-lit room all by himself! With two... no, three other people—there was a young man bent over a shallow tub in the corner—inside the room with him it was positively crowded!
The unknown young man pulled a sheet of paper from the tub of liquid and clipped it to a line of wire to dry.
Genrou mentally shrugged. If these guys wanted a dark-room [4] in the astronomy tower, who was he to argue? He still didn't know why Diana had brought him here.
Genrou turned his attention back to the tall guy as he and the Professor finished their greetings.
"So, Dee, what brings you to my humble abode on such a weary, dreary day?" the man-mountain rumbled, pushing shaggy brown hair out of his eyes.
"Well, Genrou here needs a little help, and knowing how you love a challenge, I thought we'd come to you, Ari."
Ari pinned Genrou with a calculating look, then nodded. "We're done with the photos, so why don't we take this somewhere with a little more leg room, hm?"
----------
Ari shut off the tape player and clasped his hands on the table in front of him. He was troubled by what he had heard, and the furrow between Diana's eyebrows, he knew, was echoed between his own.
Genrou found his second time hearing the recording Jiang had given to him every bit as disturbing as the first. He tore his eyes away from the cassette player and concentrated on the hum of the telescope's computers, willing his heart to slow down and his breathing to become less frantic. Little more than half way through the recording he'd found himself beginning to sweat.
There was something terrible in that recorded voice, and it had nothing to do with the confusing babble of words being spoken.
Diana softly cleared her throat. "Ari, from what I heard, there was an awful lot of…I don't know…repetition?" She shook her head. "No, no, that's not the right word." Her delicate eyebrows knit together. "It was…it was…"
"Revalations."
Genrou, Diana and Ari just about jumped out of their skins as the young man, so silent they'd all but forgotten his presence, spoke in his soft tenor voice.
Three sets of eyes fixed themselves firmly on the unassuming college student.
"He was reciting bits and pieces of 'Revelations,' and the part in the Bible about Lucifer's being cast out of heaven. The fall of the greatest of the Angels. All those languages—the ones I understood—they were Bible verses, that's why the seemed so repetitive. They were repetitions."
Genrou's jaw almost dropped through the floor, and he blinked stupidly at the other man. How many languages did this guy speak?
'Jun' shrugged. "I'm good at languages," he said, almost seeming apologetic.
::Damn,:: Genrou's mind whispered in awe, ::he a mind-reader too?::
Ari rapped the table with one gnarled knuckle, breaking the redhead's rapt stare. "So. Bible verses. Didja catch any of that last bit? Wasn't any language I recognized."
'Jun shrugged again and looked quizzically at Diana.
She looked both thoughtful and disbelieving.
"Well, Dee?" Ari rumbled, "It was such a random mix I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Sounded too old to be my venue."
The Indian woman pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Yes, it was quite a mix… But it's a mix I've read before."
A bushy red eyebrow tried to lose itself in Ari's hairline. "Read?"
She nodded. "Read. Because that language died out so very long ago that all we have left of it is written. That's why it was so difficult for me to categorize. I had to stop concentrating of word fragments and start thinking about what writings would create those sounds. It's a mix of the Romance, Germanic and Finno-Ugric language groups, along with the root sounds of the Middle-Eastern and Egyptian tongues."
"I think it was ancient Babylonian."
TBC
[1] Direct quote from me when I was lazing about on my friend's bed one dull, dreary day.
[2] Indian summer is what comes after summer here in Northern California. In early fall we usually have several weeks of clear skies, crisp air and warm weather. It usually feels more summer-ish during Indian summer than it does during the actual summer months.
[3] Meant to be pronounced with a long "e" [Dee-anna] not [Die-anna]
[4] A 'dark room' is a red-lit room used to develop photographs