Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from V for Vendetta; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.
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Enjoy!
Chapter Four
Some Things Vulnerable
One by one, they were disappearing. Evey stood at the edge of the obsidian pond in the shadowy park, watching as a line of ducklings were plucked one at a time into the murky depths. There was no watchful mother to lead them away, and Evey could do nothing but gaze in horror and wonder as they disappeared.
Soon, they were all gone, and she was alone, and feeling empty and angry and sad. They were such pretty little ducklings.
Before she could realize her decision, Evey jumped in. All of the sudden she was swimming in the gloomy depths, going down and down and down for what seemed like days and days and days.
Vengeance. Like a swarm of living things, vengeance clouded the water.
And suddenly, something unknown grabbed her, pulled her down to the bottom of the pond and struck her hard against her armor-plated breasts. "Vengeance," her attacker croaked. "Vengeance!"
Evey shook her head as she lay at the bottom of the pond, the hilt of a heavy sword in her limp hand. "Who are you!" she cried out, but her voice was muffled by the helmet that guarded her face. She tried to take it off, to yank it off her head. But it was fixed in place. "You killed those ducklings," she muttered weakly, looking up at the dark looming figure in the water. Slowly, her hand came up, the sword lifting.
"Vengeance," the creature cried.
"Justice," Evey whispered.
"Vengeance!"
"No!" Evey cried as the creature grabbed her arm and jerked it off her body. The pain was like heartbreak burning her shoulder, her neck, her mind. She screamed and raised her other arm in a vain defense as the creature pounced on her.
Evey's eyes fluttered open. Darkness. All the room was dark and looming. Panicked, she fumbled with the lamp on her nightstand before it finally clicked on. And the light was like a breath of air, filling the spaces and casting a gleam over every surface of her bedroom. The dream was still fresh, as cloudless as a memory. All her nightmares lingered so.
It was well past midnight. How strange it was, she always thought, how sleep abbreviated the hours, and how dreams manipulated them.
She stepped out of the bed and walked over to the multitude of books along the walls of her bedroom. She didn't doubt that V had read them all. Some of the titles she was familiar with; others were entirely foreign. But this night, she was looking for a particular one.
Minutes passed as she slowly scanned the spines of every book. Some of them were facing the wrong way and she would have to carefully wrest the book from the column to see the words painted on the pages.
"How curious," she said to herself as she finally found the book she sought and carefully removed it from the pile, "That you would find your way into my nightmares."
She brushed the front cover of the book with her fingers and opened it. The book was weathered. The spine crackled from years of neglect. She flipped through the pages, then closed the book with a small thud and headed for the door.
-----
V tried to fall asleep. So often he needed slumber, thirsted for slumber, and got wide-eyed hours of thought and waking dreams instead. And when he slept, he was haunted by Larkhill. He was haunted by Evey. He was haunted by the mask, and by himself.
Tonight was one of his sleepless nights. His sheets lay crumpled at his feet where he had kicked them away. The room couldn't get cold enough for him to numb the pain. He tried lying on the floor for a while, but it reminded him too much of lying in a prison cell. He tried leaning his naked back against the walls, but it made him feel ridiculously desperate. So he finally relented to his bed and pillow and gazed into the darkness that consumed him.
And then he heard a single knock at his door. "'Tis some visitor," he muttered, getting up out of his bed and walking to the door.
"V?"
Being as she was the only other person sharing his living space, V wasn't surprised to hear Evey's muffled voice through the wood. But he was staggered to find her at his door in the middle of the night.
He hesitated.
"V, it's a little frightening out here," Evey said. Her voice had a quiver to it. "Please let me in. The lights are off."
He couldn't leave her out there frightened and waiting as he got dressed and put his mask on. He rested his forehead on the door and sighed.
Evey was about to burst out of her skin when she finally heard the door opening. She felt a hand on hers – bare skin – as she was pulled inside. As quickly as the door was shut, V released her. And there they were, standing in the dark, neither of them immediately saying anything.
Interesting how the lack of light makes one feel like there should be a lack of sound. Evey thought if she spoke, she would be disturbing the darkness. But someone had to say something.
"Were you sleeping?" Evey whispered.
"No," V answered. His breathing sounded different, and Evey realized he must not have his mask on. She could vaguely see his silhouette, but it revealed nothing more than the shape of a man standing near her. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Evey cradled the book in her hand. She wanted to hand it to him, but couldn't quite tell how far away he was from her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bother you."
"Not at all," he replied. And when he spoke again, his voice was farther away. "Is there something the matter?"
She didn't reply for a moment as she massaged the spine of the book with her fingers.
V walked up to her again and touched her arm. "Evey."
She gave a start, then laughed slightly. "You startled me," she said.
"Come sit," he said, leading her through the dark room until her legs hit something. It was an armchair, she realized after extended her arm and feeling over it. Carefully, she sat it in. V released her and she felt exposed as he stepped away.
"V?"
"I'm right here," he said. He took the armchair across from her, which was situated very near. He used them both to lie down sometimes and stretch his legs while he read. "I'm sorry I can't turn the light on," he said.
"I've been getting used to the dark. Are you angry with me?"
He sighed. "No, I'm not angry with you, Evey."
"Take this," she said, extending her hand and offering the book to empty space.
After a moment, V's fingers found it and he took it. "What is it?" he asked. She heard the book crackle as he opened it.
"It's Beowulf."
He nodded, though she didn't see it.
"I am familiar with it," she said.
"I know," he replied. "You mentioned Grendel once, remember, when you said one of my statues made you think of him?"
Of course. She had only mentioned the monster in passing, but she remembered. It was the day he had brought her the bundle of clothes from her apartment. It was a sad day.
She bit her lip, unsure of what she had intended to say to him. "Earlier, when you mentioned the story, I knew you were trying to tell me something because I wasn't understanding. It's difficult for me to understand vengeance, V."
"The definition of vengeance is circumstantial."
"It breeds damaging ramifications."
"For those it is being enacted upon, naturally."
"And others," she insisted. "What about The Count of Monte Cristo? What about Mercedes?"
"What was done to Edmund Dantes was unforgivable," V replied.
"He was selfish."
"Because everyone he cared for betrayed him."
She shook her head. Her mind was grappling for some way to connect with him, but her thoughts were racing frenetically between one story and the next, one dream and the next, one idea and the next.
"Why did Beowulf kill Grendel's mother?" she asked.
"Do you not think he should have?"
"Was it justified to hunt her down?"
V was having trouble discerning her argument. "Evey, what are you trying to tell me?" he asked, his voice disembodied in the shadows.
She sighed. "I'm just trying to understand, V…So much of what Beowulf did was for personal glory."
"In his youth, yes. I like to think I'm more comparable to the older, more practical Beowulf," V replied. After all, he wasn't young anymore.
"And Sutler's the dragon devouring your people."
"Yes." he said, relieved that she had understood.
Evey stared at the ground, though she couldn't see it. She so wanted to turn the light on, so that she could see his face without the mask – if he still had a face after the fire. Fire and dragons. How odd the way things tied together.
"What do you want to hear, Evey?" V asked.
"The dragon killed Beowulf," she said.
There was a long pause and V sighed before saying, "Beowulf believed that his life was controlled by fate. So he went into every battle knowing that no matter how hard he fought, he may lose, simply because it was his destiny…I cannot help but agree with him. Fate can touch me, take me, pull me away from all of this reality. But to all others – men, government, walls, and laws – I am invulnerable."
"But you're not invincible, V."
"Neither was Beowulf."
"He's a fictional character!"
"But what he stood for was alive and real. It still is. Ideas are immortal, like the words they're written in. I don't want to be great. I don't want to a be a king. But I hope that I am as successful as Beowulf was in influencing the people. That's all I want, Evey. I want to remove the blindfolds."
"But this is a different world. Different obstacles. You can't fight your way to the top."
"Yes you can, Evey!"
He got up from the chair and kneeled in front of her, placing the book on her lap, his hands on her knees. "Don't you see? You've been conditioned to feel powerless. Sutler wants you to believe that literature means nothing. That you can't associate it with reality. But all the truths in the world are on pages, in print. These are the how-to guides to life, Evey. These are the warning labels, the instruction pamphlets, the little slips of paper in fortune cookies." He stopped himself, calmed himself. "If you can learn anything from Beowulf, it's that no matter what the circumstance, there's always a way to win."
"Even if it kills you?"
"Yes."
Evey let out a frustrated sigh, and V bowed his head in the silence that followed.
Her hand touched his wrist and he fought the instinct to pull away. Her fingers were soft and warm. He bowed his head and tried to forget what he looked like as her hand moved up his arm, to his shoulder. Would she be touching him if she could see him?
Evey could feel the scar tissue, smooth against her palm, a little jagged in some spots. She could feel the warmth spilling out of his flesh. She could hear his breathing, see his vague shape in the darkness as he knelt at her feet.
"Why can't I be more like you?" she whispered. "More like my parents."
V closed his eyes, willing himself to remember this moment for the rest of his life; this touch, her hand. "You don't have to be," he said, "Just believe in it. Don't let yourself get lost in Sutler's game. You're not malleable, Evey. You wouldn't be here if you were."
"You brought me here."
"Because of a decision you made."
She bowed her head and her hand slipped slowly down V's arm as it went lax. He took her fingers and held them a moment before releasing them.
"I can't sleep," Evey said. "I'm having too many nightmares."
He didn't reply.
She shook her head, a tear sliding down her cheek. "You're in most of them. Somehow, you're in them, manifested in some different way. Tonight you were me, you were Grendel's mother, you were the pond up there in the park."
The tears kept falling and she couldn't stop herself from finally letting her fears and concerns and years of heartbreak let themselves loose there in V's bedroom, dark yet comforting as it was. She looked around, but could see nothing. "I'm not making any sense," she said softly, wiping the moisture off her cheeks and sniffling. She wondered if V cried when he was overwhelmed.
"We all have a conscious part in our dreams," he said, "And that is to make sense of them the morning after."
"Beowulf is obvious. You had mentioned it. But why all the characters, and why you in all the roles?"
V imagined he'd become many things to Evey since he'd saved her life. He was her captor, but not her enemy. He was her companion, but not her confidant. She knew what he was, but not who he was. He imagined he could be anything in a dream if he could be anything in reality. But he was hesitant to voice these thoughts. They were too intimate.
He got up from his kneeling position before her and sat back in his armchair with a sigh.
"What do you do when you have nightmares?" Evey asked.
"I don't have many," he replied, though it was a lie. He was beset by his nightmares, just as Evey was by hers. Every night, he would try to survive on as little sleep as he could, so as to abbreviate the hours of torment. Even on the nights that would begin with pleasant dreams of blue skies and her and an ordinary visage, he would wake from a nightmare.
"I feel sometimes as if someone is in my room, or stalking me in the dark," she said.
"I would know if there were anyone here," V said. "They most certainly wouldn't make it as far as your bedroom."
"But some nights you're gone until dawn."
"They cannot get in, Evey – I assure you."
She shook her head and said nothing. She felt safe when V was in the Shadow Gallery with her, even if her nightly demons continued to terrify her. She felt safe, at least, from the outside, from the danger she knew was neither illusory nor remote. When he was away, she feared the simplest sound. And every time he returned home, she would think for a moment it was somebody else. How she wished she could stare out a window and have a look around, see all was as it should be, and sit back down.
But there were no windows down here, and nothing ever seemed as though it was as it should be.
She heard a shuffle as V moved, then all was silent. "V?"
His voice was far away when he spoke. He had silently moved to another part of the room. "A moment," he said.
She waited patiently as she listened to his movements. "I suppose I'm keeping you awake," she said. "I should get back to bed."
"I'll come with you," he said.
"To bed?"
He didn't reply immediately. "To show you something."
"I didn't mean anything by that," Evey said, shaking her head at herself.
"I know," V replied. Of course she hadn't meant anything by it. He wasn't a regular man with a regular face for whom a woman like her might have even an unconscious interest in. He did, however, find it slightly amusing that she had asked the question just as he was taking his trousers off to change into his regular black attire.
Evey decided it best to stay quiet rather than try to recover from her slip. V was moving a lot, and she could hear clothes rustling. A few moments later, the light suddenly blanketed the room, blinding Evey. She covered her eyes for a moment, and when she looked up, V was dressed and in his mask. "You were getting dressed," Evey said.
"Now we can see," he replied.
Evey looked around. The first detail that struck her eye was the bed. It was large, and there were several pillows. His sheets, slightly tousled but not untidy, were black, which didn't surprise her. Various paintings were strewn along the walls, and wooden masks with bizarre expressions. The room was large, but surprisingly cozy.
V grinned behind his mask as he watched Evey's fascinated perusal of his room. He'd never had anyone in his bedroom, but he took pride in the art he had chosen for it. "All set?" he asked.
Evey looked over at him and nodded. She got up from the armchair, which was also black, and followed him out of the room. He turned on various lights as they made their way through the Shadow Gallery. Evey followed close behind, and realized V was softly humming a tune as they walked. She wondered if he was taking her through the tunnels again, but they stopped by a large chest in the main hall. He crouched down in front of it and used the key he had been holding in his palm to open it. Evey stood behind him and watched intently as he lifted the lid. It opened with a metallic creek and rested against the wall behind it. Evey's eyebrows shot up as she saw the plethora of sheathed blades stored inside the chest, much like the ones along his belt at which she sometimes found herself gaping.
Just as Evey was imagining how she might manage to stab an attacker, who would probably be a man at least fifty pounds heavier than she was, V pulled out a strongbox. "I'm going to teach you how to use this," he said, his voice serious and stern. In the back of his mind, V knew he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. But in his heart, he couldn't imagine Evey being defenseless in his absence. He had still to become accustomed to her living with him, and some nights, he would forget she was down there by herself, with nowhere to run and nothing to fight with if anyone should happen upon her.
He opened the box and took out a handgun. Evey stared at it as he stood and handed it to her. "Hold it," he offered.
It was heavier than she expected as he placed it in her palm. "You have to be confident about it," he said.
She stared at the black weapon in her hand, inspecting every detail of it. "It's rather simple, actually," he said, holding his hand out for it. She placed it back in his fingers.
"Makes me feel powerful, holding it," she said, "But terribly naïve."
V looked at her and held the gaze for a moment. "I would rather you had the glock," he said. "A woman with a gun is far more intimidating than a woman with a dagger."
She nodded, still recovering from the surprise of the chest-full of weapons and the weight of the gun in her grip. "Why don't you use a gun?" she asked.
"It's too loud," he replied. "But you'll want something loud down here."
"To startle?"
He nodded, placing the gun back in the strongbox and closing the large chest. As he locked it, Evey picked the box up from the floor. It was hefty.
"I'm nervous about this, V," she said.
He stood and took the box from her. "Hopefully it will stay in the coffer," he said.
-----
Evey led the way this time, to her bedroom. Already, she was feeling more secure. Part of her was excited about the prospect of wielding a gun and learning how to use it properly. V set the box on the nightstand by her bed as Evey crawled under the covers. He placed the key on top of it.
"I'm exhausted," she said.
V sat beside her on the bed and sighed. Evey stared at him, her eyes already feeling languid. She liked their positions – her in the covers, him sitting beside her. There was something about the moment that made her feel comfortable.
"Thank you," she said.
He looked at her. "I'm sorry I hadn't thought of it before, Evey," he said. "I've been preoccupied."
She shook her head. "So have I. Obviously. I'm sorry I kept you awake."
"Not at all." He stood and made to leave, but Evey's hand gripped his gloved fingers.
"V," she said, wishing she could feel his skin again. "What if the dragon kills you?"
"'So every man must yield the leasehold of his days,'" he replied.
She stared at his fingers, which had curled around hers. "What will happen to me?"
He sat back down, this time nearer to her. "You're my Wiglaf, Evey – for as long as you want to be. Everything I leave behind will be yours."
Evey didn't think she was brave enough to be Wiglaf; to be the only soldier who didn't run, who didn't cower, who didn't fail.
"Wiglaf went on to be a great king," she said, her voice overcome with apprehension.
V stood again and switched the light off. Evey didn't protest. She closed her eyes and let the darkness bathe her. Then she felt V's hand on her shoulder. "Evey," he said, "You are already a great woman. All you need is to trust."
"I do trust you."
"Yourself, Evey. You need to trust yourself."
His hand slid off her shoulder, slowly, and she listened to his soft footfall as he walked out of the room. The door closed softly as she was left alone. And for the first night since she had arrived at the Shadow Gallery, Evey felt free of disquiet as she yielded to the slumber that consumed her.
The quote "'tis some visitor" is from "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, a widely misunderstood genius.
"So every man must yield the leasehold of his days" is from Beowulf, an epic tale as ancient as its themes. Do read it if you haven't.
Thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. A hundred thanks. :)
