As you eight or so have probably realized, this is the point where I was laying the railroad tracks under my feet as I was writing, so I may take a bit longer to update, because I may decide to write some new material to fill the gap. Anyhow, if anyone wants me to include anything - a character, ship, whatever - drop me a line because I'm starved for ideas. I'm planning on keeping this thing gen (for a given value of gen), but that doesn't mean I can drop a line or two here and there amongst minor characters. Thanks to all who reviewed, by the way. You guys keep this thing posting.
Yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah, read and review. Read and review. Write me an eighth-grade English report on the possible reasoning behind any odd or ooc-seeming behaviour. Put words that are yours on a page that is available as a link off of this story and is titled 'reviews.' PM if you've got any requests. Just arrange words in a meaningful manner, as I'm attempting to do on a slightly larger scale.
Edit: Thanks to karina001 and lostinmusation for reviewing, but I'm feeling a bit less benevolent this week, so a hundred-odd. And please read, review. Read, review. You're getting really sleepy. Read, review. I promise, update frequency and quality will be roughly proportional to criticism given.
The sun was slipping down the sky, and Tiedoll would have liked to sketch it. The colours — orange and pink, fading to grey — were nothing special, but what made it breathtaking was the arrangement of the sun beside the railroad tracks, framed by hills as the train left the mountains. The spread of light between the clouds on the horizon resembled an eye, looking over the rising plains.
Alas, he couldn't bring himself to wake Kanda, who had, oddly enough, fallen asleep.
He had looked a bit tired, recently.
But odder still was Daisya's apparent thoughtfulness — despite the demands of his body, he still staring out the window, as if watching something.
Well, that was quite the improvement. He seemed to be on the path to growing up — or at least learning to deal with his own situation.
Tiedoll looked around again, and had to suppress a laugh. The roles in the cabin had switched almost perfectly.
Perhaps Daisya and Kanda weren't so different — though that was, of course, the most wishful of thinking.
…
The scream of metal made Daisya wince as the train pulled away, bound for the next stop. This platform was just a raised set of wood planks, despite the size of the town it served. Maybe funds were running low. Maybe this was a shanty town. It was too late to think about.
Daisya gingerly shouldered his backpack, relaxing his muscles in order not to wince. The bandages helped, but the warmth of the morphine was wearing off.
"Hey, old man, what are we doing now?"
Tiedoll glanced back. It had been over twelve hours since they were at the hospital, and the unusual softness in Daisya's voice suggested that he might be feeling his injuries.
"We're just going to see if we can get anywhere tonight, or if we have to stay here."
"Same as always."
Daisya sounded bored again.
"Well, we should be able to get somewhere soon. First, we have to have something to eat. You need to keep your strength up. And you should probably take some more medication."
"Yeah, yeah," groaned Daisya, more for show than out of any resentment, "I know."
The old man was pretty good at guessing.
…
The inns all seemed to blend together, after a while. Twenty metres square, at least, with a small bar against one wall that led back to the kitchen. A staircase on the side, narrow and wobbly, and rooms up above. Wood-panelled walls, wooden or dirt floors, wood tables and chairs. No wonder the fire in Budapest had spread so fast. And the tables and chairs were always too high, but the seats were too low. Didn't do too well for you if you were short. Your legs kept losing circulation.
Around the table, Marie and Daisya dug in, the latter with a more creative technique so as not to put any pressure on his bandaged fingers.
At this point he had the entirety of his meal into bits and was eating it with a spoon. Marie had shot him a questioning glance, but no more than that. It wasn't worth arguing. They were all as tired as each other.
Not so with Kanda. He had pushed himself back from the table, despite his plate being nearly full. It had taken him a few tries, what with him being short.
"That's disgusting."
Across from him, Daisya shrugged, then winced.
"It's fun."
"It's unnecessary."
Kanda's arms were folded, but an observer could see that the fingers visible had tightened around his arm.
"Your fingers don't hurt whenever you hold something."
Daisya shoved another spoonful in his mouth, earning a sigh of disgust.
"Anyway," he muttered around the current mouthful, "You gonna eat that?"
He pointed a mummified finger at Kanda's meal. The meat and potatoes were both as grey as the wood lining the walls, but they were edible.
"Go ahead."
In an uncharacteristic act of neutrality, Kanda pushed the plate forward.
"Awesome!"
Daisya's hand sneaked out, pulling the plate back with the speed of a snake.
"Are you even hungry enough to eat that?" Kanda asked doubtfully.
Daisya looked up incredulously, and rolled his eyes before putting his head back down.
"No, of course not. I just need a lot of material if I'm gonna heal up."
The wooden cutlery worked lightly but steadily, clacking against the plate and occasionally the table when Daisya got a bit careless.
But instead of retaliating at the dismissive tone, Kanda just looked away. Had Marie sight, he would have noticed the circles around his eyes growing darker than their normal shade, even with how tired they all were. Even with his blindness, he could hear the inaudible groan, and feel Kanda looked away, as if sickened. Some things you could feel, regardless of what you could see.
His train of thought was interrupted by Tiedoll's arrival at the table.
"We'll have to stay here for the night," the General said quietly, pulling up a chair, "There's no train until morning. We can stay here, though. I took a couple of the free rooms just down the corridor."
As he began to eat, Kanda stood up, the legs of his chair grating across the floor.
"We need to be prepared for tomorrow. I'm going to sleep."
He glared at the occupants of the table defensively, but Tiedoll's look of mild surprise lasted only a moment.
"Yes, that is a good idea," he commented, putting a key on the table, "We should all rest up tonight."
Kanda's hand slid over, snapping up the keys. Not even bothering to shoot a glare at Daisya in his slovenliness, he left.
Daisya watched him go down the hallway before swallowing.
"What's up with him?" he asked, half to himself.
He didn't quite notice the tired glance Tiedoll gave to Marie. They were both a bit forgetful.
…
The three of them stood outside the door as if in council, hesitating to move.
"If he's asleep, we probably shouldn't wake him up," whispered Marie.
"But we won't know that until we open the door," Tiedoll added with a trace of irony, "A situation not unlike Schrodinger's Cat."
"Well, if he was that tired," reasoned Daisya, "It's fine if we wake him up, 'cause he'll just fall back asleep. He's a pretty deep sleeper, isn't he?"
Marie frowned.
"No, not as far as I can remember. Not unless he's dreaming, which doesn't happen much."
"Oh."
Daisya shrugged, immediately regretting the movement. Marie looked thoughtful, and Tiedoll put his hands together.
"Perhaps we should just share the remaining room. I'm sure there's enough room for the three of us."
Daisya looked quickly at his apparent roommates, shrugged again, and winced again. Tiedoll wondered if he would ever learn.
"I'm tired. I'll sleep on the floor."
…
The sun shone through the windows, landing squarely on Daisya's pile of blankets. In the middle of the grey, wood-planked floor, it was as if a mountain of discarded laundry had made a bid for freedom, before being petrified by the morning light. The face revealed was certainly grotesque enough.
"Aargh."
He pulled a quilt over his head, trying to block out the sun. And the morphine was wearing off again. Every movement burned.
Daisya screwed up his face in distaste. There was nothing for it but getting up — the sun wasn't going anywhere.
"Old man."
He staggered to his feet, picking off a sheet that had somehow wound around three of his limbs. His teeth were gritted as his clothes grated on his skin. After a moment, he was able to disentangle his wrist, but the result tightened the rest of the cloth around his ankles, resulting in a fall from grace.
After a resounding thud and a gasp, he picked himself back up. Kanda had to have chosen the most inconvenient time to dream, didn't he.
"What is it, Daisya?"
The voice cut through the haze, and Daisya's vision refocused.
The old man was sitting on the bed, fully dressed and sketching, again. How he managed to get up that early Daisya could only guess at, but it was getting boring.
"Got any more drugs?" he asked roughly. "The old ones wore off."
He turned back, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with the defeated sheet.
Fold it?
A moment later, while he was kicking the pile of linen into a neater heap, a hand was outstretched with a couple of tablets. He grabbed them, without thanks or acknowledgement. A flaw of his, to add to many.
Dragging himself over to the washbasin, he filled a glass of water and swallowed. His throat was still sore, but it was getting better. Now, that was done. What else?
He decided he'd better wash his face, but immediately regretted it when he ran the facecloth over his skin.
He'd had some pretty bad sunburns before, but between the blisters and peeling skin, this one outdid them all by far.
Eeugh. Now his skin was coming off. Now that was just nasty.
He started to rewrap his bandages as Marie folded sheets behind him. Around the jawbone, covering as much of the cheeks as possible, over the head, and down the neck. His exorcist's cloak had a hood, thankfully, but it still didn't cover all of it. And his fingers still didn't work as well as they should.
Damn, this was turning out to be a lot more of a problem than he'd thought.
Which made it more exciting.
He wound the bandages down, around his chest and then his legs. A couple of pricked fingers and swears later, the old man decided he'd best pin down some of the ends himself.
Yeah, it was painful, but pain was the one sign that you were alive.
...
Kanda, unexpectedly, wasn't awake before them, and Daisya was the sacrificial victim. The other room was a ways down the hallway, and he grumbled as he dragged himself along. He didn't see why the old man couldn't send Marie. Kanda might actually listen to him. And then they'd all have breakfast quicker. He was starving. Starving. Maybe if he was lucky Kanda'd give him some of his share, but you couldn't count on kindness from that kid more than once.
Funny. After a while these hallways all tended to blend into one. There was a lot of wood. Sometimes there was stone, and plaster. This one was half-timber, with a tiny bit of white at the end of the hallway, and pitch-dark wood around the window there. The rest of it - walls, floors, doors - was the same old grey-brown they'd seen for the last two weeks. At least there was some morning sun streaming on to the floor.
Ah, here we are.
He gritted his teeth, turned to face the door, and kicked it.
"Kanda," he called, "'s time for breakfast."
He waited a few seconds, staring at the glue between the planks making up the door and waiting for the obligatory groan.
No answer. Kanda didn't seem to be feeling too co-operative today. Actually, scratch that - that was normal. Oh, well, nothing for it.
He kicked the door again, then hissed in pain, hopping back on his remaining foot. It'd seemed like a good idea at the time.
"Hey, Kanda, wake up!"
Again, he stared at the wood, trying to see if there were any knotholes that let in light. He was damned if he wasn't going to get some breakfast soon.
After a few seconds and another shout, he heard some equivalent hissing from the room one over for him to be quiet. He ignored it. They could sleep later, if they wanted.
Daisya kicked the door again, muttering a string of swears through clenched teeth, then looked a bit more closely to see if there were any openings in the door, or if the hinges were just a bit offset. As bad luck would have it, the keyhole was tiny and the knots were all solid wood. Couldn't a tree just try and make some useful ones?
Now he had to do the boring thing, and peek underneath the door. It made you look a bit of an idiot, but the door was locked and breakfast was getting more distant by the minute.
Beneath the door, the space was too thin to make out any detail beyond the presence of light. However, the line of cloth running about forty centimetres across was enough to show that yes, Kanda was awake, and no, he wasn't coming out for breakfast.
What was with that kid. Daisya'd thought he'd have him figure out by now, but as he crossed his legs he decided that he'd have to have another go.
Maybe Alma had something to do with it, whoever she was.
Daisya spoke through the door again, this time sitting at its base. The light was starting to reach further down the hallway, making the dust dance in the air.
"Kanda, if you don't come out now, I don't think you're going to get breakfast."
No answer, again, but he was sure that Kanda had heard him. He fancied he could hear the breathing through the door.
"Not hungry again?"
Silence.
"Oh, just do one knock for yes and two knocks for no, will ya?"
Two knocks.
Daisya grinned. Typical. The sun was on him now, warm and golden and streaming across the wooden planks. The old man had said the windows made it that way, but he couldn't understand why. Anyway, it felt good.
"Well, I'm not gonna wait for you. Want me to bring you a plate of something?"
No answer again, but one belligerent response was enough to keep Daisya happy.
"Bo-ring."
He hopped to his feet, wincing where the linen scraped his skin, and set off back to the table. The dragon wasn't going to come out today, not even for a designated sacrifice.
Maybe tomorrow.