[singing tunelessly] I have no idea what I'm doing. Is any of this relevant or even of moderate quality or is it just filler and finest fromage (had to switch languages for the best alliteration)? Am I making up completely inaccurate stuff because I can't be bothered to google the architecture of the castle at Tintagel? Probably. Am I just going to brush all inconsistencies under the rug as this being a very similar alternate universe to the DGM timeline as well as our own? You betcha.
Thanks so much for the reviews, please feel free to PM re: any characters you'd like to see show up.
They walked — in Lenalee's case, stiffly — under an archway of crumbling stone. Arthur must have walked through the same gate. For him, it would be returning home. He'd go out full of fire, and kick some righteous ass, conquer some territory, have some fun, and come back to this place where he'd been locked in a room with no books except lessons on manners, or something boring like that. Honestly, Daisya didn't see why he'd stay here, even when he was grown up. He could just grab some random kid and tell them how to run the place, then go somewhere where he could do all the same fighting stuff and not have to take care of a home.
The Innocence was deep inside the castle, the finder had said, embedded in one of the threadbare tapestries that once stopped this place from being a damn cold thing to live in. They didn't work too well anymore, Daisya thought as he shivered. Another reason why Artie should 'a run away. Sure, this place looked cool and had all sorts of interesting hallways, but it was pretty chilly, even for Daisya. Cold was only interesting if it was a treat, which he imagined it wouldn't be for Arthur.
He couldn't remember a lot of Arthur's story. He'd gotten married to some girl, and had a bunch of friends. Some girl fell in love with one of them, and it all went to hell. Then his sister's kid came along and killed him.
He should have run away.
The Slavic-looking finder that had been leading them turned along a corridor that seemed to stretch for ages. One finder stood every five metres along the wall, with three barrier devices apiece. The tapestry behind them was the usual "people with sticks poking other people with sticks," which wouldn't have been very exciting if the people with sticks hadn't moved.
They slid from one stitch to another, and Daisya couldn't tell if the thread was changing colour or if the little loops of thread were actually moving around, or if the Innocence was just changing what his eyes saw, without changing the tapestries. He'd heard it could warp reality like that.
As the three of them walked along it, various scenes played out. A single knight on foot held off a cavalry, a woman opened a door in the trunk of an oak, and in the middle, a crowned man stood at the centre of a semi—circle of knights.
Daisya couldn't remember who the knight was — it could have been any of them, because there wasn't much way you could tell the difference between helmets. Some dude having the time of his life, definitely. Daisya wished he could fight like that — just you and your trusty sword against an army of villains. Exciting! No Kanda to get snippy at you when you tried out something new and interesting, no Lenalee or Marie to feel guilty about, no old man patting you on the head and taking care of the problem himself. That was the life, man.
The lady was probably the one who got Arthur's old man stuck in a tree. He couldn't really blame her, if the guy was that stupid. And the man with the crown was King. Even Daisya could tell that.
Who dares enter hence?
The words wove themselves at the bottom of the tapestry in a heavy medieval script that was practically illegible. In fact, Daisya thought at first it might be "Mho daref something something," before a finder read it out.
"He's asking who you guys are," the finder clarified. She was a skinny, rodent-like woman, hunched over slightly as if to apologize for her height.
"We're exorcists, aren't we?"
Daisya heard Kanda sigh.
"We would like to let you sleep at last," Lenalee said tactfully. "How long have you been like this?"
"Like what?" the finder translated.
"Alive. Moving around," Kanda muttered, "Like that."
He gestured at one of the knights, who had turned to look askance at the King.
"Like Percival?"
Daisya tried to make out what the words said this time, and it looked like "in Percival's fashion?" He supposed the finder would have to put it in simpler words to get it through Kanda's brain.
"Yeah, but all of you."
The King seemed to grow angry.
"These are our souls."
"Aren't they supposed to go to heaven?" Daisya asked. A sudden writhing of thread told him this was not a good thing to say.
"It's our duty to keep the story of Camelot alive."
The figures seemed to have drawn closer together, and the letters were bigger and bolder. Aha ha! That's what they wanted.
"But everyone knows about you." Daisya argued, stepping forwards.
"Not these, um, idiots," the finder said hesitantly, apparently taking the polite route.
"Can't you cut Kanda some slack? He's a foreigner — ouch! Hey, cut it out!"
"Why did he hit you?"
Daisya rubbed at his wrist, and turned back to address the cohort. All they needed was a bit of buttering up, telling them they were famous, and they'd be easy to handle.
"He's angry that I said he didn't know about you guys. You've been, like, legendary for centuries! Some guy from hundreds of years ago wrote a massive book about you, and a bunch of other guys."
"We can't, uh," the finder said slowly, reading as as the words twisted, "We can't rest now, because God still keeps us here."
Time to pull out the exorcist card. He'd overheard Jeanne telling Isaac that you could get away with most stuff, if you said you were a part of the Black Order. People were either too afraid of God or too afraid of the actual exorcists to interfere.
"No, it's not God. I promise. We are — we're his servants. We're supposed to tell you your job is done. You can go to heaven, now."
Kanda was going to tease him about this later, he just knew it.
"We have to stop people from ending up like us."
Arthur's kingdom had gone up in smoke when he died, hadn't it? Mordred became King, or something, and old Artie died a miserable death. No wonder they wanted people to learn from it. But was this actually Arthur?
"I promise! Everyone knows about brave King Arthur, and about how he was defeated. No one's going to do anything like it again. That's why we've come here to let you sleep."
"Then who will tell our story?"
"We'll do it. I'll do it. I promise, I can write you a good story."
"'This yet to be proven."
Daisya felt a twinge of annoyance, above the baseline of contempt. What did this bunch of linen know about that, huh?
"Yeah? All right. How 'bout I tell you a story, and you can see if it's good or not. Deal?"
"Your — no, sorry, didn't read that right — we'll hear you out, and then decide."
Daisya bowed politely, heart hammering in his ears. What'd he been thinking? There were akuma at the door and here he was bragging about his stories.
This wasn't even the real King. The real King wouldn't have been some stuffy, boring old goat like this, would he? He had the whole country to do whatever he wanted, so why did he end up like this? Why? Why couldn't he just lay down and die in some blaze of glory? Only some boring guy would end up here, waiting on a God that didn't come and petulantly asking someone to make him into a legend.
Arthur must have been an obedient child. He grew up, took care of his family, and stayed in the castle. He wanted to be King, and do all the paperwork. He read his books, and did his duty, and ended up like this. He wasn't the interesting guy that Mr. Mallard or whatever had told stories about. This King Arthur was just a boring, average guy. That had to be it.
Daisya could make up a better story than that. Sure, his stories weren't the best, but they were better than this.
"Got it. I'll tell you one, and it'll be a true — well, the facts probably won't be right, and it won't have actually happened — but it's gonna have way more truth than something where the facts are right."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's like saying that, uh, clouds are made of smoke. They're not made of smoke, they're made of water, but they act like smoke and they don't act like water. Get it?"
He could feel the stares burning into his back.
"Continue."
What story...what story to use...? He had a half-dozen of them floating around in his brain, about adventurers and runaways and brothers with siblings, but that wouldn't do. These guys just wouldn't get it. Something...not sad, but not exactly plain and stupid. They had to like this one, right? Take it seriously.
That one.
In the split second it took Daisya to think, he felt the air crystallize around him.
It was cool, and slightly damp on his tongue. His weight was balanced between his feet, leaning slightly forward on the left. His knees ached from the walking. The stone around him was cold, and he could feel the heat leaching out of his skin.
The Daisya that loved his job and laughed too much had to go. In these situations, it was best to have the Daisya that spent hours up on the cliffs, burning with hatred. He'd been better at stories, back then. He had to describe this story in excruciating detail. He had to make it real, like the old ones he used to escape life, and drift in through the cracks in his skin like fog, but with the weight of the ocean. It had to be short, a simple fairy tale. It had to be real.
Right.
...
Somehow, Liba noticed, the child became taller. He was still, but with the promise of motion: chin up, back straight, and eyes staring straight ahead as if reading a script, watching a play that no one else here could see.
"This is the story of the sun and moon."
It was just for a moment, but she saw Kanda and Lenalee flinch for just a moment. The boy's voice was coming from somewhere far away, echoing off the stone.
...
"Now, the moon is quick, and it can dance around, and every day it spins around the world."
He held up a fist, as the earth, and traced a path around it with the first two fingers of his right hand.
"The sun can't really move like that — it moves, and spins in circles, but there's a part of it that can't be changed."
His right hand stopped its orbit, and closed over the left one, making a bigger object.
"It pulls the earth around it instead."
A second time, he outlined the path of an orbit. Daisya had to explain it. Otherwise, these guys wouldn't know that the sun stayed still. It was important for them to know.
"Way, way back, at the beginning of time, there sun was there. Then the earth. Then the moon."
Clasped hands. Left fist. Two fingers.
"The moon met the sun when it opened its eyes, and saw it — the sun — and saw that it burnt stronger and brighter than a thousand stars. It gave life to the world, and without it, there was nothing. The moon was cold, and dark, and weak, and small. Nothing like the sun."
"Each day, the moon felt the warmth of its fire, and sometimes came close enough to see the light that engulfed everything, even though there was darkness all around. It took one look, and fell in love with the sun."
Daisya's cheeks felt warm, but not out of embarrassment. He was starting to get into it. Sure, Kanda was definitely judging him right now, but he was too far in to go back. He was never, ever going to live this down, anyway.
"It came up early, and stayed into the morning, waiting just so it could see the it, just watch it in its splendour, being everything the moon could never be.
"But the sun was not like the moon. It burnt and scorched it, turning part of it black, and cursed it, and drove it out of the sky when it stayed too long. The sun was…"
Daisya searched for a synonym for "colossal jerk."
"The sun was cruel, as well as strong. The moon could never fully face the sun, and could not produce its own light. It lived in a shadow, burnt and scarred, still hanging on to any scrap of light the sun left in its wake.
"Eventually, the moon learned to work around the sun. It could linger a little into the morning, and come up a bit before sunset, if it was careful. When it learned that, the sun stopped hurting it. Maybe the sun just wanted to be left alone."
"But the moon couldn't understand why the sun gave so much to the earth — not burning it, not freezing it — if it just wanted to be alone.
"It tried to watch the sun, but each time it crept out into full view, the sun just turned its head, as if even looking at it was a trial.
"The moon lived like that for thousands and thousands of years. Sometimes, the sun talked to it, about the weather on earth, or the comets that passed by. The moon, for its part, just fell deeper and deeper."
Daisya let the word trail off into the dead silence. He hadn't thought about why. Hadn't thought of an ending. What did the sun want? Why did the moon still stay? Was it ever going to realize that it didn't get a happy ending?
He stretched out his fingers, groping around in half-finished stories and numbers and memories, and dusted off a pathetic little scrap. These guys would probably put up with an ending like this, even if it was cheesy. No time like the present.
"But there was something that the moon didn't know, not until later, on its deathbed."
"When the sun started to die, it got weaker, and grew bigger, swallowing up planets and stars, and eventually it came closer to the moon.
"It was in pain, but it didn't yell, or scream. It just told the moon that it was dying, and told it something else, too."
"The moon was cold, and scarred, and silvery. The sun was scorching hot and strong as steel. If the sun ever got too close to the moon — bam! — it would burn up. Die. If the sun even looked the moon in the eyes, that was the end."
"So, when the sun was dying, it told the moon that it loved it. For all their lives, they had stayed at a distance, one not daring to look, one lashing out with fury. But, in the end, it had all been for nothing.
"The moon was happy to die just to know that it was loved."
Damn, Daisya thought, hearing the last word ring out in the silence, that really was cheesy. At least these tapestry guys seemed to be paying attention.
The thin-faced finder swallowed, and thread started to shift.
"Your story is...not light."
The words came at length. Daisya had to admit, was starting to feel more than the tiniest bit embarrassed. If Kanda opened his mouth just once…
"Give us time to think."
Okay this was definitely not good, but a bit of explanation as to the whole Arthur/solar system/stories in general thing: Daisya was obviously not a very social child, being a bit of a jerk, so I imagine he liked to read and make up stories as a form of escapism. He'd project himself on to stories, like the Arthur one, to try and rationalize his existence and behaviour, which is why he's so angry when the things that may or may not be Arthur and the knights are just boring, normal people, who are tired and selfish and a bit petty, and who still follow someone else (a God) even when they're living legends.
As for the rest of it, I suck at writing fairy tale-type stuff, but I can explain it away as Daisya being a 12-year-old who still isn't that great at writing.