I'm just filling in random bits and pieces, which may or may not make sense or be coherent. Since I've sort of left the dgm fandom (too much drama, too much focus on characters I couldn't care less about, too many people not agreeing with my precise exact interpretation of every single character and having trivial little opinions of their own), I haven't had much motivation to continue, though I've actually written out a good deal more than I've posted. I'll be trying to update a bit more regularly, but I've said that before and then proceeded to not go through with it.
Speaking of which, trying to write Kanda is really hard (he either turns into a stereotype or I just feel like I'm making him ooc) so please - feedback. Also I can't be bothered to harmonize the writing styles of the two sections so just bear with me for a chapter.
Church, Daisya decided, was boring.
You take this book with people getting nailed to bits of wood, lakes of blood, a lot of fire, a city made out of gold, and this weird monster-lamb thing, and you make it about being nice to people. It was as if this preacher man hadn't read the damn thing before he started talking about it.
He squirmed in his seat, trying to keep himself from picking at his bandages.
The church wasn't that boring, though. The floors were good marble, the old man had said, and you could see your face in them. The surface was smooth and shiny, and made cool noises when you walked on them. And it was alternating black and white squares, so you could even play checkers or chess if you wanted to.
Daisya wondered if there were any chess pieces big enough for this board. Maybe you could play with people? That would be fun.
The benches they sat on were polished, too, and carved up fancy on the ends. There were two arches carved into the sides of every pew, in the same shape as the windows that lined the walls. Around them, the walls put the benches to shame. They stretched so far up that Daisya had to crane his neck to see the top, where the arches met and twined. Nearly every inch of the church that wasn't part of a window was frothy, flowery-looking carved stone, punctuated by plaques, inscribed with the names of the dead. Daisya had read some of the names, a while back, but there were many more he hadn't had the chance to look at.
And the windows, oh, the windows, they were red and blue and gold and purple, with hundreds of tiny pieces of glass crammed into each one. Corpses were mounded on the ground in some, and men and women hunched with yellow orbs — haloes, Marie said — around their heads, like weird hats. They were the important people. There was one in a dark, bloody red cape, and another one with a blue scarf, and so many more in so many colours. Now, and every morning, the sun shone through the pictures and stained the floor all different colours.
Daisya loved the church windows, and drank in every detail, making up stories for each of the scenes. The man with the thorn crown had made it out of a rose bush, twisting the branches together with bare hands so that he could feel the pain, and show everyone that he did. The lady in the blue scarf was a ghost, following the people who were going to die. True or not, he liked his stories. They made more sense than this drivel about believing.
But eventually he ran out, and had to find some other way to say awake.
Beside him, Marie was sitting up straight, paying attention. Either that or he was even better at sleeping upright than Daisya, which could be true. Marie was a kid of many talents. Beside him, the old man was nodding along, as if the preacher was making some kind of sense.
And on Daisya's other side, Kanda was sulking. Maybe Lenalee was out on a mission, so he supposed he didn't have anyone to play with or complain at in Chinese.
Daisya was 90% sure they (Kanda) smack talked him sometimes, so he was learning a bit. Not much. He was trying, at any rate.
"As it says in Kings…"
Daisya let his head loll sideways, half-balanced on his shoulder, and decided to fall asleep.
…
The sounds of boots echoed off the marble as the congregation stood up, and started to file out. First, General Sokalo, followed by a small group of meek-looking adults no older than 30. He wasn't too good with children. Then General Nine and hers, then General Yeager with Isaac. They sat at the front. As the finders started to move, Tiedoll turned to his charges.
"Kanda, could you wake Daisya up? He might get a sore neck, soon."
He looked down at Kanda, who had balanced a book on top of the head in his lap.
"When I'm done," the kid muttered.
"Oh? An interesting book?"
Kanda lifted it up to show him the lettering on the cover: Jane Eyre.
"I've got a good book rest."
"Very well."
Tiedoll had to repress a chuckle. Kanda was, after all, a kid. Stood to reason that he'd act like one.
…
When Daisya woke up, he half-expected to be staring at the bare stone wall of his room. The sense of warmth had made him forget for a second where he'd been, but the sight of the wooden pew jolted his memory.
In that case, whose jacket was this?
And, he thought, feeling fingers trace the seams where his bandages overlapped, whose hand was that?
He stirred for a moment, and the hand quickly jerked away.
Kanda's.
Daisya was still sleepy enough not to think much more.
"'s okay," he murmured, "Feels nice."
The tracing sensation returned, at first hesitantly, lulling him back to sleep.
…
"Oooowww!"
The undignified sound echoed up, and off the gothic arches above it. In an abandoned wing of headquarters, Daisya was hopping up and down on one foot. He was also muttering something unintelligible and in Turkish, having stubbed his toe going around the corner.
How he could stub his toe on a block of stone two feet long by one foot wide, he didn't really think about. Actually, as he zigzagged slowly on the path from the chapel to the old church, and back, he'd been pretty preoccupied.
The young-looking bigwig, the glass-maker guy or something, was here. He didn't really see why that was an issue, because the old man and the rest of the Generals dropped by a lot, and General Yeager even lived here, teaching Lenalee and Isaac mostly, and the rest of them too when he wasn't out on missions.
But good ol' Kanda had locked himself in his room and refused to come out, and Marie had spent a good eight hours in the chapel yesterday, poring over a travel guide hidden in a hollowed-out bible. Today it was Frankenstein. Lenalee hasn't even answered her door, so Daisya suspected she was bunking with Kanda. Whoever this guy was, he got the others worried.
Even Jeanne's usually-grinning face was looking pretty grim. She'd taken Isaac down to the training mats for an extended session, and Kiki was sticking close in Antonina's shadow. Together with Dris and Helle, they played a game of bridge in the piano loft. Daisya didn't know how to play bridge, and he was still aching from Kanda's training sessions, so he'd been reduced to wandering around. He'd never been in this wing before, so it was nice to explore.
Like in a church — like that cathedral he'd seen when they were on their way back from Tintown or whatever — his every footstep echoed on the flagstones as he paced lengths around the wing, each time starting and ending with Marie in the chapel.
When, with a final profanity, he finally stopped hopping, he noticed the difference in noises that accompanied this lap of the circuit..
This time, something else echoed. He'd almost missed it in the excitement of a minute or two ago.
His sister was a big crybaby, so he was a connoisseur in the different types of whining to get what you want.
This was none of them. If he had to choose a genre of noise, it wasn't the sucking, snot-covered hiccuping of the brat who didn't get a sweetie.
Actually, he knew this one pretty well. These were soft, hissing sobs of someone trying to not just hide but deny their crying. Figuring that if no one could hear them, then they weren't doing it, and somehow hoping that someone might notice and ask why, if only to be told "no reason."
He decided not to think about how he knew all this, instead softening his footsteps, and veering over to the right side of the hall.
Somewhere in the dusty corners of these old halls that once held so many hopes and wishes, someone was wishing themselves out of existence. It would be a bit rude to barge in.
Still, he had to know.
If only for his own closure.
He peeked around the corner, looking down a hall to where a pair of old confession cells lay. The noise wasn't coming from there, and besides, it was too obvious a hiding spot.
Softly, he padded down about ten metres, looked inside, and walked past, turning left and following the passage as it curved around. The figures in the ornate friezes on wall seemed to be avoiding his gaze, looking down at the corpses of the martyrs or up at the light that must have been shining down. He could recognize a few, now that Marie had tried to teach him. Saint Cecilia, the musical one, and the usual holy family, but he hadn't memorized them like Marie had.
A few metres down, the passage curved again - right, left, down some stairs - and opened into a wide room that might once have been the sanctuary of an older Order. It was a bit like a cross between the main hall and the church, only with the feeling that he shouldn't be here. The carvings on the walls were chipped and eroded, not naturally, but as if the akuma had let loose a barrage on the space. In front of him, he could see a massive old organ, whose pipes were mostly piled up on the floor.
There was, on top of the almost inaudible sound of sobbing, the faint whistle of wind through a smashed stained-glass window.
Daisya stepped sideways into the pool of light cast on the floor by an opening in the opposite wall. Somehow, one of the akuma that must have been here had smashed the halo of the massive west window that stood opposite the organ. Now, the gold light of the sun shone through as it sunk lower in the sky.
Whoever it was that was crying, they were here. He knew it.
Before he closed his eyes, he noticed the almost satisfying smell of old rock dust, cool and clear.
Now the room was hidden to him. All that remained was the sound, penetrating the layers of stone. He wondered how he could have heard it out in the hallway, when it was hidden in layers of stone, like the central cell in an egg. It was here, yes, and very close.
He could feel the weak warmth of the sun on his back, and imagined the dust motes rising soft and gold behind him.
He turned around, into the sun that had blinded him, and stepped forwards.
The figure, hunched at the base of the wall beneath the window, holding its head in its hands and shaking, was Lenalee.
Partly because of the stark contrast between sunlight and shadow, light and dark, Daisya's eyes filled up to the brink.
Lenalee ignored him, instead taking in another strangled breath, for a sob that died on her lips. Almost as if she did not have the strength left to let it grow in the natural crescendo of such things.
It was only now he noticed that the dark splotches spreading out around her were darker red that her torn-up smock or the shadows surrounding them.
A thousand thoughts fought it out in Daisya's mind, working themselves into a maelstrom of what the hell is happening.
Kanda's fear, Lenalee's blood, the beggar girl at home they'd found washed up on the waterline, her skirt in tatters and her limbs at odd angles.
He'd heard that Lenalee had already tried to escape this place, by any means possible. Rejecting her Innocence, making use of a broken wine bottle and the Order's high windows. He hadn't understood why. He couldn't understand why. His Innocence was what had stopped him from doing anything that stupid, no matter what Kanda said.
So what had made her like this? What more could happen to her?
Kanda's training. Being pretty. The men in the inn. The washed-up girl. His parents had tried to keep him away, but he'd snuck down to the clinic one night to see what they were hiding from him.
His breath stopped and started, and stopped again. Lenalee looked up at the sound.
They locked eyes.
Daisya thought that maybe, when Kanda's expression closed up over something he was forbidden to see, this was what lay underneath.
Infinite and infinitely painful, like the heavens, frozen and dotted with fire so hot it could shame hell itself.
He tore himself away.
Suddenly, the spell seemed to break. Slipping, falling out of the light, he ran over to her.
"…I'll go get your brother–"
"No."
Her premature answer — a statement of how things would be, not a request — cut him off. She'd stopped sobbing, but still shook, hugging her knees and twining her arms and fingers. He could see her muscles tensed, from her neck to her shoulders.
"No."
"What about Kan–"
"No."
She tilted her head sharply to the side, rocking back and forth, and starting to sob again.
The stains on her ankles confirmed that it was not mud but blood that darkened her dress.
"I don't — don't want anyone to…"
Her interruption fizzled out, and she scrubbed at her eyes sharply, like she was trying to erase whatever they had seen.
"Lenalee, tell me what to do."
Daisya spoke quietly, looking down. He knew what had happened. In her position, he would have — would have—
No. He didn't know what he would have done.
"Don't say anything. Don't tell a-anyone."
He nodded.
"Please don't tell my brother."
Daisya nodded again, then bowed, and made to get up. Lenalee wouldn't want anyone—
"And — d-don't go. Stay here."
This at last startled Daisya into looking up, where he met her gaze.
"If you want me to."
Her expression started to harden over as she nodded.
"Yes."
She had decided. Daisya crossed his legs in front of him, turning as as not to face her directly. Marie might get on his case if he missed dinner, but he wasn't going to leave here until he was allowed to.
For half an hour or so, he kept an ear out for intruders. Not many people came here but him, so it shouldn't be a problem, but you could never be too careful.
A bell tolled the quarter hour in another wing, making the Charity Bell echo it. He'd found it could pick up sounds sometimes, if he concentrated.
"Daisya?"
The timid voice pulled him back to the present.
"Yes?"
"Do you know any songs?"
"A few."
A lot.
"Could you sing one?"
"Of course."
She was starting to get a bit better, so he settled on a quick, melancholic melody the twins sometimes sang. He couldn't remember the words, but the music spoke for itself.
Hurt, sorrow, resignation — but laced through the tune — a driving anger.
Lenalee smiled. Not a genuine, vulnerable smile, like she'd given once or twice before now. This one was gentle, but it had nothing to with the emotions racking her body.
Daisya felt a perverse sort of pride. He grinned, Kanda had his scowl, and now Lenalee had found an expression that she could plaster over even the most unsettling situation.
Some sissy might say that they should never have to do that, but Daisya knew better.
What the hell was that? Beats me if I know. But Kanda, Marie, and Daisya have had their share of getting beat up in canon and otherwise, so I figured I might as well go for some variety. Since Lenalee's reaction to Leverrier when she's older is...reminiscent of a certain scenario, I imagine she's not fond of him for a variety of reasons. He seems to have no problem sending kids into battle, so why not teaching them a lesson.
Also: verre = glass in French, so Daisya would probably think of Leverrier as the glass-maker, if he'd learned a bit of French. Which he probably would have, because French was the lingua franca (aha ha it's an accidental pun) of the day.