I forgot to respond in the last chapter (even though we're not supposed to respond in the chapter I'm just so used to it that I can never remember to stop), but thanks to all for commenting! The relationship between Daisya and Kanda was really hard to figure out, because Kanda swings wildly between pricklier than a cactus, possibly approaching normal, and slightly chilly but respectful. And Daisya, for his part, goes from a cold, pessimistic, narcissist as a child to a cackling, energetic teenager. Trying to write each one IC is something even I don't think I've quite succeeded at, and trying to trace from the initial antagonism you'd expect between them to the obvious friendship in the anime is doubly impossible, so thanks!

Again, this little detour is not very good, but I'll be updating more often, so you won't have to deal with this for as long.

After a couple of days of searching by himself — Kanda just scoffed, and asked him why he'd want to do that, and Lenalee had politely declined — Daisya found the piano, in an antechamber high up in the Order. Getting it up there would have been a pain, he had to say. The doorway was narrow, and short, opening into a room no more than five, six metres square of white-painted stone walls, patched with plaster. Below his feet, the floor that he now stood on was made of scuffed wooden planks, in need of a bit of repair and a bit of glue. As he walked, he could feel them shift on uneven supports. A small window let in the light of the dining hall, now shining off the honey-brown wood, and let the music out.

The music that was still playing. Antonina was sitting there, on a bench that still rocked back and forth despite the cardboard folded under one leg. Whether or not she'd noticed him, Daisya couldn't tell, but he doubted she cared. Her fingers moved quickly as she hunched over the yellowing keys, spitting out — with one hand of flesh and blood and one of keratin and Innocence —a litany of bitterness as recorded on the sheets in Cyrillic writing. Daisya was a good hand with languages, but he'd never learned much of Russian, or how to write it. It said something about a Paxman…something, but he didn't feel like the song was talking about a guy who went around making peace.

Stops and starts and slow-downs in the music seemed to signal that this was a hard part, so Daisya tried to be quiet. He was pretty sure that interrupting now would be a bad idea. Better to wait. He hadn't spent days in the dusty hallways and crammed himself in dumbwaiters just to leave now, did he?

Antonina finally stopped after a storm of triplets, and a couple of chords that nearly shook the roof down, and definitely shook the dust off a few of the rafters. Slowly, she turned to face him. As usual, it wasn't a pretty sight, but Daisya felt like he was one to talk. Pot, kettle, black.

"What do you want?" she asked sullenly, "It's bad form to interrupt a pianist."

Daisya stayed silent for a moment longer, until he heard the last few vibrations die away.

"Nothing," he said, "I just wanted to find it."

"Well, you've found it," Antonina answered curtly, "Now go away, unless you have something to play. Though I doubt you can even read music. No one here seems to like it."

She started to play a medley of chords that Marie would have been able to identify as wandering between C minor and A flat major, staring blankly at a point Daisya would say was about four inches above the right-hand sheet of music on the piano.

"I'm not great at it, but I can read music. I just can't play it, is all."

Antonina finished off on a perfect cadence.

"What? Who taught you?"

"The old man. Tiedoll. He taught Kanda too, I think, but he can't dance or even tap his foot to a beat, or anything. Mainly I just annoyed the old guy until he gave me something interesting to do — what's so funny?"

Antonina's grin was wide, and almost feral.

"You tried to get Kanda to dance? That's pathetic."

"Yeah, yeah," Daisya sighed, starting to feel more comfortable. Insults were a walk in the park. "He was pathetic, I've got to say."

"No, I mean that you are pathetic."

"Kanda'd definitely say so. But anyway, I can't play music."

Daisya shrugged, lifting upturned hands for emphasis. Antonina seemed to see him like some curiosity, the way her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Hmm," she said, dragging out the sound theatrically, "But you can dance, you say?"

"Sorta. There was nothing much to do at home, and there were some musicians that liked to play jigs and stuff. And we danced at the festivals."

Antonina smiled again, this time softly.

"All right, I can work with this. A dance, yes, I think…"

She launched into a jumping song that conjured up a piano with cracked keys, sitting on wooden slats in an inn full of life and heat against the freezing windowpanes. Funny, how mid-morning seemed to become night. The music filtered into your brain, and brought out all the scenes you remembered from back home or that book you liked once.

Maybe Antonina liked it because of that.

Speaking of memories, they were coming fast back to Daisya. Just after his tenth birthday, the fair they held at the solstice. His brothers fought over who got to give wildflowers to the girl next door and who had to give them to his sister. There was a dancing competition. There weren't any prizes, but he'd gone in anyway. He was the best. He knew it. All the other ones were just tripping over their own feet, but all the football practice had paid off. He hadn't won. None of them liked him. His father'd had to come looking for him for dinner. He'd spent the day up on the cliffs, wandering around. It was better than listening to the same old boring songs and speeches.

He was better than them.

Right foot, left foot, jump, turn around, arm up, take the imaginary girl's hand, start again. Kanda had seemed embarrassed back in…where was it…somewhere in Austria. Anyhow, Daisya couldn't understand why. It was just stepping around, hopping up and down. Kanda wasn't an idiot; he should have been able to do it.

As the music continued, he couldn't help but follow some of the more complicated, well-trodden steps the older kids had taught him; before he got far, the music started to ramble, and change keys.

C sharp minor, A major, B major, F sharp minor, G sharp minor. He couldn't name them, but the spring left his step.

Antonina seemed to have forgotten him standing there.

"Sounds beautiful," he commented.

The pianist laughed throatily. "It always does. It compensates for me."

Daisya felt he should probably say something encouraging. It worked on his sister and brothers, at least.

"But you're—"

"Don't lie."

Antonina's voice fell from her throat like a snake, heavy and writhing down into the lowest register Daisya had heard from a girl.

Too late, he remembered why he'd never tried going up to her before. You never could quite tell what Antonina was going to do next.

"You know what we are," she continued simply, starting to grin, "Tell me, would any boy fall for a woman like me?"

The air that had been easy to breathe a moment ago was suddenly full of dust and debris, ready to coat your throat in plaster. Daisya took the moment of shock to look at her. Sallow skin, sunken eyes, wide mouth, crooked teeth. Thick knuckles on the one hand she had. A rough, discoloured patch of skin where the other hand once was, and a mass of tangled, matted coarse hair that was already shading from brown into grey. But, you know what they say: beauty is on the inside.

Trying to remember her actions, reactions, likes, dislikes, he formed a mental picture of her. Bitter and resentful, obsessing over her music and her own mutilation, loud and careless. She shifted from laughing to sullen in a matter of seconds, and back again, and like now, handed out insults as she wallowed in self-pity, trying to draw out words that she could twist to her own use.

"Probably not."

"Exactly. It's difficult to find some love, like this. You know you would have a hard time finding a girl to like you."

"Hey—"

Suddenly, she reached forwards and wrapped her fingers around Daisya's wrist, pulling him towards her. He froze up — could smell the rankness on her breath, and see the red veins standing out in the yellowing whites of her eyes. The claw-like fingers curled tighter, and a rope of filthy hair bound his other wrist.

"Some advice I have for you: give up."

Her own Innocence curled around her neck. She looked like a fairy-tale witch, but suddenly Daisya didn't find them so cool any more; instead, it was terrifying.

"Look at you," she spat, "You're hideous. Underneath those bandages that you like so much, you look like some diseased carcass brought back to life."

The ice was spreading through his body. Hadn't he heard that one of the others had killed someone? Someone's dog? Something real, not an akuma. The tattoo his heart was beating against the inside of his ribs made him sure that this girl had choked the life out of a living thing.

Half her teeth were missing, he could see. White tendrils of scar tissue reached down from her temple, meeting up with the ghost of a slash that had just barely missed her eye.

"But still you have a chance," she continued zealously, "People don't love people like us, you understand?"

You understand? You understand?

Daisya didn't, not really, not as he stared blankly at Antonina. Mom had still worried about him, no matter what, and Dad still chased after him. He'd had more than he'd wanted.

In time, he'd learn that he should have. Sun, moon, distance, burning. He knew. He just didn't understand, not yet.

"I will tell you," Antonina stated, setting down the words in stone, "You will never find happiness. Accept it. You will learn to live."

At last, his chest loosened just enough for him to speak. Even like this, sarcasm was just too tempting to pass by.

"T-that so?"

He could just about see the whites of his eyes reflected in hers. This lady was intense.

"Yes," whispered Antonina, "Then you will survive. Because you will not be me."

She let go, fingers and Innocence uncurling, and Daisya stumbled backwards. He caught himself, but still moved away as if from a fire, trying to rub life back into his wrists.

"Please live."

Silently, she turned away. The only sound that remained was the faint chatter filtering through the halls, and the creaking of floorboards as Daisya hurriedly backed off. The room that had seemed so small and claustrophobic was again illuminated by a watery light, second-hand from the dining hall windows.

Things seemed to shift once he was out of reach. He couldn't say why; it was just the same as the difference between activated and unactivated Innocence. The feeling of fear, of desperation just seemed to dry up.

And funnily enough, it was only once Daisya had stepped away that he could see how she was hunched over, shoulders trembling. He might have said that she was crying, but her expression didn't change, or collapse into a grimace. It was just the same as ever, dull and melancholy, as a few tears spilt over the edge of her eyelids. Still the same blank, dark eyes.

"How about another song?" she asked quietly, turning back to the piano as if nothing had happened, "A jig would rather suit you better than a waltz. I do like them…"

A jaunty melody punctuated her speech. It sprang up, turned on a key, and ended with a nice low hop.

"This?"

Another, slower one drifted through the air.

"Or this?"

Somehow, the fear had drained out of Daisya. She was just like his sister — throwing a tantrum.

"The first one. It's more fun."

"Good choice, good choice," Antonina answered, red-rimmed eyes now crinkling in a smile. "Run along, boy."

Time to go. He knew his sister. The aftershocks from her crying fits could go on for days.

"Thanks!"

He yelled it out over his shoulder, and ran down the stairs.

…

Eight days later, Lenalee had locked herself in her room. Isaac and Jeanne murmured quietly in contrast to their usual loud chatter. Kiki didn't speak at all. Dris and Helle talked more than ever. Marie had gone to the chapel early in the morning, Kanda said, and hadn't come out until lunch. As for Antonina, Daisya hadn't seen or heard her for two days.

When Daisya asked Kanda, he muttered something about a mission in White Russia. When he asked Marie, he got a nice long story about a transfer to the Asian Branch.

Music still cascaded down over the dining hall on occasion, but it was the soft hum of the strings, and not the bright sound of the piano.

…

In the dining hall, there was a corner near the kitchen. Each day, there was a bit of sunlight that shone there. The heat from the kitchen fires meant that it was always warm, and dirt and food scraps had built up there, turning the plaster into a garden for one small weed. It didn't follow the normal pattern of the year, with the odd heat, so even in November Daisya found a few trodden-on yellow flowers growing there. They'd do, for now.

He gathered a few, and picked a couple of the serrated leaves while he was at it. Unlike the flowers, they looked cool.

It was ten days after he'd found the music room, but he was still able to navigate his way to it. It was on a little level between floors, and you had to use the utility stairs to get to it; that or the dumbwaiter. There were a few servants' rooms on the same floor, but not much else.

The door was unlocked — Marie probably left it like that — so he sneaked in, trying not to make much noise. You didn't interrupt a pianist.

Inside, it looked the same as it had. The bench was just off to the side a bit, and a thin layer of dust had settled on the keys. When he reached the piano, Daisya took a moment to think.

Then placed the small bundle of thin-petaled flowers on the keys.

It wasn't much, but it was something. Daisya figured that he owed that much. After all, if no one respected someone while they were alive, then it was due to the dead.

It's what he'd want if he kicked the bucket. They wouldn't know how great he'd been 'til he was gone.

Explanation: Antonina became a Fallen One. Like Lenalee, she grew to hate her Innocence so much that her synch rates fell. I wanted to take a look at an exorcist who didn't have any goals in life - Lenalee lives for her brother and her friends, Kanda lived to find Alma and now lives to try and atone for his sins, Daisya lives to have fun, and Marie lives because he's reached a peace with himself and has decided never again to give up. Antonina, on the other hand, doesn't like being an exorcist, and doesn't care enough to want to fulfill the duty of an exorcist. Her Innocence has cost her a hand and a home, and the ability to play as she used to. I find it quite amazing that more exorcists don't Fall, because frankly it's a pretty sucky job. Adding to her list of just general problems is her lack of balance and her belief that she will never be able to form any good relationships because she's pretty hideous, and difficult to get along with, but it's her resentment of the Innocence for all the troubles it's caused her that led to her eventual demise. Not a Good Time, and with the fate of an exorcist generally being death at a young age, not likely to get much better.

This soooo did not write itself as I'd storyboarded it in my head and I'm unsatisfied with it but it ends up having a tiny bit of thematic significance later, so I just have to put it out here and hope no one notices the bad pacing. Anyhow, back to regular programming hopefully within the next week.