Chapter II: Then lost is truth that can't be won
x
Haru does not recognise the man who stands on her doorstep at first.
He looks at her though as if she is the sun and moon and it is that look – that reckless heartfelt affection – that lends her to belief when he introduces himself.
She cradles his hands – still gloved, almost the same – in hers, and her eyes roam over the emerald-green eyes, the ginger hair, the parts of him that speak of the Creation he had once been. "But… how?"
"Magic."
x
In the beginning, Baron dreams of escape.
He has survived so many close calls, made narrow escapes from so many fallen-through plans in his time in the Bureau, that it seems unimaginable that he should have finally found himself in a situation with no exit.
Someone will find me, he thinks. Someone will see me and bring me back to the Creation world.
But while those who travel from one world to the other seem to move at no faster than a gentle trot to him, that time passes by in the blink of an eye for the traveller in question.
They do not see him and so there he remains.
x
Becoming human takes more than just changing shape, and Haru helps lead Baron through the merry dance to settle him in this brave new world. As they set to filling out the many, many forms, Haru remarks that it would be quite possible for him to still go by Baron. "After all," she adds, "there are stranger names out there."
Still he hesitates, pen poised above the paperwork. "Still… new face, new life," he says, and there's something odd in his voice; "might as well make it official with a new name too."
It's his life, so she can't argue.
But still, something twists in her when she sees the name Humbert alone.
x
He clings to the hope of discovery for a long while, even as the unmarked time bears down on him and the vacuum of the void begins to erode the edge of his memories.
Haru will find me, he thinks, although there are times he cannot remember who this elusive Haru is anymore. Toto. Or Muta, his mind supplies, but even they are slipping from him.
He knows he has not been here forever, but time flows differently in the void between worlds, and so the months that have rolled on in the realms beyond pass like small eternities for him. Time is infinite, but his memory is not, and so he watches his past fall away from him in inches.
x
It's like a fairytale. Against all the odds, she and Baron – Humbert – have found their happily ever after. And it is a happily ever after.
The first few years pass by in a blissful blur, a melody of laughter and kisses and impromptu waltzes across the kitchen.
More years pass and routine settles.
Something is lost.
This is what you wished for, she reminds herself. The honeymoon period was never going to last forever. So be realistic. Be content.
Be happy.
x
She will find me, he thinks, but her name has gone.
It bothers him less than it should.
After all, his own name has been lost to him for so long already.
x
Eventually, she faces the truth.
There is something wrong with Humbert.
No. Not wrong. To say that would be to do him a disservice. There is nothing uncanny about him – at least, not anymore… and maybe that's the issue.
In the intervening years since his first arrival on her doorstep, human and familiar and unfamiliar, the lingering remnants of his Creation life have faded. He no longer reaches for the missing top hat, instinctively going to tip it in greeting; nor does he stumble when he forgets a tail no longer counterbalances him. And while his eyes lost their enamel shine upon his first foray into humanity, his gaze has tempered since. Gone is the otherworldly glimmer, that knowledge from a life spent alongside Creations and spirits and magic. Even Hiromi makes a passing comment on how Haru's boyfriend has cooled off since his arrival into their lives.
He is human, with everything that entails.
There is still something of Baron about Humbert. His smile. His laughter. His kindness – but sometimes Haru feels that the latter is the only reason he is still beside her. He may have taken up a human mantel for her originally, but something has changed in the passing years.
She just doesn't realise how much has changed until she remarks back to their first meeting, and his eyes go blank.
"At the Sanctuary?" she prompts. "Back in the Creation world, with Toto and Muta?"
"Who are Toto and Muta?" he asks.
And that's when she learns the brutal truth. He is human all the way through, and that leaves room for nothing Creation.
Not even memories.
x
He does not remember who he is anymore. He only knows that something vital has been lost.
x
"I did remember once," Humbert says in the ensuing, heart-breaking conversation. "When I first arrived here, I knew. I remembered you–" and he looks to her with eyes she knows and yet doesn't anymore – "you were all I could think about, but in the time since…" He shakes his head. "I know I was once a Creation, as surely as you know you were once a baby, but I don't recall any of it."
"You don't remember our time together in the Creation world," Haru says.
You don't remember falling in love with me.
"Not anymore."
Haru is the first to break the grieving silence.
"Do you love me?"
"I could ask the same of you," Humbert replies.
"Of course I–"
"No," he says. "You loved Baron. You loved the dashing Creation who guided you through his world of monsters and spirits and who swept you off your feet. I asked if you love me. Or do you simply love the person I once was – the person I don't even remember being?"
Haru falters. "I care about you a great deal, Humbert."
"But it's Baron you long for."
She doesn't have a kind answer to that. She leans against the kitchen table, her energy suddenly spent. "You never did answer my question. Did you ever love me?"
If he hears the shift from present to past, Humbert doesn't comment. He wraps a hand around hers, caring, but nothing more. "Of course I love you, Haru; you're kind and funny and wonderful – but I cannot truly say I am in love with you." He pauses. "I tried. I had enough of Baron's memories at first to mistake his emotions for my own, and when that faded, I told myself it wasn't fair on you for me to give up just like that, that I would fall for you again, but…"
"But that never happened."
"Every time you look at me, it's like… I can feel it's Baron you're seeing. How can I ever fall in love with someone who's in love with someone else?"
"I'm sorry. I never meant to–"
"I know you didn't. But what do we do now?"
Haru tilts her head to meet his gaze. She knows that shade of green so well, and yet even now she finds herself searching for some glimmer of Baron. "Now," she whispers, "I let you go."
"Haru–"
She pulls her hand away from his, breaking the eye contact before she can read the heartbreak – or, worse yet, the relief – in Humbert's eyes. "You're right – I have been expecting you to be Baron, and that's not fair on you. You deserve to be your own person, with people who see that." She exhales, and searches for the strength for her next words. "And I don't think you'll find that with me."
"Thank you, Haru."
She smiles, because at least that hides the tears.
Before he leaves, he lays his cane – Baron's cane – on the table between them. "For what's worth, when I… became human, I don't think the Creation part of me just vanished. I think some of it might have been left behind."
x
He has no magic – not anymore – but wisps from the Creation world falls through. Sometimes it slips in from the gateway; other times it is left in the wake of the travellers who pass him by. It is half-formed magic, corrupted by its passageway into the void, and he knows it is not right but he gathers it up regardless. He collects this sickly, malformed potential, weaving together mismatching magic, until he possesses enough to bring motion back to his wooden limbs.
It works.
At least for a moment.
Heartbeat and breath return to him in a surge of magic, his body trading wood for flesh and blood, and briefly he is living.
Then the magic oozes from him like tar, and his form breaks.
He scrabbles to save what he can, but in the end his body is lost. His soul – or whatever remains of him – becomes tangled up in that corrupted, distorted magic. He tries to weave it a shape resembling the Creation he had once been – but finds he cannot recall what that form was.
Not anymore.
x
Perhaps she should cut her losses, she thinks. Perhaps she should bundle up that failed love and find happiness elsewhere – but Humbert's last words to her ring with an uncanny sort of truth. She has known for a while that there was something missing, something lost, and she cannot shake the feeling that it's still waiting to be found.
"Look, even if this – this Baron still exists in his original Creation form," Hiromi says, as she watches her best friend pack, "don't you think he would have reached out to you by now? Why go running back to the Creation world for someone who hasn't even bothered to contact you in all the time you've been with Humbert?"
"I just – I need to check for myself," Haru says.
"Then why not just contact the other Creations – Toto and Muta? – and ask them what's going on?"
Haru digs out her passport and tucks it into her rucksack. Baron's cane, now no longer in use, is tied along the side. "I have. They haven't replied."
Hiromi is silent for a long moment. Then: "So maybe that's a sign that they've moved on and you need to too."
Haru slows. "Hiromi–"
"I'm your best friend, Haru. I don't want to say it, but I have to. Please, I need to know you know what you're getting yourself into."
All of a sudden, Haru's arms are around Hiromi, hugging her friend tight. "I do," she promises. "I'm ready to accept the truth, whatever it may be."
"I hope so. Because the Creation world is a long way to go to kick the butt of the guy who broke my friend's heart, but I will do it," Hiromi mutters into Haru's shoulder. "I'll make 'em pay for the portal tickets and all."
Haru laughs and hugs her friend tighter and prays the next time she sees Hiromi, this whole mess will have been put behind them.
One way or another.
x
Those who pass through the void don't just leave magic in their wake.
Most people have memories already on the verge of forgetting – a childhood recollection, a throwaway line, yesterday's dinner – and these are often unknowingly abandoned in the void. They are only fragments, but they are testament to identities beyond his own blank canvas. And, as he did with the magic from before, he hoards these shed memories.
For maybe, somewhere among these shattered recollections, there may be a clue of who he had been before.
He does not know if any of these memories – of the people buried in them – are him, but he leaves nothing to chance. Since losing his physical form, his shape has been a thing of magic and soul – malleable in the right hands – and so he tries on faces and figures, hoping at least one will ring true.
None do.
But perhaps.
Perhaps the next memory will fit better.
x
She sends multiple more letters to the Creation world as she prepares to travel.
None garner a reply. Not even the ones mentioning her ensuing visit.
"First time through?" asks the woman who stamps her ticket.
"Second, actually," Haru replies. "Well, technically third, but the first time was… something else." She accepts her ticket back and barely notices when her grip creases the paper.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it. It's perfectly safe."
"Nothing ever goes missing?"
The woman hesitates. "The odd item, here and there," she admits. "Mail's notorious for vanishing. Magic isn't an exact science after all, but…" She shakes her head. "Just walk through the portal and you'll step right out into the Creation world – trust me, you won't even notice the distance."
Haru smiles, and doesn't correct the woman in that she doesn't fear the portal, but instead what truths lie beyond it. "Just walk through," she echoes. "I suppose I can manage that." She steps up to the dais. The portal shimmers blue and carries that tell-tale tickle of magic across her skin as she passes through, but instead of the bright sunshine of the Creation world, she finds herself in a strange nowhere place.
She watches her breath spiral up from her in a multi-coloured haze, and figures she must be in the halfway space, in the nothingness between realms.
"You won't even notice the distance," she echoes, and the sound of her own voice reassures her, lending her to confusion instead of panic. "Yeah, that worked out well."
"You," says a voice. "I know you."
She turns towards the voice and stumbles back. A creature of smoky darkness, humanoid but with a silhouette blurred by the curdling shadows, stands before her. Even as she watches, the shape flickers. Rolls like the sea. She sees antlers rise up from its head then sink back down again, only for the frame of the face to shiver and possess a mane before, that too, merges back into the silhouette. It reaches an arm – wing – paw – claw – out to her and she backs away.
"What are you?" she demands.
"Your name is–" and the voice shifts even in those few words, accent, tone, and pitch changing as if each were spoken by a different person. "You are Haru Yoshioka."
A shiver runs down her spine. "I know my name. Who are you?"
It reaches out for her again and this time she is too slow to retreat. The arm lashes out with sudden speed and a clawed hand curls around her wrist. "I know you," it repeats. "Why?"
She thrashes, but the grip holds firm – and then it alters. The claws retract and something akin to a human hand now keeps her in place. It feels… off, somehow though. Strangely padded, with a smoothness of a–
Of a glove.
Her breath hitches at the same moment the creature's does.
"You know me."
She shakes her head. "No, I–"
Impossible.
Its hand still about her wrist, it steps closer. The blank space where the eyes should be flicker, and emerald green eyes – human – blink. "You recognise me. Why?" The eyes blink again, and now they are angular. Feline. "Why?" it growls.
Haru opens her mouth and finds no words. The creature's form has stilled; it no longer rolls between shapes, but instead is settling. The darkness gathers, surer of itself now. A muzzle protrudes from the face and stays; ears rise from between a top hat; a tail swings behind. Even as she recalls Baron's morning suit, she sees buttons line up along a jacket.
"You remember me," it says. The voice wavers, and then finds purchase on the voice Haru knows so well. It is desperate. But it is his voice. "You know who I am."
Her wrist burns with the ice-cold of his touch. She tries to free her hand, but it is like wrestling with stone. "Please, let me go–"
"WHO AM I?"
"Baron, please–"
At the name, his grip falters. It is enough that when arms wrap around her waist and hoist her back, his hold breaks. She is yanked out of the nothingness between worlds like a worm on a hook, too fast for the Baron creature to reclaim her, but slow enough to see his form shatter into a bestial shape and lung after her. The world turns blue and she falls to the stone dais of the portal gateway, surrounded by chaos and shouting and panic. The darkness that had been – is – Baron reaches through the blue portal, thorn-like limbs tipped with claws that grasp at the stone archway. She feels herself dragged back by the portal guard who had retrieved her and she knows those claw are reaching out for her.
The blue portal becomes swallowed up by blackness, tar-like magic dripping down the steps and then the archway–
The archway cracks.
The portal fails and suddenly there is only empty air across its threshold. All that remains is the marred stone arch and the pools of corrupted tar-like magic.
Haru gingerly touches her wrist. An ice burn marks the place where the creature – where Baron – had gripped her. "What the hell?" she whispers.
x
In the emptiness of the nothingness between worlds, he – Baron – remains.
A name, he thinks. I have a name.
And with that comes the remnants of an identity he had almost forgotten, almost lost in the void. He remembers a small house, a home, with cream walls and green moulding. He recalls the taste of homebrewed tea; the feel of feathers beneath his hands and wind through his fur, the breathlessness of laughter lightening his lungs.
His friends.
He raises a hand to his face and tries to summon the memories he had glimpsed through Haru.
"I wished to be safe; in that moment, that's all I wanted. I suppose it knew what it was doing when it brought me to you."
"So for once in your life, look after yourself and sleep."
"Just for the record, Baron, I think I might be a little bit in love with you."
The memories that follow on from that are unfamiliar, from a time after him. From the time stolen from him by the part of him that gained human form. He sees his human self appearing on her doorstep, full of hope and love and excitement for the future ahead. He sees the laughter and the tightly held hands and the blushing cheeks–
He sees it change.
He sees his human self forget what had brought him there, forget what – or who – had driven him to discard his Creation side and, in the end, to walk away from Haru entirely.
All of this, he mourns. All I have become, and he throws it all away?