A/N: I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
Italian lessons had been assigned to a classroom Shiro had never heard of. Several turns of asking finally had him navigating the library building that housed literature in foreign languages. Top of the Eastern tower, the librarian had said. One reached it via a richly embellished spiral staircase in the corner. The room in question was a reading room, designed as a studiolo in Italian Renaissance style, but it had ended up being used as storage space. The miscalculation was, as it often is, the human factor: students couldn't be bothered to haul books up five floors of stairs just to read in a fancy environment.
When Shiro pushed open the creaky door, he found that the studiolo had been restored to its former function. Book cabinets, inlaid with the Order's emblem in intarsia, had been custom built to cover six of the octagonal tower's walls. Behind them, heavy, burgundy wallpaper climbed up to a frieze that encircled the room with the Order's motto: Bellum Fatum Vita Mori. Above it, the walls gathered in a deep blue dome painted with the stars and their constellations: Libra, Pisces, Hydra, Orion…
"Cosy, isn't it?"
Shiro's attention snapped to the high, stained glass window, where the thick tower walls provided a niche deep enough to sit in. And on the lavish, tasselled cushions in that niche, there did indeed sit someone already.
"You are gonna teach me Italian?"
Had there not been a very good reason for him to learn Italian, Shiro would have walked out and slammed the door behind him.
"I'm the only person in this school who is fluent in both Italian and Japanese", Samael clarified with casual ease.
Person, was it? Counting himself among the teachers, exorcists, students; humans. Without an ounce of shame. It was deliberate, no doubt: no words came out of that mouth by chance. And the bastard sat there, lounging, with a sassy smile that-
A smile that had always contained the challenge to go against him. Contest his position. Measure his skill. Play.
"I won't fucking play." Without a word, Shiro let the door click shut around them. "But I won't admit defeat by you." On cue, Samael rose from the niche, graceful as a cat, and assumed a seat at the plain wooden table at the centre of the room. Effortless. In control. "You knew my decision even before I made it, didn't you?" Shiro closed the distance to the other chair with no hurry and no hesitation, steadily meeting the vivid green eyes that matched the stained glass. "Every movement I make, you read. Every thought I have, you predict. Or plant." He dumped his books on the table and pulled out the chair to sit. "A smarmy fucking snake, that's what you a-"
"Buongiorno~!"
Shiro jumped back reflexively as Mephi- as Samael sprang up from the chair like some insane jack-in-the-box, arms spread and face beaming.
"Lesson one!"
Shiro's head jerked backwards, to avoid the finger shoved at his face: a motion that let him be successfully ambushed by the chair he had pulled out.
He crashed down gracelessly in a sprawl of limbs and furniture.
"Italians are very expressive, with body language and verbal language alike", the demon explained, surveying his floored handiwork with a pleased smile. "So when you talk, make sure to talk with your whole body."
Shiro took a moment to close his eyes and take a deep breath, to cool a compelling urge to throw things. Right. Samael taught by practical example.
Italian lessons would be hell.
A/N:
Bellum Fatum Vita Mori?
I'll say straight away that I'm not sure about which order to read the motto in, on the emblem, because I suck at heraldry. (Oi, Alina Wolve: got any ideas on that? =) ) And though "manga Latin" is vastly different from actual Latin, I gave translation a go. It didn't turn out very well. x'D Latin grammar being the hell it is, it's possible to get many different sentences. If you have any experience with Latin translation, please let me hear your opinion!
If you peek at the illustrations of the Order's emblem, there's two possible ways of reading the motto. It doesn't matter which, really, but the placement of fatum could determine its use as either verb or noun, and its relation to bellum could make the latter either a noun or an adjective. Anyhow:
1) Bellum fatum; vita mori – a beautiful fate, to die from life / to die in a vivacious manner
2) Bellum, vita: mori fatum – War, Life: (it is) fate to die (I would've liked an est here at the end, though) / War, Life: to die has been spoken
TL;DR
In essence: (beautiful) fate, war, life, and to die (either through something beautiful or through life itself). I suppose one can guess the gist of it, with or without coherent sentences.
luzmela1 has a poetic vein and did a looser but way more beautiful interpretation that I wanted to share with you: "The beauty of life is the fate to die."