Hello! *waves faintly*
Still alive, been better but still alive, gratefully. ^_^ And crawling towards a well-needed winter break, that's something to look forward to. I don't know what else to say. I don't really think further than the next day and what I need to do to get through that. Sooo in other words I'm still your slightly awkward and somewhat adorkable writer, tinkering with the stuff I like to do when there is time to do it. Ah but look at me, still talking when there's writing to do! I've assignments not begun, there is research to be done
on the fanfic that is
still alive
And believe me I am
still alive
I'm doing school stuff and I'm
still alive
I feel befuddled and I'm
still alive
While you're being awesome I'll be
still alive
And when you're reading I'll be
still alive
Still Alive
/Dimwit (who blows a kiss at Ellen McLain's dedication + autograph from GLaDOS hanging above their bed)
A/N: I don't own or profit from any of what Kazue Katou has created.
Vatican City had the world's best post office. That something is the best doesn't mean it can't get better – just the other day an American swimmer had set a new world record in 50m freestyle. As far as the Vatican went, it could improve its short distance relay race game. Currently it did not deliver large parcels of the kind Shiro had sent from Japan before he left, and thus he found himself on another discovery stroll from Via Umbria to the Vatican, absentmindedly fanning himself with the reference number they had mailed to him. That wasn't the only official mail he had gotten: his training as seminarian would commence in a week or so, too. Fucking surreal. The Pontifical University had sent him schedules and recommendations and detailed lists of what he was allowed and not allowed to wear. Suffice to say that one of the lists was significantly shorter than the other.
Shiro tugged at the characteristic standing collar of his black dress shirt, hoping to create a somewhat wider gap for his body to breathe through. Catholicism did really not take into account that it was a religion that had arisen on the shores of the Mediterranian.
So this was where all the little souvenir shops were at. Via Urbana, he'd remember that. It was a jovial place, modest in size but determined to make the most of it, and succeeding quite well at that. Several houses that didn't actually fit were still resolved to be part of the street, crowding tightly together on both sides in every variety of height and width and shade of ocre, giving the impression they were trying to counter the teetering of the uneven cobblestone pavement like sailors balancing out the heaving of the deck. Via Urbana was nicely tucked away from direct sun, something to be grateful for in July, and offered a small café on every block, like a host inquiring repeatedly if you would like some tea – except they never served tea, only that nose-hair curling coffee.
As far as postcards went, Shiro had struck gold. Every roller shutter porch he passed opened to a small, even more crowded boutique where tourists milled about in a dozen different languages. He stopped to look at every one that sold cards, but it was all Colosseum, Forum Romanum, Fontana di Trevi, and St Peter's Basilica. He tried straight up asking one shop owner if he had any cards of goats in trees, because sometimes you're just in the mood for being a nuisance. Especially if you look like a priest.
The shop didn't have any goat cards.
Maybe Midori wouldn't want a goat card. Maybe she and Sen had given up on him at last – if Kasumi told them what he had done. How far in on the deep end he was. If she told them. What she told them. Shiro let out a breath, half air and half snarl, ran his fingers through his hair. Clenched them. Tugged. He wouldn't know how much Kasumi had said unless he heard from them first – and he'd told them he'd write a long letter. On what? Defending the choice to let Samael have his blood? Well what if Kasumi had tactfully kept her mouth shut about that? But conversely, if he wrote a letter mentioning everything but that, and it turned out Kasumi had talked about the contract…
Shiro tugged at his hairs again, doing his old orphanage mistress' job. God, the more people involved, the more complicated did things get.
He'd just have to wait for them to make a move, see how much they knew and where they stood.
Shiro turned the last corner before his destination. The post office lay near St Peter's Square, just past the Barracks where Bébé had shown him around.
Hey…
Any thoughts still wandering snapped to attention, homing in on the woman peeping through the windows of the Barracks. In part because she was very obviously snapping photos she wasn't allowed to, and in part because she was balancing on top of her Vespa seat to reach. But what really drew Shiro's attention was the familiar cloud of bright red curls under the beret she wore.
He tiptoed cautiously ahead in case the crazy woman from the beach was going to try any other bizarre stunts. No idea what to do if he caught her but this time he'd make sure he had the upper hand. One thing he would do for sure was to question her about taking pictures of the Papal Guard in a restricted area. No security personnel wants their routines documented by someone who could very well be–
A car honked. Cars honked in Rome all the bloody time, but you still flinched and turned your head because of the suddenness of the sound. Shiro did. The photographer did. For half a second they made eye contact, and their lips mouthed a simultaneous "shit".
Shiro tore towards the woman, who only had to hop down from her balancing point and kickstart the Vespa. He didn't even come close to catching her.
"Shit…" He watched the driver disappear around a corner into the labyrinthine layout of Rome.
When he was at the actual post office, the seminarian dress code wasn't that bad. The thick stone walls of the Vatican guarded well against both enemies and heat, and they'd offer great opportunities for climbing. In case he ever needed to break into any of the old buildings. The steep façades were pockmarked by time, the salt winds of the Mediterranian, and the occasional iron ring that tickled the miscreant side of people like Shiro.
"Yeah hi – I'm here to pick up a delivery." The clerk collected his reference number and name and headed for the storage at the speed of someone who is in no particular hurry to do his job. Within the thick stone walls. Guarded against enemies.
That weird photographer. Call it a hunch, call it whatever: Shiro had a feeling he would keep running into her and her pink Vespa, like some manga character crossing paths with their arch enemy in all unlikely places. Next he'd spot her camped out in a tree. Or in a public bathroom. Or drifting down the Tiber disguised as jettisoned cargo.
Shiro's mind had abandoned all trace of seriousness by the time the post office door opened. Never mind having to wear seminarian uniform in summer, the girl from pharmacology class wore the full exorcist robes. Buttoned.
"Hi, umm…" What was her name again? "Luka."
It took her a moment to place his face, too. "Oh, hello. Alexander, was it? That is what you prefer to be called?"
"Sort of. People here can't pronounce my other name."
"Is Alexander what you prefer to be called?" she repeated.
"I'd prefer to be called Bruce Lee the Second but it never seems to catch on."
"Do you really intend to become Paladin?"
Oh come on…
"That was a bad joke someone pulled out of his ass just to piss people off. Seriously, what kind of guy would ever step up and say 'I will be the next Paladin'?"
"I will be the next Paladin."
Shiro stilled mid-sentence, his mouth still hanging open to continue. Then he closed it. Just in case something stupid was about to come out. Luka's face – Luka's aura – said he might get a mouthful of knuckles if he tried making a joke out of this.
"Right. That's… cool. So – why do you wanna become Paladin?"
This was weird. This sensation. So very weird, what was…?
"To restore balance." Luka responded with a serenity that clashed jarringly with the static that flicked Shiro's skin like snake tongues. It pressed against his eardrums, tugged the hairs of his neck on end, and most of all confused the shit out of him.
"Right…" Shiro felt like a bird trying to outfly a storm. He didn't know what would happen if the pressure kept building and he didn't want to find out. "What's that?" He had to say something, anything. Even the most obvious thing, like pointing at the slip of paper in Luka's hand and asking about it. Any way out of whatever was happening in that post office – since apparently no one else seemed to feel their skin crawl in beneath itself.
"Western Union tracking number", she responded. Easily. She couldn't be sensing anything either. "For my family in South Africa."
"That's where you're from?"
"Yes."
The static faded, slowly, like rain and thunder blowing past and abating towards the horizon. He didn't understand that either. God, he didn't understand anything right now.
"Is it a big family?"
"Why do you ask?"
Luka got a look on her face then, of someone with a compulsive need to protect something already lost. It was a look that threw Shiro back two years, to the sweat and soreness of exorcist P.E., and to what Shizuku had said in the changing room: that certain words in certain places can open old wounds. Words like sacrifice. Words like family.
"Why not? Don't know much about you, gotta start somewhere." He shrugged. "Our Knight instructor actually assigned us that for homework. Once a week the class goes out to a restaurant to eat and get to know each other. Wanna come? I mean, it's basically the same people in pharmacology class, except you and… the guy with that thing on his head."
"The patka."
"You know what that is?"
"Of course." Of course. Everyone and their dog knew what a patka was. "There are Indian people in South Africa, some of them are sick."
"I get that they're sick, but why do they have that thing on their heads?"
"Because. They are sick." Luka was trying hard to sound like she wasn't explaining the obvious to a five-year-old. She managed to sound like he was at least eleven but playing dumb.
"But why- Oh fuck it." Seminarians probably didn't use language like that. Well. Fuck that, too. "Wanna have dinner with the Knights or not?"
"Tell me when and where and I will come. Excuse me." Luka was a quick writer. The pencil on the telegram form moved as fluently as her speech, and without the wobbles and stutters of Shiro's writing. She glanced at him. "This Knight instructor of yours – is it Benedetto Battista?" Shiro nodded. Damn. Another one who could speak and write at the same time. "I had him, too. He's a good man. Warm. Considerate. But his daughter – her I would strangle with her own hair."
"Fulmine? Why?"
"She is that kind of woman." She punctuated the telegram – and the statement – with a sharp dot. "Anyway, the short introduction is I'm twenty four years old and have a Middle Second Class Knight rank from Dahomey and an Upper Second Class Tamer rank from Italy. I came here three years ago and since then I've been working and sending money home. I enjoy cooking and dancing and swimming."
"That sounds like an introduction from 3rd grade", he chuckled, relaxing into a lopsided grin as the atmosphere grew less and less oppressive.
Luka didn't do much chuckling. Arms akimbo she looked at him intently, like one trying to read something in very small lettering. "Was that a joke? Or was it an insult?"
"Bit of both, I guess? Mostly a joke. You know, when you're new in school and the teacher asks you to say something brief about yourself in class."
Luka's features went from reading something in small lettering to questioning the author's grasp on spelling. "How much do you know about South Africa, Alexander?"
"It's the southern tip of Africa, and…" He could chance a guess that the country was poor. Most African countries were poor. She was sending money to her family, that should have been clue enough.
Shit.
Because while Shiro knew next to nothing about South Africa, he did know the struggles of not having money.
"…I realise maybe you haven't… gone to school. Sorry. I feel stupid now."
"That's good." A hint of humour flickered across Luka's face. It had a softening effect that spread surprisingly quickly, smoothing her interrogational stance to one with hand and paper hanging comfortably at her side. "People usually respond with pity. I hate that."
"Mh. Makes the victim feel even more like a victim." Poor penniless boy who lost his parents, poor disgraced son of a cheated mother and an alcoholic father – when the world had nothing useful to offer, it buried you in pity until all you ever were was a victim. "Instead of people being angry at the bastards who made them victims in the first place."
He must have said just the right thing, because Luka looked at him differently then, as if his features had sharpened and his colours gained deeper nuances.
"We were seven in my family when I left." It took Shiro a moment to catch on when she answered his earlier question. "Mother and father, three younger brothers and one younger sister. I don't know how many we are now. Maybe I have another little sibling, maybe my brothers have married and started families of their own – I don't know."
"They don't write you? Or call?"
"No." Her thumb smoothed the telegram paper in her hand, making that faint, hissing noise only paper makes. "There used to be a man in a village nearby who helped them write, but he may have been relocated. Or imprisoned. Or killed."
It was matter-of-factly in a way that was startling – partly because Shiro was familiar with that, too. The lack of money, the nauseating pity, this: it's a strange feeling. To have travelled so far away and feel like you've come back home.
The world of crime was not unlike the world of demons. Parallel. Secret. Exclusive only to those who knew to spot what hid in plain sight. It was a reality apart from reality itself, created by law of might makes right to parasitise on the society that birthed it. The world of crime had taught him the vigilance that comes with never knowing who would be alive by the end of tomorrow, and taught him the pragmatism – callousness? – needed to keep moving despite that.
"When was the last time you heard from them?" he asked.
"May 12th, 1976."
"That's…" Long. Too long. Long enough to button every shiny bit of metal in your uniform up to keep it in and busy yourself with work. Shiro knew that strategy, too. "You haven't thought of going back, just to check that everything is okay?" Because that strategy only got you so far.
"I will go back when my country is free." Luka managed to sound as determined and solemn as if she were decreeing God's will. And maybe she were – whatever that prickling, buzzing sensation was, it was rumbling faintly through his nerves again. Still no one else reacted to it. The personnel took orders, the customers chit-chatted, the rustle of paper and pencils carried on undisturbed. The clerk came wheeling his parcel out on a trolley: Shiro raised his hand a fraction, to show he had seen it and that it was okay to leave it there.
"Look…" Shiro scratched his nose, trying to think of the best way to word this in a language he mastered only superficially, "I'm the last person to tell people what to do, but do you really think you should wait that long? You really think that's a smart move?"
Luka raised her chin, daring him to say that again. "I can wait as long as it takes." She was decreeing her own will. It just happened to be as immutable as God's.
"Yeah but your family? Can–" Can they wait? No. They couldn't. Some words open wounds that aren't old at all – Luka hid them at the bottom of her eyes, in the iron hold on every muscle pushing back the fear he was about to name. "Can no one teach them to write? If they go to a post orifice, can't someone there write for them?"
"…I think you mean office."
"I probably mean office", he agreed. The mistake had thrown Luka off balance. There was no static in his skin anymore, and no open wounds in her eyes – good. "And you've probably thought of all these things already."
"I have. More times than I can count." The words seemed to echo in the pause when she placed her telegram, Western Union slip, and money – the exact right amount of money – on the counter. "I wouldn't have guessed you were a seminarian."
Another bad joke someone pulled out of his ass.
"Well, the short introduction is I'm twenty years old and have a Lower Second Class Meister in Aria and Dragoon. I came here this summer and since then I've mostly been making people angry. I enjoy sleeping and shooting and exercising. All in all I do a great job of hiding my devotion to god."
This time he had not said the right thing. Maybe he didn't get South African humour, or maybe Luka just didn't like jokes in general. Either way, this diversion didn't work. At all.
"What brings you here?" She wasn't asking what brought him to the post office. Luka didn't ask trivial questions like that.
"To the post office? Picking up a parcel that was too big for delivery to my address. Great for the exercising part."
Shiro covered the few steps to the counter without looking at her. They were both done with their business here, no need to remain and chit-chat. As he hefted the cumbersome box, an envelope unexpectedly slipped off its top. Luka picked it up for him, dark eyes sliding over it before wedging it in under a cardboard flap on the box.
"Letter from home?"
Yes. The envelope stared him in the face, wearing stamps from Japan and his address penned in a poor excuse for Latin script. The only kanji there was the sender's name, one he was intimately familiar with.
"From my family." Certain words in certain places – indeed.
"I'm happy for you."
He hated it. The look she wore on her face when she said that. The way it went straight through him and tore out everything it touched in the passing. He hated it.
"Don't be."
The look faltered, then vanished, and Luka seemed like that dam Larry had described. Quivering with each shock of lightningless thunder.
"Matthew 7:6. An Aria should be familiar with that verse." There were barbs in that voice, like the rasp of a cat's tongue. "A seminarian should be familiar with its meaning."
Of course he was. Matthew 7:6 was part of Christ's sermon on the mountain, used to exorcise lesser demons of water kin. That wasn't why she was bringing up that verse. Not in that manner, not in that voice. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet.
Ungrateful.
For photos and money and future that Satoshi had offered him.
For truth and insight Samael had given him – happy birthday.
Ungrateful.
"Only swine and no pearls in this family." Shiro quirked a sweet smile that withered rotten around the edges. A snarl churned in his chest, cauterising the wound like burning coal. "And yeah that includes me, so don't waste your efforts."
Luka didn't back down. Come to think of it, she didn't look like the type to ever back down.
"They're your family", she said evenly, in spite of teeth and taut shoulders and black eyes going shades of deeper black.
"They can go die for all I care." He walked past Luka. Part of him knew it was a bad idea: the last, stupidly brazen thing you do before getting stabbed in the back, or something along those lines. Another part – a very big-mouthed one – liked to push situations. See how far he could go. Liked it a little too much. "See ya for dinner."
In the end, Luka didn't follow him out the door. Her words did.
"Then you deserve to be alone!"
Breathe.
Shiro's steps fell heavily on the pavement, most of that weight not from the box. The sizzling of burning coals still fought in his chest. His lungs tightened despite his best efforts to breathe things out, a feeling gaining company from the department just below, where his gut was shifting uncomfortably, as if telling him that he had gone and done a dumb thing again.
Shiro forced a sharp huff of air through his nose. Doing dumb things was his trademark. In his defence, he had been tempted to snidely ask if she was equally familiar with Matthew 7:1, a neat little verse amounting to Judge not, that ye be not judged – show Luka she wasn't the only one who could insult in Bible. Worse yet, it had been on his tongue to say that he at least hadn't left his family behind to starve or be slaughtered. It had been there, itching, curled behind his teeth like those unclean Biblical dogs preparing to pounce.
All in all, he had given the most civil response he could manage.
Shiro hadn't planned on actually carrying the parcel all the way to Via Umbria. Not when there were buses that would save his arms and back. But he hadn't lied to Luka: he did enjoy exercising. When muscles gasped for oxygen they burnt fuel from other sources instead, burnt and burnt, until his head was clear and misty all at once and he could barely keep his balance standing up. Exercising, exorcising. For those inner demons that refused to die. So Shiro walked, and walked, and the fatigued tremor in his limbs burnt the ghost of that birthday out of his system.
Maria was like a mosquito that fed on patience. Always buzzing and never still. As soon as Shiro figured out where exactly she lived, he would start taking detours around that neighbourhood.
"Come ooooooon – what's in the box?!" The kid was glowing. Like it was a surprise gift for her, not a parcel a complete stranger was carrying home to his apartment. "Tell me tell me tell me pleeeease?!" The stray dog – Gino – kept pace beside her, like some sort of body guard in case Shiro turned out to be a mean complete stranger.
"It's little noisy children who didn't obey their parents, so now they're being sent to the Goblin Queen to be eaten."
Maria's mouth formed an awed oooh. "What does a Goblin Queen look like!?"
"Like a square jackdaw who doesn't give a shit." He kept that thought to himself and called tartly into the hallway: "I brought more stuff you're not supposed to touch!"
"Lunch is in the oven!" Modugno was great at subtext. Not even the most untrained ear could miss that he should be grateful he got any lunch at all.
"I can cook!" he called back, shuffling and puffing as he manoeuvred his load in the narrow space.
"While you are at work, too? Dio, the boy performs miracles!"
"And even I can't fix that bad hearing of yours!"
Shiro shouldered the door to his room open – oh how lovely, she'd been there again and made his bed. He had made his bed, too, that very morning. Just not neatly enough. Or something. Bloody woman never said why she kept intruding on him. All she did was complain that boys were untidy, or that boys needed to eat more when they were growing, lest they'd become pitiful linguine: then she'd run her eyes over him and shake her head. Shiro didn't bother to ask what linguine was.
He dumped the box with a groan, stretched the stiffness out of his muscles. Books and clothes and soap. How did it get that heavy? And where was he going to put it all? Queen Goblin didn't have any bookshelves in the spare room.
"If I stack them on the floor she'll complain about it." Shiro's huff turned into a snigger. "Then there might be a shelf next time I walk in." He could write it on a note and place on top of the books. That'd set her off.
He might have, if not for a discovery at the bottom of the box. He did not remember packing Princess Knight. He was quite sure he didn't even own Princess Knight. Samael did. Shiro vaguely recalled reading the series at his mansion, though not finishing it. Had he borrowed them…? And they had gotten swept down in the box with the rest of his books?
Would be a shame not to read them. In fact, Shiro picked one up straight away and sat down to read while eating his lunch. Who would have thought pasta sauce could splash so much when you ate with fork only, like a proper Italian? Such a pity. Samael was so particular with his books.
Princess Knight was the straightforward, superficial kind of story that didn't induce much in terms of thinking or investment. Princess Sapphire was unintentionally born with both a boy heart and a girl heart because God couldn't hire competent personnel, so the rest of the plot was about the angel responsible for the mistake trying to fix it without accidentally getting Sapphire killed, or outed, or both. She had to pose as male, since she was the sole heir in a kingdom that didn't allow female monarchs, which of course meant she had to dodge attempts at assassination and dethronement from wily courtiers with their trademark eyebrows of evil.
Reading kanji was nice. Not having to think when reading – not having to skip certain words or consult a dictionary – was relaxing in an almost luxurious way. Until Evil Eyebrows successfully busted Sapphire's act and crowned his son king: frustration is a type of investment, and Eyebrow's son was the worst little shit in the entire series.
Shiro chewed his pasta viciously through Sapphire's attempt to sneak into the castle unnoticed and steal back the crown. Oh, couldn't be that easy, of course – she'd lost her dagger earlier, when her sweetheart caught her off-guard and she had to very much not be Prince Sapphire In A Dress. So Eyebrow's sentries got her and imprisoned her in the castle dungeon, where… apparently she also had to dodge an evil witch wanting to steal her girl heart. Wow, if only it were that easy to fight demons: magical flashlight crucifixes. Handy.
Oh, the witch had a daughter, that's what she needed the heart for. Hecate was a terrible daughter, not sweet or girly at all, gotta get a human girl heart to amend that…
"Say what?" Shiro's outburst made a nice splatter of sauce on the page.
Hecate was doing just fine. Hecate seemed pretty damn cool, shapeshifting and fooling around with imps like the tomboy she was: her bitch-ass mother, on the other hand, had the nerve to claim Hecate was making her suffer by not being girly enough, by not agreeing to marry some Prince she had never met to rule some kingdom she didn't want – her mother just wanted to make her happy, and this was how she was repayed for her efforts?
"How about asking your fucking daughter what would make her happy…" Shiro speared another mouthful of food on his fork. Dropped it. Stabbed it again, twisted the fork too harshly and got sauce stains on both himself and the book. He was not getting upset by some children's story. It just happened to hit the same sore spot Luka and that bloody letter had already prodded. What were they playing at, trying to contact him on a different continent? And what business did she have, telling him to be grateful? She didn't know shit about his family situation, she had no right to make assumptions about him. Or lecture him.
…And he had no right to make assumptions about her. Or lecture her on life lessons he had failed because he perceived their experiences to be similar.
When we look upon the world, do we truly see it? Or is what we see merely the reflections of our own minds?
"Of course you had to be right, you Jesus-complex doormat." Shiro let out breath through his nose – a deep breath that would have needed the space of a mouth and not a nose. It drew long, like steam out of a kettle, spanning the width from annoyed to resigned. No, he knew absolutely nothing about South Africa. He did know he had a situation to sort out with Luka next time they met.
A/N
That large parcel should probably have been delivered by regular Italian post services. But I wanted Shiro in the Vatican, so. ^3^
Iron ornaments, called ferri, are Assassin's Creed players' best friends. They are quite common in Medieval and Renaissance buildings in Italy, foremost in the area where Rome is situated.
Dahomey was the name of Benin at the time Luka emigrated there and obtained her Knight license. I'm assuming most already know that at this time, South Africa was under Apartheid rule.