Ivy occasionally wonders how it is she hasn't killed Siegfried before now. Now being one such instance, as she watches him storm from her library; the room shakes briefly as he slams the door behind him.
The boy really needs thicker skin, she reflects.
Undaunted and unwilling to let the former host of Soul Edge distract her from her work, Ivy turns back to the book on the table before her. It is a bit of a rarity in her collection – or perhaps more accurately her father's collection since it was he who amassed most of her library – in that it holds a very precise description of the cursed sword along with a treatise on it's history and attendant mythologies. That alone makes the book priceless; but as it is one book, and one alone, Ivy cannot help but also take a great deal of it's content with some caution. Having Siegfried here, however, has allowed her the opportunity to cross reference the contents against his first hand knowledge.
Siegfried had been quite game at first, and Ivy was able to establish that the description of the sword was fairly accurate, and that the various contradictions of this description further into the text about what kind of weapon it resembled were also upheld.
Soul Edge, according to Siegfried, changed it's shape to accommodate it's wielder, which would explain why history had such a hard time keeping track of it. However, even Siegfried shrugged helplessly at the part claiming that Fenris of Norse legend was a metaphor for the cursed sword. Comparing the soul devouring blade to a ravenous wolf might be appropriate, she reflects, but surely that was stretching it too far? Also, since there seemed to be no discernible explanation for what the Aesir had managed to bind the wolf with, it seemed like one to dismiss.
It was only when Ivy had started pushing Siegfried for more detailed information on how Soul Edge had bound Siegfried as it's host that she hit a brick wall. The sword lost a great deal of power when Siegfried first took it up, did he know that this was what caused the terrible fall of what became know as the Evil Seed, or variously the Devil's Rainfall? Siegfried had squirmed, before admitting that he knew something had happened, had perhaps associated it with his taking up of Soul Edge at the time, but hadn't really accepted it till sometime later. When Ivy had asked him to clarify when sometime later was, and why then, Siegfried couldn't answer. Or wouldn't, Ivy suspects, as when she had tried a different tact of questioning, Siegfried had clammed up altogether.
Finally Ivy lost her temper with him - heavens knew she had been patient beyond her natural capacity - and demanded the information she was asking, or what use was he? He had to stop hiding from the reality of what he had done or else they would get nowhere in this!
Siegfried had yelled back that she didn't know what she was asking of him, and had then stormed from the room...
Pathetic, Ivy thinks, with some relish, as she stares down at the open book with a grimace. Then sighs a little wistfully; if only she could get into his skull, into his soul, she could find what she needed to know. It's a shame such a feat isn't possible – and it isn't despite her alchemical skills and her modest ability with sorcery.
Useless boy, the next thought spits bitterly. What does he know of suffering, or guilt? He didn't slaughter his way across a third of Europe, the damned sword did that.
She has, though; taking the lives of so many she lost count, only to find herself fooled by the very thing she sought to destroy; she helped it, it had intended that she become it, the bastard thing had made her so that she could...
For a moment the world tilts, sickeningly, and Ivy grips the edge of the table with desperate fingers to keep herself upright. Commands her roiling stomach to obey and not spill it's contents from the strength of her sudden horror and self-loathing.
What does he know? She thinks bitterly as she clings to composure and does everything she can to prevent herself from collapsing into a quivering heap. It is her stubborn pride that keeps her standing. She is the Countess Valentine and she falls to her knees for no one and nothing.
The rush of emotion finally passes, and she finds herself still standing, though her legs tremble like a newborn foal's. Ivy stares down at the book again; rifles through the thick leaves almost aimlessly in an attempt to bring something to her attention that would be a worthy distraction, but she reaches the back cover without finding it.
She sighs again, and her shoulders slump. The bastard isn't even in the room and still he has managed to turn her from her work. The irritation it brings is almost enough to offset the anticipation of his usefulness to her and makes her think about killing him again...
No. She won't kill him, Ivy decides, but smacking him around a bit with the Ivy Blade would definitely make her feel better.
The thought makes her smile.
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Siegfried wonders how it is he hasn't yet strangled Isabella Valentine, as he stalks out into the gardens at the back of the house, starting down across the lawn toward the river bank. He deliberately ignores the tidy, gravel footpaths to tromp heavily over the wet grass, feeling the earth squelch beneath his feet. He does it to annoy her; because he can and because he feels the need to disrupt the order of her home, one that is swiftly becoming like another prison.
He is grateful, he admits, when he finally slumps down on the hard, wooden boards of the pavilion, head pressed against the railings as he stares out at the river. He is very grateful for the food in his belly, the clothes on his back and the soft bed at night. Yet it seems she goes out of her way to make his life difficult in every other respect; the last two weeks for him have been a exercise in restraint on his part, as she poked and prodded and needled, but even his deep apathy towards his own suffering is starting to protest at the treatment.
He wonders if she has been trying to provoke a response from him, or if it's just an aspect of her charming personality. He recalls, when he dares to think back – and it isn't often because every part of him flinches away – a sharp edged tongue, and words few spoken but often laced with bile and bitterness. She cared little for her companions, even for her master, but she had a debt to pay and she would honour it.
Well today it seems he has had enough of it, and Siegfried resolves not to speak with her or even remain in her presence unless it becomes strictly necessary. A small part of him wonders, though, how long he will be able to maintain this resolve. He has no doubts that it will probably incite Isabella to physical violence against him; though she has yet to raise hand or sword to him since that first meeting when he woke, it is terribly easy to provoke her ire and this time he will be seeking to do so. That itself doesn't bother him, he can hold his own against the woman now that his health is returned to him. He worries more about how stubborn she will be if she decides to play against him rather than resolve their issues with each other.
Siegfried stares out at the river, watching without really seeing as the barges float passed, dwarfed by the occasional galley. The rain begins to fall again, with a soft patter, and the scent of wet grass and greenery floats up once more, pushing through the slightly sour odour coming from the Thames. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. The air is fresh and alive... and so is he, he reminds himself.
Still, apathy folds it arms around him once more and draws him into it's sweet embrace. Siegfried opens his eyes and tries to take in the world around him, so that it matters. I'm alive, he thinks, and I have a duty to perform, whatever she says, whatever she does, I can't let it get in the way of that.
He considers his resolution, which is barely minutes old and discards it. He should not allow himself to be drawn into petty feuds with Isabella, she can be angry with him all she wants but he will not let it touch him, there are greater things to consider than his own comfort. Siegfried reprimands himself for almost losing sight of that.
That isn't to say he will continue to allow her behaviour towards him. He will give her whatever information she desires, he decides, but only if she can prove to him the necessity of it. While he will not let his own comfort get in the way of what needs to be done, he will not allow the same of her either. He deserves her scorn and anger, Siegfried will never deny that, but only once the sword is dealt with will they both have the luxury of dealing with each other as their emotions see fit, and until then...
Siegfried clenches the fist of his right hand, then flexes it out again, mentally counting the fingers to ensure he still sees five and that there is human flesh in place of muddy, leathery skin.
Still alive, still human, this day still a chance to bring Soul Edge closer to it's doom. He should go back inside and make peace with Isabella so he can make the most of that chance. But the rain falls heavier now, blurring the black and white building behind a watery veil, and it's quiet here and there is some small peace to be found in his solitude. Siegfried will stay till the rain lets up and then he'll return to the house to deal once more with it's angry mistress.
___________________________________
Isabella is nowhere to found by the time he returns to the mansion, and while part of him is a little relieved at that, he does wonder where she has gotten to. If he has learned anything in his time here, it is that the library and the laboratory are her native habitat and if she cannot be found in one then she is likely to be in the other. However, one is empty and the other locked, a swift check of said lock reveals the key is absent and therefore she isn't inside.
At a loss at what to do next, he wanders around the downstairs, entering quiet, empty rooms that hold little but dust. Siegfried thinks about what this place must have looked like when the family that lived here was in it's prime, affluent and celebrated, their company and influence highly sort after. Now Valentine is reduced to one, lone scion and she has dispensed with all of that 'vulgarity' as she scornfully referred to it as. He wonders if Isabella cares more than she will ever let on about the downfall of her family. She has told him, as though in passing, that it was an obsession with Soul Edge that drove the old man he sees in the portrait above the parlour door to madness and death, his wife quickly following apace.
There are a plentiful number of similar portraits, gracing the walls of the house, showing a record of the ancestral line of Valentine, or so Siegfried can assume. There is one particular picture that draws him, though, in the dining room, and when he sits to eat there with Isabella, it is a trial to prevent his gaze from swinging between her and the painting in constant comparison.
It is a family portrait and one that has to be a good many years old as Isabella looks incredibly young, a maiden barely out of adolescence. However, the painting hides nothing of the fact that even at a young age her body holds the curves of the woman she will become and her direct, blue gaze stares out challengingly, showing that even then she was confident in her own mind.
It holds nothing of the future though; the painter was skilled enough to capture that confident, forceful nature, but there is nothing there of the cruelty, anger and bitterness that he knows so intimately. Siegfried thinks of himself as he was at that age too, remembers a boy so full of himself, with a belief that he knew all that the world had to offer, and so eager to take by force if necessary what it would not freely give.
It seems a very long time ago; a different life even; that boy and this man two completely different people. This man murdered, however unintentionally, his own father. That boy, perhaps may have come to learn better. He wishes that boy had...
Siegfried pulls himself away from those thoughts with an effort. The past is unchangeable, what is done is irrevocably done and there is no use dwelling, or else he will never move forwards to make amends.
Siegfried wanders the whole of the ground floor and finds no sign of Isabella, so in a slight daze and feeling almost lost he finds his way to the kitchen, drawn by nothing more than the scent of fresh bread baking and the gentle ache it engenders of home. Margaret, the housekeeper and William Beckett's wife is happily ensconced, bustling about the long, low-ceilinged room as she goes about preparing for dinner. Siegfried belatedly realises how long he must have been idling for it to be that time of day already, and feels a slight stab of guilt that the day itself is almost gone and he is no further forward in his mission than before.
"Oh good afternoon, my pet," Mistress Beckett clucks as she looks to see him standing in the doorway. "Ay now, there's a melancholy face if ever I saw one. What's the matter my sweeting?"
Siegfried blinks at her. She lost him completely after 'good afternoon.' Still he makes the effort to respond: "Guten...um, good afternoon, Fra-Mistress Beckett." He stumbles a little, his grasp of English is still very new, though he is learning.
Mistress Beckett seems to have realised her error immediately though and while he is fumbling a greeting she puts actions to her words, worrying like a mother hen as she pulls him gently into the kitchen to sit him down at the large wooden table. A mug of warm cider is pushed into his hands and Siegfried drinks gratefully to ease the chill of the summer rain still damp upon his clothing.
Mistress Beckett's callused fingers pluck critically at the shoulder of his shirt as he drinks. "I really ought to have this shirt off you so I can take out the shoulders."
Siegfried shrugs uncomfortably underneath her hands, the material is very tight across his back and shoulders. The shirt, like all the clothing he has worn since his arrival, once belonged to old Count Valentine, but while the old man's girth allows a fit across the chest, his shoulders and back lacked the huge, defined muscles that Siegfried has cultivated in order to wield a blade the size of a zweihander. The breeches on the other hand are embarrassingly baggy and only the wide belt at his waist holds them up. Coupled with fine hose and the boots he wears beneath his usual armour greaves, he cuts a vaguely ridiculous sight. Not that anyone outside the house would happen to see him; according to Isabella, Siegfried is the first guest she had entertained in some time.
He hears Mistress Beckett tut some more from behind him, before finally releasing the shirt. "If milady doesn't order the tailor in here soon, I shall do so myself! How she can expect you to wonder around in these ill fitting underclothes is beyond me!" Clearly she is dissatisfied with his state of dress. Not that Siegfried is feeling particularly concerned about it himself, though he does quietly confess to himself that he would certainly appreciate it if what he does have to wear would fit him properly.
For now, though, he is content to watch the plump, elderly lady, bustle round her kitchen, setting a pheasant on the spit and chopping vegetables for the pot, before she sets to making the sauce for the game. It's only then she address Siegfried again, and this time with effort to see that he understands. "Siegfried, would you find Lady Isabella for dinner?"
Sure enough Siegfried is able to understand the gist of the sentence and nods in acceptance, he can only put off facing her for so long, and he had been looking for her in the first place when he came down here.
Margaret watches the boy trudge from the kitchen and feels her heart go out to him as it has on many occasions previous. He looks so often like a lost little lamb; his face and eyes haunted by some terrible occurrence in his past that she can only guess at. She doesn't know why Lady Isabella brought him home with her, but she has seen plentifully enough that her mistress is never kind to him, and yet he seems to accept it with quiet dignity. Margaret wonders what more she might discover of this strange young man, once his grasp of English improves and she is able to speak with him. In the meantime, she will press milady about ordering the tailor, if nothing else, she huffs, he ought to be dressed with some human decency.
___________________________________
Ivy covers her nose and mouth with one hand while waving the other before her, dispersing the dust cloud that exploded into the air when she dragged the great trunk from it's resting place inside a closet. The closet itself is behind an unobtrusive door in her bedroom, hidden in the dark wood panelling of the wall.
It has been many years since Ivy last looked inside this trunk, and it is evidenced by the amount of dust that has accumulated on top of it. Ivy eventually gives in to the dust cloud and sneezes several times, but finally it settles, and she sets the key to the lock and opens the lid.
There are a great many things inside, but she is looking for one thing in particular, inspired as she was when she sought to distract herself from the thoughts that had threatened to overwhelm her earlier today.
She finds tiny, lace gloves from when she was a toddler; an exquisitely crafted doll with a face of china and dressed in silk; a shawl that had been embroidered by her mother and gifted to her on her twelfth birthday, for this she stops a moment to bring the fabric to her nose and inhale the faintest echo of the perfume her mother wore, her eyes sting as she folds it back into the trunk. As each keepsake comes to hand she entertains the brief memory it brings before finally finding what she is looking for.
The book is small, barely larger than the hand that holds it, bound in soft black leather. Ivy opens the cover and reads the note written in neat copperplate on the first page:
This is the Diary of Isabella Valentine.
Do not read if you value your eyes.
Ivy stifles a laugh; even her young self was not afraid to issue threats of violence to protect what was hers. The book had been a gift along with the shawl, tokens of womanhood her mother had said, for now her monthly flow had come that was what she was. The book was to keep her thoughts and feelings over the coming years when she found she could not share them with others, the shawl was meant to comfort her during pregnancy and to swaddle her first-born, for a mother may not always be with her daughter during that time.
Ivy remembers how doubtful she had been at the time, especially over the shawl, and the worrying thought had entered her head that perhaps her mother was already entertaining ideas of marrying her off, especially as she would be making her Début the following spring.
Her mother had been quite horrified, however, when Ivy had timidly approached her about it, resolved as she was to put her foot down over the issue. Dear Lord, no! Was the very reassuring response. If anything, her mother had confided, she was mortally afraid her child would agree to the suit of the first boy she fell for and she would have to break her daughter's heart by refusing the marriage.
Both of them had left that conversation heartily relieved. Young Isabella had no interest in boys, and couldn't ever see that changing. A bitter smile twists full, adult lips as she contemplates the book in her hand; oh but that did change, alright, everything changed and every word within the leather-bound volume a detailed record of it.
Setting the book in her lap, Ivy closes the trunk and pushes it back into place against the wall of the closet. Rising with it once more in hand, she thinks again on what brought her up here, to dig out her past.
The woman in red who confronted her as she sought to flee Ostrheinsburg had known what she was without even knowing her name. The words she had spoken, clipped and heavily accented as they were, still ring with perfect recall in her memory.
"That is not the cursed sword," The woman standing over her says flatly.
Ivy struggles upright, calling her sword together to lean heavily against it as she stares blearily up at the shadowy red figure. Whatever the woman hit her with, it wasn't a physical weapon, but the blow is profoundly felt all the same, as if she has been knocked down by a runaway horse.
"What are you saying, of course my sword is not cursed," Ivy returns, wondering all the while why she is having this conversation and not lying dead. This woman is supernaturally quick and has sorcery, Ivy knows when she is outclassed, though she'll never admit it aloud.
The woman appraises her with cool, brown eyes, then says the words that change her life. "No. Your sword is not cursed. It is you. You reek of it. You are like him. You could be his child."
"Who is 'he'? Who's child am I?" She demands, with a strange and almost fearful hope that this woman might give her an answer to the question she never thought she cared to ask.
"The monster they call Cervantes."
The words fall flat, without any sound of import for such a terrible pronouncement and for a moment there is blank silence, the seconds it takes for it to sink in before...
"What! You lie! That cur is not my father!" But Ivy's rage echoes to the empty walls, even as she lunges forward with a strength fed by her anger, for the crimson shadow has vanished before her eyes. Ivy sprawls to the floor as her reaching hands meet thin air; she lays there for some time, her strength all but gone, blood seeping from a multitude of small wounds and soaking into the dusty floor.
"You lie, he is not my father, he's not..." If she whispers the words enough perhaps they will eventually become true.
Ivy shakes off the remembrance, resolving as she does with each recollection to not let it haunt her, but the words always linger... "You are like him. You could be his child." She clenches her fists, I am nothing like him, nothing at all! Then she looks down at the book, lying on the bedspread where she dropped it as the memory took her and reminds herself that this is why she got it out.
What the Asian woman had told her, what Siegfried confirmed, her blood is cursed with the malign power of Soul Edge and with the bloody thing dead or else dormant, it is her and her alone that now feeds the life-force of her Ivy Blade. That fact is inescapable; but she wonders how far back the influence of that curse stretches. She thinks perhaps it is too too much of a coincidence that her father should lose his sanity in pursuit of the very blade that managed to spawn the child he took into this household as his own daughter.
She had asked Siegfried earlier that afternoon why it had been 'sometime later', when he came to accept the link between his taking up of Soul Edge and the fall of the Evil Seed. Siegfried had refused to answer and still the irritation at his refusal bites, so perhaps it is only to prove herself better than him that she puts such a question to herself, while still reeling from the wave of emotion that had nearly overwhelmed her.
Was she, by her very nature, responsible for the downfall of her family? And when, when did she know that she was something different? Ivy had the rather uneasy feeling that she had known, in some way, rather early on. She had accepted the words of the shadow woman at face value, when she clearly had no reason to; she was exhausted at the time, yes, but certainly not so as to make her irrational. Yet the woman's announcement had rung like a pure-tone, glass bell in her soul, everything inside her had said 'yes', had sighed and relaxed as if with that one epiphany had set right her place in the universe. The answer to a question she never thought she cared to ask.
So something inside herself knew; knew that she was different in some way, not right, not...human?
Ivy drops down onto the bed beside the book and picks it up. Start at the beginning; the earliest record of her memories, from the time she was twelve to the time she was sixteen. She has other diaries from after that time, but sixteen was when things were irrevocably changed in the Valentine household; the diaries written after that time were penned by an embittered, disillusioned young woman and not the maiden she had been. This one she had put away with the rest of her childish things with all their shattered hopes and dreams.
Ivy spends the rest of the afternoon thus enthralled by the ramblings of her younger self; it makes for depressing reading, when she knows far too well what will be to come. There is nothing, though, nothing she can see that might be taken for the subtle, malevolent influence of the evil sword. The girl in this book is happy, for the most part; of course she has all the worries of a young girl making her way into Society and often she rants that the menfolk never want to take her seriously when she tries to converse with them intellectually.
Only her father, it seems, was ever content to do that. Her father whom she adores, who brought in tutors to teach her Latin and French, maths and science, law and politics, anything she asks to feed her hungry mind; the father who taught her to duel with short sword and rapier despite her mother's objection.
If I could marry anyone, I would have a man like Father, but I sincerely doubt there is another man like him in the whole world. I guess this means I shall not marry...
Ivy nearly stuffs her hand in her mouth to stifle the very unladylike snort of ironic laughter that comes at that statement. The rush of tears that comes on the heels of it startles her though, and she snaps the book shut and wipes furiously at her eyes, chiding herself all the while for her foolishness.
Deliberately, she clears her mind and stares down at her feet; perhaps she has thought too much on this for one day, she will continue this exercise another time.
Ivy doesn't know how long she sits there before she is disturbed by a timid knock on the bedroom door. Frowning, she calls for them to enter, neither of the Becketts would deliver so gentle a rap to the wood, which must mean...
Siegfried opens the door and stands in the doorway not quite shuffling his feet. Of course this is the first time he has had sight of her bedroom and he doesn't know quite where to set his eyes so as to be polite.
"Well," Ivy snaps, "what is it?"
His head snaps towards her to meet her gaze directly, and she isn't sure whether she is pleased at the fact that he doesn't flinch away. He clears his throat a little before speaking though, and that almost ruins the affect of quiet confidence. "Mistress Beckett sent me to call you for dinner, it will be ready soon. I apologise if I unduly disturbed you."
Ivy jumps up from the bed, "well you didn't," she tells him quickly. She isn't about to let him wonder what she was doing just sat upon her bed as though awaiting the world to end. "I was just about to get up anyway."
Siegfried doesn't question her, just silently steps back to let her out the door before closing it behind him. He follows her down the stairs without a word, but she doesn't feel any glowering animosity from him, which she would happily anticipate given their altercation earlier today. But there is nothing, he seems to have gotten over it as swiftly as she has. Ivy suspects that he has probably spent all afternoon doing the same as she, though from the look of him he seems to have found whatever conclusion he was searching for.
She hasn't, and Ivy finds something more to be irritated at Siegfried about. He is not allowed to have the upper hand. Well let him believe he has, she contents herself with thinking, and she will be sure to disabuse him of the notion at the earliest opportunity. He still hasn't answered her questions and she is quite determined that he will. Besides, she had made a promise to herself regarding Siegfried and a sound thrashing, and that she most definitely intends to keep!
A/N Dear Lord this chapter was a chore! Unfortunately Siegfried and Ivy weren't talking to each, and thus not talking to me either, but I finally managed to torture some introspection out of them! Sorry about the wait.