As children grow, the golden days of their childhood recede towards the distant horizon, vanishing like the golden summers that children, once they've become adults, cherish so greatly although they remember so little. In a similar way did Rin and Len – and little Dinah – grow up, as the years passed and they got older, and they learned more of the world and decided that they didn't want to have much to do with it after all. Families would adopt them, of course, but they always wound up back at the church; they'd been indulged too often, said the Mother Superior, tsk'ing severely in Sister Sara's direction... but what was done was done, and at least the Kagamine twins were (for the most part, anyway) well-behaved. It had gotten to the point where, at age fourteen, it was looking as though they'd spend the rest of their childhood at the church.
Neither Rin or Len minded this particularly. After all, they'd spent their entire lives there thus far, and they didn't see much reason why they should move, getting accustomed to an entirely different setting when they didn't have to do so. Some thought that they were unusually apathetic about their lives, perhaps almost worryingly so, but very few could hold that thought in mind when confronted with the twins, who were always filled with almost improbable amounts of energy and vim. Neither were the young pair considered lazy, as they would just as happily help with the laundry or other repairs around the church... assuming that one could find either of them, of course, and they were almost always together. It was much easier to assume that they were deftly dodging anything they considered "boring," and it was much more likely that they'd show up if their task was less menial labor and more watching the other children at the church. Although almost all of their fellow orphans, with whom Len and Rin had grown up, had either found families or moved out on their own, it seemed that there were always at least a few children that arrived at the church every year. To these girls and boys, without parents and under the strict supervision of the nuns, Len and Rin were like the ideal older siblings, and Sister Sara – who had practically raised the twins herself – would smile and comment that the twins were little more than children themselves.
Most often, however, Rin and Len liked to spend time by themselves, and there was a place where they knew they'd go unfound. Across the river, and into the woods, they would take a picnic-basket and a blanket and go hand-in-hand as they had that first time, to that clearing in the forest where the sun filtered down onto a billion sun-gold petals. Under the climbing, twisting vines of the yellow roses, careful of the thorns as a second nature, the Kagamine twins would spread open the blankets and set out their tea, the white-porcelain cups and saucers and plump white kettle that they had saved up money to buy: The chinaware was laced about with filigree vines and butter-yellow roses, and there were two – and only two – of the cups, the saucers, the spoons and scalloped plates. Despite that, Dinah was never left out; whatever they brought along that day was allowed to find its way into Dinah's stomach, cakes and sandwiches set out on a napkin, water or tea or lemonade in a little blue-and-white saucer taken from the church's kitchen. When the twins had still been young, and when Dinah had been a kitten, the sisters had told them that cats couldn't always eat the same things that humans did... but Dinah had always eaten from the plates of the twins, so the nuns, despite being grown-ups, didn't exactly know everything.
When the blanket was lain, and the tea was set out, Rin and Len would have a pleasant time under the roses; sometimes they didn't speak at all, because between them they hadn't ever needed to speak in order to share their thoughts. Dinah, with her own share of the feast, would devour what was put before her and daintily lick her paws clean, preening her whiskers like a little diva. For a long time, she would scale the tree's thick trunk and rest there until it was time to leave, but recently Dinah had preferred to sit in Rin's lap, where the girl would stroke the young cat until it purred. Once or twice Len had tried to shoo Dinah away, when the cat's tail would threaten to upend the tea, but Dinah had bared her claws and hissed at him until Rin laughed and simply moved the cup further away.
This spacious clearing was their own private Heaven, a sanctuary for the twins Kagamine from the outside world. They had noticed, after all, that no matter how hard one tried, one just couldn't hold on to the innocent days of childhood; people they had known from the church, only a few years older than they, were already falling in love and getting married, getting ready to have children of their own. One of them had even died, lost to an unexpected sickness brought on by cold weather and bad food masked by spices. The idea of this growing up had ceased to frighten them as it once had, as a concept of separation, but it still held a certain power over Rin and Len: Things seemed to change so slowly, yet so drastically, that sometimes it felt as though even the briefest of escapes was worth taking, if only for a little while. Which was why, as the springtime of their fourteenth year came to a close, Rin and Len and svelte young Dinah were crossing the river with basket in hand, Dinah in Rin's arms – It had been an icy winter and a warm spring, and the river was still running high. The water rushed below them as they moved from stepping-stone to stepping-stone, the basket held in Len's hand, and in Rin's arms Dinah glanced down at the flowing water and gave a hiss of disgust. Aside from the picnic tea and their faithful cat, Len and Rin carried nothing but their cell-phones, just in case... although, it was always shut off when they had tea. That was a time to escape the world, after all, not to welcome its call.
The path through the forest was, by now, as familiar to Rin and Len as the walk to and from the church, the grocery, and so on. Still, out of habit and fond affection, the twins moved through the darkened woods with clasped hands, Len still carrying the basket and Rin leading the way. Around their feet ambled Dinah, her yellow eyes half-glowing in the dimness, her cat's-feet padding softly across the ground-cover and the outreaching branches. Sometimes she would wander away, and then Rin would stop and call for her: "Here Dinah! C'mere, sweet kitling!" She'd picked those up from Sister Margaret, one of the older nuns who was prone to grandmotherly fussing, and Len rolled his eyes and kept walking, although Rin's still-unmoving grip on his hand kept him from going on ahead.
"Rin...." Len started, letting his voice trail off as he tugged lightly on her hand. "Dinah's a cat. She'll be able to catch up with us."
"This forest is huge!" retorted Rin pausing a moment to look in the direction of Len's voice. "Even Mr. Anderson doesn't know how big it is, and he's like ninety... He was practically around when the town was starting up!"
"I don't know if he's that old..." mumbled Len, but his tone of voice showed that he'd obviously resigned himself to waiting around until Rin changed her mind, and his sister gave him a grateful squeeze of the hand before a familiar furry body wrapped around her leg.
"Oh, Dinah, there you are!" The feline's eyes were dimly visible in the half-light, and then they turned away and padded off into the woods; by now, the cat knew the way just as easily as the humans did, and the twins followed along at their own rate, picking their way carefully among the exposed roots and fallen leaves.
Emerging into the clearing was, as always, as though the forest itself had been left far behind them; while the trees surrounding the clearing were indeed thickly-grown, the sky was actually visible in this roughly-circular clearing, and since that first night it seemed as though the sun was always bright when the twins were here. Dinah gamboled ahead of Rin and Len, crushing soft grass underfoot; because of the wet spring, the grass was greener than either twin had ever seen it, and Dinah easily scrambled up the tree-trunk, picking her way among the thorns and vines. Rin laughed and pulled Len along, an indulgent smile appearing on her brother's face as the picnic-basket swung from his free hand.
In something less than a moment the red-and-white blanket had been spread over the gentle turf, and Len had set out the chinaware as Rin enthusiastically unpacked the snacks and tea. Technically, it wasn't pure tea, since it had to be carried out in thermoses... but it was close enough, as she settled the teapot's lid back into place with a little clink. Under the tree, with the golden petals (that always seemed to bloom here) fluttering down around them like pieces of sunlight, Len and Rin held up their teacup and tapped them together in a familiar salutation, smiling happily at each other over the tea-set and the whipped-cream cake.
It was some time later, when half the cake and been devoured had Len had poured them both fresh cups of tea, that something very strange chose just that moment to happen. As Rin and Len were about to bring their teacups to their lips, something very unlike a rose-petal flittered down from the tree-branches overhead, slip-sliding down as though taking its sweet time, to land silent and upright in the very center of what remained of the white-topped cake.
A moment or two passed as Rin and Len paused, their tea left undrunk and suspended with their cups in midair; from overhead, Dinah looked down with her slit yellow eyes and began to work her way with feline care back down from the tree. Glancing at each other, the twins at first said nothing; then, Rin broke the silence by saying, fairly nonplused, "It looks like a playing-card."
A beat, and then Len nodded his agreement, leaning forward slightly to scrutinize the item as best he could without actually touching it. "It definitely seems like a playing card." Then, tilting his head back so that his eyes were angled skyward, Len added, "But where did it come from?"
"Maybe it got stuck in the branches?" suggested Rin, her tone matter-of-fact as she mirrored Len's pose; with her free hand, she shaded her eyes against the bright sunlight that filtered through the leaves, then shrugged as her gaze returned to the card and the cake. "And maybe Dinah just knocked it down while she was climbing around up there. Right, Dinah?" The marmalade cat, winding around from Rin's far side and rubbing her head affectionately against Rin's leg, purred... but, probably, only in response to Rin's voice, and to the hand that briefly scritched lightly behind the cat's left ear. "Did you find us something interesting, kitty?"
"Oh, Rin..." sighed Len, rolling his eyes, already used to be ignored by his more fanciful sibling. This Rin did once more, making Dinah huff impatiently as she reached out and plucked the card from the midst of the white whipped cream, setting down her teacup to wipe down the sturdy cardstock with a paper napkin.
"How odd..." said Rin at last, holding it between thumb and forefinger so that Len could see the card's face. "It's just an Ace of Hearts, see?"
Len, blinking set down his own cup and held out his hand, allowing Rin to wordlessly drop the playing-card onto his open palm, face up. Indeed, it looked like just any other playing-card, the stock stiff and glossy... It must be from a new deck, judging by the shining yellow heart glaring up from the white background. As Len held the card up, flicking it experimentally, Rin caught his attention with a start of surprise.
"Len, look!" she said, pointing to the card's back; Len accordingly flipped the card over, and thick black letters were scrawled over the card's blue-patterned reverse. "What's it say?" askd Rin, leaning over the tea-set, her face nudging closer to Len's as she tried to see over the top of the card. Len, with a faint flush, shook his head and leaned back, prompting Rin to pout.
"Hey, I'm reading it, okay?" was Len's response, his eyes focusing on the scribbled letters and careful not to glance up; he could feel Rin eying him impatiently, but fortunately the letters seemed easy enough to understand... once Len looked at them for a little while, and squinted a bit until the intricate blue pattern seemed to fade slightly behind the black ink.
"'Please come to the castle,'" read Len aloud, Rin's face tilted towards his with interest. "'The Queen would like you for tea.'" Having read the brief missive from back to front, Len looked up from the card-back to his sister's inquiring face, then shrugged with equal bewilderment. "That's all there is," he said, propping himself up with one hand flat against the grassy turf. "How bizarre."
"Mm." Rin didn't say much else, just that brief sound of acknowledgement and agreement, and then...
Suddenly, out of the blue, Rin had to stifle a tremendous yawn, raising her hand to cover her mouth as her eyelids fluttered. Len, trying not to laugh too obviously, grinned at his twin across the picnic spread, idly bending the waxed-paper card between his fingertips as he did so.
"Someone didn't get enough beauty sleep," he teased, laughing at Rin's indignant response, half-obscured as she rubbed lightly at one of her eyes.
"I wouldn't talk if I were you," she retorted, readying an elaboration of that comeback before another yawn cut her off mid-sentence. Rin pressed a hand to her mouth, wondering why her eyelids felt so heavy, when Len, caught off-guard, echoed Rin with a yawn of his own.
"Damn it," he said, as soon as he could; "yawns are catching!" Half-scowling at Rin, Len did his best to repress the encore that was threatening to further annoy him, as Rin found time to laugh at her dearest and only brother. Dinah, although she didn't have the means to laugh as Rin did, expressed what sounded like throaty feline amusement as she slid onto Rin's lap, curling into a contented furry ball as Rin stretched like a cat herself.
"Maybe it's something for us," she suggested, trying valiantly to keep the conversation on track despite her sudden weariness. "No-one else comes out here, after all..."
"Then who'd know to put it here, dummy?" asked Len, half-frowning in thought; he didn't think castles existed anymore either, especially in their part of the world, and... Why was it getting so hard to stay awake?
"Don't..." Rin frowned lightly, but she didn't seem to have the strength to do more than that; why was she suddenly so tired? Was it the cake? She had to cut out sweets, or that's what Sister Anne always said, or she'd get plump before she knew it... Ugh. What had she been saying, again?
Oh, yes.
"Don't call me a dummy... dummy..." And that was the end of Rin's witty rejoinder, as she slumped back against the flowering tree; it seemed, distantly, that she should have been wary of the thorns, although all that she felt (as she relaxed into a graceful slumber) was the almost overpowering scent of oranges. With monumental strength, Rin managed to see a glimpse of Len from the corner of his eyes, and a faint smile of triumph played over her rose-colored lips: Len must've been way more tired than Rin, since he was already lying curled on his side, facing Rin with an unguarded expression that made her smile even more brightly. Len was probably just trying to pretend not to be tired because... well, that was the way he did things, it seemed.
"Len's still so silly..." murmured Rin, her eyes finally closing like draperies being drawn shut; the hand that had been stroking Dinah's fur stilled, and all was quiet once more in the peaceful, sun-drenched clearing. Rin and Len were fast asleep, but although the cat in Rin's lap was as still as her master and mistress, the animal's yellow eyes were wide. And almost expectant... As if it were waiting for something that it knew would come.
The first thing that registered, in Len's mind, was the sense of something small and very sad. It wasn't himself, and it wasn't Rin; it wasn't even Dinah or any of the children they'd ever know. It maybe wasn't even alive, not that he could say for certain... But in his dream, which wasn't much of a dream to start with, Len thought that he saw something in the distance which he shouldn't have been able to see. Something very small and lonely, who was arming itself with bloodied claws and grinning teeth so that it would never be lonely again; no-one would leave you if you could make them stay, right? So as long as you weren't alone, it was okay to do what you had to if it meant that they would stay... right?
Len, aware of himself only in that vague and fuzzy way that one is aware in dreams, wanted to say something to this small and once-fragile creature... But in all truth he had no idea what to say, if he could say anything that would change its mind. He himself never had to be alone, after all – Len had always had Rin, forever. That was how it would always be, and Len couldn't fathom the pain that must grow from knowing that no-one else will ever have a place for you in their heart.
Len, with an abrupt and inexplicable sense of panic, suddenly thought that defending your place in someone's heart was probably even more violent than trying to earn that place to start with.
Len was startled from his sleep by a cold wind running across his skin, and he opened his eyes to such an unfamiliar sight that his first reaction was to close them again. Forcing himself to stay calm and observant, Len looked around himself and tried to be rational about things: Rin was there, sleeping on the grass across from him, peaceful as ever she was. The picnic was there too, but everything else had simply vanished, the tree and the clearing and the countless yellow roses were gone, replaced by an endless dark wood with bare trees and barely any light at all. Glancing upwards, Len saw the reason: The branches overhead were woven thickly together as if by design, and the trickles of light that managed to force its way through the cracks of the living braids was barely enough to see by. Len's immediate reaction was to shake Rin awake so that he wouldn't have to suffer this by himself, but he kept himself in place, kept himself quiet, until he had calmed enough to know that he wouldn't alarm Rin by reaction. This place, he thought, was alarming enough without anything extra being added on top.
Finally, when he was certain that he had his thoughts in order, he reached across to Rin and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm through the yellow-and-gray of her dress, and the warmth was reassuring to Len as comforting and familiar, even in this alien landscape. Giving Rin a little shake, Len kept his voice down and leaned over slightly, closer to her ear.
"Rin? Rin, wake up." Rin gave something like a little murmur, a brief frown flickering across her face before it smoothed back into the expressionless of sleep. Not quite giving up, Ren shook her again by the shoulder, a little more vigorously this time, and repeated his wake-up call. "Rin, wake up. NOW."
At last, Rin stirred slightly, her muscles flexing and testing themselves as she pulled herself from the depths of sleep; as her eyes shuttered open, she glanced into Len's face, so close to hers, and graced him with a sleepy smile. Pausing a moment to take in the dimness and the cold, Rin frowned.
"Did we fall asleep this long?" she asked, and Len's silence gave her eyes greater focus as she realized that something was amiss. "Len?"
"I don't think it's that we fell asleep..." he replied, carefully taking her hand and helping her up; now in a seated position, Rin's eyes widened as she looked in front of her, to the side, twisted around to look behind her... She had gone to sleep in a sunny open space, surrounded by yellow roses, but she'd woken up into a forest of half-dead thorn-trees, a cold wind blowing shriveled leaves across the ground.
"What... What's going on?!" she demanded, and before Len had a chance to attempt an answer, Rin cut him off by bolting unsteadily to her feet, thrown off by her recent slumber to quickly regaining her balance out of her adrenaline. "Where are we? Len!" Turning to her brother, who had never failed to have an answer for her yet, Rin was struck by another wave of shock; Len was clearly as lost as she was, responding only with a hopeless, helpless, palms-up gesture and another look around.
"And where's Dinah?" Len started as he realized that, yes, the cat had gone missing, although he hadn't noticed that in the initial shock at their surroundings. Her initial confusion now compounded by worry over their lost pet, Rin futilely scanned the forest for as far as she could see, which in the gloom wasn't very far. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she called "Dinah! Dinah, here girl!"
"Rin!" hissed Len, grabbing Rin's hands and forcing them down; Rin, taken aback, looked at Len blankly.
"We don't know where we are, or how we got here... There might be animals in the forest, or people we don't want to meet, and yelling will only draw their attention!"
"Well, do you have any suggestions?" asked Rin, now beginning to get angry; this entire situation made little sense, and here Len was snapping at her! Her rational mind knew that Len must be as unnerved by this as Rin was herself, and that he had a good point... but her rational mind wasn't exactly offering up many other answers at this point, and rationality had always been Len's strong point, not Rin's.
"We don't even know which way is out," she added, as the wind blew another mess of dry leaves across their path, the floating detritus narrowly missing what was left of their cake, inexplicably transported to whatever-this-was along with them. "Or how long it would take to get there. Or eve if there is one."
"Of course there's an exit," said Len, releasing Rin's hands and avoiding her gaze. "Every place has an exit, you just have to know where it is but every place has one!"
"That doesn't do us any good," retorted Rin; "We don't know where it is!"
"That's what you have me for, mistress," interjected a new, unfamiliar voice, low-pitched and almost a purr. "Cats always know how to find their way home."
Len's first thought was 'I'm pretty sure that's dogs,' but the inevitable correction was permanently forestalled by a rustle of movement in the treetops overhead. Both sets of eyes turned upward, with the result that they were completely surprised when the speaker approached them on padded feet, undetected until Rin's startled squeak dragged Len's gaze back to her in a flash. Some kind of strange creature had its arms draped over Rin's shoulders, looking mostly human but with cat-ears and a tail, and the slitted eyes of a beast. Len, trying to decide if it would be better to lunge at this presumptuous stranger or to just pull Rin away, suddenly realized that the markings on the stranger's clothing – dark-gold horizontal markings over some kind of suede-like cream fabric – looked, for some reason, familiar. But Len was sure that he didn't know any cat-people...
As the answer, however improbable, to this stranger's identity began to dawn on Len, Rin had twisted around in the stranger's loose embrace with a glare, but her anger was defused by confusion as the stranger smiled down at Rin with bright-gold eyes. Eyes, in fact, that were very close to those shared by the twins; he even looked like Len, surprisingly so, although Rin didn't seem to notice as she managed a stunned "... Dinah?"
"The very same," grinned the cat-boy, his smile so white and so large that it almost seemed unnerving. Rin, however, only eyed 'Dinah' critically, as Len drew closer, dumbfounded but ready to act in case something happened.
"Why," asked Rin, staring up at the boy, "aren't you a girl?"
"Well, you really didn't seem concerned about that when I was a kitten," said Dinah off-handedly, "and I didn't want to ruin your fun. Besides," he added, "girls and boys can have the same names, just like the two Jaimes... right?" Two sets of jaws dropped as Rin and Len heard this cat-person echo the conversation their seven-year-old selves had had seven years earlier, and "Dinah" grinned broadly once more, his blond-furred ears twitching in amusement.
"Of course, 'Dinah' isn't really one of those names."
Author's Notes: Thanks to Damr1990 (your English is fine!), vocaloidofos (I'm glad I didn't disappoint), and ExorcistAlchemistWizamfreakfan (yeah, the song is awesome!) for reviewing! I hope this isn't that bad of a chapter; it felt a little rushed, but between school and trying to update my other fic... Anyway, yes. Let me know what you think?