Christmas Special Request: Yuri overhearing Letha singing, Ragou related talk

So here we have a little something that happens after the first paragraph of chapter 25, which Letha forgets by paragraph two. Yeah.

I do think I could write this better, but I couldn't think of how to do that without making it more vital to plot developments than I wanted it to be.

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FTaBV Omake: Talk With a Sleep Walker

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Thhiiirsty. If I were a vampire I'd jump the first warmblooded mammal I found... I rolled myself out of bed, landing on the floor with a muted thump. Wobbling up to my feet, I crept out into the hallway in search of a tap of clean running water. My eyes remained half lidded, my brain only switched on the minimal required systems for functioning, and I avoided any brightly lit areas that might accidentally wake me up for real.

The inn's kitchen was deserted and dark. My bare feet barely made a whisper of sound as I roamed in search of a sink. Once I found it- praaaise the blastia enabled indoor plumbing! Or however they get it, could be the imps in a closet for all I care... -Once I found it I just turned on the tap and caught some of the water in my hand. Raising my hand to my lips I slurped at it.

Not enough. Caught more in my hand and slurped it. Blooood sucking noises. Still not enough.

I bent my head at an angle so I could drink directly from the falling stream of water. Finally I had my fill and switched off the water. Now I shuffled back towards the hallways, meaning to find my own bed and collapse into it again. Problem was, even though my dark adjusted eyes could see quite well, I wasn't sure which door was the one I wanted.

I tried one door knob, but no good. It was locked.

A small voice in my head suggested it would not be advisable to try each door until I found an unlocked one. Okay, nagging voice. Instead I found myself drawn to the window at the end of the hall.

Staring out the window, where is this...? The buildings around were lit only by a soft glow from above, and the occasional lamp lit window. It feeeels...it feels like the view from my window in winter. Yeeeah, like when the hill and trees are covered in new snow, and even when there a full moon, everything is lit up and beautiful... And you see the cemetery and lights from the houses on the other side...

I slowly lowered myself so that I knelt by the window, body pressed against the wall as my folded arms cushioned my head on the sill. My eyes slipped fully closed. Yeah, I could see it in my mind. Branches covered in a new snow fall, glowing white like coral... The trees and the creek look so black...skeletal frames waiting for leaves to be added...

In my mind's eye, the black and white skeletal shapes of trees in a winter night morphed into a pile of bleached white bones on a black stone floor. My eyes snapped open again. Damn it. Damn it! One of my most beautiful memories, one of my most favorite things...

"Dammit Ragou..." I hissed. Awful as the days I'd been held captive by the Red-Eyes were, the horror of that single night in Ragou's basement was far worse. More sickening, leaving invisible marks on the soul. It had been overshadowed soon after by my first time killing another human while fighting the Blood Alliance, but I harbored no grudge against that nameless person. Had even begun to make peace with myself for that, though I'd always regret having killed him.

But Ragou... Futile as it was to hate a dead man, Ragou would be a black stain on my soul for a long time.

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The slight rattling of the doorknob came just before Yuri had completely fallen asleep. Repede raised his head to look at the door, but since the dog didn't start growling the swordsman decided it wasn't worth getting worked up over.

Again, he'd nearly fallen asleep when a quiet sound from the hallway caught his attention. It was a low murmur, like someone was talking, but the cadence was wrong for a conversation. And there was only one voice. Repede still didn't seem threatened, but he whined and looked up at the swordsman.

Yuri sighed as he got out of bed, catching up his sword in one hand. Even when sleeping his weapon was always nearby, one of the few habits he'd kept from his time as a knight. Ready for a fight at a moment's notice. Though he didn't think there'd be one tonight.

The door swung open with a slight creak and the voice became clearer. Now he could recognize that it was a familiar one, singing low and quavering on each drawn out note.

"Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam"

The words were strange, and the first thing that came to mind was that prayer in a dead language Letha had told him about.

"et lingua eius loquetur indicium."

Looking up and down the hallway, it took a moment for him to realize the dark shape under the window was Letha herself. She was wearing only her black shirt and leggings, making her a dark silhouette with pale face and hands.

"Beatus vir qui suffert tentationem

quoniam cum probates fuerit

accipient coronam vitae."

Listening quietly from the doorway, Yuri noted that this wasn't the same song she'd reluctantly confided to him. He didn't have an ear for music, but this just sounded different.

"Kyrie,

Ignis Divine, eleison."

Letha shifted a bit, Yuri could see she'd taken the fingerless gloves off. The mark on her left hand seemed to catch the light from the barrier and glimmer a bit.

"Oh quam sancta,

quam serena,

Quam benigma,

quam amoena

oh castitatis lilium."

"More mysterious songs?" he asked when the silence stretched out longer than a natural musical pause. Normally she would have jumped a bit, and gotten embarrassed that he'd caught her singing again. But she only turned to look at him, her expression hidden in the shadows.

"An ironic song," Letha said. "About the wise, and the just, and the reward for the man who can endure and resist temptation." The slight laugh she gave was bitter, and her dark eyes turned back to the window. "Ironic... Elfen Lied was a story about people going mad and senselessly hurting each other. Killing each other."

Yuri looked back into the room at Repede. The dog yawned and dropped his head back onto his paws, not interested in anything but sleep. "Sounds like a wild story." He closed the door so Karol wouldn't wake up.

"I won't tell you guys this one. It would be too much..." Letha shook her head, but gave no sign of noticing him approaching her. "People are the real monsters..."

"Is that so." Yuri was pretty much convinced that the trouble magnet girl wasn't fully awake, and probably still odd in the head from her recent hardships. Odder, at least. It would probably be best to get her back to bed, and have Estelle look at her if she was still acting funny in the morning.

"Ragou was a monster."

That made him stop short. He hadn't expected Letha to bring up the magistrate, but it wouldn't have been unusual for her to have heard about him going "missing" from one of the others.

What was strange was that she'd used the past tense, as is she already knew Ragou was truthfully dead.

How could she know? "'Was' a monster?" he prompted.

No response.

Yuri tried again, "He still is, isn't he?"

He was nearly convinced she'd fallen asleep on the window sill when she finally answered. "He will be for as long as people remember him, and for as long as people are still being hurt by the choices he made." She spoke slowly, sounding as if she were putting great thought into each word. Yuri started walking towards her again, until he was standing next to her and helping her back to her feet.

"Nothing we can do about it right now. You should get back to sleep."

Letha didn't object to be directed back towards the door of her private room, but stopped with her hand on the doorknob. For a moment it seemed like she wanted to say something more, than shook her head and let herself in while muttering, "Damn gremlins..."

Yuri couldn't help but stare at the closed door after that last out of the blue comment. "Well, that was different." As he returned to his own room, careful not to disturb Karol, he couldn't help but wonder what gremlins had to do with Ragou being dead. Probably just another case of Letha's inexplicable strangeness.

By dawn he had nearly dismissed it, not forgotten but not likely anything more than half asleep rambling. For Letha the entire exchange was forgotten before she even woke up.

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Yes, that was "Lilium" from the anime Elfen Lied.

The gremlins comment is because it actually does follow her train of thought, even if Yuri didn't realize it. Going through Letha's mind is the half remembered line, "Monster's aren't real. But there are people who are monsters," which is seriously not the best thing to say to your child after she was mentally scarred by the movie Gremlins.

Ahh, so, yeah. AccessBlade really wanted something to happen with the whole Yuri kills Ragou and then zomigosh, Letha knows he did it! But I have no immediate plans for that (I do have plans, but for later on) so here we have a scene of it happening in a way where Yuri might attribute it to coincidence and paranoia on his part. Biggest effect this has on the overall plot of the main fic: Yuri must acknowledge that figuring Letha out is complicated by a need to separate the mysterious from the just plain weird.