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Brood of a New Age
60.
Graziella snuggled up to him and although the film was great, he could only concentrate on her again. Since Meg's song I Won't Say I'm in Love at the latest, her gaze was only directed at the screen, and the bright colors seemed to be reflected on her skin and her big eyes, so that it sometimes looked as if she were in a kaleidoscope. So at least she didn't notice that he was staring at her. And stared and stared.
He had built a nest for her. Well he, too, sat in the jumble of old poster seating and huge crumpled up theater curtains. But it was his nest for his female friend, to make her feel comfortable. In times past, males had built females nests which were heavy with egg Hudson had said. Of course, they were both children and Graziella would never be heavy with egg anyway but his need to use the soft material here on the unused upper gallery of the movie theater to make it nice for her had been so overpowering. Like an instinct.
The idea of sneaking into a movie with her - the latest Disney film she had never seen - had been his. His family went to the movies often, and it wasn't until Graziella had asked if they were "poor" that Nashville even noticed that it wasn't actually okay that they were constantly attending people's events or stealing their food without paying for it. He had asked Coldfire what people called such individuals - the word had been on the tip of his tongue, and she had searched her database for the word and stumbled across several. Parasite, pest, beneficiary, moocher, scavenger.
Coldstone had then said that while they shared in the supposed comforts and distractions of humans unseen, gargoyles were NOT parasites. They performed important services to the community without thanks, without recognition, without reward. Serve and Protect, for which human policemen and detectives like Elisa were paid and then could buy movie tickets and food for this money and that no one was bothered if a few individuals also unseen used these as compensatory activities. That was their payment - although of course it would never be enough from Uncle Coldstone's point of view.
He didn't like the humans - which was probably understandable because he hadn't survived the Wyvern massacre and then had been manipulated by Demona after his resurrection. He respected Goliath as well as Brooklyn and therefore performed his duties as a protector as mechanically as dutifully, but the acceptance of the humans was indifferent to him. He kept his distance from the human inhabitants of the castle. Although Nashville thought his semi-mechanical uncle should be somewhat grateful to Mister Xanatos for helping to resurrect him, or at least to Alexander or Owen (aka Puck) for being able to give him and Aunt Coldfire separate bodies, he didn't seem friendly to any of them or at all willing to warm up to them. Even Elisa he only seemed to tolerate where Coldfire could talk to her normally and at least understand how important Elisa was to Goliath and that she was a full clan member from everyone else's point of view.
Well - Nashville had discarded his doubts about his right to sit here in the cinema for free. That's why the boy had had no problem smuggling Graziella into the movie theater here, too - because she had protected Sonny and this was her compensation. And today she had even bought snacks, a big box of sweet popcorn and two cups of coke. So, for the first time, the movie theater got something out of a visit from a gargoyle.
The young gargoyle took a deep breath and smiled to himself. This is the happiest time of my life, he thought for the umpteenth time. And that was only because of Graziella. Spending time with her was all he needed to forget all his other sorrows. He felt so light around her. Forgetting the worry about parts of his family, about the constant threat each of them faced in this human world, about the constantly simmering strained relationship with his dad and Second.
The night before last, he had flown Graziella to the Statue of Liberty. Instead of settling on the Lady's head, Nashville had glided Graziella to the torch where she had slipped from his embrace onto the narrow viewing platform there. This platform had been inaccessible to human visitors since an explosion in 1916 as Nashville had taught her with the help of his historical knowledge. But he had wanted to show her something that hardly any other human (except the statue's maintenance staff) ever saw. Because she was special. And because something like that was one of the few things he could give her besides his feelings, which he dared not express.
After that, he had given her access to the museum through a back entrance. He had even thought of turning off the cameras in the surveillance room as Lexington had shown him during a "family outing" a few months ago, and although he was proud to be able to use the technical knowledge his dearest uncle sometimes imparted to him, he had felt quite guilty. Breaking into a movie theater or concert hall was somehow less bad in Nashville's head than breaking into the pedestrial of the Statue of Liberty. But Graziella had wanted to see it so badly, and had looked at him that way again. With that look that he found so hard to resist. She was, after all, an immigrant (as he probably was) and Nashville knew that the Lady of Liberty was a symbol of freedom and the unlimited opportunities that immigrants used to have in America. Thus, it was somehow fitting for them both - even if Nashville rarely felt free and even more rarely felt full of opportunities. He wanted nothing more than to make her happy.
And probably without knowing it, she was making him incredibly happy. For example, when she had pulled him into the photo booth at the museum. One of those small booths where a maximum of three to four people found space to be photographed in front of the artificial background of the statue, because real photos were apparently difficult to take because of the streams of visitors who ran in front of the camera. The flash had really hurt his eyes. But two palm-sized pictures had been thrown out, taken a few seconds apart, and where on the first one she was just embracing his arm, on the second one she must have had a fit of her bold courage and had even kissed him on the side of his beak and then laughed out loud at the aghast expression on his face, which he had already shown on the photo. Whether she had found it strange that he had wanted the second photo? Surely she thought he just wanted the evidence of his stupid facial expression to disappear. They had given each other a big pinky promise that they would never show their photos to anyone in order not to endanger their friendship and themselves. And now this cheap photo - with an artificial background that looked as if he and Graziella had been at the Statue of Liberty BY DAY! - was hidden as his most precious possession between the mattress and the frame of his bed.
Nashville winced when the sound got a little louder as Hercules dove into the stream of the dead to get his girlfriend Meg out, and Nashville's own girlfriend noticed that he was stiffening because he had stopped stroking her hair. He loved stroking her hair, it was SO ... what was the word his mother used when she thought hard about Bushido? It was meditative. Now Graziella turned in his lap and grinned at him.
"Scared?" she asked, and Nashville chuckled indignantly, masking the fact that he found dead people who weren't dead after all and ghosts in general totally creepy.
"Not me!"
"The scene is a little scary," Graziella admitted, turning back to the screen and grasping Nashville's tail, which had been twitching nervously since the showdown between Hercules and Hades had begun. She kneaded the tail a bit in her little fingers like the tip of a blanket and Nashville almost groaned in pain because there were still some bones in his tail but somehow also out of another sensation because at her touch a tingling goose bump ran all over his body up to between his shoulder blades! He didn't want to deprive her of this piece of him because she was so cute, so he took a deep breath and rattled off all his father's rules plus the bushido codices in his head so he wouldn't roll over and grumble like Fu Dog when he scratched her belly intensely. Be more human, he ordered himself. And don't think about that spot between your wings that's so hot right now. At last all the good guys had won - as they should in a Disney movie - and Graziella let go of his tail, straightened up, stretched, and let her own fingers run through her hair. Something that, in the glow of the final credits, raised flakes of dust and drove fragments of Graziella's own scent into his nostrils. Uncomfortably affected again, Nash grabbed his cup and sucked on the straw until he'd finished all the rest of the stale Coke.
"That was a great movie," his girlfriend said, and Nash agreed, even though he'd watched more Graziella than film.
"What was your favorite?" she asked.
"Mhmm. Let's see." He grinned broadly. "Those two imp minions from Hades - Pain and Panic - I thought they were funny."
Graziella's face lit up and when she jerked both arms in the air it was like Telepathy and Nashville made the exact same gesture. Both kids bowed to each other and shouted theatrically. "We are worms! Worthless worms! Hahahaha," both kids laughed.
"Yeah, they were great. I thought Hades was the best," she admitted, smiling cockily because Nash was looking at her in bewilderment.
"But he was the bad guy."
"Meh. The other gods were mean to him, and he looked -" She searched for the right words, as she sometimes did. "- Hercules was a threat to him. I, as the boss of Hell, would have wanted to finish him off, too, to protect my business."
"Dead business," Nashville muttered, shivering at the thought. Graziella pinched him in the wing bar.
"Scared, though?"
The young gargoyle jumped up, spreading his not-yet-powerful but quite passable wings, and struck a heroic pose.
"Me! And afraid? Hahaha- afraid, of cartoon corpses. I fight injustice every night. Nothing scares me that easily."
Graziella giggled and scooped all the snack wrappers and empty Coke cups into the popcorn bag.
"There are many different kinds of wrongs. I'm sure you've been scared at something."
"Nope, not that I know of," Nash lied, withstanding his favorite human's disdainful stare.
"Fine," she said, grabbing his arm and looking at his watch. "Now, let's go find Injustice."
"Huh? We?"
"Yes. We."
"But you can't -."
"I know. I'm just watching."
Nashville lowered his head, concerned.
"Graziella, you can't. When we fight bad guys, it can get really dangerous."
"Yeah. I know. I was there last time. But I'd like to see you fight injustice. Because then you're so cool and strong," she said softly, and her look was so urgent that Nashville would have loved to say yes. He always wanted to be cool and strong in front of her. But his father's rule number eleven - which he perhaps only remembered because he had just recited it inwardly along with the others. Rule number eleven: Never put others in danger because you want to prove something. He was thinking about this and felt like he was disappointing Graziella when he said meekly:
"If - if there was something where I could be sure that nothing would happen to you-."
The child in front of him lowered her eyes. "Actually ..." Then she shook her head. "Nah, forget it."
"What! What, tell me."
"You'd think it was silly. You're a big boy and you'd think it was stupid."
"Nonono. Tell me! I'm not like the grown-ups. I'll definitely find it important because it's important to you. If it's a wrong I can make better, I'll do it!"
Graziella smiled.
"I know you can. I'll tell you right outside. Let me throw out our trash and go to the bathroom first."
"Okay," Nashville said, crouching thoughtfully on all fours as the door to the stairs, which they had barricaded with a chair during the movie, slammed shut behind her. He had a weird feeling. He didn't know what Graziella was planning for him to do and hoped it really wouldn't be dangerous for her. He wanted to impress her. That yes. But not if it put her in danger. Whether this was how Goliath felt every night when Elisa was involved in dangerous stuff because of her job or just because she knew the clan? Probably.
Thanks for reading, Q.T.