Okay this is absolute shit but I'm utterly unmotivated and lazy, so I'll just edit later (I say, and never remember). Sorry about the wait, but between the beginning of February and now I've had a shit ton of stuff due, so this week's about the first that I can really relax.
A few days later, Daisya, Lenalee, and Kanda found themselves standing awkwardly in front of a desk, and more awkwardly in front of a woman who spun in her chair. In front of her was a desk, and behind her a very tall, very full set of bookcases, crammed with ancient illuminated grimoires and scrolls of parchment. There were also the more modern penny-dreadfuls that she read in her spare time, badly disguised as files. Daisya would later steal a folder of them, and discover far more about the Director than he ever wanted to know.
"It looks like it's just a small Innocence mission, so you three should be fine handling it. Actually, I wanted to send just Lenalee, but your brother wouldn't let me send you out without at least two others, so, you know, I had to send all of you."
She spun herself around again, and grabbed a roll of paper from behind her, before completing the circle and laying it out on the desk. A painted nail traced an outlined route to a Cornish village.
"It should be just here. Tintagel, is where you're going. A tapestry in the castle started displaying moving pictures. Just get a hold of the tapestry there, and you should be fine. There are a few finders there, but no akuma have shown up yet. Any questions?"
The Director cocked her head to the side, and spun around again. Kanda resisted the urge to sneer. She didn't take kindly to resistance, as he'd found out when she first took the post a few months ago.
"No."
"Ah, wonderful. It should be fun for you three."
She smiled vaguely, and waved them out of the room.
…
The doors closed behind them, and Daisya's face immediately coiled into a look of incredulity.
"Does she really like spinning that much?"
"Be quiet," Kanda snapped, "She's in charge of the branch. She does what she wants."
"Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."
"Yeah, I just got told I have to put up with you, even when I'm on a mission."
Lenalee sighed quietly.
"Guys, please don't argue. We're not going to get very much done if you two don't get along."
Daisya waved a hand.
"Don't worry, we'll be fine. We managed to put up with each other for weeks when we were on our last mission together, didn't we?"
"It was our only mission together. You pushed me out a window."
"Now that's not fair, you're taking it out of context–"
"And then you made me carry you all the–"
"Guys…"
Lenalee had stopped in her tracks, and planted her feet stubbornly.
"You two are going to agree to get along right now, all right?"
Daisya grinned without a hint of shame at being less mature than the girl who was several inches shorter and at least a year younger than him.
"Okay, sorry. Kanda, want to apologize?"
Kanda grumbled, and his apology came out through gritted teeth.
"Sorry."
…
Daisya laid a change of clothes on top of the bedroll, and tried to muscle it into a roll. His fingers barely hurt at all, now.
That reminded him…
He got up to fetch the glass vial on his desk, and emptied the contents into a small purse. He did not want to forget those.
He tied up the mouth of the bag, and shoved it in one of his pockets. Pockets, he had to say, were handy. Perfect size for hiding a hair tie, though that was a mostly futile effort.
He returned to the bed roll, and managed to get it into a rough cylindrical shape. Eh, close enough.
You only needed on piece of string. Loop it around, go over five inches, loop it around again, go under, up, and tie it off.
He planted his foot on one end to compress it, and tied the string off as best he could. You didn't want it too tight, otherwise you'd scrape the skin off your fingers trying to untie it. And his fingers had only just healed.
Oh, yeah, and he needed to pack bandages.
He fetched a roll or two, and stuffed them inside the roll. It should be secure enough.
Hah, it had been a month since they'd gotten back, and he still looked like a walking mummy. He could sell himself off as a fancy ornament to some bunch of nouveau riche, if he wanted to. They really liked their Egypt stuff, according to one of the finders. He'd overheard the guy — Art, was it? — gossiping about his time as a footman. It sounded like a pretty miserable job.
Let's see — bedroll, rucksack with extra food and water, bandages, medicine, and the Charity Bell.
He shook his head, and heard the familiar jingling from the tail of his hood.
All set.
…
He kicked Kanda's door, and waited.
"Go away."
Daisya could have laughed. Kanda acted like the mission was some sort of punishment, but he was probably going to be the one dragging them on.
"You packed?"
"Yeah, now go see Lenalee, or something."
"Okay. We're leaving in fifteen minutes, so don't be the rotten egg."
"Yeah, yeah."
…
Lenalee, true to form, was already waiting outside her door with a pack that was far too big for her.
"Is Kanda ready?" she asked, rocking back and forth on her heels.
"Yeah, but he won't come out of his room."
"Oh, he'll be out in a few minutes. He just likes to make sure he isn't forgetting anything. What's funny?"
Daisya stopped giggling.
"Oh, nothing. He acts like a housewife, if you let him."
"I don't really know what housewives are like. Do they worry a lot?"
"Yep."
Lenalee balanced her chin on her fingers, looking thoughtful.
"Hmm. Maybe he is a bit like one."
"He is, trust me," Daisya said, then quickly added: "Don't tell him I said that."
"Okay."
…
"So, this time we've got to take the train to Plymouth, and wing it from there?"
"Yeah."
The trek to the station was as arduous as the first time, but it felt like it had taken place years later. The air had the bite of autumn in it, and the sun shone weakly in a sky mottled with clouds. Around them, the fallen leaves smelled of comforting decay, and the rain that had fallen a night or two ago.
"It's really nice out today," Lenalee commented above the silence, "Don't you think?"
"Yup. Not too hot, not too cold, and it's not too dry. You like this type of weather?"
Lenalee shrugged, looking up at the patterns of cumulus across the sky.
"Yes. I really like it when it snows, too. It looks pretty. Do you like snow?"
Daisya nodded, watching a horseman morph into a dog.
"Yeah, it's nice. We didn't get snow at home, really. It was always hot and dry. Well, no. Sometimes it was cool and dry. Mainly I just like it when it's not dry."
"So you didn't like how it was at home?"
Lenalee's voice sounded a bit off. Daisya searched for a word to describe it. Not smaller, not weaker, but sort of…from far off. Empty. Like Kanda's eyes, when you knew something else was there but you couldn't see it for the life of you.
"No, not really. It was really boring, and I always had to keep track of my brothers and sister. They were really annoying. And everyone stopped playing with me after a while, because I was too good at stuff. I even told them that they could still play with me, even though I was better than them. It was really weird."
He hears a giggling sound.
"What's funny?"
Lenalee put a hand over her smile. Back to normal. She was better at that than Kanda, and she looked nicer after, with all her smiles. Sort of like his little sister, if she hadn't been a crybaby.
"Nothing. I haven't been home in a while. I left when I was young, so headquarters is like my home. It's nice, with my brother and Kanda and everyone."
A few minutes passed as they walked, Kanda trailing out in front, and the other two following.
"So, did one of the Generals teach you, or did you just figure stuff out on your own?" Daisya asked.
Lenalee shook her head.
"General Yeager's teaching me. I don't think I could get this good on my own."
Daisya shrugged.
"You can get pretty good, even if you're just teaching yourself. I taught myself a lot of things. Well, my parents started teaching them to me, but then they were busy, so I always had to teach myself the rest. You could probably teach yourself like that."
"I guess so. I can't really remember my parents, so I learned everything from my brother and Jerry and General Yeager."
"That makes sense. How old are you again? Eleven?"
"No, I'm nine."
"Wow, you're really not old. No wonder you're so tiny. You must have been really small when you came here."
Lenalee laughed.
"I was. I've grown a lot, though. Maybe I'll even be taller than you, someday."
"I can't have that!" Daisya exclaimed in mock outrage. "At least I'm still taller than you and Kanda now."
"Now," Lenalee repeated mockingly.
"Yeah, actually, you're three years younger than me, so you'd probably be taller than me if you were my age. Mom said the girls always grow faster."
"I didn't know that. Do they?"
Daisya made a face. "They did in my village."
…
The train came in a cloud of steam and the scream of metal on metal, and the rolling countryside faded into the clouded heath and moors of the southwest.
Daisya had gobbled up books, but he had not yet read that this place used to be separate from the greater part of England, like Wales or Scotland or East Anglia. This information wouldn't have been important, but it would have explained the sense of things being somehow different.
…
The three of them, accompanied by a finder named Liba, walked across the Cornish landscape, crossing moors and fields. There was a sort of foreboding that hung over the rocks and heather along with the mist. It was pregnant with a warning: do not push your luck. Move on, admire the beauty of the wild grasses and the sea, but do not stop for long. There are things far older here than you would like to encounter.
The path ahead was paved with neither asphalt nor gravel; it was just a thin strip of trodden-down dirt and grass winding away over the rise and fall of the landscape. Clouds blew around them, a net of fog to catch all who wandered astray as the evening settled in. Liba had said they could get to the inn before midnight, if they walked at a reasonable pace.
Occasional scraps of conversation flurried between Kanda and Lenalee, burning up in minutes like stray shreds of cloud. Liba stared solemnly ahead, casting occasional glances behind, and up at the sky. She had known the time and direction at every moment during this journey, without a watch or a chart. She might have been a mariner in another live, or a nomad.
Daisya, for his part, stared wide-eyed at all that surrounded them. This landscape was harsher, rawer than the forested roads of the continent, but in a way entirely different from his hometown. There, the threat was the deceptively warm sun, the dry sand. It felt as if the world could curve away from you, rivers running dry over the edges of the earth, leaving you a shrivelled husk clinging to the rocks that had been so nice and warm.
Here, the land seemed like it could swallow you up. Some great beast, with glowing eyes and dripping teeth, could rip out your throat and eat you alive, leaving your corpse a bed for flowers the following spring. The shifting play of light and shadow on the clouds could lead you over the cliff, to rest on the beach and be swept into the depths. Or the fog could just swallow you whole the moment you wandered off the path, leaving no trace.
The echo of the waves and the wind in the grass and the gentle sound of sea air sparked something in his blood that drove it to cycle furiously through his veins, lending a new edge to his senses.
The little group crested a rise, right near the edge of a cliff, and suddenly the fog fell away. The last light of sunset hung in the sky, melting like butter, and Daisya's eyes caught on the rocks and jagged waves.
It was as if he had looked into the eyes of this place, staring into its old and melancholy soul. Look, it said, here there are things that have not been and will not be for centuries.
Look, it said. Remember.
Yes, Daisya thought. I remember.
"Daisya!"
Liba's voice shattered the sea-textured silence, and Daisya returned to the group.
…
The inn was like any other: a beacon of candlelight in the swirling darkness. The clientele chattered and murmured, amongst the clink of glass for those as could afford it. Rough men, with charcoal dust on their hands and a stoop in their posture, drank from wooden mugs.
Daisya only just noticed it, but Lenalee seemed to have drawn closer to Liba as they entered. Kanda, too, took up position at her side. Daisya wondered if Lenalee was a bit nervous about going out after all her time inside, or if Komui had given orders.
He did seem awfully concerned for his sister. Sure, Lenalee was way better than his own sister, but you couldn't live with someone for years and not get annoyed by basically everything they did. Could you?
Kanda tugged on his coat, dragging him after the newly-departed Liba. She did walk fast.
The finder strode straight through the crowd, navigating the drunkards face-down in stew and the odd city man scrunched between two miners. A few of them took notice. They turned, grinning smiles that had little to do with anything so pure as contentment. No, they looked more like the sick grimaces of mad dogs. Hungry. Inhuman.
"What's a group of pretty little ladies doing here? Have we been good this week?" one slurred, leaning over into their path.
He'd been on the sauce for a while, from the smell, and his fingers were slowly unwinding from around the handle of the mug. What was this stupid bastard expecting? No one would accept a compliment from someone that dirty—
Daisya stopped mid-thought when he noticed Kanda's and Lenalee's reactions. Kanda flinched hard enough to stagger, and Lenalee's eyes went curiously blank.
Not that they were curious. It was just that there had to be a reason they were so blank, which made Daisya curious. English was a weird language, though he supposed the others did that too.
"We're here on business," Liba said sternly, "Which is more than can be said for you."
"Well…"
Something in Liba's hand flashed, and she leaned over the man to whisper something. Daisya couldn't quite see, but he didn't think she was asking him out on a date.
Immediately, the man nodded stiffly, and turned back to his table.
"Come on, come on, we don't have all day."
"It's night."
"Daisya, shut up."
She sat them down at a corner table, and told them to stay put. The look of resigned disgust on her face told Daisya that this stuff with the drunk guys wasn't too rare, and that he was missing someone.
This, for its part, made him want to find out why. Mysteries were interesting.
Inconsistent style? Terrible purple prose? Really vague references? Short chapters? Long waits? An incurable addiction to the 'enter' key? You have come to the right place, my friends.