The comings and goings of his friends appeared to Giorno as the revolutions of two celestial bodies. One a bright light breaking through the shadows of the other's wake; the other stepping in to naturally fill the quiet hours after the short-lived blaze of the former.

In so few meetings it seemed they had decided—absurdly, Giorno thought, as though they had agreed upon it—that they could not endure the other's presence. So never again did the twain meet. It was a strange thing, the natural order that guided his friends, but Giorno could not say that he was not glad of it. Alone, he could engage with them exactly in the way they wished him to.

He could have a solemn conversation with Jonathan over hard bread, peace and quiet enough to reflect on his faith and confide his reservations and worries. Jonathan was a calming influence, so stalwart and unbending in his manner, and in him Giorno could see the selfsame things he strove towards. As if—by staring at him for long enough—Giorno might find some semblance of his own face.

Fugo, conversely, was like a sinister reflection cast in beaten silver: giving prominence to the traits he liked the least, revelatory and repulsive, and yet presented to him with such clarity he could not hope to argue against them.

And, though he would be loath to admit it, he found more often than not that he anticipated his candlelight disputes with Fugo much more than he did his solemn meals with Jonathan.

There was a callowness to the very essence of Fugo himself; his noble birth, his wayward tongue, his garish dress, the dangerous ideas swirling about in his mind. It was a pleasure to chastise him, to feign indifference when he became fickle and argumentative, and know he would return before the week had ended. Within the confines of Casamari Abbey, Fugo was the welcome distraction that poor Jonathan could never hope to be.

And, though Giorno knew it to be wrong of him, he did not intend to shy away from the allure of life beyond the mountains that Fugo's visits promised.

He would rebuke himself, for certain, once the next morning broke and the spell had been broken. He would be quiet as he broke his fast with the lay-brothers, wonder how he had ever let a perfect stranger put such fantastical ideas into his head.

He would busy his hands in the garden, satisfy himself with dirt beneath his fingernails and sweat on his brow, and hope it would sustain him. But soon enough he would find himself once again bandying words whilst secreted in some corner of the presbytery, or out under the last of the sun in the cloister garth, and his resolve was lost once more.
Unburdened for the remainder of the day, enjoying the respite between the major hours, Giorno loitered in the presbytery, anticipating Fugo's inevitable appearance at his side. His arrogance—confidence, to hear him tell it—had only swelled as his visits became more frequent. Fugo was convinced at this juncture that neither the peasantry or the brothers would give him so much as an idle glance.

He visited Giorno costumed in increasingly ludicrous ways: in rich colours of embroidered doublets and gipons with countless buttons or ruffled collars; golden jewellery studded in his ears and glittering from as many fingers as he could manage; never deigning to wear a fur-lined cloak if he could not also fasten it with a gaudy glittering brooch.

Fugo often arrived as though he had been expecting fanfare, and upon receiving none saw no other recourse than to provide it himself.

'Put away your tracts, Giorno,' was his haughty greeting on this occasion, as he pulled at his riding gloves finger by finger. 'I have something far more stimulating to show you.'

Giorno thumbed at the the edges of his sermon book, watching as Fugo pulled a bound parcel out of his leather satchel and stowed his gloves in their place. He proffered it to Giorno with a sly smile.

'I told you not to bring me any more philosophy, Signore,' he said, quietly, his fingernails biting into the leather binding.

Fugo, unperturbed, took up his place next to Giorno and opened up the bundle himself. 'And I listened to you,' he said, thumbing through the linen pages and squinting at them in the candlelight.

Giorno, despite his best judgment, placed his book down and took up his candle, leaning in to give Fugo more light.

'Aristophanes, Menander, Aeschylus,' Fugo muttered, rapidly thumbing through the heap assembled on his lap. 'If you take issue with any of this I should be most disappointed. There is a great deal to be learnt from these men.'

'More Greek indulgence,' Giorno said bitterly.

Fugo clicked his tongue and fixed him with a questing look. Behind errant strands of golden hair, the candlelight danced in his eyes. 'If I recall, you said no philosophy,' he said, then seeing Giorno open his mouth quickly added, 'and nothing about dramatists, so you will hold your tongue.'

Giorno closed his mouth and exhaled sharply through his nose, which had Fugo biting back a smile. Giorno had come to like Fugo best when he was in these moods.
He would evangelise so passionately about his leaflets of mathematics or philosophy that, hiding a little smile behind the sleeves of his cassock, Giorno would delight in the absurdity of it all. He was certain a this juncture that it was knowledge, not God, that gave Fugo's life its fervour, and so the temptation to study his irreverent friend and his peculiar mind was far too great for Giorno to decline.

'Here,' Fugo said, jabbing at a line with a beringed finger, 'The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess.'

Giorno wrinkled his nose and leant in closer. 'Silence is often advantageous. I like that one far much more. It would be a most prudent use of your energies.'

'Quiet, you churl.' Fugo pushed Menander to the back of his pile and scanned the next leaf of linen, scowling. 'Here I am, toiling to bring precious contraband into this'—Fugo threw up a hand—'most sacred of places. All of the tools a man may need to hone his mind.' He paused to cast Giorno an injurious glare. 'And you mock me for it.'

'I did not ask for your sacrilegious texts.'

Fugo hummed, his eyes on his papers and a smile upon his lips. 'Did you keep Thales of Miletus' treatises?'

Giorno shrunk back, holding the candle between them.

The light burned bright and golden in Fugo's eyes. He leered at Giorno for a moment longer and then returned to his papers. 'Precisely'.

Fugo, he had come to learn, was especially fond of mathematics. The day he had brought him Thales' treatises on the Solstice and the Equinox, he had soliloquised for so long they had watched the sun set as they sat out in the garth. Fugo had been rapt as Giorno had listened through the wind and the dark, long after their single tallow candle had burnt out. Afterwards, Fugo had bundled them up and pressed them into Giorno's hands, and he had known it was some new scheme. A test of wills, perhaps, after Giorno had been unimpressed with the little box of honeyed almonds.

Giorno had secreted them under his cot and pretended they did not exist, and then feigned ignorance the next time Fugo had come calling. He had not anticipated that Fugo would get so upset, but despite his threats to never set foot on the abbey's grounds again, he had inevitably returned. Each visit, now, he carried new volumes of illicit materials under his arm, as if it was merely a question of discovering which would finally pique Giorno's interest.

Fugo straightened up, holding another page up to the candlelight. 'Happiness is a choice that at times requires effort.'

Giorno pursed his lips.

'Oh, come now.' Fugo clicked his tongue again. 'Is there not the suggestion of yourself in that?'

'If one is fond of inserting themselves into empty platitudes.'

'You are being difficult on purpose.'

'As is my right.'

Fugo thumped the wad of texts back into his lap. He combed his hair out of his eyes, head and hand for one moment melding into a blur of flame-lit gold, and bit out a sigh. 'If you really meant to resist me, you would not entertain me at all.'

'That does not mean I will blindly accept such fanciful things, just because you are the one to tell me them.' Giorno thought a moment more, then pressed in closer, urging Fugo to look at him. 'You cannot, surely, find each and every scrap of thought you come across enlightening?'

'You think I would waste your time with scraps? Or mine?' Fugo tapped and pulled at his rings, his agitation palpable in each minute touch; creeping into his voice. 'Do you think I go calling at each and every house in Frosinone, preaching about the Greeks and of Ebla, hoping some sorry soul will one day lend me his ear?'

'I almost wish that you would. I could learn to respect you.' Giorno replied, smiling, 'There is something wonderfully episcopal about such a cause.'

Fugo laughed, the corners of his eyes creasing with mirth. 'My little godson, I am not sure how far you have wandered beyond Casamari, but the mountains are not exactly teeming with opportunity.'

'Nonsense. You'd make a splendid fool for an empty village square.'

Fugo shook his head, smiling once more, and something warm and infectious flared through Giorno.

'No, no, that wouldn't do,' Fugo said, chin cupped between finger and thumb in a pantomime of deep thought, 'deranged nobilitàre are far too commonplace these days. I would never draw a sizeable crowd.'

Giorno heard his own laughter ring around the creeping shadows of the presbytery, as thought it was not quite his own.

Fugo cleared his throat, having learnt to master his face once more. 'I mean what I say, Giorno. This is not idle talk. I bring you these things because I wish to share them, and to have you speak your mind.'

'But why me, of all people?'

Fugo considered his question for a long moment, a curious wedge of muscle between his cheek and his mouth pulling up and away. It was almost as though he was torn between two answers; trying to decide which might serve him best. 'I didn't mean to find you,' he finally said, with a vague wave of his hand. 'It was serendipity, divine intervention, whatever you might like to call it.'

'Pure chance?'

'Spare me,' Fugo bit back with a roll of his eyes, jabbing him in his side. 'I almost fell asleep in the heat that day. And then I didn't think it quite right to squeeze out with the rest of the rabble. In loitering, I overheard you and your wounded pilgrim, and I was amused.' His gaze was acutely pointed. 'Then, you pretended to be offended by my ideas—for your friend's sake—and I was amused again. Once you stop amusing me, I suppose I shall cease my visits.'

He concluded this with a small, nonchalant shrug, which did not quite suit him.

'Amuse you?' Giorno asked, trying earnestly to keep the candle upright and away from his lap as Fugo tried to jab at him again, 'So it is me who is the village fool. Will you bring me a coxcomb on your next visit, one with lovely little bells?'

'You are being difficult on purpose,' Fugo said, sighing, and then added, quietly, 'that is not what I meant, and you know it.'

'I know.'

'A shame,' Fugo said, dourly, 'It would suit you, I think.'

Fugo's laughter whistled out of him as the back of Giorno's hand caught him in the chest, which only made him laugh the more raucously. He tried to keep his papers safe in his lap, swiping blindly with his other arm to try and keep Giorno at bay.

They tousled for only a short while more, as Giorno was more preoccupied with his candle than with his assault, and Fugo's voice was beginning to sound hoarse. 'I'll draw the animal out of you yet, little godson.'

'For your sake, you had better hope this animal does not have claws. Or teeth.'

Fugo's eyes were shining. 'You'll let me bring you more philosophy?'

'Yes, though I cannot promise you that I will agree with any of it. Your friend Menander is wrong, to begin with.'

The gleaming straight-set of Fugo's teeth broke from behind his lips. 'Oh?'

'You are a choice that requires effort at all times.'

For the second time that night, Giorno saw Fugo's smile travel up into the smooth flesh of his cheeks and play about the corners of his eyes. 'Should I ever meet him, I'll let him know.'


If a stranger chanced to see Jonathan Joestar take his victuals, Giorno thought, they would have assumed him for nearly anything other than a noble scion.

He was a loud eater, and a messy one; he adopted a ridiculous hunch and ate with such voracity that one may have been forgiven in mistaking him for a starved, ailing wretch. Most curious to Giorno was the way that he approached his meals—each day and without failure—as though he had never before eaten a morsel in his life.

'I should like to go into the valley,' Jonathan said, chewing on a heel of bread and his syllables both at once, 'the air here brings strength back to my bones.' He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and tore himself another fistful of bread.

Since Jonathan had recovered strength enough to be moved from the infirmary, and to take the stairs by himself, Giorno had begun to dine in the refectory with the lay-brothers. Afterwards, he would take a helping up to Jonathan's new quarters. This way, he could furnish Jonathan's meal with half of his own, knowing he would never be the wiser of it.

'I am sure we have the same air here as that you breathe in England, as does the garth,' Giorno said, 'and I am surer still that rest will do you more good than a reckless jaunt into the mountains.'

'The same?' Jonathan chortled and shook his head, spooning up another helping of broth. 'Oh no, Giorno. It's not the same at all. How blessed you are, to live amongst such beauty.'

Giorno was quiet for a moment, taking another sip of prunellé. He rapped his fingers against the sides of his mazer, staring down into its dark contents. 'Is England not beautiful, Signore?'

Whenever asked for details about his life before Casamari, Jonathan had not been forthcoming. Giorno feared to press him too hard about it. In the first weeks of his stay, he had been either struck dumb from the tinctures he took for the inflammation, or caught in fitful snatches of sleep before the pain crept back in. Now it that the infection appeared to be waning, and his strength was slowly returning to him, he was fervent in his prayers and hopes for the future. He had not spoken much, if at all, of the past.

'Father's manor is beautiful,' Jonathan replied at length, worrying at his heel of bread with his fingers. 'The surrounding fields stretch as far as the eye can see.' He tore off a piece of bread and sopped up more broth. He chewed at it for a long while, staring into his bowl, and then said, 'Even the borough has its charms. As I boy, I used to race down to the port each morning to watch for the ships.' A shadow passed over his face, then; smile eclipsed by the dark cloud hanging on his brow. 'I haven't seen it for years, now.'

'Won't you return?' Giorno ventured, 'once you are well again?'

'I shouldn't think so.' Jonathan could not look at him, then, and stared into his broth as he attempted to school his features. 'I will be needed in London.'

The English word made Jonathan's speech all the more peculiar, and it was an odd thing to begin with: his Latin was far better than his Italian, and he had a habit of slurring the two together.

'London?'

Jonathan replied with a hum, taking another spoonful of broth. 'The capital. My brother's enterprise keeps us there.'

There was reticence lurking in every word and in the pinched line of his mouth as he tore apart the little that was left of his bread. Before now, Jonathan had practically inhaled his meals and then retired for the night. With his fickle health, Giorno did not know when such an opportunity would present itself again.

'He must be an important man, for his labor to take him to your King's city.'

'He certainly seems to think so,' Jonathan said with a curl of his lip, 'he enjoys the city as if it is his own, and father's money makes it so.'

Then he seemed to remember himself, collecting up the remains of his bread into one mouthful. He looked so curiously solemn as he chewed on it in silence, his broad-shouldered silhouette more akin that of an admonished child than the noble he was.

'My apologies,' he said at length, looking up from his empty bowl. 'I do not mean to speak ill of blood, but sometimes they like to test the limits of our good intentions.' He glanced up and smiled at Giorno, his eyes brighter than they had been all evening. Though even the most blinding of smiles could not disguise the shadow of fatigue upon his face. 'I'm sure that is a sentiment that you understand well.'

Giorno ceased thumbing over the cross around his neck and tucked it back underneath his cassock, abashed. 'I'm not sure that I do, Signore.'
'You chose devotion,' Jonathan said, putting his empty bowl to one side. 'A higher purpose called you into these mountains, far more important to you than whatever world you chose to leave behind.'

An unbidden thought pressed against Giorno's mind, then; that he had somehow led Jonathan astray during their evening repast. And now, he was almost ashamed of the truth. Felt that, surely, Jonathan would now think less of him for it. The thought was irrational and fleeting, but he could not dispel it all the same.

'I suppose I do have a higher purpose to thank for my lot in life, Signore,' Giorno agreed, 'but I did not have a choice in the matter. I was bundled up and left on the abbey's steps, either for the Prior or the cold. Either would have been of little consequence to my… blood.'

'Forgive me, Giorno, I—' Jonathan tried to close the distance between them, but did not appear to have the strength. He wedged his eyes shut, pressing a hand over the useless flesh of his thigh, and offered his other to Giorno.

Each night, after taking to his victuals with such enthusiasm, he always seemed to forget himself. As though he believed himself, for one exultant moment, to be miraculously restored.

'You did not know.' Giorno knelt at Jonathan's feet and pressed his hand into his. 'And yours is a much more appealing interpretation, after all.'

Jonathan exhaled sharply, shaking his head. 'I speak without thinking, and make a fool of myself at every turn.'

'I have known men have worse vices.'

He laughed, then. It was hoarse and quiet, a single note of mirth. But he was smiling again. He squeezed Giorno's hand as he said, 'For the little that it is worth, I do not think you should consider yourself lacking. Family can be a fine thing, but it can also be a man's undoing.'

Giorno enclosed Jonathan's hand within both of his own, staring up into his face. Every facet of his expression appeared to him in that moment so open and honest, behind the haze of exhaustion, and impossibly endearing.

'I hope you find what you are searching for, Signore. And peace, when you return home.'

'Peace will depend on how my brother chooses to conduct himself. But please do not speak to me of leaving here, Giorno. Not yet.'

'Of course not. Besides, you shan't get further than the walled garden on that leg.'

Jonathan chuckled again. His hand was warm. Unwieldy and rough beneath Giorno's, an entire life catalogued in callouses and scars, not at all what he had anticipated. And, given time and respite, the secrets within each raised fissure and rough fingertip would be known to him, and Jonathan Joestar would coalesce into a singular entity. For now, though, it was merely the suggestion of more yet to come.

Jonathan exhaled and said, 'By now you know I am determined, and—'

'Impetous.'

Jonathan chuckled again. 'My point exactly. And so, if I am in want of some fresh air, I would crawl to the peak of Ernici for it. Whether you will it or no.'
Giorno did not doubt him for a moment. 'That you would. And if that is what you are planning, Signore, you had better get some rest.'

Jonathan, still kneading at his sore leg as he reclined, nodded his grateful assent.


As the summer waned and they drew closer to the promise of cooler months, Fugo had almost entirely abandoned the pretence of worship.

Though it had not been a particularly shrewd endeavour in the first place, he now seemed to think the ruse had served its purpose. He chastised Giorno if he had journeyed through the mountains and only found out too late that he was not overseeing the service; he would make a scene at the gate of the walled garden, were Giorno disposed elsewhere, and would hound the bewildered brothers until they agreed to deliver him.

He had at first deigned not to broach this subject with Fugo, knowing full well how such a conversation would end, but eventually could not bear to leave it unsaid.
'You are not a religious man, are you, Signore?'

Fugo bristled, staring down his nose at Giorno. He swept an errant lock of hair from his eyes, the line of his lips working through a series of contortions; that same, strange, mechanical effort to practice the correct words to say. And, as Giorno had now learnt was commonplace with Fugo, the worst response was a calculation rather than base instinct.

'Certainly not.'

Giorno could not look at him, then. He stared out at the beds of herbs and flowers, at the winding trellis of ivy that almost entirely eclipsed the wall beneath it, and wished he were alone.

'That upsets you,' Fugo said, with a little self-asserting nod, his gaze drifting away, 'I suspected it might.'

'Why do you come here?'

Fugo regarded him for a long, silent moment. The sweep of his gaze got under the collar of Giorno's cassock and prickled at his skin. Fugo narrowed his eyes. 'What is it you would like to hear?'

It struck Giorno as a pathetic sort of play, and not at all one of Fugo's. 'We have established you are not religious. I don't think there is much else I would like to hear.'

Unspoken thoughts danced across the minutiae of Fugo's face; a richness of expression hiding itself away in the crease of his brows, the wrinkle of his nose, and the lifting of his upper lip. 'So now we are to be strangers, little godson? Is that it?' Fugo was beginning to raise his voice. 'If I do not bleat with the rest of them will you cast me out from the flock?'

'Why should you be welcome to sit amongst those you loathe?' Giorno bit back, rising from their bench. The crestfallen pinch of Fugo's brow seemed ridiculous to him. 'You cannot honestly believe I would take this lightly?'

He turned away from him to pace the length of the garden, fingernails biting into the soft flesh of his palms.

From their first meeting Fugo had shown he had no qualms when it came to voicing his disdain. Though Giorno had hoped, despite his reservations, that it had simply been some jest to get under Jonathan's skin. He had allowed Fugo to slowly permeate the ebb and flow of his life. And, even as the weeks wore away at the veneer of Fugo's first appearance in the pews, he had continued to entertain him and his self-serving dogma.

Not because he had been wilfully ignorant of it, but rather because he wanted to see just how far it might go.

Even now, knowing for certain that Fugo's interest in himself and in Casamari had little to do with the Lord, he could not bring himself to call an end to it. He watched the fading glow of the day's remnants, uncurling his fists. The sun had already fallen behind the mountains and night would soon be upon them, the candles brought to life in the nave and the kitchens already framing the cloister garth in a dim halo of light. He delved a hand into the pockets of his cassock and thumbed over his rosary.

Fugo was a fickle and inscrutable influence and Giorno was still rather unsure of the particulars of their relationship. They did not, it seemed, have much at all in common; not faith nor histories. He was irregular in his visits, appearing in the crowds like a brightly plumed bird then disappearing into shadows before Giorno could hope to seek him out.
And, whenever he had resolved himself to put the passing fancy of his visitor out of his mind, Fugo would inevitably appear once again to beguile him: rather as if he knew the effect of his presence upon Giorno's convictions.

'Are you truly so upset?' Fugo asked, having come to stand at Giorno's side.

Giorno tightened his fist around his rosary. He continued to look towards the mountains and their haze of orange light, fading fast.

'No,' he said, and knew that he meant it. 'But I do not understand why, Signore. Why do you wander this far into the mountains if you care not for the Lord?'

There was silence again as they watched the day fade. There was always the suggestion of something secret working in the depths of Fugo's body—private machinations, so well maintained just under the surface of his skin—and once Giorno had noticed them he could not see anything else. The most vacant of expressions were betrayed by the infinitesimal expressions beneath the mask of his face, unseen to those around him. He was brash and starkly out of place in the abbey, and yet everyone seemed to turn a blind eye to him. They avoided the scrutiny of the nobliumo by pretending he was not there at all;as was his desire.

'There are a great many things a man can read about,' Fugo finally said, brows drawn up, lips tight, 'and yet for all of the manuscripts in the world he will never compare with the man who sees with his own eyes.'

'And what is it about smallfolk that you are so desperate to see for yourself?' he asked, meeting Fugo's eyes, 'was it a wonder to you that they do not appear in the average bestiary?'

'Giorno—'

A snort of derision escaped him.'Do not tell me you sit among them and consider them your equals?' He bit out an incredulous laugh, shook his head. Night had crept over them; the hazy purple underbelly of the clouded sky the only remnant of the faded day's light. 'Am I part of this jape, too?'

'There is no jape,' Fugo hissed.

'Once, you said that you would cease your visits, if you no longer found me amusing. What is that, if not a jape?'

'Surely you have known me long enough by now to know when I jest?'

'The longer I know you, the harder it is to tell jest from sincerity.'

Fugo set his jaw, the shadow of his anger threatening to burst forth from the confines of the tight line of his mouth. Under his furrowed brow, his eyes were as clouded as the darkening sky. Smoldering. Boring into him.

Giorno steeled himself and asked, 'What is it that you truly want?'

Fugo's burning gaze, dark and withdrawn, drifted away from Giorno's. He folded his arms over his chest, as though fearful of what he might otherwise do, exhaling sharply through his nose. He was silent for a long and terrible moment, chewing on his bottom lip and staring off into the night.

'Must you scrutinise my every word and action?' he asked, scowling, not deigning to turn back to look Giorno in the eye.

'That is what you should come to expect, should you want to see with your own eyes,' Giorno replied, his tongue laced with venom, 'you, too, will be seen.'

Fugo scoffed, his hands wavering from where they were tucked beneath his armpits, the slits in his doublet puckering and shifting as he tried to control himself, grinding his teeth.

'If you cannot bear such scrutiny, I think you had better return to your manuscripts, Signore.'

'And I think you ought to take your leave as well, my godson,' Fugo said, in a low and level voice that betrayed the evident agitation in his body. 'Good night.'

Giorno turned from him, uncertain of what truly lay within the heart of Fugo's words, but certainly not perturbed by it. He had, after all, known exactly how this conversation would end. He felt for the latch and slipped indoors, watching the long shadow cast by the door slowly swallow Fugo up. He felt the shudder of the hinges deep in his bones.

'Good night,' he whispered.