.
Swipe-swipe. Error.
.
Fiammetta sighed.
.
Swipe-swipe. Error, again.
Who would've thought.
.
"Less greedily, Fia." Chattered the blue blabbermouth. Be it the presence of a soon-to-be convict, or the ailment provided by the environment, but the redhead didn't bite back. She resorted to a harmless scowl instead.
"It's not about greed, or dexterity, which I know you like complaining about as well, but just these mechanized doors. It wouldn't hurt to nail a regular, wooden gate here."
"Would it, now…" Mostima's eyelids fell, a set of curtains halving the ongoing show of mockery. "... You think a looney with a gun would have a harder time getting through a coating of Lateran cardboard, or a metal vault door?"
"I wasn't talking about cardboard."
"Me neither." She said, softly, then tapped her nails against the nearest wall. Carved from the thickest of oaks Laterano supposedly had to offer, the construct all echoed emptily, belying its hollow bellows. Andy couldn't help but chuckle.
"... It's kinda like Lungmen." He found the notion incredibly funny. Neither girl seemed to share his humor, though, as they stared blankly at his giggling self. Soon, a concerned woman approached the three.
"Hello? Excuse me, ma'am, are you alright? Is everything okay…?" Softly, her hands spun Andy like a spool of yarn, unveiling a grander misery wooled behind layers of smaller unfortunates. He got taken by the wind of her motion, and carelessly fell ill beneath her spell, drifting away to a land far away – up until she spotted the most glaring marks of his deplorable condition, and spoke. The world came to be as it was – conscientious and real.
"Dear Law, what's happened to you? Dear Light almighty, dear Saints above… where were you thrown into? A nail processing facility? A woodchipper? A pack of hungry hounds? Oh, dear, oh dear…" Her feet carried her in circles, now doing laps around the three. Fiammetta couldn't spare an annoyed look, while Mostima thrived silly in the woman's trepid ramblings. "... Dearie, oh dearie, where have you ran in from? The west wing? God, where are your robes? Your pyjamas? You oughta be all striped up, you poor little thing! Military gray looks terrible on you."
"Mm?" Mostima caught her last statement, as it seemed to stir something a little deeper beneath her reflective surface. With a grin, she leaned into Andy's ear and murmured. "See? Told ya eight years ago."
He didn't quite catch the implications.
"Oh, you poor pup, you poor, little thingie…" Her hands enveloped Andrew's face in a protective embrace, and there couldn't have been a single terrible monster on Terra that'd dare rip them away. He found himself sinking in her grasp. "You sweet, sweet, armless creation… How did those nails come to be? How, in Law's name, did no Saint dare intervene in the process…? Ah, and the arm? Was it amputated here, in Saint Stephen's? Or was it at Ambrosius…? If it was Ambrosius, then I can already tell some knucklehead had botched the job." She scoffed, non-literally spitting on the good name of the Ambrosius Avenue clinic. "Terrible people! They say our hospital's a total hovel, just because it's the only one in the whole Avenue! That's all hogwash! They dare say that, then refuse to treat a bundle of Liberi streetworkers the following week, those hypocrites. Well, it was a real nasty case of Oripathy I guess, but still…"
"..." Andy nodded, hugged from all sides by her comforting warmth. In her hands, the world and life in general seemed just a little more bearable than usual. Mostima must've noticed his attempt at dozing off again, and promptly elbowed him in the ribs. "O-Ow…?"
"...Ow? Ow, I know, I know, sweetie…" The blabbermouthing nurse brought his features close to the pooling source of warmth, and pressed him flush to her chest. Andy couldn't breathe. "I know it hurts, I know it's all bad and terrible… Why don't we get you back to bed, hm? I'm not exactly sure who your appointed nurse is, but I gotta give her a proper scolding for just letting you waltz around the facility like that. Mind reminding me?"
"Oh, uh…" Andy blinked, then racked his brain hard. If he could, he'd stab a finger through his skull and drag out a made-up name by force. But he couldn't, so his mind came up blank. "... I'm actually, uh… I don't know…? I'm not quite sure?"
"He's not appointed." Fiammetta cut the circus short. Her voice, a cold bucket of rainwater to Andy's growing affections. The nurse glanced at her, confused, then let the boy go. He nearly fell to the floor, just barely caught last-second by Mostima's surprisingly agile arms.
"He?" The nurse asked.
"He." Fiammetta pointed to Andrew, a very accusatory gesture. Helped to his feet, he opted to stay close to Mostima and just sit this one out. She didn't seem to mind much, anyway. "Him. A perp of a plethora of crimes, freedom unattainable. We're escorting him to… uh…"
Her mind blanked, void of a real reason, unable to lie on the spot. A real pair of Legati would simply flash the nurse an ID and have her shooed away, but for some reason "Fia" couldn't bring herself to do so. Couldn't bring herself to reveal that they're taking a war criminal for a Sunday stroll around Laterano, either.
"... A super secret mission. Top secret, actually. Can't one-up the stuff we're on." Mostima wedged in to help, her voice hush-hush and overly serious. "... This here man had lost his identity, and some people want him incarcerated for something he hadn't had the chance to do. We're hot on the case to snag it back, and make right's right. Dig?"
"..." The nurse stared, her soft features twisted uncomfortably in a display of moved confusion. Moved, at what? At Andy's missing self? The roots of his terrible predicament? He couldn't tell.
"... Man? He's a man?" Finally, she asked. "... I was, um. I was under another impression."
"Me too, at first." Mostima didn't even seem surprised, as she let out a snort. "But yes, this is a man. A man of the hour, for now."
"A man of no hour." Fiammetta sighed, clearly over and done with all their moronic exchanges. Had Andy picked up the terrible habit of smoking, he was sure he could light a cigarette off the near-steaming top of her head. The sight didn't exactly elicit much hope for the future. "... A man of no hour, of no time, and no hospital appointments. He's just here to waste our time apparently, and I'm humoring him for some reason. And this… this damn door on top of it all!" At another red of rejection from the ID scanner, Fia gave the metal jester a rough kick to the gut. He didn't even bend, and she recoiled back in pain. "... The door! Can you at least get it open?!"
"Watch, Drew. Watch her exercise her second amendment. Any second now." Mostima leaned in, a wry whisper transferred to Andy. He giggled at the sight of the redhead's finger itching and twitching around her 'nading holster.
"Oh? Door?" The nurse tilted her head. "That's Miss Kennel's room, is it?"
Their three, combined pair of eyes turned towards the golden plaque that was nailed into the doorframe. "LEMUEN KENNEL", it said.
"Yup." Mostima confirmed, nodding. "Sure is."
"Hmmm…" Her eyes narrowed, suspicion arising with each rub of her chin. "I'm not sure. We don't usually let people inside without a proper warrant, or unless a family member is present. That's just the standard procedure when it comes to allowing visits to patients who aren't able to conscio-..."
"YEAH, YEAH, WE KNOW!" Mostima shifted in a flash, blurting the words far faster than Andrew or Fia would ever suspect, or anticipate. As if to further shush the nurse, she cleared her throat in an overly theatrical fashion. "... Yeah. Yeah, we know the procedures. We're Legati, after all."
"We are, he's not." To clear any confusion, Fia verbally made sure to keep Andrew inferior. "... And we are aware of the circumstances, but it's a special case. It's a…"
She sought an appropriate word to bullshit her way inside.
"... A requirement towards the case's completion, that we are let inside. Simply the Curia's will." She seemed slightly annoyed with herself, being a source of amusement for Mosti's joy-hungry eyes, and Andrew's dumb grin. Alas, she pushed on. "... But, if it is truly required and no other roundabout can be implemented, I'll get a personal permit from The Pope, and come back later. After lunch."
"His Holiness…?" The nurse's tiny, tired eyes widened at the mere mention of the old man's name. Andy's never actually been taught to fear The Pope. The only image of the guy he could muster was his dad's old paycheck signer. "... I… I don't think that would be necessary, no."
"Why does your cop-buddy have connections to The Pope?" Andy asked Mostima, hushy-hush to spare the nurse's ears.
"She doesn't." She returned an equally quiet whisper. "See, Drew, this is something we call "bullshiting our way in" in the Legati game."
"Right, let me just… Pardon, miss–... I mean, mister." The nurse spread the two apart on her way to the untamed scanner. It eyed her from head to toe, still suspicious, but less pugnacious than it was with Fia. "... Lemuen, Lemuen, Lemuen… I'm glad there are people who still visit the poor girl, you know? Not many bother to drop flowers nowadays…"
Fiammetta's gaze lingered on Mostima for a second too long to be considered a whim. Her eyes spelled an unsaid accusation, and her words soon nailed it further in. "I know. We know."
"..." The blue moron simply stuck her tongue out. Andy was left wondering when exactly had she gone so far off the rails of her usual worrywart-ery. "Right. The door, then?"
"The door…" The nurse sighed. With a few soft strokes of the pad, she slipped her ID over the reader and welcomed an inviting green. The gate shuffled aside, emitting near to no sound from within its mechanical guts. "... The door. The door's just a door. I don't think people avoid her because there's a door in the way."
"... Riiiiight." Mostima slipped her way inside, unbothered and unbound by worry. Andrew, however, took a mental note of the nurse's dull eyes, as she watched him enter. Fia followed third, making sure that damn door stayed closed behind.
.
"..."
.
An ethereal silence spread its all-encompassing presence over each corner of the room. Glimmers of sunlight soaked in through the thin cloths that fluttered softly by a nearby window. The chirping of fowlbeasts mixed into a gentle song of joy, carried along the laughter and cheers of The Bloat's celebrators. At the far end of the chamber, beneath the low-trotting sun, a bed hid behind a pinkish curtain. A lowly table was its only companion. A bundle of flowers rotted on top, but the smell seemed to evaporate as fast as it arose. Andy blinked, nudged from behind by something slithery and thin.
"Aaalright, can finally throw this off. How do I look?" Mostima buzzed past his shoulder, with the flow of air suggesting she was doing cute little spinny-circles. Fiammetta took a moment to take her in, before bumbling an answer.
"Normal, I guess. Why?"
"Everything's so normal to you. You wake up in a normal bed, walk down a normal street, drink normal coffee, solve normal problems." Mostima rushed a hand through her flattened hair, having freed herself of the imprisoning hood. Here and there, her fingertips caught a feel of her tar-black horns, and her tail danced carelessly between her legs. "... Look at Drewie, for example. I'm not so normal to him, am I? Am I, Drew?" Her voice fluttered, a butterfly of sound. Andrew, correctly envisioned, stared at her confused and shocked, eyes spread wide open and focused on her unLawful features.
.
His brain felt a softening crack spread around its mushy globe. The kind of crack that brought nothing but a deep sense of misunderstanding and rejection of the current reality it has found itself in. Otherwise, his brain would've been forced to come to terms with the realization that the beacon of Law, the spring of purity and morally disambiguous, dead-center GOOD teachings, that was Mostima, must've slipped, strayed from the path and Fell.
She Fell.
She was a Fallen. Black horns, wriggly tail, shattered wings, turned-off halo. As if someone had grasped the tiny string hanging by her ring of light and pulled dowards, simply "clicking" the thing off. Features of a Fallen, scars driven by the Law's severing dagger to cut the connection between Sinner and Life.
He's seen them on Ricketts before. Never in his life would he suspect HER of all people to up and Fall like that. To slip and slide. Slip and slide WHERE, exactly?
Andy didn't know.
.
"... Drew? Hello?"
.
Snap, snap. The rapid clacking of her fingers managed to anchor him back down to Terra.
"We gotta start leaving you alone when you drift off." She peeked behind the initial glaze that caked his iris to gauge whether there had been something more to it, or just a stroke of disinterested napping. Finding nothing, her face returned to the usual lack of care. "... Go for a coffee, maybe. Maybe manage a report."
"You don't manage reports." Fia softly reminded.
"Yes I do?" Taken by surprise, Mostima's voice defensively disagreed. "I manage all those stupid weekly reports the old man wants us to turn in, and–..."
"You bring me barely a half-chewed A5 sheet with random doodles, and then I put it in the paper shredder." She didn't spare either of them, with her unamused gaze. "... Then, I try to write a sensible report from your perspective, while trying to make it somewhat believable, and attach it to mine."
"Paper shredder?" Mostima asked, without breaking her smirk. Andy noticed the air-circles crossed by her tail growing a little smaller and slower, however. "... So you don't even skim them? All that effort, and for what?"
"The doodles?" Fia sighed. "... I tend to focus on work."
"Right. Of course you do."
.
"..."
.
"..."
.
The two of them turned to Andy, feeling out his gaze, like the annoying buzzing of a fly. He didn't feel particularly fly-like at the moment, but their eyes helped him hop into the role. With a small step back, he apologized and–...
.
…
.
… Wait. Fallen, right.
.
Andrew pointed to her horns.
.
"How?"
"How, what?" She didn't seem too bothered. One hand on the hip, another pointing to the keratin creation, Mostima quirked him a brow. "This? I dunno. Just came up one day. Won't come off. Trust me, I tried."
A wink. Andy felt even so more puzzled.
"But… But, I mean, why? What happened?"
"Shot some guy."
The words belied nothing. Her face, her careless hand flick, her demeanor, and her voice – it was all smoke. All smoke, but Andy couldn't see a mirror anywhere. Not in her eyes, not in her gestures, not in the slightest bits of hints woven between her statements, because there just weren't any. She just shot some guy. End of story.
"Shot some guy?"
"Shot THE guy." Fiammetta couldn't bear the blue one's tongue-paddling any longer. "A guy you have clearly no interest in, nor ever should you. That's all you need to know, and that's all I'm telling you."
"..." Andrew glanced over at Mostima, hoping for an explanation from her side. She shrugged, almost apologetically.
"She's not telling you, either." Fia crossed her arms. The gesture demanded full and complete obedience. "... Now go, do what you have to. She's waiting."
.
Andy was almost ready to ask "Who's waiting?"
.
Only the most strained and unbreakable cobwebs of his mind managed to hold, and reel in, the notion, as the memory of Lemuen's hopeful smile resurfaced amidst the endlessly battered ocean inside his skull. The elden gales of Lateran wind – the warm ones, not the cold rapids accompanying the hum of a hundred military trucks ready to roll – they all subdued all and every other function his body might've otherwise undertaken.
Lemuen. Right, Lemuen.
He didn't want to wake her up. She must've been snoozing, that lazy sleepyhead. If there was one thing her and Lem did share, it definitely was the love and devotion towards napping. Nap here, nap there. Nap everywhere.
At her school desk.
In the hallway.
On their way back home.
In her room.
On the couch.
Right by Andy.
On his shoulder.
.
Gently, Andrew pulled the ethereal veil. The soft brush of fabric tenderized his skin to a gelatin-like extent.
Beyond, lay a bed. A hospital bed, adorned by sheets and pillows, fabrics and plumage, all meticulously put together to serve as a snug nest for the pink-haired angel that found herself tucked beneath.
Beep.
The sound of progress. A machine counted her weakened heartbeat, each bump a line on a nearby monitor. Andrew found it fascinating, how a sleeping woman's heart could function so slow. So delicate. The tiny flutter of a fowlbeast.
Chirps and cheers flowed from the window, along a glimmer of sunlight that painted her face a warm orange. Hue bounced off hue, and a whole picture soon came together, trivialized by the clashing image immortalized in Andrew's not-so-omnipotent mind. Lemuen, in the flesh. Warm from the sun, cold to the touch. Bubblegum pink hair rolled in tufts, down her striped gowns and sheets, covering her features and protecting from the outside. Andy reached out and softly flicked away a loose strand from her eye, lest she be annoyed by it when she wakes up. Andy had no idea when that moment would come.
.
"Hey." A hiss. It belonged to Fiammetta, he figured. Her hand soon grasped the boy's wrist and pulled it away from En's warm face. "Don't touch. You're not permitted to touch her. Do what you have to do, and we're out."
"But I have to." Andrew protested with a quiet mewl. Meow and moan all you want, you wouldn't break her guard anyway. Just barely glancing past his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of her stern glare, and it made him give up any and all forms of protest.
But still, a little part of him really, REALLY wanted to fight for En…
"... I just wanted to wake her up."
"Wake her– what?" Fiammetta raised a brow. He couldn't see it, but he already knew she did. "... What?"
"Oh, yeah, uh…" Mostima appeared by his other shoulder, and the notion felt most familiar. Back in the thick of Killing-La-La-Land, her and W would oftentimes make a show of tormenting him from a shoulder each. W was the devil, she was the angel. Each second spent near her, however, made him rethink the assigned roles more and more. "... Yeah, one issue, Drew."
"What issue?"
"A small one." Mostima sat on the verge of the bed. En's fluffy fabrics bent and tugged towards the girl, but her slumber remained utterly uninterrupted. "En's not waking up."
Andrew blinked.
"... Why?"
"She doesn't want to." Mostima flicked the bubblegum lady a nice love-tap to the skull. "You try, and try, and try, but this stubborn broad just doesn't get up. Ever."
"Someone tries and tries. And that someone is not you." Fiammetta cut in, coldly. "You're too busy "trailing the untamed", or whatever. When was the last time you even bothered to waltz in here?"
Mostima pointed to the door. "... Two, three minutes ago?"
"By yourself."
"Hm." The girl crossed her legs, her tail resting calmly in her lap. "With, or without your knowledge?"
"..." Fia pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture executed swiftly and efficiently. Andy got a feel that her hand was used to that particular motion by now. "Which one's more recent?"
"Without."
"Without, then."
"Riiiiiiight…" Mostima leaned over the bedside table, craning her neck to pick out the date scribbled over a wish-card hanging limp from the rotting flowers. The messy handwriting proved too difficult to make out, so she gave up. "... Like, a few months ago. Recent enough."
"En?" Andy spoke before Fia could. His voice was directed right at the sleeping beauty's pinkish ear. "... En?"
"She's in a coma." Fiammetta bluntly cut his attempt short, but the words had little to no effect on his unquelled need of waking the girl up. "... Hey. You, twerp. She's in a coma, she's not waking up. What you're doing is just downright childish, dare I say annoying. Disrespectful to us, for sure."
"Dis-... disrespectful…?" Andy whispered. At that moment, that little bit of history, somewhere between the ripe year of 1074 and 1097, he found not only himself, but also the entirety of humanity and Terra locked inside a miniscule grain of dead skin, peeling from the girl's nose. the scraping felt unnatural and weird. A taint on her Lawful and heavenly beauty. The beauty that spilled and skidded down the red corridors of the Kennel residence, alongside the smell of freshly baked pastries, and two eager pairs of eyes. Lem, En, their mom. Three strings of memories, all of them warm.
Too warm.
Andrew reached, and carefully took the peeling skin from her nose. She didn't even acknowledge his touch.
.
There it was. A little piece of her. A tiny patch of Laterano.
.
Laterano. The same Laterano that brewed outside. All the same sunsets, all the same winds, all the same skies and buildings. The white marbles and booming crowds. It was all the same.
She was the same. Andrew also wanted to be the same, but he didn't know whether he could.
.
Through the shift of fabric, and the gentle beating of her mechanical heart, a warm surge of skin bloomed in his fingers' embrace. Andy was looking out the window when the girl slipped a hand in his.
.
"..."
.
Her unnaturally warm gaze burned the side of his head. It took an hour or two, before the heat melted his skull and licked the brain cortex. That's when he noticed her staring.
.
"... Hey, Andy."
.
Lemuen shifted in bed, wriggling her way into a sitting position. Taken by the hand, Andy could no longer ignore the girl's bright bream. He returned a faint smile of his own, bouncing his gaze around her familiarly disfigured, aged features.
"En." He returned a happy nod. The low rhythm of his heart spelled a phonetic sense of peace, because why would he need to worry? She was there, with him.
"How's life?" He asked.
"I can't complain. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I'm allowed." Lemuen bloomed in his eyes. The world brightened a little when she smiled, and the room grew warmer the more she talked. Her soft voice was the approaching thaw, melting away the snow of obdurate stubbornness. "But I can't really say the same about you, Andy. You know I want to, though, right?"
"Yeah, I know." Andrew gripped her hand, and Lemuen returned his gesture. Locked in a perpetually tightening hold, they eventually let go and relapsed back to softly rubbing their palms together. "I've been, um… I've been busy."
"You've been busy for quite some time." Lemuen said, tenderly. "I've never seen you visit, you know. I was waiting for you to show up eventually."
"I've been really busy."
"I know. It's the joy of adult life, being busy and tired all the time. Kazdel was fun in that regard, wasn't it?" She smiled brightly, and the sun played to her gleam. Andrew felt drawn. Drawn to the idea of being with her. Of her, talking to him. Of being acknowledged. "... You didn't have a timetable in Kazdel, did you?"
"No."
"No. See, and you do, in Lungmen. How is that fair?"
Lemuen tilted her head. A deeply warming smell of fresh pastries flowed from within her curling hair storm, wafting right into Andy's nostrils. It felt so nice, it made him forget about the arm. About the nails. About Croissant, about the letters, about Lem, about Lizzy, and about everything else that might've trampled his brain.
He nodded back.
"It's not fair, El. But I guess I'm just used to it."
"You're used to timetables?"
"Kind of. They're not so bad, after a while." He chuckled, feeling a little giddy. "You know, back when I was little, for the longest time I wanted to have someone… some guide , come and take me by the hand, and- and just drag me through life, so that I wouldn't have to think about anything. I had this phase, this absolute… this disaster of a phase, where I wanted nothing more but to give myself whole to someone, and have them lead me somewhere . Not sure where."
"I know." Lemuen bubbled a pretty smile. "I remember, Drewie. A puppy to be taken care of, but also a leech. Did you ever manage to pick one?"
"No. No, I don't think I ever got it down, actually. Sometimes I feel like the biggest leech on Terra and want to cut myself off from any and all people to stop being such a disgusting failure, but othertimes I feel like ripping my brain from my skull and turning myself into some mindless amoeba to live an easier life under someone's hand."
"Whose hand, exactly?" She seemed perplexed, so Andrew tightened his grip. "... There's a lot of hands here. In Laterano, I mean. Look, there's one."
Lemuen pointed to her hand. Andy wanted to do so, too, but couldn't, because she was holding his only one. She sensed the sadness in his eyes and rubbed it away with her thumb.
"There's one, Andy, and you're already holding onto it. Why not take it?"
"I'm…" He began, unsure of where to lead his tongue. "... I'm holding onto smoke. I am holding nothing. I'm sorry, En. I can't feel you."
"Ah. Ah-... Haha." She frowned, but eventually burst into a girlish giggle. "Haha! Of course! My bad, Drewie. Don't mind the rambles of a comatose girl you used to know eight years ago!"
"..." He felt sad at her words, again. "... But I want to mind your rambles. You're not in a coma."
"Of course I'm not." She agreed, wholeheartedly. "... And El? Lem? Your Lemmy?"
"Lem?" He blinked. "... I think Lem also doesn't agree. I think Lem also likes to think that you're not comatose, at all."
"That would certainly explain her letters, wouldn't it?" Lemuen slid her finger along a strand of loose hair. It was long. Really long. It took her a bit to trace it all the way down. "... I don't see her letters anywhere. Do you?"
"I don't."
"You don't?" A light pang of sadness tainted her ever so bright smile. "... That's a bummer. I thought she'd remember to write, I thought she wouldn't forget so easily. Ah, but she's such a scatterbrain sometimes, right? She's so warm-brained. It's like having a woolen wrap twirled around your head, being her. Don't you think?"
"It's a little strange. I have no idea what's going through her head most of the time, En." Andy chuckled, the gesture being quickly quelled by a sigh. "I… I, mean, I… I don't know why. I don't know why she lied."
"Mmmm." Lemuen seemed concerned. "... She lied, then. You admit it. Silly El. Silly Lem."
"Is she? Or is she just… What is she, En? You're her sister, you'd know. I mean, brain chemistry works pretty much the same, all the processes and stimuli…"
"A step sister, silly." Lemuen giggled. "I don't have a telescope pointed at her brain. I don't have much, Andy. Just this bed and this window. Look." She pointed him towards the melting sun. "This sun, this sky. This entire city, Laterano. You and me, the memories – ups and downs. The past and the future, mushed together, what do they amount to?"
"The present?"
"This moment, Drewie. You poor, poor thing." Her hand tugged his, and Andy was forced to sit by her side, at the edge of the bed. "Look at you. Look at… at all of you. Lem really did take you for a major mental spin, didn't she…?"
"I think so…" Andrew couldn't look into her warm eyes, but it wasn't an issue. She wasn't gazing at him. They were closed. "... I thought I loved her."
"You thought so." En battled the waterfalls of sunlight head on, softly shielding her precious irises. "... Does thinking about something cause it to take a mortal form? Repeat a lie enough times, watch it become reality? Wasn't that the case, Drew?"
"I… I d-don't know." He mumbled. Lemuen tilted her head in pity.
"Andrew…" She whispered. "... Look at it another way. A different way. Take a knee, admit something before yourself and tell me exactly what you think, okay?"
Andy nodded. Their hands remained squeezed, far tighter than before.
"Okay."
Lemuen nodded.
"... Why are you here, Drewie?"
"Because I wanted to see you." Andy answered near immediately, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"No, Andrew. Why are you here? Why are you here, alone?"
"Alone?"
The concept seemed unreal. How could he have been alone, when Fia and Mostima were right by his sides? He glanced towards them for support, but found neither to be there. Just an endless hallway, teeming with doors and windows. The sun, the wind, the air and the voices. Angels, fowl, Liberi – all equal, all packed into one. All, a crowd he didn't belong to. A fluke.
.
"..." Andrew hung his head, defeated. Torn from the nest of familiarity that Mostima's barely familiar being had represented, he remained alone. Dubbed the lonely wanderer.
"I don't know." He answered, truthfully. Lemuen took pity, clearly disapproving of the answer.
"You do know, Drewie. Don't play coy with me. Not with me , Drew. I know you inside and out."
"... Because I messed up. Because I wanted Lem to be here. Because I wanted to cling to the past, and I wanted to relapse. I don't want to follow schedules and timetables, I don't want to live in Lungmen, I don't want to wake up at five in the morning and drive for Duflot 'till seven in the evening. I don't want them to load my van up, and then unload without ever telling me what's inside. I don't want to rip my back for entire weeks straight to make barely enough cash to survive it 'till sundown. I don't want to turn in bed, left and right, dreaming of Lem and waking in a blanket of cold sweat, clutching to my gun. I don't want to acknowledge that my arm is gone. I don't want to acknowledge that I killed Lizzy. I don't want to acknowledge that I'm a burden, a self absorbed, disgusting disaster. A ticking bomb that's exploding every few days and dropping all the wrong people. I don't want that. I don't want to live like that. I don't want to live. If that's my life, I don't want it."
.
"..."
.
Lemuen allowed him the floor. She sensed it wasn't quite all the boy had to say, and she left the air silent. She wanted him to gush out that last bit of painful, uncomfortable truth. That one word. That one name. That one girl.
.
"... I wanted h-her to be here." He whispered. "I wanted–..."
The wrong word. Wrong tense. The past and the future, Drew. The sins that have-been, and the changes that come. Add them into one, stir and spill – what do you get?
You get a conscious decision to step forward. You bravely allow yourself to let go.
.
"... I want her here. I want Croissant t-to be here, with me. But I'm late. I'm too late."
.
The thought came as an astonishment. A deep sense of realization, a culmination of the last few months. A surge of apricot orange hair, not irises. A ghost of her crushing embrace.
.
"..." He let a sniffle through. Lemuen took notice, and soothed his hand with a rub. "... I w-want to change. I w-want to make the other part of m-me realize how much I need her. How much I l-love her. I want to change, j-just for her, but I don't know how."
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"You don't?" Lemuen's soft voice veiled his brain. "... It's not as difficult as you think, Drewie. You just need to find an anchor point, and go from there."
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"I don't know my anchor point."
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"Oh, Drewie." A smile, she gave. "It's easy. You just need to ask yourself one thing."
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The sun, The Bloat, Laterano and Terra – they all ceased their etherally overbooking buzz to allow Lemuen her wisdom. Andrew got lost in her eyes, their burning light. The gleam. The glimmer. The glint. It ran like the wind, through the heights of his brain, sinking and sieving through each strand – until they were all thoroughly soaked, and focused solely on her.
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Her lips parted.
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"One thing, Drewie."
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"..."
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"Who am I?"
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"Who."
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"Am."
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"I."
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"?"
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…
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"... Andrew?"
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There was a hand on his shoulder. The left one, not the excuse of a stub that replaced the right. It wasn't En, because En was sleeping. Her eyes, closed, two little bumps riddling the peacefully serene rest. They were right – she wouldn't wake up. She didn't want to wake up for anyone.
Not for them. Not for Andy.
"... Yeah?" He uttered a tiny yelp. Somehow, it persuaded the person holding onto his sweater to give it a gentle rub.
"..." A few moments it took, for her to gather her thoughts and manage them into order. She wouldn't have ever thought that a time like this would come. Not with him, at least. This stranger she barely knew. An opponent, even.
And yet, she spoke.
"... Are you okay?"
It was a strange tone. One that didn't elicit much trust from the asked person, but one that certainly did try to do just that. Andy couldn't grasp why it wasn't Mostima who was asking this question, but nodded nonetheless.
"I'm alright. I was just having a moment."
"I understand." Fia tried keeping the exchange purely professional. Between here and the outside world, some strange "Bloat" particles must've been spilled, because the idea of not allowing this moment to go anywhere past her usual, Lawful strictness and aloofness seemed unnaturally difficult. Her eyes slid over the nails lodged into his halo, and she found herself surrendering.
"... I know how you must feel. I think I do, at least." She started, surprised at her own words. Something about this little gray cat, curling by the side of a friend long forgotten, seemed to resonate with her. She found another person who couldn't manage to let go, and that was something worth saving. "... When I… When we, I mean. When we came back with her, I couldn't really get used to just… just not having her around. Seeing her, right after it happened, it was…"
A pause. The rain. The blood. Smell of originium wafting through the campsite. Mostima, covered in red, carrying Lemuen in her arms. The crisp, Kazdelian air. Fia wondered whether this boy had ever breathed the same oxygen as her. The chance was high enough for her to continue speaking.
"... It was strange. Having the nicest person you know get the worst treatment out of everyone present. To–..."
"Hey, I mean, I was the one who shot the guy and Fell, so…" Mostima begrudgingly cut in, flicking her tail over Andy's chin. He couldn't tear his eyes away from En's fingers, interlaced with his. Fia, though, shot her a deathly glare that for once managed to shut her up a little. "... Right. I get it."
"... Anyway." The shoulder rubs continued. "To see her like this, knowing that you weren't there to stop it from happening, it hurts. It hurt, at least. Used to."
"..." Andy returned her a nod. Just a little one, the blind kind of nod you give someone not to make them feel like they're talking to a pile of bricks. "... Y-You, um… You were there, with her?"
"When it happened?"
"When it happened, yes." Andy nodded again, a little more energetically. Not energetically enough to make the nails rattle. "... How–... What even happened?"
"..." Both girls exchanged a rather grim look. Andy couldn't see, but even Mostima was left a bit sour-faced at the thought of that one night in Kazdel. "We were on a mission. I can't tell you why and where, but it doesn't matter."
"We were getting this stuff." Mostima rattled her inseparable duffel bag, which clanged with a dozen metallic thuds. Fia didn't look too amused. "... Straight ripping it off some low-end nobodies."
The redhead ignored her. "... Things didn't go as planned. A teammate of ours decided to betray us halfway through, and… and that's that. En was on the receiving end of his arts, unfortunately."
"And I shot him." Mostima declared, almost proudly – but not quite. Seeing the absolute lack of reaction from either one, her voice softened. "... Then I carried her back home. It was cheaper than a casket."
"..." Andy needed a moment to collect his bearings. Mental bearings, that is. "... And the guy?" He asked Mostima. "Did you at least… you know?"
"Kill him?" She shook her head. "No. He slipped away, and hasn't shown up since. But he did, um… do something. After scurrying away to his little, whatever hidey-hole"
"Something?"
Something.
"Something." Fia let go of his shoulder. "... Became the figurehead of a cult-like organization. I can't even truly call it an organization, it's just an actual anti-Law cult. THE anti-Law cult." She paused for a moment. "... The Pathfinders. The ones who like associating themselves with your father."
"... The what?"
"The reason she took you in, pretty much." Mostima flicked a thumb towards the redhead. "Can't ever let it go, though the deal's done and dusted. I, personally, don't like lugging dead weight, but here we are."
"No comment on that." Fia didn't even bother humoring her. "Those are just facts, there's nothing personal about it."
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It left him wondering.
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"..."
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"Andrew?"
"Drew?"
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He kept frowning. He kept looking at En's face and frowning.
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"He's snoozing off again, for God's sake. Can you shoot a flare through the window to just shake him awake? Or, no, wait. Lemme pull the Lock and Key, we'll see if I can speed his heart up to a near cardiac arrest and stop right before—..."
"No, I'm alright. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere." Andy brazenly knocked the ideas from her head, as he stood from the bed. "... It's just a bit to take in. To find myself in all this, I guess."
"Take your time." Fia stepped back, allowing him a free-er access to Mostima, in case he wanted to physically beat her plans out as well. Andrew hasn't even crossed this idea in his long-winded thought journey.
"There's not really much I can do, I think." He said, looking back at En. Her sleeping figure did not shift even an inch, from the moment the three had entered the room. "... Except apologize on Lem's behalf, maybe."
"Not to us, Drew." Mostima reminded. "Not her, either. She won't hear."
"Right."
"And some details are better left omitted. Some things, unsaid, too. Life's easier that way."
"That's why your reports look like that?" Fia couldn't help a jab, smirking for once. "Omitting details? Is life, from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to sleep, a series of details?"
"Pretty much." Mostima smirked back. "People are details. Jobs are details. You gotta cut your losses from time to time, and just ditch. You could learn that little trick from me, you two."
"That's not how it works." Fia sighed, but Andrew cut in before she could follow.
"That is how it works." He found himself invigorated, a new sense of purpose surging through his veins. Maybe she wasn't so wrong. Maybe the way she's changed wouldn't quite be the deceptive quicksand he thought it would. "You just need to differentiate. Pick and choose what to drop, hang onto the rest and never let go."
"Bit dramatic." Mostima's gaze fell half lidded. "I thought Kazdel would've burnt away that kinda way of thinking, Drew."
"Maybe. Maybe it has. Maybe it hasn't." Andy returned mentally to that deep, dark forest. The one, where the earth beneath his feet became a crawling ocean, teeming with deceitful shadows and omens of evil lurking by the barks of tree mazes. There, he found himself an image – an image of a younger Andy, his face all squashed to a pulp, stomach torn near wide open. Hands preoccupied with the lapels of a devil's chest rig, they kept dragging her on and on, willingly refusing the premise of dropping her to be eaten by the bugs and rejuvenating the soil. That sort of dedication was what he caught himself lacking, today. That day. That month, that year – that life. And that had to change.
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"... Can we do one more stop?" He asked the redhead, to her surprise. And to further nail in the confusion, to her utter dismay, she couldn't find it in herself to refuse.
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"What stop?"
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"The Ecclesia Requietum." Andy recited, almost entirely from memory. The name still lingered somewhat fresh in his head, having seen the engraved letters in passing so many times. Back and forth, his dad would take him there to dwell on the grave on his muse. His inspiration. His one and only. His everything. "... I once made a promise in Kazdel, with this one Sarkaz kid. I told him I'd visit Laterano someday to burn a candle atop the old man's grave, and he told me he'd do the same, in Siracusa." He smiled. "... So that's what I wanna do. I wanna see where they buried him."
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"Buried, yeah." Mostima couldn't help a snortle. "... More likely urned."
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They both turned towards her. Fia and Andrew. The redhead had a raised eyebrow, lightly baffled by the audacity. Andrew, however, simply chuckled along.
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"Urned, probably." He socked her in the arm, playfully. "... I just hope they didn't pick anything too gaudy."
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Collectively agreeing to let bygones be bygones, the three hurried outside, whipped by the sound of the door's lock softly clicking in place. Lemuen relished in her sun-soaked silence, as the quarreling of two Legati and their "soon-to-be-imprisoned suspect" seeped through the window, blurred by fanfares and laughs.
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Everything was good in Laterano that day. Everything and everyone.
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Andrew had no worries to paddle through. No medals of bloody honor to pawn off for tonight's meal.
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Just a goal in mind. A grave to visit.
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The very tip of an avalanche to come.