Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta: Just me...
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Yoko walked through the halls of the Vatican with a subdued air that was noticeable by anyone walking by. But after the first nun offered to talk to her about what was troubling her, Yoko decided she had to stow the emotions down more. After all, she was supposed to be celebrating her brothers' birthday, everyone in the church knew. So her being so downhearted alarming people made sense, the break in normality, especially in these times, was worrisome. But these were things that couldn't be just discussed with anyone, it was family business, it was Belnades business.
Upon reaching her private quarters, she opened the door, looking to spend some time alone to get herself back together before hunting down the Fuzz. Because crying in the car, as appealing as sitting in Alucard's driveway and sob, wasn't going to work. Her travel make up kit was still at her hotel room back in Japan, and she hadn't updated her kit that she kept at Al's. It would be too obvious that she had been crying if she reappeared with different shades of makeup on.
And before her was Snuggy, hanging upside down by his legs while doing sit ups on the back of her chair. She thought he was out possibly trying to find some lost choir boy and here he was working out. Watching him doing his sit ups brought back all the times she would have him exercise with her. The silly sweatbands they would wear, the goofy routines, all the things that she forced the poor soul to do via her spells. That was probably what made looking at Snuggy so painful now, knowing that it wasn't just a bear that developed sentience from being around her for so long.
It was her stealing souls from the afterlife and stuffing them into toy bodies.
"He's Buff! He's tough! He's fully of Fluffy Stuff!" She sang out, but even to her own ears, her voice just radiated regret. He was an adorable bear to her eyes from early childhood to now, unlike the Velveteen Rabbit, his body never got worn or the fur loved off. Through her magics he looked as new, clean and fluffy as the day she cast that one spell. And here he was his paws behind his head as he kept working, keeping a body that had no muscle in as much shape as he could. "Hey Simon."
Only to watch his legs slip and the bear fall flat on his head, before falling forward like a mighty oak. The room took on a watery type of clarity as she shut her door and walked over to lift up her nearly life long best friend and conspirator. Turning him in her hands to see no facial expression, his mouth never designed to open or take a shape other than the muzzle shape.
She wasn't ready to face the others, a serious deep fear in her gut that if she did so, she would find that all of them were Belmonts. Not only having sealed any number of Belmonts into stuffed toy bodies, but having never given them orders to move save for when they appeared for the Christmas events. Stuck in one place, never moving, and all because she had been careless, though she supposed that Trevor could have told her through Kazu. But the weight of her crime was hers alone, no matter the excuses.
She didn't 'need' to make the Stuffy Patrol after all, she had done it flippantly as something to help that year with the festivities. A few short years before she would be fusing the souls of monsters into weapons for Soma to use. "I'm so sorry Simon! I never realized what I was doing and you've been stuck like this for so long..." She choked out as she put the Bear on the desk and hunched over to cry. Years of grabbing Snuggy and finding comfort in the bear's soft fur was ruined in a single day, as she realized that it was an ancestor.
Never being able to say 'no' to whatever she subjected him to. Towed by the choir off to some game with them. Being dragged off to a toy store so they could have him properly outfitted with his gear, even cutting holes in the helmets for his ears. That year when he was dressed up as Batman and called BatBear, because he wasn't a man but a bear. Another year he had been SuperBear for the same reasons, having to play with tea sets.
He had rescued so many kids from the halls of the Vatican, comforting so many scared little boys who were found everywhere. Countless times had been squished in her arms as she cried herself to sleep when the bullying got too much for her as a child. All those times that he had been the only friend she had, though even back then she knew it was because she forced him. But back then, it was only a stuffed animal a non living being that existed solely to provide comfort for Yoko.
Not a person trapped in a body they had limited control over, unable to even voice their presence. For the first time realizing how absolutely alone she actually had been save for Alucard and Snuggy/Simon. All those holidays that everyone else spent with their extended families, and Yoko would go to Japan to spend time with her brother and dad. Feeling alone all those times away from her dad and Kazu. All the conversations among the other students as she slowly gained acceptance in Spain and began making friends. Born from a family of witches and never having been able to spend holidays with them, always at a tight leash by her mothers' side.
All so Yoko would keep her nonstop mouth shut and not spill the beans that her brother was still connected to them. Her mouth literally denying her from any closeness to her extended family so that Kazu could stay in the family. Her magics sealing the souls of their extended families' ancestors into toys and the only person she had really in this line of work was Alucard.
That was probably the most crippling part, her desire to make Alucard smile being her redirection from her own loneliness. If she could just make this one person smile, then it validated her existence when she was so utterly alone. Someone who wore his solitude as a type of armor had to be someone hurting like she hurt, right?
Somewhere in the depths of her pain, the softest of fuzzy touches to her cheek got her to open her eyes. In the blur of tears she could Snuggy leaning over and brushing her tears away with one paw, the makeup wouldn't stick to the fuzz. It never did. It wasn't an order though, Snuggy just on his own leaned forward and was trying to deal with the tears. Once he held her attention, he began looking around the desk leaving Yoko to just watch him move.
"So I went to Kazu's birthday, and mother dropped a bombshell about something apparently the Belnades clan has been doing for generations. And Ralph apparently is Trevor, so now that I know you're you- I mean Simon..."
Snuggy got up, grabbing a pen on his way to a small pad of paper that Yoko left on the desk. The pen seemed to 'stick' to one paw while he bopped it to reveal the tip on the other side, then he settled down to do some painstaking writing. Never easy with the way the pad would be pushed around, but Yoko reached over and held it still for him. Allowing the Belmont in Bear to scrawl out the message that had taken years for him to settle on.
It had been a long time of thinking on this message, and it would be a lie to say that he had started out a cheerful victim of a magical kidnapping. Lots of nights just staring at the world around him while she slept leaving him thinking. Thinking about the conversation between Alucard and Valencia, about this new age that he found himself in.
About the realities of the Witches' clan that he had never bothered to learn about. His whole life had been about hunting the monsters, not social customs or norms. So long as he had a full belly and a bloody trail of dead monsters behind him, he found no reason to care about such matters. Even his marriage had been based on just shutting his family up and letting him hunt.
So while being stuck as a toy 'had' been the most outrage inducing situation he had ever thought he would experience. It had been tempered over the years by seeing Yoko growing up, learning why she had cast such a spell and being forced to experience her life. He never took the time to think beyond the battle and now he was allowed/forced to take time to think on these matters. Her return home from school missing things and lying about what happened to her mother. But she confessed all those moments to 'Snuggywuggy' and 'Raff'.
It would be a lie to say that he hadn't developed a strange fondness for this strange little witch as he watched her grow. Indeed her determination to smile and endure all this was, begrudgingly, an endearing trait. As was watching Alucard, equally begrudgingly, recognizing this girls' loneliness and pain and humor the girl. It was something that Trevor had mentioned once in passing, no one with a soul wants others to experience their pain. So while Alucard was an aloof Vampire Prince, he was aware of his solitude and how Yoko needed someone.
'We chose to accept this.' Was scrawled onto the pad, the simplest way Simon could think to express how everyone chose to accept their fate. Allowing the illusion that they were 'just' stuffed toys be maintained instead of just writing out the truth. Aiding the others when it was clear that Yoko was 'trying' to be responsible about the Stuffy Patrol, but still clueless about what she had done. Sure he could have tried to get her to know what was happening or get Yoko to give orders to the three. But the most they ever bothered with was having Simon tow them to other rooms.
He put up the pen and plopped himself down on the edge of the desk for Yoko. Watching her watery blue eyes stare at him with so much regret and shame he started feeling bad just sitting there. Until her arms shot out with a cry of 'You're the best Simon' from her lips before he was once more trapped in a Yoko hug.
"Think she'll remember us?" Christopher asked from the shelf he had been sitting at since the last Christmas event.
"Well if Trevor outed himself and Simon, she's going to have to realize that she used the same method bind us. Give her a bit," Juste reasoned from Richter's left side.
"I feel bad for her, this apparently is a big shock for her," Richter noted.
They sat there as ever silent witnesses to Yoko's sobbing, watching as she reached out and grabbed a couple of tissue. Sniffling and blowing her nose until she turned to look at the shelf where they all innocently sat.
"Raise a paw if you're Belmont."
And by compulsion and because it was the truth, all three plush toys lifted a paw for Yoko to see and proceed to groan at the sight of. Before putting Simon back on the desk and resting her head on the desk. "Great. Just perfect. Leon, Trevor, Simon, I'm afraid to find out which of you is which."
"Oh, she got Leon? This should be fun, he's the furthest from the modern world out of all of us." Richter mused aloud.
"That doesn't say much, seeing we haven't been out of the Vatican since our fusing, Richter," Juste noted passively.
"Well, the family reunions are now bound to be magical events for us," Christopher pointed out, thinking of how Julius and the clan would react to their fluffy ancestors. The idea of a series of stuffed toys sitting at the place of honor 'was' rather entertaining.
While Yoko got up from her seat and walked to the shelf and picked each one of them up and tucked them in her arms. "I need to redo my make up, but I'm going to take you to my brothers' place so... I'm so sorry, you each saved the world and now you're stuck like this."
"Yes, and I honestly doubt that Soma will find us the least bit intimidating given that fact, if he goes under." Juste agreed, despite the fact that she couldn't hear him, as she carried them to her bed and placed them there.
Though there was just 'one' thing that was worrying the mage, Yoko's assignment of talents and skills. 'Could' they be given the same type of free roaming ability that Simon had, and other abilities? Because Trevor never had the ability to see spirits when he was alive, and only now because of what she, in a sense, programmed into him upon completion.
Did the skill set only activate if given during the time shortly after the creation process? Because it had been well over years since Yoko had performed the spell on the three of them, there was a very real possibility that the trio couldn't move on their own. Yoko's magic was purely that of the clan, while Justes' was battle orientated, so he couldn't be sure of one way or the other.
But from what little he could glean from her talks about Soma's soul ability and the brief mention of 'fusing' that she brought up. There 'was' a chance that the spells could be undone, releasing the, now, six plush band of Hunters back to the afterlife. But as Richter had pointed out, would Trevor 'want' to be released when he clearly had an important task with Kazu. Then there was the children in the Vatican, who would find them when they got lost if not Simon?
Though if they could help Alucard keep Dracula, now Soma, from being a threat to the world, than being a collection of plushy toys wasn't 'so' bad. So they patiently waited for Simon to get them down from the bed and onto their little travel wagon while Yoko went off to cool off her face and reapply her makeup.
"You know, I've never bothered to ask this, but what is Alucard's private retreat like?" Christopher asked Simon as the larger bear picked him up.
"Surprisingly simple, a two story mansion, I suppose it would be fair to say it fits the 'fit for a king' description. But its not fully connected to this world, kind of existing in its own pocket dimension, at least that's the only term I can think of that would fit." Simon explained carrying the smaller bear and placing it on the wagon.
"A what?" Christopher asked as he watched Simon move back towards the bed.
"A pocket dimension. Think if it like an air bubble you would find in those soda's that Yoko occasionally partakes in." Juste explained from somewhere on the bed. "Its a spot that shouldn't really exist where it is, but does, protected by a shield."
"Trust our only real mage to know this stuff, but how did you Simon?" Richter asked as Simon got back on the bed.
"Science fiction movie marathons, cartoons, you really don't know how much Yoko dragged me around and got me involved in." Simon answered as he lifted up the Husky plush that housed Juste. "But we have to go through the family crypt to get there, and Alucard doesn't like it to be treated like a midpoint between locations."
"Is that seriously a problem? How many people even 'know' about Alucard or his place to try and use it for such?" Richter asked as his grandfather was carried off the bed and to the wagon on the ground.
"I'm sorry, have you 'met' our hostess, Yoko?" Simon grumped out.
"Remember, our Clans were never laid to rest here on the Vatican, we were all moved here ages after it had happened. More than likely somehow they figure out a way to make the portal after Alucard established his retreat. But it has ties to us, when we were taken from our original resting place the portal must have moved along with us. The Vatican relocated our graves as well as Alucards' mausoleum, without permission from our Clansmen or Alucard. I can't imagine that 'not' being considered a decided violation of trust." Juste explained from the wagon.
"There is something wrong with this whole situation, I can tell you that much," Simon noted as his ears reappeared on the edge of the bed as he worked to grab Richter. "But I guess we would be considered out of our elements. Its not like any of us ever fully invested time to understand the Church. So long as it stayed out of the way of my hunts I never cared what they did, back when I was alive."
"Well this will be the first time I get to leave the Vatican. Will be interesting on what I see around here," Richter commented as he was lifted up. "That isn't covered in Holiday decorations."
"You know, I'm a bit curious, what is supposed to happen to us after Yoko passes away? Is she giving us to someone else?" Christopher asked.
There was a long pause between the four, Simon would be ok, but the other three kinda required someone to know their situation. Able to move them when needed, something that may not happen if just a random child got their hands on the plushy Stuffy Patrol.
"What are you doing Simon? I can't use the wagon this time, Kazu doesn't live on the ground floor so I was just going to carry all of you." Yoko announced her return with that statement.
"Now you say something!" Simon protested uselessly as he flung up his paws in his air as a physical representation of his annoyance. "And you expect the four of us to fit in your arms? You mad witch!"
"Quit complaining Simon, at least you can move on your own. We're the three that are stuck in stuffed bodies that can't be moved without Yoko's permission." Christopher pointed out as he waited out the soon to happen squishing hug the three of them were about to be subjected to. "Though I don't mind much, it has been a while since we saw Trevor."
"That's true," Richter noted with a small sound of agreement from his grandfather.