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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 14: Martin

Tim is an unexpectedly good cook. Whether because of that or because everyone is still mulling over the little bits and drabs they’ve got from the Primes, breakfast is a rather silent affair. Martin doesn’t think he’s hungry until the plate is under his nose, and he’s not sure why it’s so hard for him to eat until he chokes down enough that Tim declares it can count as “with food” and Jon hurries out to get Martin’s pills for him. It’s only after they’ve started to work and he’s mostly done with his plate that he realizes it’s pain making him nauseous. Jon Prime gives him a knowing, understanding look and he has to look away.

Sasha offers to help Tim clean up, but he does most of it while they’re still eating and insists the rest of it can wait until later, so once everyone has finished and the stuff that won’t last sitting out is put away, they all head back into the living room. Martin supposes they could have this conversation in the kitchen around the table, but he also acknowledges that the seating in the living room is more comfortable, and he, at least, won’t last long in Tim’s kitchen chairs.

He starts to sit in the recliner again—it’s definitely the least comfortable seat in the room, not that it’s uncomfortable, just that it’s not exactly the best seat in the house, so Martin automatically assumes it’s his—but Jon stops him with a touch to his arm and a shake of his head and steers him towards the sofa. Sasha and Jon are both thin; Tim is a bit broader than them but not so broad as Martin, but they all manage to squeeze together onto the sofa somehow, Jon on one end and Sasha on the other and Martin sandwiched between Tim and Jon. The Primes sit on the love seat opposite them. Jon Prime rests his hand on top of Martin Prime’s without seeming to realize he’s doing it.

“Well,” he says. He sits up a little straighter, leans forward slightly, and looks directly at Jon. “Before we begin, I have two questions for you, and I’m fairly certain I know the answer to at least one, but…well, no one ever actually asked me these questions.”

Jon tenses, but says evenly, “Go ahead.”

“First question. How much do you want to know?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can tell you everything I—we—learned in the two years between this point and when the world ended, but the more knowledge you have, the more dangerous things will be for you. Or I can tell you nothing more than you already know, and leave you to figure out what you can on your own. Or I can tell you something in between the two, in which case you would be trusting me with the decision of how much to tell you now and how much to let you discover for yourself.”

Jon is silent for a moment. Finally, he says, “Tell me—tell me everything you wished you’d known at this point.”

Jon Prime nods, as if that’s the answer he was expecting. Martin guesses that was the one he was fairly sure of. “Second question, then. How much do you want them to know?”

“Hey,” Sasha says, sounding offended.

Jon Prime doesn’t take his eyes off of Jon. “As I said, the more knowledge you have, the more dangerous things will be for you. The more people who have that knowledge, the danger will grow as well. And I can’t promise that some of these things won’t change the way they look at you. The way they react to you. Knowledge once given cannot be taken back.”

Jon looks down the sofa at the three of them. Martin tries to keep his face neutral, but he’s worried, and he knows it shows. Not so much about what might happen to him if he knows, but about what might happen to Jon.

“What about them?” he asks softly. “You said that the more people know, the—the more dangerous it is for me, but what about for them? If they know…will it put them in more danger?”

Jon Prime hesitates. “No,” he says at last. “The opposite. The more they know, the better able they’ll be to keep themselves safe.”

Jon straightens and looks his counterpart square in the eye. “If you’d led off with that, it wouldn’t have even been a question you needed to finish asking. I want them to know whatever they need to know to be safe.”

Jon Prime turns his attention to the assistants. “How much do you three want to know?”

“We have a choice?” Martin asks, surprised.

“Yes,” Jon Prime says simply. “There’s…so much you never had a choice about in our timeline. I refuse to do that to you again. Any of you.”

Sasha crosses her arms over her chest. “Call me curious, but I don’t think I can walk away from this without knowing more.”

“Yeah, screw it,” Tim says. “I’ve had enough fumbling around in the dark, and I want to know what the hell’s going on here. I’m not walking into anything else I don’t understand without a damned good reason.”

Jon Prime shifts his gaze. “Martin?”

Martin hesitates. He’s genuinely torn. On the one hand, he’s with the others; he hates not knowing what’s going on, and he’s more than a little afraid of getting into another situation like finding Jane Prentiss in that basement because he doesn’t know enough to steer clear. But at the same time, if it keeps Jon safe for him to stay ignorant, it’s a risk he’ll gladly run.

But will it actually keep Jon safe?

He looks, not at Jon Prime, but at Martin Prime. Martin Prime keeps his sightless gaze trained steadily in Martin’s direction, and there’s a pinched look on his face, like he knows what’s tearing Martin apart. Well, he probably does. As if he feels Martin’s eyes on him, as if he can sense the question Martin wants to ask, he gives a small, subtle nod.

“Whatever you want to tell us, I’ll listen,” he says, looking back at Jon Prime.

“All right,” Jon Prime says, exhaling hard. He nods and repeats, “All right. Well. Now that we’ve settled that…honestly, I’m not sure where to start.”

Martin worries at his lower lip. He runs through the dozens of questions he’s accumulated in the last week, every time Martin Prime has said it’s a long story and promised to explain when—he now knows—Jon Prime arrives, and tries to pick which one is the most pressing, the most important. Which one will be the easiest to answer. From the way the others are sitting, they’re probably thinking something similar. But Martin’s the one with the most pieces, so he knows that unless he wants Tim to break the ice with a borderline wisecrack, it’s probably on him to ask the first question.

At last, he looks at Martin Prime. “You mentioned…beings. Things that thrive on fear?” He turns to Jon Prime. “He said you could explain it better than he could.”

“I suppose the beginning is a good place to start,” Jon Prime says on a heavy exhale. His eyes flick from one of them to the other. “Right. What do you all know about Robert Smirke?”

Both Jon and Sasha give small sighs as Tim sits up a bit straighter. “The architect? One of the foremost proponents of Gothic Revival in the early nineteenth century. He was one of the first to use concrete and cast iron. He retired in—1845, I think, but he kept his hand in a bit. A lot of his work, in London at least, got destroyed somehow, but what’s still standing is brilliant in its symmetry. A master of subtle stability. And it’s interesting that his buildings have a higher percentage of paranormal sightings than any other architect of that school or style, I think. Might be why he rarely got taken up on his bids to design churches. His name cropped up any time an especially weird cult or sect popped up for a couple decades after his retirement. There were all sorts of rumors about what he might be involved in.”

They’ve all heard this before, Martin thinks, at least in bits and pieces. Architecture is one of Tim’s particular areas of expertise, and Robert Smirke in particular is something of an obsession. There’s not a lot of information out there about Smirke, though. Martin should know; he usually got the thankless tasks when he worked in the library, and he’d been the one assigned to pull any books on Robert Smirke for the new research assistant who was vague on what, exactly, he was trying to research. It’s one of the things he and Tim bonded over when they were first assigned to the Archives, those books. Tim will go off about Smirke any opportunity he gets, and Martin’s pretty sure that even Sasha tunes him out these days.

“Most of them false,” Jon Prime agrees. “Smirke himself wasn’t actually involved in any of that sort of thing, but his ideas got used—or misused, as he would have it.” He takes a deep breath. “Smirke designed a taxonomy of fears, and—well, it’s inaccurate, really, far too simplistic, an attempt to understand something that he never could have understood, but—”

“But if you’re learning your colors, you start out with the primary colors and branch out into shades and blending later on, once you know what you’re looking at,” Martin completes.

“Exactly.” Jon Prime smiles, briefly. “Smirke’s theory was that there were fourteen…entities, creatures of fear. They don’t just thrive on it—they are fear.”

“There are more than fourteen things to be afraid of in the world,” Jon says, in a rough approximation of his skeptic voice. “Where do you draw the line?”

“God, you are me. I said the same thing when I first found out about all this.” Jon Prime worries at the cuff of his sleeve, then seems to consciously stop himself and press his palm into his leg instead. It’s only then that Martin realizes he’s wearing the blue sweater, the one Martin Prime wore yesterday and Martin himself has taken off because he’s comfortable enough in his shirtsleeves, and Martin Prime is wearing the dark green one Jon Prime was wearing when he came in. It fits him perfectly, which is how Martin realizes that Jon Prime was evidently wearing one of Martin Prime’s sweaters.

He has no idea what to do with that information, so he decides the safest thing to do is ignore it before he blurts out something and makes a complete tit of himself.

“As Martin says, they’re like colors,” Jon Prime continues. “You can look at something and call it ‘indigo’ or ‘lilac’, but it’s still purple. There may be infinite colors, but we tend to lump them into bigger categories. Sky blue and navy are both considered blue, but pink is an entirely separate color from red. Of course, with the fears, it’s not so much a spectrum as an amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in all directions. I think I summed it up at the time I learned all this as ‘like colors, but if colors hated me.’”

“You, specifically,” Tim says. His voice is as deadpan as it usually is when he’s making a joke, but like Jon’s, it’s shaky. Martin suspects that none of them want to believe any of this, but it all makes too much sense for them not to.

“Yes, well, I’d spent two years getting kicked around by them before I got all this information,” Jon Prime shoots back. “Forgive me if I took it a little personally.”

Martin Prime rubs his thumb over Jon Prime’s in a comforting gesture. “Where Smirke comes into the weird…cults and whatnot is that most of those sprung up around the worship of these beings. Like they’re gods of some kind. They’re not, and they’re certainly not benevolent in the slightest, even to the people most devoted to them. You really can’t—nobody comes away from them in one piece. The ones who make statements? They’re the lucky ones. The ones who walked away, at least for a while. Not always forever.”

Martin doesn’t have to ask if that includes them. “So—w-what are they? I mean, not ‘what are they if they’re not gods’, but what are they, specifically? You said—one of them has something to do with spiders?”

Jon flinches. Jon Prime exhales. “The Web. Spiders, yes, but also…loss of control. Being manipulated. The fear of being trapped in something you can’t see. Addiction falls under its auspices, too.”

“Other insects…” Tim’s voice trails off. “Jane Prentiss. She’s one of them?”

“She wasn’t an entity herself, but she’d definitely been claimed by the Corruption,” Jon Prime confirms. “Insects, disease, rot. Filth. That creeping feeling of things burrowing under your skin, filling you full of holes…”

“Stop,” Jon says through gritted teeth. He squeezes Martin’s hand. Martin’s almost positive he doesn’t know he’s doing it and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from yelping in pain as his thumb digs into one of the worm holes.

“What, you think I don’t know what that’s like?” Jon Prime holds up both hands, backs towards them, letting the sleeves slip down towards his elbows, and they can all see the scars dotting his forearms. So Martin has that to look forward to, at least. “It’s a damned lucky thing you—we—knew how to stop her.”

“Michael.” Sasha leans forward. “He’s one of them. The fear of—confusion?”

Martin Prime nods quickly. “Madness. The fear that your mind isn’t your own. The entity as a whole is the Spiral. Michael—he’s just one aspect of it, the Distortion.”

Jon eases his grip on Martin’s hand, and Martin tries not to sigh audibly with relief. “The Dark, of course.”

“Of course,” Jon Prime agrees. “Who isn’t at least a little afraid of the dark?”

“And fire is another?”

“An aspect of the Desolation. The fear of pain, of loss, of unthinking or cruel destruction.” Jon Prime snorts. “I started calling it the Church of the Lightless Flame at one point, but it’s the Desolation.”

“The Lightless Flame,” Jon repeats. “Christ, that was—which statement was that? Th-the nurse, Ms. Saraki, with the burn victims. The second time Gerard Keay came up.”

Martin remembers, and just like that, he realizes that they must have dealt with all the entities, over the course of the statements. They’ve done too many real statements for them not to have hit all fourteen by now. He racks his brain, trying to figure out the ones they haven’t come up with. They’ve got five now. The People’s Church of the Divine Host, they’ve had a couple statements dealing with that, that’s probably the Dark…and maybe the one about the woman whose sister got lost caving, but—hang on.

“Claustrophobia’s one, isn’t it?” he guesses. “Or…small spaces? Being enclosed or—or buried alive?” He tries not to let his voice shake when he says it, but like Jon and spiders, that’s one he’s never been able to handle.

From the look on Jon Prime’s face, he knows that—of course he does. “The Buried. Being crushed alive, not able to breathe—not having enough space.��

“A-and then there’s having too much space,” Martin says quickly, trying to push the mental image of being trapped in a coffin or a cave out of his head. “Heights and—and empty spaces, that sort of thing? Like—hang on, which one was it—that first statement we looked into where someone found a Leitner, Ex Altoria—”

“The Vast,” Martin Prime supplies. “Vertigo, agoraphobia, deep water, fear of your own insignificance in the universe. Any time you come across the name Fairchild, especially Simon Fairchild, that’s definitely a sign you’ve come across the Vast.”

Tim counts on his fingers. “We’re halfway there…I guess death is one of them, huh? I mean, a lot of people are afraid of that.”

“Terminus. The End. Simple, but always there.”

“War’s part of that, I guess?”

Jon Prime shakes his head. “War is the Slaughter. Not unstoppable like the End, or targeted or premeditated. Just pure, unpredictable violence.”

Sasha sits forward a little. “We keep—there have been a lot of statements about…meat. What’s with that?”

Martin’s wondered that himself. Jon Prime grimaces. “The Flesh. The fear of being eaten, or…twisted.”

“The Boneturner’s Tale,” Jon murmurs. Martin wishes it didn’t hurt so much to hold someone’s hand, because he wants to comfort Jon somehow. He knows how much he hates those Leitner books, which makes sense if he encountered one once. “Hang on, though—how is that so common that it’s one of the major fourteen? There can’t be that many people afraid of it.”

Jon Prime gives a soft huff of laughter. It doesn’t sound particularly amused, though. “You think only humans feel fear?”

Martin’s eyes widen as he thinks about the statement they spent the last week looking into, the man who worked at the abattoir and the man who disappeared. It’s almost enough to turn him vegetarian. Almost. “Is that why those statements are all so…weird?”

“More or less. You start mixing more primitive, animalistic fear with a complicated human brain, and things get twisted.”

“Hunting’s not part of that, though,” Sasha says.

“No,” Martin Prime says quietly, and something flashes across his face. “The Hunt is its own entity. It’s another one that started with animals, but it still touches plenty of humans.”

Tim scans Martin Prime’s face, eyes flicking back and forth. “You don’t like that one much, do you?”

“It’s definitely one of my least favorite, yes.”

“So…” Tim glances at Martin, and there’s genuine worry in his eyes before he looks back at Martin Prime. “You’ve encountered it? Did it…do something to you?”

“Yes,” Jon Prime says, at the same time that Martin Prime says, “Not to me.”

They look at each other, or at least in one another’s direction, since Martin Prime can’t see—at least Martin is assuming he’s really blind, he’s still wearing his glasses, although Martin’s worn glasses since he was two years old and at this point he probably feels naked without them—and then Martin Prime amends, “Not directly. Not before the world ended.”

Jon Prime rubs his throat absently, but doesn’t say anything. There’s a long silence before Jon speaks, a single word that drops into the middle of the room like a lead balloon. “Isolation.”

“The Lonely,” Jon Prime says softly. He turns to look at the others, and Martin flinches at the pain in his eyes. “The feeling that you’re…alone. Maybe because there’s no one there, maybe because you just can’t connect. Maybe because you aren’t worth that connection.”

Something twists deep in Martin’s chest. He knows that feeling all too well; it basically encapsulates his strange, unhappy childhood. Tim’s arm drops lightly onto Martin’s shoulders, his hand brushing Jon’s beyond it, and when Martin glances Tim’s way he sees that his other arm is behind Sasha—like he’s reminding all three of them that they’re not alone, that they’re all here together. “Why do you look like you hate that one so much? I mean…that one doesn’t sound too dangerous, compared to the others.”

“I’m not fond of anything that tries to take someone I care about away from me. And the Lonely very nearly succeeded.” Jon Prime’s eyes flick over to Martin Prime, just briefly. “In truth, the only one I can honestly say I hate more than the Lonely is the Stranger.”

Martin Prime nods, his lips pressed tightly together. Sasha looks back and forth between the two of them. “That’s…fear of the unknown?”

“The unknown, the uncanny, the creeping sense that something isn’t right,” Jon Prime confirms. “The fear of someone who might be following you. Masks, mannequins…clowns.”

A shudder runs through Tim’s body. Sasha exhales. “Well, that’s…that’s thirteen. Funny, you’d expect there to only be thirteen fears, right? I mean, that’s a bad luck number to a lot of people.”

“Yeah, but this is Robert Smirke we’re talking about,” Martin says absently. “His big thing was balance—” He stops as the words leave his mouth and straightens. Balance. Everything has an opposite, something that counters it. You can’t fear being buried alive if you don’t know there’s such a thing as open space. You can’t fear random, purposeless violence if you don’t know that there’s another way of dying violently. Which means…what’s the opposite of the Stranger?

“Knowledge,” he breathes. “That’s the fourteenth fear? The fear of—of being known, of being watched? Or of knowing too much?”

“The Beholding,” Jon Prime says. “The Ceaseless Watcher. It Knows You. It’s got a lot of names.”

“We usually just call it the Eye,” Martin Prime adds.

I should have realized that whatever hid you from the Eye would mean I couldn’t see you either. Martin recalls Jon Prime’s half-frantic spewing of words when he first arrived. He thinks about the sensation they all get in the Archives of being watched, the near-compulsive way they prod into things that…really ought to be left alone, the way Jon gets twitchy when he reads the statements aloud, the sick feeling in his stomach when he couldn’t find anything on Ex Altoria and the headache that hadn’t gone away until he’d gone back to Carlos Vittery’s old apartment. “That’s the one that runs the Institute, then.”

“What?” All three of the other members of the Archival team stare at Martin with varying degrees of incredulity. He blushes.

Jon Prime nods. “More accurate, I think, to say that the Institute was set up for its benefit, but yes. The Institute is the Eye’s pedestal. And you are all bound to its service. I’m sorry.”

“No. No, no, no, I did not sign up for this.” Tim looks seriously upset. “I’m here to stop this sort of thing, not to join it—”

“So quit,” Jon Prime says, a bit sharply, looking Tim square in the eye.

Tim freezes. “What?”

“Quit. Walk away. Lean around and give your notice, right now. Tell him you’re done.”

If anything, that just makes Tim even more upset. Martin has never seen him so agitated—he looks almost like he’s on the verge of literal tears. “What the hell happens to me?” he blurts out. “First you think I’d actually make tasteless jokes about Martin being blind, now you think I’d just—walk away? Abandon my friends—my family? What the fuck did I do to make you think I’d just leave the only people I have left in the world at the mercy of some gigantic spooky fear monster?”

Jon Prime jerks back as if Tim has slapped him. He looks genuinely taken aback. Now Martin is wondering what happened to Tim in their timeline. Why he didn’t come back with them, why they both seem to simultaneously miss him and expect him to just up stakes and vanish.

“Tim, no, it’s not like that,” Martin Prime intervenes, his voice gentle. “Trust me, if you did quit, the rest would be right behind you. The point is that you can’t.”

“Damn right,” Tim mutters.

“No, literally. You can’t quit. You’re bound to the Institute—well, to the Archives really. You can’t quit, you can’t get fired. You can’t even leave for too long or you’ll start to get sick. Physically, mentally, literally, you cannot quit.”

That, Martin thinks, might be the most surprising thing he’s learned in the last week. He thinks this rather distantly, since it’s hard to focus through the white noise seeming to fill his mind. He remembers the resignation letters he typed up but deleted without even saving, let alone printing. Remembers, too, Sasha muttering about looking for another job and then never bringing it up again. It’s not like there’s no evidence for what Martin Prime is saying, but it’s still out of the clear blue sky and he’s not sure what to do with the information.

This time, it’s Jon that breaks the silence, his voice choked and shaky. “Oh, God.”

“There’s no way out?” Sasha demands. “Truly? There has to be something—something other than dying, I mean. You can’t honestly be saying we’re inevitably stuck until we die.”

“There’s—well, for you all there are two ways out,” Martin Prime says slowly. “Neither one is particularly pleasant, and, well, one of them does involve death. If—if the Archivist dies, then the Assistants have the option of leaving.”

Nope. No, Martin is not going to consider that an option. Jon is not going to die just so the rest of them can be freed. “And the other way out? The one that doesn’t involve dying?”

Martin Prime tips his head to one side, as if he’s studying Martin. “You have to remove your connection to the Beholding.”

Martin snorts. “So, what…gouge your eyes out or something?”

Jon Prime and Martin Prime both simply look at him, or at least in his direction. Jon Prime still looks haunted; Martin Prime just looks serious. Ice water floods Martin’s veins. “Fuck off.”

“Yep, he’s me,” Martin Prime says to Jon Prime. He rubs his thumb over the back of Jon Prime’s again. “Jon, breathe. It’s all right.”

“It’s…” Jon Prime closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly. When he opens them again, they’re wet with unshed tears as they flick back and forth from Jon to Tim. “God, I thought this part would be easier. I don’t know why. It’s never easy. But I thought…I am sorry.”

“You didn’t do this,” Martin protests. He looks at Jon, their Jon, and back to Jon Prime. “Either of you. It’s not—I mean, you didn’t set this up to be like this. And, and you didn’t force us to do this—”

“I requested you,” Jon protests.

“You didn’t request me,” Martin says. Jon looks away, evidently uncomfortable with the reminder. “Anyway, I wouldn’t have said no even if Elias had actually given me a choice, so—”

“Hang on, what?” Jon Prime blinks, then turns to Martin Prime. “You—you didn’t get a choice?”

“No,” Martin Prime says. His eyes widen. “Christ, I never—how did that not ever occur to me? He called me into his office and told me he’d finally appointed a new Head Archivist and that he’d decided to send me along as one of your assistants, that I would be down there first thing on Monday. I don’t think I even had time to say thanks before he sent me off to pack up my desk in the library.”

“Oh, God.” Jon Prime turns to Tim and Sasha. “What about you? Were you asked or told?”

“I—” Sasha frowns at him. “I didn’t—”

“Answer the question, Sasha.”

Static crackles in the air, and Sasha answers immediately. “Told. Elias said that he’d decided to go in a different direction than hiring me as Head Archivist, but he was sure I could still be useful to the Archives and that Jon would need me as an assistant. I told him if I wasn’t going to get the job I had applied for I’d be happier staying where I was, and he replied that wasn’t an option.” She presses a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening as she looks over at Jon. “Oh, God, I—Jon, I don’t—I’m sorry, I—”

“Jon,” Martin Prime says, exasperation and disapproval and maybe a bit of worry in his tone. It sounds like a five-minute lecture condensed into a single word.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t mean to do that, I wasn’t thinking…” Jon Prime inhales sharply and rubs at his face with the hand not now gripping Martin Prime’s so tightly his fingertips are going white. “I-it’s been so long since I’ve dealt with—it, it’s not the same, I’ve gotten so used to—I am sorry. I swear I won’t do that again.”

“What did you do?” Martin asks. He probably shouldn’t, but it sounds like it’s genuinely upsetting Jon Prime, and if they can stop Jon from having to do it as well, it’s probably not a bad thing.

“I—I compelled her. It’s one of the abilities I have from the Eye. I can—make people tell me things. Force statements out of them, that sort of thing.” Jon Prime uncovers his face, and he looks almost as upset as Tim did at being told to try and quit. “It’s invasive, and I try not to do it more than I have to and—I am so sorry, Sasha.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Tim leans around Martin to frown at Jon. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is still pale, but he looks at least a little calmer.

“No,” Jon says, sounding genuinely distressed. “Of course not.”

“Not quite to that extent,” Martin Prime says. “It’s something that…develops, I guess?”

Jon Prime looks at Martin Prime in worry and confusion. “No, no, I—I didn’t start being able to do that until after—”

“Jon, I wasn’t going to tell you Gertrude Robinson had been shot until they confirmed that was what killed her,” Martin Prime said quietly. “Or at least until you’d slept some. You looked like hell and—last thing I wanted was you panicking that someone was running around gunning for you, literally. I didn’t realize it then, just assumed I was, I don’t know, trying to make you less agitated. That maybe if you knew for sure you wouldn’t be up all night torturing yourself or whatever. But…well, later on, I started learning what to listen for, and I realized what it was. I don’t know if it would have worked if I hadn’t been so tired, or if it was something I really didn’t want to tell you, but you did compel me to answer you. At least a little.”

“You never told me.”

“It never really came up?”

“God. All this time I thought—Martin, you—you know I’d never—I d-didn’t ever want to—I wouldn’t have—”

“Okay, you are starting to spiral.” Martin Prime turns his hand over and squeezes Jon Prime’s, then reaches forward like he’s going for the other one. “Maybe we should stop for a few minutes and—”

“No, I-I’m fine. I’m fine.” Jon Prime takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, then looks back up at Jon and the others sitting on Tim’s sofa. “We need to…there’s more we need to discuss.”

Martin thinks to himself that he’s never seen someone obviously less fine, and at first he assumes Jon Prime is only getting away with it because Martin Prime can’t actually see the look on his face. But a quick glance at Martin Prime shows otherwise. Martin Prime is absolutely aware of Jon Prime’s condition, maybe better than anyone else in the room, but he’s letting him get away with it for reasons of his own. He’s sure that won’t last long, though. They’ve got to speed this up, but the trouble is that the whole situation is taking on the aspect of a hydra. For every question answered, three more questions pop up, and Martin no longer knows where the thread is going. If he ever knew in the first place.

“Okay, so…wait. W-wait. Let me make sure I’ve got everything straight so far,” he says, more to give everyone else a bit of breathing room than anything else. He’s just as confused and off-balance, probably, but he’s not going to show it. “Fourteen fear beings, each with their own…followers and paths and all that. One of them is in charge of the Institute. We’re all trapped in its service as long as it can…use us. Jon—I’m guessing since he’s the Head Archivist, he’s…closer to it than the rest of us are, which is why he’s got some of its powers. Most of the statements, the real statements, the ones that won’t go on the computer, they’re somehow related to at least one of the entities. And it’s only going to get worse from here on out. Have I got all that right?”

“Basically, yes.” Jon Prime manages a smile. “Although hopefully we can keep it from getting too much worse.”

“Right, okay.” Martin tries to think of where to go next. “So, ah, so—Elias. How—how much does he know? I mean, he’s the head of the Institute, but…does he know about…all of this? The fears and the Archives and—everything?”

“He said he usually knows what’s going on in the Institute,” Tim says, his voice tight. He draws his arms from the back of the sofa and clenches his fists, resting them on his thighs. “And you sounded a lot like you hated him when we talked earlier. It’s because he knows all this crap, isn’t it? He knew all of it and he let us walk in blind. Ah, no offense.”

“That,” Martin Prime says, “is barely scratching the surface. And none taken. But yes. He knows all of it.”

“That’s…” Martin swallows hard, fighting down the resurgence of nausea. “That’s kind of messed up.”

Jon Prime lets out a bitter and brittle laugh. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“So tell us,” Sasha says. “You said you’d tell us what you wanted to know.”

“Yes. And Gertrude Robinson did attempt to leave a warning for me, it—she just wasn’t able to.” Jon Prime takes a deep breath. “Elias. He—was originally known as Jonah Magnus. Before he was Elias Bouchard, he was James Wright.”

“What?” Martin’s voice jumps to a pitch he hasn’t hit since he was sixteen.

“No. No, that doesn’t make any sense.” Sasha presses her fingertips to her temples. “Elias Bouchard was hired at the Magnus Institute by James Wright. He’d been here for five years when Wright died and Elias was promoted directly from filing clerk to head of the Institute. They were in the same place at the same time, they were both there. They can’t be the same person.”

“Unless Wright killed him and took his place,” Tim mutters.

Martin Prime winces. “That’s…kind of close to what happened, actually. Jonah Magnus has been body-hopping for generations, to keep himself alive. Finding a new vessel every time the old one starts getting…well, old. It’s the eyes. I mean, Elias’ eyes, they’re actually Jonah Magnus’ eyes. That’s how he takes over.”

Yeah, okay, Martin is definitely going to be sick now. He presses a hand to his mouth. Jon’s entire body goes rigid. “My God, how deep did he go into servitude to this…thing?”

“All the way,” Jon Prime says grimly. “In addition to whatever it is he does to transfer his…essence to his new bodies…and believe me, that is not something I have ever wanted to know in detail…he has some powers of clairvoyance. He can see out of any eye, real or symbolic. He can also read minds, to a limited extent, and implant images in the mind.”

“What, like…make you hallucinate?” Sasha sounds almost as curious as she does concerned.

Martin Prime shakes his head. “Not exactly. More like…he can make you picture things in your head. Events, memories…perceptions.”

Martin has to swallow twice before he can speak, in a voice much smaller than usual. “Is…is that what you meant? When you said…” He trails off, hoping Martin Prime remembers the conversation without him having to repeat it.

“Yes,” Martin Prime says quietly. “Mind you, I don’t know how much of what he showed me was based on reality and how much of it was based on…I mean, she’s not well. But yes.”

It doesn’t take a huge leap of logic for Martin to figure out what his counterpart means. Whatever Elias showed him, it’s something to do with his—their—mother. Tim’s the one who speaks up next. “Can he see us now, though? Like, if he can see through any eye, read minds…can he see us?”

“In theory, possibly. In practice, no,” Jon Prime answers. “I’ve…taken precautions. Besides, the Archivist is very closely tied to the Eye, so it’s possible that there being two of us here will create enough of a feedback loop that the room will function as a—a blind spot, so to speak. Too much interference for him to See properly in here.”

“But ordinarily?”

“If he tries…yes. I think the three of you are safe, more or less. You’re not his focus. And since he’s deliberately keeping your Archivist in the dark, obviously he doesn’t think any of you know anything.”

Sasha nods slowly. “So that feeling we get in the Archives, like we’re being watched—that’s Elias? Excuse me, Jonah?”

“No, that’s the Eye itself,” Martin Prime answers. “We’re…pretty sure Elias can only see out of one set of eyes at a time? And he has to be able to give it some attention. When he’s focused on something else, you’re safe. That feeling of being watched, though, that’s the Beholder. I mean, they don’t call it the Ceaseless Watcher for nothing.”

“Is it watching us now?” Sasha asks. “Or does it only watch us at the Institute?”

“I—” Jon Prime hesitates. His lips part and his eyes go slightly unfocused.

“Jon, no—” Martin Prime begins, his face going pale.

There’s another crackle of static, like when Jon Prime asked the question that Sasha had to answer, but it rapidly increases in pitch and volume until it’s more like a squeal of feedback. Martin screws up his eyes and tries to cover his ears, but the noise seems to be transmitted through his very teeth and bones—

And then, abruptly, it vanishes, leaving an almost ringing silence in its wake. Martin opens his eyes to see Jon Prime gasping heavily for air, his eyes closed, his whole body trembling.

“Oh, God, that hurt,” he pants.

“You know an eye can’t see inside itself, Jon,” Martin Prime says sternly. His expression immediately softens, though, as he reaches over tentatively and places his hand on Jon’s back, rubbing gently. Martin swallows down on no small amount of jealousy, which is a stupid and totally inappropriate reaction under the circumstances. “Okay. I’m putting my foot down. Now we have to do the statement.”

“Yes, I…I don’t think I can…last much longer if we…don’t.” Jon Prime’s voice is a mere thread, and he’s slurring his words.

“What are you talking about?” Jon frowns.

“I…” Jon Prime flounders for a moment, then looks up at Martin Prime in mute appeal. After a second, he seems to realize that won’t work and touches Martin Prime’s thigh.

It can’t be that much force, but Martin Prime evidently feels it. Something flickers over his face briefly, and Martin knows with utmost certainty that he wants to wrap Jon Prime in a hug and hold him until he stops shaking. Martin’s felt that desire with Jon more than once, but he also knows it’s a desire that isn’t going to lead anywhere any time soon; Jon seems to avoid physical contact like the plague. They’ve touched more in the last twelve hours than Martin thinks they’ve touched in the entire almost-year they’ve known each other and he’s sure it’s going to stop as soon as the shock of seeing the chaos at the Archives wears off. And despite the relieved way Jon Prime and Martin Prime clung to each other when Jon Prime first showed up, Martin’s pretty sure a protective cuddle is still out of the question.

“The statements feed the Ceaseless Watcher,” Martin Prime explains slowly. “He’s tied very closely to it, which means…well, to a certain extent, they feed him, too. At any rate, the longer he goes without a statement, the—the weaker he gets? And using his powers drains him faster. What he just did, in addition to being incredibly ill-advised to begin with, pushed him way too far. If he doesn’t get a statement, now, it might actually kill him.”

“I—I don’t actually—I mean, it’s not like we just keep those on hand,” Jon stammers. He looks shaken, which, well, Martin can understand that. It’s not easy staring down your own future, and this isn’t exactly something to look forward to.

“Too stale,” Jon Prime says hoarsely. He takes a deep breath and sort of manages to straighten up, but frankly, he looks like hell.

“He hasn’t had one since he got back, a week ago now,” Martin Prime elaborates. “And the old statements, they—don’t have the same power to them? It’s like trying to live off of granola bars. It’s possible, but it really sucks, and they don’t keep you going as well as a good meal. He needs a live statement.” He taps his temple lightly. “Fortunately, I have one on hand.”

“What, you’ve just been hoarding them?” Tim asks.

Martin Prime actually smiles a little, obviously not offended. “My journey back here wasn’t exactly straightforward, you might say.” The smile vanishes as he adds, “M-maybe we should…try to go into the other room, Jon. Or you all should leave. This might be a bit…much.”

“We’re staying,” Jon says firmly. “Tone it down if you have to, but—I can’t walk away from this, I don’t think.”

“He’s right,” Jon Prime says. He turns his exhausted eyes onto Martin Prime. “They won’t…don’t make them try to imagine it.”

Martin swallows, but tries not to visibly react otherwise. Jon Prime is right. Knowing the little bit that he knows…he won’t be able to stop himself from coming up with dozens of possible scenarios, and all of them will probably be way worse than just knowing the truth.

Martin Prime sighs heavily, then nods. “All right. Let’s go.”

#ollie writes fanfic #leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#the magnus archives #tma #things are starting to get heavy just so you know

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sephiwhore · 3 years

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Ok but literally all the cyberpunk oc questions? LETS GO CHOOM!!! -thosetwistedtales

Bet you didn’t think I’d actually do it >:3 Okay well I technically didn’t, I did skip some of them cause I couldn’t think of anything, I’d already answered it, or the answer was just “no”.

Without further ado I present, All The Questions about Tess, answered under the cut!

— BASICS

full name: Tess Valere

birthday: She has no idea, and for most of her life she didn’t even know birthdays were a thing

gender and pronouns: Female, she/her

nicknames or aliases: V (obviously), her surrogate brother called her Tessa

sexuality: a big ol bisexual

ethnicity: a big ol white girl

affiliations [corporation/gang/themselves/etc]: she grew up on the streets of Heywood, so certain Valentinos would help her out now and again. She’s nowhere near loyal to them, but she’ll try to avoid killing them during jobs

what languages do they speak?: English, conversational Spanish, and she knows a handful of Japanese words

— PERSONALITY

alignment: Chaotic Good, but she dabbles in Chaotic Neutral

color(s) you associate with them: cyan and black and after Johnny comes into her life, red

theme song: Unbreakable by Fireflight

what heavenly virtue would you assign them? Humility

what deadly sin would you assign them? Wrath

what is their biggest strength? Sheer fucking perseverence, mostly fueled by spite

what is their biggest fear? Losing the people she loves, because throughout her life those have been few and far between and she’s lost a good number of them

what is their biggest weakness? Again, the people she loves

are they confident in their abilities? Oh you bet your ass she is, so confident that she stormed Arasaka Tower with nothing but her revolver and her cyberdeck

what is their opinion on cybernetics? They’re a necessary evil. Her brother dealt with cyberpsychosis so in a way she resents cybernetics, but she also knows that you won’t get far as a merc in Night City without a few implants

do they have a good sense of humor? Yes, very dry and sarcastic

how do they cry? When she cries it’s either from rage or panic, very little in between

how do they laugh? Quite subdued, usually the most you’ll get out of her is a hearty chuckle. Very rarely does she go into a full laughing fit

do they smoke? She started smoking after Johnny popped up in her head cause she felt bad for his situation (after she stopped hating him anyway) and figured she could give him this one thing. And now she smokes like a chimney.

do they drink? She’s been dealing with alcohol dependence and borderline alcoholism for half of her life

what kind of drunk are they? As she drinks more it progresses from pretty chill, then VERY affectionate, and then Fightey

do they take any drugs? She knows how she is with alcohol so she avoids drugs like the plague

— COMBAT

preferred weapon: For close/mid-range, a nice beefy revolver (Overture) or Johnny’s Malorian. Long range, a sniper rifle.

combat style [stealth/melee/brute force/etc] Depending on the environment, it’s either stealth with a silenced pistol and lots of quickhacks, a John Wick style headshots-galore shootout, or sniping from a distance

primary stats [ex: intellect] Intelligence and Reflexes

biggest weakness in combat: She sometimes forgets to watch her back, and tends to ignore injuries and see the fight through when retreating would probably be the best course of action

threaten or charm? Depends on the target, she’s great at both

lethal or non-lethal? For corpos, the more malicious gangs (Tygers, Animals, 6th Street), or anyone who has hurt innocents, full lethal. If she’s just infiltrating a warehouse full of workers, non-lethal

leave quietly or send a message? She sends a message WHILE leaving quietly

strategy or improvise? Improvise

— APPEARANCE

hair style and color [is it natural? do they change it a lot?] She has synthhair so she can change the style and color at will (I have no idea if that’s how it actually works but I say it is) but she usually sticks to come kind of short sideshave/undercut in some shade of blue.

eye color: Natural eye color is green, but she usually has black scleras with a red circle

height: I had her at 5’8 until yesterday when I realized ya know what, I want a tall girl. So she’s 6 feet.

describe their body type: Skinny, small tiddies, but still fairly curvy

describe their style: Dark colors, leather jackets, lots of boots (also Johnny’s tank top and aviators)

do they wear makeup? Very smudgey eyeliner. Her upper lip is tattooed black and she usually leaves the bottom one bare

tattoos? any significant ones? Lots of tattoos that I haven’t figured out yet, except fir a modified version of the Valentinos neck tattoo, the V being to honor her brother Ven (she took on the name V to honor him too)

scars? Random ones here and there from random gunshots, stabbings, and other work-related injuries

piercings? A bunch that I can’t remember off the top of my head

cybernetics? Gorilla arms, the charge jump ankle ones, eventually she gets synth lungs as a preventative measure cause of the whole smoking thing

— FAVORITES

favorite place in night city: The streets of Heywood because they’re home to her, despite all the awful memories growing up. After Johnny comes along, she starts to like high places, and she loves to hang out on the patio outside Kerry’s house

favorite tv show and/or movie: She loves horror movies, except ghost one cause she doesn’t believe in ghosts so she just finds them dumb

favorite vehicle. do they prefer cars or motorcycles? Vastly prefers motorcycles, she hasn’t really driven a car much since she was a teenager. Her favorite is Jackie’s Arch.

favorite food: She sees food solely as a source of fuel, she will eat whatever is easiest

favorite drink: Tequila

favorite song: Black Dog :3

favorite type of weather: She LOVES the rain (but the water kind, not the acid kind)

favorite radio station: Vexelstrom, and then Morro Rock cause Samurai :3

favorite pastime: Working out, shooting ranges, Jackie and Vik got her into occasional boxing

— RELATIONSHIPS

what are their parents like? what kind of relationship do they have with your character? She had no memory of her parents and assumes they’re both dead

do they have any other family members? what kind of relationship do they have? She has a “brother”, who she knew only as Vendetta (or V). He found her on the streets and took her in when she was 10, and raised her from then on until he “died” 12 years later. Their relationship was great, despite the fact that he was not a very nice person to everyone else but her.

who is their closest friend? Of course Jackie, and then Kerry (and Johnny ofc)

who are their other friends if they have them? Nope! :D

what are their exes like? any significant ones? She’s never really had a serious relationship, mostly just flings and acquaintances-with-benefits

are they in a relationship? with who and how is it going? Johnny! And it’s uh. Well, ya know.

who are their enemies? She has a passionate hatred for whichever corpo makes cyberpsychosis medication, and for Max Tac cause she sees them as responsible for the loss of her brother. And of course Arasaka.

have they ever lost anyone important to them? Her brother, Jackie, Johnny

would they betray their own morals for their loved ones? Abso-fucking-lutely

have they ever sacrificed something for someone they care about? if so, what? In one of my two canons for her, she gives Johnny her body

— BACKGROUND

where did they grow up in night city? if not from night city, where are they from? The streets of Heywood, then in a shitty apartment in Heywood

how would you describe their childhood? Miserable

were they well-off, poor or somewhere in between when growing up? After Ven took her in, they did have an apartment but because he needed monthly baloperidol (cyberpsycho meds) injections, they were quite poor

what kind of education did they receive? The only real education she ever got was “how to shoot a gun”

what is the biggest lesson they learned growing up? Everything and everyone in the world is going to try its best to destroy you. Destroy it first.

what is their happiest memory? A few weeks after Ven took her in and and it finally hit her, this was real, she had a home, someone that cared for her, and she never had to go hungry again,

what is their most painful memory? Watching her brother, in the middle of a psychotic break, being gunned down. After that it would be saying goodbye to Johnny (in the canon where that happens)

have they kept any meaningful mementos from their past? One of the revolvers she owns was given to her by her brother, and all of her piercings and a couple of her tattoos were done by him so they’re mementos, in a way

is there anything they would change about their past? She would do anything to save her brother.

#themechaneer #ask game #oc: tess valere #oc: vendetta

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dennou-translations · 5 years

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Violet Evergarden Gaiden: Chapter 3

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We’d held hands in the darkness. The only proof that we were alive had been our body temperature. Whenever she’d say that she was scared, I’d reply with, “It’s all right”. “Your Big Bro will do something about this,” I’d tell her.

The one who’d affirmed my existence was my little sister. I’d managed to get courage from the fact that I could be relied on. That, yeah, I was an older brother. That she was no good without me, so I had to keep on living.

But I didn’t remember. I didn’t know.

Had someone broken me? Had I broken on my own? I didn’t know.

Still, she definitely existed. If I met her someday, I’d know it was her for sure. Even if I had forgotten, even if I couldn’t remember her, I’d recognize her if I saw her. I wished the same to be valid for her.

That feeling alone stayed inside me like a bonfire.

Whether the continents scattered around the world were big or small made no particular difference for the people living in them. Any place was the same should there be humans living in it. They would plow and grow. Harvest, build and color. Create and fail. Hide, interact, destroy, starve, succeed. Become depressed. Shed tears, coerce. Sparkle, act immoral. Repent, depart, worship. Acclaim, breed, mourn. Become idle. Become nostalgic. They would love each other and kill each other.

And so would he.

Back when a certain continent put an end for once to a war that had extended for a long time, the “Continental War”, battles continued happening in another continent as if it were natural. On the topic of occupations that had deep ties with so-called “wars”, there were mercenaries.

Although there existed different types of them, the mercenaries who wandered that continent were in majority freely warriors who would join any faction depending on the pay. They would head east today and west tomorrow. It did not matter if, for instance, a fellow mercenary with who they had drank together turned into an enemy. They would also not care for whatever happened to the head of the lord whose favor they had earned, or to the village of the woman they had slept with, depending on the money.

And right now, too, a single mercenary was being led to the death that would certainly come to many others.

“So cold.”

Sandy blond hair swayed in the wind mixed with ashen dust. A man with looks that would be a waste should he perish in such a place lay collapsed the way he had been born. His ivory skin, in which golden hair stood on end, was exposed mercilessly to natural threats. The man groaned amidst his clouded memories, asking himself how on Earth things had turned out as such.

——Three days ago, I was killing. Two days ago, also killing.

He recalled several battles that he had surrendered his body to joining in a spur of the moment.

——Yesterday... that’s right, I was in the bar of a small highway town dancing with women, drinking...

The man could more or less understand what had happened. He had extravagantly squandered to his heart’s contentment the reward he received for surviving wartime fire and spent the night with an absurdly fine woman, who had taken notice of his lavish feasting. His lodging and the drinks he had consumed were arranged by said woman. She had most likely administrated some sort of drug into them.

“I feel sick... oeh...”

The fact that all of his belongings had been stripped off him, that the bounty he had earned at the cost of his life had been snatched away, and that he had been left to chance in such a place without anyone bothering to finish him off could not be called anything other than misfortune. Only that his body was not tied up was good luck, but even if it were, he would not have moved. It seemed he had by no means the energy to stand up.

“Some...” he attempted to say, but closed his mouth.

——Even if I call for somebody, there ain’t anyone around. Who even is “somebody” to me, anyway?

The man did not have comrades or family to aid him in such a time.

That was what it meant to live as one pleased. He would make his baggage as light as possible and simply move forward to wherever he saw fit. If he had some sort of grandiose goal, it might lead him to good results. A lukewarm existence would sometimes turn into a hindrance for life decisions. Those who had nothing could probably see a world far broader than those who had everything. However, having no one to grieve for them when tasting such final moments was lonesome.

A pain ran through somewhere in the depths of his chest – the spot that was called “heart”.

“Nope, I ain’t dying.”

The pain ran through, but the man did not have the spirit of someone who obediently perceived fate as fate. He balled his fists, exhorting his body and attempting to stand up somehow.

“As if I’d die... As if I’d die; as if I’d die!”

Perhaps because that roar had been the last of the strength he had left, from head down, the man collapsed onto his back once again after just yelling. Buried by sand, he lost consciousness. In his primary circumstances, he would have died there. Nevertheless, there was a certain number of individuals beloved by the Goddess of Fortune to the point of it twisting their destinies. The fact that a motorcycle was transiting the road-less way and that he met a passerby with a good heart who stopped upon finding him were all the work of the Goddess of Fortune.

The man opened his eyes again after few hours had gone by.

“Who... are you, seriously?” Due to the surprise, but also because he was sitting up, his voice was hoarse.

“I’m Hodgins, a veteran in the middle of a trip. I’m the one you owe your life to for picking up your butt-naked self from the desert.”

He was a bit of a rich man, an easy-going one who could easily chime in with others, extremely calculating and intrigue-loving, who scored a large profit in war gambles and had an upstart. He was an entrepreneur currently in the middle of stablishing his business. That was the man’s first encounter with Hodgins, his lifesaver.

“Why’d you help me, Old Man?!” his harsh voice echoed throughout the interior of the shop.

The two were in an open-terrace restaurant located at the first floor of an inn to which the man had been heading. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. The man was conspicuous. After all, no matter how one looked at it, he was dressed in baggy, obviously borrowed shirt and trousers.

“Ah, I’m sorry. This kid is a bit ill-mannered. Yes, he’ll quiet down... Hm? Wait a minute. ‘Old man’...!? Me...?” Hodgins opened his eyes wide and leaned closer to the man.

That was what he was going to react to?

The youth and the overly cheerful man were a mismatched combination inside the refined inn. It was inevitable that the gazes of the customers would gather upon them in a natural manner, but at a growl of, “We ain’t for display!” from the young man, everyone looked away.

“Old Man, listen to me.”

“No, no, more importantly, how about we clear up the issue of whether or not I look like an old man? I’m indeed past my twenties already, but I’m younger than the people from my generation who are married, my stomach doesn’t stick out yet, and more than anything, I’m a fine man, right? Do I really seem like an old man? Not a big bro? How about you try thinking it over? Ready, set—”

“OLD. MAN!”

As if stabbed in the heart by his words, Hodgins clutched his chest and moaned. “What is it... young man...?” Even his voice was pained.

“Why’d you help me? You’re even treating me to food... What’cha after? I’m telling you I’ve got no money.”

It was true. If the man were billed for a meal in that place now, it would be the end of the line for him.

In contraposition, Hodgins waved his hand to the side. “Nah, I’m not after anything.”

“Then you want my body?”

“You’ve... got too much confidence in yourself. Well, when I first saw you, your body was buried in sand and I couldn’t properly see anything other than your face... so, I thought you were a naked pretty girl who had passed out.” After glancing fleetingly at the man, he turned his head to a different direction, eyes far-off. “When I lifted you in my arms, I noticed you had something extra there... but you were still alive, so I brought you back to the inn with me, stroked your body since you were with hypothermia... and when I realized, it was morning. I knew you had no money just by looking. You had nothing with you.”

This time, the one with an aching chest was the man. “My bad. For... not having anything.” As his voice tone changed quite a bit, perhaps what had been rubbed was a very sore spot.

“Young man, why were you asleep in that place?”

“‘Why,’ you ask...?”

Albeit hesitating to discuss his misfortune, he talked about his situation in a summarized way. Hodgins had listened seriously at the beginning, but from the middle onward, he turned his face to the side and his shoulders trembled as if he were holding back laughter.

“If you wanna laugh, just do it...!”

“Eh, can I? Ahah! Ahahahah! You’d finally earned some and lost all of it?! That’s too pitiful! My stomach hurts... Ah, hold o—hold o—wait up. How about you stop lifting that chair? Let’s calm down? It was terrible, wasn’t it? You’re hungry too, right? Eat up, eat up. Speaking of which, I didn’t ask your name either. Young man, what’s your name?”

Silence.

“Hey, hey, no matter how badly behaved you are, you should at least give your name.”

Pouting, the man muttered curtly, “Ain’t got it.” Seeming to have been made from the colors of the summer sky and blown into a glass ball, his remarkable eyes clouded over, and he defiantly spoke one more time. Crossing his arms, he rested his feet on the table. “I ain’t got a name. I might’ve been given one, but I don’t have any. Call me whatever you want. My registration name from when I used to be a mercenary was ‘Blue’. Since I dunno my name... I went with my eye color.”

Hodgins showed agitation for the first time in front of the man, who had turned into a lump of displeasure. “‘Don’t have any’... What do you mean?”

“Amnesia. My memory’s got nothing but what happened starting from a few years back. I dunno where I was, what I was doing, where I’m from or who I was before this. When I came to, I was lying on a riverbank at the borders of this continent. Back then, I was wearing an armor and a cape... If I hadn’t been picked by a woman gypsy, I’d have died just like that.”

Hodgins at last realized his own words to have been a verbal gaffe.

“You don’t remember anything? Not a single thing?”

Silence.

“Is there something you do?”

That might have been important to the man enough to make him falter even at putting it into words. After showing an expression of hesitation, he finally opened his mouth. “I probably... had a... little sister.” His attitude was almost that of confessing a sin. “Still, I don’t remember her. I just have the memory that she existed, and I dunno what kinda person she was. But she was definitely there. I remember that.”

Hodgins wound up gripping his own shirt at the chest area.

“I tagged along with the gypsies for a while, learning from them how to sing, dance and stuff. Then, in the end, I changed jobs to mercenary. Looked like fighting fit my nature better, y’see. ‘Battle-Hungry Freak’ is my nickname. I’m famous in the mercenary world.” Upon saying so, the man shrugged. “Well, that ain’t a name, though...”

He did not know who he was. Just how worrisome was that for him? The man did not seem to have a commendable personality at all, yet he was apparently concerned about not having a name.

“Hu~n... that so? So, you... were a mercenary, yeah?”

“That’s right. Is it bad?”

“I’m not saying that it’s bad per se. But even so, you got no money, no name or anything at all?”

“No”, “no”, “no”. The man’s rage towards his own life was present at the many sorts of “no”.

“You wanna get killed, Old Man? Just saying it, but I don’t have any sense of moral obligation, so if I don’t like someone, I’m fine with beating them up.”

“Yep, you’re like that. Not a single ‘thank you’. But I... don’t hate insincere guys like you.”

“What’s with that?”

“Also, you see, I have an acquaintance... it’s a girl who resembles you... Even though I’m her legal guardian, I left her with other people and went on a journey as if running away. I sort of got the feeling I couldn’t leave her by herself.”

——Someone who resembles me?

Was there any such person in the world?

“What kinda fella is she?”

Not answering the man’s question, Hodgins gave breadcrumbs to a dove that lay in waiting at his feet for his meal’s leftovers to fall down. Whatever he was thinking, he stayed quiet for a while and suddenly rose from his seat, chasing after the dove. The other doves could not stand his imposing action, batting their wings and fleeing into the sky.

“Hey, what kinda fella is she!?” his angry shout overlapped with Hodgins’s innocent laughter and the sound of bird feathers.

With the town that the doves had flown toward at his back, Hodgins turned around. His eyes seemed to be looking at the man, but were not.

“The strongest and weakest in the world.” As expected, Hodgins was smiling, but his eyes did not form an arc. Regardless of whether the person he referred to was evil or good, the air around him transmitted the fact that she was someone important.

The man frowned.

——What’s that...? A riddle...?

He became even less able to understand the lifesaver in front of him.

“I also have to just go and face her already.” Hodgins had said he was in his thirties, but he seemed older than that as he talked about the “strongest and weakest in the world”. “I can’t tell her... that it’s hard for me to look at her face when she seems sad.”

Eyes crinkling, the man thought:

——This dude... he pretends to be decent but something’s up with him.

He sensed a twist from the laughing other man. The latter spoke a lot at first, but he had seemed to be giving vent to his thoughts rather than having a conversation. Was he not burdened with some sort of enormous problem? One that he truly could do nothing about, no less.

“It’s settled.” Hodgins pointed an index finger at the man and snapped one of his eyelids closed. “If you aren’t anything, won’t you tag along with me?”

“Meaning... you’re gonna hire me?”

“That’s right. You lack too much of everything. Come to my place earn money. You need cash to search for your sister and to get revenge from the guys that threw you naked into the desert, don’t you? In exchange, can you lend me your life for a bit?”

“Hah?”

“Right now, you only have your life, yeah? I’ll buy that.”

At those words, the man’s heart started making astir sounds. He was supposedly used to having his life bought with money, but when asked for it face-to-face, his breathing felt as if it would stop.

“How much is it?”

Upon being asked so, the man was at loss for an answer.

Afterward, the man acquired a name.

“Benedict Blue”.

He also secured a profession and a place to sleep.

The CH Postal Company.

He had a lifesaver who was dear to him.

Claudia Hodgins.

He obtained comrades as well.

He had treaded a long prologue, but that was his story.

Benedict Blue

“The rough explanation ends here. The client who made this request just wants the letter sent definitively. Little Violet will do the ghostwriting. Benedict will do the delivery. It’s a sudden commission, but it’s good that you two were going to work in the same place. I can also count with Benedict for seeing off and meeting on return with Little Violet. I’ll give you a few days’ break when you’re done, so do your best. How’s that? Does it seem okay?”

Benedict observed the golden-haired girl who immediately answered, “Yes” with blue eyes similar to hers. They sat next to each other on a sofa in Hodgins’s room. It was a languid early morning. Work was about to begin that day as well.

The climate, atmosphere and food of Leidenschaftlich, which Benedict was once not used to due to having come from a different continent, now penetrated his body without any sense of displacement.

“Fine.”

He had no reason and was not in the position to refuse. The one in front of him was his lifesaver and superior. He did not show respect for the latter, but felt familiarity from him. Most likely, of the highest degree.

“V, don’t make your luggage too heavy. It’ll weaken my beloved bike’s movements.”

The girl beside the amnesiac Benedict was an individual who had only just appeared into his short life. From the time they had first met, to Benedict, she had rooted herself in the classification of people whom he “somehow could not leave on their own”. She was a stunning Auto-Memories Doll. Her impudence aside, she was an ignorant child unknowing of the ways of society. In the beginning, he had doubted that such a machine-like person come from the military would manage working in the service business, but she was currently the most popular figure of the CH Postal Company.

“That is true. I shall reduce the firearms to the minimum equipment. My body weight is also heavy due to the prosthetics, so it will increase the burden on Benedict’s motorcycle.”

Her fine appearance had always stolen the eyes of whoever looked at her, but lately, he had the feeling that her charm had increased. It was as if spring had been born from within her cold beauty.

“Even if the equipment is scarce, if I am with Benedict, I will probably not struggle in case of emergencies.”

She had become able to smile faintly on occasion.

The biggest incident amongst the ones that they had just recently experienced in person – the Intercontinental Train’s hijacking – crossed Benedict’s mind. And so did a man with an eyepatch, who had showed up embracing Violet sideways as she had lost an arm, and taken his leave.

He had not heard everything about the past of the two, but Hodgins had told him the general story afterward. They were in love with each other. There was no room for anyone to come in-between. Their colleague, Cattleya, had said that the two apparently started seeing each other on off days. “I’m glad,” Cattleya had laughed.

Benedict did not deem it as good.

That was probably the reason why looking at Violet felt somewhat unamusing as of late. He suspected that she was being deceived by a much older man who had conveniently vanished and come about once again.

Putting it positively, he was worried.

Benedict tautly flicked Violet, who had no idea about his feelings, on the forehead with his fingertips. “Not really; you’re light. It’s just that your bag’s heavy. Old Man, you ever lifted V’s luggage? Swing that thing around and it’s like a normal blunt weapon; a blunt weapon. There’s a ton of weapons in it under her clothes.”

Hodgins made an all but deplorable face. “Little Violet... you buy guns with your salary, right...?”

“They were distributed to us back when we were in the military, but now I have no option except purchase them myself. I can only take Witchcraft when President Hodgins grants me permission, after all. I have recently purchased a long-range shotgun. My hands are actually more accustomed to wide-swing maces, however...” Perhaps due to having a desire to acquire large weaponry, Violet moved as though wielding the real thing, staring fixedly at the imaginary weapon.

“No can do, no can do. I’ve gone through the trouble of getting you a cute look, so don’t take stuff like that with you aside from emergency cases.”

“Stop, stop. Giving you a ride would get even heavier.”

Completely shut down by the two men, Violet put on a disappointed expression, as if disheartened. “I am prepared to explain the advantage points of the mace, though...”

Without her having the opportunity to give said explanation, the two were set to depart in haste. Seen off by Hodgins and after Lux, who was on phone duty, waved at them, Benedict and Violet left the agency.

The blond duo swayed on the motorcycle towards wherever.

Autumn had ended, the seasons changing into winter. Leidenschaftlich usually did not witness snowfall, yet icy winds were blowing. Gloves, scarves, hooded coats – even if the protection measures against low temperatures were appropriate, cold was cold. As the one driving, Benedict had no choice but simply endure the chilly gusts head-on. Violet’s artificial arms around his torso were gelid as well. The heat from the part of her actual body that was in contact with his back was the only warmth. He could feel the hold of her arms more firmly than when giving her rides back in summer. Was it because of the coolness or because of her trust in him?

Feeling an itch, Benedict sneezed, “Achoo!” While vigorously speeding up the motorcycle over the vast land, he initiated a conversation for no particular reason, “It’s cold!”

“Yes.”

“V, your prosthetics okay? Ain’t there any downsides or something if they get too chilled?”

“It is bad if the joints freeze, but that will not happen as long as the coldness is not extreme.”

“Hu~n.”

“We mostly roamed around northern lands during the Continental War, so I am knowledgeable of the protections against cold.”

“Well, the place we’re going to – Lontano – is inside Leidenschaftlich, so for starters, it won’t be snowing there this time of the year. As long as the weather isn’t abnormal, that is. There’ll also be no obstacles to my delivery duties.”

“Yes. This is reassuring.”

“Hey, don’t say that.”

“Why not? The climate is stable. The one who said that there would be no obstacles to the delivery duties was you, Benedict.”

“That’s not it; it’s ‘cause you’re with me. When you say stuff of the sort, it feels like something will happen instead.”

“So the weather will become abnormal because of what I said?”

Benedict knew that Violet’s eyebrows were furrowing even without looking at her. He laughed aloud. “Stu~pid. You’ve got it wrong. I’m saying that ‘cause it’s easy for some kinda problem to happen when I’m with you. To make up for your luggage being lighter, we got ready to manage at least an interception if anything in general goes down, but... Lontano is a pretty big city, so there’s lots of thugs. Flashy towns also got many dark sides.”

“What an issue...”

“You got picked by some weirdo and it was fight on; you were attacked by a bandit and it was fight on; the motorcycle broke and we got stuck in some field. Also, what else...? You raise one small thing and there’s no end to it.”

As if to protest, Violet alleged, “I cannot agree with this. Benedict, the fights that you started one-sidedly are also included.”

“That so? Might be bad for me to get teamed up with you.”

After a short pause, Violet objected again – to the part about teaming up with Benedict being a “bad” thing, “I cannot agree with this either... Indeed, I can assume there is a factor in us that makes it easy to bring about some sort of conflict. However, we were able to deal with them. We, the two of us... can deal with it if something happens again.”

It was difficult to tell what she was thinking, and she might well have been merely protesting against the negative reputation of her own abilities. Still, Benedict somehow heard it as something other than that.

“Heheh,” laughter leaked from him in a natural manner.

Her breath coming out in white puffs behind him, Violet added as if just recalling it, “This applies to times of war and not to times of peace, but... we would have even less enemies if Cattleya were included,” she whispered intermittently and Benedict smiled.

“If that happened, there’d really be no match for us,” he chuckled.

From that point onward, the way to their destination took a couple of hours.

The place that the Auto-Memories Doll and postman from CH Postal Company headed to was Lontano. Small in comparison with the capital Leiden, it was the most prosperous city amongst the neighboring ones. The houses formed circles as if to surround an old castle sitting on top of a slightly elevated hill that extended itself for about a hundred meters, a river with the same name as the country flowing nearby.

Enshrined within a solemn atmosphere, said old castle was a famous attraction of the city. While holding the rights to it themselves, the clan that formerly owned it had handed its management over to the city, and the city allowed people to tour inside of it for cheap admission fees. The old castle had become a grandiose touristic spot, for the one who had built it was a well-known architect.

Places with renowned attractions that had cultural value were easy to turn into the aspired cities of young artists. Not an exception to this, Lontano had art and history museums, theatre venues and a market of ancient books, making the urban area into one where lovers of such things would be unable to help themselves just from strolling through it. Before entering the city gates, one could overhear music as young people played instruments by the road, and walking a little into the city, one would find bookstore after bookstore. The vicinities of statues and fountains were packed with people drawing sketches. It was city of gorgeous structure, yet gloomy and easy to get lost in if one wandered into an alley. Albeit a small ward, there was also a red-light district, which was more popular amongst those who had no interest in arts.

“Now...”

Benedict dropped Violet off at the city’s entrance. She would then rush over to the customer who lived in that city and ghostwrite for them. Benedict himself had several packages to deliver around the city. Once the work there ended, they would return to Leiden, where the submission of reports and delivery of more letters would be waiting for them. That was why Hodgins had ordered the two of them to go to that city. It was more efficient than going through the trouble of having Violet use public transportation, as it there was no fare and took less time.

The current time was right before noon, the tourists gradually forming a lively crowd.

“Where. Should. It. Be?”

Benedict’s sky-blue eyes traveled about in search for a good meeting spot. There was a bank, a bakery, a souvenir store, and a statue of a naked woman carrying a child. The bakery also seemed to have a café, and people could be seen enjoying the apparently warm interior and freshly baked bread from the glass windows.

“It’s settled. V, let’s make the bakery our meeting spot. No matter who arrives first, we wait inside.”

Violet nodded curtly. “You want to eat bread, right?”

“I do. That bakery’s bread is tasty. I never went inside to eat it, though. But it’s delicious enough that making sure to buy something there and bring it over if we have deliveries to do in Lontano is almost common sense among fellow postmen. That one with melted cheese on it... let’s make it a souvenir for Old Man.”

Hearing Benedict talk about purchasing a souvenir, Violet blinked. “I comply. But Benedict, did something happen?” Her reaction all but asked if he had gone crazy.

“You’re being the rudest possible to me with that, y’know?”

“I apologize... Well, did anything happen?” Benedict’s act of buying souvenirs for Hodgins purely out of goodwill seemed unbelievable for Violet. Therefore, she uttered her concern for a malfunction in either his body or mind.

Benedict struck the top of her head with a light knife-hand in an expression of sympathy. “Nothing’s up! You just don’t know it, but I sometimes give the Old Man souvenirs! Even Auto-Memories Dolls buy souvenirs to the agency if they go to some exotic place, right? It’s the same as that. The Old Man treats me to food and stuff before payday too... Like lunch, well, pretty often...”

“President Hodgins tends to give Benedict a special treatment.”

——Don’t wanna hear that from you who he treats like a daughter, Benedict thought.

He spoke while turning to the other side, “Welp, he went as far as taking in an amnesiac like me and giving me a name... He might be special to me, and I to him.”

He accidentally, unintentionally voiced it.

“Is that so?” Violet threw in an interjection quite like normal and Benedict was taken aback.

It was not as if he were hiding the fact he had amnesia or that the name “Benedict” had been given to him by Hodgins, but he had never talked about it to his work colleagues. That was because he had until now no trials of explaining he had amnesia in which he had received a decent response. He would either earn uncalled-for looks or have condolence-like words of pity spat at him. Whichever it was, Benedict was the kind of person who would end up irritated at the other party.

He already had a name and social position. No longer was he the “Blue” who had nothing. He did not want to feel ashamed of back when he had lived by his eye color’s name.

——I wonder...

He was not proud of it either.

——I wonder how she’ll react.

She would certainly not make a big scandal, but would probably say something annoyingly depressing. While embracing uncomfortable feelings, Benedict waited for her response.

However, no matter how long he waited, there was no reaction after that.

Their blue eyes repeatedly exchanged stares. A prolonged silence ensued between them.

Finally, Violet tilted her head slightly as if to ask, “Is something the matter?”

Benedict wound up delving into it without thinking. “Hey, anything to say on me having amnesia?”

Violet’s golden eyelashes batted. “‘Anything’...?”

“There is, right? It’s amnesia we’re talking about. That’s rare, ain’t it?” Saying it himself was somewhat embarrassing and pathetic.

Did that mean she was not too interested in his past? He felt a little let-down.

“That is not true.”

The next words he heard changed his feelings.

“It is indeed uncommon, but in my personal subjectivity, this is not odd.” Violet susurrated with a tone that sounded somehow happy, “I also do not have any memories from before a certain point in time. I did not know how to speak, either. Major bestowed me with the name of a flower goddess. Benedict, what meaning was yours given with?”

——That’s right.

It seemed that Benedict having amnesia was not a big issue for Violet.

——That was it.

The girl so-called Violet Evergarden also used to be not even a person, but a weapon, during the time she had no name. And she spoke of it without any pretension. She did not think of it as a shame.

“This is President Hodgins who we are talking about, so he must have given it with some sort of meaning. The two of us can be said to be very fortunate, right? If I had been used by anyone other than Major, I do not know what would be of me as of now.”

If anything, she thought of it as merely a process for until meeting the person she loved most.

“Oh.”

Violet, who was innocent and indeed lacked something somewhere, felt sorrowful and precious.

“So, what is the meaning of your name?”

“I forgot!”

“Then, let’s ask President Hodgins when we return. I want to know.”

“No, no, no! Don’t ask! Well, I’ll go do the deliveries, so you go to your client too! See ya later!” Benedict mounted the motorcycle once again and waved a hand at Violet.

“Understood. I shall leave the name matter for later as well.”

“You’re stubborn.”

Thus, the two headed to work, each on a different direction.

Benedict’s deliveries did not take too long. One house received a package with an assortment of supplies from a mother living in Leiden to her son working in Lontano. Three buildings received documents exchanged between offices. Five residences received letters. In case of absences, he would have a little bit of work either taking the delivery back with him or asking the person’s neighbors about where they had gone to, yet he finished earlier than he had presumed without the need for such things.

He soon entered the meeting-spot bakery, taking a seat from where he could see the situation outside through the glass and drinking coffee. It seemed Violet’s ghostwriting job would still take some time.

——Guess I’ll pick the souvenir first, then.

He was not able to imagine Violet enjoyably choosing a gift, so picking one by himself was probably more efficient. Thinking so, Benedict selected a few items that he had deemed savory from his own experience eating them. As per a request to the clerk, he had Hodgins’s part of the bread wrapped.

“Is this all?”

Sensing the plainness in color of the goods that he had chosen, Benedict tilted his neck. “Hn~, anything else you recommend?”

“How about a pie or tart? Also, these aren’t bread, but I recommend our cookies as well. There are people who come here just to buy them.”

“Ah~...”

“They’re popular among girls. The ribbons are cute, too.”

One woman surfaced in Benedict’s head.

“I’ve got someone who’d like them, but she’s far away now. All right. Just add this pie.”

In the end, he had an apple pie as addition. He then returned to his seat and calmly savored the coffee.

While observing the packet in which he had requested it to be wrapped, he faintly wondered if the person on the receiving end would be pleased with it. He was soon able to imagine Hodgins smiling broadly and taking into his hands the souvenir offered by his brusque self. He could picture the other being a little surprised, and then slowly breaking into a smile after being told what it was. Even the other saying, “Thanks, Benedict”, and himself turning to the side while replying, “It’s nothing”. He would have also been glad to take money out of his deserted wallet for the cookies if there were anybody to receive them, yet...

——She’s hella far away right now, huh.

The one who came to his mind was a girl of dark hair and purple eyes, Cattleya Baudelaire. Much like Benedict, she has been a colleague from since CH Postal Company’s foundation day. She liked sweets, was bad at dealing with hardships, was a scaredy-cat despite looking daring and fearless, and had a childish side as opposed to her appearance.

——Well, guess she wouldn’t be too happy if she got them from me.

They would quarrel as soon as they saw each other. Enough to turn it into a common occurrence within the CH Postal Company. It was easy to tell just by looking that they did not actually do it due to truly detesting one another, however...

——I wonder if she hates me.

...they could not tell it so easily themselves. Although they were in the same agency, they had different occupations, therefore missed each other often. Theirs was a repetition in which dawn would break after the previous time they had fought, and they would forget that the fight had happened and start another fight yet again. Regardless, they would end up talking to one another on sight, unable to ignore each other, and so he thought of pleasing her with something.

——I don’t hate her, though.

For Benedict, the sense of distance between himself and she, who was worthy of being considered a new breed of human being, was something complicated.

——Things just kinda don’t go well with us. I can’t treat her like other women.

As he had never experienced a proper romance, he had no way of knowing what that meant.

After he reflected on all sorts of things, a big yawn left his mouth. He stretched both arms towards the sky with a jerk and arched his body like a cat. And then relaxed once more. Thinking of taking a break from work had all of his strained feelings and body slackening up.

——I’m getting kinda sleepy.

As he had to work since early in the morning and his daily duties had overlapped, the sense of satisfaction from having a full stomach and the gently warm room caused his eyelids to naturally lower. His body was slowly, slowly stolen by drowsiness and he wound up unable to keep his eyes open. The scent of the shop’s interior was fragrant, people’s conversations sounding fun. The elements composing an atmosphere that could be understood from one’s heart loosened Benedict’s caution.

——Even though... V’s coming...

A golden-haired girl surfaced in Benedict’s head.

——If it’s her, well, guess she’ll soon find me.

The café inside the shop was crowded. Still, he believed that, since it was her, she would come to that place at full speed.

——She’ll... look for me.

After he became amnesic, no matter whom he asked, there was no one who knew him.

——It’s okay if I nap, right?

No one had looked for him.

——It’s okay, right?

However, Violet Evergarden probably would. Thinking so, Benedict closed his eyes. He yawned sudden and widely, falling asleep altogether as if he were dead. Consciousness distant, his line of thought floated into the air. He forgot what he was thinking about midway, invited into the realm of dreams.

Calling them “dreams” might be a faulty form of expression. In his case, they were reproductions of memory fragments that he had ended up shutting down. Once released from the real world, the past would come chasing after him and softly tap on his back.

A film that felt like an old friend returning from far away played in his mind. “Why, welcome back, my mate who no longer remembers his own name,” it said. The film would repeat itself over and over inside Benedict’s head.

His reunion with his friend named past would begin with a night sky.

It was a beautiful nighttime, in which a full moon had appeared. His memory version crawled out of an extremely, extremely dark place, and so he was startled at the bright light of said moon for an instant and shuddered.

There was a sandy beach under his feet. Stomping onto it, his shoes were blemished with mud and bloodstains. The dull ache in his entire body was agonizing. He might have earned himself a serious injury. Nevertheless, his legs moved without him being able to mind the pain.

His hand was holding onto something. Something smooth and small that had body temperature.

He looked back. A little girl came into sight. The girl had blond hair much like Benedict, but of a slightly different shade. Her hair was bundled up in a black velvet ribbon.

As their eyes met, she nodded as if to say, “I’m fine”. After confirming so, Benedict ran faster. He trusted the girl following him.

Eventually, his gaze moved ahead. A single boat was fluctuating on the surface of the sea.

——There, we can escape with that, he thought.

He did not know what they were fleeing from. However, if it was something frightening enough to scare him, whether it was someone horrifyingly strong or a large-numbers-against-small-numbers situation, their circumstances were that they had to run away. But that was not the issue.

Benedict turned around and said, “We’re escaping on that thing, ”

As if having erased it, he was unable to hear her name.

“ , you’re coming too?”

He also could not hear his own name as spoken by the other.

“That’s right. I won’t abandon you. We’ll end up ————. ‘Cause that’s ————’s way of doing things. Without that drug, you ————.”

The color of her hair, eyes and lips – he could see those splintered things.

“But... But even if you ————, even I stop recognizing you as my little sister, even if you stop recognizing me as your big brother, it’s fine. We’re siblings, after all.”

But he could not see her face.

“Even if we forget, I’m sure we’ll recognize each other on sight.”

He could not tell how her face looked. The hues of her ribbon and orbs were fragmented.

“Isn’t that right? If we’re together, even if we forget, we can remember each other as many times as we need. If you find a man that you like or something, you can forget and throw me away. But until then...”

The shades of her hair, her voice and intonation – he could only tell those kinds of things apart.

“...don’t let go of this hand no matter what. If you do that, we’ll really end up forgetting everything,” the past Benedict said as if making a threat.

“I understand, .”

The two boarded the boat and started rowing toward the open sea.

At last, things would always end at a point where he was looking up at the boat from the bottom of the ocean. And so, he would think that, aah, they had failed.

His body convulsed with a start. The film reproduced inside his head did not go for more than a few minutes, yet Benedict awoke accompanied by a sense of fatigue, almost as if he had gone on a long journey.

Eyes half-open, he looked about the surroundings. Violet was nowhere to be seen. He checked the shop’s clock. Not even ten minutes had passed since he had begun drinking his coffee.

Poising himself calmly, he took the only slightly cold coffee into his mouth. Upon drinking a mouthful of it, he became unable to settle with just a little and downed it in gulps as if it were water.

“One more,” he asked for another of the same thing, raising his hand to one of the shop’s waiters. He had wanted the bitterness of reality, enough for him not to be invited by sleepiness anymore.

——You’ve seen this so many times, yet you’re still scared of it?

Although he had been thinking until just a moment before that she did not have to come, he now wished to see that blunt girl very much.

——It’s fine.

Not even he knew what was fine exactly, but he told himself so.

——It’s fine.

He needed those words.

——I’m... fine. Ain’t that right?

He himself did not give an answer to the question asked.

Benedict wound up sneering. He did not use to be so agitated even back when he worked as a mercenary for the first time.

He looked around again. Nobody was a target of dread. Nothing was currently happening. It was not as if he were rushing through a battlefield in order to earn money either, nor had he been abandoned in a desert completely naked. He could tell as much even without sorting out the situation. He was blessed now and nothing was terrifying. Things were finally peaceful. Too peaceful.

However, Benedict did not know that, the more peaceful times were, the more often would the pain of the scars marking him end up coming back.

——Ever since he took me in, haven’t I grown weak?

Oddly enough, be it mental or physically, wounds were not curable. Their visible parts would heal. However, even if they healed on the surface, just by the atmosphere and the people and things involved when the injury happened overlapping with one another, the truth that “a wound was earned” would return. The figurative scars would chase after people forever like the Moon floating in the sky. And they would ache.

Even if the injury took but an instant, the truth that one had been wounded was eternal.

——When... will I get to remember everything?

The scar from forgetting the one person that he absolutely should not have forgotten was causing Benedict’s heart to self-mutilate without him realizing. If the replaying of his memories had already happened thousands of times, then for those thousands of times, Benedict had been attacking himself.

Without knowing why he would become so flustered, he reproduced his recollections again. They were a repetition of the previous ones. As seen from the sidelines, things were obvious to those who knew of his circumstances.

A new coffee was brought over, but he did not feel like drinking it in that warm place. It was Benedict who had come up with the arrangement, saying that one should wait for the other inside, yet he had decided to wait in front of the shop mounted on his motorcycle. Breathing in amidst the coldness, he calmed down a little. The perfectly clean, icy air within his body cooled down his head. Even if his body shook, it was because of the chilliness.

Suddenly, Benedict looked straight to the side. It was due to him feeling a stare for some reason.

A short-haired blonde girl was standing there. Hers was an unnatural shade of blond, so it was most likely a wig. She was dressed in a milky white satin dress similar to the tone of her skin under a black trench coat. She seemed like the kind of woman who led a life of having her praises sung by men in that city of artists. With a cigarette between her fingers, she blew tobacco smoke out of her bright red lips. Being in a bar surrounded by men all around and laughing elegantly would suit her. The front of a bakery was not fitting of her...

“Y-You—” the woman mustered out at Benedict, with an aspect that seemed to say she had done so unwittingly. Her voice was husky.

Benedict returned her gaze. The woman gave him an odd feeling of déjà vu. Had they not met somewhere before, his sixth sense whispered.

Subconsciously, his eyes went to her hair. If that sister of his had grown up, was a woman with such appearance too old to be her? Still, women could change the age suggested by their looks however they wanted with make-up and clothes. Benedict knew the morning-to-night faces of the women he had spent time with until now. Should he not discard the possibility that she was his younger sister?

Perhaps because the glint in Benedict’s eyes had sharpened, the woman took a step backward, and then threw the cigarette away, leaving the spot. At first, she walked slowly, gradually going in small trots.

“Hey,” when he realized it, Benedict had hopped off his motorcycle and was calling out to her. “Hey, wait.”

He pursued the woman as she ran, grabbing her arm by force. Not liking it, the woman attempted to shake free from him, but Benedict bound her arms behind her back. As she smelled of sickly sweet perfume, it felt as if he was about to suffocate.

“Let me go!”

“You know me, right?!”

“I don’t!”

“You definitely do, don’t you?! No, I... I...!”

——I feel like I know you.

“You... Are you...”

He might have been jumping to conclusions. He was fine with it being a misunderstanding. However, if that was not the case, then he certainly did not want to lose such information by mistake.

“Are you... my little... sister?”

Upon being asked so, the woman covered her mouth with her two hands.

The way back was extremely quiet on that day.

Having finished the ghostwriting for her client, Violet called over to Benedict, who was exhaling white puffs outside. It took him a few seconds to react back, and his face looked almost as if he had seen a ghost. She noticed he had nothing in hands despite having said that he would buy Hodgins a souvenir, and as they went back into the shop, the clerk was looking after it. As Benedict said nothing, Violet was the one to thank her.

Even as she told him, “Well, then, let us go home,” while mounting on the backseat, he was out of it and did not take off. And even as the motorcycle finally moved, he stopped driving without as much as one minute passing.

“V, my bad. I’m... feeling awful right now. I might cause an accident and get you hurt.”

Violet did not ask if something had happened. As he was certainly pale-faced, Violet changed seats with a, “Then, I will do the driving”, adapting to the necessities of the moment. She had learned how to ride horses and vehicles to an extent during her soldier days. Even as it had been a while since then, she had confidence that she could do it.

“Benedict. You will fall like this, so please hold tighter.”

“My bad...”

“No, if you feel sick from the swaying, I will stop. Please say it.”

“Aah. My head’s kinda hurting a lot. Can I... close my eyes for a bit?”

“That is all right.”

After saying so, Violet looked up at the sky. As dusk approached, the sky was shrouded in clouds, but it did not seem as if rain, snow or abnormalities in the weather would occur.

It was awfully rare of Benedict to candidly bask on people’s goodwill and apologize. Since he was feeling unwell, it was impressive that he had not yet lost only his judgement of having her replace him as the driver. However, the fact that Benedict, who normally had but a big attitude, stayed silent the whole trip, clung onto a girl younger than him and sat on the backseat would be considered a state of emergency by the staff of the CH Postal Company if they saw him.

Of course, Violet Evergarden also understood that it was an emergency.

Somewhat tired as he might be, drowsy as he might be, that man would never let someone else drive his beloved bike. It was a personal vehicle given to him by Claudia Hodgins when the latter was starting his business.

Violet merely spoke to him dispassionately, “Benedict, were you talking to anyone before I had arrived?”

“Yeah.”

“I have good ears.”

“Yeah, you’re like a wild animal.”

“‘I want to run away from here’. ‘I want you to buy me time’. ‘I want you to help me’ – things like that?”

Rather than being a poor talker, Violet was not as proficient at conversational skills as most people, and so she did not know the right way to speak to him at such a time.

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” Benedict replied coldly in a low voice that sounded as if he were repelling her.

As the talk ended there, a curtain of silence descended upon them once more.

Violet was deep in thought. She almost never put effort into conversations. If she was told not to speak, she would not speak. When asked a question, she would answer. She would inquire what was necessary. That was what conversations used to be about. For her, at least.

However, the grown-up Violet now understood things could not be that way.

She spoke to Benedict again, “That lady called you her brother, Benedict, but you have amnesia, right? Is that person your younger sister? Rather... did you really have a younger sister?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I was observing from nearby as you were binding that woman’s arms behind her back. I learned from President Hodgins that no one should intervene on male-female relationships. Therefore, I stood in waiting on the spot and watched over you, so as to mediate if it were necessary.”

“What’s the Old Man doing...? Speaking of that, this kinda thing’s called ‘eavesdropping’.”

“Was that person your younger sister? Your appearances when you were side by side did not strike me as...”

The motorcycle passed over a rock while she was speaking, and so the vehicle’s frame floated buoyantly for an instant. It landed roughly and started running once more.

“She did not seem to be your younger sister to me. This is but my assumption, but I believe she is older than you are. To begin with, you have amnesia, so even if you did have a younger sister living separately from you, is there no need for further investigation since you do not remember her?” Violet was much too indifferent. Without any compassion or curiosity regarding whatever was happening to Benedict, she levelly stated her conclusions. Even if should it rub Benedict’s nerves the wrong way.

“Shut up! You don’t know that! She might be the one!” Benedict hit Violet’s back with his fists. “I have a little sister! I have memories of her! That’s the only thing I’m definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely sure of!”

“How come? You don’t have memories.”

“I can tell!”

“How?”

When asked so, he had no choice but speak sentimentally.

“‘Cause I feel love for her!”

Violet dry-swallowed curtly at the word “love”.

“It stayed in me! Even if I don’t have my memories, I have this!”

It was embarrassing and foolish.

“It’s the only thing that’s definitely, definitely not a lie!”

He normally never spoke of love, yet he desperately resorted to it only for now.

——I mean, we held hands in the darkness. The only proof that we were alive was our body temperature. Whenever she’d say that she was scared, I’d reply with, “It’s all right”. “Your Big Bro will do something about this,” I’d tell her. The one who’d affirmed my existence was my little sister. I’d managed to get courage from the fact that I could be relied on. That, yeah, I was an older brother. That she was no good without me, so I had to keep on living. Still...

“I had a sister, and I don’t really get it, but I was protecting her! I was thinking about protecting her no matter what, no matter what...! I don’t know why I’m living by myself like this...! Memory—I don’t have memory!”

——I don’t remember.

“Protect her from what...?”

——I don’t know. Did someone break me? Did I break on my own?

“I don’t know! Could be anything... That’s—That’s not what’s important to me! I don’t care about how I used to live when I was a brat... I supposedly used to have a sister, and the fact she’s not here is a problem for me! I’m amnesiac, and when I woke up, my sister wasn’t by my side; I’d turned into an idiot who didn’t know anything about myself or my sister! I have nothing! But...!”

——I don’t know. But...

“But, I definitely... have a little sister.”

——She definitely existed. If I meet her someday, I’ll know it’s her for sure. Even if I forgot, even if I can’t remember her, I’ll recognize her if I see her. I want the same to be valid for her.

With that thought, all along, he had lived on as if praying.

“That woman said she knows me... I’ve also—I’ve also seen her before somehow. I don’t know whether she’s my sister or not. But even if she isn’t... when that time comes, I don’t wanna have regrets!”

After saying so, Benedict had his face slammed against Violet’s back. That was because the motorcycle came to a sudden, abrupt stop. Benedict’s nose, neither too high nor too low, was smashed, and he anguished for a brief moment.

Violet, the driver and the cause of his pain, turned backward and reached a hand out to Benedict. Their faces were close enough that her golden hair, burning against the madder red sky, brushed the tip of his nose. Violet gripped Benedict’s shoulder as if to tell him, “Don’t run away”.

“Benedict.”

Her eyes – her blue orbs – pierced him like a blade.

“Please listen. I have told you before that I am also an orphan, was taken in and raised, and do not know who my parents are, right? From my experience, individuals who ‘tend to presume on their memories’ will come in contact with vagabonds attempting to do inexcusable things. Those who invited me into the dark by claiming to know me and proposing to discuss it in detail were neither one nor two people.”

Violet Evergarden desperately trying to convey her own words to the other party was just as unusual as Benedict entrusting his beloved bike to someone.

“During my days as a soldier, Major always bore the full brunt of it and protected me.”

That was precisely why, with her rapid-fire speech, Benedict could not seal her lips using stern persuasion.

“After growing up, I was almost murdered by a cultist organization that claimed I was not a human being but a demigod. I know nothing of my past, so even if I am told such things, I find myself thinking that they might be true. Benedict, are you not the same as me in this aspect? There are probably many women who know you. The women that you have dated, the people you have spent the night with until now – do you recall every one of them? You and President Hodgins are similar. In the past, President Hodgins came to the hospital room where I was hospitalized in a state of having drunk his regrets away and talked torrentially. Have you never done something like this? Even if you leave out the likelihood of being deceived by that person... if you are still thinking about doing something...”

Violet’s words were not gentle in the slightest.

“Benedict.”

However, within her own possibilities, she was thinking, thinking and thinking.

“Benedict, do you need back-up fire?”

Currently, she was attempting to do whatever she could to the maximum degree.

“I do not... know whether or not I am your friend. Lux seems all right with being my friend. Cattleya called me a friend too. Benedict, I do not know about you. We spend a large amount of time together, but even now, I still cannot say for sure what definition I should give to others. To me, the people who have told me that I am their friend are my friends as of late.”

What lay between the two of them was their time spent together. From the moment they had first met until now, they had built a relationship of trust.

“That is why, for me, even if you are not my friend, in case there is anything troubling you...”

Just as the forgotten nurturing between Benedict and his sister, it was something precious.

“No, regardless of what the definition of our relationship is, I... I... if there is something causing you to be like this... and if... it is an enemy that I must fight...”

Even if he did not have a past, Benedict had a present.

“...then I will attack it with everything I have.”

He had an ally named Violet Evergarden.

Under the dusky sky, the still young duo lay themselves bare to each other and made one decision.

“Hoo, hoo, hoo,” the low whispering of birds staged the night as something somewhat eerie.

The evenings at Lontano were like those of night-less cities, in which the lights of bars did not turn off even in the dead of the night. What a place so resplendent needed were attention-grabbing buildings, high-grade alcohol and beautiful women. Until the men went to sleep, the women hired to entertain them could not sleep either.

At present, a lone woman was coming out of a bar that still had its lights on, clad in a black trench coat that could as much as melt into the nightly darkness. She was a captivating blonde beauty.

“Where you going?” asked a man who stood by the entrance of the bar with a fierce look.

The woman showed him an empty box of tobacco that belonged to a regular costumer of the bar. “Cigarettes.”

The women who worked in bars had to report everything they did. Their bodies themselves were the merchandize. Unlike normal goods, bodies could walk on their own will.

Should they disappear somewhere, there would be no business.

“Linda’s store is still open. I was told to go buy more. If you don’t hurry and let me go, you’ll get scolded for stopping me.”

She had intended to speak nonchalantly, yet her frame trembled underneath the trench coat. The man eyed her body from head to toe.

“It’s nighttime. That’s not like the middle of the day. I’ll go. Can’t let you go by yourself.”

“I want to smoke outside for a bit.”

“You, it can’t be that you’re planning to run away again, right? You were almost killed before, weren’t you? If you haven’t learned the hard way after that, you’re an idiot. Until you pay your debts, you’re the same as livestock.”

The woman’s lips trembled at being called “livestock”. “It’s not my debt.”

“It’s your man’s, right? He’s the worst kind of bastard who sells women from a continent he never even walked on.”

“I don’t care about him anymore.”

“Even if he no longer comes to see you, you brought this upon yourself. Got no choice but make up for it. Don’t go thinking of stupid stuff... Hitting women ain’t our thing either.”

The woman thrust the empty tobacco box at him as if to hand it over. “I really was asked to get the cigarettes. If you think it’s a lie, go ask about it inside. If you believe me, you can come along. Then I can breathe the air outside a little, and you don’t have to worry about me running away. We’re settled with that, right?”

The man clicked his tongue at the provocative wording, yet seemed to have complied. He asked another employee to take over his post and made an agreement.

“If you take too long...”

The woman waited stiffly as the men talked. Eventually, the two started walking down the stone-paved road illuminated by streetlights.

The woman observed the man. She was there due to being sold by the person she used to be in love with, but she suspected that the man was also being made to work in that shop because of some reason. She might be wrong.

Even if that were the case, in her present condition, she did not have the compassion of others. If she wanted to break free from her current state, which, as the man said, had unfolded from something that she herself had done...

“It’s cold... Aren’t you chilly?”

...she had to act on her own. Even if she was counting with the assistance of a savior, since she had devised the plan by herself, it was her own power.

The lights of the tobacco store became visible. Just a bit more and they would reach it.

——Please, please, please, help me, God.

“You can smoke one cigarette, but we’re going back as soon as you’re done.”

——Help me, help me, help me!

The reason why the woman firmly squeezed her eyes shut was to deliver her wish to the God that resided somewhere out there, but even if she were not doing so, she surely would have closed her eyes either way.

That was because someone had abruptly come running from an alley and whispered, “Yo, the meeting spot was here, right?”

Since the one who had spoken was of a much shorter stature than the man, the kick lunged at him crushed his nether regions, and so the former immediately put a hand over his mouth. As she recognized the face of the person applying force so that the man would not let out a single scream, the woman said, “P-Please! Stop! He’s not a bad person!”

Until a while before, she had not cared for the other, but upon actually seeing something terrible happen to him, that feeling flew off the nest. Perhaps listening to her plea, the lout who had appeared so suddenly took her hand and vanished into the alley from which he had come.

The golden hair of the man running in front of her shone glisteningly even at night, within an alley that did not have illumination. Unlike her wig, it was a natural sandy-blond.

“B-Big Brother,” the woman called the man going ahead with a tone mixed in rapture.

However, what she received in return was gunfire, “Drop it; that’s gross.” While running, the lout – Benedict Blue – clicked his tongue. As the woman was slow at running, he pulled her forward roughly.

A shoe came off the woman’s foot. It was a high-heel one. She wore it because it made the shape of her legs seem bewitching and pleased men. It was not suited for running.

“My shoe came off!”

“Take off the other!”

Being yelled at, the woman did as told and took off the other pair while crying. They were shoes that gleamed silver of which she was fond. However, at the moment, she did not need beauty. She resumed running with all her might.

“H-Hey. W-Why... are you being so cold? You’re going to help me, right? I’m your sister, after all.”

At the question asked with restraint, Benedict answered with a disappointed voice, “Ah, about that: it was my misunderstanding.”

After taking off her shoe, she was fast at running. The woman increased her speed, as to be side-by-side with the one pulling her arm. “Eh?” Her voice reversed to her original one in lieu of the extreme course of events.

“I kinda thought I’d seen you before... but my colleague told me to trace back the few memories I have of my life, and when I tried doing that, you were there. I did know you. But you ain’t my sister.”

Silence.

“You’re the one who ripped off everything I had on me and threw me away in the Inkar-usi desert, aren’t you?”

Still silence.

“I remember until the point where I slept with a fine woman. I don’t recall her face. But, this... blond hair that looks fake... tangled in my fingers big time when I stroked it; that’s the only thing that stayed in my memory. I was mad drunk, wasn’t I? I’d earned the biggest amount of reward money until then, so I guess I got cocky.”

The woman tried to halt on the spot. However, Benedict forcefully pulled her along.

“Don’t stop! Run!”

“I don’t want to! You’re telling me you’ll make me yours next!? I won’t be anyone’s any longer! I hate men! I don’t want to live through being used by someone anymore! I want to go back to me homeland!”

There were tears surfacing in the woman’s eyes, but Benedict was not the type of man to falter at such a thing. He grabbed the woman’s dress by the collar, and after snapping his head backward at once, he followed the momentum and head-butted her.

The two writhed in pain.

“That’s why I said I’m taking you back! Who needs someone like you, shithead!? It’s not like I’ve forgiven you! If I hadn’t been picked up by one hell of a good guy after that, I would’ve killed you a long time ago!”

“If you’ve found out about my lie, then why...!? I pretended to be your sister and asked you to break me out, y’know!?”

“I just told you, didn’t I!? Thanks to you abandoning me in a desert, I’m the most blessed ever now! If I hadn’t met that guy back there, I wouldn’t even have a name and would be sleeping with women somewhere and waking up completely broke! All because I ended up scoring a fate good enough to rewind my life until that point from a shitty goddess like you! It only so happens that you almost tricked me, but I felt like saving you! Okay?! I hate you, so keep just that in mind! Once I help you out, be careful of the roads at night!”

After spitting out abusive language again with another “shithead”, Benedict made the woman run. The woman could not believe it. Up until now, she had told countless men who had slipped into her body about her personal history and attempted to earn their help. However, she had no one.

“You’ve got a terrible look in your eyes, huh. Mine’s pretty terrible too.”

She had no one.

“I have amnesia. I used to have a little sister... but I can’t remember her.”

She had no one.

“Hey, your hair reminds me of my sister’s; can I stroke it?”

She had no one.

“I’ll raise your pay if you stay until morning, so be here. It’s been a while since the last time I wasn’t alone.”

She had no one, and so, she had thought it would be all right to deceive somebody.

Her tears poured incessantly. They flowed down as if to block her mouth and nose. It was hard to breathe. Even so, she had to say it.

“I’m sorry!” while sobbing, the woman apologized to Benedict.

“Aah!?”

“I’m sorry for lying to you! I’m sorry for those two times!”

“Shut up! I told you I wouldn’t forgive you, didn’t I!? Those two times! I won’t forgive for the rest of my life!”

“But—But, I’m sorry! Sorry for pretending to be your sister!”

In the middle of passing through the alley, they heard gunshots from behind for some reason. The ones who monitored her – a merchandize – had probably come chasing the two. Benedict took a peek backwards, but continued running without minding it.

“They’ve come after us!”

Benedict was already replying to the woman’s shouts with a, “Shut up!” as easily as breathing.

Bullets went past their feet and sides. However, the gunning that was intense at first gradually diminished as the two rushed through the alley. Benedict shot back behind his shoulder as a diversionary action, but did not attempt to hit the other party at all.

Once they reached the end of the alley, Benedict kicked off the half-open lid of a skewer route and opened it fully. “Now, fall!” He kicked the woman into it. He did hear her scream, but having climbed the way up, he was aware that it was not too great a descent. Before going down as well himself, he looked at a certain direction. “V...”

Beyond his gaze was a comrade of his, who had promised to hit his enemies with all of her power as an interceptor.

She was on the top of a tree far away from the current position of Benedict and the woman. Violet Evergarden, who was sniping the group that chased after them, had taken aim upon confirming that gunshots were coming from said group. She targeted the firearm in their hands and pulled the trigger. The perfect trajectory of her bullets passed by Benedict and the woman’s sides, hindering the people that obstructed their way.

Realizing that his own gun had been flicked away by someone, the man who had fired the first shot raised his voice in astonishment, “You’re kidding me, right!?”

While he was in shock, the unseen sniper continued attacking. One of them attempted to target and shoot at the back of the woman, who was falling behind as she ran, but also had his weapon destroyed before he fired, and although he was attacked, he was easily able to defend himself against it.

“Don’t shoot without thinking! We’re under aim!” another yelled, but on such a dark night in an alley like that, the panic of having someone snipe only their weapons so precisely caused the men to lose their normal nature.

“STAY AWAAAAY!”

A legend of the battlefields, unknown to those who lived in cities through making women into food, was making them insane. They blindly faced the sky and shot at random. Bullets came flying to Violet’s direction as well, but did not as much as touch her body.

Guns had something called “effective range distance”. The guns used by the men were not suited for long-range shooting. Things also depended on the skills of the person using it, so differences in distance occurred even with that type of gun.

With a long-range rifle adopted by the military, Violet was taking aim from her position on a tree that the men absolutely could not see. “Target seized... Fire.”

The sounds of shooting echoed.

From far away, she could see someone’s gun falling down from his hand. “Fire, hit.” She moved mute and quickly, as if carrying out a simple job. “Fire, hit, fire.”

It would be fine if her face distorted in pain from the impact of shooting.

“Fire.”

However, Violet’s facial expression bore no emotion.

“Fire.”

Eventually, as everything became quiet, while exhaling a deep breath, Violet ceased to shoot and descended to the root of the tree. It would seem that the long-range shotgun she had bought just recently with her own salary had done a satisfactory work for her.

As she succeeded at the “back-up fire” in the literal sense of the term, she immediately left the spot.

The shooting battle that took place in the city of Lontano over the night turned into a much bigger occurrence than Benedict and the others had imagined, and the situation got to the point of the military police being dispatched. It so happened that people other than the woman behind the scandal had blended with the confusion of the turmoil and fled the city from the shadows, but those were stories unknown to Benedict and Violet.

A few hours had passed since the troublesome escape feat.

“Ouch!”

“Shut up! Hurry and put them on!” In a world wherein flowed the light of dawn, Benedict threw the shoes he had been wearing on the woman’s face.

While muttering complaints about him flinging the shoes at her, the woman tied them on. She had been running around the whole night and shaking off their chasers with Benedict, so her feet were injured and wet with blood. The pain was severe, but the exhilaration of managing to escape allowed her to feel as if it did not matter. Moreover, as she put on Benedict’s shoes, although they were too big, it became easier for her to walk in comparison to when she was not wearing anything on her feet.

Benedict was shoeless instead. He had cut wounds in his entire body. His clothes were ripped everywhere as well.

“Hey, why?”

“Shut up... Don’t ask so many times.”

“But, it’s just... I keep wondering why. Until now, nobody had helped me out, so it’s very strange to me.”

At those words, the face of Claudia Hodgins crossed Benedict’s mind. His good-natured employer and lifesaver. He, too, had bestowed Benedict with clothes and shoes when the latter was naked.

——I also kept asking why, I guess.

People who had never been treated kindly would think of unconditional love as the beginning of something terrifying. They firmly believed that everything others would bring them was either reprimanding or abuse.

“I told you, didn’t I? It’s ‘cause I was picked up by a good guy. That’s why.” A small smile escaped him.

“Benedict.”

His name called from behind, Benedict turned around.

With leaves on her head, their accomplice of the day, Violet Evergarden, was holding out tickets for the first train of the morning, which would now depart. “Also, take this as well.” Together with the ticket, she left in the woman’s hands a bag of freshly baked bread presumably bought in a nearby shop.

The woman eyed the bread and Violet alternately, tears forming in her eyes. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Be careful on your way...”

“You’re the one that had least to do with this... Thank you, really.”

“No. It has to do with me. I was his ‘back-up fire’, after all.”

Hearing that, Benedict laughed loudly. When she had talked about being his back-up fire, the connotation was simply of lending a hand, and he had not thought she would actually put it to practice.

As Violet and Benedict were the only ones who knew the meaning of that, the woman tilted her neck. “Benedict... you too.”

“Use ‘Mister’.”

“Mr. Benedict, you too, thank you very much...!”

“Again, be careful on the roads at night,” Benedict replied with a threat incorporated to it.

The time of depart had still not come. The duo, having decided to leave her there and disperse, finished their farewells with a “see ya” and started walking away.

“H-Hum! Mr. Benedict.” Perhaps still having something to say, once Benedict turned around, the woman was smiling, her blond hair fluttering in the morning wind. “You see, I had an older brother... I haven’t seen him for years now, so I can’t remember him, but when I was a child, I used to call him ‘Big Bro’... I really did have those feelings in mind when I called you that.”

“So what?”

“If I were your little sister, I’d definitely search the whole world for a big brother like you!”

“You ain’t her, though.”

“I’m not! But one day, for sure—!”

One day, you will find her, the woman smiled faintly.

At that moment, Benedict’s sky-blue orbs opened wide. An indescribable, strange feeling rushed throughout his body. If so-called memories were provided to people by traveling across not only their souls but also the particulars of their bodies, and if they could be remembered through a small trigger in case something was forgotten, it might turn out as that sort of feeling, like a tingle from an electric shock.

The woman waved, still smiling. He did not tell her to shut up.

“Stu~pid.” His voice trembled. Turning roundly on his heels, Benedict started walking.

Violet followed him from behind.

——Aah, I…

His vision was shaky.

——Why? Why did I think she was my little sister?

He could now clearly tell. She was not at all like his sister. Firstly, although both were blonde, the shades of their hair were completely different, and although his sister was also fine-looking, she and that woman had different characteristics.

“Benedict?”

Yes, his sister was not such a lustful beauty, but instead had more of a fickle appearance. She had a well-behaved voice tone and demeanor, and was not the kind of person who would refer to others as “you”.

“Benedict, please wait.”

To begin with, she rarely ever called him “Big Bro” and mostly called him by his name. He did not remember that name, but he remembered her calling it.

“Benedict, you will trip if you walk like this.”

——Aah, out of all things... out of all things...

“Benedict, why are you crying?”

Out of all things, he just had to remember his little sister because of a smile from the woman who had knocked him off into hell.

“My, welcome back, my friend who no longer knows his own name.”

——She was a crybaby and a scaredy-cat. She’d always hide behind my back and follow me in trots. I liked the most when she’d come running at my direction after spotting me. That’s why I’d make her look for me on purpose sometimes. The times when we were together were happy, and he rest was hell.

I did have a little sister. She was there all the time. That’s for sure.

In my oldest memory, she was by my side. It was really cold when we woke up. We were in a place that was like a stone tower. She was the closest to me, and was shivering too. The adults hadn’t given us any blankets, so I called her over and the two of us clung to each other. When I asked, “Who are you again?”, her face looked like she was about to cry and she said, “Don’t forget me”.

I was told afterward that she was my little sister, so I thought, “That’s right”. She said I was in a pretty bad condition. That I’d almost died because of a head injury that apparently I myself had earned. That I was quick to want to die when my ego blew off. I’d get disposed of if I went crazy just one more time. That’s why she cried to me, begging me to stay sane.

My sister remembered a lot more than I did. We actually didn’t live in that place and we did have a family. But people would forget things little by little in that place. When I asked if she was certain that I was her older brother, she replied that she was. “You’re forgetting stuff too, right? How do you know?” I asked. When I pressed with a, “That’s right, how can you know?”, she cried even more that, “I have the feeling of love left in me, so we’re family”. She had a weird personality, but after those words, I thought I just had to protect my sister.

The adults called the tower “home”. At “home”, small children were recruited to do adult works. There were all kinds of jobs. Like delivering things, or retrieving them. Jobs in which someone would die when I performed that sorta labor. Those who were good at work were also ordered more direct stuff. It seems I’d gone nuts when they piled up. If you failed your duties, your little brother, little sister, older brother or older sister – the smallest numbers of each of our family members – would get killed. The people that knew and loved us were hostages. Well, that does make people go mad.

“Home” was like a tiny military unit. We always went to different places. From what the adults would say, “home” was a temporary employee placement livelihood. They were preparing human resources able to endure any type of battle mission from scratch. Come to think of it now, they’d give me medicines and incense without a break every day for some reason.

My sister, myself and the others, who were forgetting a lot of things, were apparently human resource pupils. From what my sister told me, in that jumble of children, I was the most apt for those jobs. It seemed I was the one who took the biggest amount of medicine, so my forgetfulness was pretty bad.

Could humans be created from scratch after being made to forget everything? On top of that, could they be raised into the strongest human resources? The answers were “yes” and “no” – you could say both.

We’d end up going crazy at just one cogitation. We were quick to become suicidal. There was no meaning in soldiers who couldn’t be used for long. I was probably insane but pretended to be normal for my sister’s sake.

The adults would say that they’d hire us once we grew up. That, for the moment, we were livestock.

It seemed that the adults monitoring us had lived like us in the past. “Aren’t there only idiots here?” I thought. They hadn’t learned anything even after those horrible things were done to them.

I decided that, if we had to become adults in that hell, we’d better run away. My sister was crying. If we tried to escape, the adults would come to kill us for sure.

The feeling of wanting to die had always been in me. If I was gonna die anyway, I’d wanted to die for my sister. Whoever did something to her that she didn’t want to was shit. I wanted to kill them.

She was the only pretty thing in that pathetic world. I don’t know if she was really my sister. But even if we just happened to have the same hair and eye color, she was my everything. She was the girl I’d wanted to protect the most in the world. Even though she was all I had...

“Your Big Bro will protect you, , okay?”

Even though she was all I had... I’d surely failed to set my sister free.

Tears poured from Benedict’s eyes.

“Shit…”

The tears that poured from them flowed continuously, eventually penetrating the earth and disappearing without fulfilling any purpose. They would nevermore return. Never would they go back to the eyes that had produced them. Similarly, the important person who had poured out of Benedict’s life would surely not return.

——Life... is shit.

In his memory of taking her by the hand amidst the night, running away and, lastly, watching the boat from the bottom of the sea, if his sister was on that boat, just how would her young self have survived afterward? Had she drifted and been picked up by some kindhearted person? Had his overprescribed sibling survived just fine after forgetting about him and about herself? Was she living well somewhere under that same sky even as they were unable to see each other?

That was but a dream story.

The world seemed filled with happy stories, but they were actually very few. Stories and real life were...

——I didn’t need a life like that.

At the very least, Benedict’s life tasted of the sea. It was too salty and undrinkable. Such was it even now. The tear droplets that spilled down his cheeks, passed by his lips and dripped from his chin had the flavor of the ocean. Benedict’s past was chasing him and strangling his neck, so as to kill him from sadness. He wanted to scream and break into wails, asking, “Why?”.

——End it right now. God, why’re you doing this? End it right now. God, there’s no salvation for me. Please help me. End it right now. God, I can’t breathe because of the pain in my chest brought by this sadness. Hurry, as soon as possible, right now, bring this life…

“Don’t go crazy; don’t die,” she had asked of him.

——...to an end...!

Yet he chose death. After all, surely, his sister had already died long before.

He had always fled from such truth. He had merely forgotten about it. Things such as wishing that he would not die in a desert and thinking about eating bread with someone had stemmed from his made-up other self. He was simply a fake that had pretended to be sane and survived somehow. Even if he was in the past, his original self had yearned to die for a long time. It was false of him to be currently living and showing gratitude to somebody. He certainly had forgotten what should not have been forgotten because it was easier that way.

The painful and the easy. When sorting them out, he had picked the easy. There was no mistaking that he had wanted to try forgetting everything and live freely.

He was cursed for it.

“Was it fun?” If he were asked so, he could answer that it was great fun.

——Yeah, all of it was fun.

In his new life, after meeting that man, the humidity and temperature of the of the continent he was brought to upon being picked up were different, and everything was fresh. The motorcycle that he was granted in place of holding onto a gun or sword had showed him many worlds.

He merely delivered things. He had thought it was only that, but upon seeing it for the first time, being a postman was difficult. Every day, he was at loss from being scolded by the clients or receiving excessive gratitude. It was strange for someone like him, who had never gotten a letter, to be delivering them.

Oddly enough, whenever he saw the smiles of the people on the receiving end, he would feel as if he were doing an extremely good deed. He had found it weird that a postal agency had been chosen for starting a business and was unused to it, but he had come to understand that the reason for being of such job was to perform labor.

It was simply delivery. If one was able to walk or to ride a motorcycle, be it a woman, man, child or elder – anyone could do it. It did not have to be him. It was not a work that only he could do. However, he thought that this mere delivery was not bad. He deemed it as fun. Deliveries in which he was able to please others were enjoyable.

No matter what he did, the sights he would see were unlike the ones from when he was a mercenary. The small discoveries that he would find during a delivery – minor things such as there being a delicious bakery or going faster by taking a certain road – were fun. But more enjoyable than anything else was that he had a place to go back to, no matter to what part of the world he went. Even as he returned in tatters, once he opened the office’s door, there was someone who would say, “Aah, welcome back, Benedict. Good work”.

In the world where he had started walking as if he had suddenly been born, ever since he had met that man, yes, it did seem foolish, but the world had gained colors as though he had met his fated woman.

——It was fun, it was fun, it was fun, it was fun, it was fun. I shouldn’t have enjoyed himself, and yet, I had so much fun. What have you been doing? Why were you enjoying it? You weren’t in position to. You’re a person who should’ve died without knowing what “fun” was. Be over, be over, be over, be over. Everything should come to an end. Let’s end this version of me now. Ain’t that better for everyone? There’d be no harm for anybody if there was one less person like me, with no family or lover, in the world. I’ve had enough fun. As for the people who’ll be sad for me, it’s enough if I can count them with one hand. I’ll erase myself and make this dirty world clean in the end. You shouldn’t be having fun. What you gotta do is just one thing: go face your sister, who’s smiling inside your head.

That was why Benedict impulsively searched for his gun with one of his hands.

Surely, people died that way. Sorrow would seal their throats and they would die unable to breathe. They would die from having more sad moments than happy moments.

He felt that he would not be able to live even if for another second. It was not that he wished to die. Rather, he was taking a decision for himself that he had to die.

Was there any living being that wanted to die as soon as it was born? Most of them supposedly wanted to live. Yes, they wanted to live. Live a wonderful life, if possible. A life that would make being born worthwhile.

However, it by no means went well all the time. Life was not something that one would prepare beforehand.

“Ugh... uuugh...”

As a result of choices made, there were countless changes. There were times in which only grievous things would happen. A series of things such as regretting being born.

Hardships were like gelid rain that God would pour over anyone. It would be great there was a place to take shelter from it or an umbrella, but there were times when one could not find them. The prolonged rain would cause one’s body to grow cold and the roots of their teeth to shake. For people, it was something difficult to endure. When it became impossible to withstand, people...

“Sto... p.”

...would crave death.

“St... o...”

When living became hard, they tended to look for what was easier. It was nothing strange. What was wrong with running away? The least amount of pain was better. The shortest suffering was better.

The purpose of living creatures was something that they decided on themselves.

“Sto... p.”

Still, yes...

“Stop.”

...the same had happened when he was in that desert.

“Stop it; why...?”

A certain number of people, beloved by the Goddess of Fortune, were able to filter out of such instance. If one thoroughly prodded into it, they would find it was but the result of something that had been piling up.

The work of the Goddess happened in a vivid way. If one were to ask what exactly that was...

“V...”

...it would be somebody showing up to hold whoever’s hand when they attempted to die.

At the cliff of his life, the one who had acted as his back-up fire appeared.

What the Goddess brought about was different for each person. For Benedict Blue, in the present moment...

“Benedict.”

...it was Violet Evergarden.

——Why’re you holding my hand, out of all things?

Just as the older brother who had grabbed onto his younger sister’s hand in the darkness, Violet gripped Benedict’s. Upon squeezing it once, she changed her hold into that of lacing fingers together and walked on, guiding him. “Benedict, let’s go home.”

Even though he had been unable to take a single step, he wound up walking.

“That is no good.”

He could not take his gun while she was holding his hand.

“If you are crying, you cannot see what lies ahead.”

Although he wanted to shoot a bullet into his head, he could not.

“I will pull you by the hand, yes?”

Upon being told by that girl, who resembled his sister, to return home…

“Let’s go home.”

...he wound up thinking that, aah, he had to live.

“V...”

The reason why he had not been able to leave her on her own one way or another from the first time he had seen her was that their appearances were similar. Both had golden hair and blue eyes, and were somewhat lonely. He felt as if he had always, always made of her something like a substitute for his sister.

“V... I...”

He was unable to take his eyes off her and even referred to her by a nickname.

“I... probably... killed... my little sister... I’ve remembered it...”

Although he had forgotten his sister, some part of him ended up thinking that, if she were alive, she would have turned out that way. His tears became unstoppable at his own idiocy. He would wonder, “Why did my past self fail if she was so important to me?”

“We abated halfway, and I got separated from her... U-Uugh... It’s... It’s like I killed her...”

Violet clasped his hand even tighter. “You do not know that yet, right?” Rather than like a younger sister, she was like an older one. “Just as that person said, you might meet her again one day,” she whispered as if to admonish him, as if to soothe him.

“Impossible... Impossible... I was definitely the only one... the only one who survived... I... I was...” He shed too many tears, the words cut off by his weeping. It was suffocating. He wanted that suffocation to end.

“Benedict, nothing is definite. My Major was alive too. Who can 'definitely’ say that your sister is dead?”

The hand that she had joined fingers with throbbed. However, were it not for that pain, it felt as if he would soon let go and kill himself.

“But... But y'know...”

“We have dealt with quite a lot today. We can deal with it from now on too. Is that not right?”

“I was... I was... better off dead...!”

Crying that way, just like a child, was foolish, Benedict thought. There was no turning back anything anymore.

“I was better off dead!”

Even if he cried, he had already lost her. He had no idea where in the world to look for her either. Should joined hands let go, if the other party was not nearby, they could not be joined again.

“Benedict.”

Violet’s legs stopped completely. Did the crying Benedict look like a little boy to her? She came closer, forcing his head over her shoulder. “Let’s go back, Benedict.”

“Where to?”

“To the company. You and I only have that place.”

Silence.

Indeed, they did not have anywhere else. The people who would wait for them and hold their ground without going insane were indeed nowhere but there.

——But is it okay for me to go back?

“I’ve... done horrible things in the past. It’s just nobody knows that I... when I was mercenary...”

“Yes.”

“I did a lot of stupid stuff. It’s not forgivable just ‘cause I was a kid.”

“Yes.”

“I... But...”

The face of Claudia Hodgins crossed his mind.

——I shouldn’t... go back.

The sense of exhilaration as he walked for the first time with the loose-fitting shoes that man gave him. The jokes the other would tell while spewing complaints when hanging out with him. The laughter from when they would drink and make a ruckus together.

——But...

His eyebrows lowering whenever he was troubled. His back arching whenever Lux was angry with him. The sweet voice he used only for women. The strength he showed to him. He was the only good-natured person in the world that could become attached to an amnesiac man who had nothing.

——I do wanna go back.

He wanted to return to that good-natured person so, so keenly that it filled him with tears.

“But even so, you will live, right?”

Benedict dry-swallowed. Those words almost felt like a bullet shot into his chest. He was so surprised that he became wordless. She was normally a taciturn and did not use decorated words. But she would sometimes boldly bring the truth to light.

“You will live, right?” A little bit of pleading was mixed in Violet’s voice.

The hand that Violet had joined with his. Her artificial fingers.

“Let’s count the things you have done and the things you will do from now on, so that you shall not forget.”

They were proof of the things she had lost and the things she had broken. As well as a symbol of regeneration. Such fingers delicately laced him in place.

“Until you die someday.”

The girl in front of him had accepted that agony much sooner than he had, without running away or averting her eyes from it, and simply stayed amidst the sadness.

“Today... For today, let’s go home.”

That was Violet Evergarden.

“Now, let’s walk. Do you recall that our shift was only until morning and that our day off would start at noon?” Gradually, but still by pulling his hand, she guided Benedict. “Yesterday, we wound up going back to Lontano without finishing our reports. We had promised Lux that we would submit them today without fail. We are too tattered to go to work looking like nothing happened. Surely, if we show up to work like this, there might be a huge scandal, right?”

As Benedict was told so, they surfaced in his head – his quarreling comrade from the founding day, Cattleya; Lux, who had been picked up from an isolated island; their colleagues from CH Postal Company; the city of Leidenschaftlich; his own past; his current occupation; his new name and the man who had given it to him.

“I wonder if Old Man will be mad...”

Claudia Hodgins. The man who gave him everything he had now. He wanted to see the other very much. As he reminisced to the other’s voice and face, his chest seemed about to burst.

In Benedict’s life, his past included, Hodgins had been the only adult to provide for and protect him.

“You were able to meet President Hodgins because you were alive. You can find your sister as well. Surely... People like us are no good if we do not believe so, Benedict.”

He had enough strength to live by himself, no matter where.

“Today was very tiring, right? Let’s go home.”

However, the warmth of having a guardian changed Benedict, who used to loathe ties of obligation. The CH Postal Company, which Violet said to go back to, had already become his place of return.

Benedict looked at the sky. The Sun was rising. Behind him, the shadow that the night had melted into was now reflected richly. The road ahead was brightly illuminated. Just like the past and the present.

“Hey, V.” As Violet asked what the matter was, he muttered while wiping his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, “The thing about me crying is a secret between us two.”

The figures of the two as they walked on holding hands probably looked like that of siblings who got along well.

“Right now, your life is all you have, isn’t it? I’ll buy that.”

At those words, the man’s heart started making loud noises. He was supposedly used to exchanging his life for money, but he seemed about to stop breathing at being asked for it face-to-face.

“How much?”

Upon being asked, the man was at loss. “Dunno.”

As he answered seriously, Hodgins laughed, “What a fool; give a high price.”

“Why?”

“You could give a sum that I can’t pay for, so that I’d have to hire you for the rest of my life.”

For an instant, he had not understood what was said, and so he answered after a moment, “Don’t wanna! Whatcha saying!?”

“I mean, you have nothing, right?”

“Don’t keep saying 'nothing’!”

“We’d be like a family if we’re together, even if we aren’t related by blood. Just give a price that I can’t pay.”

“Hah?”

“Like I said, we could be like a family. Well, that’s fine. More importantly, your name.”

“No, no, hey, you’re definitely a weirdo, right?”

“It’s come to me!”

“Old Man! It’s like you’re not listening to what I say, ain’t it!?”

“All right. Listen ve~ry well.”

“You listen well!”

With an extremely happy-looking face and little shyly, Hodgins said, “It might be a bit pretentious. I understand his feelings now. Ah, no, y’see, it’s my own feelings, so to say. I’m putting into it my wish of wanting a young one like you to be this way.”

At that second, the only one in the world who witnessed the shine in those blue eyes was Claudia Hodgins.

“It means ‘blessed’; how about ‘Benedict’?”

He knew for the first time the joy of having his life blessed by someone at that moment.

“Let’s take it after the god that administers divine protection. Leave ‘Blue’ to be your surname. The name you gave yourself plus my ‘Benedict’. ‘Benedict Blue’. Yup, it’s a good name. Nice to meet ya, Benedict.”

Even as he became hurt when replaying his memories, he would be blessed whenever someone called his name.

“Stu~pid.”

He did not want to let go of that blessing ever again.

“Aah, Benedict and Little Violet. Welcome ba... Hey, this isn’t okay! What happened...!? You two come here! Little Lux, the first-aid kit!”

Albeit a little long, that was the story of Benedict Blue.

#violet evergarden #violet evergarden gaiden #fyeahvioletevergarden #kyoani #kyoto animation #benedict blue #claudia hodgins #akatsuki kana #takase akiko #novel #my translation

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zukadiary · 6 years

Text

Arch of Triumph / Gato Bonito!! ~ Snow Troupe 2018

I feel a bit weird writing this up after only day 2 of the run, because I’m sure the troupe is still very much warming up... but this is when I happened to be here. Yukigumi fan life has not been ideal for me since Chigi’s retirement and this was BALM FOR THE WOUNDS in unexpected ways. Beware of spoilers.

Arch of Triumph

I happen to really like the original version of this show (from back when Tom was Yukigumi’s actual top star), but despite that the primary emotion I felt re: this show choice, as a Daimon fan who has to travel 7000 miles to see her, was saltiness at the stolen lead. I anticipated suffering through this and prayed that Fujii-sensei would carry the experience for me entirely, so I was truly taken aback by how much I loved Gaisenmon.

There is a pretty long summary on the Takawiki page, and the original is also available from TIP with subtitles.

Just objectively as a show, it’s so beautiful, and it’s beautiful in ways that I didn’t know about at all because you can’t see them on the recording. It’s a dark story and the set is kept fairly dark as well, so all the meticulously colored lights and gobos and gorgeous rain effects dissolve into unintelligible black fuzz on an 18-year-old Sky Stage video. From the second floor you can also appreciate the incredible fluidity of the set rotations and scene changes along with the amazing choreography, of which there is A LOT. It’s a really impressive feat of direction; I am (despite my Takarazuka-related fervor) not a well-versed technical theater person at all and the artistry of it still struck me as something really special. The music is also gorgeous; it’s a very moving show, but I don’t like the main characters as people enough to cry from the culmination of the story... however, the reprise of main song, delivered in beautiful powerful troupe harmony as the curtain fell, murdered me, and I burst into tears on shonichi.

My main worry, especially considering that we have a guest lead and I adore Yukigumi as a whole with all my heart, was that it’s a very top-heavy show. Yesterday I was SO pleasantly surprised at how well-balanced it felt compared to my expectations; today, unfortunately, I felt the same from my vantage point but also realized it will probably feel just as top-heavy as the original on DVD. A sizable portion of the other main players’ stage time comes from beautiful but wordless dance scenes. But despite the light usage of most of the troupe I actually felt better than I did watching Robespierre. Everyone may be on stage less, but I felt like their characters were more lovingly crafted and very distinct from each other even with the simplest backstories.

My two biggest gripes about Tom swooping in are 1) they often like to pretend she is still 25 which she is distinctly not and 2) in what I’ve seen recently I felt like she and the troupe she’s borrowed were acting separately from each other. I think a big reason why Gaisenmon worked for me is neither of those things applied. While there were a few insertions to balance the stage time a little better, the show is largely the same as the original, yet there is nothing in it that suggests Ravic—a surgeon who escaped Germany as the Nazis came into power—is any specific age, and he works at any age... specifically, even a large age difference between Ravic and Joan is totally reasonable and believable. Against the chaotic backdrop of refugee-laden pre-war Paris, an older doctor and a younger aspiring actress could absolutely meet and fall in love. Tom also meshed with the troupe a lot better than I expected. There’s no way to sugarcoat how shot her singing voice is, but damn the woman can act, and her otokoyaku mannerisms (stage kisses in particular) definitely show her long years of practice.

Kiichan slayed, I thought she was even better than Tsukikage Hitomi. Joan is a REALLY HARD role; she’s practical out of necessity but a bit frivolous at heart, and she’s in love but also struggles to differentiate between actual love and the fear of being alone in an increasingly dangerous world. It doesn’t sound like it in writing but in execution it’s really easy for her to come off as weak, clingy, and annoying, when she’s actually a very nuanced character. Kiichan hit all the right notes, she didn’t appear intimidated at all by Tom, and even their romance seemed totally natural for the aforementioned reasons. Her sudden lovesickness could have been so one-note but I felt the tinge of anxiety behind it throughout the whole show, and I was so impressed by that. There is a scene of misunderstanding between Joan and Ravic at a cafe that in a way triggers the unfortunate events that occur thereafter, and it’s gut-wrenching, especially on a second viewing when you can watch it unfold with the knowledge of what’s coming. Her death scene is also extremely intense.

Salty as I am, I LOVE the role of Boris for Daimon. I’ve been feeling like I’ll explode if I have to see her do another sad French play, but after watching this somehow it wound up exempt. The story is heavy and all of the characters are struggling, but amidst the turmoil Boris is a calming presence, refreshingly level-headed and quite positive in a lot of ways (EDIT: in chatting in the comments the words I wanted but couldn’t find at 3am came out: he’s definitely got a cynical edge to him as well, but it was kind of like his cynical view of the world freed him up emotionally to be quietly supportive of the other characters’ problems... I think that’s what I mean by positive). And I can’t even express HOW LOVELY it was to see Daimon play THAT CHARACTER for a change, how fulfilling not to just watch her suffer for an hour and a half. Boris is in the story himself but also the narrator. In the story bits, he’s cool and reliable and there’s a really heartwarming sense of purity in the way he freely shows his emotions. Daimon seems to enjoy over the top acting just fine, but it’s her roles that rely on subtle facial expressions and body language that absolutely kill me—this was the latter. In the narration bits, she weaves an intricate tapestry with her voice. As I said every detail of the direction is intentional and beautiful, but so much of the mood also comes from the emotion in Daimon’s singing, not only in the actual songs (one of which she sang in probably incorrectly but nonetheless tantalizingly pronounced French, ugh ♥), but also particularly when she hums background tunes as other bits of action are taking place. She barely moves and her voice is so soft and yet STILL it reverberates throughout the entire theater somehow, like it flutters into every corner. And she was so beautiful, she worked the hell out of some costumes that definitely wouldn’t be flattering on everyone. I’m TEARING UP right now, my heart is so full.

Here’s where things get bit eh for some people and downright unfortunate for others. Saki and Shou barely had anything to do, although I understand why they were relegated to those roles versus the Aasa, Hitoko, Kari group which although comprised of very distinct characters still felt like a single unit in a way. After a bit of prologue choreography Saki doesn’t show up until past the halfway point. She’s Henri, the handsome but creepy and possessive movie producer who lands Joan some acting jobs and then also shoots her in a fit of jealousy. She really only has two notable short scenes toward the end, when Henri first tries to coerce Joan into staying with him and then comes to Ravic pleading for her life after shooting her. Shou is a sexy doctor who talks on the phone sometimes.

The Aasa/Hitoko/Kari group, however—and, tangentially, Asu, Manaharu, Michiru, Kiwa, and Agata Sen—shone more than I expected remembering the original group (our legendary Yukigumi 3兄弟 Touko/Komu/Naruse Kouki). While they also only had a few scenes to themselves, those scenes were some of my favorites, and they’re the ones who got to decorate the outskirts of the other scenes’ action with beautiful dancing. Aasa is the only one whose role I’d call a step back from Robespierre, but only because she was my Robespierre MVP, and she was still wonderful as the more subdued Jaime. I felt distinct forward momentum from everyone else. Hitoko was absolutely adorable and injected way more into Rosenfeld than Komu did (which I can say even with the ultimate bias on my side), and Kari was truly outstanding, I could melt just looking at her and I’m so glad she landed a role with that kind of prominence. The whole Hotel International group just had so much humanity.

Final shout outs go to Niwa who I love unconditionally in every role she plays but particularly here for a) A+ slimy awful Gestapo officer and b) the novelty of Kouju Tatsuki squeeing OMG YOU WERE KEN-2 IN THE ORIGINAL AND NOW YOU’RE SCHNEIDER?! in the talk show; and Miho Keiko who I was SURE they stuffed into Gaisenmon because Fujii-sensei demanded her presence in his show as usual, leaving me quite dumbfounded when she wasn’t in Gato Bonito at all. It wasn’t a role that one of our many boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku couldn’t have done, but nonetheless her presence leant some more gravitas to the show in addition to balancing out Tom a bit.

Gato Bonito!! had the opposite effect on me initially. I expected to dislike Gaisenmon and it wowed me, and then it wowed me twice over because that feeling of your expectations being so far exceeded is wonderful. Meanwhile I’ve been laying in bed at night screaming DAISUKEEEEEEEE into the darkness for months, praying he’d deliver me a perfect trilogy of HOT EYES!!, Santé!!, and now THIS!! (boy he loves double exclamation points doesn’t he).

Well, it sure wasn’t HOT EYES. But in retrospect, that’s a damn high bar. After watching Gato Bonito today with my expectations in a reasonable place, I liked it more... especially when I think about how SUPER VOYAGER was everything I never want to see in a revue ever again tied up in one neat package, and this, in contrast, was a lot of things I want to see very much.

From the start I liked or loved all of the scenes individually, but something about the show as a whole didn’t come together for me, and after two viewings I think I have some idea of why. The sets and backdrops were off for me, in a way that I did not think could have such a large effect on the show’s overall vibe. Most revues will have a big eye-popping scene, then they’ll close the curtain and have people dance in front of it for a short transition, then open it again to another eye-popping scene. There’s a nice rise-climax-break-repeat flow. But there were so many scenes in Gato Bonito where they’d drop a curtain down, have a dance in front of it, then drop A DIFFERENT THING down and have a dance in front of that, and I just felt like I was being constantly led toward a climax that never came. When they did open up the whole stage I found the sets really spread out and airy, such that it felt as if no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t fill the stage with enough people. They were also FLAT, like literally flat on the floor, not enough gradated pieces with people standing atop them to fill the back as well as the ground. I might feel differently when I watch it from the first floor, but for now I think some pretty small adjustments could have given it overall more impact.

Also, WAAAAAYYYY too many LITERAL CATS for my taste.

THAT SAID, boy this was SO MUCH of what I love to see out of Daimon. It was hot and extra and the music was amazing and she got to stand there making these burning faces and do TRULY UNFATHOMABLY STUPID THINGS WITH HER VOICE and flamenco and tango and all that jazz. Everyone was melting pile of orange goo no thanks to the weather and the insufficient air conditioning, but other than that there were even enough good costumes to balance out those ruffle abominations (you know the ones) that of course showed up a bit. Saki was ON FIRE, I know I said I was tired of riding the Saki coaster but oops here we go up another hill. They made up for shafting her in Gaisenmon with a loooooot of juicy revue time. She’s gotten so good at emoting through her dance, she was just dynamic and sexy and 150% energy from start to finish. Kiichan has a little ways to go to catch up with everyone in her Latin dancing but there was already a really noticeable improvement between shonichi and today.

Highlights:

Argentine tango to Yo Soy Maria ft. Daimon singing in Spanish, guessing by the lack of bedazzling on the suits that that was the ANJU-sensei scene. When the curtain opened on all the otokoyaku just mingling in the dark smoky background it PHYSICALLY HURT (it also began with all our boss beautiful perfect upperclassmen musumeyaku in slinky dresses)

There’s a scene with Saki, Shou, Aasa, and Hitoko taking turns grinding on Daimon in the world’s tackiest bodysuits, but there was something so inexplicably hot about the drag + otokoyaku hair despite the melting orange goo and poor Saki and Aasa absolutely drowning in their own sweat

The chuuzume starts with a conga line across the ginkyou, and EVERY PERSON IN THE TROUPE comes out in single file in rank order, it was A LOT for my Yukigumi-loving heart

Kiichan gets to do stuff, Daisuke is aware we have a top musumeyaku which is apparently a challenge for some people

Daimon enters from the back of the first floor singing Kuroneko no Tango at one point and when she reaches the stage there’s a daily “ad lib” (in quotes because I’m sure she’s already written them all down and rehearsed them ad nauseam), but her ad libs are so dumb I love her

ASU GOT A WHOLE SONG

I forgot to pay close enough attention through the applause today to grab the exact words, but I’m like 90% sure the final lyrics as Daimon is descending the stairs in the parade are something she also referenced in her +act interview right when she became top (I don’t have the magazine on me but I translated it as “we can live through today for the sake of tomorrow and for the sake of living tomorrow we can stand firmly right here today”). She was talking about the “soul of flamenco” and that being something that turned her whole outlook around during Don Juan, so I thought it was REALLY SWEET they threw that in as a nod to her continuing to grow. Haha nope, after 4 viewings I'm sure I was wrong, but I like my idea better Hankyu pls hire me

Did I mention her dumb stupid voice? I know Robespierre was literally written for her by a Broadway composer but for me there was no comparison; in both acts it danced and changed and filled the theater in ways that don’t seem like they should be physically possible. Like this is the ????th time I’ve seen Daimon live and I was still just absolutely slain by all the heretofore unheard things her voice can apparently do.

I’m whole and healed and so surprised and delighted I didn’t have to wait till 2019 for that to happen.

#takarazuka #reviews #arch of triumph #might as well just tell people I live here

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darrycurtises · 7 years

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hey fam, do all of the aesthetic asks

thanks sun goddess ily

Flower Crown: when did you last sing to yourself

yesterday bc i always sing in the car, i think it was me putting “starman” “here comes the sun” and “ticket to the moon” on repeat the whole way home

Fairy Lights: if a crystal ball could tell you the truth about anything, what would you want to know?

i’d like to know what the world will be like in like a century bc i worry about the world i hope she’ll be ok

Daisies: what is the greatest accomplishment of your life

well i’m a seventeen yr old and not even one of the cool ones that compete in the olympics so its either like UH starting college @ 16 or being published in an official writing anthology

1975: what is the first happy memory that comes to your mind, recent or otherwise?

last year when i went to busch gardens w my sister n my mom and i got to hold a penguin named Turkey ON MY LAP i have pictures to document this (i was chubbier back then tho no judgment)

Matte: if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you’re now living?

yeah i wouldn’t be fucking living in florida and going to school id be using whatever money i could to travel overseas, and then i’d go on a big crosscountry roadtrip

Black Nail Polish: do you have a bucket list? if so, what are the top three things?

not an official one, just vague “i’d like to do x someday” things

Moodboard: do you feel you had a happy childhood?

yes absolutely

Stars: when did you last cry in front of another person?

last week i went to a funeral and i cried so much they got a picture w me sobbing in the background

Plants: pick a person to stargaze with you, and explain why you picked them

my best friend tomas probably because he’s the only person who wouldnt make fun of me for stargazing

Converse: would you ever have a deep conversation with a stranger and open up to them?

BITVH NO LMAO I DONT EVEN TALK TO MY FRIENDS !!

Lace: when was your last three am conversation with someone, and who were they to you?

again, tomas, my best friend. about 4 days ago?

Handwriting: if you were about to die, and you could only say one more sentence to one more person, what would you say and to whom?

oh man i dont even know

Cactus: opinion on brown eyes?

i have them and i love them. got my brown eyed angels all over the place. i know like three people w not-brown eyes

Sunrise: pick a quote and describe what it means to you personally

Oil Paints: what would you title the autobiography of your life so far?

[Redacted]

Overalls: what would you do with one billion dollars?

id get new cars for my sister and mom bc theirs are v old like ten minutes to start and cough like a smoker old, and id pay my mom’s house off, pay off my sister’s student loans, deposit a lot to my grandma who’s living in an expensive nursing home, donate 2 houston, put away more for my college, lots of stuff

Combat Boots: are you a very forgiving person? do you like being this way?

Yes and yes

Winged Eyeliner: write a hundred letter word to your twelve year old self

I don’t need 100 words I just need to tell her to shut up, stop eating so much, try being friends w the girls you don’t like, they were actually nice, you’re not as funny as you think you are save your words for later and think before you speak. Also, thanks for attaching our self worth to our school performance, this isn’t sarcastic, its turning out really well for scholarships

Pastel: would you describe yourself as more punk or pastel?

Leaning more towards pastel, but honestly the most accurate thing would be primary colors/

Tattoos: how do you feel about tattoos and piercings? explain.

I like them but not on me

Piercings: do you wear a lot of makeup? why/why not?

I usually do a quick face for school, but if im in the mood then I like to do the most just because im a teenager and im living in a time of really weird fashion and this is the only time in my life where I’ll be ballsy enough and free enough to buy and wear green eyeshadow. You think that’ll fly when im 30 w a 9-5 job? I think not. Lemme get it outta my system now, while I have ~~~being a teenager~~~ to blame it on

Bands: talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way.

This is gonna sound really depressing but I don’t believe in love bc of the avett brothers song “January wedding. He was so in love with her when he wrote it and for years I was like “this is love theyre so in love” and then bam we get the true sadness album and January wedding gets followed by “divorce separation blues.” Who can be that in love with someone and then just. Stop. I don’t get it, love isn’t real.

Messy Bun: the world is listening. pick one sentence you would tell them.

This is too much pressure

Cry Baby: list the concerts you have been to and talk about how they make you feel.

Ive seen the avett brothers 3 times and they were amazing every single time, just wowowow I got the “fuck it, im standing up and singing” mood. Ive also seen boston and foreigner, which were also fun, but mostly bc of the 50 yr old stoners in the crowds.

Grunge: who in the world would you most like to receive a letter from and what would you want it to say?

My papa, and I’d like it to say [classified] and maybe I’d like him to say [redacted].

Space: do you have a desk/workspace and how is it organised/not organised?

I have a permanent set up at the kitchen table from august thru may, and its perpetually in disarry.

White Bed Sheets: what is your night time routine?

Face mask, hair care, moisturizer, vanilla tea, set up the coffee maker for the next morning, pack my book bag, pray, bed.

Old Books: what’s one thing you don’t want your parents to know?

I’d like my mom not to know that she’s kind of annoying to watch movies w (it’d break her heart shes so sensitive aw) and id like my dad not to know where I live

Beaches: if you had to dye your hair how would you dye/style it and why?

I have dyed my hair I went red for a bit but now its brown. Id never do anything that require I bleach it bc I love myself and wont do that to my head

Eyes: pick five people to go on an excursion with you. who would you pick and where would you go/what would you do?

Id take my mom, sister, my friends [classified], [classified], and [classified] to new york w me so we can do horrible cheesy touristy stuff, and then I’d have them go w me on a cross country roadtrip

11:11: name three wishes and why you wish for them.

If I tell u my wish it wont come true

Painting: what is the best halloween costume you have ever put together? if none, make one up.

Its gonna be this year’s ive already perfected the make up im gonna be a mime and its amazing

Lightning: what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done while drunk or high?

Literally nothing ive never gotten high bc it seems uhhh not fun, but ive gotten a lil drunk before (I don’t like to drink bc it makes my head hurt and it’s a lot of calories) but I get sad id be a sad drunk so I just cried.

Thunder: what’s one thing you would never do for one million dollars?

Anything thatd harm a person/animal. Never kill, never maim. If u handed me a gun and said “shoot a deer ill give you a million dollars” I couldn’t do it. If I had to break someones arm for a million dollars I couldn’t do it.

Storms: you on only listen to one song for the rest of your life, or only see one person for the rest of your life. which and why?

Song, bc I love people, ill just listen to a podcast while I run I guess

Love: have you ever fallen in love? describe what it feels like to realize you’re in love.

Not really, only a little bit of an “I’d like to love them” sort of thing

Clouds: if you’re a boy, would you ever rock black nail polish? if you’re a girl, would you ever rock really really short hair?

Im a girl and id never rock short hair bc I don’t have the jaw for it, and I like my long hair to make my jaw look sharper

Coffee: what’s your starbucks order, and who would you trust to order for you, if anyone?

I just get iced black tea bc starbucks coffee is ass, and id trust my mom. Not my sister or my friends bc theyd get me sugar in my tea instead of unsweet w honey

Marble: what is the most important thing to you in your life right now?

The things my life has revolved around for years lmao my loved ones and school

#if you cant tell im a fucking loser #im doing notes right now #its friday night im doing notes i should be out #but no im in and im writing notes and theyre beautiful ill post then on my studyblr #also a bonus for how fucking lame i am: i have a separate studyblr and langblr #ask #answered

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powderedwhiteviolets · 7 years

Note

1 through 92 ;^)

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged?

The awkward thing about these questions is everytime i get them in a meme the last person i’ve texted is always a member of my family and it’s so weird and funny and ughhhh

2. You talked to an ex today, correct?

NOPE

3. Have you taken someones virginity?

EVEN BIGGER NOPE

4. Is trust a big issue for you?

yes, and it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently?

Considering i don’t like anyone actually real at the moment, this is a no.

6. What are you excited for?

THE END OF SCHOOL……FOREVER!

well for two weeks

7. What happened tonight?

I ate fries and went home, accidentally bough the brand of red licorice i hate, and then watched youtube (it’s only 3:30 though)

8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted?

I don’t care? Other peoples drinking habits are none of my business.

9. Is confidence cute?

Yes, but not overconfidence.

10. What is the last beverage you had?

A glass of water. That was yesterday though.

11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

Not many. Of course, there’s my Dad, and some others (including you dude)

12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans?

No, i hate jeans.

13. What are you gonna do Saturday night?

Sleep.

14. What are you going to spend money on next?

Not sure. I wanted to buy a Shiro cosplay for comic con next month but i can’t be bothered to.

15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed?

Considering that was 9 years ago, no. I never really saw that guy again after it happened (and i like to pretend it didn’t)

16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months?

Most likely not.

17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything?

My Dad, and my best friends.

18. The last time you felt broken?

Last Sunday/bit of Monday

19. Have you had sex today?

No (was going to add underage as well but then i remembered i’m not anymore)

20. Are you starting to realize anything?

I’m starting to realize i would like my life much better as an anime and that what your expected to do in life is actually really boring.

21. Are you in a good mood?

I’m tired, but i am happy exams are over!

22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks?

NO. I have nothing against sharks but i would rather not hang with them.

23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s?

No.

24. What do you want right this second?

i am so ashamed of myself about the licorice

25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy?

“Get the fuck away from him”

26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color?

Yes. It’s alright i guess.

27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh?

Not really. I want to be able to laugh with someone. I mean, i wouldn’t mind them being stoic at times, but all the time is a bit boring, and even if my jokes are terrible we can laugh at how bad they are.

28. What was the last thing that made you laugh?

I was reading this thread on Reddit a few days ago about embarrassing things that keep you up at night and some of them were so fucking funny. My favourite was this kid suggesting to play hangman at a funeral of a girl who hung herself (terrible, but hilarious)

29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now?

Not really.

30. Does everyone deserve a second chance?

Most people do, but some forfeit that chance when they’ve committed certain acts.

31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to?

THE LAST BOY I WAS TALKING TO WAS YOU NIKO WHY WOULD I HATE YOU

32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do?

I don’t really have any feelings for anyone.

33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda?

Have you met me? I drink soda all the time.

34. Listening to?

Copycat (Vocaloid Gumi)

35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore?

I hate pencil, and when i was in 2nd grade i decided i was to never use it again.

36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is?

I haven’t seen him in years, and i honestly don’t care.

37. Do you believe in love at first sight?

Yes i guess….

38. Who did you last call?

My mum because i wanted her to pick me up from the station.

39. Who was the last person you danced with?

I don’t dance.

40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed?

It was voluntarily, and i didn’t really know what was going on since i was five.

41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake?

Not for quite awhile. I’m not the hugest fan of cupcakes (just stop being cheap and give me the whole damn cake). Besides, they haven’t even been in for ages.

42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today?

No.

43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?

Yes, but in my defence i was trying to be a nice person. It was in cooking class, i just finished baking my failed marshmallow muffins, and still had half left. So i got the bright idea to go ask him if he wanted them. He ended up giving me a weird look and just going “uhhh no……”. It wasn’t in front of many people but it’s still embarrassing (luckily it stopped keeping me up at night when i got over him)

44. Do you tan in the nude?

I don’t tan, I BURN.

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?

Fuck yes. Mainly because my mum screamed at me about it afterwards and acted like i had done bad.

46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?

No.

47. Who was the last person to call you?

Nobody really calls me.

48. Do you sing in the shower?

Sometimes, usually because nobody can hear my voice over the water.

49. Do you dance in the car?

You can dance in cars? I totally didn’t know that.

50. Ever used a bow and arrow?

Yep, at a primary school athletics day. Unsurprisingly, i was the only one to hit the target (twice!). I considered taking it up as a hobby but forgot about it in the end.

51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?

Earlier this year for school photo’s. I just got them back yesterday, and i’ve discovered that no matter what i do, i look bad in school photos.

52. Do you think musicals are cheesy?

No, i love musicals! I’m actually going to go see Aladdin and The Book of Mormon later this year.

53. Is Christmas stressful?

It used to be stressful during the years where my grandparents were feuding with one of my uncles (and it all started over me getting the Scooby-Doo movie on DVD). It’s not so much anymore.

54. Ever eat a pierogi?

I didn’t even know what that was until i googled it, so no.

55. Favorite type of fruit pie?

Apple pie. Cherry is also great as well.

56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid?

Singer, bookshop owner and a doll designer.

57. Do you believe in ghosts?

No.

58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling?

Many times, though sometimes it’ll be for things that have happened in dreams or have never actually happened irl.

59. Take a vitamin daily?

No. I probably should, i’d be a much healthier person if i did.

60. Wear slippers?

Yes, i stole them from Mum.

61. Wear a bath robe?

No.

62. What do you wear to bed?

Pyjama’s, like the vast majority of people.

63. First concert?

A Taylor Swift concert back in 2012.

64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart?

Target.

65. Nike or Adidas?

Neither.

66. Cheetos Or Fritos?

Cheetos.

67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds?

I hate both, but i hate sunflower seeds less.

68. Favorite Taylor Swift song?

Wildest Dreams.

69. Ever take dance lessons?

I used to take ballet when i was younger but quit out of frustration.

70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing?

Considering i probably won’t get married, this is a tough question.

71. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes, so can my Dad and my grandfather.

72. Ever won a spelling bee?

Never entered one.

73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy?

No.

74. What is your favorite book?

A Series of Unfortunate Events; The Hostile Hospital, which i just finished yesterday.

75. Do you study better with or without music?

With music.

76. Regularly burn incense?

When i’m with my Dad we go out to buy incense. We started doing it to get rid of the new fridge factory smell in his apartment and have been doing it ever since.

77. Ever been in love?

Yes, and it’s shit.

78. Who would you like to see in concert?

Melanie Martinez or Taylor Swift again.

79. What was the last concert you saw?

See answer 63.

80. Hot tea or cold tea?

Hot tea. Who the fuck drinks cold tea?

81. Tea or coffee?

Tea.

82. Favorite type of cookie?

Shortbread (my Scottish heritage is showing)

83. Can you swim well?

Yes.

84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose?

Yes again.

85. Are you patient?

Definitely not!

86. DJ or band, at a wedding?

DJ.

87. Ever won a contest?

Yes, but i already told you about that. Halloween dress up contest of 2013.

88. Ever have plastic surgery?

No.

89. Which are better black or green olives?

All olives are bad.

90. Opinions on sex before marriage?

I don’t care about it.

91. Best room for a fireplace?

The lounge room.

92. Do you want to get married?

Yes but i probably won’t.

#asks #weeaboosupreme #about me

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keywestlou · 3 years

Text

ME AND THE COCKROACH

I had a physical problem the past two days. I danced around it on the blog. The facts were not all in. Now they are and I share what could have been a disaster with you.

I had difficulty sleeping tuesday night. It was around one in the morning and I was sitting up in bed watching TV. The lights were off.

All of a sudden, I saw a shadow moving across the floor. Knew right away what it was. A cockroach. Key West is built on a bed of cockroaches.

Flipped on the light, put on my crocs and went after it.

We arrived at the same time in the door jam between the bedroom and bathroom. I lifted my right foot and came down hard. When I did, I fell hard to the right. My head hit the door jam, the TV, 2 tables and the tile floor.

I had other problems which have now developed into heavy purple bruises.

As is typical with older persons, I could not get up. Took me a half hour.

Looked at the roach. Dead! I got him!

Once I got on the bed, I slept well the rest of the night.

I woke in the morning with a head that felt I had drunk too much the night before. Could not be. I do not drink any more.

I take a water pill every day. I have heart problems and the water pill keeps my blood thin.

Ten year ago when I started the blood thinner pill, I was told if I ever banged my head hard, I should see a doctor immediately and get a cat scan of my head. If there was a bleed in the brain, surgery is immediate.

My primary told me to go directly to Urgent Care and get a complete work up. I did.

Cat scan of my head done.

Doctor returned with the result. The scan had been sent out to a radiologist.

The report indicated there might be a problem. The problem to be feared is a brain blood leak. There was something the radiologist saw but could not identify.

The doctor caring for me in Urgent Care scared the hell out of me. She immediately leaped into there is no neurosurgeon in Key West, looks like surgery is required, helicopter will get you to Miami in 1 hour 15 minutes, etc.

I could not believe what she was telling me. I had her explain again simply and directly. Her impression was I had a leak and had to deal with it.

I looked at the radiologist’s report. Looked fine, except he saw something he could not identify. He suggested a cat scan the next day.

I told to schedule the cat scan for tomorrow. The last thing I wanted or needed was brain surgery.

Returned at 8 yesterday morning for the additional brain scan. The result was I was fine in effect: “No acute intercranial hemorrhage, midline shift or mass effect.”

I was immediately relieved. Frankly, I was scared I was going to need brain surgery for the bleeding. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from me.

I had a different doctor the second day. The one who had given me the “bad news” the day before was off.

I got home and realized I was exhausted. The affect on me mentally must have been terrific. The exhaustion was total.

The only humorous event was the second day when a nurse was taking my blood pressure, etc. I had said when I first came in the day before that I fell stomping on a cockroach and killing it. The whole office knew my story by the second day. Apparently they considered it humorous. I did not.

Anyhow, she said something I did find humorous. She said…..It’s karma.

If anyone is interested, I did kill the cockroach.

Could be the last day of the Impeachment trial in Washington. It is the defense’s day.

The Democrats did an excellent job of presenting their case. Trump’s lawyers blew it the first day.

Today might be described as the lawyers/Republicans day. And the trial will be over. The Senate vote could take place today.

The exceptional job performed by the Democratic managers was unfortunately to no avail.

The Republicans are too scared to oppose Trump. They fear Trump and his terrorist insurrectionist friends. Not only would many lose their positions in the next assured to occur primary, I suspect they fear for their lives and the lives of their families.

Trump and his followers had no reservation about killing Pence and Pelosi.

I spent yesterday afternoon flipping from one channel to another. The Pebble Beach golf tournament and the Impeachment trial.

Hole 7 was shown on the screen many times. A tough par 3 downhill into wind and ocean. The only hole I excelled on when I played the course.

Pebble Beach looked magnificent. Fairways and greens perfect. Flowers and foliage likewise.

Everyone wants to play Pebble Beach. Lousy golfers like me and and better ones also. The operators let everyone play 10 months per year. Pack foursomes close on the course. During those 10 months, I doubt they keep the course up as they should.

However in the two months before the tournament, the course is closed down. No one can play. The course is brought back during those two months.

Today, February 12. A day of some historical importance. More than normal.

Joseph “Bum” Farto was the Fire Chief of Key West back in the early 1970s. In addition to his fire duties, he ran drugs and operated a prostitution ring.

Those were the days in Key West!

Farto was caught and tried in federal court. Found guilty of 3 drug violations. Sentenced to 31 years in jail.

In the federal system, one sentenced to jail has a period following the sentencing before actually being jailed. The government feels such a person should have time to put his affairs in order.

On the day Farto was to check in to begin his 31 years, he disappeared. Backed out of his driveway and disappeared. There was and still is talk that a truck and car blocked his vehicle.

Farto has never been seen since. Some refer to him as the Jimmy Hoffa of Key West.

It was on this day in 1976 that Farto was sentenced.

Today appears to be the day Trump will be found guilty or not guilty. A significant day in history also involving another President.

On this day in 1999, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in his Impeachment trial.

Abraham Lincoln was born on this day in 1809. He was born in poverty in a one room rural cabin, the son of a farmer.

One more. Coincidental?

On the same day in 1809 that Lincoln was born, the National Association of Colored People was founded. The helper and the helped born the same day.

DAY 17…..Greece the First Time

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Key West Lou

Goodbye Santorini!

Hello Mykonos!

I shall miss Santorini. I truly enjoyed it. I must return.

It was a big fast speed boat ride to Mykonos. About 250 people on board. Comfortable, large, air conditioned, food available, etc. Two and one half hours with three stops before reaching Mykonos.

Mykonos lovely. The same as Santorini. Except no cave homes.

I seem to be into God this trip. The flavor of Mykonos is such that I expect to see Jesus Christ walking around. The buildings, rocks and foliage produced, for me at least, that feeling.

The hotel so so. But very nice people running the place. Greeks seem generally nice. For example, I just arrived and I am sitting behind the admission desk using the personal computer of one of the employees. She became aware I needed one and offered it.

Something new.

You cannot put toilet paper in the toilet. It will plug the system. You must put it in the waste basket.

Ugh!

This was a problem for some in Santorini. But not where I was staying.

It is definitely going to be a problem here. Not just new, different.

The reason for no toilet paper down the toilet is twofold. I made an investigation.

First, the sewage system is ancient. Not back to Christ, but apparently not far removed. Old pipes. Small pipes diameter wise.

The second reason makes sense also. All sewage on the island goes into one huge receptacle. It is in effect a lake of the material. Once there, it is chemicalized, etc. Toilet paper screws up the process. Makes the sewage too thick to properly treat.

The toilet paper problem is something most of us did not know. I know I did not. Now we are all aware of it and why.

Tonight, I am going into downtown Mykonos. The back alleys and by ways. I need some serious drinking, music, and hell raising. Something not available on Santorini.

Enjoy your day!

ME AND THE COCKROACH was originally published on Key West Lou

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2pirates-blog · 6 years

Text

Daily diary #15 (8.15.2018)

Late yet again. I wanted to write this down but it was already past midnight and I go to sleep at that time cuz I can’t sleep past 7 AM.

Anyways, the 15th of August: I stayed in bed for like an hour and a half after waking up at 6:30 AM just so I can get the extra 7-8 hours of sleep even though I wasn’t actually sleeping, just kept my eyes closed.

I talked to my friend who had dyed her hair in the past and she advised me not to do it cuz she had to cut her hair after the color faded. So right now dying my hair is not my primary thought anymore. I went to the gym and did my regular shit but I stayed there for an hour and a half, a bit too long.

My mom is on her night shift so it was the perfect opportunity for me to light my joint at any time of the day but I did it at 10 PM.

I was bored af again and I didn’t want to watch any shows cuz they’d just remind me of how lonely I am. I played video games to compensate for that till 5 PM. At that time I went out to have a walk in the city and I chilled at my weed spot. I was laying on the bench for an hour while looking at my screen. There’s wi-fi in that place and a lot of nature, so it’s gorgeous. The nature around me helped me calm my worries and to just objectively reflect on my current problems. I didn’t come to any conclusion but to one; that I value some things way too high in order for myself to be happy. I always thought a fulfilling romantic relationship or a long-lasting friendship would make me happy but considering the fact I had none of those (except for a friend who I hung out with for 9 years but he forgot about me in the last 3) was making me very uneasy. So I figured I’d have to chase something else which would give me the same satisfaction. I immediately thought of renting my own apartment and living on my own but I don’t see how that helps the problem but push it away into the future. So I got tired of trying to think out solutions for my issues so I contacted this psychologist that I met the other day and made an appointment for tomorrow, the 16th. We’ll see how that goes. Also, I feel very uncomfortable when people or hot women look at me because I immediately tend to be at my “coolest” behaviour even though nobody is actually looking at me. I guess that’s just a thing I’ll have to fix with time and practice.

It’s 10 PM, my dad went out and I lit a joint in my room. I love smoking in my room cuz it’s my most comfortable place in the world. Nobody looking at me and I have all the electronics I need. I didn’t give in to the munchies this time which made me really proud. Also, I decided to smoke today because yesterday I realized once I stop smoking for a few days and then light up some weed, I get a terrible headache so I wanted to smoke that last joint I had ASAP. At that point I was just listening to a shit ton of music and watching random Youtube videos.

Oh, and as for the people I’ve chatted with today; they were my crush, my 2 friends from high school and ofc my friend from another city. Let’s call one of my high school friends Lilly and the other one (I don’t know her from my previous high school, I met her at a comic book art gallery, she had her own pictures there and I’ve known her for like a year now) Nancy. Lilly is one of those people who you really like talking to but you haven’t seen them in such a long time so you don’t want to disappoint them subconsciously but she accepted my mental problems with welcoming hands so I really appreciate that.

And yeah, I went to bed at midnight and that’s it.

See ya later!

#long day #last joint #lonely afternoon in the park #shower thoughts #nature and harmony #goingtotheshrink

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dangerouscrusadefire-blog · 6 years

Text

Discount car insurance by putting another name on my insurance?

"Discount car insurance by putting another name on my insurance?

I know plenty of people the same age as me, 19 who have put another persons name on their car insurance eg. family or friends so its cheaper due to the other persons experiance, my mum passed her test when she was 21 but has never drove a car or owned a car herself since... so would putting her name on my insurance be pointless.???

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://averageinsurancecost.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr