voidtreckerexpress | Leap of Faith [closed]

Entry tags:

Leap of Faith [closed]

Who: Little One, Devero, Koumyou Sanzo
Where: Carriage N meeting room A
When: Month Orchestra, day 2
What: A long awaited talk
Warnings: There will be talk of death, violence, child assassins, child death and probably other difficult subjects here.

She is very nervous. Even with Devero's help she knows that this was going to be a very difficult meeting to have but she knows it is important. She has thought a lot about Sanzo and his offer and Diagad and what it all meant. Her mind never sits still about it but all that had happened was that her and Sanzo had not really spoken for months, which was stupid. Before all this Sanzo was someone she liked a lot.

She still likes him a lot. That's the problem. She has put a lot of thought into this meeting as well. She had bought honey cakes and baklava from the train shop and has also made a huge pot of tea. She picked some things up from being bonded to Mami at least, difficult conversations were always better with tea and cake.

She's also hired one of the meeting rooms. They are soundproof, they only let the people in who are registered there. It's as much privacy as she can manage on this train.

As for what she is going to say, she's barely slept the last few nights thinking about it. She likes Sanzo. She wants him to like her. She wants Devero to like her too. But... He had said she could decide what she was to him and that's a big choice to make.

She's not good with family. She only ever had her sister and...

Well that's the whole problem. She's hidden her true self since stepping onto the train and it's exhausting. But she can't let herself care for these people and lie to them. Not because lying was bad. She's not that far fallen.

But because if they find out, it will be bad. And she doesn't want that. She doesn't want to open her heart for someone to drive a dagger into it.

So she will tell them. Now. So they know. If they take it badly. Well that could ruin everything but... Better to know now than wait until the next time their mind are shared or they walk each others dreams or any of the other things that could burst open her whole life here.

She sits. Waiting. Trying not to look like a little girls whose whole world could come crashing down around her ears.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I did," Devero says, seeming to become immediately-- shifty. "I need your help with something, actually."

Koumyou notices the shiftiness, and squints up at him.

Curious, mostly, instead of suspicious. Because Devero acts like this whenever he's about to ask for something 'selfish', too.

"...Yes?"

Devero fidgets like a naughty kid just caught by a crechekeeper, before admitting, "Okay, I-- I'm actually hoping I can help you with something. Come with me?"

Okay, now he's suspicious as hell. Koumyou gazes up at him for a long moment with a furrowed brow, and then... shakes his head. It can't be anything too bad, this is Devero for fuck's sake.

"Okay," he offers a hand for Devero to take, "lead the way."

"Okay, thank you," Devero says with a relieved sigh. He wraps his fingers around Koumyou's and heads for the nearest transgate at a pretty good clip. Whatever it is he's leading the priest off to, he seems pretty nervous about it, nervous enough to be rushing a little.

Koumyou keeps up with him, but does ask, "What is this about, Devero?"

Devero wavers. He's afraid that if he tells Koumyou know he might frighten the priest off, knowing how cagey he can be about the matter of hand. But it's hard for emotionally open Devero to deliberately mislead anyone, especially the boyfriend who means so much to him. He doesn't want Koumyou to abort this conversation before it can even start, but at the same time, he also doesn't want him to feel coerced into having it.

His rapid steps slow as they approach their destination from the nearest transgate; just before stepping into the junction between their current carriage and the hire car beyond, he pauses and turns to face the priest, catching up his other hand as well. "It's... about Diagad," he says delicately.

There's only one way this could be about Diagad without say, Genjo having arrived here... and Koumyou is pretty sure he'd already know if he had.

So Koumyou's shoulders slump a little, and he sighs, "Devero..."

That's not the most promising response, but it's also not the worst. He squeezes the hands in his again. "She just wants to talk to you, Koumyou."

"I've been trying not to influence her choice," Koumyou tells him in return, "for better or for worse. She's not used to making choices, but I told her she must."

And if she's gotten Devero's help for delivering the news, he... suspects it isn't good.

"I can't decide what I am to her for her. You know that, right?"

"I know that," he says. "I also know that neither of you will decide anything if you both keep avoiding it." He drops his eyes away and frowns a little. "Right now she doesn't even know if you want to keep talking to her at all."

That gets a soft sigh from Koumyou, and a quiet, "I'm very bad at all of this, aren't I?"

So it's just as well big-hearted, in-touch-with-feelings Devero is here, after all. This has been nothing like his time with Kouryuu, who had grown up from an infant knowing what they were to each other.

"Alright, let's go."

"Of course you are," Devero says sympathetically. "Your whole life it's been dangerous to talk about this stuff. Of course it doesn't come easily." How could it?

He leans down to press his lips gently to Koumyou's forehead, just above the chakra. "Thank you," he says, giving the priest's hand one more squeeze before he turns and leads the way into the next car.

Were it anyone else leading him by the hand to this conversation, Koumyou would almost certainly refuse. But, he trusts Devero, and that means trusting his judgement -- and of the two of them, Devero is very much the expert on... this stuff.

This... non-murdery emotions, stuff.

But he's not the least surprised to see the young girl when they eventually enter the hired room, and he nods to her. "Hello, Buttercup."

She stands formally when the two enter the room. Best behaviour. She's even dressed in her spider spun tunic, which still feels more natural in style than the hoodie and cargo pants she usually wears on the train.

"Hello Sanzo. Hello Devero." She smiled at them both, hoping it hid her nerves. "Would you be liking some tea?"

She gestured at the table at the snacks and tea pot there.

"Hey, kiddo. I would love some tea, thank you," Devero says, returning her smile with that easy warmth of his. He's feeling some nerves himself, but making a distinct effort to keep them under control. After all, he's supposed to be the emotions guy here, isn't he?

He gives Koumyou's hand still in his a squeeze, meeting the priest's eyes for a moment, then releases it to take a seat.

Koumyou... carefully, a little slower than normal, tucks his hands into his opposite sleeves like he likes to do. He moves further into the room, coming to stand near Devero's seat, but stays standing himself.

"Perhaps in a bit," he says of tea. A beat goes by, and then he asks, "You've thought about what I asked you?"

She stays standing as well though she does pour some tea for Devero, carefully so not to spill before pushing it over the table to him with a nod.

Sanzo doesn't want tea, he wants answers and she draws herself up, fighting down nerves. They would do her no good here.

She's tempted to retreat into the emptiness, to make all of this easier. But for now she stays out, she could control her emotions without it.

"I did be thinking about it. I did be thinking a lot."

He nods as he accepts the cup, but doesn't actually drinking from it. He's focused instead on his Sanzo, already in orbit with his hands hidden away, and a little girl who shouldn't have to ask an authority figure if he will parent her.

He sits back a little, looking between Koumyou and Buttercup before prompting her, "Will you tell us what you've been thinking about?"

But Devero had let it spill that Buttercup wasn't sure Koumyou even wanted to talk to her anymore, so the priest says gently, "I know how hard choices are to make when you've never had them before. I didn't want to influence you in any direction, good or bad."

So, with that said, he nods over at Devero to put the big guy's question back into focus.

She doesn't pour any tea for herself, stays standing, tense and wary. Her eyes on both of them. Devero spoke first. It was good that he was here, he could speak to Sanzo in a way she couldn't.

Even if Sanzo spoke, about how he didn't want to influence her choice, to good or bad. As if that wasn't the problem. She doesn't know what the correct answer is. How could she choose with just her own wishes?

She sighed, a very deep sigh. It was a lot, all this thinking. "You do be being right, I did no never really be needing to be choosing before." She tilted her head. "I did be thinking. I did no be telling you a lot of things and I do no be being the only person who do be needing to be choosing here."

After all what would choosing do if he decided she was despicable? She took a breath, gathering all of her courage. "Will you be listening?"

Well, this question, at least, has an easy answer. Devero glances back at Koumyou for a moment before returning his dark eyes to Buttercup. "Of course we will," he answers for them both.

Koumyou takes his hands from his sleeves and walks to the table, reaching for the tea pot. He pours first one and then another cup of tea, pushes one toward Buttercup, and then sits down beside Devero with his.

He folds his bony hands around his cup, needing the warmth, and inclines his head for a moment in invitation to proceed.

"We'll listen."

She looked down at the cup of tea and then, once Sanzo had sat down next to Devero, sits herself. She looked at the tea for a moment as she gathered her thoughts.

"In my world there do be being six gods. But only five do be being publicly worshipped. They do be being the Bright gods. The sixth do be being the shadow god, the god of chaos. That do be being who I do be serving."

All her life, from her earliest memory this had been her biggest secret. Something she could not tell, never tell to anyone who did not also serve. Many things were forgivable in the eyes of those who followed the Bright god but they would not spare a servant of chaos. Not ever a child.

And yet here she was, spilling it out of her mouth to two people who were undeniably good. Maybe not in all their actions. But in their hearts, their souls belonged to the good of their world. And at least one of them held power enough to kill her where she sat.

Yet now the first truth has tumbled from her the rest can only follow. Because there is no half measures in this. She is not ashamed of who she is, of what she is, of what she has done. She's scared. But she was not brought up to be a coward. "I did be serving Chaos all my life. Me and my sister. We did be training all our lives, we did be learning to be sneaking, to be spying and to be killing."

Her voice is still even, purposefully so. As if she were talking about breakfast. "We did be bringing chaos and fear, we did be swearing an oath to do so." And it was not one she could break, even if truthfully she has not been a good servant of chaos this last year. She barely even prays any more. It feels almost useless, when she's on a train hurtling through a void. When she doesn't know when she might be able to go home.

She almost stops there. She's still looking at her tea cup. She can't see their faces. But all of that doesn't really... It doesn't say truly why she is hesitant. Why she finds it so hard to make this choice, to voice what she feels.

"My sister did be being just like me. The word do be being twins, we did be looking the same but she did be being cooler I do be thinking. We did be learning together and we did be working together but she... I do no even be knowing what did be happening but she did be failing. She did be disobeying."

No. She can't do this. Not like this. She closed her eyes and drew the emptiness around her. The feelings locked out. Armour against the world, against herself and the feelings that bubbled up even thinking about this.

She was very still, almost unnaturally so and her voice was devoid of any emotion at all when she spoke. "They did be telling me to be ending her. So I did be. Because I do be obeying."

And if it came down to it she would kill anyone on this train, if it was a case of them and her god, her beliefs, her purpose.

This was where they differed, Sanzo and her. He had died for his family she had killed her own.

Devero's soul undeniably belongs to the good of his world, that virtue evident here and now in the intent way he listens to her speak, and the developing horror in his heart-- and on his face-- as she lays out the truth of who she is.

Oh, he'd suspected she was one of the many people on the train who'd had an awful childhood. How could she not be, when she doesn't even have a name on the passenger roster? When the very first time he met her she was carrying a gun, a gun he's since seen her diligently learning to properly clean and maintain under the tutelage of the priest at his side? A gun that he has no doubt she knows how to use, even if he's never seen her do so.

His heart breaks in his chest when she goes so preternaturally still, her affect flat as she tells them so plainly that she killed her twin sister at the behest of the authority figures in her life who told her she had to.

His heart breaks, and as happens so often when someone's history cracks that soft core inside him open, hot righteous fury spills out through the gap.

"Because of a god," he says, his voice low and dangerous. "Because of the followers of some-- some vice-ridden, power-abusing cosmic jackass gave you no choice but to obey, because you're a child--!"

He cuts himself off, fisting his hands on the table so tight that the pristine skin across his knuckles goes white, lest he give in to his own vice-ridden temper and try to hit something. "Rust and ruin, I hate gods!"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject