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.

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Koumyou reaches over and covers some of those white knuckles with one slender, tea-warmed hand. He's been calm through-out Buttercup's words, quietly noting the shift in demeanor that he would associate with muichimotsu.

He lets Dev say his piece, waits a moment, and then calmly speaks up.

"I understand sacrifice for duty, perhaps better than most. I watched every friend I'd ever had on Earth die gruesome deaths in front of me, and I didn't lift a finger because it was my duty to not.

"I may not have personally killed them, but I trained the young man who killed Goudai Sanzo before my eyes for a full year after the murder. Because I was told to. Because it was my duty."

He glances over at Devero, and adds to them both, "Some worlds are just... like that."

Her head snapped up at Devero's words, at the anger in his voice. She was expecting it of course. She was expecting fury from both of them. She would fight them both if it came to it. Fight them and lose because they were bigger, stronger, more powerful than her. But she would not go down without a fight.

What she would do later, when the train dragged her back into life was not something she had planned for. One step at a time. Devero was angry, but at the gods. Such blasphemy. She's still in the emptiness but cold anger joins the rest of her emotions, ready to flood her the moment she lets down her shield.

Sanzo speaks though and he is calm. Not angry. Or hiding it well. He understands. Sacrifice for duty. He had allowed death because it was his duty. He had trained a killer. Because he had to.

She had not known those things. She would not have guessed those things and she looks at him, eyes blank, glancing at Devero. Some worlds were like that.

Some people were like this.

"And it's bullshit!" Devero snaps; under Koumyou's hand, his fist trembles.

But then he makes an effort to collect himself. One thing he's learned in his almost-six months on the train is that he comes from a world of immense privilege, and that his impotent anger that other people don't helps no one. He closes his eyes and focuses, the way Koumyou's taught him, getting himself back under a semblance of control.

He glances over at Koumyou, covering his Sanzo's hand on his with his other hand, and lets out a long breath.

"Some worlds are just like that," he repeats. He returns his regard to Buttercup. His voice is much softer as he says. "You did what you had to do to survive, Buttercup. Thank you for telling us; I know it must be scary for you."

Koumyou gives Devero's lower hand a squeeze, but his gaze stays on Buttercup. Just... assessing the quietness she's donned like a shroud. Or a mask, with those blank eyes.

Hiding inside her own skin. Some sort of meditation?

After a moment, he takes his hand back so that he can reach up his sleeve for his long pipe and a bit of tobacco.

Preparing the bowl as he speaks, he voices another thought.

"You know, I myself have killed... easily thousands. Mostly strangers, mostly people who had it coming. But not all, I think. Some were just in my way."

Pipe set up, he lights it with a tap of a fingertip and lifts it to take a drag.

"And I really don't feel much of anything about that."

Her attention doesn't waver, Devero's anger, the way Sanzo reaches into his sleeve. She is prepared, ready if he draws a weapon but instead he brings out a pipe.

But his words. A threat? An understanding? Both?

She tilted her head, eyes still blank. "You did be killing for your god? They do be commanding it?."

If he could feel not much at all about it that was probably a good thing. She didn't feel much about killing. Pride often, the satisfaction of a job well done. The rush of adrenaline.

Killing her sister had been different in every way it possibly could be.

Devero reaches for his cup, wrapping his hands around it like he needs a physical anchor for his temper. He badly wants to interject his conclusions about why Koumyou cares so little about the deaths he's caused, but he doesn't. That's not what this meeting is about-- it's about Koumyou and Buttercup figuring out if they want to commit to each other.

So he takes a deep breath and keeps his peace, letting his Sanzo speak.

"Oh, no, Buddhism forbids killing," Koumyou smiles serenely, "but a Sanzo's primary purpose is to protect a sutra. Two, in my case. Protect it from the world, and the world from the sutra. Despite what everyone outside of the rank seems to believe, we don't lecture our would-be assassins to death."

A pause, he takes a deep drag of his pipe.

"...And that does, very rarely, include the Gods themselves."

Very, very rarely. But it's been known to happen.

"I'm telling you this to say that I understand the kind of situation you were in. And even, somewhat, the kind of situation you were raised up in. I have never treated you like a baby, because you're very near the age Kouryuu was when I died and he succeeded me."

Buttercup is young, a kid, but they both come from worlds where that doesn't automatically mean helpless or sheltered.

(A ten-year-old Houmei had damn near murdered Devero in one swift move, after all.)

It was true. He hadn't ever treated her like a baby. That's why she liked him in the first place. His religion forbade killing yet he killed for it anyways? That was strange.

Sanzo is always a mystery. Devero is easier to understand and he is angry. But not at her. Not really. She doesn't think.

She closed her eyes, dropped the emptiness and took a moment as the feelings flooded back into her. The fear was less now, but she's confused, unsure.

"You do no be hating me?"

"Of course not!" Devero says immediately (and a little overloudly). He closes his eyes to recollect himself, then continues, "Buttercup, what you did... you didn't have a choice. Not really. If there's anyone to hate, it's the adults who-- made you do what you did."

(In that hesitation is a world of stronger language, of that volatile and impotent fury that he's controlling himself from expressing again.)

"I could no more hate you than I could hate Koumyou for almost killing me when he was a little boy for a day," he adds, looking sidelong at the priest beside him.

Or for the thousands of people that Koumyou has killed in all the years of his torturously hard life, he doesn't explicitly say. But it's there anyway, unspoken but present.

"Of course not," Koumyou agrees, if a lot less vehemently. "I'm nowhere near that big of a hypocrite. I'm still perfectly willing to be your adoptive father, if you want one. Or just your friend. Or nothing at all."

That was the choice he'd given her after Diagad, if in vaguer terms. He'd liked having his kids in that illusion. Both of them.

"I admit I would have hesitated before Diagad, but only because I didn't want to... basically replace Kouryuu? But he liked you enough that he told me I'd better look out for you, if not in those exact words. Something-something 'the little twerp'."

Which he'd probably called her in the illusion, but had seen no reason to stop once he was out. Permission given to his father from multiple angles, for someone fluent in Kouryuu-ese. Which, of course, he very much was.

Edited 2021-11-14 12:58 (UTC)

She looked between them both. They didn't hate her. Strange. Weird. They should. But they didn't. She was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

She tilted her head as he explained how he would not want to replace Kouryuu but that Kouyruu had wanted him to look after her.

She wrinkled her nose. "He did be being the twerp." It's fond, she had liked him. She missed him. Even if she had never really gotten to know the real him.

"I would no want to be replacing him. I can no be being him. But I did no never be having a father. I do no be knowing where me and my sister came from but we do no be having parents."

So she had no one to replace.

"I know what that's like," Devero says softly. "My parents never claimed me. They wouldn't even sign the info release that would let me know who they were. They didn't want anything to do with me."

As old as this wound is, it still hurts, and he has to look away for a moment. But then he looks back, from Buttercup to Koumyou and then back to Buttercup.

"I may have never had a dad," he says, "but I still know Koumyou's an excellent one." And then his expression goes a little sharp and a little teasing. "You wouldn't have fought me so hard over the illusion if that wasn't the case, hm?"

"And I was abandoned at a temple as an infant," Koumyou chimes in, to commiserate. Just a bunch of people with unknown blood relatives in here. Probably not that uncommon on the train, though.

He shoots Devero a sideways glance at the bit about the quality of his parenting, and demurs, "Well, I don't know about that. But that's why there's so many options for this choice."

The priest wouldn't have found it strange if dealing with him would just be too strange, after all that. He's never had a high opinion of his value outside of murder. Koumyou's very good at murder.

Neither of them knew their parents either. Both had been abandoned. She had no idea if her parents had abandoned her. Maybe. There were plenty of abandoned children in Gauig. She had no idea how her and her sister had come to be at the inn. She had never asked.

And Devero was right about one thing. If Koumyou wasn't so great it wouldn't have been so hard to throw away the illusion of a life as his daughter.

"I do be knowing about it." She told him. "You did be being good at it. Kouyruu did be thinking so."

He had stuck around, even after he had stopped believing the illusion.

That makes Devero smile, and he nudges Koumyou with his elbow. "Even if you can't believe it when I say it, can you believe it from the kids you've actually been a dad to?" he asks gently.

Well, no. Koumyou's immediate thought is that Buttercup and Kouryuu had never known anyone to compare him to, so he still might be very lacking.

But he's not going to dump his insecurities on the kid across the table from him, no matter the outcome of this little meeting.

So, he falls into a familiar pattern, smiling a dopey smile at them both.

"Well... I suppose I must, huh?"

"Yes." She might not have had a father or a mother but she had had guardians back in her world. She hadn't been completely on her own. He was better than all of them.

So they had all agreed he would be good at it. So had she made up her mind? Surely this wasn't just her choice after all. He was a person here as well.

"I did no never be being anyone's child before so I might be messing it up as well."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Koumyou notes, still determined not to push, but also trying not to keep his cards as close to his chest as he would normally by default.

He's not sure how messing up being a kid of his would work, exactly. Kouryuu had been quite a spirited little shit... and he'd actively encouraged that in him. Buttercup's been willing to listen to him about things from the start, albeit perhaps only due to his being a high priest. This would just add another reason, wouldn't it?

And sure, she has her own opinions and personality, but Koumyou wouldn't try to stifle that any more than he had with his son. Guide, perhaps, but not stifle.

Edited 2021-11-24 13:25 (UTC)

A risk he is willing to take. He would not mind, he knows now. He knows what she is. He knows what she has done and he is still willing to take that risk.

He is one of the strangest people she has ever met and yet... Something draws her to him regardless.

"You do be being a risk I do be willing to take as well."

He was. It felt a little like cliff diving. Air rushing past, trusting in the gravity drive Priestess Lightning had given her. Hoping that she would float before she hit the floor.

Oh, what a good tactic that is, even if Buttercup isn't perhaps aware of its ramifications to the Sanzo. Him being a risk she's willing to take, and all. It acknowledges he is one, even if she might not be aware of all the reasons.

"Well," Koumyou lifts his tea and takes a sip, with the hand not holding his long, elegant pipe. "I suppose there's nothing stopping us from choosing to be father and daughter, then."

Although, she had gone out of her way to make it known just who she is, and has been, and why. Koumyou realizes he should perhaps do something of the same, so she knows what she's signing up for as a parent, here. If they do this.

But he has no idea what to even make known. Perhaps that in itself is a start.

"I think it's only fair I lay out some details of myself as well. I know I'm... aloof, often. Hard to know? Distant. It's not something I usually try to do anything about, anymore."

The moon is the moon, after all.

"So if there's anything you want to know, whether now or later, just ask. I won't be offended."

Edited 2021-11-28 14:13 (UTC)

Nothing stopping them. Nothing at all. She stared at him for a long moment, still in shock at how he had taken her confession, what he had told her in return and what they could now agree on.

Slowly ever so slowly she took a sip of tea. He is hard to know and distant. But she has never seen that as a problem. He is a priest. He holds a piece of a god. How could someone like her come to know someone like him. She can't comprehend that.

But he won't be offended if she asks questions. That was good. She was glad about that. Her mind is blank though, almost fuzzy with relief. "I do no be thinking you do be being too aloof. We did be smushing robots together after all."

No priest she had met before this train would have shared tea with a brat like her. Especially after she had used his casual name by accident.

Devero has remained silent as the two of them talk, nursing his tea and trying not to keep his feelings about all of this to himself while things are still undecided. But it... seems like perhaps they're not so undecided now, and a smile blooms across his face.

He leans in to smooch Koumyou on the cheek. "You're a recovering moon, babe," he tells him cheekily. He looks between the two of them and adds, "I wish I could have seen the two of you at that." The robot smushing, and all.

"I'm perfectly willing to get up to trouble with almost anyone," Koumyou clarifies for Buttercup, "but I'm aware I'm hard to really get to know."

He keeps everyone at a distance. Usually.

Not even intentionally, anymore, just by default.

"Next time we have robots to smush, you're invited," he tells Devero. "Some of them even floated when we threw them in the river. For at least a little while."

She was as well. Hard to really get to know. Because it was dangerous to let people close. Also exhausting. She's exhausted after talking like this, the adrenaline slowly leaving her.

She tilted her head at Devero and nodded. He would be a good robot smusher, he looked very strong.

"Hopefully there will be being more things to be smushing soon." She sighed, the last few missions had been stupid and complicated.

"Consider me RSVP'd," he says with a grin. "I understand we'll need to record our observations in a notebook, if we do?"

Leap of Faith [closed]

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