[Fic] "The Transient and the Eternal: If only" -- Angel Sanctuary
I'm doing thirtyforthree again, this time for Kira Sakuya/Mudo Setsuna/Mudo Sara from Kaori Yuki's Angel Sanctuary. There will be spoilers in nearly every theme -- given the characters, it's nearly impossible to avoid them! -- and a lot of potentially objectionable content. This is because the source manga has a lot of potentially objectionable content. If incest squicks you, or you know you'll be bothered by some unusual and often negative interpretations of Judeo-Christian theology, you probably won't want to read any of these stories.
With that said...
Theme: #6 - If only
Warnings: spoilers!
Notes: This fic is set post-manga, in March 2038. Sara is 54 and Setsuna 55. At some point in the past decade, they moved back from Nagasaki to Tokyo since their parents are both dead now (father from a heart attack, mother from pancreatic cancer) and they're not that worried about hiding anymore. In terms of internal series continuity, it falls between Babies and "If it wasn't you..."
I wrote the first half of this story in 2008 and the second half in 2011, but only got around to the last few paragraphs tonight. I therefore suspect the ending is a bit rushed; if you have any suggestions for smoothing it out, please tell me! (1,900 words)
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The Transient and the Eternal: If only
---------------------------------------------
"Your granddaughter stopped by yesterday afternoon, Tendo-san," the security guard said as Sara opened her post box in the lobby. "She said she was sorry she'd missed you, and she might drop in again this evening, as long as she's in town. She seems very considerate, especially for her age. You're lucky to have family like that."
Sara glanced at the neighborhood watch invitation and the postcard from one of her former students, and tossed a shoe catalogue into the recycling bin. "Granddaughter?" She and Setsuna didn't have any children, let alone grandchildren, and Hiro-kun's children weren't anywhere near old enough to visit Kyoto on their own.
"Yes, Akuryuu Kurai," the security guard said. "It's an unfortunate family name."
"Oh, she picked that herself," Sara told him, suddenly focused and utterly furious. "She thinks it's... what's the slang these days... thinks it's pyro."
The guard shrugged. "That's kids for you. We're all a little crazy when we're young. Akuryuu-san seemed sensible enough despite the name and the hair, so she'll probably grow out of it before too long."
"Somehow, I doubt that," Sara muttered, but she thanked the man politely for passing on the message and hurried across the lobby to the elevator. She found herself avoiding the stairs more and more often these days; her knees and feet protested at the end of the day, and she didn't want to stress them more than she had to.
She liked teaching. She loved being around children all day, even the impossible ones, and she liked the vacation breaks. Of course, she had homework to grade all evening and she lost two or three afternoons a week to school clubs -- this year the principal had talked her into supervising the film club, which would get crazier and crazier as the year went on and the kids started filming their own projects -- but even that was fun, in a cockeyed, draining way. Setsuna said it was because she liked feeling useful. Sara supposed there was some truth to that.
What she didn't like was standing on her feet all day long, in heels, on hard tile floors. It was murder on her arches and toes and calves, and it was taking her feet longer and longer to recover these days.
She hated getting old.
Music seeped from around the edges of the apartment door, and Sara frowned as she waved her phone over the lock plate. Setsuna was home far too early -- had something gone wrong? But the music was silly techno-pop, one of the latest girl groups babbling about kisses and candy, which meant Setsuna was in a good mood. If something were wrong, he'd have gone for silence or last decade's fad for classical music as 'played' by recordings of wind and water and other natural sounds.
Setsuna pounced on her as she walked into the main room. "Welcome home! I have great news! Asamura-san is finally retiring, and they've offered me his job. No more on-site supervisory work, just sitting in a nice office doing logistics and schmoozing people on the phone. It's half the work for three times the pay, plus air-conditioning and heating. And no more chance of equipment malfunctions or falling girders for you to worry about! Isn't it great?"
Setsuna locked his hands around Sara's waist and spun her across the room in a dizzying spiral, still strong enough to lift her feet from the ground without noticing. His smile was dazzling.
"That's wonderful," Sara agreed, leaning her head on his shoulder when he slowed them to a stop by the window. "When is Asamura-san's retirement party? How late do you expect to be out?"
"Next Friday, and probably two or three in the morning." Setsuna shrugged, afternoon sunlight glinting off his silvered hair. "I don't like him, but it's politics, you know? I promise I'll eat dinner beforehand."
"Good. I don't care if you can hold alcohol better than everyone else. If you come home drunk again, I'll get another cat."
Setsuna shuddered in mock terror. "No, anything but a cat! Weren't Yuki and Bakemono enough to convince you that all cats are bloodthirsty demons?"
"They liked Lucifer," Sara said, biting back a smile.
"I rest my case," Setsuna said. He nudged Sara toward the kitchen, which smelled enticingly of fresh coffee. "But enough about cats. You look like something's on your mind -- how was school today?"
"Fine. Busy, but fine." Sara slipped out of Setsuna's hands and pulled two mugs down from a cupboard -- blue for her and white for Setsuna -- and set them in front of the coffeemaker. She moved to the sink and began washing her hands. "Kurai stopped by yesterday afternoon, before we got home. She may try to visit again tonight."
"That's--" Setsuna paused. "Okay, something's wrong. You like Kurai; I know you do. Why are you upset that she's here?"
Sara dried her hands carefully, wiping between each finger and shifting her wedding ring up to her knuckle to dab at the imprinted skin where it usually sat. "It's silly." The ring had gotten stuck on her knuckle, and she had to twist and pull for several seconds before she got it resettled. She missed having slender fingers.
"Just because something's silly doesn't mean it can't be real or important," Setsuna said. "Tell me, and if it really is dumb, I'll tell Kurai so she'll think I'm the stupid one, not you."
Despite herself, Sara laughed. Her brother always knew how to make her feel better. She turned, leaning against the sink, and offered Setsuna a sheepish smile. "All right, all right. But it really is silly -- Kurai told the security guard she was our granddaughter. He believed her. That's all."
The coffeemaker gurgled and beeped. Setsuna pulled out the carafe and poured dark, steaming coffee into the mugs. Then he dumped two teaspoons of sugar into his, stirred it, and carried both to the table.
"I don't like getting old either," he said as he sat down. "But they don't think any less of us just because we're getting a little worn around the edges."
Sara sat across from him and reached for her own cup. She blew gently on the coffee to cool it, but held it cupped between her hands, not willing to scorch her mouth. Setsuna, of course, took a big swallow and then hissed through his teeth, sucking in a gulp of air to soothe the burn.
"Maybe they don't think less of us, but they do think differently of us," Sara said. "Haven't you noticed? Michael cuts himself off halfway through challenges, Raphael won't look at me straight on, Kurai gets sad around her eyes whenever you're not watching her, Hatter actually does nice things now and then without Lucifer ordering him to behave..." She frowned at her coffee. "I refuse to be pitied for being human."
"It's not pity."
Sara raised her eyebrows skeptically, and Setsuna's face melted into a strange mix of compassion and amusement. "Really, it's not," he said. "Just... think about it from their perspective, okay? Angels and demons don't age physically once their power reaches its full growth, unless they use magic to shape-shift. That's why it's so rare to see them looking more than, oh, thirty-something. They're not used to old people. They have no damn clue how to act around us, and they're tripping all over themselves not to say something rude."
"They're not succeeding very well," Sara said tartly.
Setsuna shrugged. "Yeah, well, like I said: they have no damn clue. Except Lucifer, obviously, but he doesn't count. He was human too, at least for a while, and you remember how he shut everyone out when his dad died."
Sara did remember. And now that she came to think of it, she vaguely recalled the demons and angels acting just as awkward around Lucifer then as they were acting around her and Setsuna now.
"They're not strangers to death," she said, playing devil's advocate.
"Old age is different from dying in war," Setsuna said, reaching across the table to take Sara's hand in his own. He rubbed his fingers back and forth along her knobby, old-lady knuckles. "Death from violence just cuts you off. It doesn't change you first. It doesn't creep up like a shadow growing longer as the sun goes down."
"Who are you and what have you done with Setsuna?" Sara asked, laughing.
Setsuna laughed with her. "I can't be deep?"
"Depth is fine. Poetry, on the other hand..."
"Okay, okay, I'll back away from the flowery stuff," Setsuna said, holding up his hands, palms forward, as if physically letting go of any attempt at fancy speech. "Still. I think they just feel completely over their heads and they're trying so hard not to make it weird that, well, they make it weird. I don't mind -- I mean, have you seen Michael's expression when he has to catch his temper and not pull out his sword? -- but if it bugs you, just tell them to knock it off. Think of it like knocking sense into your students."
"You realize that you're implying heaven and hell are run by idiot teenagers," Sara said, not bothering to hide her smile.
"Idiot teenagers who happen to be millennia old, but basically? Yeah," Setsuna agreed.
Sara finished her coffee in one long swallow and stood to put the cup in the sink. "You may have a point," she said. "I'll try not to let them get to me, though I don't expect that to be easy. I'm never going to like seeing them unchanged while we get old." She turned to face Setsuna, leaning against the counter in a deceptively casual pose, and waited until he started to take a sip of coffee before adding, "It might be fun to treat Kurai like a grandchild, now that I come to think of it. Oh, she's such a sweet girl, but I worry about her! No education, no plans for the future, no boyfriend -- what does she think she's doing with her life? You know, Omori-san who teaches algebra has a son about her age, very nice young man, studying to be a neurosurgeon. Do you suppose I should introduce them...?"
It had been decades, but she still had their paternal grandmother's cadence down cold.
Setsuna spit coffee back into his cup and coughed for nearly a minute, trying to clear out his lungs. "Sara! Don't do that. My heart can't take it. You're a heartless, evil woman and I don't know why I married you." He was laughing too hard to maintain any sort of believable outrage in his voice or his expression, not that Sara would have paid any attention anyway. She knew perfectly well that his heart was hers forever, no matter how the cold reality of human life nibbled away at her body. She loved him just as much.
"If Kurai does show up for dinner, you have to let me watch when you pull that on her," Setsuna added after catching his breath. "I can't wait to see her face. Or wait, forget Kurai -- you have to pull that on Michael. Can you imagine the explosions? Or maybe Raziel..."
Sara smiled to herself as her brother rambled on about which angel or demon would have the funniest reaction, and whether he could make them swear not to warn anyone else about the trick.
She didn't like getting old, neither in and of itself nor for the way it pulled her and Setsuna away from their inhuman friends. But maybe there were compensations.
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End of Story
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There. That is my token gesture toward productivity for today. (And my choice of story to finish has no connection whatsoever to my approaching 30th birthday, certainly not, I can't imagine why you might think so! *overly dramatic shock*)
Tomorrow I must buckle down and actually work on my poor neglected Narnia Big Bang. I know how to fix the current scene I stalled on, and while I am not quite sure how to get from Rabadash-makes-Ilgamuth-buy-a-spare-horse through the rather nebulously outlined war section to the closing scenes in Tashbaan (which are already written and just need a little polishing once I know what the immediate lead-in will be), I am sure things will shake out in the actual writing. I have done most of the necessary world-building in my head over the past month while I was making no progress whatsoever in terms of word count.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
With that said...
Theme: #6 - If only
Warnings: spoilers!
Notes: This fic is set post-manga, in March 2038. Sara is 54 and Setsuna 55. At some point in the past decade, they moved back from Nagasaki to Tokyo since their parents are both dead now (father from a heart attack, mother from pancreatic cancer) and they're not that worried about hiding anymore. In terms of internal series continuity, it falls between Babies and "If it wasn't you..."
I wrote the first half of this story in 2008 and the second half in 2011, but only got around to the last few paragraphs tonight. I therefore suspect the ending is a bit rushed; if you have any suggestions for smoothing it out, please tell me! (1,900 words)
---------------------------------------------
The Transient and the Eternal: If only
---------------------------------------------
"Your granddaughter stopped by yesterday afternoon, Tendo-san," the security guard said as Sara opened her post box in the lobby. "She said she was sorry she'd missed you, and she might drop in again this evening, as long as she's in town. She seems very considerate, especially for her age. You're lucky to have family like that."
Sara glanced at the neighborhood watch invitation and the postcard from one of her former students, and tossed a shoe catalogue into the recycling bin. "Granddaughter?" She and Setsuna didn't have any children, let alone grandchildren, and Hiro-kun's children weren't anywhere near old enough to visit Kyoto on their own.
"Yes, Akuryuu Kurai," the security guard said. "It's an unfortunate family name."
"Oh, she picked that herself," Sara told him, suddenly focused and utterly furious. "She thinks it's... what's the slang these days... thinks it's pyro."
The guard shrugged. "That's kids for you. We're all a little crazy when we're young. Akuryuu-san seemed sensible enough despite the name and the hair, so she'll probably grow out of it before too long."
"Somehow, I doubt that," Sara muttered, but she thanked the man politely for passing on the message and hurried across the lobby to the elevator. She found herself avoiding the stairs more and more often these days; her knees and feet protested at the end of the day, and she didn't want to stress them more than she had to.
She liked teaching. She loved being around children all day, even the impossible ones, and she liked the vacation breaks. Of course, she had homework to grade all evening and she lost two or three afternoons a week to school clubs -- this year the principal had talked her into supervising the film club, which would get crazier and crazier as the year went on and the kids started filming their own projects -- but even that was fun, in a cockeyed, draining way. Setsuna said it was because she liked feeling useful. Sara supposed there was some truth to that.
What she didn't like was standing on her feet all day long, in heels, on hard tile floors. It was murder on her arches and toes and calves, and it was taking her feet longer and longer to recover these days.
She hated getting old.
Music seeped from around the edges of the apartment door, and Sara frowned as she waved her phone over the lock plate. Setsuna was home far too early -- had something gone wrong? But the music was silly techno-pop, one of the latest girl groups babbling about kisses and candy, which meant Setsuna was in a good mood. If something were wrong, he'd have gone for silence or last decade's fad for classical music as 'played' by recordings of wind and water and other natural sounds.
Setsuna pounced on her as she walked into the main room. "Welcome home! I have great news! Asamura-san is finally retiring, and they've offered me his job. No more on-site supervisory work, just sitting in a nice office doing logistics and schmoozing people on the phone. It's half the work for three times the pay, plus air-conditioning and heating. And no more chance of equipment malfunctions or falling girders for you to worry about! Isn't it great?"
Setsuna locked his hands around Sara's waist and spun her across the room in a dizzying spiral, still strong enough to lift her feet from the ground without noticing. His smile was dazzling.
"That's wonderful," Sara agreed, leaning her head on his shoulder when he slowed them to a stop by the window. "When is Asamura-san's retirement party? How late do you expect to be out?"
"Next Friday, and probably two or three in the morning." Setsuna shrugged, afternoon sunlight glinting off his silvered hair. "I don't like him, but it's politics, you know? I promise I'll eat dinner beforehand."
"Good. I don't care if you can hold alcohol better than everyone else. If you come home drunk again, I'll get another cat."
Setsuna shuddered in mock terror. "No, anything but a cat! Weren't Yuki and Bakemono enough to convince you that all cats are bloodthirsty demons?"
"They liked Lucifer," Sara said, biting back a smile.
"I rest my case," Setsuna said. He nudged Sara toward the kitchen, which smelled enticingly of fresh coffee. "But enough about cats. You look like something's on your mind -- how was school today?"
"Fine. Busy, but fine." Sara slipped out of Setsuna's hands and pulled two mugs down from a cupboard -- blue for her and white for Setsuna -- and set them in front of the coffeemaker. She moved to the sink and began washing her hands. "Kurai stopped by yesterday afternoon, before we got home. She may try to visit again tonight."
"That's--" Setsuna paused. "Okay, something's wrong. You like Kurai; I know you do. Why are you upset that she's here?"
Sara dried her hands carefully, wiping between each finger and shifting her wedding ring up to her knuckle to dab at the imprinted skin where it usually sat. "It's silly." The ring had gotten stuck on her knuckle, and she had to twist and pull for several seconds before she got it resettled. She missed having slender fingers.
"Just because something's silly doesn't mean it can't be real or important," Setsuna said. "Tell me, and if it really is dumb, I'll tell Kurai so she'll think I'm the stupid one, not you."
Despite herself, Sara laughed. Her brother always knew how to make her feel better. She turned, leaning against the sink, and offered Setsuna a sheepish smile. "All right, all right. But it really is silly -- Kurai told the security guard she was our granddaughter. He believed her. That's all."
The coffeemaker gurgled and beeped. Setsuna pulled out the carafe and poured dark, steaming coffee into the mugs. Then he dumped two teaspoons of sugar into his, stirred it, and carried both to the table.
"I don't like getting old either," he said as he sat down. "But they don't think any less of us just because we're getting a little worn around the edges."
Sara sat across from him and reached for her own cup. She blew gently on the coffee to cool it, but held it cupped between her hands, not willing to scorch her mouth. Setsuna, of course, took a big swallow and then hissed through his teeth, sucking in a gulp of air to soothe the burn.
"Maybe they don't think less of us, but they do think differently of us," Sara said. "Haven't you noticed? Michael cuts himself off halfway through challenges, Raphael won't look at me straight on, Kurai gets sad around her eyes whenever you're not watching her, Hatter actually does nice things now and then without Lucifer ordering him to behave..." She frowned at her coffee. "I refuse to be pitied for being human."
"It's not pity."
Sara raised her eyebrows skeptically, and Setsuna's face melted into a strange mix of compassion and amusement. "Really, it's not," he said. "Just... think about it from their perspective, okay? Angels and demons don't age physically once their power reaches its full growth, unless they use magic to shape-shift. That's why it's so rare to see them looking more than, oh, thirty-something. They're not used to old people. They have no damn clue how to act around us, and they're tripping all over themselves not to say something rude."
"They're not succeeding very well," Sara said tartly.
Setsuna shrugged. "Yeah, well, like I said: they have no damn clue. Except Lucifer, obviously, but he doesn't count. He was human too, at least for a while, and you remember how he shut everyone out when his dad died."
Sara did remember. And now that she came to think of it, she vaguely recalled the demons and angels acting just as awkward around Lucifer then as they were acting around her and Setsuna now.
"They're not strangers to death," she said, playing devil's advocate.
"Old age is different from dying in war," Setsuna said, reaching across the table to take Sara's hand in his own. He rubbed his fingers back and forth along her knobby, old-lady knuckles. "Death from violence just cuts you off. It doesn't change you first. It doesn't creep up like a shadow growing longer as the sun goes down."
"Who are you and what have you done with Setsuna?" Sara asked, laughing.
Setsuna laughed with her. "I can't be deep?"
"Depth is fine. Poetry, on the other hand..."
"Okay, okay, I'll back away from the flowery stuff," Setsuna said, holding up his hands, palms forward, as if physically letting go of any attempt at fancy speech. "Still. I think they just feel completely over their heads and they're trying so hard not to make it weird that, well, they make it weird. I don't mind -- I mean, have you seen Michael's expression when he has to catch his temper and not pull out his sword? -- but if it bugs you, just tell them to knock it off. Think of it like knocking sense into your students."
"You realize that you're implying heaven and hell are run by idiot teenagers," Sara said, not bothering to hide her smile.
"Idiot teenagers who happen to be millennia old, but basically? Yeah," Setsuna agreed.
Sara finished her coffee in one long swallow and stood to put the cup in the sink. "You may have a point," she said. "I'll try not to let them get to me, though I don't expect that to be easy. I'm never going to like seeing them unchanged while we get old." She turned to face Setsuna, leaning against the counter in a deceptively casual pose, and waited until he started to take a sip of coffee before adding, "It might be fun to treat Kurai like a grandchild, now that I come to think of it. Oh, she's such a sweet girl, but I worry about her! No education, no plans for the future, no boyfriend -- what does she think she's doing with her life? You know, Omori-san who teaches algebra has a son about her age, very nice young man, studying to be a neurosurgeon. Do you suppose I should introduce them...?"
It had been decades, but she still had their paternal grandmother's cadence down cold.
Setsuna spit coffee back into his cup and coughed for nearly a minute, trying to clear out his lungs. "Sara! Don't do that. My heart can't take it. You're a heartless, evil woman and I don't know why I married you." He was laughing too hard to maintain any sort of believable outrage in his voice or his expression, not that Sara would have paid any attention anyway. She knew perfectly well that his heart was hers forever, no matter how the cold reality of human life nibbled away at her body. She loved him just as much.
"If Kurai does show up for dinner, you have to let me watch when you pull that on her," Setsuna added after catching his breath. "I can't wait to see her face. Or wait, forget Kurai -- you have to pull that on Michael. Can you imagine the explosions? Or maybe Raziel..."
Sara smiled to herself as her brother rambled on about which angel or demon would have the funniest reaction, and whether he could make them swear not to warn anyone else about the trick.
She didn't like getting old, neither in and of itself nor for the way it pulled her and Setsuna away from their inhuman friends. But maybe there were compensations.
---------------------------------------------
End of Story
---------------------------------------------
There. That is my token gesture toward productivity for today. (And my choice of story to finish has no connection whatsoever to my approaching 30th birthday, certainly not, I can't imagine why you might think so! *overly dramatic shock*)
Tomorrow I must buckle down and actually work on my poor neglected Narnia Big Bang. I know how to fix the current scene I stalled on, and while I am not quite sure how to get from Rabadash-makes-Ilgamuth-buy-a-spare-horse through the rather nebulously outlined war section to the closing scenes in Tashbaan (which are already written and just need a little polishing once I know what the immediate lead-in will be), I am sure things will shake out in the actual writing. I have done most of the necessary world-building in my head over the past month while I was making no progress whatsoever in terms of word count.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)