Fic: Serenissima (Inception, PG-13)
title: Serenissima
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: AU Arthur/Eames.
warnings: As mentioned, this is an AU with an interesting origin. This story has its roots in a dance number performed during a Takarazuka Kagekidan musical revue called "The Showstopper". It's a dance about the impossible love between a young nobleman of Venice and a spirit of the famed lagoon. The ending is as one might expect: the two lovers are united beneath the waters.
Mal, Saito, and Ariadne appear as peripheral characters. Eames is the young nobleman, and Arthur is his water-bound lover.
I have chosen to call the location "Serenissima" instead of Venice for purely aesthetic reasons.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: The waters of Serenissima hold many secrets, and many stories.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
"To your health, dearest," the Lady said, raising her goblet to her brother. "Your health and your happiness. You are our source of warmth and joy, and I will always be grateful that you are here."
The others in the room smilingly followed suit. "To your health, young lord."
The young man smiled and drank the toast, and then got up and ran to the Lady, who opened her arms to him and whispered, "Happy twentieth, my beloved."
///
Night had fallen upon Serenissima. An icy sea breeze whispering over the endless waves.
He was holding a shielded lantern high over his head, his eyes restlessly tracking over the calm waters of the canal.
He was waiting for a sign, for a flash of distant red in the deep night.
///
When he was a child, he had preferred to be by himself. Oh, he played with the other noble children under their private tutors' watchful eyes - but once they were dismissed, he would always steal away to amuse himself.
A book and an apple and a bottle of watered wine, and sitting in the deep recesses of the chapel his family owned in San Giacomo. A loaf of bread ignored at his side as he sketched the Bridge of Sighs. A rough leather apron over his fine shirt as he shadowed the glassmasters at their work.
At night, too, he was alone, even as his looking-glass began to tell him about his gray eyes and his sharp cheekbones, a mouth that men and women alike wished to kiss, a lean build that came from daily practice with the sword.
///
His first encounter with the waters of Serenissima came when he was thirteen.
It had not been a good day for him - he had been beaten soundly at the fencing school by two of the older students. One of them had been the girl who had been sending him strangely emotional notes; when he had returned them with a polite smile and a "Thank you, but I do not wish these" she had begun to cry, and then she had attacked him, driving him clear off the footpaths and straight into the canal.
There had been a strong undertow and he'd struggled again and again to draw a breath - and instead he'd inhaled water, started to fall deeper.
And then there were strong arms around his shoulders, a force bearing him upward and back to the surface. A voice in his ear, murmuring, "Breathe, princeling, breathe and return to life. I do not claim you yet."
His friends were shouting, a distant hum in his ears as they pulled him back onto the footpaths.
He was still looking down into the deep, the memory of strange eyes and hair fresh in his mind. Darker than the night and deeper than the waters.
///
He purchased several books on the legends surrounding Serenissima, and began to spend his days quartering the squares and the narrow streets of the city. Disguising himself as a man of the middle class, he spoke with the gondoliers and with the craftsmen, and drank in their knowledge of the lore surrounding the city.
At night, he would read his new books until the candles in his room guttered and his eyes hurt.
The legend that caught at him was the one telling of the fate of the so-called savior of San Giacomo. A promising young painter who had been commissioned to help repaint the interior walls of the great church, he was supposedly of noble birth, and living under a much humbler name.
But not even that other name had survived the night when the church, and most of the city around it, had burned in one of the old, great conflagrations that had been frequent in the early days of Serenissima. The legend went on to say that it was by the young artist's efforts that nearly all of the workmen in San Giacomo survived the fire.
But as the artist had pulled the last survivors to safety he had already been terribly burned by the flames - and the last anyone saw of him was his serene smile, his goodbye, as he calmly walked off one of the bridges and plunged into the cold waters of the canal.
And the young nobleman caught his breath when he finally tracked down the artist's alleged self-portrait, hidden deep in the archives of the city.
Black hair, night-dark eyes. An ironic little smile.
///
At the turn of his sixteenth year, the young nobleman began to take up his family duties. As his sister administered the great vineyards on the mainland, so it was his task to speak with the merchants who helped them sell their wine in Serenissima and elsewhere.
Every day he visited a handful of merchants, spoke about business and haggled with them for prices and commissions.
He began to develop a habit of traveling toward the merchants' offices by gondola, and traveling home on foot. In this way, he told his sister, he could better learn about the city of his birth.
He soon acquired a peculiar reputation among the gondoliers: always charming, unfailingly polite - but always looking down into the deep canals, his eyes fixed unfailingly on Serenissima's waves. For that, they called him the doomed prince.
He heard about it soon enough and all he said was, "Please don't tell my family."
///
"A good morning to you, sir," the female gondolier chirped as she pushed off from the tiny dock. It was winter, but the sun was shining out of a pallid gray sky, and children were laughing up and down the streets in colorful breeches and pinafores.
"Good morning," the young man said, and for once he was smiling up at the sky. "A nice day to be out on the waters."
"It certainly is."
And then there was a warning shout from up ahead: "Fire!"
"There is a way around this, sir, if you do not wish to be involved," the gondolier said, nervously.
"Thank you," he said, "but I must decline your offer. Please let me off here. I must help."
And he threw himself onto the street and charged toward the burning building - a half-charred sign proclaimed it as a library - and, tearing off his sleeve and tying it over his nose and mouth, he called into the burning doors, "Is there anyone still in there? Answer me!"
"Help!"
He didn't think, he didn't even feel - he simply dashed forward, eyes watering at the heat and the acrid smell of books turning into ash.
In one of the reading alcoves lay an older man, hair and beard already silvering. He was on his knees next to a collection of red-bound volumes.
"Come along, master," the young man said, and he knelt down next to the man, offered him his back. Once the man was safely in place, he picked up as many of the books as he could - and only then did he make his way back to the doors.
It was more difficult going back, but the man knew another way to the front doors, and soon they were gasping in great lungfuls of the salty air - and just in time, too, for as the young nobleman helped the man get to his feet on one of the docks there was a sudden explosion.
The force of the explosion shook the docks and while the old man kept his footing, the young man didn't - and he plunged into the water.
He kept his eyes open as he was borne inexorably down.
And then two things struck him at the same time: a long pole, such as a gondolier might use to pole his or her craft, on his shoulder.
A hand around his ankle, and a strong grip.
He looked down, into a pair of dark eyes, into a sad and understanding smile.
And the hand holding him down boosted him upwards, with remarkable strength, and he seized the pole and began to climb back to the surface of the water.
He took a deep breath as soon as he had surfaced - and then he looked down, into the dark waters, and said, "I will be with you."
///
The sounds of his twentieth birthday party were still going on when he made up his mind and brought the lantern back into his room. He took a taper from his desk and a flame from the lantern, lit the lamp on his desk, and began to write.
"Take this not amiss, dearest sister. I go to the arms of the one who has been searching for me for many years. Thank you for being my family. Be happy. I love you."
A puddle of wax at the bottom of the note. He looked ruefully at his signet ring. He had just received it from his sister, and she had apologized when they both saw that it was a little too loose for his finger. He traced the lines of the family crest, thinking about their parents who had died when they were children.
Then he drove the signet into the wax, using it for the first and last time.
///
When he looked out over the waters there was a faint red light shimmering up at him.
The winter moon hung like a distant lamp in the cold night. Sea breezes, the scent of dead vines and mountain snow.
The young nobleman sat down on the dock and said, quietly, "I am here."
And from the waters rose a familiar face. The face that had been haunting his dreams for years, the face that he had been searching the waters of Serenissima for.
"Hello," the young man said, and held out his hand. "I've been waiting for this night for a long time."
"As have I," the spirit whispered.
The young man smiled, and sat back, and deliberately let his eyes look up and down the spirit's lithe frame. Here were those night-dark eyes that he remembered vividly from the portrait. Black hair, slicked back by the water. A necklace of plain silver links bearing a great red jewel, the source of the light in the water.
The spirit was nude from the waist up; he was wearing a pair of clinging black breeches.
And he asked, "May I know why...why tonight? I have been watching over you for all this time, and I would not have minded watching over you for many years yet. I know of your family; I know you are the only son. I would have waited for you to come even if you had come to me an old man."
And the young nobleman chuckled, ruefully. "I could not give myself to others while I remembered you. People were asking if I would consent to marry their daughters...but I have never even wished to make love to any other.
"I have only wanted you, from the moment we met."
"What you propose will mean grief for your family." But the spirit was inching closer, his cold hand atop his on the rough wood of the dock. "You will bring pain and sorrow to them."
"Would they rather I withered away, old and sad and ultimately dead before my time? No, it's better this way," the young man said. "Better they remember me happy and alive, laughing on my birthday."
The spirit looked shy, then. "I have not brought you any presents."
He smiled, and caught the spirit by the back of his neck, pulled him close. "That you are here, that you know what I'm about to do, that you know why. That is present enough for me."
The first touch of mouth on mouth was surprising: for the spirit's skin was cold where he was touching it, but his mouth was hot and welcoming; his kisses as intoxicating as wine, but sweeter and far more potent.
The young nobleman broke away with a gasp, long enough to mutter, "If I had known earlier...." And he felt the spirit smile against his lips, felt the spirit loop his arms around his shoulders and waist, felt the spirit kiss him, over and over again, and he could not get enough.
He never felt it when the spirit pulled him closer, pulled them over the edge of the docks. He never felt the water closing in around him, never felt his signet ring slip away.
The young nobleman followed the spirit down, down, drinking him in, through the dark waters.
///
The next day, the ring washed up on a distant shore. Wrapped around it was a chain of silver links, in a style that had been in fashion just prior to a season of great fires, when the whole of Serenissima had been threatened with flame, and not even the revered halls of San Giacomo were safe.
The great red jewel on the necklace bore faint traces of having been engraved with two names.
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: AU Arthur/Eames.
warnings: As mentioned, this is an AU with an interesting origin. This story has its roots in a dance number performed during a Takarazuka Kagekidan musical revue called "The Showstopper". It's a dance about the impossible love between a young nobleman of Venice and a spirit of the famed lagoon. The ending is as one might expect: the two lovers are united beneath the waters.
Mal, Saito, and Ariadne appear as peripheral characters. Eames is the young nobleman, and Arthur is his water-bound lover.
I have chosen to call the location "Serenissima" instead of Venice for purely aesthetic reasons.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: The waters of Serenissima hold many secrets, and many stories.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org.
"To your health, dearest," the Lady said, raising her goblet to her brother. "Your health and your happiness. You are our source of warmth and joy, and I will always be grateful that you are here."
The others in the room smilingly followed suit. "To your health, young lord."
The young man smiled and drank the toast, and then got up and ran to the Lady, who opened her arms to him and whispered, "Happy twentieth, my beloved."
///
Night had fallen upon Serenissima. An icy sea breeze whispering over the endless waves.
He was holding a shielded lantern high over his head, his eyes restlessly tracking over the calm waters of the canal.
He was waiting for a sign, for a flash of distant red in the deep night.
///
When he was a child, he had preferred to be by himself. Oh, he played with the other noble children under their private tutors' watchful eyes - but once they were dismissed, he would always steal away to amuse himself.
A book and an apple and a bottle of watered wine, and sitting in the deep recesses of the chapel his family owned in San Giacomo. A loaf of bread ignored at his side as he sketched the Bridge of Sighs. A rough leather apron over his fine shirt as he shadowed the glassmasters at their work.
At night, too, he was alone, even as his looking-glass began to tell him about his gray eyes and his sharp cheekbones, a mouth that men and women alike wished to kiss, a lean build that came from daily practice with the sword.
///
His first encounter with the waters of Serenissima came when he was thirteen.
It had not been a good day for him - he had been beaten soundly at the fencing school by two of the older students. One of them had been the girl who had been sending him strangely emotional notes; when he had returned them with a polite smile and a "Thank you, but I do not wish these" she had begun to cry, and then she had attacked him, driving him clear off the footpaths and straight into the canal.
There had been a strong undertow and he'd struggled again and again to draw a breath - and instead he'd inhaled water, started to fall deeper.
And then there were strong arms around his shoulders, a force bearing him upward and back to the surface. A voice in his ear, murmuring, "Breathe, princeling, breathe and return to life. I do not claim you yet."
His friends were shouting, a distant hum in his ears as they pulled him back onto the footpaths.
He was still looking down into the deep, the memory of strange eyes and hair fresh in his mind. Darker than the night and deeper than the waters.
///
He purchased several books on the legends surrounding Serenissima, and began to spend his days quartering the squares and the narrow streets of the city. Disguising himself as a man of the middle class, he spoke with the gondoliers and with the craftsmen, and drank in their knowledge of the lore surrounding the city.
At night, he would read his new books until the candles in his room guttered and his eyes hurt.
The legend that caught at him was the one telling of the fate of the so-called savior of San Giacomo. A promising young painter who had been commissioned to help repaint the interior walls of the great church, he was supposedly of noble birth, and living under a much humbler name.
But not even that other name had survived the night when the church, and most of the city around it, had burned in one of the old, great conflagrations that had been frequent in the early days of Serenissima. The legend went on to say that it was by the young artist's efforts that nearly all of the workmen in San Giacomo survived the fire.
But as the artist had pulled the last survivors to safety he had already been terribly burned by the flames - and the last anyone saw of him was his serene smile, his goodbye, as he calmly walked off one of the bridges and plunged into the cold waters of the canal.
And the young nobleman caught his breath when he finally tracked down the artist's alleged self-portrait, hidden deep in the archives of the city.
Black hair, night-dark eyes. An ironic little smile.
///
At the turn of his sixteenth year, the young nobleman began to take up his family duties. As his sister administered the great vineyards on the mainland, so it was his task to speak with the merchants who helped them sell their wine in Serenissima and elsewhere.
Every day he visited a handful of merchants, spoke about business and haggled with them for prices and commissions.
He began to develop a habit of traveling toward the merchants' offices by gondola, and traveling home on foot. In this way, he told his sister, he could better learn about the city of his birth.
He soon acquired a peculiar reputation among the gondoliers: always charming, unfailingly polite - but always looking down into the deep canals, his eyes fixed unfailingly on Serenissima's waves. For that, they called him the doomed prince.
He heard about it soon enough and all he said was, "Please don't tell my family."
///
"A good morning to you, sir," the female gondolier chirped as she pushed off from the tiny dock. It was winter, but the sun was shining out of a pallid gray sky, and children were laughing up and down the streets in colorful breeches and pinafores.
"Good morning," the young man said, and for once he was smiling up at the sky. "A nice day to be out on the waters."
"It certainly is."
And then there was a warning shout from up ahead: "Fire!"
"There is a way around this, sir, if you do not wish to be involved," the gondolier said, nervously.
"Thank you," he said, "but I must decline your offer. Please let me off here. I must help."
And he threw himself onto the street and charged toward the burning building - a half-charred sign proclaimed it as a library - and, tearing off his sleeve and tying it over his nose and mouth, he called into the burning doors, "Is there anyone still in there? Answer me!"
"Help!"
He didn't think, he didn't even feel - he simply dashed forward, eyes watering at the heat and the acrid smell of books turning into ash.
In one of the reading alcoves lay an older man, hair and beard already silvering. He was on his knees next to a collection of red-bound volumes.
"Come along, master," the young man said, and he knelt down next to the man, offered him his back. Once the man was safely in place, he picked up as many of the books as he could - and only then did he make his way back to the doors.
It was more difficult going back, but the man knew another way to the front doors, and soon they were gasping in great lungfuls of the salty air - and just in time, too, for as the young nobleman helped the man get to his feet on one of the docks there was a sudden explosion.
The force of the explosion shook the docks and while the old man kept his footing, the young man didn't - and he plunged into the water.
He kept his eyes open as he was borne inexorably down.
And then two things struck him at the same time: a long pole, such as a gondolier might use to pole his or her craft, on his shoulder.
A hand around his ankle, and a strong grip.
He looked down, into a pair of dark eyes, into a sad and understanding smile.
And the hand holding him down boosted him upwards, with remarkable strength, and he seized the pole and began to climb back to the surface of the water.
He took a deep breath as soon as he had surfaced - and then he looked down, into the dark waters, and said, "I will be with you."
///
The sounds of his twentieth birthday party were still going on when he made up his mind and brought the lantern back into his room. He took a taper from his desk and a flame from the lantern, lit the lamp on his desk, and began to write.
"Take this not amiss, dearest sister. I go to the arms of the one who has been searching for me for many years. Thank you for being my family. Be happy. I love you."
A puddle of wax at the bottom of the note. He looked ruefully at his signet ring. He had just received it from his sister, and she had apologized when they both saw that it was a little too loose for his finger. He traced the lines of the family crest, thinking about their parents who had died when they were children.
Then he drove the signet into the wax, using it for the first and last time.
///
When he looked out over the waters there was a faint red light shimmering up at him.
The winter moon hung like a distant lamp in the cold night. Sea breezes, the scent of dead vines and mountain snow.
The young nobleman sat down on the dock and said, quietly, "I am here."
And from the waters rose a familiar face. The face that had been haunting his dreams for years, the face that he had been searching the waters of Serenissima for.
"Hello," the young man said, and held out his hand. "I've been waiting for this night for a long time."
"As have I," the spirit whispered.
The young man smiled, and sat back, and deliberately let his eyes look up and down the spirit's lithe frame. Here were those night-dark eyes that he remembered vividly from the portrait. Black hair, slicked back by the water. A necklace of plain silver links bearing a great red jewel, the source of the light in the water.
The spirit was nude from the waist up; he was wearing a pair of clinging black breeches.
And he asked, "May I know why...why tonight? I have been watching over you for all this time, and I would not have minded watching over you for many years yet. I know of your family; I know you are the only son. I would have waited for you to come even if you had come to me an old man."
And the young nobleman chuckled, ruefully. "I could not give myself to others while I remembered you. People were asking if I would consent to marry their daughters...but I have never even wished to make love to any other.
"I have only wanted you, from the moment we met."
"What you propose will mean grief for your family." But the spirit was inching closer, his cold hand atop his on the rough wood of the dock. "You will bring pain and sorrow to them."
"Would they rather I withered away, old and sad and ultimately dead before my time? No, it's better this way," the young man said. "Better they remember me happy and alive, laughing on my birthday."
The spirit looked shy, then. "I have not brought you any presents."
He smiled, and caught the spirit by the back of his neck, pulled him close. "That you are here, that you know what I'm about to do, that you know why. That is present enough for me."
The first touch of mouth on mouth was surprising: for the spirit's skin was cold where he was touching it, but his mouth was hot and welcoming; his kisses as intoxicating as wine, but sweeter and far more potent.
The young nobleman broke away with a gasp, long enough to mutter, "If I had known earlier...." And he felt the spirit smile against his lips, felt the spirit loop his arms around his shoulders and waist, felt the spirit kiss him, over and over again, and he could not get enough.
He never felt it when the spirit pulled him closer, pulled them over the edge of the docks. He never felt the water closing in around him, never felt his signet ring slip away.
The young nobleman followed the spirit down, down, drinking him in, through the dark waters.
///
The next day, the ring washed up on a distant shore. Wrapped around it was a chain of silver links, in a style that had been in fashion just prior to a season of great fires, when the whole of Serenissima had been threatened with flame, and not even the revered halls of San Giacomo were safe.
The great red jewel on the necklace bore faint traces of having been engraved with two names.