[Week 8, Day 7 / Midday] Salutatio Angelica, Amen
A distant choir....
"Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom His love commits me here,
ever this night be at my side,
to light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen."
-
Pews.
Rows and rows of dusty pews fill a small and humbly decorated church. Windows with simple glass and an altar with tattered but painstakingly cared for tapestries and goblets, candlesticks and books. They are all squished together, jumbled because the person who keeps them here in his mind knows they are important but knows not why. Knows they are necessary but doesn’t know their roles or how to orchestrate them to make that magic or to make the colors in the glass come alive or the faces in the paintings speak to him.
Something is wrong. Very wrong about the flock that gathers here.
Pew after pew is filled with heads and bodies. Unmoving. Staring forward with blank expressions. They aren’t alive. They are dolls. Each one with the same little sweater vest kept perfectly neat and a tie to match. Except one here with a loose thread, and there with a missing finger. And another with a crack in the porcelain from the corner of its overly saccharine smile. Injuries and wounds from being hugged too tightly, clung to too restlessly. Well loved by their keeper their dark hair is slightly mussed and the cheeks sometimes slightly smudged, but the boy has done the best a child can do to keep each safe and unharmed.
And to keep their green eyes looking forward to where the sun will rise beyond the glass. Hoping. Dreaming that when the glass starts to live maybe those green eyes will as well.
The child is the only one moving here. Not Yoite, not Sora. Some mismatched mix of the two with black fingers and dried blood on his chin, but that little white shirt, pale bare feet, and big hopeful blue eyes.
He sits on the floor with little plastic pieces strewn about him. One unfinished body with a small head, messy black hair, and verdant eyes set beside him. No smile. Still no smile. Never got a chance to make him smile…
….And another form that he struggles with, trying to affix an arm in place when the hand becomes dislodged, causing the doll to fall out of his grip, head smashing against the stone floor hidden and pink hair splaying across the ground.
A scream.
Yoite shrieks in horror and frustration as it breaks.
“N-no! NO! G-go back together… p-please…. “
His little hands scramble over the pieces, jagged under his palms, trying to force them back into place. Rough edge against rough edge they are puzzle pieces that will not fit, only breaking more the harder he tries. In his desperation his elbow knocks the doll resting against his hip and the green eyes shatter and the black hair slips from its place leaving only a cracked porcelain skull.
“NO!! NO!! STOP PLEASE!!”
He scurries across the floor trying to gather what he can into his arms. To get them somewhere…anywhere… to fix them…yes… he can fix them if he-
-if he-
-if….
As he turns his eyes meet with his audience of dolls. Each one watching him. Each one smiling at him. Always smiling.
“…I c-can f-fix them…”
Silence amongst the sea of blank smiles.
“I c-can!” He pleads with them.
Still no answer.
“I-I’ll fix everything…”
A small snap from somewhere in the far back, so small it is almost unnoticeable but it sets off a wave of cracks and smashes gathering in force and sound as faster and faster they each start to crumble, shattering one by one though no one has touched them. They break easily…they were already hollow.
Tears well and slowly spill onto his cheeks
“..I w-would have…f-fixed them f-for you…”
The pews fill with dust and empty clothes. Ties with no necks and vests with no ribs or stomachs to fill them and give them form. There aren’t even pieces. Nothing for yoite to grab onto. To hold. Nothing left for him.
“PLEASE!”
Gone.
All gone. Everything. Everyone.
“…p-please d-don’t leave me a-alone..”
He drops down into a ball and buries his screams into the floor. Around him the room cleans itself. Washes away the traces of his toys. His friends. The seats are empty leaving wood that shines, and marble that is now bright with no stains of ash gathering in the vaulted ceiling.
As if no one has ever passed through this place.
And for a long moment his small body remains still against the ground. It feels cold pressed against his cheek and that small sensation travels deep into his spine, making his insides curdle and sour with an icy chill. His heart aches.
Why can he feel it aching?
A hand is gently pressed against his shoulder. It rubs a little, then shakes him softly.
“..stand up, Yoite, you must get up …” Not a command, it is urging…guiding….
That voice is familiar. Terrifyingly so. The way it carries a tender kindness and the way it urges him to get up and try. An undying hope that is not his own. Yes, Yoite remembers this voice, but in this place he doesn’t want to remember why. As his blue eyes breech slightly over the fabric of his sleeve, white downy feathers flutter and fall past, each glowing with a warm light.
“There is always something that can be done…the way it must be…”
The light becomes brighter as the presence steps around to stand before him and bends gently to take hold of his upper arms.
“I will help you…I told you I would stay…”
A light tug and Yoite is lifted back onto his small feet in such a way that his head snaps back and his eyes fly wide open. It makes his head rush and momentarily his vision swims in an onslaught of color before settling on a scar and a head of pure white hair. He can’t see the rest, the glow is too bright and makes him recoil and shield himself from it by throwing up his now gloved hands to cover his own face.
The last thing he sees as the gaps between his fingers close is blue eyes.
angel….
“….I have…a confession….”
-
[Yoite wakes with a choking gasp, chest heaving, and eyes fluttering open only to instantly wince and squint as the sun floods them, so bright that for a moment he almost thinks that-]
“A-angel…”
[but the shock of the light in his face slowly dulls as it dawns upon him that he is just in the room he now shares with Gau. No church. No dolls. Just Gau’s perfectly made bed beside his own.
Napping…he had been napping whilst Gau was out of the house…the only thing he really did while Gau was away.
Now he is trembling and he tugs the blankets tightly around himself and buries himself in them before shutting off the hitomi.]