Rather Randomly, I've Written a Blood+ Fic
Title:: "Espoir et Désespoir"
Fandom: Blood+ (anime)
Characters: Hagi, Solomon
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for themes
Summary: A slightly AU filler fic: what if two chevaliers struck up a correspondence while their queens slept?
A/N: I've grappled with the title. My poor French tells me it ought to have articles, but I prefer the phonetic effect without, and I found at least one French blog without, so it can't be too bizarre? Speaking of French, in "reality," I'm virtually certain Solomon would write to Hagi in French, but since that is beyond my powers, he is introducing the conversation in English: maybe he noted that Hagi's English was really good?
"Espoir et Désespoir"
April 5, 1962
Dear M. Agis,
I thought I recognized you at the Haydnsaal in March. I must confess myself deeply impressed by your talent. I found your rendition of Suite No. 3 extremely satisfying.
I hope you’ll excuse me for taking the liberty of tracking down your postal address through the orchestra. I’m sure it seems unorthodox--perhaps untoward--for one of us to be contacting you. I assure you I have no intention of compromising your position or mine. In fact, I have a question for you, which is, I think, of no strategic importance but of considerable interest to me: I would like to know how you manage the long waiting.
Yours with consideration,
Solomon Goldsmith
***
April 30, 1962
Dear Dr. Goldsmith,
Thank you for your letter and your compliments. You are correct that I find your contact a little untoward. I am curious: you are, of my last count, one of five chevaliers. Certainly you discuss this question among yourselves? You have said that this question is of no strategic importance, but that would seem a too quick assumption. Knowledge is power, isn’t that so?
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
May 14, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Apologies for misspelling your name! It’s not like any French spelling I’ve ever seen before.
You’re correct, of course, that I share 'our condition' with my brothers. And yet though there are five of us, they do not offer as much insight as you might imagine. Nathan, who doubtless has the most knowledge of any of us, holds his cards very close. Amshel, as you know, copes by murdering to dissect. James has the psychological sophistication of a ten year old. And my poor Karl, well...
Strategic importance? I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.
Tell me, are you miserable without her? Does it fill you with despair to know you will always live 9/10ths of your life without her?
Yours,
Solomon
***
May 28, 1962
Dear Solomon,
You represent Amshel succinctly. There’s a difference between misery and despair. Yes, I am often miserable without her. No, I am not despairing--unless you mean that in an Existential sense: it is true that I don’t hope for anything else.
The waiting (not unlike the waking) is filled with privation. I am malcontented with many things, almost always. But at bottom, I am more happy than I am unhappy, as surprising as that may sound. The source of the true malcontent in life is inner conflict. I have only trivial inner conflicts. I love her whom I love totally. I know absolutely that my duty is to serve her. One day, we will die, but that happens to everything. I miss her when she sleeps, but I have my music, which brings moments of joy. This is as much happiness as most sentient beings can hope to achieve. However, please understand that I did not attain this realisation until about ten years ago. For many decades I regarded myself as truly wretched. Is that helpful?
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
June 12, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Your letter was helpful, yes. Thank you. I might as well confess I envy you your lack of conflict. I think it’s impossible to be one of Diva’s Chevaliers--and be sane--and not be conflicted. (Well, Nathan seems to pull it off, but I’m damned if I know how.)
Loving Diva is... I can liken it to nothing so much as being an ancient worshipper of the goddess Eris. She is... like Vishnu, if you’ll pardon a change in metaphor. She is too dazzling to be looked at. She is a damaged, errant child. It is impossible for any sane person to approve of her whimsical devastation. It is impossible for me not to want what is her will. I am terrified of her waking, as I might be of losing myself in the most mind-breakingly beautiful dream I ever had. Perhaps my feelings are the opposite of yours. Perhaps I find the waiting hard because its end looms.
This is a great deal of “strategic information,” I know. Perhaps I’m asking for your help?
Yours,
S. G.
***
June 27, 1962
Dear Solomon,
It must be very difficult to be Diva’s chevalier. You have my sympathies. I’m not sure what you want from me. If it would help you if we killed Diva, I can assure you we will certainly try, but this cannot be what you want. You are loyal to her, are you not? You do wish to defend her, I take it? By your words, one might doubt it.
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
July 12, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Thank you for your letter. I'm going to begin with a ramble that will appear a non-sequitur but isn't. Diva is profoundly frightening. I suppose this isn't news to you: you knew her at the Zoo; you've seen her in battle. But to be one of Diva's servants is more frightening still.
You never know with Diva what you're going to get. She can drink you as if she'd tear the core out of the Earth. She can slice you to ribbons because, in that moment, she has a fancy to see flesh hang from bone. Or she can kiss your cheek and present you with the most charming bouquet of violets. She is beautiful; she is heartbreaking. To make love to Diva is to be engulfed in a blue-psychedelic synæsthesia. It is both delirious and demanding of a rather painful presence of mind. One is continually terrified of hurting her or displeasing her as, at the slightest displeasure, she is apt to dismember one in a most embarrassing fashion.
Why is she like this? You know the answer as well as I--better, I daresay, having 'grown up' with her. She is a lonely child, and she is powerful and unchecked and unhappy.
Your solution to this problem is to kill her. Well, that's one way, if you can manage it, but you're correct that I can only resist that solution. I cannot conceive of her death as the answer. And tell me this: does Saya truly, truly want to kill her sister? Diva loves Saya, however badly she may show it, more than anyone else in her existence. Does Saya truly feel so little in return? And if so, which one is the monster?
What I would like to see is Diva stripped of the motive for her sadism. I would like to see Diva happy. For that, surely, she needs her sister's love, not this vendetta.
Yours,
S. G.
***
August 1, 1962
Dear Solomon,
Your letter made me laugh--midway in. Forgive me. I did not laugh at the end.
Diva offers you many difficulties, and yet I envy you for one thing: that she takes pleasure in you. Saya rarely makes use of me, these past two wakings. I tell you nothing you haven't observed for yourself when I say she would rather half-starve than take my blood. This does me pain. It makes me feel... defective. I suppose it must be something like what a mother feels when her baby will not take the breast. I wonder sometimes if something in me is ill-made. I could never give her children either--not that we wished for that, but even when we were young and the need mastered the judgment... well, nothing has ever come of it. In any case, if Saya no longer wishes to touch me, I must subordinate myself to her wish for solitude just as you must subordinate yourself to Diva's desires. Obedience is our first function.
As for your desire to heal Diva by bringing her happiness, I find it laudable but naïve. From what I've seen, Diva is beyond healing. But even if she could be healed of all but the occasional bitter memory, a single moment of bitterness from Diva--a single moment of childlike caprice--can ripple into the deaths of dozens or much worse. Saya believes that all our kind are inherently monsters. How can we deny this? Apart from the duty to make the world safe from Diva, Saya sees no reason she herself, or any chiropteran, should live among men. Then, how much less Diva? I am sorry, Solomon, but you know that this is so.
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
August 13, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Lord, what infants we are! We fall out of our human world into this new species as innocent as Adam, and who exists to educate us? You don't know, do you: what Amshel tried decades to figure out and Nathan finally deigned to teach us? No Chevalier can produce children with his Queen. The blood, I suspect, is too close: some sort of genetic ward against inbreeding. Thus, (it makes a sort of sense) a Queen can breed only with her sister's Chevaliers.
This means, among other things, my friend, that you are the only man in the world who can give children to Diva. Shall I congratulate you now or hold off a bit?
In all seriousness, I imagine this makes you rather queasy. If it's any consolation, Diva detests you. She perceives you as the person who stole her sister's affection. To her, you are nothing but a petty, yet frustratingly persistent, rival.
Still, what an interesting collection of facts we have here:
-- You make a convincing case that seeking to make Diva content is naïve. And yet, perhaps, through one particular course, it might be absurdly easy...
-- Diva wants children, more than she wants anything else. It is the soul of her longing for family, her longing not to be alone.
-- You could give this to her... except that you, I'm sure, are just about as eager to sleep with her as she is to sleep with you.
-- And if she ever let her desire to bear children trump her disinclination to be anywhere near you, may Saya protect you, for Diva would love you much as a black widow would.
-- And yet... and yet, perhaps you could save her.
-- Amshel and I are scientists. Perhaps we could find a method of insemination that wouldn't necessitate physical contact...
This truly hadn't occurred to me until your letter. If you suspect an ulterior motive in my approaching you, I invite you to reread my rather florid letter of July Whatever. If I were trying to get you into bed with Diva, I assure you I'd have used a different tack. Then again, I'm not exactly selling it well now, am I? But I can't abandon this thought. There's too much at stake.
Yours,
S. G.
***
August 29, 1962
Dear Solomon,
You are correct: this revelation makes me queasy. I sympathize with your dilemma and esteem your efforts to preserve Diva while minimizing her injury to others.
Nevertheless, nothing would induce me to have children with Diva. You offer compelling arguments against any such attempt yourself. To them, and to my own disgust at the idea, I add the argument Saya would offer were she here: there should be no more chiropterans. Not Diva's children, not Saya's, not mine, not yours, no more chevaliers, no queens, no mindless monsters. None.
Saya wishes to die. She wishes for all our kind to die, and I cannot act against her wish. Sooner or later, this will be the ending. I'm sorry but it must be so.
H.
P. S. I will relocate soon and do not anticipate having a postal address. In any case, it seems best that we terminate these letters, which tend naturally toward conflict of interest, as I have previously remarked. Still, I have enjoyed corresponding with you. Thank you.
Fandom: Blood+ (anime)
Characters: Hagi, Solomon
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for themes
Summary: A slightly AU filler fic: what if two chevaliers struck up a correspondence while their queens slept?
A/N: I've grappled with the title. My poor French tells me it ought to have articles, but I prefer the phonetic effect without, and I found at least one French blog without, so it can't be too bizarre? Speaking of French, in "reality," I'm virtually certain Solomon would write to Hagi in French, but since that is beyond my powers, he is introducing the conversation in English: maybe he noted that Hagi's English was really good?
"Espoir et Désespoir"
April 5, 1962
Dear M. Agis,
I thought I recognized you at the Haydnsaal in March. I must confess myself deeply impressed by your talent. I found your rendition of Suite No. 3 extremely satisfying.
I hope you’ll excuse me for taking the liberty of tracking down your postal address through the orchestra. I’m sure it seems unorthodox--perhaps untoward--for one of us to be contacting you. I assure you I have no intention of compromising your position or mine. In fact, I have a question for you, which is, I think, of no strategic importance but of considerable interest to me: I would like to know how you manage the long waiting.
Yours with consideration,
Solomon Goldsmith
***
April 30, 1962
Dear Dr. Goldsmith,
Thank you for your letter and your compliments. You are correct that I find your contact a little untoward. I am curious: you are, of my last count, one of five chevaliers. Certainly you discuss this question among yourselves? You have said that this question is of no strategic importance, but that would seem a too quick assumption. Knowledge is power, isn’t that so?
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
May 14, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Apologies for misspelling your name! It’s not like any French spelling I’ve ever seen before.
You’re correct, of course, that I share 'our condition' with my brothers. And yet though there are five of us, they do not offer as much insight as you might imagine. Nathan, who doubtless has the most knowledge of any of us, holds his cards very close. Amshel, as you know, copes by murdering to dissect. James has the psychological sophistication of a ten year old. And my poor Karl, well...
Strategic importance? I don’t think I’m telling you anything you don’t already know.
Tell me, are you miserable without her? Does it fill you with despair to know you will always live 9/10ths of your life without her?
Yours,
Solomon
***
May 28, 1962
Dear Solomon,
You represent Amshel succinctly. There’s a difference between misery and despair. Yes, I am often miserable without her. No, I am not despairing--unless you mean that in an Existential sense: it is true that I don’t hope for anything else.
The waiting (not unlike the waking) is filled with privation. I am malcontented with many things, almost always. But at bottom, I am more happy than I am unhappy, as surprising as that may sound. The source of the true malcontent in life is inner conflict. I have only trivial inner conflicts. I love her whom I love totally. I know absolutely that my duty is to serve her. One day, we will die, but that happens to everything. I miss her when she sleeps, but I have my music, which brings moments of joy. This is as much happiness as most sentient beings can hope to achieve. However, please understand that I did not attain this realisation until about ten years ago. For many decades I regarded myself as truly wretched. Is that helpful?
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
June 12, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Your letter was helpful, yes. Thank you. I might as well confess I envy you your lack of conflict. I think it’s impossible to be one of Diva’s Chevaliers--and be sane--and not be conflicted. (Well, Nathan seems to pull it off, but I’m damned if I know how.)
Loving Diva is... I can liken it to nothing so much as being an ancient worshipper of the goddess Eris. She is... like Vishnu, if you’ll pardon a change in metaphor. She is too dazzling to be looked at. She is a damaged, errant child. It is impossible for any sane person to approve of her whimsical devastation. It is impossible for me not to want what is her will. I am terrified of her waking, as I might be of losing myself in the most mind-breakingly beautiful dream I ever had. Perhaps my feelings are the opposite of yours. Perhaps I find the waiting hard because its end looms.
This is a great deal of “strategic information,” I know. Perhaps I’m asking for your help?
Yours,
S. G.
***
June 27, 1962
Dear Solomon,
It must be very difficult to be Diva’s chevalier. You have my sympathies. I’m not sure what you want from me. If it would help you if we killed Diva, I can assure you we will certainly try, but this cannot be what you want. You are loyal to her, are you not? You do wish to defend her, I take it? By your words, one might doubt it.
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
July 12, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Thank you for your letter. I'm going to begin with a ramble that will appear a non-sequitur but isn't. Diva is profoundly frightening. I suppose this isn't news to you: you knew her at the Zoo; you've seen her in battle. But to be one of Diva's servants is more frightening still.
You never know with Diva what you're going to get. She can drink you as if she'd tear the core out of the Earth. She can slice you to ribbons because, in that moment, she has a fancy to see flesh hang from bone. Or she can kiss your cheek and present you with the most charming bouquet of violets. She is beautiful; she is heartbreaking. To make love to Diva is to be engulfed in a blue-psychedelic synæsthesia. It is both delirious and demanding of a rather painful presence of mind. One is continually terrified of hurting her or displeasing her as, at the slightest displeasure, she is apt to dismember one in a most embarrassing fashion.
Why is she like this? You know the answer as well as I--better, I daresay, having 'grown up' with her. She is a lonely child, and she is powerful and unchecked and unhappy.
Your solution to this problem is to kill her. Well, that's one way, if you can manage it, but you're correct that I can only resist that solution. I cannot conceive of her death as the answer. And tell me this: does Saya truly, truly want to kill her sister? Diva loves Saya, however badly she may show it, more than anyone else in her existence. Does Saya truly feel so little in return? And if so, which one is the monster?
What I would like to see is Diva stripped of the motive for her sadism. I would like to see Diva happy. For that, surely, she needs her sister's love, not this vendetta.
Yours,
S. G.
***
August 1, 1962
Dear Solomon,
Your letter made me laugh--midway in. Forgive me. I did not laugh at the end.
Diva offers you many difficulties, and yet I envy you for one thing: that she takes pleasure in you. Saya rarely makes use of me, these past two wakings. I tell you nothing you haven't observed for yourself when I say she would rather half-starve than take my blood. This does me pain. It makes me feel... defective. I suppose it must be something like what a mother feels when her baby will not take the breast. I wonder sometimes if something in me is ill-made. I could never give her children either--not that we wished for that, but even when we were young and the need mastered the judgment... well, nothing has ever come of it. In any case, if Saya no longer wishes to touch me, I must subordinate myself to her wish for solitude just as you must subordinate yourself to Diva's desires. Obedience is our first function.
As for your desire to heal Diva by bringing her happiness, I find it laudable but naïve. From what I've seen, Diva is beyond healing. But even if she could be healed of all but the occasional bitter memory, a single moment of bitterness from Diva--a single moment of childlike caprice--can ripple into the deaths of dozens or much worse. Saya believes that all our kind are inherently monsters. How can we deny this? Apart from the duty to make the world safe from Diva, Saya sees no reason she herself, or any chiropteran, should live among men. Then, how much less Diva? I am sorry, Solomon, but you know that this is so.
Respectfully,
Hagi
***
August 13, 1962
Dear Hagi,
Lord, what infants we are! We fall out of our human world into this new species as innocent as Adam, and who exists to educate us? You don't know, do you: what Amshel tried decades to figure out and Nathan finally deigned to teach us? No Chevalier can produce children with his Queen. The blood, I suspect, is too close: some sort of genetic ward against inbreeding. Thus, (it makes a sort of sense) a Queen can breed only with her sister's Chevaliers.
This means, among other things, my friend, that you are the only man in the world who can give children to Diva. Shall I congratulate you now or hold off a bit?
In all seriousness, I imagine this makes you rather queasy. If it's any consolation, Diva detests you. She perceives you as the person who stole her sister's affection. To her, you are nothing but a petty, yet frustratingly persistent, rival.
Still, what an interesting collection of facts we have here:
-- You make a convincing case that seeking to make Diva content is naïve. And yet, perhaps, through one particular course, it might be absurdly easy...
-- Diva wants children, more than she wants anything else. It is the soul of her longing for family, her longing not to be alone.
-- You could give this to her... except that you, I'm sure, are just about as eager to sleep with her as she is to sleep with you.
-- And if she ever let her desire to bear children trump her disinclination to be anywhere near you, may Saya protect you, for Diva would love you much as a black widow would.
-- And yet... and yet, perhaps you could save her.
-- Amshel and I are scientists. Perhaps we could find a method of insemination that wouldn't necessitate physical contact...
This truly hadn't occurred to me until your letter. If you suspect an ulterior motive in my approaching you, I invite you to reread my rather florid letter of July Whatever. If I were trying to get you into bed with Diva, I assure you I'd have used a different tack. Then again, I'm not exactly selling it well now, am I? But I can't abandon this thought. There's too much at stake.
Yours,
S. G.
***
August 29, 1962
Dear Solomon,
You are correct: this revelation makes me queasy. I sympathize with your dilemma and esteem your efforts to preserve Diva while minimizing her injury to others.
Nevertheless, nothing would induce me to have children with Diva. You offer compelling arguments against any such attempt yourself. To them, and to my own disgust at the idea, I add the argument Saya would offer were she here: there should be no more chiropterans. Not Diva's children, not Saya's, not mine, not yours, no more chevaliers, no queens, no mindless monsters. None.
Saya wishes to die. She wishes for all our kind to die, and I cannot act against her wish. Sooner or later, this will be the ending. I'm sorry but it must be so.
H.
P. S. I will relocate soon and do not anticipate having a postal address. In any case, it seems best that we terminate these letters, which tend naturally toward conflict of interest, as I have previously remarked. Still, I have enjoyed corresponding with you. Thank you.