[Lamento] Singularity
Title: Singularity
Fandom: Lamento - Beyond the Void
Rating: G
Characters: Leaks, Shui
Warnings: none
Singularity
Magic is a mass of processes.
People think it a force, like a spirit being or the torrent of a river, something to be feared and avoided, when it is really just processes. If it is processes, then his body is the jar, the vial for mixing and refining, like steeping hensbane in water and watching it cloud the liquid, like adding bitter-root and making the cauldron pop and crackle. The body is the jar, and the hands are the processors, ready to give whatever has been boiled and steeped inside an outside form.
After three hundred and twenty-seven tests, he knows that he is more adept at casting with his left hand. Casting. Such an inaccurate word, like flinging something insulting at someone's retreating back like a scorned lover, like expelling snot or spit from the body. Casting. A word invented by ignoramuses to explain what they couldn't understand, and didn't want to, anyway. It would be better to say shaping. The hands are meant for it, shaping, adequate tools to give the mind a physical form. Carvings. Paintings. Words.
He doesn't know why he is better with his left hand, or even how; the spells, the processes, seem to flow more naturally when he uses it, take a form that is more precise and powerful. Shaping happens faster, too, by exactly five pendulum strikes.
The Ribika have no use for time. They look at moon calendars and think of pretty stars to see, of festivals to celebrate, of meeting fellows or some other insignificant, inconsequentially arbitrary thing. The calendar itself means nothing, and as such, they have no use for the more precise measurings of time, either. When a cat says they will come in the morning, it can be before sunrise or close to lunch; when a cat says "a few moments," it can mean anything from three pendulum strikes to several hundred. Imperfections and imprecisions are what their entire world is based on.
Leaks has learned the value of a good pendulum, one that will strike precise and true. It has helped him to count the exact amount of time magic needs in his left hand, and realize that this is the shortest discrepancy he can possibly achieve with meditation and exercise. He is determined to keep it this way, if he can't erase the difference, but that doesn't explain anything.
He's heard it said, though he never had the chance to observe it for himself, of course - conjecture, nothing but conjecture and hearsay - that each cat has a preferred hand. He's quite sure that isn't true, as the Ribika like to deal in absolutes without proper examination, eager to shove the world into drawers that are as orderly and accurate as a granny's keepsake storage.
The master had a preferred hand for different tasks. He stirred his brews with his left hand, but wrote with his right, drew incantation symbols with it, lit lamps and ordered Leaks to observe. He never thought to ask the master about his hands, or any hands, then a foolish runt overwhelmed with the thirst for knowledge, any knowledge, and gratitude for meeting another like himself. That feeling didn't last long, at least, a fleeting illusion. Nobody is like himself.
Still, he should have asked the master about hands, had he had one wit of foresight. It would greatly aid him now, locked in his hut and engaged in a self study that started shortly after he left the master, and does not seem to have an end in sight. It doesn't matter, though. He prefers it that way, to chisel away at the locked box of mysteries that is his own body, even appreciates the frustration that comes from a night of no results, a day of misguided searching. It means he is not easy. Nowhere near as easy as the fools who cried devil and soul-stealer, the imbeciles who spun tales of destruction and pillage. And by the Goddess, fairytale that she is, but he's grateful no one sought to write books about him; it means so much less condensed stupidity to look through.
It means, above all, that he's alone, a singular being.
Once upon a time, he might have felt an ache at the thought; now, as the pendulum swings and the spark of bright light springs forth again, at exactly the anticipated moment, it fills him with a certain pride.
----
"My story?"
Shui looks up from grooming the blossoms of a bell flower, its upside-down chalices swaying delicately on string-like vines. He is tying them up, looping their vines into loose coils one by one so that they form a curtain before the porch, highest at the entrance, lowest at the sides. They weren't there this morning, at least not like this, a tiny insignificant forest plant that deemed his porch roof a fitting place to grow, and he didn't mind it as long as it didn't get in the way. Now, it is getting in the way, a veil of translucent bodies that will harden as the flower ages, creating a cacophony of chimes.
"I thought you sent me out here to be rid of my... what was it? Oh yes, blathering." Nothing in his tone to indicate resentment, only a faint lilt that makes Leaks' ears twitch and seek to flatten. He doesn't like being played with, but Shui plays with everything, apparently. Especially when bored.
"I did send you out here to be rid of your blathering," Leaks says with just enough bite to let him know he really was being a bother, and not, as Shui imagines, lightening up the mood by making small talk. No talk of Shui's is ever small. The trouble with poets is they speak too much, and see things worth speaking about everywhere.
"And now you're revoking that order?" Rhetorical questions are Shui's favorite game, eyes gleaming as he pounces on the opening Leaks has given him unwittingly. "For joy. I thought my head would burst holding back the blather all by myself out here."
"When you're done clowning around, let me know. I'll do something worthwhile in the meantime."
"Such a fickle host you are. Stay go, go stay."
Leaks resists pointing out that he doesn't have to be a host at all, humoring an uninvited guest. That particular defense stopped meaning anything months ago, and besides, it will only serve to derail this conversation further.
Shaking his head, Shui finishes tying up the last bell flower, and begins to collect the pots sitting on the floor and windowsills. It's disrupting Leaks' careful system, the exact number of steps needed to reach each plant; the ones he needs most are the closest, except for when they need more light, the nightshades and fungi tucked into the dark recesses, where it will be moist even in warm weather. It doesn't matter. It's better to leave Shui to his whimsies, and clean up once he leaves... he has to get rid of the bell curtain now, anyway.
"Very well. But let's sit out here. The air is good, and your life has far too few windows to let it in for a proper story."
Dragging a hand through his bangs, Leaks obliges, deciding to ignore the nonsensical poet speech that leads Shui to call his house 'life' and his studies 'heart', and invent a hundred other words in order not to call things by their normal name. It makes talking unnecessarily difficult, dodging all the metaphors, avoiding the thought that the fancies might have meaning.
Shui sits down cross-legged, arranging the pots in front of him and starting to snip at them with a small pair of scissors. "What do you want to hear, exactly? I think I've told you most things by now."
"Your powers. I would like to hear how they work. How they manifest." He keeps his eyes trained on the pot plants, the belladonna ripening to a perfect shade of black right under Shui's fingers, tumbling readily into his waiting palm.
"But you know that," Shui says, blinking. He moves on, piling the berries inside a jar, turning his attention to the datura. His fingers graze the spiked leaves without a hint of scratching, as if asking the plant not to. Leaks has seen him plunge his hands into a bundle of nettles just as easily, harvesting their leaves with nary a blister. "I don't think I can tell you more than what's in those books you dislike so."
"Myths and half-truths," Leaks snaps, a wave of annoyance rising at the thought of brainwashed idiots writing scrolls on subjects they know nothing about, thinking themselves scholars. "They can't go for five minutes without talking about gods and blessings. I want to hear it from you. What does it feel like to use them? What do you have to do to mold them to your will?"
"Mold?" Shui thoughtfully rubs a finger over each datura leaf before clipping it. "I don't... mold them. Or I don't think I do. I've never really considered it."
"Do you really want me to believe you're not thinking about what you're doing? Why you keep fussing with the greenery, why you're playing that silly thing?"
"I play the mandolin because I like it, Leaks. There's no better reason for it." Shui pauses, sets aside the datura and blindly grabs a log of sleeping fungus, its purple heads drooping like flapping baldachins. "I'll tell you a funny story. In the order, they ask you exactly the same questions. They ask you to pick an instrument, and they ask you why. They make you think of shapes and concepts, and tell you to channel your powers through those. They tell you to meditate on your feelings, on the types of energy you set free. For the first year... they do nothing but ask you why."
"So?"
Shui's tail is bristling. "So... whenever I tried to do as they said, I'd shatter walls when I wanted to sing a healing song, and produce a a swarm of fireflies when I wanted to sing an attack. And it'd make the plants wail, Leaks, like nothing you've ever heard in your life, the one time I tried to think about how to make them grow. They all turned out as if they'd been ravaged by a terrible disease. Moldy, burnt, foul-smelling jelly, writhing all over the floor." He shakes his head, a pained frown twisting his features. "That's why I've stopped thinking. I know other people can ask about the whys, and I know other sanga have reasons for picking up a particular instrument, or singing particular songs. I know they do particular things that help them. I do best when I do nothing at all... other than ask."
"Ask?" Leaks leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the expression in his eyes, but it is already gone.
Shui has grabbed a fresh devil fruit, rolling it demonstratively in his palm. With anyone else, their skin would already be eaten by a rash from contact with the paring, the toxins slowly paralyzing their arm. He himself can't harvest the plant without two layers of gloves and some pliers.
"My colleagues always wanted to know how I do this. They got angry when it didn't turn out to be a spell or a secret potion. It's really just a matter of asking. Each plant has a tune. I ask using the same tune. Then they won't get defensive."
His smile turns rueful, and he sets the devil fruit aside. "Nobody else... seems to hear the tunes. They didn't hear the screaming, either. That's why I'm afraid I can't help you, Leaks. You're asking me to explain music to you."
Grabbing the pots, he starts placing them back in their customary spots, not as exactly as they should be, but close enough. Leaks remains sitting on the porch, looking at the devil fruit with its fine, fur-like covering, thinking about singularity.
----
"Was she proud of you?"
Shui stops his endeavor of building a tower out of honey fungus, coaxing the yellow shafts to group together and wind upwards like a staircase, smaller mushrooms sprouting outward like turrets. "Who?"
Counting out the knobs of alraune with one hand, Leaks measures the dried wrinkles of thousand-leaf with the other, and absently gestures for Shui to stop toying with the mushrooms and bring them over so he can scrape off the young parasols. From the corner of his eye, he can see Shui has already busied himself with the next pot, a set of orchids that bloomed beautifully one year, gifting him with enough of their pollen to complete one flask of visionary drought, and never again.
When he isn't playing games, Shui can be useful around the house, and unless the orchids are dead, he might be able to do something for them, too. Plants seem to like him a lot better in general. Leaks can't fathom what he's doing differently, since he certainly hasn't seen a difference; when he isn't coaxing the plants to ripen more quickly, he's doing exactly the same things, cutting, weeding, watering, and Leaks won't lower himself to something as ludicrous as singing for the herbs.
Maybe it's more of that subconscious sanga magic. He doesn't even know when he's started drawing all these parallels, useless parallels, between them and what they do. Odd sanga or no, comparing the most unnatural thing to the most natural thing in the world can't really yield results, but the idea hasn't left him alone all the same.
With a flick of his wrist, the flame lights underneath the kettle. "Your mother."
"My mother?"
He sighs irritably. "Yes. I'm told this is something parents do, when they have an exceptional child."
Not too exceptional, of course, that will lead to screeching and self-pity, but he can't for the life of him stop wishing Shui would say 'no.'
"Well... doesn't that kind of imply taking someone else's feats for yourself?" Shui says, turning the orchid pot and admiring the tiny tip of green already peeking out at the top. "If so, my mother wasn't like that. Besides, I regularly ended up turning the yard into a jungle and mobilizing her kitchen herbs to take over the counter, whenever I was excited about something. She can't have appreciated that too much."
"I was being serious," Leaks says, scowling. The fungus is starting to lose color in the boiling water, and he grabs the pincers, fishing the pieces out.
"So was I. I remember her being worried when I started to manifest... really manifest, I mean. Apparently stuff always grew well near me, even when I was a baby. But it wasn't hurting me, so she stopped. I don't think she ever cared about pride."
"Ah." He isn't sure what he was trying to prove, really, what it is with the snarl of vindictive thoughts curling like shed snakeskin in the back of his mind, the thoughts that are triumphantly sure Shui couldn't say the same if he'd been born with the power of death instead of life. There is a reason nobody drowns an unwanted child, or leaves it to starve. They're all terrified the vengeful spirit will return to feast on the souls of other children in the coming year. Nobody wanted his spirit to go feasting on anything, so instead he's feasting on Shui, taking each opportunity to make his smile falter. He doesn't know what's wrong with him.
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
"Really?" Shui has tilted his head and is gazing at him sideways, a childish pose meant to conceal the intensity in his eyes, searching. He's never sure whether Shui knows and is using it to his advantage, or whether it's one of the million things he does subconsciously. He's gone so long assuming the worst in people, the worst in Shui, that he can't shake the feeling of intent.
"Yes."
"I've been getting vibes from you all afternoon, Leaks."
"I was merely curious," he says stiffly. "Cats don't take well to the extraordinary. Being... gifted can't have been easy."
Shui shrugs. "There's always people who don't agree with what you do, or what you are. I can't change the way I'm born, so I learned not to let it bother me."
"Would you?"
"Change what I am?" Shui's gaze feels piercing. "No. No, I don't think I would."
"Ah."
Nodding, Leaks returns his attention to the cauldron. Shui goes back to fussing over the orchids, and doesn't try to analyze him again for the rest of the afternoon, for which he is grateful because he doesn't think he can stop himself from throwing something if Shui tried. It's his own fault, he knows, for starting the conversation, for trying to make Shui into kin when he isn't, but he can't help the resentment that bubbles up every time the whisper surfaces in the following weeks, the unspoken question hovering over the worktable in the corner like a hungry ghost.
In the end, he moves the table to the other window, puts a couple of plant racks there, but they don't like it, the air in the spot too heavy for them.
Would you?
-Fin-
----
A/N: I wanted something happy, but the boys had other ideas. >.> C&C is welcome, as always.
<< Return to Lamento Index | Return to Fanfiction Index >>
Fandom: Lamento - Beyond the Void
Rating: G
Characters: Leaks, Shui
Warnings: none
Singularity
Magic is a mass of processes.
People think it a force, like a spirit being or the torrent of a river, something to be feared and avoided, when it is really just processes. If it is processes, then his body is the jar, the vial for mixing and refining, like steeping hensbane in water and watching it cloud the liquid, like adding bitter-root and making the cauldron pop and crackle. The body is the jar, and the hands are the processors, ready to give whatever has been boiled and steeped inside an outside form.
After three hundred and twenty-seven tests, he knows that he is more adept at casting with his left hand. Casting. Such an inaccurate word, like flinging something insulting at someone's retreating back like a scorned lover, like expelling snot or spit from the body. Casting. A word invented by ignoramuses to explain what they couldn't understand, and didn't want to, anyway. It would be better to say shaping. The hands are meant for it, shaping, adequate tools to give the mind a physical form. Carvings. Paintings. Words.
He doesn't know why he is better with his left hand, or even how; the spells, the processes, seem to flow more naturally when he uses it, take a form that is more precise and powerful. Shaping happens faster, too, by exactly five pendulum strikes.
The Ribika have no use for time. They look at moon calendars and think of pretty stars to see, of festivals to celebrate, of meeting fellows or some other insignificant, inconsequentially arbitrary thing. The calendar itself means nothing, and as such, they have no use for the more precise measurings of time, either. When a cat says they will come in the morning, it can be before sunrise or close to lunch; when a cat says "a few moments," it can mean anything from three pendulum strikes to several hundred. Imperfections and imprecisions are what their entire world is based on.
Leaks has learned the value of a good pendulum, one that will strike precise and true. It has helped him to count the exact amount of time magic needs in his left hand, and realize that this is the shortest discrepancy he can possibly achieve with meditation and exercise. He is determined to keep it this way, if he can't erase the difference, but that doesn't explain anything.
He's heard it said, though he never had the chance to observe it for himself, of course - conjecture, nothing but conjecture and hearsay - that each cat has a preferred hand. He's quite sure that isn't true, as the Ribika like to deal in absolutes without proper examination, eager to shove the world into drawers that are as orderly and accurate as a granny's keepsake storage.
The master had a preferred hand for different tasks. He stirred his brews with his left hand, but wrote with his right, drew incantation symbols with it, lit lamps and ordered Leaks to observe. He never thought to ask the master about his hands, or any hands, then a foolish runt overwhelmed with the thirst for knowledge, any knowledge, and gratitude for meeting another like himself. That feeling didn't last long, at least, a fleeting illusion. Nobody is like himself.
Still, he should have asked the master about hands, had he had one wit of foresight. It would greatly aid him now, locked in his hut and engaged in a self study that started shortly after he left the master, and does not seem to have an end in sight. It doesn't matter, though. He prefers it that way, to chisel away at the locked box of mysteries that is his own body, even appreciates the frustration that comes from a night of no results, a day of misguided searching. It means he is not easy. Nowhere near as easy as the fools who cried devil and soul-stealer, the imbeciles who spun tales of destruction and pillage. And by the Goddess, fairytale that she is, but he's grateful no one sought to write books about him; it means so much less condensed stupidity to look through.
It means, above all, that he's alone, a singular being.
Once upon a time, he might have felt an ache at the thought; now, as the pendulum swings and the spark of bright light springs forth again, at exactly the anticipated moment, it fills him with a certain pride.
----
"My story?"
Shui looks up from grooming the blossoms of a bell flower, its upside-down chalices swaying delicately on string-like vines. He is tying them up, looping their vines into loose coils one by one so that they form a curtain before the porch, highest at the entrance, lowest at the sides. They weren't there this morning, at least not like this, a tiny insignificant forest plant that deemed his porch roof a fitting place to grow, and he didn't mind it as long as it didn't get in the way. Now, it is getting in the way, a veil of translucent bodies that will harden as the flower ages, creating a cacophony of chimes.
"I thought you sent me out here to be rid of my... what was it? Oh yes, blathering." Nothing in his tone to indicate resentment, only a faint lilt that makes Leaks' ears twitch and seek to flatten. He doesn't like being played with, but Shui plays with everything, apparently. Especially when bored.
"I did send you out here to be rid of your blathering," Leaks says with just enough bite to let him know he really was being a bother, and not, as Shui imagines, lightening up the mood by making small talk. No talk of Shui's is ever small. The trouble with poets is they speak too much, and see things worth speaking about everywhere.
"And now you're revoking that order?" Rhetorical questions are Shui's favorite game, eyes gleaming as he pounces on the opening Leaks has given him unwittingly. "For joy. I thought my head would burst holding back the blather all by myself out here."
"When you're done clowning around, let me know. I'll do something worthwhile in the meantime."
"Such a fickle host you are. Stay go, go stay."
Leaks resists pointing out that he doesn't have to be a host at all, humoring an uninvited guest. That particular defense stopped meaning anything months ago, and besides, it will only serve to derail this conversation further.
Shaking his head, Shui finishes tying up the last bell flower, and begins to collect the pots sitting on the floor and windowsills. It's disrupting Leaks' careful system, the exact number of steps needed to reach each plant; the ones he needs most are the closest, except for when they need more light, the nightshades and fungi tucked into the dark recesses, where it will be moist even in warm weather. It doesn't matter. It's better to leave Shui to his whimsies, and clean up once he leaves... he has to get rid of the bell curtain now, anyway.
"Very well. But let's sit out here. The air is good, and your life has far too few windows to let it in for a proper story."
Dragging a hand through his bangs, Leaks obliges, deciding to ignore the nonsensical poet speech that leads Shui to call his house 'life' and his studies 'heart', and invent a hundred other words in order not to call things by their normal name. It makes talking unnecessarily difficult, dodging all the metaphors, avoiding the thought that the fancies might have meaning.
Shui sits down cross-legged, arranging the pots in front of him and starting to snip at them with a small pair of scissors. "What do you want to hear, exactly? I think I've told you most things by now."
"Your powers. I would like to hear how they work. How they manifest." He keeps his eyes trained on the pot plants, the belladonna ripening to a perfect shade of black right under Shui's fingers, tumbling readily into his waiting palm.
"But you know that," Shui says, blinking. He moves on, piling the berries inside a jar, turning his attention to the datura. His fingers graze the spiked leaves without a hint of scratching, as if asking the plant not to. Leaks has seen him plunge his hands into a bundle of nettles just as easily, harvesting their leaves with nary a blister. "I don't think I can tell you more than what's in those books you dislike so."
"Myths and half-truths," Leaks snaps, a wave of annoyance rising at the thought of brainwashed idiots writing scrolls on subjects they know nothing about, thinking themselves scholars. "They can't go for five minutes without talking about gods and blessings. I want to hear it from you. What does it feel like to use them? What do you have to do to mold them to your will?"
"Mold?" Shui thoughtfully rubs a finger over each datura leaf before clipping it. "I don't... mold them. Or I don't think I do. I've never really considered it."
"Do you really want me to believe you're not thinking about what you're doing? Why you keep fussing with the greenery, why you're playing that silly thing?"
"I play the mandolin because I like it, Leaks. There's no better reason for it." Shui pauses, sets aside the datura and blindly grabs a log of sleeping fungus, its purple heads drooping like flapping baldachins. "I'll tell you a funny story. In the order, they ask you exactly the same questions. They ask you to pick an instrument, and they ask you why. They make you think of shapes and concepts, and tell you to channel your powers through those. They tell you to meditate on your feelings, on the types of energy you set free. For the first year... they do nothing but ask you why."
"So?"
Shui's tail is bristling. "So... whenever I tried to do as they said, I'd shatter walls when I wanted to sing a healing song, and produce a a swarm of fireflies when I wanted to sing an attack. And it'd make the plants wail, Leaks, like nothing you've ever heard in your life, the one time I tried to think about how to make them grow. They all turned out as if they'd been ravaged by a terrible disease. Moldy, burnt, foul-smelling jelly, writhing all over the floor." He shakes his head, a pained frown twisting his features. "That's why I've stopped thinking. I know other people can ask about the whys, and I know other sanga have reasons for picking up a particular instrument, or singing particular songs. I know they do particular things that help them. I do best when I do nothing at all... other than ask."
"Ask?" Leaks leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the expression in his eyes, but it is already gone.
Shui has grabbed a fresh devil fruit, rolling it demonstratively in his palm. With anyone else, their skin would already be eaten by a rash from contact with the paring, the toxins slowly paralyzing their arm. He himself can't harvest the plant without two layers of gloves and some pliers.
"My colleagues always wanted to know how I do this. They got angry when it didn't turn out to be a spell or a secret potion. It's really just a matter of asking. Each plant has a tune. I ask using the same tune. Then they won't get defensive."
His smile turns rueful, and he sets the devil fruit aside. "Nobody else... seems to hear the tunes. They didn't hear the screaming, either. That's why I'm afraid I can't help you, Leaks. You're asking me to explain music to you."
Grabbing the pots, he starts placing them back in their customary spots, not as exactly as they should be, but close enough. Leaks remains sitting on the porch, looking at the devil fruit with its fine, fur-like covering, thinking about singularity.
----
"Was she proud of you?"
Shui stops his endeavor of building a tower out of honey fungus, coaxing the yellow shafts to group together and wind upwards like a staircase, smaller mushrooms sprouting outward like turrets. "Who?"
Counting out the knobs of alraune with one hand, Leaks measures the dried wrinkles of thousand-leaf with the other, and absently gestures for Shui to stop toying with the mushrooms and bring them over so he can scrape off the young parasols. From the corner of his eye, he can see Shui has already busied himself with the next pot, a set of orchids that bloomed beautifully one year, gifting him with enough of their pollen to complete one flask of visionary drought, and never again.
When he isn't playing games, Shui can be useful around the house, and unless the orchids are dead, he might be able to do something for them, too. Plants seem to like him a lot better in general. Leaks can't fathom what he's doing differently, since he certainly hasn't seen a difference; when he isn't coaxing the plants to ripen more quickly, he's doing exactly the same things, cutting, weeding, watering, and Leaks won't lower himself to something as ludicrous as singing for the herbs.
Maybe it's more of that subconscious sanga magic. He doesn't even know when he's started drawing all these parallels, useless parallels, between them and what they do. Odd sanga or no, comparing the most unnatural thing to the most natural thing in the world can't really yield results, but the idea hasn't left him alone all the same.
With a flick of his wrist, the flame lights underneath the kettle. "Your mother."
"My mother?"
He sighs irritably. "Yes. I'm told this is something parents do, when they have an exceptional child."
Not too exceptional, of course, that will lead to screeching and self-pity, but he can't for the life of him stop wishing Shui would say 'no.'
"Well... doesn't that kind of imply taking someone else's feats for yourself?" Shui says, turning the orchid pot and admiring the tiny tip of green already peeking out at the top. "If so, my mother wasn't like that. Besides, I regularly ended up turning the yard into a jungle and mobilizing her kitchen herbs to take over the counter, whenever I was excited about something. She can't have appreciated that too much."
"I was being serious," Leaks says, scowling. The fungus is starting to lose color in the boiling water, and he grabs the pincers, fishing the pieces out.
"So was I. I remember her being worried when I started to manifest... really manifest, I mean. Apparently stuff always grew well near me, even when I was a baby. But it wasn't hurting me, so she stopped. I don't think she ever cared about pride."
"Ah." He isn't sure what he was trying to prove, really, what it is with the snarl of vindictive thoughts curling like shed snakeskin in the back of his mind, the thoughts that are triumphantly sure Shui couldn't say the same if he'd been born with the power of death instead of life. There is a reason nobody drowns an unwanted child, or leaves it to starve. They're all terrified the vengeful spirit will return to feast on the souls of other children in the coming year. Nobody wanted his spirit to go feasting on anything, so instead he's feasting on Shui, taking each opportunity to make his smile falter. He doesn't know what's wrong with him.
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
"Really?" Shui has tilted his head and is gazing at him sideways, a childish pose meant to conceal the intensity in his eyes, searching. He's never sure whether Shui knows and is using it to his advantage, or whether it's one of the million things he does subconsciously. He's gone so long assuming the worst in people, the worst in Shui, that he can't shake the feeling of intent.
"Yes."
"I've been getting vibes from you all afternoon, Leaks."
"I was merely curious," he says stiffly. "Cats don't take well to the extraordinary. Being... gifted can't have been easy."
Shui shrugs. "There's always people who don't agree with what you do, or what you are. I can't change the way I'm born, so I learned not to let it bother me."
"Would you?"
"Change what I am?" Shui's gaze feels piercing. "No. No, I don't think I would."
"Ah."
Nodding, Leaks returns his attention to the cauldron. Shui goes back to fussing over the orchids, and doesn't try to analyze him again for the rest of the afternoon, for which he is grateful because he doesn't think he can stop himself from throwing something if Shui tried. It's his own fault, he knows, for starting the conversation, for trying to make Shui into kin when he isn't, but he can't help the resentment that bubbles up every time the whisper surfaces in the following weeks, the unspoken question hovering over the worktable in the corner like a hungry ghost.
In the end, he moves the table to the other window, puts a couple of plant racks there, but they don't like it, the air in the spot too heavy for them.
Would you?
-Fin-
----
A/N: I wanted something happy, but the boys had other ideas. >.> C&C is welcome, as always.
<< Return to Lamento Index | Return to Fanfiction Index >>