Animus Facit Nobilem, Chpt 3
Title: Animus Facit Nobilem
Chapter: III. Comfort & Rest
Author: Camudekyu
Rating: M, for subsequent chapters
Pairing: Lenalee/Lavi
Length: 3 pages
Warnings: No spoilers. Casual talk of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
Summary: When a series of bizarre events prompts the Black Order to dispatch exorcists, Lenalee and Lavi find that there is more going on in this small village on Malta than anyone could have expected. To make matters worse, the truth is going to hit just a touch too close to home for our Bookman cum Exorcist.
A/N: Lavi cracks tasteless jokes talks about the Opium Wars. Fascinating stuff if you are a fan of Romantic Era Literature.
Previous chapters: I, II
III. Comfort & Rest
The woman showed them through a passage off to the right of a chancel, and they entered a wide corridor lit by oil lamps in sconces on the stone walls. Closed red doors stood in both walls, and between the doorways were paintings of saints in various stages of suffering. They followed the corridor until it turned to the left, and they passed through a passageway into a large, unadorned room occupied by long tables and benches. A few travel-worn people lingered in this room, and they paid the newcomers little attention. Their host showed them to seats and offered them bowls of thick potato and ham stew and hunks of dark, crusty bread. St. Matthias did not, she explained, have spoons, as their kitchen had been robbed recently. The shallow wooden bowls she handed them, in fact, had been a donation from a parishioner, and they drank water out of smudged mason jars. Neither Lavi nor Lenalee complained, however, and they sat side-by-side, knees and elbows touching, and slurped their stew straight from their bowls.
With dinner finished, their guide showed them farther down another corridor―this one lacking the paintings and intricate sconces of the first corridor―to a doorless passage that ended sharply in a narrow, unlit stairwell that went up and up into a dusty darkness. She handed them a brass candle holder with a stub in it, which she lit from a lamp hanging from a chain on the wall.
“It's not much,” she apologized, “But you'll find clean sheets and breakfast in the morning.”
Lavi accepted the candle from the woman. He and Lenalee thanked their host for her generosity, and Lavi took the lead up the stairs.
Their loft was indeed sparse. The ceiling was low enough to force Lavi to stoop slightly, particularly when he came through the doorway. The bed was narrow, little more than a cot, and looked as though, if Lavi were to lay in it, his feet would hang off the end. He lit an oil lamp on the table with his candlestick and lengthened the wick, pushing the gritty shadows into the corners of the room. They had a single window above the head of the bed, and it looked out onto the city below, now nothing more than a collection of lanterns, hovering in the dark like fireflies.
“Well,” Lenalee said with a sigh, “It's not a barn.” She set her suitcase on the bed and flicked open the latches. Carefully, she shuffled her clothes around―she did her best not to flash her unmentionables at Lavi―and pulled out her sleeping shift. She saw Lavi's legs stretching out next to her suitcase, and she looked up to see him reclining in the bed, grinning at her, and gently patting the spot to his left.
“So,” he teased and waggled his one visible brow, “You want to come up here and keep me company, wifey?”
Lenalee threw a sock at his face and it hit him across the chin. “I don't appreciate being used like that. Can you warn me next time you're going to pull that kind of stunt?” she said. “Also, I don't know if you realize it, but you lied to a nun.”
“She wasn't a nun,” Lavi interjected, angling himself up on his elbows. “She wasn't wearing one of those penguin suits.”
Lenalee ignored him. “You also lied right there in the chapel. In front of God and everyone.” She relatched her suitcase and slid it under the bed.
Lavi gave her a dismissive wave. “I lie in front of God all the time. Besides, He's seen me do all kinds of stuff I wouldn't―”
Lenalee stopped him before he could elaborate. “That may be, Lavi, but I bet He pays closer attention to the offenses that go on in His house, against his employees.”
Lavi sank back onto the bed, crossed his ankles, and laced his fingers behind his head. “Hey, would you rather me have to sleep outside?”
Lenalee stood up, her shift in her hands, and looked at him. His feet did hang off the foot of the bed, and that made him look even longer. She did not realize that she was scanning up his body―sinewy legs to narrow hips to sharp shoulders―until she met his gaze, a lopsided grin on his face. Lenalee started and glared at him, her face burning. “Maybe I would,” she snapped, putting a fist against her hip. “Now, would you face the wall so I can change?”
Lavi shrugged and gave a long-suffering sigh. He picked a corner to stand near, pulling his pajama pants out of his suitcase as he went.
“No peeking,” Lenalee demanded.
“Same goes to you,” Lavi replied, and they took up posts on opposite ends of the tiny room, their backs to one another. Lavi hesitated at first, listening to the rustling of Lenalee's clothes, and staring hard a knot in the floorboard. He heard her Black Order brooch clank against the floor then the whisper of linen over skin. Lavi swallowed, furrowed his brow, and began changing into his own striped, linen sleeping pants and undershirt.
Lenalee had never undressed so fast in her life, and after a few terrifying moments, she was smoothing her sleeping shift down her thighs. “So,” she began, protracting the o and hazarding a peek over her shoulder, “How do we want to handle sleeping arrangements?” She saw that Lavi had changed and was lazily folding his slacks with his back to her. With a sigh of relief, she sat on the rickety bed and folded her arms over her chest.
He hitched up his sleeves, baring his forearms. “Looks like you've got two choices,” Lavi said, setting his pants and coat across the back of the only chair in the room. He then sank into the chair himself and stretched out one long leg in front of him and rested his ankle on top of his knee. He held up his hand and counted off Lenalee's options. “Big spoon or little spoon.”
Lenalee laughed and launched the pillow at his face. “Or me in the bed and you somewhere else.”
Lavi shrugged. “I mean, if that's what you're into.” He, of course, knew as soon as they had topped the stairs that he was looking forward to a long night on the floor. He glanced at the bed. One blanket. Lenalee had thrown the only pillow, which was on the floor by his feet. He tossed it back to her. Allowing himself a long sigh, Lavi reached back and pulled his coat from the back of the chair. “So, do you want to talk business?” he asked, draping his coat over his lap.
“I suppose this is as good a time as ever,” Lenalee said, rising to her feet. She turned down the blanket on the bed and seated herself on the sheets, pulling her feet up into the bed with her. “On the last Sunday in June, the people in Qrendi celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.”
“Is that different from the Ascension Lady?” Lavi asked.
“Yes,” Lenalee answered a little tightly, “I couldn't tell you how, but yes. Anyway, every year the Lourdes Fireworks Factory in Qrendi cranks out tons of fireworks for the festival, and from what I've been told, they go nuts. This year, though, they produced, maybe twenty-five percent of their typically volume.”
Lavi rubbed his chin for a moment. “Well, that's unfortunate and all, but does that warrant a Black Order investigation?”
“Komui seems to believe that this is a symptom of something bigger. I don't think you realize how serious these people are about their Saints Days,” Lenalee explained. “They throw down almost every weekend from May to October, and the Order's connection here said, after the first feast, there have been no fireworks shows at all. He said attendance is dropping, too.”
“And?” Lavi prompted when Lenalee paused.
“And,” she went on, “Not one, not two, but five,” she held out her right hand, five fingers extended, “smuggling vessels have been intercepted near Malta in the last thirty days.”
“Picking up or dropping off?” Lavi asked.
“I need to check the police reports,” Lenalee said, “But I think one of them was taking shipments to Sicily, three were bringing people in from Tunis, and another was coming in from Majorca.”
Lavi furrowed his brow. “Why would people be trying to sneak into Malta from Majorca of all places? Was the first island paradise not quite good enough, so they had to find another?”
“What's really odd is when you look at the people they took off the smuggling ships coming into Malta,” Lenalee said, putting up her index finger. “These weren't refugees or people looking for jobs or anything like that. These were people from the some of higher socioeconomic echelons in Tunisia and Spain. Merchants and businessmen. None of the ships had the right clearance, though. And they were all attempting to unload in Qrendi instead of going through any of the major ports.”
Lavi shook his head and tutted. “Clearly someone did not give themselves the six to eight weeks the Passport Renewal Agency recommends.”
“Clearly,” Lenalee replied.
“So what was confiscated from the ship leaving here?”
“That's the really weird part,” Lenalee said, leaning over her knees and narrowing her eyes at Lavi, “Nobody knows for sure.” Lavi drew back and gave her a confused look. “I know. The most my brother was able to tell me was that witnesses reported crates being unloaded by Interpol in Syracuse. The official report out of customs said they were shipments of some kind of homeopathic remedy, but I don't believe that for a second. I mean, why would Interpol get involved in something that mundane?”
Lavi frowned and drummed his fingers on the armrest in thought. An answer came to him quickly, and he shrugged at the simplicity of it. “So, we've got mystery shipments, rich businessmen all a-tizzy, and a sweeping ennui among the townsfolk?” he asked. Lenalee nodded. “Well, that's an easy one. I've got two words for you,” he said, and Lenalee cocked her head to the side a little. “Opium Wars.”
She glared at him. Hard.
Remembering Lenalee's heritage, he cringed and said, “Sorry. Too soon?”
“And what makes you think opium is involved?” Lenalee asked tartly.
“Well, if rich folks want in badly enough to try to sneak in, there's got to be something bigger than money going on here. So it's either drugs or sex.” Lenalee appreciated that comment almost as much as she did the Opium War one. Lavi ignored her scowl, scratched his chin, and looked thoughtful. “But there's much easier ways to traffic bodies than island hoping. Besides, you don't need to cross the puddle just for prostitutes.”
Lenalee was getting more and more uncomfortable with every syllable. Her partner seemed too lost in his own speculations to notice, however.
Lavi thought another moment. “Malta doesn't strike me as a real agricultural hub, though, so I'm guessing that someone from Afghanistan or Egypt is using Malta as a distribution center for the rest of the Mediterranean. Fifty bucks say if someone flagged one of these mystery shipments out of Malta, they'd trace them all the way to England or the Netherlands or any of the wealthier countries that can afford not to grow their own poppies. And these folks trying to sneak in by the boat load are just here for the wholesale prices.”
“Well, that's what we're here to find out,” Lenalee said.
“That would explain the slump in production here,” Lavi said matter-of-factly. “There's nothing like opium to make you change your religion.”
Lenalee cast her eyes off to the side. “I suppose.”
He watched her withdraw. “If we're lucky,” Lavi told her cheerily, “We won't see a single Akuma out here.”
“I think I'd rather fight Akuma than face a whole town of people slowly killing themselves,” she said, flicking her eyes up to him. She saw him twist his mouth apologetically and lean forward. He rested his elbows against his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees.
“We knew it wasn't going to be pretty as soon as we got the assignment,” he reminded her.
Lenalee nodded. She remembered.
Chapter: III. Comfort & Rest
Author: Camudekyu
Rating: M, for subsequent chapters
Pairing: Lenalee/Lavi
Length: 3 pages
Warnings: No spoilers. Casual talk of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.
Summary: When a series of bizarre events prompts the Black Order to dispatch exorcists, Lenalee and Lavi find that there is more going on in this small village on Malta than anyone could have expected. To make matters worse, the truth is going to hit just a touch too close to home for our Bookman cum Exorcist.
A/N: Lavi cracks tasteless jokes talks about the Opium Wars. Fascinating stuff if you are a fan of Romantic Era Literature.
Previous chapters: I, II
III. Comfort & Rest
The woman showed them through a passage off to the right of a chancel, and they entered a wide corridor lit by oil lamps in sconces on the stone walls. Closed red doors stood in both walls, and between the doorways were paintings of saints in various stages of suffering. They followed the corridor until it turned to the left, and they passed through a passageway into a large, unadorned room occupied by long tables and benches. A few travel-worn people lingered in this room, and they paid the newcomers little attention. Their host showed them to seats and offered them bowls of thick potato and ham stew and hunks of dark, crusty bread. St. Matthias did not, she explained, have spoons, as their kitchen had been robbed recently. The shallow wooden bowls she handed them, in fact, had been a donation from a parishioner, and they drank water out of smudged mason jars. Neither Lavi nor Lenalee complained, however, and they sat side-by-side, knees and elbows touching, and slurped their stew straight from their bowls.
With dinner finished, their guide showed them farther down another corridor―this one lacking the paintings and intricate sconces of the first corridor―to a doorless passage that ended sharply in a narrow, unlit stairwell that went up and up into a dusty darkness. She handed them a brass candle holder with a stub in it, which she lit from a lamp hanging from a chain on the wall.
“It's not much,” she apologized, “But you'll find clean sheets and breakfast in the morning.”
Lavi accepted the candle from the woman. He and Lenalee thanked their host for her generosity, and Lavi took the lead up the stairs.
Their loft was indeed sparse. The ceiling was low enough to force Lavi to stoop slightly, particularly when he came through the doorway. The bed was narrow, little more than a cot, and looked as though, if Lavi were to lay in it, his feet would hang off the end. He lit an oil lamp on the table with his candlestick and lengthened the wick, pushing the gritty shadows into the corners of the room. They had a single window above the head of the bed, and it looked out onto the city below, now nothing more than a collection of lanterns, hovering in the dark like fireflies.
“Well,” Lenalee said with a sigh, “It's not a barn.” She set her suitcase on the bed and flicked open the latches. Carefully, she shuffled her clothes around―she did her best not to flash her unmentionables at Lavi―and pulled out her sleeping shift. She saw Lavi's legs stretching out next to her suitcase, and she looked up to see him reclining in the bed, grinning at her, and gently patting the spot to his left.
“So,” he teased and waggled his one visible brow, “You want to come up here and keep me company, wifey?”
Lenalee threw a sock at his face and it hit him across the chin. “I don't appreciate being used like that. Can you warn me next time you're going to pull that kind of stunt?” she said. “Also, I don't know if you realize it, but you lied to a nun.”
“She wasn't a nun,” Lavi interjected, angling himself up on his elbows. “She wasn't wearing one of those penguin suits.”
Lenalee ignored him. “You also lied right there in the chapel. In front of God and everyone.” She relatched her suitcase and slid it under the bed.
Lavi gave her a dismissive wave. “I lie in front of God all the time. Besides, He's seen me do all kinds of stuff I wouldn't―”
Lenalee stopped him before he could elaborate. “That may be, Lavi, but I bet He pays closer attention to the offenses that go on in His house, against his employees.”
Lavi sank back onto the bed, crossed his ankles, and laced his fingers behind his head. “Hey, would you rather me have to sleep outside?”
Lenalee stood up, her shift in her hands, and looked at him. His feet did hang off the foot of the bed, and that made him look even longer. She did not realize that she was scanning up his body―sinewy legs to narrow hips to sharp shoulders―until she met his gaze, a lopsided grin on his face. Lenalee started and glared at him, her face burning. “Maybe I would,” she snapped, putting a fist against her hip. “Now, would you face the wall so I can change?”
Lavi shrugged and gave a long-suffering sigh. He picked a corner to stand near, pulling his pajama pants out of his suitcase as he went.
“No peeking,” Lenalee demanded.
“Same goes to you,” Lavi replied, and they took up posts on opposite ends of the tiny room, their backs to one another. Lavi hesitated at first, listening to the rustling of Lenalee's clothes, and staring hard a knot in the floorboard. He heard her Black Order brooch clank against the floor then the whisper of linen over skin. Lavi swallowed, furrowed his brow, and began changing into his own striped, linen sleeping pants and undershirt.
Lenalee had never undressed so fast in her life, and after a few terrifying moments, she was smoothing her sleeping shift down her thighs. “So,” she began, protracting the o and hazarding a peek over her shoulder, “How do we want to handle sleeping arrangements?” She saw that Lavi had changed and was lazily folding his slacks with his back to her. With a sigh of relief, she sat on the rickety bed and folded her arms over her chest.
He hitched up his sleeves, baring his forearms. “Looks like you've got two choices,” Lavi said, setting his pants and coat across the back of the only chair in the room. He then sank into the chair himself and stretched out one long leg in front of him and rested his ankle on top of his knee. He held up his hand and counted off Lenalee's options. “Big spoon or little spoon.”
Lenalee laughed and launched the pillow at his face. “Or me in the bed and you somewhere else.”
Lavi shrugged. “I mean, if that's what you're into.” He, of course, knew as soon as they had topped the stairs that he was looking forward to a long night on the floor. He glanced at the bed. One blanket. Lenalee had thrown the only pillow, which was on the floor by his feet. He tossed it back to her. Allowing himself a long sigh, Lavi reached back and pulled his coat from the back of the chair. “So, do you want to talk business?” he asked, draping his coat over his lap.
“I suppose this is as good a time as ever,” Lenalee said, rising to her feet. She turned down the blanket on the bed and seated herself on the sheets, pulling her feet up into the bed with her. “On the last Sunday in June, the people in Qrendi celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.”
“Is that different from the Ascension Lady?” Lavi asked.
“Yes,” Lenalee answered a little tightly, “I couldn't tell you how, but yes. Anyway, every year the Lourdes Fireworks Factory in Qrendi cranks out tons of fireworks for the festival, and from what I've been told, they go nuts. This year, though, they produced, maybe twenty-five percent of their typically volume.”
Lavi rubbed his chin for a moment. “Well, that's unfortunate and all, but does that warrant a Black Order investigation?”
“Komui seems to believe that this is a symptom of something bigger. I don't think you realize how serious these people are about their Saints Days,” Lenalee explained. “They throw down almost every weekend from May to October, and the Order's connection here said, after the first feast, there have been no fireworks shows at all. He said attendance is dropping, too.”
“And?” Lavi prompted when Lenalee paused.
“And,” she went on, “Not one, not two, but five,” she held out her right hand, five fingers extended, “smuggling vessels have been intercepted near Malta in the last thirty days.”
“Picking up or dropping off?” Lavi asked.
“I need to check the police reports,” Lenalee said, “But I think one of them was taking shipments to Sicily, three were bringing people in from Tunis, and another was coming in from Majorca.”
Lavi furrowed his brow. “Why would people be trying to sneak into Malta from Majorca of all places? Was the first island paradise not quite good enough, so they had to find another?”
“What's really odd is when you look at the people they took off the smuggling ships coming into Malta,” Lenalee said, putting up her index finger. “These weren't refugees or people looking for jobs or anything like that. These were people from the some of higher socioeconomic echelons in Tunisia and Spain. Merchants and businessmen. None of the ships had the right clearance, though. And they were all attempting to unload in Qrendi instead of going through any of the major ports.”
Lavi shook his head and tutted. “Clearly someone did not give themselves the six to eight weeks the Passport Renewal Agency recommends.”
“Clearly,” Lenalee replied.
“So what was confiscated from the ship leaving here?”
“That's the really weird part,” Lenalee said, leaning over her knees and narrowing her eyes at Lavi, “Nobody knows for sure.” Lavi drew back and gave her a confused look. “I know. The most my brother was able to tell me was that witnesses reported crates being unloaded by Interpol in Syracuse. The official report out of customs said they were shipments of some kind of homeopathic remedy, but I don't believe that for a second. I mean, why would Interpol get involved in something that mundane?”
Lavi frowned and drummed his fingers on the armrest in thought. An answer came to him quickly, and he shrugged at the simplicity of it. “So, we've got mystery shipments, rich businessmen all a-tizzy, and a sweeping ennui among the townsfolk?” he asked. Lenalee nodded. “Well, that's an easy one. I've got two words for you,” he said, and Lenalee cocked her head to the side a little. “Opium Wars.”
She glared at him. Hard.
Remembering Lenalee's heritage, he cringed and said, “Sorry. Too soon?”
“And what makes you think opium is involved?” Lenalee asked tartly.
“Well, if rich folks want in badly enough to try to sneak in, there's got to be something bigger than money going on here. So it's either drugs or sex.” Lenalee appreciated that comment almost as much as she did the Opium War one. Lavi ignored her scowl, scratched his chin, and looked thoughtful. “But there's much easier ways to traffic bodies than island hoping. Besides, you don't need to cross the puddle just for prostitutes.”
Lenalee was getting more and more uncomfortable with every syllable. Her partner seemed too lost in his own speculations to notice, however.
Lavi thought another moment. “Malta doesn't strike me as a real agricultural hub, though, so I'm guessing that someone from Afghanistan or Egypt is using Malta as a distribution center for the rest of the Mediterranean. Fifty bucks say if someone flagged one of these mystery shipments out of Malta, they'd trace them all the way to England or the Netherlands or any of the wealthier countries that can afford not to grow their own poppies. And these folks trying to sneak in by the boat load are just here for the wholesale prices.”
“Well, that's what we're here to find out,” Lenalee said.
“That would explain the slump in production here,” Lavi said matter-of-factly. “There's nothing like opium to make you change your religion.”
Lenalee cast her eyes off to the side. “I suppose.”
He watched her withdraw. “If we're lucky,” Lavi told her cheerily, “We won't see a single Akuma out here.”
“I think I'd rather fight Akuma than face a whole town of people slowly killing themselves,” she said, flicking her eyes up to him. She saw him twist his mouth apologetically and lean forward. He rested his elbows against his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees.
“We knew it wasn't going to be pretty as soon as we got the assignment,” he reminded her.
Lenalee nodded. She remembered.