2018-07-04 - Adieu

I.

"We're back, I suppose," said Nori Ankou, no longer wearing any masks, as she slouched in the salvaged chair.

Batiste floated in his water. The indoor pond bubbled with the blind energy that the educated otter associated with the machines of Earth. It was the second best option - and the only one, of course, to be found here.

"We lived," Batiste agreed.

Nori didn't move. Batiste kept speaking.

"Those women, the Cloud Knights. What do you think about them?"

"I don't," Nori said. "Not right now."

Batiste raised his head and looked. He saw where Nori's head, her profile, and thus her eyes were turned. Not towards the ceiling, not towards him; towards the newspaper-covered settee table where he had been using tiny blades, carefully held, to carve out...

"Ah," he said.

II.

The boat was carved from a single log of soft wood, which Nori had bought and given the preliminary shaping. It was not that she was not supposed to do such matters, she was assured - and indeed a small paw had to be placed to her hand to stop her from straining to learn yet another art. This was the tradition, in memory of the Asymmetric Queen.

Nori placed the old folded menu from 'boulangerie de shibuya.'

Batiste placed a small teacup.

Nori placed a small photograph, faded faintly from having been pinned in a place where the sunlight fell on it for nearly two months, and the tears came from her eyes and the rite stopped for a good fifteen minutes before she calmed.

Batiste placed a gold ribbon that had decorated his neck once upon a time.

Nori had the last of it and placed a plain hankerchief, slightly stained with a few drops of what had been sweat and still carrying a nostalgiac scent, atop it all.

They placed the coins then, seven hundred-yen and seven ten-yen, forming a loop in the divot of the small ship.

"Have you thought about what you will write on the sail?" Batiste asked softly.

III.

The words rustled in the wet-scented air.

'My friend, Mami Tomoe. She was beautiful and courageous. I could not save her. Remember her, for me.'

The words had been written in the eccentric French that Nori knew, although it was la Sirene de Diamant that watched. She had to watch because her eyes were filling the triangle of paper that made the sail upon the funeral boat.

Batiste and she had returned to the cavern where they had hidden during the Searrs incident, having found to their surprise that it was still undisturbed. Batiste had added one of the cracked and grilled marine snail shells to the boat. La Sirene, who sometimes dreamed of the taste of that simple food, had instead torn a diamond from her blouse and set it at the prow of the boat.

The words were growing harder to read, even though la Sirene knew that wearing this garb, she could see farther, sharper than she otherwise could. The rain had not come yet, but it would. Night was sneaking in around the edges.

"It will really get there?" she said, and she found her voice was smaller and huskier than she had thought. "It will come there, it will not be washed asunder? It is such a small thing, Batiste. I'm afraid it will pitch over in a wave, even now."

"Keep watching it," Batiste told her.

"You'll swim out if it is about to, right? I won't... I don't expect you to go deep, but..."

Batiste did not take his eyes from the ship. He placed his paw on the knee of the Siren: "Have faith," he said.

La Sirene de Diamant, eventually, did.

IV.

The boat had vanished from sight. The storm had come, although it was a gentle thing by storm standards; more of a rainy squall with a little thunder than a true roaring outrage.

She was not sure who she was when she spoke aloud: "If I had been stronger; perhaps I could have saved her."

Batiste breathed in and out once. These were the moments he had educated himself for. His reply was gentle; his gaze hadn't left the sea. "Why do you say that?"

"I could have stopped Akemi," she said, wistful, soft. "Broken her guns. If I had been there with Mami, perhaps she would have prevailed."

"But then Shimanouchi would have died."

"I would not have tried to slay her," she said: "and you know it is a different thing when these are acts in the defense of others."

Batiste was quiet; so was she.

"What do you think it would mean," Batiste asked, "to be stronger?"

She was silent for nearly a minute. "I don't know," she says. "I want to protect my friends. I hurt when they hurt... but that is selfish, isn't it? I want to be loved... but they don't love you for your strength, do they? Not usually. I love Madoka, and she is strong in her heart, but she is not strong the way I mean, you know?"

Batiste squeeked assent; the clarity of strength in the sense of slaying Witches and Cardiax-worms, he knew, had its ups and its downs.

The night drew on.

"Well?" she said, finally.

"Well what?"

"Do you know? You aren't saying anything. I don't want to pet your back if you won't even say something sweet, so I will worry a little less," she huffed.

"Who is asking me?" Batiste said.

There was no answer; only a quick breath.

"May I guess your mind, cousin?" Batiste said.

"You may."

"I asked you this question and you thought something like, me of course - but then, you are bathed in the light of Enigma. You've gathered tears for Les Mysteres now, and let me tell you that I had not thought you would do that... not that you had renounced it, but that you held no interest in it, and that you acted in other ways. You felt it, didn't you? You felt the shift and the change."

"What good is that?" la Sirene said, with bitterness. Then she said: "They have such rites and ways. Their brightly colored dreams, their vows together. Their devices from ancient places and distant manufacturies."

"They were there, also," Batiste said. "They did not save Mami, either."

Silence returned, and stayed a while.

Batiste broke it this time.

"You have grown and you are still growing. Do not be too eager to be full-grown, cousin. The Asymmetric Queen reached her uttermost limits within hours of grasping the Magna of Illusion. She did not live out the year. Wear many masks and find what suits you. In time, you will become -"

"Stronger?"

"Better," Batiste said.

Eventually, they returned to Shibuya. Home was still in the future.