birdwithoutasong | Looking up I saw nothing

Entry tags:

Looking up I saw nothing

Who: Valen Arrol (

competitionsmile) and Vasilica Alin
Universe: Original
What: True love
Warning: to be added

Maybe Valen's old enough to know better than to listen to rumors, but it's more the case that he's old enough that he knows that even if most rumors aren't what they seem, they still often make for a good story later, and sometimes what the reality is turns out to be better than the rumor. Which is why when he hears the story of a beautiful ghost in a tower he assures the servant that exorcism is definitely one of his top ten skills and sets off towards the tower that had been described to him. He'd sprained his ankle in his last fight and he's going stir-crazy trying not to head out of town yet, so he agrees because it sounds interesting

He has his bow strapped to his back when he knocks on the door, the rest of his worldly possession in his bag because it's not like he has anywhere to leave them behind. The women who'd hired him greets him at the door, and he pins her with a charming smile. "If I'm free to look around, that's what I'm going to be doing," he says, because if he's going to find out anything, it's not going to be while he's being herded around. He needs to poke his nose where it doesn't belong, because he's sure the ghost isn't going to come out to say hi, if it's even real.

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The lord of House Alin has seven children - but most people only remember the existences of six. The eldest three and the youngest three - flawless, a matchless standard to live up to. The impossible made flesh.

Not many people remember the fourth child, the shameful secret - flawed, pitiable, half-mad, a disgrace to his name, except the servants that do take care and only speak of the rumors. Vasilica lives in that tower, and when he goes anywhere outside it, on the rare occasions that he does, it's usually after dark.

It's past twilight, when true night had fallen, when he ventures out of the room at the top, footstep near-silent on the stair. No further than the stairs, and only a couple of stairs down, a slim, pale ghost of a boy with white hair and white skin and white robes.

He's not expecting company. He never expects company.

Valen is loud, loud as he pokes his head into a room and loud as he walks his way through, investigating, or at least loud compared to what he's capable of, what he does when he's tracking a wild animal. But a ghost isn't that. Probably.

(Exorcism would only make his top ten talents because he only really has five or so things he's good at. He knows exactly shit all about ghosts, other than that he hadn't really thought they were real.)

Valen might not be listening to suppress his own footsteps, but he is paying attention to the rest, and trying not to jump out and scare any servants. Which is why when he starts up the stairs he's surprised to see someone already at the top.

"Oh, guess she wasn't kidding about the beautiful," he mutters under his breath and then, "Hey there."

It's not as though there's much noise, here: the servants never make much noise, spend as little time within these walls as they reasonably can, and he's silent as the grave himself. It's all stillness and silence, and the out of place loudness is startling to ears not accustomed to it.

And more to not being accustomed to noise, he's not accustomed to strangers: for a moment, all he can do is freeze and stare at the interloper, words caught in his throat.

Ghosts might not be real - though there are folklore about them everywhere, including the drowned maidens deserted by lovers - but he certainly appears as one now, between the stillness and the fact he's wrapped in white like it was his shroud (and someday he'd be burned in white).

"Whoah." Valen can't help the way it comes out, the tone of surprise mixed with a little wonder, because it probably is a ghost and that means he's in quite a bit over his head. It's followed by a quick, "Easy there," because he's not good at silent, and it might not seem likely that ghosts are afraid of the living, but there's always a chance.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he promises, which is easily enough true, mostly because he isn't quite the exorcist the servant had been looking for, because he hasn't the first idea how to cause harm to something physical objects pass through.

Not that he'd hurt anyone so beautiful anyway.

If he was a ghost, then he simply would have walked right through the wall and disappeared. A great many things would have been easier - but he isn't a ghost (yet), and cannot simply disappear.

The words meant to be soothing aren't particularly - perhaps they would have worked on a less skittish individual. And there's another long stretch of silence, words still caught in his throat, before he speaks, soft and barely audible. (and it's been almost too long since he's spoken last).

"Go. Please."

It's not a command, not the way it should be instead of something that was almost pleading, hands drawn back against his chest. Never the effortless way that his siblings handled those around them - those that they were better than.

Never that, never that at all.

"Hey now." Valen holds up his hands, a clear sign of 'didn't mean to offend you'. Not backing off or down, though, after all, he gave his word to that servant, and he had meant it to the best of his ability.

"Way I understand it, this isn't your space anymore." Ghost means it was once though, right? Valen thinks that's the case. "I think the people here are nice folk. Maybe if you got to know them you'd like them."

And stop haunting them.

It's not that he's offended, because he's not, and his eyes dart back and forth between the man and the door up, fast flickers, and he's about ready to run. Shouldn't run, shouldn't, but it's the way he's always, always been.

"...ahhhh." he realizes, then, what the man means, what he thinks he is, (and it would have been easier then), sound nothing more than the softest exhale of breath (but sign that he wasn't, in fact, a ghost, was still very much alive, because ghosts didn't breathe), and half a moment later, turns and tries to bolt up for his door.

Valen doesn't know all that much about ghosts, although something does seem wrong about this one, something sad in a way he hadn't really expected. "Please, wait!" he says, because he doesn't want to lead with bounding up the stairs after him -- although if he was a ghost, why not just go through a wall or vanish? -- as willing to do it as he is.

"I just want to talk to you."

Ghosts were sad creatures, full of lingering regrets and an inability to let go of their lives, And (always wanting to please-) Vasilica pauses for a moment, rigid and trembling, very much the scared bird.

"Why?"

No one ever had, before, and he doesn't see why now.

There's nothing to talk about. Nothing he has to say.

Edited 2014-05-11 08:47 (UTC)

"Because I'm not really the shoot first type. Or the shoot type at all, when we're talking people." It's not really an answer at all, but Valen is trying hard to cling to the momentary respite he seems to have gotten.

"And because I can listen to myself talk all day, but I don't really think it's as much fun as it is for other people."

He shrugs. "What will it hurt?"

The silence stretches on - not a comfortable silence, he's never had one of those, but an uncomfortable one, until Vasilica lowers his eyes, turns his head away, hair falling into his eyes, over his face.

"...there are no ghosts here," he says, simply, before he turns away again, in a flutter of white silk. Maybe the man will leave, since he'd come looking for ghosts, after all, and there weren't any here.

Edited 2014-05-17 09:23 (UTC)

"Oh?" Valen says, almost automatically, before what had been said truly penetrated into his head. "Oh?" he repeated, a request for greater explanation and accompanied by interest.

Valen's heading up the stairs before he gives himself a chance to think about it, trying not to lose track of the figure before he vanishes. "That probably will make it easier to talk."

There really isn't anywhere for Vasilica to go that would have him be lost track of - the stairs lead upwards to his room, and Valen would be able to catch up to him easily at the door to his room.

"...about?"

He might not be a ghost, but it's easy to tell, even this early, how the rumors had been started, with how soft he speaks, how little, and how still his body language is with nowhere left to run to.

What is there even to talk about, is the ghost of the tone under the words.

Valen shrugs, powerful shoulders raising in a gesture that's awkward for the fact that he doesn't know how to express the sentiment he feels, isn't even sure what it is.

"The weather? Why you're scaring the servants? Whether the servants are scaring you?"

He laughs, something self-conscious and yet real enough, an attempt to laugh off the awkwardness of it all. "I'm pretty good at talking about nothing at all, if that's your preference."

It's awkward, to say the least - awkward between them, and he can see the awkwardness in the other man's gesture. Someone being awkward at him (because of him) is new, and strange, and he glances away for a moment.

"...I don't mean to." he says, his voice as soft and blank as ever.

His hand clutches the doorknob, tightly.

Valen holds himself still, like when he knows he doesn't want to startle a deer, afraid of the moment someone else will go tearing through the forest, or a wolf will.

"I'm sure it's just because they don't you," he says, and he doesn't know if that's an explanation or an excuse or if it's any good at all. "They're the ones who think you a ghost, or at least that's what they told me."

Valen shifts, carefully, running a hand through his hair -- a slow moment, to make it clear he's not about to reach for something else or for the man. "Maybe they were just having a laugh at the expense of both of us."

The moment is a fragile, tenuous one, and Vasilica's silence holds as he listens, glancing away. Of course they don't know him: there was always that gulf of station even before he'd drifted away, before he'd done his best to disappear.

"They forgot that I was alive." he says, finally, and he's still not certain whether it's better that way or not. Or even why this man bothered to find out that he was anything more than a ghost.

Perhaps anyone else would have been bitter, but his voice is still that same blank serenity.

He hasn't run again yet - he holds himself still, still and still, but this is the bravest he's been in (ever) a long while.

"That seems difficult to believe." Valen says it without thinking, without breaking the fact that his eyes feel transfixed onto Vasilica's face. He might not know the other man either, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to.

"I'm sure I'll never forget you."

Although he does hope that he won't have to rely on faith or memory alone, to see him every day but never talk.

Of course, it would never work like that for Valen.

Why would it seem difficult to believe? He's been haunting what should have been and was never his home for what has felt like his whole life. And he's certainly at a loss with someone /staring/ at him.

No one stares. Except this man. No one remembers he exists, except this man.

"...You-" You can't not forget, because everyone else forgets, like he was a swirl of snowflakes that faded into the storm.

(Vasilica doesn't know what to do, faced with a man who is certain he won't forget him.}

"Why?" he finally asks again. Why do you say that? "Everyone does."

Perhaps Valen's staring can be forgiven, for it seems a certainty that if he were to look away from Vasilica, then the other man would surely vanish, or even do something as mundane as simply run. Either way, he'd then be gone, and that isn't what Valen wants.

He doesn't lie, and he hadn't lied about his thoughts of Vasilica.

"If I were a religious man, I would say it's because you've touched my soul. But I'm about as religious as I am superstitious." And Valen knows that isn't an answer, but he's not sure what a better one might be.

"So I suppose it will just be because I have no desire to." If beauty must be transient, the memory of it may not be.

His expression doesn't change, though his cheeks darken with a blush. It's a door, an option, something he could choose (a way out), and-

"I-" he begins, hesitantly. But he doesn't take the way out: instead, he runs, slams his bedroom door in Valen's face and doesn't open it.

It's something he doesn't forget. Even after he dies less than a month after he met Valen (dies alone in the darkness, leaves a fragment of his heart behind) and lives again and leaves the tower, with a new name and a new family who actually loves him and a purpose, he doesn't forget.

(Even Valen, wanderer and passing through, might have heard of his death. How Vasilica, fourth child of Lord Alin, had died. His eldest sister lit a candle for him. May the Seven judge him fairly. Beautiful, broken, flawed and pitiable, not to be remembered or mourned.

Except while Vasilica died, Mira lived.)

Three years, maybe four. Enough time to find himself, stitch the pieces back together, to figure out who Mira is, to learn to be someone else. To learn his purpose and how to use his powers and know what he is. Three years, maybe four, and he meets Valen again, a chance-meeting at an inn one night. Dressed differently - he still has white hair, and white skin, but he's not wearing white robes that make him look like a ghost but darker colors that actually look good on him- and carrying himself much more confidently (still gracefully), but still looks much the same otherwise. It's enough to throw people off, even those who would have known Mira when he'd still been Vasilica Alin - Vasilica never looked anyone in the eyes, after all, and never spoke in complete sentences.

Mira's trying to pick his way through the crowd, which isn't an easy task given that it's raining, when someone jostles him - and knocks him, and his harpcase, right into Valen.

“Excuse me—” Valen murmurs, ready to apologize regardless of the fault because this crowd is too full and it comes down to no individual’s fault, except, indeed, Valen’s choice to stop in for a pint.

Any further response dies on his lips, though, as he looks at what — who — he’s actually bumped into.

He swallows, eyes transfixed on the other man, terrified that if he looks away this will all turn out to have been an illusion.

“And this time, are you a ghost?” He truly has never forgotten, himself.

He's initially too startled to quite process who he's bumped into, murmurs a hasty apology - and then recognition hits him, just as Valen asks if he's a ghost this time.

Mira sighs, quietly. With anyone else, he might have lied, might have tried to pass himself off as someone else. With anyone else, he might have done any of those things - and has, even to his own former oldest brother. But Valen isn't quite 'anyone else', because he's never forgotten, either. He's never forgotten his kindness to a broken, fragile boy.

"No," he says, quietly, resting his instrument case on the table. "Maybe I should have been, but it's...complicated."

Valen’s eyes haven’t gotten any narrower by Vasilica confirming it, and questions swim in his head. He’s not sure what to say, and if he had a room in this inn, instead of just a table, he would have asked the man up there to talk in private. Instead he’s going to make do with the fact that Vasilica hasn’t run away from him yet this time.

“I didn’t know you were alive.”

A pause, and then, “I would have come back.”

Mira can see that the other man's eyes are narrow, and can't really blame him. Not with how he'd died and come back, when that wasn't exactly a common occurrence. Not with...everything that had happened.

"...I know." he finally says, and sighs. He does have a room at the inn, because he'd planned to stay here. And the explanation he owes the man? Will have to be in private. "Come upstairs with me? I'll talk with you more there."

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