The grandfather clock stood like a sentinel at attention by the side of the hallway, flanked by two windows at its sides. "Tick Tock" it said to Dizzy as she watched its inner pendulum move back and forth, back and forth.
She found watching it relaxing. Much better than thinking about other things as she sat in the Vatican corridor.
The sound of nearby footsteps stopping beside her caught her notice.
"F-Father Anderson...."
The Paladin stood, fully dressed in his usual garb, hands in his pockets. Sunlight streamed in from a nearby window behind him, leaving much of his face shadowed, and his cross gleaming strangely from the glow in the room.
So much like that night, so many years ago. Dizzy took a shaky step back.
The priest raised a gloved hand to rub at his face, and the shadows covering it—or were they just from her memories?—seemed to melt away, leaving behind only the weary face of an old man who had seen too much in his life. "Aye, 's you, girl. So... th' boy brought ya back after all.... How are ya these days?"
The sound of the door opening, and the sight of the boy and an older silver-haired man coming out, saved her from having to make a response. The boy gave the two of them an odd look, and she shivered. The other man, unnoticed, gave her a glance, and then gestured to Father Anderson; the two walked off down the hall.
She watched Father Anderson leave, then turned back to the boy. Without a word, he took her by the arm and started down a different hall.
Down hallways and stairs they went. Entryways and corridors passed by in a blur. Presently they came up to a door, and a small plaque on the wall proclaimed it to belong to "Saotome". His. The boy entered, and she followed. Inside was a lavish set of rooms, and much like the hallway, it was decorated with expensive and luxurious furniture the likes of which she hadn't seen before. The boy didn't give it a second look, only pointing toward the open bathroom door and stating: "You haven't had a chance to wash up yet. Go ahead. I had some new clothes ordered for you too."
She entered the bathroom, and was only slightly startled by the size and opulence of it compared to the old and poorly equipped caretaker's bathroom she was used to.
A twist of a knob let hot, steaming water into the large tub. She removed dirty clothes and settled in, wrapping her tail around her.
For a very short moment, she marveled to herself that she still had a tail.
The hot water relaxed her weary body. So much that she almost fell asleep. She didn't know how long she stayed in the tub. When she finally rose, she found a simple set of a plain, modest blouse, sweater, and skirt waiting for her on a nearby counter. They were new, and though she had no idea what material they were made from, they were clearly the best clothes she had laid eyes and hands on in a long, long time. And they fit perfectly, even when she adjusted her tail to hide it from sight.
She exited the bathroom, and the boy priest strode past her for his own turn with ill-hidden impatience. She flinched as the door slammed shut.
The boy's schedule seemed odd to Dizzy. When she woke in the morning, he was already up, washed, and dressed. An unseen servant had brought a light breakfast, and he left her share on the table next to the bed.
She followed him as he walked the halls, dressed in somewhat casual clothes but with his white collar still clearly showing. He would move up and down the halls with a rag, wiping down the furniture and the odd ornamental suit of armor. Or he would drag a mop and bucket, and work until the hardwood floors were shining. Or he would arm himself with a feather duster and strain with all the objects in the halls and rooms, removing dust bunnies from behind cabinets and under armoires. She would follow him as he did it all. He would never say a word, to ask for help or anything, except to greet a passing face on occasion.
Then sometime in the middle of the day, a fellow dressed in priests' black would come along and hand him a small bag, and he and she would find somewhere to sit, where he would split the bag's contents with her and they would eat lunch. The lunch was usually a simple sandwich of some sort, but for a girl who scavenged food from wherever she could for so many years, it was wonderful food. And whomever made the things was good at making them.
And then they would repeat the morning task until sometime in the afternoon. He led her throughout the building—it all seemed like one building to her, but it could have been the inside of many buildings as far as she could tell from the walking—going somewhere new each time. She could never figure out where they were at any time. The hallways always seemed exactly the same or nothing alike. Often both at once.
But inevitably he would somehow decide that the day's work was done, and led her through some convoluted path back to their room, where dinner had already been delivered. If lunch was something to look forward to, dinner was absolutely delightful. Meats and vegetables cooked to perfection, with soups and spices in all sorts of different flavors, it was heaven for a girl who had to make do with wild fruits and pilfered vegetables and oftentimes nothing at all. It probably wasn't as great as she thought, since he didn't really acknowledge the dishes beyond bite, chew, and swallow, but she loved it.
And with dinner done, she would go into the bathroom and enjoy a long soak in the tub, and then go to bed. There was only one bed there, a large, soft, comfortable one, like nothing she had slept on in her life. It was obviously his, but he never touched it, choosing instead to stay at his desk and read deep into the night, whereas the instant she slipped under the warm covers and her head hit the fluffy pillow, she fell asleep instantly, as if it was she that had labored the entire day instead of just standing there watching as he worked.
And when the next day came, he was already waiting for her to eat her breakfast.
This continued for many days.
She stared at him.
He didn't look so bad in this light. The sun's rays shining on him from the nearby window as he mopped the wood floor cast a halo of warm light around him that made him look... angelic. No, not really. Maybe peaceful. Like he was nothing more than he appeared.
It was easy to forget everything that had happened. She had thought him handsome before, and blushed when he looked at her or spoke to her for what often seemed like no reason at all. It was easy to look at him in this light and imagine that he was handsome, or kind, or any number of other positive things.
"Why?" She didn't notice that she had asked it out loud, "Why aren't you what you seem to be?"
The boy toiled on in silence.
"Why are you kind and gentle one moment and a killer the next?"
The boy toiled on in silence.
"How can you stand to have blood on your hands? To hold life and let it fade away?"
The boy toiled on in silence.
"Don't you feel anything in your heart for-"
"Will you shut up?" the boy suddenly growled.
Dizzy's breath caught in her throat.
"Those are great questions and all that, but listening to you is so irritating! Are you trying to bore me out of my mind!? You haven't even thought about what it means for me to kill, have you?"
She couldn't breathe, but she was somehow able to scream something about "stay away from me" before running down the hall, until the boy was long out of sight.
The boy placed a Wet Floor warning stand on the ground and moved on to the next place.
It was a long time later that she came back, a clouded mind and an hungry stomach driving her, to find that he had left.
She didn't know where he had gone, and it could have been anywhere, because he always seemed to walk so far before somehow deciding that this was the next place that needed cleaning. A few people passed, and she tried to ask them for help, but they all ignored her and pushed past. So she stopped asking.
She waited.
She didn't know what time it was, but even though the hall lamps were still lit, no one had passed in what must have been hours. The sky outside was dark, and everyone who worked in the building must have gone home.
She hadn't eaten since lunch, and her stomach growled, but she ignored it as best she could. Waiting at the spot no longer seemed meaningful, so she wandered the halls, hoping to find some place she recognized so that she could find her way to their room again. So that she wouldn't have to sleep on the floor. Even if he was angry with her for running off, she knew he would let her in, give her something to eat, and put her to bed.
She didn't know how she knew that, but for some reason she just took it for granted. It was as if he only knew how to comfort her or how to hurt her beyond anything she knew. He didn't have any in-between.
But it wouldn't be important if she couldn't find her way. So she kept walking through the many hallways, trying to find someplace she knew.
But no matter how far she walked and what turns she took, she couldn't do it. She couldn't find her way.
Until at last, she heard a comforting sound. "Tick Tock" was that sound, and she tiredly fell onto the chair across from the grandfather clock, having nowhere left to go.
And she began to wait again.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
A lone figure sat in the empty hallway of the Order's headquarters, waiting for its Commander's arrival. Outside the windows, the early morning sky was dark, the dreary winter morning chilly and quiet.
Tick.
Tock.
The sound of the grandfather clock sitting across from her seat on one side of the hall filled the expanse of polished, brightly lit corridor. Constructed of the whitest marble and richly colored woods, decorated with priceless works of art and precious metals. Completely devoid of other life.
Tick.
Tock.
Dressed in the the simple clothes of a normal girl, she sat very still as she waited.
Tick.
Tock.
The sound of steps falling on hardwood flooring echoed down the hallway.
Tick.
Tock.
Enrico Maxwell slowed to a stop in front of his door and stared in puzzlement at the girl sitting on the bench in front of his office. "Well, this certainly brings back memories," he said to himself. The girl gave a questioning sound at that odd comment, which he ignored as he unlocked his door and strode inside, motioning for her to follow.
Dizzy did. Very hesitantly.
Maxwell's room was spacious and elegant, yet functional. The man clicked on his lights and moved to his chair behind his desk, dropping his armload of documents and settling himself down. "So how can I help you, Miss... ah, what was your name again?"
"Dizzy." She sat down before his desk.
"Right, Miss Dizzy. So, again, what would you like to talk to me about?"
Dizzy paused, and gathered her confidence. "I'd like to talk about F-Father Saotome."
"Oh, Ranma? You can just call him Ranma," Maxwell started going through his desk drawers, "Well, I can certainly entertain a conversation about the boy." Finding some sheaf of papers that he was apparently looking for, he took out a pair of spectacles from his shirt pocket and slipped them on. "Any question in particular?" He began to read through it studiously.
"Where is he right now?" Dizzy asked.
Maxwell coughed, and brought out a small notebook from somewhere. He began scribbling in it. "Somewhere 'away from you'... I think it was?"
Dizzy flinched. "He's not- is he still here in the ci-" Maxwell noisily jerked open a drawer and started rooting through it. "-ty, that is, is he close by and avoiding me...." She trailed off as the man before her began pulling folders and ledgers out of the drawer, viewed them, and replaced them, not paying any attention to her at all.
"Keep going, I'm listening," Maxwell said as he pulled out a very thick folder and started stuffing it even thicker with some of the papers he had brought in with him.
"I'm just trying to ask where he is."
Maxwell stopped for a scant second to give her a peculiar look. "That would fall under 'not your business', actually." And he went back to his work.
Dizzy shied back. "You are-"
"His superior. Archbishop Enrico Maxwell. Where he goes and what he does is my business. You shouldn't bother yourself with such things."
"But he said that I was his respon..."
The girl suddenly froze, and her eyes widened. "Then you're the one who-"
"Sent Ranma after you? That was me. Sent you running around the world for the last decade? Me as well." Maxwell somehow crammed the fat folder back into its place in his drawer. Looking up, he took in the girl's look. "Not so sure about talking to me anymore? Well, I can understand."
Dizzy pressed herself against the back of the seat, a little girl alone in the woods with a wolf.
"Would you like something to drink?" Maxwell asked amicably. On getting no response, he got up, fetched some cups from a nearby cabinet, and poured himself and Dizzy some juice. He offered a cup, and Dizzy nervously took it, and drained it. It settled her stomach a little.
"Well, if it helps, we won't be doing any of those nasty things to you anymore."
"R-really? But... why not?"
Maxwell sipped from his own cup, and started to go through some more of the papers he had brought with him. "The truth is, we don't really have any reason to do so anymore."
Ghostly twinges of pain moved up and down Dizzy's back, and she shivered. "...Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why am I not dead? You were hoping to catch and k-kill me, weren't you? That was what you were trying to do before. To kill me."
The man before her look up at her. And then... grinned. He got up and walked over to his office safe, and a moment later pulled from it a familiar manila folder.
Sitting back down, he tossed the folder onto the desk before her. "Well, if you really want to hear the story, I suppose I have some time to tell it to you. It is rather difficult to understand for a young French girl."
Dizzy stared with apprehension at the folder before her, and at the almost-but-not-quite-pleasant smile on Maxwell's face. The light in the room glinted off his spectacles, making it difficult to see his eyes. She didn't know if she really wanted to see them.
"You see, when we first found you, we didn't quite know what to do with you. So, after some consideration, we sent you to Anderson's orphanage. This was, of course, my," Maxwell gave a tiny seated bow, "decision, though you didn't know it. There we kept you under observation, which you probably figured out as much. When Necron began to emerge from within your body, we sought to contain him. This we attempted by, shall we say, an unorthodox method. We, through the will of the Lord, sealed an angel in your body."
Dizzy nodded. "Ondine...."
"Oh," Maxwell started, and made a note to himself on his little notebook, "was that the angel's name? It was never revealed to us, actually. Thank you for relaying it. But in any case, as you know, it didn't seem to do much."
"No!" Dizzy cried out, not wanting a dear friend to be questioned. "She helped me! She helped keep Necron calm... and things like that...."
"Ah, well then, I'm glad for that. In any case, we didn't really know about the specifics, but since Necron was not successfully removed, of course we would move to suppress him. Since Necron escaped, and you with him, we hunted you. You will understand, of course, that Necron, as a demon, is a danger to everyone around him, and you yourself as well."
The girl nodded miserably.
"But you managed to hide from us for quite some time. Very impressive, as a matter of fact. And quite frankly we were not sufficiently equipped to search for you. We have many things to worry about, and Necron is, actually, not that high a priority. In this case, we received a report of your whereabouts and for... certain reasons... I sent Ranma to deal with you."
"What were those reasons?" Dizzy asked.
"Oh, nothing for you to be concerned about, for the most part. The important point is that Ranma is... especially suited to dealing with you. As I'm sure you can imagine since you've already met him on the k- err... battlefield. In the end, he managed to successfully remove both the demon and the angel from your body, didn't he?"
Dizzy nodded slowly, more to herself than anyone else.
"I'm sure he did it for your sake, you know," Maxwell remarked as he turned his eyes toward his paperwork again, scanning and signing sheets quickly. "He is a very nice boy."
"If he's so nice," the girl asked in a soft voice, "why did he kill all those people?"
Maxwell chuckled. "Well, there were reasons."
Dizzy stared at the man in disbelief. "Like what!? Why!?"
"Because they are evil."
It was stated so simply that she couldn't breathe for a second. "Wh-what?"
"Those people are evil." Maxwell reached into a drawer and took out a stapler, stapling some papers together and placing the resulting document onto the top of his "done" stack.
"B-but what about the parishioners? They had nothing to do with it!"
"Ah, yes, that was regrettable. But that really wasn't his fault, so we won't be holding that against him."
Dizzy could only stutter in disbelief.
Maxwell smiled kindly at her. "It might be hard for you to understand, but it's true. Try to be a bit more thoughtful, Miss Dizzy. While we would rather not take any more lives than strictly necessary, our duty toward Christiandom is not a light one, or a clean one." The man rose from his chair. "In any case, what's done is done, and we look toward the future. More juice?"
He refilled her cup, and she sat there in silence for a while. Maxwell got some more work done. Namely, he finished all the documents that needed signing off on, filed away some reports, and reorganized his calender for the month, which he had been wanting to do for a while. It was already December, and certain things had turned up which needed to be scheduled in.
"So... he was the best choice for d-dealing with me."
"Correct. Ranma is very well versed in the Holy Arts. The best, in fact, though I wouldn't tell him that to his face. He might get a big ego from it." Maxwell adopted a thoughtful look for a second. "Or he might not care. I don't know, he seems to have the strangest reactions to praise sometimes. But anyway, he's the best choice for anything involving you."
Dizzy nodded. "And you knew this when you chose him for... the mission."
"Well, yes."
"So... you ordered him to find me and try to separate Necron and Ondine from me...."
"Hmm?" Maxwell took a second to work his mind around this. "Oh! Oh, goodness no! I sent him to kill you, of course."
Dizzy leapt out of her chair in panic. "Wh-what!? You mean-"
"You thought that he was there to exorcise Necron?" Maxwell started laughing at the thought. "No, no, no that's not why he was there to find you. My orders were for your extermination. As usual. I thought when you said "dealing with" you meant- ah, well, he's the most qualified to kill you, and that's what I sent him to do. Although," the man took on the thoughtful look again, "in hindsight, I suppose he was the most qualified to exorcise the demon too. Hmm."
Dizzy whirled toward the door, and the sight of another bespectacled man, standing at attention, stopped her. Why hadn't she heard him enter? She had nowhere to run. Again.
"Ah, Father Renaldo, the morning list?"
The aging Renaldo nodded, stepped past the girl and set a stack of folders on the Archbishop's desk. Maxwell thanked him, and he left, as silently as he had entered.
"The boy's right," Maxwell noted. "You do cringe too much."
Dizzy tried to relax out of her cringe, and sat down in the chair once more. She drained her cup of juice, and summoning some courage, spoke again.
"So why did he spare my life?"
Maxwell smiled. "That's... something you'll have to ask him."
Silence.
"Anyway," the Archbishop continued, "I have a busy day ahead of me, and I have to get you out of my office. Anything else you'd like to ask?"
Dizzy, still a little numb, lowered her head. "What should I do now? He's not here, and I'm his responsibility, right?"
Maxwell snorted to himself. "Yes, well, if you're really so eager to see him, I suppose I can arrange something. You wouldn't have much to do here in Vatican City, anyway."
"So you'll send me to meet him?"
"No."
"Did you know," Father Renaldo remarked to his passenger, "that the boy is quite a lot like you?"
Dizzy turned a puzzled glance toward him as they drove through the streets of Rome. "What do you mean?"
"Father Saotome is of very similar circumstances as you, in fact. He was found by us as a child, placed under our care, and brought up here. Father Anderson is quite fond of the boy, just as he was quite fond of you."
"Father Anderson was... never very fond of me. I wasn't very obedient as a child. He was always screaming at me."
"On the contrary, child, Father Anderson was quite broken up when you left us. Though I suppose you'll just have to take my word for it. And just because he was always carrying on about you not being obedient doesn't mean he isn't fond of you. You really can't compare to Father Saotome in that regard." Renaldo started chuckling at some private joke.
"What?"
"Oh, I'm sure you'll hear a few tales about it soon enough."
They drove up to the gate, and she got off. The familiar sight of the orphanage courtyard, familiar even after over ten something years, was somehow comforting. And so was the sight of-
"Mater...."
The elderly Matron, dressed in the same nun's habit from her oldest memories, smiled at her from the other side of the gate, and quickly walked out to greet her.
And as she was gathered into a warm, familiar embrace, it seemed strangely as if she had come home.
(Posted Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:25)
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