His world had been... predictable, once. At least, a little.
Lonely, to be sure, but than, it had always been like that. Grudging attention paid by put-upon caretakers, laced with a bit of guilt, always. Un-understood and un-understanding. Uncared-for and uncaring. Because, all to often, those things go in pairs.
Unconfortable, all to often...but never so bad as to make him really try to DO anything to change things. He was still a child, after all. Why should he?
(And he didn't have to remember, than)
And than the Enemy had come. And than the Call had come.
Blue, bleeding, Mother-image. And than...
Her.
The dreams had started, some time after that.
Light. Melting. Losing. Losing Kisses-Hugs-Milk-Mother.
(But not-her. That was different--)
And many things happened, by and by. Learnt to fight together. Learnt even better how to hurt each other.
(Like??)
He began to be very very careful with sharp pointy objects. And photographs. Or toys. Anything of hers. Because he wasn't--
(What?? Wasn't going to slam toys/photos/pieces-of-her/with sharp pointy object, nailing it down so it(She) couldn't---)
He was going crazy. He was quite sure most of the people he knew would agree with him, even if they wouldn't admit it to his face. Or maybe it didn't matter. Everybody else seemed to be heading that way along with him, after all.
And the worst thing was. They wouldn't leave him ALONE.
Until The Day the World Ended. And he could hear, at long last.
What the Other had been saying all along.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP DAMN YOU!!
HOW DARE YOU LEAVE ME ALL ALONE!!!
He didn't like...those dreams.
A red sky and a sea that wasn't. A voice. Tears.
Telling him calling him screaming at him. Wake up Wake up WAKE UP.
Lost in Dreaming. Again.
So. Ashamed.
"Shinji? Shinji. Yo! Cousin mine!"
Asuka. He always felt like he was letting her down. Somehow. In some way.
Sometimes, just by existing.
Even though, a lot of the time, she was just plain annoying. Prickly, strongwilled, always talking before thinking things even halfway through. A uncouth Gryffindor, who just happened to be sorted into the noble House of Ravenclaw on a fluke.
Well, everybody knew the Hat had gone batty just around the time they'd been Sorted. Not that there was anything wrong with her grades, or anything.
"You know what, Shinji? I've figured it out!"
And he'd thought it was such a nice day, too. Quiet. No complications.
"Yes, Miss Mad Alchemist? Figured WHAT out?"
"The Animagus spell. Remus. Ramifications."
"Asuka. Asuka. Just becase, well, Everybody Knows"
"In our House, it doesn't mean I should talk about it where anybody could hear. And I'm not. Lookie-lookie!"
Great. Another "Asuka Special". Which were sometimes spectaculary useful, to be sure...
"Even the very best shielding devices can be worked around, you know that already."
"Gaah! Spoilsport! Stop being a Grinch and help me put this together, will you! ...It's not like I WANT to do something that would make poor Remus's problems worse or anything."
"You'd better not even go NEAR anything like that, Asuka."
"Baah. ...Even if there was a...a potential problem there, it should be all right if we started out by avoiding the...difficult periods. And I'm almost sure I know exactly what Remus' Animagus form would be..."
Decisions, decisions. Which were no decisions at all, when push came to shove. He KNEW what his many-times-cousin and not-quite-betrothed was like by now, after all.
Better the trouble one could keep an eye on, by far.
So Shinji Adam Ikari simply nodded, and offered Asuka Lilith Langley his arm...
(Posted Sat, 15 Nov 2003 08:35)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.