thenearshore | [closed] Holiday Memories

Even without the screaming, the sudden violent surge of emotion coming from Joss's direction is enough to jolt Ayumu awake and out of bed. Her shinki's room is right next door but there isn't a place within these temple walls she can't teleport to in an instant. She does so now, appearing at the foot of Joss's bed in her pajamas.

"Joss, I'm here. What is it? What's wrong?"

From the feelings Ayumu's picking up on, the boy's own words, and the fact he's sick, she can hazard a guess. Without hesitation or regard to the fact that she's likely to get thrown up on herself, she hurries to his side, reaching out to place a steady, comforting hand on his shoulder.

”Please! I beg of you, spare the boy!”

“He is of thy get and shares thy crimes. He must face justice.”

“No! He is an innocent! I go willingly to whatever sentence Her Grace deems fit. Take my head, I happily give it to thee, but my Joscelin must live!”

With his mother’s voice still ringing in his ears, Joscelin cannot quite tell what is real and what is memory. He stares at Ayumu with wild eyes, sobbing brokenly and covered in his own sick. When she places a hand on his shoulder he grabs it.

“I’ll kill them!” he repeats. “I’ll kill them all!”

it's a look she knows and it breaks her heart to see it in a child, even one as old as Joss is. Ayumu sits down on the edge of the bed and simply gathers Joss into her arms, cradling him close. But how to proceed? He can't know of his past but wounds like this must be treated somehow.

"They're gone now. I promise," she murmurs soothingly. "They can't hurt anyone else. You're safe with me. We're safe here."

She's speaking out of instinct more than conscious thought.

Joscelin is not normally someone who tolerates any physical contact, but he gratefully accepts Ayumu’s embrace. He clings to her like a lifeline, heedless of the mess.

“I saw her. They killed my mother. Cut off her head.”

"I'm so sorry for your loss. That's a horrible thing to see."

Ayumu just continues to hold him, letting him cling to her as much as he wants or needs to. It's not a permission she tends to grant usually, not even with her flesh and blood, but she's grown older and wiser since the days she tried to raise Susumu while being little more than a child herself.

“Why?” he whispers into her shoulder. “Why did they kill her? What did she do? What did I do?”

He pulls away slightly and meets her eyes, looking utterly lost.

“I don’t want them. I don’t want these memories.”

Such painful and dangerous questions for a shinki to ask. Ayumu had remembered very little herself and it'd been something simple and innocuous - just a simple trip to rouse the men for breakfast and nothing like this. She'd felt indifferent toward it at the time, as if it was nothing more than a strange dream. But she's known shinki who have remembered things, both confusing and grief-inducing, at least.

"I know. I wish you didn't have them. It's such a terrible thing to remember."

Ayumu hugs him closer, ignoring the mess getting on her pajamas and strokes his hair in a gentle, maternal gesture. She's at a bit of a loss herself but she not going to abandon him with these feelings and thoughts.

"But it's over now. The bad ones are gone."

It's so rare for Ayumu to label enemies as bad but this isn't the right time to bring up the complexities of good and evil.

"We're beyond their reach."

The grief and the pain threaten to overwhelm him again, causing another round of sobs so intense they lead to more more dry heaving, but there is something else, underneath it all. Something he will seize on later, once the trauma isn’t so fresh.

Rage.

He needs it. Ayumu says that his mother’s murderers are gone, that they can’t harm him anymore, but how does she know? He needs revenge. He needs to see the blood fountaining from their necks, see the bodies at his feet....

But that’s later.

Now, he focuses on holding onto Ayumu for dear life.

“Please don’t leave me.”

"I won't. I'll stay and look after you."

It's a big commitment, promising to stay by a child's side for what's likely to be eternity. Ayumu'd been unprepared for it when she'd first stepped into Vesta's role but she's undergone a lot of painful growth since those days. She's still a little worried that she'll mess things up again somehow but she's just going to have to give it her best. Ayumu's given him her word, after all.

Such devastating emotions... She can feel them so clearly through their bond and it hurts her, too, to see them in a boy. It's strange to think of him as young when he'd seen so many more years than she had but he's still a child.

"When you feel you're ready, we can get you cleaned up and maybe some warm tea to help soothe your stomach."

Laundry will need to be done, too, but that can wait. She has extra linens in the closet she can fetch for him later, too. For now, Ayumu just gets comfortable on the bed and keeps holding him securely. She's found physical contact to be rather grounding for her on days horrors from her past threaten to consume her in the present.

After a few minutes, the crying begins to subside. Joscelin is left feeling empty and exhausted. And embarrassed. He’s got them both covered in sick; the room stinks of it.

“Christ, what a mess. How pathetic.”

He tries to help clean up, grabbing his bedlinens to wipe some of the offending muck off of them both.

“I’m so pathetic,” he repeats.

"You're not. There's nothing wrong with crying when you're hurting if you need to. She was your mother and you loved her. There's no shame in tears or sickness over her death."

Ayumu's changed a lot from the girl who'd harshly berated her brother for the exact type of behavior Joss is showing. She'd been wrong in her views then and misguided in her approach to helping Susumu deal with the terrible things shinobi have to do. She looks a bit like she might cry herself, possibly from sympathy or maybe the way his grief spills over to her through the bond. But it's a feeling she'll share the burden for gladly.

"I think a trip to the bathhouse might make us both feel better, though."

A private bathhouse is the one real luxury Vesta seemed to have allowed herself. It has a dividing wall for gender as well so they can both use the facilities and maintain privacy.

Joscelin spends over an hour in the bath, scrubbing himself over and over to remove the filth of his own sickness. He imagines he can still feel it, still smell it, long after all trace of it is gone.

(He also may have broken down crying again a fair few times.)

When he emerges, he’s pink from head to toe and wrapped in a blanket. He knocks lightly on the door to the kitchen to get Ayumu’s attention.

“...I think I’d like that tea now, please.”

Dawn is starting to break somewhere behind the clouds, and it doesn’t look like either of them is getting back to sleep any time soon.

Ayumu's time in the bath was significantly shorter. She's accustomed to quick, efficient scrubs and once she'd cleaned herself up, she'd gone about stripping down Joss's bed, opening his window to air out the room, gathering the dirty linens, and transferring them to the laundry room. Once she's done that, she fetches fresh linens from the closet and puts them on Joss's bed. The chores go pretty quickly and the whole time, she's carefully monitoring her shinki's mental state.

Sometimes being a goddess with teleportation powers has its perks.

By the time Joss knocks on the kitchen door, Ayumu's already in the process of starting tea preparations.

"'Kay. Just have a seat at the table and I'll get it started. It won't take long."

Joscelin sits in what is becoming his accustomed chair and draws his knees to his chest. Even after the hot bath, and even in a warm kitchen, wrapped in a thick blanket, he still feels cold.

He opens his mouth, and suddenly words start coming out.

“We were in London, but we needed to leave because it wasn’t safe. I think we were quite rich; mother was yelling at the servants about my horse.” His brow wrinkles as he puzzles it over. “It seems like it was a very long time ago, but how can that be? I can’t have died so long ago if I know how technology works...”

So much about this doesn’t add up.

“Then there was shouting and the men came. I...fought them off but then—“ It gets fuzzy from there. The next thing he could remember was being held by strong arms and feeling curiously weak and ill while his mother pleaded for his life in exchange for her own.

“They said she was condemned. And then they cut her head off.”

Ayumu listens intently to the account. He's not her first shinki but he's the first of hers to confide in her about memories so this is a rather new experience. Then again, there's that familiar awkwardness of knowing more than she can ever discuss openly, too, though given the drought of undercover assignments she's had since her arrival here, it's a little odd to be looking in on a situation from that angle again.

Once the tea's finished, she pours it into cups from the new teaset she'd been given and heads over to the table. Once it's served, Ayumu pulls her own chair up right next to his so she's already in hugging range if needed.

"That all sounds really confusing. When I was a shinki, I didn't remember much of anything at all. But I knew I didn't belong here. That this wasn't where I was from."

Is it better or worse that Ayumu never remembered anything traumatic out of context like Joss had? The one memory she'd regained had been an easy one to dismiss. Something like this, however, would have been far more difficult to let go.

"She must have loved you very much."

For all of Ayumu's inexperience with most forms of love, this is a type of love she empathizes with wholeheartedly. The kind of deep love that can push one to flee into the night with the one most precious to them, leaving everything else behind. Or drive them to sacrifice one life to preserve another, even if it's their own.

Joscelin had told Ayumu he didn’t want these memories. He still doesn’t. But knowing he could be so loved, or that he was capable of loving someone else so deeply...

He leans against Ayumu, snuggling close to her. The tea is temporarily forgotten.

“I killed one of them,” he admits. “Before they held me down. Before Mother said she’d go willingly to save me. I suppose that’s what they meant about my ‘crimes:’ I killed a grown man with my bare hands, and it was shockingly easy.”

He doesn’t sound particularly sorry about it. Just curious.

"I wouldn't consider that a crime. I think it's natural to want to protect the people you love through any means necessary. Family's precious. Important. Without it, it's hard to find a reason to keep living."

Maybe it's not exactly suitable talk for a child's ears but Joss isn't an ordinary child any more than she's an ordinary parent. Chikusa might have been right to some degree about her getting too hung up on censorship.

"You fought to protect her, even managed to take down one of the men intending to do you both harm. And it's good to know you're such a strong boy!"

Ayumu strokes his hair affectionately. Because he is strong, his grief over his mother or need for comfort doesn't change that.

“Do you have a family, Mistress?” The way Ayumu is talking sounds like she has some experience in the matter. It’s strange; they’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks, but already Joscelin is beginning to feel the same fierce loyalty to his new goddess that he remembers feeling for his mother.

Is this what it feels like to have a family?

He closes his eyes while she pets his hair, feeling...comfortable. Maybe even contented. “I suppose I am strong, but I want to become stronger.”

He couldn’t protect his mother then, but maybe...

“I want to be able to protect you.”

"I appreciate that. I'm not quite as quick or strong as I used to be. I still have knowledge and skills though, even I've lost a lot of my fighting edge. But I could probably still teach things to those who are interested."

She was killed in action and before that, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Ayumu to keep up with the work without her emotions getting entangled. It's well past time for her to retire.

"As for your question... I did. A little brother. Susumu. We didn't have the best relationship and things were complicated between us but I loved him very much. Aside from him, my old commander and his shinki are like brothers to me. When I'm not staying here, I'm usually staying with them."

There's a slight pause and a heavy sigh.

"There's some people I knew as a shinki that I'd come to think of as family of a sort, too, though things are strained between us right now."

Joscelin perks up at that. "What kind of teaching?" He likes to fight, but he knows he's sloppy. If she can teach him to get better...

He listens respectfully as she tells him about her family. A brother and others, close as brothers. He can't help but feel a little bit jealous of them; he doesn't know what it feels like to have a sibling. A parent, yes. But a brother?

"Why are they strained? Because you're a god again?"

"Something like that. The circumstances under which it happened were really tough for everyone to deal with. And there's some crucial issues that we just don't see eye to eye on. It's a mess."

And one she's still not entirely convinced is salvageable. She'd already been wondering if distancing herself from that group and their continual inner conflicts might not be best for her. All Ayumu's ever wanted was a simple, peaceful life where she could learn how to be happy and enjoy life to its fullest. Maybe spend time getting to know herself and figure out what kind of person she wants to be.

Hasn't she given up enough for the safety and comfort of others? Yes, yes, she has.

But they'll just have to see how this scenario plays out in the end, she supposes.

Ayumu turns her attention to Joss's other question.

"But I'm taking a break from cleaning up all of that to focus on rebuilding my own life here. Back in my former home, I taught ninjutsu. Mostly just to my little brother but I enjoyed it. I've taught a little here, too, but I never really committed or properly dedicated myself to it. I've been thinking a little that it might be good to get back into that."

Everyone needs a hobby, right? Or so everyone keeps saying.

Joscelin turns around to face Ayumu.

"Will you teach me?" he asks, curiously. "I want to learn. I'm handy with a knife, I think, and I know how to fire a bow and arrow." And, of course, there's his raw brute strength and inhuman speed. If he could kill an adult in his memories, what else is he capable of?

"I want to get stronger," he says again. "I won't let them take away the people I love ever again."

He doesn't really realize it yet, but Ayumu's one of them. He snuggles into her arms and drinks his tea, feeling warm and safe there.

"I'll teach you then. "

Ayumu smiles down at the boy, petting his hair soothingly. He's relaxing enough to drink his tea; that's a positive sign. Much of the damage she could do has already been done, she thinks. But teaching him to focus and apply that violence in ways that are productive is something she could do. It'd be a good bonding experience and he'd be a better fighter for it.

"I don't know much about archery but I'm familiar with knives, short blades, and throwing projectiles. And of course, hand-to-hand. There's a lot of other skills I could teach you, too, that might be useful to know."

For all her failings as a sister, she'd been an excellent teacher and trained Susumu thoroughly. She could do the same for her pupils here. Passing along her skills and knowledge feels like a worthwhile endeavor, like her life hasn't been a total waste.

"Mmm, I'd like that," Joscelin replies drowsily. He sets his empty cup down and lets his eyes close. He's still awake, still fears going back to sleep, but he's more relaxed now. If the nightmare comes again, at least he'll have Ayumu around to fight it off.

This has to be what having a parent feels like. It's why the Joscelin in his memories was so desperate to save the woman he'd called Mother.

"I'm happy you named me, Mistress."

"I'm glad I did, too. You're a blessing, you know."

The words come out in an emotional murmur. She's experienced so many terrible things and made so many mistakes. So many dreams have withered away and crumbled into dust over the years. When she looks back on her life now, most of what she sees is an ongoing line of heartbreak, lost opportunities, and bitter regrets.

But since meeting Joss, she's felt like maybe her fortunes could change. Like maybe she has another chance at love - a different kind of love than the romantic kind she's fantasized about in her more desperate, fanciful moments, but no less real and important. Having children and a family of her own, being a mother someday... She'd dreamed of those things, too.

She simply sits there, resting with him for now, for once feeling lucky and cautiously optimistic that a second chance that she's able to recognize and consciously choose to make use of will go much better this time.

[closed] Holiday Memories

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