damned_institute | Day 29: Courtyard

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Day 29: Courtyard

Though he hadn't been able to stomach much of the cafeteria food, as the day went on, he did feel marginally better. The fever seemed to have broken and he'd held down what little he'd eaten. It made him a little anxious, to sit around so much, and even if it was difficult, a walk outside sounded like a nice break from the usual. He had no interest in the visitors. Likely as not they were the same as the creature he'd run into a couple nights ago in the form of Aizen Sousuke.

He folded his thin arms across his chest as he started his walk around the courtyard. The air was crisp, getting colder by the day it seemed, but it didn't dissuade him from taking a leisurely walk while he gathered his thoughts.

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"No apology is necessary." Valyn held up a hand and his expression turned friendly and charming. Ah, so it was a man. The sort of man Penelor would have wet himself with joy over.

"I was just enjoying the outdoors - though I'd prefer to enjoy it without the rather imposing wall. You aren't intruding on anything."

"I'm glad to hear it," Kikyo answered, taking the offered hand briefly in his own cool one in greeting. His eyes glanced at the mentioned wall that rose up all around the courtyard, shutting out the world beyond.

"Imposing wall indeed," he continued, an odd sort of smile on his lips. He turned back to look at the young man on the bench, resting his eyes upon that charming expression. Odd that even in a place like this, it was possible to see such features. "But even if there was no wall, the autumn colors are pretty, still. Would you stay and admire them from this bench then, or have you places to return?"

"I'd rather be admiring them from my own gardens," Valyn admitted. What was happening, at his family estates? Had Ardeyn seized power, in his absence? Or ancestors forbid, Treves? No, the council wouldn't let Treves take power, regardless of his blood entitlement.

"Forgive me, where are my manners?" He hadn't even introduced himself. "V'kass Valyn Lord Hernalth - Valyn, without the needless titles."

"What was it you said before? No apologies necessary," Kikyo replied with an amused chuckle. A lord, then, to add to his list of strange encounters here, that included a magician and a wielder of celestial brushes, among others.

"Valyn," he purred, tilting his head a little. "My name is Kikyo." There was no other name to give him, for he had forsaken any other a long time ago. His name and bloodline perished with him, the last remnant of a dying aristocracy.

He paused for a moment before he took a seat beside him. He turned his face in Valyn's direction, tucking a long strand of raven hair behind his ear. "Do you prefer a well kept garden, or perhaps you let it grow out of its own will?" he asked with an enigmatic smile.

"A pleasure to meet you." Even here, in this place, Valyn refused to let go of etiquette. Despite his hatred for most of his kind, he was proud of his bloodline and his position.

"Both have their appeal," he answered, feeling rather like he was making conversation at a fete. "But I have to confess, my own gardens are well tended. An illusion of wilderness, without the things that make it wild. My people have a habit of flirting with the wild, rather than exposing themselves to it fully."

He was considered eccentric merely for the fact he preferred to use tents and hunt for game while camping.

The smile deepened a touch upon Kikyo's lips. "Is there anything to fear from exposing oneself so completely?" He murmured the words as though he didn't really expect an answer.

Kikyo liked the words this young man used - 'flirting with the wild.'
There was something uncontrollable about nature, fickle and untamed. It was a temptation that Kikyo could understand, for he was one who had lived by baser instincts.

"Or maybe it is that they prefer an illusion to the actual thing. Illusions - like hope - have their own uses."

"You don't know how correct you are." Valyn had to chuckle a bit. "Illusion is an art form to my people. We're skilled in magic, and illusion is one of our specialties. Lords hold galas and use illusion for everything. It's impressive, but boring. Illusions are beautiful and easy, but I prefer things that are real. Things that won't melt away the next day." He didn't think elvenkind knew much of anything about real things. Oh, they traded real items, but slaves handled everything.

"And where I come from, exposing oneself completely to the wilderness may well end in death. But that's part of the attraction, I think."

"You would flirt with death, then?" Kikyo echoed Valyn's chuckle with his own as he fixed his amused amber eyes on the youth beside him.

"Indeed, there is nothing more real than death, and hence its morbid attraction. Illusions prolong the inevitable, but we are what we are." Kikyo glanced down at his hand, his pale open palm that delivered countless people to their certain ends.

"At least, that is what I used to think. But this is a strange place, where even death loses meaning. What is real to you...Valyn?"

"I have flirted with death on occasion," Valyn admitted, lowering his eyes. Just how closely, he wasn't about to say. "My people are long lived, and tend to do everything they can to ensure they live all of their natural years. But that sort of life..." He shrugged. He certainly wanted to live his natural life, but not if the cost was the needless deaths of thousands.

"I'm not sure what's real anymore," he replied, honestly. "Other than myself. And sometimes I even wonder about that."

There was a momentary pause as Kikyo studied him, wondering why Valyn should feel any shame for his admission - if it was shame at all. Kikyo would be the last person in the world to think lesser of someone for such a reason.

"So let them live out their natural lives, if it brings them solace. But there are others who would wish for another kind of life, restless, moving from place to place in search for that single thing that is real to them."

Kikyo knew there was only one reality for such a people, and it was death. He smiled darkly and continued- "Grow out your gardens, should you find yourself there once more. Maybe you'll discover something new."

"I'll be happy if I can stay in one place for a time. I've had enough of moving about and restlessness." He leaned back, stretching his legs out before him. "My world is... a very bad place right now. My people are slavers, overlords of a particularly brutal and cruel disposition. They ensure their lives by solving all their differences with battles to the death played out by slaves, by running their households and building their trade routes and guarding their lands with the blood of humans. It's sickening." He glanced over at Kikyo and gave the man a solemn look.

"I'd rather have dead gardens than gardens watered with innocent blood."

Kikyo's expression softened as he looked back into that solemn face, appearing so young and determined. Faces like these would ensure that the heartless would not prevail in the end. The heartless, like Kikyo.

"Fear not-" he murmured softly. "Their time shall come."

Someone would be their reaper, as Ran was to Kikyo. Though a twist of fate landed him here, instead of the hell where he belonged.

"I hope so."

Honestly, this was no way to idle away the shift. Valyn shook his head. "Ancestors, I didn't mean to bring the mood down like that. I have a great deal on my mind and I'm afraid I spoke without thinking. but it's too pretty a day to think about things like that." His smile returned, ever elegant and charming, regardless of company.

And he wondered why Shana was always in a jealous fit.

"Well then, perhaps I should thank you instead for speaking your mind so freely," Kikyo said with an encouraging smile. He rather liked this youth, who seemed to carry much in burdens, but still had the hopeful nature to find pleasure in a pretty autumn day.

A bright red maple leaf fluttered down from the tree, and Kikyo reached out his hand to capture it. Maple was often a subject he used in his flower arrangements back in Sendai, when he was still working under Shion as an ikebana instructor.

"I've no gardens to return to, myself. But there is at least a memory of one," he said as he glanced at him warmly.

Valyn only smiled. He never truly spoke freely, but he saw no reason to correct that assumption. There was far too much in his mind that could never be spoken.

"Memories can be powerful and comforting things," he commented. When he had first come to this place, they had been all he had.

"Yes," he murmured, settling his gaze down on the leaf in his hand, which he held on his open palm. It looked so stark and red against his pale skin. "And surely you will have occasion to make many more to come. But I..."

I...?

Memories were the only thing allowed for the dead, were they not? What more could he seek? Yet if he could have the real thing in his hands once more, he would take it. That he had passed through death's door once already didn't matter.

And he had met just one other here who could understand his nature.

You would not waste away your ghostly existence in nostalgia would you, Seishirou-san..?

Kikyo smiled coldly.

He rose to his feet, letting the leaf slip from his fingers to drift off into the wind. "--I fear I have kept you from your private comforts for far too long.."

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Day 29: Courtyard

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