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Walter nodded slowly. "...If I questioned them or didn't read the Scriptures correctly, they would deepen it."

"After that, Valtiel was always with me. Whispering to me." A small, empty smile crossed his face. "The pictures they gave us of angels showed them smiling. Like people, with wings and halos. But they're not. His flesh was...sewn together and stretched out. His wings were the same; sewn flesh with soft feathers stitched in. Sometimes he wore a mask with a smile on it."

He looked up, through his hair. "Was your angel pretty, Manaka?"

That sounded like nothing more than an abomination wearing the title of something holy—and the realization made Manaka's heart pound. Again, so similar— She had been marked before she was born, and he had been filled with the thoughts of his "angel" well before he had died, but it was close enough to make the air in her lungs feel thin.

Without thinking, she let her feet drop back to the floor and stood. She just couldn't bear to sit still and idle any longer, with the way she could feel her blood thrumming in her veins. Clasping her hands behind her back, Manaka smiled and swayed, twirling around to face Walter again.

"There wasn't any angel. There was only the Holy Grail, and the wishes inside it." If there had been something human in her expression, his question had washed it away, her own eyes locked on something far away over the top of his head. "The Holy Church wanted it to give them an angel, or even a god... But from the start, that thing was corrupt. The very antithesis of what they had hoped for."

Walter leaned back, listening to Manaka and still wearing that strange, blank smile. "They didn't realise?" Oh, that's...he doesn't know if it's sad or just idiotic. An item full of wishes. Human's wishes. No wonder it had been corrupt. "When did you see the truth?"

The two of them smiling, calmly discussing this. It was almost as if they were discussing something completely different. Lighthearted. But Walter was finding so many questions were popping up now. Had Manaka been hurt, been groomed for her duty as he had?

"No, they didn't. No one else chosen for the ritual understood it, either. The Church thought that humanity's desire to be saved would create something beautiful, but there was so much greed, and hate, and sorrow in what they yearned for... It never would have baked into what they'd wanted.

"I always knew, though. I wasn't raised by the Holy Church, like you were with your Order. The Grail itself is what called out to me, marking me." She settled a hand on her chest again, expression softening into something almost tender as she spoke. "That's how it was for all seven of us. The Church wanted to use our greed for their own ends, to make us die and kill for their ritual... But since they didn't understand what they would be calling into the world, there was never a chance that things would end the way they'd hoped, anyway."

The sense of...familiarity grew as Manaka spoke. They had both been expected to kill, and to die, by men seeking their own Holy purposes. He's not surprised Manaka was chosen by the Grail itself. Women, in the Order's history, were the ones who had access to incredible divine power. His own supernatural abilities were granted purely through Valtiel's...blessing. "The Order knew. At least, they knew what Valtiel truly was. After I had been beatified, Valtiel would show me the Otherworld; what the world was like under the skin. It was bloody. And dark, and grey. Festering and raw. And it was filled with monsters."

The smile slipped slightly and his words came out...rehearsed. He clasped his hands together tightly. "Those who suffer greatest are best loved by God. And only through suffering can She awaken to open the gates of Paradise, for when the suffering of Her followers becomes so great She will cleanse the world of sin in Her fiery fury. So we must endure our sorrows and darkness, until She can purge them with Her light."

"...I had to suffer. So I could Awaken her. The priests told me that, when they took me to the altar. 'Give thanks. Give praise. The Holy Mother will love you as Her son.'"

"—Ah, I get it. You were a tool, even before the Seal of Metaton became part of you. Isn't that so?" Her own smile didn't fade, Manaka turning that strange affection from the unreachable distance and toward Walter. "I won't tell you my pointless theories about the magic they wanted to invoke. I won't claim to understand the way they made you suffer. But... I understand that, a little. What it means to have been both more and less than a child."

Walter nodded. "It was the same for you. A tool for something 'greater'. I don't know how...different it was for you. But I can see how it was similar." They understood. Both in what it was like, and how they couldn't relate to the differences; Manaka having her own powers and knowing the truth despite those around her pushing and pushing her forward. But Walter was just grateful that she understood what she did; others could relate to his experiences in the Orphanage and in the Order. Nobody else understood what it was like to be...to be divine, when the divine was something bloody and visceral.

"People seem to think that because we're here, it's over. Like we're not...what we were. But they're wrong. I know Valtiel will find me. I'll..forget what is me, and what is him. And when we go back, nothing will have changed." Even if he retained his memories, it wouldn't matter. Walter knew that his fate had been sealed a long, long time ago.

Manaka nodded to Walter's words. A tool for her family's bloodline. A tool for her father's ambitions in the Grail War. A tool to fulfill the Holy Church's most earnest wish. She had been made all of those things without any desire of her own, and it was only thanks to her own power that she had been able to reject them.

"Like such a part of you could simply be left behind? That's foolish. There are people who never shed the things that have been done to them, like a scar that's been left behind and never fades."

But when he spoke of his aversion to returning... Manaka laughed, suddenly, the noise clipped and sheepish. "I'm sorry. I don't really understand that part." Dropping her gaze down to the floor, she contined, "To be honest... I'm worried that if I stay here too long, I'll forget who I am."

Walter didn't seem judgemental when she laughed. He thought it over, Wisdom closing her eyes on his side. Was she sleeping? Still listening? Meditating? Who knew with his strange little bird.

"Another difference. You were born with that connection to the divine. It was part of you from the start. When I was tied to Valtiel, I began to lose sense of myself. But for you...it was always you." Walter hadn't been born special; he had simply been an unwanted orphan who was shaped and molded into something with purpose. Manaka however had been born with those abilities and knowledge. For him, being here without the ties to a higher being was like being cleansed. But for her, she was missing part of herself.

"You won't forget." His tone was confident and...reassuring. As reassuring as he knew how to be. He stood slowly and reached out, gently touching her shoulder. He didn't know the language of comfort but he was trying his best, even as nerves tightened in his chest. "As you said, we can't leave behind those parts of who we were. Even if things change here, our history remains and influences who we become."

She looked up as he touched her, her lips twitching in another embarrassed smile. Lifting her hand and setting it over Walter's, she squeezed his fingers with a fragile grip. "I'm sorry. I wish I could say something like that to you, too." It wasn't an odd thing for her, to feel that gulf between another person's feelings and her ability to empathize with them — but it was rare for her to wish that the distance didn't exist when she didn't have anything to give. "But I hope you're allowed to stay here for a long, long time."

He gave her a smile in return. Not really comforting or happy or anything like that; a smile of shared sorrow. "Thank you. For listening." There wasn't anything else to say. Not right now, anyway. Just knowing that there was that shared knowledge...was soothing. It didn't give him hope, or make him feel especially better. But it was calming to know.

"Would you like some tea or something to eat? I'm going to be cooking omelettes."

Edited 2017-04-18 22:19 (UTC)

"Oh! Of course." As Walter changed the subject, Manaka deliberately smiled brighter, taking his cue to put the heavier subjects out of her thoughts. By now, she felt ruder refusing food than accepting it from him. She took a step back, still holding onto his hand — and then, with another squeeze, she let it drop. "Do you want any help?"

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