KHR Rarepair Week, June 21 - Mental Link

[warmskies]

 Together, they hold hands, and they look out towards the sunset.

"It's getting tiresome, watching everyone fade, and knowing that I can't do anything about it," Sepira says quietly, and her hand folds around hers as if to find an anchor. "The only times I can have a guess of when they're gone is when I see a vision, and they are not there... But what if they are, and simply in another place? So I never truly know."

"Are you scared?" she asks, just as quiet. Just as uncertain. She's always been one of the more calm members of them all, she's thought, but maybe that doesn't really mean anything at all. Yet even with her calm, even with her patience, she has to wonder... When will one of them be the next person to fall? Will it be Sapira? Will it be her? Or will it be...

Sepira shakes her head. "Everything comes to an end eventually, I suppose... Even our lives. Despite that, what I'm most concerned about is what will happen to this poor planet when we're gone. So... To that end, Kawahira and I have thought of something to keep it stable, even if the rest of us go."

"Ah, Kawahira... That introvert who only wants to eat rice all day?"

She says it plainly, because it's true, but she's rewarded with the brilliant high laughter that falls from Sepira's lips, and her grin is wide and shining. "You're not wrong!" she tells her. "But he's brilliant as well, and his flames are some of the most versatile, at least of the most common variants. If the two of us work together, than I'm sure that we can come up with something... and I'll be relying on your help again, as always. Your flames are nothing to forget about either... But, will you do it?"

Like all of them, she loves this planet too. She loves the way mist trickles past the massive trunks of trees, wet and gentle, bringing in cool air. She loves the way the sun shines brilliantly high up in the sky, its warmth cradling all life.

But as she looks to the side, to those brilliant blue eyes and the small orange marking that curls around one cheek, she thinks that she loves Sepira more than any of that.

So what else can she say but, "Of course."

Their fingers stay intertwined. The sun sinks deeper into the horizon, pulling a wave of dark blues and purples in its wake. "I still may die," Sepira says, and her heart aches painfully. "I can only see up to a certain point in the future, now, although it won't come for a while yet. But I think it will be okay. The details are a little strange and fuzzy, but... Even if I can't see them, I can still feel a brilliant joy that goes right to the very core of me."

Most of the time, she knows better than to ask too deeply about the kinds of things that Sepira sees. It's a heavy burden to bear. And yet, this time, the temptation is too great. Sepira's hand in hers is too warm. "Am I there as well?" she asks.

Sepira guides her hand upwards, presses her lips against the warm brown of her knuckles. "You are," she murmurs. "And I haven't told Kawahira... but I want you to stay by my side, for as long as possible. There's something that I want us to do, all on our own... But only if you want to. So will you do it? Noelani?"

And she does.





"It's Terhi, right?" Luce says, her palms pressed down against the window sill as the sweet sea air of the Italian coastline sweeps through the room.

She pauses, just for a moment, because on one hand this should be surprising. On the other hand, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to hear her name from this woman's lips. "I did not think you would remember," she says, although this is somewhat of a lie. Perhaps, more than anything, she did not expect it to come up.

The way Luce smiles at her says that she might know this little rearrangement of the truth, and she doesn't mind it. "With how you acted at our first meeting, it's a little hard to forget you," she says playfully. If Terhi were prone to emotions, perhaps she would blush in embarrassment and shame, because she certainly feels those emotions coil around her guts, but that is not who she is. It's not who any of them are. So she just stands there, awkwardly, even as Luce turns her attention back to the setting sun the shines along the sea. "Besides, I thought it was a beautiful name."

While the shame fades away, the same cannot be said of the embarrassment... but it's not as bad, now. Instead, it's a warm feeling, fluttering in her chest, and feels ever so familiar. So, too, does the sunset that fills the room with light. Eventually, they'll have to turn on the lamps, but... not now. "Thank you," she says, because what else can she say? "Are you sure you're going to accept that strange invitation?"

The man approached their Donna at a small restaurant, in peculiar patterns and styles that did not fit the Italian town they watch over. He gave her a job offer.

Both of them, standing in this room now, staring at the sunset, know how it will end. Just not the details.

That too, feels familiar.

"I will," Luce says, even though they know tragedy is lurking around the corner. "Something about that man was rather familiar. You know, even though I couldn't see his face... When I looked at him, something about him just felt so familiar and tragic. Perhaps, if I accept this job, then I'll find out just what's behind those mysterious feelings." Turning around, she leans against the window sill and rests her hands along its edge. She's not showing any signs of pregnancy yet, but her body must still be feeling something. "And... It feels important, if it's come down to even me."

It is important. She cannot say it, cannot begin to explain it, because this is how it is meant to happen. She knows that, less from the records they carefully keep, and from the feelings that roll throughout her, the memories that can't be left behind.

"You're going to have a baby soon," she says, although she knows this will not change Luce's mind. "As we have always done for many years, we will protect her."

Because, without fail, it is always her. Time after time, it is always her.

Luce holds one hand out, and she cannot help but follow it, placing her fingers in hers. "I know you will," Luce says sweetly, and pulls her hand forward to press a gentle kiss against her knuckles.





"So what's with the mask?" Aria asks her, as the setting sun draws long shadows in the office where she's flicking through newspapers.

Crossing her arms, she tilts her head to the side. "It's tradition," she says, which is only vaguely true. There is something to be said for the kind of things which can help hide a person completely from view, and the Cervello have needed that for decades now. Centuries, maybe. It's why Kawahira continues to not know that they have continued to survive, after all this time.

He doesn't need to know about them. The only person who truly needs to know about them is the woman sitting in front of them, twirling a pen in front of her hand.

Aria chuckles, and glances down at the latest headline about what's going on in the sleepy town they are situated near. "Well, it's not as though I can bitch about tradition then, can I?" she says, and flashes her a wink. It shouldn't do anything. It does. A flutter of her heart, eager and pleased deep inside of her, glad to still earn such playful gestures. "Anyway... It may come in useful, here."

Ah. She knows what that means, and she steps forward, trailing her hand along the back of Aria's chair. It's doubtful that what she's talking about has anything to do with what she's reading. "Is there something you want us to do?"

"Only if you want to," Aria insists, a refrain that is so familiar and comforting that it could put any of them to sleep. "You may be a part of the Giglio Nero, but you're something completely unique to yourselves, as well. I think this is a good time to intervene on something, but you and I are two different people." Another flicker of a smile, that she can just barely see from where she stands behind her. "And once we start talking about everyone else, than those numbers become even greater."

The numbers are actually less than she might think. Does Aria know? Could she tell that when the first in their generations meet one another, that powerful wave of emotion hit all the rest, too? Just like it had for all the girls that were born after, knowing of her existence? That it will come again, when her daughter is of age, and their generation meets?

It's a mystery, and one that none of them ever dare ask of her. The future is very much the same.

"What do you want us to do?" she asks.

Aria taps the pen against the desk once, twice, and then smooths it down with graceful fingers that know how to hold a gun, and that she adores. "There's been a change up in the Vongola," she says, referring to that family almost as old as the Giglio Nero. Almost. "And the Varia. It's the latter that you're going to want to make contact with, and quick. We need to guide them along, keep them from killing some really important people outright. You know how the Varia are, so if you don't want to do this..."

Does Aria really need to ask? She steps around to the side, nods. "We'll start the arrangements, and you can tell us more then. We'll carry out whatever it is that needs to be done." It's something they're proud of, after all.

Aria smiles, and reaches out for her, just like so many times before. "Sorry for putting this on you," she says, their hands entwining. "I'd do it myself if I could. But more than anything else... Stay safe, Ufuoma." And she kisses her knuckles.






The room where she is prepared to meet the latest Donna is one without windows, but plenty of other things to make up for that fact. For today, for this, most of it would be clothes, and she is carefully measured as though she could ever be anything else at the age that she is, that they've all been. She can't remember exactly how she knows this, but she does - like she knows to breathe, like she knows to blink.

Like she knows that the woman with brown skin and long, pale, purple hair measuring her is the same as the woman finishing up some last minute stitches, not only on the outside but within.

And the same goes for her, too.

"Everything is the same as before," the Cervello before her says quietly, to anyone who is listening. "So the outfit shouldn't be a problem this year, either." She stands up, rolling up the measuring tape once again. "All that's left is the mask... but that is with Donna Yuni."

They all help to dress her, having both done and not done it a hundred times before. A beautiful outfit, of white and black, of lilies pure in both brilliant white and deep black. That is the outfit they are meant to wear, from what she understands and knows. As her fellow Cervello begin to dress her up, buttoning and lacing up things her clumsy and awkward child reach can't get to, she can't help but ask a question. "What is the Donna Yuni like?" she asks.

"You know," says a Cervello who pushes her hair back over her shoulders.

And she does know. But - "I don't feel as though I know," she says. "And they're still different, aren't they?" It is a link, chain after chain after chain, all cast from the same mold, the same metal, but still somehow different. A part of her is worried that she is different as well, that she won't feel the same things that all the others before her have felt. What if she doesn't belong? What if the chain, the link, is broken with her?

Behind her, a pair of hands finish binding up the lacings of her dress, and gently settle along her shoulders. All of them speak calmly, are calm, but she thinks - hopes - there is some gentleness in the tone when the Cervello behind her says, "The Donna is kind and brilliant no matter who she is. You will see."

And then she's read. She will indeed see. A pair of other Cervello - one with short hair cut in a bob about her face, the other wearing a long but plain ponytail - guide her through the secret halls of the Giglio Nero. They take her to a beautifully carved door, depicting lilies on its surface, and she pauses, for just a moment. She is still young, still only ten and yet not yet, and this will be an important part in her life.

Cervello are always calm. She tells herself this, and reaches for the doors.

Inside is a beautiful, elegant sitting room. From the side, some sort of radio is playing music from a slick cell phone. Madonna lilies fill the air. Directly across from her, the sun is rising past the open window... and Donna Yuni turns her head towards her as the doors open.

And there is love.

It sings throughout her, rises her heart, makes her feel more alive than she ever has before, and the tears start to sting at her eyes before she can even think of stopping them. She stumbles forward, reaching out, and there is a touch already at her hands. She is already in the middle of the room, and Yuni is already grasping at her, holding her. They're both crying, she realizes through her tears, but they're smiling, too. Yuni, smiling like she is also lit up by a brilliant sun inside her chest.

"What's your name?" Yuni asks, both of them holding on tight.


"I am Ufuoma," she whispers to Aria, tears dripping onto carpet, their foreheads touching.


"I am Terhi," she whispers to Luce, clinging to her, their tears soaking each other's shoulders.


"I am Agape," she whispers to Yuni, and Yuni kisses her knuckles, and the sun rises on them both.