31_days fic: Post EoE madness
Finally, I managed to score the time to finish this (thank heaven for lengthy game updates). This is very much a fragment, but I think the fragmentary nature adds to the overall weirdness and while it'll need polish before I can set it into the series (which is itself a work in progress), I'm pleased with how it turned out.
Title: "(Un)Welcome Torrent"
Day/Theme: Sept 15) inevitable flooding of one’s soul
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Character/Pairing: Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Takes place toward the beginning of "Under the Winter Moon", the second part of the ambitious NGE project, perhaps an hour or so of Fuyutsuki's emergence from the sea of LCL.
He felt an intense warmth on his face and he awoke to full consciousness; he nearly opened his eyes, but a blinding light shining on his face, as if from a movie set's halogen lights, forced him to squeeze his eyes shut.
"Don't open your eyes," a young woman's voice pleaded. "Don't look at me; you'll be blinded."
"Miss Valiant?" he asked, recognizing her voice.
She said nothing for a moment and the intense started to diminish. "That's right... that's my name... Or it was, before all this happened. Before everything fell apart..."
"Is there anyone else here?" he asked.
The light faded further, but it still felt too intense to allow him to open his eyes. "Just you and I on this rock," she replied. "And the two children, closer to the shore, beside the graveyard."
"Are they awake?"
The light diminished till it felt no brighter than a regular table lamp close by. "The last time I looked, they were still unconscious. ...Did you bandage the girl?"
"I couldn't leave her in the state I found her, not with those injuries," he said.
"You can look now," she said.
He opened his eyes and gazed up at a slim female figure sitting over him, a cascade of silvery hair falling about her bare shoulders. The light, he realized, seemed to glow from her skin and hair, her red-brown eyes dark pools in its intensity. The light faded enough to allow him to see her more clearly.
"Sabia...?"
She looked at him puzzled, and then she blinked and the confusion cleared from her eyes. "Yes... that was my name... It was Penemue, but that was my Grigori name... That is what I was, but not who I am."
"No wonder Gendo distrusted you so much. You really were the kin to the Angels."
She lowered her gaze. "He had no reason to fear me, since I did not know what I was then, and if I did, I would not have used it against the Lilim."
He gazed out over the red sea of death below them. "So when you passed through Instrumentality, you found out all of what you are.
She wagged her head from side to side, wearily. "There's so much in my head now, swirling around, jumbled up, falling over itself. I almost wonder if it was folly for us, the outcast sons of Adam to take on the forms of the children of Lilith."
He turned and finding her gaze, caused her to look and lock her gaze with his, helping her to refocus. "Tell me what you see."
"Memories... images... events... things that happened long ago that feel as though they happened an hour ago, things that happened just days ago that could have happened eons ago.
She continued to speak, tenses and syntax cascading into each other, but somehow she remained coherent through it all. "I will be walking on the shore of a stream, watching it grow from a trickle to a mighty river. I am sitting beside a young human girl, etching letters in the mud at our feet, showing her the shape of her name.
"I will be crossing a desert in the south west of a great continent, where I meet with a tribe of shepherds and I show them how to weave designs into their rugs and blankets, sigils that will protect the people and their lands and herds.
"I am saddened to watch a civilization perish, destroyed by the wisdom which my brother Azazel brought to them, and which they used unwisely.
"It will be the dawn of the earth, and I will be born from Adam, who will intend to wipe the children of Lilith from the face of this blue planet. We the Grigori, the Watchers who desired to live as the Lilim, chose to abandon Adam in his wasteland dwelling and shut him up, keeping him from causing harm to the Lilim... till they found him eons later and broke open Pandora's box, causing Second Impact.
"It is the Age of Reason in Europe. My kinsman Enniel has been backing the Jacobins, but while many of the thinkers and writers of the day have been shaking off an oppressive regime, others have been attacking those who are uncertain of the new future that is promised. I try to protect a convent of nuns who are guarding some manuscripts and ancient texts, but it is too late and I am arrested and sent to the guillotine..."
"But what about your AT Field?" he asked, in awe.
The Grigori-woman shook her head. "The Jacobins had my brother Azazwl on their side, acting as my guard: his AT field resonates with mine and wears it down before the final stroke. Enniel managed to salvage my soul, but it was years before he could create a host body for it. He and I... we will be lovers at some point, both before and after the destruction of my shell."
"So how did you come to be called Sabia Valiant?"
She stared past him in thought, looking down long vistas he could barely imagine. "Enniel found a lot of charm in my innocence at my re-awakening. He relished seducing me once more and making all seem new again, so he found a way to wipe my recall, repressing everything and resetting it. So at intervals of thirty years, he would wipe my mind and give me a new identity, feeding me false information and a phony background. I was five different people before he created the me that you know. I was a translator for the Allies during World War II and later helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls and will be a spy for Seele during World War I. I was a copy editor for a Berkley counter-cultural newspaper in the 1960s. I am the companion of a collector of antiquities in the 1890s: I translate some hieroglyphs on some pots and scrolls for him. Sabia Valiant... is the last of the six people that I am since I came to have this body. I'm a student of language, which a Master's degree in Mid-Eastern languages, working on my doctorate thesis on a Kurdish tribe in the mountains of Iraq, who consider the serpent in Paradise to be in fact a good being, less reprehensible than the Judeo-Christians do. I was packing to join a cultural anthropologist when Kiel informed me that NERV needed my skills...
"All of this is me, all of this is who I was and will be," she said. "But somehow... this isn't me. I'm not Penemue, not in this body. And yet he is here and he is part of me, the soul beneath my skin."
"Do you reject this or do you embrace this?" he asked.
She looked up at him. "Both, in a sense. I set all this aside to be what I chose to be: to be that student, that kindly young woman who lost her heart to her master. And yet, I am still Penemue, he is still just beneath my skin, reading the words and hearing the hearts of all people."
"And imparting those findings, even if they refuse to hear it," he said, reverently.
Title: "(Un)Welcome Torrent"
Day/Theme: Sept 15) inevitable flooding of one’s soul
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Character/Pairing: Fuyutsuki/OFC
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Takes place toward the beginning of "Under the Winter Moon", the second part of the ambitious NGE project, perhaps an hour or so of Fuyutsuki's emergence from the sea of LCL.
He felt an intense warmth on his face and he awoke to full consciousness; he nearly opened his eyes, but a blinding light shining on his face, as if from a movie set's halogen lights, forced him to squeeze his eyes shut.
"Don't open your eyes," a young woman's voice pleaded. "Don't look at me; you'll be blinded."
"Miss Valiant?" he asked, recognizing her voice.
She said nothing for a moment and the intense started to diminish. "That's right... that's my name... Or it was, before all this happened. Before everything fell apart..."
"Is there anyone else here?" he asked.
The light faded further, but it still felt too intense to allow him to open his eyes. "Just you and I on this rock," she replied. "And the two children, closer to the shore, beside the graveyard."
"Are they awake?"
The light diminished till it felt no brighter than a regular table lamp close by. "The last time I looked, they were still unconscious. ...Did you bandage the girl?"
"I couldn't leave her in the state I found her, not with those injuries," he said.
"You can look now," she said.
He opened his eyes and gazed up at a slim female figure sitting over him, a cascade of silvery hair falling about her bare shoulders. The light, he realized, seemed to glow from her skin and hair, her red-brown eyes dark pools in its intensity. The light faded enough to allow him to see her more clearly.
"Sabia...?"
She looked at him puzzled, and then she blinked and the confusion cleared from her eyes. "Yes... that was my name... It was Penemue, but that was my Grigori name... That is what I was, but not who I am."
"No wonder Gendo distrusted you so much. You really were the kin to the Angels."
She lowered her gaze. "He had no reason to fear me, since I did not know what I was then, and if I did, I would not have used it against the Lilim."
He gazed out over the red sea of death below them. "So when you passed through Instrumentality, you found out all of what you are.
She wagged her head from side to side, wearily. "There's so much in my head now, swirling around, jumbled up, falling over itself. I almost wonder if it was folly for us, the outcast sons of Adam to take on the forms of the children of Lilith."
He turned and finding her gaze, caused her to look and lock her gaze with his, helping her to refocus. "Tell me what you see."
"Memories... images... events... things that happened long ago that feel as though they happened an hour ago, things that happened just days ago that could have happened eons ago.
She continued to speak, tenses and syntax cascading into each other, but somehow she remained coherent through it all. "I will be walking on the shore of a stream, watching it grow from a trickle to a mighty river. I am sitting beside a young human girl, etching letters in the mud at our feet, showing her the shape of her name.
"I will be crossing a desert in the south west of a great continent, where I meet with a tribe of shepherds and I show them how to weave designs into their rugs and blankets, sigils that will protect the people and their lands and herds.
"I am saddened to watch a civilization perish, destroyed by the wisdom which my brother Azazel brought to them, and which they used unwisely.
"It will be the dawn of the earth, and I will be born from Adam, who will intend to wipe the children of Lilith from the face of this blue planet. We the Grigori, the Watchers who desired to live as the Lilim, chose to abandon Adam in his wasteland dwelling and shut him up, keeping him from causing harm to the Lilim... till they found him eons later and broke open Pandora's box, causing Second Impact.
"It is the Age of Reason in Europe. My kinsman Enniel has been backing the Jacobins, but while many of the thinkers and writers of the day have been shaking off an oppressive regime, others have been attacking those who are uncertain of the new future that is promised. I try to protect a convent of nuns who are guarding some manuscripts and ancient texts, but it is too late and I am arrested and sent to the guillotine..."
"But what about your AT Field?" he asked, in awe.
The Grigori-woman shook her head. "The Jacobins had my brother Azazwl on their side, acting as my guard: his AT field resonates with mine and wears it down before the final stroke. Enniel managed to salvage my soul, but it was years before he could create a host body for it. He and I... we will be lovers at some point, both before and after the destruction of my shell."
"So how did you come to be called Sabia Valiant?"
She stared past him in thought, looking down long vistas he could barely imagine. "Enniel found a lot of charm in my innocence at my re-awakening. He relished seducing me once more and making all seem new again, so he found a way to wipe my recall, repressing everything and resetting it. So at intervals of thirty years, he would wipe my mind and give me a new identity, feeding me false information and a phony background. I was five different people before he created the me that you know. I was a translator for the Allies during World War II and later helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls and will be a spy for Seele during World War I. I was a copy editor for a Berkley counter-cultural newspaper in the 1960s. I am the companion of a collector of antiquities in the 1890s: I translate some hieroglyphs on some pots and scrolls for him. Sabia Valiant... is the last of the six people that I am since I came to have this body. I'm a student of language, which a Master's degree in Mid-Eastern languages, working on my doctorate thesis on a Kurdish tribe in the mountains of Iraq, who consider the serpent in Paradise to be in fact a good being, less reprehensible than the Judeo-Christians do. I was packing to join a cultural anthropologist when Kiel informed me that NERV needed my skills...
"All of this is me, all of this is who I was and will be," she said. "But somehow... this isn't me. I'm not Penemue, not in this body. And yet he is here and he is part of me, the soul beneath my skin."
"Do you reject this or do you embrace this?" he asked.
She looked up at him. "Both, in a sense. I set all this aside to be what I chose to be: to be that student, that kindly young woman who lost her heart to her master. And yet, I am still Penemue, he is still just beneath my skin, reading the words and hearing the hearts of all people."
"And imparting those findings, even if they refuse to hear it," he said, reverently.