Authors: Matt Stephens
Which is exactly what Yasi did. She scaled up the outside of the ladder cage, using the metal cage as her handholds. Once she got to the top, she pushed off, using her whole body to jump a few feet to the rooftop ledge, which she caught and climbed over.
Vincent swallowed and started to copy her, much slower, more awkward, and terrified at every inch.
Climbing a cage was the same as climbing a ladder, but the higher he got, the more aware he was of the huge drop behind him, only getting longer. Sooner than he would have liked, he reached to top of the cage. The ladder met the roof in a safety rail, so Vincent could not simply reach out and grab it…
Yasi was right. He would have to jump it. The ledge to catch was four feet away. Practically a stretch of his arms, though he would never be able to twist that far. There would be a moment where he was between both solid things, with nothing to hold onto. There would be a moment when he was airborne.
He knew he shouldn't have done it, but he looked down. Suddenly, everything was ice. His hands were ice, his stomach was ice…
Yasi was waiting, legs dangling over the edge. He knew she'd picked the easiest possible place for him to do something like this. It was a kiddie jump. He'd seen Tecca do something a hundred times harder, and he was a kid, not even a teenager yet…
"Come on!" She encouraged.
He knew the Shinobi wouldn't let him fall...
Vincent looked down again. "I can't." He called back, hating himself.
Yasi didn't try to stop him back up as he slowly climbed down.
~oo00oo~
Vincent couldn't stop staring at his shoes. He was humiliated.
Yasi wasn't showing him pity, wasn't crowing or being forgiving. It was like it had never happened. But when he got back on the train, she joined him, sitting next to him, though not close enough to touch. "Vincent." She said finally. "You wanted to know what it was like to be one of us. Well, now you know."
"And I know I'm not up to it." Vincent admitted softly, regretfully. "Keeper's right. I'm not like you guys."
Yasi nodded. "That's not such a terrible thing. Lostkind aren't magical beings Vincent, we're just from a different place, and lived a different life. Do you remember what you said? About how it changed your whole world view?"
"Yeah."
"Plenty of people would have turned us in and made money off what they knew. Plenty of people would have forgotten about it once it was done and missed everything you now see. You didn't do so bad."
Vincent knew she meant it, and was grateful, but it didn't change any of the facts. "Still. Lousy way to end an evening."
"Agreed. Which is why we're not done yet."
"No?"
"Well, there are
three
parts to being Lostkind." Yasi reminded him, counting on her fingers again. "Be invisible. Be daring. Be beautiful."
Vincent looked her up and down and managed to swallow the first thought that came to mind. She smirked a little, and Vincent knew he didn't have to say it; she already knew. With a slight grin, she led the way. "Let's get Chinese food too; I'm hungry."
~oo00oo~
She took him to the Metropolitan Opera House.
"Back in the 1880's, when this place was just starting out, we put our speaking-tubes in with the steam pipes. Get a better sound that way." She said, as though taking him on a tour. "Archivist says that back then, the management wanted everything performed in Italian. Even the German operas. Then they decided everything should be performed in German. Even the Italian operas."
Vincent chuckled at that, as Yasi led him through the corridors and stairwells behind the scenes. When she opened the last door for him, they were high above the stage. Down below he could hear and see the orchestra setting up for a rehearsal. The lights up above were low, in a way that made the stage and orchestra pit shine up at them. Yasi led him across the gantries, hanging from the rigging. Here above, was where the stage hands could control the backgrounds, the lights... but during this rehearsal, they were alone, swaying gently and securely high above it all. The only audience of the show.
"We open up the steam pipes to this chamber fairly often." Yasi said, and her voice resonated in the air. The acoustics of the place were pitch-perfect, and she spoke too softly for it to echo down to the floor, lest any of the musicians hear them. Vincent didn't know quite how she did it, but as a result, her voice seemed to come from around him like a living thing. "The place charges hundreds of dollars for people to come and hear the best shows New York can put on. Every night, we gather in one of the Eleventh Level Chambers, and sit in the dark, letting the words, the music, the applause wash over us... You wouldn't think it to look at us, but we've got some real high culture lovers down among the Lost Boys and Girls."
Vincent pictured it, the people down below, the people out of a carnival sideshow, listening to classical music in the chambers their secret city. It was an oddly unsettling and wonderful image. "Can I ask you something?" He said finally.
"Does anyone ever say ‘no' to that question?" Yasi quipped.
Vincent smiled. "Wotcha... and most everyone who knows about the Lostkind that I've spoken to? They're... well, scared of you."
"Yeah." Yasi didn't seem surprised.
"I'm not scared of you."
"I know." Yasi sighed. "If you were, we wouldn't be friends. Still, it would make tonight easier."
Silence. She clearly had more to say. Vincent waited.
"Keeper says..." She paused, thought for a moment, before shaking her head and spitting it out. "Keeper says that I'm as fascinated by your world as you are by ours."
"Why?" Vincent seemed truly surprised by that. "You know my city. You know all the movies that play, you know the music playing at the Met every night..."
"Yeah, but we never stay with any of it." She shrugged. "I have a library card. It has a fake name and address, but I can borrow books. I have to take them down below to read them. When I'm above the surface... I am a ghost. I go unnoticed, I stay outside when I am not invited. I've never spent a winters night inside an apartment, or had school friends that I lose touch with. It's a whole other world, and whole other people live there."
She looked at him and he looked back. Something had changed between them with that admission. Even more so that from the kiss the night before. They were more than acquaintances now. It was something that neither of them had planned, speaking honestly about things that neither had ever shared with anyone. The conversation had made them closer, and they both knew it. A line had been crossed that couldn't be taken back.
For a long moment, they just stared at each other.
"Yasi…" Vincent said finally. "You know that-"
"Just…" She interrupted him, and suddenly realized she didn't know what to say. "Just listen to the music."
Vincent nodded and fell silent. He didn't know what to say right now either.
Down below them, the rehearsal took several turns to stop and start. A musician would ask a question, or play a solo so that everyone could hear it. The conductor would say a few words, or the usher would do a sound-check in various locations around the auditorium.
"Last week they were performing Henry V." She told him as they waited. "A story of a king who goes undercover, hiding what he is so that he may walk freely and unnoticed among the people."
"The Lostkind Childhood Folk Tale?" Vincent quipped.
"Personal preference." She retorted. "Tonight they're rehearsing an orchestral arrangement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata number 14." She said. "They call it The Moonlight Sonata."
That was when the conductor tapped his podium, and began. The music started gently. The piano began a soft soulful pattern, and the cello and the violins chose their moment to join in.
They hung there a while, swaying gently on the gantry, as though on a hammock, with food between them, the moon and stars above, and beautiful music slowly echoing up the chamber to their ears. A secret audience listening to the music of the night.
The harmonies echoed off the ceilings in a way they never would at the ground level, the acoustics of the chamber making the music swell off the walls as the chorus sang their answer to the strings of the orchestra. Vincent shut his eyes and let the resonance envelop him. He forgot the platform, forgot the height... He was infinitely aware of the open space all around him, as every direction gave him another harmony. It seemed to become him, go through him... The shadows and dark corners were such that the rest of the world could be forgotten. Just a ten foot square space in the open air, nothing but this enthralling woman and the music.
For just a moment, in mid-air, Vincent forgot he existed; ceasing to be earthbound, just for a moment; becoming something else entirely; floating in nothingness, wrapped in a Moonlight Sonata...
Beautiful.
He thought distantly; the only thing he could think.
Rule Three: Be Beautiful...
Connie would love this...
~oo00oo~
Vincent was still smiling at he let himself into his apartment. He'd spent most of his life unaware of the world around him, and then a year barely checking in with the people in it that mattered to him. He'd experienced the folly of both extremes, and it was time to find balance. Take from the full experience what he had learned, and have a better life ahead for his trouble.
Yasi was impressive, exciting, mysterious, even beautiful. But they both knew there was little chance there for them, and it was now a certainty that they'd never see each other again. They'd had one night left, and they'd made it fun. The vague fantasies he'd had of pitching his life in the city and going to join the Lostkind vanished once he'd proven he didn't have it in him.
The adventure was over.
Time to get back to real life.
As if to demonstrate the point, he closed the door firmly behind him, shutting out the City at Night; and scribbled down a note to ask Connie out for coffee. Neverland was real, but now it was time to land.
~oo00oo~
Yasi was expecting to be met when she got back to the Entrance. She was expecting Keeper, but instead it was Archivist. He waited for her at the start of the river, long before she got back to Twelfth Level.
For a long moment they didn't speak to each other. Finally, Archivist held his arms out and she stepped into the hug gratefully. "I'm sorry you had to go through that." His deep voice rumbled kindly. "It's never easy to lose a friend. Something you have little experience with, my dear girl."
"I told him goodbye, just like I promised." Yasi said simply. "I won't see him again."
"You okay?" Archivist asked her gently.
"I'm fine." Yasi shrugged that off. "I've always been fine on my own before; and Keeper's right. He's not one of us."
"Connie will be good for him." Archivist offered. "A natural match to the best parts of what he has become with our help."
"I know. That's why Wotcha put them together at the Kitchen." Yasi said, calm again.
"I know." Archivist said forgivingly. "You did a good thing Yasi. You did really well."
"You were right. The First Duty of the Shinobi? Protect the secret. I'm the Captain. I can't be the one that screws that up." Yasi squeezed the older man tightly for a moment and broke the hug. "Let's go home."
SIX: Two Years Later
Two Years Later...
Having woken early, he'd untangled himself from her arms and slipped into the next room to get dressed. One thing Vincent had never really adjusted to was the fact that their new apartment was facing the morning sun. The light woke up him up early every morning, even with the shades drawn.
Connie mumbled as he got up, used to it by now. She managed to snuggle deeper into the blankets without opening her eyes, drawing them over her head protectively. Days when he wasn't required to work, he liked to stay in bed, even when awake and let her sleep longer. Days when he had to work, he took advantage of the extra hour.
Coffee and toast in hand, he returned to the bedroom, where he had a desk set up. His laptop was forever battling for room against Connie's omnipresent bits and pieces. Vincent loved Connie dearly, but the girl had no control when it came to buying things online. Their apartment was filled with a lifetime of knickknacks. Chinese puzzle boxes, snow-globes from practically every city in the world, model ships and aircraft of every kind...
Every now and then, his eyes drifted to the Lantern. The bulb had burned out, but he'd kept it anyway. It actually fit right in among Connie's knickknacks. She had everything, including books and posters... Not wanting to wake her, he picked a book at random and started flicking through it. He knew he'd never finish it, but it gave him something to do.
After a while, he noticed movement behind him. "Hm. Come back to bed." She murmured.
"Nothing I'd love more, but it's getting late." Vincent told her.
"Then be late. I'd make it worth your while." She hummed, sitting up. Then she saw the coffee cup and forgot all about being playful. "Coffee waiting the moment I wake up." She smiled sleepily, taking the cup straight out of his hand. "I love you."