tampered | Log: Incomplete

Log: Incomplete

When; Afternoon of June 4.

Rating; PG?

Characters; Jenos

mythrilthreads, Shao Lee

europeancut, Evelynne

unbewildered, Amadeus

impolitical, Rabi

h_ammertime, Aya

eclipsing_heart, Sunny

killer_sunshine, Komui

superslack, and anyone else who wanted to come. The listed are the ones who have agreed to the log already, but the post is open.

Summary; Refer back to this post. Amadeus tries to force a break on Evelynne, who still seems too preoccupied with leaving the city by use of doors. With the help of the others, he gets her to Room 13 in Building 7.

Log;

He hadn't expected it to be easy to get her to leave. Amadeus had almost expected to have to smoke her out, actually. But after a collective effort on his part and several others, he had succeeded in pulling Evelynne out and to the "beach."

He didn't once ask why there was a beach in a room in a building. He didn't even let it cross his mind. Right now, his first priority was to get Evelynne to unstress and unwind. The very idea that she was the one who was a ball of nerves for once didn't seem right - it didn't flow with the natural order of the world, even if this was some strange alternate universe that had no working sense.

"This is it," he said, looking the door marked 13 up and down. Halls here felt endless and limitless, and to the right and left was mostly lines of doors and fluorescent lights that somehow faded into darkness instead of an end. Not giving it another second of thought, he turned the knob and pushed the door open for the others.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"How the fuck am I late?" the girl mumbled indignantly as she stalked towards her neighbors. "I thought there were other people coming too. Where are they?"

She glared at the man as she unfurled a blanket and plonked down next to Shao, opening up a parasol.

"You just are!" Jenos replied with a grin. Never would he admit that teasing the assasin girl had become one of his new hobbies. It wasn't as fun as drinking, or flirting, but it had its perks. He slipped off his shirt, scrunched it into a ball, and threw it away before answering Sunny's question. "They're coming! They're just slow." Right as he spoke, two others had already arrived. "See?"

Shao only gave Sunny a small grin, and shrugged.

"Stupid answer from a stupid person...." Sunny grumbled. Delightful. Another person to tack onto the list of people who enjoyed poking fun at her. The list already included a fair majority of her co-workers, her partner and at least half the city. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter. They'd all respect her in the end. She'd make certain of it. If-- no-- when she'd become the head of the AG, she'd have the world at her feet, crying and apologizing, begging for mercy and all she'd have to do is snap her fingers and POOF! They'd be dead. She wouldn't have anyone killed of course-- the fear that she could do something like that was easily suffici-- Fuck.

Shao's slight smile momentarily threw a wrench in her mental gears, halting the near murderous thoughts that were running through her brain at the time. Dammit. That smile was a fucking weapon of the worst kind, since there was absolutely no defense for it. No one should have been allowed to do that, especially to her. It wasn't fucking fair. She turned away from him, pouting slightly.

On Hazard-san's cue, Sunny peeked out from the shade of her parasol at Komui and Rabi, the latter dressed more peculiarly than usual, with inflatable toys in tow. "Holy fuck...." she breathed. "What the fuck is Rabi-nii wearing?" The more she saw of that guy, the weirder and weirder he she swore he was. Nevertheless, if someone could succeed in cheering Ev-san up (or at least make her temporarily make her forget what had her down in the first place), he could do a better job of it than Sunny ever could.

>

"That's cruel!" Jenos gave a playful pout, and scooted under Sunny's parasol. He lowered his shades, to look at Sunny directly. "You think his swimsuit looks cool? What about mine?" He pointed down to his own swimsuit, coloured a gaudy bright green and blue. It wasn't something he would have usually chosen, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Something more manly, suave and cool was more his style. Jenos didn't think the suit was that bad, but it could have been better. Way better. The thought of swimsuits brought him to his next question. "Hey Sunny. You're not wearing a swimsuit! How will you swim?!"

Shao hadn't bothered to wear a swimsuit. Instead, he wore a large white shirt, with a pair of knee length pants. He had only come along as a distraction from his usual daily happenings. It seemed nobody (other than Jenos) knew what he did all day, and he wasn't going to change that. "Leave Sunny alone, Jenos. If she doesn't want to swim, she doesn't have to." Shao's voice was pleasant, with a slight amount of authority. While Jenos and Shao had the same level of authority within Chronos, Jenos decided to listen to Shao more often here, seeing how he was often the voice of reason. Nothing to do with authority, oh no. Jenos would never admit that at times, Shao scared him. The incident with the cyborg at Clarken Island wouldn't be forgotten anytime soon.

Sunny's eyes went wide as Jenos completely invaded her "bubble" of personal space, her trigger fingers itching beneath the light cotton gloves which shielded her hands from human contact.

"I never said it was 'cool'..." she replied flatly, staring him down while making quotation marks with her fingers. The temptation to give the older man a sound beating with her parasol tickled the back of her mind as her hands tightened around the handle. "...and as for yours..." the young assassin continued, "-- no comment." No violence to punctuate the sentence this time, but she swore if he got any closer, it would be a parasol to the head for the Chronos member.

Incidentally, she was wearing a swimsuit, though it was more out of practicality than any desire to swim. The Teases Tiki had sent out the other day had torn apart a fair majority of the contents of her undergarment drawer, so there really wasn't much else for her to wear. Under her white, crisp cotton jumper was one of the many swimsuits that B.B. had designed for her which he insisted she carry around, "just in case." Like all his fashion concoctions, it was on the teensy side; a pink two-piece, decorated with cherries and ruffles, that clung in all the right spots and emphasized all the right places the way only a custom piece of clothing could. His stuff fit so well it was almost creepy, really.

Sunny let out a little sigh of relief as Jenos backed off and she fished into her bag for her mp3 player and a book of sheet music.

>

Shao watched Sunny as she took a book out of her bag. Judging by its cover, it was a music book. Opera music, Shao mused. While he wasn't a fan of opera music, Shao was still curious about it. He had mentioned it to her before, but the idea was still there. "Is that a music book Sunny?" He asked offhandedly, as if he wasn't expecting an answer. "Opera music?"

Now that he couldn't bother Sunny, Jenos had found other ways to amuse himself. It was the beach, and he was going swimming. "Come on Sunny! Amadeus! Lets go swimming!" He shouted as he dove into the water. Right when he hit the water, he knew it was a bad idea. He surfaced quickly, clamping his mouth shut to prevent the other two from discovering. He prepared a brave face, and turned back to wave.

The beach had never been Amadeus' favorite place, especially in light of the swimming part that was usually involved. On Jenos' invitation, his reaction almost came back to him from years ago, when old friends had asked the same.

"No, thank you, Jenos," he called with a shake of his head. He was fine with staying warm and dry, and the ocean wasn't going to help him in that endeavor.

The AG member ignored Jenos's request, and laughed inwardly as she heard the slash in the ocean. She didn't even need to see his reaction to know the water was freezing cold.

"Mn..." Sunny answered Shao's question, partially distracted by the aria flowing softly though the headphones. She ran her fingers along the embossed title of the music book, which read, Turandot in dull gold letters. "My favorite one.... except for the ending, of course."

"It feels good! Come on!" Jenos waved his arms frantically, in an attempt to coerce them into swimming. Sure, it was cold. But after a while, it got warmer, and you couldn't really feel your body. Maybe that wasn't a plus, but at least it didn't feel as cold anymore. Really, those two were such killjoys. "If you don't come in now, I'll come drag you in!"

Shao sighed, and shook his head at Jenos's antics. Couldn't he tell nobody wanted to go swimming because the water was probably around freezing? Instead of saying it outloud, he turned back to Sunny. He glanced at the book she held in her hands, only able to read Turan. "Whats wrong with the ending?" He asked, hoping the question wasn't too sensitive.

Drag her in? Sunny would've PAID to see Jenos try that in his presumably numb state.

"Turandot was a Chinese princess. Everyone who saw how beautiful she was wanted to marry her. In order to do that, they had to answer three riddles:

What is born each night and dies each dawn?

What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire?

What is like ice, but burns?

If they couldn't answer the questions, they were beheaded." She paused slightly, smiling.

"But she just had to meet a handsome prince, who just had to answer the questions correctly." The girl rolled her eyes. "He tells her that if she guesses his name, he'll let her off the hook, so she tries everything she can to find it out. She has people tortured and killed, but to no avail. The fucking bastard wins."

"The prince tries to get Turandot to love him, and she refuses. Then he kisses her and and she..." She let the sentence hang as she frowned.

"The end just fucking sucks." She finished simply.

"She falls in love?" Shao finished up with a grin. He had already gussed once the words 'handsome prince' were mentioned. If it was true that princess fell in love, Shao would see why Sunny would hate the ending. He sort of understood why Sunny didn't like being called cute, or going on dates. Shao himself wasn't interested in those things either. Shao dug through his sports duffle, searching for a pair of sunglasses as he awaited Sunny's answer.

Jenos used his hands as a sun block to watch the activity on shore. Were they ignoring him? "Amadeus! Sunny! This is your last warning~!"

Last warnings didn't mean anything to Amadeus anyway. He waved to Jenos again, shaking his head still.

Love. The very mention of the word made Sunny wince inwardly.

"Cheh. Of course." she growled at Shao, trying to ignore the smile on his face.

"Do you know the answers to the riddles?" She asked, curious if he could derive the solution from what little information she had provided.

Jenos's voice rang out from the ocean. Warning? For what, exactly? Sunny waved a hand in dissmissal, and returned her focus to her opera.

Amadeus took some amount of amusement at Sunny's obvious distaste for the outcome of the opera. Though he had never seen an actual production of the play, he knew very well its outcome and the princess' declaration at the end - the word that seemed to bother Sunny so much.

The riddles themselves, however, he hadn't heard (after all, the best he knew of the play was Nessun Dorma, and mostly because the stage was Evelynne's passion, not his) before, and any puzzle intrigued him to an extent.

"Could you repeat the riddles, Sunny?" he asked, turning to leave watching Ev and the others and focus on Sunny instead.

The girl turned to the man, smiling almost as cruelly as Turandot herself as she recited the the riddles once again:

"What is born each night and dies each dawn?

What flickers red and warm like a flame, but is not fire?

What is like ice, but burns?"

For a long moment, Amadeus stared pensively at the beach towel spread on the sand, ultimately unsure of any answer to the questions at all. The play was by Puccini though, if he knew anything at all, and Puccini was, he knew well -

"Do you have the riddles in the original Italian?"

Flipping through the sheet music, Sunny scribbled the riddles in their original language on a piece of paper, handing them to Amadeus:

"Nella cupa notte vola un fantasma iridescente. Sale e spiega l'ale sulla nera infinita umanità. Tutto il mondo l'invoca e tutto il mondo l'implora. Ma il fantasma sparisce coll'aurora per rinascere nel cuore. Ed ogni notte nasce ed ogni giorno muore!"

"Guizza al pari di fiamma, e non è fiamma. È talvolta delirio. È febbre d'impeto e ardore! L'inerzia lo tramuta in un languore. Se ti perdi o trapassi, si rafredda. Se sogni la conquista, avvampa, avvampa! Ha una voce che trepido tu ascolti, e del tramonto il vivido baglior!"

"Gelo che ti dà foco e dal tuo foco più gelo prende! Candida ed oscura! Se libero ti vuol ti fa più servo. Se per servo t'accetta, ti fa Re!" Su, straniero, ti sbianca la paura! E ti senti perduto! Su, straniero, il gelo che dà foco, che cos'è?"

He took the paper carefully, almost as if the words meant much to him, and read the words over. In the past few years, he had little opportunity to speak Italian with anyone, but his native language was never a stranger to him.

Like an old friend, the words gave him exactly what he was expecting.

"Tutto il mondo l'invoca e tutto il mondo l'implora - what," Amadeus said, with a smile briefly crossing his features, "could ever merit such a call but hope?"

Sunny nodded. "One down, two to go, Amadeus-san..."

"Se ti perdi o trapassi, si rafredda," he responded, though not in answer to Sunny. His eyes stayed trained on the words. "The only fire that grows cold upon death is blood."

"That would be correct answer number two, then..." she stated. There was only one question left...

The problem with the final question, Amadeus found, was context or lack thereof. He pored over the words, hoping for any sort of clue to the hidden meaning.

"Gelo che ti dà foco e dal tuo foco più gelo prende," he repeated under his breath, once and twice and three times over. "Candida e oscura. Se libero ti vuol ti fa più servo. Se per servo t'accetta, ti fa Re."

When all else failed, Amadeus could only use logic.

"Ice which gives fire and which fire freezes still more," he translated, dropping a few words for sake of brevity. "White and dark. If it allows you your freedom, it makes you a slave. If it accepts you as a slave
it makes you..."

Without finishing, he glanced back towards the ocean, spotting Evelynne as she plunged in after Rabi, shouting profanities and curses.

"I can only guess from here," he admitted, sitting up again as he looked back at the paper. "The princess was a cold one, however, turning down and killing all men who failed the test. This much I know. The man who answered correctly, Calaf, was never deterred by such a fact, and his passion only intensified with her distance."

He paused, an expression of concern on his face. "Paleness was beauty, and as such, it could be said she was white. She was also dark in her ruthlessness. Only the correct answers would gain freedom, but freedom was being tied to her in marriage...and marriage led to being crowned monarch." With the last of the riddle thought out, Amadeus smiled again, almost humored by the way the story worked.

He looked up at Sunny and answered, "The answer is Turandot."

"And that would be the final correct answer." Sunny said, sounding noticeably impressed.
"Give yourself a cookie, Amadeus-san. Not bad, especially for a guess."

"It was mostly a matter of deduction," he defended, setting the page back down on the beach towel. "There was no chance of my guessing the answer if I had not known something about the opera itself. Though seeing the words in my language helped immensely."

"Well then, your deduction skills are fuckin' impressive." the assassin complimented.

"So tell me, how are you familiar with the opera?"

>

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