Work Text:
The letter on her desk bore the creases of much folding and fiddling, and the handwriting was scratchy and smudged in places. Against the carved and polished mahogany of Lisa Lisa’s table it had the air of a twitching rabbit in a dark and closing wood. She almost felt sorry for it.
She looked up, meeting Suzi Q’s gaze. “What is this?”
The girl practically flinched at her voice. “It’s… it’s my resignation, Miss.”
Lisa Lisa picked up the letter, straightening it out. She read it several times, which did not take very long. The frantic handwriting belied curt and concise wording that did not match the bubbly and bright girl that, up until this morning, Suzi had always been.
“It’s quite sudden. Has something happened?”
She visibly swallowed. “I… no, Miss.”
“Then why?” She pushed her glasses down, looking at the young woman eye to eye. “I have found your service exemplary. You’d be very missed. If there is something I can do-”
“No, Miss!” Suzi leaned forward, hands in tight fists. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Miss Lisa Lisa! You’ve been so wonderful and this job is so incredible and you’ve been kind and lovely and,” she stopped, took a breath, “that’s the problem, Miss.”
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me.” The young woman was suddenly avoiding her gaze. She sighed. “Please sit down.”
Suzi shook her head but lowered herself into the opposite chair.
Lisa Lisa poured a glass of water from the crystal pitcher Suzi herself had filled just a little while ago and passed it across to her.
She raised the glass shakily to her lips and took a deep gulp. “Miss Lisa Lisa,” she whispered as she lowered the empty glass, “You’re too kind. And too clever, and too lovely, and… and I like you a lot. I mean, a lot. You know?”
Lisa Lisa was a woman of the world, and she did, indeed, know. “Ah. I see.” She leaned back, pulling out a cigarette.
“I’m so sorry! I should have-”
She waved her quiet as she lit up and took a drag. “I see,” she repeated, watching the smoke curl, “thank you for telling me. Of course I’m very flattered.”
“You’re… flattered, Miss?” Suzi turned the glass absently in her hands, water dribbling onto the floor and her smart white dress. “Not… upset?”
“Of course not.” The tip of the cigarette flared as she inhaled. “But I’m far too old for you, you know.”
“Too old? Miss, you can’t be-”
“I am old enough to be your mother.”
Suzi stopped mid-breath, her brow creasing with the weight of arithmetic. “That can’t be right. That’s… that’s amazing, Miss! What’s your secret?”
She tapped the ash into her own empty glass. “Acceptance.” She pushed her shades back into place. “Could you refill the pitcher, please?”
Suzi was halfway to following the command before she stopped, hand hovering over the handle. “But Miss, I’ve… the letter…”
Lisa Lisa glanced down as if seeing the crumpled note for the first time. “Oh, that. We’d resolved it, hadn’t we?”
The girl frowned, fingers still brushing the handle. “We had, Miss?”
She smiled up at her from behind the smoked glass. “I thought so.”
“Oh. Well. Right away, Miss!”
And in another world, that would have been the end of it.
“You get a lot of letters with funny writing on them, Miss.”
She looked up from the crisp sheet on her desk, turning to watch as Suzi dusted the study.
“They’re from my father. Or his associates.” The latter more and more often, now. She wondered if it would even be worth it to reply to this one.
“Does he work in one of those Eastern places, Miss?”
“Somewhere like that, yes.” She folded it up, slid it back into the envelope to worry about later, perhaps after training. She suddenly felt very much like training today.
“You’re quite secretive really, aren’t you, Miss?”
She looked up. Suzi was sliding the duster along the neck of one of brass lamps, her eyes following the curves.
Her hand stopped and her eyes widened as her brain evidently caught up with her mouth. “Oh no, I mean that you’re very private, Miss, that’s all! Which is perfectly fine and respectable, of course!”
“No,” she said, smiling, “you’re quite right, I suppose.” She folded her fingers together, staring at the space where a ring wasn’t. “I don’t like to spend too much time on the past.”
Suzi was quiet for a few moments, and Lisa Lisa could sense she was being watched. Then she heard the soft sounds of cleaning resuming. “Well, that’s alright, Miss. It’s all over now, when you think about it.” She dusted in silence for a few more seconds, then added cheerily, “It’s the present you’re supposed to live in, right?”
Lisa Lisa rose, heading to the kitchen in search of tea, not wanting to give Suzi the extra work.
“Or the future.”
The manor was vast and empty.
She liked that. In the peace and quiet she could hear every breath, attune her hamon to the heartbeat of the sun. When she closed her eyes she could almost feel it, the raw life that ran through the entire planet. Even the stones bore the marks of it.
So she sat as still as she could and watched.
Her students and associates trained quietly and sometimes she heard them working, chatting.
She trained at night, when the only sunlight was reflected wanly from the moon.
“Ah!”
The yelp was accompanied by a loud crash and Lisa Lisa was on her feet and poised for the first attack in a single breath. Her body carried her as if she were floating down a river, out of the dining room where she had been enjoying the end of her meal and into the kitchen, still warm and smelling of food.
“Oh! Sorry Miss, I’m so sorry, it just slipped!”
Suzi Q cowered, bloodied hand held up instinctively in anticipation of a blow.
That shook her, just a little, and she hadn’t known that her breathing could begin to go awry at something so small any more.
The shards of glass were scattered over the floor, but Lisa Lisa stepped neatly over them and took Suzi’s hand. Firmly, but not, she hoped, violently.
“Miss?”
“It’s alright.”
“But the glass, Miss, I was cleaning it and-”
“Hush.” The cut was not deep, but it was bleeding too much for her liking. With a focussing of her internal systems, she pushed a little energy into the young woman. Enough to skip the healing process ahead a few days. Suzi’s voice murmured into silence.
She turned the hand this way and that, satisfied that it would no longer be a problem. “Don’t worry about the glass. I have plenty of them.”
She looked into her face, smiling a little to show she was sincere. She hadn’t enjoyed the sight of the girl recoiling in aprehension.
Suzi did not return the smile, but the fear on her face had been replaced with confusion.
“I’m… yes, Miss.”
“Try to be more careful. You’re too useful to spare you.” She pressed the girl’s hand, gently, and left to return to her meal.
She could feel her eyes on her back the entire time, but she was used to people being suspicious or intimidated by her, and she did not think much on it.
Of course she’d considered it.
She was a grown woman and she knew herself. She had been in love, once, and she had been happy. She could be happy again. She had lived long enough to know that if soulmates truly existed, a human being was not bound to only one.
Strangely, time had softened any urges in that direction rather than inflamed them, as she’d feared it would in the beginning. In her first years she might spend a few days with some dashing young fool, the men like old cinema stars out of time, the women all quick smiles over rolled-up sleeves.
Trying to distract herself from the truth, she thought in her more cynical times. Trying to prove that she still had a heart to break.
Now… she was tempered, or just getting old. The desperate need for a companion to pour herself into had abated. She knew who she was. How she would live. How she would die.
And perhaps it was that, as well. That her first bright memories of unconditional love were bound to her in blood.
Messina chewed his food slowly, eyes closed, brow furrowed. He took a few more bites, ever cautious, before laying down his fork.
“Atrocious, master. I do not know how you can stand it.”
She smiled, drawing a little pattern in her potatoes before taking another dainty mouthful.
“It’s like eating papier-mâché. And the sausages?” He frowned, pushing his plate away. “Truly, there are some parts of the animal too shameful to persist beyond death.”
“It’s a hearty food. Meant to fill you up for the day.”
“I can certainly see how the idea of eating anything else could be rather unappealing after this.”
She chuckled, taking a piece of one of those sausages. The room was cozy and warm and just beyond the windows rain pattered down.
“Well, I apologise for leaving this delightful supper so early, but I must return to my training. I am not satisfied with my ability to control my hamon under the light of the moon,” Messina said, giving a slight bow as he rose. She nodded in return, raising her glass.
“Oh, excuse me! Ah, you’re finished?” Suzi stepped aside to allow Messina to pass, then gravitated to the table to begin tidying. She really was very good at her job. She moved to help people as if drawn on thread, without thought.
“Is this what you were making earlier, Miss?”
“It is. Try some.” She indicated the plate, on which most of her apprentice’s portion was still untouched.
“Are you sure, Miss?” The girl looked at the food a little dubiously, but her curiosity overpowered her propriety. She sat down, her fingers wrapping around the fork. Her hands were calloused, Lisa Lisa noticed, like her own. Working hands.
After a few spoonfuls Suzi’s face, her little scrunched brow, was too much for her. “What do you think?”
“Well, um…”
“Be honest, please. I won’t be offended.”
“It’s a little bland, Miss,” she admitted.
Lisa Lisa smiled. “It always was.”
“Then… why?” the girl asked around a mouthful of sausage.
“Bangers and mash was my husband’s favourite. Today would have been his birthday and I make it every year now, as I did then.”
Suzi almost choked on her food. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Miss! I’m sure my, my palette must just not be good enough-”
She laughed, waving a hand airily. “Please, it’s alright.”
“I am so sorry-”
“Suzi,” she sighed, still smiling, “he would have been delighted to see the look on your face, so you have made a fitting tribute to his memory.”
The girl coughed into a napkin. “Was he,” another flurry of coughing, “was he a kind man, Miss?”
“The kindest I’d known, courageous, dashing,” she smiled into her wine, “a little dim, sometimes. I had to take the lead on occasion.” She reached into her jacket. “Here, would you like to see a picture?”
She handed the little monochrome square across the table, an old, ageless face passing from hand to hand. Suzi took it, still working on another forkful of mash despite her recent brush with culinary suffering.
“Oh, he’s handsome. He looks kinda… noble?”
“He was.” She took a sip of her wine. “To a fault.”
The girl was studying the picture intently. It was creased and faded and she wished she could ask Erina for another, but it always felt… presumptuous, somehow.
Suzi passed the photo back delicately, a pensive look on her face. “Um, what, uh, how, I guess, I mean…”
“Suzi.”
“Were you happy, Miss? I mean.” The young woman’s face flushed again and she shook her head hard enough to dislodge a few pinned-back locks. “Of course you were! Of course, I don’t know why I said that, I’m so sorry!”
Lisa Lisa held up a hand. “No, it wasn’t a cruel question, I know. To tell the truth,” she said, closing her eyes to better seen down through the years, “I ask myself that, from time to time. It becomes harder and harder to remember, and my life is so different now. I am different now. But yes, I believe I was happy, and I still love and admire the man he was.” She smiled. “Even if I am not entirely sure he would appreciate the woman I am, now.”
The last of the evening sun fell through the window in honeyed beams as she opened her eyes to see Suzi Q shaking her head firmly.
“He’d like you, Miss. He’d love you. I know it, I can tell just by looking at that picture. And if not… No, no I know he would. No doubt.”
Lisa Lisa took a sip of wine to cover her expression. “Thank you, Suzi.”
Time ticked on. The future slowly advanced on her, day by day, as she sat in her manor and read the incoming signs. It gave her no great anxiety; she was accustomed to waiting. Her background had blessed her with the patience of a bonsai that knows that one day there will be nobody left to keep the roots from shattering the terracotta prison.
She knew it would be soon.
Of course, there was more to the world than one battle, one destiny.
Lying in her bed, the soft rich warmth of the mattress and the thick embrace of her bandages could not keep the faint sounds of movement from reaching her ears. She sat up slowly, wincing at the pain, and let those small sounds of furtive action become her entire being.
She frowned; they were not the stealthy sounds of a trained assassin, and seemed to be moving out of the manor, not further in. Either she had whittled her opponents down to only their most imcompetent killers, or…
She sighed, and with a little effort arose from her sickbed and donned a light robe.
Even in her condition it was trivial to move about the place in utter silence. Part of that was her hamon abilities, of course, part of it the physical grace and dexterity she had trained in all her life, but part of it was that the house itself had been refitted and remodelled with the express purpose of making it easy to defend, and a strategically placed plush rug could make all the difference when repelling a would-be intruder.
So it was that when she appeared from the shadows at the servant’s entrance and cleared her throat, Suzi Q was so alarmed that she almost dropped the knife.
“M-Miss! You shouldn’t be up, you, you need to rest!”
“Miss Quatro. What are you doing creeping around my home in the dead of night with a kitchen knife?”
“I’m not creeping, Miss!” Suzi protested, shoving the blade into the pocket of her outdoor coat and by the sound of it doing irreparable harm to the lining. “I’m just… going out.”
“Oh, at this hour?”
“All the young people go out at these sorts of times.”
“The knife, Suzi.”
“Well… maybe some boy might try to get frisky…”
“You cannot hope to finish off the remains of that cult cell by yourself. Leave it to Loggins; he is more than capable.”
“But Miss, look at what they did to you!”
She brushed the bandages over her chest lightly, feeling the stone cool on her skin beneath. “The individuals who caused this damage paid a high price for it. They are in no position to receive your revenge.”
“I… I don’t care, Miss! People can’t just go around doing things like that, it’s not right. People need to be shown, Miss!” Her clenched fists were white with righteousness.
She sighed. “Suzi, this really isn’t-” She gasped as a dull throb of pain pulsed through her abdomen, clutching her side.
“Miss!” Suzi dashed forward, taking her shoulders and guiding her down to the well-swept floor. “I’ll go get someone, wait here!”
“I’m fine, I must have just irritated a few bruises, that’s all.” When had she become such a casual liar?
“What if they open up, Miss? Let me get a towel!”
She gripped the hem of her coat firmly, looking up to fix her with a firm but not unkind look. “Suzi, if you really want to help me, stop panicking and come down here.”
The young woman reluctantly lowered herself down beside her, her face still hovering on the verge of fight or flight.
She put an arm around her shoulders, more to keep her still than for comfort, if not entirely so.
“I won’t lie to you, harder battles than this are coming.”
“You’ll be in danger, Miss?”
“Very.”
“Can’t you just… leave, Miss? Go somewhere far away from these people who wanna hurt you?”
“Yes, I could.”
She waited for Suzi’s response, the inevitable protest, but it did not come. Instead:
“And you just want me to sit here, and mop the floors and wash the dishes, while you and the others are being attacked by these horrible people?”
Lisa Lisa blinked. There was petulance in the profile of the young woman’s face, but there was iron, too. She was suddenly struck by a nostalgia that rattled her breath far more effectively than the blows to her chest had.
She pulled her closer, resting her head on her shoulder.
She gasped, a little wisp of a noise. “Miss?”
“Do you remember when you cut your hand?”
“I… The time when you… fixed it, Miss, with your… your breathing magic?”
She smiled. “Not magic, exactly. Hamon is the power of life that is gifted to every living being under the sun. Even you.”
“M-me, Miss?”
“Yes. If you want to help me, will you let me lend a little of yours for a moment, to speed my recovery?”
“I can do that, Miss? Of course, take all you need! What do I have to do?”
“Just stay here, with me. Let me lean on you awhile.”
She took a breath, then nodded firmly, moving a little closer.
She could not fully blame her son for his… deficits, she knew. It had been her decision to leave him without her guiding hand, and she could not fault Erina and Speedwagon; they had raised a strong man with a firm moral compass.
At least, as far as these things went for men of his age.
Still, it was good to see Caesar again. He would be a good influence, and he had the right to stand alongside them.
A part of her was surprised that she was not more anxious. This was it, this was what she had trained for, lived for, and Joseph was already sentenced for death. But like the steady flow of breath, the events moved around her and she simply accepted them as they came.
Suzi seemed to like him.
That was good.
She was furious.
It had been a long time, a lifetime, really, since she had been really, truly angry, heat in the blood and bile in the throat angry, but the sight before her brought it all back in great waves.
With great effort, mindful of time and the constant lack of it, she brought her breathing back to heel.
Against her better judgement, she took Suzi’s hand and squeezed it gently.
On the bed, buried in blankets, the woman’s eyes opened just a bit. She was a little ashamed of herself for feeling glad at that.
“Miss?”
“Hush. The… thing that did this to you is dead, and you will recover.”
“I know, Miss, I felt it. Ah…” She flinched a little.
Lisa Lisa shushed her again, brushing her forehead and noting with relief that the fever was fading. Whatever kind of immune reaction vampiric tissue provoked, it seemed to be running its course.
“I have to leave very soon. We don’t have a lot of time,” she whispered, the ghost of an apology haunting the words.
Suzi nodded. She clasped Lisa Lisa’s hand, bleary eyes staring firm into her, and she could feel the strength behind the illusion of frailty, the ephemeral weakness.
“Be careful, Miss, please. Take care of the boys, but please…”
She nodded. “Of course.” But Suzi gripped harder, her bloodshot eyes firm.
“Please… I… I don’t even have a picture of you, Miss…”
Perhaps that was it.
She moved through the air, her body like a weightless extension of her breath. In the flow of energy there was both the cool emptiness from any emotion and ceaseless, near-overwhelming feeling, the pure feeling of being alive, of being a part of life, the contradicting states moving in tandem, interweaving.
In that detached yet connected state she moved and she thought of Caesar and Loggins and her father and George, and Joseph and Erina and all the others who were holding their own breath waiting to see which way the coin would fall…
But as she inhaled for just a moment the years fell away and she was a young woman again, clutching a single black-and-white photograph as the world she had known shattered.
And it suddenly struck her, as it could only from this distance of years and experience, what a cruel world it was that would do that to a young lady.
She saw a movement in the very edge of her periphery, a mirror-image of the creature falling apart below her, and in that understanding, the base, pathetic, banal evil of it, that could create such a world as casually as she would draw breath.
Lisa Lisa drew her breath, and pivoted…
So it went, and the sun rose.
Lisa Lisa returned home, her duty fulfilled she left what happened next to other hands. She had that luxury, at least.
She buried the boy who had not been her son by blood, and who she had no right to mourn as a mother. But she did. She had that luxury, too.
She was surprised when the new students began arriving. Some from her father’s abandoned set, some from even further, stranger climes, and some riding on the rumours and tales that had sprouted in the wake of their journey.
Eventually, after far too long dithering over it, she decided to take them. Who could say where destiny ended, but Lisa Lisa would face it, and pass on the tools to meet it.
Suzi Q had not been there when she returned.
In 1942 Lisa Lisa had more pressing things to do than go to her son’s wedding, but she did anyway. She had trained her new recruits well enough that she trusted that Europe would survive a week without her.
She had had rules about engaging in the matters of ordinary, mortal people, before the quest against the Pillar Men. They were old rules that her order had followed for many centuries. They had a purpose; the few studied hamon users had needed to ensure they survived to battle the greater threat, and that meant not risking annihilation from more mundane sources.
But the news had been trickling in, and Lisa Lisa had made a judgement. Let her forebears curse her from the world beyond; she would accept that over damning the needy in this one.
So it was that by the time she stepped out of her plane she already had several calls to make, and spent most of her stay in America surrounded by more letters, maps and newspapers than adoring family.
It was good to see them all again, though. Speedwagon was largely recovered, though like her he was also preoccupied with securing the future they had made. Erina embraced her, kissing her cheek and saying nothing, but behind her spectacles Lisa Lisa could see something she’d almost forgotten, almost believed lost.
Her son and his wife-to-be were of course full of joy and anxiety, she remembered that much at least. Their company, though a little rambunctious for her tastes, was not unwelcome.
The service was relatively subdued, but the groom more than made up for it. She watched throughout as the crowd slowly warmed, the people relearning that there was something beyond war and horror. Another reason she needed to return with haste.
There was no best man. Or, rather, the best man could not be present, in the flesh at least.
Some time afterwards she was enjoying a cigarette just outside of the reception, enjoying the murmur of revelry and the cool air. A flutter in the smoke told her she was being approached, and when she turned, she met Suzi Q’s bright eyes and modest smile.
“Hello, Miss.”
“I don’t employ you anymore, Suzi. It’s ‘Lisa Lisa’, now. It’s good to see you.”
“The same to you, Mi- Lisa Lisa. You look amazing, as always.” She offered a hand and Lisa Lisa shook it with a smile of her own.
“It was a lovely service, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, so lovely, Miss. I thought I was going to flood the place crying!”
“Have you spoken to the bride? A very interesting woman-”
“I actually already know her pretty well, Miss. I’ve been staying with both of them for a while now,” Suzi said in a great rush.
“‘Lisa Lisa’, and is that so? My son never mentioned, but he’s so… distractible.”
She grinned. “He really is, but I actually told him not to mention it. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Oh?” The woman’s voice had become very earnest, and her expression was firm.
She took a deep breath, and began as if reading from a script. “Miss- Lisa Lisa, I challenge you! Face me in battle!”
She looked at the young woman, smartly dressed, hair already falling loose from its attractive style, never able to completely be constrained. A little thicker around than before, arms a little more defined even under her long sleeves. But the eyes, no, the aura…
She tossed her cigarette, crushing it idly on the slightly damp grass. “I see. Joseph, you never mentioned taking a student.”
“Aw, how did you do that?” The young man emerged sheepishly from the shadows under the awning. “My breathing was perfect.”
“You said everyone has hamon… Lisa Lisa. I wanted to see if you were right.”
She sighed. “So, you’ve conspired against me.” She turned towards the two of them, folding her arms. Joseph still looked like a child dragged up to the front of the class to explain himself, but Suzi… Ah, she’d almost forgotten that.
She let them stew a little before she continued. “Well?” She stepped out of her heels. “Are you going to show me what you’ve learnt?”
Suzi beamed and, with no other preamble, grabbed her hand and pulled her out, further into the lawn of the church grounds as she kicked off her own shoes. “You’ll see, Miss! I’ve been training so hard, you won’t believe it!”
She allowed herself to be dragged along, a chuckle escaping her throat. It was a little surprising to learn she still had any in her. “I must warn you, Joseph may be a prodigy, but I am a master. You will lose in three moves.”
“You’ll see, Miss! You’ll see!”
In the end, it was two moves.
“Ah, Joseph, is that the ice?”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll just have to drink warm champagne for a while.”
“Not if you drink it quickly. Here.” She gently pressed the cloth bag to Suzi’s bruised temple.
“Ow, ah, thank you.” She winced. “Ugh, what a mess. And you, Joseph. I guess I let you down, huh?”
“What? No, you did great! You almost kinda landed an attack, before, uh…” His easy grin faltered and he fiddled with his bowtie. “Well, you’re my first student, after all.”
“Exactly. Thank you, Joseph.” She fixed him with a look she had not used since they journeyed together.
It still worked. “Yeah, well I guess I’d better get back, huh? Brand new wife and everything… Uh, talk to you later, Suzi, and, uh, Mum.” He turned smartly on his heel and left, mouth still moving around the unfamiliar word.
Lisa Lisa made sure the bag of ice was in no danger of slipping out of Suzi’s grip, then sat back and lit another cigarette. The sunlight dappled through the leaves of the immaculately maintained trees and warmed her skin as the smoke warmed her chest.
Suzi shuffled a little, hissing as she held the bag still. “Our dresses are going to get awful grass stains, aren’t they?”
She shrugged. “As I recall, you were always quite skilled at removing those.”
“I’m a bit out of practice, Miss.” She laughed, a little weak and shy.
Lisa Lisa watched her carefully. “You really didn’t do too badly, you know. Your hamon has potential.”
“I fell on my own face, Miss.”
She smiled. “But it was an attempt at a daring manoeuvre. That will be Joseph’s influence; ever the showman.”
“I really wanted to prove myself, Miss. I really thought…”
She looked across as her. Her features were crinkled and she knew that beyond them was a mind beating itself up far more thoroughly than any opponent ever could.
“I don’t believe in false praise,” she said, low and soft.
Suzi sighed. “I just thought that if I could match you, Miss, maybe…” Her voice trailed away, wilting away. She was almost whispering when she admitted, “I wanted to go back with you, Miss. To… join you, and help you fight. I know it’s not vampires, but it’s still dangerous.”
Lisa Lisa watched her. “It is. And,” she steadied her breath, “I would welcome your assistance. And your company, which I have missed.”
The young woman looked at her, still rubbing her bruised face. “Miss, please don’t pity me-”
“I would not involve you in something so risky over pity. As to the rest… You have proved yourself quite enough, and the only thing in which we are unmatched is a little experience, and your using my name.”
“But, Miss-”
“Hush.” She put an arm around her shoulders, moving to pull her against her side.
Suzi stammered a little more, then with a little sigh she settled.
“Back then, on that night… When you said you were using my hamon to heal yourself faster, that wasn’t true, was it? I didn’t know then, but now I know what it feels like.”
“That’s right.” She closed her eyes, steadying her breath again. “But it did help, all the same.”
Suzi, she noticed with a little amusement, was also bringing her breath under control. “Can I, Lisa Lisa…?”
She reached up and, mindful of the war wounds, pulled her head down onto her shoulder.