Work Text:
PRINCE HENRY
Why, thou owest God a death.
Exit PRINCE HENRY
FALSTAFF
'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before
his day. What need I be so forward with him that
calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks
me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I
come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or
an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no.
Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is
honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what
is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea,
to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore
I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so
ends my catechism.
(Shakespeare's Henry IV Part I, 5.1)
If someone asked Gyro Zeppeli if he believed in gravity, an unseen force that draws people together, he’d probably shrug his shoulders and say, hell if I know. He’d done enough dabbling in the world of the unknown his whole life; when living in a dog-eat-dog world, he knew better than to spend his nights chewing on hypotheticals. That was just useless self-torture.
Maybe thoughts like those were aspects of his rational father’s personality that had been passed down to him— he couldn’t be sure.
No, Gyro couldn’t answer anybody about the gravity between people. But he could answer them about the sound of clopping hooves against hard dirt, his hand moving offending branches and leaves out of the way as he passed into the clearing of the orchard. He could answer them about the growing plums hanging off the trees, not quite ripe yet— the old log cabin in front of them with a creaky porch and sagging awning, the wood rotten and sad, the curtains drawn. He could easily tell them all about how the way the sun was high in the sky and the billowing white clouds crawled along luxuriously within that sea of blue. Outside was not quite hot, not quite cold. It was perfect.
In fact, it felt wrong for the weather to be so nice. When he threw his head back and took a gulp of water from his dusty canteen, Gyro couldn’t help but think of how days like these should be reserved only for days when you have a nice picnic date with some nice girl. Or days when you’re going on a casual ride on horseback in the countryside with a good friend – a friend like Johnny, who sat on Slow Dancer beside him and rubbed his aching lower back from weeks curled up in the saddle. Gyro offered him the canteen. Johnny shook his head. Behind them, Hot Pants yawned into the back of her hand, bored of going in circles.
It was too nice a day for Gyro to have to kill. A man drew back the curtain from within his cabin, watching.
In some ways, Ringo Roadagain was a lot like Gyro’s father – and in other ways, he was nothing like him at all.
Death was something honorable, something written with dignity. Death was something apart of everyday life, especially for the Zeppelis; especially for Ringo. If you’re lucky enough to live another day on earth, then death should be something that elevates you to another level – after all, that means that fate chose you. But where Gregorio Zeppeli’s eyes were cold, hard, and detached – never to be swayed from his own morals and values, lacking love for any creature – Ringo Roadagain’s eyes were gentle and soulful. When he listened, his platinum-white eyebrows knitted together, his lips pursed as though thoroughly mulling over each and every word. When he stepped off his decaying porch, his hand raising to form a visor over his eyes from the gleeful sun, Gyro thought for a moment that he looked quite a lot like Michelangelo’s David. Perfectly sculpted, with a face that denoted thoughtfulness and intelligence.
And, yes, much like Gyro’s father, Ringo was unashamed in nudging Gyro until he reached the level of improvement that he desired. Conformist, Gyro sometimes remembers Ringo calling him, many days and nights after killing him, camping out in the freezing cold. However, where Gregorio’s nudge was a shove, a shove in the ‘right’ direction, a shove in the unsentimental direction, Ringo’s was pull. Come into my world. Come meet me on my level, he seemed to say with those wistful eyes, the nonchalant way his head lolled to the side. It’s all just a game, anyways.
“If you want to leave this orchard,” Ringo had said, squinting against the light, hip canting one way as though he were only casually discussing the morning papers, “—you’re going to have to kill me.”
If you choose me, Ringo’s proposition screamed, really, you’re choosing yourself. Your own elevation. All Ringo had on earth was either improvement, or death; which, upon reflection, Gyro realized that was all anybody on earth really has. The only exception was that, with Ringo, such a tenant was carved in to the very features of his face, the way he held himself, the way he lived every day, the way he shot his gun.
If he wasn’t going to live, he was going to die. That was that.
Of course, Ringo feared death like any other man. His hand shook with a violent tremor at times when reaching for his gun, his fingers trembling and shoulders twitching painfully as he went to rewind the clock on his wristwatch to take his wounds away. In many ways, Ringo was still the child that he was the first time he’d ever killed a man – the man who took the lives of his family. Trembling with terror and weeping from sadness, but ultimately prepared to pull the trigger. He’d accepted long ago that that small child would always live inside him, no matter how old he was getting.
In duels, there is only one path to take. No matter what, you must kill. Once Ringo realized this at such an impressionable age, all the other, overcomplicated ways of the world seemed to fade away, and the process of making decisions became easy.
He had killed once. And it seemed to him as though he was living on borrowed time anyways, as fate had chosen him to be the only member of his family to survive. What had deemed him ‘worthy’? He decided he would kill again and again, honorably, and he did. Duels were where the path was clearest, where he could take a deep breath that filled his entire chest with air, where there were no other questions or setbacks, where you either were or you weren’t. The true ‘man’s world’, undisturbed by society or religion or anything at all – a simple yet unbreakable connection between two men.
Each time Ringo killed, he bowed low, his hand on his chest as though pledging his allegiance to that connection. I thank you, he’d say – whether to the recently departed, or to fate for allowing him to continue on another minute, no one could say. His hands no longer trembled once the deed was done.
Ringo had taken Gyro there, to that true man’s world. It was different from his father’s world, which lacked gentleness or humanity. In fact, perhaps it was opposite to that world – just as objective, yes, but with the sole goal being to kill and die with fairness, respect, and mutual understanding. Gyro thought of Marco.
Human society didn’t make sense. It was full of death and cruelty. Gyro was more than happy to step into Ringo’s realm, once he was allowed in – once he laid his title of ‘conformist’ on the floor and realized that he was going to kill him. Gripping his steel ball in hand, the weapon which held his family’s entire history within it, felt different this time from those he’d executed by his own hand back in Italy. It felt like choosing his own path; like stepping on to the path of death to protect his own desire, his own friends, rather than out of fear of his father or fear of his own lineage.
In the lines of Ringo’s face, Gyro felt like he was seeing someone he recognized – someone he had the capacity to come to an understanding with. Like looking in a mirror, almost. It was a shame that the lonesome duelist was slated to die that day – that day when the wind blew a pleasant breeze, rustling Johnny’s blond hair from where he laid limp and bleeding on Ringo’s floor; that day when the gentle sunlight found pastel pink streaks in Hot Pants’ hair.
For such a commanding presence, Gyro thought for a moment that it ought to be storming outside, with a violent thunder and lightning, and rain falling upon the earth like harsh bullets. If Ringo was to die in this moment, then the weather needed to reflect this death of such biblical proportions. Ringo’s eyes alone seemed to command a storm within them; but the wrinkle between his brows had finally smoothed out, his face showing no signs of agony.
“Continue the race,” Ringo’s voice had sounded so gentle. Uncannily so, as his white teeth became stained with red, his body slumped against a wooden beam. “...and find out for yourself… the path of light.”
Gyro’s eyes burned when he dealt the finishing blow.
“Welcome to… a true… man’s world.” Ringo whispered, the words sticky and metallic. He was no longer trembling. In fact, he would never tremble again. He had died; his blue eyes seemed almost white when the sun from the window hit him. He sat in a perfect rectangle of the light, the blood running almost black down his neck, his chest, across all his clothes. His lips had parted slightly and his eyes gazed out, looking at nothing.
Gyro squatted down, wincing at the pains that were gradually washing over him, and looked into Ringo’s vacant, peaceful expression. He could still hear the faint whir of his steel balls spinning, spinning infinitely against his hardwood floors. He could make out the golden ratio in his eyes, his nose, his lips. It was strange, but… Gyro’s heart clenched at the sight of the perished gunman, enough to make his jaw tighten and face steel from the turbulent emotions within him.
In another world, maybe Ringo would have somehow found himself in Italy. Maybe he’d be getting treatment for his old wound, on his left collarbone. Gyro would probably try to crack jokes to lighten the tension, and neither Ringo nor Gregorio would smile. In another world, maybe they really would just be lost in a local orchard, where the sun shone bright and the plums weren’t quite ripe, and Ringo would have invited them in for a cup of coffee. Ringo would send them on their way with a wave, and wish the three of them luck in the race – then he’d return to his silent, empty, dilapidated cabin, alive and alone. Maybe in another world Ringo wouldn’t turn to the gun at all. Maybe in another world Ringo’s family would still be alive. Maybe in another world, Gyro would be the one sitting here now, basking in the pleasant afternoon air, freshly dead after a handful of years-worth of close calls. In that world, Gyro would be just another body to be buried in front of Ringo’s front porch, fodder for the soil. In another world, maybe. But this was the one they were stuck in.
What the hell kind of host welcomes someone into their world, only to leave them alone in it? He thought, swallowing hard.
Clasping his heart, Gyro bowed his head low, breathing in a breath that was ragged with blood.
“I thank you.” He told the corpse.
After a moment, he lifted his head and he reached out his hand, so as to close Ringo’s white-blue eyes. However, he thought better of it. Ringo was a man who died by the path of light, in the true man’s world. Gyro preferred to leave him alone, gazing into infinity.
He wasn’t sure if it was gravity, or fate, or God, that brought him to Ringo Roadagain’s doorstep. What Gyro understood was the simplicity of everything. The fact that he was alive and Ringo was not. The fact that, for another day, he and his friends still had a pulse. And for another day, he’d keep walking down his own path made of light – this path that Ringo Roadagain had ushered him to.