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Flotsam and I swam through the passage that led out of Lelouch's hideout. 'I swear, in faith, 'tis strange, 'tis passing strange,' I thought, semi-quoting a line from Othello. 'I've dreamed of coming down this same passage into the darkness, and now here I am swimming swiftly away from it.'
'What do you mean?' Flotsam quiried with his thoughts.
'Before I met you, even before I met Erik, I fancied the idea of coming down into the cavernous deep of the Paris operahouse and seeing these underwater passages. I never knew I could experience it right here on Gaia, let alone in Port de Gambino. Now that I know it's here and it's real, all I want to do is run away. Quite paradoxical, is it not?'
'Indeed. Is Lelouch's hideout modeled on where his ancestor lived? I see numerous similarites between the two caverns. The candles, the lake, the red curtains, the mirror (meaning the one through which we had entered)-'
'Wait! How do you know so much about the details of Erik's haven of music?' Did he look suddenly nervous as I asked him this question?
'Heh-heh..well, about that.' He stopped abruptly which almost caused me to speed on ahead of him. I was able to backtrack before he continued. 'I... kind of watched Phantom of the Opera before I came to see you in Sunset Town.'
Ah-ha! He was more interested in Erik than I had thought. 'What do you think of it?'
'I see how Lelouch, Melissa and Mat fall into place, and perhaps Jareth too since he's the manager of this operahouse. But I don't see where either you or Jetsam and me fit inside the giant puzzle of this whole situation. Meg Giry is the obvious choice since she was Christine's best friend, but you're much more involved with Melissa than that. Madame Giry, whom you mentioned earlier, was my second choice considering your knowledge of and involvment with the Angel of Music, but she doesn't-'
'Actually, you have it right I think. I am both characters in a sense. I have Madame Giry's understanding of Erik's ways and how he reacts when he doesn't get what he wants, but also I have Meg Giry's naiivete. I had no idea what I was getting involved in until that day with the ruby.'
We swam on as we kept "talking" with our thoughts. (I hadn't known that such a connection had existed between us and that tthat time when I had had that bad dream (see 'Distrubing Visions') was mere chance.) Eventually, the passage widened into another lake. "Oh, no!" I said aloud. "Don't tell me we've gone around in a circle."
"A circle from where?" asked a voice. I looked up and saw Jetsam staring down at us from the surface; the soft moonlight of early evening was shining behind him. "If you need further convincing, just look at the koi swimming around your tail Flotsam."
I looked over my shoulder and stiffled a giggle as I watched Flotsam try to bat away the fish who were swimming up to him. Lelouch's lake definitely didn't have koi in it, so I knew we were somewhere else. But where exactly was somewhere? I voiced my concerns to him. "Oh, forgive me mistress," he said, sticking his feet in the water. "I should tell you about what I've seen before I forget."
He slipped beneath the surface with a muffled splash and swam toward us. "The koi won't bother us under the waterfall," he said as he brought us over to a portion of the pool where it was raining bubbles from the surface. It was true, for the fish that were around Flotsam's tail vanished as we went into the bubbles. It was here that Jetsam told us his story:
"I went into the gardens, against your better wishes Anastasia and for that I apologize. I wanted to take a closer look at what was inside. When I walked through the arch, I was immediately bombarded with aromas of every sort, kind of like what you smell when you walk into a scented candle shop and you're over-powered by how many different scents there are.
"It seems as though there is a bed for each type of flower in the world, and some not from this world, in this place. I walked past roses, hyacinths, apple trees, honeysuckle vines, and that's just a few of the flowers I saw."
"Get to the point," said Flotsam impatiently. "I've had my fill of water today and would like to get back on dry land."
"Excuse me, Mr. "I-Know-Everything-Except-that-I-love-my-own-mistress." In any case, I was just passing this koi pond when suddenly I caught sight of something." I leaned in closer to hear what he saw. "It was Melissa out for a walk in the gardens. I wanted to go talk to her, but then I saw who she was with, and you can probably guess who was with her can't you?"
He didn't need to tell me twice. Lelouch went everywhere with Melissa, whether she wanted him to or not apparently. "I dove into the pond and hid underneath this waterfall. (He gestured with his hands to the bubbles around us.) I prayed to Poseidon that Lelouch hadn't seen me. Thank goodness he went off to do something and left Melissa staring at her reflection in the pond.
"I had brought the water lily that we made together with me. I thought to myself, 'What better place to give her this flower than right here?', and so I let the flower drift up to the surface of the pond."
Apparently, his potion had made the lotus blossom more real than I thought. Crystal didn't float in the natural world, but somehow this special flower did just that. "The flower floated over to where she was sitting at the edge of the pond. She picked it up and looked at it and I distinctly remember hearing our message to her being said out loud. (Remember your friends.)
"She shrieked in pain and her hands flew to her temples. (Apparently, the words had triggered a few memories to resurface in her mind. I just hope they included me.) She bended over to splash her face with cold water to help ease the pain but instead, she fell into the water. I swam out of my hiding place and took her in my arms. As I bore her up to the surface, apparently she's mostly human now, she looked at me with confused eyes. I left her on the wall where she had fallen and hid here until Lelouch bore Melissa away. Before he left though, he dropped a purple orb inside the pool."
Uh-oh! Did that mean he had wanted me to find it? I took the orb out of my pocket and made it unshrink from pocket size. "Do you mean this Jetsam?" I asked, praying to Poseidon that it wouldn't be.
"That's the very same. Where did you get it from?"
"We found it on our way out of Lelouch's hideout," Flotsam said. "We swam from there down the passage that led us out here into the garden."
"Maybe you'll show me another day," said Jetsam. "For now, I think now's the time to head home."
We did just that. I sang Sarah to sleep with a lullaby, the very same "Music of the Night" that Erik had sung to me when I was younger, and bid goodnight to Flet and Jet. I would see if I could contact Mat tomorrow, but for now I could rest peacefully knowing the fact that Melissa would return to me soon enough.
 srs diva 2011 xxl · Wed Apr 15, 2009 @ 01:37am · 2 Comments |
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