Ahem. Yes, me again. With a fic that is equal parts fluff/angst. And maybe some crack, if ya squint. It has no plot to speak of. However, brooding, bonding, wisecracks, violence, smut and resurrected Chiropterans are in abundant supply. I was planning to post it, in its entirety, on AdultFanfiction Doth Cum, but ended up deciding to tone it down.

So, yes. This fic has an M rating for the same reason all my stuff does:

Angst, drama and bloodshed.

Oh, and smex. XP

If you're a minor: vamoose. Beware of spoilers for most of the series. Also, feel free to correct me on any references about the Japanese O-Bon festival. I'm only familiar with the carnival and festivities held in the US, at Bryant Park NYC, which is as culturally diluted as it gets. This story also contains several allusions/quotations from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and "Through the Looking Glass." Why? Because those books are my freakin' Guide to Life. (I didn't care for the Tim Burton movie, tho'. I only watched for Mr. Depp. *_*)

Blood+ is not mine. Neither is Alice in Wonderland. If they were, though, the premise would be too bizarre to air on TV.

Hope you guys enjoy! Please review!;)

Somnus Frater Mortis Est: (Latin) Sleep is the Brother of Death.

"Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

-Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

He stands by the esplanade, watching over her.

It is a bright afternoon. The seaside wind is salty and brisk. Saya walks along the shore with her nieces, pale pink dress fluttering above her pretty legs. Her hair lifts off her shoulders, shiny in the sunlight. Haji basks in the musical prattle between her and her companions.

To all appearances: a perky schoolgirl, on a picnic with friends.

He knows better.

Three months have passed since Saya's Awakening. Diva is long-dead. Her Chevaliers' machinations have been thwarted. Red Shield serves more as a death-scythe now. With their efforts, the Chiropteran threat is being sliced down.

And Haji...

Ostensibly, he is still a Chevalier. A protector and chaperone for his Queen. But his true purpose—as an instrument of battle—is over. He is more folderol than falchion now. Unused. Almost misplaced.

He supposes many soldiers, home from war, feel the same way. Without the guideline of duty to steer them, they find themselves cut adrift.

But gradually—very gradually—they adapt.

But what of soldiers who have known nothing but war?

He refers not to himself, but to Saya. As her oldest friend, he knows her too well. Outwardly, she seems all sugar and bubbles. A fizzy soda set in a multicolored bottle, eye-catching and enticing. But Haji often senses something darker swirling through her.

She is not the stubborn, high-spirited Saya he knew at the Zoo. Nor is she the sprightly Saya of 2006, so easy to bend or bruise. This Saya...is like a photocopy of those two people. Superimposed into one, yet faded.

"Hey. What're you doing?"

Kai steps up behind him. The sunlight catches the silver threads in his reddish hair. From most angles, he still resembles that hot-headed young man from thirty years ago. But his age radiates in the lines on the corners of his mouth, his crinkled eyes and weatherbeaten skin.

They'd walked together along the beach, a step behind Saya and the twins. Now, Kai settles by the stone stairs, while the girls splash along the lacy edge of the shore.

"Y'know, if you want, you can join 'em," Kai says. "You're not their bodyguard or something. I know Sora and Kaminari won't mind."

"It's fine."

He seldom wants to intrude on Saya's moments with her nieces. With them, she is the closest to her old self—The Real Saya—than at any other time. But alone, she moves as if in a trance. Whenever he speaks to her, she offers an ethereal smile, as if seeing everything from a great height.

Often, Haji wonders if she is still in hibernation. Trapped between dreams and wakefulness. At times, he even catches her humming—an eerie lullaby from decades ago:

Sommeil, sommeil, viens viens viens
Sommeil, sommeil, viens de quelque part...

The melody flowers a hundred unwanted questions through him. Is it sleep Saya truly desires? Or something more everlasting?

He shakes it off.

It will take her time to come to terms with her new life.

She cannot settle into it all at once.

Yet through it all, the greatest ache is how much he loves her. The feeling intensifies every hour. She has suffered, overcome so much. His deepest wish, now as then, is for her to be happy. To find peace.

'Please, Saya. Live on.'

His confession at the Met is still a fiery brand. Throughout the thirty years of her hibernation, he has jealously guarded that memory. What he'd said to her, how she'd answered. That kiss they'd shared, a flicker of brightness in an infinite murk. Lovesick, homesick, he has clutched to the tactile sensation of her lips on his, to the salt of her tears and that bittersweet aroma of blood and worn perfume.

A talisman to ward off despair.

He knows Saya remembers that night too. She hasn't said anything. But he senses it in their interactions. There is a sweet awkwardness to her now that there never was before. She rarely meets his eyes when they talk; she blushes whenever he touches her hand or smoothes back her hair. In unspoken agreement, he no longer stays in her room at night, either. Nor does she feed from him like during the war; Red Shield's blood-packs fulfill the role instead.

Haji would almost call the new arrangement a demotion. Except it is an ascension.

She makes it a point now to include him as much in conversations as her family. When they walk together, she tucks her hand shyly into his arm. At restaurants she always sits beside him. When they part at night, it's always with kisses, placed chastely on cheeks or foreheads or closed lips.

It is childlike, yet touching. In her own way, she is staking a claim on him.

Haji is flattered, but also stymied. Because as charming as Saya's attention is, it is but one dimension of what he truly desires. Her girlish reticence makes it clear that she is either unwilling, or not ready, for a physical relationship. Except since the war has ended, Haji's thoughts swirl to the subject with hungry frequency.

Indeed, he thinks about it far more than when he was a teenager at the Zoo.

Alone each night, beyond the respite of sleep, it is always images of Saya pinwheeling behind his eyes. Images of her pretty mouth and tousled hair, the line of her neck, her breasts and spread thighs. He wants to learn the heat of her skin, to lap his tongue over every curve, to know all her secret sounds and aromas. His fantasies of her are superheated, almost frighteningly so.

Shameful too, yet shameful that he is so ashamed of them.

Because the only emotion fuelling them is love.

I have to give her time.

There is so much she is not ready for.

There can be no joy of being with her, if she is barely herself.

Certainly, their times together, with or without the promise of sex, are perfect. Everything from the snippets of laughter to the silences are an unlooked-for miracle. The war has hardened Haji for a different life; of struggle and solitude. This giddy new intimacy he and Saya are weaving together, how it intensifies in color and mood by the hour, is dizzying. Even in their brightest moments, part of him wants to hide, to covet his newfound bliss like a treasure-map.

He still cannot absorb this abundant tranquility—not just the privilege of being close to Saya—but the surrealism of knowing she welcomes him beside her.

Still half-expects her to disappear, for a catastrophe to destroy everything.

But the less it happens, the more confident he grows.

Saya has survived this far. He is beginning to think she can survive anything. If it is too optimistic, he doesn't care.

He will hope. Saya has taught him that much.

As if sensing his gaze, Saya glances at him. She smiles, sweet and uncertain. Haji manages a slight smile back.

Kai snorts

"What?" Haji asks.

"Nothing. Just...what do think?"

"Pardon?"

" 'Bout Saya, I mean."

"Saya?" He studies her. She and her nieces make their way to an ice-cream vendor. Watching Saya grin and pick a flavor from the cart, he cannot help smile again. "She is fine."

"You think so?" Kai scratches his head. "Well, yeah. I guess she's okay. The twins practically hero-worship her. And she always wants to help me around Omoro. Do little chores. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was fishing for an allowance."

Haji doesn't answer. But he intuits that Kai is building up to something.

"...Just, sometimes she doesn't seem completely here, y'know? Like she's sleepwalking or something."

So Kai has noticed too.

Haji watches the girls troop along the shore with their ice-creams. Saya takes a bite of her vanilla cone, light bouncing off the glittering sea into her face. Her gaze is faraway—until Kaminari (or is it Sora?), jerks her out of it with a pat on the shoulder.

Kai follows Haji's gaze. "Don't get me wrong. She's way better than she was before."

"Before?"

"After the Met's showdown. She'd be walking around, looking like she was high or something. I figured it was 'cause her Long Sleep was close. Then I realized...she just missed you."

This, from Kai, is startling. Although no longer resentful of Haji's presence, Kai isn't given to overt friendliness where the Chevalier is concerned. Especially on the subject of Saya.

Sensing Haji's confusion, Kai shrugs. "Just sayin'. She seems happier now. But I'm hoping you improve that."

"What?"

Kai watches the sloshing water. "I haven't forgotten what you said to Saya, at the Met. I was right there, remember?"

"You needn't remind me."

A chuckle. " 'Guess not. But what I'm saying is, she snapped out of it that night, 'cause of what you told her."

"That is not what snapped her out of it."

"Oh yeah?"

Haji shakes his head. Part of him knows his petition to Saya would never have held weight, without Kai backing him up. Indeed, he would never have had the nerve to confess his feelings, without Kai's... persistence.

"If she is happy now—if she was then—it is because of your family, Kai." He exhales. "I fear my own presence simply reminds her of the war."

Kai shakes his head. "You think that. But it's not true. If you'd seen Saya those last weeks, when she thought you were dead, you'd realize it. I never liked to admit it, but—she needs you. You kept her alive in the war. Now that it's over, you gotta keep her happy."

"I will do whatever I can to make her happy."

Kai kicks a piece of driftwood in the sand. "If that's true, why haven't you done anything yet?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't give me that shit. I've spent years raising two forever-sixteen-year-old girls. I've learnt to keep my eyes peeled. And anyway. You stare at Saya like at an all-you-can-eat blood-buffet."

"Beg your pardon?"

"Oh, c'mon! Don't bother denying it. You were gawking at her right now!"

"I was keeping watch."

Kai waves a hand. "Yeah, yeah. You say potato, I say pervert. Except Saya's crazy about you. Even I can tell."

Haji blinks. This is unexpected.

"Only," Kai shoots him a disgusted look, "You both seem to be fossilized or something. Like dinosaurs. Hey—don't get me wrong. If Kami and Sora were as, um, well-behaved as you two, I'd have saved myself plenty of sleepless nights when they were teens."

" 'Well-behaved'?" Haji frowns. "What are you implying?"

"I want to know what your—plans for Saya are. That's all."

"My plans?" The question is outlandish. Since the war, he has abandoned all personal plans for the sake of duty. Reliving his boyhood dreams is a redundant concept now.

"I have no plans. Except to do as Saya wishes."

Kai scowls. "If you'd done that, like at the Met, she'd be dead by now."

Haji hides a wince.

"I'm serious Haji. Get off your ass and do something. I think Saya's waiting for the same thing. You can't—just expect her to make all the moves."

All the moves?

Haji shakes his head. "If I understand correctly, you are encouraging me to—?"

"I'm not encouraging anything," Kai snaps. "Shit, I'm practically cutting my own tongue, saying this. But if you wanna make Saya happy, as you put it, you better get cracking."

"How can you be so sure that—" Haji fumbles for words "—that my being with Saya will make her happier?"

"Wow. So confident."

"I am serious."

"Actually, I don't think your being with her'll make her happy. It's upto Saya to pull herself out of it. But at least she'll have somebody helping her. Kaminari and Sora'll always be there. But I won't. So I need to make sure—"

That someone takes care of her.

Haji understands. It is an awkward topic, but the gist is identical to their talk at the Met. Kai is, in his blustering way, looking out for Saya.

" 'Course, at this rate, she'll start thinking you're not interested," Kai grumbles. "So what the fuck are you waiting for?"

"It is Saya's choice. She may not be ready for—"

"Christ. What d'you want? A gold engraved invitation? Listen. If you're worth your balls, you'll know what needs to be done. Or maybe you just need another punch in the face?"

Haji shakes his head.

I cannot believe Kai is goading me into—

Except he isn't. He is simply... trying to help.

Before Haji can speak, a sharp squeal echoes. One of the twins is crouched at the shore, clutching her ankle. Her sister and Saya are huddled around her.

Haji frowns. "Something is wrong with Kaminari."

Kai squints in the sunlight. "That's not Kami. That's Sora. Get their names right, for chrissakes." He raises his voice. "What's wrong?"

"I dunno." Sora winces. "I think I'm in pain."

"It was a jellyfish!" Kaminari shouts. "Quick! Someone pee on her!"

"Ewww! That's disgusting, Kami!"

"Oh, come on! Maybe Haji can do it!"

Kai grimaces. "You up for it, Haji?"

"No, thank you." Haji discreetly backtracks. "I will leave this to you."

He watches Kai shrug and make his way toward the twins. His eyes return to Saya. She still holds her dripping cone in one hand. Strands of hair falling around her face. Eyes and forehead shiny.

Beautiful, unbroken Saya. Free from the war.

But not free from herself, or the memories that haunt her.

I want to help her get better.

I want her to truly live again.

But how exactly does one awaken a dreamy somnambulist?

Sommeil, sommeil, viens viens viens
Sommeil, sommeil, viens de quelque part...

In the deepening blue of afternoon, Saya leans against the kitchen counter.

Kami's upstairs, applying vinegar to Sora's stung ankle. (She refused to let anyone pee on her, despite Kai's insistences that it was the best remedy.) Saya hears their chatter, and Sora's muffled yelps. Kai is in the yard outside, stretched out on a rattan chair beneath the branches of a hibiscus tree. He is snoring, a magazine tented across his face. A breeze rustles the leaves; the air is rich with the scent of greenery.

Eyes closed, Saya breathes it in.

This time of the day, the sunrays slanted and orange, the cicadas chirping in the yard and time puddling to a standstill, is her favorite. Any other time, Saya seldom sees Okinawa through her own eyes. Instead, she surveys it through the far-off gaze of a traveler.

Someone who has seen the world, from New York to Russia, and recognizes the city for how pastoral it is.

Recognizes too, that despite its peaceful illusion, nothing is what it seems.

The war had shown her that. And once submerged in the truth, there was no resurfacing.

I can't help that anymore.

This is who I am now. I have to make peace with that.

But with the end of her century-long battle, large clusters of herself seem have eroded, leaving ghostly echoes behind.

Amid this placid normalcy, she doesn't know who she is anymore. The remembered pleasures of her life at Omoro, when Dad and Riku were alive, have become all discolored. She'd been so blind back then—blinder even than at the Zoo. Trapped in a dream-bubble she'd mistaken for reality

Whereas now...

Now, her dreams and reality are an indistinguishable blur.

Every night, she falls asleep to visions of slaughter. Sense-memory is overwhelming, far keener than when awake. She relives the adrenaline of battle, the bloody grotesquery of death. She becomes, again, the ruthless fighter in the war.

And every morning, the nightmares bleed into wakefulness. Even on her feet, going about her chores, they are near. From the corner of her eye, she always senses them. Riku, her father. Dying members of Red Shield. Victims of the Vietnam massacre. Amshel, James, Karl, Solomon. The Sif.

And Diva.

One by one they materialize around her. Whispering in her ear, darting close but never touching her. Their empty eyes draining her of breath and warmth, leaving her as desiccated as they are.

Their presence is terrifying. As terrifying as this new chance she's been gifted—one whose lastingness she half-doubts. As terrifying as the thought of living on, when she ought to be dead.

She should have died. She still can't bring herself to believe otherwise.

Except when her family is near.

Trembling, Saya shuts her eyes. Will the memories ever fade? Can she live on with their weight, be her old self again? Outside the kitchen door, the sunset illuminates the yard, outlining each blade of grass. She wants that light to fill her. Eradicate the sandstorm of pixilated images erupting through her mind.

Wake her up.

And for now...

For now, this moment, it works. Her entourage of specters is nowhere in sight. Riku's stool, where he always sits kicking his feet, blood dribbling from his neck, is empty. The usual wall where George leans, smiling and crumbling to shards, is bare. No Sif crouching in the corners, red cracks of the Thorn slashing their skins. No Diva pirouetting around Saya, humming that beautiful, eerie song in her ears.

Not the one she'd sung when Saya first stumbled upon her tower. But the one Saya had taught her, during their secret whispers between the locked door.

Sommeil, sommeil, viens viens viens
Sommeil, sommeil, viens de quelque part...

Saya shakes it off.

Dustmotes swirl in the sunlight. She absorbs their glitter, the scent of gardens in the air, the deepening blue of afternoon.

If my whole life narrows to just this moment, this time of the day, it would be fine.

I'd be able to wake up.

"Saya?"

She spins.

Haji is there. Sunshine outlines his form; making his skin poreless and milky. His sudden appearance should startle. But Saya is relieved. When the war was over, and she'd believed him dead, she'd missed him so much—his cool laconic presence. Now that he's back, the need to drink him in is a thirst. She is often wary of crowding him, lest he disappear like a mirage.

"What were you doing?" Haji asks.

"N-Nothing. Just having some alone-time."

He hesitates. "If you wish to be by yourself..."

"No." She reaches for him. Dimly aware of the hot flush on her cheeks, her moist palm against his cool dry one. He gives her fingers a light squeeze.

It is disorienting. Not just having Haji here, but being coupled with him. In the war, she'd never imagined them this way. Traveling together, yes. Being comrades during battles and mourning, of course.

But never, since the Zoo, has she visualized their lives juxtaposed as a couple. Her girlhood dreams of a three-dimensional lover were too shallow, too tepid, to measure with this superheated intimacy. Having it now both awes and terrifies her. Daily, Haji's devotion proves far more saturated than its surface. It unearths whole new depths of tenderness, everytime she thinks she's learnt its limits.

Yet their time together makes her feel as if she's accruing an enormous debt. His love is a precious, terrifying responsibility. It floods her with guilt, reminding her of how callously she misused him in the past; how blind she'd been to his feeings. But her own emotions for him, inarticulate and transfixing, expand by the hour. They cannot lie still unless he is near; she feels empty and fretful in his absence, a flower parched for water.

His presence has become her sole nourishment.

"Wh-What is it?" she asks. "Did you need something?"

Haji shakes his head. The clean golden light of the windows makes an umbra around his black curls. "I simply wanted to ask...?"

"What?"

Is it her imagination, or is he blushing? "In three days the Obon festival will arrive. Sora—or was it Kaminari?—says there is going to be a carnival in Misato Park. Would you like to go see it?"

She freezes. "Obon?"

This, from Haji, is a non sequitur.

Her experiences with Obon are limited to when George lived. Known as the Festival of Lanterns, Obon was a time when the gates on the Other Side opened, allowing the spirits of the dead to visit the living. Fresh out of her Long Sleep, Saya has blurry recollections of people lighting chonchin lanterns in their homes, of bright lights swaying around shrines and family tombs.

Most vivid, perhaps, was the smoky senko floating through Omoro, and the continuous stream of friends George had entertained during that three day interval. Saya had been unnerved by the plethora of voices, the unfamiliar food and far-off drumbeats from the dances in the parks.

But nothing had terrified her like the fireworks.

Their color, their noise, had steeped her in icy sweat. She'd stayed huddled in her room the entire night, her body jerking whenever they erupted.

Realistically, she was probably reliving her carnage in Vietnam. The shrieks and gunfire, the bright flares igniting the sky, the commingled stench of sweat and flames.

Or perhaps, true to Obon's origin, the spirits of those she'd slaughtered were ambushing her.

She isn't sure.

But recalling that festival is chilling.

The ones I've killed are with me all the time.

I can't bear more reminders of them.

"Saya?"

"Hm—?"

Haji seems concerned. "Are you all right?"

"Ye-Yes."

"Would you like to go to the carnival?"

"I—" Her throat tightens. "I'm not sure."

"No?"

She shakes her head. "I don't—I don't think I want to get out there. Not to a carnival anyway. It's still—It feels like it's too soon for—"

She breaks off. Haji is watching her. Something in his eyes—cautious yet unconcealed. It takes her a moment to realize he's disappointed. But why would Haji be interested in a carnival?

In the next breath, guilt floods her.

"Oh."

He frowns. " 'Oh', what?"

"This ... you're getting bored, aren't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it hasn't been like us to stay so long in one spot. But all I've been doing nowadays is hanging near the beach or staying at home. It's bothering you, isn't it?"

"I never said that."

"I know. But you don't have to say it. I mean, we're both used to traveling a lot. To always doing something. But these days, I've been acting like a sick old woman. Maybe you want—"

"Saya. I want nothing of the sort." Gently, he passes an arm around her. "I simply thought—you might prefer a change of scenery."

She leans into him, gaze shaded. "Is that all?"

"It is. And—" Again, that soft-eyed look. "I hoped to spend time with you."

Alone.

He doesn't say it, but she catches it. Her blush deepens. "Really?"

He smiles, a different smile from his usual ones. Soft and private and meant exclusively for her. "Kaminari and Sora have been absorbing a great deal of your attention. It may seem cruel, but I was grateful Kami got stung by that jellyfish. At least their outing with you was cut short."

She sputters a laugh. "Haji."

"It is only the truth."

"That's so mean! And for the record, that was Sora, not Kami. When're you going to learn to tell them apart?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does to them!" She tips her head back to study him. But seeing his pensive look, her smile fades. She sighs. "Haji. I-I know I've been acting strange lately. Things—have been strange between us. There's so much we've never really talked about. Back then, there was no time. But now..."

"We have time, Saya. If anything, we have time."

A darkness clouds her eyes. She looks away. "I know. But I'm still sorry I keep making you wait so long. I'm sorry—that I can never really reach a solid decision about you. About us. I-I want to. I just—"

Haji cups her face in one hand. "There is no reason to rush into anything, Saya. Not after what you have endured."

"But that's exactly why I should rush. In the war—everything was so temporary. We never knew when something good would be snatched away. Now that it's over—why should we suffer anymore? Why shouldn't we receive something good?"

"You have received it, Saya. You are with your family again."

"I know. Everything's perfect." She closes her eyes. "Except me."

"Saya." Haji's shock is a stellating star.

She exhales. "So much has happened, Haji. I'm not the same person I was when we started out. I don't see things the same way. But sometimes...I wish I did. I wish I was the Saya I'd been when I first came to Okinawa. Or the one at the Zoo. The one...you loved. She would've been happier here. She would've kept you happier."

Haji' thumb touches her lips. She opens her eyes to regard him. His blue gaze is hypnotic.

"The Saya I love is right here," he says quietly. "She never left. She has changed with the war, and with everything that has happened. But she is still Saya. I think, perhaps she is drowsing right now. But with time, she will wake up. I will wait for her until she does."

His touch, the words, wake a deep simmering through her. Not just a physical simmering. But a need to move, to breathe and expel the darkness banked inside her. Her eyes burn. "Ha-Haji?"

"Yes?"

She presses her forehead against his chest. "Thank you. Thank you for—" She wants to say For being so patient. But her throat is clotted.

Instead, she says it a different way. Leans in on tiptoe, drawing his head down the few inches required to touch his mouth. His lips are deliciously cool on hers. The kiss resonates through her—a trancy breathlessness.

She is too naive to spin reference-points for their courtship. It is a fragile lentissimo of another era. But this—his kisses, his proximity—dissolves all doubt.

A touch so natural, so essential, that she wonders how she went for years without it.

Haji stoops closer, tilting his head. Traces his tongue along her lips, which part on his with a sigh. She trembles as the kiss deepens, and Haji trembles too. Slowly, he circles her closer, close enough to feel his thudding pulse. And she feels that inner darkness fading.

This, she thinks.

I want my life to narrow to this moment.

If it did, I'd stay awake forever.

Without breaking the kiss, Haji backs toward a kitchen chair. Settles into it, drawing her onto his knee. Against his coolness, her body gives off a shocking heat. He spreads his fingers through her hair, combing it away. Winds it, gentle but possessive, in a satiny mass around one hand, coaxing her head back to taste her mouth at a better angle. The other hand—wrapped in bandages—strokes down her arm, along her waist, but goes no further. She feels as if he is waiting for permission.

A moment's hesitation, and she guides his hand. There is a brief hitch in Haji's breathing. Very carefully, he lays his swathed claw over her breast, learning its shape. Thumbs the nipple through the thin layers of fabric, until it stands warm and friendly against his palm. Not a tease, but a test.

Seeing what she will permit.

Breath catching, Saya presses closer. Under his touch, her skin feels hotter, her breasts rounder. She feels unlike herself; someone old yet brand-new. Time flowers in a racemose, during which she sees nothing beyond the blur of Haji's face, tastes nothing but his cool lips and sleek tongue as he feeds on her mouth, over and over. A couple of times, she almost works up the nerve to press her hand against the bulge in his trousers.

Then a voice says:

"Hello, lovebirds."

Kaminari stands in the kitchen, smirking. Saya springs up.

"Wh-what're you doing?"

"Fetching more vinegar." Kami wags her eyebrows. "What're you doing?"

"We were only talking—"

"Oh really? I didn't realize people talked with their tongues." A blink. "Oh wait. I guess they do."

Saya blushes. "Please. Can't you—?"

"I know. I know. Make myself scarce." Plucking a bottle of vinegar from the shelf, Kami winks. "Look. I'll leave if Haji can tell which one I am."

"Fine." Saya gives Haji a pointed look. But her Chevalier seems at a loss.

"You—" He hesitates. "You are Kaminari?"

Kami rolls her eyes. "Lucky guess. You just knew 'cause I'm not the one with the jellyfish sting."

"It is not that." Haji flails for excuses. "Your—hair is uglier."

"Uglier? What the hell's that mean?"

"Nothing. Just—"

"Just what?"

"Well, you have these garish blue streaks—"

"Garish?! Screw you! Pay a forfeit!"

"But—" Before the pair can react, Kami grabs Saya's arm and hauls her from the kitchen.

"C'mon, aunt Saya," she huffs. "We do not associate with people who find my hair ugly."

"It's not his fault. He just—" Twisting, Saya offers Haji a helpless look. "We—we'll talk later about the festival, Haji. But um—" she blushes. "I-I'd like to go."

Haji seems less bereft. "Would you?"

"Ye-es. And maybe we could—"

Too late. Kami has already tugged her off.

Moving away from Haji feels impossible. Saya's whole body churns in resistance. It is a raw physical sensation—like having your eyes torn from your skull. But accompanying that knowledge is a darker truth.

None of her cortege of ghosts has followed her. She cannot glimpse even a flicker of them. They all have dispersed, as if into the house's crannies.

Saya takes a breath.

If they stay hidden—if they don't come out while I'm with Haji—I can survive that festival.

I think… I could survive anything.

But part of her can still hear, as if under powerful sorcery, that old lullaby:

Sommeil, sommeil, viens viens viens
Sommeil, sommeil, viens de quelque part...

It sounds like an allurement. And an omen.

Sommeil, sommeil, viens viens viens...: An old French lullabye. It's a pretty straightforward invocation for Z's. "Sleep, sleep, sleep, come on, come on, come..." Can sound plenty creepy if hummed by someone with a, well, creepy singing voice. *cough*Diva*cough*

This fic will probably have about four chapters in total. Updates will fall whenever Lullabyes has time! (Don't worry: as Ms. Sleep Disorder Extraordinaire, you can count on few long gaps XD).

Hope you enjoyed! Review, pretty please! ;)