My Precious Life
The pain was back.
The pain of losing a friend.
It had felt like only hours ago since Inigo was last flirting with the blind scholar, and now he's was gone. He was a corpse now, smeared with his blood and Roland's salty tears. It was all so surreal. He hardly knew Joshew, but knowing that he was gone was as a cavity had forming in his chest. He was so sick of losing friends. Sick of death. Sick of sorrow. Sick of loss.
Inigo was waiting with Nicole, back in her carriage, just staring out the window. If anyone else were around he'd probably be smiling and making bad sex puns to lighten up the mood, even though the felt like doing nothing of the sort. Sometimes he felt as if he built his own cage with his persona as the happy-go-lucky debonair that could smile no matter what. He was grateful for the chance to be solemn at the very least.
Nicole was reading a rather thick report that Sandoval had left for her. She read silently and astutely, soaking in the words as if understanding even the most subtle nuance could draw the line between life and death. Inigo wasn't sure where the mysterious swordsman was now, or what transpired between him and Nicole when they last talked, or if he'd even come back. The human had a strange way about him, though that was not uncommon for one who had a past with Alarice.
Gazing forlornly out the carriage window, Inigo suddenly recalled the look of abject loss and pain on Roland's face as he held his dead lover. Upon that, Inigo felt the sudden sting of tears in his eyes. He was brought back to all those days he cried as a child when he was taken away from the ones he loved, forced to press on despite the quagmire of pain that engulfed him. The loss of a loved one was not something that could settle and be forgotten, not truly. The poor half-breed wouldn't smile again for a long, long time.
Despite his instinctual desire to let some sadness out, he didn't want to worry Nicole, nor have her think him soft. She had been through so much. He needed to be strong for her, even if he wanting nothing more than a moment to show his weakness. But despite Inigo's best efforts, a small, unbidden sniffle escaped from his muzzle.
For a moment, Nicole averted her gaze from the report and looked at the Bat, and he soon met her gaze through the glass window's reflection. She sighed softly. "We've been around death so much Inny, It surprises me to see you shaken up like this."
Lowering his glasses, Inigo rubbed the few tears and took in a healthy gulp of air. "I'm alright, I suppose I hardly knew Joshew anyway... as much as we've been through together." Nicole frowned at his comment, but it wasn't of sadness, nor grief. She seemed tired, despite the dedication and resolve that she bore proudly.
"I just... I know that we mesh with the scholars about as well as cocks in ear-holes, but I just thought that we'd all make it out of this together, that somehow we'd be alright, and that Geoffry and Faula would be the last ones... Stupid right? "
For a moment, Nicole seemed vaguely amused by Inigo's crude phrasing but said nothing. She returned to her report.
Upon saying those words, it felt as if Inigo's stomach had been knotted and filled with needles. He had always been softer than he ought to in his line of work, and admitting it only made him feel weak, powerless. He ran his paw through his red bangs and sighed with an inflection of defeat. "Of course it's stupid... we've been killing this whole time. We deal in death, spend so much time around it, look it in the eyes, so of course we're not exceptions to it, yeah?"
Nicole's voice was firm and cool. Just as always, she was a master at keeping her composure and a leveled head. "Of course not. People die in wars Inny; don't think of our upcoming battles with the Mechanists as anything less than that. We are at war right now, and we could die at any moment."
And annoying pestering entered Ingio's mind, and he was filed with sudden anger. "Why are you being so casual about it all? Joshew just died, and all you can think to say is that we might too?! I know you care about the others, I saw you after Geoffry and Faula died, so why do you act like you don't?"
Nicole lowered her report and glared at Inigo, who was suddnely regretful of his outburst. Her eyes were stirring with a deep-seated disgust. "Do I look happy that Joshew died Inny?"
"N-no you..." Inigo closed his eyes and sighed. He was in disbelief, but the dreadful words in his head were spoken. "...You never look happy." It hurt him to say those awful words, but they were true, true as anything he knew. His eyes drooped with sadness as he shyly looked back to his employer. There was an initial irritation in her glower. It was a look fierce as a jagged rock, but soon melted to one of wounded resignation, if rock could soften.
Painful words came out once more from a place deep down in the bat's troubled mind. "...You don't ever smile, not for real anyway... and it kills me that I can't do enough for you to get one lousy smile out."
"...Do you think I want to be like this?"
Inigo looked back to Nicole, his large ears perking up as he did so. "What?"
She had placed the report to the side, and stared fiery daggers at Inigo. Something fierce had been riled up inside her, as the cool, confident demeanor with which she once spoke was all but gone. "Do you think I like killing others!? Do you think I get off to acting heartless and selfish!? Do you think I want to be so emotionally distant that I don't even bat an eye at the death of my comrades!? Do you think any of this is what I wanted!?"
"Ala... Nicole..." Inigo said with a buzzing shame, his ears folded downward.
She took an unsteady breath. "When I was a girl, I had simple wants, simple desires. I just wanted friends, a family, people to make me happy, and for a while, I had that... But that was all taken away from me, and those desires that girl once had are nothing more than frozen dreams now. I'd go back to being the little orphan girl who loved her Mist Tribe family if I could. But I can't; that girl is long dead, killed by a monster called 'Alarice'."
The Bat shrunk back in his seat. He had never seen her like this before, and it made him feel heavy and scared, as if the weight of the world were placed upon his shoulders. "I know you've suffered... I have too... but why all this?" Ingio asked as he gestured to the report, and then to. "Why do you have to be the one to fight all these bloody battles? Why..." Inigo's throat was sore and failing him. He could barely manage to croak the words "Why does it have to be you?"
She answered, her eyes cold, empty and resigned. "...Because I was never meant to be happy, Inny. That much I learned the day your tribe burned down... And it learned it so many times over. The day Geoffrey and Faula were murdered, the day Sandoval abandoned me, the day I met Adriana... the day I killed her. I've been taught that painful lesson so many times that it's a part of who I am. So the least I can do with my life is change what's around me. Build a world where all the rot and bullshit that plagued my life no longer exist. I don't want anyone else to go through what I did... I don't want any more Nicole Arnswolds in this world." She sighed heavily with her final declaration.
He looked at her, and gave her a wounded smile. "What's wrong with Nicole Arnswold?"
She looked at him with sudden confusion. "...What?"
"What's so bad if there are more people like Nicole Arnswold in this world? She's a wonderful person... and my favorite person."
This made one of the few times that Inigo saw Nicole blushing, more or less flustered. She looked down at her report, and then back at her bodyguard. Both confusion and shame evident in her frown, her once cold blue eyes no longer able to look into Inigo's. "...Why would you care for somebody like her? She clipped your wings, selfishly made you fight and kill for her... nearly got you killed and more than one occasion..."
Inigo's sad smile widened slightly. Embarrassed he wrapped his claws around his knees and looked back through the corner of his eyes. "Sure she keeps to herself too much, and tries to act cool around others. But she saved my life, and she's always been there for me since then."
"All she did was take one unfortunate life and replace it with another for her own selfish desires," she interjected, her voice a medley of sorrow and remorse. At this point, neither she nor Inigo were capable of keeping their eyes on each other for more than a few seconds.
He shook his heavy, heavy head. "No... she definitely saved my life."
It was time. The only secret he had ever kept from her. The one thing he never wanted her to know, until today. It was time to let it go. "I was going to kill myself. I hated life in that brothel. I hated myself..."
Her eyes widened, her voice shook. "Inny, no..."
Inigo couldn't help but bob his head up and down in his shame, the dreadful, stinging tears returning. It hurt, oh did it hurt. He didn't even feel like himself anymore. "I had a noose under my bed, and a date planned and everything. It was thirteen days after you started visiting me, I still remember." Another sob, this one loud and wild. He took off his glasses, and wiped his tears from his muzzle. The air stung his throat. When he looked back to Nicole he forced a strained smile out.
"But I never did it, and I'm glad I didn't. Because you showed me out, and you showed me what I could be. You showed me that no matter how dark this world becomes, no matter how much you suffer, there's always hope. That there's always... love."
There was a brief pause, and a dumbfounded stare. "What are you saying...?"
"I just want you to love yourself... love you, like..." Inigo's voiced cracked suddenly, and he grinned stupidly as he laid his other little secret bare. "Like... how I love you."
"Inny..."
And then he kissed her. A fast soft one right on the lips. He accidentally got some of his tears on her. It was an awful kiss, but it was the best one he had ever had.
"...You just kissed me," said one moonstruck Nicole.
Inigo's face burned hotly. "Was... was that out of line?"
"Probably, but..." She let out a light chuckle suddenly. And then a a coy, faint smile on her lips. "You really are careless Inny... getting me emotional before our mission starts. But that's what makes you so charming. What would I do without my perverted, loyal Bat..."
She hugged him them, and he hugged her back, their eyes closed. It felt so right. For once, he had broken into her heartbeat, and happiness flooded through his body. He felt like he was taken away far away, away from the pain of the world, into a sweet world with just him and his Nicole. It felt as though an entirely new story would start between them.
"There's so much I want to say to you Inny.... Not as Alarice, or your employer, or Lady Arnswald, but... as Nicole. As the girl who met you when you were just a little toddler." She smiled one last time to Inigo, with a bittersweet resignation. "I don't know if a person like me is even capable of love, but... if there's one person in the world who I treasure enough to use that word with... it's you Inny." Affectionately she brushed the Bat's shaggy red hair to the side, and removed his glasses. And then, with a tenderness that had had been long forgotten by the arms dealer, She placed her forehead against his, and they closed their eyes in unison. "...You give me strength, and I never would have made it this far without you, Inigo. So... thank you."
And then she broke their embrace, and stood up from the seat. "But right now, I have a battle to lead. And I need to be the ruthless calculating general, one last time, for all of our sakes."
"Can I say one last thing? Before you revert back to your badass killer Alarice spiel?"
"Make it quick, loverboy."
He gave her a big happy grin. "You're cute when you smile."