mk.09 (text)

[paraclete]

Who: Kaworu Nagisa, anyone else
Broadcast: text
Action: For now he's a busybody aboard the Vanquish, unless you'd like to discuss anything else.
When: 6/6, midmorning

They sell candles in packs of 8, 10, 12, 24, 48... and some packages even larger than that. Well, a certain type of candle, the kind that goes into the cake. Initially I needed exactly 16 candles, so the package of 24 would have been reasonable, right? But I thought it might be nice just to use all 24 after all.

Then I thought that a package of 48 might be just as nice as a package of 24. If not even nicer. It seemed worth trying.

Anyway, I have some sets of candles, now, the type specific to the cake, but if each candle represents a year of life, I wondered why I should stop at 16, 24, 48, etc. I have some bigger candles in my sleeping quarters, as well, so that's a few more I can add, but the higher the number of them I have, the less it seems like enough. It would be good to have a table full of them. A room full of them. It would be good to have candles like the sweep of stars.

I'm sure I can repay you, if you'd like to lend me any of your own. I promise I won't melt them all the way.

Comments

[astrobleme]

Yeah, [Shinji says.] It's going to take forever to blow out all those candles, so we should eat first. I'm getting pretty hungry, anyway. [That's something of a little white lie on his part. Shinji can't recall the last time he was genuinely hungry, with a stomach demanding sustenance. Any desire he has to eat these days is kind of an abstraction that sets in at weird times. But that's neither here nor there...

He pauses right before he cuts into the cake.] I know what will make this even better. Hold on. [Instead of standing up and going over to the room's control panel, he just looks at it and concentrates hard for a few seconds. The bright lights overhead flicker, then dim, then shimmer all over, before finally going out all at once, leaving just the collection of candles to see by. He giggles under his breath, inwardly nervous about his own Angelic abilities. Crazy stuff.

Asuka's dress--of course he noticed she's wearing one of the dresses he made--looks even more elegant in the flickering candlelight. It's almost romantic, if he's being honest, but it's a novelty, too. And Kaworu's profile is just as attractive. He feels like a featureless block of tofu in comparison to them.]

If there aren't enough candles, we can just relight them and do it all over again. I don't think that's against any rules. Come to think of it, that's a massive loophole, huh...

[paraclete]

[Kaworu, for his part, hasn't yet gone after some cake for himself. Once he's lit every candle, he settles, half seated, half sprawling—one knee is bent, and his arm rests atop it. His other hand is situated behind himself, steady against the floor, propping himself up.

He tilts his head back. When Shinji shuts off the lights, Kaworu's eyes are closed. It's a good feeling, the outreach of Shinji's soul, and being surrounded by the effects of it. It's like being scooped up in someone's hands, coming to rest at a set of warm palms. He doesn't want to slip out through any cracks; he wants to stay here, like this, in the aura of a person who can give light or take it away.

As Kaworu opens his eyes again, to get his first glimpse at the candles in the dark, his head is tilted toward his shoulder. He says, gently,] There are no rules about what you wish. But we'll do it again if you'd like to. There will be enough for all of us.

[Which is magnanimous in a very specific way.]

[interstices]

[Asuka isn't sure what to expect when Shinji tells them to hold on. She gasps just slightly when the lights start to flicker and then eventually go out. Verification of who he really is. Warm somehow, not frightening. Her left eye twitches behind the patch. If they were on the Wunder right now, every sensor would be going berserk.]

[It's amazing how she hasn't thought about the Wunder in months.]

All of us.

[She feels a little silly repeating that, but it's almost as if she's making sure of it herself. They've never had an us before, not any of them, for all the groups and factions vying for their allegiance. Real unity feels good.]

I like that.

[Another bite of mostly-frosting, and then she steels herself up for something that sounds casual but isn't at all.] You've been practicing since you showed me.