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thelightningthatjumpsbetween · 10 months

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Twenty Nine

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Sequel of Winters and the Beast, a Resident Evil: Village Story

Ethan’s blatantly shocked, almost offended gaze between the other two made things awkwardly quiet; it was clear that they were serious. But it was also clear that this was not what he’d expected. Then again, what had he expected? Moreau’s mutated form had been so inhuman that it was hard to imagine him with any body at all.

Still, Ethan had expected…well, a monster.

The blond’s gaze softened from shock to studying; Salvatore drew back timidly as Ethan’s piercing stare moved over his features. Something about the way the other flinched, deeply uncomfortable at being looked at, seemed to fit. So too did the rather greasy hair, Ethan decided; he’d remembered Moreau’s sparse, long strands. Now he had a full head of hair that probably needed washing. Ethan’s gaze traced over almost yellow skin–unhealthy. That fit too. There were dark ink across his wrist; the ends of a forearm tattoo. Ethan remembered that as well.

His posture was right; it was shrunken, small, with his hands full of flowers nervously twitching against each other. The eyes were wide, brimming with tears. His face was round, his lips strangely shaped. There was an unhealthiness about him, a desperation on his expression, an unsettling ‘othered’ brokenness in his tremble.

Yeah, given the right blend of whatever fucked up DNA Miranda had put in him…Ethan could see how this man might morph into the disgusting aquatic creature known as Moreau. He also, surprisingly, felt a pang of sympathy for the other man’s foul luck. He’d looked this normal, and mutated to that level of grotesque?

Really, really shit luck. Worse than Ethan’s, even.

Ethan only had hints of how Karl had looked as a human; his childhood photo, and perhaps, the catalogued version of him in the Mold consciousness–but mutant Karl was handsome, even with the fashion sense of a demented vagabond. Donna’s beauty had struck Ethan when he first laid eyes on her painting, and then her crystallized face of death. Now that she was restored to her human form, she was angelic, unbelievably gorgeous. And though Ethan had never seen Dimitrescu’s human form, she had also been elegant, beautiful.

So, Moreau’s ugliness seemed like a very cruel joke, Ethan decided. He straightened, done with his invasive staring. He gripped the shotgun strap so tightly he thought he might break his own hands before exhaling, and nodded.

“Moreau, then,” his voice was halting, cautious. If the other did remember Ethan, they might have some awkward conversing ahead. But as usual, Eva served as the lone socially-competent human, stepping in front of the other blond and extending a hand politely.

“I’m Eva,” she said simply, as if testing his knowledge.

Moreau’s wild, trapped stare softened, and then widened. He took the pale hand in his own, bringing the flowers with it. “E-Eva?” The timid head turned, and he blinked several times, staring from Ethan, and back to her. “Mother’s…real child, then.”

It wasn’t what Ethan had expected. Moreau’s obsession with Miranda was their main concern, after all. And yet these words were said with almost an objective despondence. Not the pining desperation with which he’d pleaded while fighting Ethan in the swamp.

“Yes,” Eva said, her eyes lighting up. She grasped the fisherman’s hands. “Well, I once was, yes. How do you know that?”

“Good question,” Ethan echoed, ready to hear whatever explanation the other had to offer. Salvatore glanced back at him, and Ethan could swear the hint of a smile passed over his face. But he was so twitchy, so uncertain, that it was hard to tell. He really did resemble a frog, Ethan mused, but kept that thought to himself.

Salvatore turned and gestured toward a winding path that led past the dock, warehouse, and down to a small garden near the lake’s edge where a single gravestone lay.

“Follow me, I can explain. I-I think.”

Eva, far more kind hearted than her sourpuss companion, threaded her arm through Moreau’s as he led the way. This made a look of relief wash over the man. He’d likely not experienced such a simple gesture of kindness since Miranda got ahold of him.

Ethan rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, not quite ready to be placating. But he followed them while he took in the sight of the lake. How beautiful it looked, without all of the rot and ruin. Was this how it would actually look in the summer, with upkeep? It was beautiful. He would love to bring a boat out on the water. The Carpathians, reflected on the mirror lake, would make for some breathtaking photos. He could imagine Rosemary playing here, teaching her to fish too. Late night summer parties on the lake. Probably bonfires, knowing the Roma as he did.

Ethan’s thoughts turned to the lake in winter. He’d only seen it at its worst. With the sluice rebuilt, they could turn it into an ice rink. A winter party. Hot chocolate. Teaching Rose to ice fish! His thoughts began to spiral, full of ideas. The father reigned in his imagination to focus on the black-haired-man’s slow, but steadily spoken words.

“I came here….so many happy days. Peace. But then I began to hear, I think, the voices. It seemed like everything was a dream. I don’t know if I’ve been here a year or thirty years. It just…everything blurred. A lovely dream, again and again. The life I wanted.” He laughed, a fearful titter, and Eva patted his hand encouragingly.

“The voices told me I needed to remember. So I listened. And…things started to come back to me. Horrible things. I….was disgusted.”

“Yeah?” Ethan’s heavy sarcasm got him a very clear, very Miranda-like, glare from Eva.

Moreau’s startled glance back at Ethan almost made the blond feel like a schoolyard bully. But he answered, with surprising tenacity.

“Y..yeah. I know why you did what you did, Ethan. I understand. What you did was a mercy. What I was, should never have came to be. I was robbed of all human dignity. Not that, I supposed, I had much…”

“Oh stop, be kinder to yourself,” Eva said lightheartedly, while throwing a final deathly warning glare to Ethan before asking another question.

“So, you remember everything?”

“I do. It took awhile. But all I have here is time. The voices said, people would come. Mother–Miranda. She did not speak of you, to me, very much.”

They were close to the headstone; Ethan hung back, and Eva let go of the man’s arm as he gently, lovingly placed the bouquet on the mound of dirt. There were other flowers, trinkets, sculptures around this grave. Ethan wondered how long it had been here–it looked fresh, and yet there were so many flowers around it.

Moreau must come here daily, at least.

“I lived through the same plague as Miranda,” he began again, kneeling at the headstone. Ethan could only see the back of Moreau’s head, but he heard the crippling pain in the man’s trembling voice.

“She was older than me. Lived here, she already had….well…” His dark head turned to glance at Eva. “You, I suppose. I survived because I was at sea when the outbreak happened. My first schooner. I was young–it was our family rite of passage. Oh….how I loved the Black Sea. But my mother died from that outbreak. I am so sad I was not here. My father, he survived. He was the village doctor, you see…but horrible, horrible. I was never any kind of scientist.”

Moreau laughed bitterly, and Ethan heard the hint of the taunting Lord within his voice. He tried to keep his lip from curling, which left him with a very perturbed expression that Moreau did not see.

“When I returned, I was not treated kindly. Miranda was studying in his clinic, and…well,” he turned back to them, his eyes glistening. “I suppose you know what she did next.”

“All too well, I’m afraid,” Eva said. She lowered herself gingerly to the grass. Moreau sat back on his haunches, clearly willing and ready to talk–to her, at least.

“My mutation was very slow. It took my intelligence as the years went by. I can’t even remember much after I lost my vocabulary. I tried so hard to hold on. My father disowned me, of course…Miranda then became my mother.”

Another bitter laugh. “I was good at fishing. She didn’t want good at fishing.”

His eyebrows raised daintily. “I became good at being her lab assistant, until…my mind and body changed. I couldn’t do that either. By then I was too much of a failure to keep close. By then, she had others. Alcina.” He nodded as if to himself, and paused to cry. If he seemed ashamed of the tears, he didn’t convey it, and neither of his guests cared to comment either.

Ethan tried to picture the short, trembling man next to Miranda, assisting her with lab work, and found the idea truly pathetic, if not comical. Pity yet? No, not yet. Pathetic though. Comical, yeah.

“These voices, they are…the Mold, then?” Eva pressed. “So curious that it has taken to speaking to you!”

“The Mold,” his eyes lit up. “The Mold is simply…a large room full of…”

“Full of people talking,” Ethan said, his own eyes sparking with interest. For the first time the two men exchanged an understanding look. Ethan nodded. Salvatore tilted his head.

“They know what you are trying to do,” he said mysteriously. “These places we Lords have been put-our cadou separates us from the collective. We are alone, isolated. We cannot blend. Miranda wanted to stop the blending. To isolate. The voices of so many though, they add to this room. They are the true network. We are alone, once the cadou is within. But we have what she wants, within our little prisons. So her failed children are like the grains of sand turned pearls.”

“You know about the crystal?” Eva could not contain her childlike enthusiasm.

Ethan flared his nostrils, hoping that Salvatore would reveal his own side sooner rather than later. He didn’t like this open, breezy conversation-what if Salvatore was already working with beloved Mother?

“Know about it! I have a piece of it.” Even his true laugh contained no real humor. It was as though his entire existence was spent being a joke, and he could not muster up an honest laugh. “The first piece, actually. I was her first…attempt.”

Ethan shook his head. “You know, I’m so glad you know all of this. Donna got her memories back in a few days, so why in the hell was I clueless for so long?”

“Miranda took your memories, for one thing,” Eva reminded him with a frown.

Moreau’s eyes widened as he stared at the tall blond man, who stood nearby uncomfortably, arms crossed, while Moreau and Eva sat on the grass.

After a pause in which Moreau continued to stare wide-eyed at Ethan, the former Lord said, “The plan you made is what made the voices talk to me. It learns from you. It listens to you. So, planning to extract the crystal fragments, the voices…answer to that. Trying to find me, teach me, as I have a piece.”

“So, it–they–are working against her?”

Moreau almost-smiled. “Miranda betrayed the sanctity of the consciousness long ago. It is trying to preserve itself, not help her.”

“And what about you?” Ethan couldn’t help but sound confrontational. He would be happy to give Godric an earful if Salvatore said LITERALLY anything other than ‘I’m on board to kill the bitch’....and as he thought this, angrily, he swore he could sense the large King’s laughter from somewhere far away, over the horizon, or under the ground. As if he were listening. Like a feather on Ethan’s neck, or a breath by his ear.

Ethan pressed, “Whose side are you on?”

Moreau turned to survey the gravestone. His gaze traveled above it, to the sparkling, clear lake. “I never got to marry her,” he said quietly. “She was poor, and the village cemetery was full, from the outbreak. She was cremated. The person I was with here, this dream person, was not real, simply a fragment of my mind. When I learned that truth, she vanished again. A cruel side effect of not having a consciousness stored in this realm, I suppose.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eva exhaled.

Even Ethan had nothing smartass to say. He stared solemnly at the gravestone. Moreau had also lost someone who wasn’t coming back, Mold or no Mold. Death was still permanent, sometimes. Donna’s entire family had disappeared from her dreams as well.

Pity?

Maybe.

“To answer your question,” Moreau continued, “I am not on a side. I know I caused so much destruction, death. But I was in hell too. This place has been, a respite, a break. But it is not redemption, or peace. It’s simply…lonely.”

He turned, squinted up at Ethan. “I would love to help in any way I can. I would love to feel the wind on my face, to feel the earth as it truly was. To simply be in a body that won’t make children scream and women turn away in horror. Perhaps I’d work again, fishing or else. But I don’t deserve any of those things, and–” he glanced skeptically at Ethan’s shoulder, “If you wanted to kill me with that gun, and remove the fragment, I understand.”

Ethan scoffed indignantly, despite the last mention of Moreau’s being the very plan Ethan had in mind all morning. But, Ethan knew nothing about “extracting” this crystal before Miranda, and he could no longer argue against Godric’s logic; having Salvatore in their world, where he could teach them exactly what “removing” the crystal entailed, was actually a fantastic strategy.

He’d never considered that Moreau had spent intimate years with Miranda in her lab before he became a sniveling idiot. That changed a lot of things, especially since he no longer seemed to be an idiot. Sniveling, well, he was doing that right now.

He could almost hear the singsong Told You So, in broken English, and Ethan actually had to twist his lips away from a smile. Yeah yeah. Smart King.

Eva stood, brushing out her skirt, her mischievous, playful smile already returning.

“Well, Salvatore Moreau….I think it is time we invite you back to the mortal world, if you will join us.”

Moreau rose, looking even more startled than previously, as Ethan approached, shrugging out of the backpack.

“Are you….You mean you really..? You want me…?”

“We want you to help, and to do something good. You get a chance to redeem yourself,” Ethan said sternly, but he extended a hand anyway. When Moreau shook it, his eager, childlike enthusiasm was actually almost heartwarming. He was sputtering, something about doing his best. Then he began to cry again.

—------------

The ritual was easy–Eva and Ethan were a formidable team, apparently a team that the Mold listened to. They also had the essence of Moreau (whatever that meant) in the crystal, and in a matter of minutes, a flesh and blood Moreau stood with the duo on the remains of his fishing village.

Ethan had wondered if seeing the exploded remains of a once-picturesque lake might have given the fisherman despair, but Moreau was so happy to be back on “earth” in a human-looking body, that he lay on the ground, crying and kissing the muddy soil, hugging at the rocks and plants that littered the ground here.

“Well,” Ethan said lamely, as Eva clapped her hands. “Heeeere we are. It uh….”

Salvatore sat in the mud, looking around wide-eyed. He was still mumbling, crying. He touched his own body in disbelief, and then peered into a nearby mudhole to see his very human reflection.

Ethan cleared his throat. “It uh, needs some work….but uh…”

“I have hands! I have…my face! Oh, I’m so…look at meeeee!” Salvatore’s sobs were loud, wailing racketing sobs, and he drowned out Ethan completely. “Look at meeeee!” The thin, wiry man crawled to a standing position and continued to touch his face with hands that were covered in mud. Eva returned his expression of enthusiasm, hopping on the balls of her feet, which caused him to burst into a louder wail.

Ethan’s eyes widened impossibly, and he pressed his lips shut, giving up on any kind of conversation.

The roar of an approaching engine sounded from a nearby hill, and the group turned to see the motorcycle crest the path soon after. Heisenberg was either grinning or gripping the cigar with his teeth, hard to say. Donna sat behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Just as Ethan felt a surge of jealousy, he also realized how cute Donna looked perched back there. She was riding sidesaddle, which was utterly ridiculous, and just like her.

Karl cut the engine and propped up the bike on its kickstand; he barked with laughter, removing the cigar from his lips as Donna dismounted behind him.

“Damn, Sal! You come all this way, an’ forget my old coat?”

The strangled cry from Salvatore made one thing abundantly clear; he held no ill will toward Heisenberg. He tottered toward the engineer like an enthralled child. Karl dismounted, pushing Donna in front of him, but Moreau nearly tackled the engineer. Heisenberg slapped Moreau’s back, then hugged the muddy fisherman with a bewildered laugh.

Donna was more invasive, stroking her 'sibling's long hair and lifting it as if looking for frog eyeballs or something else. She peered at his face in much the same way as Ethan, but she also pressed her pale hands onto the muddy cheeks in wonder. They all began speaking at once, Karl with a palm planted on each sibling’s shoulders, Donna and Moreau still inspecting each other’s faces with excitement and shyness.

Despite the trepidation earlier, it seemed that the arrival of a very human Moreau brought out something good, something wholesome, in all of the Lords.

Ethan hung back, allowing Eva to lean on him as she watched the reunion.

“How touching,” she sighed.

“Yeah, look at us, trading one fucked up family for another, like Pokemon cards.”

“Ethan.” She paused, then gestured to the happy group. “We are righting her wrongs. At least the ones we can control.”

Ethan begrudgingly put his arm around the shorter woman and rubbed her shoulder.

“You’re amazing, you know that.” He put his other hand in his back pocket, trying to will away all of the grisly imagery in his head. That Moreau was gone. He didn’t even need to pity this one, he realized. Just show some basic empathy. Somehow he felt that Moreau wouldn’t mind his wariness; the man was probably used to not being trusted. And Ethan had no surplus of trust to give.

“I don’t know how you’re so patient, and kind, how you see the best in…the worst.”

“I am just old,” she said cheerfully.

#salvatore moreau #lord moreau #ethan winters #donna beneviento #karl heisenberg

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