DATEPOST

[softlyfalling]

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[softlyfalling]

Ah—yes, definitely!

[ easily distracted by people being cute.

anyway it's a bit of a trip, but not a bad one by train. Cut to—

EXT. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, TOKYO ]

It's really kind of impressive that they just... have all this art that anyone can go look at, and it's like that in the place this is based on, too... I don't think I've been anywhere like this, before, unless you count the little museum people put together in the hospital building.

[selfpreservationist]

There aren't museums where you're from?

[softlyfalling]

...no, I don't think so.

[ looking around— ]

Probably the closest thing would be the collections that some temples have, or government buildings? Most of it's commissioned from artists, I think...

I think there's a lot of things really different about where I'm from, though, so I'm less surprised every time, now.

[selfpreservationist]

Let's see what this place has to offer us, then.

[softlyfalling]

[ scanning through the exhibits list, lingering on the ukiyo-e— ]

...oh, they have calligraphy, and—actually, this style of painting reminds me a little of some of the art styles I'm familiar with...

[selfpreservationist]

We can start there. I'm not as familiar, myself...

[reading]

"The Floating World", hm... that's evocative.

[softlyfalling]

Mm... I'm not sure why, but it does seem to capture something about the style.

A little dreamlike...?

[selfpreservationist]

I was thinking the same thing. A flourishing red light district... must have seemed like a dream to those who lived it.

[softlyfalling]

I suppose it's like living to... some sort of storied ideal, perhaps. A life surrounded by beauty, with few concerns other than the pursuit thereof. A romantic hero's world.

[selfpreservationist]

Hmm. It sounds right up my alley, actually.

[softlyfalling]

How does someone like you end up with demon-hunters, anyway?

[selfpreservationist]

... that's a good question.

[softlyfalling]

...I suppose not all of us get a choice as to whether we find our way to the field of battle or not.

[selfpreservationist]

At the very least, I don't think it's the kind of career someone comes by naturally. I'll be very surprised if I was a young man with aspirations of murdering devils during grade school.

[softlyfalling]

[ pfft ]

I suppose I can't necessarily take Nero as the rule, there, as cute as it is to imagine.

[ tilts her head— ]

What do you think you intended to be?

[selfpreservationist]

... I don't know. One could surmise I wanted to be a poet or a writer, but the poems are... not something I aspire to create. They're more like... a security blanket.

[softlyfalling]

Comforting, you mean, or more just comfortingly familiar?

[selfpreservationist]

Comforting. I kept a book of Blake's poems on me even during combat.

[softlyfalling]

They must really have a special place in your heart, then...

[selfpreservationist]

Evidently.

[softlyfalling]

[ looking back at him in the middle of moving forward down the hall of artwork. ]

Which one's your favorite? Of his poems, I mean.

[selfpreservationist]

Hard to say. They all speak to me, in one way or another. But...

[pauses, for a good few seconds]

I keep coming back to "The Clod and the Pebble", more often than not.

[softlyfalling]

Oh, this Cuckoo and Azaleas painting is pretty—

Ah, I don't think I've heard that one before. What's it about...?

[selfpreservationist]

[abruptly raven takes shrike's hand and lifts it to his lips, kissing her knuckles]

[softlyfalling]

[ holy shit

...she was going to say something but now she’s just blushing furiously as her heart tries to beat its way out of her chest, and reflexively tightens her hand against his. ]

I, ah...