A Life by Any Other Name

The Moon in the Night, & The Freedom of The Sky

Bermuda Von Vecktenschtein was not expecting his long dead and dormant pacifier, nor those of the other Vendice, to start glowing silver.

Having been one of, if not THE first Sky Arcobaleno, he was under the impression that he knew everything there was to know about the Tri-Ni-Sette. Everything any of the following Arcobaleno had discovered had been added to his knowledge after they became Vindice after all, and it had been centuries since anything new had happened.

At least a millenia here, in Vendicare, long before the Mafia formed, before the Vongola brat enticed them into law enforcement, before flames had become a widespread knowledge that then went underground.

He still remembered tales of the sinking of Atlantis told around campfires. Of the Atlanteans that weilded their flames and easy as they breathed. Something that had happened not long before his birth.

He still remembered the honour he felt when one of the last Atlanteans approached him, revealed that he had the strongest Sky flames, and told him of how he could help the world by holding onto this round rock with 6 others.

The fury and rage when his already short stature became infantile.

The grief and misery when, in his rage and will to stay alive when the curse had run its course, only one of his guardians followed him into the realm of the undead. The others without the will to do so, flesh stripped from their bones and pacifiers crumbling to dust. Jager, his cloud. He was Jager's territory, of course he would follow.

How their bodies decayed until they covered themselves in bandages and cloaks, looking like a parody of the magical dementors, whilst they bid their time and tried to track the bastard that did this to them.

Every generation of Arcobaleno adding at least one to their number. Adding the collective knowledge of that generation.

The latest few had been full of broken bonds and betrayed guardians as the seer blood of the Giglio Nero ran its fatalistic course in only one direction, they being the strongest skies in recent centuries, never thinking of the alternatives. Luce was not the first, only the most recent female sky. Her daughter, the first in a few turns to inherit the pacifier rather than be chosen, had faired much better and taken more caution in her ability.

However, now the orange pacifier was no longer attached to her. A stronger sky flame had called it, and it had left her in the dust on the floor, alive, but far weaker than she had been. He saw it all, scrying as he was taught by his mother all those years ago, as he felt that initial wave whilst he was looking for criminals and crimes alike. Saw the pacifier latch onto an unconcious child.

And then they all felt it as their own began to glow that eerie silver, slowly becoming clear once again instead of the opaque stone they had been for so long. As all of them sparked unusual white slightly sparking flames but himself, whose night flame developed that sheen of silver. Like the moon in the night sky. And the others... stars perhaps. They reminded him vaguely of sun flames, but colder, more distant.

Then their bodies began to change. Skin that had been torn or frayed leather became pale porcelain, stitches and staples holding things together vanishing leaving unblemished marble. Not natural, no, but skin all the same.

And finally a symbol, slowly forming like a mist in the centre of the changed pacifiers. It was one he recognised, how couldnt he? It had been quite the nuisance in the last century, what with a Dark Wizard perverting its original identity.

A triangle. A circle. And a bisecting line.

But the return of their bodies disputed this being the work of another megalomaniac.

No, it seems that the Tri-ni-sette had just come under the purview of the one being far more powerful than a mere Atlantean with mist flames.

How curious it would be, that the Master of Death claimed them (they were still dead after all) just as Sawada Tsunayoshi gained the Sky pacifier.

How curious indeed.

-----

When Aria woke up laying in her bed, lethargic, but feeling better than she had in a long time, she was extremely confused. Taking stock of herself, her slight baby bump still as it should be, no medical equipment, still seing her daughter in her minds eye...

It wasn't for a few bleary minutes that she realised, watching her daughters future as she had come to do occasionally when she was trying to figure something out, knowing her time with her would be short, that she was still in the picture. And she was staying in the picture. She attended her daughters graduation, her wedding, her firstborn.

That shouldnt be possible.

Looking down, where the soft orange usually sat... nothing.

The pacifier was gone.

And she hadn't died.

In fact though her body felt weak, her flames seemed to have replenished to a point she wasn't aware she could reach.

She was no longer the holder of the sky.

She was no longer the holder of the sky and all the misery that came with it.

Her daughter never would be either.

To be fair to those that had been outside the room, bursting into grateful tears at that revelation was bound to have made them think that something was horribly terribly wrong, and as soon as the door flung wide she had two suns frantically running their flames over her to find the problem, a cloud and storm prowling the windows and cupboards for enemies, and a rain and lightning standing defensively on either side, mist filling the room in preparation for an attack.

She couldn't help the startled laughter that broke past the tears, or the hysterics she fell into when the combination became just a bit too much with her already rampant hormones. Her guardians and uncle Reborn beginning to look at her warily as they finished their self imposed tasks and finding nothing wrong.

She didn't care.

She was Free.