Windows
of the Soul:
Being an Excerpt from the Journals of Lorenz Khiel
D.Gregory
Kaworu and
the other characters are the property of Gainax and all other copyright holders.
this is not meant as an infringement of their rights, simply as an act of fannish
appreciation.
"She took residence within a cave upon the shores of the Red Sea, where to this day She finds Her shelter within. She accepted the demons of the world as her lovers, and spawned many thousands of demon children in only a short time. It is thus that the world became populated with demons, and how Lilith came to be called the Mother of Demons" This passage never ceases to amuse me. How narrow our human vision can be, when we cannot see our reflections in the faces of demons.
As I stood on the shores of Homer’s wine dark sea.. a sea red with Lilith’s juices, in the great cave where we’d found the sleeping giant and trapped It, I reminisced. Oh, how I’d felt like Ahab must have as my spear pierced the soft white tissue and held It fast. We crucified It (I could not bring myself to call Lilith Her.. or Him, for that matter, this genderless parent of us all.. our first Eva….staring down upon me with It’s seven unblinking eyes – open, yet sealed in their accusatory stare), bled It out into this great pool.. that which would have been our master, now our tool.
I would be leaving here soon, my puppet, my partner.. my sacrificial lamb, Gendou would continue stewardship of Lilith as we, (I refer to my eternal brethren in SEELE and myself, my ego is not so great now as my detractors assume it to be that I would use the royal prerogative) would now turn our attention to It’s mate.
Ah, Gendou. You have performed your tasks so well. Your wife’s work provided the final key to that alchemical miracle of manipulating Lilith’s DNA, of appropriating Adam’s form to move us through the ritual steps when Adam’s children come to reclaim their own. But, as NERV grows, you have your own agenda. I should know. I recognize the look in your eyes from when I had ones of my own.
And so your wife’s work has also provided me with a safeguard. A key to the gates of heaven so long denied me.
Your wife’s work has given me the boy.
The boy sat, still but not motionless, in the seat of the transport. He was a pale little thing, beyond anemic but still falling short of out and out albinism. He looked unhappy in the stiff collared suit Nurse made him wear. He had wanted to get off the plane – he was bored, and knew there were other children out there.. he wanted to meet them, talk to them.. but Uncle insisted that this was a bad thing, that he was too sickly to be exposed to normal children.
Uncle thought he was a very good liar.
Kaworu wondered, and not for the first time, why the old fossil thought he could lie to him at all. Uncle had been lying to him since his first coherent memory, and Kaworu considered it a commentary on human nature. He picked at his collar again, giving Nurse a mild glare of reproach. It wasn’t her fault. She was basically a decent creature, even though he knew she found his serious garnet gaze inappropriate for a seven-year-old.
"Why did Uncle want me to come if he never wanted me to get off the plane?" Kaworu asked with an air of impatience, now toying with the cookie sitting on the plate before him. Nurse made a huffy sound. "this was merely a small stop for Mr. Khiel. He wanted to bring you here to Japan to visit some of the wonderful other places.. not this boring stuffy place."
The boy quirked an eyebrow at her, stuffing the cookie in his mouth. He knew his awareness outstripped his experience, his understanding greater than his age. But there were still things about him that were universal to a young boy. "What about my mother?" he asked around the bits of chocolate chip in his mouth, shifting uncomfortably as Nurse’s glare turned overly-sympathetic. "You know very well that your mother isn’t here anymore."
Of all the things about his life that disturbed Kaworu, this was probably the greatest. Common sense told him he should have a mother.. like the other children he’d seen. Uncle told him that his mother, Yui, had died in childbirth.
But of course, Uncle was lying. It was simply what Uncle did.
Awareness told him that he most likely never had one, that he was, in fact, the product of humanity’s never-ending quest to tinker with it’s own structure.
He would have accepted this, if not for one distinct and very real memory. A gentle touch and a smile. Love? Acceptance? He couldn’t be sure. He’d been so little then, his perceptions still cloudy. He chewed the cookie with intense concentration.
Uncle came back, then, his piggish face with it’s odd metal attachments seemed as excited as Kaworu had ever seen him. "Ready to go, my lad?" he said in that manner that always indicated how much he really hated children.