She knew that he had always been that way, biting off more than he could chew, simply because he could. It was one of the reasons she had fallen out with him in the first place. He claimed he would support her, but then would do insanely risky actions like the plan earlier and show her that he simply did not understand that the best way for him to support her was for him to live. It was so simple, yet for some reason he simply did not see it. She needed people who would support her and help her to achieve greatness not people who would die and leave her all alone again.
Just thinking about it made her grab the linen sheets that covered Law’s bed and scrunch them up, but realising it might disturb her sweetheart she relaxed and smoothed it out. He looks so peaceful like that she thought as she watched him lie in bed, his arm strapped to his side and a bar of metal so that he would not move too much. It was a precaution Yun had made since he knew that his brother was a restless sleeper, and always had been. Whatever Law dreamt about, it was not nice.
Looking around Law’s room she saw the bag that he always carried and beside it was his white book. He had told her that it was the only thing that he had created on the first floor of the tower that had lasted all the way until now, minus his bag of course. He had said he would never get rid of it, it reminded him of home and his parents. She smiled and walked over to look at the book. It was not private, but she had never had reason to look before now. There was always other things to do.
Opening the book she found it rather odd. There were only four pages within the binding of the book, but whenever she saw something being written in it there was a mix of filled and blank pages. It was one of the many oddities that came of the Book of Creation, a mystery that she simply did not understand. Opening the book she was confronted with the title emblazoned on the very first page of the book: The Absolution Codex.
There was something odd about reading that title in the precise cursive that Law used to write with, but she did not mind it. She looked below the title and saw a small script that had been added at a later date: The discoveries of one Laurence Absolution as he travels through the various floors and myriad domains within the great and mighty Tower of Babel - The Author C3017/10. It was the year that Cleo had begun her journey up the tower, and one long after Law had begun his journey and made the book she was looking at. It made her chuckle, as it was a level of fastidiousness that she simply did not expect from the boy she had come to love. It was opposite his character, one where he liked to make plans then ignore them the moment that they began to move into action unless they somehow involved him seeing something interesting or fighting someone strong. She loved his one track mind sometimes, and at others she hated it.
Turning the page she began to look at the entries within the book. They were categorised within two layers, first was their spot within flora, fauna or geologica, then it was their location by floor. It was a simple categorisation method, and she wondered why he had not done it by alphabet, but as she read through the book she realised that there were hundreds of entries and barely any of them had names. Each different plant that Law had seen on his journey, even if it was only slightly different from another plant was written in. He had one set of plants refer to the first time he saw that type almost sixty times, and he claimed that the plant was likely a universal plant, a grass that seemed to populate everywhere that could support plant life.
Flicking through the book she eventually reached the information on everyone and everything that Law had seen on the tenth floor of the tower. It was odd reading about the people she had met and the places they had stolen from in the time that they had been together. She looked through the notes on everything and stumbled across the entry about her, complete with several matching portraits of her. She found it odd, because she had spent several years simply being rude to him and yet there were still more pictures of her than anyone else in the book.
She smiled, and looked at the images of her growing up. The first was at ten, obviously when she met him. Then she was young, naive, and wilful to the extreme. She had to be though, it was the only way that she could survive and make anything of herself in her clan. She did not regret that, and in fact she admired her younger self for being able to come up with a way to beat out everyone else in her clan that was around the same age as her. Underneath the image in that cursive text that she had read so much of there was simply a little note saying fig.1 Willful. It made her laugh, partly because she had not expected it and partly because it was right. She had been wilful the first time that she had really gotten to know Law. Not that it had changed. She knew what she wanted, and come hell or high water she would get it.
The next figure was of her about two years later. She was in her costume for nightwork that she had used so often in Spirit. It was all soft cloths, greys and blacks, with everything tied in place. Normally she would have not been able to tell it was her, as the costumes were uniform as to confuse any followers, but the mask was off. Her hair was flowing down her back and she was looking over the vista of Spring Street as the sun came up. She remembered the night. It was the first time they had ever come back together after a job that she had planned. It had gone well, but not completely to plan so she had lashed out at Law. She blamed him for her mistake, and he had taken it, not bothering to rock the boat or even call her out on it. Jim did the next day, of course, but at the time she was so sure that Law was at fault, that he was sabotaging her, because that was what people who got around her did. They tried to bring her down.
The picture was called fig.2 Prideful, and she had to agree. She certainly was prideful, and it was not something that she liked about herself, but something that she had learned to deal with, much like her distrust of people around her. She sighed and began to move on from the second image. She had been scarred by her past, and it was only beginning to heal now.
The third picture was that of her before they left for this floor. It was something that she had not realised that Law had done, but he had. He had drawn her in her long blue dress, looking over the objects that she had been putting together to take with her. At the time she had not expected to have a storage ring like the one that Law had given her, so instead she prepared a backpack with everything that she owned and could not bare to keep in it. A couple of nice dresses, a work costume and some travel clothes. She still hated him back then. It was so odd to think about. She knew that the reason why she was so annoyed by him was simply because she did not believe what he had told her. Now she knew otherwise. If she wanted support from him she would get it from him, even if it did not come in the form she expected. She had finally come to accept that he was not as much of a braggart as she had originally thought him out to be.
Underneath the third image there was the comment fig.3 Angry? Which made her laugh out loud. That was not the identifier that she was expecting to see there, but in some ways it had made sense. She had just spent the entire day telling Law that he was an idiot for two of his jobs that they had come back from, and that he needed to work much harder before she would put her trust in him. She had been angry, because she realised that she had been the one to mess up the first plan, and she needed to hide her shame. She was far too prideful for her own good, but she saw that Law had been following her for a long time.
As she looked at the final picture, there was a coughing sound at the bed and she looked up to see Law struggling to sit up like he would have preferred. His right arm was still bound to the side of his body to keep him straight, so he was literally unable to bend at his hips like he wanted to.
“Law!” Cleo said, gasping and running over to him immediately.
“Morning, Cleo. Why is my arm bound up?”
“Because you broke it. Do you not remember?”
“I...” Law stopped before clutching his forehead with his unbound right hand. “I have a headache”.
“I’ll take that as a no then. Look I’ll go get Yun so he can help sort out something so that your arm can move again”.
“Okay, can I have something to eat too? I’m hungry”. As if to match Law’s feelings, his stomach grumbled loudly and he smiled bashfully. “See?”
“Alright, I’ll pick up some food for you too. Until then don’t try to get up okay?”
Law nodded as Cleo exited the room. She would have liked to look at the book more, as she was intrigued by her entry in the book, but she had work to do. She had to support Law so that she could be less of a burden. Now and forever.
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