it's only natural [baccano!, ladd/lua] Title: It's Only Natural Author: logistika_nyx Fandom: Baccano! Characters/Pairings: Ladd/Lua, Graham, Dune Ratings/Warnings: M Other: for roads_diverged claim, Theme # 48 - Supernatural Creatures.
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The tale had been told over and over again about the banker just rolling in wealth, with a beautiful wife and a beautiful son and one day a beautiful daughter too. People used to mutter under their breath about the banker, about how lucky he was to have everything so beautiful and perfect. They used to put the evil eye on him, and wish his car would get flat tyres, and all sorts of horrible things to happen to his manhood. In the manner of a small town, everything was said behind his back and never to his face because everyone had to borrow from the wealthy banker, even the local Camorra.
One day everyone stopped with all the nasty things because it seemed like God answered their prayers in a particularly cruel way: the wealthy banker lost son, wife, wealth and very nearly his infant daughter in one horrible week.
After that day everyone told mocking tales instead, of how the once-wealthy banker jealously guarded his only treasure remaining, his beautiful daughter. He kept little Lua locked up all the time in a wing of his residence, until the day came that she turned eighteen and still no one had ever seen or talked to her.
But the true tale had never been told to anyone: the poor desperate banker kept not-so-little Lua locked up not because he was jealous, and especially not because he wanted to protect Lua, but because he desperately wanted to protect everyone else in the town.
Now beautiful little Lua, at eighteen, hungry for more life and having had quite enough of being shut up, slowly began to eat a hole in the wall of her room. Her room was very small, made so by the three extra layers of bricks the poor banker had put up to keep Lua from escaping. There was already one hole in the room, a little slit with fine mesh over it, through which the poor banker could see she was still contained. Lua was a patient girl, and despite her nature she honoured her father's wishes that she should stay in the room – but every teenager has their small rebellions. Lua was a canny creature, so she started her second hole where it couldn’t be seen from the first and only worked on it at night. She only wanted a taste of real life, you see.
In the manner of small towns, the once-wealthy banker’s residence was built right up next to the great manse of a family of the Camorra. One night Lua finished eating through the wall and saw into the bedroom of a young padroni of the Russo family. A bright young man slept in his bed, beautiful and peaceful, making only a little sigh as he turned over within his satin sheets. Lua, always hungry, felt a hunger like nothing she had ever known before.
A precious lamp sat next to the young man's bed, sucking at the dark so the young man's face was bright and clear, untroubled. 'But,' Lua asked, 'does the prince sleep, or does he watch?'
'Night-eater,' the lamp replied, 'you have nothing to fear; Ladd Russo is sleeping here.'
Lua went through the little hole and lay down beside the young man. Ladd woke up straight away, his eyes wide at the sight of her. Before Lua could move he took her in his arms and kissed her, hungrily, and he asked:
'Oh lady, my lady, I dreamed of you, again and again, and now I wake and find you here, so thin and frail, as though you've never eaten a day in your life; I do not want to wake again in the morning and find you gone, a wisp, a ghost. Oh lady, my lady, who are you? What can I do to make you stay?'
But Lua thought of her father the poor banker and how he had sworn to kill her if she ever left her little room, and so Lua shook her head and said only: 'love me, Ladd Russo, love me, don't question me or who I am.' Ladd thought he could see sadness in her eyes. He kissed Lua again, and lay with her in his bed to give her everything he could give her in a night; and oh, how he tried, with all the vigour a young man possesses; and oh, how Lua tried, with the hunger inside a hollowness that not even Ladd could fill. All their efforts would amount to nothing, because Lua was a creature of death, not life. In the morning Ladd woke from a night of strange dreams to find Lua gone and his bed very cold.
Ladd leapt from his bed and dressed hastily, and ran down the street to speak to his friends. 'Graham,' he said, 'Dune! Last night the woman of my dreams came to my bed and lay with me, all night long, but when I woke she was gone. I'll pray that she comes back, but if she does, what can I do to keep her with me?'
'Tie her hair to your hand,' Graham suggested, 'that way if she tries to leave while you're sleeping she'll wake you up.'
'Better yet,' Dune said, 'tie her hair to your hand and then tie her hands to the bed. That way she'll wake you up, but if she doesn't at least she won't be able to run away.'
'Right,' Ladd said, 'good thinking, boys,' and he went about his day. It was the first time he hadn't got exactly what he wanted, so Ladd was in an unhappy temper. He fought many a fight until his knuckles were bruised and bleeding.
That night his prayers were answered. After her night of tasting life Lua vowed she wouldn't try to escape again - but the smell of blood from Ladd's bruised fists drew her. And so, Lua crept through the tiny hole in the wall, starving. Ladd woke when she lapped at the broken skin over his knuckles, and instantly he put his hands through her hair to hold her to him. 'My lady.' He was fervent with his kisses to keep her from noticing as he tied her hair around his wrist. 'Oh please tell me who you are, I want to marry you and hold you forever.'
'Feed me, Ladd,' Lua said, 'feed me, don't speak to me of forever.'
So Ladd bound her wrists to his bed-head and lavished all his affections on her, until Lua almost forgot her hunger and dawn nearly came upon them from the wrong side. But at last Ladd slept, and Lua drank of his sweat and efforts and all the life he held in his heartbeat. When she left she cut both rope and her own hair with the razor of her teeth. Ladd woke up with gold hair all over his bed, shivering from the cold and the despair, for he was not used to failure.
'Boys,' Ladd said to his friends, 'she's left again and all your advice was useless! Now what do I do? She won't tell me who she is or what I can do to make her stay.'
'Maybe you have to impress her,' Dune said, thoughtfully. Graham agreed: 'All women like an impressive man.'
Ladd was put out by such a suggestion, because he was already bright and beautiful, and bold enough to be his father's favourite son. Already in a temper from lack of sleep and frustration, Ladd drew his gun that day when he always used to solve his arguments with a knuckled smile; and so he went to his bed that night laved in blood.
And thus Lua came, drawn by that scent of spilled life despite all her resolutions to stay within her stone walls, and she slipped between the sheets.
Ladd held her firmly. 'My lady,' Ladd said, stern where all his pleading availed nothing, 'I want you to stay and marry me. I'll succeed my father and become head of my family, I'll become the head of everyone else's family if that's what it takes, I'll be the richest man in the city, the most powerful, the most feared and respected, all to make you stay.'
'Ladd,' Lua said, 'oh Ladd, you don't want me to stay.'
But Ladd wanted what he wanted, and so with his friends by his side he fought to keep Lua as he knew how. The process was hard and bloody, and Lua came every night to drink the life Ladd claimed for her, thirsting and never full; and Ladd killed his own father to succeed him, and killed his own brothers to keep them from stopping him; and Lua came, and lingered, and drank all the blood Ladd spilled, but still she never stayed past dawn.
'Bind her in chains instead of rope,' Dune suggested, 'and wrist and ankle and neck, and about her waist, and between her breasts, double her over, then she won't be able to walk anywhere.' But Lua ate through chain as well as through stone, and when Ladd woke he was alone.
'Soak her nightgown in blood,' Graham suggested, 'then when she leaves you can follow the dripping trail to where she goes.' But Lua rose after Ladd slept and drank her nightgown dry, and Ladd could not follow her.
And so the months passed, and Ladd wondered how much it would take until his reputation would hold his mysterious lady of the night, and frail and ghostly Lua grew fat and voluptuous with all the life spilled in her name; and Ladd loved the light in her eyes, and the hunger in her smile.
And so more months passed, and Ladd woke one day to find, not Lua by his side, but an infant boy, kicking and squalling, as bright as Ladd and as hungry as Lua. Ladd lifted the baby to the sky, and the boy turned and bit Ladd's thumb with sharp little teeth, and sucked. Ladd took the boy to show his friends, and the creature grinned with its bloodied teeth, and Ladd cried in triumph: 'This is our son!'
'You know what you have to do now, Ladd,' Dune said. Graham nodded his agreement: 'No mother could keep quiet at a funeral for her own son, and then you'll know her.'
'Yes,' Ladd said, 'yes, and then I'll have her.'
He did that very thing and took the life from his own son to put the body on an altar in the local church. All the city's criers raised a great chorus of Ladd Russo's son dead within the church. All sorts of women came to mourn. The ruckus was so great that even within her stone sanctuary Lua heard the news.
At last she appeared. Ladd knew her the moment he saw her, but he waited to be sure. With ruddy tears streaming down her cheeks, Lua pulled at her own hair and tore at her face, crying: 'My son, my son; I was too beautiful, and so I cut my locks; I was too beautiful, and so I cut my bonds; I was too vain, and so in a bloodied gown I go now to my grave.'
'She's the mother,' Ladd cried, 'that's my wife, hold her!'
But Lua's father, that once-wealthy banker, leapt forward with a gun at the ready and held out for Lua. 'I told you I'd kill you if you tried to leave,' he said, 'a creature like you can't live amongst people! You killed your own mother and brother with scarcely the first breath of life in your lungs!'
'NO!' Ladd screamed. He threw himself between to knock the gun aside, his arms wide and Lua sheltered by his broad back. 'You can't kill her for her nature! It's only because of all the curses directed at your own greediness that Lua is what she is! And whatever she is, she's my wife now!'
'Oh Ladd,' Lua said, 'don't ever ask me what I am.'
'You're mine,' Ladd said, 'and that's all I need to know.'