Silvana pt1

NOIR-fanfic. The world's most brutal princess had been left for dead, but she survived.
(Silvana/Chloe)

Read Silvana pt1

Disclaimer: All things Noir belong to Bee Train and probably others, perhaps even to Raimi/Tapert by now, but at any rate I’m just borrowing.

Spoiler warning for much of the show, but the ending in particular.





SILVANA pt 1
------------------------------------------
by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson






There were likely many things that the daughter of the Corsican Bouquet family was and was apt in, various types of combat and assassination methods utilising a gun prominent among them, but one thing she was not so skilled in… the ways of the blade.

Silvana Greone supposed she should be grateful for that, given that it was only the other woman’s unfamiliarity with a knife that had ended up sparing her life. She was however of rather mixed feelings regarding her run-in with her childhood acquaintance, it was after all the first and only time Silvana, the vaunted Intoccabile, had ever been defeated.

More than merely defeated, of course. Her own blade, the very blade upon which she had ended both her father and beloved grandfather’s lives for the honour and glory of the Cosa Nostra, had been driven deep into her own chest. It was merely the other woman’s inexperience with stabbing that had prevented the blade from reaching Silvana’s heart.

She had been left for dead while the Bouquet girl and her young companion hastened on to the next hurdle in their death-riddled journey, left to bleed out on those cold ancient stone ruins alone. How ironic that while her killer had not taken the time to check whether Silvana was still alive, she had spared a moment to retrieve the tip of the dagger from her chest. A trophy from a defeated foe or a symbol for a fear conquered? Silvana did not know.

The blade, like her pride, was now broken anyway.

Silvana had been found in time, obviously, and rushed to a hospital. She would spend a long time recuperating at various such places, during which she officially handed over control of the Cosa Nostra to a man distantly related to herself. She offered him the traditional ritual, fully expecting him to take it and in a way she had even welcomed that end. In the end he did not take it. In the end, she was still Intoccabile, the untouchable one, in more ways than she had imagined.

He and others like him ruled the organisation in her name, while Silvana herself officially returned to a self-imposed exile in her beloved Sicily. If anyone thought such a thing would be a hardship they were sorely mistaken, for Silvana, while fully prepared to do her duty to the fullest and most brutal, longed for nothing more than that quiet, peaceful life she enjoyed in her Sicily.

But there was one thing she needed to do before putting the blood-soaked events that had dethroned the world’s most brutal princess behind her. One thing Silvana needed for her own and personal closure. With reverently bowed and respectful heads, the time and means to do so was extended to her.

And so it was that Silvana Greone, the feared Intoccabile of the Cosa Nostra, found herself in a deeply hidden valley between Spain and France, a small piece of land that time and the world had forgotten. The Soldats holy land.

It did not do to be discourteous, not there, not then, not with Soldats... not anymore. Silvana had dressed in a simple cloak, much like that of the nuns that occupied this ancient place, and arrived on foot for the last lengthy passage. She neither sought audience with Soldats’ powerful religious leader nor did she in any way approach or interfere with the activities there. Silvana merely sent a brief letter to the one named Althena to inform them that she was there and that all she wished was to watch from a distance as a conclusion came to the situation of those called Noir.

She expected no answer and received none. The fact that none of the heavily armed and fully combat prepared nuns attempted to kill her or drive her away, to say nothing of the Noir girls themselves, was blessing and approval enough.

Because of this Silvana watched from afar as the ever-changing three-way battle between the daughter of Corsica, her companion and a third girl Silvana herself did not know, raged back and forth as if they were all of them possessed. She felt approval when watching Mireille Bouquet during this battle, her erstwhile friend and one-time opponent no longer trembled in fear when faced with beings of such deadly presence and skill that the blonde should have been as a child before the reaper. There was a certain twisted satisfaction to be found in the fact that the woman who had, admittedly with help from her young lover, delivered Silvana’s own defeat perform well against such monsters. Perhaps in some way it appealed to the tattered remains of her self-esteem.

What was it that compelled Silvana, once the battle was ended and the newly decided couple made their way onwards towards their destiny, to approach the stone slab beside the ruins where the defeated girl had been laid to rest? She was unsure, although perhaps it had something to do with a wisp of memory of another ruin, another stabbed woman, and of bleeding out onto ancient stones alone.

Whatever the reason, she made her way down from her observation post as the sunset bled vibrantly across the landscape and the shadows grew long. The girl lying upon the weathered stone was a surprise once Silvana came close enough to clearly see her features. Young and slender, with skin as impossibly pale as Silvana’s own and a shock of remarkably deep burgundy hair, although the features or the still face were somewhat on the plain side there was something beautiful about this girl, something... fair.

The bloody cake fork lying next to the unmoving figure was also not what was expected, but with a sting from her own healing wound Silvana’s eyes were drawn to the blood that stained the front of simple white fabric. There was far less of it than there should be, and with a slight frown Silvana leaned over the prone figure, alert for any sign. Could it be? Could these two skilled assassins, one of them perhaps the most lethal being in the world right now, could they have made the same simple mistake... twice?

Judging by the tool and the blood, the wound was in the right place to kill but too shallow to meet its mark. The girl was not breathing, still Silvana sought for a pulse. It was hard to find, but finally there it was, slow and weak but still there.

If there was one thing Silvana had not been taught how to do, it was how to save a life. Still she struggled, lending the very breath from her own lungs until the girl, with a strained little gasp, drew breath on her own. She could not understand why it had become so important to save this one life, why it mattered so much to her, only that it did.

When narrow, slanted eyes fluttered open to reveal the blackest obsidian for just a moment, Silvana knew that she had succeeded. This girl, whoever she might be, would live. Vaguely aware of nuns moving in the distance, no doubt having witnessed that the girl was still alive and on their way to report this to Althena, Silvana gathered the long-limbed but surprisingly light form into her arms.

The sound of gunshots coming from the direction of the rather derelict-appearing building towards which the nuns of Soldats had been moving earlier had Silvana opting not to take the wounded girl there. Instead she carried her to a niche between stone and vegetation where they would not be easily seen yet Silvana had a clear view of the area.

She saw several nuns give their lives to Mireille Bouquet and her partner right there in the wine orchard, and as the two of them disappeared into the dark interior of the building Silvana could hear the sound of gunfire continue for some time before all was quiet. With a small nod to herself she approved. Good for you, daughter of Corsica, was her thought before simply ignoring the events inside the house completely.

Silvana had come there on foot for quite a distance, and while her car and her driver waited on the other side of that invisible but important border, she, out of respect once again, had not brought a phone by which to summon them. She had gotten there by her own strength and would leave the same way or not at all, or so had been her assumption, because such was the Soldats way. It was with a touch of contempt she had observed that some of the Soldats men had driven all the way to their sacred grounds, ignoring old traditions and taboos.

Very well. The situation was changed, and if she was to dedicate herself to rescue this stranger, Silvana would do so all the way. Half-measures were not appropriate for the famed Intoccabile, come what may.

What she needed to do was to acquire either a phone from the Soldats lackeys, or one of their cars. As the old was being burned down behind her with such reckless abandon it mattered little whether her servants crossed the boundary to get her or if she drove past it to meet them, either way she would get this girl to medical care as fast as she was at all able.

While a master of all bladed things, Silvana was still unarmed and held little illusions regarding her ability to take on a dozen well-armed and alert men empty-handed. A careful search yielded three narrow but utterly lethal blades hidden upon the girl which she tucked into her cloak, at least she would not be completely helpless.

She hid the girl as well as she could and, after long moments of observation until she decided whom among the black-suited men were the leaders of Soldats, eventually made her slow and careful approach.

Perhaps time had passed more quickly than Silvana had realized, or perhaps the two women that from that moment on would be known to the underworld as Noir had been more efficient in whatever trials they faced than she could have imagined, because as Silvana had completed her silent path through blackness and was about to make her presence known, the two women came limping out from the smouldering building.

They were both of them wounded, the daughter of Corsica limping as she struggled onward with her partner, the smaller woman soaked through with her own blood it seemed, leaning on her so heavily the former was all but keeping them both upright. And yet these were no defenceless or weakened creatures that stepped out into the night, oh no. Even as the blonde woman issued her warning of bleak death to those that would oppose them, Silvana saw the fire that burned in those eyes. Deeply moved she performed the ancient genuflection for the Maidens of Death and bowed her head in respect.

Pride, yes, pride was what she felt most of all, that the fair-haired child she had so adored during their brief and unfortunate acquaintance long ago had grown into this, this woman not only she but all the dark and bloodstained world would have to respect. Mireille Bouquet had never looked lovelier to Silvana.

The men of Soldats parted before Noir in silence, some out of fear and others out of respect, and the two women made their passage into the darkness without halting or sparing a single look back. It was as it should be, Silvana thought.

It was the tiniest of sounds that alerted her, and as Silvana tore her attention away from the retreating figures barely visible in the dark she found several of Soldats’ men in the process of aiming their guns at those two that they were all now honour bound to revere and serve.

The blades flew from her hand without conscious thought, each of them hitting with instant and deadly precision. A gun fired twice quite close by, and five bodies slid to the earth without protest. Noir neither stopped nor turned back.

If the one remaining leader of Soldats, now perhaps the very singular leader of all of Soldats, was at all surprised to find her there he was quick to mask his reaction. He knew her of course, as she him, and she silently approved of his quick disposing of his two fellow leaders for their treachery much as he, with a glance and an inclination of his head, approved of the intervention of her blades. They wasted no time on pleasantries.

Silvana was given one of the cars and drove off as the Soldats remained, aiding the fire and throwing their dead into it, and she only made one discreet stop before driving to the point where she could discard the vehicle in favour of her own. Hopefully the Soldats would not be aware that the pale and still unconscious girl was alive, for the girl’s sake as well as Noir.

She went to certain lengths to protect the girl’s identity, but as she was given treatment and care in Silvana’s own Sicily the odds were remote that she would be found, even if Soldats had reason to search for her. Careful probing of mutual contacts revealed in time that they in fact did not, and Chloe, for that was the girl’s name, was allowed to move as she pleased in Silvana’s simple cottage on the outskirts of her small village in the rural part of Sicily.

Days, weeks and even months passed, and to Silvana’s surprise her young visitor not only showed no signs of wanting to leave, but Silvana herself had no desire to see the lanky youth leave and her solitary days return. Chloe was nothing like Silvana could have expected.

There was no doubt that she was the same graceful and utterly lethal creature that Silvana had witnessed in the Noir battle, in fact there was little doubt in her mind that were it not for the tradition dictating that the Maidens of Death be lovers, Chloe would have been Noir. None could be more skilled, more capable, more lethal... but her love had been rejected.

Chloe also had another side to her, and it was this that continued to amaze Silvana. The girl was soft-spoken and shy, unassuming and possessing a strangely childlike innocence and devotion that made her very easy to love, even for someone like Silvana whose heart had frozen so many years ago. They shared a joy in the simple things in life, a love for the land and toil, and an appreciation for the rewards it brought. Most would reject Silvana’s simple and rustic lifestyle, but Chloe embraced it with familiarity and delight.

Solitude had never bothered Silvana, rather the reverse, outside the company of the village children any human contact was merely a burden, a duty to fulfil without protest or letting on but never willingly sought out. She always returned to her silent cottage with a quiet sense of relief, going about her simple life in peace. But this was no longer true. There was such joy to be found in Chloe’s presence, even in the small and silent moments. She could not quite grasp how it could be so.