[Author’s Note: We've returned to right after Daryl and Sree's unsuccessful night search in episodes 41.]
Despite his outward indifference, Daryl actually was quite upset about Sree’s shredded outfit. How had she even managed to do that? They hadn’t run into anyone. He had gone to no small trouble getting the thing custom-made for her. He’d only brought a limited supply, and she seemed intent on destroying them with abandon. It would serve her right if she ended up in some shapeless peasant smock. He doubted even she could make that look good.
Daryl laughed at himself for entertaining such domestic concerns. It was nice in a way, and he couldn’t remain annoyed. In fact, his mood quickly took a turn for the better. By the time they reached the entrance to their apartment building, he felt a profound sense of relief. He really did not want to find Rin. Or at least he did not want Sree to. This was nothing new, of course. What was new was his realization why.
He liked Sree. And not just because she was sexy and kind and quite indestructible. Daryl had come to like her, rather than just what he imagined her to be. His time with her was very different from his time with Rin, but he did not want it to end. For the first time since Rin had abandoned him, he was happy.
Maybe he simply was the unfortunate type of guy who grew attached, but he suspected it was more than this. He only had lived with three women, and two of them were immortal. He hoped that at least this one would end well, even if it wasn’t romantic. Or did he still hope for more? Daryl could not decipher his own feelings, let alone share them with Sree. If she was aware of them, she did not show it.
When they first had met, Daryl was enamored with the idea of Sree rather than the woman herself — though the woman left nothing wanting either. There certainly was physical attraction, and this had tormented him daily during their journey together. He had resolved to view her platonically once she refused him, but Sree was not a woman meant to be viewed platonically. It took all his strength to suppress his desire. Had he been keenly observant, Daryl would have realized it took all of hers as well.
The thing about Sree was that she represented something to him, a purity of spirit. She possessed a certain vivacity which had weathered the millennia, and it was this which he admired more than anything. Rin was cynical and cruel and the precise opposite. Daryl often wondered whether they had been born the same and tempered differently by the years. Had Rin’s mission made her what she was? It was hard to imagine that undertaking the genocide of her own people wouldn’t warp her. Or maybe it was the other way around, and only a warped person could pursue such a goal. Daryl didn’t buy that some mysterious gods were behind it. He was pretty sure the mission came from Rin and Rin alone.
But Daryl also recognized the limits of his understanding. Sree just happened to be the second immortal with whom he had spent time. Most humans never experienced life with one, let alone two, such beings. His few encounters with other immortals had been brief and not of a nature which cultivated familiarity. For all he knew, Rin and Sree could be unique among immortals or they could be just like all the rest. If every immortal was different, perhaps he should not have helped Rin extinguish them. What if each was the anthropomorphized crystallization of an ideal, like a god of some old pantheon? Wouldn’t the world irrevocably lose some facet of itself each time one was destroyed? And even if they weren’t gods, there could be much to learn from people who had existed for so long.
Daryl recalled Rin’s words, flung at him in response to some impertinent question early on. “It would be understandable for a man who met the most mundane of divine beings to confound her with the grandest, such is the gulf between mortality and immortality. Nor is that gulf purely physical. How could one crafted by a few decades begin to understand a person on whom the world has operated for millennia, forged and formed and crippled and defiled and warped in incomprehensible ways.” It had sounded pompous and irrelevant at the time but now felt surprisingly relevant. Yet something told him Sree really was special. If nothing else, she was special to him.
“You’re in a good mood,” she remarked.
Daryl smiled back. “We’re almost there. I can feel it.”
He had tried to sound as upbeat as possible but doubted he could fool Sree. Though she said nothing, a quiet look from her made clear he had not.
She had said little the whole way back, and Daryl wondered whether something was amiss. Was she upset about the tattered clothes or just apprehensive about Rin? Maybe she was sad their time together was coming to an end. Was it, though? There was no reason that finding Rin meant he had to be with Rin. Daryl immediately sensed the absurdity of this thought. Of course he had to be with Rin. If he could. But what made him think Rin would want to be with him? For that matter, what made him think she wouldn’t just kill him?
None of this mattered at the moment. What did matter was that they had not encountered her. This gave Daryl the opportunity he had hoped for. Later than night, he would sneak out and return to the junkyard.
He was optimistic he could save Sree, though not through strength or cleverness or knowledge of some secret weakness Rin had. Daryl’s hope was that Sree was right about Rin loving him. If so, maybe he could persuade her. Perhaps she would spare Sree for his sake.
For there to be any chance of that, he needed to speak with Rin before it was too late. She would take some convincing, and he wasn’t good with words — especially in English. He had been practicing the whole time in anticipation of this moment and hoped he had come far enough. Sree thought they were on a mission to find Rin, but his real mission was to develop the verbal facility to persuade her. He had come a long way by studying Sree’s speech.
Daryl had a pretty good idea how Sree would react if alerted to his plan. She would tell him how sweet he was, inwardly smiling at his naivete. Maybe she would be right, but he had to try. Otherwise, what sort of man would he be?
If he knew Rin, she would be waiting at the junkyard. She probably had been watching them since they arrived in town. Of course, the hard part would be convincing her. If she proved implacable, perhaps he could trade his own life for Sree’s. He doubted this would work, though. “A mortal life is worthless, especially one already forfeit,” is what Rin probably would snort as she contemptuously rejected the offer. But she would see he was serious and perhaps relent anyway.
Daryl gave it fifty-fifty odds he could save Sree. His odds for himself were much lower. Sree was no threat, and Rin always could seek her out later. But Daryl was a different story. He had been inside Rin. It was doubtful she could look past that, even for the brief span of a human life.
It was clear to Daryl that, for some reason, Rin did not wish to kill Sree. Why else would she avoid her? As baffling as this sounded, it was the only explanation which made sense. And Sree had all but confirmed it.
That was why he entertained some hope of convincing Rin. Maybe he just had to give her the excuse she needed. But the opposite could be true as well. If she already had overcome her reluctance and was determined to destroy Sree, it was doubtful Daryl could conjure any argument that she had not already considered. This was why he gave it fifty-fifty odds.
Daryl secretly hoped that Rin wouldn’t be there. Despite all his preparation, he didn’t want the moment of truth to arrive. If she wasn’t there, it would mean more time with Sree. After scouring all their assumptions and analyses for errors, they most likely would find themselves back at square one.
The prospect of failing Rin’s test did not concern Daryl. Meeting her ultimatum wasn’t the reason he was playing her game. Moreover, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of living the rest of his life in fear. Rin already knew whether she was going to kill him. If so, winning the game would accomplish nothing. Either it was rigged to begin with, or she would continue testing him until he provided a sufficient excuse. Why she needed one was unclear, but that much was obvious. It just was how she operated. Rin would do what Rin had decided, and it was out of his hands. It was Sree who concerned him.
Oooh, the suspense is building...