#pendlxton

It must be Jojo, she thought. The fondest memories of her childhood came to her immediately - a fleeting romance between twelve year olds, marked by a nervous attempt at holding hands and playing together at the carnival and sharing grapes under a setting sun. Could it be, she wondered, and, would he remember her?

When she stepped into the Joestar’s room, it was not Jojo who lay there wrapped in bandages, ribs and collarbone and leg broken from a mysterious ordeal in his home that no one wished to talk about. The single most unpleasant moment of her childhood returned to her at the sight of the golden haired man who had stolen her first kiss. She could feel again the sting of his slap, the feel of mud in her hands, the disgust and shame she’d felt all at once.

But he had been a little boy then. And she a little girl.  They were adults now. Surely he had changed too over the years. Surely Dio was not the same. Surely…

And Jojo? Only one Joestar had been admitted into the hospital that night. Where was Jojo or his father? Surely, despite the pain Dio had wrought upon them, Jojo would not let him be injured this badly.

Erina tended to Dio that night. She hoped he would wake, so she could interrogate him about his brother. She hoped that the door would open and Jojo would walk in, questions and an explanation on his lips. She hoped, until the sun rose and cast the room in golden light, turning Dio’s hair into living flame when he finally stirred and woke with a fearful yell.

His cry startled her. She was at his side immediately, expression stern as she watched him cast his gaze around and take in his surroundings. Then those eyes which were still the same after all this time, like they could pierce through any defense, settled upon her.

“Nurse,” he said, “Where are my clothes? Change my bandages and send me on my way. I have business to attend to.”

“Your leg will not set right if you do not stay in that bed,” she told him. “Besides, what business could there be that Jojo could not do for you?”

He had been trying to pull himself off the bed when she spoke. Now he froze, and slowly, almost comically, turned his head to face her. She saw the anger, then confusion, and finally, recognition cross his face one after another. She saw him smooth his expression over into the same mask of calm interest she had seen many men wear before.

“Why…could it be?” His much kinder tone nearly made her shudder. “Are you not the Erina Pendleton from my childhood?”

His childhood, he said, when it was Jojo whom she’d spent hers with, and he who had driven them apart.

“Yes,” she said and he smiled in a way that was far too pleasant, and then laid back down upon the bed.

He requested her assignment to him for the rest of his stay, and what followed was not what she would call a romance. She wanted only to hear of Jonathan’s fate, while Dio seemed to delight in dangling the information before her in exchange for her continued aid and silence.

Silence, for there were various men who would come to visit him and speak to him at length. Policemen first, then lawyers, and more she suspected who had danger following their steps. Not once did Jonathan Joestar darken his door, and her attempts to find out more about him outside the hospital simply went in vain.

Finally, when his bones were all healed, when he could stand and walk once more, he strode to her as she was putting away the last of his bandages, and caught her by the hand.

“I have one last request for you, woman,” he said. When he said nothing further, she sighed and turned to face him.

“What is it, Dio?”

A smile spread on his face, one that made her shiver. It held none of the smugness or blatant desire to see her suffer that she had become used to. It was a kind, pleasant smile that she almost wanted to like.

“Erina,” he said, “You have endured everything I have thrown at you for the past month, and not once did you become unkind to me. Very soon I will be taking the mantle of lord of the Joestar estate. It will be a lonely affair and I would only want to share my fortune with a woman both strong and beautiful. So, my dear Erina…I would most like for you to marry me.”

She moved without thinking, the palm of her free hand meeting his cheek with a resounding smack. Silence reigned over them a moment later. He did not move as she lowered her arm, his eyes remaining closed. Fear took hold of her gut. Years ago, he’d struck her.

“No?” he said, finally moving, finally fixing his gaze on her again. “When this is my last request, and I have yet to tell you what has become of Jonathan?”

And Erina, who could not believe her ears that Dio would take not only her time in exchange for information that he simply would not give, but her life and future as well, imagined for a moment living her life without ever knowing what had become of Jonathan Joestar, and agreed to his request.

Lets talk about Erina Brando, wife of the new young Lord Joestar, who learned immediately after her wedding that Jonathan Joestar had been killed in the same incident that hospitalized her husband. Erina understood at once that Dio had made use of her lingering feelings for Jojo to keep her at his side and keep her silent about the things she’d heard in his room.

She vowed, even as she wept, that she would not let Dio use his inherited fortune to trample others beneath his heel.

Perhaps it was luck, or fate at work once more, that she met one Mr. Speedwagon, who had known Jonathan in his final moments, who swore to help her whatever way he could, who became her dearest friend in those times when Dio’s growing frustration turned toward her more and more.

Erina worked to reforge herself into steel, but Speedwagon would insist it was what she had always been. Unbending steel was a girl washing her lips with dirty water after a stolen kiss. It was a nurse who placed the lives of others over her own. It was a woman who gave her future to her tormentor for the sake of someone she had not seen in years.

Speedwagon sat himself in her parlor and shared tea with her, and together they turned each of Dio’s schemes back onto him. She handled money behind his back, and Speedwagon carried out plans and actions.

Dio had to know. He had to know about their meetings and whispers while he wasn’t looking. But he never raised a hand against her, not while she was carrying his son and not even after he was born.

And then, one day, almost two years into her marriage, Speedwagon stopped her before she could pick up her baby, and he told her, “I’m going to find Jonathan.”

“Robert, don’t joke about that.” She fixed him with a stern glare, unsure how else to respond.

“No! I’d never…” He looked down at George, cooing at his uncle from his crib, before continuing. “I’m sorry. I’ve lied to you, as has Dio. Mr. Joestar is out there, Erina.”

She felt as if he had just strangled her. “Why?”

“Because,” said Dio from the door, and he shared a knowing look with Speedwagon before continuing, “Jojo is no longer human.”

Let’s talk about Erina Brando, mother of George Joestar II, for whom she had to fight her husband so she might name him after a man she had never met but dearly respected. This was Erina as the Lady Joestar, who never let her son want for anything as long as he lived, who loved him despite the hate she nurtured for his father.

With the truth in her hands, she simply stopped talking to Dio and never let him touch her again. But for George’s sake, she reached for her husband’s hand and smiled for photographs, danced with him at parties and left him a peck on the cheek every morning. For George’s sake, she pretended to love his father the way she loved him.

Speedwagon returned eventually. George was just starting to be able to reach her waist when the former thug walked back into her life, hair cut short, back straight, and eyes dark. He had gone and traveled the world and he’d found oil in America, vampires in Europe, and mystics in Asia.

And a little girl. He carried with him a little orphan girl named Elizabeth, and behind her stood proud men from Tibet who wielded powers beyond hers and Dio’s imaginations. Erina set down George and told him to go play with Elizabeth, then invited Speedwagon and his friends into the parlor.

“The monsters are spreading their reach,” explained Speedwagon, “You must have heard of the incidents in Europe - we’ve been trying to stop them, but it’s difficult with so little resources, and they’ve begun to expand north. It’ll only be a matter of time before they move against us…”

“What is there we can do?” demanded Dio. “You’ve become wealthy yourself, Mr. Speedwagon. What can house Joestar do to help in fighting monsters we have nothing to do with?”

“Where do you think these monsters come from?” snapped the long haired man behind Speedwagon. Straizo, he would later introduce himself as. “Mr. Speedwagon told me about your youth, Dio Brando. Who do you think was the vampire who created more of his kind? Who do you think is leading them in this crusade against humanity?”

For the first time ever, it seemed that Erina and Dio shared the same thought and sentiment. As one, husband and wife said, “Jojo.”

And she thought immediately of the monsters coming, and George, who was presently playing with Elizabeth in the moonlit garden outside, becoming fearful of the night. George, a bubbly child who smiled like the sun, growing up knowing monsters who could not be killed existed around every corner. George, in constant danger, unable to rest for even a moment, until an inevitable death.

She looked to Dio, fear and desperation on her face, and was startled to find him mirroring her expression. He turned away from her immediately, moving to the fireplace, hand gripping the mantel. His knuckles immediately turned white, his entire body shook. Erina stepped toward him, considered her options, and placed a gentle hand on his arm.

“Erina,” he said, voice heavy. She could tell that he could not look her in the eyes, not with the knowledge weighing on them all that he was, ultimately, the one who had unleashed the monsters and doomed their son to a darkened future. “Get George, we have matters to discuss with our…our son. And prepare our things for travel - the Joestar estate will join this war.”

The weeks after this would become a blur, in time. Erina joined Dio and a handful of volunteers from their estate on the frontline, bringing with them a good amount of money to aid the cause. He shed the title of Lord and became a soldier, she threw herself back into medical work. Everyday there were less and less injured, and more dead, and even more who never returned but appeared as monsters on the battlefield. Dio, she would only see in the evenings, when they retired to their private room or tent or whatever small measure of luxury Speedwagon was able to grant them.

She spent most of her nights thinking about George and Elizabeth, living in the Joestar mansion with only Straizo for company. The mystic had insisted on staying behind to teach the children his art. For future use, he had insisted, just in case. She had not been able to argue with him, but surely, George would not need this Ripple one day. Not when they were fighting here, on the Swiss front. Surely they could win, surely this war would end soon…

Let’s talk about Erina, a woman whose fate was always so closely entwined with those of the men in her life.

Erina Joestar was the woman Jonathan Joestar gave his life to save. She buried her husband and son and drew steel from within herself to raise a grandson who would come to see her as his entire world.

Erina Brando did not have such a husband. She had one who lied and cheated to get his way, who fought vampires not with the Ripple but with technology and the lives of other men. Erina grew older and older tending to the hurt, and watched as Dio, too, grayed and stooped lower and lower. He could fight less. He was not as angry with her. He never said sorry for everything he did to her.

This was an Erina who drew steel out of herself to survive, one who watched as the world grew darker and darker. There were too few capable of the Ripple, much less even knew about it, and not even ten men could kill a single vampire.

Erina had hoped the war would end, but soon the little boy George and the little girl Elizabeth quickly became a man and a woman, and then they, too, joined the fight.

Let’s talk about Erina, hands shaking from years of handling medicine, sitting on the porch of what had once been the Joestar mansion. Around her, young men and women like her son and his wife hurried about. These were people who had spent their youths hiding in the shadows, who avoided open spaces at night, who dared not love anyone for fear of seeing them turned. These were people who fought for a life they no longer knew, who readied themselves for the coming battle that night, knowing that many of them would die protecting one of the few remaining strongholds humanity held.

None of them were ready enough, when it was not vampires who broke through the wall, but a feathered man who offered eternal life and youth to everyone present. He identified himself as the creator of the stone mask.

Silence fell upon the yard, and no one dared to move. With a sigh, Erina stood, and turned to Speedwagon, scarred face just visible through the barely open door of the mansion, and told him, “Robert, I entrust my husband and grandson to you. Flee with them, now.”

“Erina?” he said, blinking at her. “What are you doing?”

“Giving that fool a piece of my mind,” she said, following her words with a stern look. Speedwagon swallowed, wished her good luck, and disappeared, the door shutting behind him.

She bundled up her skirts and strode across the yard quite casually, as if it were a sunny spring day and she was about to see George off to school. She saw the feathered man following her with his gaze, saw him smirk upon assessing her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the frozen warriors starting to move, starting to panic at the sight of her approaching him.

“Old woman,” he said, smirk growing. Mockingly, he flourished a wing and bowed, red eyes reminding her of Dio’s when he’d asked for her hand. “Do you wish to be young again, like these children around you? I can give you that. You need only don this mask.”

“I know of the mask,” said Erina, standing as tall as she could. “It was used on a man I loved. I thought him dead, but years later your vampires came. We received news that he caused this war, but I held hope that it was not him at their head.”

“Why, I believe I know this vampire you speak of.” He laughed, and leaned forward so they were eye level. “He is the one who made this possible. He is the one who gave me and my brethren what makes us gods.”

She smiled at him, looking up at his sculpted features, at the purple curls and black robes, and then she raised her hand and slapped him across the cheek.