Title: Trauma
Author: Creepy Mae West Kozi
Rating: T
Disclaimer: No money is being made. Kuroshitsuji and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Agni is not elderly, or albino, and yet his hair is white. This is why. [Oneshot response to poll. Agni and Grell.]
It had happened when he was much younger than he was now, perhaps only four or five years of age. He had not yet met his god, and he had still been a spoilt member of the upper caste, cruel despite his age.
A famine had stricken the fiefdom his father managed and he had accompanied the stern noble on his excursions to gather the peoples crops and livestock to stock their own opulent portions of food. People had lined the streets, dying of starvation. Flies nipped at loosened skin around the eyes and nose, bellies bloated and distended with hunger, bones showing clear impressions through the skin of their arms.
In hindsight, he was horrified, but back then he had been disgusted and afraid of the filth and squalor that had plagued those people.
His hair had been black that day. Rich and glossy like a panther's fur, shining in the sunlight like the finest of silk. He had been left with a group of slaves and guards while his father completed some errand when he had heard a strange noise.
A grinding noise had filtered through the alleys - loud, then soft, then load again. Curious he had commanded his minders to stay, allowing one of the more combat proficient guards to accompany him.
The scene they happened upon was as strange as it was horrifying. A man, or woman - he was not quite sure - was leaning over one of the dying peasants cackling. A strange metal tool revved in his hands as it was brought crashing down on the starving man's neck. Red splattered the alleyway, and the stranger cackled.
"Oh? Starvation and poverty seems to be a theme this year..." The man/woman stood revealing a tall build, long red hair and coat along with strange red eyes framed with red western-style glasses. Its teeth were pointed like a tigers when it smiled.
"...you can See me, can't you, human boy?"
Agni stared, frozen in fear and wonder as he realized that the one victim of this mad person had not been the first. The alley was strewn with corpses and splashed with red. Red that misted the air and dripped down the walls of buildings. The scent of blood choked him, and the servant had long since passed into shock and collapsed.
"Human boy...the cinematic records of these mortals hold your...father? ... and yourself responsible for their deaths. The hand of evil, the call you. How...interesting."
The thing smiled widely, displaying its shining inhuman teeth as its eyes glittered with blood lust.
"How about I give you something, hmm?"
And, frozen as he was, young Agni could not move in time for the strange weapon to crash down on his hand. He screamed in pain and flesh tore and tendons snapped and bones snapped and mashed together in a flash of agony that brightened his vision white hot.
"Hand of a god for you, human!"
The red creature cackled before vanishing in a burst of wind and shadow.
Agni looked at his hand, whole and unhurt. A strange sense of power filled his arm, as phantom pain ripped through his wrist. He wrapped the hand in cloth, kicked the guard out of his stupor and left the alleyway to return to where his father would later meet him.
His hair gleamed in the sun, white like the bright moon in the darkest sky. And when he looked at the near dead lying in the streets his vision clouded with the colour red, and he shivered though the air was warm.
