Title: Liminality
Author: Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker
Summary: In which Mokuba and Amane meet in limbo. "I think we can both watch out for each other."
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
Notes: This is simply a cute (that's relative) idea that I have been playing with for the better part of a year now, trying to figure out which characters suited it best. It's Amanecentric, and I doubted she'd ever come up in the Contest, so here ya go. Also, for the purposes of this story, time runs differently in limbo (Purgatory? Who knows?) than in the real world.
~Liminality~
He saw her, walking in the opposite direction. Funny that he even saw her at all, because of all the misty fog, swirling around the pathway bright as snow made it difficult. But Mokuba was a very observant person, and he was especially observant now, because he was afraid.
He was afraid for a myriad of reasons. First, was that he didn't know where his brother was. Second was that he didn't know where he was. Third was the newcomer, creeping slowly towards him like a dark smudge or shadow against their blinding backdrop. He had been told that even if he was afraid to never show it, and he had his fair share of experiences to practice it recently. He told himself it was necessary, but what a skill to have.
"Who are you?" he shouted out. The figure froze, and then stumbled, falling flat on the smooth cobbled stones which made up their pathway. For a minute manners overshadowed his fear, and Mokuba ran forward to where she had fallen.
She was about his age, and excepting the dark coat she wore she would probably blend right in to the fog. She was pale and shivering, and when she saw Mokuba she burst into tears. "Please don't hurt me." Even her voice was fragile.
Mokuba folded his legs underneath him as he sat on the pathway and waited for her to stop crying because he didn't quite know what else to do. "I won't hurt you. I'm Mokuba. What's your name?"
She looked surprised for a minute, and then smiled; a sad quirk of the lips that looked like she was out of practice at it. "Amane."
They each had been walking in separate directions, and each knew somehow that they were meant to only go forward, not look back, and so they met in the middle.
.
.
"What do you remember?" Mokuba urged. He had his own ideas about this place, but she seemed to like to talk, once she got warmed up.
"I—"
Red lights flashed behind fuzzy eyelids. All around it smelled like burnt rubber, or something, and from far off there was the whine of a siren in the night. Amane had the distinct feeling that she was upside down. Then—
"Do you think people go somewhere when they die?" Amane's voice was so quiet he almost didn't catch it.
"Yes." Mokuba's reply was quick and confident. He'd never told anyone, but he thought there had to be, and it was a place where families were brought back together.
Slowly and more quiet still: "Do you think we're dead?" She looked terrified, as if voicing her concerns, naming them, would prove them to be true.
"I don't know."
Mokuba remembered something different. He remembered a castle on an island, and a tournament, and a dark, windowless cell. He had tried to be especially brave then, but he couldn't do anything at all, except stare at the golden eye that had winked at him and put him to
"You could be dreaming." He hoped he was. He didn't think Seto would be able to come here, not for all the Duel Monsters cards in the universe.
"Then we're having the same dream," she said, and playfully reached out and pinched his arm through the sleeve of his polo shirt.
"Ow!" He rolled away from her but she was laughing, and he supposed that counted for something. They had each forgotten about why they were there, and where they were going, and where they were coming from, if for only a minute.
When the laughter stilled he knew she was remembering it again, like flashes of lightening or waves lapping at a coast.
Amane tried to move her feet but she couldn't, there was nothing to move. She couldn't feel anything and she wondered if there was anyone around to hear her scream. She couldn't quite see if her mother, strapped in to the driver's seat, was alright, but she couldn't hear her breathing (hers started to increase, perhaps she could compensate) and all of the air bags had deployed, filing the car with a chalky white smoke that looked like snow…
"Calm down, Amane. You're alright now. You're ok." Mokuba had her face pressed into his polo shirt and for that she was grateful, she didn't want to look at the fog anymore. Her breathing was coming out in ragged pants, and she pulled away, not wanting to get her tears on his shirt. She looked down at her feet, and then experimentally wiggled one. She was whole, and healthy, and there wasn't any pain at all.
"Are you my guardian angel?" It just sort of slipped out, but she was already looking at Mokuba in awe.
"What?! I mean, why do you think that?" Mokuba knew that he couldn't protect anyone. He had tried, even as far as coming to the island to take Yugi's star chips, but not for himself, but for his brother… he couldn't even protect the person that mattered most to him. That was how he had gotten here in the first place.
She shook both feet now, feeling an incredible amount of sadness that felt like weights on every pore of her body. Her parents, Ryou… would she ever see them again? "I… I think I might be dead."
She was so pale, she could have been a ghost, but ghosts were mean or vengeful, not –nothing– like Amane.
"But I'm not sure you are. So you can't be my guardian angel anyways."
She couldn't explain it, but when she looked at Mokuba she saw someone alive, who held all the promise of the world in one of his hands and could share it with everyone with the other. Even now, his cheeks were red and he was dressed with such vibrancy—she knew he was supposed to go back. It was selfish of her to keep him away for much longer, as much as she wanted or needed him.
Amane looked both contemplative and completely serious, and as much as he didn't want to, he found himself believing her. Wherever they were, this—this in-between place, it had brought them together for a reason. "I guess I'll have to be your angel, then."
"I think we can both watch out for each other," Mokuba said, reaching to take off the knit hat he wore and was rather proud of. He tossed it to her, and she stared at it blankly. "It's a hat."
"I know that," she frowned at him, once more a child.
"You looked kind of cold. This will help keep your head warm." She pulled the hat snugly over her white-blond hair, tugging each side down until it reached just barely above her eyebrows.
"Thanks." They helped each other stand up, and once more stood facing each other on the road. One was going back, and one was heading on. Amane stepped aside, waiting for Mokuba to pass first. He had people waiting for him, and he'd already taken the long way home.
"I'll see you around then?"
"Yeah."
Neither one looked back as they continued on the path, the sounds of their footfalls gradually receding into the expanse of fog. Amane wasn't afraid of the blank expanse anymore, for whenever her eyes rose towards the horizon, she also caught a glimpse of a colorful knit hat with an appliquéd 'M' in its center.
.
.
Amane tried to tilt her head to see if anyone was coming to their rescue when a sharp pain fired through her head, causing her vision to falter even further. She whispered something so faint that not even she could hear it, and then blinked once, twice, then closed her eyes. In her mind, she fumbled for the strap securing her to the seat, eventually pushing the red button that allowed her to tumble onto the chair. She found herself able to move, somehow, and wrenched the door open. She didn't concentrate on the car at all, mostly because she didn't want to, and really, everything seemed to be brightening anyway, to an almost blinding white. She raised one hand above her eyes in an attempt to see better, and found the road that the car might have careened off of. Without even thinking about it she skimmed her feet on the round cobbled stones that formed the pathway, and step by step, Amane walked into the light.
~The End~
Footnotes:
1. Liminality has been described to me once as the 'betwixt and between' or a transitory, ephemeral state of being. So, it sums up the idea of their meeting between life and death.
2. Written to and inspired partly by Philip Glass' Violin Concerto #1, Movement 2. It's a beautiful piece, and very moving. I've been on a huge Philip Glass run recently—he is a masterful composer.
3. Inspired also by some parts of the film 'Waking Life.' One of the concepts of that film was that once one dies, the brain is still alive for about 15 minutes after death, and in a roundabout way it gets around to saying that our entire lives could be those 15 minutes and we wouldn't even know it.
4. Setting is, of course, Amane's death but for Mokuba it is Duelist Kingdom, when he gets sent to the Shadow Realm. This is his journey back.
5. Yes, there are commas everywhere, I get it. Everything has a purpose, so just think: how would a younger Mokuba think? Fanfiction in general has a bad rap on Mokuba, and I wanted to show how mature he is around someone closer to his own age—notice that he did not consume candy at all during this story. It is often fun (and a challenge) to write in the voice of someone very young, and I apologize if he (or Amane) seem too self-aware… they are bright kids, though. And I also realize I broke the cardinal rule of storytelling, 'no, two characters can not just have a conversation and you can call it a story,' but this was also an exercise for me in both showing and telling, and that's important for a story too, or something.
6. Don't forget to review! All feedback is treasured and appreciated. I'm trying to be more effectively minimalist in my writings, so tell me if that's working. Thank you for reading.