The Faraway Distance
0.
Prologue
Midair, stained-pink petals flickered back and forth, and he thought of light-winged butterflies that darted through dandelion meadows, settling on his skin like the soft pitter-patter of rainfall against a pane of glass. Beneath him, the thicket of hair was coal-black; a singular hue that ran from his scalp to his neck to Mugen's hilt like a babbling brook bathed in crow's feathers, pillowing his drowsy self from descending.
He observed, beneath half-lidded eyes, the brocaded half-moon that drifted over the lotus river. It dangled precariously like it desired to upset the balance of his mind.
Even at rest he was a keen huntsman, aware of his surroundings like he knew the back of his hand and the veins of his palm.
A stray petal fluttered onto his chest; were it something else, a being of muscular substance and vessels and tendons, he might have thought that it was being cautious (alas, such a creature it was not.) It came to rest upon the skin above his heart, where lines thick as braided rope and heavier than steel anchors lay across each other, sculpting the silhouette of the curse bound to his lifetime. He thought of the hourglass then, glass chiseled over the dainty form of a flower that withered in unusual patterns, and wondered in his drowsy state if he could bring himself to shatter it.
Perhaps then, the obligations (that person) that weighed down the scales in his heart would wane swift as the northern winds, taking with them scraps of glass and wilted petals.
Then he remembered; the holy ark where he was suspended between time and rubble from the room of snow. He had died once; would have liked to remain in death, in spite of everything, for dead men belonged in their deathbeds; his was white and wintry, awash in blood, a burial ground fit for a warrior. He wondered why he thought of Allen Walker then.
Death, he thought, should have been an intense experience, enough for him to think of by day and by night, but he only remembered it now.
As he did, the silver half-moon, woven in wind and the lake of lotuses, was detached, no longer dangling by fraying threads. He raised his arm, awaiting the pressure of the plummet to touch his calloused fingers, and when it arrived the petal lain against his heartbeat was gone, swift as the northern winds, gone with the scraps of glass and their edges that cut like knives (though not quite sharp like Mugen,he thought, strands of charcoal hair absently stirring like feathers). The obligations, however, stayed.
The half-moon was now something molten and still silver, slithering like chains and water-snakes from the parts of his wrists that jutted out down to his knees. He wondered why the weight of comprehension sunk deeper than the silvery matter, because though the molten moon was not half as light as it looked, it did not smother him the way remembrance did.
He awoke to three raps against the wooden door, rhythmic and evenly-paced in between. A passing look at the dim skies that lay beyond a pane of mosaic glass told him it was far from dawn. The shadows lengthened as he lifted and donned the coat strewn over the cracked bedposts.
With a fraying piece of ribbon, he gathered his hair back in a ponytail, stray strands drifting by his shoulders like loose silken threads. Walking across the room in steady footfalls, he glanced at the hourglass, gaze leaving as fleeting as it had arrived. The lotus petals lay gray and limp like dead wisps of ashes upon the hourglass base of carved gold.
He turned the doorknob. The coppery rust beneath his fingers felt coarse and cool, and he was greeted by a head of white hair. (Again, he was reminded of the snow-room in the Ark where he should have remained, the thousandth casualty of the thousand-year war.)
"Bean sprout," he said, voice not as sharp because it was still early and the walls were too thin to blot out every sound there was. He noted smugly that the boy remained somewhere below his eye level. "What are you doing here?"
Half of Allen's expression was of swallowing something sourer than a cocktail of citrus fruits; the other half was dozy—sleep that had not yet escaped his bloodshot eyes. "Komui's summoned us. He says it's an emergency. Just thought that I'd call you on my way to the office." He said, swatting Timcanpy away from his face. "Stop that, Timcanpy!" The golem continued to flit about in a haphazard manner, despite its master's insistent demands. Kanda was reminded of mosquitoes that thrived during sweltering Julys.
"Oh, and it's Allen. A-L-L-E-N!" the boy added, almost like an afterthought, wailing as Timcanpy gnawed on his ear. Kanda scoffed.
He shut the door with one hand and the shadows slithered away.
end prologue