Title: Getting Used to It
Summary: The day her father wouldn't be walking through that door was nearing. And she really had to get herself used to it.
Pairing: None, but this is about Pitch when he was still The Great General *insert some theme song here*
Rate: T for a tiny bit of gore scene (just a bit though)
Disclaimer: I own nothin'~! But, well, if you insist, I'll gladly accept Jack and Bunny and Pitch to be my property. No? Okay. Still own nothing.
Pointless Rambling: Originally posted on rotgkink, and now I put this here because… yeah, I just wanted to. *slapped*
I know the title and the story are not so much fitting, but, hell yeah. And, I'm using 'Seraphina' as Mother Nature's name because I'm just not creative.
And… err… okay, this is a farewell gift because you won't be seeing be for a while (as in a week because I have exams, and damn, isn't that frustrating?).
So, if any of you review me or send me PM and I haven't replied yet, I'm sorry, it's because I'm not allowed to touch my laptop and/or turn on the connection to the internet. Yeah, that's sad. TTATT
Well, anyway, please enjoy this~! :D
"Mommy, Mommy! Sing me a lullaby!" the little girl squealed happily.
The brunette smiled and turned to her husband. "Why don't you come with us and sing her a lullaby and tuck her in? You won't be seeing her in a week."
He just laughed. "I thought we agreed on you singing to her and tucking her in?"
The little girl pouted. "Mommy and Daddy are meanie…" she mumbled.
The man in armor laughed. Then he scooped her into his arms and kissed her forehead. "Alright, alright. I'll tuck you in, but not the lullaby."
The girl laughed and kissed his cheek and his wife walked beside him hand in hand.
For the moment, he felt like the happiest man alive.
"Daddy, what's wrong with Mommy? Why isn't she moving?"
Kozmotis Pitchiner opened and closed his mouth several times, but finding none of words was made. It was a hard thing trying not to cry, and even a harder thing to explain what 'dead' meant to a four years old girl without his voice trembling.
"Mommy… well, Mommy is… very tired. So she is sleeping," he said while hugging his daughter close.
"When will she wake up? I want to hear her lullaby."
His heart was beating so hard it felt like exploding at the sentence. "No… she will never wake up. She will be sleeping like this for eternity."
"Why? She didn't love me anymore? She doesn't want to see me?"
"It's not that, sweetheart. She's just…" his voice died as the tears finally broke. He covered his eyes with one hand while the other one was still holding the clueless little girl close.
"Daddy? Why are you crying?"
He came back very late at night and he figured his daughter would be sleeping. But instead, he found her staring at the vast dark skies adorned with sparkling stars by the window above her bed. "Daddy, welcome home," she said with a smile.
The Great General smiled back and walked closer to the bed. "You haven't slept yet, I see."
"Mh-hmm. I couldn't sleep somehow," the now-eight-years old girl said.
"Do you want me to sing you lullaby?"
The girl almost shook her head, but deciding that she really missed her father. She nodded and got under the warm, fluffy blanket.
General Pitchiner sat by the edge of the bed. "When the sun goes down and goes up the night," he started, but then didn't continue because he forgot the lyrics.
"You'd better close your eyes real tight," the girl added. "The stars falling into your room will sing," she sang again, laughing at his father's face as he tried to remember the rest of the words.
"And by then, you… won't even hear thing?" the man tried with confused face.
"No, Daddy, you got it very wrong," she laughed again. "And by then, you see what dream may bring," she finished with a big smile on her face.
"Right," he muttered.
"Goodnight, Daddy."
"Goodnight, Seraphina," he proceed to walk out from the room when the girl's soft voice called him. "Yes, dear?"
"You didn't say 'goodnight' to my friends," she muttered with a cute little pout, pointing to her stack of animal army.
"Alrigh, uhm… goodnight, Sally," he said to a giraffe plushie, "and, goodnight, Starry," to a starfish one, "goodnight, Lily," to the white cat, "and… uh, I don't remember their names, but, goodnight anyway," he admitted while patting the heads of the rest ten animal plushies.
"It's alright. I'm sure Filly, Hel, Fenrir, Selly, Ilsa, Laylah, Nelly, Vic, Lino, and Sies wouldn't mind. Thank you, Daddy."
He nodded and kissed her head.
"Oh, I think he would mind, though," she said, pointing to a white horse plushie on the corner of the bed. She whispered to him, "His name is Kozzy the General, and you'd better remember that or he will be mad at you."
"Alright, Kozzy, goodnight to you," he said, and this time really going out from the room.
Little Seraphina smiled and nuzzled her white horse doll. "I think you and Daddy will be very good friends because you shared the same name and rank," she drowsily mumbled before falling asleep.
She was ten, and she wasn't naïve. She knew her father was The Golden General, the hero, The Bringer of Golden Age, and he was a very busy man, and that, of course, was always the reason why he didn't have much time with her. So she never threw a tantrum whenever her father said he couldn't do this and that and that he had to go for some days. Also, she now knew what 'dead' meant, she knew why her father had been crying the day her mother 'fell asleep for eternity', and she even knew and understood about things that girls and boys around her age had yet to understand.
And if people would still say she was just a child and that she shouldn't really think too much about the darker side of the world because knowing the things mentioned above wasn't really going to help her become mature, she could always say there was one thing that she knew she knew for sure. She knew that, someday, her father wouldn't be walking through that door anymore.
And when that time came, she would try her best not to cry.
So she was always hesitant to ask her father for a lullaby until one day she stopped asking altogether. It was easier to get used to not having her father around to sing her a lullaby he couldn't remember the words, to bid her, and her animal plushies names he couldn't remember, goodnight, to tell her stories which weren't her favorite because he just didn't know what story was, and to get used to the empty house whenever she came back from somewhere than to spend as much as possible time together before the wasn't any left.
But no matter what she did, the man would just came into her room whether she asked for him or not, face tired and all, and he would try his best to sing her the lullaby even though he could only make it to the second line so far, he would bid her and her animal army goodnight, and he would kiss her forehead and say that he loved her.
And she didn't know why, but it felt better than getting used to the absence of the man.
"Come here…"
"Yessss, open the gate…"
He tried his best to ignore the maddening hiss.
"When the sun goes down and goes up the night," he sang quietly, "You'd better close your eyes real tight."
"Closssse your eyesss… heeheeehyahahahahah!"
The laugh filled his ears, but he concentrated on remembering the next words of the song. "The stars…" he remembered until that part, but the rest was a blur in his head. Then he tried to list the dolls Seraphina always had he bid goodnight to. He could only make to six of them, but it was enough to distract him from the annoying voice coming from inside the cages.
That night too, he sang her only two lines of the lullaby.
"Seraphina, I'm going now," he said to his little girl—who wasn't all that little anymore now that she was eleven, but he likes to think that way—and kissed her forehead one more time before he put on his heavy armors and his cape.
"Goodbye, Daddy," she said as he walked away through the door.
He stopped for a bit, as if hesitating for a moment, and he turned back to the house. The man pulled two lockets on his neck from behind the armors, and took off one with his wife's photo in it. "I want you to keep this safe for me," Kozmotis said while handing it over to the girl.
"Alright, Daddy."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"I will be back tomorrow night. I love you, Seraphina."
"I love you too."
Somehow, when he got up to his white horse, he got a feeling he soon wouldn't be seeing the locket and his daughter again, that he wouldn't be home again.
And for some reason, so did Seraphina.
(OAO)
"Daddy! Save me!
"Yessss, 'Daddy', sssave her…"
"Ooh… sssshe looksss preciousss…"
"Daddy!"
"We are going to devour her…"
"No!" he screamed while covering his ears.
"Daddy!"
"Seraphina… no, this is…"
"Please, Daddy! I'm scared!"
'The lullaby! Quick, remember! A line or two is fine!' his mind screamed.
"When the sun… goes down and… and goes up the night…"
"Daddy! Please!"
"You'd better…"
The piercing scream tore his heart. No, his daughter wasn't there and he wouldn't fall for it!
"It hurts!"
"Deliciousss… very deliciousss indeed…"
"Daddy! Don't you love me anymore?! It hurts!"
By then he turned to the cage and realized it was a fatally wrong thing to do. Inside was his daughter in her calm green dress now covered in red, she was missing her limbs—and he realized the pile of bloody mess near her was those missing parts, one of her eyes was gouged out, her skin was bleeding here and there, and the fearlings were slowly chewing her flesh.
"Please… save me…" the broken girl cried.
"Let usss have the keysss and we will let her go…"
"Please…?"
"Seraphina…"
"Save me…"
He fell to his knees, tears falling from his eyes. The hold his hand had on the keys was loosening, and was finally undone.
One dark tendril slithered and took the keys, opened the cage to its convenience, and the dark shadows inside rushed out, opening more cages and letting more shadows free. The rushing shadows looked like a black waterfall, but he paid no heed to that.
He only stared at the bleeding girl in front of him grinning with widely slit mouth. "And you believe I am your little girl? What kind of father are you to not being able to tell the differences?"
The other guards' screams went deaf to his ears.
He only sang the two lines of lullaby he could never remember with broken voice as the fearlings surrounded him and tore away his consciousness. It hurt, but he still tried to list down the names of the animal army Seraphina loved so much, ignoring the fact that he still couldn't remember more than seven of them and even more so with the fears eating at him. And he tried to remember the title of the fairy tales of his daughter's favorite, though he could only remember two of them. And he tried to remember the happy times they had together, and the days when his wife was still alive, and the moments when he was the happiest man alive.
He once again sang.
But he just couldn't remember any of it.
Oh, wrong. Of course he remembered. He remembered it to the last tune.
"The stars dying in your room will sing," he sang with a crooked smirk on his narrow face, "And by that time, you won't even feel a thing."
And the odd thing was that he couldn't remember for who he sang that song.
News came to the palace fast and spread to the cities and village rather faster.
She'd promised not to cry, but she fell to her knees and cried anyway. Seraphina had always known since a few years back that the day her father wouldn't be walking through that door anymore was nearing, she had had the feeling too.
She knew, yet, she couldn't help but to feel that she was still not prepared. She just never thought it would be this soon.
END
Ta dah~! I know I kinda exploited the term 'animal army', but hey, I don't have any regret. *is somehow proud*
Hope you like this~! :D
Love and exam,
Shirasaka Konoe