Written for the 'suppose mello and matt and everybody are cavemen in the prehistoric era?' prompt over at dnffrequest on tumblr.
That's basically the only excuse I have for this. That, and it was a 5AM impulsive sorta thing. Unbeta'd and all that.
The scent of the forest was quite literally a breath of fresh air from the stench of death that permeated every atom in his own realm. Ryuk drew in a deep breath, his already excellent mood only improving.
This was the best idea he'd had in ages. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it sooner: visit the human world, give one of them a note, and bask in the inevitable entertainment that would result.
He laughed hollowly at his own genius. A few flaps of his enormous wings, and he left the trees behind him. There was a small river to his right which he decided to follow; humans would naturally gravitate towards flowing water, he knew. It took him barely fifteen minutes of scanning the horizon before he could see a small mountain rise up in the distance, and at the foot of it... was the undeniable scurrying of life. His face split into an unnatural expression that could probably have been called a smile on any other creature. His grin only widened as he got closer to the lifeforms, almost giddy with anticipation.
Ryuk beat his wings and hovered above the small clan, carefully observing the humans.
A few feet in front of the mountain's natural cave a fire had been built, in front of which was huddled a particularly thin specimen, his ribs clearly visible beneath his pale skin, which stood out all the more against his bright red hair. At his feet was a pile of both crushed and whole leaves, which he meticulously rolled up, before cautiously lighting it with the flames in front of him. An almost sheepish smile came to his face as he inhaled the resulting smoke.
Ryuk blinked at the odd ritual. The human seemed rather out of it. Better not to use him, then. A clear-headed one would be better.
On the other side of the plant-man was another, more muscular one, the skin of what had to be a leopard or somesuch animal wrapped around him in a way that could almost be called fashionable. He was gesticulating and grunting intently to the small child hunched before him, seemingly in an attempt to make some sort of point. Perhaps he was its parent?
The child seemed unresponsive to the apparent rebuke, one hand twirling a lock of his white hair around his fingers, the other busying itself stacking small pebbles on top of eachother. Only occasionally did he grunt something short in response, which served only to further inflame the blond's obvious irritation.
Not them either, then. Far too preoccupied to be of any interest.
Ryuk landed with an earth-shattering noise that none of them heard, and huddled towards the cave. His wings twitched curiously as he peeked inside, observing the sole human not currently in the precious daylight.
His dark, wild hair obscured most of his face as he sat crouched, facing one of the cave's walls, a sharp rock in his hand and a look of utmost concentration on his face. Every few moments, he would narrow his eyes, and use the rock to add a sharp line to the crisscross of symbols he had made on the wall.
The shinigami tilted his head at the undecipherable mess, wondering what it was supposed to be.
There was an intelligence in the human's eyes that he liked. The lines he was scratching were far from random: each one was drawn with intent, a clear purpose for them in the man's mind. Was it a primitive attempt at some form of writing, perhaps? Despite himself, Ryuk felt intrigued at this development, his eyes tracing the human's movements.
Then, another line was scratched, and all at once, the picture clicked together. The human gave a pleased grunt, and Ryuk's eyes widened in realization.
He flew back out into the daylight and left the human to the engraving of his strawberry shortcake.
This wasn't going as smoothly as he'd anticipated, he thought as he hovered over the clan once more. There was a small group clustered around furs and stones and sticks, seemingly busying themselves with fashioning cloth and weaponry of sorts.
Every single one of them had dark hair–it was clearly a dominant gene in the tribe. Perhaps that was what the white-haired human was being scolded for, he pondered as he glanced the child's way; but for the ferocity with which the leopard-skin human was gesticulating and the scattered remains of the pebble-tower at the child's feet, the scene was identical to the one he'd seen before. The plant-man occasionally glanced their way, but seemed otherwise unconcerned.
Ryuk let his eyes wander over the humans; scraping away at fur, sharpening rocks. None of them gave off any hint of what he required for his human.
Growing moody, he took off into the sky once more, heading back towards the edge of the river.
It was there he spotted another lone specimen. If it hadn't been for the fact that this was another human with lighter hair–an off sort of brown–he might not even have bothered to check him out.
Circling him inquisitively, he watched as the man stood waist-deep in the river, not moving a muscle for minutes on end. Then, so suddenly that even Ryuk was vaguely startled, the man ducked into the water, coming back up with a grin on his face and a large, heavily protesting fish in his hands.
The man waded back to the shore, and sat down on one of the larger, flat rocks that lined the bedding. He smacked the fish against it without the faintest trace of mercy, looking quite pleased with his catch. Its struggles quickly turning to twitching, before ceasing altogether.
Ryuk's grin had instantly returned.
This was the one, without a doubt. This was the human he was looking for.
He landed once more, his previous giddiness having made a full comeback. With his Death Note firmly grasped in his claws, Ryuk waddled up to the man, whose attention was focused solely on the prize in his lap.
He moved into the river to face him and touched the Note to the man's bare shoulder.
The man didn't scream, didn't startle, hardly even moved; the only sign that he had become aware of the shinigami at all was the look on his face. It was the look of a deer that had smelled a lion, of a creature that was faced with something it knew instinctively to be far greater than itself.
Ryuk attempted to make himself look as non-threatening as possible, but the fact that he was about three times the human's size made that difficult. He then tried to smile, instead, but the man's eyes only widened even further in fear.
Alright, so he hadn't exactly planned this part ahead.
Scratching his jaw with one long nail, he did the only thing he could think of.
The man's wide eyes followed the Note as it landed in front of him, sliding slowly down the slippery rock, towards the river. Whether it was because of pure curiosity or some other human instinct he couldn't name, the man snatched the Note before it could be submerged in the water, slowly pulling it towards himself.
Ryuk crouched so he was more or less on the same level as the human, whose head instantly snapped up to him again. The shinigami made an encouraging motion towards the note, shuffling backwards some in an attempt to make the human feel more at ease.
The man narrowed his eyes, but his calloused hands ran over the Note nonetheless. At first Ryuk thought the man was feeling out the unfamiliar material, but after several moments of the human pawing away at the front page, he realized the man must simply not be used to using his fingers for so precise a motion as turning a page.
Just when he was ready to grab the Note back and open it himself, the man finally seemed to grasp the concept, and carefully dragged the dark cover to the side, revealing the deadly pages within. He looked blankly at them.
"You can write people's names in it," Ryuk said, the sudden booming of his voice startling the human several feet backwards. Suspicious eyes were on him again. The man cradled the Note to his chest, his previous catch lying entirely forgotten next to him.
"They die," he tried hopefully, making a slashing motion across his throat.
That seemed to get the human's attention. He tilted his head at Ryuk, lips moving slowly. "Die?"
It sounded more like an attempt at mimicking the sound than a repetition of the actual word, but at least it looked like he'd gotten the concept across. Ryuk nodded vigorously. "You write," he said, making scratching motions with his claws on invisible paper, "their names," he pointed in the direction of the tribe not far behind them, "and they die." He slashed across his throat.
The human stared at him.
Ryuk stared back.
When the human didn't seem any more inclined to move, he frowned. He considered repeating himself, but then the human did something that surprised him.
He watched carefully as the man's fingers went to the edge of a page, gripped it, and then, very slowly, started to pull.
It tore out with a soft rip.
Ryuk blinked. A bright smile lit up the man's face.
He repeated the action, seeming to find it amusing. Ryuk stood up in alarm as pages upon pages of his Death Note were ripped out and thrown away; several of them landed in the river, one of them touching a school of fish that scattered apart as they became aware of the shinigami standing amongst them.
"That's not– You aren't–" he tried, hovering around the man, but the human was unstoppable, 'Die!' being shouted out amongst his bursts of laughter over and over again as he tore out page after page of Ryuk's precious Note.
"STOP!"
That finally seemed to get the human's attention. He stared up at Ryuk, eyes innocently wide even as his fingers were frozen mid-motion, gripping half of a torn out page. The shinigami snatched it out of his hands, and took out his pen.
The human followed his motions, blinking at him curiously. Ryuk squinted above the human's head, and did his very best to copy the illegible floating blob of red that was supposed to be the human's name, finally realizing the fatal flaw in his brilliant plan.
Fourty seconds later, he snatched up his Note, sulking at both the torn-out pages and the corpse before him. He huffed at it in contempt as he beat his wings and took off towards the sky.
Perhaps he'd try again in a few hundred-thousand years.