DISCLAIMER: I don't own Weiss Kreuz or any of the characters. See, I
don't even know how to do that nifty little German B-like thingy that's
supposed to be on the end of "Wei-." I just kinda suck like that. Oh
well, on with the show. It's Farfie, so if he skeeves you, don't read.
FEEDBACK: Like all writers, sane or otherwise, it is what I live for.
ARCHIVE: Um. Should the unlikely event arise, sure, just kindly ask before you smack it up there with the proper credits, and let me know where it's off to.
Gargoyle
I saw a mouth jeering. A smile of melted iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child's dream of a mouth.
A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child's dream of an arm.
The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again. The mouth bled
melted iron, and laughed its laughter of nails rattling.
And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth laughed. The fist is pounding and pounding, the mouth is answering.
- Carl Sandburg
gargoyle/child
As he turned, his reflection in the mirror caught his eye. For a moment, he almost thought he saw a child standing there. He came to a halt, drawing up sharply, catching his breath as he found himself drawing close to the glass, so close that his breath fogged the smooth, cold surface. He studied himself carefully, searching closely for any difference, any sign of change.
He could find nothing.
He remembered the last time he had looked into a mirror like this. When he had stared, his eyes intent upon finding some flaw, some imperfection. Something. He had been looking at a boy's face, no more than eleven or twelve. The wide eyes had strained as they looked at smooth, perfect skin, flushed with youth; striking golden eyes that caught and held the light like yellow amber orbs. He had looked at the full, pouting lips of a child and the wiry body of so many boys his age. Just a boy. Just a child.
He had changed when he put his fist to the mirror.
So many years later, staring as he was now, he almost expected to see the broken pieces of glass, slivers of light flying out past his face and burying themselves in his skin. When he looked at his hand he thought, for the barest moment, that it should have been red and raw, flesh torn, ripped, and bleeding, dripping ruby drops and silver mirror shards onto the white marble floor of the church. Glittering confetti, piling round his feet, mercury and crimson chiming as each little piece of pain hit the floor. The hand had risen over and over, again and again, flying through the air to strike the glass, pounding his reflection into shattered nothing until the boy was gone and all that could be seen was a fractured monster. Flecks of bright red struck the boy's face as the crunch of bones on glass, the exclamation of sound, the million tiny little screams of tortured metal and molten sand, all joined together to create a noise great enough to echo endlessly throughout the halls of a church. The sound continued steadily until he had begun to tire; with time, the repetitive action of his raised arm sent lactic acid burning through his muscles and wrapped a fist around his heart. He found himself gasping for air, his desperate breathing screaming in his ears. Something caught in his throat that could have been a sob or could have been an aborted scream. The world spun and jolted nauseatingly and he was sure he was going to be sick. He'd felt himself falling. He'd closed his eyes and leaned his head against the broken mirror frame, gripping the edges to keep himself from sliding to the floor. He had been so tired. So tired. Pale eyelids stained with specks of liquid crimson had begun to sink down over burning eyes. The boy's thin chest had risen and fallen frantically as if trying to contain something within the flesh, beneath the bone. The tips of his fingers caught on the edges of the splintered mirror frame and drew thin lines of blood as he slid down, almost on his knees on the ground. He was so tired. Sleep would make things better. Sleep would bring dreams and heal the tattered wounded world. He closed his eyes.
And then he'd felt the warmth.
Hot liquid warmth, sliding down his face, making his head come up and straightening his exhausted body. The, before, unfocused thoughts that had raced and scrambled through his head seemed to crystallize, pricking his mind with their suddenly clear meaning. In the remains of the broken mirror, the features of his dying reflection had drawn themselves into something feral, something hateful that suddenly redoubled his efforts, rage coloring his vision red and singing through his blood, new power flowing up his arm. It had happened when he had felt the prick in his eye, like tears.
Crying.
Crying like a child. Never mind that a child was exactly what he was; being a child had not kept him safe from pain, it had not kept his sister safe, and crying a child's tears would only make him weaker than he already was.
It was not until much later that he discovered that the reason he had only felt the tears start in one eye. It was because it had been that eye that had wept itself warmly down his face, pierced by a razor's edge of light and bleeding itself onto the floor with the rest of the debris left over from his child's rage, his child's tantrum. It had taken the place of the tears that he would have wept for the image of his family, whose still forms could still be seen in the last remaining slivers of glass that hung before his face. Their bodies had lain behind him as broken and shattered as the bloody mirror, and for an instant, he'd been frozen, unmoving and only hearing the air sobbing harshly in and out of his lungs, his pulse thundering in his ears. He had been at a loss as to which way to turn. If he remained where he was he could still see them in the slices of silver glass; if he turned to go he would not even need the mirror to see, they would become even more his reality, undeniable and concrete. He could taste the coppery-sweet tang of blood in his mouth and he could hear the sound of the blood rushing through his veins, too loudly, as if his heart were trying to make up for the absence of three other heartbeats.
In the white halls of the church, the silence had stretched on for forever. Deafening and suffocating, it seemed to the boy that the very quiet itself intensified the sense of aloneness in the great hall. No footsteps echoed down the corridors, no voices called, or laughed, or sang, or-
-screamed-
He opened his mouth and screamed, bloody hands rising to shatter it all, tear it all down, tear everything apart, screaming until he could no longer feel the weight of a silence in which only one heart beat in his world.
FEEDBACK: Like all writers, sane or otherwise, it is what I live for.
ARCHIVE: Um. Should the unlikely event arise, sure, just kindly ask before you smack it up there with the proper credits, and let me know where it's off to.
Gargoyle
I saw a mouth jeering. A smile of melted iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child's dream of a mouth.
A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child's dream of an arm.
The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again. The mouth bled
melted iron, and laughed its laughter of nails rattling.
And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth laughed. The fist is pounding and pounding, the mouth is answering.
- Carl Sandburg
gargoyle/child
As he turned, his reflection in the mirror caught his eye. For a moment, he almost thought he saw a child standing there. He came to a halt, drawing up sharply, catching his breath as he found himself drawing close to the glass, so close that his breath fogged the smooth, cold surface. He studied himself carefully, searching closely for any difference, any sign of change.
He could find nothing.
He remembered the last time he had looked into a mirror like this. When he had stared, his eyes intent upon finding some flaw, some imperfection. Something. He had been looking at a boy's face, no more than eleven or twelve. The wide eyes had strained as they looked at smooth, perfect skin, flushed with youth; striking golden eyes that caught and held the light like yellow amber orbs. He had looked at the full, pouting lips of a child and the wiry body of so many boys his age. Just a boy. Just a child.
He had changed when he put his fist to the mirror.
So many years later, staring as he was now, he almost expected to see the broken pieces of glass, slivers of light flying out past his face and burying themselves in his skin. When he looked at his hand he thought, for the barest moment, that it should have been red and raw, flesh torn, ripped, and bleeding, dripping ruby drops and silver mirror shards onto the white marble floor of the church. Glittering confetti, piling round his feet, mercury and crimson chiming as each little piece of pain hit the floor. The hand had risen over and over, again and again, flying through the air to strike the glass, pounding his reflection into shattered nothing until the boy was gone and all that could be seen was a fractured monster. Flecks of bright red struck the boy's face as the crunch of bones on glass, the exclamation of sound, the million tiny little screams of tortured metal and molten sand, all joined together to create a noise great enough to echo endlessly throughout the halls of a church. The sound continued steadily until he had begun to tire; with time, the repetitive action of his raised arm sent lactic acid burning through his muscles and wrapped a fist around his heart. He found himself gasping for air, his desperate breathing screaming in his ears. Something caught in his throat that could have been a sob or could have been an aborted scream. The world spun and jolted nauseatingly and he was sure he was going to be sick. He'd felt himself falling. He'd closed his eyes and leaned his head against the broken mirror frame, gripping the edges to keep himself from sliding to the floor. He had been so tired. So tired. Pale eyelids stained with specks of liquid crimson had begun to sink down over burning eyes. The boy's thin chest had risen and fallen frantically as if trying to contain something within the flesh, beneath the bone. The tips of his fingers caught on the edges of the splintered mirror frame and drew thin lines of blood as he slid down, almost on his knees on the ground. He was so tired. Sleep would make things better. Sleep would bring dreams and heal the tattered wounded world. He closed his eyes.
And then he'd felt the warmth.
Hot liquid warmth, sliding down his face, making his head come up and straightening his exhausted body. The, before, unfocused thoughts that had raced and scrambled through his head seemed to crystallize, pricking his mind with their suddenly clear meaning. In the remains of the broken mirror, the features of his dying reflection had drawn themselves into something feral, something hateful that suddenly redoubled his efforts, rage coloring his vision red and singing through his blood, new power flowing up his arm. It had happened when he had felt the prick in his eye, like tears.
Crying.
Crying like a child. Never mind that a child was exactly what he was; being a child had not kept him safe from pain, it had not kept his sister safe, and crying a child's tears would only make him weaker than he already was.
It was not until much later that he discovered that the reason he had only felt the tears start in one eye. It was because it had been that eye that had wept itself warmly down his face, pierced by a razor's edge of light and bleeding itself onto the floor with the rest of the debris left over from his child's rage, his child's tantrum. It had taken the place of the tears that he would have wept for the image of his family, whose still forms could still be seen in the last remaining slivers of glass that hung before his face. Their bodies had lain behind him as broken and shattered as the bloody mirror, and for an instant, he'd been frozen, unmoving and only hearing the air sobbing harshly in and out of his lungs, his pulse thundering in his ears. He had been at a loss as to which way to turn. If he remained where he was he could still see them in the slices of silver glass; if he turned to go he would not even need the mirror to see, they would become even more his reality, undeniable and concrete. He could taste the coppery-sweet tang of blood in his mouth and he could hear the sound of the blood rushing through his veins, too loudly, as if his heart were trying to make up for the absence of three other heartbeats.
In the white halls of the church, the silence had stretched on for forever. Deafening and suffocating, it seemed to the boy that the very quiet itself intensified the sense of aloneness in the great hall. No footsteps echoed down the corridors, no voices called, or laughed, or sang, or-
-screamed-
He opened his mouth and screamed, bloody hands rising to shatter it all, tear it all down, tear everything apart, screaming until he could no longer feel the weight of a silence in which only one heart beat in his world.