Ship: KuroFai
Rating: T
Warnings: technical character death
Summary: Every world has its own version of the same souls. What ever happened to Valeria's Kurogane?
Snow falls silently, muting everything around it – color, sound, life. There are no sharp edges, no angled corners. Everything is rounded and blunt. And cold.
For all the bluntness and muted awareness the cold of the place bites. The loneliness of the fact that he will never see another living person again claws at his heart. His voice rips at his throat as he calls for the one other he knows is there. "FAI! BROTHER!"
He screams until his voice, too, is muted with the falling snow, nothing but a rasp of desperate air, quiet as the wind that blows so high above him. Every time his voice falls prey to the silence of his surroundings he sobs, just as quietly as the snow lands, curled up and slowly covered by blank whiteness. He stops when his voice returns and the cycle begins anew.
He never hears Fai calling for him, though he's sure his brother does. I can see it, as if it were him up in the tower. His brother's hands, gone rough and dry with the cold, much like his own, gripping at the grimy bars that keep him locked inside. The bars that keep them apart.
When calling out doesn't reach Fai he begins to try and climb the tower. His hands are small, like the rest of him. He ties to grip the bricks, fingertips landing in the cracks and spaces between them. For all his determination to see his brother's face he never makes it very far. When his fingers are raw and bloodied and he no longer has the strength to pull himself up again he screams for Fai until his voice is lost to him once more.
The pain of his injuries is muted by the chill of his prison. And he doesn't know whether to be bitter or thankful for it.
It was a long time before the first body fell from the sky. He would have screamed if he'd had the voice to. It's a man, face worn with age and time. His is dressed in the clothes of a sinner, clothes like his and Fai's. His hair falls just passed his shoulders and into his face, long and dirty in this frozen hell.
More bodies fall, the time between less and less each time. There is no sun or moons for him to judge the passage of time. He never was good at telling time. He only knows by the length of his hair, now half way down his back. Nothing else on him grows. He does not age.
He doesn't think on the bodies. After a while they stop frightening him and they become like the snow. Just another thing that falls into his silent prison. They become building blocks towards freedom after much contemplation. There is a wall and he can climb it with enough help. He uses the misfortune of the sinners to his advantage. He will escape and he'll free Fai and they'll run away together and never once look back.
He drags body after body towards the wall. He piles them high and gazes upwards at the tower that keeps his brother from him. Whenever he feels hope drain from him he closes his eyes and imagines his brother, free of that awful tower, their hands clasped together as they run, far away. They might never stop running once they're able. He thinks he likes that idea – running. Forever and ever. He thinks Fai would like that, too.
He looks up at the tower. 'Fai, I'm coming.' His voice has been muted by the snow for a long time. He's pretty sure he's forgotten how to speak.
Another body falls, it lands several feet from him.
He stands to collect the next brick in his staircase to freedom. But he never drags the body over to the pile. The first thing he sees are the clothes. The man who has fallen into his pit does not wear the clothes of a sinner. He wears the garments of a warrior. His uniform is red and black and silver. There is an empty sheath on his hip. He is wounded and torn. This man died fighting.
The next thing he sees is the man's face. His skin is darker than the slight blonde's. It's sun-kissed and rough with work and battle. His hair is black and short, sticking out in every which way. The man's eyes, glazed with death, are red and he imagines they would be sharp and piercing, seeing everything there is to see. Like a bird of prey. The man's voice would be deep and rough, but not unkind. He thinks about the man as he pulls him over to the tower and props him up there, away from his bricks. He settles next to him and looks the man over.
The man shouldn't be here, in such an awful place. This was a place for sinners and the damned. Such a strong, righteous-looking man would never belong here. He doesn't know why the man is so captivating or why he is so special. He doesn't know why he is here. Something is wrong back in Valeria.
More bodies fall, a handful wears the clothes of the sinners and he pulls them over to his pile. But so many wear the clothes of Valeria. So many of these people are not sinners, so many do not belong here. For a while he doesn't know what to do with the non-sinners.
In the end, he adds them all to his pile.
Bodies continue to fall, something that never fails to make his heart pound and his blood scream in his veins. With each new body he wishes his voice would return so he could scream and release his terror. At one point a young girl falls into the pit and lands beside him. If he hadn't been in there for so long, his hair far below his waist now, he might have wept for her and her soul to end up in such an awful place. As it were, he just adds her to his pile, like all the others.
When the bodies take a pause in their falling he finds his way back to the man's side and sits. Sometimes he lays his head on the man's lap and pretends there is a large hand, rough with callouses from work carried out with a smile and the knowledge of purpose. The man would hum or drone out a story about his day or from his childhood. The man would smile down at him when he looked up and tell him he loves him.
'Where were you from?' he asks the man one day, thinking as loudly as he can. He has yet to find his voice, not even being able to muster it to call to Fai.
'Did you come from a big family? I bet your mother was very nice and pretty. And you must look just like your father.'
'Do you think they'd like me? Even though I'm a twin?"
'I'm going to get out, you know. And save Fai. He's my brother. He's stuck up there in the tower.'
'I don't know your name.'
'I'll make one up for you. How do you like… Mr. Black?' He imagines the man scowling and telling him that isn't his name. And he will just make up all kinds of funny nicknames for the man. Weird ones that only children would think of. And the man will yell at him and tell him to stop. But he won't because they both know the man secretly likes the nicknames.
'By the way,' he thinks as he watches snow fall and begin to cover up the newer bodies. 'My name is Yuui.'