The world is based on Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" with characters and giant humanoid fighting machines are based on Evangelion. A daemon is the physical manifestation of a person's soul out of the body.
Outcasts
Chapter 1. At School
Hikari Horaki dozed in the fading sunlight. Autumn was in full swing and the leaves had turned to full and deep yellows and reds. The sun splashed through the dusty window in tantalizing hand wide stripes of butter colored light across her worn wooden table. Her fingers itched to scratch behind the ears of her daemon, Yoshi-hiko. Yoshi-hiko laid on his side in the form of a gray cat. He lazily soaked up warmth from the table. Hikari wished that he had not made himself so comfortable, it was dragging her even closer to sleep. She wanted to nuzzle and cuddle him, but that would earned her a sharp reprimand from the lecturer and calls of "baby" from some of her classmates. Yoshi-hiko looked at her with one bright yellow eye, then lay back down.
She stole another glance outside. The days were getting noticeably shorter and the idea of listening to the nun's monotone nearly brought tears to her eyes. In front of the class, the middle aged European nun droned on.
Really, Hikari thought to herself. Her nose isn't that big.
Flicking her eyes to her right, she saw that Asuka was not even trying to stay awake. Her head bowed down as she snored slightly. Her falcon daemon, Siegsmyrth, was also asleep perched on her chair over her right shoulder. While the nun was plain enough to befit her serge and shapeless habit, Asuka was stood out like a beacon in the class of black haired girls. Her red hair and blue eyes alone made her stand out. Her figure showed the curves of the emerging beauty even through the dowdy uniforms. Their jackets covered their arms to their wrists and the skirts exposed only a hint of stocking. The entire outfit was colored in shades of drab. Jewelry was strictly forbidden, but her friend made her ribbon the equal of any tiara.
Hikari took a deep breathe and turned forward once again. Hikari reminded herself that her parents were paying for her schooling and that as a good daughter, she should be able to suffer through a little boredom. She tuned into the stream of droning Japanese. It was the same lecture that the nun gave everyday and Hikari was sure that Sister Amelia would give it everyday until the end of the term.
"And so Eve, being weak and flawed took the fruit, listening to the serpent, but truly the serpent was already in her heart. And when she tasted the forbidden fruit she knew shame and her daemon assumed a single form and stayed in that form, unable to change again. I remind you all that you are all coming of that same age when your daemons shall assume it's one true form and that temptation will come your way. I shall pray for your souls. Some shall need all the help that they can receive.
"Temptation takes many forms, not just that of the serpent. You must remember that you are born with the curse of Eve and that the serpent has been born in your bosom. Only by cleansing yourselves and turning away from the wicked world around you can you escape her fate."
What did the fruit taste like? Hikari found herself thinking. I have seen it drawn as an apple. I like apples. So crisp and firm. They are in season. I hope that this Sunday is clear outside. Then we could go to the market.
A shrill metal bell rang, interrupting the lecture.
"Class is dismissed," the sister intoned.
They stood and bowed and formed a single file to leave the class.
Asuka snorted awake and her daemon nearly fell from his perch as the waking girl threw her arms up and behind her.
"Soooooooooooo boring," Asuka said as they walked away. Without looking, they entered the washroom. "Gaa, cold water."
"At least they have softer soap now," Hikari replied as she dried off her hands. "Some girls complained that the old stuff chapped their skin."
"Their should be more complaints about the something important, like the food or that nun. She needs to find another subject. If that hag had eaten from that fruit then maybe she wouldn't be so deadly boring. Gott im Himmel."
"Asuka, you should be more careful."
"Bah, what are they going to do, hit me again?" Asuka said with a shrug. "If He's so high and mighty, a little swearing shouldn't hurt him. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words should never hurt Him."
Hikari managed a smile, but remained silent. Asuka was the equal to any physical punishment, but it all seemed so unnecessary. As they walked side by side, Yoshi-hiko took the form of a butterfly, lit on Hikari's collar and then became a squirrel. Her daemon nuzzled her behind her ear.
"So has Siegsmyrth chosen a form yet?"
"Almost," Asuka announced while throwing back her luxuriant hair. The red falcon looked about imperiously as he perched on the leather gauntlet Asuka wore out of class. Several of the girls looked at her as they filed down the hall. One by one, they fell silent as they entered the dining hall. The hall held over a hundred students. Perhaps it was a trick of acoustics or the continued admonishments from the sisters, but the room made voices sound small and unwelcome.
The students lined up by the plain tables, one student behind each plain wooden chair. Five minutes later, the sisters and head nun filed in as they did everyday. The sisters stood next to their equally plain seats. The smell of food drifted to them. Hikari thought that the delay in front of waiting meal was unnecessary, but did not think that the few minutes were worth complaining about. Sister Amelia looked about with a dull uninterested gaze.
"You may take your seats," she said in her nearly flawless, but dry and uninflected Japanese.
Each and every chair slid back with small screeches and whines across the bare board floor and then skid back toward the tables. Her stomach grumbled in complaint. She clasped her hands in front of herself and bowed her head. Yoshi-hiko leapt down from her shoulder to the table, then the uncomfortable floor. A flap told her that Siegsmyrth took his accustomed place behind Asuka. In drawn out syllables and her usual automaton voice, the head nun mercilessly said grace.
After grace the girls ladled out vegetable soup out of a tureen and passed the plates of bread, cheese, tough meat, and vegetables. The food was edible and there was enough to go around, but there was no rice. After fourteen years of eating rice, Hikari did not feel full until she had eaten at least a few mouthfuls of rice. All the girls beside Asuka had mentioned it. The first market day, the girls had descended on the market place looking for rice balls. Round, steaming hot. She would have devoured them plain. She shook her head slightly to clear her mind. There was no rice and wishing would only ruin her meal.
Asuka had complained about how she wanted to try dog or raw fish or whatever the Japanese ate.
"Deutschland to Hikari," Asuka said waving her hand in front of Hikari. "What lured your mind out to sea?"
"Rice."
"I swear, hearing you gals talk. You're as bad as rummies without your rum. Though I must say, the food is so bland that the cook must be English or something. My queendom for a proper wurst."
"By the way, you're holding that wrong."
Asuka lifted her eyebrows and showed that her knife was in her left and her knife was in her right. Hikari switched, sawing the meat was harder with her left hand.
"The silence bothers me," Hikari said in a low voice.
"Silence." Asuka said listening to the low key buzz. "Yeah, everybody is whispering."
"It's not that."
"What is it, then?"
"When my family eats, you can hear it. I didn't notice it until I came here. I could hear my father drinking his soup. My mother sipping her tea. My younger sister shoveling down he rice. The crunch of vegetables. The sounds of a good meal.
"This is eerie almost as if we were..."
"On death row," Asuka supplied.
Hikari mulled it over, the comparison was harsh, but the words conveyed oppression. She nodded, that the way she felt sipping her soup so delicately with the tiny spoon.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to of it, listen to me, I'm an old hand at these schools," Asuka said with pride. "Remember that I've been kicked out of the best in Europe. I've even kicked out of one in America."
Hikari had heard it before. The brash attitude still made her smile. The other girls gave out a muted 'eh' of astonishment.
"Really?" a classmate asked.
"Really," Asuka said with an emphatic nod.
"Hey, have you heard?" Yamatoshi asked interrupting them. She was a thick bodied girl sitting two seats down from Hikari.
"What?" Asuka asked.
"About the two kids. One boy, one girl, Kitasawa swears that she saw them at the market from the corner of her eye. They didn't HAVE DAEMONS."
"Ewwww."
"No waaaay."
"Ridiculous."
"So gross."
"Are they even people?"
"I'd like to see that. Barnum's didn't even have one of those," Asuka added.
Hikari kept silent in the muffled outburst. Under the table, the daemons cried and hissed their outrage at the concept. The other tables looked their way, so they lowered their voices back down and shushed their daemons.
"I've heard about this," Asuka said chin in hand. She leaned forward, removing her hand as she warmed to her subject. "There are Africans who live on an island in a sea off the south east of tip of the American Confederacy. They can make zombies. Men without daemons, who walk around like the living DEAD."
She said the last words with relish.
"If they're Africans, why do they live in America?"
"They were slaves, are you stupid?"
Later that evening, Hikari climbed onto the low bunk. Yoshi-hito became a fuzzy and warm tanuki and sat solidly and comfortably on her stomach..
Asuka sat on the edge of Hikari's bed, brushing her long hair. "Hey Hikari."
"What?"
"What do you think about that story at lunch? Do you think that Yamatoshi was just trying to put us off of our lunches?"
"No."
"So what do you think?"
"I'll tell you another time."
"Hmmm, okay. I'll hold you to your promise. G'night," Asuka said, before climbing up.
"Sure. G'night."
In the still darkness, Hikari closed her eyes and remembered a cold winter night from several years before. It was a rare night of magical snow drifting down. Each bulky flake caught the light from massive moon that had just cleared a horizon of trees and hills. In the steady snowfall, she remembered clearly seeing two small forms wrapped in rags. Two pairs of eyes peered out from the layers of cloth. They looked right at her. One pair of eyes was deep blue, darker than Asuka's eyes and the other pair was red. Both were human. Hikari and Yoshi-hito looked at them with dark brown and shining cat's eyes. They looked for the eyes of the accompanying daemons, but saw none.