disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the concept used in this fanfic belong to me. I do not hope to profit from them nor make excuses for the quality of what I've written.
This is intended as a collection of hundred-word fics, Allen-centric but otherwise unrelated. Warning for occasional pairing bias. Hopefully the next week will be more productive, or at least coherent.
goodnight, mana walker
Night.
His worn shoes scrape earth backwards, but his claws find only ice. He curls, spine to unmarked stone. Snow catches in his open eye until it melts, overflows and spills. The cold robs his lungs thin. A cough racks him, then ceases.
Salt, chilled, bitter—he aches. He doesn't sleep.
In memory he hears the skeletons' river, crossed by all the dead. He can juggle for his passage, ride the stoop until—
Silence.
Winter light scars the sky. A shadow follows.
Ice sees its footfalls. It crouches: its colors interrupt the white. "What a destiny you carry," the stranger says.
the curse of curves
"It's a real curious subject, though! Say, how d'you think you'd look? Like this?"
Lavi demonstrates a balloon's swell from chest to hip, knocking the table. Jolted, Allen swallows soup and aggrieved prophecies. He pops the spoon from his mouth, sinking it into the next bowl without hesitation. "I'm not going to get fat!"
"Hey, relax. 'Least you wouldn't be a 'sprout, right? You'd be more like…" He snaps his fingers. "One of those stunted onions!"
Allen stops. He sets down his cutlery. He smiles.
"Beansprout?" Lavi says, eyes wide as his slackening grin. "Hey, hey—no, not the—"
three loves that Allen Walker escaped, and one he didn't
1. His thirteenth birthday:
Cross gestures to the girl. She pouts. "Half-off! Apprentice, a man mustn't be stingy—"
Allen shuts the door on them.
.
.
.
2. While searching in China:
"EVEN IF YOU'VE SEEN MY MASTER I DON'T TAKE AFTER HIM IN ANY WAY PLEASE STOP TOUCHING ME."
.
.
.
3. "Ah, Miss Rou Fa," Allen starts. "I'm really sorry, but—" He lasts until the fifth sentence, when she bursts into tears.
The combined forces of Bookman, Lavi and Crowley kicking him through a window spares him the rest.
.
.
.
4. Tyki's mouth curls. "I do like you, boy."
Allen exhales. "I know."
He leans down.
chance salvation
Cross his brow with scars, kiss and a bloody fist around his heart, a blade's swinging descent to sever shadows from the soul. Frame by frame, he lights these images against the day: they burn until dark.
.
.
.
Tyki receives him without change—follows the slope of his jaw into his throat, rakes a shiver from the arching spine. Brands him with whispers, one by one, hot and slick and desperate until Allen's gasping.
Their shadows sink together.
.
.
.
Later, Allen rises alone.
Not for trust nor love, he thinks. But he can, so he must.
(Hope is always last to die.)
in his image
A city by the ocean, darkened. The street-lamps droop on their arches. Around their boots, a blackening trickle winds into the gutters. Nothing breathes.
Noah is new again: fire-eyed and malicious, a ghost on tiptoes. He wears the body like a mantle, wrapped in veins and skeletal Innocence. The kiss burns his red mouth to a white smile.
"Brother," he says, and laughs. He wears the claws, too, bruising and obscene. Evening catches in the pale crown of his hair.
Tyki closes his eyes.
"Allen Walker is dead," he hears, a lullaby, a familiar voice fluting. "Long live Allen Walker."
note: written using prompts from the drabbles100 community on LiveJournal.
