Summary:
Once upon a time, on the other side of the world, far away, there lives a man who is known to be many things: ruler, trickster, scientist, artist, rebel, philosopher.
His name is Levi Baskerville.
His story jumps from his upbringing in the Baskerville House to his actions during the Pre-Tragedy arc until the present era and every time in between.
It is a tale of a simple, flawed man, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (or so he thinks, or so he fears).
Dedicated to the fandom.
Disclaimer:
The Book of Levi is a not-for-profit fanwork production. All rights to images, characters, logos, and names included therein from the Pandora Hearts anime/manga series are owned by Jun Mochizuki, Yen Press, and Square Enix respectively. Various dialogue and passages from The Book of Levi are taken from the Yen Press translations, unless otherwise stated. The author does not claim ownership of the translation text included in this fan work.
All original elements — including story text, characters, and other related fan-creations — are owned by their respective creators. No fanwork from this work may be duplicated or redistributed without expressed permission from the original creator.
The Book of Levi; And Other Fantastic Fairy Tales
"Read and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it'. Don't believe a word."
— Cornelia Funke
Retrace 1: "One and Only"
What's the difference between "one" and "only"?
Levi muses upon this sitting on the placid stillness rippling beneath him, dark and impenetreble as tar but fluid as a lake. The surface of humanity's world-consciousness is the theological way of describing it, or the flow of a person's subconscious, speaking psychologically. But he has abandoned all of his learning from his living days and merely calls it "the Flow." The term has a mysterious aesthetic quality to it, and if nothing else, Levi has not forgotten his aesthetics here trapped in the prison of this human boy's soul.
No true light, sound, motion exist in the Flow. No true viseral sense, either, though the impression of a sense (from memory, from desire) can still exist. Levi smells the cuff of his sleeve and the whiff of peony remains, even after over a hundred years. A final sense-memory from her.
She was an "only" - a Child of Misfortune, a person so significant to history that she will never be repeated for as long as the cycles of reincarnation exist, for as long as this multiverse exists. How foolish of Levi, to be told all of this information decades too late. A factor he failed to take into account in his experiment gone wrong. And the reveal - all from that craggy-faced hag Jury, before Oswald's incredelous face! What an info-dump! What terrible writing! If Levi had penned this tale, that scene would have been played less for drama and more for intellectual and existential suffering.
Then again, he had failed at authorship as well. Couldn't even resolve his own storyline properly.
A smirk, a laugh. Levi throws this head back and enjoys the sound of his own guffaws echoing off into the nothingness (the memory of his voice, the immitation of voice?)
From the shadows, a figure. Oswald - the man Levi raised and taught and loved - the control group he had agreed to monitor. Oswald glares from the forefront of the human boy's consciousness; all of his focus is on controlling that teenager's body and not upon him. Not that Oswald pays much attention to his caregiver; the former Glen had spoken to his predecessor a disgruntled handful of times the last sixteen years, no matter how much Levi tries to start up a conversation with him.
Such as now, for instance.
It is the boy who asks the question.
"What's so funny?"
The owner of this prison, weak and soul-injured, had been thrown into another corner of the Flow. Levi stops his mirth, sides over his gaze, knowing that Leo is planning something of his own. Is it be the proper time to goad? Taunt? Poke with a proverbial stick and see what happens?
"Everything. Our storybook lives. This race to alter the past," he drawls, waving a hand about him. "Especially Mr. Pouty over there, plotting to murder his sister before her time."
"You're horrid." Yet Leo stares angrily at the watery floor, as if unsure who to narrow his eyes at: the white-haired fool or the bitter monster.
"Oh, Leo, it's quite hilarious. Oswald believes he is the one able to resolve this farce by murdering his only sister. Well, 'murdering her a bit earlier than planned' is a better way to phrase it."
Levi sees the shoulders of his protoge tighten and a flat, emotionless smirk crosses his face. Lacie, the only one who will ever exist.
The difference between "one" and "only", Levi decides, isn't a verbal measure in degrees or an example of sophistry.
"Boy."
The two lift their heads to see a flourish of dark as Oswald's cloak swirls about him.
"It is only murder if the person does not wish to die. You never knew Lacie; she knew her purpose. She'd understand."
Though Oswald hadn't addressed him, Levi replies, "Assuming you kill her before she meets Jack. How old would she be? Thirteen? How about younger? Ten? Seven?" Aim right to the heart of it. "I'm sure she'll understand as much as you had at those ages."
Oswald doesn't answer.
Far in the shadows, figures move. The other Glens. They have been meadering in their own private torments for so long, Levi barely acknowledges most anymore (unless one happened to intrude in front of him, blubbering or screaming or repeating whatever conversations they held in their own heads from eons ago...)
A wooden tap and a familiar silhouette. The sudden movement catches Levi's attention. After so much time, will these poor souls actually react to them? To him? Do they still reason and feel as human anymore?
But the silhouette melds in with the masses and Levi loses sight of them. For some reason, he exhales slowly, as if holding in the breath.
In this strange, impossible, terrible world, it is a stipulation that there will always be One needed to command it. One, then is a constant. Always one Glen. Interrchangable. Replacable. Fated. Trapped.
To be Only is to exist beyond the One. To be Only - a Child of Misfortune - is to exist like a miracle. Once and never again. To be Only is to truly be Free.
Levi chuckles at the irony, that the person who was truly free was never himself, the liberated thinker, but the person who bargained her freedom away in an agreement he arranged.
Oswald shifts his sword hand, places the palm on the hilt.
"Are you going to chop me up?" Levi grins. "You already did that. Not that it's changed anything in the long run."
A huff, a sweep of Oswald's cloak. Leo stares, round-eyed from the place between them. Levi knows if it came down to a battle between Oswald and Levi, the youth would do nothing. Not because he was afraid but because he hoped one would destroy the other and he'd finally have a body again. Not that would actually happen.
"Oswald has become so morose the last dozen years. I worry about his emotional well-being, honestly," Levi tells him. "He likes to take his rage out on me sometimes. I'm sure it relieves the tension. Or the boredom. We're as right as rain now, aren't we, Oswald?"
The palm clenches around the hilt, but it is Leo who speaks.
"Shut up." He rises to his feet. "You insufferable old man."
"Insufferable?" The smile vanishes from his face. "Child, suffering is irrelevant. Suffering, pain, torment, fear, regret, anger." He throws himself flat on the Flow, spreading his limbs. "Happiness, joy, love, hope, dreams. Anything a human being can feel has no signifignce to us. We are just the Ones who keep everyone else's illusion of those things going. We are Glen, after all."
"You make no sense!" Leo's expression is bitter. "I'm still human; I still feel and gods be damned that bastard," an accusing finger to Oswald, "does too."
"Give it a couple of decades to sink in." Levi rolls onto his side, props himself up on his elbows and kicks his feet into the air in a girlish pose. "The sooner it does, though, less hassle you'll be to the rest of us."
Another difference between "one" and "only," Levi realizes.
One doesn't necessarily mean you are alone.
Makes sense. Not that Levi holds religion close to heart anymore, but as a philosopher-priest he read once said, hell is other people.
Yet while in hell, a person can still anticipate the end of the world.