Sight
A/N:I found this in my old documents when I was pawing through old stories... it was supposed to be the first of a multi-part story following a mostly canon version of the Jumi Storyline, however the heroine is blind. Each chapter was written from a different character's perspective. I'm posting this as a kind of promise to myself that one day I will revisit this writing style and perhaps finish this story. *laugh* It'll have to be edited then, of course. Written in 2006.
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PEARL
It puzzles me, when I look in the mirror. My hair… was it always so bright, so yellow? And surely my eyes weren't always such a peculiar shade of blue. The face in the mirror is too young, too open. Every time, I don't even recognise myself, and then I wonder… why not? If this isn't me, then what should I look like?
brief moments of clarity, and I was standing in front of mirror. What a shock! My reflection was decades younger, reeking of naïve innocence. And a young man, behind me. Tying my too-blonde hair with a ribbon. Suddenly I had a thought… this man. He dresses me in the morning, and undresses me at night. What have I become? I almost wanted to panic, but BlackPearl never panics, and
I suppose I must be a little bit pretty. Elazul sometimes tells me that, he tells me I'm beautiful. He says it only when we're alone, and in a lowered voice, as if he doesn't want me to hear. His hand, it runs down the length of my hair, and he looks away.
I remember once, we were all in Geo, Elazul, Rei and I. Elazul was in one of his moods, irritable and snapping at the smallest things. I know we were looking for Jumi, that's all we ever do. But this time he left me behind in the hotel room, went out to comb the streets of this gigantic city by themselves.
So I went out to look for them, of course. I came across a small shop with the most beautiful things inside. Flashy jewels settled upon fat, plush cushions as if they were little kings and queens themselves. I looked at them for a long while, and then a funny thought occurred to me. I was like those jewels. Elazul kept sheltered and safe, in comfort, untouched by anything else from this world. I looked at the interior of the store and saw the dark curtains, all drawn shut. The dimly lit candles glowing feebly in the darkness, their weak lights winking off the beautiful jewels placed here and there around the store. Sleepy, mysterious, darkly beautiful…
I didn't intend to buy anything, after all, Elazul kept all our finances. I just looked. Everything was so pretty. The silk cloths that housed those jewels, they reminded me of the ribbons Elazul sometimes tied in my hair. I felt sleepy when I saw the satin cushions, I envied the trinkets nestled in the middle. And in the corner of the shop, the darkest corner, there was a doll. She was not quite life-sized, a little too small for that. But she was so delicate, I imagined she must have been made out of the finest china, with diamonds instead of glass for her bright pale grey eyes. She was painfully thin, far too slender. Her hands, clasped together in lap, were delicately jointed, realistically lined, but so fragile. If I took her hand, maybe it would disintegrate. She was not beautiful, rather she was too plain for that. Her face was pretty in a plain way, her nose short and snubbed, and her hair
her beautiful hair, once so long and silky, hacked painfully short in uneven clumps. That health and vitality gone! How did this
"BlackPearl?" she spoke. It did not strike me odd that the doll could speak, and I watched her watching me. I reached out, touched her cheek much in the same way I had once seen Rei do to Elazul. Her pale skin was warm to touch. I thought of feeling her pulse, to see if she had a heartbeat as well, but eyeing her thin wrist, I felt that her hands might snap off if I applied the gentle pressure to find her pulse. I wondered why this doll was here. She was sickly and faded, she didn't match the rest of this beautiful store. Then I noticed her chest - there was a jewel there. Imbedded into her chest. Why was this familiar? It would have been beautiful once, I think. But now it was covered in small cuts and nicks, much like an old coin that has been used many, many times before, so blurred you can't read the writing.
Maybe she had to be fixed. I wondered idly if they would take the jewel out and polish it, when I realised why this seemed familiar. She was like me. She was a Jumi. I thought of the pearl attached to me - would that become cracked and chipped one day as well?
With this realisation, I waited for her to speak again, say something important. But she didn't.
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"Describe Elazul for me, Pearl." Rei said to me, once. We were at her house. It was a cold, rainy day. Elazul was pacing in the kitchen, I think. He was worried, fretting - we were meant to be somewhere, doing something, but Rei had heard the rain and refused to go out in this weather.
Describe Elazul. How could I even begin to describe him? He could be soft and gentle, his hands would be comforting and warm when he pulled me towards him. He could soothe me with promises that it would all work out in the end, and that he would show me the Bejewelled City when we got there. Because, he would tell me, we will get there. It's just a matter of time. And Goddess knows we've got plenty of that, he would add with only a trace of bitterness in his voice.
But at the beginning, when I first met him… More than anything else, he was angry. Angry at the world, at the Goddess, at me… He would curse the world for making us an endangered species. He would curse the Goddess for giving us eternity and a day to live. And he would curse, yell, storm at me for coming into his life. "I can't take care of you! I'm not a knight! I'm not anything. I'm not qualified to look after anyone. Just leave me alone! You'd be better off wandering in the desert than following me. Get out! I never want to see you again!" But I never did leave him. I cowered under his anger, I didn't look him in the eye, because that flashing anger was petrifying in his mesmerising eyes, but I didn't leave. He couldn't mean it. I wouldn't be better off without him, I would be lost. I would be in fragments, lost and scattered grains of sand, and I'd never be able to find myself again.
But other times… he could be wretched with despair. He wouldn't speak to me, he wouldn't look at me. His entire body, tense and wrought with… with… something. "I don't want to let you down, Pearl." he tells me, and his voice is taut and brittle. I don't understand. How could he ever let me down? "You can depend on me," he mumbles, more to himself than to me. "I'm your knight." I feel so helpless when he starts talking like this. Of course I can depend on him. I have to depend on him. There's no one else. I certainly can't depend on myself.
not a knight" he would say, and he was right. A knight is chivalrous, he puts his guardian first, and never, ever lets her think that he doesn't have everything under control. He was a pathetic knight, but at least in those days he would accept it.
I can't remember when he stopped being angry and started being tormented.
"Pearl?" Rei asked me again, when I suppose I did not answer. I looked at her looking at me, though of course she could not really see me. I didn't know how to answer, and in some way, I didn't want to answer. Those memories of Elazul were mine alone, no one had experienced them but me. No one else had a right to know them, let alone a girl who had just appeared in our lives bare months ago.
"…He has nice eyes." I tell her.