I can't believe how small Kiki's Delivery Service's fanfiction kingdom is! What is it, 14 stories?
Well, this is a rather depressing fic for a pretty lighthearted movie! I've probably ruined everything.
Note: All of his life, Tombo has been dreaming of flying. This story switches between two scenes: Tombo hanging for dear life under the dirigible, and seeing Tombo about seven years earlier. Warning: It's not very happy (ironic because my protagonist is a delightful, smiling character in the movie. But I take creative liberties).
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His fingers are slipping, slowly. The rope burns into his palms. He's in the air, with the birds, holding fast to his lifeline. He shakes with fear. Blue sky wraps around his vision, and beneath him the ground yawns hungrily. Let go, it urges. Haven't you always wanted to fly?
(He clutches the windowsill. His breath fogs the glass, and he wipes it away hurriedly, because he wants to see the spirits. They are outside, waiting for him. Their white forms flit in the darkness. They have what he wants, what he needs, and they are waiting for him.
The wind whispers promises to the boy. It promises him that he will not fall. The sky stretches above the city, and it beckons to him. All his life, he has been looking up at it, wondering what it would be like to soar between the clouds. It looks so close, as if he could stretch out his hand and grasp some sky in his fist, and pull the heavens down around him like a blanket.
The moon is full and the air is cold. Late November. After years of wishing and months of contemplation, he has finally decided. Tonight is the night.)
Below him, the mass of people is screaming and surging. The crowd rolls like waves, so many spectators are gathered. They want him to hold on, but his hands are sliding down the rope. Sliding and burning, and he's shaking with fear because he knows he can not hold on. The lifeline is shortening and he will fall.
He knows his mother and father are down in the crowd somewhere. Or perhaps they are watching it the television; when he falls, it will be too painful for them to see. He thinks briefly on Kiki, and squeezes his eyes shut. The girl is probably delivering some parcel by foot. It's ironic; when she becomes grounded by her insecurities, he finally takes to the air. And they still can't reach each other.
Seagulls shriek at him because they can tell he is featherless.
A wind tugs at the line and he starts to swing gently. Before his eyes the city becomes a blur of color. He wants to close his eyes, but he can't.
(When they had gone to him with their concerns, the doctor had told the boy's parents that it was only a child's fantasy. "He'll grow out of it."
"But he's… unnaturally obsessed with this 'notion', doctor. What if he hurts himself?"
"He won't. He knows his limits. All young boys of his age have crazy ideas like this. Even though his mind is in the clouds, he will come to understand that he is bound to the ground."
The boy's parents then told the boy what the white shapes could possibly be. "Owls," they explained with nervous smiles. "Not spirits. Don't you see?"
Yes, of course, he saw them! Beautiful, white spirits. His parents got him glasses when he told them.
But he sees then now. He presses his face to the windowpane and stares into the moonlit garden. He doesn't need glasses to see the great, white wings of the spirits. Sometimes he grows so envious that he can think of nothing else. One image – an image of a freckled boy with swooping, feathered wings arching from his shoulder blades – overwhelms his mind. It swells up until his brain's little crevices are pressed flat to the inside of his skull, and his eyes are constantly fixed on the sky.)
The sky is wondrous and vast, just as it is in his dreams. On the ladder to the heavens it is blue and empty and cold. All he wants to do is climb higher. This view; it's worth it. In the dark corners of his mind, a voice tells him that the view will probably be the last thing he ever sees.
Tears from the wind trickle from the corners of his eyes, but he can see the buildings below him, blurs of pastel. The sea is out to the sides, stretching to the horizon until it melts into the sky. He's so lucky to live in such a beautiful city. Kiki was right, he thinks. This place is special.
The ground is below him and it is calling. Let go, it says. The wind will catch you. You can fly, Tombo. Didn't the wind promise?
(He pulls his face from the foggy windowpane and rushes to the cabinet in the corner of his room. His hands shake in excitement as he slides open the drawer. Inside is his beloved creation, shining in silver in the moonlight that streams through the window. Hurry, he thinks, as he fumbles with the straps. They're waiting for you!
Outside, the air is crisp and cold. He wraps a white woolen scarf around his neck, knowing that it will be even colder in the clouds. The boy then slides out of the window and into the dark night, padding across the garden and climbing over the stone wall. He lets himself drop a few feet to the sidewalk. The white spirits flit in and out of his vision.
His feet are bare, but that won't matter. The wind made a promise to him.
The boy's heart is beating in his ears. It's the moment he has waited years for.)
He's losing his grip on the lifeline. The dirigible is above him, promising the open sky. The crowd is below him, but the screams have become a dull, unobtrusive sound. He is hanging between the clouds and ground, unable to climb higher, but unable to let go. The lifeline is burning his hands; in his efforts to keep his grip, splinters of rope have embedded themselves into his skin.
His body is shaking with fear. The sky is so huge and he wants nothing more than to fly. But just as the doctor said, he had realized his limits. That was many years ago, though, on a dark, cold night. It had been a dream fabricated with delusions. He can still feel the cold ground touching his face, and see tiny feathers, sparkling on a piece of shredded fabric…
A girl's voice is screaming his name, and the wind swivels him, so that he sees her. She's on a broom – in the air. She can fly again; under the relief, jealousy hits him with a pang. But she's here, and all he has to do is grab her hand…
"Tombo!"
"Kiki!" he yells, and reaches towards her.
(He's on the sidewalk balcony now, the little square that overlooks the town. The street lays four stories below him, dark as water. He hears something softly calling him. A shape rises into the air, its white wings burning the darkness.
The boy tightens the straps on his shoulders and gently slips his hands into the frame, holding tightly. When he lifts his arms above his head, the white fabric flutters and the aluminum frame glints.
The moon is covered with clouds now, clouds dark and boiling, but he is not afraid. The town is a sea of yellow lights, and the spirits will guide his way into the dark sky. They're around him now, softly calling. He climbs up on the fence and watches the white shapes blur across his vision.
I have wings, just like you, he thinks. Now I have what you have.
He's balancing between his world and the other world, the world of the dark, endless sky. It's tantalizingly close. When he breathes in, he tastes it.
He spreads his wings.)
One hand on the lifeline now, he slips farther. Voices are chanting. Don't give up, the crowd calls. Don't give up!
But under them, the ground rumbles with anger, licks its lips hungrily. Let go, it says. Can't you fly? Where are your wings, Tombo?
Kiki's is wrangling her broom closer and closer, but not close enough. He grabs for her hand but misses, again and again, like the rough wind is teasing them. His heart is beating in his throat.
The end of the rope burns his hand, and he wants to close his eyes because he is tired. The ground has wrapped tendrils around his legs and is dragging him down. The tendrils are so strong and his body is so heavy. But he will not… give…
His hand, he realizes numbly, is still far from Kiki's hand. The ground tugs again with its tendrils, and it mocks him.
Where are your wings, Tombo? You thought you could fly?
I did once, Tombo thinks, and it hurts him to think it. Once, he had thought he could fly. But he had been thrown from his dreams, from the sky, and he knows now…
He reaches a bit farther, towards the sky. Pain shoots through his arm. He feels heavy, as if he were to look down and see a steam engine attached to his hanging arm instead of his body. Straining, pain shoots across him again, and little insects are biting his skin, he can feel them, thousands and thousands... The world is a blur of color, and in the corners of his vision, white shapes flit. He reaches, yearning to be with them, to spread his wings…
You're bound, Tombo.
His hand slips from the rope.
(He falls. The wind no longer whispers promises, but steals the breath from his lungs. He flaps his wings frantically, but with a crack the right frame snaps, and he plummets. The lights of the town become a blur. This isn't right, he thinks desperately. He has wings – he has what the spirits have – why can't he fly?
I can fly! He screams. You're wrong!
The wind catches his wings for a brief moment, and he is flung forwards, rolling in the air. The white shapes dart into his vision, but they can't save him now. His wings are broken, and the ground is dragging him down with its tendrils.
A scream is ripped from his mouth by the wind.
Scraggly arms reach up and try to catch him. Closing his eyes, he smashes through the tree's branches, feeling them tear at his skin and his wings. He hits one branch, then another; then the ground.
He lies on his side, crumpled like a ragdoll. He hardly feels the pain at first, but then his leg burns, and one of his sides feels as if it has been cut open with a knife. Through the fog made by his ragged breaths, he can see one of his arms is at an odd angle. Attached to his arm are the remains of a silver wing. The aluminum is shattered and the pale fabric is ripped to shreds.
Small, white specks sift down from the dark sky. They're little downy feathers of the spirits, he thinks. They land softly on the ground, on his twisted body, on his broken wings. He watches as feathers light onto his pale hand and melt. Then he follows the white specks with his gaze, to the endless black sky, so tantalizingly close.
The city lights swim in his vision. He's becoming numb, like his body is seeping into the cold ground. An owl cries out morosely.
His cheek is pressed against the cold ground, and a tear runs sideways across his face. It drops from his skin to the hard dirt like a anchor, reminding him of the truth. He is bound.)
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