WULF AND DARK
I
-DARK-
The boy opened his eyes, sleep clinging to his heavy lids. He stretched out an arm and yawned, disturbing the white rabbit formerly snuggled up in the crook of his elbow. The animal made a small kyuu of annoyance, and tried to reassert its position.
"Ah, sorry, With," he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his scarlet eyes. He looked tired even though it was morning. "I never get enough sleep anymore," he said vaguely. It wasn't clear whether it was an apology or an accusation.
The pet suddenly perked up as if struck. He looked at his master with large, pensive eyes.
The youth winced. "Look, I said I was sorry. You can go back to sleep if you want." He climbed out of bed, straightening his pyjamas, and stumbled to adjacent bathroom. The rabbit continued to watch silently, his eyes never leaving the boy's figure. An ear twitched hopefully.
"Aaaaah! Mom! Dark! Mom! Dark!"
The teenager stopped shouting abruptly and placed a hand on either side of the bathroom sink. He leaned in closer. His reflection shine back—eyes closed, long purple hair, and a serene expression on his-but-not-his face.
"Dark?" he questioned doubtfully.
The figure in question didn't respond or even mimic his actions like a normal reflection.
"Dark!" he shouted forcefully, hoping to elicit some sort of response.
His reflection continued to sleep. He paused, millions of thoughts careening through his head, blocking all locomotive actions. And then….
"Moooooooom!" he ran, thumping wildly down the stairs and bursting into the kitchen.
She turned, a hot mitt over one hand, a frying utensil in the other, and a homemade apron tied around her waist. "Hmmm? What is it, Dai?"
"Mom! Dark's back! I saw him in the mirror!" The boy continued to shout despite the three feet separating the two.
An old man set his tea mug back on the table with a heavy thud. "What's that you say? Dark? Impossible." His wizened face scrunched up into a careful, studied look of the younger redhead.
"Grandpa," the boy began, seizing upon the new target who seemed more convincible than the woman, "I woke up and looked in the mirror and saw Dark's reflection instead of me!" The teenager punctuated his last syllable by thrusting a palm over his chest.
"Nonsense, boy," the old man said. "Dark won't be seen again for at least fifteen years… twenty-five if you behave as you should." His tone made it clear that he wasn't convinced the boy had been behaving appropriately. "You should stay away from the blond girl—she's nothing but trouble, I say."
"Ugh, Grandpa! You don't get it at all!" the youth retorted, his frustration evident. He turned back towards the woman, "Mom, you believe me, right?"
She had already turned back to watch the hot stove. "Is that why you're still in your pyjamas? You must have been dreaming, dear."
"Argh! No one in this house listens to me anymore!" he fumed, whirling around dangerously to stomp directly into another figure. The newcomer's hands landed heavily on the teenager's shoulders.
"Whoa, there, Dai, what's the matter?"
"Leave me alone," the boy said vehemently, swiping the hands off him. "It's not like you'd understand."
He ran back up to his room, glanced at the rabbit, now in the middle of the floor with worried eyes gazing up at him. The boy strode to the bathroom, avoiding the animal's unspoken question, ostensibly to check the mirror again. He hadn't been dreaming, right?
"…Dark?" he tried, hesitantly, almost scared that it really was all a dream. He remained hopeful as he put himself in the path of the mirror's reflection. He peered into it cautiously.
The other face was still there. With eyes closed and a face slackened in peace, his reflection didn't respond. It looked almost unnaturally peaceful, but exactly as he remembered. Dark was as untouched by age as he was unfamiliarly untouched by emotion. No grin curved across his lips, no sparkle reflected in his closed eyes, and no teasing slant picked up the edges of his brows. Even his hair was somehow calm and unsettlingly motionless.
Daisuke had never felt more alone.
Confronted by the shell of his former other self, he was utterly still and silent for a moment. Something in him echoed the blankness of his reflection, and his mind fell slow and thick. He dimly recalled that Dark was somehow his own soul—he never really understood it in words—and the empty visage that faced him seemed so clear in its meaning. It had been welling up in him for days, weeks, months. This feeling of worthlessness and unimportance. And now, even the bit of Dark that was left inside him showed the blankness of his life now. Dark was still as death; an unmoving, lifeless thing. Was that what Daisuke's soul had been reduced to?
When had it all started to go so wrong?
His heart was empty. Self-pity trickled along between the rocks of his self-worthlessness. Tears stung the corners of his eyes. His reflection didn't seem to care.
Unfair.
The only person who had ever understood him had gone so that only an empty face remained, reflecting nothing back at him. Dark had been his constant and almost uncomfortably close companion for a year, and then vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. To have his other half ripped from him like that could only leave him feeling empty for the rest of his life. Daisuke couldn't even see his own stupid face anymore and to top it all off, no one in his family even believed him.
Unfair.
He had been trained as a thief since birth only to find out that everyone expected his life to culminate at the age of fourteen. How messed up was that? What was he supposed to do afterwards? Get married and have a kid? He had never been given a choice—he had never truly liked stealing. It was supposed to be wrong. Normal kids learned stuff like that from their normal parents. What kind of parents forced their children to be robbers?
Unfair.
Oh, wait. His father had up and left for twelve years, so it had really only been his mother and grandfather who gave him mandatory life-threatening tasks. Because that was normal! Putting the constant fear of death aside, they acted like it was okay for the man of the house to leave his two-year-old son to go venture off to find art for said son to steal. But there was no way that would take twelve years! What was worse than pretending like he had always been around to be Daisuke's dad was that no one ever told him what might have really happened. They just gave blank looks and said Dad had been investigating artworks. They treated Daisuke like he was ten years old and too young to understand that maybe his parents didn't always want to be together. The distance between father and son had only grown in the last three years.
Unfair.
Everything in his life was going wrong. Nobody cared about him anymore. No one listened to him. Not his family, not his friends, not his teachers… not even this ridiculous portrait of Dark. Even his own damn bathroom mirror wouldn't do what he wanted! It refused to show Daisuke even his own face. Just Dark's.
Unfair.
Ever since Dark had left, everything seemed pointless. Why had Daisuke's life been set up around being someone else? Maybe that was why no one cared about him anymore—he wasn't Dark. It was probably why Satoshi had left. And his mom had always liked Dark more—she'd wanted the real Phantom Thief as a son since she had been in grade school! And now that Dark was gone—
Unfair.
He clenched his teeth, but then his emotions suddenly couldn't be bottled up inside his body any longer. His anger burst forth in a torrent, rippling hotly through his blood.
"Argh! I hate you!" he yelled at his uncaring reflection. "This is all your fault! I can never be normal—it's all your fault, Dark! You, and Mom, and Grandpa, and Dad! I wouldn't be like this if it weren't for you! And where are you now to take responsibility? You're such a jerk, Dark! Why the hell did you leave? I hate you! I fucking hate you!"
He panted vengefully at the mirror, but the face remained unchanged. Daisuke only felt his rage grow, and could feel nothing but the wrath.
"Aaaaargh!" he screamed, squeezing his eyes shut and slamming a fist painfully into the sink counter. In a bizarre, masochistic way, it felt good. The pain, the anger—it was the most powerful thing he had at the moment. It was the only thing he had in the resounding emptiness of his soul. He didn't want it to stop and vented his frustration more loudly. He punched the counter again and again and then even that wasn't enough anymore. The last few years came boiling to the surface.
He raised his eyes to the mirror, glaring at the unsuspecting face.
His fist followed.
Pain erupted white-hot from his hand as streaking lines cracked along the mirror, a spiderweb on fast-forward. Blood trickled from his knuckles, red smudges against the glass's epicenter. He slowly pulled his hand back, his hand throbbing in time to his heartbeat.
Daisuke heaved in air, shoulders shaking at the multiple miniature replicas of Dark's face in the distorted reflection.
His breath stopped.
Wickedly crimson eyes looked back at him from under purple hair, longer than Daisuke had remembered. A slow smile spread across those pale lips—but that expression had never shown itself before in either of them. It certainly wasn't Daisuke's face… but something about it didn't seem like Dark's either.
"You woke me," the reflection said softly, its eyes glittering a luminous scarlet. Daisuke couldn't move to even wet his lips. "You called me back from the prison… the bondage of the artwork… and I… like a moth to flame cannot resist… that call, that… burning wrath. Blood of my blood, we shall—"
The vision in the mirror's eyes grew wide in shock for a moment, then blinked, its red eyes returning to a reassuring, if confused, amethyst. The cruel smile softened slowly as if the face was remembering how to work correctly. "You're… Daisuke."
There was a long pause. The glassy face was impossible to read. Daisuke waited, his heart in his throat.
"It's been awhile… partner." Dark smiled and with the rush of familiarity, Daisuke's pent up frustration, fear, and anger began to dissipate like the receding tide.
-WULF-
The damp earth muffled the sounds of the warriors' footfalls, leaving only the deeper patters as they crossed the moor. The sun was falling slowly behind the highlands, casting long shadows through the sifting grasses and grotesque shrubs. They paused in a copse of trees, huddling in a makeshift circle with hurried looks at a small troop of men that were marching single-file along the other edge of the open grassland.
"Ellen sceal on eorle," one man whispered among his fellows. Grim nods and hardset eyes surrounded him. 'A warrior must be valiant,' they all seemed to agree.
The man who had spoken, shook his bearded face, gritting his teeth together into a grizzly smile. The fur that lined his tunic rippled in the wind and gave him a beastly visage, almost like he was a monster that had crawled out from the among fens and brackish waters. He took a deep breath, stretching the livid scar that still festered on his cheek. The others watched him, waiting for some kind of signal.
"Wryd byth swithost!" the man said quickly, rising to his feet with a wordless battlecry. His sword and battered shield pierced the darkening skies as a cold wind carried his words far from the group. A dying gasp of sunlight struck the pocked, yet polished blade, glinting a dull red as if it anticipated biting into its foes. The handful of warriors followed suit, throwing their arms and voices to the air.
'Fate is the mightiest.'
-WULF-
Deor surveyed the battle from a hillock a safe distance away. Certainly he was no stranger to battle, but he now earned his keep through his clever verses and memory of the epic stories of his people. Now at work for the Heodening king, the minstrel was not inclined to risk his life in battle—especially one that didn't concern him.
He sighed, watching the two groups shout and charge. Both sides' approaches were sloppy and too hasty. While not the greatest fighter, Deor was still alive after many years and could predict an unfortunate circumstance before he was stuck in one. The only saving grace for the warriors seemed to be that the other side was equally abysmal in their skills.
Why had he decided to travel again? Oh, yes, in the hopes of seeing something truly song-worthy. Another man had appeared at King Heoden's hall and claimed to be the best poet in the land. At first, the king had barely acknowledged the man, but Heorrenda as the man was known, was now Deor's rival.
The warriors met, and the clanging of iron swords and helms mixed into the general cacophony of men's voices. Since the skirmish wasn't very interesting, Deor turned his poetic mind to the scenery around him. Maybe he should work on a descriptive lyric? A riddle? Maybe he should just rehearse that new poem from across the sea about Beo—
A sudden rustle in a wild tangle of shrubs behind him made him whirl around, pulling his knife into his hand.
A sleek, black beast padded out of the bramble, its breath a slow, steady pant. The wolf was huge, its forelegs massive and hindquarters powerful. Wind ruffled its fur, the dark coat glinting with blood-hues masking the rippling muscles beneath it. Deor's breath froze in his throat and his blue eyes locked onto the beast.
The wind died suddenly and Deor could hear his own heart pumping steadily throughout his body. He was not normally superstitious but this, this was different. He swallowed, settling his weight into a fighting stance, his arms wide.
The wolf's eyes shone a frightening crimson red. It stopped only a few paces from where Deor stood ready. It watched him without fear or concern, as if the strong and armed man was too feeble for its time. And then, it turned, ignoring Deor in favor of the far off battle where men were howling to the clang of swords and shields.
Deor felt a shudder ripple through his body, but he held his stance. The beast continued to ignore him, behaving in a manner that animals should not. Something else seemed to hold sway over the land that was slowly dying into night.
The wolf looked over its shoulder and back towards Deor. The man tensed, but the wolf didn't do anything more than open its mouth into a sharply fanged grin, its husky body relaxed. It knew Deor was incapable of doing any harm, and the thought irked the man. He took a step forward, his knife still ready. His blood pounded hotly in his ears. If it was a demonic animal, all the more reason he should kill it… and present its head to Heoden. Surely, killing such an animal was beyond Heorrenda.
The wolf jerked its attention back to the fight below, the lines that ran along its dark body suddenly alert and tensed for action. It paid no mind to Deor's advance, all its focus on the fighting men. The quick change made Deor stop abruptly, and focus his attention on the field as well. His knife hung useless at his side as he watched a hawk swoop down, circling the bloody field from a closer level. The warbird screamed heartily, and with a sickening lurch to Deor's stomach, the wolf gave a short answering howl. This was no ordinary day, and he had somehow been chosen as witness. These beasts of war must be representatives of some dark gods, and Deor was powerless. He replaced the knife in his belt, knowing that if death came for him there was nothing he could do. He stepped forward again, getting a better view.
Man and beast stood side by side, scrutinizing the skirmish. There were only a dozen or so men involved, but that was plenty. Two had already fallen, one still and quiet, the other clutching the gaping wound that showed slivers of grey intestines. His tortured groans competed with the ringing swords of the still-fighting men, all sound echoing around the moor.
The hawk cried out again, and the wolf threw back its head in a deep howl. The sound resonated in the marrow of Deor's bones, echoing around and around in his head. Without any warning, the black wolf lunged forward off the hillock and raced down towards the battle below, disappearing into a patch of trees and darkness. Deor felt his body sag with relief, but even as he closed his eyes in appreciation, a tingle ran up his spine. The encounter wasn't over; there had been no sense of closure. He opened his eyes and sought out the battlefield again. The hawk had disappeared, and the men were hacking at each other brutally, but with little effect. A feeling of uneasiness welled up in the pit of Deor's stomach.
With a sudden gust, the wind tore at Deor's heavy fur cloak as the chill wracked his body with an icy infusion of fear. The air felt dense and electric as if before a lightning storm, even though the clouds that hovered in the sky above were harmless. The sun threw fell below the cloud line, washing the entire scene a sharp contrast of red-orange and black. The grass shivered at the dying sunlight's touch, and even the warriors below seemed to finally sense something was amiss.
It's coming, Deor thought, half-excited and half-terrified.
A wolf howled.
A hawk screamed.
The figure appeared above the mêlée, the air around it humming and dark. Ethereal, beautiful, and terrible with the glory of war, its ash-grey wings held the body aloft. It was larger than life, and one hand firmly gripped the most valuable-looking of treasure-swords. The creature opened its perfect mouth, lips parted exquisitely for a silent second, before pouring forth an otherwordly scream, a tormented mix of a wolf's sorrowful howl and a hawk's piercing cry, but on a scale that penetrated every nerve of Deor's being. He was transfixed by it beauty, the moment reverberating and infusing itself into his soul.
"Waelcurie!" The men cried out in terror, naming the fearsome creature above them. They clambered through the mud, tripping over each other and squealing like stuck pigs in their frantic attempts at escape. Deor's breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide with wonder.
The valkyrie descended, its eyes bright and dark at once, reflecting the inner darkness like twin suns. Its jeweled swords caught the last rays of the setting sun before it caught its first victim. The two fallen men were first, unable to run or even scream well, and then the valkyrie beat its wings once, twice, and overcame the fleeing soldiers. The sword cut through them like water, and they fell to the ground silent. They were dead before the earth caressed their grimy faces.
The valkyrie finished and paused, perfectly still. Its long hair was untroubled by the cold winds that swept the moor grasses. It turned, slowly, to face the poet and even at that distance, Deor knew the creature was looking only at him. His breath stopped, his mind froze, and he was caught so easily. He didn't scream, he didn't run, he didn't even blink. It wasn't fear that made Deor so still, but rapture. Pure, sheer euphoria. Slowly, the valkyrie raised its free hand to point at its disciple. No expression showed on its smooth, pale face. Its mouth opened again, the strange and dreadful voice forming itself into words.
"Is seo forthgesceaft digol and dyrne."
Deor felt himself lurch as if struck. But it was from within! He looked down his arms patting his chest and stomach as if searching for a grievous wound, but he was wholly intact. If anything, he realized, he felt as if he was more complete than he had been before, if that were possible. A great warmth settled into his chest, stretching and seeping into his extremities. Was this his soul? His hael? He looked back up towards the sky, but the valkyrie had gone. Its parting words echoed ominously against the poet's mind, as he stared out over the moor, now dark with night.
'What is ordained to come is dark and secret.'
-WULF-
The question now was how to spread the word. If he wanted the tale of the valkyrie to be told across the land, it needed to be sung. The cadence and alliteration would stick to the minds of his listeners like tar, never letting go of the imagination.
He was back at his own holdings, a modest cottage surrounded by a bit of farmable land. It was close to Heoden's robust mead-hall, but Deor had not yet entered through the iron doors and spoken with the lord. He needed time to process what had happened, and to craft the verses that would outlast every other.
For Deor was sure the song of the valkyrie was his destiny. His chest still felt the tremor of brilliance that the valkyrie had imbued within him, into his spirit, his very soul. The only way Deor could understand what the creature had done was that his life-force—his hael—had been altered and given greater breadth. The swelling force propelled him to his poetry, so that all he could think of was echoing verses and the swaying rhythm.
Deor was powerful. He could feel it, like lightning beneath his skin, itching to be released.
Suddenly, Deor grabbed his cloak and exited his house. Marching with ever-quickening steps, he turned down the narrow, muddy path that would take him to Heoden. Without even a thought for what he would perform, Deor knew he would perform—he was driven to it. Giddiness welled up through his system and he forced himself not to run like a small child.
Heorrenda would fall to him. With the power that the valkyrie had given him, Deor would surely triumph.
It was fate, and all knew fate determined all.
Above him, a hunting hawk cried out, and Deor smiled, taking inspiration where he found it. His fate would demand no less.
-WULF-
Historical notes:
The men and valkyrie are speaking Old English, which was the main language spoken by Anglo-Saxons in what is now Great Britain between roughly 450 and 1100. Obviously, I have given translations for everything, but I hope it's not too distracting.
Deor makes a reference to rehearsing "that new poem from across the sea about Beo—" before the wolf interrupts him. Of course, Deor is referencing Beowulf, one of the oldest and longest pieces of Old English poetry that has survived into modern times. Beowulf is actually a Scandinavian hero, thought to have lived in Sweden and Denmark. (I recommend the Seamus Heaney translation.)
Deor himself is a (likely fictional) character from the Old English poem, "Deor." The poet makes numerous references to great heroes/heroines and then relates his own misfortune with the Heodenings in comparison. For a link to the poem: www. anglo-saxons. net /hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Deor (take out the spaces)
Author Notes:
I hope everyone has realized by now that not only is this fanfiction based off DNAngel, but that throughout the text, I will also be drawing from other literature. LOTS of other literature. You may consider it a crossover between DNAngel and Old English poetry for now. Granted, that will change as we take a romp through the literary canon and art movements with Wulf and Dark.
~anja-chan