~*A Smile Worth A Thousand Tears*~
It takes more muscles to frown than to smile.
~*X*~
It took him ten years to stop buying their lies.
His eyes, for instance, were perfectly normal. Or so they said. Blood red, deep red, eyes as red as the sun when it began to set…he was just born that way, it didn't make him any different from the other kids.
They said he was just like the others—then why was it that he had strange powers? Powers that had manifested when he was only eight?
So many other things, his dreams—nightmares—his thoughts, his actions…entirely normal.
It was laughable, really. How stupid did they think he was?
Kanai is eight.
He frolics in sunlight like children were born to, and like them, he is watched over by the priestesses of the Temple. He knows everyone's names, and his favorite priestess praised him for his memory, and thus, the boy is content.
No one else has ears as long as his. No one else has eyes as scarlet as his. No one else has forest colored fur. But it made him different, and he stood out, ensuring that he was never forgotten.
(And he fears that. Deep inside of him, he fears that more than anything.)
There's a little girl he likes. Her name is Emi, and she has eyes like sunlight, such a vivid shade of gold that it reminds him of…someone else. There's that memory again, dancing out of reach, contaminating his mind with unfamiliar dusty shades from a past he can't recall. He's okay with that.
He casts a quick glance over his shoulder, but his usual caretaker is busy. Emi wasn't part of the orphans being cared for at the Temple, but there she was walking by again, and he just couldn't let Emi pass without saying hello.
Scrambling up onto a rock ledge, and he thinks it's just like a throne, Kanai peers down at her and waves, smiling as only the innocent can.
The winding grass trail is a favorite haunt of hers, and her mother takes her along the track nearly every day. When she doesn't show up, it makes him so sad that he feels like he's splintering on the inside.
He likes Emi. She's similar to him, but different. Shorter ears, brown fur, a gaze like concentrated solar rays…and she doesn't have such a ridiculous collar on, not like his red, spiked one that was too big for his slender throat. A gift, he had been told, from someone that cared for him. A friend that he didn't have a name or a face for. How peculiar.
"Emi!" He shouts, and he has a ludicrously large grin on his face. Her mother pauses and looks at him with an expression he can't read but sees a lot. Emi pokes her head out from behind her parent and she seems so glad to see him that he imagines she is shining like the sun.
"Kanai!" And she's running at him, ignoring her mother's anxious murmur, standing on the very tips of her toes and extending her hand for him to grab. He hauls her up beside him, and he hears the priestess that is usually watching him give a little shout of surprise as she notices his absence from her direct line of sight.
Now, he's nervous. He thinks this feeling he has is called a "crush", but he doesn't know why. No one will tell him either. Everyone seems to be obsessed with keeping him happy, as if something bad will happen if they don't. That includes not telling him things that had the potential to be depressing.
"Hi!" She smiles in that way that exposes the dimple near her left cheek and her eyes close, perhaps watching the illusory shapes that ghosted across her vision behind shut lids.
"Where are you off to today?" Naturally, he's curious, and his ruby stare is unblinking and intense for one so young.
Emi's hands clasp shut behind her back, and she has a mischievous look on her face. "Mommy and I are going to the market. We'll pass the Temple again on our way back! Want me to get you anything?"
Kanai isn't an idiot. He notices her mother watching them with a guarded expression, and he self-consciously shifts his oversized collar, wondering what he was doing to earn her…distrust? "A ring, or a bracelet! Something that matches we can both wear!"
Beaming, Emi wraps her arms around him and hugs him close, and her sweet laughter echoes in his young ears like bells. "Alright, it's a promise!"
The priestess that typically kept an eye on him heaved a relieved sigh upon finding their position, but before she can approach, she is interrupted by Emi's mother. The pair whisper something before gliding away, silent as owls, out of their earshot.
They're both inquisitive, and they inch closer, bit by bit, quietly leaving their ledge and shuffling nearer to the conspiring adults.
What they hear next sinks Kanai's heart.
"…know he's only a child, but—"
"He's harmless, no different from—"
"I know, I know, but I'd appreciate it if you kept him away from my Emi. He's not safe, and—"
"Kanai is only a little boy." Here, the priestess sounds adamant.
"But his eyes…"
A sigh. "If you insist, I'll try to dissuade him."
He feels Emi's sympathetic—pitying—gaze on his pelt, and his fur becomes rumpled as he fights off a plethora of emotions. Why? What did he do to make anyone…?
Emi's mother returns, and her eyes quickly skip over Kanai as if he was something unpleasant. "Let's get to town now, dear. How about we take a different route home on the way back?"
He knew what this meant. This would be the last time he would get to see Emi. Kanai feels something inside of him explode, break into a million pieces, and instead of leaving him in pain…he is left with a numb, empty feeling.
His eyes become half closed, and when the magic finally flies from his body without his consent, he can't say he's surprised.
Something cracks like a whip, and there's the electrified tingle of magic in the air as a pale blue bolt hits Emi's mother on the arm. She cries out, but it's Emi's mortified scream that brings Kanai back into himself. It's as if a different person withdrew all of the arcane energy then, because his fur falls flat and he's left with only a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Oh, goodness!" The priestess rushes to attend the injured parent, but she is shaken off. Grabbing Emi's hand, her mother swiftly begins to stride away.
Kanai is left speechless, every muscle frozen, and somewhere inside of him…he always knew he would be alone. He says a word of farewell without expecting an answer. "Bye," he murmurs quietly.
Emi hears. She peeks at him from over her shoulder and whispers the same.
He comes back to the courtyard of the Temple late at night. No one ever notices him leaving his room except for two specific people, and neither was in the shrine at the time. He made a small figure, outlined against the stars and the night sky, and he wanders around in an effort to exhaust himself enough to sleep.
(He paces back and forth across his throne room. And there is no one there to even hear the echoes.)
By coincidence, he passes the ledge he and Emi had sat on earlier that same day. Something glints bright yellow in the moonlight, and his heart almost bursts from his chest. He backtracks, but it's nothing. Just a shiny circle resting beside a…
He jumps down, and as he stands there between the grass path below and the Temple grounds above, he briefly considers running away. But to where? Who would take in a dangerous freak like him?
Taking the circlet in his hands, Kanai realizes it's a bracelet made from golden stones. He can easily imagine Emi having had picked something like this—its colors were clear and vibrant. Had she kept her promise after all?
For the first time since the events previously, he smiles, because there's a wishing flower next to his foot, where the bracelet had been. He takes it and holds it high, and every individual fluffy seed becomes its own star against the heavens.
He had met her in the spring, when the dandelions had been plentiful.
Slipping the bracelet on, Kanai takes a deep breath and blows, wishing for a peace he could never have.
~*X*~
Kanai is nine.
The collar isn't so big and heavy anymore, and he begins to appreciate whoever it was that had given him the gift in the first place. He is happy today, because two of his favorite people have returned to the Temple and are taking him far away to see the Kingdom of Sorrow.
Lolo is a priestess, though in training or not he doesn't remember, and she's friendly to him. She has a clumsy way of attempting to speak in the formal fashion of the other priestesses, but he finds her far more entertaining than anyone else.
Popka is her companion, and he's brash, hotheaded. He likes him a lot, because he in no way endeavors to treat him like a child.
The view from the airship of Leorina the Sky Pirate is spectacular, and Kanai has to be pulled back several times, lest he fall over the rails. Again, he notices that Leorina, the ship's captain, stares at him. It's the same stare that he gets from Lolo, Popka, and Leorina's second-in-command, Tat.
They stare as if they see two people at once.
He's not bothered, and his bracelet flashes in the sun as he races back and forth, laughing and joking. He has long since figured out how his powers operated, drawing strength from his emotional pain, specifically, when he was sad. The priestesses told him nothing else.
That was all right.
The Kingdom of Sorrow is still being rebuilt, Leorina says. He thinks the melancholy feeling in the air must be what gives the place its name, or so he thinks.
However, the instant he takes his first step through the restored city of Triste, Kanai sheds a tear upon seeing all of the happy people living there.
He doesn't know why.
~*X*~
Kanai is ten.
He had a growth spurt not long ago, and he finds himself not shocked at all by how easily the collar fits him now. Leorina says she wants to buy him a new one—something golden—but he likes his just fine. It still is bigger than it ought to be, but it isn't capable of being a belt anymore.
He stares at his reflection in the Sea of Tears, and he sees a memorial built to The King of Sorrow on a hillside behind him. Lolo just gazes at him when he asks her who the King of Sorrow was.
"A strong leader," she says at last, and leaves it at that for now.
He has stopped believing what others tell him. He knows he isn't normal. He finds himself able to summon the memories that make him sad—one word, Emi—and can now control his magic at will. He sees a glint of something in everyone's eyes when he does this, but he has passed caring.
He is mature, for his age. Partially because of the dreams.
He dreams of unending loneliness, of a kingdom ravaged by time's merciless hand. He dreams of a long-eared boy with golden eyes that sent a bell ringing in his home at last.
But he sees this from the eyes of a stranger, because he never seems himself when he dreams.
Kanai takes the bracelet off of his wrist and watches the sun reflect off of its surface. Since that day, he has seen no sign of Emi. The other kids alternate between being afraid of him and being amazed.
He contemplates throwing the keepsake away, but puts it back on and follows Lolo silently home.
(There is sadness, but they simply ignore it.)
~*X*~
Kanai is twelve.
His red eyes are almost permanently in a half-closed state, and he sees this frightens Lolo. He asks her why, in an even voice, would this possibly bother her.
"Are you all right?" The priestess's tail swirls in constant spirals behind her, and he watches it absently.
"I'm fine," he assures her, but can't bring himself to smile. Last year he injured another person after his feelings had been hurt, and he had lashed out in his pain. He had been taken from the Temple and placed under the constant supervision of Lolo and Popka, which would be acceptable, except…
Lolo frowns, not convinced, and hugs her to him. "Kanai, it'll be okay," she promises with the air of one who intends to keep her word.
He deigns not to reply. Because of him, someone had been almost fatally injured. He had nearly taken a life.
He was a monster.
She studies him before smiling, as if she knew a great secret. "I'd like you to meet someone."
"Who?"
Popka, reclining under a tree, springs to his feet with a grin. "This way, this way!" As if he had been waiting for her to say that.
Curiosity piqued, he follows, and he finds himself back at the shrine for The King of Sorrow. There is someone standing there, the boy from his dreams who was similar to him.
He beams, this boy, fearlessly approaching him and offering his hand. "Hi, my name's Klonoa! You must be Kanai." His tongue stumbles over the first syllable of Kanai's name, and again, he stares with the stare of someone seeing two people at once.
Kanai nods hesitantly as Klonoa continues. "How do you like my collar?"
"You gave me that?" Realizing he was finally talking to someone from his past, he finds a billion questions stuck in his throat.
"That's right," he smiles.
(Here is someone that can help him, so he won't be so alone.)
He can sense Lolo and Popka surveying everything behind him, but Kanai isn't sure where to begin, or what to say.
"Go ahead," Klonoa encourages. "Ask anything you want."
"…Why a collar?"
He scratches his head. "I don't really know."
For some reason, the absurdity of that statement amuses Kanai to no end. He grins, eyes opening fully.
And for the first time in a long while, he laughs like children should.
~*X*~
Author's Note: Might seem like a weird place to end the story, but I want it to be this way. Anything that happens after is up to you. This is my first Klonoa fic and I haven't actually played Lunatea's Veil, but I've seen and read a lot of things about it. Sorry about any glaring characterization errors. This is also my first time writing in present tense, another point of this story.
Kanai's name is derived from the Japanese word for sad, which I believe is "kanashii".
Reviews are much appreciated.