It was dark here. Dark and cold. But it wasn't like he couldn't deal with that. He had been raised in that kind of place. Cold and dark, the air permeated with suffering. But unlike that place this one was suffocating. Back then he had had some form of hope. Something to lessen the suffocating feeling of being a prisoner. Something to make the chains feel lighter. He wouldn't compare it to the warm light of the sun. That had never appealed to him. It was more like a soft breeze rolling through, lifting the dank and stifling air and bringing the faint sent of spring. Faint and barely there but something to be treasured regardless. Something to be missed.
He had been told to run and he had. But, he supposed, he had run in the wrong direction. She had always run away. Tried to escape from this life. From these people. On some level he always had thought her a coward, but he realized long after she was gone that it took courage to run away. It took courage to try to leave when you knew that they would never let you. In a world where everyone had chosen to remain still, had given up the thought of escape, she had dreamt of and fought for her freedom. For the life she was never given the chance to have. He admired that. He had done the opposite of what she had. Instead of running away he had plunged right into the pits of hell. Determined to obliterate the entirety of their world. To put an end to their reign. He knew he should have taken his chance to leave but he couldn't forgive them for what they had done to her.
Still he had failed. The mafia still stood strong and he had let himself be captured and imprisoned once again. He couldn't help but think she would scold him for being so foolish. But how was he supposed to win against someone like that? Someone that held the same spark of fierce protectiveness, of unwavering loyalty, and foolish regret to have to harm their foes. Someone who's eyes looked like he imagined her's had long ago. He had never seen her look so alive but sometimes, when she was defending him and the others or when she made a witty joke, he could see the embers left from her long extinguished fire. He could see her old fire desperately trying to rekindle itself. The eyes of that boy, he now realized, held the fierce flame that hers should have. The flame that the mafia had taken from her.
He hated them even more now. Now that he knew exactly what they had taken from her. What they had, inadvertently, taken from him. How different would his life have been if he had seen the determination that was long dead and buried, aflame and alive in her bright eyes? He knew he would've been much less pessimistic despite the many life times he had lived. He mourned the fact that he had never had the chance to see those eyes. He wanted to make the mafia pay for it but at the same time he knew that fighting the mafia meant fighting that boy. He knew he couldn't do that. He couldn't possibly kill someone who so strongly resembled what he knew she would've been like if she had never been involved in the mafia. He was at a loss. He wanted to keep moving, keep running like she had told him, but he didn't know where to run to.
What was he supposed to do?
The warm sun shone through the high lonely window in the cold stone room. He could hear the trees rustling outside and vaguely wondered if they looked as calming as they sounded. He sat in the single shaft of light that poured through the barred window and attempted to relax. It had been a long day of tests and experiments and he was aching all over. Suddenly the door opened and the others scuttled into the corners like scared rats. He turned to look at the door calmly. There was no use being afraid. It wouldn't make a difference.
Suddenly a large thump was heard as a young girl was thrown roughly inside the cell. The door slammed loudly and footsteps faded down the hallway. He glared at the door briefly before getting up and walking over to the young woman who hadn't moved from where she landed. Her tangled blonde hair laid splayed around her in a show of elegance rarely seen by these children. He knelled down to her height and rested his head on his hand. He could see bandages covering her arms and mused at what kind of injury they were hiding. The girl had not moved from her position laying on the floor and her heavy blue eyes gazed languidly out the window. A serene look was painted on her pretty face and he thought that perhaps he had seen someone gazing out a window with the same expression before. Of course they had been sitting on a window sill and not laying on a filthy floor covered in wounds.
Her eyes were wrinkled slightly around the edges with worries long passed and dark crescents rested under them. He didn't blame her, it was hard to sleep sometimes with so many people sobbing noisily every night. She seemed to be enjoying herself gazing at the small moths that fluttered about outside of the prison bars and he wondered at her ability to content herself with such small things. She always seemed to treasure the smallest little things. He wondered briefly if, long ago, she used to smile at them to.
"Are you going to lay there all day?" He asked curiously. She hummed slightly in response and rolled onto her back. "It's more comfortable than you think." She said lightly as she watched the dust motes. He tipped his head to the side before he laid down beside her. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "It's just as uncomfortable as I thought it would be." He remarked. She chuckled slightly in that empty way she always did and he thought that it would be nice if he could make her truly laugh one day. "After you go through the things I have you find the strangest things to be comfortable." She said lightly before she rolled back onto her side to watch the few tips of green they could see out of the window.
He watched her face, empty and devoid of emotion, her eyes heavy and sad with the smallest hint of mockery and something he couldn't quite identify. Something he hadn't seen in the eyes of anyone he had met here. Something familiar he was sure he had seen in a past life but couldn't quite remember. He to rolled over onto his front and gazed out the window. He saw a skylark fly past and marveled at how he had remembered how to identify it. It was another of the silly little things she had taught him. "Do you have a dream, ototo-chan?" She asked suddenly. He blinked at her in surprise before raising a brow in question. She smile softly and looked back toward the window. "Something you aspire toward. A goal you would do anything to reach." She explained. He thought about it for a moment. A goal he would do anything to achieve. He let a smile slip onto his face as he nodded his head. "I do." He said with confidence. She looked at him from the corner of her eye and nodded but didn't ask him about it. That was something he liked about her. She didn't pester him about things.
The skylark he had seen earlier had landed on the ledge right outside their window and he saw her eyes sparkle slightly at the way the light glinted off of it's beak. "Never give up on your dream. Do whatever it takes to make it a reality. Even if it means hurting others." She said softly and he nodded to show his understanding. "But," she continued, "if something stands in your way, something precious, something you don't have the heart to destroy, don't stop walking." She said with a firmer voice. She turned to meet his gaze and her eyes held something strange in them. Something that barely reminded him of smoldering embers. "Keep on walking and take that thing with you. Don't destroy it and don't give up. Find a way to progress and have that precious thing march right along side you. Achieve your dream and take that precious thing with you as you go." She sad with a determination he hadn't seen in her before.
He nodded minutely, shocked at her sudden determination. She seemed to realize the she had startled him because she slipped back into her contently sad expression and patted him on the head. She smiled slightly and returned to watching the skylark preen itself. He too returned his gaze to the bird but his mind remained on what she had said. His dream was a simple one. One day he would take them all away from here. He would make their captors pay for what they've done and then they would all run away. To some place where they would be able to be happy. To someplace where he could make her smile.
Even though those words had long ago faded out of existence in all but his memory, they stayed inside his mind and thrived there. Driving him onward. And as he sat there in the cold and the dark and stood so very near to the precipice of defeat he remembered her words and thought that maybe he wouldn't give up. that he'd do something even better than destroying the mafia. He'd change it. He'd start from the inside and before they even knew what was happening there would no longer be a place for the ones who had wronged them inside the mafia world. He'd walk alongside that foolish boy who reminded him so much of a her he had never met and he's achieve his goal.
As he looked back on his past, on those days in that place mixed with despair and a warm contentment he marveled at how much he had changed. And how much of the person he was now was do to the little piece of her she had left inside him. He almost laughed at the thought. That was so like her never truly leaving this realm, she had decided to haunt him. And maybe, he thought, the same could be said for everyone who had met her.
'Words are born into air
And quickly fade out in the wind
But they find their way inside you
Where they live on forevermore
When the skies are dark and full of rain
Look inside your heart
The light, so warm will come and glow
Shining just like the sun
You can see, just how much you've grown
How strong you are
A love will open up to you
And it starts from the day that you, first heard those words.'
- LYRA'S SONG - FAIRY TAIL -