This is the first piece of dedicated writing for a long time (with a lot to wish for...I think it's just too dry, but hopefully it'll get better as it progresses and I get my cogs moving again...). This is a Servant of Evil retelling, spanning a wee bit before and (possibly) after the events of the Vocaloid movie.
This disclaimer will ONLY be said here and now; the ASDFers do NOT own Vocaloid nor any associated programs. The mighty Yamaha Corporation does.
Please enjoy the read and review please!
I am Your Servant
Chapter 1
Written by Shyion
It was a cold morning.
Deep in an evergreen forest, a young man sleeps alone, a small fire simmering bright red nearby, while a small pack and sheathed sword lay next to him. Wrapped in a dark grey cloak and hood, his sleep was deep and untroubled, a small smile on his face as he dreamt.
Soon, rays of sunlight penetrated through the canopy, its beams forming almost solid pillars reaching from the ground up to the sky, heralding a new day.
The forest quickly became alive with noise, the chirruping of birds soon filling the air, waking the sleeping man. His eyes opened, revealing emerald-blue eyes. He sat up, and surveyed his surroundings slowly, drinking in the golden rays of light like sweet honey, his hood falling to reveal hair, tied to a short ponytail behind him, as gold and as bright as the light that surrounded him.
Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a small half loaf of bread and cheese, tearing slowly at his meager breakfast with his right hand. With his left, he pulled out a round bronze locket no bigger than his hand. Pressing its lid slightly, it opened to reveal a small clock, its clockworks ticking dutifully. Smiling gently as he chewed, he twisted the join of the two hands to the clock face gently as a small click could be heard, and an even smaller pendant tumbled out of a compartment in the back.
The pendant was heavily laden with dirt and grime, but its barely-noticeable engravings boasted of a higher, far more magnificent history. Twisting a small knob at the top, the young man opened the locket, revealing a single picture; a girl of evident noble descent. He smiled, as his mind drifted into the past, as he had done often in the past, trying to remember a childhood as memorable as the time in a mother's womb.
Plunging into the cold water, senses going into shock at entry, feet and hands wrapped immediately in the unforgiving current of water.
Pulling his head up, a young boy raised his head above the waterline, the storm above still going strong. Distant already, a Cliffside with the remains of a rope bridge hanging limply, the strings frayed evidently from being cut. A flurry of motion, as a black, cloaked figure ran away over the cliff.
A single yell could be heard from the shore, a light shining through the storm. The boy turned, and saw a figure racing on horseback next to him on the riverside. A voice lost in the storm, but an outstretched hand from the figure the only message needed by the boy.
Reaching out, his short and small hand towards this strange figure's outstretched hand. But even so close, he missed, the water of the river hissing as it pulled him under, refusing to let go of it's prey. Even so, the boy pulled himself up again, challenging the watery snake coiling around him, reaching out again for the man's hand. But again he was pulled under, and again he tried. Insurmountable times he tried, his strength quickly diminishing, the river sapping his strength with both its cold touch, and its iron grip. Finally, a hold, the boy's arm and hand locked on by the riding figure on the shore, its own steel-strong grip a comfort against the river and its violent waves. A shout again, but the voice still lost in the din. Yet slowly, surely, the boy was being pulled towards the shore, out of the cold river, and out of harm's way.
But the river, as persistent as a ravernous wolf having sighted on its prey, had one last trick to throw.
In an instant, out of the dark storm and river, rose a tumbled trunk that blocked the path on the shore for the man, and stood as the final card the river had to play, blocking the path of the boy. But caught up so, challenging the river, that neither noticed, until it was too late.
A sickening thud, a screeching neigh, the wet slip of hands unlocking, and the boy was gone down the river, his vision fading quickly as the river carried him away, its prey finally in its grasp.
Yet above it all, one thing remained clear above all else; a final scream that rose above the din of it all:
"My Prince!"
He screamed as he woke up, remembering snippets of a time that seemed like centuries ago, a young boy sitting bolt-upright in a woollen bed, alone in a room with a single fireplace for light, a table with two chairs sitting humbly in the room on the far side. Next to it, a window to the world, yet shrouded in black night.
The door opened suddenly, the sound of it slamming against the wall enough to sedate his screams, as a young woman ran into the room.
She wore a shin-length, plain black dress with dark yellow boots, accompanied by bright pink hair reaching down to her thighs, her figure illuminated by the bright light of the crackling fireplace.
"You…" she began, staring at the boy in the bed, seeing his sitting on the bed upright., tears lining her eyes. "You're alive!" She stepped forward slowly towards him and the bedside, as the boy looked at her in shocked puzzlement, wondering who this woman was.
"Who...are you?" He stuttered, his jaw stiff from lack of use.
She knelt down at the bedside, looking at his face intently, small tears dropping slowly down her face.
"Len..." She whispered. "Len, do you not remember?" Her words choked with slowly intensifying sobs. She slowly stretched out a hand towards him, towards his face, stroking his cheek and then his head, wrapped in white linen.
"You...look familiar..." the boy replied hesitantly, recoiling slightly from her touch, but soon recovering as her hand touched his head, calming him down as a bubble of memory about this woman attempted to surface through a quagmire of black and blank memories. "But no...I cannot remember anything, I'm sorry..."
She stared at him for a time, before collapsing on the bedside, her sobs drowning out all other sound in the room. The boy sat on the bed, unsure and uncertain of himself and his surroundings, his memory blank except for those few terrifying moments deep within the river that he had fought against.
But at this time, he realised across his neck, laid a gold pendant upon a steel chain. Using his left hand, he grasped it slowly and took it off to admire it.
Circular in shape, and no bigger than his boyish palm, he looked on in amazement at its splendour. It's engraving reminiscent to that of an entwined forest of vines and leaves, it glimmered in the light of the fire, reflecting off a single knob at its obvious apex.
Slowly, with his right hand, he twisted the knob gently, the pendant popped open with a soft click, and on its own, began to open, revealing a single picture of a girl, no older than he himself, smiling up back at him inanimately.
He stared at the locket, and the picture of the girl that stared up at him happily, lost in amazement and wonderment, his brain now filling with questions, and his mind reeling from its immense implications.
'Who am I?' he wondered. 'What am I doing here? Who is this woman next to me? Why is this pendant, so expensive and regal, in my possession? And why, or rather, who, is this girl in the pendant, that I seem to hold so dearly?'
As he sat and questioned himself, the woman by his bedside recovered quickly, placing a hand over the locket, looking up at him as he did to her.
"Who...am I?" He asked, quietly.
"Len Kagami..." She began, but cut off her sentence. "Len Kagami." She said, repeating it as if to reassure both of them of this boy's name. "I found you washed ashore by the river not far from here, and I took you here to this inn to care for you."
"Why can I...not remember...anything?" Len asked, taking this opportunity to learn more about himself.
"It is what we call Amnesia." The pink-haired lady answered. "It is a lack of memory due to being hit hard on the head. When I found you, it looked like you had taken a hard hit on the head by something on the river, a tree or a rock perhaps. It is no wonder that you cannot remember anything, and a wonder again that you are actually alive!" She forced a smile, tears still pouring down her face.
"And...who...is this?" Len asked again, considering her answer for a brief moment.
"I do not know." The woman answered, a bit too quickly. "I only found that pendant on you when I found you washed on the shore."
He stared at her hand, which laid on both his and the pendant that he held, wondering even more now about who this girl was.
"What...is your name?" Len finished finally.
"Luka..." She said, her smile this time much more natural. "Luka Megurine."
As she smiled, her unexpected joy spread to the boy, he too smiling at this woman, whom he had just met, felt that he had known her from his earliest days. And as the warmth of joy spread, the crackling flames spread over two yellow tabards bearing the symbol of the Yellow Kingdom.
11/10/09
Yea, I know, his name is Len KagamiNE, but for storyline purposes, his name [for now!] has been altered to Len Kagami. Hohohoho~~~ (Although most of the time he will just be referred to 'Len', so not too much confusion over there...hopefully)