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The Girl In the Sky
"Thither you'll come, late or never"
The horizon kept receding further. Unrelenting, the sun bled into the sky like a crimson garden in bloom. Sparse and desolate, the terrain had spread out before her eyes, vindictive and almost accusing in its own way. Lenalee was no stranger to dreams and prophetic visions, whether they are dreams of broken towers and the ruins left behind, or of spilled blood and lifeless breath. Years ago, she knew not exactly when they began, such visions left her shaking, inconsolable and terrified, as the years passed by, such visions left her strangely cold, an altogether ever day occurrence that held no more meaning, even as fallen comrades and allies increased in number. Reality was already far too painful for her to give much thought on the nature of dreams.
Dusts littered the road as the wind whipped up, blustery gusts beleaguered what few trees there were, and disheveled foliages and grasses moaned. Lenalee walked despite her aching legs knowing not where the road may lead. Her hallucinations almost always involved lives lost, always people she cared for deeply – brother, Allen, Lavi, Kanda, and so many more; now though, with the sight of the hills smoothed out in the far distance, and as dry reeds and a creek sprang out of the bleak earth, she longed, for some uncanny reason, for the dreams of the past when everything was laid out before her simply and when the winds didn't sting as much as they did now.
Lost in that sea of contemplation, she noticed with sudden vagueness a building or temple of some sort a few kilometers ahead. Being the first sign of civilization she has seen, with a running start she attempted to find someone, anyone, dead or alive, just to know that she was not as alone as she dreaded she might be. With mounting disappointment and somewhat awe, all she saw was fertile land, greenery, wild, vast and almost abnormal in a place surrounded by wastelands – cutting and raw, with only a dilapidated and decaying stone structure in the midst of it all, stretching its length towards the sky like an aging god too prideful to step down from its pedestal.
As the heat of the sun drenched the land, having no other objective, she crossed the threshold and entered the building; wisps of sunlight poured down from the cracks in the roof and the single translucent window deigning the eastern wall enabled her to discern four altars adorning each direction, making a circle in the interior of the room. Quite unlike the church in the Order, she stood there by the entrance, observing, perceiving, and trying to recall where she had seen a temple (or a ritual site, maybe) such as this.
Surprised, a feeling of nostalgia swelled inside of her, despite never being religious in her life; God, regardless of the teachings of the Order, was nothing more but a concept to her, a metaphorical construction humans have created to justify their existence, an ideal humans tirelessly (and fruitlessly) strive to emulate and appease. What she believed in (or she supposed, what she theoretically believed in) was humanity's potential, innocence or without, not a capricious God who couldn't even raise his arms for a young girl frantically reaching her hands to the sky and the brother who had sacrificed everything for her. Bitter she may be, Lenalee felt warranted with what the church considered heretic thoughts, contrary to what her friends and comrades may think, saving the needy was the last thing on her mind when she agreed to become an Exorcist, spiting the God who abandoned her and her brother was.
Sometimes though, just sometimes, when she sees Allen's cheerful smile, when he looks at her in a way that makes her brother bristle and whine, when he holds her cold hands, and when he tenderly and firmly assures her that everything would be alright, such moments, increasing in their occurrence now to her somewhat delight and befuddlement, made her cling once again to the God (to any god, really) that can make her see the future Allen holds in the palm of his hand. Most often of times though, behind closed doors, contempt and shame rises to her guts, bile always leaving a faint taste of bitterness in her throat.
Dim and musty, she drew near to the center of the room, the rays of light passing through the windowpane was in a perfect angle for her to see an inscription written on the sandy floor.
The winds died down. Her heart felt constricted. She felt the familiar throbbing in her temple that signified her eventual creeping to consciousness. Lenalee feared the future and what may lay in store for her, she feared the Inspector, she feared the Earl, horrendously so, but most of all, she feared herself, feared the person Allen might see as the strands of hope begin to split.
The air hazy and muddled, she wiped the dirt from the surface and read the inscription again like a drowning child desperate for air, a curse or a blessing, she could not decide which. A tear coursed down her cheek and a smile began to form.
White. She floated in pure, unadulterated white. As white as the snow back in Beijing when her parents were still alive, as white as Allen's hair, as… Small, weak, and imperfect, in a single leap her soul soared through the sky.
-End-