DISCLAIMER: Escaflowne™ ©Sunrise & Emotion & Bandai & some other ppl who aren't me. ;P
—
The sky was clear that spring morning, with few clouds scattered like brushstrokes of white across a canvas of pale blue. A group of men stood conferring with low voices on a balcony overlooking a neat little garden, their stark black cloaks blemishing the daylight. In the garden below were two people under the shade of a tulip tree. One was a blond girl of no more than five years old. Her wispy-curly hair was chopped short and she wore a simple white smock that went past her knees. Her face was tilted upward, gazing questioningly up at the terrace.
"He looks like a ghost," the little girl whispered, china-blue eyes wide.
"I would say that's because he is, Celena," said the golden-furred dogman crouched down beside her.
Celena turned to her guardian with an inquiring look. "He's not scary, though, Jajuka. I thought ghosts were scary."
Jajuka shook his head, smiling comfortingly. "No. Ghosts aren't real and they cannot hurt us. You should never need to be frightened of them."
"I'm not frightened," Celena said. "That man up there just looks very strange, and very, very sad…like he doesn't want to be here."
"A lot of us don't wish to in this place," Jajuka said quietly.
Celena smiled up at the dogman, a smile filled with childish, unconditional love. "I don't mind being here," she told him naively, "'cause you're here, too." Leaf shadows, shifting in the wind, flitted across the little girl's face, and—for an elusive moment—seemed to cast a shadow of sadness. "But if you weren't, I wouldn't want to be here at all…I…I don't like being alone," she added timorously.
"You will not be alone," Jajuka reassured her gruffly. "I promise."
The man they had been referring to stood unmoving on the balcony, his gaze resting on the half-creature and the girl child beneath the tree. He looked as insipid as smoke, starkly white amidst the dark cloaks of the Sorcerers on either side of him. He was unusually long-limbed and painfully thin; his colorless clothing hung loosely about his spare frame, billowing listlessly in the spring wind. Silver hair drifted over his fine-boned face, obscuring his mournful expression.
Celena had turned back towards the terrace. "He's not real, then?" she asked Jajuka, pointing up at the balcony.
Jajuka gently pulled Celena's hand down. "Don't point, sweetie," he admonished lightly. "And no, he's not real."
Celena frowned with incomprehension. "But if he isn't real, why is he here?"
"He is an Atlantean. He and his people perished from Gaea thousands of years ago. What you see now is only a shadow of a person that the Sorcerers have managed to conjure," Jajuka replied.
"Why?"
"Celena, the Sorcerers rarely tell the reason of the things they do…Often because there is no just reason."
"That's okay," the girl said quickly, sensing a latent anger in her guardian's voice. "I don't want to know."
Up on the balcony, the Sorcerers were ushering their Atlantean ghost away, back into the rooms. His whiteness was swallowed up in the flap and flutter of the numerous black cloaks.
Jajuka noticed that Celena looked worried as the balcony emptied. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, Celena," the dogman said, standing and pulling the child up with him. "The ghost and those Sorcerers' have got nothing to do with you."
He had no idea how wrong he was.
"Jajuka, look! A red butterfly—isn't it beautiful?"
"Mm, a Red Admiral, if I'm not mistaken."
Jajuka smiled as he watched his young charge rush over to a clump of flowers. The butterfly took off in a flurry of crimson wings, darting with spritely dexterity through the air. Celena chased it until she was out of breath, then watched as it settled into a clump of snowdrop and narcissus where it was soon joined by an entourage of common blue butterflies. They suckled peacefully with the sunlight shimmering on their velvety wings.
"I don't suppose I'll ever be quick enough to catch one," Celena sighed, leaning back against Jajuka's rough tunic.
"Do you want to?" he asked her.
Celena paused. "No…" she said finally. "If I were a butterfly, and someone caught me, I think I would die."
The Red Admiral butterfly fluttered its wings as though in laughter, and the common blues followed suit. But then, perhaps it was only the spring wind.
O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O
A/N: Eh…don't worry if you didn't get any of that…cuz I didn't either! ((big grin)). But leave a quick review and lemme know what you think, anyway! The second part, (which'll be considerably darker) shall be coming…whenever I feel up to writing it.