The darkangel stood, his back to the world, his face to the stars. The light illuminated his auburn hair so that the woman standing behind him saw almost a glow surrounding his head, falling between his shadow wings. It reminded her of a tree that had been stained by lightning, its brown wood showing between the black scars.
She did not move out of his elongated shadow, still visible underneath the hidden moon; nor did she attempt to move closer. She saw the fires of his past—it was not the first time, and it would not be the last. It was fascinating and horrifying at once, like a piece of art—another drawing on his walls, another charcoal face from his past, hands covered in flowing blood.
She hated his drawings just as she hated his past, just as she hated his omniscient golden eyes that saw every thought she had. Every curse she wailed at him—caught from her lips, then thrown out again, as if they were not worth his notice. She tried not to talk to him in private, but it happened all the same.
He was frightening without his excuses, without his medical experiments. It was then that she truly saw him, masquerading as a young man with angel's dark wings, his golden eyes aged far beyond his years while his face still carried the weight of a child. What kind of a child is scarred by fire; what kind of a child bears his scars as inky wings that stretch across the horizon?
"Misora-san." His voice was clear and young, and yet it still carried its own weight. A storm rode through his words; a fire burned behind his dead brown eyes; and death itself died at his hands—his gloved, dark, bleeding hands that sketched so many memories onto his halls, that held his instruments with fanatical care.
He never took off the gloves. His hands were always black as his shadow, black as the night wings that surrounded him. It was as if he were made of black, with nothing but a waning moon for a face, half-hidden behind his long auburn hair. He was the night, he was death; he was the darkangel, beautiful in his inhumanity—in the way he seemed to dangle precariously between worlds. It was fascinating; it was horrifying.
Why couldn't she step from his shadow?
They say they know me
But they do not
That is to say, you do not know me
You will never know me
Do not even pretend to understand me
You cannot know me if I do not know myself
His shoes were falling apart, his knees were scraped and bleeding—but his amber eyes were bright when he walked among the trees with a crimson apple in his hand. He was still a boy, though his hair has grown longer and his clothes had grown smaller. The dirt collected between his pale toes and covered his long gangly limbs; he hardly noticed, still wandering about the blackened trees with vague curiosity emanating from his idle steps.
The darkangel, though he tried to nourish the orchard's life, knew that his touch brought death; his touch brought darkness and the end. It turned the trees to ash and their fruits to cores. He tried not to touch them, and yet the shrunken trees still shied away from his thin hands. They knew what kind of a touch the darkangel brought.
He was still frighteningly small, thin, but he did not seem to notice. No one cared for the darkangel's shadow, the boy with the golden eyes who seemed to follow the demon through the paths of life and death. Through flood and fire, he trailed behind the wingéd dæmon, an apple held between his hands as he ignored the dead bodies left behind. Oh, yes, he knew about the bodies. He could see them—and yet he still faltered from the dæmon's side, still strayed from the edge of the abyss.
He was still the starving child the darkangel had stolen for his own. Pale as marble, eyes as gold as the sun, he seemed almost an inhuman creature. A wingless daemon, whose shadow stretched to the horizon in an attempt to make up for the lack of feathers falling down his back. The boy couldn't feel their cold touch yet, but the world could see their shadow lurking in the center of his amber gaze. The humans could see but could not place the oddity so they watched him fear as he would enter their village days at a time, but that time had passed.
Perhaps the vampyre had seen the fear that grew in their eyes, the hatred as they watched the boy's back; perhaps he saw the pyres they built in their fertile minds. Perhaps he smelled the smoke that clouded the air in a thick haze, whatever his reason the darkangel seemed only frustrated in the mind of the child. He was still far too arrogant to see the strings that surrounded him, to see the complication of the darkangel's world.
He clouded his own mind with thoughts of his intelligence; he was blind to the white haired daemon who manipulated him so wholly. Tossing an apple into the boy's grasp with a thin-lipped smile, his crystal eyes glowing beneath the moonlight as he watched the boy struggle through the mountainous terrain, every thought concealed behind the mass of silver hair; the mountain's face hidden beneath its cloak of snow.
The boy is a shadow who did not speak and did not see, the trees know him they feel him sit down beside them, watch as his thin limbs grew longer and his malnourished mind continued to observe the world around him and yet still did not grasp it as they thought he could. He was still a child, a starving, weak child.
Childish, yes he is childish
The world is a childish place
They expect us to act like children so we do
What else would the world want from us?
The boy was practically illiterate, his golden eyes focused on the characters but found nothing in their inked footsteps, the meaning had passed from the yellowing pages leaving nothing but faded black corpses. The darkangel would hunch beside him, watching as his eyes narrowed and his hands shook the aged books in frustration. Then he would take the book out of the boy's hand and mention the dangers of aging paper.
Stubborn and proud the child tried all the same, even while the darkangel hovered behind, his breath-less presence illuminated by the brush of a shadowed feather; dark as the ink he couldn't decipher. Light could practically feel the smile written across his pale features, mocking pale smile that he had seen far too often for comfort. (The darkangel while not overtly expressive did show emotion at times, often to accent a situation, but it was a skill too subtle for a boy to notice.)
"That book is in Italian Light-kun, you speak a dialect of Japanese." The icarus would look down at the text in distaste and shake his head in mock disappointment, inwardly grinning at the look of hatred and irritation on his apprentice's face. He would turn with a harsh laugh and say nothing more, climbing the spiral stairs as he his way to the roof his wings dragging behind him as he climbed out of the boy's fiery view.
It was in that way that Light learned fourteen languages that he would never need to know. Every book, every word, he choked on so that he might stop that laughter that haunted him. He did not know how he ached for approval, how influential the darkangel's views were, he did not see how thoroughly manipulated he was. How twisted he was by the daemon's puppet strings, how his hands were ink-stained not for himself but for something far darker.
He pronounced each word with care, (L, l was such a dangerous letter that must be treated with care… so easily turned into 'r') each letter could be bent if he didn't watch it carefully. And as he engrossed himself in his studies he almost missed the darkangel's winding shadow, he almost missed the clear eyes that surveyed him in a vague interest. He did not catch the faint smile that would touch the winged daemon's lips as he watched the boy write, read, and stutter with a terrifying dedication.
Japanese, Chinese, English, French, German, Latin… they passed through his mind at a blinding rate, each flying through as he poured himself over the daemon's novels and works of literature, the darkangel would look over his shoulder to see sloppily written words, slanted sentences, barely legible but written none the less. The apple's began to die once more under the icarus' care, they began to shrivel in his bare hands but the boy did not have the eyes to see the death in his hands. The familiarity was too bright, the languages were too consuming, he did not have the thought to spare for the darkangel's motives; the excuses were far too easy.
Humanity was even farther from his thoughts, only a vague semblance, every now and then would form of them. But the memories were distant and irrelevant and his ink stained hands seemed far more important than a few forgotten memories.
The past is such an enigma
It is fascinating and time consuming
Which is perhaps the appeal to an immortal creature
Such as myself
"What is God supposed to be, Ryuzaki?" asked Light Yagami with reluctance, he stood before the darkangel his face glued to the floor as he grit his teeth in frustration. He hated when he couldn't answer his own questions, it was like a slap to the face. But the books he read never explained it, they mentioned it, he, but he did not understand it.
And he hated that more than anything.
"Omniscient, omnipotent, omni-something. Don't worry God doesn't believe in you either, I doubt he even believes in himself anymore. Not important, and hardly relevant Light-kun; since when did you become interested in our heavenly father?" The darkangel was engrossed in his own story and Light haltingly read the title (the Inferno?) before he returned his attention back to the vampyre's still face as he carefully flipped through the text.
"I am not interested, merely curious. Ryuzaki, what is God?" The vampyre was ignoring Light and he knew it, it was a game and Light hated it because he always lost. The vampyre had too much experience on his side for a fair game between the two of them. Too many pieces were stacked upon the table, and Light loathed the sight of them.
The vampyre shut his book and sighed, he stood in his bent position and walked among the aisles of the building (he called them pews once or twice but did not explain why) moving through the benches where he stored the text haphazardly and eventually reached a much dusted over leather book and handed it to the boy. He looked at the cover in the candle light, attempting to make out the faded print that marked the title.
"The Holy Bible, later you can move to the Koran I believe I have that around here somewhere… And the Torah is here too if only I can find it… As for other religions, you can just focus on the God of Abraham for a while." The darkangel bit his thumb as he mused searching the crowded room with pale eyes, glancing over the broken benches filled with thousands of books, the candelabras that constantly dripped onto the floor and looked as if they were about to run out, and of course the stained glass windows depicting men and women Light could barely pronounce. Old names, foreign names, they didn't seem so exotic anymore.
The darkangel eventually moved from his perch on the benches to make his way towards another room, away from the boy, but the child hardly noticed his eyes moving through the faded print with as much determination and drive as any full grown darkangel.
Even as a child Light Yagami showed far too many traits of an icarus, if one were to look closely behind the fire of the boy's eyes they might see the icarus' pale reflection, the daemon's cold blank eyes staring out from behind amber lenses watching the world impassively. Apathetic they do not act and the boy continues to work, blissfully unaware of his own crystal gaze.
I don't know how long I dragged him across creation
I don't particularly care
He never complained and neither did I
It was never a waste of his time
Or mine
He made his own clothing. During the cold winter months, when the snow covered the earth and the dark angel became gloomy with the cold he would sit beside the window and carefully stitch together a new overcoat his limbs shaking from the snow-fall. Fabric swarmed around him as he attempted to transform himself into a tailor with small precise stitches from his shaking hands. Once he had tolerated the cold with ease, though he did not remember such a time his mind was so enamored with the present. But his body had begun to grow weak against the cold, the vampyre's hands brought more than winter's death and Light Yagami had begun to dimly feel their effects.
(Gloves, he wore gloves so that the frost might not steal his fingers as he tried to fish through the ice-river. Attempting desperately to keep himself alive underneath the darkangel's negligence and apathy.)
It was always cold during those winter days; he lit fires and huddled beside them warming his fingers with their burning touch breathing out the early morning mist that covered the mountains and valleys he remembered so clearly. His scribe's hands would halt in their stitches, ink-covered, to shake uncontrollably with the numbness that seemed almost living in the air. Bringing white to the land regardless of the death it caused underneath its cool touch.
He ate what he could, hare, fish, anything he could find. The darkangel had been known to leave Light to die, winter was no different situation. Survival heeded the boy's word alone and would not bow to the vampyre and Light did not see the need to be taken care of. Starving, freezing, Light Yagami survived on the edge of illness and death working himself to the bone as he attempted to burn bright against the winter's snow covered face and harsh sunlight. A single candle's flame drifting ever closer to the wick's end.
"You make too much noise sitting like that, huddled against a fire shaking yourself to pieces. Calm down and sit still, you're giving me a migraine." In winter the Darkangel was irate his analytical mind picking fights at every turn, but the boy so keen on his survival ignored the jabs and would continue to shake uncontrollably his mind drifting to other, darker, colder winter nights.
The darkangel would stare, blink for a moment, then sit down beside the boy and watch with a vaguely amused expression as Light Yagami fell to pieces, piece by shivering piece. The darkangel's eyes locked with the boys and searched for the hatred he remembered so well, the hatred the boy had laid aside (but not forgotten, the child had never truly forgotten.) and they would watch each other, daring the other to break the moment first. Vampyre and human their bitter rivalry conveyed within a single glance, the darkangel would smile and say nothing.
Nothing at all.
The clothes never fit, the gloves were too big, the tunics were too loose, the pants covered his feet but with each stitch in the fabric he became closer to the perfection he desired. Light desired perfection most of all, even in a single tailor's stitch.
You ask for my name
I give you a feather
You ask for my thoughts
I give you a dead flower
You ask for me
I give you ashes
The months grew long, the sun grew bright, and the year neared its end. Closing itself in its seasonal circle, shutting out the last rays of sunlight as fall struck home again. L as he called himself, did not lie without reason and often his lies were hidden among the honesty of his words. He had lost all his wives.
The fifth of November drew close and he found himself staring out at the fall leaves, escaped fires consumed by the earth and painted by the wind. His mind drifted past his apprentice and past his searches for the brides to the point where he no longer cared. Determination drove him and he needed the brides, if only for trophies.
Black wings dark as night, eyes as cold as ice, he did not understand the word of cruelty and so he refused to encompass it. He was merely driven, and that was all.
