Summary:
Fran's not dumb; she can tell she's only a replacement. She's Yuni's elder sister, but it was official that Yuni would be Boss after Aria died; it's clear everyone liked her kind, gracious and cheery attitude over Fran's indifferent, cold and cynical one. Yuni was the trusting, benevolent "Aria's daughter". Fran was the suspicious, bitter "spitting image of Aria's husband". She's even born with the "wrong" Flame; a strong primary Mist and a weak secondary Sky. But now that Yuni's vanished, Fran's the (grudging) Giglio Nero Boss, and will be the one meeting with Gesso. She's got a bad feeling about their Boss, though; Byakuran's intrigued by a Fran who differs from her parallel selves. Meanwhile, Yuni being gone has a greater significance than any of them realize. TYL!Fran, Fem!Fran, Very AU.
Disclaimer:
KHR! rights go to Akira Amano.
The cover picture is not mine. It belonged to an insanely talented deviantart artist who I have no way of contacting, so please don't sue me.
Reviews:
Thank you, 'Someonepassingby', for your review. I love long reviews~ :] And here's a snippet of 'In Another Life':
"Ushishishi~ the mushroom is getting annoying~"
Thunk. Thunk.
"Ouch. I thought I was a peasant? It's the hat, isn't it? -Sigh- It's always the hat. And you wound me, fallen prince. You truly do. Like, literally. These knives are kinda itchy."
Pull. Crumple. Drop.
"I'm not a fallen prince, you mushroom peasant. And don't just take out my knives and bend them! Aren't you supposed to hurt or fall over when they land?"
"Sorry-not-sorry, but I'm not very interested in keeping sharp pointy objects in my back for long periods of time. I'm not a masochist, thank you very much. If I need to store weapons I'll stash them in my hat. And I've been promoted to a 'mushroom peasant' now? What, are you expecting that I'll contract Stockholm Syndrome or something?"
Hopefully that'll tide you over until it actually comes out. ^^
Note:
Bluebell's background is based off of the 'Hidden Bullet' (4th book) story, 'The Funeral Flower Withers', which is the canon story of Bluebell's entrance into the Millefiore as a Funeral Wreath.
Quotes:
'I need to get back to the pool, I need to keep swimming, I need to be free to forget...' - Bluebell
"I don't personally significance of a cup of water, but whatever makes you happy, I suppose." - Fran
"I've got a ways to go before I'd be convinced to spill my guts to a complete stranger who's literally being paid to listen to my problems and report them." - Fran
"And that's because you're too suspicious of everyone, Francy-chan. And you pretty much lack any faith in the inner kindness of human nature. I mean, not that I believe in that either." - Byakuran
"I don't need chance; I make my own luck." - Byakuran
"No idea where that whole 'older sister' thing came from, though. Maybe your latent maternal instincts?~ Very, very latent maternal instincts." - Byakuran
'I can't believe that no one demanded there be a restriction on my abuse, er, usage of my 'Clairvoyance' to cheat [in cards].
Hah.
Suckers.' - Fran
Splash, splash.
Struggle.
Kick.
Gasp.
…
…
… Sink.
A bluette young girl jerked up, sucking in a lungful of air with wild, panicky eyes.
Pressing a spread-out hand to her chest, she slowly calmed down.
/Breathe... in, out, in, out.
Breathe... in, out, in, out.
Breathe... in, out, in, out.
Breathe... in, out, in, out./
"The… hospital?" she murmured confusedly to herself, glancing around the brightly lit room.
It was a hospital. White walls blocked her in on all sides, provoking a sense of nausea. She had been lying down on a standard, nondescript hospital bed; a pile of pillows propped her up.
Glancing down, she flexed her fingers once, twice, and then began carefully rearranging the covers that'd been throw off in her awakening. Keeping her hands busy while she thought was a familiar habit.
/I… was swimming, I remember.
Swimming with my only friend.
Water. Water's my only friend.
That's where I belong.
That's where I can feel free.
But wait.
How did I end up here?
The school pool was where I was swimming.
That's… pretty close to this hospital, I think.
So yes, I was swimming.
And then.
Then?
Then… my legs cramped up… and I… froze?
I was drowning.
Oh.
Huh.
And then.
A person saved me?
I can't recall his face…
Mysterious./
Shrugging it off, the girl nudged off the last of her covers and swung herself sideways, until her legs were dangling a few inches above the tiled ground. She gingerly touched her toes down onto the floor, and shivered. /Cold./
Bracing herself, she pushed off of the bed and stood wobbily for a few seconds, before stabilizing.
Encouraged by this small victory, ( /I need to get back to the pool, I need to keep swimming, I need to be free to forget.../ ) she took a step forward.
And.
Promptly collapsed.
"Ah-!"
Her left arm grabbed onto the metal rails of the bed in an attempt to keep herself from face-faulting onto the ground, while her right arm flailed wildly. A touch of something brushed against her fingernails, and she registered a little too late that she'd just knocked her friend down from the bedside table.
Widened blue eyes (blue like the sea and the waves and the streams and the ripples and her friend) stared unseeingly at the falling object. Her right arm stretched out again, trying to grab it.
"No-!"
A pale hand, with fingers slender and smooth and fast, shot out and caught it right before it would've hit the ground.
"Is this yours?"
The blue eyes of the shocked girl traveled upwards, spotting the person who had saved her friend. She gratefully accepted her friend from the offered hand, and managed to get out a trembling answer.
"Y-y-yes, thank you!"
A thin eyebrow arched at her words, and the person, a teal-haired girl a few years older than herself, reached up to adjust her poofy white hat.
/It looks like a mushroom, kinda.../
"Well," the tealette drawled out, gracefully taking the visitor's chair a few feet away from the bed, and blinking down at her with blank eyes half-lidded in apparent boredom, "I don't personally significance of a cup of water, but whatever makes you happy, I suppose." She paused for a second, and her lids opened up all the way, clearing some of the dull disinterest in her equally teal eyes. "Does it?"
The blue-haired and -eyed girl, still sprawled halfway on the floor, hurriedly got back up and seated herself back on the bed, with minor reluctance. Carefully placing her friend on the table again, she then turned her obviously befuddled gaze onto her visitor. "Er, what do you mean?"
With a nearly noiseless creak of the hinges, a white-haired teen slipped in through the door. He strode over and stayed standing, resting both elbows lightly on the tealette's shoulders, offering the bed-ridden girl a cheery grin with crescent-creased eyes.
(The tealette appeared minutely irritated, but an air of resignation to this fate hung heavily around her.)
"What she means is," the boy explained with a good-humored chuckle, "does having your cup of water make you happy?" He also paused and opened his eyes fully, revealing lavender irises sharp with observation. "Are you happy right now?"
Bewildered, the younger girl hesitated first. /He… he sounds just like Brother did… gentle voice and all.../ Deciding to trust the the strangers, she answered as honestly as she knew how.
"I… I know that water makes me happy. It's… it's my only friend, see? But… I don't know if I'm happy right now. I don't remember much, actually. I do know that I'll be happy if I could just be able to swim again…!" Frustrated, she wrung her hands, all tangled up in the sheets.
The two teens looked assessingly at her for a moment. A long silence draped across them.
The older girl stood up suddenly. She glanced at the closed door.
"We need to leave. Her parents and doctor are coming in a few minutes."
Startled, the bluette moved towards them instinctively, reaching out as if to try and grasp them. "W-wait! Please don't leave me alone!"
The boy glanced back at her, almost to the door. His eyes softened. "Rest, little girl. We'll be back soon. You'll have remembered your name by then, I hope. Don't worry. It's just a few days. So simply… sleep."
At 'sleep', pale fingers ('the tealette,' she thought, 'it must be her') snapped from outside the room, and the girl on the bed suddenly felt very, very drowsy indeed.
"W-wait… brutherr…" she slurred, fighting to stay awake even as the door clicked shut.
She sank slowly back into the mound of pillows.
/Wait… I… I remember.../
Footsteps in the hallways hurried towards the direction of her room.
/That my… my name.../
The door clicked open again, admitting a man in a doctor's outfit and two well-dressed adults, probably parents.
/My name is.../
"Bluebell!"
And then the little blue-haired and -eyed girl remembered no more, safe in the grips of slumber even as her mother and father leaned worriedly over her, fretting.
"Wow, is Bluebell a mess," Fran commented casually, strolling carelessly down the sidewalk of the suburbs with Byakuran.
He frowned, not in the mood for regular banter when his Rain Funeral Wreath was, indeed, "a mess".
"She nearly drowned after losing her brother, of course she has some issues," he admitted.
They turned a corner.
He continued, "And her fixation on the whole 'water is my only friend' thing isn't too bad; it fits her Flames, anyway."
Both Millefiore Bosses stopped in front of an office building, before heading inside.
"I fail to see how that relates to you faking a psychology degree," Fran remarked dryly as she prodded the elevator buttons.
Then she paused for a brief moment and amended that statement.
"Okay, so I now see how that relates, but doesn't it seem a little too dependent on chance? You might not be picked as her counselor, you know, and she may decide to not confide in and bond with you at all. I know I wouldn't in her non-existent shoes; I've got a ways to go before I'd be convinced to spill my guts to a complete stranger who's literally being paid to listen to my problems and report them."
Byakuran sighed and shook his head, also stopping her from jabbing the floor buttons repeatedly. "Stop that, you'll break the elevator. Again. And that's because you're too suspicious of everyone, Francy-chan. And you pretty much lack any faith in the inner kindness of human nature. I mean, not that I believe in that either. Besides, I don't need chance; I make my own luck. I'll be hired, and I'll get her to open up and accept. You can even go back to base right now if you wanted," he added absently.
Now it was Fran's turn to frown. She twisted slightly and peered up critically at him. "Are you sure? What happened to, 'oh, hey, you wanna ditch work for a week and see my recruitment of another Funeral Wreath firsthand, so that you can get to know them and all that'?"
He half-heartedly raised and dropped one shoulder, the perfect mimicry of her own shrug. "You've been running low on Flames again this past week or so; ever since you got your new Box Weapon. Is it a crime if I just wanted to let you relax a little in the base and take it easy so that you could properly recharge your Flames? You could even get some more practice in with it, maybe figure out a way to minimize the drain of the Farfalla di Nebbia. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"
Her replying words were slow and hesitant. "Since when did you care so much about what my health and what I wanted?"
Another shrug, and a flash of a smile that seemed just a shade more genuine than the ones he usually gave. "Can't I just care?"
Fran didn't say anything for a while as they got off of the elevator and started striding towards a room labeled 'Registration Office'.
Then she nodded, just as slow and hesitant as before. "Okay." /I guess there's nothing wrong with that./
And an hour later, when they stepped out of the building and began parting ways, him to the hospital of his future Rain Funeral Wreath and her to the waiting car that would ferry her back to the Millefiore base, she walked a few steps away and then stopped.
"And… thanks," Fran muttered under her breath, so softly that she was sure the wind had blown it straight away.
Byakuran smiled to himself when he heard the sound of her boots starting up again, fading away.
/No need to thank me, Francy-chan./
When Byakuran entered the secret, hidden base of the Funeral Wreaths a week later, with a nervous Rain Mare Ring-wearing Bluebell tightly clutching his side, he was greeted with the sight of two people playing cards and drinking tea, their hair colors only a few tints apart.
"Welcome back, Lord Byakuran!" enthused Kikyo, setting down his cards carefully.
Fran just tilted her head at them and nodded in acknowledgement. "Hey," she greeted off-handedly, taking another sip and rifling through her cards. "You're late."
Bluebell immediately jumped out in front of Byakuran with a defensive scowl, crossing her arms with an angry pout. "Don't talk to Byakuran-nii like that, old hag!"
When Fran merely raised an eyebrow, Bluebell blinked in recognition, perhaps triggered by the familiar arching of the teal eyebrow. She pointed a finger at her. "You're that girl who caught my friend for me! Then if Byakuran is my nii-san, you're my Fran-nee!"
Happy with her logic, the Rain then ran over to hug the illusionist, who stiffened upon contact but didn't do much else besides turn her raised eyebrow upon the white-haired teen in the doorway.
"Oh, hi, Kikyo. I hope you've been settling in fine with the living quarters," he answered first, with a wave. "Eh, well, she really missed her older brother, so I said she could pretend I'm her older brother. No idea where that whole 'older sister' thing came from, though. Maybe your latent maternal instincts?~ Very, very latent maternal instincts," Byakuran finished with a grin and a wink.
Fran just hummed noncommittally, and plucked out a King of Hearts.
Kikyo glanced at it, and sighed regretfully, pushing over a pile of chips to her. "I fold," he announced.
Her blank expression gained a pleased tinge. /Perfected poker face, right here./ Shifting slightly so that Bluebell wouldn't be hanging halfway off of a chair anymore, she then spoke up without taking her eyes off of her cards. "Sit down, Byakuran," she ordered. "We're playing for marshmallows and more tea. There's already a cup for you."
As way of explanation, she tapped a finger to her temple and added, "'Clairvoyance', remember?"
Smiling, Byakuran took the reserved seat and selected a hand of cards.
They played throughout the rest of the afternoon, with Bluebell watching avidly, until a break for dinner.
Fran trounced all of them soundly.
She went to sleep with a more relaxed expression than usual.
/I can't believe that no one demanded there be a restriction on my abuse, er, usage of my 'Clairvoyance' to cheat.
Hah.
Suckers./
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Because let's face it, if any of the Sky Arcobaleno weren't the perfect, generous, kind people they were, they could've totally ruled the casinos as awesome card sharks.
And just because it fit, here's some fluffy 10026 moments to balance out the tragic crying that apparently occurred because of 'Madness and Mayhem and Magic' (or so I was told in reviews).
You're welcome. ;]
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