Ephemeris Silenti
' The Diary of the Dead '
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Nomen Novum I: 'New Name'
L, on Mihael Keehl.
(Note: it is not necessarily true that Mello was the first child after A and B. I'm playing on the fact that Mello was L's favourite, despite Near being first. And, yes, Mello being his favourite IS true *is a geek and knows too much*. A lot of the other 'facts' in this are entirely made up by me, to fill in the blanks.)
Thanks for all the new reviews, alerts, favourites, etc, and thanks, as always, to Annie, who takes care of my Latin issues.
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... Entry Ten - January 26th, 2009 ...
... Nomen Novum I ...
Mihael Keehl was the first child in the orphanage who was allowed to choose his own name. After the horrific incident with A and the flight of B (both of whom may well have resented being assigned letters of the alphabet instead of real names) Wammy, Roger and L decided it would be more prudent to let the impressionable youngsters decide for themselves.
It was L himself who found Mihael, sat on the steps of a smouldering Church, somewhere in Eastern Europe, (and no, the exact place was not about to be revealed) tear stained, platinum blond hair dirty and streaked with...something...and grasping a blood-red rosary that was clearly too big for a child of his age (and height?) to be holding. He was shivering from the cold, something L could relate to, since he himself had had to wear a coat to counter the icy temperature, something he wasn't comfortable with in the least. He had stood and stared at the kid for quite some time, possibly looking a bit stupid. The boy stared right back, his intense blue eyes glittering and sparkling with intelligence.
For once in his life, L was unnerved.
And he decided that he admired the boy, who could not have been more than seven or eight, for it. So, he took the first step towards utterly changing the shivering child's life, and walked over to him. He had sat down, somewhat awkwardly next to him. The boy stared. L shifted a little and let his gaze wander over the ruined church and the equally ruined town, wondering exactly where the child had come from. No-one else appeared to be alive.
"What's your name?" He asked, speaking the country's language easily. The child blinked mistrustfully and said nothing. L sighed. He wasn't exactly experienced with talking to children. (then again, he had not been doing his detective work for very long, he was still very young himself) But he could not in good conscience leave the child here to die from the cold. Remembering this, he slipped the big coat off one of his shoulders and wrapped it around the boy, who visibly jumped. He then did precisely what L had predicted, which was curl up as close as he could to the warmth – the childlike desire for an escape from the biting cold overcoming the mistrust. Still he gave no name, however, and L wasn't about to look stupid and ask for it again. Odd, he didn't normally care about appearance, but somehow, it seemed to matter now.
So, L talked instead, another thing he wasn't used to doing, at least socially. He told the boy stories of some of the things he'd done, appreciating the reverent, unwavering blue gaze. He never took his eyes off of L, and briefly the detective wondered what sort of childhood he'd had. The stories he told were possibly a little too intense for the boy, after all, they were full of murder, blood and criminals, but, unnervingly, the blond child seemed to drink it all in...and understand. Which was...different, admittedly. He told him about Beyond Birthday, and the very recent LA murder cases After a little while, the cold became just a little too much, and he rang Watari to inform him he was done, and to please send transport. Then he turned to the boy. "I'm L."
The child blinked, recognition lighting up his eyes. So he knew of 'L', then. The detective wondered, again, how this child had grown up, to be so sharp...and to have some idea of who L was.
"Mihael." He replied, the accented, childish voice punctuating the silence left in the wake of L's revelation. The detective smiled. Perhaps he was better at this than he thought.
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Undoubtedly my favourite drabble so far.
Part II tomorrow, since the story needs to run on to be finished.
In canon, L is ten years older than Mello, so here they were eight and eighteen.
Whilst the concept of L story-telling seems a bit off, Mello did at some point have a few of L's adventures regaled to him by the detective. He was the only Wammy child to have met L, and that is where his passion and drive to solve the Kira case came from. I think he's one of the most interesting characters in Death Note. XD *grins*
Thanks for reading.
Philosopher's Queen
xx