Mermaid Princess
AN: My first ever Kenshin fic, written for my beloved beta, Dionne. (Babe, you don't get to beta this one. You have to read it in its raw, atrocious form.)
You can call this a Song Fic, I suppose, or a shortfic, or even a series of drabbles. The italicized lines are verses from the song Ningyo Hime, the ending song from Chobits, which I think works a heck of a lot better here. I'm not updating this by chapters, since each drabble corresponds to a line, I'll updated randomly and hopefully complete this before summer. Reviews are welcomed, encouraged, bribed for. Much love to you all.
-Bella-
(I have added the POVs next to the sections for those of you who are confused. Sorry for the long wait.)
Mermaid Princess
i. –Kaoru-
At night, the town is quiet like the bottom of the ocean.
There is something tantalizing about the silence, the intriguing way it can numb your mind, dull out your thoughts, and replace them with a heavy emptiness.
Everyone would be in a deep, deep sleep right now. The crickets serenade their mournful ballad to the night as silence lives and dies.
Over and over again.
The city is silent, but alive. Alive with phantom voices from the day's memories, alive with the ghostly chatters that resonate from what used to be. Time whispers here, brushing our minds with its memories and all it had swept away. My mind would flicker at times like these, reaching out to the voices in their dark secret corners, aching to know what they know, longing to learn what those alive refuse tell me.
"The past is no longer of importance." He'd told me.
Everything was different now, he said, everything.
But was it really?
He woke at night sometimes, biting back his screams in fear of waking me. Between my eyelids I could see moonlight coating the beads of sweat tracing his muscles. Those nights when guilt and blood tormented his dreams and clawed at his mind, those nights when I could only hold his hand, knowing no proper words of comfort, feeling as if the most useless and horrible person in the world.
On those nights, how different was "everything"?
How different was his mind then from his mind when he was a murderer?
Could such a frightful stain truly be cleared away?
When he quivers from his nightmares, what was I to do?
How can I do anything when he tells me nothing?
My heart aches at his pain, but sears at my idleness. It was as if I wanted to reach for him, to feel him, but crashing into glass. Glass that shatters but does not break. Pieces that cut but are still intact.
Time and time again I would find myself gazing at his face, searching for him in his eyes. But he would always be patient, always smile, always wear a mask of shallow happiness to block me out.
At times like this, I had to be pleasant too. Calm, pleasant, and smiling.
Always smiling.
I didn't realize until then, that there are some things even the fastest blade cannot scathe.
How can I love a man if I'm not given all of him?
I present the question to the night, to the darkness, to the corners and the cracks.
They give me no answer.
The town's a quiet place tonight.
Too quiet.
7/23/05
ii. –Kaoru-
I continue down the road by myself
She wrapped her arms around herself lightly. It wasn't a chilly night. Not at all. The moon lit the sky in a way the sun never could. Not that she saw. Not that she cared.
He's probably sleeping right now; peacefully, she hoped. He was when she checked before she left.
She didn't really know where to go, and in a way, she didn't mind. As long as she walked, breathed, did something to chase the idle feeling away from her limbs.
The moon's awfully bright tonight. She noted before her eyes glazed over again.
She had seen the brightness through her eyelids when she slept. It was a bright night, no doubt. He seemed to be sleeping with much more ease, she smiled as she watched his chest rise and fall steadily. Breathing is good. She decided. Breathing is always better than panting.
She realized she needed to breathe too. Just a little. Just a little bit of air would be enough to relieve her of her worries, her fears, her terrible feeling of uselessness.
Just a little room, she reasoned with herself, just a little time to stop thinking.
But as she walked, step by step down the gravel road, she couldn't stop.
She couldn't find a reason to stop.
She loved him of course. He would always be that reason. But she wasn't sure if she wanted that reason anymore, although she was sure she needs it.
Too many days and nights of questioning. She concluded. She wasn't sure if he needed her anymore, wasn't sure if he ever needed her.
Reason.
Again there were no reasons. He cooked better than her, taught better than her, managed everything much better than her. Sometimes she wondered if it was she that needed him.
She hated the lack of reason. She hated it more when she found one that worked against her.
Traveling down the road alone.
She breathed in deeply and tried a smile.
Funny, she never knew how much she hated being alone either.
7/24/05
iii. –Kenshin-
I keep searching for the soft blue light
It was a pleasant dream. Wasn't it?
With the nebulous atmosphere and moist mist trailing around every imaginable corner. With indistinguishable birdcricket cries echoing in the distance.
He knows these dreams, he thinks, he's had them before. One time. Some time. Once upon a time.
There's something he should be remembering. Something he should be looking for.
Something…
Does it matter?
Does it really matter?
It is so tranquil here, isn't it?
What more could he ask for?
He took a deep lungful of pleasant, nebulous air.
Nothing.
iv. –Kenshin-
Guided by the distant voice.
Kenshin.
Perhaps the cries were a little closer than he wanted them to be.
A little more familiar than he would like.
Kenshin.
8/1/05
v. –Kenshin-
Hey…
I discovered myself within.
Kenshin…
It was fading, that voice that sang to him. He wasn't sure what to do, wasn't sure if he should care.
Kenshin…
Softer now. Farther away.
He needed to do something; he felt he desperately needed to do something.
Something. Something. Anything.
Kenshin.
A whisper now. He might've only imagined it.
It might as well have never existed at all.
It wasn't right. Wasn't right.
Deep lungfuls, deep lungfuls. Was he panting?
Yes. He was panting. He was running. He was screaming somehow, voicelessly bellowing in his mind.
He needed to find it, catch it, hold it. That soft yet creamy scent of lavender, that soothing singing voice that cradled his heart, that melancholy peace of mind and soul.
Run. He didn't know where to run. Wasn't sure if he remembered how. But he had to. He had to.
He knew that if he didn't, he'd never forgive himself.
8/3/05
vi.
And my spirit calls out to me
And then the moon found its reflection bursting in the turquoise eyes.
11/8/05
vii. –Kenshin-
No matter how far away I am, I can hear it
He knew something was terribly, terribly wrong before he opened his eyes. He felt his feet drum on the pavement and into the dirt road before he fully gained consciousness.
He had woken up and felt chilled, then frightened by the emptiness next to him.
She wasn't there.
He had half expected this for some reason. Perhaps it was only the pessimist in him. But the reality surged franticness through him.
The street felt slightly warm as he jogged.
It wasn't a cold night at all.
His mind seemed to be picking up strings of thoughts from the corners and cracks in the walls, where the shadows hid from the moon.
He wasn't tired when he stopped to breathe. But he felt that it was right, only right to stop there, wherever there was, and look up into the moon.
He could still see the bright orb when he closed his eyes. It turned an odd tint of green.
She was still here. He was sure of that. His senses picked up these traces, though faint, of her.
It felt like lavenders.
11/8/05
viii. –Kaoru –
The silver light burns within every room
I walk around hoping for it anywhere, surely
And she continued down the dirt path, slower now. She felt numb, yet oddly restless.
She tried to fight against that feeling. She shouldn't walk any farther, if she did, she wouldn't be able to stop herself anymore.
So to appease that clawing feeling inside her, she stopped and leaned against a wall. The overhanging straws above her stroked the moon lovingly. It must hurt, to be touched by something so stiff and brittle. Yet nevertheless she felt a longing for it, that painful touch, so achingly familiar as it longed for her yet was afraid, so afraid to hurt her.
She knew he was afraid for her, afraid of himself. He always touched her with utmost care, with such gentleness that she sometimes wondered if he wanted her at all. He was an assassin at best and a murderer at worst, and he was more conscious of that than anyone. And so with this knowledge, he protected her from himself, afraid of what his crudeness and roughness might do to her. He was afraid she would break in arms, shatter and scatter away like so many things he once loved. So he pushed her away while he tried to gather her in, trying to offer her the best of him.
Sometimes, she noticed, it was he that was breaking.
It was he that was being torn apart.
She didn't think anyone can live with knowing that their lover was crumbling because of them.
11/28/05
ix. –Kenshin—
Hey I found you
She stood there under the moonlight, with her too-slender arms wrapped around her, tapered fingers melting into the folds of the clothes.
He didn't think it would be so easy, yet at the same time so hard to find her. But there she was, and that was all that mattered. She looked peaceful, cliché-ly so, but moonlight brought that kind of idle madness into people. He wasn't so sure if he was quite sane himself.
He wanted to walk to her, to look into her eyes and touch her, yet his body refused to move.
She had left for a reason, after all. Who was he to pull her back?
And so he stayed there a bit longer, hating himself yet blaming the world, but never daring to take his eyes off of her. Things seemed to disappear all too frequently lately, and he didn't think he could stand that.
Time passed like silk, flowing almost seamlessly until it was smoothly cut as she turned around, matching her eyes with his.
"Kenshin." She said.
And it was only one word, two syllables.
He gazed back at her, hoping to convey all that was failing in him telepathically.
"You called." He managed to reply.
Two words, two syllables.
11/29/05
Responses to Reader(s):
Sweet Taola: Thankyou for reviewing. I didn't think anyone would. I'm sorry it's a tad confusing right now. It'll make sense later, really, I promise. Either that or I fail at writing and I sincerely hope it's the former. Let me know if it's hard to tell which are from Kenshin'sPOV and which are Kaoru's and I'll add little labels.
en route: Hehe. Love you too Dionne. Nice username btw. XDXD
sehreen: Thanks babe. I love you tooo.
Haruna: Thankyou. I hope it turns out to your liking. Hopefully it's not that confusing. T-T