Chapter 5 : Bright Blue Eyes
Im beginning to feel that little bit more pleased with my story now, although i'm tryin to put more Onihime into it...so therefore...! (thanks to my other lovely reviewers :D u people are very nice and im eternally grateful for u reading my story! arigatou!)
Onihime Sorgota was sneaking down the corridors of his home, his bare feet wading through the thick emerald green carpets. He was dreading going downstairs, and was trying to avoid every living soul in the house with any authority over him. His mother especially. He had no problem refusing his father, but when his mother came to him, the thin lines of pleading etched onto her face, and grabbed the arm of his robe andbegged him to obey his father, he could not find it in his heart to do otherwise. So, he was trying to find a suitable place to hide for the next couple of hours.
Suddenly, he heard voices coming from the far end of the corridor. They were looking for him, and by the sound of it they were very angry.
Oh, hell...
He reached out frantically behind him and his fingers closed around a doorknob. He twisted the smooth wood and stumbled straight into...
"A library? I didn't know we had a library..."
Onihime had always longed for a huge library, to feed his love of reading. Whenever he was small he had taught himself to read from letters, his mother's books on botany and his father's daily newspaper. He was now an expert on the many uses of bluebells. Yet, this library was more than he had expected.
The room was quite small, but the ceiling was very high, and huge pinewood bookshelves stretched up to a small balcony reached by a rickety ladder. It was suitably dark, the wine-red walls, the fur rug on the wooden floor, the tiny desk with an inkwell and quill. Onihime wandered over to the small window at the far end, with its delicately carved wooden shutters, and satslowly on a crinkling velvet window seat. The cushions sunk in when he leaned on them. The whole room was lovely. Now that he came to think about it, Onihime was sure he had been in every room in the house, but he had never been here before...Ah, who cares? He would rather be up here in this library, with its atmosphere and darkness and musty air and the smell of books, than down at that horrible soiree, trying his best to make polite conversation with people who used innocent questions to trap and make fun of you. Best thing was, no one else seemed to know about it either, judging from the way people were tramping around outside, shouting and checking every room but this one. Onihime stood up, and turned to survey the bookshelf nearest him. A thin, moss green book caught his eye, and he reached up and gently removed it, sending a flume of dust swirling into the air. The colour had faded with age, and so had the writing on the cover, a small red ribbon hung out as a bookmark. He nestled himself among the cushoins again, and turned to the marked page.
Nothing. How strange.
He flicked through the dusty pages, all of them even blanker than the last.
"Ai-ya...that's weird..." Why would a library have a blank book?
In a instant, Onihime began to feel tired. The whole library was doused with the feeling of sleepiness, as if it had been hibernating for generations undisturbed. He curled up, and his eyelids felt heavy. Drooping...and closing...
Sora was hiding too. He had taken up position in a dark corner behind a handy plant, suitably close to a large group of nobles with too much to drink, and he was taking in every word like a thirsty flower. The party itself was somewhat dreary and lifeless for him, all anyone did was stand around a talk, there was no dancing, no music...but he wasn't here to enjoy himself. One woman was telling the rest how she had heard an interesting rumour.
"I heard from Lord Vena that Rimuris is hiding something..." she whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Well, of course he is...who ever got anywhere by licking the Magistrate's boots? The Magistrate isn't a man to be impressed so easily. Lord Sorgota would have to be really competent to be the Magistrate's assisstant...and we all know how true that is," a young Lord added sarcastically, to tinkling laughs from his company. "he must have something important or know something important to have gotten where he is today."
"But what would be so important that the Magistrate would keep such a close eye on him?" another older man in a huge hat asked with the air of one who already knows.
Sora marveled at humans. Here they were in Rimuris'shome, eating his food, enjoying his hospitality and they were backstabbing him all the way. He didn't get to hear what was so important, because out of the corner of his eye he saw the aforementioned Magistrate talking hurriedly with Lord Sorgota, who was a small, skinny man with a huge blonde beard and robes that were too majestic for him. The Magistrate, in contrast, was a tall, powerful man with shortly cropped grey hair and a gleam of intelligence in his eyes. He was the direct advisor to the King, and most suspected he ruled the city, albeit indirectly. His curiousity piqued, Sora stalked around the edge of the room, past the gentle ebb and flow of bodies, never taking his eyes off the two men. The Magistrate looked extremely furious about something, the Lord Sorgota was waving his hands erratically as though he wastrying his best to explain something best not explained. Sora touched his chest, and felt thebee-like buzzing of the Keyblade's power. He had hidden it in his heart when he came to this world, and had never revealed it to a soul.
The Magistrate turned sharply on his heel and marched up a flight of flower bedecked stairs, Lord Sorgota hurrying to keep up with the Magistrate's long stride. As silent as a shadow, Sora swept after them. He followed them down stately corridors and rooms that royalty would be proud to stay in, making sure that he was undetected, for he doubted that the Magistrate wouldn't be a man to close his sight to what's right in front of him.They stopped, and turned to face a plain wooden wall.
"This is it...we fear he may be here..." Sora heard Sorgota whining.
The Magistrate harumphed, and put his hand out on the smooth wood.
"Ela, Ela omis Hanata mea usa" he shouted. Nothing happened. Undeterred...the Magistrate tried again. Still nothing happened. Sora hadn't studied much of the old language of Vila, but he knew that meant "Knowledge, knowledge show your Gift to us". The Magistrate growled, and thumped the wall, then he rounded on the cowering Sorgota.
"You haven't even brought me to the right place, have you? Are you trying to have us found out?"
"No...no my lord..." Sorgota whimpered. The Magistrate angrily stomped off down the hall, shoutingall the way, Sorgota trailing after him like a wounded puppy.
Waiting until the coast was firmly clear,Sora sneaked out of his hiding place behind a statue, and stood where the two men had been. The wall looked perfectly ordinary to him, but after all the most powerful things never look as important as they should. Who ever would think an ordinary, dusty lamp could carry a genie that will grant your heart's desire? Sora placed his hand on the wall as the Magistrate did, spreading his fingers apart. The wall was slightly warm.
"Ela, Ela omis Hanata mea usa," he whispered. The buzzing in his heart grew suddenlyuntil it wasa hard pulsing in his ears. Then the moment passed. Confused, something had definately happened...but what? Then, out of the corner of his eye, Sora saw something. A little wooden doorknob, so perfectly camoflaged with the wall you would scarcely believe it was there. He touched it, and could feel magic coming from it. He was reminded of the door in Alice's world, the sleepy doorknob that wouldn't open. Doors lead to the heart of all worlds...
Swallowing a lump in his throat, Sora twisted the doorknob, and pushed.
Onhime could feel a little feeling prodding him, trying to coax him out of his warm, pink world of sleep. He felt drowsiness leave him, and his eyelids, heavy with thick, pale lashes fluttered. Already, in his little world of dreaming, he could feel something was wrong in the room outside. A spark of terror pricked him at the thought, and his eyes flew open. There was a shadow in the room that was not there before, it was moving around at the bookcase. It was not of his world. Thoroughly frightened, but still curious, Onihime propped himself up on the seat, wiping the dry sleep from his eyes. The shadow turned around, for it had heard him stirring. And Onihime saw the bright blue eyes for the first time.