A/N: The first chapter from Black Bird's point of view and a very plot heavy and disturbing one at that. But then I like to think they are all at least a little disturbing. If you think I don't know what I'm going to do with all these plot lead-ins your wrong. I have it all planned out. All please review, I truly appreciate it but I have only gotten reviews from three different people and two of those are anonymous so I can't respond to them (btw to those anonymous reviewers "thanks!"). Oh and in the story most of that is arrogance not necessarily truth.
Learning to See
By Breaeden Swordwind
Who am I? I'm certainly not Black Bird that is just another name that I give out when I need to keep my real identity a secret. I have never really said my real name because, simply enough, I don't know it. The cloaked boy begins to crest another rise in the deserted mountain path. No one traveled here for there are too many monster. But monsters were the least of the boy's worries; there were thousands of things more painful then barbed teeth. Barbed memories or, more precisely, the lack there of, were also quite agonizing.
There was a large boulder that covered half of the rock path and the boy that some call Black Bird smiled at finally being returned to his other weapon. Passed the boulder and behind it was a massive black great sword, the type of weapon made famous by the Black Brigade of Airyglyph. It entered his hand easily enough and he twirled it innocently over his right hand. He spun his scythe off his back with his left hand. He used each weapon in a single hand, whatever monsters that were still in the area stepped away in fear. He was never able to use both weapons in public because had become quite famous for his use of the weapons under a different name. No one knew where he got the skill, he had simply walking in grabbed the two weapons and was skill with them. With any other weapon he was mediocre but with the scythe and the great sword he was almost untouchable. He wondered sometimes why he had such an attraction to the weapons, was it inborn or was it from before he lost his memory? He didn't know.
Sheathing the two weapons easily over his shoulder he continued walking up the path. Finally, he came to a plateau, a flat portion of the mountains were he could walk easily. In the approximate center of the mesa was a crater. This was the closest thing he had to a birthplace. He had woken up in the center of the crater with no memories and he hated that. He was later found wondering around the area and he looked the exact same as he did now, the same age, minus a few scars. Many people whispered behind his back that he was some kind of sorcerer who had made a potion that gave eternal youth. He almost wished he could tell them the truth but, alas, he did not know the truth.
High in the sky and he looked up at it and wondered who he really was again. He always came here when he had identity diffusion but it never really helped, all it did was bring up more questions. The boy was immensely frustrated. He was tired of all this. Tired of his ignorance. Tired of feeling so old. He knew he was old but not how he knew. Maybe it was the fact that he was ageless or maybe…
He ripped his sword of his shoulder and sliced his hand off at the wrist. Blood poured from the wound but he didn't care. He watched himself bleed. All the blood was red, bright red. He had killed and cut enough to know it wasn't a mortal wound unless you could see the dark lifeblood of the heart. The wound kept bleeding bright red blood. He looked at the ruby liqour hoping to see that violet liquid that would signify his impending death. No such luck.
Suddenly, streams of characters and numbers came from his hand. They were all part of a computer language which was base 123 unlike binary which was a meager base 2. It allowed the expression of inordinately complex ideas and terms. Every part of his hand was represented in the language. Down through the cell, through the mitochondria, through particle, past the atom, and into the quark. Every possible division of matter was dealt with and he could read it as the characters sped past. His ability to read the data was another thing he didn't know how he knew. Suddenly, the data solidified and there, good-as-new, was his hand, now with a large scar around the wrist.
The entire hand was covered in brown and pink scar tissue from countless other wounds, his entire body was.
He was so frustrated and angery. How come he couldn't die? What made all those other maggots so deserving of an eternal sleep? It wasn't fair. He had granted so many people the mercy of death. His scythe and sword had claimed so many lives, why did he not gain some small granule of mercy? He screamed and punched a nearby boulder full force with his clench fist. Every bone in his hand snapped only to twist and reform back into shape tougher then before. It was a sickening thing to watch. The skin bent and contorted as his shards of bone tried to realign themselves, sometimes they cut nerves and blood vessels but those only reformed as well.
It was disgusting. He was disgusting. Oh well at least I'm better then all those pathetic mortals down there, he thought letting his gaze fall on the undeserving masses below. I could go down there and torch them all. Slaughter them. Murder them. But I would only be doing them a favor, it would be better to make them suffer. The sun was beginning to set and the sky turned to a plumage of orange, red, and yellow. The colors of fire. Maybe one day he would get these mortals back by burning their atmosphere like gasoline fumes.
Replacing the sword to his back the boy known as Black Bird walked to the crater. He skittered half-way down one of the sides and moved a rock to reveal a small hole he had dug before the Airyglyph soldiers had found him. Within it was an idea he often looked at when he had no idea who was and though it never made the feelings any better it kept him from going out and killing those mortals with their death and their confidence in who they were. Sticking his hand down the hole he felt the cold touch of metal and withdrew it from the hole. It was piece of metal with the strangest blue hue and he believed it was connected to his birth or at least how he came to be here. Flipping it over in his head he read aloud the words blazoned on the other side, "Moonbase Experimental Shuttle 0000-0001 "Cilia".
He wished he knew what it meant. Was he "Cilia"? Or was the shuttle "Cilia"? Word association, one of the basest instincts of man, led him to the imagery of a shuttle as some sort of flying carriage.
Suddenly, an impulse hit him. He was the greatest being in existence and here he was denied the release of death and the knowledge of who he was. That could only mean one thing.
All existence was arrogantly laughing at him because he was somehow different. He was not a creature of this world or he would be able to die. Well, he would have his revenge on this world, oh yes, just when this world thinks it will find the embrace of nonexistence he would make sure it continued its painful purposelessness. He almost laughed but he took no pleasure in his to be done cruelty.
He only took pleasure at the actual tearing of people's hearts as he made them realize their own stupidity. When he tore away the subconscious veil they used to hide their eyes from the searing light. He knew he had seen the light so now he was blind…maybe that was why he had no memories. All that mattered was that he was blind and so all he had was the smell of fear as realization dawned, the taste of domination as he used their frail emotions as playthings, the feeling of water held in his fingers as they tried to slip free only to find his fingers airtight, the sound of their heart racing as the fought back but never getting the chance to voice their ripostes because he parried and returned them before they had even thought of them. He didn't know this for sure but he imagined it was better then sex.
Like that amusingly stupid red headed women whose name he had already forgotten. She had been his favorite type, close-minded, stubborn, holier-then-thou, and had a very black and white thought process. He loved burning their eyes with truth, the way she had been unable to breathe as he laid the world out in front of her. He wondered if it would be possible to kill someone by asphyxiation using on words and the victims mind. He would have to try for that next time.
She wasn't at all like Albel. She might have had similar experiences if his memory served but she was fundamentally different. Albel had opened his soul to his pained and was now blind, wise, and more then a little insane. She, however, had walled herself away using he sanity as some pathetic shield so she did not have to feel the cold pain of reality. Albel was no where near as amusing because he realized what the world was like and it was almost impossible to scorch the eyes of a blind man.
He looked back down at the shard. He sneered behind the cowl of his cloak, behind the white hair. Here he was telling the world of his might and intellect while, at the same time, he depended on some puny shard of metal memory to relieve his pain or at least make it more of a numbing pain. Now was not the time to rely on pathetic pieces of steel and he closed his eyes, ever so softly. When he opened them his normally black-brown eyes were like blue orbs of a midnight sky as tongues of flame leapt from the earth that was his pupil. What he saw changed as well, the world was nothing but streams of data, and everything was nothing but floating characters that he could read. He focused on the twisted steel in his hands and it broke up into individual character and entered his body. It became part of him.
He blinked his eyes and everything returned to normal save that in his hands was only hair. He felt isolated and alone, the world was collapsing in around him, struggling to bring him down. It was a nice feeling. It made him feel superior to know that all creation hated him so much. He was alone because if he had any help all existence would be on the run.
The sun was now completely consumed by Elicoor and the night sky was alive with the glow of stars. Walking up to the edge of the cliff he looked up the distant ground which was also alive with the glow of lights from the many farms and towns and cities. He looked back up to the sky and in the moment felt each tiny microcosm of light was like a sea of lights and combined was an ocean the rolled in lap within the confines the heavens had set for it. It was a star ocean he could drown himself in. Comfort tinged him and he thought for that brief moment, out there, among those stars, was a being that could kill him. Maybe. For some reason he could not choose whether he wanted that creature to kill him or whether he wanted to prove that he could conquer that creature. But then there was probably no creature that could kill him. Not even the Marquis could do that.
A/N once more review.
