Author's Note: First actual chapter! Hopefully you all will like it. At the bottom of the chapter, I'm including, very rough, translations to the Japanese spoken in this chapter. Please note that I am not a native, or even vaguely fluent, Japanese speaker and all translations/word usages are based on internet research and the patterns I've noticed in anime. Thank you. Also, this story will probably not get updated as much as A Melody of Second Chances, but I'll try the best I can. This also does not mean I have abandoned either of my previous two stories, I've just added another one to the roster is all.
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. The only things I own are my OCs and the plot of this story.
Chapter One: Fractured Reality
Bosco wasn't like its neighbors. Oh, from an outside perspective, it probably didn't look much different. Different buildings, different scenery and different quant town customs, but on the whole the same as everywhere else. But anyone on the inside, especially anyone on the bottom of Bosco's social ladder knew differently.
Bosco was a rat's nest disguised by pretty words, winding flowers, and thick woods. A place where children without parents or guardians became less than animals, a place where the unwary were dragged off to the underbelly Bosco would never admit to having.
A place where one wrong step meant being chained, degraded, and sold as a tool to the rich who were too lazy or incompetent to care for their own estates and health.
Then again, perhaps all countries were like that. It wasn't as if Bickslow had ever been to any of them to check. He hadn't even seen any part of Bosco that wasn't the city of Aternum or its near outskirts. The roads were the territory of bandits and slavers and Bickslow had no intention of leaving the safety of his alley network to become someone's glorified bag carrier or floor scrubber.
Bickslow danced along the rooftops, eyes sweeping the streets below idly as he made his way toward market street. This week was the Festival of Songs and that meant there were lots of foreign merchants who didn't have as much skill in spotting and driving off street orphans as the native shopkeepers. Of course, the Festival also meant there were many more people on the streets and thus, many more risks of accidentally drawing attention to himself.
Energy swirled in the streets and houses below him as he padded across hot clay tiles, eyes flickering from red to green subconsciously as he checked for the familiar oil-tainted signatures of slavers. There were always downsides to life, and the downside to more people and food merchants was that the crowds were perfect for slavers to slip in and out of, collecting a lost child or young adult before any of their potential family members realized they had been separated in the throng.
Green wove with blue and red with lavender as people bumped shoulders and their energies intermingled without their notice. Bickslow scowled and looked away, quickly ducking to the other side of the roof he was standing on and flattening himself to avoid the watchful glance of a black-encrusted slaver. Darn it, there are more of them around than last year! It's going to be tricky avoiding them and getting something to eat. Especially considering… Bickslow idly raised a hand to trace the faintly raised lines of blue ink stretching down from his forehead and over the bridge of his nose.
He shook his head quickly and resumed his trek, taking a detour around the buildings of main street just in case someone else was smart enough to climb up on the rooftops to avoid the crowd. He stuck to the roofs of apartments, skirting along the tilted secret lanes that ringed either side of Aternum's side streets.
He was just about to jump over an alley gap when voices caught his attention and made him drop onto his stomach instead, "Ouch! Little brat-! grab her! Don't let her get away!" Peering over the side of the roof, Bickslow felt his stomach knot from something other than hunger. Three slavers scuffled about in the alley, hemming in the shaking form of a little girl. One of the men was cradling his bitten hand and snarling orders while the other two kept trying to snag the girl's arms.
Dirty blond curls bounced and flailed as their owner spun and twisted away from the hands time and again, running repeatedly for either the cover of the dumpsters or the alley exit only to be cut off and driven back by the much larger men surrounding her. Bickslow scowled and crawled backwards along the tiles, guilt gnawing at him even as survival instinct overrode his compassion. He had no intention of being captured by slavers and the only way he could feasibly overpower three full grown men was if he used the accursed power that throbbed behind his eyes.
I should stay out of it. It isn't my fault and I can't do anything about it without- and I can't do that so never mind. Besides, she's just a stranger, why should I risk my life for her? However, just as he was turning to run away, something surged and knocked him onto his stomach, freezing his lungs and making his eyes snap fully to glowing green defensively. Mist that hadn't existed seconds ago clouded the air, blocking normal sight and offering an eerie backdrop to the howling screams that rose from the alley he had just turned away from.
What was that? Bickslow twisted around, eyes widening even further as his power showed him a seething pulse of darkness in the alley, draining everything near it of heat and light for several terrifying seconds before it snapped shut. That was-! Scrambling to his feet, Bickslow ran, but not away from the source of the cold as everyone else on the streets below were doing, but toward it. Skidding to a stop on the edge of the roof, he looked down sharply.
The small blond girl lay in the alleyway on her back, wide eyes staring blankly at the sky, chest visibly heaving as the mist started to fade. Around her, two of the slavers lay sprawled and groaning weakly, the third nowhere to be seen. Heart pounding in his ears, Bickslow scrambled down the nearest fire escape and dropped down onto the cobblestones. He hissed faintly at the unexpected sensation of freezing ice biting his bare feet, ice in the middle of summer? This can't be natural.
He glanced hastily around the alley, searching for the third slaver to no avail before his still-glowing eyes landed on the little girl again. Red coated turquoise and flickered wildly in time with fearful green in a near dizzying display of different emotions. Yet despite the shifting colors, Bickslow could see a kernel of black, the same indescribably dark color as the cold-inducing pulse, resting behind terrified hazel eyes.
The girl was starting to sit up, limbs shaking as she looked around, spotted him, and froze, eyes communicating her confusion and terror even more clearly than words. For several seconds, the two stared at each other, the girl's colors dancing with more and more green and Bickslow's mind seething with just one thought, she's like me, she's like me, she's like me!
Footsteps and yelling voices rapidly approaching their location snapped him out of his daze and Bickslow held out a hand hurriedly, "We need to go!" The girl stared blankly at his hand, brow furrowing silently and making no move to take it. Huffing, Bickslow hastily reached out and grabbed her left wrist, pulling her toward the fire escape he had climbed down, "Run, stupid!"
Rihanna didn't know what was going on. Everything was happening too quickly, too loudly, it was too much all at once. The strange boy with blue hair and ratty clothes was dragging her on a wild run across the rooftops of what looked like a stereotypical old-fashioned italian/european town while people yelled and called in what to her battered, barely-comprehending ears sounded a lot like Japanese.
It was mid-afternoon and the heat beating down on her bare arms and legs could only come from the summer sun, which made no sense because last she'd checked it was late night in the middle of december. In Chicago.
Then again, her panic-hazed brain somehow managed to point out, last she'd checked she she'd also been over twenty years old, not toddling around as a child in an oversized shirt. Also, very importantly, she'd been a legal adult who'd lost consciousness after getting slashed across the throat with a knife, before waking up just outside a bustling countryside town she'd never seen before in her life. She'd wandered in, hoping to find some help, only to get lost, herded into an alley, and attacked by some very unsavory men.
Is this is how people experience their journey to the afterlife? If so, why Japanese speaking Italians? Why the running? Why the headache, pedophiles, and freaking explosions? The blue-haired boy who couldn't have been older than nine, which was disturbing because he was taller than she was, hissed something she barely caught as he tugged her into jumping over a gap between roofs, "Koi! Hayaku!"
Hayaku, faster/hurry up. Koi … come on? Rihanna tried to ask why, but nearly stumbled instead at the throbbing sensation blooming in her throat when she tried to make a sound, what-? Her free hand pressed against her throat, another jolt of adrenaline spiking through her as she realized that there was a definite, diagonal line of raised flesh stretching across her neck. The knife! It must be from the knife! But why would I have a scar if I'm dead? But if I'm not dead, how am I still alive if it…?
Her thoughts were interrupted when the blue-haired boy clutching her wrist abruptly dragged her toward another fire escape, "Ike! Ike!" Ike, that means go. Go? Why? Where are we going? What's going on? The thoughts blurred in her mind as she was urged down the fire escape by the boy, her body automatically following his instructions while her brain tried to comprehend what was happening and failed miserably.
As soon as their feet hit the cobbled pavement they were off again. Running around garbage bins, scrambling over discarded boxes, and winding a twisting path through the unfamiliar location so quickly that Rihanna was soon even more lost than before. When they finally stopped running, Rihanna dropped to the ground, temporarily ignoring her new surroundings as she tried with marginal success to coax her burning lungs into providing oxygen.
She leaned back, only dimly aware of rough brick rubbing her back through the material of her favorite shirt, now so oversized it served as a short dress, and nicking faintly at her scalp. Her feet throbbed from running bare over uneven surfaces for who knew how long, sweat sticking her normally curly golden hair to her forehead. Her heart was pounding so loudly it was sending painful pulses through her skull, guess I can't be dead then, a part of her pointed out with a hysterical giggle, everyone knows dead people don't have heartbeats…
Motion in front and slightly to her left side heralded a grubby hand shaking her shoulder lightly and a worried voice over her head, "Oi, daijō ka?" Slowly, Rihanna opened her eyes, staring blankly at the boy who she should have towered over yet was now smaller than, brain struggling and failing to provide a solution to the conundrum of his appearance.
Now that she wasn't being dragged who-knew-where, she was able to study him and let the full magnitude of his appearance set in. How does a clearly homeless child get blue hair? The answer that popped up in her head was just as ridiculous as the question, the same way he gets ruby red eyes and a giant stick figure tattoo stretching from his forehead down the bridge of his nose. Wait, why does that look familiar?
The boy was scowling at her now, but the look in his eyes was more frightened than angry and Rihanna realized that she had yet to answer his question. She opened her mouth, the part of her that had had Moriko's language lessons thoroughly pounded into her brain ready to reply in, heavily accented, Japanese. However, as soon as she attempted to push sound out of her mouth, something twinged sharply in her throat and she doubled over coughing instead.
The twinge settled and Rihanna sat up again, hands flying to her throat to feel the raised line of rough skin again, oh no. No, no, no, no! Desperately, she tried to speak again, in either English or Japanese, she didn't care. The throbbing, tingling sensation rushed back and she pushed down a coughing fit to try a simple wordless scream instead. Nothing, no sound emerged from her mouth no matter how hard she tried, not even a whimper. The twinge in her throat finally overpowered her and she devolved into a coughing fit that sounded far too quiet for its intensity.
The boy was lightly patting her shoulder, as if he wanted to shake her but was afraid to, "Oi. Oi! Shikaishiro!"
Rihanna could barely hear him, let alone cobble together the meaning of his words in English. She was unable to process much beyond the overwhelming thought pounding through her skull like a rockslide, I'm mute. I'm mute. I'm mute! She pushed air into her throat to whimper and only felt her stress increase when her act was met with resounding silence. Her coughing fit had receded and she curled up tightly, hands still clutching her throat in terror as she tried to process everything and failed.
On one hand, she was in an unfamiliar location filled with people who spoke a language she only moderately understood, and now couldn't communicate with them even slightly because she was mute. On the other, a much darker part of her pointed out that the reason behind her muteness was that a knife blade had passed through her throat and by all rights she should be dead, not strangely de-aged and panicking. The strain of it all became too much and before she even had time to realize that her vision was going dark, her body shut down in an attempt to preserve her sanity.
~~~~~~~~ A Short Time Later~~~~~~~~~
Rihanna wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious, only that when she awoke, it was to surroundings completely unlike her college dorm room. Sitting up in a blind panic, she looked wildly around at the musty stone walls all around and wooden rafters stretching above her head for several seconds before her memories flooded back to her.
One of her hands whipped up to touch her throat again even as she forced herself to take deep breaths and calm down. Panicking and fainting again would do her no good. She had to, somehow, find sense in the madness that had suddenly become her life and figure out what to do from there. First step. Where am I now? Rihanna looked around again, starting a bit when she looked straight up and saw huge bell hanging over her like a gaping maw.
A tiny puff of air that should have been a squeak escaped her and she scooted backward a few inches before a stone wall prevented her from moving further. Her movement caused something to shift on her legs, dragging her attention reluctantly away from the gigantic bell and to the floor instead. Half tangled around her legs was a coat. An old overcoat with only one sleeve left and several patches of incorrect color decorating its back.
She blinked once, then twice, studying the placement of the overcoat and realizing that it must have been draped over her in lieu of a blanket. Who could have…? Was it that boy? Tearing her gaze away from the coat-blanket, she looked around again, spotted a small, circular window and carefully stood up to go look. She moved carefully, trying to step lightly and not slide her feet as she walked. She had no desire to get splinters in her feet on top of everything else happening to her.
Successfully crossing the floor without injury, Rihanna clambered up onto the thick circular sill of the grimy window, her unnaturally small frame able to balance comfortably on it as she looked out at the world below and beyond. It was utterly foreign. Carefully, Rihanna took slow, measured breaths as she looked out at a sprawling city that never rose more than three or four stories and whose limits were defined by the stone walls rising in the far distance. It looked nothing like what she was used to, nothing like the towering complexes and apartment buildings with stories in the double-digits and glistening surfaces of steel, concrete, and glass.
Below her was a world of clay and tiles and earthy colors mixed in with the splotches of moving color that were people. Below was a city from a storybook, or a foreign countryside, or a fairy tale and beyond it was rolling hills of green forests that only added to the sense of displacement. It was beautiful, no doubts of that. But it was so, utterly unfamiliar that Rihanna could only look at it in horror.
Pattering footsteps and the creak of a small door opening had her turning away from the window sharply to look. The blue-haired boy stepped inside, hands clutching a small loaf of bread, using one foot to push the creaky door shut. She watched as his eyes flickered to where the coat lay crumpled and empty, do a double take, and then promptly start panicking. She blinked at him in confusion at the wild, near-frenzied air he immediately exuded, running over to the coat and lifting it as if expecting to find her hiding underneath it somehow.
When he didn't, he started running to the far corners, peaking behind boxes and occasionally looking in the boxes, presumably for any sign of her. Rihanna tried to cough politely, make a noise that would attract his attention, only to be sharply reminded that her voice no longer worked. Swallowing the unpleasant reminder as best she could, she resorted to the first alternative that came to mind.
He whirled around immediately at her short shrill whistle, startling her with the glow of green eyes before he blinked and they were red once more. Did I just imagine that? Hurrying over to her, he babbled a long stream of breathless words too fast for her to fully understand. Managing to pick out the concerned tone and what sounded like the word "food" and the question "are you alright?", she nodded slowly before raising her hands and patting the air placatingly.
He slowed to stop and took a deep breath before studying her intently for a minute. Rihanna struggled not to squirm under his gaze. She was older than him in mind if not, somehow, in body and had come from a rough neighborhood so by all rights she shouldn't have felt intimidated. She did though, especially when his eyes dropped down to focus on the, most likely ugly and noticeable, scar running diagonally from the left side of her jaw down to her right collarbone.
His jaw clenched for a moment and she thought she saw anger flicker through his gaze before it vanished and he diverted his attention from her to the loaf of bread in his hand. Ripping it roughly in half, he held part of it out to her, "Onaka suita?"
Rihanna rolled that over several times in her head before tentatively concluding via context and vague familiarity with the phrase that he was asking if she was hungry. Her stomach, ignoring the emotional crisis of her mind and fractured reality outside, chose that cliché moment to growl and she accepted the offered bread with a blush and a mouthed thanks.
She tried her hardest not to wolf down the piece of bread, or think of how such an obviously homeless boy acquired it, but only partially succeeded. The bread piece was soon nothing more than a memory and crumbs she carefully licked off of her, unfortunately grubby, fingers. I guess I'm more hungry than I thought I was after being attacked by those men and all the rooftop running we did. I guess that's another point in favor of me being alive somehow … the dead can't get hungry.
Looking up, she started out of her thoughts when she saw that the boy had already devoured his portion of bread and was watching her intently, an unreadable gleam in his eyes. Rihanna shifted uncomfortably, trying to figure out why he was staring at her. He's way too young to be thinking anything dirty. He doesn't look more than nine. So what is he thinking? For that matter, why did he help me? Not that I don't appreciate it, but he doesn't even know my name. She blinked silently as the last thought stood out, Come to think of it, I don't even know his name.
Hoping to rectify the situation, Rihanna looked up and opened her mouth to ask. She then snapped it shut again when she remembered that she couldn't. I appreciate being alive and all, even if I'm comatose or crazy right now, but being mute is such a pain! Sighing heavily, Rihanna tried to think of another way to ask the boy's name. Glancing at the grubby window, she snapped her fingers as an idea struck her, I'll just write the words on the window! The grime should make the words visible and- She promptly deflated when she realized a large obstacle in her way, and I have absolutely no idea how to write in Japanese. There's no reason that these people would have a spoken language completely different from their written one and I'm fairly certain I saw signs in kanji before getting herded into that alley.
With the boy watching on curiously, she struggled to come up with another option, Can't speak, can't write … charades then? Guess I have no choice. Looking back up at the boy, Rihanna carefully placed a hand against her chest and mouthed her name before pointing at the boy. It took three more times of slowly repeating the motions before the non-comprehending look faded from his red eyes and he pointed at himself, "Namae ka?" Rihanna nodded, hoping that she was correct in thinking that "namae" meant the same thing as "onamae" and that he was asking if she wanted to know his name.
The boy scratched the back of his neck and smiled hesitantly at her, apparently sheepish, "Ah, sumimasen, wasureteta!" Moving his hand away from his neck, the boy pointed a thumb at his chest, "Watashi wa, Bickslow desu!"
Rihanna felt her thought processes, which had been trying to remember what "wasureteta" meant, screech to a stop. Wait … did he just say his name was Bickslow? Her eyes widened and she hastily scanned his appearance again. Dark blue hair and red eyes, both of which aren't natural outside of anime and cartoons? Check. Speaks Japanese despite the fact we're in a surprisingly european-looking town? Check. Her eyes trailed up to his forehead and lingered a moment before she cradled her head in her hands pathetically, dark blue stick figure tattoo thing in the whopping middle of his face? Check. She pushed air through her throat, trying to groan, but was only rewarded with a strong tingling feeling and silence. Lifting her head from her hands briefly, she double-checked his appearance, also noting his suddenly nervous countenance as she did so.
She settled for a heavy sigh, I've just met kid Bickslow of Fairy Tail … if this is my version of coma dreams or hallucinations, my head is even more messed up than I thought. I don't even know Bickslow's real backstory, he doesn't deserve me thinking up a horrible childhood for him.
"Ano…" the hesitant word brought her out of her surprisingly calm musings over what was going on and whether she was not panicking about it yet because she was in shock. Bringing her attention back to Bickslow, she noted the way his shoulders were hunched and his body leaning away from her, as if expecting a violent outburst. A pang of pain went through her at the sight. She was smaller than he was, there was no reason to look at her like she was about to bite his head off. Swallowing faintly, she smiled at him and held out a hand, hoping to convey a nonverbal "nice to meet you" since her vocal cords didn't work anymore.
Bickslow stared first at her hand, then at her face, then back to her hand before his posture slowly relaxed and he smiled in return. Clasping her hand, he shook it up and down twice before releasing, "Yoroshiku… eh, onamae wa?"
Rihanna shrugged helplessly and rubbed her throat, there was no way to convey her name to the fictional child Bickslow. If this is a dream, shouldn't he already know? Then again, if this is a dream, my dream, then shouldn't I be able to speak? Plus, this all feels so real… She temporarily pushed away that disturbing line of thought. She could figure out her circumstances later, for now, she needed to focus on her present company who was currently babbling something too fast for her to comprehend.
Before she could finish piecing together his statement, Bickslow turned away from her and began looking around intently, muttering random words under his breath as he searched among the sparse items in the belfry. After cycling through the Japanese words for "box", "window", "rock", "bell", and possibly "dust bunny", a fluttering sound caught their attention and they both looked up. A small bird had somehow found a way in and was fluttering about in the rafters with a twig in its beak, probably seeking for a place to build its nest. It chirped and bounced authoritatively from rafter to rafter, looking at nooks and crannies in the woodwork high above their heads.
It was abruptly startled into retreating when Bickslow shouted, "Wakatta!" Whirling on the startled Rihanna, he flashed his infamous tongue grin before shouting in a tone of pure triumph, "Onamae wa Wren desu!" He flashed his tongue grin again, seemingly waiting for a similar reaction of joy.
It took Rihanna a full five seconds to figure out the full implications of what he'd just said. When it hit her, she sat up sharply, mouth flopping open in disbelief, Did he just name me? Like a pet? After some random bird that happened to fly into the belfry? When Bickslow gave no sign that he was joking, just smiling a tongue-wagging smile throughout twelve seconds of incredulous staring on Rihanna's part, she gave into the urge to face palm.
Of course he did. Just … of course he did. At least he didn't name me Box…
Translations: 1. "Come on! Faster!"
2. "Oi, you okay?"
3. "Oi. Oi! Pull yourself together!"
4. "You hungry?"
5. "My name?"
6. "Ah, pardon me, I forgot! My name is Bickslow!"
7. "Um..."
8. "Nice to meet you ... eh, what's your name?"
9. "I got it!"
10. "Your name is Wren!"
Second Author's Note: In case anyone is curious, Bickslow is nine-years-old in this chapter while Rihanna is physically three and mentally an adult. See you next time!