Here I am with chapter two! Feel free to let me know what you think of it so far!
Review Response: Dear pucksabrinadaphne, hi! Glad you think so!
Author's Note: Hmm, not much to tell except I'll be using less and less Japanese as time goes on. Mostly because I'm terrible at Japanese grammar, but also because as Rihanna (Wren) understands the language better, her mental translations from Japanese to English will get faster. I'll still be using some Japanese, stuff like "-san", "-kun", and "-chan" but fewer and fewer complete words. Unless it's a special circumstance. Either way, see the bottom for translations if you don't know some of the Japanese words used in this chapter!
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or any references made in this story. The only things I own are my OCs and the plot.
Chapter Two: Nine Months Later
"Oi! Get back here with that, Onigaki!" Bickslow took off down the street, the angry shopkeeper hot on his heels to retrieve the poorly stolen apple. All nearby eyes in the marketplace automatically swung to watch the chase, never noticing the much smaller figure that flitted out of the shadows behind their backs. Rushing up to the apple stand, Rihanna hastily reached up and started grabbing fruit, hurriedly stuffing as many as she could into the makeshift bag she held clutched in one hand before running back to the shadowed alley with the stolen items in tow.
Winding her way rapidly through the narrow paths between buildings with a familiarity of one who had inhabited them for far too long, Rihanna kept a keen eye out for any signs of slavers or other thieves. Food was a precious thing and Bickslow's baiting trick only worked once or twice a week at most. She couldn't afford to lose the bag clutched in her hands.
Nine months. It had been roughly nine months since she had woken up in a country she'd never heard of, which existed in a fictional world she'd never believed was real. Nine months of running, stealing, learning the language fast for fear of dying otherwise, and getting the notion that it was all a hallucination beaten out of her.
Even the most realistic of dreams had glitches. Little bits and pieces that didn't fit, sensations that were lacking or sequences that repeated themselves without reason. What she'd been living had been nothing like that. The pain was real, the hunger was excruciating, and the world around too detailed every second of the day to be fake.
She'd had panic attacks about it for the first month or two, moments of curling up in the nearest corner and sobbing silently while Bickslow frantically tried to figure out what was wrong with her. But after those times, Rihanna had forced herself to get over it, to push forward because if she stopped she would very likely end up dead or caught by the unscrupulous robbers and human traffickers that prowled the back alleys.
Thankfully, throughout all the time she had been there, trapped in the body of a mute three-year-old, torn from everything she'd known and understood, she had had one constant.
Bickslow.
She still wasn't sure why the boy had rescued her that day, or why he continued to teach and care for her as best he was able, but she was eternally grateful to him for it. Bickslow, with his irritatingly endearing tongue-wagging smile and rapid chatter kept her relatively sane through it all. The part of her that was small, scared, and lonely clung to his warmth and vitality while the part of her that was a fully grown woman felt maternally protective of the precocious nine to ten-year-old who was her only companion.
Rihanna broke out of her thoughts and hastily stuffed herself in the shadows of a dumpster, breathing lightly as another figure flitted past, dark clothing and tattered cloak marking him as one of the thieves of the city. Apparently, instead of having a magic guild, this city had a troublesome and ninja-like thieves' guild that stole from the richest and picked up promising street children to instruct in their ways.
Well, all promising street children except Bickslow and, by extension, herself. For some reason, the people of the city seemed particularly hostile to Bickslow, fearful even. They consistently called him "Onigaki" which Rihanna roughly translated as "demon brat" or something similar. Though they chased him, they only ever did it when they didn't know who he was and when he was running away. The few times she'd seen him turn to face whoever was chasing him, the person would take one look at his face, pale drastically, call him that name, and flee.
It confused her, but she had yet to figure out how to ask Bickslow about it via their complicated communication system of charades, whistles, and hand signs. She suspected it had something to do with the way his eyes glowed green at random times, presumably from the eye magic he used in the anime. She didn't know why he would have something that strange and potentially devastating at such a young age, but again, she had no way to get confirmation.
Carefully detaching from her hiding spot, Rihanna resumed running for the old, dilapidated cathedral that served as their home. It was an old Zentopia church if she read the markings right, but it had been abandoned for many years and its left belfry had served as her home for the nine months she'd been in that world. It soon came into sight, the shortcuts she had memorized between it and the Market District serving her well yet again as she made for one of its walls.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, she carefully crawled into the building through a small hole in the wall just big enough for a child to crawl through. Emerging inside the church between two rotting pews, she clambered to her feet and pattered through the dusty isles to the stairs leading up to the belfry. Mindful of the various creaky steps that served as their own early warning system, Rihanna was soon in the belfry in which she had first awoken after fainting nine months earlier. Only once she was inside and curled up on the windowsill, the bag of apples clutched firmly to her chest, did she relax. Another heist successful. Hopefully it went just as well for Bickslow as it did for me.
Reaching inside the bag, Rihanna pulled out one of the apples and began munching on it slowly, taking care not to eat too fast for fear of upsetting her food deprived stomach. Her stomach did not appreciate her logic and gurgled hungrily at the small, slow bites to which she was restricting herself. As she ate, Rihanna kept an idle eye on the town below through the grimy window she had claimed as her own. People moved back and forth, their shapes reduced to ridiculously small sizes and simplistic shapes because of how high above them she was.
From up here, they all look like little moving M&Ms with arms, a part of her mused humorously. Not that they look any more normal from up close. Her face screwed up into a thoughtful frown at that thought. It was yet another difference between this world and her old one. The people there looked to be the perfect blend between anime and real life. Their features were too real, their skin too warm to be fake, yet their eyes were just a touch too big and expressive and their hair colors were just a tad too varied to register as normal in her mind.
She had pondered it off and on a lot over the past several months, but the closest thing she had ever managed to compare it to was the Final Fantasy VII movie "Advent Children", with its motion capture and animation so realistic that she had at first mistaken Cloud in his opening scene to be an actual actor. But even then, the movie didn't quite get the blend between reality and anime as balanced as Earthland seemed to.
She carefully nibbled around the apple stem, making sure to eat as much of the top and bottom as possible before moving on to munch on the core. Food was hard to come by as a three-year-old street brat and her nine-year-old mentor and it was best to conserve whatever prizes they'd stolen for as long as possible. The apples were fresh, if kept hidden in the dark of the box in the far corner of the belfry they would keep for at least a week, maybe two. By then, they would have been able to steal more to add to their stores … hopefully.
The stairs leading up to the belfry creaked and Rihanna tensed, grip shifting on the apple core to make it more easily thrown while her feet slid underneath her, ready to spring from the window at a moment's notice. A minute or two after the first squeak, two more squeaks sounded and Bickslow came into view. Rihanna dropped her apple core with a silent gasp, setting down the apple bag and running over to steady him as he wobbled in the doorway.
She hissed between her teeth, wordlessly demanding to know what had happened even as he waved her away and went to sit down on their shared coat blanket, "Daijōbu desu, Wren. Just a few bruises." Rihanna ran her eyes critically over his frame, spotting the bruises on his arm that looked suspiciously like fingers and the way he favored his right ribs. Several curses flickered darkly through her mind, all of them directed at the heartless adults of the city, and she clenched her fists briefly before running to the windowsill and retrieving an apple for Bickslow.
When she returned with the apple, Bickslow shot her a tired smile as he accepted it, "Arigatō, Wren, yoku yattane." Rihanna gave him a tightlipped smile at his words, unable to feel pleased about his praise when he was injured in any way. Sighing to herself, she briefly moved away from him to put the apples in their designated hiding place for food. Best to remove the temptation from sight to avoid taking another one.
Moving back to Bickslow, she sat cross-legged in front of him, a frown pulling at her lips. Bickslow paused in his enthusiastic devouring of the apple, a noise of inquiry emerging from his throat as he cocked his head to one side. Rihanna pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to finally express the question that had been bothering her so much. The sight of Bickslow's injuries had brought her curiosity over the city's hate and fear of him to the foreground.
After all, if the hand imprint on his arm was any indication, the shopkeeper had caught him, yet aside from clearly sore ribs, Bickslow had no other injuries and most importantly, was still running free. She had no doubts that his comparatively few injuries and current freedom were because of how civilians ran away from him whenever they got a good look at his face.
Seeing that she had accidentally garnered Bickslow's full attention, she hesitantly reached out and touched first his bruises, then his face, head cocking in question. Bickslow frowned non-comprehendingly, "What's the matter, Wren? I already said I'm fine."
Rihanna shook her head, frustration starting to bloom. Reaching out, she pointed at Bickslow, then at his bruises, then mimed someone running away and cocked her head again. Bickslow blinked at her once, then scowled, "Are you calling me slow?" Rihanna shook her head vehemently, I'm asking a question, idiot! Finally, she resorted to mimicking the hand motion some of the shopkeepers performed when they realized who they were chasing. With clumsy fingers, she drew a circle over her chest where her heart should be before before pressing her index finger under her left eye and then pointing at Bickslow with a questioning look.
Bickslow went very, very still and for a moment Rihanna was terrified that she had cursed him or insulted him or somehow made him actually angry at her. His head tilted down so that his scruffy blue hair hung over his eyes, shielding them from sight while his fingers clutched the remains of his apple tightly. After several seconds of tense silence, Bickslow asked softly, "You … you want to know why people do that when they see me? Why they ward me off like I'm a demon?"
Is that what that means? Hesitantly, Rihanna nodded, hoping that he could still see the motion from under his hair. Whether he saw her nod or not, he continued to speak, "I … the people hate me 'cause they think I'm cursed. I … my eyes see stuff that they shouldn't see. I can see what makes people, people. The things they feel, the way they think, if they've killed before or are slavers in disguise…" He slowly raised his head again and Rihanna gaped slightly when she saw that his eyes were a vibrantly glowing green.
She had seen them flicker to green briefly before over the course of the months, but she'd never had them directed straight at her as far as she could remember. They were eerie somehow, making her feel naked and exposed and vulnerable even though she knew Bickslow would never hurt her. Bickslow's mouth twisted downward and she wondered briefly if he could see her fear. His eye magic had never been really explained in the anime in her opinion, mostly because she didn't fully believe his ranting about seeing souls.
Then again, if coupled with his current explanation, maybe souls were the closest thing he could get to describing what he saw when he used his eyes. Bickslow, unaware of her inner thoughts, continued speaking, his fingers idly tracing the tattoo on his face, "My parents threw me out when I first started doing it, even though I never meant to! They … the people here don't think they can kill me, they think I have to die of natural causes or else I'll take the soul of whoever killed me and use it to terrorize the city for eternity … or something. So instead of trying to kill me, they … they did this. Branded me so that everyone can know who I am, why I'm on the streets, why they should run away."
Rihanna felt first shock, then raw hatred for the people of the city. How could they throw out a child just because he could do things they didn't understand? How could they brand a little boy just because he could see things they couldn't? Do things they couldn't? How could they? How dare they?
"That's … that's why I helped you out that first day, I didn't want you to get branded too. I mean, it isn't your fault anymore than it is mine and … and I liked the thought of not being alone anymore. Not being the only one." Wait, what? Rihanna gaped at Bickslow for an entirely different reason, trying to understand what he meant by that. Not the only one? Not the only what? Cursed child? Bickslow isn't cursed, he just has some kind of eye magic! Rihanna's eyes widened as suspicion dawned and she pointed at herself inquiringly, he think's I have eye magic? I don't have any kind of magic! I'm from an entirely other world that doesn't have magic of any kind!
Now it was Bickslow's turn to cock his head, "Don't you remember? When those three slavers had you cornered, you … did some kind of icy, dark explosion. I heard that two of them had really bad cases of frostbite all over their bodies afterward and no one ever found the third guy."
Rihanna felt like her world had just been ripped out from under her again. I did that? I did that explosion thing on that first day? What-? Just … what? Rihanna pointed at herself again disbelievingly and Bickslow rolled his now red eyes, his tone lightening now that they were talking about her and not his own predicament, "Hai, Wren, I mean you." Rihanna shook her head in denial and Bickslow scowled at her, "I'm not lying!" Rihanna shook her head again, even more stubbornly, for once not in the mood to soothe the younger boy's mood swings.
His eyes flashed green again and he lashed out, "I can see it! It's right there!" His right index finger firmly poked her between the eyes and the instant it made contact, her world imploded on itself. White noise filled her ears as she suddenly wasn't looking at the world around her, but at a strange, unknown place that stretched for undeterminable miles.
Towering on either side and behind her were the silhouettes of expansive shelves, monstrous things that were at least several stories high. She couldn't tell if there was anything on the shadowed shelves, mostly because her attention was focused on something else entirely. Namely, her attention was focused solely on the looming double doors that stretched high about her head. There were no walls connected to the door, yet she knew without moving that there was nothing to see if she walked to the door's other side. Not that she was in any state to move, really, she was too caught up gawking at the door.
It was both like, yet unlike any door she'd ever seen. With a rounded top at least two stories above her head, it seemed to be made out of some kind of glossy dark stone. Carved in its surface were intricate engravings of … something, she couldn't place them at the moment but they looked familiar.
The engravings, whatever they were meant to represent, were a dizzying myriad of interconnected swirls, ovals, and star-like shapes that had all been pulled and stretched by some unseen force to be made up of rounded curves and not straight lines. Inside the swirls and shapes were raised lumps in the stone, all clustered in random groups throughout the larger carvings. Reaching a hand out hesitantly to feel the bumps, Rihanna recoiled in surprise at the icy temperature of the stone.
It wasn't a painful cold, but it was still clearly freezing, making her reluctant to touch it again. She started to do so anyway, curiosity overriding her caution, when there was a flash of something other, a ripple of light and noise and suddenly she was in the belfry again, sprawled gracelessly on her butt panting while Bickslow recoiled from her, a look of terror on his face.
The white noise slowly left her ears, giving way to a sobbing adolescent voice, "Gomenasai, gomenasai, gomenasai! Wren, daijōbu desu ka? Are you alright? Wren?" Rihanna blinked away the last of her situational confusion and moved toward Bickslow, brow furrowing when he flinched away from her, eyes squeezed shut and still stammering apologies, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean-! Whatever I did, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to hurt you, I just wanted to-! I'm so sorry!"
Taking advantage of his closed eyes, Rihanna lunged forward and caught Bickslow in a hug, making shushing noises through her teeth as she clung to his shaking form. Slowly, Bickslow's arms came up and he embraced her, his voice small and scared, "Daijōbu ka?" Rihanna nodded against his shoulder, trying to soothe him as best she could without her lost voice.
Even as she calmed Bickslow down and managed to assure him that she was fine and wasn't about to run away from him like he was a demon, her thoughts were spinning in other directions, what was that? Was that…? Was that in my mind? What was that icy door? Could that be … could that be what Bickslow saw?
Turning her focus briefly inward, Rihanna started at the sudden sensation behind her eyes. It was like an ice cube, or a locked door, or the pressure of a headache without any of the pain, or all of those things at once yet not. It was something she had never consciously felt before, yet now that she was aware of it, she realized that she'd been feeling it ever since waking up in Earthland.
Slowly, shakily, she pulled her focus back out to the external world and blinked several times as a realization settled over her, Holy Pantherlilies … I have magic. I have eye magic. Her inner Naruto fan suddenly jumped up and down screeching hysterically and Rihanna carefully raised a hand to her temple, pressing her fingers there as if she'd be able to feel the source of the faint sensation behind her eyes, I have a bloody dōjutsu!
Her hand migrated from her temple to her face as she temporarily ignored Bickslow and reintroduced her forehead to her palm, I have a dōjutsu. And I have no idea what it does, other than apparently be wildly cold and destructive, and I have no idea how to consciously control it.
Perfect. Just … just perfect.
Japanese Translations: 1. "Onigaki" = Demon Child
2. "I'm alright."
3. "Thank's, Wren, good work."
4. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Wren, are you alright?"
5. "You're alright?"