When Allen's feet first hit the hard stones on the ground beneath the doorway, he had several urges to get right back inside. The stone was cold, hard, and unforgiving.
It reminded him far too much of the entrance to the lab area that he had just left.
The stone underneath his feet didn't stretch out too far. It was thin and long, forming something of a walkway out to the front yard, about ten paces out. Frankly, the ground beyond the borders of the stone path didn't look much better.
The ground was grassy with a few bare patches that displayed a very dark soil. There was heavy dew all over the dark grass and it made the blades look just as cold as the biting air that pricked his soft cheeks.
Did he want to go back inside? Allen asked himself that question, but he got a conflicting answer: a little bit.
Like many things, it felt, he was scared of the outside. It appeared that everything in his world, on the inside as well as outside, was cold and unyielding. Desolate. The new boy didn't like that his whole world seemed to follow this uncomfortable pattern.
Regardless, the inside wasn't very comforting and the outside wasn't very comforting. Therefore, it really shouldn't matter which he chose . . . and yet he wanted to try being out here. He thought he might have liked to explore, but being disconcerted by everything around him made that a little unclear.
Stop being so unreasonable, Allen scolded himself. Taking a small breath, Allen took a large step to the side, right off the path.
. . . And immediately jumped right back on. "Ack!" He shrieked quietly. That was cold! Allen's mind flashed back to his interactions with Lavi and Yu. He recalled that they had always been wearing shoes when he had seen them. Why wasn't he wearing shoes?
There had been a few articles of clothing in his room, Allen knew. He had seen them. However, there hadn't been any shoes. Why hadn't there been shoes? Maybe Lavi didn't think, when he got Allen's clothes, that the boy would need them. Did that mean he wasn't supposed to go outside . . ?
Allen glanced around himself, somewhat casually. "Well, too late for that." Allen muttered to himself, the words spoken by his soft voice were lost to the surrounding forest and the night. Taking a deeper breath, Allen once again leapt off the cold path onto the colder ground, staying there this time.
Ignoring the uncomfortable cold biting into his soft skin, Allen knelt down and ran his fingers lightly over the wet grass. A surprised giggle escaped his pale lips as the blades lightly tickled the tips of his fingers. Did grass always feel as nice as that? Surely, there must have been grass where he came from. Yet, for the life of him, he couldn't remember encountering grass before.
A freezing cold breeze swept through the area, ruffling his hair and bringing his eyes up to the treeline surrounding him.
I probably shouldn't go in there, Allen thought to himself as he reluctantly extracted his hand from the grass and stood up. Without a backwards glance at the mansion and with a barely-perceptible hitch in his step, Allen paced off quickly towards the entrance (or maybe the exit) to the forest.
Looking behind himself at his new home before going off might have brought his attention to the figure standing in one of the highest windows of the manor, looking down at him. But, of course, he didn't do that.
Yu Kanda watched from the window in his sleeping quarters. He didn't particularly like having a view to the outside world, felt less irritated when he stood apart from it all. However, there was one good reason for having a large window in his room. Two, if you counted it being a status symbol.
He could see whatever was going on outside directly in front of the manor's front entrance, his window being just above that doorway and very large. Creatures abounded in the night sometimes in his forest and it behooved him to get a look at whatever was outside. Lowly creatures, only praying on humans and the weaker members of their own numbers.
There being no humans on his property, few of their various species ever ventured out as far as this. Not that many of them recognized boundaries or were wary enough to avoid the marked territory of a master-level monster, especially the most idiotic ones, but it mostly served their small minds well to mostly stay in areas with a high consentration of humans.
Then again, Kanda thought generously. Perhaps I'm undervaluing their predatory instincts, just a bit. After all, most humans considered the daylight hours to be quite safe, because most species of monstrous animals stalk the night for prey.
Even the monsters that Kanda considered quite dumb waited until the night to attack the humans or else they only picked off lone humans that were themselves tupid or arrogant enough to wander off from their towns alone.
Even the more dull species' instincts likely told them that their energy and visual acuity would only get better as the world got darker, while that of humans got worse. Instinct (or perhaps experience) probably also told them that humans, weak as they appeared, weren't so weak as to be harmless to them.
This especially proved true when they were grouped up and when a little human bravery was added in. Kanda had long ago learned that respecting the capabilities of humans did not mean he had to like them, for which he was grateful.
Kanda had never found that he liked anybody, which was only right, of course.
Demons were rare and with their raw power and intelligence, they were set a world apart. And even among demons, Kanda had set out to prove himself a prince among them. Not to them, of course. He could not have cared less what anyone else thought of him, but he'd wanted to prove it to himself.
Being born as a demon, everything had been a competition. A fight. Simply to live to maturity, he knew, would be the hardest part of his entire life. But he knew he was special, right from the beginning.
If he didn't keep his eye on the prize, he would fail and he would die, but his exceptionalness would shine through if he let it. He could have everything he ever wanted and then some and so he worked and he got it.
Failure was not an option.
Movement on the front lawn right beneath his window drew Kanda's mind from his thoughts and directed it to just below him. It was a figure standing solitary and stationary along the stone path leading to his door. Surely a creature?
The demon's brain caught up quickly to what his eyes were seeing, but instead of a zombie or one of those disgusting little things that ate rotting corpses, he saw Lavi's creation. The boy that was meant to be his.
Kanda's eyes sharpened further to better observe and take in what the boy was supposed to be doing out there. Nothing became readily apparent to the demon, it appeared the boy was doing nothing.
Was he stupid or just strange? Ah, the boy.
For the first time in a long time, Kanda didn't know what to make of someone or how he felt about them. Although he had commissioned the boy to be created, he had offered rather little in the way of directions for how Lavi was to proceed in the creation. He'd simply wanted a lover. He wanted one.
His expectations about the whole affair had been rather high, both because he deserved nothing less than the best in all areas of his existence and because Lavi would be doing the creating. Flighty as his servant sometimes acted, Kanda could admit in his own mind (albeit reluctantly) that a more competent servant he could not find.
Kanda idly wondered if the personality of the creation was a reflection of some sort of failure on Lavi's part or simply the uncontrollableness of life.
While Kanda was not particularly excited about how young a man Lavi had used for his creation, the demon did not see it as a problem. The dead boy had in all likelihood been fifteen years or so, about a year away from maturity as it was considered in their region and in many of those nearby.
No other problem to be had with the appearance. Aside from the unfortunate youth, the boy was quite attractive. One might say beautiful. He had bright eyes and a clear complexion, pale skin and hair. No, the real flaws in the creation lied in his personality.
Combative. Resistant. The being his servant had created seemed overly insistent that he be paid more respect than Kanda, himself! The demon had had half a mind to . . . well, it didn't matter. It was only half his mind, after all, and he had cooled off greatly since their argument.
He still didn't like the little boy that was supposed to be for him, however all but his righteous indignation had departed. Kanda could admit that he was not in any way a man of even temperament. He was one who got angered quickly and calmed down just as fast.
If he had truly done something to hurt the boy, he probably would have found his own actions distasteful soon afterwards. He did not personally consider the scathing words he had said to the boy as hurting him, although Lavi had clearly believed otherwise.
Movement from the ground below quickly snapped Kanda's attention away from his thoughts, once again directing it below.
The boy was moving. Dark eyes watched closely as the boy far below made a strange show of jumping off and back on the stone path on which he had been standing. The boy's puzzling behavior continued as he seemed to start running his hands through the grass and staring at it.
What a strange boy, Kanda couldn't help repeating to himself. Strange, indeed.
The boy then looked up - at the forest. Had something caught his attention? Apparently coming to a decision, the boy then got up, absentmindedly wiping his hands on his pants before slowly but surely heading off towards the treeline.
What?! Kanda thought in surprise, leaning his right hand heavily against the window, angling to get a better look. What is the little fool doing!
Kanda watched with gritted teeth as the boy disappeared off beyond the trees. The demon's body shook with barely-restrained anger and the urge to do something.
After a few precious seconds of watching the treeline and not seeing any movement of Lavi's Creation emerging back out of the trees, Kanda could hold it in no more. In a surprising burst of movement, the dark haired demon took off out of his rooms and made his way to the ground floor.
He would have rathered jump out his window and land on the ground directly in front of where the boy disappeared. It would have been faster, but the window that he had been watching from didn't open. He might have to consider talking to Lavi about changing that if this happened again.
Nevertheless, his superior demonic speed brought Kanda down to the front door in nearly the blink of an eye. Which is good news for the brat if he finds himself in trouble with something besides me, Kanda seethed. When I find him, I'm going to kill him.
Throwing open the door with a flourish, Kanda stepped into the outdoors and, not bothering to close it behind him, marched towards the forest hovering in front of the shadowy mansion.
He was angry enough without the faint smell of another creature suddenly reaching his nose.
Allen was daydreaming.
The fog, or maybe mist, was thickest at ground level, almost hiding the ground and Allen's own feet from his view. The mist that hovered around or above Allen's head was much thinner, merely a thin film in the air. Most of the chill came from the air, but the fog wasn't exactly warm, either.
Allen found that fascinating, but he would have to find and ask Lavi or go back to the library to find out why it behaved the way it did. He had spent a little time looking at the surrounding area attentively, but with the trees and ground looking almost exactly the same as each other, no matter how many of them he passed, he soon found his mind wandering to other things.
The urge to understand his creator had Allen casting his mind back to the walk about their home he and Lavi had shared the previous night, as well as the look he had gotten at the vampire's room.
Lavi's room had turned out to be one floor up from the basement, laboratory, level. Allen had passed by it several times. The room Allen found himself opening the door to was sparsely furnished, to say the least. Thankfully, the room made up for its lack of furnishings with books. There were books everywhere.
There was only one table pressed against the same wall as the door and one desk situated on the opposite wall. The center of the desk was clear and clean, but piled up on all edges of it were various journals, writing implements, and books. Stacks of them.
It was one of the cleanest areas in the room.
The table by the door was completely covered with books which didn't seem to be on any one topic, in particular. The floor housed what really looked to be dozens of stacks, too. Stacks that reached up as high or higher than Allen's chest in some spots.
There was something else. In the back corner, pressed against a wall and hanging out in shadow, was a coffin.
Allen had asked Lavi about it and asked his creator about it and Lavi had simply replied that he slept in it. That it was the only place he felt comfortable enough to sleep in.
Something occurred to Allen as he watched the vampire root around in a drawer, before pulling out two unused candles in iron holders. He didn't know why he thought of it, but he did and he had to ask. "How did you get things like the coffin here? I can't imagine you went out and purchased them, so did you or . . ." He didn't know how to finish and so he drifted off instead.
"I went out at night. Found someone who would purchase things we needed and deliver them. Several someone's, actually."
"Humans?" Allen asked, peering up at him as the vampire ushered him out of the room and closed the door.
"Of course. What else?" Lavi gave a light laugh.
"And did they know . . ?"
"Of course, they did. I didn't tell them, but the fact that I approached them at night and required them to deliver at night - they obviously suspected."
"And that wasn't a problem for them?" Allen wondered aloud, taking the candle Lavi handed him while the redhead kept the other.
"Some I chose to approach didn't care. Money is money and they didn't want to start a fight they couldn't finish. I suppose some of them had a problem. Morality or some such." Lavi replied.
"Did you worry about that?" Allen asked.
"Sometimes problems just take care of themselves." Lavi replied, a lighthearted grin stretching his features pleasantly.
"I can accomplish a lot of unbelievable things once I put my mind to it. Mind over matter, that's how I was raised." Lavi commented lightly, yet he stared forward at the slowly lighting expanse of dark hallway, something unfathomable swimming in the depths of his emerald eyes. "And no one who decides that they're going to become a problem can hide, day or night."
The vampire's grip on the candle he held would have easily bruised a human.
A loud snapping sound of something stepping on a twig got Allen out of his mind. "Hello?" He called out nervously, glancing around. Was there anyone else there? Another snapping sound had Allen looking around again. He didn't see anything, until he did.
A few feet away, from behind some trees, a shadowy slumped form materialized and slowly stepped forward into the light. Allen's wide eyes were locked on the creature that emerged. It had a face that Allen could have recognized as human once, but a large, grotesque beak protruded from its face. Dark eyes were rimmed with dark skin and showed no pupils.
The creature wore tatted and ripped clothes that barely stayed on its frame. The skin underneath and around was dark gray and wrinkly. One could argue that the form looked emaciated, but that didn't seem right. Strong but wrinkly-looking wings stuck out from the beings wings and spread out behind them, making the creature look inexplicably more horrible.
While Allen was still staring at it, the creature spread its wings even further, spreading its arms out in a strictly threatening gesture, and let out a loud screech. "Aah!" Allen cried out and jolted backward, tripping over something and falling onto his back.
The creature screeched again and before Allen could react, jumped up into the air and went flying at the boy's prone form. It reached nearly seven feet in the air just by jumping and then came down at him. Four feet-three feet-too close!
Something launched into the creature's side through the air, taking it down less than two feet away from Allen. The thing was a slim, black blue but as Allen finally got the breath back in his lungs and scrambling around to see the fight going on off to the side, he recognized the second attacker.
The slimmer figure on top of the winged creature barely had it on the ground before shredding two chunks out of the creature's thigh and hip with its elongated nails. The winged creature stopped fighting and snarling at that point, choosing to slump on the ground in defeat and whimper.
The figure above it snarled one more time and huffed, seemingly agitated and deciding whether it should kill the winged creature or not. Allen didn't want that, but even if he did, he was unsure if he would have been able to stop himself from whispering a name softly into the air.
"Kanda?"
