Chapter one
four years later...
I skip happily through the street, holding Mama's hand and eating my apple. I love apples! They're so sweet and crunchy! If I had the chance, I wouldn't eat anything but apples all day. I flap up into the sky and begin flying circles around Mama's head. She's so pretty when she's happy. She laughs and holds me tight.
"You're such a good boy, Cooro!" She smiles at me. The surface of my mind is still childish delight, but underneath it, are my true thoughts, swirling in patterns no four-year-old should comprehend. My golden eyes and semi-transparent wings are not the only unusual things about me, they are just indications of it.
I hear a whimper. Giggling and pretending to be restless, I squirm out of Nana's arms, fying to the sound more from curiosity than any real desire to help. Once I would have raced over there as fast as my wings could carry me, no I know better than to constantly try and change the fate of those suffering. It's hardly worth it. Nana lets me go. She knows that I am not a normal child, and she can't stop me. She looks sad when I fly away from her though...
I hear the whimper again, and circle down. There is a young girl, brown haired, about four, I would say 'my age', bu that would be a lie. She has been cornered by several men, one of whom is holding out a thick leather collar.
"Come on doll-face, we won't hurt you, you just need to come with us..." The girl shakes her head, looking up at her tormentors with wide eyes.
I have to help her! I shake my head slightly, ignoring the stray thought. There's no point. From here, I can see the anima markings on her back. I can sense the Anima stirring restlessly inside her, wanting to escape, wanting to fly the girl away, but held still by her fear. A tawny owl.
Suddenly my wings twitch out of my concious control, and I dive down to the girl, whooping carelessly. I toss my apple at a large black-haired head, and it bursts, spraying sweet juice over his skin. Yummy apple face...The slavers didn't seem to be expecting me, so I can land in front of the girl.
"Fly away! Come with me!" I hold out my hand and smile, ignoring the stunned slavers at my back.
The girl's wide eyes are greeen as she stands up timidly, shaking brown speckled wings unfolding from her back as her eyes grow wide and golden, the same colour as my own. I grab her wrist, flapping up just as the stunned slaves recover. The man covered in squashed apple shouts out to his companions:
"That boy's an +Anima too! I've never seen one like it! Get him!" But they're too far behind. I laugh, flipping through the air and grinning at the girl.
"My names Cooro! What's your name?" I want to be her friend. She looks sad, and scared...
"Bree..." Her voice is childish, lisping.
"Nice to meet you Bree. You should be more careful." I grin, and hand her an apple from my pocket, before grabbing one for myself. It's a shame I lost the other one...
"Why did you help me?" asks Bree, her green eyes suspicious. Such a cynical expression is a shame on a child, but life is hard, more so for some then others. I shrug, tilting my wings to catch an updraft.
"I don't know." My voice is nothing like a child's tone or diction. But I have all the knowledge from a life and an afterlife pooling in my mind.
"Those men owned me you know, you were stealing from them."
No-one owns anyone! You didn't look like you wanted to go with them, so I helped you...
I don't answer her, floating upwards. This girl makes me fight against who I am, she...reminds me of my past...My past...
*
I'm winging it, and based it on a random comment I chucked into the prolouge, hope it works out, I may skip a few years before the next chapter, get Cooro and Bree up to the age of the original +Anima band.