.:oOo:.
Author's Notes: Dude, the move is complete! I now live in Paris! And so far, I'm terribly homesick and bored. So I decided to ad more chapters to this fic, in which I thought I had abandoned. I hope my writing skills have gotten better with time, and i hope it's long enough, yet not too horrible for your eyes.
Important: This Fic contains my OC ,Reina, and it is her point of view, unless stated otherwise.
DiScLaMeR
I DON'T OWN DK.
NOT THE SUPER MARIO MONKEY,
BUT THE MANGA.
thank you.
.:oOo:.
Mirrors
By Lumikuu
Chapter 4 -
Fairytales and Dreams
.:oOo:.
I couldn't help it, I screamed. We plunged through the air, closer and closer to the murky fast moving river.
But somehow Kharl managed to land on the very edge of the bank. I almost cheered, but he teetered backwards, out of balance, due to the fact he was holding me.
For some reason I let go. It was like slow motion, as I fell, the water drawing nearer, Kharl turning his head around to look at me in horror. And the last thing I saw was Kharl, as he whipped around and darted for my hand, but missed. I remember the terrible cold. It seeped into my skin and froze my bones and my very mind. I couldn't think, let alone move. The rip current snatched me and dragged me to the bottom of the river, like a child playing with its new toy.
Then I saw a lady, all in white. She reached out to me, beckoning. The look on her kind, and beautiful face warmed me and made me feel light and bubbly, and I was tempted to reach out and take her hand. She smiled encouragingly, and reached out further.
I took her hand.
As soon as I touched her, all the warmth disappeared in a blink, but the lady cradled me to her side and stroked my tangled hair. I felt sleepy and closed my eyes. All my thoughts disappeared, and I forgot I could not breathe under water. All I was thinking was that I'd be safe with this lady. I'd never go hungry, and I'd always have nice clothes to wear, and I could sleep for as long as I wanted to. Like the noble girls.
I felt a sharp tug on my sleeve and I saw Kharl. He was paler and more ghostly under water. He could have been mistaken for the lady's child. White hair and skin. Almost like death.
That woke me up.
He grabbed me in his arms and started to make his way to the surface. I wanted to go back to the lady with the cold touch, she was so beautiful, and comforting, couldn't he see that? I struggled tenaciously against Kharl's grip, but he held me tight, so all I could do was look in dismay at the lady's distraught face. When she realized, I was not coming back, to my horror, she changed to a scaly green color. Her tender smile grew angry and feral. Her eyes bulged and she opened her huge mouth, and screamed.
It was a terrible sound, enough to make your heart stop and your blood run cold. Enough to make you surrender, like I did, to the darkness.
I woke up to find the sky was purple. Violet like Kharl's eyes- Wait. They were his eyes. I realized that because he blinked.
"You're alive." he stated.
"I am." I said, sitting up. Kharl was all wet and dripping, like myself. We were on the other side of the river. We had made it! Well Kharl had at least. "You saved my life." I whispered. "Again."
"Well, I better not make that a habit then, eh?" he grinned, pulling me up. To tell the truth, I found him rescuing me, an embarrassment. He probably thought I was a stupid ninny who couldn't do anything by herself.
We took one last look at what had been our home, and then together we turned our backs to it and the people who lived there, and entered the forest.
I had read a book and in it was a kind of story called a 'fairytale' that reminded me strongly of what we were doing right now. Trudging through dense foliage and mud.
I forget what it was called, only that it was one of the books I had stolen from my Master's trunk that I happened to come upon when cleaning. Not like he ever noticed.
Usually I don't steal from my foster family, but in this case it was different. He had a truck filled with many many books, so much you could hardly close the lid. Most of them were partially moth eaten, or crumpled (they were all paperbacks) But among them were some nearly new condition books.
I had never ever seen my master read in my whole entire life. Not once did he sit down and just open a book.
So I took them.
I didn't put them in my 'room', but instead left them in the underground prison, under a false floor brick. I read them when there was nothing to be done and when I had free time.
In this fairytale there was a boy and a girl, and they had to leave their home because…Someone I think, didn't want them anymore. So they left and went into the woods. But the boy was smart and left his favorite marbles behind to create a trail so they could come back…or something like that. So when they came back the next day, that someone told them to leave again, and this time the boy used a loaf of bread to mark their trail. When he ran out of bread, the girl and he started to head back…only to realize that the birds and forest animals had eaten the bread crumbs. And now not only were they lost, but they had wasted their dinner. They wandered the forest, lost, for days without food or drink until the point where they were dying. ( I sure hope it doesn't come to that)
Then they came upon a castle made completely out of candy. Wait, no…it was a cottage.
And they ate, and ate until a lady came out of the cottage and invited them in.
The lady turned out to be a witch who trapped them in her house and tried eating the boy while working the girl to death. I forget how, but they tricked the lady into going into the stove and burned her alive. And then their father found them and took them home and of course, they lived happily ever after.
I wasn't too impressed with the story when I had read it and I still am not. I enjoyed reading the it though, and the rest of the fairytales in the book, but what I didn't get was why the bad character always died and the hero or heroine (or both) always made it out ok and usually got married and always lived happily ever after.
It kind of made me mad that the world wasn't like that in reality. Why couldn't we all live happily ever after? But then, is there really such thing?
'You think too much.'
'I know' I told myself mentally and continued to brush leaves and branches out of my way. I was sweating. Was it me or was it getting hotter? No, it's probably because of all the walking you've been doing. Yeah, that made sense I thought. But after another half hour I could barely breathe let alone think.
There was something wrong. I needed to stop. I needed air.
Finally I stopped and called to Kharl, who was still working his way through the forest ahead of me.
"Kharl, I need…" I took a gulp of oxygen. "…to rest…just for a minute."
Kharl turned around and came by my side.
"Alright, but only for a while, ok? We need to move as much as we can before the sun goes down…Hey, are you okay?" he asked, a sudden change of voice.
"Y-yeah…fine. I just need to breathe for a while." I mumbled sitting down on the ground. Kharl didn't respond, but he touched my forehead and looked ever more worried.
"You've got a fever!" he muttered, looking away and cursing. I guess that was his way of thinking though, because he wasn't talking to me.
A few seconds later he was crouching before me and tugging on my shirt.
"Listen, I want you to take your shirt off."
My eyes got big.
"I think I will let you finish your sentence before I start yelling." I stated grimly.
Kharl flushed and got shifty.
"Hey! That's not …I mean, it sounds like it does but its not!"
"Carry on."
"…Listen to me Reina. It's your shirt! It's wet and it's not exactly warm out, so your shirt is making you cold, and dampening your skin. Also, I don't think diving into freezing rivers helps either."
It seemed reasonable. And knowing Kharl, he was probably right.
I coughed.
"Right. But I'm not walking around half naked."
"There's no one here. Just the forest, its animals and the rocks."
"You're forgetting yourself." I said, crossing my arms.
"Yeah, but I don't care."
'Yeah, I bet you don't' I mentally scowled. Then in real life; "I do!"
Kharl frowned and tapped his boot on the leafy ground.
"Ah, I know, you can wear my shirt. It's already dry."
He took off his shirt and for the second time that day I was amazed about how pale he was. With all the time he spent in the sun too. I noted his lavender-white hair contrasted beautifully with his wan features.
Kharl caught me staring.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh." Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha- Shut up. "I was thinking about something. And I'm not feeling too good either." And that was the truth.
"Let's stop for the day then." Kharl said still looking worried.
"No, no, you were right, we gotta move before the sun sleeps." I said with weak determination, and started to move on again.
I didn't make it very far.
"Reina!" I heard Kharl yell, and then I didn't hear anything else at all.
---
I was swimming in the sea. Which was weird because I had never seen the sea, yet here I was floating.
The sky was an odd reddish color and the clouds were black, but it didn't seem to bother me.
I didn't understand at all but there was a soft feeling tugging at me and I stopped caring. Just when I was beginning to enjoy the sensation, the sea wasn't a sea anymore. The water turned to mist and transparent-like wisps of who-knows-what were floating past me, and I was being pulled in, downwards by invisible hands. Cold hands. Deeper and deeper, like with the demon-fish lady in the river.
Then Kharl was there and he was smiling at me even though I was panicking.
There was blood on his face and clothes.
Blood on his hands.
I couldn't breathe, and he was just smiling gently with those violet eyes.
I was mesmerized, and couldn't stop looking into those damned eyes of his. I was swimming in them, lost and drowning and breathless when I noticed I was sitting no longer in the evil mist but on solid ground.
I looked around and I saw that I was on an island covered in trees, and to my left was the vapor sea I had just been drowning in. Kharl was still there though, on the sand, and he motioned me to stand up.
I stood, and then he stopped smiling. A serious, hard look replaced the previous one. A look that did not suit his blood-flecked angelic-like face at all.
Foreign.
He pointed to my left, but continued to stare at me with that cold expression.
Was he mad at me? Why…? Why was…
I turned to look in the direction he was indicating.
There, in the midst of the wispy sea sat a castle. Even though it was far away and the details were hard to catch from where I was, I could tell it was black. I sensed evil when I looked at it.
Foreboding.
I turned back to Kharl, confused. He had lowered his arm back to its normal postion, but his hostile demeanor remained the same.
"Kharl…What's wrong, why are you looking- No, why is there blood on you? Are you wounded?" I asked, stepping foreward. No change in his face.
"What's wrong? That castle, who does it belong to? Kharl?" No movement.
He was scaring me.
"Kharl! Talk to me! Are you alright? Why are we here? That castle, who owns-" I grabbed him by both hands and shook them. A shocked look suddenly appeared on his features. He went rigid and his violet eyes seemed to focus solely on me and nothing else. Something was wrong. Something I couldn't place. It wasn't right, this…It was…
And then without warning he turned into ash.
"NO!" I cried, and reached out for the ash, hoping to undo what I had done. But the gray substance blew away in the gust of wind that suddenly picked up and it drifted out to into the vapor sea.
Forbidden.
"No!" I yelled again and thrashed in the air. "Kharl!"
"Reina!"
"No…"
"Reina, it's okay, wake up!" I was being shaken.
"Leave me alone…I don't want to be here, I want-"
"Reina!"
I opened my eyes. This time I did not make the mistake of mistaking the sky for Kharl's eyes.
Those eyes!
I covered his face with my hands.
"Don't look at me."
"Why? It's alright, you were hallucinating because of your fever. You're fine now, the fever's breaking." He took my wrists and placed them back down by my sides.
There they were again.
Two purple orbs, the color was infinite. Vast.
Why? Why was I so obsessed with his stupid eyes!
Sure, they were stunning, but I couldn't stop looking into them, and then I could never stop.
In one of those stolen books, I read an article about snakes who could hypnotize their pray with an intense stare.
Like what Kharl was doing now.
"Stoppit!" I cried and turned my head to the side so I wouldn't be forced to look at his face.
Kharl stood up, clearly hurt.
"What? What is it? I think that fever did something to you."
I sighed and didn't answer. What did that dream mean? I dreamed very seldom. And when I did dream it wasn't some petty dream.
It was usually serious, or a nightmare. And they always meant something.
One night when I was small, I had woken up from a dream where I had been standing the street at night. And there was fog everywhere. Then the old lady I was friends with, the one who baked me cookies and sometimes gave me books or toys appeared in the midst of the fog. She slowly began to walk down the road, to the end of the street, where the town exit was.
She passed me without recognition.
I ran up to her and had grabbed her sleeve.
"M'lady! M'lady where are you going?" I had asked. My old friend had looked down at my with the same kind smile she had always given me and she patted my head gently.
"Now now, Reina. Hush. Granny has to go somewhere." She whispered kindly.
"But M'lady! Please! Take me with you!" I begged.
"Ah Rei-Rei, If only I could, but your parents would be cross with me if I did."
"Their aren't my parents! They…They wouldn't care." I said sadly.
"That might be so Reina, dear. But Granny must go now, she cannot be late. And you cannot come with her, because it's not time yet."
I didn't understand, but I hung my head in sadness.
The old lady patted my head again.
"We'll see each other again, dearie. Be a good girl now. I'll be watching."
And she hobbled off into the foggy night. After few minutes, I could not see her for the mist was covering everything.
Then next morning I woke up and heard the news.
Granny had passed away in her sleep.
I heaved another sigh and blinked away the sun in my eyes, only to realize it was morning. I had been knocked out for a long time.
I looked around to see that I was in a clearing of sorts, but still in the woods.
'Kharl must have carried me…' I thought, sitting up. I started to feel bad about yelling at him earlier. It was my problem, and if I didn't like his eyes, I could stop looking at them.
'Yeah, right. Those orbs are damn near impossible to simply not notice.'
Another sigh. I decided to apologize for my actions, but Kharl was nowhere to be seen.
"Kharl?" I called tentatively into the empty space. There was no answer.
"Why am I not surprised." I muttered and stood up.
And then the vertigo hit.
I fell back to the mossy ground and lay still for a few minutes.
"Ugh. I feel like throwing up…" A couple more minutes passed and I resigned myself to just lying on the ground. My mind began to wander, first about that fairytale.
'I wonder if there really is an end to this forest. Maybe we'll be like that boy and girl, except we'll never find our happy ending. Maybe we'll die in this godforsaken woods. Maybe we'll get so hungry we'll have to eat each other…Kharl was right, I am being delusional…I wonder what he's doing. Could he have abandoned me because I was rude? No, Kharl wouldn't do that. Then where is he?'
I heard a shuffling and noise. 'That must be him.' I propped myself up on my elbows to face the direction of the sounds.
"Kharl, where have you been, I-" But I stopped. Coming through the bushes was not The puffy-haired boy I knew, but a demon.
Tales in the village said that demons usually looked like humans, asides their ears. But some also looked like things from nightmares.
Like this one.
I stood up and fell back down on my bum. The demon approached me slowly, as if savoring this moment before he devoured my soul. Or was it a my heart? I don't remember. Maybe they ate you whole and then- Agh! Shut up! You're about to be eaten!
I'm done for.
I crawled backwards helplessly, until I hit something firm. A quick turn around confirmed my suspicions, a tree.
I cursed loudly and turned back to the ever-closer yokai.
I can't die like this! Where's Kharl? Where…
"KHARL!" I screamed. My voice echoed through the forest, but nothing happened. No one was going to rescue me this time. My cry just annoyed the demon, and then he took a swipe at me.
Everything seemed to slow, and I saw the yokai's claw come down upon me in a languid arch.
I silently asked for forgiveness. More to myself than anyone else. I would never see my real parents, and I would never see the places I wanted to visit, and then I would never look into Kharl's cursed eyes again.
I'm sorry.
A flurry of feathers flashed past my eyes, and time resumed its course.
Birds. Two of them.
Defending me?
Yes.
The demon was dead in a few seconds. Blood all over the place. Birds.
They were screeching, circling mangled corpse in the air. In victory? In sadness? I do not know. Because they killed one of their own. They were surely demons. They did not resemble the robins or the sparrows I had grown up seeing in the village. They were huge. About the size of large hawks. But they were black, with wild feathers that were long and ragged. They looked like messengers of death…but they had saved me…
"Reina!" came Kharl's voice as he stumbled through some bushes into the clearing.
"What the hell-" He glanced at the dead demon and jumped. "What? What's going on? Did you do that?" He asked running to me and checking me over for wounds.
When he found none, his puzzled eyes met mine.
"Blood! Kharl…Kharl's there's blood on you!" I cried and scooted back a little. It was on his hands, the dark red color standing out on his pale skin. The stench of blood, a cold hard metallic smell, like copper surrounded him. It surrounded the demon too. It surrounded the clearing. It was overwhelming, and the urge to vomit came back.
"I caught a rabbit!" and he gave me his innocent smile, and waving around a little rabbit by the ears. I had just noticed he had been carrying it this whole entire time.
"Y-yeah..Great." I answered unsurely, while looking down at the ground. Kharl went over to the corpse of the yokai and nudged it with tip of his boot.
I watched him.
He looked…fascinated, for a second. And then the look was gone. He turned back to me,
"How did you kill it?" He asked curiously. I looked up rather startled.
"I didn't" I answered faintly. I scanned the blue skies and the tree tops briefly.
No sign of my saviors.
"Huh? Then how'd it die? This looks like slash marks…" he furrowed his brow and poked the dead thing with a nearby stick. (sorry folks. Had to do it.)
"Yuck Kharl, don't do that. It's dead."
"I know, and you still haven't answered my question."
I sighed for what must have been the billionth time that day. I was debating in my head whether to tell him the truth or not. It just didn't seem like a good idea. They weren't even around anymore.
"Birds." I finally said.
"Birds." He repeated, not hiding the disbelief from his voice.
"Yeah…But…they weren't normal…I think." I looked at Kharl. He looked serious.
Very close to the look from my nightmare. And the blood on his hands.
And I remembered a detail, something I hadn't bothered to question before.
"That's strange-" Kharl was saying, and I interrupted him.
"Kharl…Those boys, from the village…They were chasing us too, weren't they?"
"Oh, yes. They never like me much, they probably wanted get themselves a new leader. Preferably one of them. It's nothing to worry about." He answered calmly continuing to stare at the corpse.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought I saw him stiffen slightly at my words.
'Liar' I thought. He didn't know I knew more than I should.
"Oh…" I feigned indifference. "Well, it's just that I heard them talking the other day, that… you did something to one of their pals, they said that you-"
"I have to find firewood. Don't move to much, we wouldn't want your fever to come back." Kharl said flashing his smile and disappearing into the woods again.
And that, was that.
.:oOo:.
Author's Notes: I really didn't like this one. I hope your eyes didn't bleed.
Review section: Shite. I have alot of reviewers. Well, it had been like, a year since the last update, DX.
Sango The Demon Exterminator- GOOD UPDATE UP DATE Or I'll pranck call u. PLEASE
L- Wow, the capitals speak for themselves. I can't believe you actually enjoyed that chap…THANKS! AND HOW DO YOU KNOW MY PHONE NUMBER?
Neith4 - Wooray! #does her Can-Can/Disco Dance of Joy# Update! W00t! #coughs# Anyway...this one kept me on the edge of my seat. What has Kharl done! This I must know; and this you must tell. Can't wait to find out!
Grammar, spelling is better, but by "martial" I think you mean "marital"...just a little nitpick by me, the spelling freak x.x
Keep it up! Peace
L- Ah Neith4, I really like your dancing skillz. Lmao, thanks for reviewing! And you shall see! -looks godly- HOLY CRAP. I did mean marital….I put martial…? -dies of spelling embarrassment-
Vera-chan aka Arwen- O.O OMFG! You wrote the 3rd chap! YAYS! You haven't left the story to die! wOOt! Anyways...love it, as usual. Hmm...KHARL'S SO COOL! Update, or die woman. glares If ya want me to type this story for ya too...I CAN DO IT! Ya just gotta gimme the manuscript. I need the manuscript for 'Obsession' too. We gotta get together soon. Lurv ya, mon ami! Oh, you can now have my KH fic. 'Tis all yours to mess with. Since I am a bad girl and have run my own fic into a rut...and won't continue it.
-Vera er...I was Arwen...until I got sick of the LOTR jokes. . .
L- You're dead to mankind now, honey. I will probably never see you on the internet again, but hey. Thanks for the review, and I hope high school is to your liking. I will never know.
TurtleChan -That's an interesting twist on the whole guy wants slave girl situation... He might actually been offering nice things. Oh well, he's not Kharl. Sucks for him. . Go Kharl go! wants to jump too Your story is very cute, and people are so mean to Kharl. But, what did Ka-chan do to "Mez"?
L- -blushes furiously- my god, you're so nice! Ka-chan….well you see he- lol, I can't give it away yet. Thanks for the review! Its much appreciated!
-That's an interesting twist on the whole guy wants slave girl situation... He might actually been offering nice things. Oh well, he's not Kharl. Sucks for him. . Go Kharl go! wants to jump too Your story is very cute, and people are so mean to Kharl. But, what did Ka-chan do to "Mez"?Kurama13 - yeah I saw kharl again! Love this chapter. can't wait for more
L- Lol, thanks, even though your reviews are short, my head still inflates about a mile. XD -huggles-
-End Review section