whiteshade of blackness 'gaku july 31, 2006
8 Found
one violet eye glowed in the darkness...
. . . . . . . . . (1)((...'Şhââri, Little Human...)) a soft echo murmured like wind in the dark cavern
the prussian ones stared wide, transfixed and unwavering
'...Hello...' the small boy's whisper sounded loud in the enclosed hollow
((...what hell chased you to this jinxed place..?))
the prussian eyes kept staring, his small body dripping with blood, it sounded louder than his weary breaths, fogged in the cold damp air of the place
((..well, ...I haven't been out for quite a long while, but I remember a war-beaten soldier who dripped less blood than you do...!))
'...nothing to do with war... It's just usual-dailies..!' the boy whispered distractedly
((Usual-daily thing...?)) the echo sounded a little surprise, although the dispiritedness it carried were much clearer than the owner's form ((...hmm.. in that case, I shall retract my question ...You live in hell, then...!))
the boy said nothing in a long pause, his eyes consuming the figure sitting in front of him like sand absorbing a thin layer of morning dew... dry and coarse, but somehow enchanting to see its grains glimmered, reflecting what-lights in the cavern
((...You have something in mind..?))
the boy hummed almost soundlessly
'. . . . . . . . You're not a girl...'
((No... I wasn't..!)) the echo sounded a little amused
'...you're too beautiful to be a boy...!'
the echo let out a sighlike soft snicker, the big cross enfolded by the figure's right hand hiding half of its face stood solid in the dark. Its bars were glinted sharply as if they were blades.. The stalactites/stalagmites had columned together and barricaded him in the middle of a natural cage-like prison of pillars, the edges of the veil-cloth under his bended feet had blended with the ground deposit, rooting him in place like radicles of some beautiful exotic plant.. if not for them then the figure would have been completely floating, diverged from its surrounding and the world
((...I guess I wasn't one, either...)) the echo carried a sad smile in it. The boy cocked his head a little, contemplating...
'You're a-duo, then...?'
(('A-duo'...? . . . . .You mean 'both'...?!)) the echo sounded more amused now, followed by a silent chuckle
((Little Human, I was NEITHER... but if you'd like to categorize me, then I'd say I was closer to a male..!))
the boy's brows furrowed a little
'..Was ?'
'Which are you now...?'
((...None ...I'm nothing now...!))
'You couldn't be nothing, I could see you...!'
((Yes... you'd be better if you couldn't, though...))
'. . . . .why not ?'
the echo didn't answer...
'...Why're you here..?'
the dripping blood sounded thicker and infrequent, his blood had started to congeal
((Waiting...))
'For whom..?'
((For what's to happen...))
'What is to happen ?'
((...found...!))
'...to be found ?! By whom...?'
((The One I love...!)) there's a flicker of wistful longing in the echo
'. . .Your loved-one will find you ? When...?'
a flicker of jealousy and resignation heard in the boy's voice, the echo didn't answer again
'How long have you been here waiting...?'
((Long..!))
'You don't look much too older than me... How old are you ?' to the boy's eyes the figure looked like of 13-14 years of age, aside that the figure's appearance hadn't changed a bit from time to time...
((...I don't know ...I don't age, I just be...!))
the boy's furrow deepened
'How come you don't..?! Everybody ages...!'
((...because I was Death...Death doesn't have lifespan..))
'Was...?'
((...was..)) the echo quieted
'...What are you now ?'
((...just void..))
the boy silenced for sometime
'. . .I don't understand...!'
the echo let out another sighlike snicker
((How old are you now..?))
'Six winters..!'
((...You're alone !)) it wasn't a question
'No ! ...I'm with you..'
the boy gave a little smile. It lit his bloody and bruised face, nonetheless. A warm sincerety shone in his prussian eyes. A sense of longing waved in the void's heart seeing that smile. Likely the one waiting and the one abandoned were longing for something similar...to not be alone
...would it be better if only they were to yearn for each other...?
((...really? Thankyou, then...)) the echo breathed
the boy hummed a soft negative while shaking his head a little
'...thank YOU...!'
he said heartfully, his hand emphasized the words by putting it on his heart and streched it as if to touch the figure's heart. There was a wave of warmness permeated in the damp air for a while, then he gave a liquid smile, took the warm wave as the figure's answer to his given-heart...
the boy's eyes shifted from the figure's face to the left hand dropped on the figure's bended left leg that laid at its side and supposedly to its front, the remains of the left arm touched the lower part of the vertical-bar of the blade-cross unmoving
'Does that hurt...?' the boy asked silently out of curiosity, tinged with empathy. Sadly the figure never feel..
((...this?))
the figure lifted the skeleton arm, its bones heard rattling to each other...fisted the finger-bones a few times
((I never feel...))
the skeleton arm swept the cloth veiling almost its entire form aside, revealing its bended left leg that weren't there anymore... instead of limb, there was just misty blackness formed as the lower leg, broke to wafting tendrils of black-smokelike
. . . . 'Why didn't you search for your loved-one...? ..instead of waiting here in vain...' –it's not like you were waiting for me...!
the boy asked quietly while his eyes still glued to the skeleton-arm that receded to its former position on the lower blade-cross, his forehead tingled from where the bones brushed ...he wanted more !
...((I still bring deaths...))
'You didn't want to kill your loved-one so you're killing yourself...'
it wasn't a question...nor accusation ...he just wanted..
((Deaths don't die, Little Human...)) the echo flowed with remnants of pride of a once-almighty entity had
'...You don't live either, but you're fading...!'
the echo silenced...
'It's not like you're dying... like me most of the times..'
he traced the bruise on his right temple down to his cheek, his little finger strayed to linger on his lips... his eyes traced the red mark that tainted the figure's face from the outer edge of its visible eye to the center and flowed down to the figure's chin, and stared at the figure's slightly opened lips. Then he smiled a shy little smile to himself..
the echo still silenced . . . .
'How do you make a Death living..?'
the prussian eyes glinted with contemplation, the echo chuckled sceptically
((...by killing it..))
the boy blinked once slowly, took a long pause. Then..
'How do you kill Death..?'
((Make it live...!))
there was a tone of finality in the echo, as if it was glad that the boy would surrender his train of thoughts the figure knew he's contemplating. But the figure of blackness had underestimated the boy's heart... even after knowing him for this long...
he licked his lips once, then smiled his little smile.. and leaned forward
'Live, then...! I give you my life. .'
the boy's voice echoed through the flowing of Time, reverberated in every vein of his being...through every breath he took...every beat of his heart...
...find your loved-one...
. . . just be happy for my part too . . . . . .
He opened his eyes wide... noting that he's staring at a bleak-white canopy of a bleak-white bed in a bleak-white room decorated in all-white except for the black wooden double-doors at the far wall.
Blinked a few more times just to make sure he didn't dream, then he perceived a presence at his side. Come to think of it, there was a warm hand draped on his chest, whisps of silky hair tickled his face too. He turned his head a bit to face the owner, to his relief -or was it disappoinment..?- he found Deia's face close to his, a peaceful smile on her face.
He stared long at the face, as if still in a dream that was too real to be one. He could even felt the pains from 'his' bloody and bruised small body lingering under layers of skin and flesh and veins and Time. Or were they just an after-effect of a dream that he wished to be more real than his reality...?
He blinked again, wishing that he could move his hand to touch the peaceful face near his, but the bedcovers cocooned him fast, and he didn't want to disturb the other's slumber.
A soft sigh. The face near his blossomed its smile contentedly.
"...Thank gods and goddesses you're awake..!"
He blinked. She didn't move..
"You slept for two days, I've been worried sick when you didn't respond to me...!! You looked like a dead clay-doll..!"
He searched the other's face... what ever that means...
"...Do me a favor, ..when you need or want something, or feeling anything.. please let me know ?"
..pause
He kept staring..
"I care about you..!" She said in a sigh "I need to know !"
"...Please ?"
Then she opened one eye at him, other than that she didn't move anything else, seemingly much too comfortable with their arrangement.
. . . . one violet eye in darkness. .
He just kept staring, further to his too-real dream. The violet eye near his face was of the right one, the one in his dream was the left one... he stared further..
She humph-ed softly, "It's still midnight, seeing that you're not really awake, might as well take somemore rest..!"
"How-ward wanted to try something to help you recover faster once you wake, he'll definitely come first thing in the morning !"
She rose her head and kissed his forehead gently, "You don't want anything..?"
The prussian eyes drooped slowly for answer, then closed for somemore sleep. She sighed and followed too, embracing the brown haired head in her hand that draped over his chest.
He slept untroubled with anymore dream for the rest of the night... in the back of his mind, one violet eye glowed in darkness found him...
. . . . . but he's still searching . .
The Castile's living quarters were mostly of hexagonal-based chambers, the structure made some recesses in intervals between the chambers. You'd think that they would make a very ideal place for an intruder to hide.. well, chamberlain-Charms used them to illuminate the Castile's surrounding, made some protection-charms in every of them that were made of layers of shimering mother-of-pearl lights to add some scenery to the all-white castle. They also worked as disguised-sensors.
Colors are expensive in Archantra, mostly because things in the land were resistant to dyes, even blood will fuse in with the clothes after some times, it's because of the funguses had mixed in with every elements of the land's materials, organics and non-organics . Although outlanders' blood were more durable than the inlanders', that's why some illicit merchants or craftsmen used to dye their goods with outlanders' blood. That's where the hunters and mercenaries came in, to hunt the outlanders for their blood, they'd mix the blood with some other substances to make other colors than blood-red or brownish-red or maroon-black. Some creatures' blood had distinguish type of color-mixtures, i.e. such type of chimera's blood would make a fine yellow color-mixture, while a typical animal's blood would make a green shade after the dyed cloth burnt to obtain the colors.
Howard stared at the piece of cloth laid on his lab's table, a chandelier held a silvery-light-purple fire2 (like Deia's hair-color) that burned lazily stood besides the cloth, other lab tools scattered behind. The garment was of white color, ofcourse, but it had a sheen of crystal-clear blue that reflected the lights and made auras of colors around it. The sheen of blue itself was merged with the garment's material, but at the same time it looked like it was of some other element covering the garment. He'd never seen anything like it, and he bet other inlanders too. He just hoped that any other beside him would never find out about it.
If Deia knew, she'd be more worried about the situation. He sighed... and took off to consult with Odin and his Lord; especially Odin.
"...What's this ?" The Lord looked at the piece of cloth laid on the big hexagonal table of his study.
Odin took it and felt it with his fingers, then sniffed it. His brows furrowed in alarm.
"Blood..!" he looked sidelong at the Old-Charms, "...the boy's ?!" Howard gave a little nod.
"...The mercenaries who brought him here...!"
"I don't think they'd found out about it, otherwise they wouldn't have brought him here !" Howard cut the Lord's words, "Well... at least I think they didn't know it back then, but there's a possibility that someone would have figured it out by now. There would had been quite a lot blood traces he left from his struggles with them !"
"I've never seen this kind of color-mixture...!" the Lord breathed silently, amused mixed with apprehension. He'd been trying to stop the whole hunt-for-dyes issue for years, many had suffered of losing than gain. Colors were NOT meant in this land.
"I bet others too..!!" Howard shrugged, but his eyes trained sidelong to Odin's face, who stared at the cloth unwaveringly. "We already suspected that the boy was related to Fairs...!"
"Water-tree..." the general murmured. The other men silenced, letting him to continue...
"...not of any Fairs I knew, though.." sounded distant, his eyes clouded a little. The Lord and Howard exchanged a flash gaze.
"Well, since it was confirmed... Then, I'd like to borrow your..." Howard's bright pearly-white eyes behind the black-spectacles flicked to the talisman-sword secured to his belt "...sword."
"I'd like to try something to help him...!"
"You have any idea with you ?" the Lord asked
He shrugged again "Like the Solo-beast said, let the boy try something on his own...we just have to provide him the necessities..!"
"...true..," the next said firmer by the general "I've never drawn my sword around him."
"It's settled, then..!" Howard nodded.
...That was the day before the boy awoke...
To the adults' disappointment -or was it relief...?- Deia had 'kidnapped' him for two more days to her secret sanctuary, saying that she didn't want his rest to be disturbed as of yet. Lyea said that she was just being jealous that she could do nothing to help mend him, behind her back ofcourse..-not that her back was physically present when she said it, though.
. . . . . . drip . . . .drip. .
the dripping noise sounded distant in the darkness that deadened his senses, but his heart somehow knew that the source was close, HE reached out his heart to it, finding a warmness seeped through his hollow heart-space ...liquid warmness that flowed in pulses, the darkness dyed red...a little smile...blood in his parted lips...the weight that was unfamiliar in his hands..
...soft...soft silky strands HE'd yearned to touch for long...his memory played back the prussian color that dimmed in the darkness...the body craddled to his chest grown cold...
. . . . open your eyes . . . . !
HE cried . . . . .
. . .OPEN YOUR EYES . . . !!!
A gasp louder than the world's resonated the whole body and awareness came fort with a thundering currents. He opened his wary eyes with a great sense of desperation. He was alone in the white bed, had to find someone...!
A mirror reflected back a little girl with silvery-light-purple hair, staring at a deep-blue rectrix rested carefully in her hands, secured with a necklace of small black chains around her neck. A whisp of brunet strands caught his side vision behind him when he ran through the black wooden double-doors to find that someone...
...Hurry...there's no time left...!!
. . . hurry . . .!!!
The all-white corridors felt recognizable in the back of his mind, but the darkness slowly swallowing the space was more familiar in his wake. He fastened his running steps...the desperation of losing something important was almost unbearable now...
. . . . . his hands grew cold, his feet grew heavier as if something congealing tried to hold him back...
. . . his hands grew colder...No...the body craddled in his hands grew colder... he looked down in the darkness and finding a familiar someone dripping with blood in his hands... close to his chest... close to his beating heart...
He cried his blackness red. . . . .
Deia woke instantly with a gasp. Her head felt light and cold. Her sanctuary was empty aside for the all-black furnitures... There was a mirror on the wall in her dream...She never had a mirror in her chamber, she HATED mirrors...mirrors reflected her lies back without covers..!!
She climbed down the bed distractedly, her feet landed on the soft black-furred rug weigthlessly as if walking in air. The small black round-chamber felt wrong, somehow... A dream in a dream..., that's new...!
. . . Something's missing...! Her mind whispered to her conscious-self
She gasped to wakefulness in an instant...
"...Prussian !!"
Black lightnings flashed forming a black-currents ball that swallowed her presence...
"...Hiii...! What are you doing in there, Prussian..?" Lyea whispered carefully as to not surprise or frightened the small boy.
The said boy stilled and stiffened, he was crouching with his back at her in the small corner of one of the recesses between chambers, the illumination-layer of it was dominated by purple-blue lights. Usually. even the Charms that set the layers couldn't enter them unnoticed by other Charms, it was because of the Air that acted as amplifier. Lyea stared at the boy with no small amount of appreciation. The comet-child Deia lost her companion-beast in the Castile was something new..!
But that amused thought swiftly left her mind when she realized that the boy was desperately trying to stifle his coughing, to no avail, it only made it looked worse that he seemed to be miserably suffocated.
"Prussian...?"
Hearing the understanding in her voice he just yielded to his pain and coughed openly, though still tried to keep them quiet. A wet gurgle and vomiting noise heard soon after. Lyea kneeled down in front of the illumination-layer wanting to reach the small boy dying inside the small space of the corner.
"...It's the Air, isn't it..?!" she asked quietly, though it's not really a question. His darkened eyes stared back at her with soulful air.
"...Crimson died of illness, and Black died taking the burnt of a Spell's wrath for me, and I had to set Viridian free because she couldn't survive the Air in here and..." Deia's prattling argument when she'd asked to take care of the boy from the mercenaries came to her mind, he must have remembered too... set Viridian free because she COULDN'T survive the Air...
"I won't tell Deia for now..." Lyea tried a smile "...but the others might have already aware of this. If you don't improve, she'll soon realize it too..!"
". . . . But the outlanders' blood was more durable..." she frowned and murmured to herself, noticing the red liquid stain dyeing the too-long sleeve that was covering the boy's mouth "..How did you manage to hide...?"
A small hand covered in the too-long sleeve passed through the illumination-layer, it was disturbed by repressed tremors, Lyea noted. The hand shaked off once, and tinkling sounds heard melodiously when some small crystalines of blood-red color ricocheted on the floor in front of her, leaving the white sleeve white as before.
She blinked and lifted a large fragment of the crystaline, the translucent thing felt cool between her careful fingers. Her heart went to him when she stared back to his weary dying body. A sweet regretful smile blossomed on her face...
"...Oh, dear sorrowful-child..." she murmured.
"Lyeaa..., Sis..!!" Deia's panic voice bounced off the long corridor, it even heard before the sounds of her running steps reached Lyea's ears.
Lyea stopped in her motion opening the door of her study. "...Prussian !!"
"..Have to find...!! Emergency...!" Deia's yells between gasps of panic "...Now!!"
She stumbled to stop in front of her staring sister, who in turn was thinking that that was fast for her to find out, already... Trying to keep her face unaffected.
"...He's dying...!!" her little sister said with full scale anxiety.
Yep, ...that was fast...!
"...In my arms...!! He's DEAD !!"
"What...?"
"He died in my arms..!! HE WON'T OPEN HIS EYES...!!!" Deia started to yell again after she'd gotten her breath again.
"Deia..." Lyea called softly in alarm.
"HE'LL DIE IN MY ARMS...!! BUT WHEN I WOKE UP HE'S NOT THERE...!!"
Past-tense, future-tense, back to past-tense... her words didn't make sense. "Dearest, ...honey. Calm down..!" Lyea cupped her sister's face searching her panic eyes. "It's your nightmare, isn't it...?! Shhh...calm down, now..." She embraced the smaller body, felt it trembled against her, felt the hollowness began to coil in the Air around them.
"He's okay, Dearest..!"
"NO!! He won't..!" Deia sobbed "He was older then he is now...! HE DIED..!! HE WON'T OPEN HIS EYES EVEN WHEN I CRIED..!!" Black-currents started to charge around them, Lyea looked at them sidelong, keeping herself calm.
"...AND I CRIED..!! ...I cried...!" the currents died down a little "...I cried, but you won't hear..."
"...how could you...?" Deia's yells quieted down into sobs, her voice sounded distant now "...how could you...!"
Lyea soothed her back tenderly, noting the currents had died down completely, and her shoulder beginning to soak by her sister's tears. She's only twelve, and she had beginning to hate the world for what it had done to her Dearest...! (3)
She rocked the sobbing child gently and hummed a soothing song, wishing all the charms in the whole existence to bless her...and her dearest-one...
She hummed...
..Dear sorrowful-child,
bless you for your smile..
Misery won't hurt you much,
Grief won't leave you bare,
bless you for your pains...
bless you for your joy...
...Sorrowful-child..
HE cried his blackness red...
Howard looked sidelong at the general that walked at his side, he had shut down after Howard explained to him that he'd like to advance with the plan they'd agreed a couple days before. To tell the truth, Howard himself didn't feel eased with it... at the back of his charms-mind he could feel something horrible alarming his conscious-self.
Well... call it a hunch, then some-stupid-body would related it with his summon-camel out of good humored- day turned to dooms-day...!
Howard frowned at his own train of thought...
They stopped at the front of Deia's chamber, asking permission to enter. When there's no answer from the chamber inhabitant, Howard asked to the chamber-spell with his Harmony, the double-doors opened themselves as always, since Deia had allowed him to enter freely if she's not present since the day the boy brought in there.
The chamber was empty save the furnitures... Howard frowned deeper, his hunch (...Ah! there's the word...!) said that the boy was in there. Odin entered without so much of a word, he swept his eyes around once briskly, then headed to the bed, and crouched. Two large prussian orbs blinked at his face from under the bed.
"You should look for other hiding place...!" he said levelly –well, aside for the corner table.., the answer was another blink.
"Allo' , Boy..!" Howard crouched too with a big grin plastered on his face, "Could you come out, please, we'd like to try to..." pause.. cough "...show you something..!" He plastered the grin back to its place.
The boy sniffed once, smelling that the adult humans were up to something... he didn't feel right, but not wrong, either... must be his paranoia eating his mind !
The large prussian eyes wavered with a flash of suspiciousness for a brief moment, he didn't budge.
"...Something's bothering you..?" Howard asked with concern, since the boy had stopped showing too much suspicions towards them lately.
A flicker of denial flashed in the prussian eyes, now that they think of it, they were wide with alertness, may be even fear and confusion.
Howard frowned, "...Kid, are you hurting somewhere...?" His mind whispered the possibility that the boy already knew that he's dying. –well, isn't it the big secret around here...?! His mind replied sarcastically..
The said boy thinned his lips, and ever so slowly crawled out from under the bed facing Odin, but he kept his head bowed refusing to meet their eyes. Odin looked closely on him, his heart constricted with every pulse. He straightened and arranged his posture to sit on his bended legs.
"...'Şhââri...!" he said quietly with a slow deep bow, the ancient word was literally means 'good-soul'.
The boy snapped his head at hearing the word, wide prussians now wavered with surprise.
... "I was... you could say, raised by a few Fairs'...for sometime...!" the general smiled a little, though his eyes distanced for a moment.
The boy's eyes clouded a little, then he arranged himself mimicking Odin's pose, and bowed slowly.
Odin took his talisman-sword from his belt without another word, and laid it horizontally on the floor in front of them. He then brushed the air above it with both hands, starting from the middle to the ends, calling it to wakefulness.
The Air hummed a soft-inhuman sigh that melodiously heard only by inhuman ears. The boy widened his eyes, staring at the white-velvety smoke that liquidly emerged from the sword, leaving the scabbard empty. The white smoke formed a sword-like shape with Odin's opened palms above both of its ends, keeping it floating in the air. The smoke swirled lazily in the middle of the sword-shape and changed to a maiden's face with her eyes closed that slowly formed her head with watery long hair.
"... I think you know what it is... It's a water-tree's..-"
The boy's breath caught, and he let out a choked keening sound. Odin didn't continue his words, Howard only watched closely the boy's body language with a little alertness nagging his conscious-self.
"...If you could use this to help yourself...!" Odin frowned, mostly to himself, the words didn't sound right...
The boy shook his head repeatedly in trepidation, and crawled backward a few paces until his back hit the window glass.
Odin blew his sigh explosively, "Look...! I know you would now think that I'm barbaric, from Fairs' point of view! But if you could really make a good use of it -...!" He grabbed the smoke-hilt which instantly materialized solidly at his touch, and swung the blade point at the boy's face.
May be it was a little too much.. but he really didn't like to wake Her in that form in front of others, She was once his other-hemisphere of his whole world.
At that uncanny timing, a very upset Deia with tear stains still wetted her cheeks banged the doors open in her frantic search of her missing Prussian. The beast's name died in her lips before she had the chance to call it outright, her vision narrowed only at the walled frightened boy and the tip of a sword in front of his face. Lyea was calling her name close behind.
Her vision dyed red... and she let out a dreadful scream, then let loose everything she had... her life, her heart, her soul... HIM...!
Lyea let out a surprised yelp as the world in front of her swallowed in the exploding blackness, Howard uttered a curse as his mind mocked his conscious-self with the ignored alertness..
...and everything turned black
(1) an ancient greeting, made it up..! 99" Though..., if you want to ask where Saru derived it from, Oni-tan would comment something about baka-saru and twisted-concept-minded and asbun-saka...!!
right, Oni-tan...?? ; hehee...
...What ?? You don't expect Saru to put sumthin' ANCIENT like sampürasün/rampés in the fic, right, Oni-tan...?
or nu.. nu... nyuuu..? ...nyüwünséwü..???!
But if you still want to ask Saru, then feel free to ask... " " (Saru won't be responsible for the answer, in any case you like it or not...)
(2) the fire in Archantra has its energy from the Air, so it doesn't need to actually burn anything; in exchange, it has different flame-color that ranged from deep-maroon to whitish-hues.
(3) ...will be explained later 99;;
ohh, made the pic before this chapter... it's NOT really Duo saru sketched, in case anyone interested just go to saru' gallery saru-kun. , the pic title is 'the void'