whiteshade of blackness 'gaku may 08, 2007
# 15 Unreachable Sun
...where are you...?
I've been waiting for you...
it was a dark place, a round window behind, the dry branches of a tree plastered in a standstill outside, leaving a shadow scenery on the floor where the dim light casted down from glassless cross frame, dry marks of splattered blood painted the wall, a heavy clink of chains. Red pointed nails brushed the other hand's fingers of bones...
a deep sigh...
an empty longing..
In the tower Kylle was already waiting for them, spreading a thick blanket for them in his hands, a sweet smile still plastered on his face. Deia sat on the bench that covered with plushy pillows, cocooned in the warm blanket with Yuy in her hands. They came across with Ruéa and some other maids on their way up, they seemed to be concerned to say the least, most of them were Yuy's fans, since there's almost never a boy living in the Castile. But they knew it when she didn't want to be bothered, and left her be.
"Do you want me to leave, Lady Deia ? If you need me, I'll be just outside at the stairs.." Kylle said softly.
"Here's fine, Kylle.." Deia said distantly. Kylle stared them for a moment, then bowed politely, sat on the tower window's ledge behind them and carved. A serene air ghosted around them dancing in the open tower breeze.
There's so much thoughts fighting their dominance in Deia's mind right now, and everything left its marks in her awareness she didn't even know what was her conscious mind thinking about, as she could almost see her thoughts made a mosaic of jumbled images and words and lines mixed with repressed emotions that unbiddenly carved their ways to the surface. Technically speaking, she felt like drunk. And it wasn't a good drunk, either. Lightheaded and off balanced, she only tried to stick her core mind to where she felt nothing, which was her soul. Scanning distantly the scenery from the high tower, to where the whites spread incessantly with fractions of lights from the Stratus sometimes casted upon.
The winds blew gently, bringing faint sounds of life around them. A cold feeling ran down her spines, she tightened her hold on Yuy's bundled body halfconsciously. A flock of Relic-prayers(1) flew high almost like they're touching the Stratus, relishing in its multicoloured rays. A shiver came involuntarily. What's a great pair of wings good for if there's no sky to fly to? There's no sky in this small land..! There's only such a low fake-sky of confinement, beautifying itself so those who were confined wouldn't be bored and break out of their incarceration.
'...you are one mean and possessive land, ...Mother...!'
...mother...
An almost unperceivable mind-whisper echoed her thought, she knew it by heart who it came from. She smiled a little ironic smile.
'...I never had a real mother, Pru ..so I think of this land as my mother... you know what it's like..'
'even though she looked at me as a step-child...! She's just old, that's all...old and wary and suspicious, may be even lonely..'
...Human love this land...
It's not sounded like a question.
'...I do... I have no other place I could call home...'
'besides,...it's not like she wasn't a good mother, either. She's just too possessive to the extent of meddling our bodies and minds...'
'...perhaps even our souls... I wonder what would become of my soul when I die, she might just reuse it for bringing other things of this land's to life...kind of like recycled-reincarnation'
Deia giggled derisively to herself.
'...when that happens, I don't want to be recycled into plants...!'
She cocked her head out of habit.
'...I wonder if plants could fall in love with others, must be a painfull way to have a heart that way..'
Deia closed her eyes, tucking Yuy's head under her chin. Another shiver ran up her body, she reflexively tried to counter it by hugging the blood-covered bundle in her hands tighter, seeking his body warmth for comfort despite the fact that his natural body temperature was much lower than hers.
'...I dont want anything bad to happen to this land, Pru...mean as she is she's the only mother I know..'
The gore sights of the other lands they passed on their way back to the land came unbiddenly in the back of her mind. She didn't tell what she saw to the others when they'd arrived to the Castile. She unconsciously knew something very wrong was happening in the outerlands, but at the time she chose to deny the cruciallity of it and just pinpoint her mind with the selfishness of a child to someone much more important to her. Now when the reality presented openly to her, she had to make herself aware of her surroundings eventually...because that surroundings wanted her Beast to be involved in this.
'...I hate war!! ...war is a meaner level of selfishness adults use to force others to get the rcognition for their existence..'
'what was so good about being acknowledged, anyway...if you couldn't exist in their peripheral line of sights, then they could might as well disappear from your universe..!'
Indulging in the bitterness is sometimes much easier than to be happy, when you find how to enjoy the sorrow better than unendingly striving for bliss. Eventually you stop caring of those you don't need.
...What if you'd find that you don't need the universe? Or that one day you find it you don't need yourself, what will happen then...?
...soba ni iru kara... kienaide... (2)
A small sincere smile bloomed on her face. 'someday I'll give you the sky you need...just bare with me...?' she worded silently to the still unconscious boy in her hands.
Behind them, Kylle smiled to the Air...
---------------
'Thrice' walked as fast as he could while trying not to look like it. Behind, in the corridor before the turn he could feel 'Octonary' chasing him with a determination. One time he'll be forced to confront him, it was bound sooner or later anyway, but he wished it wouldn't be this time. He's tired more than he could show it.
...may be he could escape by jumping out the window ?
He stifled a sigh; where's the window when you need one..?!
'Octonary' turned and he could see 'Thrice' in the one corridor quite a distance from him, and could feel his tenacity to escape him without showing it. He huffed once, and called out while lengthenning his steps to get to the smaller-Charms.
"'Thrice'...! 'Yuä..!!"
'Thrice' grimaced one end of his lips; there's the calling he hated from that boy again..! He fastened his walk without looking back, not caring if it showed.
"I'm off duty, The Lord gave me a break, Shæ...!" he said passingly under his breath. He called the bigger-Charms with the title just because 'Octonary' was of higher rank in the force. But 'Octonary''s legs were much longer than his, so without so much effort he had already in his hand range behind him. "I know, that's why I'm searching for you!"
"Well you found me. Leave me alone...!!" 'Thrice' muttered to himself, knowing the bigger Charms could hear him anyway. 'Octonary' grabbed one end of his floating long scarf behind his back, and like an arrow 'Thrice' shot up and confronted him. That surprised 'Octonary' somewhat it made him backpedalled one step back. They both stopped.
'Octonary' was the remaining son of one of the Special Force family, his late father was The Late Lady's special guard that had died protecting her, and her unborn child, but still she died anyway. Leaving only Deia...
He was about the age of mid-twenties, but the Charms usually disguised their real ages. He was tall about Odin's height, and have a soldier's air around him too. Usually he didn't talk much, and not sociable, either, but he carried such a charisma with him. The others respected him probably because his lineage also. His hair cut short at the sides, and tied behind his nape at the back, length around his waist, with unrully bangs on the top of his head. It had silvery-blue colour on the top and a deep-green hue on its ends, with a few streaks of deep-blue hair tied separately in small stripes. There were two red-lines marking his forehead as his Special Force rank and a signet in the middle as his family's insignia. He stared the white-haired teenage-Charms in front of him, who openly refused to look at him, keeping his red-shining eye on the floor separated their feet by about one step away.
"Yes..., Shæ ?" 'Thrice' almost whispered in a submissive tone.
If he intended to make the bigger-Charms to feel like he was treating him like a slave by the leash around the neck, 'Thrice' succeeded, but 'Octonary' didn't show it. "Show me your hands..!" he said calmly. "...Please." and added as an afterthought.
'Thrice' didn't budged. So 'Octonary' kneeled and intended to take a look at them by himself. Still, he didn't want the smaller-Charms to feel like he's forcing him, so he asked for permission once again, staring up at his eyes from a lower position.
"Please ?" the slow question tinged with a pleading tone. The floor he was staring at was now occupated with the bigger-Charms' knees, with two bigger hands extended openly around his own tigh-high. 'Thrice' didn't say anything, then turned his face to the side a little, staring at nothing in particular. 'Octonary' who had understood his body language, smiled gratefully, his strong posture melted with relief. 'Do what ever you want' was better than 'don't touch me', at least the smaller one didn't say the sarcastic retort before he stop caring about him, perhaps he's too tired despite his stubborness of being well by himself.
"...I'm not a child, just because you've grown much bigger than me...!!" 'Thrice' said as if talking to someone else beside them. 'Octonary' could say something like 'I'm not treating you like one, unless you act like it', but he smiled to himself instead.
"I'm just concerned..." he took 'Thrice''s hands each in one hand by the fingers, smoothed the backs with his tumbs, and kissed them together just lightly. 'Thrice' turned his face farther to the side, a little crease appeared between his white brows.
"You hate me that much..?" 'Octonary' said with a smile, turning both the smaller hands to inspect the palms. But then he furrowed his own brows at the sight presented to him.
"...just small fractures...!!" 'Thrice' said fast trying to pull his hands from 'Octonary''s grasps, but the bigger-Charms didn't let him. There were hairline-fractures on his palms, like a porcelain fractured by heating, that was what the fire done to him physically. He silenced.
'Octonary' didn't say anything, either. He just smoothed the palms with his thumbs for a while, and sometimes he kissed them lightly, his eyes trained to the turned face. It's not like he could mend them, anyway, he mused to himself, but it's not the excuse to stop being concerned.
"I'm not your ancestor, so don't call me like that...!!" 'Thrice' said silently.
"...Yuyuä !" 'Octonary' said to the smaller hands on his lips.
"I said I'm not your kind..!!" 'Thrice' exploded snapping his face to his, with one eye blazing red by flashing anger. The move made the bangs covering his half face swayed to the side, so the other eye which usually unseen was visible for a while. It was burning gold coloured, shone like a fire he always said he never liked himself. The shining anger dissipated after a short moment. 'Octonary' didn't avert his eyes from it.
"If I don't call you like that you wouldn't see me..!" his words carried a smile, although his eyes shaded with a lonely colour.
"You could just order me to. I'm obliged to obey your blood, anyway...!" the smaller-Charms averted his eyes from him again.
"I wouldn't order you around like a slave! No matter what you think of me..."
"You will !" 'Thrice' said with finality, "...just because you have the authority to do so. You would at least do it once in your lifetime...!"
'Octonary' searched his face for a while. "...just like my family did..?" he almost sounded like asking forgiveness for himself. The bitterness silenced 'Thrice''s sarcastic words he was going to retort out. They were drown in their own thoughts for a moment. "If we're done clarifying that, would you please let go of my hands, Shæ...?"
'Octonary' didn't say anything more, he looked down to the smaller hands that looked so fragile in his bigger hands.
"...I wish you could see me the way I see you...!" he thought in his link. 'Thrice' was his favourite-someone when he's still a child, he used to run to him, gripping his floating white cloak thightly so he wouldn't leave his sight, not really understanding his family's ties with the teenage-Charms. And he's still his important-someone now, heartfully.
Then let go his hands slowly.
'Thrice' backstepped a few times, then turned around and continued his walk to his tower.
"...I was never in your place !" That was not a sarcastic remark, just saying it as a fact, the bigger-Charms took it as that as well. Truth be told, 'Octonary' looked just like the reincarnation of his ancestor who captured him and tied him to be his family's slave, he knew it too, that's why he always asking that hating-him question.
---------------
"How are you feeling now..?" Lyea put the new wet cloth on Odin's forehead.
"...would it be bad if I take a nap for a while..?" Odin said half whisperingly. Lyea smiled, an apologetic one. "It'd be better on my mind if you could stay awake for at least two more hours...?"
Odin's white brows lifted up in a questioningly way, Lyea could see the drowsiness on his eyelids, from the potions she gave him, he didn't show any objection, though. Bobbed his head a little, "For your mind's sake...!"
"Sorry..!" Lyea patted his hand twice. Then, sitting by the table she ground more things for other potions.
"...he's a good lad..." Odin tried conversationally.
"Yes ?" Lyea turned her head.
"...that 'Octonary'..and from a good lineage too..." Odin added the last part fast.
Lyea blinked. "Yes...?" she asked inquiringly.
Odin stifled a huff, he's not someone to try to play father. "Deia is having her puppy-love time...!" although it's not sounded like what he'd intended at the beginning.
Lyea smiled slowly, her political smile. "I don't know what to make of your statement, Odin..."
Odin cleared his throat, it jarred his small wound to agony but he didn't show it. "You know..." he tried in hesitation.
"That Mother and Father were already fall in love with each other from childhood- yes..!" Lyea turned back to her grinding.
"You are their daughter...!" Odin added.
"...that I would have the tendency to spot my love one at early age...?" Lyea let out a soft laugh to herself. "I already have a dearest, Odin..!"
"Okay...!" Odin said fast. They silenced with their own thoughts in mind for quite a while. "You don't..." a pause of hesitation "...love.. Deia that way, do you...?"
"That way ?" Lyea turned in her seat facing him on the bed.
"Well, ... I thought you might see... the real-self... like that...!" They're not blood related siblings after all. And love could settle in just because of constant happenstances in daily life. And as a boy, if you could see her like that, Deia was...mesmerizing, to say the least. It's hard not to love Deia, he knew it himself.
"Do you think it would be allowed ?" Lyea asked analytically. That silenced Odin, he only lifted his brows a few times when he tried something but couldn't.
"You're not someone to play father, Odin...!!" Lyea snickered softly. Odin lifted his shoulder at that.
"No, you don't have to wory about that, Odin, sir..!" Lyea added politely. "And, yes, ... I do set my eyes on 'Octonary'- shæ sometimes. He's someone with that kind of charisma on most people, and I don't mean only me there..!"
"...just eyes..?!" Odin cut her speech.
"I have many interests to get bussy with..!" Lyea quipped.
"I don't know... at least you could show him that you're interested with him, too...?"
"Odin..!! I'm still 14..!!" Lyea retorted, a little flush coloured her cheeks.
"Your parents talked about how they're going to hold their wedding when they're 14...!"
Lyea let out an incredulous sound. "I'm not them, Odin, leave me alone...!!" And get back to her potions again. In bed, Odin laughed softly. He intended not to get bored to death in his two-more-hours-wake, anyway.
"Have you ever...fall in love, Odin ?" Lyea asked softly, staring at her ingredients.
"Just once.." Odin smiled staring at the bed canopy. "..with your father !"
Lyea turned to him, no resentment on her face. "Do you still...?" she stopped her words at that intentionally.
"Yes!" Odin answered without hesitation. "He's someone that could be loved dearly just like that, without any effort to make people love him.."
"He's deeper than what he shows in the outside, you know. He's not always a childish Lord..!"
"I know that by heart, Odin..!" Lyea smiled.
Odin hummed low. "...if you could know him before he had the title 'Lord' you'd love him as a person..." he added as if to himself.
"May be..." Lyea said softly.
"Not romantically...!"
"Yes..?"
"I said I don't fall in love with him romantically..!" Odin said.
Lyea lifted her shoulder. "Does it matter..? He is your world, isn't he ?" Lyea reasoned.
"Ohhh.." Odin laughed deeply, "I get it, you just want me to leave you alone with your interests, don't you...!"
Lyea stared him with innocent face. Odin laughed again to himself. "It'll be hard from now on, you realize that...!" he said flatly.
"I don't really the kind who belief in prophecies, Odin...!" Lyea said passingly.
Odin smirked, "Good for you...!"
"Those OWLs..." -pause, "...in the outside... They seemed like..." -frown, "...like they're trying to get to him ! ...to reach him with what ever it takes..., don't you think ?"
A moment of silence.
"...Who ?"
"Yuy." Lyea said with certainty. "What's this thing with 'The Legendary Collector'...?"
"I only heard stories.."
"Those what build legends..!"
Odin took a deep breath, let it out slowly as he recalled the stories he heard when he was a stray wanderer far back. "...The Collector is someone who collects..!" Odin started. "...bad souls,...as if in lives.."
"Bad people's lives ?" Lyea asked.
"No, not bad people... just bad... souls...!"
"Not spirits...souls..!" Lyea confirm in comprehension.
"Souls...!" Odin repeated with nods.
"What's with 'he beat me to death several times' issue...?" Lyea frowned remembering what Yuy had said earlier.
"They said he could make you die and reverse it again to life.."
"Not resurrect...?!" Lyea wondered.
"No, because you don't live afterwards...Just reversed death...!"
"As in undead ?"
"As in something else !"
"Hmmm... Why is it so frightening ?" she couldn't grasp the fearsome idea.
Odin frowned. "...You'd want to stay alive as yourself, don't you...?"
Lyea lifted her shoulders again. "Depends in the condition my living is...!"
"As something else means I wouldn't remember of who I was before ? ..where I come from, and everything ?"
"Perhaps...!" Odin hesitated. He never really heard the full story of The Legendary Collector, anyway, just bits of it here and there. The OWLs were not very talkative to strangers. Right! Try to anyone..!!
"...something like those OWLs out there ?" Lyea continued. Somehow she got the impression that the OWLs were not always looking so eerie like them.
Odin lifted one shoulder. He really didn't have the answer to that. The OWLs were still a far deeper mistery than what he could guess, most people knew those OWLs from the fears others had towards them. The colony of OWLs where he spent some times with were a mix of diversities of people and beasts that were mostly dominated with OWLs. Not exactly an OWL colony.
"Was he a god..?"
"What ?"
"A god..?" Lyea repeated.
Odin silenced for some moments "A god could be many things for different people.."
"How about for us ?" Lyea said flatly, she meant for the Land.
"For ordinary people like you and me... the Charms are already quite...godly..!" Odin said with a frown. "I guess he could be a god... If he could play with lives just like that, he could be a god-thing for us." Odin repeated with something akin to resentment.
"Then, that's what they all feared of...the fact that he owns such power, not because of the power itself...or because of he himself !" Lyea deduced it to herself. Odin stared at her with her own thoughts still running in her mind.
"You can think...!" he said with a tinge of wonderment.
"I heard that earlier today...!" Lyea said half reflexively.
---------------
"...How do you think about that boy..?"
"Compared to The Collector...?"
"...higher !"
---------------
Lyea knocked on Deia's bathroom door, a casket held carefully in her hands. She entered when the double doors let her in. In the pool, Deia was resting her mind, bended her upper body on the water's lap, listening the water's voice only she could hear. Her knee-long wavy hair covering her back and floating on the surface around her. She opened one of her eyes when Lyea called her name.
"...Odin wants you to have this !" she had a serious expression.
"What's that ?" Deia opened another eye, but her face didn't show interest at all.
Lyea opened the casket carefully and set it on the floor, she sat before it. In the little box was a globe of water swirling lazily in itself. Deia frowned a little.
"Water...?"
"Water-tree's heart, it's Odin's treasure. He gave it to you..!"
"I know what that is, and what you want me to wear it for...! Like wearing a dress is not enough already..!!" Deia half-yelled, while straightening her body, the water's surface was about her hips high. Lyea could see she was completely bare in the clear water, she showed no caution with her true nature these last days, as if really wanting anyone to just barge in in any circumstances and find her secret. She was never being self-conscious from the start, to begin with.
"It's not enough !" Lyea didn't show any uneasyness on her part, she'd took care of Deia since she was a small child. But the fact that she didn't cautious enough irritated her a little.
"No...?!" Deia asked condescendingly.
"No, you'll be a teenager soon and your body should change too..!!" Lyea said sternly.
"If Odin so treasured it then he could wear it by him-...!!"
"Don't !!" Lyea cut her harsh words, "-...make fun of Odin's feeling about this gift..!!"
Deia let out her livid breath slowly, "...-self..."
She silenced averting her eyes from her sister. "...It's degrading..!" she said quietly.
Lyea stared her figure closely, then let out a deep sigh. She slackened the imaginery wrinkles between her brows with her fingers, looking down at the water-tree's heart in the casket.
"How low could you humiliate yourself when others wouldn't find it disgracing...?" she said tiredly.
"..." Deia stared her for sometime, "...you people would know..!!"
"Deia...!"
"I don't care if you see it necessary, but it's degrading !! ...wearing fake...breasts..! And I mean not just stuffed...bra..!! Just because the dress should show some...cleavage !!" Deia's face got redder either by anger or shame.
"Deia..!!"
"If you people want me seriously, why don't you just castrate me and make me neither-..!!"
"DEIA...!!" Lyea yelled. She knew Deia wouldn't accept it in the first place.
"...or just send me away so you wouldn't have to be bothered by my body's nature, or just kill me...! That's the real issue, right ?!" Deia said through gritted teeth. By that exact time, a small choked sound heard from Deia's bed, saving the moment before the war started right then and there. Both of them stared at the bed's direction stunnedly, while their minds settling themselves to ease again.
"Prussian...!" Deia got out of the pool by the water's coils lifting her body up, and strode to the bed.
Lyea widened her eyes. She grabbed a bathrobe from the hanger and covered Deia's naked body in the way. "At least cover yourself before you get out of the bathroom...!!" her cheeks flamed a little. If any (cursed!) ones happened to see her without it, she'll give them heart attacks. And she meant not just old-Howard...!
Yuy was lying restless in the bed, his eyes were half open blindly. Cold sweats running down his skin. His body snapped and jerked endlessly. Shivers wrecked his small frame when the pains didn't strained his body tautly in spasms. Deia climbed the bed in a flash, she held his forehead with both hands calling his name softly. Lyea covered her mouth at his sudden paroxysm. "...Why ? So sudden...!" she gasped, he was sleeping soundly when she took a peek at the bed before she headed to the bathroom.
"No...he's been like this for the past hours. He'll tame the pains for a while, they'll be back after some times..!" Deia said paying half attention to their surroundings. "They're back with vangeance..!"
"...each time... they doubled..." Deia stared Yuy's eyes fixedly, willing her conscious mind to break through his pains. "He's having a war with himself..." she said softly.
"...it is ...as if when he weakens his innerself gets stronger...!"
Lyea took a good stare at her sister, her soft flat words, her composed posture, her calm face with only a little frown marred her expression, the darken empathic eyes feeling Yuy's inner struggles and obvious pains. Lyea stared her stunnedly with a faint flush on her face. When did a boy start to look...manly..? She never really see Deia that way, but she had to admit eventually that her true-self was... so...
A choked cough heard loud enough to cut her contemplation. Yuy's eyes widened but still unseeing, the blackness from his craft-plate slithered on his skin like living things, but didn't form anything, they just made some artery-like coils and back to the plate. His figure jerked once, then arched like a small bow from the bed. His teeth gritted so hard they almost expected his gums started to bleed. His body fell back to the bed, small moans, his feet kicked a few times, then his body arched again. The cycle repeated for a couple more times, then suddenly he bolted to sitting as if a sleeper waking from a nightmare.
Several choked breaths later, he turned his head ever so slowly to the others beside him. Sounds and lights and movements and feelings and a lot of other things overlaid with each other and he couldn't even catch anything besides his inner pains.
"...He's not seeing us...!" Lyea whispered carefully to Diea.
Deia's frown got deeper. She reached her drawn hand out to his face, cupping his cheek just ghostly. When her fingers touched the cold skin, he jerked in surprise as if apprehending dangers. She pulled her hand a little, guarding his head as to not getting away of her reach, instinctively making hushing sounds. "...Prussian..." tilted her head to his ear. "..come to me ...?" she whispered.
His irises quavered, searching but still unseeing. He pulled his wounded hand out from under the rumpled blankets, it was swollen under the bandages and sporting a sickly-black colour. It lifted tremblingly to her hand near his face, but before he managed to touch it another violent jerk snapped his body, and it fell sideways to the bed. He clutched his wounded hand as if it was burning, his other hand hitting the mattress over and over bearing the pains. His body curled on itself and it only happened for such long seconds. When he used up all his physical power to fight the pains, he sank into unconsciousness again, leaving his tortured body at peace for some times.
Deia stroked the damp bandages on his forehead for a while, "..he resents it...". Then her fingers moved to cup his face.
"It's trying to break out of his body...!"
"...it ?" Lyea repeated. Deia didn't elaborate more but she understood what she meant was his innerself. Deia said 'it' as if it was not of a person. Lyea stared her serene figure from behind. Did she know...? Perhaps empathically ?
"...higher !"
...than godly...?!
---------------
'Thrice' stood up from where he'd slumped tiredly by the round metal door. He didn't count how many hours had passed, but his space was cleared once again. Let out a deep slow breath. And walked to the mirror floating in the middle of the windowless round tower. He pulled the cover, let it pooled on his feet and the floor.
The surface of the oval mirror that was taller than himself was rippled and liquescence.
He touched his fractured palm to its surface. The liquid façade froze and turned glassy, but didn't reflect anything of the surroundings. He dropped his hand. His flowing cloak fell to the floor as if blown by invisible breeze, his bandana followed revealing his four small horns from their invisibility-cover. The long scarf loosened from his neck, floating around his body in large loops. A white and slender reptile tail unfurled from under the scarf around his neck. It length around twice his height, tufts of whitelight flowing lively at its end.
The tail swung in a wide curve and he sighed feeling no restraint on his neck anylonger. Closing his eyes he touched his forehead to the mirror's surface. Bracing himself with both palms, he brushed his face intimately on it. Soft sighs. Gentle longing moans.
'...I miss you...!' his mind-whisper reverberated in the air.
'...be with me...?'
The mirror rippled once, a flash of light reflected on its surface. A transparent reflection of him appeared as if another him that was trapped in the mirror. He was bare, a dim light in the middle of his forehead marking the third-eye.
'...I've been waiting for you..!' the 'Thrice' in the mirror mouthed ever so slowly, like being in water.
'Thrice' smiled and pulled his feet up in a fetal position, floating in the air with his side rested on the mirror's surface. The 'Thrice' in the mirror mimicked his pose in reverse, positioning himself as if they were a pair of twins touching their foreheads to each other's, making their bodies like two fetuses in an egg's shell, their third-eyes shone reflecting each other's light. 'Thrice' looped his long tail as if protecting their bodies loosely.
Another brightlight flashed on the glassy surface, and his reflection disappeared. The mirror turned liquescence again, flowing its surface in indifference.
He gasped, opened his eyes in a snap. His body fell and he braced himself with hands and knees, half crouching on the floor. His head bended low in defeat, he gritted his teeth in helplessness.
Let his body fall to the stone floor, he lied on his side unmoving with empty eyes. Staring at nothing. Feeling nothing. Wanting nothing.
Just empty...
'...why are you doing this to us...'
'...Master...?'
...just a clay-doll...!
The never-alive one...so can't be a dead one even if he wanted to..
---------------
Kylle entered the bedroom soundlessly.
"You summon me..?" he asked softly. A pair of dark blue eyes opened to his sight.
"...I have to get out of this land..." came the soft whisper. Kylle stared with a smile lingered on his face. he said nothing.
"...I have to..." the dark blue eyes blinked twice tiredly. "...do.. something..!"
Kylle waited for a moment in case the boy would add something more. He didn't. So he asked.
"The Lady-...?"
"Don't...!" the boy whispered hoarsely, his eyes implored silently.
Kylle stared the small figure in bed. His smile widened for a moment.
"You do aware of what I am to you...?" his voice deepened a little. He got a slow nod for answer.
A soft breeze blew in from the open glassdoors, it swirled in the room leisurely, chiming the wind-beads hung by the stands on the table. His smile lifted at one edge.
"Very well.." he said softly, bended his body to the boy, reaching out both hands open. "Should I carry you there ?" knowing the boy was still too weak to even lift himself up of the bed.
He stared the human Kylle drowsily. "...please..." And let himself be carried in his slender arms.
He closed his eyes.
---------------
"We're here...!"
The prussian eyes struggled to open hearing that voice.
"...you may take your time. I'm not going anywhere..!" the voice carried a smile that was always present.
He felt the open scenery with his senses, knowing that they're already outside the Land's barrier. He managed to open his eyes just a slit, saw Kylle's head shielding his face from the scalding sunlight with its shadow. He closed his eyes again.
Under the unreachable Sun, he made his resolve... because he couldn't reach the magnificent-light no matter how taut he strained his hand up to the sky, only hurting himself in vain. ...Better not be vain alone, now...! The sky's eyes on him were never judging, he smiled in his heart of heart.
"...put me down..." he whispered soundlessly.
Kylle put him on the sand, sitting on his knees. He held his small wobbling frame for a while. Let go when the boy nodded to him, and stepped back a distance. All the while kept his stare at the trembling figure that looked like the little breeze would tip it off.
But the small beast persevered...
A series of small movements alerted Kylle to the open space in front of them. The sounds of grains rubbed on each other heard like a waterfall. Incessantly. Sounds of pouring down. Of moving currents of dry granules. Dark colour marked a line emerging from under the sands. Heads, claws, armors, and bodies. Remains, even. They trolled towards them.
Kylle saw them as if in slow motion. His smile still lingered, like he was welcoming them.
May be he was...
A small enduring moan heard from the boy. He's still closing his eyes. Kylle flicked his eyes to him for a fraction of second.
The trolling line stopped quite far. There were sounds of cluckings and gurgles, faint incessant disturbing whispers. They stood up from their stances, and tottered on their peculiar limbs slowly. There were two limbed, three, four, even uncountable-limbed creatures like centipede-things, only they were of bits and pieces of many things compiled together in an unnatural assemblages that in their own ways were something of an eerie art of misconceptions and cruelties.
Arms used in exchange of legs, heads half-drowned in mouths, skins and flesh ripped by tusks and horns, teeth covering exposed organs; and other uncanny things that were too much to be said out. Unbalanced. Functionally-impaired. Out of proportion. May be out of purpose. Bits of remnants fell from their bodies every now and then. Pungent smell poluted the air.
Who would make an army like those creatures...?! Would they even functioned as an army at all ?
They stopped a few meters from the boy, as if in defeat. Some of them let out howls and moans akin to suffering sounds. Reaching out their appendages.
Then he opened his mouth, and started to sing. A gentle song that put everything to sleep. It was short and almost unsignificant to tranced ears. And everything stopped. Even the winds stopped blowing for once.
No sound...
No movement...
A drop of clear moisture ended the moment. And the black disfigured creatures blasted all at once, fleshy remains into black dusts that scattered by the winds, solid remains into charcoaled remnants that fell to the sands. They coloured the sands into black. Dispersing everywhere opposite the Land.
Another drop of moisture marked their disappearence whitnessed by the Sun.
Kylle was a little taken aback when the creatures blasted suddenly. He put himself together in no time, though. Sauntered to the boy on the sands, and kneeled behind him at his right side without a say.
...he was crying soundlessly. With eyes still closed, and shivering body.
"Shall we head back to the Castile now...? Master Yuy..." Kylle asked slow and gently. A smile on his face, a real smile for once.
The boy didn't react for a long time, he turned his head eventually. Tear tracks wetted his cheeks. His face lack of expression, he stared Kylle waveringly.
...his Human didn't want anything bad to happen to this Land... that's why...
"Shall we..?" Kylle asked again encouragingly.
...why did the humans hate them so much...? Was it because of how they look like..? Because they were different from what the humans' rational minds could take ?
Kylle wiped the wet tracks with his thumb gently. He lifted the unresponsive boy in his arms, tucked his head on his chest. There was no sound of beating heart in it. Never was. That's why the boy knew he was not a human being from the beginning.
"You may rest in the way back. We'll be home before you know it...!" his voice didn't reverberate the chest, too. It was simply carried in the Air.
...and he had the Air around him even outside the barrier. As if he was made of it...
The boy stared with awareness slipping off his mind. He'd done what he could do...he could rest now.
...when you moved on...where should you put the Past...?
...behind
or inside you ?
Solo should've been here... he could make things easier to decide...
...even for him..
"...we are... what we become..." he whispered soundlessly to himself. "...You must have cried a lot, too...your tears bled your face.." he mouthed half-awarely.
Kylle still smiled to the Air...even though his eyes didn't say so..
---------------
Kylle watched the small beast-boy's face. Not with his eyes, but his heart's eyes, what remains of his subsisting conscience, something that only he could see through with, something that this Land hadn't managed to take over. Just something to see with his own vacant perspective...
His smile never leaving his face, but his eyes spoke differently. His light slow-motionly steps never faltered in the Forest, somehow he made it look like the Forest was following him. Maybe it did..
A bunch of Forest's beasts blocking his way, half-circling on the path where the Forest opened for him to walk. He drooped his eyelids halfclosed. The beasts of various sizes and kinds and shapes were bowing at him. Kylle blinked his eyes slowly.
'You do aware of what I am to you...?'
He got a slow nod for answer.
He replayed the look in his deep prussian eyes directed at him. Lowered his head. If ever his movements got more slowed-in-time, as if he was trudging through a massive air, there were aerial-tracks from his every actions left in the Air behind him, like wafting shadows of whites.
He stopped eventually...
Closing his eyes, he extended the hands presenting the unconscious boy in them. Kylle passed him on to the beasts, the Forest. He always said it was his playground, but he was merely a keeper of the Forest, he never owned it. The One that owned him, owned the Forest, the whole Land. He tried to elude his mind from the thoughts, and just stopped...caring. What was right, and what was wrong. What was decent, and what was deceitful.
Just walk straight and don't look back, he said to himself.
Thus, he kept walking. Felt the moment he conceded to the task given to him, and the instant the boy's body taken by the Air and leaving his hands. He felt like a shadow, passed through the boy's body suspended in the space before him, and through the beast's bodies. Knowing that they would finish the job for him, as he couldn't do it by himself. That's why he always delayed the time to devour the beast-boy. Because he's not a devourer. Because he's not...
...-before you know it... his own words echoed again and again in his ears.
The various beasts moved in on the unconscious boy floated in mid air, as if he were sleeping fairytale-ly. Although in the contrary, this would be a moment of cruelty, not one of the bedtime stories to put children to a peacefull slumber. He bit his lower lip.
...to put a boy to an endless sleep...., Kylle stopped at a respective distance behind the oncoming slaughter. He still had his eyes closed. But his heart's eyes were open...how he wished they're blind, just for once..! Because they were vacant...only a perspective of a dead conscience. Like a dead person's eyes that open to stare without awareness, without the ability to do anything, to feel anything.
For once there was no smile on his face..
For once he looked like a real human he supposed to disguise as.
For once he could feel the repulsion for the Order's system.
He gasped as he saw some of the beasts already set their tongues and dripping saliva on the boy's body. Felt the burnt smell of flesh by the acid in the liquids, a small prey-bird that looked like half lizard already had a good bite on the boy's right shoulder.
'...You must have cried a lot, too...'. That's right, he could only cry with his smile.
((...myshtä:...!)) (3)
'...we are... what we become...' the boy's whisper echoed in his mind. Still, even though he told the beasts to wait, he still had to proceed with his task sooner or later.
The beast heard his command and stepped back from the suspended body. They all looked at him waiting for the permission to proceed. Instead, Kylle approached the small body and retrieved it again from the Air's grasp. He stared at the prey-bird and opened the Underspace swallowing it, the poor bird didn't even have the chance to shriek when the white ground bursted white cloudy-tentacles to grab it down.
Kylle looked down at the suspended drips of blood from the boy's shoulder. They were of darker colour than natural blood, thicker liquid. Inside, he could discover specks of white glitters.
Poison... alien-creature's seeds... He informed himself.
"I will take care of him by myself, he's poisoned and likely a latent danger to YOU to devour...!" he said silently. And with that he wrapped the boy's body with the long shawl he wore in place of a cloak around his upper body, and left with the boy secured in his arms once again. Behind him the white cloudy-tentacles swallowed the poisoned blood from the Air to the Underspace.
He looked subdued in his walk.
((...unbidden...what Fate is...!))
"...Don't..!" he said in a low hiss, "...even try !" Two tails of long flowing scarf on a high tree bough didn't escape his mind's eyes. "Beast..."
'Thrice' let Kylle away with it. His visible eye stared at the spot where a few moments ago occupied with various beasts. ((you just have to bid for more rounds...!)) he echoed to himself, not really caring if Kylle heard it through the connection or not.
"...till you drunk..."
"and you have nothing left to gamble with..." he whispered.
A sad smile on his face, feeling the absent of the sadness he's not allowed to feel...
---------------
Yuy woke up from his exhausted rest, finding his own body somehow felt lighter than when he was on the outerside just then. His censor told him there were new wounds to put in his catalogue of injuries, only these wounds were somehow lighter in space. That meant they're like his spacial-wound he inflicted to himself when he took out the Ogreish-'I' from his owned-space somewhat.
He could guess who was responsible for them. The reprisal he accepted when he asked the enemy's hands for help. The hands owner didn't carry through the action to the end, though. He sat up and looked down. He was on the high tower's bench, with the plushy pillows scattered around his body, exactly like when his Human brought him there. He touched his throat with his left fingertips.
No, not a dream, he used his Voice to sing that song...!
He turned his head around, finding no Kylle-person nor the spirit-Kylle shadowing him. Somehow he felt being left behind. By jeopardy..? His mind chided. Some part of his blood liked dangers, he was aware of that, some part of his mind liked deaths, too.
A cool breeze blew through the open windows. His ears caught a familliar muted-sound so very close. Alerted by curiousity he got up from his seat. His body definitely felt lighter, he thought. A pair of white 'wings' floated in the soft winds behind his back. Just like 'Thrice''s flowing cloak. He looked back, and realized it was Kylle's long shawl he used to cover his shoulders with. When he woke up he thought it was just another blanket. The shawl pooled on his shoulders and covered his body almost to his knees, he looked down at his legs, he never really realized his body was that small compared to his.
So that's what making his body felt lighter, the Air didn't oppresed him so much... He blinked.
Then, what did it mean..?
He massacred a bunch of his own kinds, -actually they were what Colle' would refer to as their society's dregs- and instead of reprisal he got himself Kylle-person's ...what ? ...approval ? ...protection..?
He frowned. He felt like a traitor. He didn't do it to get any benefits on his behalf, he did it because he thought he'd make Human feel at ease even for a little.
His own resentment felt more like razorblades on his internal injuries, especially right there where the craft-plate clutching his heart and other vital organs with its black-roots, as if punishing him for his treacherous deeds. He sighed softly, part of daily karma...!
A little lightheaded, he sauntered down the tower stairs, didn't really have an aim to get to. He didn't want to face Human so fast, needed to center himself first. The long corridors were as if deserted, there seemed to be no activities in this part of the Castile. He didn't enjoy too much companies, so he wished his daily space could be like this, quiet and undemanding. He wondered if that's what it'd feel like in the tomb. Guess he never really knew what being dead felt like, always got reborn right after another death...
A small smile crept on his face. This lifetime wasn't so bad...for the most part, or may be mostly in these last parts. Hope it would last longer than the lastlife...
Right at that moment Deia spotted him walking halftrance-ly passing the junction of the corridors. She was going to call out to him, but she noticed that he was preoccupied enough that he didn't aware of her presence. Feeling concerned, she followed him from a respective distance. He turned from the corridor, and Deia felt an anxiety just as his body disappeared from her sight.
A loud slap sound jolted her to halfrun, it echoed in her ears, feeling a sharp sting on the left cheek in her mind. She found 'Thrice' stood with his right hand lifted around his left chest, Yuy stood with his back to her, his face turned to the rightside apparently from the blow. Deia was going to snap at the Charms, but recognizing the red-flaming anger in his visible eye, she swallowed it. 'Thrice''s face looked so hard that a little movement seemingly will crack it, he glared so wide that the whites of his eye was visible surrounding his burning iris.
She never saw 'Thrice' looked that angry before. Perhaps because he'd never got that angry in the past, or may be because he never showed much of his emotions before.
"...How low could you degrade yourself in one lifetime...?!" a low rancorous hiss froze her. Her mind felt like another slap directed at her. She widened her eyes, unable to move.
'Thrice' stared him down for a very long seconds. The boy didn't move a fraction under his glare, didn't even move a muscle on his face, his closed expression never changed. Knowing the boy wouldn't answer to him, 'Thrice' left in a rigid walk and flowing cloak and two-tails of scarf behind him.
"Little Lady...!" he greeted Deia passingly without looking at her.
A long moment after his departure, the boy started to walk again, a little faster than before. Deia snapped to motion right away. "What was that all about...?!"
"Yuy...!!" she called out when the boy seemed like ignoring her in his pace, following him with long strides. Tried to catch the flowing shawl to stop him, but the cloth slipped from her grasp like the air.
She didn't get any response no matter what she said, either. She even threatened him she won't ever talk to him if he didn't notice her but he's as stubborn as hell if he meant it, or may be his mind was too out of it. So she shut up for the rest of the walk. They stopped by Odin's door. He knocked and waited to be let in. Deia lingered by the half open door, watching him ignoring her, with scowl on her face.
Odin put the reports in his hands on the table, he was half surprised by the two visitors, mostly by their attitudes. "Yes ?" he asked to the boy, noticing he backed his right shoulder a little than his left one. His soldier experience told him that apparently his wound from the poison-plant was still dangerous enough for others.
"...Sir.." the boy began in a whisper. "I want to join the ranks of your forces..!"
Odin blinked. "I won't accept someone with communication difficulty as a soldier, Kid, too risky for other soldiers."
"I can talk if it's necessary..." he said with a soft slightly nasal voice, "...just not too often or better not in the presence of strangers..!" Odin lifted his brows. "My voice is...distinctive..!" the boy added. Odin had to admit that far, his voice was addictive to most hearings, he felt somekind of a longing after he heard his utterance for the first time back then. He could only guess what happen if someone hears his voice everyday. The Wilds that had better hearings would recognize him immediately.
Odin frowned a little, he looked inquiringly at Deia by the door, she was half in with a hand holding the panel covering half her body as if didn't want to intrude them. "...I would like to..." she swallowed once, "thank you for your gift...!"
"I'll take good care of it !" she promised determinedly as if to herself, knowing what imlpied in her words.
Odin lifted one brow, that was not the answer he sought from her, but he was glad. "...You're welcome !" Then looked back at the boy who was watching him like a hawk at ease. "Have you ever been in war...?"
"Several times..."
"Attacker or defender ?"
"...I've been both !"
"For what reason ?"
"Many things...!"
Odin brushed his chin with a thumb. "Who do you fight for..?!"
"Owners." that was without hesitation, Deia noted with an unconsciously clenched fist.
"As what...?" right at that time, a report relayed to him from one of the Charms, "I don't need a deadly weapon in my troops !" –especially one who could exterminate others just as easily..! he thought to himself, knowing what a danger such a weapon could be turned up against by the enemies, or that such a weapon could turn allies to enemies.
He didn't answer to that. Odin observed him closely, but his straight face didn't give much. "Did you follow the owners' order or did you want to by yourself ?"
"I wanted to, if I didn't give my consent I wouldn't be in a battle. I accepted the ownership upon me, so the owner could use me freely in the limit my approbation allowed."
That got a deeper frown from the General, "Somehow I didn't catch that from your concession back then..!"
"...that was supposedly the unwritten law, but most of them didn't follow it nowadays..." he said silently.
"Why...?" he paused to see if any case his face change. Nothing. "...-do you want to fight ?"
Yuy took a long pause before he whispered out, "...because of my half-humanity..."
"So it's not to serve your Human or to protect her homeland...!"
He didn't answer, he knew that his Human would protect him instead, keep him in a savebox, even, if the condition ever get that far. "How if your half-other raciality(4) confront you with its race, you'd fight for its sake too...?"
"I won't take sides...!" he said calmly. "...I could be a traitor just once in a lifetime, can't do it twice or more... my ego won't accept that..". Odin opened his mouth to asked another question, but he beat him to it. "...unless Human wish for me to do so or any other way...!" that said with a tinge of finality in it.
Odin sighed, he glanced at Deia. "You okay with this ?". She got a hard face frowning at the boy as answer, but she didn't say no. "I'll discuss this matter with others first before I could give you my answer...-!"
"What would it be..?" –pause, "..your answer"
Odin stared him, "In time like this I could use a good strength...-" he left it at that, "But someone might consider you fit better in the Special Force...!". That got him a nasty stare from Deia. "But it's a long way to climb to get there !" he amended.
Yuy nodded once, "I'll start from the lowest rank..!" he whispered.
"...'Sir." he greeted to excuse himself. Then turned to the door and left the room, knowing Deia still tailing him rigidly.
"So you've made up your mind, hu ?" Deia said acidly when they entered her chamber again. "'Guess you won't be occupying my chamber anymore, then..!"
"That means I could use my study agai-..." A Prussian with his head bowed on her shoulder stopped her angry remark. A surrendering gesture, just like two years ago before he started speaking in whispers.
"...if you wish me to... I could move to the soldier's barr-..."
"No !!" a cold feeling run up her spine at the mention of the barrack. Not that it wasn't decent or anything, just because he was much smaller compared to the other soldiers, and she feared they would pick on him despite his strength. Yeah, right..! Her mind chided, you just want him for yourself, even of his sight alone you don't want to share..!!
"...I want you here with me...!" she held his small frame. "Always ! ...is that too much to ask ?"
Her cheek brushed his, and she knew it. "You cried !" she frowned. He pulled back a little and turned his head from her, still bowed down. She sighed deeply, and guided his head back to her shoulder.
"Alright...!" stroked his back gently for a long moment, feeling his taut body melted in her hands, along with her selfishness. "You protect me from them...! I'll protect you from your-self !!" she compromised. But there was no response from him, just silence. She frowned feeling something was off. And decided to see his face, only to find him fast asleep.
Deia widened her eyes with a gasp, "Prussian...!"
"-...you... how-...that was a cool promise to make...! You hear me?! I know you do..!! You can hear things even if you're sleeping...!!!" ...Then what's her problem...?!
She let out a growl, and took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
"...'guess you are in recuperation still..!" she sighed, he's always in recuperation most of the time! And took him back to her bed. What's with him always sneaking out to someplace else the Air knows where when she left him in her bed alone, anyway...!
---------------
---------------
(1) Relic-prayer; the name of a type of big birds...they're usually spotted haunting the ruins or cemetaries and such in groups, they had a voice (that's right, voice! not sound) like a crooning of a maiden chanting or lamenting prayersongs. When they cried out lamenting-voice was believed as the sign of a bad omen that usually followed with a major disaster in the land.
(2) 'because I'll be with you...don't disappear on me' -more or less
(3) ancient language , it's not really mean a word, just negation..
-apparently of his own language, not Archantra language.The beasts understood because of the link between him, them, and the Forest. Will get to that explaination later-
(4) ...don't know if it was a word, but you get what it meant, right...?
Hummmm...just want to make something clear...
- the words 'Fairs' or 'Charms' saru use in the fic are suppose to be a singularize-plural word (is that term correct??). Kind of like the opposite of 'people', don't have the (s) attached behind but it means plural, right? And that you don't have to put an (s) to pluralize it again...like 'charmss's'...-chuckling in stupidity-
It's because when someone said it, that person didn't refer to the number but to their qualities; like for example "multigifted" for the 'Charms'...and yeah, when saru have to add an ('s) or write (a Charms), saru' eyes stumbled on them too 'coz they just didn't sound right, so you're not the only ones complaining...
promised lovers quarrels, right? scratch that, it's most likely one-sided-lovers quarrels.
...although still vague, hahaa...
and on with the war...saru don't really like writing politics, though...!