Author's Notes:
Ah, here I am again. Thanks for the reviews! is happy I still have enough reserves to post another chapter, which I'm happy about, because I probably won't have time for an update next week.
This chapter we have Ellen on her way to the Order :3
It takes such a long time to get the story going. Ach. Blöd... X3
And to answer Pay Backs a Bitch's question (call me stupid, but I have NO clue how I should / could reply to a review, someone enlighten me? NO, wait. I have found the magic REPLY BUTTON!!!!! I' m an idiot, but as the question is clever I leave the reply here): Ellen does not see the point in pretending to be a boy; her initial plan would be to get to the order dressed as a fine artistocratic lady (she's young, but she's also kinda proud lol) but you'll see how that will turn out lolz. Pairing will be Kanda / Ellen (of course giggle), no idea if there's enough room for a side pairing.
Everyone still with me? Good. Let's move on!
Disclaimer: D.Gray-Man belongs to Katsura Hoshino
Chapter Two - Seeing GhostsWhen young Ellen Walker came to she fortunately did not lie in the open where General Cross left her, but some way along the road in the shade of a big tree. She groaned as her head reminded her why exactly she was lying there. The young lady glanced up into the orange pink morning sky and sighed. Alone… How could she possibly reach the Black Order without a map and without the faintest idea where it lay? After some long pondering and silent cries about the unfortunate turn her life had taken after Mana's death she got up and dusted off her clothes. For some moments she actually wanted to go back into town, forget all about being an exorcist and just go home to her mother where she could be Ellen Bermont again, but she was too afraid to do it; afraid of Cross, afraid of the harm she could bring to her family, afraid of the monster dwelling inside her. She actually didn't see any other choice but to walk on, as Cross had told her to do, she needed to walk if she didn't want to endanger her family and if she wanted her curse to be lifted.
Just as she finally dared to put one step before the other and walk into an unknown direction, something golden hit her from the side. With tears from the sharp pain stinging in her eyes, she held her cheek and stared at Cross' golden golem Timcampy.
"Oh dear! Do not startle me like that!", she shrieked and finally allowed herself to breathe again, "shoo, shoo", she tried to chase him off, "I do not want to be bitten, so please, leave". But Timcampy seemed to have other plans, as he flew against Ellen's forehead. "That hurts!", she screamed, forgetting herself for a moment, because she knew that no one was watching her, "you… Thing! Stop doing this or I swear I will feed you to a cat!". The golem didn't seem to be impressed by her girlish threats and started chewing her white hair. "Oh please!", Ellen started to wail, as Timcampy wouldn't let go of her hair. "What do you want me to do?". Just as if this was the cue Timcampy had been waiting for, he started to pull at her hair, urging her forward. As the noble girl had stumbled a few steps forward he let go of the white strands and started to fly ahead. The young girl looked after him in confusion. "Do you intent to show me the way to the order?", she asked hopefully and started to run after Timcampy as he just continued. "Maybe you do have some merits after all, Sir Tim", Ellen decided as she had caught up with him. The golden golem chose to ignore the whiny child; there were two days worth of walking ahead of them.
The time Ellen and 'Sir Tim', as the girl chose to call her golden companion, reached the next town, the young lady was exhausted.
"Never before have I walked such a long distance without interruption!", she huffed and glanced up at the moon rising above the roofs of the small town. "Do you allow some resting Sir Tim?", she inquired with a small glance to the golem, before she set off to enter the town without awaiting the silent answer. The golem didn't seem to have any problems with her request and followed her down the cobblestone path, past the archway of the town's gates. "It surely is quiet, even though the moon has only risen a short time before our arrival", the noble girl remarked as she glanced around the empty streets and unlit windows. "Like a ghost town", she whispered and started to chuckle, "oh Sir Tim, what silly thoughts have crossed my mind. I am in need of a bath and a maid to wash my clothes". Ellen looked down at her dirty boots, but instead of being disgusted with herself she found herself rather exited. Whenever she had spent time with Mana she would always turn up dirty at her mother's door. Of course Lady Charlene Bermont would disapprove of any behaviour which involved dirt and physical labour, but she did approve of the happy looks she would receive from her daughter and brother upon their return. Ellen sighed at the memory and started to look around for an inn as she walked ahead. "Oh, I will dress in my finer clothes once I am only a short distance away from the Black Order", she said to Timcampy, but she did not expect an answer from him and was pleased to just keep talking to herself. She came to a stop as she saw an inn with dimly lit windows across the town square she had just reached. She smiled with relief and nodded to Tim, who just floated in mid-air next to her. "You do not think that Master Cross would mind me meet the order in nice attire, do you?". She went on with her previous speech and started to cross the square. "After all, I am a girl. Girls dress nicely. He cannot expect me to present myself with dirt on my face… Hmm. I must be the first girl he has as a student, or he would behave differently…", she mumbled, not realizing, that Timcampy hasn't moved a bit. "Maybe he is shy… That would explain why he would need me to wear boy's clothes…". The girl looked up as she saw the door of a house to her left open, a man stumbling out of the darkness. Ellen's face lit up for a second, but then she saw all the doors opening one after another and people coming out in the open to crowd the small town's square. "Oh… Excuse my intrusion", the girl began, feeling more than a bit scared. She took a few steps backwards as they came nearer. In the darkness she could not make out their expressions. "This is not a secluded town, they cannot possibly be surprised by visitors", she thought to herself, holding her suitcase up, as if it would make her invisible to those strange town's people. "If my presence makes you… uncomfortable… I… I will leave this moment!", she shouted, trying to sound as calm and polite as possible. There still was a chance that they were just curious who she was, but with all the talk about mysterious things like exorcists, Akumas and earls, she was rapidly losing faith in this innocent belief. Timcampy flew against her head, making her wheel around frantically and frightened. "Do not scare me like that! Not now!", she mouthed with wide eyes. The left side of her face was burning, just a thin line of fire from over her eyebrow down to the cheek, just where that unsightly scar was. Her cursed hand, hidden in a glove and tightly clenched around the handle of her suitcase, throbbed almost painfully, but fear made the girl ignore it. Timcampy flew against her head again, and then he made a dive for her left hand to bite one or two of her fingers. "Ouch!", she hissed, "please, Timcampy, stop it!". The golem flew up again, and hovered just in front of her face, blocking the view of those people staggering nearer and nearer. Ellen couldn't hear a sound, just their steps over the cobble stone pavement. Her scar started to hurt more intensely and her eye started to burn and water, but she didn't dare to rub away the tears, as if any more movement would give the town's people a reason to attack. Timcampy suddenly rose over her head and cleared Ellen's view over the gathered crowd. She dropped her suitcase and stood frozen on the spot. Those were not humans! Ellen could see some sort of crying, deformed ghosts hovering behind the people, a chain connecting them to the people's bodies. "Those… Those are… Akuma?!", she whispered with dread. Like on cue Ellen witnessed the people transform into huge, metallic floating balls, pipes, resembling canons and guns poking out of their many layers of dull silver metal and pale faces, mouths wide open and black markings like inky tears, around their eyes, lay in the middle of the monsters' round bodies. Ellen could neither take a step ahead nor backwards, she stood still like a statue, terror in her eyes, as those monsters came nearer, canons pointing towards the seemingly only living soul of this town.
Ellen thought that she would die before she could reach the Black Order, die without having avenged her beloved Mana, die before she could overcome any of her many curses, die before she could forgive herself for being so ignorant and stupid. But in a blaze of fire, light and a heavy blast of wind which threw the girl off her feet, everything seemed to change. She could hear the metallic cries of those Akuma, the slashing, banging and the firing of diverse weapons and the explosions. She did not know who was fighting whom, but she was wise enough to rise to her feet and seek shelter.
"What is going on there?!", she wondered, but was too frightened to risk a glimpse of the battle, "are they exorcists?!". After mere minutes all noises died down and the dust and fumes of the explosions settled down. She saw two figures standing in the middle of the town square. Ellen rose slowly and, nudged by Timcampy, moved forward.
"E… excuse me?", she whispered, half expecting them to turn into monsters as well. The two seemed to be wearing similar clothes just like her master did. One of them was tall, with red hair and a wide satisfied grin on his face, the other, smaller one, seemed to be an older man, a white strand of hair pointing upwards. They both turned their heads towards her.
"Man, just a few feet away from headquarters and we encounter a bunch of Akuma!", the red-head said to his companion, not taking much notice of the young girl in front of him.
"Consider it exercise, you fool. Come, we need to be going", the old man replied, then he made a short bow to the young lady. Only now the teenager seemed to have taken notice of the girl and looked at her with mild interest. Ellen saw an eye-patch over his right eye, the other, green one, sparkled.
"What a nice looking man! Might he be a pirate?", the girl wondered with delight, but still managed a small, polite bow.
"You better watch out, boy! There are evil things around! You were lucky to meet us here!", the pirate-exorcist chirped, then he followed the older man.
"No! Please wait!", Ellen tried to stop him, "I am not-". But with unnatural speed they were out of sight and Ellen was alone in this ghostly town, with piles of metal littering the town square. "A boy…". The young girl sighed. "They must have been exorcists, they were wearing this strange cross, like Master Cross", she told Timcampy, who didn't seem impressed by her observation. "Surely they could have shown me the way…". Ellen picked up her suitcase and nodded at her golden companion. "I have changed my mind. I do not want to spend my night in this town. I will walk. I can sleep when I get there". Timcampy seemed to like this plan and moved ahead. "I guess you can show me the way too… But it would have been nice to have a escort which could protect me…"., she mumbled as they left the town and went on ahead. "No offence Sir Tim, but biting these monsters will not keep them from hurting me… And I would not stand a change against such vile fiends…". Ellen rubbed her eye, which has stopped aching as soon as the Akuma had been killed, her hand too no longer made any problems. "What was going through Master Cross' head? I cannot defend myself! This hand…", with contempt she forced herself to think back to the night she had killed her dear uncle Mana. Her hand had moved on its own accord, maybe if endangered it would repeat this. "Could it be, that if faced with these monsters, I act on my own?", she asked Timcampy, who did not bother to give an answer, "that this so-called Innocence of mine would move my body on its own again?". Ellen shuddered and looked up to the bright moon, "I do not want to become a slave of this Innocence and murder again… But if I have to protect me in order to protect my family… I probably must walk this path…"
Ellen decided to take a small rest in order to relax her aching feet. Sir Tim and the young girl had arrived at a forest three hours ago and Ellen could see a high mountain rising in the distance. She had a feeling that this would be her destination, but maybe she was just hoping for the long journey to be over. She did not know how Exorcists would travel, if there were Akuma everywhere on this big wide world, then they certainly didn't have the time to walk, or maybe there were many exorcists, all over the world. That seemed to Ellen like a nearly romantic idea – powerful people which were secretly protecting the innocent from harm.
"But this earl makes the people's grieve over the loss of a beloved his weapon… Nobody can protect us from death…", Ellen thought to herself. If Cross had just told her a bit more… What kind of Master would send his pupil unprepared to a war she was not familiar with? She didn't even know how to fight! She had a weapon she didn't know how to use. It was all very frustrating for the young girl and she soon found herself longing for her mother's comforting arms or even Cross. "At least Akumas can be distinguished from humans… It would be a very hard battle if you were not able to know who was friend or foe…", Ellen mumbled and looked at her hand. "Maybe they will just send me back when I get there… Seeing as I do not want to be controlled by it… But if I could control it… Maybe then I would… I would be able to punish this earl…". The girl sighed and looked at her hand with an intense stare. "I command you to stir!", she shouted, but nothing happened and Ellen groaned, "do something! There is no evil around, I just want to see that I could be useful! Innocence, show yourself!". As she said these words she could feel her hand burning, the red flesh disappearing and her slender arm transforming into a big white claw. Ellen was so frightened that she started to scream and the claw disappeared again. A wave of relief but also exhaustion hit the young woman and she leaned back against a tree, panting slightly.
"Oh… Sir Tim. I know it is not a appropriate time to say this but…", Timcampy sat on her head and Ellen closed her eyes, "I sure am hungry…". Timcampy bit down on a stand of her white her and made the girl giggle slightly. "Ah… yes, yes. You are a very eager guardian, Sir Tim. Or are you hungry as well?", she asked and stood up again. Her legs were a bit shaky but she was sure she could make it to the mountain before dawn. With her thoughts on a warm welcome, a bed and food, the young lady Bermont got herself together and started moving again, her destination still the unknown and mysterious Black Order.
To be continued...
Notes:
Pirate Rabi... Ellen has read too many books. X3
I at least wanted Ellen to know that she can see the souls of Akuma, but maybe she wasn't scared enough. Or maybe she was too scared of the Akuma to be scared of 'simple' ghosts. lol Oh well...
I guess at least Timcampy is in character. :3
P.S. The reason why I call a chapter "Kapitel" is because I'm stupid. I was thinking about "Night" (like in the Manga) but then the title includes "Tales", something I connect with Grimm Fairy-Tales.