+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +
Sarehptar
Theme: 4, Dark
Characters: Kharl, Rath, Others?
Pairing: There is a completely crack side-pairing, I'll give you a cookie if you figure it out.
Warnings: "What in all the Seven Hells?" situation. Tolerance for trashed Biblical references is requested.
Need to Know Info: Cain, Abel, and the story of murder
Title Provider: Dark Chest of Wonders (Nightwish)
Once There was a Child's Dream, the Age I Learned to Fly...
The child runs as fast as his feet can stand, tripping on the icy path but regaining his balance as only young boys can. His short lilac hair flies in the wind of his movement, getting into his eyes and clinging on his forehead like the reaching roots of a tree or the legs of a spider. He brushes it away with a hand that is familiar to the gesture, and with care, climbs the snowy steps that are almost too high for his small legs.
"Father, father!" His voice is everything young and sweet, full of a light laughter that sounds like chimes. "Look what I found!" He leaps unbeckoned into his father's lap, smile falling only a little when the man tries to stifle a wracking cough.
"What is it Abel?" He feels the rough warm hands close around him like a blanket, and he snuggles closer to his father's body, the body that is a wall to all the bad things of the world. It does not even take him a moment to hold his treasure high, watching it glint in the dimmed light of their home. A single, black feather dwarfs his tiny pale hand, and his father studies it quietly for a few moments as if it is the first time he is seeing something like it, as if his son has brought him a precious gem.
"Where did you find it?" His father's voice is brimming curiosity and indulgence.
"It fell from the sky!" Abel waves his hands to illustrate, as if words alone cannot express the beauty of the thing.
"Did you see a bird?" The older man's smile is just a delicate curve of his lips, but the lilac-haired boy drinks it in as if he will never see it again.
"No," he shakes his head solemnly, "There weren't any birds at all."
"Then it must be an angel's feather."
"An angel?!" The little boy squeaks in amazement, holding his feather all the tighter. His face falls after a moment, darkening unsurely. "But Father, angels have white feathers." The bigger man closes his hand around the feather too, and for a moment, he and Abel's entire world are silent.
"Is a black bird any less a bird?" His father asks, "Is a black fish any less a fish? Is your brother any less your brother because his hair is black?"
"No." Abel turns the words over in his mind for a moment, and then the wisdom in them comes clear like water being filtered. "So, angels come in every color? Just like birds and fish and people." His father's head that has been resting on top of his nods gently. After a few seconds, like any child, he fails to contain himself and squirms free of the older man's hold, running off as quickly as he has come. Behind him, his father's green eyes are soft with love and happiness.
"CAIN! CAIN!" He knows he is shouting, the very thing his older brother hates, and for once, he does not care. The porch is slippery with ice and water beneath his feet, and though he wants desperately to run, he has to wind his way carefully. At the end of the raised entrance way, his brother does not turn to help him.
"What do you want?" The black-haired child mutters finally, when his smaller brother's indignant pinches can be ignored no longer.
"I found something amazing!" Even though his voice is rampant with excitement, he whispers politely because he knows the only way to keep Cain's attention is following his rules, and the older boy does not like talking.
"Hn." Cain's red eyes return to polishing his dagger—it is his first, grudgingly given, and he knows he will treasure it forever. The golden dragon on its hilt stares up at him with eyes as stern as his own.
"Wanna know what it is?" Abel asks, and then continues without waiting for his brother's reply, because he knows exactly what it would be. "It's an angel's feather!" He holds it as proudly as his brother holds his weapon.
"No it's not." The retort is blunt and sure, and Cain has not even looked up to see Abel's precious new thing.
"It is! Father said so!" The younger boy's hands wave in exasperation, almost trembling in indignation.
"You believe everything he says." There is some note of cruelty in his brother's voice, but there is some note of care there too, he will surely never admit. Abel hears it but knows enough to say nothing. Quickly, he falls beside his brother's bigger form and scoots inconspicuously over (while Cain is not watching) until their sides are touching. His brother jerks at the touch, but as if he realizes it is important, he does not move.
For a long time, Abel sits without a word, watching his brother shine and clean the blade until it seems to cast a golden glow. The snow crunches thickly when he kicks his legs, just to keep them awake in the harsh cold. Even though he is well wrapped, he seems perpetually cold, and both of their breaths cloud mist-like in the frigid midday air.
"Cain… Is father going to die soon?" He did not want to ask it, was terrified, but feels he must. There is something cold inside his father lately; there is some sluggishness of movement that is not right. There are days when his mother tells him he cannot see his father.
"He's been sick a long time." Abel knows it is true because there are some things his brother does often, but lying is not one of them. He keeps secrets and he can be cruel, but he is honest in a way that cuts as sharply as his dagger surely will.
"What…" He is afraid of the words but wants to hear them too. "What will happen when he's gone?" The thought still seems terribly wrong, and he fears that any moment something younger in him will cry that his father can't die, because fathers just don't.
"I'll inherit the land and carry on in his place."
"But Cain, I thought Father said I was going to inherit the fields." The black-haired boy stiffens, his hand on the hilt of the dagger tightens enough that his chilled-blue fingers turn white and red again. Abel knows he has said something wrong, but is too frightened and confused to apologize.
"He didn't mean that. You shouldn't believe everything he says." That voice is sharp, and behind his white and black bangs, Cain's eyes are as hard as stone and flash with cruelty. Abel nods because he does not know what else to do, and he wants to see his brother smile again. It has been a long time since Cain has smiled for him.
"What will it be like when you're the lord and we're both big?" As if those words have smoothed over everything before them, the black-haired boy drops an obliging hand onto his brother's head, ruffling the feathery lilac strands without effort.
"I think by then I'll have killed you for being so annoying."
"Hey!" Abel pouts and then smiles under his brother's hold, forgetting the dagger and the rage that lies gleaming between them.
He wriggles under the thick covers, pretending for a moment to be a caterpillar in a cocoon. His mother smiles kindly, but there is an under-current of displeasure in it too. With her is there always some thing like discontent lurking just beneath her happy eyes. Abel has seen it, but he is a child and cannot understand. He has seen that sometimes she tells father he is wrong, and he has seen that sometimes she does not want to share. But she is his mother, and perhaps all mothers are that way? She is never cruel to him, and she is always kind to Cain. It does not take much work for him to love her utterly.
"Go to sleep Abel." She says it with a sigh because she is so used to saying it. But he does not reach to blow out the light, and she stands, tapping her foot, waiting for him to follow the command.
"Mother…" He wonders if he has the right words, or if she will think them important at all. But he can tell she is an indulgent mood tonight—she seats herself gently on the free side of his bed and smiles.
"Yes?" Her long purple hair falls like a river as she leans to tuck the covers tighter around him.
"Will we become angels when we die?" For a moment she blinks, dark eyes intrigued and unsure of what to answer.
"Your father," she chuckles, "is not going to be an angel. He is going to be a golden dragon, and all the angels will flock and admire his shimmering light." Abel giggles in answer, because he knows that his boisterous and non-conforming father will probably be just that.
"What about Cain and me?" He is eagerly awaiting her answer, light eyes wide and waiting.
"You will definitely be an angel, with the most brilliant white wings. And all the other angels will be jealous because you will be wise and strong. Your heart will be more full of love than any of God's other creatures."
"Really?" Abel reaches with a tiny hand to touch his mother's knee, a pure and happy smile lighting on his sleepy face. "And Cain… I want Cain to be an angel too." He runs his free hand along the feather he has refused to drop. "I want Cain to be an angel with the blackest wings! And I want all the other angels to know the angel with the whitest wings and the angel with the blackest wings are…" A yawn breaks his concentration, and it hard to keep his heavily lidded eyes more than half way open. "Meant to be together." His mother smiles again, that half pleased smile, and blows out the light.
"Wait, wait…" He murmurs sleepily as she goes, "What are you going to be?"
"I don't know Abel." She shuts the door behind her quietly, and it is as if she was never there. "I don't know."
In the darkness, he lifts the gleaming black feather up to his eyes. Silhouetted against the dark and snowy window, he can see it: unmarred midnight. The lilac-haired angel shuts his eyes with a content sigh. "I want us all to always be together…"
Kharl sits up in his bed, and though it is impossibly late, he stands and crosses his room to the wide window. The moon is gone; the grounds stretch out impossibly dark before him. For long moment, he watches the snow fall in silence and thinks of dreams that might as well be memories.