+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +
Sarehptar
Theme: 11, Memory
Characters: Kharl, Rath (Ruin)
Pairing: None
Warnings: Traditional Alchemical vocabulary and pointless cuteness.
Need to Know Info: "Ruin" is the name Kharl gave to Rath before they were separated, in Cloaks. Ruin is elvish for "red flame".
Title Provider: Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)
Simple Thing, Where have You Gone? If You Have a Minute, Why Don't We Go...
"Father! Father!" The Alchemist looks up from his notes just in time. A black-clad blur rips through the doorway and slams into the taller man with almost enough force to knock him off the chair—and more than enough force to send the painstakingly written pages of notes spiraling uselessly all over the floor.
"Yes, Ruin?" Kharl moves the small boy to his knees, smiling despite having his week's work reduced to chaos and clutter. It does not matter to the older of the two, but Ruin blinks crimson eyes at the mess his entrance had made, and his excited posture slumps. The little shoulders drop weakly, and his smile dissolves like it had never been there to begin with.
"I ruined it again. I'm sorry Chichi-ue." As if to make up for the smile they had lost, the Alchemist grins only more sweetly, ruffling his son's dark hair with a pale hand.
"Will you pick them up for me?" Ruin nods eagerly, leaping from his father's hold, and gathering the papers with all haste and care, watching so he will not smudge the ink or crease the edges.
"I could…I could put them back in order," he suggests, a hopeful glint flashing in his wide red eyes.
"Can you?" Kharl is surprised, because he knows too well that Ruin has never taken an interest in Alchemy, can barely sit still through his lessons.
"I can," he insists, and his eyebrows slip into a determined furrow. Whether he can or not, Kharl knows there is no persuading him otherwise now. The Alchemist nods and lets the boy return to his lap, stack of papers almost too thick for his tiny hands. Peering over the edge of the high table with only a little difficulty, the dark-haired boy spreads the parchment pieces delicately and begins to read. Together, a pair of lilac eyes and a pair of crimson scan the symbols with the look of utmost concentration.
"I know!" The small boy grins brightly up at his father. "It has to be this one!" He waves a piece energetically.
"Why?"
"Because you said the Red King has one symbol but is made of two parts, and right here," he waves an errant finger at the page, "the chemical structure changes from two symbols, um… Mercury and…"
"Sulfur."
"Right. And Mercury and Sulfur make Cinnabar."
"The Red King." Though the younger demon hates it, Kharl ruffles his hair again. "Were you actually listening to me all this time Ruin?"
"Uh, most of the time?" His sheepish smile is endearing, and the Alchemist smiles too. He feels that he is always smiling now. "Okay, I'm going to do it all!" The boy turns back to the papers with a furious determination. He keeps the promise he has made, and sets the pages one after another.
"The Virgo from this page goes with the one I just had, right? Because you're distilling the Hydrogen Nitride."
"Correct." Kharl can't help being impressed.
"And, this one… Hematite is a magnetic stone, which explains the Scorpio with the iron ore at the bottom of this page. And this one…" The boy hesitates a moment, staring at the symbols as if they might give him something more to work with. "Quicksilver should be followed by Luna right?"
"No," the older demon lifts the paper from Ruin's hand and selects one of the few left on tabletop. "Quicksilver is followed by Sol, and proceeds from Luna."
"What, why?" The boy looks for a moment as if he might argue the situation of the defining symbols, and there is a pout evident on his face.
"It takes both heat and cold to manage Quicksilver, it's true, but the definition of the substance must begin with the ruling symbol. In this case, it must be Luna, the ruling sign for silver."
"But Quicksilver isn't made of silver at all! It's only Mercury!"
"Well, I didn't make the rules." Ruin shoots him a disbelieving glare that brings a chuckle bubbling up from inside his father. The boy had always found it impossible to believe that such a strange science had existed before Kharl had been an Alchemist.
At last, only one paper remains, and Ruin's scarlet eyes scan it just to say he has read it all. "Chichi-ue… What's this symbol?" He points to the last and largest mark on the page, a sideways cross and circle.
"The symbol for soul."
"What is this spell Father? It's not gold or anything like that..."
"It's for creating demons." The little boy goes quiet, because he knows, knows that a long time ago he was just symbols on a paper like this, just a stack of notes that a disinterested hand could have written.
"Not demons like me, right?" His father smiles, a different sort of smile that has sadness in it too. He holds the little boy close for moment, in an embrace that is warm and cold and as ephemeral as Quicksilver.
"Never like you. There could only ever be one Ruin," Kharl murmurs. The dark-haired boy breathes out gently, the only sign that something inside him needed reassurance. "Now," the Alchemist rests his head on his son's and the boy giggles quietly, "you had a reason for coming to see me before all this began, didn't you?"
"Yeah, yeah!" He cheers, jumping free of his father's hold. "Today is that day! You promised you would teach me to fly today!"
"Today, I said?"
"Yes, you said today and you forgot!" The indignant look in his scarlet eyes is oddly adorable.
"You can forgive me, right?"
"Will you really teach me?" Ruin has already undone the spell and freed his small black wings.
"I wouldn't lie to you." Kharl mirrors his son with a smile and flutter of immaculate feathers. For a moment, Ruin stares, wondering if someday he will be so perfectly made, with wings like an angel.
Then he takes his father's hand and pulls, pulls him from the dusty library and into the sun, into the wind.