+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +
Sarehptar

Theme: 28, Sorrow
Characters: Kharl, Kharl's Master
Pairing: None?
Warnings: None? Could be hints of something? I don't know...
Need to Know Info: Connects to Cloaks chapter ten, but you don't need to know that chapter to read this. XD
Title Provider: Kremlin Dusk (Utada)

Born in a War of Opposite Attraction; it isn't or is it a Natural Conception?

The failure is complete: absolute, bloody and still. For a moment, he stands shaking, not quite willing to believe. The dead bird does not even spasm—it stares up at him with a glassy, betrayed eye and is motionless. The whimper escapes him, slipping serpent-like across his fangs, before he can stop it, and it echoes in the stone corridor, growing faint and frightening as it fades.

"T-Tori-chan…(1)" His own voice seems impossibly distant, coming into his ears like a far away scream. He calls to the stained form again, does not expect an answer, knows the creature is dead. He can smell it: a bitter, burning under-taste to the air that is like lye and grains of dust, spiraling down and choking the breath from his lungs. His pale, delicate fingers dance slowly across the marble tiles, catching on the canals between blocks, furrowing through dust, advancing as white and cold as death. He takes the broken body in his hands, feels the blood and feathers warm (but chilling!) against his bare skin.

"I'm sorry!" he whispers, cupping the remains of the creature in his palms and trembling. "Please, I'm sorry…" Words do not make a difference, he knows—but they should, and one day he will be strong enough that death will not be followed with apologies.

"Who are you talking to?" His master's voice is low and intrigued, no less sultry than it ever is, no less heartless.

"Ah…" He turns to look at the man, swath in gold and navy, all ebony hair and granite grey eyes. "No one," he says, and hurriedly hides the bird behind his back. He knows it's futile to try and keep things from him—the master can see everything from the contents of his soul to distant, tragic future. He waits to see not if the man will notice the creature's blood running through his tiny fingers, but if he will care.

"You killed it," the Alchemist murmurs at last, a fanged half-smile softening his dark features—his pale-haired apprentice lowers his face in shame.

"I didn't know…" Kharl stutters; he hopes to defend himself though he was praised and not accused, "I didn't know it would happen. I didn't mean to hurt it."

The master takes his hand roughly, making no effort to be gentle or to be kind. With slender, clawed fingers, he pries the still feathered body from his apprentice's hands and traps it in his own.

"It's such a plain looking creature. Mortal beings are all so useless." The man smiles then, a glint of conflicting superiority and admiration in his steel eyes. He runs a hand delicately through the younger boy's lilac hair. "A beautiful little songbird like you shouldn't associate with waste..."

"But I—" Kharl snaps his mouth shut and crushes the desperate words before they can cause affront. The grey-eyed youkai stares at him with open curiosity and guarded care.

"Why are you so moved by this insignificant corpse?"

"Because… Because it's my fault. It didn't deserve to die—it makes me sad." He knows the words fall on deaf ears; emotion means nothing to the older man, who sees the world as a series of numbers, of chemicals, of riddles that can always be solved with no need for personal attachment.

"Sad…" the older demon repeats, and there is a far-away look in his eyes.

The lilac-haired boy feels the youki before he knows what he is feeling, and soft grey light that is his master's magic shimmers once, and dies. There is a dull twitter, and the bird –feathers still irreparably stained– hops twice in the larger youkai's hand and then takes flight. The sparrow circles above them, with languid flaps and a new shine to its crimson eyes. It trills once, a youkai sound that resonates inside the smaller boy, and darts through the marble columns toward freedom, becoming in seconds only a speckle of brown in an untainted azure sky.

Kharl takes the steps between them (the long distance that he crosses so often because the other man will never move) and wraps his child's hold around the Alchemist.

"Thank you," he murmurs into the taffeta of his master's cloak, and the cloth keeps the words half in and half out of his mouth. The older demon is silent for a moment, staring at the horizon where the sparrow is already long gone.

"Sadness… such a weakness," he says finally.

"I love you." Kharl uses a gentle smile; pretends to brush his master's words aside. Beneath his façade of nonchalance, sorrow presses hard against his heart.

Translation Note:
(1) - Tori-chan: Literally "bird-chan" or little bird. Same implication as "birdie", but much cutie in Japanese.

Theme 29: Happiness
Zouma's amethyst eye catches Kharl's lilac, and both of them burst into uncontrollable giggles. Ruwalk blinks slowly, more than a little lost.