+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +
Sarehptar
Theme: 38, Abandoned
Characters: Kharl, Reina
Pairing: Hints at something maybe like Kharl/OC? Not really…
Warnings: None
Need to Know Info: This is was a gift fic to my wonderful, wonderful friend Lumikuu. The OC, Reina, is hers. You can actually read Reina's real story here on under the title Mirrors. I changed the character maybe a little bit to fit the story? But she's very fun to write! Thank you for being so lovely Lumi! Also, on another note, in a way, this story could be seen as "the Cloaks chapter that never was"? If you read Cloaks closely, you'll probably notice some things from this theme matching up with early Cloaks background.
Title Provider: Amazing Grace (??)
Amazing Grace, how Sweet the Sound that Saved a Wretch like Me...
He pushes his tiny fingers and sharp claws through the glass as quietly as he can, struggling to watch the street and the window simultaneously. It is late—late enough that the bars have closed and the only people still awake are the homeless. They would not move to stop him, even if they had the strength to.
The glass cracks (too loud for his taste) but the hole is wide enough now, and his hand gropes along the shelf until bleeding fingers brush against a leather cover. With quick and muffled movements he jerks the book through the glass. It is thick and well bound, with gold letters embossed on a dyed-red cover. He cannot read the letters, but he knows the symbol blazoned on the book's face—it is two lines crossed against each other, it is the symbol of the big buildings where they sing in the morning.
"You!" Someone is moving inside the shop now and fear shudders up his spine. He wants to fly but the book is too heavy, so he turns and runs. Behind, the door to the bookstore slams open, golden customer bell twittering in the cold night air. He pounds down the cobblestone street, stealth forgotten, heart pounding in his ears. "COME BACK HERE!"
He is faster than the girl who is following him, but her legs are longer and she seems desperate to catch him. Even with youkai strength, his breathing is ragged as he weaves on aimlessly. There seems no place to hide, and he is afraid to lead her back to his home. The sharp edge of a rock cuts the sole of his bare foot, outlining his steps in blood, but adrenaline pumps as harshly as his heart, and he does not feel it. The girl stops at last, panting and clutching her side.
He hears her hiss as he slides into the maze of alleys that lead to his home, but her words make no sense to him.
X – X – X
It is a nest in the crudest meaning of the term only. He has taken every scrap of material he could from the trash: torn blankets, tattered clothing, broken wicker baskets, planks of wood, yards of string, scratchy feather pillows, sheets of paper, frayed leather tack… It has become a veritable mountain of the dregs of the city, a precariously crafted cave of debris. He has filled it floor to (barely holding) ceiling with all the things he loves. Food, a few days old, peeks from some pockets of the rubbish walls; discarded children's toys litter the lumpy floor; cracked wind charms and dreamcatchers, delicate webs unwinding, clatter as he pushes his way through the ragged sheets draped over the entrance.
He cradles the stolen treasure to his chest before choosing a place for it: nestled between a dirty stuffed bird and a cracked glass globe. It looks as if it was meant to be there, gold-coated words glittering in a light only demon eyes could see.
A footstep clatters on the cobblestones outside and he spins around almost simultaneously.
"What in the—?" It is her. How she followed him he is not sure, but now she is in his territory and he is backed into a corner. Fear and the desire to fight spark and burn and by the time he skitters back out into the alley, he is already losing control. Feathers blossom through the skin of his black, claws scrape against the stones as he stands nearly bent double.
She is at the entrance of the alley, one hand brushing the brick wall to her right. Her starched and dull brown cotton dress drifts around her bare knees as she approaches him. A dark glare mars her stiff brow.
"So you're the one who's been thieving my lady's books!" The words sound like garbled noise to him, but there is something threatening in the tone. He hisses sharply, baring his fangs in a clear display of warning. The girl, whose mahogany hair glints green in the moonlight, ignores the noise and does not slow at all. He knows what humans are capable of, the weapons they are adept at hiding—he is afraid to step toward her and afraid to retreat and lose the only things that are precious to him. The lilac-haired demon stands his ground, filling the air between them with threats in the old tongue, the only language he knows. His wings slide fully free at last to bate, a clear sign of distress and the intention to fight.
It is the feathers that still her finally. It is the wings, blue-white in the night light, that make her gasp.
"An angel…" she sighs, the air chilling her breath to a cloud of silver mist. "Are you an angel?" Honey-colored eyes, black flecked and shadowed in the dark alley, soften. Her voice is gentle now, but he is no less frustrated and no less protective of his home.
She does not turn and leave. The girl takes another step toward him, something like curiosity lighting on her thin face. She lifts a hand, so very slowly, out toward him, as if beckoning to calm some cornered animal.
"Hello," she whispers, in a voice meant to sooth. "Come here." Shifting to the side, he scratches nervously at the cobblestones. His claws leave deep gouges in the rocks. If she takes a step closer I will bite that hand.
The girl sighs again, heavily, and backs away. She gives him something like a wistful look and murmurs more words he doesn't understand, turning away in a swirl of skirt and a shimmer of hair in the moonlight. It is a long time before the demon feels safe enough to crawl back into his nest and sleep, burrowing in the feathery down of torn pillows.
X – X – X
The sun is high above, worming through cracks in the ceiling, when she returns. He feels the jarring presence, notes the thick scent of glue and book pages that precedes her. He tears around the draped doorway, snarling and trilling in the demon's tongue.
"Oh shut up," she barks. He knows what "shut up" means. It's what the mortal people yell when they are angry at one another, the words they shout when they want someone to stop speaking. She has told him to be silent, he knows that much. For a moment, indignation and interest spark inside him—but then she unwraps the package she is carrying, and interest wins out easily.
She has brought him another book. Gingerly, she sets it down on the pavement near her feet, and then sits down herself. The rest of her box-shaped bundle is wrapped in napkins, and she unwinds them slowly. He can smell the heady scent of meat and bread before she is even half through.
The food is fresh, far fresher than the demon has had in many weeks—he has been living on scraps. The hungry looks he is shooting the food, and the book, don't go unnoticed by the girl. She offers a smirk and pats the stones beside her.
"If you want it, you're going to have to come over here and get it."
She doesn't intend to leave. He does almost everything in his power to frighten her away, short of actually attacking her. He learned long ago that attacking one human meant retribution from the rest of them.
"You can't honestly expect me to be afraid of you," she laughs. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks. A good gust of wind could blow you over. For that matter," her nose wrinkles, "you look like you haven't bathed in weeks either." Briefly, he wishes he could understand her. "Just come here you idiot, I'm not going to hurt you." He is very hungry… and the food is getting cold, just sitting there…
She struggles not to laugh at the way he finally approaches her. Just like a bird, she thinks. He comes a few feet and if she even as much as blinks, he goes skittering back, only to dare walking a bit closer the next time around. Finally, when she's tempted to just grab him and sit him down, he comes close enough. She holds her breath as he bends, like a crane, to snatch the food laid out gently on the napkins. For a moment, his eyes meet hers. She is stunned—wavering lilac fills his irises, freckled with lavender. There is something like uncertainty in his eyes, something like dislike, something like curiosity. His gaze is infinitely cold, but there is warmth threatening to pool up, threatening to spill over.
He eats in front of his nest, carefully tearing the meat and bread into small and manageable pieces. He even eats like a bird, she giggles. When the boy has finished, he stares at her, with a calculating look. She can tell that he wants the new book very much.
"Well, come and get it." He can't speak Arinain, she has realized, and so she waves the book, a clear temptation. The angel-boy comes warily toward her and she prays they won't have to go through the same thing all over again. He pulls the leather-bound tome out of her hands and holds it close, as if she might try to take it back. But she just dusts off her skirt, smiles, and leaves him alone again.
X – X – X
He loves books. There were some, when he was very young, in the old demon language. He would read them voraciously, though he remembers being scolded for taking them. He does not quite remember who scolded him—it might have been his mother, but he doesn't really remember having one of those. He loves the way the Arinain writing looks: the delicate curving characters, the pointed dashes, the strong, straight lines. He can not read them, the books he's been taking, but he loves to look at them. He can stare at a page for hours, trying to discern even one intelligible word from the mass of beautifully drawn symbols.
There are pictures in the book she has brought him. At first he can only turn in the pages quickly, searching for the stretching pages of text he is used to. There are pages of just text, but the print is much larger than the other books, and there are rarely more than ten lines together. He turns through it twice before he is satisfied that there are no more words to be shaken from the margins. The pictures start on the second page and he begins his real perusal there.
His laughter is too loud, and the young demon tries desperately to stifle it. If he stirs the other occupants of the adjacent allies, it will mean a lot running. He laughs again and bites his tongue. It is stunning, this book—because he can understand it. The story is somewhat broken, just a collection of painted pictures, but he never imagined that books could be funny.
The next day, she comes again, with a new book.
X – X – X
She teaches him to speak, and then she teaches him to read. She does it carefully, one word at a time, making him pronounce each syllable. At first, he cannot grasp the choppy sounds at all, and blends the characters together into one rolling trill that makes her laugh. But he is, and always has been, a very quick student, and soon his accent is barely noticeable. The softening of some consonants, a few vowels carried for longer than average are the only signs that the human language is not his own. Soon enough, he is reading faster than she is, tearing carnivorously through every book he has ever pulled from the trash or stolen from the store she helps run. She never asks for the books back, but she does, eventually, ask his name.
"Kaaru," he tells her, using the old demon tongue because the sound has no equivalent in the human language.
"Kharl?" She rolls the word around in her mouth, testing it. That's not quite right, he's tempted to tell her, but stays silent. Kharl—it's good enough. He tries the word himself, and thinks he might like having a new name. It just another one of the gifts she has given him.
"Well Kharl," she smiles brightly and sticks her hand out, "my name's Reina." The lilac-haired boy is not quite sure what to do with her hand, which is simply floating there in mid-air. She laughs and snags his hand in her own, shaking it twice.
"What is that for?" Kharl asks, and she rolls her honey eyes, as she often has, at his naivety.
"It's a greeting thing."
"Will become sick if you do that with everyone."
"You will become sick if you do that with everyone," she corrects him. "And besides, I don't shake hands with just anyone."
"I'm special." He smiles as she scoffs.
"You know, for an angel, you're very egotistical." He starts to tell her he is not an angel and stops himself. He knows the human word now, for what he is. Youkai. It is not what she wants to hear.
X – X – X
Otomodachi. He learns the word that describes them from the book called "dictionary" that she has brought him. The first time he says it to her, Reina blinks for a few seconds and gives him the biggest smile he has ever seen. That night, she sneaks him out of the alleys and into the bookstore's bathroom, where, after a battle of wills and water, she forces him into a tub of freezing water and harsh lye soap, clothes and all.
The tub turns black and she finds, under all that grime, he's very, very pale. And his hair is not the grey she thought it was, but a lilac-white that plumes up as he shakes the water from it and doesn't fall flat again, even when it dries. She makes him scrub his rather ragged clothes until most of the old stains are gone. There are patches of blood that won't come out no matter how hard he tries.
"Now don't get dirty again," Reina scolds with a smile, "I can't have any friend of mine looking like a ruffian."
X – X – X
She comes to visit almost every day, bringing some new book and warm lunch. Kharl's library has grown so much that books are now being stacked in the alley.
"Look what I've got this time!" The girl's vibrant voice leeks into the alley before she even rounds the corner, and she flails the book about so quickly he can't even catch the title. "It's Shelley's new—" He's snatched it before she can finish.
"What's it about?" His nose is already buried in the pulpy pages.
"Very tragic actually." Reina runs a hand through her thick brown hair. She always does that when thinking about things that have disturbed her. "It's about a monster who's been abandoned by his creator. The monster struggles so hard to fit in with the humans, but they shun him at every turn."
His eyes freeze on the page.
"The monster eventually finds one young girl who doesn't turn him away. She's blind, so she can't see how hideous the monster really is, but…"
"How does it end?" He shuts the book; something tightens in his throat.
"The monster dies. The humans burn him alive."
Kharl has never before encountered a book he doesn't want to read. He sets it aside.
"What's wrong?" Honey-colored eyes dart between him and the discarded tome.
"Nothing." His smile is cold. "What did you bring for lunch?"
"You leech!" she growls, but concern is barely concealed in her creased brow and tiny frown.
X – X – X
The next time she comes, Reina does not bring him a book. She brings him a box, wrapped in sheer gauze. When he takes it from her, her cheeks are pink and her smile wavering. It is ebony wood, polished to shining, and he opens it gingerly, careful not to nick the surface with his slender claws.
Music, slow and steady, pours from it. Somewhere in the back of head, the melody seems familiar. In the indented bottom of the box, a porcelain dove turns gently around.
"I saved up for it," she runs her fingers nervously through the strand of mahogany hair that falls over her shoulder. "It reminded me of you."
"Thank you." It is better than any book she has ever brought him.
"But," she sighs, "I can't stay today. My lady's daughter found out I've been leaving the store during lunch and she's furious with me."
It is only after Reina is gone, in a swirl of brown cotton, that he can sense the second presence. It is undeniably human, weak and rotten. Something about it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His claws flex to points; he can feel his wings threatening to break free. Then she steps around the corner of the alley: a tall, older girl in elegant emerald velvet. Her long hair is red, unnaturally ruby, and her green-grey eyes dance with malicious delight.
"So you are him then," her thin-lipped sneer sets his fangs on edge, "Reina's 'Angel'." She stalks toward him, boot heels scraping on the stones. "She talks about you all the time when she thinks no one is listening." Only the fact that Reina owes allegiance to this woman keeps him from tearing the red smile off her pale face.
The girl pauses to inspect, with a disdainful eye, the stack of books nearest to her.
"Frankenstein?" She laughs as she turns it over her hands. "How very ironic." He wants to knock the story away, tear her hand off maybe… As if frozen, he cannot move an inch. "Unlike naïve little Reina, I know exactly what you are. Demon. You reek of it." The cold drawl of her voice sends shivers down his spine.
Then, serpent-like, she slithers back, throwing the book at his feet. "Have you read it?" She smiles when the only answer he gives is a snarl. "All good stories end the same way you know—the monster gets exactly what he deserves." In a flash of blood red and decay green she disappears again into the maze of the alleys.
X – X – X
Reina does not come again for days, and when she finally returns, it is in the dead of a frigid night with fear in her eyes and trembling throughout her thin body.
"Kharl," her voice is like a quiet scream, "Kharl!" He meets her half-way down the alley, the music box he had been winding trapped in his hands. "I didn't know! I didn't know! She followed me and she told them! She told them lies and now…" Her words are a staggered rush that he can barely understand. Terror tickles the back of his mind, seemingly without reason. "You have to get away from here!" Her pale hand fists in his shirt. "They're co—"
The pounding of footsteps and the screech of metal on stone rips through her words. The sound echoes up from both the branching alleyways, closer with each moment. Her rapid breathing fills the air between them with silver haze, and there is no way to escape. She cannot fly. He spends a moment too long deliberating—bodies rip through the night and flood his alley.
Their armor and their scowls glint in the light of blazing torches, and he throws Reina behind his white wings, spread like a shield. He is tiny compared to these men, barely as high as their waists draped in royal green and gold sashes.
"That is him." He hears a familiar serpentine drawl. "The demon that stole away my servant and terrorized our store."
"You're wrong!" Reina shouts, "Kharl never meant to cause any harm!"
"Burn them both!" a man cries. "The girl's a sympathizer!" The call pulses through them like a raucous wave and the guards rush to throw their torches in among the books. White smoke begins to rise, mixing with the mists of their breaths. Licking red flames flicker off the multitude of swords, raised and waiting for him to rush toward an escape.
He pushes Reina back from the fire, irony making his stomach turn. The blaze drips along the books like liquid, rolling and turning the pages to ash in seconds. It winds past them when there is no longer any room to back away, and swallows the nest in seconds, dying the alley a sickly orange. He is not strong enough to carry her and the fire is inching closer. By the flame or by their swords, we're going to die.
The men's faces are a cacophony of sneers and open hatred, and the words "monster" and "rot in hell" flood the air as thickly as the smoke.
"Kharl," Reina coughs into the down of his wing, "you should fly away."
"I can't lift you." Beads of sweat form on his skin and the heat sears his hands and cheeks.
"Go by yourself!" She coughs again, delicate human lungs screaming as she breathes in the haze.
"Why would I do that?" He wants to turn to look at her, but he watches the guards for any sign of movement.
"You idiot!" she cries suddenly, pushing him away from her with all the strength she can muster. "Fly away, now! I never want to see you here again!"
There are crystalline tears in her honey eyes and blood on the lip she has bitten through, and he does not understand. "Get away…" She wants to scream but smoke has burnt her throat. "Please… get away…" There is something like rage in her watery eyes, and something like desperation. The word "no" refuses to leave his mouth and he feels as if he might really die, looking at her fierce and frightened face in the flickering light of the burning books.
He goes.
He leaps over the flames and scales the wall, the claws of his free hand sinking deeply and painfully into brick. He bounds across the roof, hearing the shouts of the men below. More than a few arrows rent the air around him, clattering on the bricks. The men's crashing footsteps follow him, but he whips over the buildings and loses them easily to the alleys and the winding streets.
For a long while he does not stop—because if he stops, it will be the truth that catches him. He abandoned her. He was alone again.
Exhaustion bites into his mind, his lungs and his fragile wings as the adrenaline fades, and he falls weakly in the muddy dirt road. Unwilling still to halt, he staggers on, leaving the human houses behind. The moon, half obscured by clouds, seems to be mocking him. It is so far above all his despair.
There are voices in the night, a soothing distant chorus, and he can see the golden shine of lights farther down the road.
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
we have already come…
The gate of the building is wide flung; the glow of the windows cast over the stone steps seems somehow welcoming. He climbs them wearily and collapses, turning to watch the pillar of smoke rising in the grey midnight sky.
It's all wrong, he thinks. The monster is supposed to die, not the girl. He runs his burnt hands over the music box, ebony and blue in the moonlight. It is the only thing left he realizes as he watches the ashes of everything that was precious to him drift through the black air and fade into nothing.
He winds the music box and is amazed as its solemn melody blends flawlessly with the music that hums through the building at his back. It is the same song and he wishes he could cry.
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
and grace will lead me home…
"What is a beautiful songbird like you doing here in the cold?"
Kharl's eyes dart upward in fear. There is a man there, in the shadows, talking to him in the old demon tongue. How did I not sense him?
"I did not want you to sense me." The smile on the black-haired demon's face is smooth and benevolent as he crosses the distance between him. Dark youki leeks into Kharl's senses, filling his mind and pressing hard against his skull. The power overwhelms him instantly, a crushing weight that makes him shudder uncontrollably. Then it is gone again in a moment, hidden deep within the slender grey-eyed demon towering over him.
The man bends and catches the boy's face in his hand. For a long moment, he inspects as if considering whether or not to buy something in the market. He steps back at last.
"Come with me." It is a demand, not a question. Watching the distant smoke fade, the child does not mind.
When the man turns to walk away, the younger demon follows silently, without stopping to look behind.
"What is your name?" the black-haired youkai asks finally.
"Kharl." He says it in the human tongue. Kharl is who he has become.
Theme 39: Dreams
When, exactly, did pop-culture deem is necessary for boys to wear stilettos?