Here is yet another new fic for you, courtesy of moi and Algebra class… why is it that my best fics come when I am in the middle of Algebra and am not doing my work like I’m supposed to? ::sigh:: A mystery, I guess. Well, enjoy it… I’m working hard on it. (Or hardly working…) I think I may finish this one fairly quickly: I like the idea that came to me. This whole prologue is a flashback. Prologue… ohmigod, I’ve never written a fic that needed one before! Kuso, this could be good! ::grin:: Just to let you know, this has nothing to do with my story “Shinigami.” Why is Death a girl in both stories? I think that if Death were personified, it would be a girl. Just my opinion. On with the fic!
Note: /flashback/ {{thoughts}}
/The boy looked up, uncertain. She smiled as she approached, walking barefoot through the slime that coated the ground so thickly yet did not touch her porcelain skin or the heavy black velvet skirts that swished around her ankles at each step. Green eyes locked with those of the little boy.
“Hello,” she whispered, her voice as soft as a breeze that did not blow here. He could see her, though she was invisible: that screamed as loudly as his eyes did that he was indeed the one she was to protect for the duration of his natural lifetime, eventually to be replaced by him. A little afraid, true… but to be expected, especially after the metamorphosis she had undergone and the way his hand had passed right through her body and clothes in his pick pocketing attempt. Quite understandable. “Hello, little one.”
He backed away, and no wonder. As his shoulder blades hit the wall at the end of the alleyway she heard him swearing in multiple languages for getting himself into this sort of predicament to begin with. She tried again, smiling kindly and kneeling to put herself at eye level with the boy. {{I really don’t have any kind of experience with this, though…}}
“Come here. I’m not going to hurt you.” He looked to be about five years old, regarding her with a pair of skeptical eyes that looked like those of the shell-shocked fifty-year-old war veterans she had had to come for such a short few centuries before… a case that, in billions of years among billions of planets, she had never encountered. A mere child… Normally at this age they would bend easily, could accept her: it would not be nearly so easy with this child whose dreams were already shattered beyond repair. He looked up uneasily and she laughing in a tinkling of silver bells. Mentally she kicked herself for not remembering about that, and the source of his unease disappeared. She was visible to anyone who looked now, but she was still invulnerable. The boy started back, eyes wide, definitely scared now.
“Come here, child. I’m not mad at you, and I’m not going to harm you, and I’m not going to let anyone else harm you. I promise. Do you understand?” The little boy nodded silently and slowly came to her waiting arms, tensed to spring away at the least sign of attack. Enfolding his slight body against hers and knowing he could feel her chill burning like ice against his skin, she stretched out with her own essence to touch his… yes. This was him: he knew who she was and welcomed her: it was just that his mind and body refused to believe. He stretched out to meet her, and she threaded herself into the fabric that made him, smiling to herself. Loose, now: he would not begin to grow into her powers for much longer, yet irrevocable all the same. If she tried to untangle herself from him now it would destroy him utterly and forever as though she had touched him with her weapon, something she hesitated to do. As he did grow into her, he would gain her knowledge and in the meantime she was his guardian.
“Who are you?” the boy asked, shaken, whispering into her shoulder. {{What are you?}} followed immediately in his mind, unspoken, yet it drew a warm chuckle from her. That chuckle stopped as she sensed and then saw six presences around her and the boy. Evil intents oozed from them: she considered a moment, then made her decision. Her silver scythe materialized from nowhere, a beautiful piece of work with a delicately S-shaped handle and an edge so sharp as to split the sharpest razor edgewise. Normally it rendered her invisible, but on occasion she let her will dominate the weapon and she remained as she was, seen by the gang as she stood, dropped into a fighting stance with the curved handle she knew so well and hated so much caressed by and caressing her soft palms, eyes flashing green fire. They backed away, unnerved by the black-haired girl, but it was too late. Her mind was made up: she would fight this once for her new charge.
Faster than thought, she advanced: one fluid, reaching, sweeping motion touched all of them. She was not the only one who heard their screams of purest agony as the very fabrics of their beings caught in a flash-fire hotter than any star, but both she and the boy watched as the bodies fell almost as one, dead before they even started to fall, untouched and unmarked yet undone with a finality that could never be reversed in all of eternity.
She turned back to the nameless boy who stared back at her. {{And what did I just get myself into?}} she heard him thinking, knowing he saw the battle-gleam in her dark green eyes. Still, she allowed one more soft smile to touch her lips.
“You know who I am now, what I am…” He nodded, removing his hands from his ears. Coming back to her as she picked him up as settled him on her hip, he whispered it into her ear.
“Yes, my child. I am Shinigami.” {{And you are my child now, the child I never had. I will always be here for you.}}/
Whew! TBC…