Carry the Weight A Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle vignette Sephy There were bells. They echo in his mind, sonorous and mournful, a hollowing silence following on the heels of each thick ring, the clash of metal on metal almost seeming to vibrate against his ear. In the caves, it's the echo that matters, the sound picking up through the ceiling and the stone rafters, bouncing along the stalactites, overpowering the steady downward drip of calcium and water. The bones of the earth were deep here, laid out in the deepest reds and grays, tipped off with yellow and sometimes the walls are alive, glowing green in the darkest of pits, soft and scratchy moss scraping against his wings as he glides past, further and deeper in still. For anyone else, it would be hard to navigate this place, the sudden twist of the walls, narrowing and then expanding out at dizzying angles, the steep drops that could only be compensated for through foreknowledge and warning. Kamui knew the ways and the delves of the earth, the feel of heated air from far beneath baking outward, warming him as he passed further into silence. It was the bells that made the difference, that guided him home. The slow drag of sound that made even the walls shiver. His people believed that those bells had been a gift from the ancients, from the ones now long gone -- either dead or departed and thus they were hidden, shrouded in mystery and story, passed down between the great families. In his recollection no one had ever seen them, not and remained to tell the tale. Those who had were given up, taken in service of the Great Sound, sometimes to watch and keep the secrets and sometimes -- The world trembled on the weight of sometimes, the hoarse screams that died before this sound, greater than all others, knelling, singing all the Dark Wings home. The bells existed though he had never seen them, though he had only sound and myth to tell him they were real at all. They had to or else everything that was passed down, everything that was believed by the smallest child to the oldest grandmother was meaningless. The fabric of their lives was meaningless. It was not something to be understood or shared. Not even amongst themselves and especially not in the open where the Angels might hear tales of it and come amongst them as they had in days long past, the uneasy peace erupting into open war. There were some who wanted that. Some who felt that rather than the blood of the faithful, it was the blood of the martyred that should be given over, drenched and mixed with the blood of the enemy. Kamui had never understood how or why the Angels and Dark Wings were enemies, only that it hadn't mattered. At least not to him and certainly not in the face of Kotori's warm smile. *** "Steady." There are hands at the base of his spine, another on his shoulders and they're turning him with as much care as can be managed, Kamui whimpering as the heat at the base of his left wing flared again, molten sparks beneath the skin, seeming to travel from nerve to the very tips of the wing. He's lying on his stomach now, awake again, head caught and he vomits. The sensation is also hot, searing and sticky, his mouth sour and rotten feeling. His head is boiling, throbbing with each beat of his heart, rapid breaths scouring his lungs until they feel dry, almost cracked. He's burning from the inside out, skin dry and the center of that conflagration is made clear once more as he's set on his stomach, the ground beneath him cool, causing him to shiver which in turn makes him jerk again, wings attempting to flare and he would scream only he's too busy throwing up again. "Oh gross. Oh God, oh-- Hey! He just threw up on my skirt!" The fingers holding up his face waver as if they were going to drop him and Kamui braces himself for that, knowing there's no way he's got the strength to stop the downward pull of gravity, already flinching with the imagined impact of his face with the ground. "Hokuto! Don't drop his head!" "Subaru, he threw up on me. Do you know how much this skirt cost me? Hell, I don't even remember what world I picked it up on and he -- Oh eww. Subaru! Make him stop it right now." "And I'm supposed to do this how?" "I don't care but … Ack! Not my shoes. Subaru, you'd better save my shoes or I'll pound you!" "Hokuto," A weary note creeps into that voice, one of two Kamui keeps hearing every time he slides back into consciousness, into the world and the agony that goes along with it. It's low and sweet though definitely male and easier on his ears than it's female counterpart. This voice, the Subaru voice, sounds more than a little long suffering and somehow Kamui pieces together that it's Subaru's hands at the base of his spine, gently probing as they sweep upward, searching and searching until -- There is no word for it. The pain doesn't explode. Instead it turns inward after the initial outward spike, those heated nerve endings seeming to melt. He flails, arms moving as if they have their own will, striking against something smooth and curved and there's an outraged squawk that follows. Those hands withdraw and someone squeezes his shoulder, probably in an attempt to be comforting but it's just one more sensation in a smoldering sea, the wreck of his body pitched and dissolving into near blinding pain. "Subaru --" The Hokuto voice sounds unusually subdued and he wonders at that, at what could wring that from her. The silence stretches out and Kamui is almost convinced he's drifted out again, floating on his torment and waiting for the next sharp call to wrench him back into waking again. He starts therefore when lips touch his ear, low and knelling across his senses like the Great Bell, demanding he focus on it whether he wills it or not. "Your wing is broken. I'm going to have to push it back into place and then set it. Do you understand? Kamui sucks in another arid breath and nods, regretting it as his head pulses with the movement, feeling like so much sloshing fluid bubbling around a paper thin container of skin. Cool fingers touch his cheek and he wonders at the ice of them, wanting their winter and surprised it doesn't melt against him. "I'm going to move you forward a little," The Subaru voice continues, "Into Hokuto's lap. You can hold onto her if you like. Isn't that right, Hokuto?" "I suppose," Comes the grudging reply. "You're not going to throw up again, are you?" "Hokuto!" "What? Like I'm the only one wondering." Subaru snorts and there's an odd sense of displacement there, as if something is missing, crucial and vital and Kamui can't put his finger on it. He wishes he could lift his head, could do anything more than lie here as he's tugged forward, frigid hands under his arms until he's lying across something -- Hokuto's legs he supposes and he wishes desperately he could apologize. For being sick. For being broken. For existing. Maybe because he knows there's no way to apologize to Kotori now, for destroying her life and letting it be destroyed after promising to protect her. Kamui closes wet eyes, feeling tears squeeze out from behind his lids, plop by plop, dripping off his face and onto the fabric beneath them. There's something unfair and humiliating in this, in being shattered and exposed in front of strangers, cut to the quick and unable to do much more than lie here, helpless as a child and hope for some mercy. Arms slide around his neck and shoulders, almost ginger, the caress of nails against his scalp reminding him once more of what he'd lost, of Kotori and the way her hands were long and white, almost translucent when she held them up to the light. The sun hadn't shone around Kotori but almost through her, filling her up, like a glass held up, refracting and reflecting all it saw. He remembers her flying just above him, leaning down as they winged through the skies together, fingers skimming, almost touching. Almost. But something had always held him back. It doesn't matter now anyway. Whatever he might have said, whatever he might have felt or did, is as dead as she is, stillborn as her blood splattered against those shining flagstones, cut down by her brother's sword. "It's almost sunset," Hokuto's voice is near inaudible when she speaks again, dry and dusty, but Kamui feels it, the rise of expectation, a current of tension he hadn't even realized was there, as if time had stopped and was waiting to begin again. He wonders why Subaru is delaying, realizing he's already steeled himself, having shifted enough to wrap his arms around the slender waist his face is pressing against, the pain scattered now, flaring in and out, like candle light and he realizes it's dim here. Somehow it hadn't impressed on him before now but it's the play of shadow on the floor around a bending metal stalk, the pungent scent of burning despite the weak lighting that jogs his muzzy senses. This is familiar, lying across a soft lap, fevered and wounded, soothing fingers picking over his hair and over his cheeks. Kamui lets go of a soft sound, coveting that dry cool, wishing for something to break this arid stalemate. Similar hands are sliding over his shoulders and he tries not to flinch up, knowing what's coming, even as the arms around him tighten. "Ready?" The words aren't for him, he knows they aren't but he shuts his eyes again, another tear slipping free as one hand remains on his shoulder, the other travelling lower until -- He doesn't scream. There isn't time for that. Just the cresting of agony and the dark slams down again. *** When Kamui was very young, his mother disappeared. The day began no differently than any other, tolled into waking by the bells that they kept their lives by, turning in his pallet to watch her as she bustled around the nook of their home, carefully stacking baskets and jars as she did every morning. His mother had always been meticulous about that, as if it mattered that she didn't have the primrose in the spot where it had been the morning before or if the water cress from the deepening caves was not pressed and put away, always wrinkling her nose as the musty pungency of those damp leaves as she stripped them. From there, she moved to tend those dying embers of the fire, half-climbing up to clear out the tiny hole drilled into the ceiling to let smoke out into another cavern, putting a pot over the fire, the slow bubble of spice and salts forming the basis of a golden stew that poured down the throat. It was his habit to watch her, curled up on himself, one hand under his head, smiling as she hummed and muttered to herself. His mother had been the only thing between him and the world, a shield he would miss later on, and though he had never known who fathered him, he had never felt the lack with her around. Not when she was so willing to play with him and sing to him, not when she taught him to read, her long hair falling forward and brushing his face, and not when she snuggled and kissed him good-night. He had never needed anyone else, content to not stray beyond the places she had shown him, beyond their cramped home so far from the others of their tribe. Sometimes…sometimes he'd wake to find her watching him, paused in the cleaning of the room, dark eyes almost sad and though they never spoke of it, he wondered about it, about what it meant, if he had done something to hurt her. It never occurred to him that it wasn't he who was hurting her but rather her who was going to hurt him. In the deepest, most fundamental way possible. He remembered that night. She'd been more playful and clingy than usual, holding him in her lap and speaking in low, hushed tones in front of the fire, as if she was bursting to talk, at times almost shaking him back into waking. But it hadn't been enough and some time in that long night, he'd fallen, called back into waking by the sonorous calm of the bells. But the fire had gone out. *** Kamui screams now, awake again, the sound echoing just as that morning bell had long ago, the mourning keen of a child echoed therein, hearing himself again, all of seven summers, sitting at the entrance of their home, waiting. She had gone out. She had been called away. Or perhaps she was taking a walk as she sometimes did when she got antsy. He sat there for almost two days before the elders came, opening his hands and placing in it a rope of coiled brown. Hair. Her hair, the ends brutally cut, sticky and stiff at the ends. And Kamui knew, even before he looked into the lined, cold faces that gazed down upon him, what it meant. He knew when the bells tolled again, wet and alive with song. There those who were given up, taken in service of the Great Sound, sometimes to watch and keep the secrets and sometimes -- Sometimes… No one knew why or how they were chosen, only that they were, and tears would only shame those who had willingly made the sacrifice, who had kept through their death the fabric of their world, their beliefs, stitched and intact. But what did that matter to a little boy? What did it matter to him? Was the entire world worth that realization of mortality, safety and happiness ripped away, not a boy but a dependent now, dependent on the kindness of those who had robbed him in the first place? Someone is singing to him now, a low croon without words, caressing his face. There's something -- wrong with his back, with his wings, and he scrabbles, trying to move and unable to do more than choke, sobbing as lips touch the top of his head, the gesture a familiar one, comforting and he cleaves to it, to this feeling. Mother. Mother, come back. Kotori… Kotori,, please. Don't leave, please don't leave. The wound is raw, it is open and there is no scabbing. His hatred and his anguish are the same now as they were then. The pain makes that clear, it makes it clean. The pain makes everything clear just as it always has. The pain means he's still alive, forever left behind. *** And in the end, pain has always been what was left. That and living. It hadn't even crossed his mind when his mother had left to give up, to just lay down in the spot where she had for so many nights, and not move again. The thought had never occurred to him. Maybe because he had been too young to really understand or maybe because he wasn't, as the Elders had and would point out one too many times in the intervening years, that dutiful a son. Maybe it was because he hadn't seen what point his death would have. Living was punishment enough. And Kamui deserved to be punished. Too much so for him to cheat it with such a clean evasion. Living -- no, he hadn't lived in the caves. In the caves, he'd been buried. Stifled. Given a role in a rigid, inflexible society that disapproved of his existence on general principle, disliking what they saw as haughty disobedience and scorn. They hated him for being dependant, for having to help raise and care for him, for making him more than just a bastard child. And they hated him even more because he hated them, because he could not forgive them for what they took and for what he suspected they had taken before that. There was nothing in the caves but tradition, weighed down with the inertia of centuries. The bells chimed onward but it wasn't anything but the song of the grave, a threnody of static, unfulfilled life. Nothing changed, nothing moved forward. Outside, the seasons changed, years went past, but in there … in there, they lived as if things were still in that mythic time of legend, where his people were strong, where they were powerful and with the gods on their side as they roamed. Before the Angels had come to their land and chased them deeper in, instilling a sense of paranoid fear of -- everything. Outsiders, changes, and the world without. There was even a sect of Dark Wings who refused to leave the earth at all, who refused to look upon the sun and the air above, delving deeper into the ground. No one went out much anymore, not alone and not without good reason. The Angels controlled the skies outside and the Dark Wings in turn lived in the mountains and the low lying valleys, content with their realm and fearing the devastation of another war, songs of which were still sung. But Kamui had seen the sun. Once. Very long ago when his mother had still been there to hold his hand. She'd brought him to the edge of clan territory, to the mouth of the caverns leading above and he'd looked up, having to turn his face away at first, blinded. It was only when his mother cautioned him not to look directly at the glowing ball that his eyes had adjusted, beginning to pick out the faint specks of blue and white surrounding it, the fluff of clouds drifting past. He'd seen the sun and then the moon, creeping back later and taken aback by the sharp changes. There were days when he'd snuck away, ostensibly to play but in reality finding a seat and just watching the shift of light above his head, over the trickle of water from the walls, always finding something new. Birds had been a frightening experience until he'd realized that they weren't an Angelic scouting party swooping down to murder a hapless Dark Wing child but just a flock flying southward. Kamui had seen the sun and having seen the sun, it had never been enough. The caves had never been enough. Maybe if they had, he could have lived with tradition, with the loss of his mother. And in living with that, he could have been dead while living, too. And Kotori would still have been alive too, winging through the heavens as if that was where she'd always meant to be. *** "Subaru, we're losing --" "-- we're not." "He's not breathing --" Something slaps him across the face, his lips numbed as his head seems to roll, brain rattling around like so many scattered stones. It hurts, more so than it should and there's a bitten off curse. He's cold now, cold where he'd been so hot before, sinking even as someone lifts his head. Kamui tries to crack his lids, a swim of colors greeting him, seen through a thin film. Everything feels remote now, distant, and there's shouting but he can't bring himself to care. The fire is going out again but he can't rouse himself to cross the floor of the cave to strike it back to life. What's the point of it anyway? There's nothing left waiting for him. Mother. Kotori. Hope and despair unravel and in the end, he's stripped of even those comforts. There's nothing left but the waiting, for the inevitable chill of ash to creep in and coat him in silence. "This isn't the way it should be." The words are chipped and they burn against him as he's slapped again but there's nothing there. No fuel, no spark. And then … all at once … there is. Kamui gasps, jolting as something scalds his lips, fingers holding them open. It boils him, burning like pitch as it pours down his throat. A gulp, then two but it's enough to reawaken his body, to reconnect those wires that somehow gotten submerged and oh it hurts. It hurts so much. He would scream but all that's coming is a choked gargle, eyes flying open and for one perfect second he can see. Too pale skin, like those old marble statues in the Great Hall, jewel set eyes the color of a sea of grass and shaggy soft black hair, a raven's wing in hue. The expression is grimly set, eyes worried and then aware that Kamui is seeing, seeing truly for the first time. The mouth opens and he fades again, sizzling in his own private hell of physical sensation and shut down, catching only some of it. "I've got you. Don't be af --" *** "I've got you, Kamui! I've got you!" Kamui laughed as he twirled in mid-air, wings arching outward to catch the air as he dived, Kotori squealing as that upends her, turning with him thanks to their joined hands. There's something freeing in this, in being able to play and laugh, tugging Kotori along with him and watching her hair float around her, golden waves against the brightest summer blue, dress almost translucent as she swung over his head, framed by the sun and his breath caught, watching it halo around her. She seemed to sense he was watching her and her smile quieted, gentle and welcoming, holding out her other hand and he took it. There was freedom in this too, in knowing that someone cared, someone cared if he lived or he died. Someone would miss him if he didn't show up at the appointed time and would mourn him if he were to go missing. Kotori depended on him and Kamui found he depended on her more with each passing day. The time spent in the caves never seemed so nightmarish, so dark as they did at these moments. Being here with Kotori, with someone who cared, this was living. This was being able to breathe and feel again. He hadn't felt anything like this since his mother had left and it wasn't something he wanted to let go. He didn't want to be alive and dead anymore. Better to be one or the other, better to be anything than stagnant. "Kamui?" He watched her for a moment, the stirring of the breeze through her hair and the pearlescent feathers of her wings, chest aching and he paused, her blue eyes widening. It's not part of the script, it's not what happened but it's something that he had to say, that he never got to -- Grasping her hand, Kamui bowed his head, "I'm sorry, Kotori." He can't bring himself to look again, knowing that it won't be her, it won't be anything but that awful, powerless moment. Gold upon stone and so much blood -- "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry that --" It wasn't me, that I can't be with you in this. That I can't let go. Not yet. And that I can't forgive myself. Because I know that's what you would have wanted. *** Everything is dark when he wakes up but that's nothing new. Neither is the sound of chimes ringing and singing at him and for one moment, Kamui forgets everything. Then he tries to sit up, the ground beneath him cold against his stomach, harder than usual, and his face feels sticky, sweaty and almost glued to his tingling arm. He lifts his face and gasps as that jars his back. The pain is -- better, manageable but it's still there. It's present and sharp and it tells him that he's alive. He's alive. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen. "Hello." The voice is soft, uncertain and he balances there, palms against the -- no, it's not ground. He has to squint but he can just make out the stones beneath his splayed fingers. Lifting his head is not so much a chore now, even if he does feel as though he's tottering, the world threatening to upend itself, his equilibrium askew. Kamui follows the sound of that greeting, eyes scanning until he thinks he's found the right direction, squinting until he can make out a shape within the dimness, a glint of pale surfacing and he finds he can hear faint movement if he concentrates. "Are you hungry?" Kamui keeps a wary eye on that spot, on the outline of another person as he tests himself, trying not to fall flat on his face as he grits his teeth, straightening himself bit by bit. He turns his neck with ginger care, letting his shoulders roll and there seems to be no damage there. The juncture of wings and shoulder is aching but no more than that, a throb of dulled sensation. He shies away from the damaged wing, attempting to test the other and blinks when nothing happens, trying to peer over his shoulder and wincing as he does so, resting a hand against his arm. "I had to tie your wings down. You beat Hokuto with one of them earlier when you were --" His companion breaks off, voice turning slightly rueful, "Not that I suppose that matters to you. Or you know, the fact that I'm trying to talk to you." Ignoring that, Kamui shifts into an almost sitting position, hunched on his knees and he gives himself a careful once over, poking at the bandaging around his midsection, white strips wrapped tightly around him, glowing faintly in the darkness. The leathery tips of his wings are brushing against his legs but it's not uncomfortable and given that his own people would either have let him die or crippled him by cutting his injured wing off, he's not about to complain. Shoving some of his bangs out of his face, he glances around, finding the only light source in the room, the lightening of a tinted window to his left, a haloed figure knelt in supplication before a something that looks too much like Kotori for comfort and he draws in a quick breath, turning away from that rise of light, taking refuge in the cooler darkness, addressing the other person in the room with him for the first time. "Where are we?" "Sanctuary," Comes the prompt reply, tinged with relief and curiosity. Kamui finds that if he peers hard enough he can make out more than a shape, his companion sitting up, legs moving. "We weren't sure where to … Well, it's not every day a winged boy falls out of the sky." Kamui raises an eyebrow at that, scowling. "Why can't I see you? Why is it so dark in here?" There's a touch of bemused embarrassment trickling into the other's voice now, "Ah, um, yeah. That would be Hokuto's fault. We ran out of candles about a day back. She was supposed to get some tonight and er…she's not back?" "You're a god, aren't you?" Kamui asked, "Can't you just wiggle your fingers and make it light?" "Um, that's really an interesting -- what makes you think that?" Something akin to anxiety seems to trickle in and Kamui finds himself blinking at how flustered and non-godly this divinity is. "I mean, you haven't been listening to Hokuto have you, because I told her she needed to stop --" "You're a god," Kamui interrupts, somewhat exasperated to be having this conversation at all. Wasn't there some sort of procedure that he was expected to follow? Maybe not, given how not smited he is for something that would have gotten his ears boxed by the Elders in the caves. He thinks about it for a moment, nodding, "I fell on forbidden ground and you saved me, and seeing as neither of us are dead, you're obviously a god. Late but that's the story of my life. That's why I can't see you, right? I'll burn up if I see you in all your glory? Like the stories say?" "My glory?! I don't think you --" Kamui crosses his arm, his scowl deepening, "Look, I'm not going to apologize for not believing in you. In fact, I'm not sure I believe in you now." There's a pause, "You don't believe in me…but you're talking to me?" "Don't you try any religious double talk on me," Kamui snaps, "I might have had a moment of maybe contemplating believing in you despite the fact you fucked up my life but you blew that. If you're going to punish me, then just go ahead and do it. I'm not going to start worshipping you now.." "P-p-punish you? I -- Okay, I think somehow we're not communicating here." "And --and another thing," Kamui stabs a finger in the air, seizing on something else, bleary but just remembered, "I am not a pet. And my name is not Fluffy! ***End return to splash page