The One Who Fell To Earth

[Elwen]

The One Who Fell to Earth

 

*I was originally inspired by the anime Ayashi no Ceres (Ceres: The Celestial Legend) but the characters within are my own, and the twist my own.*

 

There was once a simple fisherman, who came upon a feathered cloak hanging upon the bushes by the river one day, as he returned from his hard day’s labors. Not realizing what it was, he reached out his hand and took it.

 

And without her hagoromo, her cloak of feathers, the celestial maiden could not return to the heavens from which she came. And, in time, she accepted her fate and became his wife.

 

But, Grandmother, surely she got to go back to heaven! I mean, he didn’t keep her cloak. Did he? He let her go eventually. Right? Grandmother?

***

Section One: Prelude

 

He didn’t let me go, child. I know that you didn’t want to believe what your grandmother was implying, in her silence. Children always believed in fairytale endings, at your age. Happily ever after-the fisherman let me return to the heavens after a time, and I came back to visit him. Right?

 

Fairy tales don’t exist, boy, and I know that you know that by now, but I’m just reminding you.

 

I should hate you, Seiichirou Aoi. You didn’t have to spend your lifetime sitting by the window, staring up at the sky, at the place you had come from and never would return to. I asked your ancestor for that cloak, many times. I begged him for it, asked him to tell me where he had hid it, because I wanted to go back, more than anything. But that damned man never would!

 

He trapped me, here, on this world. I was earthbound, when I truly belonged in the sky. And every day that I spent here, I wanted to die. But he wouldn’t let me go.

 

I sat by the window every day of my life, crying and fading away. Only at the very end did he finally take pity on me and went to get my robe, my hagoromo.

 

I died before he came back, died without ever even getting to see or touch the cloth of my feathered cloak again. I fell into my oldest daughter’s arms and slipped away into death while she wept and called my name. I never could tell her that I loved her.

 

I loved her, and my other daughters. But I couldn’t ever say the words-the girls were mine, but they were also /his/.

 

He didn’t even have me buried with my cloak. Without it, my spirit could never return to the heavens from where I came, even after the death of my body, and I was earthbound. Bound to this world in my grief, doomed to walk beneath the shadow of the fading twilight, until I find my feathered cloak.

 

He never told me where it lies.

 

~End Section~

 

 

 

Section Two: Overture

 

I am the one who fell to Earth. My name is Lorien.

 

I have waited all these years. For one who bears my blood strongly enough…so that I may merge with her. So that I may have my vengeance upon the descendants of he who trapped me here so long ago…and find my feathered cloak, so that I may return to the heavens.

 

The old blood sings strong in the Seiichirou line…my blood, from my children. Ah, but those elders of the Seiichirou family have grown cunning. If a girl seems to have tennyo blood, my blood, strong enough to overpower her human side and allow me to be one with her, then she is killed before she is old enough to allow me a doorway to use her body.

 

And so it has continued…

 

Aoi and Ami Seiichirou, the fifteen-year old twins, brother and sister, have no idea how many girls have been sacrificed by their family. They have no idea what kind of monster lies behind the kind façade of their grandmother, the family matriarch.

 

Ami has no sign of any metaphysical talent, other than a remarkably good singing voice.

 

The family believes it is safe now, for a time. Ami was the only threat, or so they thought, and she has no Gift.

 

Even Setsuka, their grandmother, has begun to relax a little bit. To enjoy the company of her granddaughter, as well as her grandson.

 

But even Seiichirou Setsuka can be led astray.

 

After all, even if there has been no male descendant in whom the celestial blood is stronger than his human blood…

 

Who says that it is impossible?

 

But that is one possibility that Setsuka-I bless her even as I curse her- has not thought of.

 

The twins’ sixteenth birthday approaches. The final test for Ami, which she will[.I] pass, comes.

 

Twins may be twins, but in this case, their blood is not the same.

 

And I will reveal myself when the moment comes…

 

~End Section~

 

“What is this?” Ami asked confusedly, opening the box. Inside lay a single silver feather, somehow glistening brightly even in the lack of light. “A feather?”

 

The eyes of everyone in the room were riveted on the petite blond girl. Ami pushed her long hair out of her eyes.

 

“Is there something wrong?” she asked, at last noticing all the attention.

 

Just as the feather floated out of the box, and over to Aoi’s outstretched hand. He closed his palm over it, not realizing what he was doing. The boy’s soft violet eyes were unfocused and glassy, and it seemed like he moved in a trance or a dream.

 

Ami nearly screamed as she heard the sound of guns being readied.

 

“No, you fools!” Setsuka screamed at them. “Ami’s still right next to him!”

 

“Aoi? Aoi!” Ami shrieked, as she reached out to shake her brother. She could feel the strange energy crackling through the air.

 

“Get away from your brother!” Setsuka yelled at her.

 

“No-“ Ami began, just as the glass pitcher shattered, sending shards everywhere. Ami shrieked as flying glass scored sharp cuts across her arm and face, dripping blood. She didn’t let that stop her from trying to shake her brother: however, a sharp burst of energy slammed through her, and her eyes rolled up in her head as she slumped back in her chair, unconscious.

 

“Sleep well, sister.” Aoi said in an eerie voice, as he gently laid her on the ground and stood. Immediately, every weapon was trained on him, now that Ami was no longer in danger of being hit. His eyes glowed briefly, and were a hard amethyst once the glow faded.

 

Lorien’s eyes.

 

“Kill him!” Setsuka ordered hastily, realizing the danger they were all in. Thankfully, Ami was unconscious, and didn’t hear her grandmother give that order.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the viewpoint), every bullet simply bounced off an invisible shield surrounding Aoi/Lorien, even though every man fired until the magazines in their guns were empty.

 

Every bullet clattered harmlessly to the floor, and before they could reload, the guns were ripped from their hands using telekinesis and ripped apart, the pieces hitting the ground in a tangle of unusable and unfixable parts. At the sight of their guns being ripped apart as easily as paper by an unseen force, Setsuka’s bodyguards cowered back in the corners, in the hopes that the celestial being that Aoi Seiichirou had become would leave them alone.

 

Aoi’s longish blond hair blew briefly in the sudden wind that had begun to blow, though the door and windows in the room were closed. Abruptly, long black hair swirled around a form that was no longer his. A white-clad, pale woman with an impossibly beautiful face the mirror of his hovered above the ground, power crackling about her slender body, bathed in light.

 

Beneath the table, Ami opened her eyes and scooted back a little bit, so she could see what was going on.

 

“Who are you?” she asked, managing not to stammer. “Where’ s my brother?”

 

“Aoi is…sleeping now.” the apparition said in a rich, cold otherworldly alto voice to everyone in the room, not just Ami. “I have descended from the heavens, and my name is Lorien.”

 

“You’re the…celestial maiden.” Ami said, her voice filled with wonder and awe, and suddenly ducked beneath the heavy table as wild, fierce winds began sweeping outward from where Lorien hovered, their force ripping the roof off in seconds, and toppling the walls. By a miracle, she was unharmed: either because Aoi was still somehow protecting her even while the tennyo raged, or because the table was protection enough, or because Lorien liked her, even a little. The first two were far more likely than the last.

 

//She isn’t using all of her power. // Ami realized. //Lorien could have killed us all already. But why?//

 

A sudden snap of inspiration came to her.

 

//When Grandmother told us that legend when Aoi and I were young, she said that the celestial being couldn’t go back to the heavens because she didn’t have her feathered cloak. Obviously, she never got it back…she wants it back! Lorien wants her cloak back!//

 

Lorien slowly rose, looking down at the people with implacable eyes, as Ami shoved aside debris and scrambled up from beneath the table.

 

“I’ll help you find your hagoromo!” she shouted up at the celestial maiden who, inexplicably, was also her beloved twin. “I promise!”

 

Lorien turned that cold gaze on Ami, who tried to be brave with a wrathful tennyo staring her in the face.

 

//Aoi is in there…remember that. Aoi, your brother, is also Lorien.// Ami steeled herself.

 

“Do you hold to that promise?” Lorien asked icily.

 

“Yes.” Ami said fervently. “I promise that I’ll help you get your hagoromo back so you can go back to the heavens!”

 

Lorien nodded, as she floated through where the roof had been and was gone.

 

Ami dropped her head onto the floor.

 

//Please be safe, Aoi…please.//

 

~To Be Continued in Section Three: Crescendo~

 

Feedback welcome! Am I doing things wrong? Right?

 

Glossary:

 

Hagoromo-a celestial maiden’s feathered cloak.

 

Tennyo- a celestial maiden: roughly equivalent to angel, but better rendered as goddess or demi-goddess

[Elwen]

Section Three: Crescendo

 

I have lived for twenty-two years in the body and mind of Seiichirou Aoi. I know him like I know no other, except myself. I know his dreams, his hopes, his wishes. I knew his most secret thoughts, his desires.

 

But in the six years that have passed since my awakening, he has changed. Always a serious, contemplative child, he has become silent and withdrawn. Aoi doesn’t talk much anymore, not even to me. Not even to his sister, on the rare occasions she comes to tell him what she has been up to lately, or what progress she has made in trying to find my hagoromo. Even with her help, I am no closer today in finding my feathered robe than I was a thousand years ago.

 

Ami tries twice as hard every time she fails, because I suspect she wants me to return as much as Aoi does, though she isn’t the one…possessed. She wants everything to be as close to possible to the way it was, and have some kind of happy ending for us three.

 

Ami still believes in fairy tales. But this is real life, and there is no happy ending. There will be no happy ending for Aoi. Not now, not in the future, not even in the ending of the world will he find peace.

 

His mind has been irreparably scarred, and there is no return.

 

His parents lay dead in the rubble of his grandmother’s hall, along with many of his relatives, and though they wished him dead once they found out what he was, Aoi still grieves for them, his blood. I don’t understand-he sorrows for them, though they would have shot him down in cold blood, and not mourned for him.

 

Humans. I don’t understand them. It wasn’t Aoi who killed them: it was me. And yet he grieves as though he were the one who killed them.

 

Now, his sister is the only one out of his family who will speak to him, or about him. The tennyo-touched descendant whose life means catastrophe, ruin, disaster for the Seiichirou family. They know they did me wrong-and because of her promise, Ami is the only one who I will spare.

 

Aoi, to my reckoning, is not a Seiichirou. And Ami…Aoi has been thinking about her a lot lately.

 

What about your sister? I touch the waking portion of his mind gently.

 

“She’s getting married today.” He replies, his voice sad. “She couldn’t invite me…considering that Grandmother and her bodyguards will be there.”

 

//He still considers that cold-hearted old bint to be his grandmother-// the thought comes unbidden. Of all the Seiichirou I hate, Seiichirou Setsuka is second only to Kiiro, the man who trapped me here, on my list of people to hate.

 

I touch his mind even more, and an old memory of his opens, revealing itself to me.

 

”When you get married, Aoi, I want to be your best man!” the older of the twins squealed.

 

“Don’t you mean ‘maid-of-honor’?” her brother asked, confused.

 

“No, I want to be your best man, really nice suit and all! Please?” Ami blinked up at him.

 

“OK.” The young boy said.

 

“Good! Then you can be my maid of honor and hold my bouquet.” Ami said decisively. “Big poofy skirt and all.”

 

Aoi looked pained. “Big poofy skirt?”

 

“Uh huh! All maids of honor wear big poofy skirts.” Said his sister sagely, wagging her finger in his face. “Bright pink. And don’t think you’re going to escape. I’m gonna be your best man, and you’re going to be my maid of honor. ‘Kay?”

 

Aoi blinked. “’Kay.” He said, wondering how exactly his twin had bullied him into this, and wondering how exactly he was going to escape.

 

Aoi knew already that he would never be married. There had been a girl that he had liked in his high school, but she had moved on and would marry someone else soon. The childhood dream of being his sister’s most trusted attendant at her wedding, as she would be at his, would never come true.

 

And it was a symbol of all his hopes and dreams that had quietly crumbled, with no hope to sustain them. All the hopes and dreams that had faded away and would never come true.

 

Even I could feel it. The knowledge that his dreams and hopes didn’t matter, that his life didn’t matter…it weighed on him, constantly. His life, his whole world had fallen apart in an instant. And nothing, nothing matters anymore to him.

 

And for the first time…I felt strange, because I, along with his family, had destroyed his life.

 

And I was almost sorry.

 

In the midst of my musings, I was unprepared for the sudden burst of panic that shot through Aoi’s mind, and in an instant, I was seeing through his eyes, as he whirled around, and began running.

 

Ami stood on the nearby bridge, dressed in her white wedding gown, carrying something in her arms.

 

“Ami? Ami, what are you doing here?” Aoi asked her, his voice concerned. Ami raised violet eyes to our own, and she grinned triumphantly.

 

“I found it, Aoi. I found it, and I had to bring it to you right away.” Ami said, gasping a little, as she held out the bundle, glistening silver in the light.

 

Silver feathers…my wings. My hagoromo. “I” took it, in disbelief. A thousand-year search…finished at last.

 

I didn’t know what to think. But I didn’t have time to reflect on that any longer.

 

Ami crumpled forward, and the world blurred, as Aoi’s mind pushed me aside, as his sister fell into his arms.

 

Blood stained the white fabric. Her blood.

 

I could hear Aoi’s thoughts, as he realized that his grandmother must have learned that Ami had found the hagoromo. It had been at the church, Ami whispered. All along. At the church. And, to prevent her from giving it to him, in an attempt to keep my caged, had had her granddaughter shot and left for dead, at her own wedding.

 

But Ami had been tenacious. She had refused to lay down and die until that cloak had gotten into her brother’s hands.

 

“Hey, don’t you dare cry.” Ami said, trying to be cheerful. “You always cry. See, you’re crying.”

 

Her hand dropped back to her side.

 

“’Neesan-“ Aoi choked.

 

“I’m just glad…that I got to see you again.” Ami whispered, and died.

 

Aoi wailed his sister’s name, a cry of pure anguish and the realization of a boy who has lost everything left he had to care for in the world.

 

He knelt there, on the bridge, covered in his sister’s blood and cradling her broken body, until his relatives came and took her away from him.

 

The world shifted, and changed, and once more I was the dominant mind in our body.

 

Do what you have to. Aoi’s broken voice whispered in my mind. I don’t care anymore. As long as Ami was alive, it was enough for me to keep you contained. For her sake. But my sister is dead, and she was the only one left in that family I loved.

 

“You loved her that much?” It was strange, speaking with his voice, but I did not want to risk a full transformation yet.

 

Not until I had the entire family in one place.

 

She was my twin, with half my soul. The half that didn’t belong to you. She was everything I never was and never can be. She died for me, for a future that she wanted to bring about. Finish it. For her sake.

 

~End Section~

 

-To be concluded in Section Four: Requiem-

 

 

‘Neesan-short for ‘oneesan’, older sister.

[Damon Inferel]

I only read the first part of this, since i don't have time to read the second and comment on it too, but I must say that i enjoyed this. An almost relatively unique plot to me, as it is not necessarily a tale of revenge, but the hint of that is there. It's more like "Hey! give that back or you'll regret it!" type of story...

 

I didn't see anything wrong with it except for some html that was out of place, so good job ashke!