Curse

Enigmatics · Oct 05, 2005, 03:01 PM // 15:01

Liek, ROFLMPLANE OMG. *fangirls* AHHHHHHHHH!

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade. And YOU haven't heard of Chrno Crusade, such is its obscure nature, so you probably won't read this troubled little fic.

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It’s happening again. He freefalls to his unlikely death, and he thinks it is for the first time.
The last feeling Chrno has as he plunges solidly is a detached fascination with everything around him. He sees the ground that is rising so indiscriminately, that swells like earthen waves, like some small thing that grows larger and larger, pregnant with bruising clarity and –

the promise of eternity.

He can smell daisies, and newborn leaves, and children playing, even as the world forces itself on him, he can smell it, and he can see it. His vision is like some burning thing, so clear that phantom flames lick at the front of his skull seeping into his mind. The smells that intrude his nostrils are poignant, they strike some chord within him and make him want to live, damn it, live and not die like this, and make him want to claw his way out of this nightmare. Chrno thinks that this must be a nightmare, no, it is a nightmare, and he smells the underlying decay of leaves, and infernal maggots crawling through some once-living thing and –

he breathes it in.

“There was only ever one way to end it,” Says Rosette, and he can see her too, superfluous blue eyes and all. But she smells different too, like musty dust and cigarettes. And Chrno looks down –still falling, (will it ever end?) sees a blue lake with wavering reflection of what is happening, and it is o’erneath him, and he thinks that and laughs manically, and he can hear his laughs clearly through the roar of living wind that threatens to swallow up even his thoughts.

Things look different in the lake: There is no Rosette, only some dead thing, mottled with decay, that is clinging lovingly to him. And the thing's eyes are not blue like crystals, they’ve been red all along: strangely compelling, sadly large, and unfortunately very dead.

He laughs like screaming: he always laughs when it comes to this part, more from habit than anything else, (when in doubt, laugh) though Chrno will wake up soon, and what happens here will disappear, like ether, like a head rush. And it is always, always, the first time for him. Later, Chrno will remember something about “vertigo”, and the living wind will blow through the holes in his memory. Now though, he swears silently that he’s felt something like this before, but not in life. And he –

screams like laughing, and it is hysterical, frantic; he screams for the first/eighth time as the ground finally stops rising with a solemn thud.

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A clawed hand broke through the filmy, inky blackness, and a small boy woke with a start. More from habit than anything else, he added a little wail when he realized that he had had a nightmare, the shallow sheet of sweat that glanced his body was proof enough. Without thinking, he automatically thrashed off his thin blanket, balled it up like a piece of paper, and chucked it across the room, where it made an intimate whoosh of protest. He hurriedly looked around. Where…? He –he didn’t know where he was! An irrational sort of fear gripped him when he glanced up, and saw no stars, no moon, only –oh. The boy, brain still mush from sleep, propped himself against the bedpost, and suddenly he was Chrno. Suddenly he was the one-hundred-year old devil, purified and pacified, incarnate; Suddenly he was the fourteen-year-old boy, mind in turmoil from a simple nightmare. Suddenly he was the Magdalene Order’s steely burden, Rosette Christopher’s shy friend, and the world’s sheepish savior. Chrno’s heart was beating little protesting sounds: rapid buh-thumps, and bum-bumps.

He sighed a fatalistic sigh, and squinted his eyes and tried to squeeze back his previous nightmare’s contents. He thought he could remember flashes of something, like a tape rewinding, yes he could see a–

What the hell! His head suddenly felt like a balloon that was about to pop, over-inflated and bloated from hydrogen and oxygen, and whatever they pumped in balloons. Chrno’s hands clamped over both temples, tendons and a few veins streaking up from his hands like inside-out lacerations.

"I’m acting like some over-zealous movie audition…person," he thought out loud, the last words coming out lamely. And he was: clutching at his head like some acting-fanatic that has seen too many shabby movies. Except the pain was real, very real, and suddenly it was like a flame, like the flames inside a hot air balloon that inflated and rose.

Chrno disliked flames: they reminded him of his ancestry. And in his head, he could suddenly see the vivid picture –as if someone had chucked it out, and it had landed by chance in his brain, he could see a strangely proportioned Chrno (he was already strangely proportioned, his head was larger than it would have seemed on an adult’s body) with a balloon for a head. And the balloon was painted childishly, with his features drawn not-to-scale. The concept was bizzare, and Chrno snorted in spite of the pain, and began to chortle good-naturedly.

Unconsciously, he skirted away from remembering his dream. Later, he would wonder why he couldn’t remember. And it wouldn’t be for the first time.

After a… minute/hour, his eyes lolled back to their normal position, (they had rolled into the back of his head when he was dramatizing, as well) and he could breathe normally again. He sat up straighter against the bedpost, and sighed.

Soon, the sun would rise like waves, like forever, and the light would lance through the land and pierce most careless lurking shadows. The day would rise from night’s ashes, and the Order would no doubt send Chrno’s enduring partner and him off on some crackpot mission. Chrno could only laugh humorlessly at that, and hebegan to massage the knots and aches out of his head; his claws making little reptilian clicks as they occasionally hit the wooden bedpost.

Already, he could begin to distinguish the colors of things: his daylight-shadowed cloak/jacket lay lifeless, draped over a chair that was near his bed. Abruptly, as if to spite his last thoughts, it billowed up a little as some unseen breeze gave it animation, as it to say, "Look at me, I’m not dead at all!" He shook his head, always the grateful guest, and shrugged off his rueful discontent with their way of life, like it was something he could wear, like it was a jacket or coat. Light peeked in from closed curtains, their swaths and paths through his room cut little lighter-shaded shadows that illuminated drifting dust, almost like a flashlight. He was sitting cross-legged, bare feet tucked under his legs, trying to preserve some warmth. His feet had since turned clammy and damp, so Chrno got up, stretched routinely, found a pair of socks (they looked like stockings, actually) and slipped them on slowly, contemplating some insignificant thing.

And delved back into his previous thoughts.

The Order is necessary, he thought firmly, as if trying to convince someone other than himself. Chrno knew the Order of Magdalene had not been created in vain. Without it, mankind would probably have fallen to its knees keeping the constant stream of demons at bay. The Order preserved their way of life; it seemingly sprawled across the entire globe, reaching out its righteous fingers that were attached to righteous arms, and righteously smiting whatever demons there were in China, or India, or Europe. The Order preserved order, indeed, and it gave the world time to breathe.

It gave the world time, but not Chrno, and definitely not Rosette. The demon scowled bitterly, some of the early-morning-acrid-taste slipping into his mouth.

Chrno shivered, suddenly cold. He customarily slept in his undershirt, suspenders and all sorts of buckles loosened, and the part of his upper body that had been outside the sheets were a little numb. The day was deceptively chilly, as it was actually summer, and soon the scorching sun would rise anew. He braced himself, braced himself for the day, and for the future. He knew that, come daytime, summer’s heat would kick into action, and start burning them all.

Chrno didn’t mind the burning, having felt it all his life, so much as the running out of time.

-Whole of Chapter 1, Fall With Me.

It's just not the same without italics. Turbulency dissapears when you can't emphasise certain words.

Enigmatics · Oct 07, 2005, 07:19 PM // 19:19

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade.
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The Schneiders’ mansion is a dreary place, with plenty of unexplored nooks and crannies. It is grand, as well, like a giant is grand, but not beautiful.

It is saturated in a dust that accents its age; ubiquitous and noxious, the dust collects on pretty much everything these days. The roof and walls are littered with termite-eaten holes, while moths have devoured chunks of everything synthetic. The whole place is overshadowed by a flight of trees that form a frown around the north side of the house, and the house is consequently quite dark.

Light is like some forbidden thing, and the darkness that fills the house is as eternal and fleeting as the darkness in all things. Possessed by dust, specters, and hatred, the house bears mute witness to the inhumanity of the human soul –

and Chrno believes in inhumanity.

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The sprawling twenties are tinged with the lingering odor of fear and prejudice. If the house had been alive, it would have choked. As it is, the residents that so unwittingly chose it have been fending off their inner demons for the last twelve months. Mostly in the literal sense.

They are no longer solitary, they are isolated; they are no longer settled-down, they are trapped. And they are no longer reflective: they are insane. The house has already burned once, and it is burning again, except now with the Devil’s own insidiousness.

The cabal that is the townspeople continues to use the same description of the Schneiders. Down to their one-year-old boy: in their memories, he will always be one, and forever be the same. Down to the streak of mud on his knobby nose, and the twinkling laugh he uses when his parents tickle him. In their own, selfish way, the townspeople think that the Schneiders will continue to exist because they exist, that if they weren’t there, then the Schneiders would blink out like a candle.

These small-town people, saying yeah as “ayuh”, in their own, deep-rooted ways, fearsomely fight change, they fear it, and they hate it as much as they despise the Schneiders.

-Excerpt from Chapter 2, Interlude: Asasul.

Oh, yeah -that's a reference about Chrno, believing in "inhumanity". He is, after all, a demon.

Enigmatics · Oct 07, 2005, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade.
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She has no physical common sense, while he has no mental common sense. She has trouble concentrating on walking, driving, and he has a slight stutter in dire situations. Together, they aren’t afflicted at all; together, they are unbreakable, she thinks, a bit of fierce pride dripping into her little mental voice, like an old faucet that drips water after it has been closed.

Together, they will beat time, they have to, because time is what so relentlessly hounds then, chasing after them, and lately it has them cornered; lately it sharpens its claws and prepares for the deathblows. Prepares to lunge for the jugular, incarnate as that deceptively innocent stopwatch that dangles from her neck, dangles like a lifeline. And in her secret heart of hearts, Rosette thinks that she won’t really die; such ends are not meant for her, no, not for her.

And each time, when she hears the rhythmic ticks, like some hypnotic thing, she repeats the mantra, needs to repeat it to believe it (We’ll find a way to beat it, we have to; we’ll find a way to beat it, we have to; we’ll…).Like writing on a stone with water on a hot sunny day: the first letter of the word drying before the last is set down.

She tells herself –hearing and not comprehending Kate’s droning, bee-like voice, she tells herself that she doesn’t regret her decision. She has done what was –what is necessary, to save her brother. She tells herself that she is content, that she is –

-Excerpt from Chapter 3, Debriefing and De-teriorating memories.

Enigmatics · Oct 07, 2005, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade.
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There is a darkness hanging over our lives.

Of course, there has always been that sort of evil. Darkness of late, towers over all humanity, towers like an imposing figure on an approaching conveyor belt.

The stuff in us is much more personal; it hangs over my life, and Rosette’s as well, like some omniscient thundercloud. It’s like an intangible, shapeless and nameless, parasite, and I hate parasites, and this darkness has been feeling like one, of late: always at the back of your brain, jumbled with the rest of the incoherent mess –hungrily feeding on your thoughts. Because there are plenty of things to feed on, flesh of all things, rotting and decomposing, but it stays with me: this parasite is hungry for decomposing memories.

Which is merciful, at least –at best. In the end, we –Rosette and I, we will be the only ones who have to die.

No banter, witty or insane, comes to us today. The silence between us makes our hands’ breath of distance seem infinitesimally vast. It is like dreams and reality: where you wake up from the dream, say wait, we still have to do that thing, and reach out to the vibrating, empty darkness, searching for something that was so close a minute ago, but now eludes you, eludes you like sleep.

I haven’t been afraid of the dark for a long, long time, but lately I have woken up from my bed, reaching towards the darkness like a drowning man reaches for a support. Lately, I embrace the darkness, but fear myself. And that is a disheartening kind of feeling, at best. Lately, as I wake up and my nape scrapes against my pillow, and I can feel the damp wetness, lately I cannot wait for the darkness to envelop us all. Not exactly, but I’m sure somewhere in there, I wish that this would all end.

So, I think, maybe I’m mellowing out in my old age.

It coils like a noose, this thing that I can only name darkness. It coils, and we cower and overlook, but we can’t do much else. Because this darkness is a chunk of the larger one, and it is more opaque, more deadly, and more difficult to combat. This darkness is like a tornado compared to a hurricane, the former rending a few unfortunate homes into oblivion, while the latter does less concentrated damage, but more damage anyway. It twists like tornadoes too, like sunbeams and moonshine and fog and anything else we can imagine.

My hands travel, as if to reassure, to the broken stumps of horns that were once whole, like a somnambulist’s daily routine. I realize that I was the one who made this kind of darkness, and it makes me swooning and world-weary. I was the one that chanted those words that would seal Rosette’s fate –seal my fate with it. So it is a quarantined, cultivated, little quilt of evil, but it can’t stretch past us. It is drowning, but not flood; it is cancer, but not epidemic.

And we will be the only ones who have to die.

-Excerpt from Chapter 4, Chrno, Stream of Conscious.

Ooh, great, now I make it sound like Chrno wants to be one of the cut-myself-and-die angst-goers.

This whole thing is humbling, makes me realize that Language Arts really doesn't do much to polish your public appeal type of writing. And so far, the only thing I've gotten a grip on (not mastered, because it is mediocore) is the ability to use analogies to give some more vivid descriptions.

Enigmatics · Oct 07, 2005, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade.
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Maybe time was meant to salve our greatest wounds.

Chrno finds that hard to believe, so he continues to plow at fallen leaves, autumn leaves; toils at and piles his soul, hoping to assuage the steadily falling canopy of orange and yellow and red.

And his soul? It simply bursts apart, violent and uncaring, when an especially harsh gale sweeps by, unforgiving and eternally aware. No, Chrno realizes, time will make him falter yet again, make him play the same part in his long, winding play.

Parts? Chrno is Chrno; Aion, Aion; and Magdalena is Rosette. Oh, she isn’t as old, and doesn’t have that mole over there, or that sharp of a nose, or eyes as round as those, but Chrno has difficulty seeing a difference in their silhouettes. He rubs at his eyes, disillusioned.

Once again, there is a young, no, an old demon. He slays other demons, slays a young woman, and is slain in turn. Like those little Russian dolls that swallow each other, though you haven't seen those. Like Rome conquering Greece, but you haven't been dead long enough to know that either.

“Forgive me, I knew not what I was doing to you.” He reaches out to Magdalena, or was it Rosette? She can only turn in part, and like clockwork, play out her role in the play.

Idle fingers are a sin, and Chrno is a sinner, but still, he sifts through the leaves outside his hut, hoping to elude fate. Fate comes anyway; Chrno can only watch as his precious leaves are trod upon and uprooted again.

The rake thuds to the dirt ground, forgotten.

Just some Drabble concerning Rosette and Madgalena; I actually don't believe that Rosette mirrors (or shadows) the former woman in any way, but I did this anyway.

This has nothing to do with my previous excerpts.

Enigmatics · Oct 07, 2005, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrno Crusade.

Another piece of Drabble, probably the most abstract I've made. Concerning a Chrno who finally does what Rosette tells him -and stops worrying her impending death by stopwatch. Though I made "worry" into "ignore" for dramatic effect.
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Sometimes, when he’s conveniently forgotten the colossal irony of what he’s doing, Chrno prays. “For what?” the demon later wonders, as the church attendees conveniently leave, and Rosette’s plastered smile conveniently remains. His contractor’s happier these days, more carefree, less burdened, she tells him, and that convenience should cheer Chrno up. It doesn’t though, and his sharp little ears pick up the rhythmic ticking he has become accustomed to over time. It’s become slower lately.

Maybe if he takes those ever-so-useful claws of his and rakes his hearing into oblivion, he thinks, then he’ll find some damn tranquility. Chrno goes as far as to tentatively scratch at one of his ears, and finds that he doesn’t have the heart to harm them.

So Chrno lives with it, willing himself not to notice developing shadows under his friend’s eyes, stays his throat from catching when he sees her vacant expression, doesn’t stop telling her about that story with lots of rescuing and danger, and happily-ever-afters.

And during the twilight hours, where even rationality eludes his grasping fingers, and nightmares prevail, Chrno gropes blindly in the thick darkness: all searching eyes and jagged breathing.

He wonders fleetingly if, one day, perhaps he will have to watch his Rosette be ensconced in one of those enclosed plastic bags that the dead linger in. Or maybe a coffin, if the police don’t want to investigate her sudden organ failure.

The demon shakes his head fervently, tells himself to get on with saving the world and to stop brooding over trivialities he has no control over. When Rosette approaches him, and tries to broach the subject of the pocket watch, and tries to tell him something she’s wanted to tell him for a long time, Chrno obstinately juts his thumbs in his ears and hums his favorite tune. He continues to battle his inner demons/Aions, and doesn’t stop, refusing to glance down. Rosette can only sigh in consternation, and when even that is met with indifference, she crumbles, bit by bit, none to loudly, fading into the billowing breeze.

Chrno doesn’t notice until he’s long gone himself, where he has to admit to no one in particular that he didn’t notice his heartbeats thinning, until his remaining time became tangible, drew out like a blade.

Spectators watch keenly, as an impossibly old/young figure with maroon locks cradles a no-longer-ticking pocket watch; clings to it like the dead.