mindcracklove | Fanfic: The Rain

A bit of an introspective piece. I have no doubt it is a bit on the boring side, but it is something I wanted to say.

*_*_*

It rained on the night he was born.

The skies were heavy, stars vanished behind a veil of the deepest, darkest gray, lost in the eternity of space with no observer to guide them. Lights from far-off towers choked on mist, sputtering and coughing up their guttering glow for weary travelers lost in the grounded black. Even the moon found herself lonely, her admirers stuck below the clouds while her brilliance shined on above.

And so the duality of rain would guard his time on earth, or so his father tells him, his wistful gaze locked on a lonely gravestone. The sun is amaranth-red, evening clouds barely creeping over the facing horizon. His father speaks in his low, thrumming voice about the rain. The rain brings life in its droplets. The flowers of the land grow and bloom only when the rains come. Trees and earth drink it in through the dust, their relief palpable in the seeds they release to the world, trusting their tiny children will be cared for. And so the rain brings life to all in the glitter-spark of its showers, the thunder of its storms.

As the rain brings life, it brings death. The gravestone stares back at them, a chunk of ugly, shattering stone jutting from the dirt. A pale respect to the once-living who lies beneath. The rain brings floods. The rain brings the living to the drowned, wraps them in siren song and drags them down. The rain is never a force to be trifled with; it muddies and scatters the surface, breeds hatred in the fog. So much hatred… His father shakes his head like he’s clearing it of water.

And, his father whispers as he kneels to put a hand on his young shoulder, so the rain breeds hatred, so it fosters love. The rain washes away the tears, cools the fires of rage and the smolders of grief. The seeds of life from the world hold forgiveness in their hearts, curled inside until they are ready to sprout and be accepted. The clouds need not break for the sun to shine on this earth. His father guides his small hand to rest over his chest, trapping the flutters of his heartbeat under his palm. The warmth comes from here, not in the emptiness behind the sky.

So you were born in the rain, so you will bring life, death, hatred, and love. Which you embody is your choosing. Be whom you wish and let the rain fall around you, Avidya.

*_*_*

He is sixteen when his father dies. Their house is damaged in the blast. The solid planks which held their roof are singed and splintering, tipping everywhichway. Some still struggle to hold the sagging, drenched roof, while others lay in jagged pieces on the ground. The creeper had been hiding around the corner, near the kitchen. Tired from work and nursing an aching shoulder (it always hurt in the hours before a storm), his father had walked into the monstrosity of a being, didn’t even notice it until his son called out and by then the final tick of the fuse had run out.

His death was instantaneous. Torso, gone. Arms and legs partially accounted for, and face melted off his head. He looks at the crater, spattered with pieces and the bitter smell of gunpowder. It doesn’t seem like enough blood. His father just died and there should be more blood.

He stands over the gory fragments of his father’s body, rivulets of rain mixing with liquid crimson and draining through the dirt. He cries no tears. The rain would only wash them away, would only run soothing fingers over the burning ache in his chest. He needs that ache. He holds it, twists it, centers his quaking, lost soul around it until he is stable and the shock no longer threatens to send him wandering through the haze with no way out.

If his father was here he might be disappointed. But his father is dead, and there is nothing left of his wise, forgiving heart. All there is, is him. And he hates the one that did this, with all the frustrated rage of one unable to bring justice for a death because the killer is already dead. He wants to hate the world for giving his father this fate, but deep inside the rational portion of his mind, he knows the world is not at fault.

No. It is the fault of monsters, and those he may freely hate.

*_*_*

He is twenty-five, and he joined the militia nine years ago.

There’s dissonance in the ranks, gossip about a defector. Not from their side to the monsters’, but the monsters’ to theirs. Unheard of and terribly suspicious.

He doesn’t care overmuch. The hatred still flares up, every time he sees arrows pierced through humanly fragile skin, or veins of poison racing through a labyrinth of blood vessels from bite marks, always wondering whether they would simply die or become the thing that did it do them. Yeah, the all-consuming loathing is still there, but that’s what it’s been doing: consuming. Far too often he finds himself alone, staring up at the cold, distant sky and wondering if this emptiness is also part of the rain. He can’t think that it is.

Perhaps his father was wrong, and the rain does not follow him.

It turns out the rumors are not unfounded, he discovers as a skeleton is assigned to his next scouting mission. As a senior officer, he is told to watch out for the thing, keep any of the more hotheaded soldiers out of its way. He is told to never, under any circumstance, let his prejudices interfere with a working relationship. They can’t risk breaking the tenuous alliance between them and this rogue skeleton.

Blame, the skeleton tells them when it finally occurs to them to ask, his name is Blame. A younger soldier, whose older sister had been skewered by a sword-wielding, zombified version of their mother, curls his lip and says that’s perfect, they can just blame him for everything. The skeleton jerks forward a step, bones clinking together, but then he stops. Avidya instinctively shifts to cover the outspoken soldier, but his hand hesitates over the hilt of his sword because the skeleton is obviously restraining himself. There is anger in every pale line of bone, but no action. Eventually, the skeleton turns on his heel, stalks to the front of their little party. Avidya raises an eyebrow and the skeleton quietly spits, no one trusts me to walk at their backs.

They encounter a small raiding party the next day, and everything is lost to a whirl of swords and whistling arrows and explosions. Well, not everything. He knows the one thought on everyone’s minds, will their skeleton betray them? Their answer comes in the form of a well-placed arrow, catching a spider in the eye as it leaps at Avidya while he’s off balance after a creeper. The spider falls out of the air to land in a pile of unmoving limbs. He doesn’t stop to glance at Blame. There will be time for reevaluations later.

When they return to base, he tenders his resignation. Nothing left for him here. His hatred has burned him to the core, and now all he can feel is a pervasive hollowness throughout his being. He doesn’t have the energy to keep that twisted ache from fading, and perhaps it’s the raindrops on his forehead that cause his shivering as he finally lets go. His soul shies away from its first touch to the rain in nine years, but he is guided by the rain and soon he drinks in the water like a man stranded in the desert.

The storm rages on as he walks away, hands in his pockets and face tilted up to watch the clouds. He doesn’t look back.

*_*_*

He is thirty-nine when a man with bright green eyes and an infectious laugh asks if he would like to hang out with his friends.

He has grown much from the bitter child he was twenty-three years ago, and more from the hollow man he was at twenty-five. He followed the rain and found kindness in the drenched hearts of all people. Their light illuminated his own and the rain filled his heart.

Once, in the dark of night, from the fuzzy edges of his dreams, the universe spoke to him. The words filtered through his heart-of-hearts and he healed, because the universe said I love you, and you are not alone, and you are alive, and you are love. He remembers thinking the voice sounded like his father’s, waking with fresh tears on his face that were soon cleansed by a morning mist.

He knows kindness and love, and no matter how the cast-off chains of hatred call him back, he will never return.

He remembers his father telling him about the rain. Memories of his father no longer hurt to recall, and he remembers forgiveness. He thinks he’s finally forgiven himself for all the time and energy he spent on his anger. He thinks he is ready to move on from soul-searching and learning about himself. He thinks he can truly love others now, for who they are and not for who they seem to be.

So, under the wetness of a light shower, Avidya accepts Guude’s offer with an easy smile. Lifting sopping golden hair out of his face, Guude’s grin is blinding.

*_*_*

End.

Words borrowed from the End Poem belong to Mojang.