The Space Between (Jing Theme #24 - Can't Deny It)
DIDJA MISS ME?!
Community: 50_themes
Characters: Jing + Kir (friendship category)
Fandom: King of Bandits Jing
Full list of themes can be found HERE. X-posted to 50_themes, ankhutenshi, kingofbandit
*
Title: The Space Between
Theme: #24 - Can't Deny It
Notes: 2012 words, finished Aug 13/08.
It was strange, Kir had decided, living with someone and yet knowing almost nothing about them. In the two months since he'd hatched, he and Jing had lived side by side in this small house, and yet aside from the occasional conversation over what to eat for dinner, they didn't speak often. It had nothing to do with temperament... there just didn't seem to be anything to say. Only when Cassis and the boys showed up did the distance between them seem to close, and the six of them would run amok in Balalaika, to the exasperation of the townsfolk and the chagrin of the Aunties. Yet when the blonde and her charges went home for the night, silence returned between the boy and the albatross, and neither were sure how to broach it.
Tonight, Kir was watching Jing play idly with a pen and paper, drawing random shapes and shading them in. It seemed a pointless exercise, and Kir would've much preferred him to read from one of the many books lining the shelves of the room. "Why're you doin' that?" he finally asked.
"The Aunties said I should practise writing with my right hand now that it works," Jing replied without looking at the avian.
"Don't your left hand write just fine?"
"Yeah," the boy gave a shake of his head, as though to say he didn't understand the logic either, but fell quiet again. When the paper was full of illegible symbols, he sighed and crumpled it up. "I'm getting ready for bed," he announced.
"Yeah," Kir echoed, looking at the hammocks strung in the corner. A regular sized one for Jing, and the smaller one above it for when he had foolishly demanded his own on those first few nights. While the boy disappeared upstairs to change his clothes, Kir settled gingerly in the makeshift bed. It was soft, folded and strung from a downy towel; he reclined, wiggling around to find a comfortable position. Maybe he could get into the habit of using it more often, rather than sharing Jing's, especially since the boy still tended to roll over on him from time to time.
"Not bad, not bad," he said to himself, looking over the edge at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Barefoot and now dressed in an oversize t-shirt and shorts, Jing managed to look even younger than his ten years. The effect was clinched when he rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand, looking up at the albatross in puzzlement. "You're sleeping there?"
"Thought I'd give it a try," Kir replied. "Open the window before you turn off the lights, would you? It's getting stuffy in here."
"Oh... okay..." Jing pulled open the shutters, letting the breeze of the humid July night filter into the room and causing the curtains to flutter lightly. He doused the lamps, found his way to his bed by memory and feel, and climbed into the hammock. "Goodnight, Kir."
"Goodnight," Kir repeated, because it seemed like the obvious thing to say.
Perhaps what was most strange, Kir had decided, was that there had never been any mention of what had happened on Jing's birthday. Obviously they tried not to mention it around Cassis and the boys, fearing to reawaken the nightmares which were only just starting to fade. Neither Jing nor Kir wanted Cassis to be afraid to visit them in this house away from the safety of the town, and they all knew Jing despised the thought of living with the Aunties. He chose to remain in the house that had been his mother's, although it was technically his house now, but no one pointed that out because it seemed unnecessarily cruel.
But he would have thought, at least once, that the subject of their strange bonding would have been mentioned. He remembered it the way a dream was remembered, a fleeting instance of determination and fear and power... and after it was gone he'd felt empty. Once or twice he'd tried to recapture the feeling, trying to find that same energy inside himself, but it just wasn't there anymore. Maybe... it was only meant to be just once, he thought. Even Jing hadn't demonstrated anything like it since, as Kir was reasonably certain he'd been supervising the boy and would have noticed. He seemed ordinary, albeit a bit quirky and sometimes too troubled.
What was it? he thought, staring up at the dimly visible ceiling in the dark room. Just a mistake? An accident?
He hadn't decided why this train of thought dismayed him so.
---
Morning came and Jing's bed was empty. Kir let the breeze rock his hammock back and forth, enjoying the cool of the morning that would surely turn sweltering later in the day as they approached the height of summer. The creak-clunk of the well handle outside told the avian where Jing was, and moments later the boy came back inside, hauling a bucket of water for the wash basin. "Did I wake you?" he asked, seeing Kir watching him.
The bird shook his head, not minding the courteous question. "I'm hungry," he commented.
"I know," was the reply as Jing put the metal bucket back into its place.
Kir found himself unexpectedly annoyed by the bored response, but squashed the irritation down. He found that happened a lot, where ire would spike suddenly and out of nowhere, and disappear -- although usually after he'd made some rash decision or reacted badly about it. Half the time he couldn't remember what he'd even been angry about. So he said nothing for a moment, letting the mood fade, and then began, "Oi, maybe..."
Jing paused in scrubbing his face to look over at him curiously, and Kir cleared his throat. "You know... what happened... on your birthday, right? With your arm, an' that... gun-thing... and then with me."
"I remember."
Kir wasn't entirely sure he knew what he was even trying to ask, but forged ahead. "What... was that?"
The boy dried his hands and hung the small towel back on the hook before answering. "I don't know," he admitted. "I thought you would know."
"Why the hell would I know? It's your arm."
"Yeah," Jing shrugged, touching the black mark on his shoulder. "I still don't know, though."
They both pondered that for several minutes, while Jing opened the pantry and pulled out the makings of breakfast. Perhaps later they would go into town, to play tag with the boys while Cassis looked on indulgently and tried to act grown-up until she brought out her bat. "I remember your rule," Jing said, looking over. "It won't happen again unless you want it to. That's what you said."
"What if I wanted it to?" the albatross blurted. Jing stopped, staring at him as though his feathers had just turned bright green. "Well... it was... uhh..." Kir floundered for an accurate term. "You didn't... feel anything? Like a... I dunno... connection? Or something?" he added hurriedly.
The boy sat down in one of the chairs, his arms folding across his lap and making him seem smaller. "I did," he admitted softly. "But you never brought it up. And I wasn't sure you weren't going to leave, so there didn't seem to be any point in getting used to something that wasn't... going to last. Kir, we're friends, aren't we?"
"Huh?" The questions seemed to have come out of nowhere and Kir tilted his head to one side, a gesture that was remarkably bird-like considering the amount of human characteristic he displayed. "Yeah, sure... guess so, why?"
"Just... just checking. Some days, I'm still... not sure it's going to last. Lately you seem like you're angry or annoyed all the time. Even just now. I try to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but..."
"Jeez," Kir said, rolling his eyes to cover the concern he felt. "You're reading way too much into things. You ain't doing anything wrong."
A small smile crinkled the edge of Jing's mouth before spreading, and he ducked his head by way of accepting Kir's words. "So, what now?"
---
They sat in a different clearing half a mile from the house, this one cut by loggers seasons before. It was farther away from the town and they had mutually decided the isolation was better for their needs. Sitting on a tree stump, they were brainstorming with questionable success how to recreate the event of two months prior. They had tried having Kir sit in a variety of ways on Jing's arm, had tried aiming at invisible tree fairies, had even tried proclaiming heroically that they were here to rescue an imaginary Cassis (and when that one hadn't worked they'd been very grateful the real Cassis was not present).
"I give up," Kir huffed, flopping down onto Jing's shoulder. "If there's a trick to it, we'd have figured it out by now."
Jing sunk his chin into his hand and frowned thoughtfully, a pose that would become more frequent and more brooding over the years but for now just looked cute. "Can we remember anything else about what happened that night?" he questioned.
The albatross could only think of one other element that was missing, but he was loathe to bring it up. Yet under Jing's inquisitive grey-eyed stared, he reluctantly allowed, "The last thing I remember before it happened was... you were goin' after that tree fairy and... I... I thought you were gonna die and I wasn't ever gonna meet you." He looked away and added in a much smaller voice, "Don't go makin' me think you're gonna do that again. If that's how we get the other thing to work then I don't want to do it again."
He found himself suddenly slid from Jing's shoulder and into a childish embrace as the boy wrapped his arms around him. Normally Kir protested such actions; he wasn't the cuddly type and Jing was so scrawny that he was all elbows and bony limbs. But he found that he didn't mind this time, and after a minimum of squirming found a comfortable position just below Jing's collarbone. The boy played gently with his ebony feathers and spoke words which Kir would later cling to when their lives got scary. "I don't want to die," Jing said quietly, his eyes closing as though drawing the words from within him. "I'm not scared of it, I just don't want to. It just doesn't feel right."
The words were resonant on a level Kir wouldn't understand for several more years, but to cover the sudden relief he felt, he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Of course bein' dead wouldn't feel right, dummy. Jeez, way to state the obvious." He felt rather than saw Jing smile and after a moment, muttered, "Hey. I can hear your heartbeat."
"I can feel yours, too."
"Uh. Jing?" Kir said after a moment, but the child remained motionless, his eyes still shut. "Jing."
"What?"
"We're glowing."
Ashen eyes popped open in surprise, and to his shock, the boy found that both himself and Kir were emitting a luminescent green shine. He lifted his right hand to look at it, marvelling at how the colour seemed to be suffused right from his skin itself. It wasn't nearly as harsh as the light he remembered from the night of his birthday, this seemed... friendlier.
"Now what?" Kir whispered, as though the sound of a voice might scare their new progress away.
"I get it," Jing answered slowly. "The connection we felt, it doesn't come because of this... it's the other way around. This is because we already have a connection, Kir." He extended his arm, and Kir felt an inexplicable urge, as though someone had reached deep inside of him and was tugging on his very soul.
"And that thing you do with your arm! I'm not gonna do that unless I want to! Got it?"
I want to, Kir thought, and the green light surrounding them changed shade and became brighter. He felt wordless agreement from Jing, shyly eager, uncertain but with the confidence of youth and friendship. And then he felt himself changing and finally being able to gather the power that had been absent and unconsciously missed, but would never become foreign to them, only familiar.
"KIR ROYALE!"
Community: 50_themes
Characters: Jing + Kir (friendship category)
Fandom: King of Bandits Jing
Full list of themes can be found HERE. X-posted to 50_themes, ankhutenshi, kingofbandit
*
Title: The Space Between
Theme: #24 - Can't Deny It
Notes: 2012 words, finished Aug 13/08.
It was strange, Kir had decided, living with someone and yet knowing almost nothing about them. In the two months since he'd hatched, he and Jing had lived side by side in this small house, and yet aside from the occasional conversation over what to eat for dinner, they didn't speak often. It had nothing to do with temperament... there just didn't seem to be anything to say. Only when Cassis and the boys showed up did the distance between them seem to close, and the six of them would run amok in Balalaika, to the exasperation of the townsfolk and the chagrin of the Aunties. Yet when the blonde and her charges went home for the night, silence returned between the boy and the albatross, and neither were sure how to broach it.
Tonight, Kir was watching Jing play idly with a pen and paper, drawing random shapes and shading them in. It seemed a pointless exercise, and Kir would've much preferred him to read from one of the many books lining the shelves of the room. "Why're you doin' that?" he finally asked.
"The Aunties said I should practise writing with my right hand now that it works," Jing replied without looking at the avian.
"Don't your left hand write just fine?"
"Yeah," the boy gave a shake of his head, as though to say he didn't understand the logic either, but fell quiet again. When the paper was full of illegible symbols, he sighed and crumpled it up. "I'm getting ready for bed," he announced.
"Yeah," Kir echoed, looking at the hammocks strung in the corner. A regular sized one for Jing, and the smaller one above it for when he had foolishly demanded his own on those first few nights. While the boy disappeared upstairs to change his clothes, Kir settled gingerly in the makeshift bed. It was soft, folded and strung from a downy towel; he reclined, wiggling around to find a comfortable position. Maybe he could get into the habit of using it more often, rather than sharing Jing's, especially since the boy still tended to roll over on him from time to time.
"Not bad, not bad," he said to himself, looking over the edge at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Barefoot and now dressed in an oversize t-shirt and shorts, Jing managed to look even younger than his ten years. The effect was clinched when he rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand, looking up at the albatross in puzzlement. "You're sleeping there?"
"Thought I'd give it a try," Kir replied. "Open the window before you turn off the lights, would you? It's getting stuffy in here."
"Oh... okay..." Jing pulled open the shutters, letting the breeze of the humid July night filter into the room and causing the curtains to flutter lightly. He doused the lamps, found his way to his bed by memory and feel, and climbed into the hammock. "Goodnight, Kir."
"Goodnight," Kir repeated, because it seemed like the obvious thing to say.
Perhaps what was most strange, Kir had decided, was that there had never been any mention of what had happened on Jing's birthday. Obviously they tried not to mention it around Cassis and the boys, fearing to reawaken the nightmares which were only just starting to fade. Neither Jing nor Kir wanted Cassis to be afraid to visit them in this house away from the safety of the town, and they all knew Jing despised the thought of living with the Aunties. He chose to remain in the house that had been his mother's, although it was technically his house now, but no one pointed that out because it seemed unnecessarily cruel.
But he would have thought, at least once, that the subject of their strange bonding would have been mentioned. He remembered it the way a dream was remembered, a fleeting instance of determination and fear and power... and after it was gone he'd felt empty. Once or twice he'd tried to recapture the feeling, trying to find that same energy inside himself, but it just wasn't there anymore. Maybe... it was only meant to be just once, he thought. Even Jing hadn't demonstrated anything like it since, as Kir was reasonably certain he'd been supervising the boy and would have noticed. He seemed ordinary, albeit a bit quirky and sometimes too troubled.
What was it? he thought, staring up at the dimly visible ceiling in the dark room. Just a mistake? An accident?
He hadn't decided why this train of thought dismayed him so.
---
Morning came and Jing's bed was empty. Kir let the breeze rock his hammock back and forth, enjoying the cool of the morning that would surely turn sweltering later in the day as they approached the height of summer. The creak-clunk of the well handle outside told the avian where Jing was, and moments later the boy came back inside, hauling a bucket of water for the wash basin. "Did I wake you?" he asked, seeing Kir watching him.
The bird shook his head, not minding the courteous question. "I'm hungry," he commented.
"I know," was the reply as Jing put the metal bucket back into its place.
Kir found himself unexpectedly annoyed by the bored response, but squashed the irritation down. He found that happened a lot, where ire would spike suddenly and out of nowhere, and disappear -- although usually after he'd made some rash decision or reacted badly about it. Half the time he couldn't remember what he'd even been angry about. So he said nothing for a moment, letting the mood fade, and then began, "Oi, maybe..."
Jing paused in scrubbing his face to look over at him curiously, and Kir cleared his throat. "You know... what happened... on your birthday, right? With your arm, an' that... gun-thing... and then with me."
"I remember."
Kir wasn't entirely sure he knew what he was even trying to ask, but forged ahead. "What... was that?"
The boy dried his hands and hung the small towel back on the hook before answering. "I don't know," he admitted. "I thought you would know."
"Why the hell would I know? It's your arm."
"Yeah," Jing shrugged, touching the black mark on his shoulder. "I still don't know, though."
They both pondered that for several minutes, while Jing opened the pantry and pulled out the makings of breakfast. Perhaps later they would go into town, to play tag with the boys while Cassis looked on indulgently and tried to act grown-up until she brought out her bat. "I remember your rule," Jing said, looking over. "It won't happen again unless you want it to. That's what you said."
"What if I wanted it to?" the albatross blurted. Jing stopped, staring at him as though his feathers had just turned bright green. "Well... it was... uhh..." Kir floundered for an accurate term. "You didn't... feel anything? Like a... I dunno... connection? Or something?" he added hurriedly.
The boy sat down in one of the chairs, his arms folding across his lap and making him seem smaller. "I did," he admitted softly. "But you never brought it up. And I wasn't sure you weren't going to leave, so there didn't seem to be any point in getting used to something that wasn't... going to last. Kir, we're friends, aren't we?"
"Huh?" The questions seemed to have come out of nowhere and Kir tilted his head to one side, a gesture that was remarkably bird-like considering the amount of human characteristic he displayed. "Yeah, sure... guess so, why?"
"Just... just checking. Some days, I'm still... not sure it's going to last. Lately you seem like you're angry or annoyed all the time. Even just now. I try to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but..."
"Jeez," Kir said, rolling his eyes to cover the concern he felt. "You're reading way too much into things. You ain't doing anything wrong."
A small smile crinkled the edge of Jing's mouth before spreading, and he ducked his head by way of accepting Kir's words. "So, what now?"
---
They sat in a different clearing half a mile from the house, this one cut by loggers seasons before. It was farther away from the town and they had mutually decided the isolation was better for their needs. Sitting on a tree stump, they were brainstorming with questionable success how to recreate the event of two months prior. They had tried having Kir sit in a variety of ways on Jing's arm, had tried aiming at invisible tree fairies, had even tried proclaiming heroically that they were here to rescue an imaginary Cassis (and when that one hadn't worked they'd been very grateful the real Cassis was not present).
"I give up," Kir huffed, flopping down onto Jing's shoulder. "If there's a trick to it, we'd have figured it out by now."
Jing sunk his chin into his hand and frowned thoughtfully, a pose that would become more frequent and more brooding over the years but for now just looked cute. "Can we remember anything else about what happened that night?" he questioned.
The albatross could only think of one other element that was missing, but he was loathe to bring it up. Yet under Jing's inquisitive grey-eyed stared, he reluctantly allowed, "The last thing I remember before it happened was... you were goin' after that tree fairy and... I... I thought you were gonna die and I wasn't ever gonna meet you." He looked away and added in a much smaller voice, "Don't go makin' me think you're gonna do that again. If that's how we get the other thing to work then I don't want to do it again."
He found himself suddenly slid from Jing's shoulder and into a childish embrace as the boy wrapped his arms around him. Normally Kir protested such actions; he wasn't the cuddly type and Jing was so scrawny that he was all elbows and bony limbs. But he found that he didn't mind this time, and after a minimum of squirming found a comfortable position just below Jing's collarbone. The boy played gently with his ebony feathers and spoke words which Kir would later cling to when their lives got scary. "I don't want to die," Jing said quietly, his eyes closing as though drawing the words from within him. "I'm not scared of it, I just don't want to. It just doesn't feel right."
The words were resonant on a level Kir wouldn't understand for several more years, but to cover the sudden relief he felt, he rolled his eyes and muttered, "Of course bein' dead wouldn't feel right, dummy. Jeez, way to state the obvious." He felt rather than saw Jing smile and after a moment, muttered, "Hey. I can hear your heartbeat."
"I can feel yours, too."
"Uh. Jing?" Kir said after a moment, but the child remained motionless, his eyes still shut. "Jing."
"What?"
"We're glowing."
Ashen eyes popped open in surprise, and to his shock, the boy found that both himself and Kir were emitting a luminescent green shine. He lifted his right hand to look at it, marvelling at how the colour seemed to be suffused right from his skin itself. It wasn't nearly as harsh as the light he remembered from the night of his birthday, this seemed... friendlier.
"Now what?" Kir whispered, as though the sound of a voice might scare their new progress away.
"I get it," Jing answered slowly. "The connection we felt, it doesn't come because of this... it's the other way around. This is because we already have a connection, Kir." He extended his arm, and Kir felt an inexplicable urge, as though someone had reached deep inside of him and was tugging on his very soul.
"And that thing you do with your arm! I'm not gonna do that unless I want to! Got it?"
I want to, Kir thought, and the green light surrounding them changed shade and became brighter. He felt wordless agreement from Jing, shyly eager, uncertain but with the confidence of youth and friendship. And then he felt himself changing and finally being able to gather the power that had been absent and unconsciously missed, but would never become foreign to them, only familiar.
"KIR ROYALE!"