Hit and Run
Jane? As promised. Chin up, darling.
To Jane, who knows exactly how special she is: Here's to really long friendships, elephant memories, insanely long phone calls, letters and postcards, your special brand of waa-waaing, and after-CWC dinners. Merry Christmas, even if it is sunny.
I hope you like this, even though it doesn't have Little Taichou there, because it's His Dark Materials/Bleach crossover. Not as long as the rest. =D
The Traveller from Afar
Part 1 of a currently unnamed arc
Word Count: 817
Will always passes by the park on his way home from work, hurrying home to his mother, but today he's stopped by a cheery greeting.
He turns to see who is greeting him, and finds a very ordinary man looking back at him, amusement clear beneath his thick-rimmed glasses. Will knows better; although it has been years since he last went through different worlds, this particular person has a foreign feel to him. And it's not because of the odd pauses in the English he speaks either.
"Would you like to sit down and talk?"
Will chooses to stand, shuffling his feet as he looks everyone else except at the stranger. "I don't know you."
"Ah, where are my manners? I am Sousuke Aizen, pleased to meet you." He offers a hand for him to shake, and Will cautiously does so, noting the odd calluses on the stranger's broad, dry hand. The stranger seem effable and cheery, but Will finds his gaze strangely hynoptic and tries to avoid it.
"I'm Will Parry." He coughs, and makes a show of looking at his watch. "I need to hurry home. My wife..."
"Please."
The quiet statement takes Will by surprise, and he finds it hard to continue. He stammers, then settles for staring at the man blankly. The eyes behind the glasses essay an accepting sort of pain, one that tugs at the heartstrings. Will finds his resolve slowly wavering.
"I've travelled across universes to speak to you. You used to do that not so long ago, surely you understand how difficult it was to find the right one."
Even after all these years, Will's thoughts still jump to the wild, free girl he had fallen in love with. "But Lyra and I... we closed all the doors! And I broke the Knife!"
"Did you never think of where it was forged?" The man asks him, not quite hiding his surprise. "There are plenty more of such weapons where it came from." And calmly, as if it is not surreal to see a man wielding a sword in the middle of a modern park, he procures a sheathed sword from the depths of his coat. Will finds his eyes drawn irresistably towards the blade as the man begins to draw it from its sheath, and cries out in surprise when the sword catches the light. The blade is made of the same shimmery material as the Knife.
Apparently satisfied, the man tilts the blade to show it to Will more clearly, but Will cries out again, this time in anger.
"Put it away!" Casting around a look, he checked to see if they were unobserved. The man watched him with much curiousity, and he glared back. "For a traveller, you are very careless."
The stranger waved a hand, as if dismissing the very idea. "People only see what they want to see. A man drawing a sword in the middle of a park? Too strange to contemplate." He smiled at Will, which caused the latter to realise he had made a very bad mistake, just by looking at him. "But you are a traveller yourself, and so you have seen more. And don't you miss it? The thrill of cutting a new window, walking in new worlds... how can anything this single world can offer you compare?" And almost as an aside, as if he was saying it to himself, the man continued. "And not even your most loved one in this world..."
"The Dust... it makes it too dangerous to travel."
The other laughed, and it was so honest and true that Will was thrown for a loop, that he almost believed that this stranger was trustworthy. "It would be," he said, sombering quickly. "If one did not close the doors behind him. But we won't do that, will we? Come," he said to Will. "Let me at least show you what I need your help for, if you would come..."
"No," says Will, even as part of his mind regrets his hasty comment. What harm can it do? it thinks Simply to see what this man has to say? It won't hurt...
He wavers, and the man watches, waits patiently, calmly, assuredly. Will opens his mouth to speak...
But Will's daemon comes between the two, hissing and spitting with its fur on end, and the stranger draws back. Will knows that he isn't thinking straight, but he knows one thing: he can trust his daemon above all else.
"No thank you, Mr Aizen," he says again, this time more strongly, and the cat leans against his leg, providing him strength. The man merely looks at the cat with a knowing eye, and then bows politely, before drawing his sword and opening a pathway. Will and his daemon grimly watch him pass through.
Will's daemon keeps closely to him all the way home.
A/N: Inspiration from here.
Right. *sighs and cracks knuckles* I have no idea but I've really been drained these past few days: dunno if it's the running around meeting up with people. I have the ideas for the presents for the rest of you guys, but on the writing front, not so good. We'll see how it goes.
To Jane, who knows exactly how special she is: Here's to really long friendships, elephant memories, insanely long phone calls, letters and postcards, your special brand of waa-waaing, and after-CWC dinners. Merry Christmas, even if it is sunny.
I hope you like this, even though it doesn't have Little Taichou there, because it's His Dark Materials/Bleach crossover. Not as long as the rest. =D
The Traveller from Afar
Part 1 of a currently unnamed arc
Word Count: 817
Will always passes by the park on his way home from work, hurrying home to his mother, but today he's stopped by a cheery greeting.
He turns to see who is greeting him, and finds a very ordinary man looking back at him, amusement clear beneath his thick-rimmed glasses. Will knows better; although it has been years since he last went through different worlds, this particular person has a foreign feel to him. And it's not because of the odd pauses in the English he speaks either.
"Would you like to sit down and talk?"
Will chooses to stand, shuffling his feet as he looks everyone else except at the stranger. "I don't know you."
"Ah, where are my manners? I am Sousuke Aizen, pleased to meet you." He offers a hand for him to shake, and Will cautiously does so, noting the odd calluses on the stranger's broad, dry hand. The stranger seem effable and cheery, but Will finds his gaze strangely hynoptic and tries to avoid it.
"I'm Will Parry." He coughs, and makes a show of looking at his watch. "I need to hurry home. My wife..."
"Please."
The quiet statement takes Will by surprise, and he finds it hard to continue. He stammers, then settles for staring at the man blankly. The eyes behind the glasses essay an accepting sort of pain, one that tugs at the heartstrings. Will finds his resolve slowly wavering.
"I've travelled across universes to speak to you. You used to do that not so long ago, surely you understand how difficult it was to find the right one."
Even after all these years, Will's thoughts still jump to the wild, free girl he had fallen in love with. "But Lyra and I... we closed all the doors! And I broke the Knife!"
"Did you never think of where it was forged?" The man asks him, not quite hiding his surprise. "There are plenty more of such weapons where it came from." And calmly, as if it is not surreal to see a man wielding a sword in the middle of a modern park, he procures a sheathed sword from the depths of his coat. Will finds his eyes drawn irresistably towards the blade as the man begins to draw it from its sheath, and cries out in surprise when the sword catches the light. The blade is made of the same shimmery material as the Knife.
Apparently satisfied, the man tilts the blade to show it to Will more clearly, but Will cries out again, this time in anger.
"Put it away!" Casting around a look, he checked to see if they were unobserved. The man watched him with much curiousity, and he glared back. "For a traveller, you are very careless."
The stranger waved a hand, as if dismissing the very idea. "People only see what they want to see. A man drawing a sword in the middle of a park? Too strange to contemplate." He smiled at Will, which caused the latter to realise he had made a very bad mistake, just by looking at him. "But you are a traveller yourself, and so you have seen more. And don't you miss it? The thrill of cutting a new window, walking in new worlds... how can anything this single world can offer you compare?" And almost as an aside, as if he was saying it to himself, the man continued. "And not even your most loved one in this world..."
"The Dust... it makes it too dangerous to travel."
The other laughed, and it was so honest and true that Will was thrown for a loop, that he almost believed that this stranger was trustworthy. "It would be," he said, sombering quickly. "If one did not close the doors behind him. But we won't do that, will we? Come," he said to Will. "Let me at least show you what I need your help for, if you would come..."
"No," says Will, even as part of his mind regrets his hasty comment. What harm can it do? it thinks Simply to see what this man has to say? It won't hurt...
He wavers, and the man watches, waits patiently, calmly, assuredly. Will opens his mouth to speak...
But Will's daemon comes between the two, hissing and spitting with its fur on end, and the stranger draws back. Will knows that he isn't thinking straight, but he knows one thing: he can trust his daemon above all else.
"No thank you, Mr Aizen," he says again, this time more strongly, and the cat leans against his leg, providing him strength. The man merely looks at the cat with a knowing eye, and then bows politely, before drawing his sword and opening a pathway. Will and his daemon grimly watch him pass through.
Will's daemon keeps closely to him all the way home.
A/N: Inspiration from here.
Right. *sighs and cracks knuckles* I have no idea but I've really been drained these past few days: dunno if it's the running around meeting up with people. I have the ideas for the presents for the rest of you guys, but on the writing front, not so good. We'll see how it goes.