Word Count: 2045

Jasdevi's is the longest because I originally meant to do all their pasts in this thing. It didn't turn out that way, though, and I was too satisfied with Jasdevi's background story to delete it and make a new one.

Tyki's made me snicker and sigh while writing it because it was just...odd. On the other hand, it was strangely pretty, so I kept it.

Road and Skin's were satisfying. I wanted to give a little credit to Skin because he's so under loved most of the time it's painful to watch.

Lulu Bell's was the one that made me really wince. I wanted to delete it so much that my fingers kept tingling and twitching (I kid you not), but I didn't have the heart to do it.

Cyril and the Earl are not in this because we have no idea what Cyril's is yet, and the Earl doesn't really count as a Noah. When Cyril's Noah Memory is revealed and a bunch of other Noah are too, I'll probably make another chapter for them.

All in all, this one-shot gave me tons of conflicted feelings about my writing and characters alike. Feel free to give me advice on characterization and such in your reviews.

FLAMES ABOUT CHARACTERS/MY OPINIONS ON THEIR PAST/MY WRITING CHOICES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. FLAMES AND ADVICE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THINGS. DO NOT TRY TO PASS THEM OFF AS THE SAME THING.

Enjoy (or at least try)!

Bond

They weren't always two people. They were once a person, a boy with hair like the sun and eyes as blue and vast as the ocean, and a name that they could no longer remember, but it was a nice name that could roll off your tongue fluidly like water. They were a boy who loved his parents, his friend and the world. They were a boy who could never see the wrong in anyone, no matter how many times people told him not to trust this person, that person.

How very naïve they were.

Then the day came when he was sitting on the floor while his parents were outside, counting the number of cracks in the stained wood when the pain burst in across his forehead, splitting wide crosses across the pale surface. He screamed and screamed and screamed and fell to the floor, writhing on the cold wood.

His parents did not return for hours, and when they did, his mother screamed and fell to her knees in horror. His father just stood there, unsure if what he was seeing was real or not, watching their son's newest scar bleed its way into the little black cracks of the wood.

The boy stayed in the hospital for weeks after that. It felt like years to him, such a long time that he could no longer remember just how long it exactly was. His parents never came to see him, his father too busy with work and his mother falling into such a depression she couldn't even remember what she lived for anymore. His friends never came either, school taking up their time or too busy helping their parents in the fields. He felt sick. He felt scared.

He felt lonely.

The day he came home was his last day as a full human, his head swathed in bandages and his blue eyes dull with the ache that came from it.

He had pulled open his door to find a sight that had him reeling back. His mother was prostrate on the floor, sobbing weakly and dryly into the wetted wood. Her clothes were dirty, not changed since the day he had come back, and her dress was slashed off at the bottom. The fraying tips shivered and shook as she sobbed, thumping her fist on the wood.

The boy had run to her in panic. "Mother?" he had said, fearful and joyful that he was actually seeing her alive. "What's wrong Mother?"

She had muttered something under her breath, inaudible and too soft for him to even hear.

"Mother?"

"Why?" Her voice finally broke through, a faint whisper, a rasping in the wind. "Why? My darling boy, why?"

"Mother, I'm here."

"Why are you here, darling? You should be dead, shouldn't you? You should be dead, dead, dead." She keeps choking out the words, the syllables dead on her tongue. "You should be dead."

"But I'm here."

"You shouldn't be. One more mouth to feed is all you are, is all you were. We didn't need you." She laughs a horrible laugh, like nails screeching on a blackboard, so unlike her old laugh that was filled with light and golden sunflowers rushing in the wind.

The boy stares at his mother, his words lost inside his chest. His throat feels clogged up, too much pressure at the back as he recalls a flood of emotions he'd rather forget.

I'm lonely. I'm sad. I want to be loved.

I don't want to die in here.

Then don't, came a voice, lilting and prettier than the clearest bell. Don't die yet, all by yourself.

How don't I, he answers back. How don't I?

Come with me. A hand appears in front of him in his mind's eye, dark as ash with nails black as coal. Come with me, and you will never be lonely again.

Filled with the sense of loss, of grief, and of things unsaid, he takes its hand.

His mother looks up for a brief moment to see her son's frame wavering in front of her eyes and the biggest, darkest smile on his face. It terrifies her.

"Don't worry." It's her son's voice but not, a chorus of two with a gong in the background. "We didn't need you either."

Two hours later the two of them wake up alone at the edge of the fields where they used to play, hands covered in blood and nails dug under with pieces of broken skin.

Ten years old and already bound by blood and soul.

Pleasure

He is called the Noah's pleasure. The ability to touch what he pleases to touch, to feel what he wishes to feel—those are the things that he has always reveled in, always kept close to him and used for his gain.

But he has no idea what true pleasure is, the human's pleasure. He finds that ironic in a twisted way, that he has absolutely no idea what exactly was his element is about.

He can certainly choose what to touch, what to defile with his white-gloved hands. He has, of course, had his share of pretty girls. He has kissed quite a few, danced with many, told them all that they were beautiful. He gains his pleasure from seeing their pretty faces flush a light pink or the deepest red from their own pleasure at his praises.

However, he is a virgin. That is one thing that gets to him, no matter how much fun he has flirting with all the fair damsels. He has never made love to someone, never truly been in the throes of passion and happiness, has never been kissed more than just a peck on the cheek. He has never been told that somebody loves him more than just family.

He still waves off his brother's attempts to find a woman for him. It's useless, he says to him all the time. They don't want someone with a heart made of stone.

They don't want someone that hears an imaginary demon screaming and rampaging in the back of their head, he thinks of saying, but doesn't, because that will make his brother fuss over him even more than usual (because his brother had always felt a need to protect the little ones ever since they were little, and he has no desire to make him worry and waste away like before like those days when his forehead began to bleed on the pretty tile floor).

He accepts every dance, knowing that none of them will give him the thing that he wants most and needs the most out of everything else.

Dreams

She doesn't like the fact that she can still see what once was in the dreams of her subconscious. She doesn't even remember how many years it's been since then—five? Ten? One thousand? She can't even recall what they sounded like when they weren't screaming.

There is only one person that she remembers somewhat more than just blurs of faces and pretty red blood over crudely carved tables and chairs. He used to smile at her, play with her and her little rag doll—she called it Jamie, she sometimes can recall—and laugh a deep laugh that reverberated in her soul. He had a beard that was bushy and scratchy and tickled when he had hugged her to his chest and her face would brush against his chin.

She thinks she called him 'father'.

He's done and dead now, just like other humans though. There's no point in reveling over something that is no longer there, just like her mind refuses to let her revel over the fact that she can't remember how exactly he died.

She can't help it though. When she's not remembering the good parts of what once was, she remembers a woman with a blurry face and pretty black hair that glinted blue in the sun. She remembers another man with white hair and an even blurrier face than the woman's.

She remembers their forms covered with blood, and a sharpened candle in her hands, dripping little bits of flesh onto the floor with little plip-plop sounds that send chills up her spine every time she wakes up from her dreams, trying her best not to scream and act naturally every morning when that happens.

She knows that some of the more observant ones in her family can sense the disturbance in her usual cheer. She knows that all too well that they stare at her sometimes, wondering what's wrong with her this time, what can they can do to help her get back on her feet.

She wishes that they'd understand that the reason she doesn't tell them is so they don't worry so hard, like the people in her dreams. So that they don't end up dying by her hand, stabbed through by pretty purple candles that swirl round and round as they drill through flesh and spine.

Wrath

The most he could recall through out his life was anger. Anger at his father for hitting him when he didn't finish something correctly, anger at his mother for not standing up for him, anger at his co-workers for not doing something right, .

Anger at himself for turning into a monster even more hideous than his father was.

He had been angry with a lot of things, back when he was alive and not a mere spirit, with wind as his skeleton and leaves as his skin.

When the Noah came (through a mirror, a mirror that reflected dark eyes with red pupils that seethed and writhed with beautiful fury), he had felt that anger rise back up and swallowing him whole. It consumed him, digested him until he was just a shell made of anger and golden spikes that tore apart his skin and made him bleed and bleed until he thought he couldn't stop.

He regrets that he left his family behind—little Road who had comforted him the night he turned into a monster, the Earl that had treated him like he was still human, Tyki that had given him sweets when he thought his back was turned, and Jasdevi, who was weirder than any of them but had still cared somewhat. He regrets that a lot, even though the thoughts are fleeting and less painful then they actually should be. Because he is a spirit, he cannot feel as much as he used to.

The final thing that Skin regrets doing before passing on is the fact that he didn't tell the exorcist with long black hair thank you for his death.

Lust

She had never felt lust even after she became a Noah. Before, she had been a high-class lady, prim and regal on a throne almost, gazing piercingly at crowds of many just to gaze on her glory. She had not ever thought what it was to lust, to want so much that it hurt.

It never changed, even when she did.

She had glanced into the blood sprinkled mirror in slight delirium, gazing transfixed at her reflection that was so changed from her previous. The blond had gone into a deep charcoal black, the blue into gold (gold like the sun, the light, the devil's deceiver), and her skin ashy gray. The most bold, however, were the black crosses dancing across her forehead like a beacon. I am an angel, they said, and you should fear us.

She was more beautiful than she had ever been before, and as she gazed at it, a voice, pitch black and lustful, purely lustful rang through her mind like a gong. Lulu Bell, it said, laughing and laughing. Lulu Bell, you pretty girl. Look what Noah has given you.

Look at what you have become.

Then the Earl had come to pick her up and she immediately gave herself to him because she was terrified of what was going on. She had no idea what she was getting herself into, and frankly, she didn't care. She just wanted to get out of the place she had been born and would have died in if Noah had not chosen her.

She has never regretted her choice.