Aw, yesss. That's right, this about Canary. Remember her? If you don't, head over to the hunterpedia website and refresh your memory.

Love you guys! Please enjoy.

a big, BIG thanks to Atmospheric, my beta reader.

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[prelude.]

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Welcome to Meteor City.

Dust picked up by the fierce wind. The smell of rotting garbage and rotting corpses, of burning corpses underneath the burning sun, and the feeling of chilliness inside abandoned buildings and the dankness of abandonment. Of hunger, curling low and constant in her belly, a monster that she had long since learned to bear with. Of rough hands and dirty feet, the smell of smoke and ash and rot. Of tattered clothing and the unforgiving burning sun, ablaze in the blue, blue sky.

No one noticed her.

She was a scavenger, footsteps silent, nothing more than a small shadow darting among shadows. Amidst the piles of rubble and junk, she was nothing. She was just another tattered corpse, just another piece of dust picked up by the fierce wind, another piece of the burning sun.

In this world, there were only predators and prey, and the difference between one and the other were very, very hard to distinguish. One could be a predator in one instant and prey in the next.

Except for her.

A faint smile appeared on her dirty, brown face as she saw the group of kids crowd around a man who had fallen dead in the afternoon. Her fingers clenched tightly around the stick she held in her hands.

In this world of rubbish and abandoned junk, she would always be a predator.

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Canary raised the stick above her head, and brought it down with a yell. The group of kids before her scattered, abandoning the corpse like vultures abandoning a carcass.

Everything was gray here. Even the blood was a grayish-red. The only thing of any color was the sky, which was a brilliant, brilliant blue. She dragged the corpse away to hide in the shelter of an abandoned truck, lying on its side, its wheels long stripped of its rubber to reveal its gray and mutilated skeleton. Her hands expertly sought the corpse's pockets.

Her stomach clenched painfully in elation. Bread. There was bread in the corpse's pocket that the other kids had missed. Quickly, she wolfed it down, making sure to not even leave a single crumb. Her mouth tasted of dust and the hard bread cut into her tongue, but she swallowed anyway.

"Sorry," she told the corpse, when she had finished the bread. "Today wasn't your lucky day." He had been an older resident of Meteor City, and had collapsed at last from dehydration in the afternoon. There was no point in bread without water, after all.

The corpse didn't answer. She leaned down, and patted the corpse gently on the shoulder. She wasn't quite sure why she did so, but she figured it was something akin to pity. In this merciless city of cracked ground and open sky, there was no true pity, only relief that you were not the dead one and hope that you would not be the next.

As the wind picked up once again, the small figure stiffened. There was someone approaching, his footsteps carrying loudly among the eerie and deceptive deadness of the abandoned city. Quickly, she pressed herself against the side of the truck, kicking the corpse over to hide his face, and dissolved into the shadows to watch.

She was not alone. Everyone else was watching, too. She could feel them watching the stranger as they approached the outskirts of their home, hidden behind cracked pillars and beneath dusty tarps, just like she could feel the stranger as they approached without hesitation.

This was unexpected. People never came here, unless they were here to throw something away.

She peered at the figure, round brown eyes narrowed.

What are you here to throw away? she wondered.

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This man was taller and thinner, with dark hair and a well-trimmed beard. Oddly, he seemed almost at ease with walking through the wreck of a city, despite his appearance.

Outsider. Canary was interested. She was an interested shadow pressed against the side of the truck, stick held carefully to avoid it from bumping against the metal exoskeleton of the truck, sliding slowly closer, inching her way towards the man.

She'd always wanted to leave the city, but she'd never dared to do so. There was no existence out there for her, after all. No papers of her birthdate or documentation of her name. Both inside the city and out, she was nothing more than a ghost, a shadow among shadows that could not be seen. The freedom of nonexistence only existed within a nonexistent city, after all. In the world outside Meteor City, nonexistence made it almost impossible to survive.

All of a sudden, the man seemed to stiffen. He turned, and looked in her direction.

For a moment, her blood froze. Her heart thudded fiercely in her chest, and her knuckles turned white as she clutched her stick, feeling the worn-down wood dig into her palms. What? Had she been noticed? She swallowed dryly, and erased her presence even more so than before, curling it tight into her stomach and pulling it into a ball. She held her breath, peering at the man, forcing herself to calm down and keep her presence hidden.

After a moment, the tall, well-dressed man turned away, shoulders relaxing faintly. She let go of her breath as well, feeling the odd panicky sensation slowly slip away from her chest. Somehow she had not been detected.

When the man left the city, she followed.

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Meteor City is a city of contradictions. It is an ever growing city of decaying trash, a non-existent city home to millions of people that do not exist, a city containing thieves and killers and people of all nationalities yet a stunningly unified population. There is a certain freedom in the idea of nonexistence, and a sense of isolation as well.

This is the city that Canary grew up in. This is the city that Canary called her home with pride; she loved the cracked, harsh ground and the dirty piles of rubble and the ever-present smell of decay, and she loved the wide, unpolluted sky.

Meteor City extended for many miles. In fact, what Canary considered to be 'outside' the city was in fact only a point where the rubble stopped accumulating in piles and piles and piles. There were still plenty of abandoned junk and garbage, littering the edges of the city in small pockets. The only true way out was a lonely highway that ran past Meteor City, occasionally brushing against a few of the piles of abandoned junk that were scattered around in the surrounding region.

Canary had always darted around the outskirts of Meteor City, but she'd never actually taken a step out of the city. Now she had done the unthinkable - she had followed the man, eyes hungrily watching his back, stick clenched in her hands. She crouched on top of a decrepit building, watching.

This man felt different to her. It made her curious.

It was a long way until the highway, but her questions were answered when she spotted a car in the distance. He had evidently driven out to Meteor City from the highway, but once again Canary found herself wondering why.

Her stomach clenched once more. She was hungry. She ignored the feeling.

Below her, the man stopped walking, once again.

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"I know you're there," the man said, suddenly.

She froze.

"I know you've been following me," he continued to say. The faintest hint of steel entered his voice. "Come out."

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Her breath caught. Canary didn't know how she had been noticed. In Meteor City, she had always prided herself on being completely unnoticeable. It was helpful when stealing food from other people, and even more when it came to sneaking into places.

She couldn't help it. Her palms became clammy, and her stomach clenched in panic, adrenaline spiking through her system. This was the second time that he'd noticed her! Canary held her breath and forced herself to shrink, to freeze completely and pull any traces of her presence in once again, coiling it into a ball inside her. It had worked last time.

Take a deep breath.

She swallowed harshly, and willed herself to breathe.

"If you don't come out, I will come to you," the man continued, his hands deep in his pockets. Despite his relaxed posture, there was no hiding the hidden threat in his words. "I won't hurt you if you come out right now. So please, relax. I'm just curious as to what makes me so interesting you have to tail me this far outside Meteor City."

Her hands clenched against her stick. Should she reveal herself? Canary was caught in indecision. It felt unnatural to her, because she was so used to being unseen, but then again, he had said that he wouldn't hurt her. She swallowed dryly. Stay hidden, or reveal herself?

The man sighed, and then lifted his hands out of his pocket. Something glinted in his hands, and Canary was instantly alert, her muscles tensing. Was it a knife? A gun?

It was just a coin. Canary watched with curiosity as the man flipped it up in the air with practiced ease, letting it flash between his knuckles. He weighed it for a moment, and then shrugged.

Then with impossible speed, he pivoted and flicked the coin in her direction.

Canary moved. She leaped off the building, feeling the dizzying rush as she plummeted to the ground, nothing more than a flickering black shadow, stick firmly in her hands. She landed heavily on the ground, but unhurt. When she glanced up, she realized with fear that the coin had embedded itself deep into the granite wall right below where she had been crouching, small cracks coming from the hole that it had made.

It wasn't a bullet from a gun, but it might as well have been.

Then, to her abrupt panic, the man was standing in front of her, an imposing shadow that had her cornered to the wall. Somehow, in the time it had taken for her to jump off the building, he had darted forward to trap her. Canary tensed, and straightened up, her heart pounding fiercely. Should she run? She could run around the corner, sneak into the shadows, make her way back to Meteor City.

She reacted instinctively, raising the stick up in a defensive pose.

The two faced off for what seemed like an eternity. Canary felt her entire body tense, ready to either attack or run away at a moment's notice. She kept her grip on her stick firmly, though, and continued to watch the man warily. Now that she could see him up close, she saw that he was clean-shaven, with sharp eyes hidden behind glasses and an equally sharp chin.

She subtly took a step back, and instantly he had grabbed hold of her, making sure that she couldn't run.

Canary reacted instinctively. She swung at him hard with her stick, aiming straight for his head. The head was always the weak point, and a good blow to the temple never failed to knock someone out.

To her surprise, he easily caught the stick with his free hand. Canary let out a faint cry as her stick was wrenched out of her hands. It clattered noisily as it was dropped to the ground, and Canary grimaced at the sound, and began twisting frantically, trying to escape.

"Hey now," the man said pleasantly, his tone at odds with his vice-like grip on her arm, "calm down. I scared you really well back there, so I was a little worried, but clearly that's not an issue. Nice moves, though. You reacted instantly. Most people wouldn't have been capable of even seeing that."

Again. He had told her that he wouldn't hurt her, but clearly he would not let her go. Canary winced, and struggled violently, her small body desperately trying to escape.

"Whoa! Easy there! I'm not going to hurt you, okay?" the grip on her arm tightened. "Calm down. I want to talk."

"Let me go!" she snarled, struggling even harder, desperately trying escape his hold, "let me go!"

"Oh! You do speak!" he smiled, but did not let go of her despite her best efforts. "I'm surprised. You're much younger than I thought you'd be; you look about the same age as my young master, which means you mustn't be more than nine years old. That city you come from is very brutal."

Canary's hands tightened, but there was no longer a stick so she simply dug her dirty fingernails into her palms, knuckles turning white, glaring fiercely at the ground.

He took a step closer, and that was when Canary realized.

She had totally stilled, her muscles tensing. Because there was no mistaking the way that he carried himself, not when she was so up close. It was faint, but it was so obvious to her now she wondered how she could have missed it before. People from Meteor City would always recognize each other. It had to do with the way their body moved, the way their eyes shifted and the feeling of otherness that always followed them.

Canary exhaled.

"You're from Meteor City," she said. It was less of a question and more of an accusation.

He was well-dressed, and well-fed, and clean. Clearly, he was one of those people who had left the city, sometimes to find work and make a unobtrusive but dangerous living, or one of those that had decided to become a criminal. She bit back her questions, and resorted to frowning.

He smiled at her, but it was a dangerous smile, one of bared teeth and a needle-like scrutiny. "Correct," he said.

If he was surprised at what she had observed, he did not show it. Instead, he straightened up, and regarded her with an intent gaze behind glasses. Canary tested his grip on her arm, and was disappointed to find that she still could not break free.

"I am indeed from here," he said, a harsh frown appearing on his face, "but that should not be surprising. Why did you follow me, little girl?"

She swallowed dryly, unable to meet his face. Her fingers twitched uneasily. "Why did you leave?" she countered. She trained her eyes on the ground, and kept her voice angry.

"Leave?"

"Leave the city. Meteor City. Why did you leave?"

It was momentary, just a little bit, but his grip relaxed on her arm. Canary reacted instantly, and wrenched her arm out from his grip. In the next moment, she had darted backwards, intending to duck into the shadows, but he was faster. The man lunged forward immediately, foot lashing out to trip her. Canary let out a cry as she thudded to the ground hard. Momentarily confused, she staggered to her feet, only to twist and struggle violently as he caught her by the stomach.

"I left the city," the man said very solemnly, continuing as if completely disregarding her attempt to escape, "probably for the same reason you are trying to leave now."

She froze then, her struggling coming to a stop.

"What - ?"

"You followed me all the way out here," he told her, warily. "And I can tell, little brat. You don't want to be in the City anymore."

Canary flushed, and was glad that her caramel skin hid her embarrassment.

"H-how...?" How did you know? How can you tell?

He gave her a frown. Then, uncharacteristically, he released his grip on her arm.

Canary twitched. Run away now, she thought to herself. But she did not run away. Instead, she stood in front of the tall man, her fingers grasping at her clothing. She missed the feel of her stick; it had become part of her, somehow, and she glanced at it, wondering if she could maybe grab it from the ground.

"My name is Gotoh," the man said. "I am actually a butler, for a very, very famous family of assassins called the Zoldycks. In my profession, you see, it's important to not exist."

She looked up. He was appraising her now, a thoughtful frown on his face. She did not see where this was going.

"You..." the words fit oddly in her mouth, like a puzzle piece that was had been turned sideways. "You're right. I...I want to leave."

Gotoh nodded, and stuck his hands into his pockets. He was still looking at her with a faint frown, as if he was debating upon something.

She shifted nervously. For one moment, Canary desperately, desperately considered running away. This time there was more distance between the two of them. He would not be able to catch her, if she decided to run. Her fingers tightened against the hem of her shirt before relaxing.

"What is it?" she finally asked, her voice higher than she would have liked.

"...Come back with me," Gotoh said, and her eyes widened.

"Recently, there were...accidents, and we lost some of our employees," his voice was cold, but gentle. "I don't usually hire butlers on whim like this...but you have potential. You'll be given food, and a chance to earn your own worth. You're young, and I'm sure Tsubone will have a fun time teaching you. You have all the prerequisites. You will be a fantastic butler to the family that I serve, but only if you want. Only if you come back with me."

He offered her a hand, and she looked at it, her expression confused, indecisive.

Impossible, she sneered inwardly, you are lying. You have no such intentions.

He was offering to take her away.

People who came to Meteor City did not come to take. They came to throw away.

But this person...

...this person was offering her an existence where her nonexistence was needed.

A faint, despairing smile appeared on her face. It was an expression that sharply contrasted with her round, young face, and her small, thin, dirty hand slipped into his rough and strong one.

When given this kind of opportunity, how can I possibly refuse?

"My name is Canary," Canary told him.

"Please...take me with you."

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Gotoh is also from Meteor City. I thought that if there was any way for Canary to become an apprentice butler in the Zoldyck family, it would be because Gotoh found her.

this...exploded, i guess. It was supposed to be a 500 word drabble, but it turned into a 3000 word prologue, and then now i want it to be a story and i can't get it out of my head. Meteor City has always interested me and I've always liked Canary as a character but like...

I'VE BEEN WANTING TO WRITE THIS FOR MONTHS DAMN IT.

If I make this into a story, it will probably be a romance between Canary and Killua. I've always wanted to write that pairing. Granted, she's a minor character, and there's just so much OC competition out there for Killua that she's probably shunted completely out of the picture, but I've always entertained thoughts of how interesting this couple could be.

Anyways, yup. I'm starting another story. This will be CANARY-CENTRIC. I really want to experiment on this one and develop her as a character, as well as her relationship with Killua. The first few chapters will probably be fairly stand-alone, because I don't really know where I'm going with this story in terms of plot. I just want to write a badass Canary.