Title: Silence
Summary: Silence can be so loud. Marie-centric. Speculationfic.
Rating: PG
Genre: General/Angst
Content: Sad loneliness, all told in painful silence.
Author's Note: Hasn't anyone ever wondered about Marie and his Innocence? A minor character that's sort of "just there" now with a little more thought behind that big, bald dude we normally see tagging around with Tiedoll or Kanda or Miranda. Plus he wears headphones that look like mine, so that makes me cheer inside for awesome style. Therefore, Marie, you get a fanfiction!
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He was born in a town that doesn't exist anymore in a country that no longer matters to anyone, except to those that colonized it during the great scramble between empire-seeking nations. In this town that no longer exists or matters, he was born into a family with a mother and a mostly absent father. He might have been given a name, but he did not know it. His parents most likely called him by it often, but he did not hear it.
He did not hear it over the silence.
Being born deaf was not the only tragedy, for perhaps his mother would have loved him besides and his father would not have been gone so much, entertaining himself with secular matters such as gambling and alcohol. But he was also dumb and therefore considered stupid. Perhaps if he would have known the words, he could have spoken them. But no one bothered to teach him how to speak, for what good could a person who could not hear do for anyone else? What use could he be to the rest of the world?
Nothing, said the silence, absolutely nothing.
Living that way was hard, although manageable. At least for him. How much he could see that his mother despaired over having him: a child who gave her no comfort or pride. It was probably because he couldn't hear the words that came from her ever-moving lips that he tended to look at her eyes more often than not. They were brown, like his, only shadowed with something that he could not name, although it might have been a few degrees past disappointment. His eyes were just like hers, only his were full of confusion, childish wonder. If only he had the words to ask: "Oh, mother, mother, why do you hate me so?" perhaps she would have been proud to hear his voice for the first time. But he could not ask and therefore she did not answer.
Silence.
He spent most of his early days learning to do things on his own. His mother neither babied nor coddled him. Most of the time, it was as if she did not see him at all. When she gave birth to his little sister, he swore that her eyes never looked at him again, not even on accident. Almost as if he didn't exist any longer and that his body had somehow melded into the shadows of the corner he always occupied.
Cruel, cold silence.
How long was it after she was born—he still did not know his own name, so hers was as absent as his—that she began talking? He did not know. But he knew the day because he was there, watching. Watching as her little lips moved in a certain way that made his mother's eyes tear up with happiness. His mother had never looked at him that way and never held him to her bosom like she did with his sister.
He bled silent envy within himself.
As his sister got bigger and he got bigger, his mother had two more children. They all could hear and speak and that made his mother proud. All of these things he was unable to do: the child that his parents did not want or need; the silent one; the mistake. He tried to amuse himself by wondering what laughter sounded like.
But his ears continued to ring with empty silence.
He was older, about eleven or twelve when it happened. Sitting out in front of the house under a canopy of ratty fabric and wilting plants he heard it. It was something that he could not describe: a feeling that completely filled his body with longing. Soft and quiet, yet powerful it sang inside of him a sad score that called for a missing piece.
Seeking a composer to combat its loneliness: his silence.
Standing up, he looked around, but could see nothing but the dirty streets lined with rubbish and other items of poverty. He then began to walk, following narrow paths between buildings and crowded ones in marketplaces. A few times, the music sounded as if it were getting further away, but then he managed to follow the sound, letting it pull his body toward what called him. He felt like he had to go, like he was obligated. But also, inside he felt that this might be his chance: his saving grace.
An angel that appeared out of the silence.
On the outskirts of the town, he heard it most clearly. Words were spoken, foreign to his uneducated and deaf ears. He did not know what it was saying, but he trusted the song and the feelings it invoked within himself and the strength it gave him to get up and walk so far from home. Somehow, he doubted he had the strength to go back.
Back to a silent cage.
There was an older man seated on the ground. He was wearing nice clothing and there was a pack sitting beside him. Those two things told him that this man was a foreigner. The old man paid no notice to him; too busy sketching away on a big board of paper with charcoal. He was drawing what he saw in front of him: the vast savanna and scarce trees and the small heard of wild equine in the grasslands. The music was the loudest around him and it made the boy stop some shy ten feet of him.
He observed in silence.
But he must have made noise—noise that he could not hear—for the old man turned and looked at him, blowing a pink bubble from his lips. Once the bubble was gone, his lips were then moving from under his mustache. The man was talking and looking directly at him and he did not know what to do. No one had ever looked at him before so naturally and with a look in his eyes behind thick spectacles that he had never seen before and therefore could not name. All he knew was that he could hear music around this man.
All he knew was that the song replaced the silence.
There were a few minutes that went by in which the two just stared at each other and he did not know what the old man was looking at him for so strangely. Dropping his eyes, he stared at the man's coat that was draped over his traveling luggage. It was black and gold and there was something shiny on the breast pocket, something like a star. The old man saw him looking at it and immediately the boy tore his gaze away and moved back a few steps. But the strange man did not look angry and merely smiled, reaching into the coat pocket to pull out a wrapped candy which he gave to him.
He accepted it with silent thanks.
The song was still playing, less longing now, more comforting, as if it knew a friend was close by and it needed not to call out anymore. Near to the old man, he sat, chewing on the candy curiously. It was sticky and gummy and the man showed him how to do tricks with it like blowing huge bubbles. He had fun and smiled because it was the first time that someone had been so kind to him.
Kind to him despite being so silent.
The man then tried communicating with him. At first, he put his hands over his ears and then shook his head. "No hear?" he seemed to ask and the boy shook his head. The same answer when the old man put his hand on his own mouth as if to ask "No speak?" He looked disheartened, but not angry, and that made him feel better about not being able to do much. Although he wished he could somehow tell the man about the song he could hear and how he could hear it the best right where they were sitting
But when he tried to move his lips, nothing but silence came out.
Trying something new, the old man his hands behind his ears, then his chest and raised his bushy eyebrows a little. At first, the boy had no idea what this meant, repeating the actions to himself slowly to try to understand. The gesture was new: he wasn't being asked if he couldn't hear, but if he could hear something—he touched his chest—inside of him. And he nodded. He didn't know much, but he knew that there wasn't just a void there anymore.
The silent void was being consumed by a passionate song.
The old man looked surprised, but also glad to hear this and reached over into his coat. This time, it wasn't a piece of candy that emerged, but a beautiful glowing object. He held it in one hand out in front of the boy where the song was radiating inside of him and he felt like his eyes just couldn't leave its sparkling figure. The object was put into his hands. It was as if a switch flicked on in his brain or that he had just come up from under the pressure of the ocean.
The silent world retreated, leaving sound.
He could hear the wind and the trees and grass moving. The sounds of people shouting gaily back in the village. The sound of a storm approaching from the north. He could hear it. And he cried, clutching the mysterious thing between his two hands, never wanting to let go.
Please don't cast me back into silence, the unrelenting grip asked.
The old man spoke to him and that was the first voice he ever heard. It was kind, that was all he knew, as the words were foreign to his previously deaf ears that he could not understand. He pointed at his chest and spoke clearly: "Tiedoll." It took a lot of effort—for years of never using his vocal chords had left them strangely tight—but he managed to repeat the word—the name—of the person who brought him out of the silence.
It was a beautiful day.
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"So I don't understand, Marie," Daisya said, in between shoving tempura into his mouth that day at lunch. "How'd you get your name if you ain't never heard it?"
Although Marie could hear now, he was still quiet by nature. General Tiedoll spoke up for him after finishing his tea.
"Well, Marie for the name of the village he comes from," explained Tiedoll. "And Noise because of all the noise he made trying to sneak up on me that day!"
"Haha! Marie's a sneaker!" Daisya laughed, pointing his fork accusingly at the tall man.
"I wasn't sneaking…" Marie replied, not stopping from his lunch.
"Sneaker! Sneaker!" Daisya repeated.
"I am not a piece of footwear," said Marie, making Daisya snort with laughter.
"You're all idiots…" Kanda muttered, taking the time to utter this insult while eating his favorite meal of soba.
"And here I thought it was a lovely story…" Tiedoll sighed, pouring himself some more tea.
"Heehee, Marie the sneaker!" Daisya continued, earning glares from all around the table.
"Shut up, Daisya," Kanda advised, fingering Mugen threateningly.
"I wasn't sneaking," said Marie again.
"Haha! Yes you were!"
"Shut up, Daisya."
"Oh, now can't we all just get along…?"
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There you go! This piece of fanfiction completely ruined my research paper. Why is it that I always get inspiration when I have other things to do? I dunno…
Review if you'd like! I'd sure appreciate it!
Dhampir72