Fic - D.Gray-Man - "Darkness to Light"

[brightdreamer]

Title: Darkness to Light

Author: Melody / Eloy Brightdreamer

Fandom: D.Gray-man
Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Summary: A child becomes a Bookman's apprentice and steps into the light for the first time.

Disclaimer: I do not own D.Gray-Man or its characters. No profit was made from this story.

When the child was born, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to his parents. He was a healthy baby boy, with a full head of dark hair and eyes the shade of midnight. As he grew, the hair lightened to a vibrant red, and his eyes brightened to a green that rivaled emeralds. But as his eyes cleared and focused, something changed in the baby's demeanor. He no longer smiled as much, nor reached for new objects that came in his view. Bright lights made him cry, and he only seemed happy in the dim light of his nursery. His parents called every doctor they could find, but even the most talented specialists could not find anything wrong with his eyes.

As all children do, the boy adapted. He learned to crawl, then walk, no slower than any other child his age. But those vibrant green eyes were rarely open in the daylight, and he felt his way around the house like one blind. His parents tried everything to get him to open his eyes... rewards, punishments, pleading... but the toddler knew what hurt and what didn't, and no outside influence would change his mind. Any attempts to make him open his eyes only ended with the child curled on the floor, screaming in pain and frustration. Friends and family shook their heads and assumed the boy was throwing tantrums and should be punished, but his parents knew that something far deeper was wrong. But how could a child who only knew a few words explain why he hurt, and what was hurting him?

The boy loved stories, and would cuddle to his mother's side as she read him his favorite fairy tales. “Don't you want to see the pictures?” she would ask, trying to coax him to open his eyes in the candlelight. Sometimes, he would try, peeking out at the bright paintings in the storybook, smiling widely before burying his face in his mother's bosom.

“Read, mama, read't,” he begged, bringing his own pictures to life in his mind. The images in his head never made his eyes hurt, never brought the throbbing pain that daylight or lamplight inflicted on his tiny skull.

Another year passed, then two, then more, and the boy still acted as though he were nearly blind. He could tell his parents and doctors now that seeing things made his head hurt, and light was painful, but it did not change the fact that no one knew how to help him. He'd become quite adept at finding his way in new places by little flickers of sight, peeking at the world through flutters of his long eyelashes, catching glimpses like touches of a butterfly wing. The dreamworlds built by his mother's stories were far more real to him than these faded flashes of the real world, and he sometimes wished that he could step through a door to one of these faraway lands, or have a dragon carry him away to one of these bright kingdoms that it wouldn't pain him to see.

One morning, the boy awoke to the feeling of callused fingers stroking his forehead. He tensed, not recognizing the touch, knowing that it wasn't either of his parents, nor any of the doctors that he knew.

“Does the world hurt to see, boy?” a gravely voice spoke from above him. “Do you see things too clearly, too brightly, so much that it makes your head ache?”

The child drew in a quick breath and sat up in his bed. Finally, someone had put words to the pain he'd felt for as long as he could remember. “Yeah,” he said, his voice small. “Can't look't things, hurts.” He'd tried to tell the others that very thing, but no one had understood what he was trying to say.

The old man pulled his hand away, and the boy heard a rustling sound as though someone was hunting through a bag. “Try this, see if it helps.” A soft cloth was tugged over the child's right eye, strings tied securely around his face and the back of his head. “Perhaps with one eye, the world will not overwhelm you.”

Biting his lip, the young boy considered whether to trust the man. “Who're you?” he asked finally.

“My name is Bookman,” he replied, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder. “Open your eyes.”

The command was spoken with such authority that the child could not refuse. Shivering with fear, he slowly blinked his eyes open, staring down at the floor. He waited a moment, but the pain and dizziness were held at bay by the soft black covering his right eye. He no longer saw every swirling crack of the wood grain in the floor, nor every hair and speck of dust covering it, but... that was good. It wasn't too much to see, not too much to handle, and he smiled in wonder and relief. Reaching his hand out, he caught a sunbeam streaming through the window, and flinched back a bit, expecting a sharp stab of pain in his head, but there was none, only the warmth of light.

Raising his gaze, the boy looked up at his benefactor, and immediately broke out in a peal of laughter. “P-panda!” he exclaimed, remembering the description from one of the stories of China that his mother had read to him.

A hand came up and cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. “My name is Bookman, and don't you forget it, apprentice,” the old man said gruffly.

The boy tilted his head in confusion, instinctively closing his eyes again for a moment before remembering to open them. “What's a 'prentis?” he asked curiously.

The old man with the dark-painted eyes crouched in front of the boy, looking at him seriously. “Your eyes are special, and are meant to see the history of this world. You will travel with me and record the secret histories. You have to give up everything you know now, but you will see the world and know the history that no one else knows. Can you accept this?”

Pulling his knees up to his chest, the child chewed on his lip for a moment. “Mama and Papa?” he asked, his voice quivering.

The old man shook his head. “They will not be going with you. I will be your only family from now on.” His face softened slightly, and he put a hand on the boy's knee. “You are special, child. Now that you can see the light, do you not want to see the rest of the world as well?”

For a young child, it was a difficult decision. To see the world... to know things that no one else knows... but... Mama and Papa...

“You must come with me,” Bookman insisted. “You are the one I've been searching for these many years.”

The boy stood and walked to his window, closing his eyes out of habit. As his fingers found the windowsill, he took a deep breath and opened them, for the first time looking fully at the world beyond the glass. Fields of tall grass waved just beyond the clearing of the house, and a path wound off to the distant mountains looming purple in the sky. The child nearly cried out in delight, his eyes filling with tears of joy rather than pain. This man had given him the light after his whole life in near-darkness... how could he say no? “I'll go,” he said, his small voice shaking slightly. “I'll be your 'prentis.”

And maybe, just maybe, now he'd see the world that until now had only been pictures conjured in his mind from words in a storybook.