See With my Own Eyes
Aug. 14th, 2012 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esp_dragonFandom: +Anima
Summary: Blanca had been inside the still room for so long, where there had been nothing but darkness until Aaron, and eventually Fly, had come, and it used to be enough. But it wasn’t now, not when she knew it was just a part of what was outside the room, what she could possibly see for herself.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Nothing.
Notes: Written for Masu Trout for Parallelsfic.
Set pre-series, but spoilers for volume 10.
Genre: General/Friendship
Word count: 5,801
Status: Complete
She could hear him. She didn’t know what he was saying –everything was muffled as it had always been- but the sound still reached her. It wasn't a voice that she had heard before – the one she usually heard had a deeper voice that carried better. She didn’t have enough energy to open her eyes to see what he looked like, but the sound echoed around her, and she slowly got used to it. She wondered how he'd found her, if the other one had brought him here.
It continued, the sound rising and falling, and sometimes it was so soft she couldn’t hear it, but she eventually drifted off, letting it lull her to sleep.
* * *
The next time she was able to open her eyes, there were two people in front of her, talking. She recognised the taller one as the one that had visited her multiple times already; the smaller one was probably the one she had seen before, his voice already familiar to her. To see this many people at once, it made something inside her twist and she hoped it would be a while until they stopped coming again.
There was something between them on the ground, confined and struggling. It shone far brighter than the torchlight, glowing white rather than orange. Before she could make sense of its rapidly shifting form, the taller one did something whatever was holding it and it shot away, its form unfurling to reveal wings. Unconsciously, her own wings mimicked the movement as best as they could – her wings were only able to pull back slightly before a tug at her chest distracted her. She suddenly somehow knew there was a connection between her and the other, and she could feel they were steadily being drawn to her. The other one kept trying to fly away, its wings a blur but it was trapped by whatever had tied them together, still steadily coming towards her. Before she could think to even try and break whatever it was that tied them together, the connection must have tightened and the other one barrelled towards her. She could only watch as it did, watch as it came closer and closer before it filled her entire view. It passed through the glass that separated her from everything else like it wasn’t there and then passed through her.
No. It passed into her. She gasped as her mind tumbled, something whirling, trying to run, needing to escape and – oh, that was what it was. The other realised she was there at the same time, and focused on her; they hovered there, waiting to see what would happen next.
Nothing did and the other relaxed slightly, growing curious. 'Hello?'
'Hello,' she repeated, a flicker of memory telling her what her response should be.
She had the impression the other was tilting their head at her thoughts, and then there was dawning realisation from the other. 'They never let you out, do they?'
'"They"?'
'That – Aaron and Fly!' the other burst out, wings flapping in agitation. The accompanying images that were paired with the names were distorted and unwavering, but it was enough for her to recognise the faces of the people standing in front of her. 'They ripped me from Olran!' Worry instantly replaced the agitation – worry if Olran was hurt, if she needed him, what she was doing right then.
The other grew quiet, drawing in on himself, and she turned her attention back to…Aaron and Fly. What she could see and what the other had seen were different: she could only recognise them by the colour on their heads, the sound of their voices - the rest of them was an indistinct haze in the flickering torchlight, but the other in her head saw them in such detail and clarity that that alone made her wonder. They were facing her, talking animatedly and making wide gestures.
Names. They had names. Did that mean she had a name as well?
She felt surprise that was not her own. 'You don't have a name?'
She was silent as she tried to think, but no answer came to her. No-one had spoken to her in a very long time before Aaron and Fly had come and even then, she didn't think she had been called anything.
'Oh, sorry…' There was a pause. 'Gah, I ask you your name but don't give mine! I'm Spen.'
Spen. She tried the name out, and pleased affirmation was sent towards her. It then turned hesitant. 'You aren't Olran, but you called to me – that means you need me for something.'
She had? She hadn't thought she had, but if she did need him… She didn't want to be alone. Not again. She…liked talking with Spen, as short as it had been, and there was a trickle of embarrassment from him. 'Yeah,' Spen said, 'it's nice to talk with someone who can hear you.' His worry flared up again but Spen quashed it as best as he could.
Something happened just then: her wings tingled and her forearm briefly grew warm. She didn't have enough energy to move her arm to see what had happened but Spen seemed pleased by it for some reason, and she drifted off once more, Aaron and Fly's chattering sounding even more excited.
* * *
'That… Really?' she said, sending Spen disbelief.
'Really!' he said, laughing a little at her confusion. 'The sky really is all those colours and the world…' Spen sighed wistfully, and she caught sight of a few more of Spen's memories: soaring in the open air, seeing open space that stretched so far into the distance, seeing and feeling the brightness of the sun. It was unfathomable to her; her world was the tank, and the walls outside of it were already far enough away – to be able to live with no walls, to have nothing blocking her view… It was just so different from what she knew, even if she could see it right there.
'Uh, sorry about that,' Spen said, wincing.
'I'd like to see it,' she said softly. Maybe she could one day, leave the tank as she was, or maybe like how Spen and the other anima had passed right through the glass.
There was surprise from Spen. 'You-! …Actually, I dunno if you can or can't,' Spen admitted, deflating. 'I thought humans could only have one anima.'
And there were currently five anima with her. But then, from what she'd seen from the other anima, humans didn't normally keep their anima's characteristics out for days or months out at a time. She had tried to dispel her wings, the anima suggesting that that could be the reason why she was constantly out of energy, but no matter what she did, her wings stayed where they were.
Maybe she wasn't human. But then, what was she?
She turned her thoughts away from that. 'Maybe I'll try when I can stay awake for longer.'
'Heh. Yeah.'
* * *
'Blanca?' she repeated at the new anima she had taken into herself (a wolf this time, by the name of Torry). 'That's what they call me?'
A nod. 'That's the name they kept saying, who they said were taking me to. Since I'm here…'
So she did have a name; that was what she was called. She had grown accustomed to her skin prickling the times she had been awake when she took in a new anima so she watched Aaron and Fly. The Fly the anima saw was growing, becoming taller, while Aaron had started to stoop, lines growing deeper on his face.
Aging, the anima had told her. It was normal, something that humans and all living beings did.
But not her. She had seen Aaron when he was younger, and the people before him, before they had left. She knew she hadn't 'aged' in that time; she was changing now, gaining a few of the anima's characteristics and their marks, but that wasn't the same. Had the people before died? Was that why they had stopped coming?
Would that mean Aaron and Fly would both die and leave her alone again?
'You won't be alone,' Spen said firmly. 'You aren't alone – we're here.'
The chorus of affirmation filled her with warmth, and she couldn't help the small smile that curled her lips.
* * *
It felt strange to be called Blanca by the others, but she eventually got used to it. Slowly, the more anima Aaron and Fly gave her, the longer she could stay awake.
Once she and the anima were reasonably confident she had enough energy to stay away for a decent time, they decided to try to see if she really could separate herself from her body.
Blanca quietened her mind, the anima stilling and watching her all at once, and tried to do what Torry had told her. She'd admitted that it was all instinct to her when she'd done it, and the others had agreed, but Blanca wanted to see the world for herself, not just through the anima's memories.
With that resolve, she closed her eyes and imagined she was moving herself out of her body. Her wings twitched instead.
'Hey, don't worry about it – it's your first time-'
She ignored Spen and tried to concentrate harder. She both pushed and pulled at herself, trying to tear herself free of her body, just like what the other anima remembered. There was no-one calling out for her, to help them, to save them, but maybe she could do that for herself too. She had been inside the still room for so long, where there had been nothing but darkness until Aaron, and eventually Fly, had come, and it used to be enough. Seeing something move around her, even if it was just the shadows created by the torchlight used to be enough.
But it wasn’t now, not when she knew it was just a part of what was outside the room, what she could possibly see for herself. She wouldn’t be able to experience it in the same way as the anima if she was successful, but that didn’t matter to her. If she was able to see it now, maybe one day she would have enough strength to experience it in her own body.
There was a weightlessness growing within her that the anima recognised and she seized that feeling, throwing herself at it. The weightlessness exploded in her and the world span, the colours blurring together, nothing making sense.
Blanca found herself staring at a ball of light, wings spread out on either side, almost like what Spen had looked like, but their wings were bulkier, less streamlined. And she could feel her arms had changed, feeling wider, and her legs had fused, becoming longer. Watching the ball of light, she moved her right arm up – the left ball of light's left wing also moved. Was this her? Was this what she looked like?
'Oh, wow!' Spen exclaimed, 'I guess since you look like this, that's why you…look like this,' he finished, sheepishness colouring his tone.
'"Look like this"?' Puzzled, Blanca pulled her attention away -from her reflection?- and focused on what was behind the glass. Wings spread wide she would be able to recognise even though she had never seen them like this before; she wore a pale dress, dark marks covered her skin in no kind of pattern, each one unique; she had light-coloured feathers for hair. This was what her body looked like? A lot of the other anima had only seen glimpses of her, too distracted with trying to understand what had happened to them, trying to get away, instead of looking at their surroundings. The way she was at that moment, she was smaller than the size of her palm.
But looking at herself was not the reason why she had done this. She turned her attention away to study the room. It was different from what she was used to seeing – and different from what she was used to feeling. She glided in her movement, twisting in the way she wanted when she thought it, so unlike how it responded or felt when she was in her body. There wasn't a pressure here, making it hard to breathe (she wasn't breathing at all), and all it took to go exactly where she wanted was a thought and it was done, hardly any energy spent.
Blanca spent a while just getting used to flying, making adjustments to the instructions of the other anima. But just as she thought she was ready to study the room, the familiar tiredness pulled at her.
'I think you should return to your body,' Torry said carefully, her deeply buried worry still felt. 'If you slept like this, you might…' She didn't finish her sentence, but the image that accompanied it was enough to convey her feelings about it. Disintegrating into nothingness was only one of the things she worried that could happen.
Blanca nodded, and swung around to angle herself back to her body.
She had a lot of time to explore, after all.
* * *
The anima told her about the outside world, what they had seen, the dizzying paths that had been taken to reach her.
After practicing moving and exploring the nooks and crannies, Blanca eventually ventured out of the room. The first couple of times they left, there had been no-one in the corridors, just long paths that stretched far out into the darkness. It was during then they realised that Blanca was constantly aware of where her body was, able to pinpoint exactly what direction to go to reach it again. There were so many different paths to try and follow, and a number of them were dead ends, but no matter how far she searched, Blanca couldn't find a path that lead anywhere.
Where did Aaron and Fly come from? And why was she being kept away on her own?
* * *
Some time after, Blanca was awake when Aaron and Fly were in the room. There wasn’t a new voice in her head, so they must not have come to give her a new anima. This was the first time she had seen them since she had been successful in extracting herself from her body and with the practice she'd already had, she was a lot faster at doing it.
Except, Aaron and Fly didn't react to seeing her, still talking to each other like there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was strange to hear their voices so crisp and clear, but Blanca put that thought away for the moment. She flew in between their faces – and they didn't even blink, still talking to each other as if they were talking through her.
'No-one can see anima when we're like this,' Torry said gently, 'so it makes sense in a way that they can't see you either.'
Oh. She hadn't known that. Saddened, she drifted away from the two; she had hoped that she could show herself to them so they knew they were helping her and maybe find out why they were helping her.
She left them behind to continue exploring but paused when she saw the wooden…cart that was outside the door. That hadn’t been there before…
Just then, Aaron and Fly walked out of her room and clambered into the cart. They were leaving, she realised. She would be able to see where they came from and then-!
Aaron leaned down and pressed something; the cart tore off, leaving Blanca in its wake. She hovered there, startled for a second, but tried to catch up, following after the rumbling sound. She had to stop when she reached a fork, the sound almost mocking her as it became fainter and fainter.
But, now she had a direction.
* * *
Blanca manoeuvred herself so that she faced the ceiling – they had followed the corridor they had seen Aaron and Fly go down as far as they could but never found anything of interest, never came close to finding something that hinted at an exit, so they had decided to try another direction: up.
She moved so that she hovered just a wingbeat away, hesitating. Passing through solid objects drained her faster than just flying, but she longed to see everything that she had heard about for herself. There didn't seem to be anything to find or anywhere to go in the places they'd gone.
If Blanca had lungs, then she would have taken a deep breath, if she had had eyelids, she would have closed her eyes, but she didn't, so she merely continued to stare at the ceiling before a mental prod from Spen urged her to go. She gave a small nod before diving up through the rock.
All the other times Blanca had gone through something solid had been brief, an instance of resistance before she was gliding again. This, was different. It was almost like she was in her body again, surrounded by liquid – her movements were sluggish, more effortful, and she had to constantly keep pushing herself forward.
It didn't look like she was moving, darkness completely surrounded her, no matter what direction she looked in, but Blanca could feel her body becoming more distant with every flap of her wings.
Eventually, just when she was thinking they’d gone in the wrong direction and were no closer to the surface, the rock gave way to open air again and Blanca froze at the sudden change. The world really was as bright as the anima had said and shown her, and it was so loud, the rattling carts going by, and there were so many other sounds she couldn't identify, all merging together in a cacophony. It wasn't only the sun that was bright – there were colours everywhere: clothes, buildings. The sky. The sky was a blue that hurt to look at, the thin white clouds plodding their way across it. It was too much.
She stayed where she was, huddled on the ground, trying to make sense of what her overwhelmed senses were telling her, trying to pay attention to the soothing words of the anima, but while they added to the confusion, hearing their familiar voices also helped to ground her, giving her something to focus on. After a while, she grew more accustomed to it and she peered around tentatively. No-one here could see her either, but this time, she was more prepared for it, so she started exploring instead. People were still moving around her, chatting.
She glided over to one of the…stalls, the anima told her, to see what they were doing. She tried to stand on it, but ended up instinctively flapping her wings when she started to sink through it. She tried again, and started to sink through it again. It took a few tries before they were able to work out how to stand on it; it used more of her concentration to do so though, so Blanca decided to hover next to the stall first, so she could focus on what was on it. Apples, Blanca could see, and she was overwhelmed with the anima's memories of what it tasted and smelled like.
A little while later, Blanca was sure she wouldn’t ever get tired of the bright, constant light of the sun. And there were so many things that she had never seen before that the anima had to explain to her; there were a number of things they didn’t know either, and they spent some time just watching the object, trying to guess what it did or how it worked.
But even with the excitement of finally being outside, her energy still eventually waned and Blanca started to make her way back to her body.
* * *
It was a couple of trips after finding the city that Blanca found herself in something called a 'research facility'. She wasn’t exactly sure how they got there; she must have gone up in a slightly different angle than usual.
'What's that?' Blanca asked, her head tilted to the side as she watched the wavering aura around the boy with dark messy hair in front of her, transparent wings curled protectively around him as he chatted with a woman.
'An anima,' Torry said, curiosity radiating from her. 'I can't tell what kind though.'
'They look like-' Spen abruptly stopped talking as the boy glanced in their direction and then focused on her. His face lit up, his teeth showing, and after waving a quick goodbye to the woman, he dashed over to them.
"Hi!" he chirruped, smiling broadly at her. "I don't think I've seen an anima who wasn't with someone before!"
There was a snort from Spen and confusion spilled from the other anima that were paying attention. Torry had said no-one could see her, but maybe…people with anima could?
The boy studied her for a few seconds and then held his hand out in front of him, his palm up.
She glanced at it and then, with a little prompting, glided over, perching on top of his hand. She could feel his heartbeat thrum under her, the twitch of every muscle.
Gently, the boy pulled her close, cradling her to his chest. "You're warm," he murmured.
"Cooro!"
The boy span around. "Yeah?"
A man was hurrying over to Cooro, and he glanced at Cooro's hands. "What have you got there?"
"An anima!" Cooro held his hand out so the man could see her better, and while the man nodded as if he could see her, Blanca knew he couldn't.
"Well, lunch is ready, so if you let the anima go, you can come back later and play with it again."
Cooro peered down at her curiously. "Can we?" She didn't have to think about her answer. Blanca flew up to eye level and nodded once. Cooro beamed at her. He ran to the man's side, waving, and she watched him go; she'd spent enough time away from her body already and once they were gone, she started heading back to her body.
Next time, she would try to find Cooro again.
* * *
She couldn’t find Cooro the next couple of times she went to the research facility, but she continued to search, able to explore for longer each time she woke up. She still didn't know why Aaron and Fly were doing what they were doing, and she had mostly given up on finding out.
"Oh! Found you!"
Normally, Blanca would have ignored the words –what she normally heard wasn't that interesting to her- but the voice was familiar so she turned around, trying to find its source.
It was Cooro and when he stopped in front of her, his eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. "Did you get bigger?" he asked excitedly. "You look brighter too." He held out his hand again like he had the last time, and she went there without prompting.
He was right: she had gotten bigger, no longer fitting snuggly on his palm, almost twice the size of it now. It puzzled her; how was she growing?
"You didn't tell me your name." There was a pout on his lips, but Blanca stared up at him, mild amusement growing in her, setting her question to the side. She could try to find an answer later.
Even though she knew he couldn't hear her, she tried talking to him anyway – if Cooro could see her when others couldn't, maybe he could hear her as well.
'Blanca,' she said, trying to project it towards him, watching for his response.
Cooro continued to stare down at her, waiting, and she dipped her head, both a little disappointed and wanting to convey he couldn't hear her.
"You don't have a name?" Cooro hazarded. "You can't tell me it?" he continued before she could answer his first question.
She nodded, then flapped her wings to balance herself when Cooro brought her up to face level and stared at her. "Oh, oops," Cooro said, a small smile on his face, "you don't have a mouth…"
She nodded again, waiting to see what he would do.
Cooro was quiet for a few seconds before he brightened again. "Hey, have you seen the weird machine they have in one of the rooms?"
Blanca shook her head – she'd spent enough time in a closed-off room so hadn't spent that much time in them, only going in when she was trying to find Cooro.
"I'll show you it!" With that, Cooro was off running.
The room was only a few turns away from where they'd met. The room was small with a lot of different machines lining the walls that Blanca nor the anima recognised. There was a strange looking table in the centre, but it didn't look like one of the stalls to sell things from, and there were no chairs around it either. There was a strange machine at one end of the table though. In the next instance, black feathers were falling all around, Cooro's transparent wings turning solid.
Cooro jumped, his wings beating the air with ease, pulling him higher with every flap. It didn't take him long to reach the ceiling, and he fluttered around one of the machines at the end of the table, looking at it from all angles.
"Hey!"
It was another unfamiliar man standing at the door of the room, clutching at a pile of books. "Get down from there!"
"Awww," Cooro said, setting himself down on the ground, but not before bouncing off the table first.
"I don't know how to deal with-!" the man grumbled before cutting himself off with a sharp shake of his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "They want you in for a check-up."
"Oh," Cooro said, giving a slow nod. He pulled her up to face level again. "I'll see you later, okay?" he told her. "We should meet here next time!"
"What? No!" the man spluttered. "If you want to meet with someone, meet them outside this room! There’s a lot of delicate equipment here!"
Blanca nodded, glancing back at the machine once they'd left. The room should be easy enough to find next time.
* * *
It was easier to measure how much she grew every time she found Cooro, outside the machine room their standard place to meet. Cooro would show her around, lead her to places he’d found, places he’d found interesting. Eventually, she grew too big to fit in both Cooro's palms and had taken to standing on his shoulder.
"You're growing really fast – you might have to fly by yourself soon," Cooro joked, smiling.
It did look like that. They hadn't been able to work out what was making her grow, and in the end, it was just another question that wouldn't be answered.
"Do you…" Cooro paused, frowning. "You don't have a body, do you? The only anima I've seen are with someone."
She tilted her head at him as she considered his question. He'd shown her around, so maybe it was her turn to show him something.
Blanca fluttered off Cooro's shoulder and he turned to see what she was doing, his eyebrows furrowed. "Huh? What is it?"
She didn't quite know how to reach her body without aiming straight towards it, but she was fairly sure she knew where Cooro could ride one of the carts to reach her. She turned and flew for a little bit before checking back to see if Cooro had followed. He hadn't. She flew back, spinning around him, and then started going in the direction she had been going in again.
"Oh!" Cooro exclaimed. "You want me to – okay!" Grinning, Cooro dashed after her.
It didn't take very long before they weren't passing anyone in the corridors anymore. Blanca had gotten them lost a number of times but Cooro didn't seem to mind, poking his head into anything that caught his interest.
They were just around the corner from the doors that would lead Cooro to the cart when there was a shout.
"Oi!"
"Huh?" Slowing down, Cooro turned around and there was a guard coming towards them. "You can't play here."
"I can't?" Cooro repeated, glancing back at her.
Hm. She hadn't known that.
The guard shook her head. "No-one's allowed around here."
"Heh heh, oops?" Cooro said, an innocent look on his face.
The guard sighed, adjusting the tilt to her helmet. "Come on - I'll lead you out."
Blanca watched them go before twisting around to start her trip back to her body.
Was it forbidden to see her? Blanca mulled the question over as she flew down.
'I don't know about "forbidden",' Torry said, her tone soft, 'but you're certainly different from anyone else I or my human ever encountered. Maybe that's why…'
They kept her separate from everyone else. Aaron and Fly thought there was something interesting about her; it was information she had gleaned from their conversations before the anima had been given to her. Aaron and Fly were helping her gain her strength, so maybe they were protecting her until she could leave the tank herself?
Spen shifted, feathers rustling in Blanca's mind. 'Dunno about that,' he muttered mulishly. 'They're helping you, but they didn't ask us if we wanted to leave our human.'
There was a friendly nudge from Torry. 'They can't ask us.'
A snort and then a sigh. 'Yeah, I know – but I don't think Olran really wanted it either.'
While Spen and Torry continued to talk, Blanca began to wonder if the reason why Cooro was there to give up his anima. But he seemed happy as he was though. She remembered what one of the people who had said when he taken Cooro away. A check-up, they'd said. Was he ill?
* * *
Cooro hummed, staring out a window. Blanca was nestled on top of his head finally, too big for his shoulders. She tried to ignore the instincts from the bird anima to try and put his hair into some kind of order, but she sometimes found herself attempting to preen her hair, to no effect.
"I haven't flown for a while," he said quietly.
She tilted her head at that. Cooro brought his anima's wings out and flew nearly every time she saw him – to have a better view of something, to grab something out of reach, to get somewhere faster were only a few examples of what Cooro used his wings for.
'That's not flying though,' Spen said, a wistful sigh in his tone. 'What he's doing now is…jumping. Little jumps that barely need his wings.'
"I know! C'mon!" Cooro suddenly yelled, dashing away. Used to Cooro's sudden changes in speed, Blanca continued to cling onto his hair, wondering where he was going to take them this time.
* * *
Cooro had apparently been keeping track of people's schedule because they didn't run into any of the usual people who would make sure Cooro stayed out of trouble.
Ducking into a woman's shadow, Cooro couldn't stop grinning when they left the research facility. He let out a whoop as he ran down the stairs, and his anima's wings unfurled with an explosion of black feathers, Cooro launching himself in the air as soon as the wings were out.
Blanca followed him, the air feeling different from what she was used to, the higher up they went ('Drafts,' Spen informed her) but the way Cooro soared higher, changing directions by flipping around, it looked like Cooro felt more comfortable in the air than on the ground.
It was obvious the way Cooro flew was different from how she did, which was more an act of will than balancing on the wind and using it to make yourself faster. Watching the easy way Cooro moved made Blanca want to know how it felt. Maybe, when she became strong enough, she could see what flying felt like then.
"I'm going to leave you behind!" Cooro sang, laughter in his voice, and Blanca realised that was true. She raced after him, and suddenly they were chasing each other, tumbling in the air, both trying to catch the other while trying to keep out of the other's reach. Around them, the sky changed colour, blue giving way to oranges and yellows.
When Cooro lay spread eagled from where he'd flopped down as soon as he touched the ground, he was breathless, his cheeks red, but somehow his laughter was even freer than before. "That was so much fun! We should do that more!"
"Cooro!"
"Ah?" Cooro sat up to find the source of the shout and Blanca could see Fly making his way towards them.
"What are you doing out here?" Fly fussed, checking to see he was all right.
"We were flying!" Cooro said, beginning to laugh again as he stood up. "We were chasing each other and-"
"'We'?" Fly repeated, his eyes darting around. There was no-one else close by.
"Yup!" Cooro said, nodding quickly. "Me an' this anima." Cooro waved towards her.
Fly was staring right at her but she knew he still couldn't see her. "You…can see anima?" he said faintly.
"Uh-huh." Suddenly Cooro's laughter trailed off, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "No-one else can though."
"No," Fly said quietly, "we can't." Humming, still studying the spot Cooro had pointed out, he said, "I want to ask you a few questions but-" Fly smiled "-let's do that inside, hm?"
"Okay." Cooro turned to her. "I'll see you later!"
"Oh?" Fly peered at her. "The anima's not coming?"
Cooro shook his head. "They get tired really easily."
Fly blinked, then frowned, rubbing his chin. "I suppose it would, if it wasn't bonded with a human."
"But I think they are," Cooro mused, looking at her. "They tried to lead me somewhere in the research facility but I wasn't allowed there."
Fly didn't look like he was breathing, his eyes wide. "Bla-" he started to say, before he cut himself off.
Blanca couldn't stay for longer though, so she jumped off Cooro's head and dived towards her body. Fly knew. Fly knew she could leave her body, that Cooro could see her.
Maybe…he could let Cooro see her?
* * *
The next time Blanca was awake, she didn't meet with Cooro. Nor the time after that, or the time after that.
It didn't worry her though – it was like the first time they tried to find each other; they kept missing each other. She knew they would meet again some day. She just had to wait.
______________________________________________
I did a bit of tweaking of the tunnels, so there are exits where there weren't in the main storyline, and I'm going with Aaron's room wasn't built around Blanca's room until a while after this fic is set.
Summary: Blanca had been inside the still room for so long, where there had been nothing but darkness until Aaron, and eventually Fly, had come, and it used to be enough. But it wasn’t now, not when she knew it was just a part of what was outside the room, what she could possibly see for herself.
Rating: PG-13
Contains: Nothing.
Notes: Written for Masu Trout for Parallelsfic.
Set pre-series, but spoilers for volume 10.
Genre: General/Friendship
Word count: 5,801
Status: Complete
She could hear him. She didn’t know what he was saying –everything was muffled as it had always been- but the sound still reached her. It wasn't a voice that she had heard before – the one she usually heard had a deeper voice that carried better. She didn’t have enough energy to open her eyes to see what he looked like, but the sound echoed around her, and she slowly got used to it. She wondered how he'd found her, if the other one had brought him here.
It continued, the sound rising and falling, and sometimes it was so soft she couldn’t hear it, but she eventually drifted off, letting it lull her to sleep.
The next time she was able to open her eyes, there were two people in front of her, talking. She recognised the taller one as the one that had visited her multiple times already; the smaller one was probably the one she had seen before, his voice already familiar to her. To see this many people at once, it made something inside her twist and she hoped it would be a while until they stopped coming again.
There was something between them on the ground, confined and struggling. It shone far brighter than the torchlight, glowing white rather than orange. Before she could make sense of its rapidly shifting form, the taller one did something whatever was holding it and it shot away, its form unfurling to reveal wings. Unconsciously, her own wings mimicked the movement as best as they could – her wings were only able to pull back slightly before a tug at her chest distracted her. She suddenly somehow knew there was a connection between her and the other, and she could feel they were steadily being drawn to her. The other one kept trying to fly away, its wings a blur but it was trapped by whatever had tied them together, still steadily coming towards her. Before she could think to even try and break whatever it was that tied them together, the connection must have tightened and the other one barrelled towards her. She could only watch as it did, watch as it came closer and closer before it filled her entire view. It passed through the glass that separated her from everything else like it wasn’t there and then passed through her.
No. It passed into her. She gasped as her mind tumbled, something whirling, trying to run, needing to escape and – oh, that was what it was. The other realised she was there at the same time, and focused on her; they hovered there, waiting to see what would happen next.
Nothing did and the other relaxed slightly, growing curious. 'Hello?'
'Hello,' she repeated, a flicker of memory telling her what her response should be.
She had the impression the other was tilting their head at her thoughts, and then there was dawning realisation from the other. 'They never let you out, do they?'
'"They"?'
'That – Aaron and Fly!' the other burst out, wings flapping in agitation. The accompanying images that were paired with the names were distorted and unwavering, but it was enough for her to recognise the faces of the people standing in front of her. 'They ripped me from Olran!' Worry instantly replaced the agitation – worry if Olran was hurt, if she needed him, what she was doing right then.
The other grew quiet, drawing in on himself, and she turned her attention back to…Aaron and Fly. What she could see and what the other had seen were different: she could only recognise them by the colour on their heads, the sound of their voices - the rest of them was an indistinct haze in the flickering torchlight, but the other in her head saw them in such detail and clarity that that alone made her wonder. They were facing her, talking animatedly and making wide gestures.
Names. They had names. Did that mean she had a name as well?
She felt surprise that was not her own. 'You don't have a name?'
She was silent as she tried to think, but no answer came to her. No-one had spoken to her in a very long time before Aaron and Fly had come and even then, she didn't think she had been called anything.
'Oh, sorry…' There was a pause. 'Gah, I ask you your name but don't give mine! I'm Spen.'
Spen. She tried the name out, and pleased affirmation was sent towards her. It then turned hesitant. 'You aren't Olran, but you called to me – that means you need me for something.'
She had? She hadn't thought she had, but if she did need him… She didn't want to be alone. Not again. She…liked talking with Spen, as short as it had been, and there was a trickle of embarrassment from him. 'Yeah,' Spen said, 'it's nice to talk with someone who can hear you.' His worry flared up again but Spen quashed it as best as he could.
Something happened just then: her wings tingled and her forearm briefly grew warm. She didn't have enough energy to move her arm to see what had happened but Spen seemed pleased by it for some reason, and she drifted off once more, Aaron and Fly's chattering sounding even more excited.
'That… Really?' she said, sending Spen disbelief.
'Really!' he said, laughing a little at her confusion. 'The sky really is all those colours and the world…' Spen sighed wistfully, and she caught sight of a few more of Spen's memories: soaring in the open air, seeing open space that stretched so far into the distance, seeing and feeling the brightness of the sun. It was unfathomable to her; her world was the tank, and the walls outside of it were already far enough away – to be able to live with no walls, to have nothing blocking her view… It was just so different from what she knew, even if she could see it right there.
'Uh, sorry about that,' Spen said, wincing.
'I'd like to see it,' she said softly. Maybe she could one day, leave the tank as she was, or maybe like how Spen and the other anima had passed right through the glass.
There was surprise from Spen. 'You-! …Actually, I dunno if you can or can't,' Spen admitted, deflating. 'I thought humans could only have one anima.'
And there were currently five anima with her. But then, from what she'd seen from the other anima, humans didn't normally keep their anima's characteristics out for days or months out at a time. She had tried to dispel her wings, the anima suggesting that that could be the reason why she was constantly out of energy, but no matter what she did, her wings stayed where they were.
Maybe she wasn't human. But then, what was she?
She turned her thoughts away from that. 'Maybe I'll try when I can stay awake for longer.'
'Heh. Yeah.'
'Blanca?' she repeated at the new anima she had taken into herself (a wolf this time, by the name of Torry). 'That's what they call me?'
A nod. 'That's the name they kept saying, who they said were taking me to. Since I'm here…'
So she did have a name; that was what she was called. She had grown accustomed to her skin prickling the times she had been awake when she took in a new anima so she watched Aaron and Fly. The Fly the anima saw was growing, becoming taller, while Aaron had started to stoop, lines growing deeper on his face.
Aging, the anima had told her. It was normal, something that humans and all living beings did.
But not her. She had seen Aaron when he was younger, and the people before him, before they had left. She knew she hadn't 'aged' in that time; she was changing now, gaining a few of the anima's characteristics and their marks, but that wasn't the same. Had the people before died? Was that why they had stopped coming?
Would that mean Aaron and Fly would both die and leave her alone again?
'You won't be alone,' Spen said firmly. 'You aren't alone – we're here.'
The chorus of affirmation filled her with warmth, and she couldn't help the small smile that curled her lips.
It felt strange to be called Blanca by the others, but she eventually got used to it. Slowly, the more anima Aaron and Fly gave her, the longer she could stay awake.
Once she and the anima were reasonably confident she had enough energy to stay away for a decent time, they decided to try to see if she really could separate herself from her body.
Blanca quietened her mind, the anima stilling and watching her all at once, and tried to do what Torry had told her. She'd admitted that it was all instinct to her when she'd done it, and the others had agreed, but Blanca wanted to see the world for herself, not just through the anima's memories.
With that resolve, she closed her eyes and imagined she was moving herself out of her body. Her wings twitched instead.
'Hey, don't worry about it – it's your first time-'
She ignored Spen and tried to concentrate harder. She both pushed and pulled at herself, trying to tear herself free of her body, just like what the other anima remembered. There was no-one calling out for her, to help them, to save them, but maybe she could do that for herself too. She had been inside the still room for so long, where there had been nothing but darkness until Aaron, and eventually Fly, had come, and it used to be enough. Seeing something move around her, even if it was just the shadows created by the torchlight used to be enough.
But it wasn’t now, not when she knew it was just a part of what was outside the room, what she could possibly see for herself. She wouldn’t be able to experience it in the same way as the anima if she was successful, but that didn’t matter to her. If she was able to see it now, maybe one day she would have enough strength to experience it in her own body.
There was a weightlessness growing within her that the anima recognised and she seized that feeling, throwing herself at it. The weightlessness exploded in her and the world span, the colours blurring together, nothing making sense.
Blanca found herself staring at a ball of light, wings spread out on either side, almost like what Spen had looked like, but their wings were bulkier, less streamlined. And she could feel her arms had changed, feeling wider, and her legs had fused, becoming longer. Watching the ball of light, she moved her right arm up – the left ball of light's left wing also moved. Was this her? Was this what she looked like?
'Oh, wow!' Spen exclaimed, 'I guess since you look like this, that's why you…look like this,' he finished, sheepishness colouring his tone.
'"Look like this"?' Puzzled, Blanca pulled her attention away -from her reflection?- and focused on what was behind the glass. Wings spread wide she would be able to recognise even though she had never seen them like this before; she wore a pale dress, dark marks covered her skin in no kind of pattern, each one unique; she had light-coloured feathers for hair. This was what her body looked like? A lot of the other anima had only seen glimpses of her, too distracted with trying to understand what had happened to them, trying to get away, instead of looking at their surroundings. The way she was at that moment, she was smaller than the size of her palm.
But looking at herself was not the reason why she had done this. She turned her attention away to study the room. It was different from what she was used to seeing – and different from what she was used to feeling. She glided in her movement, twisting in the way she wanted when she thought it, so unlike how it responded or felt when she was in her body. There wasn't a pressure here, making it hard to breathe (she wasn't breathing at all), and all it took to go exactly where she wanted was a thought and it was done, hardly any energy spent.
Blanca spent a while just getting used to flying, making adjustments to the instructions of the other anima. But just as she thought she was ready to study the room, the familiar tiredness pulled at her.
'I think you should return to your body,' Torry said carefully, her deeply buried worry still felt. 'If you slept like this, you might…' She didn't finish her sentence, but the image that accompanied it was enough to convey her feelings about it. Disintegrating into nothingness was only one of the things she worried that could happen.
Blanca nodded, and swung around to angle herself back to her body.
She had a lot of time to explore, after all.
The anima told her about the outside world, what they had seen, the dizzying paths that had been taken to reach her.
After practicing moving and exploring the nooks and crannies, Blanca eventually ventured out of the room. The first couple of times they left, there had been no-one in the corridors, just long paths that stretched far out into the darkness. It was during then they realised that Blanca was constantly aware of where her body was, able to pinpoint exactly what direction to go to reach it again. There were so many different paths to try and follow, and a number of them were dead ends, but no matter how far she searched, Blanca couldn't find a path that lead anywhere.
Where did Aaron and Fly come from? And why was she being kept away on her own?
Some time after, Blanca was awake when Aaron and Fly were in the room. There wasn’t a new voice in her head, so they must not have come to give her a new anima. This was the first time she had seen them since she had been successful in extracting herself from her body and with the practice she'd already had, she was a lot faster at doing it.
Except, Aaron and Fly didn't react to seeing her, still talking to each other like there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was strange to hear their voices so crisp and clear, but Blanca put that thought away for the moment. She flew in between their faces – and they didn't even blink, still talking to each other as if they were talking through her.
'No-one can see anima when we're like this,' Torry said gently, 'so it makes sense in a way that they can't see you either.'
Oh. She hadn't known that. Saddened, she drifted away from the two; she had hoped that she could show herself to them so they knew they were helping her and maybe find out why they were helping her.
She left them behind to continue exploring but paused when she saw the wooden…cart that was outside the door. That hadn’t been there before…
Just then, Aaron and Fly walked out of her room and clambered into the cart. They were leaving, she realised. She would be able to see where they came from and then-!
Aaron leaned down and pressed something; the cart tore off, leaving Blanca in its wake. She hovered there, startled for a second, but tried to catch up, following after the rumbling sound. She had to stop when she reached a fork, the sound almost mocking her as it became fainter and fainter.
But, now she had a direction.
Blanca manoeuvred herself so that she faced the ceiling – they had followed the corridor they had seen Aaron and Fly go down as far as they could but never found anything of interest, never came close to finding something that hinted at an exit, so they had decided to try another direction: up.
She moved so that she hovered just a wingbeat away, hesitating. Passing through solid objects drained her faster than just flying, but she longed to see everything that she had heard about for herself. There didn't seem to be anything to find or anywhere to go in the places they'd gone.
If Blanca had lungs, then she would have taken a deep breath, if she had had eyelids, she would have closed her eyes, but she didn't, so she merely continued to stare at the ceiling before a mental prod from Spen urged her to go. She gave a small nod before diving up through the rock.
All the other times Blanca had gone through something solid had been brief, an instance of resistance before she was gliding again. This, was different. It was almost like she was in her body again, surrounded by liquid – her movements were sluggish, more effortful, and she had to constantly keep pushing herself forward.
It didn't look like she was moving, darkness completely surrounded her, no matter what direction she looked in, but Blanca could feel her body becoming more distant with every flap of her wings.
Eventually, just when she was thinking they’d gone in the wrong direction and were no closer to the surface, the rock gave way to open air again and Blanca froze at the sudden change. The world really was as bright as the anima had said and shown her, and it was so loud, the rattling carts going by, and there were so many other sounds she couldn't identify, all merging together in a cacophony. It wasn't only the sun that was bright – there were colours everywhere: clothes, buildings. The sky. The sky was a blue that hurt to look at, the thin white clouds plodding their way across it. It was too much.
She stayed where she was, huddled on the ground, trying to make sense of what her overwhelmed senses were telling her, trying to pay attention to the soothing words of the anima, but while they added to the confusion, hearing their familiar voices also helped to ground her, giving her something to focus on. After a while, she grew more accustomed to it and she peered around tentatively. No-one here could see her either, but this time, she was more prepared for it, so she started exploring instead. People were still moving around her, chatting.
She glided over to one of the…stalls, the anima told her, to see what they were doing. She tried to stand on it, but ended up instinctively flapping her wings when she started to sink through it. She tried again, and started to sink through it again. It took a few tries before they were able to work out how to stand on it; it used more of her concentration to do so though, so Blanca decided to hover next to the stall first, so she could focus on what was on it. Apples, Blanca could see, and she was overwhelmed with the anima's memories of what it tasted and smelled like.
A little while later, Blanca was sure she wouldn’t ever get tired of the bright, constant light of the sun. And there were so many things that she had never seen before that the anima had to explain to her; there were a number of things they didn’t know either, and they spent some time just watching the object, trying to guess what it did or how it worked.
But even with the excitement of finally being outside, her energy still eventually waned and Blanca started to make her way back to her body.
It was a couple of trips after finding the city that Blanca found herself in something called a 'research facility'. She wasn’t exactly sure how they got there; she must have gone up in a slightly different angle than usual.
'What's that?' Blanca asked, her head tilted to the side as she watched the wavering aura around the boy with dark messy hair in front of her, transparent wings curled protectively around him as he chatted with a woman.
'An anima,' Torry said, curiosity radiating from her. 'I can't tell what kind though.'
'They look like-' Spen abruptly stopped talking as the boy glanced in their direction and then focused on her. His face lit up, his teeth showing, and after waving a quick goodbye to the woman, he dashed over to them.
"Hi!" he chirruped, smiling broadly at her. "I don't think I've seen an anima who wasn't with someone before!"
There was a snort from Spen and confusion spilled from the other anima that were paying attention. Torry had said no-one could see her, but maybe…people with anima could?
The boy studied her for a few seconds and then held his hand out in front of him, his palm up.
She glanced at it and then, with a little prompting, glided over, perching on top of his hand. She could feel his heartbeat thrum under her, the twitch of every muscle.
Gently, the boy pulled her close, cradling her to his chest. "You're warm," he murmured.
"Cooro!"
The boy span around. "Yeah?"
A man was hurrying over to Cooro, and he glanced at Cooro's hands. "What have you got there?"
"An anima!" Cooro held his hand out so the man could see her better, and while the man nodded as if he could see her, Blanca knew he couldn't.
"Well, lunch is ready, so if you let the anima go, you can come back later and play with it again."
Cooro peered down at her curiously. "Can we?" She didn't have to think about her answer. Blanca flew up to eye level and nodded once. Cooro beamed at her. He ran to the man's side, waving, and she watched him go; she'd spent enough time away from her body already and once they were gone, she started heading back to her body.
Next time, she would try to find Cooro again.
She couldn’t find Cooro the next couple of times she went to the research facility, but she continued to search, able to explore for longer each time she woke up. She still didn't know why Aaron and Fly were doing what they were doing, and she had mostly given up on finding out.
"Oh! Found you!"
Normally, Blanca would have ignored the words –what she normally heard wasn't that interesting to her- but the voice was familiar so she turned around, trying to find its source.
It was Cooro and when he stopped in front of her, his eyes were wide and his mouth dropped open. "Did you get bigger?" he asked excitedly. "You look brighter too." He held out his hand again like he had the last time, and she went there without prompting.
He was right: she had gotten bigger, no longer fitting snuggly on his palm, almost twice the size of it now. It puzzled her; how was she growing?
"You didn't tell me your name." There was a pout on his lips, but Blanca stared up at him, mild amusement growing in her, setting her question to the side. She could try to find an answer later.
Even though she knew he couldn't hear her, she tried talking to him anyway – if Cooro could see her when others couldn't, maybe he could hear her as well.
'Blanca,' she said, trying to project it towards him, watching for his response.
Cooro continued to stare down at her, waiting, and she dipped her head, both a little disappointed and wanting to convey he couldn't hear her.
"You don't have a name?" Cooro hazarded. "You can't tell me it?" he continued before she could answer his first question.
She nodded, then flapped her wings to balance herself when Cooro brought her up to face level and stared at her. "Oh, oops," Cooro said, a small smile on his face, "you don't have a mouth…"
She nodded again, waiting to see what he would do.
Cooro was quiet for a few seconds before he brightened again. "Hey, have you seen the weird machine they have in one of the rooms?"
Blanca shook her head – she'd spent enough time in a closed-off room so hadn't spent that much time in them, only going in when she was trying to find Cooro.
"I'll show you it!" With that, Cooro was off running.
The room was only a few turns away from where they'd met. The room was small with a lot of different machines lining the walls that Blanca nor the anima recognised. There was a strange looking table in the centre, but it didn't look like one of the stalls to sell things from, and there were no chairs around it either. There was a strange machine at one end of the table though. In the next instance, black feathers were falling all around, Cooro's transparent wings turning solid.
Cooro jumped, his wings beating the air with ease, pulling him higher with every flap. It didn't take him long to reach the ceiling, and he fluttered around one of the machines at the end of the table, looking at it from all angles.
"Hey!"
It was another unfamiliar man standing at the door of the room, clutching at a pile of books. "Get down from there!"
"Awww," Cooro said, setting himself down on the ground, but not before bouncing off the table first.
"I don't know how to deal with-!" the man grumbled before cutting himself off with a sharp shake of his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "They want you in for a check-up."
"Oh," Cooro said, giving a slow nod. He pulled her up to face level again. "I'll see you later, okay?" he told her. "We should meet here next time!"
"What? No!" the man spluttered. "If you want to meet with someone, meet them outside this room! There’s a lot of delicate equipment here!"
Blanca nodded, glancing back at the machine once they'd left. The room should be easy enough to find next time.
It was easier to measure how much she grew every time she found Cooro, outside the machine room their standard place to meet. Cooro would show her around, lead her to places he’d found, places he’d found interesting. Eventually, she grew too big to fit in both Cooro's palms and had taken to standing on his shoulder.
"You're growing really fast – you might have to fly by yourself soon," Cooro joked, smiling.
It did look like that. They hadn't been able to work out what was making her grow, and in the end, it was just another question that wouldn't be answered.
"Do you…" Cooro paused, frowning. "You don't have a body, do you? The only anima I've seen are with someone."
She tilted her head at him as she considered his question. He'd shown her around, so maybe it was her turn to show him something.
Blanca fluttered off Cooro's shoulder and he turned to see what she was doing, his eyebrows furrowed. "Huh? What is it?"
She didn't quite know how to reach her body without aiming straight towards it, but she was fairly sure she knew where Cooro could ride one of the carts to reach her. She turned and flew for a little bit before checking back to see if Cooro had followed. He hadn't. She flew back, spinning around him, and then started going in the direction she had been going in again.
"Oh!" Cooro exclaimed. "You want me to – okay!" Grinning, Cooro dashed after her.
It didn't take very long before they weren't passing anyone in the corridors anymore. Blanca had gotten them lost a number of times but Cooro didn't seem to mind, poking his head into anything that caught his interest.
They were just around the corner from the doors that would lead Cooro to the cart when there was a shout.
"Oi!"
"Huh?" Slowing down, Cooro turned around and there was a guard coming towards them. "You can't play here."
"I can't?" Cooro repeated, glancing back at her.
Hm. She hadn't known that.
The guard shook her head. "No-one's allowed around here."
"Heh heh, oops?" Cooro said, an innocent look on his face.
The guard sighed, adjusting the tilt to her helmet. "Come on - I'll lead you out."
Blanca watched them go before twisting around to start her trip back to her body.
Was it forbidden to see her? Blanca mulled the question over as she flew down.
'I don't know about "forbidden",' Torry said, her tone soft, 'but you're certainly different from anyone else I or my human ever encountered. Maybe that's why…'
They kept her separate from everyone else. Aaron and Fly thought there was something interesting about her; it was information she had gleaned from their conversations before the anima had been given to her. Aaron and Fly were helping her gain her strength, so maybe they were protecting her until she could leave the tank herself?
Spen shifted, feathers rustling in Blanca's mind. 'Dunno about that,' he muttered mulishly. 'They're helping you, but they didn't ask us if we wanted to leave our human.'
There was a friendly nudge from Torry. 'They can't ask us.'
A snort and then a sigh. 'Yeah, I know – but I don't think Olran really wanted it either.'
While Spen and Torry continued to talk, Blanca began to wonder if the reason why Cooro was there to give up his anima. But he seemed happy as he was though. She remembered what one of the people who had said when he taken Cooro away. A check-up, they'd said. Was he ill?
Cooro hummed, staring out a window. Blanca was nestled on top of his head finally, too big for his shoulders. She tried to ignore the instincts from the bird anima to try and put his hair into some kind of order, but she sometimes found herself attempting to preen her hair, to no effect.
"I haven't flown for a while," he said quietly.
She tilted her head at that. Cooro brought his anima's wings out and flew nearly every time she saw him – to have a better view of something, to grab something out of reach, to get somewhere faster were only a few examples of what Cooro used his wings for.
'That's not flying though,' Spen said, a wistful sigh in his tone. 'What he's doing now is…jumping. Little jumps that barely need his wings.'
"I know! C'mon!" Cooro suddenly yelled, dashing away. Used to Cooro's sudden changes in speed, Blanca continued to cling onto his hair, wondering where he was going to take them this time.
Cooro had apparently been keeping track of people's schedule because they didn't run into any of the usual people who would make sure Cooro stayed out of trouble.
Ducking into a woman's shadow, Cooro couldn't stop grinning when they left the research facility. He let out a whoop as he ran down the stairs, and his anima's wings unfurled with an explosion of black feathers, Cooro launching himself in the air as soon as the wings were out.
Blanca followed him, the air feeling different from what she was used to, the higher up they went ('Drafts,' Spen informed her) but the way Cooro soared higher, changing directions by flipping around, it looked like Cooro felt more comfortable in the air than on the ground.
It was obvious the way Cooro flew was different from how she did, which was more an act of will than balancing on the wind and using it to make yourself faster. Watching the easy way Cooro moved made Blanca want to know how it felt. Maybe, when she became strong enough, she could see what flying felt like then.
"I'm going to leave you behind!" Cooro sang, laughter in his voice, and Blanca realised that was true. She raced after him, and suddenly they were chasing each other, tumbling in the air, both trying to catch the other while trying to keep out of the other's reach. Around them, the sky changed colour, blue giving way to oranges and yellows.
When Cooro lay spread eagled from where he'd flopped down as soon as he touched the ground, he was breathless, his cheeks red, but somehow his laughter was even freer than before. "That was so much fun! We should do that more!"
"Cooro!"
"Ah?" Cooro sat up to find the source of the shout and Blanca could see Fly making his way towards them.
"What are you doing out here?" Fly fussed, checking to see he was all right.
"We were flying!" Cooro said, beginning to laugh again as he stood up. "We were chasing each other and-"
"'We'?" Fly repeated, his eyes darting around. There was no-one else close by.
"Yup!" Cooro said, nodding quickly. "Me an' this anima." Cooro waved towards her.
Fly was staring right at her but she knew he still couldn't see her. "You…can see anima?" he said faintly.
"Uh-huh." Suddenly Cooro's laughter trailed off, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "No-one else can though."
"No," Fly said quietly, "we can't." Humming, still studying the spot Cooro had pointed out, he said, "I want to ask you a few questions but-" Fly smiled "-let's do that inside, hm?"
"Okay." Cooro turned to her. "I'll see you later!"
"Oh?" Fly peered at her. "The anima's not coming?"
Cooro shook his head. "They get tired really easily."
Fly blinked, then frowned, rubbing his chin. "I suppose it would, if it wasn't bonded with a human."
"But I think they are," Cooro mused, looking at her. "They tried to lead me somewhere in the research facility but I wasn't allowed there."
Fly didn't look like he was breathing, his eyes wide. "Bla-" he started to say, before he cut himself off.
Blanca couldn't stay for longer though, so she jumped off Cooro's head and dived towards her body. Fly knew. Fly knew she could leave her body, that Cooro could see her.
Maybe…he could let Cooro see her?
The next time Blanca was awake, she didn't meet with Cooro. Nor the time after that, or the time after that.
It didn't worry her though – it was like the first time they tried to find each other; they kept missing each other. She knew they would meet again some day. She just had to wait.
I did a bit of tweaking of the tunnels, so there are exits where there weren't in the main storyline, and I'm going with Aaron's room wasn't built around Blanca's room until a while after this fic is set.