Oh, Lord have mercy, as soon as I started reading what I had sent I saw
three things needing fixing in the first three paragraphs.  Here's a
second try.  Just a few minor tweeks from the first one, but hopefully
the first paragraph is much better.

Author's note:  After comparing the manga to the OAVs for Vampire Princess
Miyu, it dawned upon me that I had based my Larva upon the one in the
OAVs.  The Larva in the manga is a very different sort of person, able to
talk and remove his mask whenever he wishes.  Striving to reconcile these
two very different people, I found myself writing another side story.  A
lot more happens to Miyu and Larva in the later series of novels, but I am
placing my story's events before those events.  Many complex things occur
in the novels and I have only managed to find brief descriptions of those
events.  The events of my story do run counter to events in the novels, so
this is definitely an alternative universe to the actual VPMiyu written by
Kakinouchi Narumi.


Larva's Pain
Ari Side Story 2
by Charles Hurst

Before, the mask would come off easily.  I could smile at her and tell her
how much I cared.  But the death of Remlas changed that.  The clan's
retribution for that and my original crime was a long time coming, but
sure and just when it finally arrived.  My eyes never left her, even as
Remlas passed away into the darkness in pain and suffering.  I watched her
always.  I had given myself to her, and nothing else mattered.

Time has little meaning for shinma, but the day came when I awoke to find
my brothers around me and a dark portal waiting.  I tried to get away, but
I couldn't use my full strength for fear of hurting them.  I cried out,
asking them to let me go, but they only looked away, sadness in their eyes
as they dragged me, chained and sealed, towards the gate.

As they pushed me through, I felt myself pulled away, back to the place I
had left long ago with better intentions.  I emerged into a brilliantly
lit room.  As I blinked my eyes to clear the tears, I could see I stood
before the assembled clan.  My parents and friends surrounded me.  I had
never felt such fear or certainty in this place of judgement.  The elders
whispered softly of my sin, my arrogance and my suicide of purpose.  They
spoke of Remlas.  Their voices dropped lower in fear, and they spoke of
her.  At long last, they rendered judgement.  Placing their masks of duty
upon their faces, they rose to stand before me.  "Larva, never-was,
unborn, enemy."  That I expected, but they continued.  "Masked, silent,
forever, her freedom yours."

I collapsed to my knees on the cold floor as the words sank in.  My name
removed from the clan and all records of my existence destroyed.  The
erasure of the memory of all who had ever known me.  The bond of mother
and child to be severed, my mother to never again know my face.  To be
known only as a sworn enemy of the people, to be destroyed on sight.

But the last were unexpected and horrifying.  I shrieked in agony as
Elena, holding my mask in her hands, appeared before me.  My voice stopped
abruptly as the mask was sealed upon my face.  My very essence burned as
it meshed with the substance of my imprisonment.

Elena leaned close and whispered in my ear.  "There's one other way to be
free, beloved."  She laughed then, and pulled away.  She was as beautiful
as the day I first met her.  And as cold.  She took my face in her hands,
gently stroking the mask.  "Kill her."  Her eyes went wide at that, and I
again saw the sickness in them that had made me flee from her in the first
place, volunteering for any duty that would take me far, far away.  She
rose gracefully to her feet and spun around, disappearing back into the
crowd, that terrible laugh of hers echoing in my head long after she had
gone.  Those standing nearby picked me up and threw me back through the
portal.  I lay in the darkness for a long time before Miyu found me.

Even now, I too feel the urge to laugh insanely as I continue to realize
the full weight of that terrible punishment.  Miyu's destiny is to return
all the wandering shinma to the dark.  I . . . am a shinma.  I love her,
and I cannot permit her to go with me into the darkness forever, even
though she would try if she knew.  Her freedom is my final punishment, for
I cannot stop our meshed destiny nor turn back the hands of time.

Miyu didn't understood at first.  She tried to pull the mask off
repeatedly.  She had come as close to crying as she ever had before when
she finally realized it wouldn't come off, including the time when she had
found Kaoru's double and had been forced to kill him.

And then, when she discovered I no longer spoke to her, she had run away.
It had taken me several agonizing weeks to find her.  She was in a school,
as usual, pretending to be a normal girl, laughing with her new friends.
She continued that pretense for a month, ignoring my presence, before she
could stand her loneliness no longer.  She had turned and just stared at
me for the longest time before she gave a small cry and fled into my arms,
burying her face against my chest.  She couldn't cry on the outside, but I
could feel her tears soaking through my shirt.  She couldn't speak, at
first, as she held on to me fiercely, trembling.

I tried, Oh, God, how I tried to say something to sooth away her pain.  At
first she thought I was angry with her and refusing to talk.  She begged
my forgiveness, pleading for just a word or two.  Then she grew angry,
demanding I forgive her.  Finally she grew furious at my silence and used
her power over me, trying to force me to speak.  She'd put her hand to my
throat as I tried, lying on the ground in convulsions as two unbearable
forces shredded my soul between them, and she had felt the muscles
straining to move.  She frantically commanded me to stop, then, to never
speak to her again if it would cause such pain.

I . . . I couldn't tell her!  I tried everything!  Attempts at writing
came out as utter nonsense on paper.  I tried signing, but my fingers
would spasm and twist as the muscles knotted up.  I cried behind my mask,
but she couldn't see the tears, only the bloody stains upon my mask which
she did not understand.

Sometimes, when the pain becomes to great to bear, I have to be away from
her for a while.  But I always return.  She's my only joy, my fate, my
doom, the girl-woman I love and gave all I held dear for . . .

Don't cry for me, for I am a shinma, doomed to wander the dark forever.
Be happy that I have had this brief moment of joy, that I was able to
experience true love at least once in my miserable existence.  The dark
calls, and I feel its gentle caress as it sighs my name.  Soon they will
have all been sent back, and then I too will join with them, my brothers
and sisters, my mother and father.

I am Larva.  This is my Pain.

Fin

C&C appreciated!

Charles K. Hurst - ImageNation Corp. Wage Slave/Employee - RPI graduate-MechE
Chocolate and Anime Forever!  1 year, 2 months a fan and counting.
MI = eps. 96  MB = eps. 76 - 0/0 episodes each to utter boredom or Fushigi!
FY = eps. 24  Escaflowne = eps. 13 - ?/? to my next bout of depression. ^ ^