Another revision!  Much thanks to Windlilly and skywise for their valuable C&C.
This has some new parts and some major rewrites, plus it's still short, so
please reread!  I'm thinking of posting to raac, so I'm definitely looking for
any feedback before letting thousands of people read any spelling or grammar
mistakes. :)

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.  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

I am Larva and I am bound to Miyu, the one chosen by the ancients to keep the
way between the darkness and this world sealed.

Before this tale, my mask came off quite easily.  I could smile at Miyu and
talk to her as I willed.  But the death of Remlas cast a dark shadow over all
of this.  My eyes never left her, even as Remlas passed away into the darkness
in pain and suffering.  I had given myself to her, and nothing else mattered. 
If only . . .  No, 'If Onlys' can't change what happened, and they won't bring
back what was.

The clan's retribution for Remlas and my original crime took a long time to
happen, but was sure and just by their standards when it finally did.  Time
has little meaning for shinma, but the day came when I awoke to find my
brothers around me and the Dark Portal waiting.  I tried to get away, but I
couldn't use my full strength for fear of hurting them.  I cried out, begging
them to let me go, but they only looked away, sadness in their eyes, as they
dragged me, chained and Sealed, to the Portal.

As they pushed me through, I felt myself pulled away, back to the place I had
left long ago with better intentions.  I blinked my eyes to clear the tears as
I emerged into the brilliantly lit room.  My parents and old friends moved to
surround me as I stood before the assembled clan.  I had never felt such fear
or certainty in this place of judgment.

The elders whispered softly of my sin, my arrogance and my suicide.  They
spoke of Remlas.  Their voices dropped lower in fear, and they spoke of Her. 
At long last, they rendered judgment.  Placing their masks of duty upon their
faces, they rose to stand before me.  "Larva, never-was, unborn, enemy."  That
I had expected, but they continued.  "Masked and silent forever, her freedom
is 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.  These I had expected and
had thought bearable, despite their severity.  I had been a fool to think that
way, but at the time I had felt it was true.

But the last two were unexpected and horrifying.  The mask of duty was not
assumed lightly, and while it increased its wearer's abilities in many ways, it
stifled the soul and made everything dim and detached.  And in all the hundreds
of years of clan history, only one other had been silenced, and he took his own
life shortly thereafter, unable to cope, to survive.  These two I might have
been able to bear, somehow, but the last destroyed all hope.  I could only
stare numbly ahead, my eyes unseeing.

And then Elena appeared before me, holding my mask in her hands.  I tried to
leap to my feet and flee, but my father and brothers held me in place, pulling
my arms back and pinning my legs to the ground.  I could only howl my defiance
as she pressed the mask against my face, and my outcry became a scream of
agony as my very essence burned as it meshed with the substance of my
imprisonment.  With one final burst of pain my voice was silenced, and only a
faint echo was left to linger a second longer in the cold room.

Elena, she who had once been my betrothed, leaned close and whispered in my
ear.  She was as beautiful as the day I first met her.  And as cold.

"There's one other way to be free, Beloved."  She smiled and pulled away enough
to take my face into her hands, gently stroking the emotionless white mask that
hid it.  She stared into my eyes and once again I saw the sickness in their
depths, the desire to maim and kill others.  That mad lust of hers had
destroyed what feelings I had for her, and had led me to take one mission after
another in an attempt to keep as far away as possible.  She shivered and her
eyes widened slightly as her breath became ragged.

"Kill Her."  Her eyes held mine for a moment longer and then she began to
laugh in that terrible, insane fashion of hers.  She rose to her feet in one
graceful motion and spun around to disappear back into the crowd.  Her
laughter echoed in my head long after she had gone.

Slowly, one by one, those standing around me left.  When the room had emptied
of all but what had once been my family, my brothers and father released me
and left as well.  Only my mother remained.  She stared at the ground for a
long time without moving, then with one last quick glance fled from the room. 
I thought I heard her choke back a sob, but perhaps it was just my fevered
imagination.

I could bear it no longer, and in the insanity of the ensuing moments tried
repeatedly to smash the mask on the stone floor.  My ears began to ring and I
tasted blood in my mouth, but the mask remained unbroken.  The pain finally
restored me to myself, and I lay on the ground and stared at the ceiling far
above, lost in thought.

Something inside had broken, something I hadn't realized I had until I met
Miyu.  My heart.  Miyu.  The only one left who knew my real name.  The only one
left who cared whether I existed or not.  My limbs had begun to ache terribly
from the cold.  Finding strength in the thought of Miyu needing me, I dragged
myself over to the portal.  I lost my balance as I stood to step through and
fell forward out of control.  I arrived on the other side in a heap on the
ground, dazed and past caring what happened next.  I lay in the darkness for a
long time before Miyu found me.

Even now, I feel the urge to echo Elena's insane laugh as I continue to
realize the full weight of that terrible punishment.

Miyu didn't understood at first.  She tried to pull the mask off repeatedly.
When she realized that it was now a permanent part of me, her eyes filled with
tears and she turned away.  I had only seen her this disturbed once before,
when she had found Kaoru's double and had been forced to kill him.  I was to
blame for this pain.  My love had brought nothing but grief to her young life.
All I had to do was seal her as a child as I had been commanded to do, and none
of this would have happened.  But every time I tried, I would look into her
eyes and lose myself all over again, and forget everything but her. 

[Author's note:  Kaoru was a boy Miyu grew up with when she was human and she
fell in love with him right before she discovered she was a vampire.  His fate
I do not know, but in a later story, she finds a boy that looks just like him.
A shinma gets him and she is forced to kill the shinma.  When a shinma takes
someone over, they are dead, for their soul cannot be restored to their body as
far as I can tell.  Miyu still feels like she is killing the person.  On
another note, I've never understood exactly how Larva was suppose to "seal"
Miyu, but I have a feeling it involved Miyu dying, so Larva's falling in love
with her made him unable to do so.]

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

I tried, Oh, God, how I tried to say something to soothe away her pain.  At
first she thought that I was silent because I was angry with her.  She begged
my forgiveness and pleaded for just a word or two.  Then she grew angry and
demanded that I forgive her.  Finally, furious at my continued silence, she
tried to use her power over me to force me to talk.  As I tried, lying on the
ground in convulsions as two unbearable forces shredded my soul between them,
she had put her hand against my throat and felt the muscles straining to move.
She frantically commanded me to stop, then, to never speak to her again if it
would cause me 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 gave all I held dear for.  I love her and I cannot permit her to
go with me into the darkness forever.  She would try to go with me if she knew.
Her freedom is my final punishment, for I cannot stop our meshed destiny, nor
turn back the hands of time.

Don't cry for me, for I am what I am.  The dark calls.  I feel its gentle
caress as it sighs my name and I know that I am doomed to wander in it for all
eternity. Be happy that I have had one brief moment of joy, that I was able to
experience true love once in my miserable existence.

Soon they will have all been sent back, and then I too will join with them, my
brothers and sisters, my mother and father.

For it is Miyu's destiny is to return all the wandering shinma to the dark. 
And I . . . am a shinma.

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. ^ ^