Chapter Text
The air up ahead rippled and moved, distorting the lone tree on the horizon as if it were about to melt in the relentless heat. There was no shade anywhere around, nowhere to hide from the sun beating down on them as they dragged themselves along the dusty road, battered and bruised. Wind picked up behind their backs every now and then, and with it came the smoke from the field they had left in the distance. Lavi coughed into his hand. The burning remains of the akuma smelled foul, biting in his throat and nostrils until his eye started to tear up. He dabbed at it impatiently, then yanked his headband down and wiped his forehead, smearing sweat and soot all over his face.
“Here, use this.” Allen offered him a torn up glove, his left hand bare and shaking slightly as he held it out.
“Thanks.” Lavi’s fingers lingered on the coarse red skin as he took the scrap to clean himself up, trailing dark smudges on the white fabric. He held on to it mindlessly, wondering whether the warmth it radiated came from Allen or the scorching sun above.
They kept walking, kicking up the dust that clung to their skin and clothes. Lavi breathed out heavily, his dry tongue sticking to the palate. Sweat trickled down under his clothes, seeped into his wounds, burned like acid. The empty road seemed to go on without an end.
“I think I can see the bell tower,” Allen announced, his voice ringing clear in the buzzing air. Lavi glanced at him out of the corner of his eye: he looked nearly transparent in the glare, the dried blood on his face in stark contrast with the pale skin. It didn’t belong there, Lavi decided, it didn’t fit with those big childlike eyes and the serene smile that lit them up.
“I’m starving. I hope we can get something good to eat once we reach the town,” Allen babbled in a dreamy voice, marching ahead with a bounce in his step. But under all that bustling energy there was a pensive edge to him that Lavi knew had nothing to do with planning their dinner. The wind rose up again, bringing the bitter stench back to them. How many monsters did they destroy today – how many souls saved? To him, it was merely another statistics – to Allen, it was the meaning of life. Lavi wondered what it must be like, to devote himself so endlessly to a single cause. As a bookman, he knew he should never understand that.
“Come on, Lavi, don’t fall behind now!” Allen urged, pressing ahead towards the hazy outline of the town flickering in the distance. Lavi just groaned and followed, turning his eye away from that bright smile and up to the blazing sky. He couldn’t afford to be blinded. It was safer to look at the sun.