Rap-ta-tap-tap. The sound of a knocking upon a crystal doorframe interrupted the grand success of the one-and-only Blank. The knocking came in a little musical rhythm, a very particular one. It was a rhythm that Blank could recognize. That man... he was back again.
Four years' past marked the first time she had heard that man a-knocking. Just as it was now, the rap-ta-tap-tap was all the same back then. There was but a difference that it had sounded off the cold ice of a half-frozen mountain range that Blank had been hiding away inside of since she had fled from the vermillion eye of that evil monster...
That was how she'd up and met Haru for the first time... Truly met him, anyway-a face in an enemy crowd at the battle of Pride's Reclamation hardly counted towards the memory.
"I'd been looking for you, the lost Blank in the hills. A little friendly face had told me that you were just over the mountain... so I climbed it!"
Haru had come to see if she was doing alright, from what he told her. A lost girl in the snow left a picture in his eye, he said, that he just had to follow around. His story seemed crazy in more than just one way--In particular, how he'd climbed over the mountainside to reach her. Why? There had been a perfectly good path to get to this place, so why climb a mountain over it?
He had only stayed for a little while to talk on things. It wasn't a memorable talk, aside from how he'd gotten there to begin with. Hopefully that would have been the last of the man she'd have to see-especially since it seemed like he'd been rightfully chased off by her powerful magics.
Rap-ta-tap-tap, came a-knocking the sage Haru but a year later. He looked different from what she last saw of him. He was less like himself, and more as if something else. She could see the way his shadow flittered behind his back.
"I've found you again, the lost Blank in the hills. A friend had told me that you were still out here. I thought I'd come and see how you were doing."
He'd gone and went through the trouble to bring her a little gift this time. It was a strange little glass that he said had to do with the Zalrites and their corruption. He didn't deign to talk about where he had gotten such a thing, only wishing her well as he talked about the world outside of the mountain.
Rap-ta-tap-tap, came the knocking of Haru's hand. His knuckles rapped against the side of Zalran architecture. He'd found her yet again a year later, having come to talk yet once again. Was he even human anymore? His soul felt twisted. It looked almost like... like what she had been before. Dark and twisted. Was his shadow watching her now? Why were there eyes there where there shouldn't have been? Blank could see it all. Nothing could hide from her magical gaze.
"I've come with a little gift again, lost Blank in the mountainside. A little shadow told me that you were here."
He had no present to hand her as a gift. Instead, he'd gone boldly into the village of angry Zalri and talked with them about something. It wasn't clear what he said to them, but after the fact, the Zalri didn't seem quite so angry anymore. They didn't even try to murder Blank like they used to with anybody that had a pulse around the edge of the village. They didn't even stop her from making a home around the area, nor her research of Zalrisis... though time would change that as their chagrin of her studies grew.
Now Haru was here again. It was almost dreadful to turn and look at the man who still sounded as warm and inviting as he ever had... And to the surprise of her gaze, he hadn't actually gotten worse this year. If anything, it seemed like he'd come to an accord of sorts with the thing that lived in his soul. It entwined with his own, neither growing nor devouring what remained of the friendly sage. What kind of inhuman creature had he become?
Rap-ta-tap-tap. "Hello, Blank. I've come and intruded yet again. Will you try to freeze me with your magic again? I wouldn't mind to see you try. I did miss the sight of your arts. Ha, ha ha..."
His head shakes, the flowing magic on his head-mistaken to an untrained eye as hair, but not to Blank's gaze-rippling in the light as if another beam of the sun that had been let in when Haru opened the door. He had a paper in his hand, a sheet of bounty which he showed her as soon as she allowed him to.
"A gift, to you-or rather, a warning. I fear that hunters may come for you, soon. You may need to move if you wish to stay hidden from prying eyes. They know you're in this mountainside."
The words were ominous, yes, but they were said with well-meaning for their recipient. It didn't seem like Haru had come to take that bounty this year. No matter how he changed, he yet still stayed the same in one way-when he came, it was to try and help for the short time in which he stayed. He'd said to her, once, that he had felt bad for the battle he'd had against her at the Reclamation of Pride. Perhaps this was his way of making amends.
