kh_drabble | (no subject)

Challenge: Historical AU [222]
Title: Salem Grey
Word Count: 586

Lea never knew anything but black and white.

Lea liked to watch the flames flicker in the breeze, casting long shadows behind the gathered crowd. Orange and yellow melted together and burned in his vision even after he closed his eyes; getting right up close, he could feel the heat lap threateningly against his skin. It could threaten him all it liked -- the flames could never hurt him, because Lea was a good boy.

Good boys didn't get burned at the stake.

It was the wicked who were paraded to their deaths, chained to the wrought iron pike in the center of town and set aflame to the wild cheers and jeers of the townsfolk. Everything was as simple as black and white: the good and the bad, the sheep and the goats, the righteous and the evil. Tears were reserved for the innocent. Witches and warlocks, blasphemers and evil-doers, all deserved to die. So why shouldn't their deaths be made a spectacle? It broke up the otherwise monotonous day-to-day life, and was a source of fascination for boys like Lea.

It wasn't morbid. It was justice.

It was a cold and cloudy day when Lea saw his first shade of grey. He stood at the front of the crowd, closest to the pike, like he always did. The court proceedings were over, and it was just a matter of moments before the wards brought the condemned to their final resting place. Already the crowd's murmurs were beginning to rise to a noisy chatter, impatient simpletons all trying to out-gossip each other. With no one to talk to, Lea fidgeted anxiously. Today's fire would be hotter than yesterday's. Today, they were burning a witch.

Grey came in the form of a little blonde girl in a little white dress.

Who..?!

The chains kept her hands clasped at her front, but she looked so demure that it seemed like it was natural for her hands to be there. Her fingers curled, seeking reassurance from something she used to hold long ago. But there was no longer anything in the world that could comfort her now -- not when the crowd's clucking hit its crescendo, a roar of insults and curses that foreshadowed the roar of the flames that was to come.

She looked so small chained to the pike, and looked ever smaller as the firewood piled up around her.

For once, Lea could not reconcile what he was watching with what he had been taught. Her too-blue eyes stared mournfully at the ground beneath her feet, showing not the guilt of a sinner but the fear and innocence of a child. She couldn't have been any older than him -- what had she done to deserve this?

What sin could a child commit that would lead them to the pike?

There was no answer in the rage of the mob, shouts muted by the blood that rushed to his ears. There was no answer in the howl of the flames that sprung to life around the girl's legs, climbing higher to claim her angelic blonde hair and turn her snow-white gown to ash. There was no answer in the child's screams, her voice fading far too early for this to be called anything like justice. Amidst the anguish in her eyes, there was the same question that tormented him: what did I do to deserve this?

For one fleeting moment, Lea could see past the smoke and flames, and all his world turned blue.

Something in him died that day.