a/n: This is not a story about pedophilia. This is not a story about non-consensual intercourse. It's not even that romantic. But I did decide to write this story to convey a message, one of both beauty and the crass truths that dwell within us all as we declare in one voice that we are human beings. This was started during a very hard time in my life, and it has special meaning. Maybe it can have special meaning for you as well. The story is rated M for certain themes portrayed in this piece. Please, enjoy yourself. I appreciate feedback of all kinds.

I own nothing.

When The Horizon Bleeds

In Linda's humble opinion, they each painted a picture using different utensils. Sometimes songs and drawings went hand in hand, for they both were divine tools of creation depicting something, anything. Math, art, music, the lines between the mediums blurred the more she counted her days among the living. She was fine with this, welcomed each individual's way of expression, accepted their differences and was immensely grateful when the same was granted for her.

However rare that was.

Her tragic past was not a commodity, and certainly not unique among her breed of creatures. Each child had their own secrets to covet and obsess over during numerous sleepless nights when their books had closed and all was left for company besides empty textual technicalities were the thunder and lightning, mocking their cataclysms that had landed them all at Wammy's. Murdered parents, raped parents, murdered and raped parents, abusive parents, neglectful parents. Battered babies, battered children, fists from their birth givers' mouths turned flesh and bruised raw with their own baby's blood. And she always used the term 'baby' loosely, and applied her own inventive definition of them. Babies were often considered literal infants, newborns who hadn't an actual care in the world, writhing gasping things that flailed and cried for a teat to suck on, not much else. They were adored though by people worldwide, the little humans. To Linda however, a baby could be of any age; was someone young, someone unexposed, puerile. And while perhaps not completely innocent, they bled their rules of blind optimism in a constant flow of pristine bounty.

As one can imagine, there weren't very many babies at Wammy's House.

Everyday though, she was called a baby by her peers. It was by her indulgent rationalization that she learned to transform it from an insult into a compliment. It didn't mean she was stupid or naïve,

Linda knew the secrets behind their bitterness, the lines heavily drawn between each of them in competitive abhorrence, and yet she had never succumbed to such conventions herself. Her studies were highly valued, yes, but once she shut her books as the sun set in the distance behind rolling Nordic clouds, her pencil moved in a very different fashion. She drew everything. She always had. From random objects to random people. From important objects to important people. From smooth billowing emerald English fields to jagged rock formations. From notched scars to skin pale and silky as untouched snow. From sunsets to the people watching sunsets with the far off look in their eyes that she obsessed over but felt the ache in their hearts, whatever it stemmed from.

And when they moved, she never said a word. Any great artist would have inwardly, or even outwardly complained if their target was moving, for then the lines would be crooked, or the face would come out strangely, and the end result would be disastrous in their eyes. Linda could draw anything. She even welcomed movement. She drew kids playing soccer, and a few pencil flicks would portray the smear that people and objects obtain when they gain momentum. The crooked lines were fine, and so were the strange faces. The end result wasn't something she could necessarily be proud of, or show off to anybody else (lord knew there weren't many who appreciated her slight of hand anyway), but when the days died down into something intimate between her consciousness and her cute little soul, she would share her work with herself, the only true friend she had within the confines of the orphanage. She would giggle to herself as the whimsy and secret affection within her throbbing heart tickled each other mercilessly, tracing her fingers lightly along the shaded regions of her subject's features so the graphite wouldn't smudge too much. Here, and only here in her convenient sketchbook could she really get to know these people, these children who, while they didn't mercilessly taunt her or make fun of her like some of what they considered the lower class students, she was somewhat invisible to them. When she played soccer with them, they never passed to her. When they worked in groups in their classes, her opinions were hardly ever accounted for. Up and down the hallways and in the cafeteria, she remained a ghost.

A happy, loving, lonely ghost.

Every once in a while though, those clairvoyant types, as she liked to call them, saw her as they emerged from their monotonous stressful mold of becoming something so close and yet so out of reach.

She was only five years old. Linda sat on the steps outside one hot summer evening, ignoring the flies and mosquitoes that lapped hungrily at the honey sweat sliding delicately down the side of her temple, sketching away at an apple tree whose blossoms hadn't fallen like the rest had so long ago. The shadow of an older student hovered behind her, eclipsing the light that had fallen pleasantly upon Linda's back until then. She noticed her of course, glancing sideways, and yet she didn't stop drawing.

"That's beautiful."

Her strokes ceased. Linda craned her neck and looked behind her. Melusine, age nine gazed down at her sharply, scrutinizing the works on the page of sketch paper.

"You're not going to say thank you?" The older student said, raising an eyebrow, as if slightly insulted that Linda didn't immediately start kissing the tips of her sneakers.

"Thank you." Linda said, hardly faltering. "I'm not used to compliments on my work is all. Please forgive me."

"What are you, six? Seven?"

To anyone else outside the compound, the words slithered out from between Melusine's lips like an insult. But that's how it was at Wammy's. A simple question sounded like an accusation. Linda took it as it was.

"Five, actually." She replied.

Melusine tilted her head, dissecting the younger girl's surface pieces, trying to figure out whatever motive there was, before turning to leave. "Keep drawing." Was all she said in her wake.

Linda didn't need to be told twice.

Her room, once shared with another young girl who soon demanded to have a different roommate due to the large amount of mess created by Linda's artworks, became her sanctuary of sleep and storage. From there her discoveries grew to unimaginable heights. As the next year passed, she took the criticism from her teachers and kept it in her pocket, but never took it like the arrows to her soul they were meant to be to kick start that academic vigor so viciously alive in the other students. She just wanted to draw. And her passion was born right then and there, in that room, in that orphanage, in her own little world that blossomed with so many different possibilities that she could never keep herself from having a delicate smile plastered permanently across the thin pinkish plane of her lips.

Another year passed. Linda came across the most puzzling and miraculous of things and people, cherished each and every one of them for their individuality and unique prowess. Sketchbook after sketchbook filled up dramatically, some pages dumped with random drawings, other's full portraits with vast detail to rival many of the century's greatest artists, though she remained oblivious to such a striking comparison. She just loved to draw, and carved her craft as others craved math problems and literature essays. She drew so much that it became a second nature to her, much like blinking, or breathing.

One day, it seemed like she breathed too much perhaps, so to speak.

Study hall was always her favorite time. Everyone was engrossed in their studies and her visibility to their notice went down even further. Without even focusing on this particular person, she drew, the lines flying across the grainy paper like experienced doves taking flight. At the time it felt like she didn't need to know their names, just their faces she found so important and worthy of being added to her mental library, to observe and remember and cherish until the end of time. The room was grand, tall pillars of clean white marble overlooking several chairs and tables filled erratically with many students cramming for their next exams. Her feet swept in an idiosyncratic fashion over the soft shag rug, toes occasionally gripping the crimson fibers as her hand swept against the pages in masterful motions. But with all of her attention being paid to her piece, she failed to notice her current subject loudly slam down his reading material and march silently yet ominously over to her table. Over the shiny grayish black of her graphite sketch were a pair of angry azure stones glinting with annoyance. Linda's sharp eyes took in all the detail they could of those intense irises before succumbing to the startled brook of fear that began to trickle steadily through the nerves in her spine. She gulped.

"Did I say you could draw me?" He said, demanding the answer in such a way that she knew it would be the end of her if she didn't render it.

Linda's eyes flickered, darting all over his features, from his sharp Caucasian facial contours to the sun silk color of his luxurious hair. He bent over her sitting form, formidable, omnipotent, vividly aggravated.

"N-no, I suppose not." She replied, her voice trembling slightly. What on earth was he so angry about? Nobody hardly ever noticed her, much less minded when she drew them.

"You're not even going to say sorry, are you?" He said, his upper lip curving into a slightly disgusted sneer of disapproval.

Sorry for what?

In a flash the boy tore the sketch of his dignified face out of her book and ripped it to pieces. Her mouth contorted in shock, eyes wide and jaw slackened. This had never happened to her before, and her brain struggled to understand. He left the pieces in front of her, looking angry, nettled, but she could see it in his face that despite his ghastly display of hostility, he did not do it to be vindictive or cruel. She had hit one of his triggers was all. The rationalization soothed the impact of her stupor, and she fought a kind smile nudging the muscles of her mouth. Not saying another word, he stomped back to his seat, picking up a rather thick book and promptly hiding his face behind its broadness. Linda looked back down at the pieces the boy had shredded, picking them up gingerly. Despite how dismayed she had been when he tore the drawing up, she found she didn't feel a sense of loss from the shredded work, or anger towards him for what he did. Perhaps it was the trust in her own hands to make another one of this fascinating boy and colorful emotions, only next time she would have to be far more inconspicuous.

"Do you have one of me in there?"

A soft but direct voice came from behind her, and she immediately recognized his face the moment she turned to stare at him. He gazed back at her, his beryl eyes meeting her own dark hazels, peering out from a downy shade of dark auburn red.

Without flipping through her sketchbook, she smiled gently. "Yes, I do."

He shrugged. "Some people don't like being drawn without permission." His eyes darted in the sunflower haired boy's direction.

Linda silently agreed. She had learned something very important today.

"Well, does it offend you too?" She asked.

He sat down in the chair opposite from her own, not answering her question. "May I see?"

Linda glanced down at her sketchbook, frowning in slight surprise. "You actually want to see my drawings?"

He simply stared at her, in a way saying 'did I stutter?', and so she obliged, suddenly feeling nervous at the prospect of letting another individual see her most private thoughts and impressions of those who surrounded her. In a way it was almost like she was letting someone read her diary, and yet how could she refuse when all of her entries were of other people?

The scarlet haired boy flipped through the pages gently, yet the look on his face was unperturbed and composed. "Where's the one you did of me?"

"Oh, it's..." She took it from him, flipping it to the correct page. "Right here. I did it a long time ago..."

He stared at it for a long time, what seemed like minutes, and Linda curbed the nervousness at him judging her artwork by looking downwards and tapping her finger softly against the mahogany table.

"You even noticed the mole on my neck." He said suddenly, his voice laced with amusement.

The boy flipped it closed and handed it back to her. She expected him to give a critique of some form on the pieces, especially the one of himself, but it never came. And yet she got the feeling that what he said about the growth on the side of his slender neck was an acknowledgement of her acute perception. Not that she had any idea that her ability was a gift, but she felt strangely honored anyway to have this boy in particular view her work.

"What's your name?" Linda asked him, finding a new reason to learn these people's titles, whatever it was.

"Matt." He said simply, digging deep into his pocket and pulling out a gameboy, colorless and emitting quiet beeps from the video game soundtrack. "And that over there is Mello. He's kind of a jerk but..."

After the 'but', nothing came to redeem his claim of Mello being a jerk. Perhaps there was nothing to refute it at all. Either way, Matt slipped away as smoothly as he entered, leaving Linda to her thoughts. Matt and Mello. Were these two friends? Did they room together? Did they have one of those avante garde friendships she had heard so much about? They were an interesting pair, some of the only other children she had bothered learning the names of, and that in itself sent a strange feeling of connection to wash over her sensitive body. She examined her work of Matt one last time, squinting her eyes and spotting the telltale mole he had mentioned, studying the diminutive size and how she managed to shade such a small blemish with the smallest mechanical pencil she could find. In all honesty many other artists would have left such a supposedly marring feature out of his portrait, and yet she felt it would be untruthful to disregard it. And really, she liked it. She liked all flaws really, accepted them for what they were and treasured them, perhaps a bit too much. Linda looked out the dwarfing glass windows that overlooked the west part of the grounds, grass rich and green, and the sun that was slowly descending over the horizon. Casting one last glance at Mello, who looked so determined he may as well be sitting there all through the night, she decided to retire, vowing to get another portrait of Mello, one that included his scars, his creases, and that fascinating cross that dangled gracefully at the center of his sternum as well.

Linda furiously spent her endless fantastical days cooped up in her own little world. Her test scores were noticeable, phenomenal sometimes, and yet she paid no attention to the numbers that were announced at the end of each week, remaining in fourth sometimes fifth place much to her apathy. Eventually her hair got so long it became a nuisance, always titillating her nose and obstructing her eyes, but it wasn't yet long enough to be put into a much more modest pony tail, and so she tucked them up on the top of her oval head in two pigtails, keeping them there stubbornly no matter how stupid the other children said they looked.

When the plumbago tips of her utensils failed to satisfy her one day, she set out in search of the tools she would need to create that colored art she had admired for so long. A wraith in the form of a precious young girl, she searched every broom closet and professor's lounge until she found acrylic paints, vibrant, smelling of synthetic color after it dried into thick unmoving plastic. But when she painted a rose, strangely enough it smelled like a rose. The range of her tapestries grew more each passing day. Her sleep suffered horribly, for the speed of her brush never wavered until the wee hours past midnight, and only when her hand began to tremble from lack of rest did she climb into her bed, a cluttered disorder consisting of paintings, drawings, and even dried clay which she attempted to sculpt, to drift into a meager three hours of sleep before classes began. But even then, she did not regret any of it. It gave her peace of mind to spend that much time with herself, honing and loving her endowment to see things that other people didn't, and she didn't mind seeing the sunrise, plumed with the gentle sound of mourning birds chirping away in the forest surrounding the orphanage.

Linda clung to the beauty around her with iron arms; for some reason, she found she could no longer believe the horrors of the world. And so she didn't.

Despite her loneliness she remained a cheerful soul, beautifully down to earth and eager to spend her time both alone and in the company of the other children during the rare times they actually acknowledged her existence. The more time that passed she observed her self induced isolation from her peers, how they constantly talked about their studies and assignments, academics flowing so headily within them that at times she wondered if this...enterprise of becoming the replacement for the world's greatest detective was slowly but surely driving them all insane.

Unsaid rumors of her warmth soon began to spread steadily throughout their tiny emulous society, and she began to attract them with her down to earth nature, her gentle sparks of kindness, so rare given their origins and present circumstances. Some of them admired her sentimental essence, while others rejected it as weakness, which in the long run made little affect on her. She never consciously appointed herself as the counselor for these kids, but it gave her a bizarre sense of purpose. If she wasn't focused enough on the prize everyone else held so dear, then perhaps she could help them explore why they wanted this particular prize so badly, investigate why they so eagerly abandoned their individuality to become something they probably weren't.

Like the rest of them, she was a detective, sifting through people's emotional baggage instead of the elusive hints left behind by various serial killers and thieves. What was so bizarre about it was that it didn't cause her any sort of harm, or cost her effort. It seeped effortlessly from her caring form, which didn't seem to harbor jealousy or hatred, only an untouchable understanding that never wilted like it should have. Wammy's was often talked about like it was the light in people's lives, like it was giving these children a brighter and better future, but she knew better. It was also a place of darkness and oppression, where people's individuality was swallowed up by the greater purpose:

Becoming L.

L this and L that. The single letter held so much meaning all throughout the house, and though aware, she remained disinterested at heart.

At first.

They were an army to this entity, pawns waiting hungrily to become the kingly force of justice within a world in turmoil, and their job was to solve the turmoil. Such a prospect seemed to fit Linda's desires, and yet she wondered at least once every day who the one carrying the title of L was, and how they were making the world a better place. How could a faceless letter be doing good in the world, she secretly demanded an answer to that.

However, disinterest to the truest degree could never be won by her lovesome ways, and belonged to Near, the successor who had the highest grade point average of them all without even trying. The boy carried neutrality within his being, exuded it, like both an intense virtue and vice. In the face of danger he would remain unmoved, but as such amidst the ways of love and happiness. He hardly ever talked, and when he did, there was no inherent contempt towards interaction, but there was something wrong in the depths of his eyes, and being respectful as she was, Linda never prodded the guaranteed mysterious and hurtful past of the young genius, only a year younger than her own aging stature.

At the time, she had developed a fascination with geometric shapes, and sought to draw them. Near's dice were an excellent subject, and he had no objection when she asked to draw his impeccable construction of stacked dotted cubes. Naturally she asked if she could draw him as well, and he seemed even less excited about that to the point where she figured somewhere beneath his naturally indifferent facade he truly didn't want her to. The playroom was intended for the youngest children, filled with stuffed animals and hard robot action figures meant for the littlest geniuses to chew on. But as she knew so well, age didn't matter at Wammy's, and so many kids had aged fifty years the night they were removed from whatever situation they faced before their placement in the orphanage.

The two of them sat in silence, the only music serenading each other's company Linda's masterful pencil scraping away at the sketch paper and the delicate clacking sound of dice being heaped together by precise pale fingers. Her three dimensional squares matched the picture before her perfectly, and defying his unspoken request, she could not help but do a simple quick sketch of him as well, for his ashen features were as intriguing as they were perplexing. She smiled in contentment; what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Near?" She quietly cut through the silence, hesitance evident in her soft voice.

He didn't answer, but a very subtle glance made her feel acknowledged. She never minded that. Everyone had different ways of communicating, some more boisterous than others, Near among the more quiet subjects she had come across.

"Do you want to become L?" asked Linda.

"Why do you ask." He replied, his downward inflected question laced with natural suspicion. What made him the perfect detective was how he hungered for people's motives, no matter how unconcerned he seemed.

"Well look around." She said, propping her head against a closed fist leaning on her folded knees. "Everyone here is desperate to become him, or her. It's all anyone ever thinks about. Is that all you think about as well?"

"Don't you?" Near asked.

She stared at him for but an instant and smiled.

"You're avoiding the question, Near."

An elusive twitch graced his lips for but an instant before the same old stony expression took its familiar place in its wake. Almost as if to say, 'well played'. "I'm indifferent. My intelligence outstrips everyone else in the orphanage, and I suppose that makes me superior to them in a sense. But I'll be honest, I feel no satisfaction from such a truth."

Linda fell silent for a few moments, contemplating the simplicity of his words, the blatant concoction of accuracy polished like arrows from between his youthful lips.

"What is he like, I wonder." She said gently, haphazardly, as though she would have preferred that no one hear the utterance, of course if that were true she should not have said it in Near's vicinity.

"L, you mean?"

She nodded.

"Everyone is curious about it." He said nonchalantly, as if to emphasize how above the hype around the individual they were all supposed to succeed he was, inadvertently denying any fascination of his own he may have had. He then left his construction of dice in favor of a domino set. "We'll find out soon, however."

"Oh?" She said, eyebrows raising and disappearing under her silky brunette bangs.

"Roger says he will be paying us all a visit."

Linda looked downward, not at anything in particular, and contemplated this. It was odd for her to hear any reference to L as if he were a real person. His persona had been warped and idolized into something intangible. Her brow creased and her bottom lip tucked itself under her top row of teeth, begging to be chewed on as she considered Near's news. He spoke of everyone's fixation on the detective as if it were a deficiency within them, an immature bout of blind admiration, and while she could not argue with her slightly younger pale counterpart, she could not help but admit a certain fascination of her own with this detective they all sought to be. But if he was telling the truth (and Near telling a lie had a very low percentage of ever happening in the absence of true gain), she could finally answer the questions that had been steadily building up within the recesses of her mind about this man, who eluded her senses and imagination in every way.

Silence was never an unwelcome thing among their kind. It meant deep thinking, something more valued among anything else. Until Near paused, his unfathomable eyes settling upon her sketchbook, which she had carelessly rested face up on top of her feet.

"I never said you could draw me." He said, his boyish voice taking on a strangely deep tenor.

Linda blinked once, but her brow furrowed at his claim. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Absolutely nothing." He replied flippantly. Rising, he stared down at her with an inexplicable expression whilst he twirled an ivory ringlet between his fingers. "Can't say I appreciate it though."

"I'm sorry, Near." Linda said, this time quite genuine.

He gazed at her profoundly, the depth of his thought process evident even to her slightly superficial perception, and she felt naked beneath his line of sight. The mysteries within his mind were under a thick padlock, the key nowhere to be found, but from her, the answers flowed from her flickering eyes and uncertain mouth, the muscles of her tense features giving her away completely.

"He may enjoy it though. He can be quite vain."

Before she even had the chance to ask who he was talking about specifically, he began to adjourn out of the room, the soft padding sound of his socks against the floor an eerie display of evidence of his presence.

~ o ~

There are anchors in my heart. I can feel them, and yet I still feel like I'm flying. Life is too wonderful not to live to the fullest, and I try in futile attempts to capture it in the strokes of my fingers, my wrist, my hand believed to so talented. My doubts flow down the stream and colors are so bright. I embrace it, and yet I cannot help but question it. Why am I blessed with such bliss while the ones around me suffer, their jaded eyes glazed over with a sadness I cannot fathom, and yet it seems so familiar. I don't understand. But I long to. Perhaps the answers lie not within them, but within me.

Who am I?