The Yarn and the Doll

There were days when he regretted leaving. There were days when he thought coming to Earth hadn't been worth it at all. On days like this, when the sun blared down relentlessly upon him, Jazariel had all he could do to simply stop here and submit to whatever the others had planned to do as punishment.

His long, white hair was tied back into a pony-tail with a silken black ribbon, a white T-shirt adorned his upper body, and a pair of dark jeans and sandals covered his lower half. The dress was different here, but with the currency Zukrel had supplied for him he had been able to assimilate rather quickly. The only odd thing was his hair, but even that had a simple explanation: dye.

Jazariel had been scouring the island for her. The girl with stitches all over her body, red hair, naive and sweet - but there were many women with red hair who were sweet. The key was finding the one with stitches.

And when he went to the courtyard and saw her from a distance for the first time, he froze. What was on her face? For a moment his heart stopped inside of his chest and he began forward, finding it hardly difficult to keep his emotions in check.

"Good day, Miss," he said once he approached her, the tips of his fingers tucked halfway into the pockets of his jeans.

Cat ears? Jazariel stared at the young woman before him as if she had just grown a second head. A single, white eyebrow lifted as he peered down at her, his head moving to the side somewhat. His gaze was somewhat cold as he examined her, each detail of her appearance running through his head. Everything seemed to match, but he hadn't expected a young woman to be this naive.

"No, I don't," he said. It should have been obvious he didn't have such appendages, but he decided to humor her. Her realization of his height made his snicker, a lopsided smirk tugging at his lips. "Are you sure I'm tall? Or is it that you're just short?"

Jazariel looked up then. Reach the clouds... yes, he could do that; he could do that with ease. However, he made no mention of this. It was too early for him to reveal that fact. Rather than lie, he remained silent. An omission of the truth was better than a lie. "Do you like the clouds?"

He watched as she set the knitting down, perplexed that she found him more interesting than her knitting. "Normal? Why wouldn't I count as normal?" Jazariel's eyebrows knit. This girl had a strange thought process, and he couldn't help but wonder why that was.

Doll.

He'd found her. Jazariel lost his cool for a moment as his eyes widened. The hope that he had kept at bay was finally allowed to spread throughout him. This was the woman. "You can simple call me Jaz, Doll," he returned. "My name is far too long."

Why was she so hung up on the idea of normal? Jazariel had realized in his lifetime that there was no true equilibrium for 'normal'; it was a word that, in essence, truly meant nothing. "There is no normal," he responded. From the way she had acted thus far he was certain that would only bring about a whole slew of questions.

He looked down at where she poked his chest, reaching up and, with a gentle hold, pried her hand away from his abdomen. "Why don't you guess, Doll?" he challenged with a smirk. Maybe that was mean to do, but he wanted to see what her answer would be and if she could back it up.

"See? The words are synonymous. There can't be a weird or a normal if the words have different meanings and yet mean the same thing." Jazariel winked.

He laughed; he supposed, if she so wished it, that he would indulge her and tell her his full name. "Jazariel Akira," he properly introduced. "What does the B stand for, hmmm?"

"Nobody thinks anymore, Doll." Though Jazariel's voice was filled with patience, his patience was beginning to wear thing like sand from an hour glass. He was meant to be the guardian of this girl, not to answer all of her questions about a world so forsaken! Jazariel sighed softly, wondering if this really, truly was worth the effort. He wasn't a teacher and was simply not cut out to be so.

His head tilted to the side at her curious response. "Do you think you can touch the sky, Doll?" he inquired.

He was shocked when her hand fell off and jumped back, ashamed of himself for being so startled. "How often?" he mumbled. "You could keep yourself tied together tighter, then." He was the babysitter of a dol... how could Zukrel condemn him to this?

At her next question and apparent fear, Jazariel looked up to the sky. Dark clouds gathered overhead, merging and shifting with the wind. "I suppose it was," he said. "Come, we should go inside before it rains."

Was she that afraid? Jazariel was left dumbfounded as she darted away, not giving him a second thought or even a glance. No words were spoken and he blinked, the hairs held in his pony tail beginning to come loose and blow into his face. With a soft curse he tried to swipe them away, moving so that he could follow her. She was already almost inside and he was still standing there like a fool.

As he looked down, though, he saw her knitting. Rain was being wrung from the clouds and he leaned down, scooping it up into her arms. He couldn't tell whether it was important to her or not, but considering she had been working on it so diligently he supposed he could at least return it to her.

Jazariel allowed the rain to plunder him, soaking past his shirt and dampening his hair. He leaned over the knitting, doing his best to protect it from the rain. Once at the door he walked inside, passed Doll, and breathed a deep sigh.

"You left this out there," he said, holding the knitting out to her. Once she took it, Jazariel lifted his hands to his hair and began to wring the water from it, a slight look of distaste upon his features.