The series begins with two parallel scenes. The first scene is of a young girl falling through the sky, head downward and cradling a crow. The crow tries to stop the girl's fall by pulling on the hem of her robe, but cannot and eventually flies away. The other scene is of a group of female Haibane who find a large cocoon growing in a storage room. The Haibane clean the room to prepare for the opening of the cocoon. When the cocoon breaks open, the girl inside (the same one seen falling in the first scene) is brought to a guest room where several Haibane care for her, led by an older Haibane named Reki. When the young girl wakes up, she can remember only the part of her cocoon dream in which she was falling. As Haibane are traditionally named based on their dreams within the cocoon, she is named Rakka ("falling"). Shortly after arriving, the Haibane present Rakka with a halo which she begins to wear, and Reki cares for Rakka as she goes through the painful and bloody ordeal of having wings erupt from her back.
Reki and the other Haibane—who are all teenage girls and younger children—live in "Old Home," an abandoned school in the country near the town of Glie. As time passes, Rakka learns more about Old Home and the Haibane who live there, about Glie, in which the townspeople are friendly and generous to the Haibane, and about "Abandoned Factory," where a second co-ed group of Haibane lives. The very young children among the Haibane at both locations all live at Old Home and are in the care of Reki and a "house mother" from town. All Haibane must work at jobs in Glie and are subject to restrictive rules with sometimes harsh penalties. Foremost among these rules: Haibane may not own anything new, may not use money, and are forbidden to touch or even approach the wall that circles Glie and the surrounding countryside. These rules are strictly enforced by the Haibane Renmei ("Charcoal Feather Federation"), an organization which oversees the lives of the Haibane.
Rakka quickly bonds with the other residents of Old Home - especially Reki and Kuu - and begins searching for a job by spending a day with each of her friends at their jobs in a bakery, in the library, in the clock repair center at the clock tower, and taking care of the children at Old Home.
As the winter approaches, Kuu becomes pensive and distracted and begins to give away her possessions. One day, Kuu vanishes. Rakka is distraught when she learns that Kuu has taken her Day of Flight, has passed over the wall, and will never return. The Day of Flight is the eventual fate of all Haibane who are not "sin-bound."
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου