My muse decided that he had a lot, a lot, of repressed angsty feelings regarding Dally and Raisty (I shouldn't have let him read all those books . . oh well, too late now) so, I was forced to write this, so you can just go ahead and blame it on Azreal. And, yeas, well, Dally is a bit *upset*, so you're forewarned. I guess this is after Summer Flame, but, who knows, it could even be after Vanished Moon. It kinda trashes a few of the DL characters, but uh, it's the truth people. I'm not too good at writing honest to Gilean drivel, but, hey, I tried my best. Read on. Tell me what you think.
***
I live in your tower, Shalafi, I live in your tower, and I use all the arcane intonations that you left behind. I live in your tower, I have stolen everything you ever had, and - yes, Shalafi, I even have the lovers you never had. I have everything you fought for, and things you could never imagine, health, companions, 'friends'. But, still, Shalafi, I have nothing.
I broke the one rule you taught me in the most earnest, Shalafi, I have devoted my life to another being. I have made all that I want, that one person. And you never even knew. As I started losing myself, my own beliefs and morals, you paid it no head, even as I took yours. I stole everything you had, right in front of you.
Did you ever notice, Shalafi?
Did you notice as I looked at you with a burning hatred, an unattainable hunger that still burns deep inside me? No, you were too lost in your own thoughts. To obsessed with your goal, your dream. To prideful to think that your lowly apprentice would see anything in you, a dreary, decaying, sick, introverted shell of man! You, who thought nothing of other creatures, you who tried creating life. Ha! What kind of life were you trying to create, oh wondrous Shalafi? The kind of tortured, tormented, tainted life you were subjected to? Was it for some kind of vengeance, then? To create something that would live with more pain than you, until the end of Krynn?
No, perhaps I'm jumping to rash conclusions here, and perhaps you would have had just enough compassion to kill them after you created them, if that was the case. You weren't evil Shalafi, even as cruel and uncaring as you got, you were never evil-- you were never me. You would have liked for me to have thought that, wouldn't you? You would have enjoyed seeing me, Dalamar the Dark, crawling at the feet of you, such an evil spectre.
And I was scared of you. I was scared of what would happen when you finally acknowledged my looks and would find the way I thought of you. I was scared that you would notice the power you had the ability to wield over me, and there is no doubt in my mind that you would have. But, you didn't notice, did you? And I was still your puppet, you still had power over me, and, still, Shalafi, even as I know that you are lost to me, there is still a shimmer of hope in me because . . .
I noticed you, Shalafi.
Oh, yes, I noticed you, watching me so intently over the rim of your book. I saw every one of the few blazing glances you flashed at me while I was doing a spell. I saw you, not looking at me, but at what you thought to be me. Yes, I am that Dalamar too, but when you looked at me, you saw what you wanted to see, but you never saw me, not directly. I saw you look at me with desire, Shalafi. I too, saw you subsequently berating yourself for it. For thinking of a substantial thing in such a way, one that, so you thought, was only there to spy on you, and learn dark magic as a reimbursement.
I watched you, Shalafi. I learned more from watching you than what you ever taught me. I saw you give yourself up to the ecstasy of the magic.
I saw you, looking to me for guidance in the matter of a certain, pesky Revered Daughter. And I rejected you. In that moment, when I saw you looking at her with the same passion you held for me in your eyes, only, when you looked at her, there was also . . . determination, I turned away from your silent plea for help. I deserted you, and left you alone to do the impossible. Did you think so little of me? Did you think me to have been that easy, Shalafi? Or was it the mere thought that you could rip her from her already wavering faith that appealed to you more. Or . . . possibly it could have been the look of lust plastered on her face, so plainly. Could it have been the tremble of desire coursing through her pure body for the first time, delivering itself into the meek touches the two of you shared? Was it because it was plain in her eyes that she was willing to become your whore? And when I saw that bitch, escaping from the Abyss, whining and dying on the inside, blind on the outside, and realized that she was able to do so only by your power, I swore, when I saw you, if I saw you, I would tell you what you did to me. I would tell you how much you made me hate that cringing human. I would tell you that if you had tried you would have seen willingness in my eyes, as they were never in your little clerics.
Once again, Shalafi, I ask you, why didn't you ever notice me?
I could have taught you. We could have taught each other, Shalafi. If only you had known.
I could have made you happy. But you never gave me the chance. If you had only accepted my offer of love.
Yes, Shalafi, love. Something even your brother, and that whore of a cleric couldn't give you. Not the way you desired it. I never once pitied you. Never once did I ever feel sorry for you as a spell was interrupted by those raucous coughs, by blood filling your mouth, drowning out your words.
Even our Dark Majesty pitied you.
Oh, Shalafi. I hadn't thought of you in years. I purged you from my thoughts the day I closed your laboratory, the last that remained to remind me of you. Then a prissy girl came to my tower, claiming to be your daughter. Of course, I knew her to be a fraud, but still, as your name came off her ignorant lips, the wounds you created in my chest bled with yearning.
Then you there you were. Walking out of your laboratory as though you had been gone for mere moments, nothing more. You should be proud of your apprentice. I composed myself so thoroughly that I played your little game right along with you, without a hitch. I had turned my back on myself, and I am disgusted to my very core.
I welcomed the idea of Krynn burning to non-existence, to me, burning to non-existance, with open arms.
I cherished the fleeting thought that, as death would last forever, perhaps I could replenish my respect in myself, by telling you the one thing no one, not even the gods themselves, know. What no one ever noticed.
But - no, Shalafi. You had to cleave the wish from my mind, spit on it, and walk away without a backwards glance. You couldn't let the inhabitants of Krynn take care of themselves, could you? No. You had to send your precious little nephew off to save the world. You denied me the death that I so hoped for.
What am I to do, now Shalafi? I can't curse you to the Abyss. Besides, you already banished yourself there. I can't wish you to be unhappy for all eternity. You already are. And I can't order you to leave Krynn, for you have already done that yourself. You left me with nothing I could send crashing upon your disastrous life.
And I hate you for it.
It seems painfully appropriate, doesn't it? For me to hate you, and love you. Nothing can ever be simple when it comes to you, can it? No, everything has to be difficult.
So, that bitch and her clerics, your good little dedicated-to-light nephew, the Half-Elf, and you just had to save Krynn, had to keep my tortured existence going didn't you? Fine. I'll banish you from my thoughts once again. Your cleric is dead, you have no daughter, Half-Elven is dead, you nephew is obsessed with his mission, no one will be here to bring thoughts of you anywhere near me.
No one, that is, but myself. Or you.
I love you Raistlin Majere.
Damn you.