Disclaimer: Dynasty Warriors and the characters within it, etc. are not owned by me.
A/N: Though Ma Dai is such a cheerful person, it would make sense that he couldn't be that cheerful all the time. I wanted to explore a darker side to him, which has been stated somewhere that he has. Also.. While it doesn't feel like we saw enough of Ma Dai in DW7 or XL to get a clear picture of who he is exactly, I hope this doesn't seem too out of character anyway. ...Rambling over. On with the fic!
Atramental
The world was dark.
Oh so dark.
You could not be a warrior and not see that. Every day, every battle, the hardship and misery and ruin encircled. Time after time, clawing and reaching out with hands as bloody as your own.
It trailed. Wherever you went, there it all was. An eternal gathering, leering and lingering and muttering and not shutting up.
Chitter-chatter.
Mumble-mumble. Grumble-grumble as they loomed. A collective, dogged weight. Constant reminder.
The world was dark. The world was that reminder. How could he forget? Look around you. Look around you and see, see the cracks and the scars and the remains.. Everywhere you turn. Watch.
The world, and the gloom that pervaded it.
-The empty fields with their rotting crops, the charred cinders of that home smoking smoking smothering remember the family that burned-
Black.
-Over and over the the hollow village.. hollow once so whole until they plundered and ravaged with the heat and the swirling, choking background; agony and massacre murder by hearts so cold and-
Black.
Everywhere. Pitch. Black.
Oh.. He so disliked that colour.
You could not escape it. It was so ugly, mingling in and perverting the beauty which deserved to exist undisturbed. Free of abuse and corruption, rampant with life and laughter.
How he loved laughter. Merriment and mirth, carefree gaiety – there was nothing better! Happiness like yellow sunshine and green grass on a prosperous spring day. Calm blue skies and whistling as you work and inhale...Mmm... Fresh baozi or vivid wildflowers as children played nearby...
Laughing children.
Was there anything more pure and joyous than laughing children?
There was certainly nothing to hate about them.
Yet..
Why did they come and swing their jagged blades and swing and swing and swipe as mothers screamed and babies cried? Bludgeon fathers, brothers, sons and garrotte their daughters and wives?
Coo-coo... Wail, wail wa- Splattering drip drip drip
No. Forget it.. Shut up.
Only one answer to that earlier question.
The world was dark. Blackness, blackness everywhere. Tyrants here, cowards there.
Well.
He wasn't going to let it stand. No. If the world wouldn't change, he'd just have to make it change himself.
Idealism – what a brilliant, shining blaze.
Take up arms, artisan!
Take them up, join your family and your cause. Do your duty to your kin and your country and to whatever home you have left. Be a part of this great new revolution and follow your beacon towards a plotted, promising cause.
Hold your brush and paint..
Paint. Paint. Oh, but look! Watch...
Watch.
Watch the blood run red. Your own run cold as others' pours out of them, running and running and running..-
Clashing-clashing, clanging-clanging steel against steel and banging and yelling and moaning and screaming look -
There's the smoke. Look. Dress your battle wounds, see the scars of your comrades and the haggard faces and the ruins and the emptiness – look.
Look!
(Shut up!)
What good did seeing do. What. Good.
Seeing all the time – all around as it lingers and that idealism, oh.
It's dimming. Like each man's spirit out of his hopeless eyes; searching, terror turning into glassy sheen.
All too quickly, it's.. over.
Finality.
No.
Finality... And all that would be left – all he would have would be the vacuity, and it just wouldn't shut up.
The world was black. Dark. So dark.
How could he stand it, without that light? His beacon. Too idealistic perhaps; too hot-headed, so stubborn and headstrong but the beating heart of the operation beat beat beat his heart wild and driven and...
The light. The light, to possibly stave off that darkness.
Yes...
His leader. And what good was a leader when he was compromised?
In fact, what good were his fellow men with their faces so weary and their spirits so.. dulled?
The world was black. Red, too. Too red. But if Ma Dai could just paint another colour, other than ink as death and tragic crimson, then...
Well..
It was worth a try.
Yellow and blue and brown and green. Paint. Smile! Laugh your troubles away! Lightening the heart surely lightens the soul.
Paint. Colours warm and cosy and harmonious like good old times. Black isn't as dark when it's yellow, or white. Beacons needed a backup fire or they'd just fade away.
Fire... Screaming crying sobbing
War-cries echoing echoing always echoing in his thundering head, sunken paranoia into his skull like a poison you've got company. Company that doesn't actually die, for a change just presses and presses and presses... Stares.
Stares. Staring faces. Accusatory.
Whispering don't forget, as he assured again hey, don't worry...
Trail after your light no matter where it lead. Trudge into battle after battle after battle because we're fighting for something beautiful
– Laughing children now with grisly faces in agony –
Pick up the pieces as they shatter, dust them off and pat them down as the edges cut across your inked hands...
Nurse your war wounds and everyone else's – nothing more healing than laughter (but the reserves are drying up)..
Be sure to hold your sagging head high as the road drags on, come on, you can manage a skip! Blank out your numbed mind from the exhaustion bone deep oh I can't no shut. Up! Young master's counting on you!
(..Young master; young master God he's so old now - )
Hah. No sadness here. Nothing as you cut and slay blackest ink on a blacker land still running so very, very red. Bleeding into every better colour, but then he only has finite reserve, compared to the whole bloody world.
Harrowing sounds through the crowd. Couldn't he just bleach his brain?
(Shut up shut up urgh can't you just be QUIET?)
Positivity! That's all he needed. Positivity, take it up, take up your arms – No..
So.. Bleak..
(As if it could cut through all that..)
The gloom..
A chasm. Easy to fall into if he wasn't careful, because he was so empty. (He'd even given his heart away-) Easy, and the black and the red stained his hands even underneath the gloves.
Gloves.
Gloves. Hah. Pathetic, and superficial, they whispered. Like your pathetic little mantra.
What can you paint, that will actually stick? And only far more colour than what you have could drown out the blackest of the black!
Words. All just talk. No meaningful action.
So superficial.
How can painting help anything, artisan?
..Pointless.
(Yes.)
He knew.
But he was damn well clinging to his 'mantra' because that was almost all he had. He would keep painting until his reserves dried up because that was all that he could do. Yellow sunshine, green as lush grass, before he forgot what they felt like. Vivid and colourful as flowers, before they wilted completely and were ground into dust.
Ashes to ashes.
New day. Watch the red sun rise.
Plaster on a smile.