Disclaimer: I do not own Garuru & Eilili... sigh ... they belong to their own g
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As I sit waiting in the darkness, amid the carnage and smell of death I orchestrated, I find my mind drifting back to the fist time I met you. It was back when Garoro introduced you as a new student at school, a young keronian whom I was to treat like a brother. He placed before me a gangly youth wearing a too loose belt and a inky helmet that made it look as though he had just woken up; an impressive sight if ever there was one. At a glance, there was nothing to differentiate you from the standard buffoon who styled lucky belts. I'd seen kind of dozens before, your family expecting another in a year or so.
I changed my opinion when I looked into your eyes for the first time. That pair of uncaring black orbs that saw everything all at once, that was what set you apart. There was no fear in them. Not from a lack of wits, it was from the knowledge that there was no reason to fear. All you had was a sort of cautious regard for everything, acknowledging that while the potential to avoid you was there, it was meaningless. Your skills could take you past whatever problems would arise.
The eyes are windows to the soul. I liked yours, showing me what lay within. I saw the very same thing in mine every time I looked in a mirror: the soul of a beast. One that was in control, but still an animal all the same. You were one of the rare ones, a predator of the most dangerous kind. I decided at that moment that I liked you, and you were the one I could say that of. Our old sensei, I had respect for. At least back then. He was a beast like us. He still had his fangs. He was still dangerous, and so I agreed to work for him, for I was not the beast he was. Not yet.
Garoro had an eye for our type, which was why he chose us from the rabble that surrounded him. He knew from the moment he first saw me that I was the sort of 'daughter' he was looking for, since he couldn't have one of his own. That was probably why he opened doors for us; his ability to produce heirs made him desire some all the more.
I became closer to you. I found myself understanding why he liked you. You hd a sort of affable charm that won many over, even myself, not that I would have hesitated to avoid you if you stood in my way. People, for the most part, liked you, and that was to your advantage with the way you approached life. The same could not be said for me.
In many ways I was your exact opposite, whose very appearance made people uneasy. I was lean as well, but my more alien features invoked images of a creature of prey ready to strike. I encouraged this perception, even going so far as to keep one around me at all times in these last few years. Most thought it a psychological edge I used to give me an advantage when dealing with others. My nickname, "Vicious" was indeed to reinforce that image. Not that I feared anyone else, just that scaring off enemies and fools wa less of an annoyance that dispatching them. None were my match. There were those that could be dangerous, those that represented a challenge, aliens with sharp fangs as well, but never as long as mine. Never as deadly as mine.
Except yours.
I knew it on some instinctive level from the instant we met. For the first time in my life, I had met an equal. Someone that was just as good as me. Someone that was just a dangerous as me. You had no regard for your life. Not that you were any more fatalistic than me –neither of us wanted to die- just that you weren't afraid of death. You would risk anything to come out ahead, to finish a job, to do what you felt needed to be done. Should you be injured in the process, so be it. Crippled? It happens. Die? Then that was the way it was.
You were the most dangerous kind of keronian there was, one who would give his life to win in the end. There were those that sensed it, and as much as you were liked, you were also feared in equal amounts by those that feared you would become their enemy.
You would think that my perceiving of you as an equal would be dangerous to me, that I would see you as a threat that needed to be eliminated. On the contratry, since we l were on the same side, it afforded me a chance to finally team up with Someone that I didn't have to carry, didn't have to look out for, didn't have to concern myself with should they fail and I had to pick up their slack. It was to my advantage, and so I was content.
There was one other thing I sensed in you that was reassuring; a lack of attention I had to contol. Your teeth were sharp, but your appetite never came closer to matching mine. Nor did your tastes lie in that direction. What you wanted was a sense of personal accompishment rather than the rule over others. That stuited my purpose. Our desires were different, so I trusted you enough to allow you to stand next to me, without concern of when it might become necessary to dispose of you for fear that you would betray me.
Come to me Garuru. I'm waiting for you. Come, so I can kill you and set you free.
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