A Light in the Shadows
The shadows are already lengthening by the time the car pulls up to the dock. He watches impassively as the Rare Hunters herd a slight figure up the boarding ramp to stand before him.
The Hunters bow their heads respectfully. "We got her," one of them, a punk with spiked blue hair, gloats. "Tell Master Marik we have brought him Joey Wheeler's sister."
He turns his eyes on her, regarding her slowly. Her head is bowed, long auburn hair flowing over her slender shoulders. "Look at me," he tells her.
She lifts her head, revealing white bandages wrapped about her eyes. He clenches his jaw to hide the shock that ripples through him. He turns to the Rare Hunters. "Who did this?" he asks, long years of practice keeping the emotion out of his voice.
They shake their heads. "None of us, sir."
He looks back at the girl. She is silent, the bandages over her face hiding her expression. A muscle twitches in his cheek. He lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Walk with me," he orders. He glances over his shoulder at the Rare Hunters. "I will escort the girl to Master Marik," he tells them. They hesitate. "You are dismissed," he tells them curtly and walks away.
The girl stumbles as she tries to match his long strides. He checks his pace, glancing down at her as he does so. She bites her lip, hugging her arms around herself as if they can protect her. They can't. Nothing can protect her here. He doesn't know exactly what Master Marik wants with her, but he knows her life will be as meaningless to him as those of the Pharaoh's friends or of the countless Rare Hunters that serve him. If Marik's plan demands her sacrifice, then she will be sacrificed. He looks away.
"What happened to your eyes?" he says gruffly. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her bow her head.
"Surgery," she says at least, her voice barely above a whisper.
"The men who took you, they didn't…"
She shakes her head. "I had an operation a few days ago to fix my eyesight." She bites her lip again. "What do you want with me?" she asks at last. He can't help but hear the tremor in her voice.
"It is not I who wants something of you, but my master," he replies tonelessly. During the previous exchange, he had allowed his steps to slow to a halt, but now he resumes his pace.
"Then what does your master want?" He does not respond. "Please, I don't have anything. I don't know anything! I…"
"You are the sister of Joey Wheeler, are you not?"
She freezes. "What does this have to do with Joey?" she demands. Despite the bandages, he can see the horror spreading over her face. She buries her face in her hands. "Big brother," she whispers.
A pain he thought his heart long deadened to pierces him. The bond of family. How tightly it binds. He closes his eyes, seeing again the wise eyes and soft smile of the woman who had raised him as her own. Her love had illuminated the darkness around him and kept the shadows at bay. For a time.
In the end, all lights are extinguished.
He opens his eyes. The girl turns her sightless face up towards him imploringly. "Please, what has happened to my brother?" Tears lace every word.
"He belongs to Marik now," he tells her stonily. "As do you."
"Take me to see him," she pleads. He can see the tears soaking through the bandages over her eyes.
His conscience pricks at him and he shoves it back into the dark recesses where it belongs. "You can't see him," he says. "His mind is under Marik's control." He notices, annoyed, that he has stopped again. Brusquely, he resumes walking. "I take you now to await his purpose for you."
His words ought to chill her, to draw her thoughts from her brother's plight to fear for her own. But she still shakes her head, mouth twisted in grief. "I was going to see him," she murmurs, more to herself than to him. "Once I took my bandages off. He was going to be the first thing I saw."
If Marik had his way, she would never see her brother again.
The thought should not move him, but it does. What did she have to do with the Pharaoh or the suffering of Marik's family? She is just an innocent girl who's brother happens to be a friend of the boy with the Millennium Puzzle. He clenches his jaw. He cannot allow himself to think this way, to question Marik's commands. He knows where that will lead. He saw it in Ishizu's eyes the night they took the Winged Dragon of Ra from its resting place. He saw the horror in her eyes at their crimes, her revulsion for what they had become.
If he allows himself to question, it might begin with only a single sympathetic thought towards this distraught, terrified girl. But it would not end there. In the end, he would hate himself for the things he had done and helped to do. In the end, he would hate Marik.
He lets out a long breath. He hated Marik once before, with a child's hate, born of jealousy and anger. That hate gave way to love, but if he hates again, with the hatred of a man, it will not give way. And the love, the bonds of love that have held tight all these long years, will perish.
He turns again to the girl, the stony guards over his heart already sliding back into place. There is no choice. Once, love sheltered him; its light kept the darkness at bay. Now he is the light-keeper.
In the end, all lights are extinguished.
But he will not let the light die yet.
"Come," he orders the girl, and she obeys. Silvery trails escape the bandages and run down her cheeks. She is still murmuring to herself. "He made me a promise," she says, her voice quavering. "He promised me we'd see the ocean together, just like we did when we were kids, once." She pauses. "Have you ever seen the ocean?" He doesn't answer. She goes on anyway, her voice slowly acquiring a dreamy tone. "It stretches out as far as you can see—farther—the waves tossing and rolling. It's huge, and wild, and you know there's nothing you can do to control it. "
He nodded silently. He'd been through enough storms to know the cruel and pitiless way of the sea with a vessel caught in its depths.
"It's beautiful."
He glances at her sharply. Her eyes, as ever, are hidden, but a faint smile curves her lips. "It reminds me that there's so much more out there beyond ourselves and so much we can't control or even understand."
"And you find that…comforting?" He hadn't meant to speak, but the words tumbled out of their own accord, tinged with bewilderment.
She smiles in earnest now, for all the world like she wasn't a captive being brought to her doom. "Oh, yes."
"But aren't you afraid?"
"When we were little, my brother and I built a sandcastle together," she says, "and the waves washed it away." He nods uncertainly, not seeing where this is going. "But they didn't wash it away here." She presses a hand to her chest. "They could never do that."
He is silent for a long moment. Finally, he says, "I understand now." The words are barely more than a whisper.
She tilts her head in confusion. "Understand what?"
"You also are a light-keeper. You carry the light of love in your heart for your brother."
"Yes," she says simply. "And he carries it for me."
She says it so easily, but the words thunder through his mind like the ringing of a gong. They kept the light for each other. It sounded so simple, and yet so utterly foreign. Always in his past, there had been the light-keeper who held back the shadows as long as their strength endured, and there were those who huddled in the shelter of the light. But what if the darkness was not fought alone? What if two illuminated the dark for each other? Perhaps then, the darkness would not overwhelm their strength, perhaps they could hold off the shadows forever.
In the end, all lights are extinguished.
But he will not let this one die yet.
"Come with me," he says and he takes her hand.
The deck is empty. The Rare Hunters aboard have been with Marik long enough to know to stay out of sight when their master was deep in a scheme. It was how they had survived. No one sees as he leads the girl down the gangplank.
He places a hand on her shoulder as he releases her hand. "Go," he tells her hoarsely.
She turns her face up towards his, her brow furrowed above the bandages. "I don't…"
He swallows. "Your brother is at the Domino pier. It's about half a mile away from here. His friends are there also, I believe."
"There was a boy who was with me when I was taken," she says quietly. "Where is he?"
He shakes his head. "Our orders were to capture you only. What happened to the boy I do not know." She bites her lip as she digests this slowly. At last, she raises her head and nods softly to show she understands. "You must hurry," he tells her. "I do not know how long the others will stay away."
She takes a few steps down the gangplank, then stops. "I don't even know who you are," she says. "You must be risking a lot to let me go, and I don't know your name, or even what you look like." She puts a hand to her bandages. Before he quite realizes what she is doing, they come away in her hand, fluttering in the breeze.
Her eyelids slowly open, revealing wide hazel eyes. They met his shyly and he's never seen a look of such pure innocence before. "My name is Serenity."
"Odion," he tells her. They have no time, yet he can't bring himself to look away. "Thank you, Serenity."
"Me?" She laughs. "I should be the one thanking you. I haven't done anything."
"Yes, you have." Before he can resist the urge, he reaches out and gently touches her cheek. "You have given me a great gift."
She blushes and lowers her eyes. A sense of loss ripples through him, but he does not allow himself to dwell on it. "You must go now." She nods once—her eyes meeting his one last time—and then she turns and runs down the gangplank. He watches her disappear into the distance.
When he cannot see her anymore, he begins the slow walk to Marik's chambers. There will be consequences for his actions; he knows that full well. Already, his mind is churning with thoughts of how he will explain the girl's escape and how Marik will punish him for his failure. Yet, the prospect of facing his master doesn't seem as grim as it should.
In the end, all lights are extinguished.
But this one will flicker in his heart for a long time.
The shadows seem just a little brighter as he walks away.