"What is this?!"
I've been expecting something along those lines for several hours now, ever since I realized that I wasn't going to be able to finish my regular chores in addition to the special demand He had made that morning, not and have it all done on time. I'd tried to prepare myself for His wrath, but in spite of my attempts, my flesh crawls beneath my carapace in terror. Turning to face Him, I say in my meekest tone, "I'm sorry, Master. I worked as fast as I could."
"I don't want excuses! I want results!" Sometimes He shouts at me. Sometimes He purrs. Sometimes He doesn't say anything at all, and simply lashes out. Sometimes, like now, He keeps His voice low but fills it with such venom and murder that I feel even smaller than I actually am. I find myself backing instinctively into the cringe that my body has learned on its own, without any aid from my brain, but I can't force myself to look away from Him. He's so awesome when He's angry, like a tsunami or a tornado, a force of nature so powerful and deadly that it holds its own brand of terrible beauty. I always get the impression that, even if I were to hide my head and shut my eyes, I would still feel the warmth of His rage, like sunlight on closed eyelids.
He moves, so quickly and with such grace that I'm on my side before I completely register what's going on. My face is momentarily, blissfully numb, but that doesn't last more than a few seconds. When the numbness leaves me, a line of fire makes its presence known, stretching from just under my right antennae, across my mandibles and my left eye. I know instantly what He's done, of course, and I know how little He likes it when I remain on the floor any length of time. So I scramble to my feet again, and look up at Him with vision made bleary by the damage to my left eye, and He whips me again, across the other side this time. Although I see this one coming, I don't move, except to brace myself so He doesn't knock me over again. Trying to escape His punishment just invites worse.
When the moment of shocked numbness leaves me this time, I blink to clear my vision, but it doesn't clear. Oh, well. I know it will eventually, I'm not worried. The damage has the unexpected side effect that His form seems to smear and blur a bit, and with a little imagination I can see in this muddy smudge of blue and gold and pale skin the boy who once loved me. It's a comforting image.
But when He speaks, the restful illusion is shattered by the contempt and leashed fury in His voice. "I'll give you until nightfall, and if this isn't finished by then, I'll make you wish I'd just let you die. You're holding things up." Then He turns on His heel and moves off, as quickly and silently as He came. I watch Him go, the center of my universe, the purpose for my existence. If I could just make Him happy, make Him smile and laugh, I would endure anything. He never smiles anymore, though, not for me. His only smiles now are for His own dark thoughts, and they make me shiver to see them. His only laughter is for the misfortune of others, and I ache inside when I hear it. There's no happiness in His smiles, His laughter. Not anymore.
The hurt inside me as I return to my work is a thousand times sharper than anything He could do to me physically. My job this afternoon, the one that got delayed by my other chores, is to put black rings on all the freshly-captured Digimon in the dungeons. Then I'm to sort them out by ability, so He can more effectively deploy them around His empire. Unfortunately, this task has been made momentarily impossible by the fierce pain in my face, and my temporary lack of clear vision. I huddle on the floor of the dungeon, exposed between the bars of the cells, waiting for my eyes to heal.
One of the captives speaks. "Why do you put up with that?"
I look at the misty image of the Digimon who just addressed me. I can't tell yet what kind it is. "Were you talking to me?"
"Yes," it says. "There's no dark ring on you. Why don't you leave?"
"Yeah, and let us go, too!" interjects another.
"I can't," I say. "I can't leave Him all alone. And I can't let any of you go either. I'm sorry."
"Don't bother talking to Wormmon," says yet another Digimon. "He's not like us. He enjoys enslaving us for the Kaizer. I heard he's been with the Kaizer since the very start."
"I don't enjoy it," I say in a small voice.
"Then let us go!"
"I can't. He's so unhappy already. If I let you go, it would only make Him more unhappy."
"Coward," is the unseen Digimon's opinion.
I go silent. There's no point in arguing. They'll never understand. I'm not afraid of Him. No matter how much He hurts me - and He's gotten very good and practiced at hurting me over the past few months - I'll never be afraid of Him. Afraid of the pain, yes, but not of Him. I don't obey him because of the whip, but because someday I hope that something I do will finally make Him happy.
I blink again, and my eyes have regenerated enough that I can get back to work. The captives are weak and hungry, and constrained somewhat by something He did to the cells, but I have to be careful when ringing them anyway. He would be so upset if I couldn't finish because I was injured by one of them.
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"Master?" I say timidly from the doorway.
He's sitting in His chair, facing the numerous white eyes of the computer screens and spy monitors. Each one displays a different thing, but while normally I would be able to hear the clicking of keys from here as He worked, this time I can't. Oh, I hope He's not sick! I crawl into the room, crossing the cold steel floor, and the claws tipping my legs make a soft clicking sound. He's been working so hard lately, and just a few days ago He stopped going home to His own world every night. It worries me, how much time He spends in here, and when He's not in here, He's out in the field making personally sure that everything goes right the first time. Digimon need to eat and sleep regularly in order to stay at their fittest. While I don't know much about humans, I'm fairly sure they need to eat and sleep as well.
I creep around the chair until I can see Him. He's slumped down with His head on His fist, and once I get the angle right to see through His glasses, I notice His eyes are closed. He looks like He's sleeping, but it surely can't be comfortable to sleep that way. I rear myself up and delicately lay two sets of legs on His knee. "Master?" I say.
One of my antennae touches Him, and I can smell the scent of Him on His clothes. It's intoxicating. Then His eyes open behind the dark glasses He wears, and He frowns at me. "Why are you bothering me?" He says.
"All of the captives are ringed and sorted, Master," I say. His gaze drops to His knee, and I abashedly remove myself from contact with Him. I offer no excuses, because I know how much He despises excuses. It hurts, to not be allowed to touch Him. He smells so wonderful, so wild and so different from any Digimon, and He's so lean and strong ... I silently await whatever He is going to do to me for having touched Him.
He removes His glasses for a moment, and I catch a glimpse of His beautiful blue eyes. So dark, they are, and so clear, like gemstones or the deep dark ocean. He passes a hand over His face and puts His glasses back on. "What time is it?"
"Not quite midnight," I say. I wasn't finished by nightfall, and I have no doubt whatsoever that He'll make good on His threat. Eventually. The Fates appear to be showing mercy on me today, however, because He seems to be too tired to punish me right now.
He peers up at the main spy monitor a moment, and looks annoyed for a few seconds. Then He yawns and says, "Let's go to bed."
I gaze up at Him hopefully. Did I just hear Him correctly? Is He including me in something? There are no answers in His expression. He rises and raises His hands in a languid, shuddering stretch, and then starts off into the fortress at a slow walk. I trail after Him, unsure if I'm really wanted, but willing to take a chance on it. My claws click on the cold metal floor, but He walks silently, passing like the gentlest wind. He doesn't need to make noise to be noticed, He is the axis upon which all things turn, and He knows it.
I've never understood the purpose behind most of the space within this place He conjured out of the air. So many empty corridors, so many empty rooms. Aside from the dungeons, the control room, and His bedroom, He rarely steps anywhere else. Twice I have known Him to detour to the engine room, and once He checked each and every corner as if He thought something were hiding there. He wouldn't tell me what He was looking for, though, and just told me to shut up when I told Him that there was nothing here.
His steps are slow and deliberate, and for a moment I fancy that He's slowing His pace for me, the way He once did. He was so kind to me then, and I loved Him so much, although I have more and more trouble remembering that time. Every day, there is less in Him of the boy who was my friend, the one I protected, the one who laughed with me and cried with me. Every day, He becomes less a child, and more a Kaizer; although my love for Him hasn't diminished, there seems to be no love in His heart for anyone, not for me, especially not for Himself. Someday, someday, maybe I'll find out why He hates Himself so very much. He isn't slowing for me, I know that, no matter how nice it can be to imagine otherwise. He's merely tired.
A few more steps, and He turns into His bedroom. It had been a storage room until a few days ago, full of assorted junk that He had collected from across the digital world: tiny bits of machinery that He found interesting or puzzling, pressed dead plants that had caught His eye, the odd rock and pebble ... and when I was cleaning it out I also discovered His old laptop computer in one dusty corner. All of these things had been moved elsewhere, and He had created a bed for Himself and placed it in here. I don't understand why He no longer needs to return to His own world, the way He always had before. I asked Him, that first night, and He was so angry, so very angry ... it broke my heart to see His fury, because I knew that it sprang from some enormous pain. I haven't asked again.
He starts dropping clothing as soon as He's inside the doorway. First the cloak falls in a silken puddle, the metal clasp pillowed by the close-woven fabric. Then His gloves, one after the other, and the metal cuffs of these clink delicately on the floor. He kicks off His shoes and leaves them behind. I stop when I reach the fallen cloak, even more unsure now of my welcome. His scent rises to my antennae from the fabric on the floor, warm and comforting, the smell of home and of my best-beloved. I could bury myself in the blue cloth and cry, but He wouldn't like it if I stained His things with my tears.
He speaks then, as He drops more layers of clothing. "I don't want to sleep past dawn. I have things to do. So make sure to wake me."
I shiver in spite of myself, and that crawly feeling returns to my flesh. He is not pleasant in the morning, I've discovered. He especially dislikes being awakened, even if He has asked me to do it ahead of time. I'll wake Him, of course, because it's what He wants, even though I already know that it won't make Him happy.
Most of His clothes are now in a messy pile on the floor. His Digivice and whip and a trio of dark rings go on the table next to the bed, which is the only other furniture in the room. He lifts the covers of the bed and crawls under them, curling immediately into a ball. Sometimes I think He wears all those things like armor, a shield against the world. But He doesn't sleep in them, I've found, and so when He sleeps, He draws Himself up small and hides beneath the blankets. I remain on the floor, waiting.
"Turn off the light," He mutters.
I move to obey. The main light goes out, and I hurry to turn on the small yellow one. I don't know why He insists on having this small light on while He sleeps, but He does. Then I climb up onto the foot of the bed, perching on the corner. I don't know if He wants me here. He probably doesn't. He hasn't told me to go away yet, though, and so I've slept here every night since He stopped going home. I don't know what hurts more, really ... His perpetual indifference or His occasional rage. At least when He's angry at me, I know He has noticed me.
I can just barely see the top of His head in the yellow dimness, His hair two shades darker than the coverlet and silhouetted against the pillows. I curl myself up on the very bitter edge of the bed, as far away from Him as I can lest my presence annoy Him, and just watch Him breathe.
A long time passes. The fortress is never completely silent; I can always hear a chorus of clicks and whirrs and the slow heartbeat of the power source far below the floor, and sometimes the high-pitched whine of the monitor screens hurts my ears if I think about it too much. Yet none of these sounds are very loud, and for a long time the only thing I can hear is the faint hiss of His breath passing through His teeth. The cold fabric beneath my belly is special because it also touches Him. The very air is sacred because it has passed through Him.
Not long ago, when He would leave me every evening and not return until the next day, I would play a game with myself. Each morning, I would lay half-awake and dream that He had realized over the course of the night how much I love Him. In my dreams, He would remember how to smile and how to laugh, and He would come back to me and tell me how much it meant to Him that I had waited for Him so patiently. I would tell Him that it was all worth it, because my only purpose is to protect Him, from everything. He would confess all His hurts and I would comfort Him, and always I would be so happy because He was finally happy.
Every morning, I played this game with myself, and if it was one of those days when He would not return until the afternoon I was usually able to convince myself by lunchtime that it had all actually happened. My heart would lift and I would look forward to His coming with such joy. And then He would actually arrive, and He would give me such a glare as to shatter all my pleasant dreams.
This game, I realize now, was silly and wasteful. Not only that, but even before He stopped going home at night the game became so painful that some mornings I just wouldn't bother.
Now I have a new game.
It's been long enough now, long enough for Him to fall deeply asleep. I creep forward along the bedspread, cautious not to wake Him. He doesn't stir, not even when I move the covers aside a little so I can see His face. He's so beautiful, even when He's asleep and I can't see His gorgeous eyes. The soft yellow light is sallow along His skin, but that doesn't matter because I've memorized every inch of Him already. His hair has relaxed a bit, as it always does late in the day, and I carefully brush a loosened spike off His cheek. The delicate lines of His eyebrows move slightly, and I freeze up, but He doesn't wake, and after a few minutes my muscles unlock.
I move a little more of the blanket aside, although I don't dare move too much. I can see the movement of His shoulder now with each breath, regular and slow, and when I lay the tip of one antenna on the side of His neck, I can feel the warm flutter of His pulse beneath the skin. These things are His life, the breath and the pulse, and these things are His essence more than any other part of Him. I would do anything for Him. I would do anything to protect Him. It's almost as if I can feel the lazy flow of His soul beneath the layer of flesh, feel the deep core of kindness and compassion that He has hidden below the horrible things that He does.
For a long moment, I simply sit there, in awe at being in His presence, in wonder that I am so close to Him. How can He be real? Am I imagining Him? His eyelashes are a soft fringe against His cheek, each individual lash tiny and perfect, and so fine that it seems impossible that they actually exist. Every detail is present, nothing overlooked, even down to the miniscule lines in His lips, so small I can barely see them in the diffuse light.
Then He stirs a bit, one eye drifting open just a bit. I freeze again, terrified that He'll be angry and unhappy. But the dark crescent of His eye is unfocused; He's not really awake, and He doesn't really see me. Before I can react He has looped an arm over my back and dragged me off my feet, holding me close against His chest.
I find myself clutched like a favorite toy or blanket, a habit most Digimon abandon by the time they leave Primary Village. A wave of sadness passes over me ... He is no infant, and yet He holds me as if He were. But even through this sadness, a tiny part of me sings, for I can feel His breath in my antennae, and His heartbeat thrums against my back. Gradually, I relax, and He tightens His hold in His sleep, touching His lips to the top of my head. I could die like this, drowning in His scent, suffocated by His splendor.
He'll probably be angry again in the morning. I hope He's not too angry, though. I can feel a tiny smile curving the lips against my head, and maybe, just maybe, He's not quite so unhappy right now.