Ollen70: I don't really know what prompted this. I don't think there's another story like this online, so that fact might have something to do with it. Plus, I've been having some serious problems with my right eye, and a friend told me jokingly I'd look okay with one of those black patches on it. The more I thought about it, the more it donned on me that I'd look way too much like Dalton, especially when my hair gets a little longer than it is. I guess one thing led to another, and here we are. Hope you like it.


One more time, for you wonderful people who didn't know this already, Chrono Trigger, and the places and characters therein, are not mine. It's a shame, I know, but life's just like that sometimes.




Eye of the Beholder

Chapter One - - Days so long past

He looked in the mirror for a long while, his fingers hovering over the patch It had been a very long time since he'd taken it off, though the sight of it didn't bother him as much now as it did when the incident had first taken place.

Dalton could barely remember the moment part of himself had been lost. That was to be expected, he supposed. Who honestly wanted to hold onto a memory like that? Of course, it didn't really bother him the way he'd always felt it should. Most heroes always claimed they could recall every part of the injuries they'd sustained, but Dalton had thought it a vain and purposeless pursuit. If he'd been given the opportunity to remember everything about the blade that had pierced his face, he wouldn't have taken it.

He lay his hand over the patch. It had been so long since he'd done this - the pain was near, as it always was. Not physical pain, of course. This wound hadn't caused him that kind of pain since he'd received it. Rather, it was painful to look at his own reflection now. No self respecting enlightened woman would give him more than a cursory glance before looking away in disgust or pity.

Further the patch came, revealing flesh that hadn't been touched by light for nearly two years. Just a bit more...

There it was. Not a gaping hole, like he almost would have preferred. The fateful battle that had been the deciding factor in the last great uprising of the already-oppressed Earthbound against the Enlightened, sealing their destiny as the slaves and burdens of Zeal, had cost him much as well. Once Dalton had been carried off the battle field by the new king of Zeal himself like a hero for his deeds, he woke alone in a cold room. His lacerations, spidering across his face and chest, had all been sewn neatly with a fine white thread that would leave no deep trenches in his flesh when they healed. He had been fastidiously cleaned. His long, blonde hair had been very carefully braided, resembling woven gold in a thick trunk lying at his side. There had been only one thing wrong. As try as he might, he could only make out half of the world. The rest was dark, and his mind throbbed whenever he tried to move.

He remembered still the way the sleet had pounded on the windows of the palace - a strange thing at that time, since the clouds were not generally so high as to rain over Zeal. It was odd that the day was very much the same now, as if the sky remembered as well as he did what had taken place.

It had been the darkness and the rain that had indirectly horrified him the most. Usually, looking toward the window would have been a comforting thing. Warm sunlight would have poured through, making him feel less afraid. This time, the thick sleet had so blackened the day that, instead of the outside world, all he could see was his own reflection. Never, no matter how hard he tried, would he be able to forget the all-consuming terror that had gripped him then. He'd never seen the creature that looked back at him.

In place of his left eye was a round orb of pure cut crystal. In anyone else, Dalton would have actually found it beautiful. It was a perfect parody of an eye, its retina a deep midnight blue - without a pupil - that didn't come close to matching the color of his right. In many ways, that was best. He'd much prefer to let the world know that the eye had been lost and replaced instead of living his life with one that looked real but never moved nor allowed for any emotion or expression.

He hadn't been able to tear his gaze from the window pane. He raised his hand and the disfigured creature did the same, cradling his cheek in desperation and despair. Tears streamed down one side of the face only - the other side lanced in pain as the salt reacted to the not-yet-healed wound.

Peering into the mirror before him now, he thought of Belthasar. How he'd raved and sworn at the old man! It was the guru of reason who'd created the beautiful eye. Even the guru didn't have enough skill to enable the bit of stone to give him sight, but he could improve the wound cosmetically, and had thought Dalton would want it that way.

All Dalton wanted was to be as he had been in the past. Neither Belthasar, Gaspar, nor Melchior would do that for him, if it had been in their power in the first place. He accepted that, as Belthasar did his anger, only smiling sadly when the enraged general screamed at him.

The Queen ignored the entire event. She was more than content to treat Dalton as if he were exactly the same person as he had been before the battle. When she did deign to mention the happenings, she surrounded her description of it with such apotheosis that one would think Dalton himself had won the battle single-handed. It was her insistence that kept him from resigning his commission and retiring to the city of dreams to lose himself. Yet her favor could only bring him so far. She could brush off his loss easily, but he would never fully escape the glances of the others in the royal courts.

The king was not so sanguine as his lady wife. He often took Dalton aside, managing his old friend like he was made of glass instead of enduring flesh. The general and advisor found himself wondering if that had been why he'd chosen to forego Belthasar's gift, preserving his flesh with its absence.

How strange, the things humans hold dear. No two had exactly the same morals, when everything was said and done. Most of the enlightened would have been pleased to bear the crystal eye if it had been they who'd been in his place. He didn't really understand them, just as they couldn't understand why he would accept a piece of animal hide when Belthasar had offered him something much finer. Of course, they valued beauty in a different way than he did. Dalton, for all his eccentricities, valued the beauty of the truth. His leather patch was the truth. The empty socket was even more true, and so he didn't mind looking into it, finding that if he looked close enough into the mutilated part of his face, he could still see the last remaining pieces of his soul.