Moonlit Thoughts
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters depicted within are not mine, and I do not claim any credit for their creation or usage, save for within this fiction. Monster Rancher is a trademark of Tecmo. Please do not sue me. Comments, quips, insults and flames should be directed toward Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com. Feel free to MST this work, but please be kind enough to send me a copy when you're done.
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I'm not certain when I first noticed it. If it was when he hit me, after, before... I'm not sure what it was that set it off, but something did... And more and more, I find that I can't deny it any longer. Even so, I'm still struggling to ignore it, trying to brush it aside, as though I could go on as I was before. Even though I know, in my heart... if I can truly still claim to have one... that I can't... But I've gone too long like this to let go so fast. It's too much a part of me, now. It... has too strong a grip on me, and I know it. I can't let go alone.
The funny thing about it is, he didn't really hit me all that hard. All for breaking a promise, and he walked right up... well, ran right up and hit me. Could he have really believed...? No. No, he must have known that I would break my word. He must have... But for some reason, I can't help seeing how... how hurt his eyes were when he realized that I'd lied. He didn't really hit me all that hard; he wouldn't have hit me at all, if I hadn't let my guard down, but... Some how, my cheek stings still.
It's already been a full day since our 'fight.' It should have stopped stinging by now, but... I almost think that it hurts more then it did when he first got me. I know that the bone isn't broken; I healed myself as soon as I came into my private chambers, but it didn't stop hurting. The red mark didn't go away either... Why? I don't understand... My healing should have washed away all traces of it, but my cheek is still red, and it still hurts... I know that I should just heal it again, instead of asking why, but... I know, somehow, that the result would be the same. My cheek would still be red, and it would still hurt, somehow worse then before.
Now that I think about it, the pain only lessened once, for just a brief time. It was when... when I left that human there after all. What did he call him? M-something. Mickey? Yes, that was the name. Mickey. Blue couldn't believe it, when I told him to leave him there... To be honest, neither could I. I don't even know why I decided to leave him behind; I just suddenly heard myself telling Big Blue to leave him there. The clays might have argued, though, if Blue hadn't been there.
My friend... My... only friend. We've been through so much together. Do you still remember the first time we met, each of us thinking that we'd been sent to recapture each other after we'd escaped our masters? Do you still remember the oath we took together, after the dragon, the true slave tracker, came for us? No... I know that you remember still. The one who forgot was me. We swore to never be slaves to another... but when I went to swear to Moo, you followed me without hesitation. I forgot our oath, even though I knew... even then... somewhere inside, that we would be as much a slave to him as we ever were to any of those who'd once 'owned' us. You followed me faithfully, and all that we have to show for it... in the end... is more years of pain and sorrow.
I'm not sure when I started noticing it. If it was when he hit me; before; or after... When I first started noticing that I hate life as I am now far more then I ever did as a slave. At least as a slave I had a reason to struggle to survive, to fight to keep living... the hope that, someday, I might free myself or be freed. But now... all that I have is the knowledge that... I've become what I hated so much, and that worse then that, I've dragged my friend... my only friend with me. I think... no, I know that that is part of the reason that my cheek still hurts; that it still bears the mark of where he hit me.
For his trouble, I threw him down a cliff, but... even now, I can't make myself feel angry for him hitting me. I don't know why, any more now then I did then. No, I'm lying to myself. I don't feel angry because I have nothing to be angry for. He hit me... But he had every right to. I think that I probably would have been angry if he hadn't. I can remember a time when promises actually meant something to me, the way they do to him... I broke my word, and a simple punch was far less then I truly deserve. But even though I knew that then as well as I know it now, I still blasted him off the cliff. Why?
That damn word, again and again. Why. I keep coming back to it. I know some of the answers, but the answer changes every time I run into it, and every time I run into it, the answer is harder to figure out. Why did I kill him, for doing something that I know I deserved having done to me?
But... Somehow, I know that he isn't dead. By all rights, he should be; that fall would kill anything, even, I think, Moo. But I know that he survived, the same as I know why I didn't fly down to make certain the job was finished... Because there's something about him... Something that I saw, when he believed that I would let Mickey go...
I know that I can't get away from what I've become alone... But...
I think...
Maybe...
He can help me....
Strange... But somehow, with that thought... My cheek doesn't hurt so much anymore, and somehow... I know that the moonlight shining down on my face now is shining down on unmarked, white skin.
