Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or situations presented here and am not making any profit off of them whatsoever.
Story Title: Friendship by Moonlight
Rated: PG-13
Word Count: 1,855
Friendship: Rito, Goldar
Notes: This is a rewrite of my old fanfic Up At The Moon. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
Summary: Two friends sit in the moonlight and talk about the past that might've been and the future that may yet be.
He had no idea how many times he stared up at the moon. He just knew he did it every night, for hours at a time. It was only when shadows covered the town that he and his friend could freely wander the area. During the day, it was too dangerous.
He really wasn't all that certain of why it was, only that it was. Their caretakers made sure they knew that. Of course the fact they looked so different from their caretakers probably had something to do with it. So different from them and everyone else as well.
A quick look down at his hands showed the differences quite clearly. Theirs were small, kind of pale, and didn't have anything that resembled muscle. His hands were at least twice their size, grayish, and stronger than anything he could remember seeing. Of course, since his memory covered only the last two or three months, it wasn't that impressive.
They were also a lot shorter than he was. His companion was the only one who was really his size. They were both humanoid shaped, at least in the sense of two legs, two arms, and a head, but other than that, there wasn't much to them that was like their caretakers or anyone else he'd caught a glimpse of in the few stolen moments away he had.
"You're looking up there again." His golden friend stood beside him suddenly. It amazed him, over and over, at how quiet someone this big could be. Shouldn't he have been noisier? Somewhere in the back of his mind, behind the black curtain that kept him from his past, he heard the click of feet upon a floor, and the wild laughter of someone who enjoys their work all too well, especially the work of evil.
"Yeah, I know," he stared up at the shimmering white orb as if it held the answers he'd wanted. For all he knew, it did. "I can't help it."
"I know." His voice was gruff and harsh, but there was something underneath it all. Rito wasn't really sure how to define it, only that it was something he kind of enjoyed. Maybe it was friendship. It did kind of remind him of the way Bulk and Skull talked to each other. Or to be precise, how Bulk talked to Skull.
Did that mean he was the Skull of their friendship? Rito wasn't entirely certain he liked that. Even if he did kind of resemble an animated skeleton, there was no need for fate to pull a trick like that on him. Or was there? After all, with their memories Swiss cheese, he had no idea of what he could've done to bring Fate's wrath down on him.
Goldar settled in beside him, staring up at the star-filled sky. "I don't know why I look at it. It just feels nice to do it."
Neither of them had ever considered asking Bulk and Skull for any kind of answers. From the way Skull looked at them at times, Rito thought that they could tell their charges a few things. They just didn't want to.
"You ever wonder who we were before? You know, before here?"
"Sometimes." Goldar reached out and picked up a stick, staring down at it as he ran one hand across it. For a moment, Rito didn't see a dry old piece of wood there. He saw a gleaming, incredibly large sword in his friend's lap, something that reeked of blood and chaos and a dark kind of magic that wouldn't stop killing until there was nothing left alive in the entire universe. "Sometimes I have dreams, too."
Rito looked over at him, remembering a few images of his own nocturnal wanderings flickering in his mind. "What kind of dreams?"
"Weird ones. People in armor, like on TV, when they're watching the news reports. I think they called them Power Rangers." Goldar just shrugged, and the faint image of the sword vanished from Rito's mind, leaving only a dirty stick where it belonged. "And me, fighting them. And you, too."
The skeleton creature blinked, trying to figure out just what Goldar said. "I was fighting you or them?" Maybe he should try to read more of Bulk and Skull's schoolbooks. They were a little more advanced than he thought he could deal with, but it might help. Or give him a headache.
I have such a headache! The cry slipped through his mind, fading away before he could really grasp it, and he shook his head again. It was too weird even to think about.
"You were fighting them." Goldar grunted slightly. "You weren't too bad at it, really." Rito flushed at what he supposed was the closest his friend would ever really get to a compliment. "But you lost almost all the time." There was a moment of silence, then, "And so did I."
The silence stretched between them, broken at last by Rito. "Do you think that's what happened to us? We went up against the Power Rangers too many times and they did this to us?" He had never really thought that much about the heroes, and hadn't even watched them on the news that often. Skull and Bulk seemed almost to hero-worship them as much as they did that Stone guy, and watched their exploits religiously. Rito was almost certain he'd caught Skull fantasizing about the Pink Ranger once or twice.
And here I thought he had a crush on that blonde girl. He couldn't remember her name offhand, but every once in a while, he'd seen his caretaker (or was he a friend too? Naming people was kind of hard. Maybe he shouldn't bother doing it any more.) watch her while she was with the others. He never did it enough so anyone would notice, but just a few times.
"I don't want to think about it." Goldar had taken so long to answer that Rito had to think for a few minutes to remember just what the question had been.
"Why's that?" He had an idea he knew why, though. It was the same reason he didn't want to think about it a whole lot. Watching the Rangers on TV, even if they weren't quite dressed like the ones in his dreams and occasional terrifying memory, put thoughts in his mind he really didn't want there.
Goldar stared down into the dark earth beneath them, poking at it with his sword. His stick. It was a stick. That's all it was. "Because I think if I did, I'd figure out who we are and why we're here, and I don't want that."
Those weren't really words he could say he had expected to hear. But they were there whether he expected them or not. "Neither do I. Goldie, I like it here with them."
"Even with the way they treat us." Goldar didn't say anything about the nickname this time. Rito poked into the dirt beside him with one finger, remembering gray dust and a castle that never seemed to be warm. Farther behind that in his mind was a palace that stretched out for miles, under a sky of deepest shadows.
Dad's place. It held the tang of 'home' in his mind, but it wasn't the kind of warm feelings and companionship he got when he thought about the little shed where he and Goldar slept now, much less the acceptance that Bulk and Skull gave their monstrous servants. There was anger and grief and rage locked up in that magnificent home in his mind, and he wanted it to stay there. That was where it belonged, not with him.
"Yeah. They're just kids." Rito rarely felt old. It was part of his charm, he thought. No matter how long he'd lived, and it had to have been a really long time since he was a skeleton that hadn't stopped walking yet, he still was young on the inside. "I bet we were little monsters when we were that age."
Goldar turned to him, and there was something he was almost certain was a smile on his lips. He couldn't remember ever seeing one there, so he couldn't be all that certain. But it sort of looked like one. "Of course we were. Because we're big monsters now." Well, that made sense.
"I don't really feel like a monster, though." Rito decided he was going to be contrary. It would give him something to do until bedtime. And it would be fun. That was what mattered most. Having fun, and having fun with your friends and family.
A man with no skin, but a cold attitude that demanded everyone and everything around him serve him. He carried a staff with a 'Z' on the top and every time he spoke to Rito, it was cold and uncaring, insulting and harsh.
A woman, too sharp-featured for beauty, and just as cold as the other, but with a little more emotion when it came to him. She teased him a lot, but somewhere under the anger that flared so easily whenever he did something, there was caring for him.
Goldar grunted, his eyes flickering with what could've been his own memories as he stood up. "I'm not in the mood for this." Rito wasn't certain if Goldar was ever really in the mood for anything. Without another word, the gold-armored one stomped into their shelter and shut the door behind him. Rito hoped he hadn't locked it; he wouldn't want to have to try and break it down again to get in. Bulk and Skull had been pretty upset the last four times that had happened.
But he wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet. He stared up at the moon, letting what few memories that wanted to tease him do so. He had no names for any of the people in his mind, but he liked to call them his friends. He was fairly sure they wouldn't want to be called that, but since they couldn't read his mind, they'd never know.
Maybe he'd know who they were one day. Maybe one day they'd all sit on some out of the way place, with the moonlight shining down on them. It wasn't that wrong to dream, even for someone like him, was it? Would it be such a bad thing if they woke up the next morning with all their memories, knowing if they were the enemies of the Power Rangers?
After all, what if they weren't? What if they were friends of the old Rangers, who had been hurt in some massive battle against a powerful evil, and these new Zeo Rangers just didn't know them and that was why no one had come to bring them home. It sounded good. You never really knew, after all.
Maybe it just didn't matter. Right now, he had friends, and a good home, and deep inside, Rito Revolto knew he couldn't ever want for anything more.
What he didn't know was that something much more was on the way to claim him and Goldar for itself once again. It was probably best he didn't know, after all. Even a monster might want to have a little bit of innocence, once in a while. Perhaps, in the moonlight. With a friend.
The End