He knows his presence brings nightmares to those around him. It's a completely unintentional side effect, but that's what happens when one is the patron deity of all things dark and nightmarish. No one wants to remember him- or what he brings, the dream that threatens to consume lives, the nightmare that forces families to drop whatever they're doing and save their ailing son or daughter- no one wants to remember the name Darkrai. They hate him.
He hates himself too.
The one eye that he displays to the world is a bright crystalline blue, not a hellion's red or soulless black like some would think. Some say it's light left over from when Darkrai was free to walk the earth and gaze up at the endless sky. Others say it's the purest form of his sadness, having turned his eyes blue with tears that can never flow.
Really, he was born like that. The others should know better. Powers have no effect on eyes, unless you happened to be the current incarnation of Arceus. You'd think they'd have learned this by now.
He remembers the one time he tried to visit his half-sister, Cresselia, in her home on the crags by Canalave. He'd chartered a private ferry with some of the Ghost clan who he'd dealt with before and were immune to his strange charms. They'd brought along a young girl with them, her hair a flowing mass of purple and grey, and they introduced her as their own youngest, having been brought to meet a nightmare incarnate. Part of her training, they said.
She was the only child who'd seen him and was not afraid.
When he met with Cresselia, everything had seemed alright at first. They had lunch on the cliffs and watched their winged counterparts fly effortlessly in the sky. Cresselia had made a comment about her wanting to do that with her brother one day. Darkrai hadn't replied.
That night, it happened. Even far from the well-lit city, the tendrils of his power still managed to ensnare a young child. It was with a shroud of grief enveloping his form that Darkrai departed from Canalave, leaving his sister to cast her rainbow highway into the night and slide down it like so many surfers on waves.
His aura wasn't a graceful cascade, but a choppy abyss so deep even the waters parted around his feet.
In the end, no matter what they said, he was alone, and always would be. Exiled to the desolate place known as New Moon Island, where no sane person would set foot for fear of falling under an inescapable spell of sleep. It was, ironically, the only place where Darkrai himself felt safe and secure, knowing that there was no way his abilities would leak out and take someone in.
In the legends his hair is a stark, bloody red. In reality, that's not the case. Perhaps one night someone sailed past the island and saw his figure stalking the beach, surrounded by a cloud of black and crimson shadows. But really, that was just the trickling of red tears from his wrists, clouding his 'pure' dark aura as he prowled his territory, making sure no unfortunate souls dared enter his domain. For their own safety.
New Moon Island is the only place he really feels free.
The pain that accompanies his stay there, even more so.
It is, after all, better than that he feels anywhere else.