Authors Note: I reference Evelyn CMB's work with permission. I do not own any of the Master's of the Universe Characters, and make no money from this. I own all orginal characters and stories. Please don't sue me...blah, blah, blah. Y'all know the drill now.

Oh and to my reviewers a big thanks as well to my beta readers Evelyn CMB and Mist Walker--Love Y'all!

Chapter 7—Remorse, Reflection, and Revelation

Lyn stood frozen in shock. This couldn't be happening.

"Neara," Micah cried. He knelt next to his sister.

"Help me, Lyn," Skeletor said, panic rising in his voice.

Lyn laid her hands on Neara and began healing the child. "This poison is horrible. As soon as we heal one area—"

"It attacks another. Lyn, keep healing her. I'm going to try to draw the poison out of her."

"Skeletor grabbed his staff and sent tendrils of magic flowing through Neara's still form pulling the venom from her drop by drop. Slowly a small puddle of green mingled with the red trickling from Neara's arm.

"It's working, Skeletor. I'm making some progress."

Skeletor was shaking several minutes later when the last of the toxin ran down Neara's arm.

Skeletor laid his hand back on Neara's forehead and mingled his magic with Lyn's as he sought desperately heal the injured child.

The gash in her arm slowly began to seal as Skeletor and Lyn repaired the last of the injuries inflicted by the venomous flower.

After several minutes of seeing no improvement to the angry scar and purple bruises on Neara's arm, Lyn stopped.

"That's all we can do for now, Skeletor," she said gently, placing her hands on his shoulders. "She needs to rest before we can heal her completely."

"No," he said still sending more magic through Neara.

"She'll be all right, Skeletor. She just needs to rest," she said giving him a gentle shake.

"It's my fault," muttered Skeletor focusing his power on her arm, with no result. "She wouldn't have gone near those cursed flower if I hadn't shown them to her," he said his voice breaking.

"That's not true. She loves any kind of flower. She would have gone whether you showed them to her or not," Lyn pointed out soothingly. She pried his hands off Neara's sleeping form. "We should be safe here," she said gesturing to the torches. "They will keep the vines away so we can all get some rest."

"I need to—," began Skeletor.

"Sleep," finished Lyn. "We all do."

"Are you sure she's gonna be all right?" asked Micah sniffling.

"She'll be fine," said Lyn, clasping Micah's shoulder.

Lyn focused for a few minutes and four cots appeared. She laid Neara in one, and sensing that both boys would want to be next to the child, took the bunk on the end.

Wordlessly, Micah and Skeletor, pushed their cots on either side of Neara and laid down.

Micah soon fell asleep, but even as tired as he was, Skeletor couldn't rest.

'I almost killed her,' he thought miserably as a rare patch of moonlight broke through the canopy and played upon Neara's russet curls. 'What am I doing? I'm dragging two innocent children through this misery, because I want to keep out of Blazes. Ancients,' Skeletor thought with a groan. 'I should be there now. I have to keep these children safe whether I go to Blazes of not. They deserve better. And, blast it, Lyn is right. I can't protect them as tired as I am now. I have to try to sleep.'

Keldor was coming back to the house with his fish whistling happily. 'Just a few more days, and father's coming back for Mother and me.'

Keldor hadn't meant to overhear, but Mother and Father were talking over the secure communicator Father brought on his last visit. Something about his Grandfather making his Father get married by the time he was 30. Well, Father was 29 and his birthday was just a week away. He heard Father tell Mother to start packing and be ready because he didn't know how something was going to work out. Keldor didn't care how any of it worked out. All he wanted was to be with his father from now on.

"Mother," Keldor called coming into the main room, "wait till you see how many--,"

Keldor stopped. His mother was lying, unconscious, on the floor.

"Mother," Keldor shouted shaking her, "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Keldor turned his mother over carefully. She was burning up. "Oh no," he breathed. Quickly, he looked around the room. The table where mother kept the communicator was knocked to the side.

"Mother must have been trying to contact Father," he said in a small voice. He got up swiftly and looked around the room for the communicator.

"There you are," he said ducking under a kitchen chair. "No!" cried when he saw it. The communicator was broken into seven different pieces.

Keldor half dragged, half lifted his mother to her bed and ran to the door to get his cloak.

The sun was setting, but if he hurried, he might make it to the village before it got dark.

Keldor raced as though death itself was chasing him. He stumbled a few times as the darkness of evening fell down around him.

Finally, Keldor saw lights of the village ahead. The inn loomed before him. Fear gripped his stomach and his throat constricted at the sight of others walking out of the inn. Father had always told him to never be seen. That the villagers were afraid of his mother's kind and would be afraid of him.

"I have no choice," he told himself. "I have to get help, or she could die."

Keldor pulled his hood low over his face and hid his hands in his cloak. He threw open the doors of the inn but did not enter the brightly lit room.

"I need help," he shouted, his voice tremulous. "My mother's sick. She won't wake up, and she has a fever."

Several kind-looking men walked up to Keldor. He drew back further into the shadows.

"Where is your mom, son?" asked a tall man with ginger hair.

"In our house near the village. Please, Mister, you've gotta help me save her."

"Of course we will, lad," said the next man. "Larson go hook up your team and wagon. We may need to bring this boy's mother to the doctor."

"Sure thing," said Larson.

"Here, child," said Redson patting the seat next to him. Keldor hesitated. He didn't want them to see his face. What if they changed their minds?

"I'll ride in the back." Keldor jumped to the cart and wedged himself in against the corner. He curled up as tightly as he could, willing himself to fade into the shadows.

"Where is your house?" asked Larson, handing the reigns to his friend Jed.

"Follow the path to the river. There's a dirt road up there."

"Heyah!" shouted the ginger-haired man, and they took off toward Keldor's home.

"Please be all right, Mother," Keldor whispered over and over again as they crossed the bridge and turned onto the rocky dirt path that led to his house.

"Stay here, son," said Larson. "Jed and I will go in and fetch your mother."

"Thank you." Keldor said weakly.

"Where's your well, boy?," asked the third man. "I'll need to water the horses before we head back."

Keldor, pointed over to the stone well at the boundary of the grain field.

"I'll get us both a drink while I'm there," said the man gently as he took his bucket from the back of the wagon. "Would you like that?"

Keldor nodded.

"Larson, stop!" shouted Jed from inside the house. "Redsen, get in here and help me!"

Redsen dropped the bucket and ran to the house. Keldor jumped out and followed on his heels.

Larson had a gleaming knife in his hand. Jed was holding his arms. Both men were screaming at each other.

"Jed they're monsters. Thieving monsters that take what we work so hard for, and if you don't get out of my way, you're a traitor to your kind." Keldor stood transfixed in horror as Larson broke free of Jed's grasp. Redson grabbed him and tried to pull him back toward the door.

"Stop this!" Redsen demanded. "This boy and his mother have done nothing to you."

"Let me go!" Larson demanded his face changing from a blotchy red to a violent crimson, sweat dripping from his greasy, black hair. "They stole my Clarissa. They're all thieves and killers and deserve to die!"

Jed helped Redsen hold their raging neighbor back.

"How many more people are you going to let these monsters take, you traitorous fools?" screamed Larson. And with that, he stomped on Jed's foot with all his might. He bit into Redsen's arm, then threw both men off. He ran and grabbed Keely, pulling her off the bed by the front of her tunic.

"No!" shouted Keldor. He tried to move but he couldn't.

"Miro?" whispered Keely starting to wake, but in a flash of steel, Larson slit her throat and dropped her to the floor. Before he could do anything else, Jed hit Larson in the head with a chair, knocking him unconscious."

"Son?" called Renson his voice breaking. "We're sorry. We're so sorry."

Renson reached out to comfort the boy.

"No! Stay back!" screamed Keldor. "Stay away from me!" and he turned and ran to the one place these monsters would not enter—the Vine Jungle.

"No!" Skeletor shouted.

"What?" asked Lyn quickly checking to see that the torches were still keeping the vines at bay.

"Huh?" muttered Micah groggily.

Skeletor sat up in his cot and turned his back to the others. "It's nothing," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Just another dratted dream."

"Are you sure?" asked Lyn.

"Yes," he snapped.

Lyn didn't believe Skeletor, but after the disaster the last time she pushed him about his dreams, she wasn't going to try it again. At least not until he had a chance to calm down.

"Skeletor?" asked Micah, concern evident in his voice.

"Leave him be, Micah," Lyn said placing a hand on his shoulder. "Just go back to sleep."

"But—" Micah started.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Lyn whispered to Micah, "I promise."

Micah nodded, worry still etched on his face.

Several minutes later everyone was asleep. Except Skeletor. He got up from his cot and paced between the torches.

'How? How?' Skeletor thought miserably, 'can good be stronger when people like my mother are murdered in cold blood, and her killer walks free? How can good be better when children like Micah and Neara lose their parents and live starving on a city street covered with food vendors? How can good be worth anything when an entire race of slaves and kidnapped people live in ruthless bondage in the caverns under the Vine Jungle? How could Adam still serve it when he lost everything that mattered to him?'

"Ancients be cursed," he muttered as he continued to pace. "If Prince He-Man were here now, I'd beat him black and blue until he could come up with some reasonable explanation."

'But that would be evil.' "Insufferable conscience," Skeletor muttered angrily. "I thought I'd never have to put up with your detestable dictates again. And all you can seem to remind me of is my evil."

'How many royal guardsmen lost their lives in my attacks?' this unwelcome part of himself continued. 'How many children lost the fathers they loved because I chose to hate my father?'

Skeletor sat down on his cot and dropped his head into his hands. 'A fool's hatred cost my mother her life, just as surely as my own cost countless others their lives.'

Skeletor sat up till dawn rehashing every conversation he had with Adam during his confinement on Eternia. He still had no clue how good could be stronger than evil, but some things became clear to him as he remembered his nephew's words. His stomach twisted violently, and he shook his head in disbelief. He'd never allowed himself to think of Adam that way before.

He saw that Adam was right when he said thateveryone had good and evil within them, and it was their choices that made them who they are. He had chosen good the entire time he was a boy, without thinking, simply believing Father and Mother when they said it was the way all people should live.

How many times in that Eternian prison did Adam warn him against the evil and harm seeking revenge causes everyone, especially the one seeking the revenge. Skeletor groaned softly. He didn't understand then, but now it was becoming clear. Seeking revenge felt good at first because it shielded him from feeling the sorrow and rejection that threatened to break him after his father had 'replaced' him. It strengthened him with rage and a feeling of justice. He would not let his pain destroy him. He would balance the scales; if he could not have his father's love he would have retribution. It was the moment he chose to live his life for the sole purpose of revenge that he destroyed everything good within it.

'But who said I could never have my father's love?' Skeletor asked himself as he looked beyond the light of the torches to the deceptively serene jungle beyond their small campsite. 'Maybe if I had confronted him, he could have explained. If I had made Micah's choice and forgiven my father, maybe none of this would ever have happened. But if I had, I would have never have come here in the first place, and Micah and Neara could be dead now. No matter how pathetic I feel right now, I know that helping them is one of the few good things that I have done in my miserable, useless life. Drat it all! This makes no sense!' He threw his Havoc staff the ground with a roar of frustration.

"Keltor?" asked Neara, reaching out toward Skeletor.

"Don't you ever frighten me like that again, you tiresome little trouble maker," scolded Skeletor hugging Neara tightly, "Or I'll strap you down and carry you on my back for the rest of the trip."

Lyn, again awakened by Skeletor's voice, looked at her former master, dumbfounded. As always, his expression was impossible to read, but Lyn was amazed at what she was seeing and hearing. Skeletor wasn't hugging Neara out of duty; he was hugging her with everything in him. And there was an emotion in his voice she had never heard before. That unexplainable warmth that she had been fighting flared into a flame. Something in Skeletor had changed, and she realized with a start that she was changing as well. She longed to go over to the two of them and hug them both, but something held her back. Still, hope flickered in her heart. 'Maybe, we'll figure out this 'good' thing after all.'