Pain, Love, and Shame

Part Two

I watched her that night. I watched her walk through that gate and I knew where it led. I knew so much more about her than she could have possibly imagined. I knew them all. While they played around and slept, I studied all I could. I did as Gaspar did and watched, listened, and learned through the timestream. At first, I looked for a trace, somewhere, for her, but then I began to see them, in their youth. An innocent Marle, completely unaware of the wounds the day of her mother's death would inflict upon her. The loss of Crono's father, almost a footnote in the lad's life, as it is rather easy to live on past a drunken, abusive father and husband. Then there was little Lucca.

Lucca's situation interested me most. Of them all, she was most like me. Not in demeanor or philosophy, but in history. She blamed herself for her mother's crippling injury, so much like I had blamed myself for so much. I watched it over and over again, sickening as it was, I could not stop. The agony in the young Lucca's eyes was so much like my own. As I looked at her older self, I could still see it, just as she could see mine.

The reunion, as it came to be called by the seven of us, was rather bland and uneventful in my own personal opinion. Listening to holier than thou frogs, ignorant teenagers, emotion driven robots, and dense cavewomen talk about the philosophy of time travel and gods is one of the more boring things one can spend a night doing, though I did find their entity theory intriguing.

Stories and fables in Zeal spoke of a great and powerful being, FATE, that guides all of us. None were quite sure what exactly FATE was, but we all knew that something guided us, though when we found Lavos, the stories changed. Suddenly, with the discovery of Lavos, came a choice. Does one follow the path set for you by FATE, or does one walk the path shrouded in darkness and mystery. Zeal chose the darker path, look where it is now.

I could not say which what right then and I cannot say which is right at this moment. I have traveled many paths, dark and light, and none took me where I meant to go. Complain I have not, but I had long since chosen to forge my own path. Better to fail by your own doings than by those of gods and monsters.

She thought I was asleep, that we were all asleep. In reality, I knew the gate was there, and I knew what it was capable of. One with my powerful curiosity of all things magical and time related does not waste chances to gain knowledge of the time stream and the End of Time. I learned of many things in the time stream, though some of which I cannot explain, even to myself. As the gate closed around her, I wondered what could have been.

"Did I just give away my one chance at salvation? How could I let that little girl take what should have been mine?" the darkness in me asked.

"You've had your chances and blew them, now you must endure the consequences of your actions." What little moral voice left in me replied. For some, unknown reason, the robot woke up as I dealt with the conflict within me.

"Magus, why aren't you asleep?" the android asked. His humanity never ceased to amaze me, when it didn't annoy me. Often times I wondered how that machine could be so human, so alive, when the Nus who had been alive for aeons and had lived through so much, be so machine like.

"I do not sleep much." I replied simply. Though the robot's innocent nature annoyed me, I had long decided he was worthy of conversation.

"Where did Lucca go?" The robot asked. It could tell I knew.

"She went to undo some things in her past she'd rather had never been." I answered. This seemed to strike Robo as odd.

"But, she did not answer when asked about a moment she wanted to forget." Robo's did not question how she did this. I determine then that the android had some hand in that gate's existence.

"People do not usually want their weaknesses to be left out in the open. I'm sure there are people here who make her too uncomfortable to reveal such things." I tried to be as clear as I could without openly saying it: She didn't want to talk about it in front of me.

"Like who?" the robot asked.

"Like me." I said bluntly. I was almost offended by the robot's presumption that I was unaware of my unpopularity. I do not like being played for a fool and were I not aware of the robot sincerity, I would have torn it apart.

"Oh. You think she doesn't like you." It said, as if it suddenly realized what I meant.

"She doesn't trust me. I am not exactly someone to open up to." I replied. To him and everyone else, what happened on Death Peak never occurred. I myself had tried many times to forget, but then, I should have had more important demons to tackle.

"Yet here we are, talking as civil men. Perhaps you are not as off putting as you think you are." The robot said, ignorant of the truth that no matter how hard he tried, he, and I for that matter, could never truly be human.

"A robot and a mystic warlord talking as civil men? You are hardly a man, and I am hardly civil, I'm barely human."

"You talk harshly of yourself. Are you truly so unworthy of being human?"

"Humanity is below me, robot. I know the nature of things in this world. Goodness, honor, chivalry, humanity, they are all mistakes of evolution. They were never meant to be." I had contemplated this for years in my days with the mystics. I knew of Lavos' influence on the development of man, and I knew that we were molded just as we mold the robot.

"Perhaps. That is what you see through your experiences. I tend to disagree, though neither of us is truly wrong. You perception of things is accurate: Man's evolution was not natural, but all things happen for a reason, even Lavos." The robot had managed to argue his point without completely refuting mine, a fact that infuriated me. There was no right or wrong, as I expected there would be, with the robot. Perhaps he wasn't quite as ignorant to the ways of the world as I thought.

"She'll be coming back soon. Someone should be there, in case she returns in failure." I said, effectively ending our little discussion.

"Yes, of course." The machine complied, trying to decipher whether I was trying to escape the discussion or was truly concerned about the girl's feelings. In truth, I'm not quite sure.

The robot and I never spoke like that again, a fact for which I am glad. The cold, collected manner in which the robot spoke of such things was unsettling, even for me.

I watched the robot return to where he sat and lull back into his sleep state. The girl followed shortly behind him. Her body language read strangely. Something bothered her, but it was impossible to tell if she had failed, or if it was just the result of confronting such a harsh memory. Perhaps it was something else all together.

"How did you fare?" I asked quietly.

"What?" She said, startled. She thought I had slept and I wished I could have, but I had to know.

"Did you succeed? Is she alright?"

"How did you know?" She was concerned. I was not a social person and my interest in her clearly bothered her.

"I see things. I do not waste resources and I do not enter a situation uninformed. I've watched many lives end because of such things."

"I see." She said, unsure of what I meant. It was better that way, I didn't really want her prying into my life as I had hers.

"So?"

"Uh, yeah, um, it worked." She replied, stumbling with her words. It bothered her that I seemed to care so much.

"I am happy for you." I said, plainly with little sincerity. I truly was happy for her, but a part of me that was much stronger at that time was bitter that she had taken advantage of what was given to her when I did not.

"Thank you." She said quietly.

"You deserved it." I said, overpowering the darker feelings within me.

"Deserved what?" She didn't want to be in this situation, talking to me about a harsh part of her life, but she wasn't about to be rude. Whether or not that was just her nature or some deeper fear of me, I wasn't quite certain.

"The chance. I knew what that gate was, and where it would take you, or me. You deserved to have the chance to change what happened." It was in that statement that I came to peace with allowing her to go through that gate.

"Why didn't you go?" She asked, now she was truly concerned. Memories of our talk on Death Peak began to surface in her head.

"You were tortured by demons that were not of your creation. What had happened was not your fault, yet it ate way at you. I wasted my chance. Who am I to take such an opportunity from someone who deserved it?" I tried to make it sound as if I had done something noble. Nobility is earned in action, not lack of action. What I did could be attributed to laziness, indifference, or cowardice.

"What happened in the Ocean Palace wasn't your fault, either." She said, trying to make me feel better. I knew the truth, though, selfishness was my downfall and I was just now coming to terms with that.

"Perhaps, when I was a child, that was true, but I had a second chance, just as you did, and I wasted it on personal vengeance. You did what I could not." I was, once again, acting weak and vulnerable with this girl, acting as if she and I had something that meant more than our alliance. Perhaps I was truly creating a bond with this girl, or perhaps I was just using her as a confessional, to cleanse myself of all sins and insecurities.

"Magus, I….we all have ghosts we have to conquer. Perhaps your ghosts are just darker than mine. You'll get through it, in time, I know you will." Her faith in me was mildly reassuring. Few had shown me such faith, though I know it came of circumstance. She didn't want to talk and was forced into saying something by my insistence to continue. She was too sweet of a girl to say something negative, as I would have.

"You are of higher spirits than I." I said, with pity for myself.

"Good night, Magus." She said, cautiously. She tried to escape the conversation. With everything that had happened to her that night, I didn't blame her for not wanting to discuss angst with me, but I was grateful for her attempt to make me feel better. I decided it wouldn't be fair to bring her down with my suffering any more than I already had, especially after she had done something that should have brought her higher than she had been in a long time.

"Good night, Lucca." I said, allowing myself to be left alone with my demons, knowing that right in front of me was proof that they could be conquered.

Hallo, Hallo. Here it is, the first new chapter to Pain, Love and Shame. As you may have noticed, I have decided to write this in the same style as I wrote Struggle For Happiness. If you haven't read that fic, go ahead into my Author's profile and read it. I know it isn't very good as it was written while I was just learning how to write effectively and I was playing with styles that were a bit over my head, but it is a nice little fic, if not a bit melodramatic, but isn't everything that I write? I dunno, anyway, read and review. I'm counting on you guys to keep me straight with this, so don't let me ruin it by getting sappy and foolish:) . Okay, so anyway, READ AND REVIEW and check up on my other stuff too (Just cuz its old doesn't mean its bad:) )

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

Dark Creation