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Author's Notes: I am not even going to bother making excuses. I suck. Anyway, the Gil chapter. Or the first of the Gil chapters, as he is, of course, coming back later. Life has kept me so busy, but I'm trying. I have other stories I want to do, and I need to finish this one to get the others started. Blah, I will try to update sooner next time, I will. This is the second longest Cloaks chapter to date, whee!
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Background Music: Wake Up #37 (King Black Acid)
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Cloaks
By Sarehptar
Chapter 12-
The Nature of Hearts
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I've been a fool for a good portion of my life, but today -yesterday?- has to be my crowning achievement. What made me rush in so blindly? I could have done any number of other things (perhaps, maybe, should have) and now that the overpowering emotion of the moment is gone, I can't understand why I did it at all. No, that's a lie. I know why—it was the look on his face, the look I'd seen before and hated. I couldn't let it happen again. The unhidden fear in his eyes made me to do it, and even though I'm rethinking the decision now, I know that I would give myself up again in an instant without his ever asking. That, I think, is the nature of hearts: giving and regretting and giving again blindly. Mine must be among the most selfish, because I love to take and take and take. Even when I fell at his feet my little black heart was drinking up his disbelief. Yes, I care for you this much, and you never even knew.
I feel as if I've remembered everything there is, but in the next moment I know I haven't even covered a portion of the important events at all, because after those nights in the human village, my life really began. At least the life that everyone knows and dislikes. It doesn't matter that before this time I was an almost nonexistent presence, a phantom threat, not even imposing enough to have a name beyond "the pretty demon who fought the King of Arinas". None of my relatively quiet days are remembered; evil seems to have eclipsed all my actions.
We slipped out of the once bustling human village late the morning after your illness. It was an almost uneventful walk until the outskirts, where the first of the lumbering, brutish demons intent on claiming the village decided to stand in my path. You stood tall (no pun intended) beside me, but I could tell by the way you moved closer to my side that you were uncomfortable. The ash was at home, and you did not have enough experience fighting to even be considered a challenge for youkai—this would change quickly, though neither of us knew it at the time.
The beast was nearly two feet taller than me, quite an accomplishment considering I was pushing nearly two meters. Its skin was a dark molted green, a strange mixture of fur and scales that made the creature look as if it had come from a child's nightmare and not reality at all. Whatever its origins, the thing was clearly stupid, not a threat in the loosest of definitions. I would have been content not to waste a second of our time, but it turned and shot us a blank stare that obviously reeked weak-minded interest.
"Human." It snuffed wetly in our direction. Reluctantly, I stopped walking when it stepped into our way. "What the hell's a human doin' with you?" At least its nose worked properly. To my merit, I did give the creature a few seconds to reconsider blocking us (though really, such a slow mind would have needed at least an hour to rethink any single choice), and then I eliminated him. Like the ash, I had left my death seed in the castle, a mistake I wish I had not made. It was my claws that tore his head from his shoulders—a sluggish gesture that should have been easy to dodge. You watched him crumple, watched me wipe the thick black blood on my heavy robe and walk around the corpse without saying a word, but the glare you shot me spoke volumes—you were not looking forward to getting that stain out of the cloth.
As we walked back through the wood, I made my steps calculated and slow. It was a rouse, but not one you saw through. I could feel the youki blooming and creeping through the trees, a sense that made my already messy hair stand on end. It was not only this village—the humans everywhere must have fled. A mass exodus. The island was devoid of mortals, with the exception of one tiny green-eyed boy. I took a step closer to you without even thinking about it, and then offered no answer when you blinked, puzzled, up at me. The thought of you being so alone here was not exactly sad, but it was something that weighed on my mind. As we wound our way back toward the sanctuary of the castle, I tried to ignore both feelings: the melancholy thoughts about you and the instinctive urges to attack every youkai invading my territory. But failed mildly at both.
When a serpent demon passed fifty meters to our right, farther away than you could see between the trees but exceedingly close to my hyper alert sense, I couldn't completely quell the low growl that escaped my throat. You started, a tiny little jerk that made me cut the noise of quickly. Nevertheless, the damage was done, I saw in your brilliant human eyes the barest flicker of fear. It sent a jolt through me, a stab of realization that maybe all along I'd been living just the way I wanted to and ignoring everything I didn't want to see. Did you fear me? Even though you obeyed me, would you rather have been somewhere else? To you, was I any different from the monsters crawling just outside the range of your senses?
I was doubting then the extent of human loyalty. The strong and unbreakable ties that are so common in your kind are almost nonexistent in mine; for a few minutes I honestly believed you might one day leave me for a stronger master, simply because power was something you and so many others desired. It worried me, and I very much hated that—the depth to which you have assimilated yourself into my life was disconcerting. It was too far really, because no demon should feel as much camaraderie as I felt with you. Demons are not supposed to be friends with humans. Humans were not supposed to trust -or want to become- youkai. I was fast learning that with us nothing follows 'supposed to'. Whatever my unwanted worries that moment, you turned to look at me, and the fear had completely vanished, burnt away by a frustrated little scowl.
"Master Kharl, hurry up! You're walking slow." It was a silly thing to say; a silly truth that banished for a few moments all my concerns. I had been dawdling, hadn't I? I quickened my steps to match your own swift pace, thinking all the while that you really shouldn't be pushing yourself so hard, you were still ill despite the strong medicine. It occurred to me that perhaps you were eager to get back to the castle, eager to return to being useful, to continuing the lives we'd oddly carved out in the pass few weeks.
I was eager too, though for other things—ideas were floating about in my mind ceaselessly, ideas about humans, about faeries, but most importantly, about demons. What made demons different? What components of the body, what components of the soul? When the next demon passed us, I hardly even noticed, I did not offer even the tiniest of snarls. It was with small smiles that we both climbed the two stone steps and pushed open the wide doors to a quiet and undisturbed castle.
As the door swung shut behind me with the rough scrape of wood and stone, I never suspected that I was shutting the door on an era—the thin dusty breeze that rose from the door's passing, I didn't suspect, would carry into our lives two hundred years very different from our first months together, my first months without the master. Two hundred years that would make you a warrior, more adept with the ash that I could ever have imagined. You mastered all sorts of weapons, from kitchen knife to halberd, and at my insistence, armor as well. You even managed transportation spells, scattering (incredibly useful in conjunction with chemicals causing sleep or poisoning), and mimicry with the ash that was frighteningly realistic. I distinctly remember eating more than a few mouthfuls of dust you'd turned into models of the daily meals. Each day, I watched your humanity slip further and further away until, when things really began, you weren't any one thing at all—too demonic to be human, too human to be a demon.
It wasn't only you who changed over those many decades. I also became something indescribable. The loneliness and curiosity peaked in me. I devoted myself to the very thing I wanted to keep you separate from: crafting demonic souls. The advances I made, the secrets I discovered about the very composition of the soul, every thought and feeling in my tumultuous mind was recorded in what would become known as the Demon's Bible, a sordid work of art and darkness that should never have been shared. (Then again, I did gain so much amusement from watching others stumble through the practices themselves.)
I learned to do things that no one ever had, learned forms of magic no one will ever be able to imitate. Two hundred years of research made the birds and I even more inseparable; I went from drawing on their power to form souls inside dead bodies to crafting souls myself and inserting them over the presences of already living beings. By the end of those centuries two things were growing inside me: immense power and immense desire to replace what I had lost, to expend my mounting ability and fill the hole that even our (I may tentatively call it) friendship could not. I wanted something more true, someone who would not flinch at my snarl: a companion, a child to impart my knowledge to; I wanted nothing more than to share the burden of emotion, to prove I was not the only one capable of feeling, to forge a heart identical to mine.
That feeling, that impetuous, is what really began everything. I was impatient, determined to find this companion. I did not think ahead -a horrible flaw of mine- I simply acted. I taught myself to compress the essence of my power and the power of the birds into corporeal form, solidified youki. Demon Seed I called it, for its kernel form, a companion to the palm-sized swift death magic I had already given to you to use. Here was the contrast: I never let you touch the Demon Seed, for fear you might attempt to force a transformation on yourself. Did you notice this?
The day that I left you completely alone, without any warning or notice for the first time, was the day that I began a fall from grace that would cost thousands of lives and thousands more tears before it finally fixed itself. Would you believe me if I told you I never intended things to go the way they did? That's the way events unfold however, when hearts strive only for their own interest. If I had stopped to think, even once, about others, I know I could have prevented pain, bloodshed. I am not blessed -or cursed- with empathy. Beyond logical analysis I cannot begin to ponder the feelings of others, I failed miserably at every presented opportunity to evaluate a situation from someone else's perspective. If I had bothered to think, maybe I could have saved Rath, maybe I could have undone the damage to Gil. And maybe I wouldn't be dying.
I left that day silently, without a footstep, without the slightest rustle of my flowing white cloak. The birds flew over me, quieter than hunting owls, soundlessly intrigued by my antics. I left no note, no trace of my leaving. I did not even think about the fact that you might worry. I simply knew the heart I was searching for would never be found here, on this barren continent. My future lie across the sea, in a country I had, before this day, visited only once or twice briefly in our long lives. The wood was bright, a hazy morning sunlight that felt warm and pure on my cheek. The birds swooped into the branches overhead, and with a whisper and a wind more magic than breeze, I left Arinas. Dusis, as the land across the world was called, was a stark contrast to our tropical mountainous home. Densely wooded and regional, the land seemed to vary from high alps to swampy backlands. It was interesting to say the least.
My truth destination was nowhere near the interior of the continent, a place called Dragoon—that area reeked of Dragon, a group of people I had no intention of becoming entangled with. (Isn't it ironic how the things we intend least always seem to happen?) I chose the city of Yuba, far to the North, to begin my search. The area was roiling in magic—I could feel it positively radiating from the mountains rising over the town. Exactly what type it was I could not tell: it seemed tempest-like, straining against itself... It registered like a whirlwind of confusion in my mind. You can't blame me for not figuring out this was the signature of Hayate, the Wind Dragon. I'd never truly felt a dragon's power before; this tumbling wildness was intriguing and magnetic, though hollow. It was, I would later discover, only a shadow of the true power, a faint empty impression left by the creature who had been unsealed even before my coming.
Whatever it was, it filled the air of the place with heavy antiquity—I liked it immediately. The woods that bore not unpleasantly down on the village provided flawless cover for the birds and I. Patiently, or as patient as I can be, I waited and watched. I felt that I would know the right soul immediately. This assumption was entirely false (though not really, thinking back): I passed Gil by twice before even noticing him. In the end it wasn't anything he did that brought my attention to him, it was something another young man did.
"Aniki, aniki—look at the birds!" I watched as the young brown-haired boy raced up to a taller, more reserved companion. I had seen the older brother in the street, but had spared him almost no second glance. Now I looked closely, only because there was no one else on the street. He was, at first sight, virtually uninteresting. Darkly tanned skin, like many of the people of Yuba, green eyes that did not glitter or attract. He was tall compared to the little one beside him, but certainly not taller than myself. In fact, even at this third glance, the only intriguing thing about him was his hair: long and untamed, it seemed to shine an inhuman vermillion-indigo when struck by light. With all this plainness, you can see at least that I chose Gil for reasons beyond the aesthetic.
I was watching thoughtlessly, paying only a fraction of attention, when the younger one tripped and fell onto the road. Crying in pain but trying very hard not to show it, he sat up, clutching a skinned knee with skinned palms. Gil did something then that snared my interest and did not let it go—he sat down on the dirt beside his brother, heedless of his own starkly white clothing.
"Na Barl... Clumsy ototo should look at their feet, not the birds." Instantly, the little one's tears seemed to evaporate, he jumped up, nearly slamming his forehead into his brother's chin.
"I'm not clumsy! I can walk as well as you can!" He ran a few steps to prove it, injuries completely forgotten in the wake of the insult. With his back turned, Barl missed completely the very thing that made me choose Gil: a small, gentle smile that spoke volumes about the boy behind it. Where his voice had been quiet and unassuming even when teasing, his smile was exceedingly true, shy and pure in a way that even your innocent grins could not match. This smile was not born of the joy people like us took from others pain, it was not even the type of happiness you seemed to get from cleaning. I don't have the words to describe it properly, but I have often tried. It was a smile that said more than his words could ever hope to—it told me clearly how his teasing had a reason. He had not said that to make his brother feel inferior, he had done it to distract the boy from his pain, a plan that had worked flawlessly. This little grin of his betrayed to me the happiness Gil took from thinking of others. It was, if I must pick words, a wholly selfless smile.
I realized in that moment that Gil's soul was something to be treasured. Kindness is so rare, and selflessness even more so. I wanted immediately to steal him away, bleed youkai into his veins, teach him everything—I wanted this altruistic person to be the one who would truly understand me. It's more than obvious that I wasn't thinking clearly. If I had not been so set in my ideas, so absolutely sure of myself, I would have seen that Gil had no place in his heart for a life with me; he was too busy already loving the place he had.
Of course I didn't see this; I am blind more often than not. When I watched Gil and Barl race each other home, all smiles and laughter as dusty and as rich as the air, I did not see how alone and listless Gil would feel without his brother—I only saw how smiles and laughter would brighten my own life. When I watched him through a window telling stories to a wide-eyed little brother, I didn't see how much he valued his human tales, being able to turn everyday occurrences into harrowing adventures—I only saw myself telling him all my own stories. I could only imagine him at my table, listening like a wide-eyed little brother of my own. In the end, I failed to see Gil's capacity for hate because I could only imagine love.
It was with those -sadly evanescent- visions in my mind that I determined to steal Gil out of the hands of mortals. He, I would not be swayed away, was going to be the perfect soul. There was no great scheme in it, it was not some bad destiny on Gil's part... No gods had, with the intention of ruining his life, allied against him. It was just one smile at the wrong time. I know what you are thinking. How could death-dealer Gil, puppet Gil ever have been a person I wanted to make my companion? But you really must see him in two lights—the shattered, violent, confused beast you met was never meant to exist. He was born of ill planning, ill treatment, of worse. The real Gil, before the Dragon Knights, before Nadil, before me, was exactly as I remember and enjoyed him being: a sweet, shy boy with a penchant for laughter and a fierce sense of loyalty.
I waited -so impatiently you cannot imagine- for even the slimmest chance to snatch Gil. It came hours later, just when I was beginning to think I may have to invade the tiny house and pull him out. My sensitive ears heard it before my eye caught it:
"I want to go too!" The little one was pouting.
"No." The reply was so familiar and instantaneous that I could easily see this scene playing itself out a million times before. This time... Gil wound his way out the door, a hand axe still and steady in his grip. "I'll be back in ten minutes." But I knew what he didn't—the short trip for firewood wouldn't take just ten minutes; it wouldn't take even just ten years. "Set the table." The burgundy-haired boy yelled over his shoulder, and I was determined that his place at that table would remain empty.
The actual kidnapping -though the connotation of that word stains the intention of the action- was so simple I almost didn't even believe it myself. I followed him as he picked expertly through the trees, gathering timber and larger branches as he went. He was silent, with feet that seemed as padded and as confident as a panther's. But I was more silent still; he never, until the last moments, knew I was there. I was like an inverse shadow, winding a path behind him into the thick, a holly and oak crowded band that nestled among not only the village but also the peaks rising, untouchable, above.
He was headed somewhere, following a trail that was more wild bush than track, and I let him wind his way. Restraining myself was no easy chore, but it was worth it. Gil stopped in a well-kept glade that smelt strongly of freshly cut wood. Across the grass that was impossibly green and without patches, the trunks of trees stood rolled and stacked together, simply waiting to be split down. As Gil chose his pieces and raised his axe, I knew my chance had come.
"Hello Gil." He nearly leapt out of his nutshell brown skin. The boy was, by no means, an idiot: as he spun to face me, the axe fell swiftly into a defensive stance. His muddy green eyes were alight with suspicion and with something else: a wavering, unsure fear. Gil was like that even before we met I surmised, shy and uncertain of himself, tending to over-analyze where quick action would produce more favorable results.
"I don't know you." It was a question as much as a statement, and I could tell he was confused by my appearance—for a far Northerner, the lightness of my skin, hair and eyes must have been offsetting and intriguing.
"It's true, you don't, yet." It was that moment Left Bird and Right Bird chose to drop from the treetops. Gil flinched, the reticent light in his eyes blending into a darker sense of unease.
"What do you want?" But he was looking more at the birds than me. In accordance with my will, I felt Left Bird's power spike; Gil staggered under the thick oppressive magic, mental functions slowing to a crawl. His hazy eyes blinked once.
"It's less of a question of what I want," I was smiling now, the smile that tends to illicit fear from others, "Than what I will have." I could see him shiver visibly at the words, unable to hide the action in the slightest. There was time for me to see fully in his murky gaze a deep glint of terror, and then the freshly released Aplomb hit his nervous system. With a murmured word that might have been 'Help', the burgundy-haired boy collapsed into my arms. It was that easy; a tiny bit of magic, a few words. With not even a pinch of my power, we were gone from Dusis, leaving only an axe glinting weakly in the last rays of the afternoon sun.
The castle doors seemed to rise up to greet us, the wood grain pleasantly familiar beneath my fingertips. With the barest of pushes, I brought Gil into my home. Whatever peace I might been expecting, it never came.
"Master Kharl, where have you been! I was looking-" Do you remember your expression at that moment? I do, it has been etched into my memory. I can still see the unrestrained confusion, the blankness in your jade eyes... and the narrowing tide of distrust and dislike that came only seconds later. You never liked Gil, did you? I don't think you ever forgave him for getting from me the very thing you wanted most. "Where the hell did you find that thing? What are you gonna do with it? You better not-"
"Ssh Garfakcy, later." I brushed past your irate form, and did not fail to see the hurt flash briefly on your face. I just had too many other things on my mind to reassure you then. I could not wait to change Gil, I was eager and excited and in no mood to be stopped. Without another word I carried him down into the depths of the castle. When you half-attempted to follow, I shut the door and locked it, putting a physical wall between us where only a mental one had stood before.
Gil was laid out before me, messy hair dancing across the stone table and over the carved sides, breathing slowly and almost as still as a corpse.
"Wake up Gil." I waited, for only a moment, and then his eyelids fluttered like the spined edges of a butterfly's wings beating weakly against the petals of his tanned skin. "Open your eyes Gil." Blurry green met my own pale irises. For a moment there was nothing save a blank confusion and pitiful loss—and then the barest flicker of recognition. With a hiss (that later seemed to suit him much better) he tried to back away from me.
The Aplomb was still numbing his system: what should have been strong jump became a clumsy fall. He landed on the other side of the table, and trying desperately to make his legs follow the orders of his brain, attempted to stand. He failed -of course, my magic was flawless- and when I stately, politely approached him, he backed weakly into a corner. "Don't be afraid of me." It was somewhere between an order and a request. Still, I saw him shudder, pressed against the cabinets as far as the sturdy wood would allow.
"Where am I, who are you, why did you bring me-" He dissolved into a barrage of questions with a low voice still half numbed from the poison.
"I brought you home Gil, and I want you to..." How could I explain in a few words exactly what I wanted from him? I could see the confusion leaking back into his gaze as I bent down to his level.
"This is not my home and I don't want to be here." I should have seen that for what it was: pure unacceptance of everything I had to say. But, back then, this is not the way I heard it. I made it out to be only reluctance, a bit of fear, a slowness to adapt. Can you see how eager I was to believe everything was the way I wanted it to be? I was only thinking, as soon as he becomes a demon, he'll realize that he belongs with me. With that idea in mind, I did the only thing that could have driven he and I farther apart.
With a finger across my own lips I silenced him, and with a smile I turned Gil into a demon. It was not as simple as that of course. The Demon Seed slide smoothly through his flesh, the retina of his right eye which I disliked for the fear it showed. For the shortest of seconds there was nothing but stillness and shock, and then Gil began to scream.
What could you -undoubtedly listening just outside the door- have thought of this? Were you imagining some horrible happenings—did you believe I was doing something terrible to the stranger? Perhaps I was devouring him limb by limb; testing some archaic and merciless magic? I was always curious as to what you made of the howling, but too afraid to ask. I did not want to hear that you had not imagined anything; did not want to hear that you had no sympathy at all for Gil. I did not want to hear that instead of wanting to end his pain, you had wanted to prolong it.
It's a shame that I can admit this too late, when you cannot defend yourself against my memory. Maybe you had pitied him, and just did not show it? Maybe my perception of you was wrong? It is with increasing discomfort that I find I have been wrong many times. Were you afraid that one day I might cause you the same sort of agony? Whatever the case, Gil's pain shocked me—it was true that Demon Seed was still new, still being tested, but there was no reason for it to cause injury at all.
Like Death Seed, the Demon Seed was meant to be quick and efficient—meant to force the transformation with all haste. In all previous trials the humans and animals had simply faded into near unconsciousness and changed swiftly. After a brief period of psychological adaptation that was usually spent retesting simple motor skills, the specimens continued to proceed without mishap. Undoubtedly, the transformation must have been unpleasant, or at the very least uncomfortable and the confusion after such a change was surely daunting, but there was nothing in the tiny seed that should have caused such intense pain.
Gil was writhing, howling at the top of his lungs, fingers clenching and unclenching forcefully enough to leave indents on his palms. His eyes were rolling, out of focus, a cold sweat had broken out along his skin. Concerned, but unable (and unwilling) to undo what had been done, I only watched, stepped out of the range of his thrashing legs. It went on for a long time (probably not as long as I am remembering it), long enough for me to think I had done something wrong. Nothing about him seemed to be changing, he just continued to suffer and scream.
And then things grew worse. His vocal chords and throat could not withstand the prolonged use, they gave in, striping his voice away until there was nothing but an opened mouth and teared over eyes, silently wailing a pain that should not have existed. It was after this that the transformation finally seemed to begin—first with shaking fingers that grew delicately pointed claws. I had to catch his hands here, to stop them from convulsing and ripping his palms apart. Then it was his hair, the barest pigment changes that made the maroon mop blend into a more indigo-magenta shade, bright and bold in a way that did not seem to suit the weak being Gil looked like in this broken state. Last it was the eyes -eye, as the one harboring the demon seed refused to open- which bled from utterly normal green to a penetrating gold. Stunning, if not for the agony even more evident.
Finally, Gil stilled, a horrible sort of stillness that did not make me any less uneasy. I waited, watching, unsure of why things had happened the way they had and what things were happening now. Finally, I released my grip on Gil's fingers, foolishly believing he would be fine from there out. It was to my near horror that Gil looked up at me for the first time as a demon, and instead of anything remotely near acceptance, there was in his one open eye a hatred so deep I felt it pass all through me like unstoppable waves of flame, searing away all my previous beliefs. What must my face have looked like to him? Could his clouded gaze have seen the hurt in my own light eyes—I don't think he did (I know he didn't) because he did something then that wrung all my hopes dry.
For a moment he was motionless, and then with a speed that betrayed his transformation, he bared newly formed fangs, lifted a single clawed hand... and attempted to tear his own eye out. Did you think I'd caused that scar? My magic was far too advanced to cause damage like that. No, it was Gil's own claws that rent the flesh, a single long and furious strike before I caught his hands again. The blood ran thick and fast down his skin, over his cheek and off the edge of his chin. He began to struggle against my hold, enraged and judgment clouded by pain. I could feel the youki beginning to rise inside him, a stronger power than even I had expected—and I also knew in that moment that he would not be able to control it.
The power spiked, even you must have felt it upstairs. I watched the last vestiges of his restraint crumble; beneath my fingers, fur began to rip through his tanned skin. His already damaged vocal chords strained further, he twisted free of my grip and curled in on himself—beneath his long bangs I saw a bloody eye open, hungry and untamed. Gil's demon form would have intimidated a good few, but I could only feel a dull confusion, a little displeased... And then he reached out with a massive paw and tried to cut me down. I stepped out of his range in time, but barely, because I just could not believe the situation.
Gil really did hate me. He was not going to accept this. And I knew then why the Demon Seed had pained him so much. His body had rejected it, rejected becoming a demon. With his claws and his blood and his soul, Gil had rejected me. Can you imagine how unsure I was? How was I supposed to handle something like this? I had kidnapped him without thinking, changed him without allowing for adaptation. I wasn't sure if I should feel hurt, shocked, angry... In the end I did not have to choose, one simply devoured all the others: bitterness. I disliked Gil for disliking me; I hated him for attempting to destroy the very the thing I wanted most. Any other feeling I had toward him was swiftly eaten away. Gil did not understand how much I wanted to share with him, how much I had hoped he would be... The worst of my traits is that I am impulsive, but closely following that is my capacity for hatred, my ability to simply turn my back on anyone and everyone. In a single day I went from wanting to take Gil in as my child to wanting him dead.
I shouldn't say that, because it was not exactly true. If I had wanted Gil dead, I would have killed him. It would have been better to say that I simply ceased to care, for him, for his confusion and rage... But the most hidden parts of me know that even that is not the truth—because I did try. As angry as I was, as scorned as I felt, I still ignored the bad things that Gil did. I let him destroy the room I'd locked him in (because he could not be trusted to remain in any of the upper rooms), sometimes with the claws of a lion and sometimes with his own 'human' fingers. I did not starve him, I did not torture him. Don't be mistaken, I did cause him pain—in the weeks I kept him locked away, I caused serious irreversible damage to Gil. Tests, attempts to see where my judgment had gone wrong, mild cruelties that were my way of rebuking Gil as he had rebuked me. But I never caused him the sort of agony that Nadil and his minions did, something he forgets. Then again, if I'd never sold him away, the worse he would have had to face would have been you, picking on him behind my back.
I know he never realized that, and it still makes me angry to this day. I can't presume to describe his feelings, but I know he never got past the rage and distrust... Maybe he thought there was nothing to find beyond them. My efforts were ignored completely; your meals went to waste, the fine clothes I set out were shredded: Gil repeatedly bit that hand that fed him, without understanding what both the offer and the refusal meant. You understand, don't you? The decision to sell Gil away was not simply a matter of dislike, boredom... It was an amalgam of his hate and my own, a vast trench of bitter hate between us; completely insurmountable.
I am impatient, you know, it took roughly a month for me to give up on Gil completely, to fully turn my back on him and end all my attempts -all my hopes- to make him a part of our lives. Were you surprised I chose Nadil? We were most certainly not allies—in fact we were at each others throats more often that not. It's not a shock that I have avoided thinking about he and his minions until now, but at this point, I cannot continue to pretend they do not exist—because he was, and is to this moment, one of the most crucial players in this story. I wouldn't have a thing to blame him for... But his possession of Rath nearly drove me out of my mind.
I am wandering again. I suppose the real reason I did not simply let Gil go was because I was so bitter, because I felt so slighted. I wanted to hurt him, I wanted to make him feel as utterly rejected as I had. I wanted him to realize what opportunity he had lost. Ironically, he never did—his torture there and his time in my castle became one and the same. As I watched Shydeman carry him away, I honestly did not feel even the tiniest bit of guilt. I remember thinking that Gil was getting exactly what he deserved.
Was this cruelty on my part? This little vengeance, the same desire as always just a little darker: feel what I feel! Can't your heart understand mine? Of course not—no one is truly capable of hearing the deepest, most unfiltered desires of others. Even children, brothers, lovers, fathers, friends and foes; no one can ever hope to breach the darkness or the light of someone else's heart. They are simply too inexplicable, too complete and complicated. To know everything in another's soul -his hopes, dreams, faiths, lies- is simply too much to comprehend.
They are secrets for a reason, I have come to realize, secret because to know someone else is to lose part of yourself. Knowing the true thoughts of a companion is finding what you always thought was accepted (your habits, your mannerisms) is actually grating, actually hated. Can you imagine? Knowing every deep and private of feeling of someone else? How could you not try to change yourself to fit this person's desires? How could you stay true to your beliefs if you knew some part of them caused another deep and lasting grief? How could you not lose yourself trying to satisfy someone else? ...Even so, this is just what I wanted: someone to see and accept the most hidden and hated parts of me. I wanted to be understood.
To want what we can never have... That is, I think, the nature of hearts.
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Review Responses:
RandomRathFan: I didn't update soon, sorry. I'm very glad you liked the last chapter, thank you for reviewing!
Yami-chan and the Unrealistic: I'm so sick right now, I hope this chapter wasn't as terrible as I know it is. Anyway, thank you for reviewing so faithfully!
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