zawamecity | Welcome to Zawame City [open to anyone]

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Welcome to Zawame City [open to anyone]

A Shadow Line train is now arriving. Please stay behind the black line if you value your life...

My only escape these days is promising Mork that I'm seeking Darkness on my own terms. It's all she ever wanted, and so she chooses not to disbelieve me. That allows me freedom to take my Kurainer out. The idea is that I will find a city with suitable Darkness, that I can then swallow and create a new Shadow Town, and so on.

That isn't my real aim, though. Further even than seeking freedom, I'm seeking the source of Light. Not one Light in particular, but Light in general, the quality that makes things sparkle.

The easiest way is to let the Kurainer take me where it doesn't want to go. Which is how I find myself here.

Now arriving in Zawame City... Zawame City...

There is light here. Protection. Someone loves this city very much- it glows with a warmth that is familiar somehow, though I can't identify it yet.

Mork would be pleased, in her way. The brighter the Light, the deeper the Shadows.

I send the Kurainer away, and head off into the city to explore.

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He grasps my wrist once more and drags me a few steps aside. There's a bench near by, and it's in the shade, so I don't resist to sitting down beside him.

His question gives me pause, though, and I stare at the ice cream for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts, and the correct explanation.

"It's just something I can see. I spent a long time alone in the Deep Darkness... The pure Dark that gathers and deepens when humans undergo stress or sadness... Not just when caused to by my kind, but naturally."

I keep eating while I wait for him to get his thoughts together. I get the feeling sometimes like they didn't really have speech before, or something. There are some concepts that are really hard to talk about, and he seems like he can't quite find the right words.

"So it was like when we spend a lot of time in a dark room. Anything light seems really bright?" I ask softly.

"Hm. Like that, I suppose, but more... Different. Maybe, just for me."

I pause, take a thoughtful breath, find a trickle of cold on the back of my hand and turn it around to see the ice cream is... melting onto my skin. I consider it for a moment, then lick it off.

It's less cold that way, but it feels more regular. Like the Darkness that actually sustains me.

"It's not just light. It's Light, it's... Shining. I had never seen anything like it before... Before you. Before your home. I spread Darkness, it is as natural for me as... As breathing is, for you. It created me, sustains me, and protected me. But it was..." I pause. It feels almost... unfair to say the next part.

Mork has never listened to me, but she has, does care. In her own... strange way.

"Lonely."

He speaks, licks ice cream off his hand. It's a thoughtful action, and it makes me think again about how he doesn't know how to play. He keeps reaching for it, for fun, for love, along with his kirakira, but he doesn't get it.

I nod fervently, pointing at him, with my mouth full. I swallow hastily. "No, noooo, I get it! I do! You need friends!"

I huff a little sigh, and then frown at the ice cream, and offer it to him. I figure he won't mind- food is food, and he seems to love it.

"I have people." I say after a moment. "My nobility. They want to care for me, but they don't... Understand. About the shining. I haven't been able to explain it to them- or they don't care, I suppose. It's not what I'm meant for."

I lean over and swipe my tongue across his ice cream, and nod in appreciation. I wave mine at him too. Fair's fair, after all.

"Ah, but you need friends, yeah?" I nod at him. "They want to help you, but they really don't get it, so what you really need is friends who DO get it. Who make you feel relaxed just by being around them. Who want to play."

I peer at him, anxious and gentle. "Friends can be really nice to have."

He doesn't take the ice cream like I was expecting him too, he just licks it and then nods approvingly. He offers his to me, and it would be rude at this point not to, so I lick it, admittedly somewhat curiously.

Oh, it's very different. Still sweet, but a different kind of sweet, and the absence of the crunchy rainbow bits makes it different in that way, as well.

"I like that." I say softly, then huff and turn away. "Here," holding mine out to him again. "You eat it, I'm done."

I'm not sure how to address the rest of what he's saying. There's no time for 'friends', not when there's a whole world to subjugate. At least, that's what Mork thinks. Nero too, I think, though sometimes I think he also wants dearly to consider me a friend, or at least confidant.

"It's lonely at the top." I settle on something fairly ambiguous, and look away.

He takes a taste of mine, and says he likes it. I can't help but beam at him.

"Oh! Oh, that's what you meant. Okay, thanks!"

I take his, and start alternating licks. He's thinking, and I give him the space to do it. I'm peaceful enough eating! This is really nice sitting here with him.

(Almost like we can just be friends, and that's all.)

"It shouldn't be," I say softly, but with a flash of the anger I feel on his behalf.

I blink at him again, but he takes the ice cream finally, and I rub my hands together thoughtfully and watch him shine all the brighter with his enjoyment of his treat.

It's quiet. It's warm, even in the shade. This is... companionable, somehow. I need to cherish it while it lasts, because it certainly cannot last forever.

He sounds angry when he rejects my words, and I shrug my shoulder at him casually. "But it is, that is a matter of... Well, it just is."

I wonder how long it'll be before something goes wrong. I know enough these days to not expect the nice, easy times to last. (I still enjoy them, though. Especially because they DON'T last.)

I lean over and bump my shoulder affectionately against that one that he shrugged at me. "Things that just are can be changed, sometimes."

He brushes against me, but it's gentle enough, and with his jacket and my clothing, we don't touch enough to cause me pain, or even discomfort.

I don't know if the same can be said for him. Even now I can see traces of Darkness clinging to him. I don't know how to explain to him that I've stained him so thoroughly.

"Sometimes, maybe. Sometimes."

He's got that look on his face. That look of strain.

"Look at us," I say, trying to be encouraging. I slurp up another bit of ice cream. "We've been together for minutes and neither one of us has tried to kill the other! Isn't that good?!"

I look over at him again with a slight smirk, and a tiny shake of my head. He's so hopeful. I envy it.

"I never wanted to kill you, Right."

"But you wanted to eat me?" I wonder at him, not particularly upset about it. He's not trying to do it now. He's so different away from his family.

"No." I shake my head again, and even laugh a bit. "No, not really. That's too simple, and... Not right. Glitter ate me, I didn't eat her. That's not my... My talent. I just wanted what you had, and I didn't... Don't know how to take it."

I finish off the cone of one of the icecreams, and crunch it thoughtfully as I work through what he's saying in my head. I turn to him, swivelling on my butt, drawing the leg closest to him up under my butt. "Ah, yeah, that's different. Do you get it now?"

I watch him eat, mostly because he is so very happy when he's eating.

He turns to face me and I shift to allow him the room to do so without nudging against me too sharply. With my head turned, now we're staring into each other's eyes.

"No. I still don't understand. That's why I came here. Maybe to find another Light."

He doesn't look like he's slept in weeks.

It's good, though, to get a chance to look at him properly like this. Too often I need to read his face to figure out how he's going to attack next. What he wants. Right now, I can just look at him, and see the intelligence in his eyes. The weariness.

Softly, "Did you and I ever really talk about it? Maybe we should..."

I don't sleep, so I imagine at this close proximity he can see all the evidence of how weary I am, in so many different ways.

He's the type to notice things like that.

"No, I don't believe I ever gave you the opportunity."

Smiling. Can't help but smile at him. I know we've fought, but he's so handsome and intelligent and... and can be really sweet. It's nice to have his attention!

"Then what do you want to know, exactly?"

He's smiling, but I don't really understand why. I roll my eyes at him a little.

"I don't know. There's so much... I don't understand. I just wanted what I didn't have. What I was told I couldn't have. I suppose that makes me selfish."

And he shows when he's mildly impatient with me. I wonder if he realises he's my friend.

I shake my head fervently when he finishes, then I crunch the last of the second ice cream. "No, that makes you normal! It's okay to want things! You just have to be careful about how you go about getting them, Zett. I want lots of things I don't have right now."

I wish I understood him better, but I don't know how to ask.

"No, that's not the same. Wanting things you can have, and earning them, getting them, that's different from wanting something that... That's wrong for you, that hurts you. Wanting it anyway. And... hurting other people to get it."

Hm. Okay. He's not wrong, but I can sense something beyond, something he should be - or could be - doing that'd make it different. (I hope.)

Um.

Let's see.

"I think it's wrong to hurt other people for what you want," I say slowly, feeling my way through it. "But maybe what you want isn't quite what you think it is, in that case, Zett. Maybe what you want is what people feel when they sparkle for you. Not the sparkle itself. Maybe that'll make you sparkle."

I consider his options, but it doesn't seem right, it doesn't resonate.

"I don't know, Right. I'm beginning to think I can't sparkle. I'm not like Glitter-chan, or the General."

I'm too Dark.

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