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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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.

I splutter, lean across the dappled sunlight between us, and grab his shoulder briefly. "No, no, no, don't give up! They sparkle because they found happy, right? And Akira found his happy when he saw a rainbow. You just need to find the right happy for you!"

He grabs me again, and this time it's firm enough, with enough feeling behind it, that it almost hurts slightly. Like a... scratch.

"I can only guess that is how it works, but I haven't... I mean, I don't..." I frown, grumbling at the ground, consider getting up and walking away. This is too much. "It's not you."

He's not comfortable, so I let go of him, but I stay close.

"No, it's not," I agree. "But do you want to be close to me? Or to 'have' me? Or to be me?"

I frown a little, because that's not quite how to express it, it's not quite right. But I can't find the right words.

He doesn't move away, and I, as usual, can't bring myself to pull away from him.

"I don't know!" It comes out as a snapped shout, the words cutting off sharply. "I don't know what it is, Right, I just know that you feel... Right to me, and I want it, I want to have it, and I can't, and it hurts when I touch you and..."

"Okay, okay," I say with a quick smile. "It's okay. You don't have to understand it all right now. I sure don't."

I reach out and touch his arm, carefully, on a spot where the skin's covered by fabric. "But it hurts less than it did, right? Maybe we can get you used to it."

Because I can't be inside him. I can't be his, in that way. But if he just wanted to be around me a lot? I could deal with that. I really could. And if... if I could do that, if Zett would let me make him happier with that, then it'd mean the Shadow Line would be weakened.

And it'd mean that Zett would be happier. That'd be amazing.

He's trying to calm me down, but I'm too frantic now, too angry and upset and I hate it. I hate this, I hate him, for having what I want and not even knowing how hard it is...

"I can't. It doesn't hurt less, I just don't care as much. I'd let it kill me if I could just have it, just for a little while, if I could just know what it was like--"

I lean in closer, hissing. "You don't understand. Darkness is just a fog to you, it clings and it dampens but it can be washed away for you, you can escape it. It's my life, it's everything I am and everything I can have and nothing is going to change that, Right. Nothing."

Oh boy, he's working himself up in a frenzy of frustration and self-hatred. It's awful to watch, but if watching is all I can do right now, then that's what I'll do. I keep still, my eyes on his, and I swallow when he's finished.

"I'm sure I can't take it away from you," I say sadly, because I wish I could. "I get that, Zett, I do. But I can sit with you, while you're feeling bad. I can be with you outside, just us. I can talk to you, and care about you, not about what I want from you."

I swallow again.

"I know that doesn't take the Darkness away from you, and it doesn't give you what you want. But at least it's a little bit of relief, for a little while, okay?"

He doesn't move, he doesn't try to defend himself or pull back even though it must hurt him.

It has to hurt him.

It's not fair if it only hurts me...

"It's not enough. And it never will be." I drop my head and drop my hands and back away from him, but I teeter on the edge of where the shadows end, because I'm so tired just now that stepping into the pure sunlight will probably knock me down too fast.

"I should just go back into the Deep Darkness and leave you all alone."

I slump a little when he backs away, but even though it fizzes, I wish he'd keep touching me. I wish I could prove to him that it's not that bad to keep touching me, that he really can get better at it, that it's not that he doesn't care about the pain.

(...I hope I'm right about that. But I don't know.)

"Maybe not, but it's something. And something's better than nothing," I say, ducking around behind him into the sunlight. He doesn't look good. He needs to stay in the shadows, and if me repelling him back into the shadows will do it, I'm happy to do it. "I don't want you to do that, Zett. Don't give up!"

He doesn't care. It can't hurt him as much as it hurts me, of course it doesn't. Even now I can see how he's covered in Darkness that clings to him, he probably can't see it but it's as natural to me as breathing. It doesn't hurt him, it just rides around on him, and he doesn't even notice it.

He circles around me, edging me back against the bench again, back away from the sun.

"Better to give up than go crazy, isn't it? Start listening to them?"

I shake my head, holding up my hands placatingly. "Isn't there another option?"

Why does he look so distressed every time he looks at me?

I laugh, and it's comes out a lot more unhinged and unfair than I meant it to.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Leave them," I say promptly, hopefully. "Do your own thing. Or throw them all out. Or stay with them but come visit me more often, alone. We can have a regular ice cream date!"

"They would follow me." I return, just as prompt, and with an equal measure of hopelessness. "I am their Emperor. They... they need me."

A slight smile, and a huffed laugh. "I don't know, Right. That just puts you ever more in the line of fire. And I'm not... Sure I want that, anymore."

I shake my head feverishly. "Then resign. Quit. Pass it on to one of them, Zett. You should - you should get a chance to make your own decisions for a while."

Oh, I like his laugh. Even tinged with bitterness as it is. "That's really nice, but I can look after myself. It's okay. Please?"

"No." The word is short, and serious, and comes out cold like a puff of purest Darkness. I almost leave it at that, but I know he won't understand unless I explain it properly.

I'm learning something, at least, and that is how much I don't want... What has been forced upon me. And because of that, how much I don't want it to happen to anyone else.

"I will not resign my throne. It is mine, I'm in charge, and I will not- I will not let them-" I can't even say it, I need to explain and I don't know how.

I pause, take a deep breath. Then another. And a third- with the third comes a great deal of Darkness, seeping away from Right where it had settled, and it fortifies me.

"A good ruler has restraint. None of them have any. The only person in my entire empire I would willingly allow to ascend the throne in my place... Left my sovereignty of his own free will. There will be no Emperor other than I."

I watch him with dismay. I kind of knew it wouldn't be that easy, but crap, it should be! He shouldn't feel obligated to these people.

...Darkness billows off me and onto him, making me shudder as it leaves. I hadn't even realised I had that much.

"Akira?!" I blurt, fascinated by that thought, but then his last comment seeps into my mind. "Okay. Then let me figure out a way to visit you more."

He actually shudders to his toes as the Darkness leaves him, and I can't help the sardonic little smirk I give him over it. I knew he didn't notice it.

It's not like it hurts me. Not like it should upset me. But it does, because that it's so integral to who I am is what makes it so hard for me to have... anything else.

"Yes, that's what you call him." I purse my lips and sigh at him. "You can't. I won't let you put yourself in that position."

I... I really hate how he always looks so bitter, so miserable, so - so VINDICATED - when something like that happens. He really believes that he'll never have anything good for himself, ever.

"It's not your choice," I tell him with as much cheerful firmness as I can. "You get to make your own decisions. So do I."

I never know what he's thinking. That's probably part of the problem... I couldn't understand if I tried.

"You'll be killed. Or... I don't know, ransomed back to your friends."

"Not if I'm careful," I say, and I know I'm being stubborn, I KNOW the look Mio would give me right now. "I don't mean I'd stroll into your throne room with balloons for us. Something a little more careful."

"You're being ridiculous." I figure he knows that, but I also am aware of it and he should know that he's not getting it past me. "You don't need to be in the Darkness, and you definitely don't need to be at Castle Terminal."

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