{OOC} Fic - after victory
Our home is the wind, we're gods of the morning/
Champions of the night when the engines are running
-Meat Loaf, "Night of the Soft Parade"
By the time they emerge from the underground chamber, night has begun to fall, the sunset smearing gold and crimson and purple across the skyline. A cool night breeze ruffles the cloaks both men wear, but only one feels a chill. The other's been numb for a while already.
The one who'd had to adjust his cloak against the wind watches the other, waiting for a sign, anything, anything but this awful silence. Even if it'd been a misled goal, even if the young man remained ignorant of the truth...shouldn't completing it make him happy? Shouldn't he be feeling something, again? The man's so sick of seeing the beloved boy close himself off more and more. Can't he break those walls now?
"Master Marik..." he begins, but the smaller figure shakes his head, heading for where they'd parked their vehicles - the taller man in a Jeep, the smaller on a red motorcycle. Silently they both climb on, silently they put the keys in the ignition. Silence weighs down like the darkness of the night, the darkness of a desert with no lights for miles save those they brought along.
Yet the younger doesn't turn the key. Hood sliding off his disheveled blond hair, he tilts his head back, looking up at the night sky, off across the desert. Nothing but silver sand and stars, nothing for miles, an endless road.....
"Wait here, Rishid," he says, the words blocky and cold between barely-moving lips; he shrugs off his cloak and drops it at his feet. "I'll be back before morning."
Rishid nods. Marik starts his machine, pointing it to the last remaining wisps of sunset, and guns the engine, roaring off alone across the desert.
The heat from the engine provides Marik's only warmth against the night; he hunches low over his machine, but keeps his head up high. This isn't exactly as he'd imagined it. He'd wanted sunlight, lots of it, streaming all around, not the darkness that's weighed around him his entire life....
But the stars, there's so many stars, wheeling above him, a sky spattered with them in a way the skies in the cities can never manage. He'd resented the lack of stars at first when he'd moved to cities, hadn't he? Sentimental foolishness, and all because it'd taken him by surprise the night he'd left, the night he'd emerged into the desert and seen - this - almost this exactly. He'd done so much stupid resenting. He's beyond that now. Beyond even resenting himself for it. He's become what he always wanted to be - logical. Practical. Ruthless. Cold, so very cold.
Why hadn't he felt anything, just now? Marik's lashes flutter slightly; he revs his engine as he drives, the vibrations shooting up his entire body, the motorcycle living for him since he's felt dead for such a long time. He'd done it, and he'd done it in such style! Molten, twisted fragments, scattered before a tablet that'd never avail that tyrant now - he'd played everything perfectly, he'd learned what he'd used, back in that place that feels so far away, back where he'd even started to resent his own name. He doesn't have a problem with being Marik anymore - it's that other name, that ridiculous name, that symbolizes someone who doesn't know what he was doing. Marik, now, is someone who's accomplished something. But Marik is also just a word. Why get upset...?
This should be the happiest moment of his life, even with his job incomplete. Marik stares up at the stars, the cold wind whistling through his hair, his father's earrings dangling heavy from his ears. All that remains is the last two God Cards, and those are only a matter of time. Who can possibly stand up to him now - he's defeated the Pharaoh--!
But not in a game, no, he was too smart for that, he knew better. He hadn't proved anything to the Pharaoh himself - the man had never even gotten a chance to return. It's better like that, right? Better to nip the problem in the bud. How was that for revenge? A strike so swift, so sudden, the enemy never had a chance to know -
Had he wanted him to know? He'd never gotten to look his enemy in the eyes, to judge him as a man and not just as the force that'd ruined his entire life. Had the spirit suffered as its confines had melted away? He can only imagine. He hopes so. But maybe - maybe he should have tried to put the Puzzle together himself, just to see if he could.
No, that's more sap, more foolishness. He'd left that all behind when he'd left that place, the Hell that'd shown him just what a fool he could be. Just because things had been going well back home...but there, it'd all been different. There he'd been an idiot with an idiot's name. He'd deserved every remark against him, there. But now no one could laugh at him again. And he wouldn't care even if they did. He knew what he could do, and that was enough....what he'd just done....
Marik tries to laugh; he'd laughed then, he'd taunted the Pharaoh who could never hear him now, the man who now really was nothing but a carving on an ancient stone, even his name lost to the ages forever. In that moment, for a second, he'd felt like he used to, and that'd been all right, he had the right to feel like that in his moment of triumph. His head had pounded, but in a good way, somehow in accord with his own feelings- he had felt for a moment, but in the end he'd just been a young man in a cloak throwing melted jewelry at a rock. In the end, that was what revenge had become. He hadn't let it become a game.
--Were there even more stars out tonight? Marik breathes heavily, shaking his head out, lips parted to taste the breeze, motorcycle roaring its loyalty beneath him. To think he'd actually almost bought one of those scooters again once he'd come back, almost, but still....what an idiot he could be....but he'd overcome himself, he'd done it, he'd done it, and now look at him. It was his road. Just as he'd always wanted. Nothing but himself and the bike and the desert and the endless, endless landscape....this whole world, his for the taking....
He can see for miles! Marik blinks, suddenly realizing that, remembering why he'd wanted this in the first place; it'd become yet another mantra to chant by rote - defeat the Pharaoh, win the world - yet here it is, that very world, his for the taking! His, and it's beautiful, it's so beautiful.....look at that, and it extends even further out beyond that, even though he can barely see in front of him, he can tell where the horizon is by where the stars stop, and look at all of that, he'll never even be able to see everything in this world but the prospect's exciting anyway, because it means the world is endless, endless and wide and beautiful and he has a right to it now, he just needs two more cards and it'll all be over, it's over already - look at that world.
He remembers it all, now, all the books he'd pored over as a child, all the pictures and the videos and the descriptions. Rainforests and normal forests (he'd climbed a tree with his own hands and feet, there - why hadn't he tried again here?) and glaciers and mountains and volcanoes and the people, all the different sights and sounds, the things that people make, the intelligence of people - surprising intelligence given their emotional fragility - people have mastered this world and he, now, has mastered those same people in turn - and two more cards and he can go anywhere, do anything, right here on this same motorcycle, driving wherever he wants just as he'd always dreamed until deciding dreams were a luxury he couldn't afford....
As he sucks in a shaky breath, the stars blur; his chest quakes, he caresses his handlebars as he drives. How could he have forgotten? How could he have closed himself off - but he has the time to dream now. The Pharaoh is gone. It's all right, now. Before it would have just...gotten in the way....he'd have been like he had been there, running after tangents and seeking approval when really no one's opinion mattered. How much had he even been aware of, then? He'd been too busy trying to control himself to ever be able to effectively understand or control others. Yet now he has the control. Now he has everything. It's all right, now.
"I did it, Iris," he murmurs into the night, staring transfixed into the world, the world that's so large while he's still so small, but that just means he owns more...."Told you I could. Told you I was different."
He laughs, brokenly at first, then stronger, jubilant, still breaking but enjoying every moment of it - he'd done it! He'd done it! And now life could begin! Just two more cards....
Two more cards, he tells himself as he drives off, swallowed up by the starry night, ecstatic at its beauty and his own daring, and maybe it'll even be all right to let himself become "Brunch" again.
Champions of the night when the engines are running
-Meat Loaf, "Night of the Soft Parade"
By the time they emerge from the underground chamber, night has begun to fall, the sunset smearing gold and crimson and purple across the skyline. A cool night breeze ruffles the cloaks both men wear, but only one feels a chill. The other's been numb for a while already.
The one who'd had to adjust his cloak against the wind watches the other, waiting for a sign, anything, anything but this awful silence. Even if it'd been a misled goal, even if the young man remained ignorant of the truth...shouldn't completing it make him happy? Shouldn't he be feeling something, again? The man's so sick of seeing the beloved boy close himself off more and more. Can't he break those walls now?
"Master Marik..." he begins, but the smaller figure shakes his head, heading for where they'd parked their vehicles - the taller man in a Jeep, the smaller on a red motorcycle. Silently they both climb on, silently they put the keys in the ignition. Silence weighs down like the darkness of the night, the darkness of a desert with no lights for miles save those they brought along.
Yet the younger doesn't turn the key. Hood sliding off his disheveled blond hair, he tilts his head back, looking up at the night sky, off across the desert. Nothing but silver sand and stars, nothing for miles, an endless road.....
"Wait here, Rishid," he says, the words blocky and cold between barely-moving lips; he shrugs off his cloak and drops it at his feet. "I'll be back before morning."
Rishid nods. Marik starts his machine, pointing it to the last remaining wisps of sunset, and guns the engine, roaring off alone across the desert.
The heat from the engine provides Marik's only warmth against the night; he hunches low over his machine, but keeps his head up high. This isn't exactly as he'd imagined it. He'd wanted sunlight, lots of it, streaming all around, not the darkness that's weighed around him his entire life....
But the stars, there's so many stars, wheeling above him, a sky spattered with them in a way the skies in the cities can never manage. He'd resented the lack of stars at first when he'd moved to cities, hadn't he? Sentimental foolishness, and all because it'd taken him by surprise the night he'd left, the night he'd emerged into the desert and seen - this - almost this exactly. He'd done so much stupid resenting. He's beyond that now. Beyond even resenting himself for it. He's become what he always wanted to be - logical. Practical. Ruthless. Cold, so very cold.
Why hadn't he felt anything, just now? Marik's lashes flutter slightly; he revs his engine as he drives, the vibrations shooting up his entire body, the motorcycle living for him since he's felt dead for such a long time. He'd done it, and he'd done it in such style! Molten, twisted fragments, scattered before a tablet that'd never avail that tyrant now - he'd played everything perfectly, he'd learned what he'd used, back in that place that feels so far away, back where he'd even started to resent his own name. He doesn't have a problem with being Marik anymore - it's that other name, that ridiculous name, that symbolizes someone who doesn't know what he was doing. Marik, now, is someone who's accomplished something. But Marik is also just a word. Why get upset...?
This should be the happiest moment of his life, even with his job incomplete. Marik stares up at the stars, the cold wind whistling through his hair, his father's earrings dangling heavy from his ears. All that remains is the last two God Cards, and those are only a matter of time. Who can possibly stand up to him now - he's defeated the Pharaoh--!
But not in a game, no, he was too smart for that, he knew better. He hadn't proved anything to the Pharaoh himself - the man had never even gotten a chance to return. It's better like that, right? Better to nip the problem in the bud. How was that for revenge? A strike so swift, so sudden, the enemy never had a chance to know -
Had he wanted him to know? He'd never gotten to look his enemy in the eyes, to judge him as a man and not just as the force that'd ruined his entire life. Had the spirit suffered as its confines had melted away? He can only imagine. He hopes so. But maybe - maybe he should have tried to put the Puzzle together himself, just to see if he could.
No, that's more sap, more foolishness. He'd left that all behind when he'd left that place, the Hell that'd shown him just what a fool he could be. Just because things had been going well back home...but there, it'd all been different. There he'd been an idiot with an idiot's name. He'd deserved every remark against him, there. But now no one could laugh at him again. And he wouldn't care even if they did. He knew what he could do, and that was enough....what he'd just done....
Marik tries to laugh; he'd laughed then, he'd taunted the Pharaoh who could never hear him now, the man who now really was nothing but a carving on an ancient stone, even his name lost to the ages forever. In that moment, for a second, he'd felt like he used to, and that'd been all right, he had the right to feel like that in his moment of triumph. His head had pounded, but in a good way, somehow in accord with his own feelings- he had felt for a moment, but in the end he'd just been a young man in a cloak throwing melted jewelry at a rock. In the end, that was what revenge had become. He hadn't let it become a game.
--Were there even more stars out tonight? Marik breathes heavily, shaking his head out, lips parted to taste the breeze, motorcycle roaring its loyalty beneath him. To think he'd actually almost bought one of those scooters again once he'd come back, almost, but still....what an idiot he could be....but he'd overcome himself, he'd done it, he'd done it, and now look at him. It was his road. Just as he'd always wanted. Nothing but himself and the bike and the desert and the endless, endless landscape....this whole world, his for the taking....
He can see for miles! Marik blinks, suddenly realizing that, remembering why he'd wanted this in the first place; it'd become yet another mantra to chant by rote - defeat the Pharaoh, win the world - yet here it is, that very world, his for the taking! His, and it's beautiful, it's so beautiful.....look at that, and it extends even further out beyond that, even though he can barely see in front of him, he can tell where the horizon is by where the stars stop, and look at all of that, he'll never even be able to see everything in this world but the prospect's exciting anyway, because it means the world is endless, endless and wide and beautiful and he has a right to it now, he just needs two more cards and it'll all be over, it's over already - look at that world.
He remembers it all, now, all the books he'd pored over as a child, all the pictures and the videos and the descriptions. Rainforests and normal forests (he'd climbed a tree with his own hands and feet, there - why hadn't he tried again here?) and glaciers and mountains and volcanoes and the people, all the different sights and sounds, the things that people make, the intelligence of people - surprising intelligence given their emotional fragility - people have mastered this world and he, now, has mastered those same people in turn - and two more cards and he can go anywhere, do anything, right here on this same motorcycle, driving wherever he wants just as he'd always dreamed until deciding dreams were a luxury he couldn't afford....
As he sucks in a shaky breath, the stars blur; his chest quakes, he caresses his handlebars as he drives. How could he have forgotten? How could he have closed himself off - but he has the time to dream now. The Pharaoh is gone. It's all right, now. Before it would have just...gotten in the way....he'd have been like he had been there, running after tangents and seeking approval when really no one's opinion mattered. How much had he even been aware of, then? He'd been too busy trying to control himself to ever be able to effectively understand or control others. Yet now he has the control. Now he has everything. It's all right, now.
"I did it, Iris," he murmurs into the night, staring transfixed into the world, the world that's so large while he's still so small, but that just means he owns more...."Told you I could. Told you I was different."
He laughs, brokenly at first, then stronger, jubilant, still breaking but enjoying every moment of it - he'd done it! He'd done it! And now life could begin! Just two more cards....
Two more cards, he tells himself as he drives off, swallowed up by the starry night, ecstatic at its beauty and his own daring, and maybe it'll even be all right to let himself become "Brunch" again.