Dark Side of the Moon

Mai

"No." Her answer is short and blunt. She considers the careless movements, how the other girl almost shuffles in place simply from having to talk. To have all that power despite that might be something worth praising... or it was something to be concerned about. She kept her distance regardless, always keeping several steps away from the other girl. "I am no judge. It is not in my purview to weigh the lives of others, and I will not allow others to do so either."

"It seems you think similarly?" She raises a single, elegant brow. Mai's eyes watch the shadows for any possible threat. Sorcery was... distasteful. It was easy to know the character of a swordsman. If their hands do not tremble, they cannot be trusted. But those who practice the arts can kill without a care, sometimes without meaning to. It made them much more difficult to evaluate.

Mai

It can talk?

The disappointment rips through Mai's body like a spasm, her grip on her sword violently tightening until her knuckles whiten. Her veins are flush against her hand as she presses the tip of her sword against the ground. She takes in the moment then, a brief exhale attempting to dismiss the trembling in her free hand.

If only it was fear that made it shake.

After a scant few seconds, habit reasserts itself. Measured, even breaths escape Mai as she stares at the shadowy mass before her. It is alive, perhaps? Or some sort of familiar. Could she cut a shadow with her sword...? It has form, even as it shifts. All things with form will shatter. Her finger thumbs the hilt of her blade as a more calm confidence reasserts itself. Yes, if needed she can certainly cut it. But was there any point in battle?

Mai's dull, almost blank eyes gave nothing of her swirling thoughts away. Instead, she tilted her head just a tad. A sliver of inquisitiveness slipping into her frame as she responds. "It attacked me first. Why is such a thing your concern?"

Mai

9:00 AM Nexus Time

Violence is not freedom. Mai understands this well. One only leaps heedlessly into violence if they wish to be lost, so drunk on blood that they cannot find anything but their next target. It is an escape. So if she must shed blood she will not take a life. She will not take a life. These words repeat in her head again and again, a mantra, even when violence comes to her.

So Mai confronts her foe with a blade blunted by resolve. It looms over her, and she can see the obvious advantages. An armored body, a polearm, and the simple advantage of height. The helmet it wore covered its whole face, leaving no openings. Yes, it was all so obvious.

She tries not to sigh when the halberd is swung in a perfect, exact arc to take her head.

Her feet leave the ground with the all the grace of a wraith, free from dust as she rises right above the strike before her feet plant onto the flat of the blade. Then she strikes in turn. The knight turns, almost incredulously, as it sees her outstretched blade. As it sees the drop of blood on its edge and feels the slightest cut on its neck where her sword passed through metal like water. Then it swings, the air howling with its force as it moves to smash her against the ground. But she is no longer there.

As if it was swinging at a mirage, Mai stands before it with her clothes fluttering in the violent air of the halberd's impact. The weapon is more than half deep into the asphalt of the street, but there is not a single cut on her. Even the vague hostility she moved with until now vanishes. There is only a trace of pity.

"You poor thing. You demanded my soul, but you will never be able to cut me. Has your master sent you to die only to test my capabilities?" There is a silence then. A pause between the young girl and her attacker.

Mai

She exhales then, and the tension bleeds from the air. Tiredness suits her. With this lull in her heated demeanor it reasserts itself. And perhaps there is vulnerability. Perhaps he is not the only one with a companion, even if hers is not the guide but the lesson incarnate. For a moment, it is possible he sees It behind her eyes. The seat of nothingness, a place where no one exists, the blind pursuer of the peak of swordsmanship. The thing that can never know what it possesses, even as it clutches its deepest desire in its hands.

Or perhaps not.

Mai truly is feeling exceedingly charitable. It must be the soup, she decides, that has made her tongue so loose. A full stomach makes one chatty. Yet this creature is so pitiful that she is compelled to continue. "You will never escape your punishment. To focus on its inevitability is to be as the man who shakes and sobs every night for he knows he will die. Understandable, perhaps, but stupid. You will die whether you fear it or not. You will only change if you wish to change, not because of your cowardice. If you do not think yourself capable, simply say so. That too is understandable."

Her hand grasps the hilt of her blade, but her eyes hold nothing more than mild curiosity. "Say so, and I will take your head for you. It will be painless."

Mai

Her smile is sad, but there is a glimmer in her eyes. She is not herself. In this instance, she is someone a tad wiser and much stronger. She is the sister who can tell this story, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts. "Imagine," she begins, "two sisters. One is the moon and the other is the shadow. By her nature, the shadow cannot help but be drawn to the moon. Yet she is always lesser compared to her sibling. She grows to hate the moon, because the moon shows the shadow her own face. And the shadow hates herself more than she could ever hate the moon. But the moon is not free either. She is a mirror in the sky, and because of the light she reflects no one is interested in her true face. Not once has anyone thought to understand her."

She exhales then, a shuddering thing that makes her hands quake. "They suffer."

"One day, the shadow finds the answer to her suffering. So she kills the moon. She kills her father and her clansmen. She sullies her hands with the sin of kinslaying until they are stained beneath the skin. She embraces her own nothingness, and she never feels pain again. What punishment does the shadow deserve?"

Mai blinks away the tears before they can form, yet her smile is a sly and bright crescent. She shines like the moon. There is no room for an answer here. "One day, the shadow remembers what it feels to live, and she regrets her choice. Because she regrets, she becomes something human again. So she can be punished. The answer given to her is simple. Walk."

"At first, the shadow is confused. But she obliges the voice of heaven. She walks as the sun sets. She walks in the dead of night. She walks even as the sun rises once more. She walks as her sandles fray apart and crumble." The words become quicker, chained together by a rapid pace. "Her feet blister. They bleed. They are rubbed raw of skin. And she continues to walk. But then one day, she looks up and sees that her destination is no closer. And she remembers what it means to suffer again. She bemoans her fate. Did her regret lead to nothing more than empty cruelty? But that was not the case!"

There is a forcefulness to her voice, an intensity that is almost fearful to see. "She is asked to turn back instead. And behind her she sees herself when she began her journey. She fears this thing more than death, now that she can see it in its totality. She becomes impossibly glad that she has distanced herself from it, and yet she is still too close. Even if she cannot see her destination, she must hurtle herself towards it. It is a journey measured in the paces taken away from herself. So she keeps walking, even to this day. The meaning of this story may be different for you, my lord, but I assure you that it contains the answer to your question. You need only clarify the tale to know it." Her smile shifts into a neutral expression and the piercing quality in her gaze dulls. Yet something lingers in the air, like the heat from a coal taken from the fire. It will burn, even without light.

"Is punishment the steps taken from yourself, or is that redemption? Is redemption the steps taken towards your destination, or is that punishment? Once you answer, you will have solved the previous question as well, my lord."

Mai

This ends up with them sitting across from each other at a table, bowls of vaguely greyish soup serving as their meals for the day. Mai's hands come together and she utters a basic prayer in thanks to the gods. She has food, she has shelter, she has pleasant company. In this place, all three things are luxuries. So if her words are more genuine now then they have been for the last few weeks, she feels no great guilt over it. After a few mouthfuls of surprisingly filling food, she looks at her unlikely benefactor again.

"That holy woman called you a demon king, but you don't seem obsessed enough to me." She absentmindedly stirs the leftovers of her meal with her spoon, turning her gaze to the ever-present vigil of the nuns for an instant. Some were human. But the others had a familiar intensity to them.

Mai sees it in their faces. Human skin stretched taut over obsession. Like fire enclosed in a shell of wax, it shines brightly through them, and at the slightest shift everything but that fire would melt away. Or maybe she was simply seeing someone else in them. A bitter smile stretches its way across her features. Trust this strange this place to almost normalize her condition. Yet her eyes are soon back upon her benefactor. She had simply left him in awkward silence after that remark, hadn't she?

So she feels the discipline rooted in her soul school her features, her face a perfect image of pleasant neutrality. "My lord," she begins, "why did you bring me here?"

Yes, it was a good question. Even as she eats, the eyes of this place's protectors never leave her. Mai does not truly blame them. Death hangs over her as a shroud. The unpleasant smell of corpses and blood seeps from her body. Her sword is stained with flaking, dried blood. She knows she should have cleaned it long ago, but she could not rouse the effort to do so. Now it is simply another indicator. Yes, death clings to her. It is on her hands, under her fingernails, behind her eyelids, almost seeping from her like sweat in the sun. Even the ashen-faced citizens can see it. They look anywhere else, they play little games, but their eyes are drawn in morbid fascination. Mai has killed, and she will kill again. She knows this even as she defies it.

But for all that Mai sees herself, she is still so very blind.

She defaults to unkindness because she feels it is deserved. She cannot see the pity in the eyes of one of the nuns that watch her, her features just a tad softer and kinder than her sisters'. She fails to understand the meaning behind the chef's frown as he looks at her, his kindly features angry not at lithe limbs that promise violence but arms that are too thin. She is not just coated in death, it hangs over her already like a specter awaiting its due.

All these things that Mai will never know. Still, her gaze is sharp. Her eyes sees through Lubei's skin, peering at the pulse of blood through veins and the twitching of muscle. The things she can see are not few. An unyielding sternness keeps her back straighter than a rod of iron. It focuses fingers that would otherwise fidget and maintains an almost meditative stillness.

Mai would not accept, or be fooled by, any petty lie.

Mai

Generosity? Her eyes narrow for a moment at the offer. Was this some sort of trap? But she saw the strength in his limbs, and the frost of his spirit still sent chills through her soul. No, there was no trick here. He was mighty enough to simply kill her or kidnap her now. And she will not cling to her poverty out of pride. So Mai stands and looks at the stranger she nearly tried to butcher just a few breathes ago. Then she bows.

Her back bends with a grace that disguises how long it has been since her last exchange in formalities. Mai's hands come together to show she cannot reach her blade. Her face looks only at the ground, leaving her neck bare for a sudden execution. No one will ever say that Mai has forgotten humility.

"Thank you for your kindness, my lord. This vagabond is called Mai. If you wish to provide, then I will follow." Then she straightens, and quicker than most can see her sword and bowl are both in her hands once more.

Mai

6:00 AM Nexus Time

This is a morning in the life of Mai. She opens her eyes, as restless as ever from an eight hour meditation session. She rarely sleeps anymore, as things more real than dreams await her in her unconsciousness. She makes sure not to rub the bags under her eyes. She has been told that makes them more pronounced. She spends the first few minutes head bowed in prayer, and she begs forgiveness from the gods for the sin of kinslaying. The memories are fresh but her eyes are dry.

She asks forgiveness for that as well.

Mai dresses herself, she combs her hair, and then she goes out to beg. She could make great profit with a sword. If she sold her skills like a common mercenary, she could undoubtedly make her fair share in bounties. But she will never raise her sword for the sake of profit.

The Demon is quiet this morning, even if her hands are never far from her sword. She seats herself upon the concrete and leaves her bowl out in front of her, and the infrequent generosity of strangers sometimes seems it filled with the occasional coin or bill. She ignores the gnawing of her stomach, the pain of a weakened body.

Mai does not relish in pain, but she has come to acknowledge it as deserving.

But today, there is a disturbance. She raises her hands to her mouth and breathes a puff of warm air over them. Except, they do not feel cold. She flexes her fingers and feels the distinct warm of the rising sun, almost confused. Then the mildest shiver traces its way through her body. She exhales harshly, and even though it is as pleasant as any other day she sees it distinctly in the air as if it was winter. There is a chill in this place, even if it was not physical. A cold that branches out from the soul.

If it was her, then Mai was sure that it would be simple to identify exactly what the source was. She was always more sensitive to such things after all. But Mai has no choice to awkwardly fumble her way though such a world, her eyes darting back and forth until the source revealed itself.

He was taller than her, for one. Black hair fell past his shoulders and a strip of white ice seemed to sparsely span his face. Then there were his clothes, finely stitched, and the way he carried himself. He was certainly no demon, no. But he was certainly more than human. Some sort of spirit, or youkai, or god. Still, if it was only that then there was no reason to be concerned. Then she notices his cold, blue eyes looking at her. Not generally, not curiously, but with an intensity and focus that has her hand ache for her sword. But why is he--

Her sword is already in her hand. She can taste the coppery flavor of blood in her mouth, so thick as if to be overflowing, even though she has not even bit her own tongue. The anticipation, the curdling bloodlust, the silhouette of a phantom limb restlessly rising from her back. Mai is suddenly aware of it, all at once. The one thing she had refused to recognize but was drawn to. The fact she could not shake from her mind now. He was wielding a sword.

What an embarrassing display.

She sinks then, as if deflating. Her sword clatters to the ground next to her and she resumes her sitting position. Her eyes shut, and her focus returns to meditative exercises and harsh discipline. And, the faint hope that the stranger will not investigate her actions.