BAD
His father was kind to Bad in a way he never was to himself, and did not tell him of the significance of the orange eyes. Bad doesn’t know the stories, doesn’t know that the orange eyes he and his father shared were once so despised that his father tore his own out, left them rolling on the sands of a long-gone kingdom.
Bad was spared this. He know so little of his father’s history. He does not care to know. Someday, he may come to wonder, or may hear tale, but for now his father is rather unremarkable. Well, one of them is. He doesn’t know the other one, not even his name, for Garbage always refused to answer those questions, always said when you’re older.
Bad is older, now, but he is also away, moving through the forest and drinking in the darkness.
And then there is a boy, young, like him. Bad meets his gaze, orange eyes to red ones, and he feels something, an emotion he can’t quite name. The boy speaks and Bad searches for familiarity in the voice and it’s there but not, like an image viewed through a distorted lens. Right and not-right.
“I like it,” he says, “I find it…comfortable.”
Hellhounds are meant to run amongst darkness and hellfire, are they not? Sure, he’s missing the hellfire, but the darkness will do, for now. He is tempted to shift then, to show this stranger (this not-stranger) the extent of his comfort, but he refrains for now. I think he would like it, though, he thinks, but he has no basis for this thought.
He thinks he’s right, though.
“What do you think about it?” he says, then adds, “my name’s Bad.”
does the dark feel warmer than the light, now?
@[abandon]