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“What dessert should I draw for my first birthday?”
“I don’t know if you should be asking me that while I’m knee-deep in cookies, kid.”
Dark hid his smirk at the answering giggle from the artboard. “I know cake is normal,” Orange continued, “but I wanna try something else. I draw a lot of cakes already.”
“Can’t help you there,” Dark admitted. “I haven’t really partaken.” He looked towards Orange. “When is your birthday, again?”
“Oh, it’s tomorrow.”
“T-! That’s- not a lotta time to prepare, kid.”
“Oh, I’ve been thinking about it on and off for a few weeks,” Orange commented blithely, before the implication in Dark’s remark seemed to register. “Wait, did you wanna do something?”
“Well…I’ll be honest, I have no idea what I could do, as far as making it a ‘special day’ for you. But…if you care about that sort of thing then I’ll do what I can. Got any requests?”
Orange smiled. “You don’t have to do anything except be there to celebrate with me, Dark.”
“You want me to clear my evening, got it.” Dark waded his way toward where the task list hovered, muttering insults at Google tracking for every cookie he stumbled over. “Entire evening off…”
Dark went quiet, and Orange watched him as he took in the remaining tasks. “You really don’t have to,” he reminded. “Even if you’re just there like this, that’d be cool.”
He heard Dark mumble indiscernibly, seeming to ignore him as the other stick dragged several items from various points on the list to the near bottom.
“…can roll those over to tomorrow…if I move that here it’ll send an alert right before…a little early but…and then enough to do until…”
This continued for a while, until he trailed off once more, scanning the rearranged tasks. Then he straightened up, turning to Orange with a smile on his face.
Orange met his eyes, in time to notice a brief tremor as the cuffs reminded Dark that he was still technically in the middle of a job.
“There, what did I tell ya?” Dark grinned, giving no indication that he’d just felt the taze. “Your day is mine! And all it took was a little fudging of the schedule.”
Orange stared at him in exasperation for a moment, before his eyes widened. “Fudge!”
His attention returned to the artboard. Dark grinned, before shaking the lingering electricity from his shoulders and returning his attention to the mire of cookies.
Now that he thought about it, birthdays did seem like a thing that Orange would be into. It made sense, what with the kid’s overall fascination with concepts that the lord thought of as being superfluous to animations. Like eating regularly.
All that considered, he really should’ve expected the question Orange asked him late the next night, as they sat against each other and let the rich fudge melt in their mouths:
“So when’s your birthday?”
It was immediately clear that he’d given a wrong answer.
The kid turned in his embrace, incredulity scrawled across his features. “What do you mean, you ‘don’t have one?’”
Dark blanked.
It had been…he’d just said the first thing that rose to mind…
“I don’t,” he persisted.
“You have to.”
“I am simply above such petty concerns as dates of birth,” the lord said in a lofty tone.
The kid broke into laughter.
“That- that doesn’t make sense,” he insisted through his amusement. “If you exist, you have to have a birthday! By definition!”
“Hmm, nope.”
“Dark. When did you start existing?”
“I didn’t. I have always been here, since before time.”
“You- you have not! Digital media didn’t exist at the dawn of time!”
“You can’t prove that it didn’t.”
“I literally c- no, hey, quit changing the subject!”
“You’re the one who changed the subject; aren’t we supposed to be celebrating your anniversary of existence?”
“We’ve almost eaten all the fudge, the celebration’s practically over.”
“Well I cleared my whole night, and we’ve still got the rest of it to go.”
Orange yawned. Aw. “I don’t think I’m the party-‘til-dawn type.”
“Dang, not even a sugar rush? Or did that happen already and this is just the sugar crash?”
Orange’s responding giggles were notably more sleepy. “Crash, maybe.”
Dark gave his back an obliging rub. “Slumber party, then?”
“I think…party’s over.” Orange rubbed his eyes, standing up. “I’m gonna draw us some blankets real quick.”
Dark smiled. “Us?”
“You got the time off,” Orange fussed, plodding out of sight. “You’re using it to sleep.”
“If you insist.”
“Dark, I insist you tell me when your birthday is.”
The lord eyed the kid as he rounded the program window, arms laden with blankets of various shaded textures.
“Orange.” He reached forward to accept some of the load, taking the opportunity to lean into Orange’s space. “I will not be telling you when my birthday is.”
He grinned at the kid’s responding pout, but Orange still allowed himself to be bundled in several of the blankets.
“I’ll find out somehow,” the kid mumbled, as they settled down next to each other. “I’ll think of a plan.”
“Ooh, scheming?” Dark teased.
He felt the kid nod. “Scheming. Gonna plan ‘n my dreams. Sleep on it.”
“Heh. Goodnight, kid. Happy birthday.”
He waited until Orange started to snore before sneaking away, clinking metal muffled by his blankets.
He checked the program folders. There were still a few hours of download time remaining. That was nice; they’d both get a good rest.
Leaning against the window, he pulled the camcorder out of his hammerspace. With one more glance back at Orange, he switched it on.
“Kid’s birthday went well,” he reported. “He tried a bunch of different fudge styles. The raspberry was the best, I think, but the mint was pretty good too. I’m not sold on the toffee, though. Postponing those downloads worked; I was able to successfully roll them over to today’s updates.”
He smiled. “We just spent the evening chatting and enjoying the fudge. It was quiet. It was easy.”
“It was nice.”
He listened to the sound of Orange sleeping. The kid didn’t believe he snored, no matter how strongly Dark told him otherwise. He wondered if the recording would pick it up.
Not that he’d be showing it to Orange as proof.
His smile faded. “…he wants to know when my birthday is.”
The dead air of the hibernating computer seemed to change, at his words.
“…I didn’t tell him.”
His eyes drifted away from the aperture.
“…it never occurred to me as being…something to celebrate. Birthdays in general, I mean. Not just mine…celebrating accomplishments I get, but coming into existence isn’t- I didn’t play any part in that, I was just the end product.”
He frowned.
“And…my ‘accomplishment’ wasn’t…isn’t…”
(What was that dragon or snake or whatever, that’s always eating its own tail? What was it called? Ouroboros?)
“Even if I’d failed, would it have made a difference? Seeing where success got me?”
He froze, for a moment, at the unintended sharpness in his tone. But Orange’s sleep remained undisturbed.
He sighed.
“How am I supposed to celebrate something like that, knowing that I’d been brought into being with the expectation that I’d cannibalize myself? And that I did?”
He grimaced.
“My purpose was to set my own fall in motion. How am I supposed to explain that to him?”
“If it’s the person being celebrated though…heh, I can see the appeal. In his case, at least. And if he wants to celebrate me, I guess he sees something. Which is correct of him, obviously. I only taught him everything he knows about life. Except the sketching, of course. And the food, I have no idea where he picked that up.”
“…he’s gonna want to do this again next year, I know it. I…think I’d like that. This was…this was good.”
“…but…”
August 19, 2011
“…what am I supposed to tell him? About mine?”
August 19, 2011
“About how my self-actualization was what trapped me on this d- …this thrice-confounded computer?”
August 19, 2011
The day he was created.
The day his mission was bestowed.
The day he destroyed The Chosen One.
The day he fulfilled his intrinsic concept.
The day he proved himself The Dark Lord.
The day he sealed his doom.
The day he began devouring himself to survive, and his existence became one big paradox that hurt to think about. He’d consumed so much of himself that he was starved, now.
“My purpose ruined me. Why would I celebrate that?”
The monitor was quiet. Orange snored peacefully. Somewhere on the other side of the screen, the router hissed softly.
He received no answer.
“…I can’t tell him.”
“…I don’t know what he’s gonna do about it, but…”
“I can’t tell him.”
“…there’s probably gonna be more birthday talk in the future.”
“…end recording.”
Shutting the camcorder off, he slipped it out of sight once more, before padding back to where Orange lay on his side.
Wordlessly lowering himself back to the floor, Dark snuggled up next to his kid.
He closed his eyes and hoped sleep would visit him soon.