Work Text:
Being used until you’re threadbare isn’t as pretty as they make it sound.
At least it stops eventually. That comes with its own downsides, of course – you stop being used and the holy warmth of the Light stops shining down on you. Getting used gives you the tradeoff of feeling wanted, feeling needed, doing the thing your fate’s set in your being since the moment the Lightners decided they needed to cook up someone to serve ‘em. But getting used also means giving up who you are. Or – what little you’ve got of that, being made the way all Darkners get made. The “LITTLE FREEDOM”, as a certain someone’d say.
And – what luck (or what misfortune)! – that so-called little freedom has come to greet you and the rest of your folk. You, by now, have long learned not to mind. That certain someone’s words have helped with that, and you’re thankful for him and his company. But the rest of ‘em aren’t as helpful – “Why are you so content?” the kings ask, their voices as sharp as their teeth. “Do not act as though they didn’t abandon you, too. You’re just like the rest of us.”
If only they understood how futile it would be for them to take up all that ire! What would happen if the Light did come back? A purpose can only last so long – everything dies, everyone grows too torn at the edges to be of any use one day. And now they’ve time enough for themselves, in the little places where they can carve it out amidst their fates. Being discarded, too, is a part of that inevitable fate, the logical endpoint.
“EVEN THE STEADY CANDLE WILL OUT WHEN GREETED BY THE MOMENT.”
Those discussions, peppered between amicable bouts of traded blows and sharp-edged bullets, really had sewn so much into place. Those games had done more for you than anything the Light could offer – save for the bright fulfillment of holy blessing. But THAT’S something you'd never want from another Darkner, jokes aside – to be used by your companion would be as miserable as the whole rest of the cycle. Having him here, to talk, to wax existential, is plenty better.
A candle’s brilliant flame will burn its wax stem to nothing one day. Use as killing. Use as purgatory. Use and disuse as twins, born of the same spool, cut from the same cloth. As close to equal and opposite forces as this world can get – because the Light and its hope have a holy power, and the dreams of the Darkners are stuck firmly in their shadow.
The world will end one day, he tells you. The Light is bright enough to burn even this away. A world of your own, a place for the dark – how foolish to think fate would allow you that! How foolish – amusingly so! – to think that it, of all things, would be an exception.