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Has love ever came to Robotnik willingly? No, it has not and never will.
He’s a sensitive child, a rude teenager, a disrespectful young adult, an ignorant adult, and an insensitive man. Unlovable in every sense of the word. He does not care for anyone and no one cares for him. The world will keep torturing him until he succumbs to his loneliness and die, curled up like a centipede.
Nothing will love him. Not people, not plants, not animals nor insects, not arachnids nor reptiles, not fishes nor deities. Not a single living being will be able to love him. Not on Earth, not in space, Heaven or Hell. Not a being in any religion. He was a symbol of what they hate.
Till this day, he kept up his rude attitude and rotten personality, pushing everyone far away from him. He knew he once liked a girl, a pretty one at that, and she was always nice and patient with him. But he quickly found out that she just wanted him to do all her tasks for her so she could go out with a boyfriend she never told him about. From then, he stopped all at once. No more notes, no more homework, no more invitations for tutoring or even to just hang out. She asked him why he was so cold to her, he answered and cried while running back to the orphanage. The nuns found him, but he didn’t say a word.
That night, a storm came.
Another time was when he realized that he also liked guys. It felt like someone splashed a cold bucket of water on his face, and he instantly felt ashamed of himself. But he kept hanging out with his crush either way. Robotnik would wait for him while he had his basketball practice, and in return, he waited outside of his classroom when he still had questions to ask his professor. They were great friends if he had been honest. That buy put up with everything from him, and Robotnik did him favors in return.
But all good things came to an end. He took a break from school because of family business. Robotnik didn’t see him for a whole month and he never came to his teammates to ask either. When the month was up, he returned a different person. Arrogant, cocky, always looking down on those who didn’t match his level, and it just so happened to be Robotnik. He broke ties with the boy, screamed into his face and called him a moron. He escaped before a fight could start, and it rained that night.
Keeping people in arm’s length was all he knew now, in order not to be betrayed again. Commander Walters had accepted him in the position despite the examiner informing him about his attitude. Robotnik learned from the man quickly, but also kept his interest in check. Walters wanted a truly talented person, a mind that could envision a place where anyone could feel comforted if not everyone. Peace and no wars, a simple dream. Robotnik did not care for it.
With the leftover funding, he did as he pleased. Built prototypes, did his extensive research, kicked anyone who couldn’t support him out in order to keep up the delicate tower he had built. Agents whispered his name like an urban horror legend, personnel glared at him like a fly on their food. Generals avoided him, sergeants were careful when speaking to him.
He became feared. He became God in a sense. And he liked it.
But every God needed worshippers, needed dedicated followers, and he had none of that. He was simply a horror everyone feared and stayed away from. He was just a forest fire everyone is wishing to burn itself out.
But there had been something Robotnik had been noticing. Ever since he had left his born and raised religion, Catholic, there had been something, someone that kept blessing him. Well, blessing in a way.
Whenever something that ruined his mood to an extent that would ruin his whole month, the night of that day and the last day of the month would rain. Light rain or not, there was definitely some. It didn’t occur often, but whenever it did, Robotnik would like to sit on his balcony just to enjoy the coolness of the rain. The mornings would still be bright, yes, but he could always easily find shade to hide under. It was just the small things, not like a promotion or an extreme blessing a lot of people would cut a limb off for.
Robotnik didn’t know what it was, so he ignored it. He’d thought it would stop happening, but it never did.
At some point, he really had to ask himself:
Was there someone out there? Did someone care about him?
If so, who would that be? A man? A woman? Some genderless deity?
Whoever it was, Robotnik didn’t plan on asking them to stop.
After a while of suspecting, Robotnik went against his better judgement and gone to a fortune teller. He didn’t seek her out on the internet, but sort of listened around until he found the right one. Surprisingly, when he had reached out to her, she informed him that she will book an appointment for him at her house and not at some weird tent.
Her fortune reading room was split in half when he arrived, with the deeper parts of the room being covered by glittered curtains and veils. In front sat a table, three chairs, some pillows and blankets around for maximum comfort or something, and two small, lily-shaped lamps on either walls.
She was quite young for a fortune teller, with her brunette hair falling over her shoulders and her brows constantly knitted together. Her bangs were pushed away from her face in small bow hairclips, but some strand still managed to escape and fall over her eyes. She didn’t have full makeup on, but her cheeks had glitter on them and her eyelids were lightly dusted with sparkly gray eyeshadow.
He had been to a fortune teller once, but that one got all the facts wrong so bad he just left. He did have to pay in the end, but luckily not much. Robotnik had then distanced himself away from anyone who even offered to read his palm or guess his star sign. Those crazy people obsessed with space couldn’t get away from him.
“Would you like me to read your fortune?” She asked in a hushed tone, lighting up a candle with a match instead of a lighter. The flame flickered purple before returning to bright orange and yellow. She offered him the seat in front of her and waited for him to sit down before brushing strands of hair out of her face.
Most fortune tellers he had seen would ask ‘Do you want me to read you your fortune?’. They don’t ask if the customer would like that as well.
“No.” Robotnik replied with a clipped tone, clasping his hands in front of him and setting it on the table piled high with cards, fruits, probably fake jewelries and other various trinkets. “Tell me what has been following me.”
She glanced up at him with a sealed gaze. Her eyes didn’t reflect judgement, nor did she look unamused, she just simply looked. Lowering her hands away from her face, the young woman got up and went behind the bunch of curtains and veil, shuffling around for something that Robotnik wasn’t aware of.
She returned with a deck of tarot cards and a small T-shaped silver rod in her hands. Robotnik watched carefully as she shuffled the cards and then dumped the whole deck onto the clothed table, letting them scatter in different directions, even some of it started falling off the table.
“Nature occurrence?”
“Rains whenever my month is ruined, I think.”
She hummed.
“Pick a card before we continue.” She said, allowing him as much time as he needed to take one.
Robotnik was uncertain about which card he should take. The top ones were the easiest ones to grab, but then there would be a possibility of his fortune not turning out right. The bottom ones were as equally untrustworthy as the top ones. The ones in the middle made him pause to think. She continued to sit there, making sure her hair didn’t fall in front of her face anymore and making sure that Robotnik was doing alright.
Before any further thoughts could drag him deeper into procrastination, the doctor bent over and grabbed a random one on the floor and handed to her. The brunette hummed in interest and took the card from him. flipping it over and looking at it carefully. She inspected it like it was a jewel, a diamond waiting to determine if its authentic or not.
“Your card is a Hermit, upside down.” She said and handed the card back to him. “You’ve been pushing a lot of people away in order to protect yourself, haven’t you?” It didn’t sound one but intrusive for some reason.
“Yes.” He answered simply.
She nodded and stood up, picking up the silver rod with her. Robotnik watched as she chanted something towards the rod while looking at it sympathetically, as if speaking to a small, fearful child. Then, she raised it up, opened her mouth and then closed it. Robotnik was uncertain of what she was doing, but he allowed it to happen and leaned back in his chair to observe. The silver rod fell out her hand, bounced off the table and fell somewhere.
She followed the noise and turned her back to him as she picked up something from the ground of her room. When she returned to him, she pointed at the pile of cards and insisted that he took another one before she showed him the object she had picked up.
This time, Robotnik got to look at his own card. He picked the one closest to him, the one that looked somewhat old among the others. There was a fold mark in one corner of it, and the symbols on the card looked like it had been scratched off. When he turned it over, it was the Moon, upright.
He turned to the fortune teller and handed her the card, letting her once again examine it. she nodded and raised her closed fist towards him. Robotnik hovered his hand under it, palm open and ready to accept. The half of an amethyst geode fell in.
“Someone wants you to return their feeling, but you don’t even know who they are.” She said in a monotone voice. “Like this geode, find that person and crack them open, find that amethyst.”
“Am I supposed to keep this?” Robotnik asked.
“Yes. Amethysts help with releasing bad energy and making you happier and a bit more active.” She sat down in her chair and gathered up the cards on the table first.
Robotnik stood up with the geode in hand.
“How much do I pay you?”
“Fifty. I don’t charge much.”
Robotnik placed down a fifty and left with the geode.
Relationships, huh? And it has something to do with the sky at night, he supposed. That was new for him as no one would even think of being associated with him.
He’ll figure it out. While that, he’d like to check if this amethyst is real or not before he starts gazing at it.