Work Text:
8/03
Today, Edea asked me a most peculiar question.
We had been standing in the Council room of Eternia, waiting for her father to arrive, when she suddenly turned to look at me. Her expression was strange; meditative and serious, two things one would not often see on the face of Edea Lee.
Regardless, this expression made my interest rise, even before she had so much as spoken.
She pursed her pink lips slightly together, as if doubting what was about to come out of her mouth. Her eyebrows furrowed briefly before drifting apart once again, reaching a conclusion in her mind. She turned to look at me with her striking blue eyes, which I would say put the coldest frost in Eternia to shame.
“Alternis, what does it mean to you to be the Dark Knight?”
Her question was sudden, even if I had been anticipating something equally serious. It caught me rather off guard, leaving room for an awkward pause in the vast space around us.
What does it mean to you to be the Dark Knight?
The question rang inside of my head like the echo of an unfamiliar bell, drowning out all other thoughts. I was focusing on answering her, trying my hardest to do so, but I found that I simply lacked the words. In truth, I didn't know the how to respond at the time.
Since then, the question has not left my mind, like a rather irritating, uninvited guest. I cannot say what prompted Edea to say such a thing, but if her goal was to catch my attention, it certainly worked.
I decided that I shall use this journal space to count every thought relatable to the question. Things have always made more sense on paper than they do inside of my head; perhaps this will help.
To me, being the Dark Knight means that I must make sacrifices.
It’s in the very nature of my asterisk: the cost of power is the penance of my blood. Scars are common, found on every section of my body, but they pain me no more. The sacrifice has been fulfilled in blood, and I will always wear the proof, the reminder of what it has required of me.
In order to accomplish each task I am given, there is always a price to be paid, whether it be in time, or blood.
Not all sacrifices are material, I suppose. With each life I take in the Lord Marshal’s name, I find myself caring less and less who they are, and what they were fighting for. Opposition to his Lordship is an infraction that I cannot, and will not allow on anyone's part. Transgression of Eternia's laws makes my hands itch, and my sword parched of traitorous blood.
Life on the street was different: you killed to survive, because you had to. Bloodying my hands under the banner of Eternia was strange, because I was killing for another's cause, and not my own. That sobering thought almost enough to make me feel sorry for the lives I severed.
When I say almost, that may be rather generous.
I suppose that, in a way, being the Dark Knight has cost me my sympathy.
I didn't have much of it to begin with, though.
Being the Dark Knight means that I must be strong, both in mind and body.
The first few months of my asterisk training consisted of increasing my pain tolerance, in any way deemed necessary. The wounds I bore during that time pained me, but always I refused to let others see. Even from a young age, I felt that my personal emotions were not to be publicly displayed, which may have originated from my isolated early life. What hesitance I had to express myself was doubled once I was given a purpose here, a sense of duty to the country that adopted me into its heart. Feelings were for the weak, and I was to be strong. I had to be a fixed point, an immovable object in the face of a howling storm. Even if everyone were to crumple and collapse around me, I was to remain standing. Under no circumstances could I fall.
My heart, even more than my body, had been hardened at a young age, molded by darkness, muddy waters, and the hatred that always festered inside. I was broken, I already knew that. Nothing is capable of fixing a child after being made to suffer, after walking through life’s gauntlet, and bearing the visible scars for the rest of your life. I thought that by suffering, I had been made strong. Confusing callousness with power, I was ignorant to the meaning of true strength. In the end, it is not suffering that makes the heart stronger.
Edea has taught me that much.
Lastly, being the Dark Knight means that I am who I am.
Always have I been a child of darkness, lurking in the shade, and forever caught between the brink of life and death. Those circumstances have not changed for as long as I can remember. In more ways than one, I feel as though my asterisk reflects me, transfers what shrouds my mind and coats me with armor made from it. I receive scorn from others: they say that I simply hide behind my helmet, using my asterisk as an excuse for my apparent diffidence. Perhaps they are correct.
I do know, however, that the Dark Knight is what I am, and who I am meant to be. I feel it in my heart, with every dull throb, that this abomination is what I was created for. Inside and out, I am a monster: cold, expressionless, indifferent, callous, methodical, mechanical. What else is a monster, if not those things?
I am whatever I was made to be: a pariah, a curse, or a plague on humanity.
I am the Dark Knight, and I am who I am.