Onyx and the Possession

This Man is Dead

Morro stared up at the stars as he rode his dragon through the night sky, heading East towards a small bar he'd visited when he was alive. With any luck, it would still be there. And beyond that was Stiix, the city where he'd grown up. He battered Lloyd's soul down as it tried to make a move, easily shoving him down into some dark corner of the subconsciousness where memories and identity ran together into a blur. Morro's eye caught a constellation as he glanced up once more. Arcturus was glowing dimly above, nearly finished fading for the summer months.

Memories came unbidden to his mind as the constellation twinkled innocently above. Onyx had always loved stargazing, and Arcturus had been her favourite constellation. She'd been a natural at it, and would have made an excellent navigator had their father not passed. Lloyd's soul stirred slightly, dragging itself from the darkness and taking shape again, but this wasn't an aggressive movement, it was a soft one. His voice broke through into Morro's thoughts. 'I've been poking around in your head. How did you know Wu?' He asked.

Morro smirked slightly. "I was his first pupil. I'm sure the bastard regrets that now. He didn't find me though, as much as he'd love to take credit for that. I found him after his brother had just departed. And I was the perfect student." His voice was arrogant and bitter. Lloyd was silent as a memory played before their eyes. It hadn't taken much to make the man talk.

Morro crouched behind a cherry tree with two other boys, watching the gates of the Monastery. They'd been stealing from the trashcans for two weeks, and today was the day the old man put the bins out. He narrowed his eyes as the old man finally pulled the metal cans out and placed them next to the gate. When he turned and went back into the monastery, the three hurried out from behind the tree and pulled the lids off, rummaging through the contents. As they sifted through the rubbish, the old man re-emerged from the gates with a recycling bin in hand.

As his eyes fell on the three urchins, the taller two panicked, shoving Morro into the can and taking off, hoping to use him as a distraction. Morro yelped as he fell headfirst into the can and the lid fell down over it, plunging him into darkness. He froze, heart pounding as he waited for something to happen. Everything was silent for a few minutes before someone finally tilted the bin over and opened it carefully.

Morro cautiously crawled out and looked up, his big grey eyes meeting the black eyes of the man who lived in the Monastery. Morro shivered, tense as he looked up at him. The man looked down at him for a second before crouching down and holding out a plate of prawn. Morro didn't hesitate to snatch the plate and scurry away slightly to devour the prawn in moments, filling the void in his emaciated stomach. When he was nearly finished, he glanced up at the man and forced a grateful smile before whipping back to his food.

When he finished, he glanced back at the man, who returned the smile and extended a welcoming hand. Morro hesitated for a moment, looking at the hand. 'I can't find her. Perhaps... she'll come here someday.' He reached out and accepted the hand.

Lloyd's soul was silent as he thought deeply about what he had just seen. 'He accepted because he couldn't find Onyx...?' Morro answered aloud, hearing the thoughts. "Obviously. That damned Ronin never came back after he dropped her there. He never even told me what home he'd placed her at. I thought, maybe, if I was lucky, she'd come to the monastery someday," he spat. Lloyd didn't have a face, but if he did he would've frowned. 'If you were so desperate to find her, then why...?'

Morro's face-it was odd, Lloyd reflected, how quickly he'd gone from thinking of it as his face to Morro's instead-twisted in anger. "Because to that... that... figa, I was never enough! I thought, if she hadn't come by then, she never would. And aside, if I wasn't enough for him, how would I ever be enough for anyone else!?" He snarled. Lloyd was silent, recognizing the thought process as one that he himself struggled with. Memories flickered through Morro's head as his grip tightened on the reigns.