Sickness of the Magi [For the Livemen family, Gokaigers, and passerby. Part 2]

[curryjolokia]

Continued from here.  Set after the Gokaiger Tea Party Gone Wrong, and also AFTER this Livemen thread.  Features free_joker , NPC'd (and done away with) by permission of his player.

*


The gifts of food left out for me by the over-friendly humans make me feel a little like some kind of wandering kami, or a tanuki maybe. Something which local tradition dictates should be placated by donation of useless tchotchkes. It definitely feels degrading.

I take them anyway.

And because I've taken a "gift"...it's only fair that I return one, in kind. I've learned enough, by hanging around, overhearing snips of this and that.  I know just what to get for them.  Something they'll love and hate simultaneously.  A gift fitting of me.  And the upsetting, tangled confusion of my memories and information from this world and this place, information I shouldn't, can't know -- the tangle is getting worse, a permanent headache. I have never been a patient creature.

I know the perfect gift for you, strange family of humans, strange family who can lead me to Marvelous, who's taken his first mate away from him already. I know what I want to give you and my hope is that it will give my Marvelous his wings back, make him worthy of my attention, wash him of the pathetic indecision that's polluting him. 

Make him Marvelous again.

There's only one real way to handle a Gordian knot of this degree, anyway. 

* * 

It doesn't take me long to find him.  He's not being terribly subtle about himself; I can sympathize with some of his difficulties, since post-mortem I suppose it's even harder for him to control the kaijin I myself struggle with.  But really, he's completely lost any of the class that I consider an essential part of my character.

"You should have stayed dead," I begin, drawing his attention from the human corpse he's fussing over.  Eating it or looting it, I can't tell; the blood on him says that he's been taking out some frustrations on it.  I can relate to that, as well - there are many frustrating things about our life - but that's certainly not the way to go about it.

I tell him as much, and he frowns, brow crinkling as he already begins to prepare his metamorphosis.  So quick to anger, this me.

Not that it's an unfamiliar trait.  Just amusing to watch from the outside.  And ooh, I should really never sneer like that - it ruins the lines of my face.

He starts to ask about the Greatest Treasure, plying me for information.  He doesn't know how or why I'm here; well, that makes two of us.  But I still know more than he does, and that information is what's going to keep me alive in this.

I change, reaching greedily out to the kaijin within me.  He follows suit, and I grit my teeth, rolling my shoulders to loosen them in the last few seconds before the fight begins.  I know how strong I am.  This isn't going to be easy.

* *

It's late, nearing sunrise, when I am finally done with my task.  The other-me's head thunks hollowly against the door of the friendly humans' house as I drop his corpse in a puddle on their stoop.  There's a roll of paper - this planet appears to have a different newspaper than the Zangyack Standard, but it seems to serve a similar purpose.  I tug it out from under the body's thigh, tucking it under his arm to keep it from blowing away.  The night has been a breezy, wet one, and it smells like there's more rain coming.  I stand up straight, stretching, and roll my shoulders with a wince.  I need to find someplace to spend the rest of the night, and bandage my wounds while I'm at it.  He didn't get many hits in, but one of them was significant, and my spine is cramping up from the way I've had to hold my torso in a bend, left hand clamped over the slice between my ribs, while I dragged my kill from our battleground to the humans' door.

The rain will probably wash away the skid of blood that followed us here, but even if it doesn't, I'm not worried. I'm no more identifiable by that battleground than by the tree I've been camping out in.  I have no ties to this world's places and things.

The Gokaigers do, though, and Marvelous does.  He's buried his crew in the soil of this planet.  Part of his soul will always remain here, and I know this is just and right; it's a pirate's way.  But he hasn't moved on; he cares too much about his fallen crewmate, and he's not worthy of my hate right now.

If the rain doesn't wash away the trail of blood and scraped skin, he would be able to follow it.  Might even still, if he uses his instincts.

I salted the grave of his crewmate with my own blood, a fatal dose, every drop wrung from the now-mangled corpse of this other me.  I found a wound in his foot when I stripped off his boots to break the bones there; I know that scar, and wear it as well.

All the better.  It means that I know what Marvey thought of this other-me, the last time he faced him.  It gives me a better idea of how well he'll receive my present.


I can't leave any notes or explanations with the body.  The friendly human's meddling could disrupt the effect of my present, and it's not for him, anyway.  But his doorstep is the only place I know that both Marvey and his blue First Mate will surely find it.

I'm pleased with this.  The storm is picking up, and the feel and smell of wet wind on my face is deeply gratifying, on a level I haven't felt for some time.  The Free Joker is a battleship, not a boat; she's a good vessel, but I still miss the feeling of riding the Galleon's crow's nest through a solar storm.  This isn't the same, but it's satisfying, too.