@madnessdescendsâ: [continued from here]
He makes no move to stop her as she reaches for him, at least at first. But when it becomes clear what she intended on doing, for a moment he canât help but be a little apprehensive, setting his gloved hands gently upon hers for a moment as if to ask her âdonâtâ.
The mask was his persona; it was the barrier which separated himself from his actions. It always had been. During the war, he was anonymous; just another soldier, albeit one with abilities and a vendetta that spoke for themselves. But here, the maskâs taken on new meaning. With the mask on, he was Nightmareâs so-called possession⊠His prize. To those that did not know him well; to those that had never seen his face, or that had never known his heart; appearances were precisely as they seemed. From the outside he was a traitor; entirely self-centered and self-serving, with no thoughts as to the wishes or wellbeing of others. It was easy to play into the mystery afforded by the cool facade of the mask, really play into his role and pretend that he had surrendered.
But beneath the mask⊠it was him, as he always had been, a young man that had seen far too much suffering and hardship in his time. Someone whoâd been forced to make tough decisions all his life; decisions that no one should ever have to make. The decision to set aside his own emotional pain in order to seem strong for his mother and grandparents when heâd had to become man of the house after his father had been killed at war. The decision to set aside his childhood in favor of training from a very young age. The decision to voluntarily sign up for the war effort rather than be recruited when he came of age. Leaving home to go off to boot camp, leaving his mother and grandparents to fend for themselvesâŠ
Wartime choices. Wartime sacrifices.
Everything heâd done⊠every step heâd ever taken his entire ( meaningful ) life had been in an effort to weaken and eventually destroy Nightmare. The choice to âsurrenderâ to him, included. For, working from the inside he could only hope that he might be afforded resources and intelligence that would make the path to his permanent destruction clear. But⊠Garlude couldnât know that. And itâs not like he could very well tell her that. He couldnât make her see the truth, without risking Nightmare coming across this memory in the future.
The surface said that he and Garlude were now on opposite sides of the War. But without the mask⊠the truth would be clear. If she saw his face⊠would she know why he had made this choice?
He lifted his hands from off hers and shortly reached behind himself, unbuckling the maskâs clasp and allowing her to lift it off.
His touch catches her off guard for only a moment, but her grasp stays firm. In spite of herself, the mask nearly slips from her fingers as the clasp releases and he lets her through. Sheâs not sure what sheâs expecting to see beneath the mask, but she steels herself for whatever Nightmare would find the most perversely funny-
The first thing Garlude noticed were his eyes.
Golden.
Not blood red, like Yamikageâs had been.
Golden, the color of neutrality. Benignity. Sheâd remembered that look whenever sheâd cracked a joke that didnât land, when he was lost in thought, or whenever he was taking silent vigil watching the camp.
(And remembering had made everything so much worse, no matter how much Nightmare declared that he âfixedâ her.)
His face was equally neutral, equally reminiscent, equally⊠Castor. Her gaze shifts to the mask in her hands. She runs her gloved paw over the ridges, the scars, the dents. Each one she could recall him getting in screaming color. Even magic couldnât fake this; no matter how she wished that this were another sick joke that Nightmare had come up with.
Meta Knight was standing in front of her. Not a clone, not a drone, not anything else but the real article.
âItâs you, isnât it?â
