Rodentia Adventures

CHAPTER 20: DARKNESS AND LIGHT

Jerin was enraptured by all of this, regularly offering suggestions (many of which were quite good, with others, like having the arena be on fire seeming unwise to him on multiple levels), seeking clarifications, and generally hanging upon his every word. The problem? The dark lord had found himself actually enjoying this. 

It felt nice to have the admiration of the little creature. The other cats had no interest in such things, largely content to fill their bellies and indulge in the occasional mindless act of cruelty, but now, now he finally had someone to talk to about all of this. 

The terrible truth, one which he would never admit to anyone, not even himself, was that Midnight liked mice. He liked their adventurous spirit, their quest for materials and discoveries, the way that they kept making new weapons and armor to help to expand their horizons. He even liked the title of 'dark lord', which most of his kind considered childish at best, and offensive at worst. He liked how they were weak, and had to either think their way around problems, or grow stronger in order to meet them. They had the constant desire to improve themselves, as both individuals and as a society. Unearned power was boring, but active growth was always exciting to watch, and the mouse kingdom was the embodiment of active growth and improvement. If only such a thing could be said for his own kind. The important thing to understand about cats is that cats aren't fun. Kittens are fun, and once in a while even a grown one, usually when nobody was looking could be adventurous and mischievous, as could grown cats raised to be that way by humans, but as a whole, they had no interest in adventures, play or even jokes. This wouldn't be such a problem if this lack of interest was replaced with a desire for progress, trying to uncover the mysteries of the universe, or build wondrous new inventions, but instead it was largely replaced with nothing. A simple contentedness with eating, sleeping and getting through one more day without dying. 

The mice, on the other hand, had a fascinating little civilization, endless optimism and a rich, expanding history which he, as a dark lord, was now a part of. That was part of the reason that he had secretly hoped that Jerin and her friends might eventually defeat him: so they could return, triumphant, and the mouse bards would sing tales of the great battle against the fearsome monster known as Midnight, that even when the final blow was struck and the battle finished, he would always be a part of their history and mythology. Well, 'final' blow might be a little bit of an exaggeration. As stated before, he obviously had no intentions of actually dying. In time he was sure to come back in order to have his 'revenge'. 

Instead, it was all falling apart in a way that he had never dreamed possible. He actually found himself feeling bad about attacking Jerin's village. She never gave a tearful depiction of the pain and misery that Midnight had caused. It would have likely been easier if she had. He was prepared for that, could have laughed it off. Instead, she somehow understood. All of that pain and fear which he had caused for nothing, and she was ready to forgive it just like that, without him even asking her too. Somehow she was the one who had understood what he had done, when even he could not. 

She was an inspiring creature, full of life and hope and ambition and strength. The dark lord was actually enjoying her company, and was glad that she was alive. That was when it happened. He began to think of the many other mice who were no longer a part of this world, namely those who has perished at his claws. Had any of them been just as pleasant? Could they have enriched his life, and offered him an interesting experience, experiences which he was now deprived of because instead he had simply killed them? 

He tried so hard to remove those thoughts from his head, but deep down, he knew that he was already infected, and that this was one battle that he didn't know how to win. The small creature continued to mindlessly chatter as she ran within the wheel. Eager to contribute at first, the dark lord now responded robotically, his mind very much elsewhere. 

No, he thought. It's not over yet. 

He didn't really believe it, though. He was relieved when his human had returned from upstairs, anything to get his mind off of things. She regained her seat, resuming her craftsmanship, or at least she had attempted to to. The scissors in her hand froze open once again, and she fought just a little too hard to brute force their way closed. Her efforts worked a bit too well, as she cursed under her breath, the tool snapping in her hand, cutting her thumb, forcing her rush to the kitchen to wash out the cut which Jerin thankfully didn't see. 

"Huh? Who's that?" Jerin asked, still running along the wheel, now slowing to a trot. 

"What are you talking about?" 

"The other Maker had a fully blue body. This one is different. It's white on the top, and dark blue on the bottom!" Jerin said. 

Midnight blinked. "Seriously? Okay, I get it, your kind are supposed to be stupid, it's funny, but this is just too much. How can you possibly not understand the idea of changing clothes? I know for a fact that your kind, you in particular, wear clothing almost all the time!" 

Jerin looked closely at the human, shocked. The idea that humans wore clothing similar to mice, and that it wasn't simply their skin wasn't some grand secret among her kind, but it wasn't exactly common knowledge, either. Many mice had just assumed that clothes were designed to emulate the look of the makers, similar to how they, with great effort, learned to walk on two legs. It didn't help that mice considered Makers virtually impossible to tell apart, either, even if clothing actually were a part of their bodies. To them, looking at two Makers was very much like looking at two mountains. Sure, they have different patterns of snow at their summits, but standing right in front of them, all that you really saw was rock. 

While the small mouse looked on in awe, making sense of this new information, Midnight couldn't help chuckle to himself. 

This was a problem, and the dark lord Midnight knew that sooner rather than later, the little mouse was going to ask a really big favor of him. One that he feared he wouldn't have the strength to refuse.