the most beautiful thing

-- DAY 4 OF THE WITCHING HOUR --

    One minute they were in the subway. The next, it was daytime, and they were back in the city center, and when they dizzily queried the current state of things, they were received with enough information to topple them over. Not only had an entire day and night passed, but… six cats had died. Just like that, there was nothing more for them in this world. Flesh for the hissers.

   Jehu was beginning to suspect there was something more wrong with them than they first thought.

   It had been so easy to rationalise, at first, back before they had entered this strange world of gods and monsters. Memory had always been a hot topic amongst the cadets, after all, because no one could remember a life before Ounce. No one, for that matter, could remember a life in the Waste. For these cats, their entire youth had been a blur, and Jehu’s ability to grasp onto one single memory - the viscera of the eyeless cat - had been a point of pride. It was something that made them feel special in a world that convinced them they were but an extension of Meraxes’ will. 

   Which of course, was true, and to feel special was an indulgence they would never admit to.

   Still, in the past, Jehu’s inexplicable fugue states had been accompanied by the smallest tell-tales of memories, the faint feeling of their paws on the ground or the sensation of strain against a bright light, and they had always been able to tell exactly how they’d slipped in and out of the world. When Jehu was like this, the world was simply clear until it was not. It was like diving beneath the lake. You always knew the world waited for you above.

   This was nothing like the lake. There was no way to describe it other than blackouts.

   And the word blackout struck a particular interest in Jehu, because they had been told their newfound powers were the powers of a black soul, whatever the hell that meant. Jehu had never been quite sure how or why these cats would assign colour to such phenomena, but now they were beginning to understand it. 

  Darkness is black. Jehu thought. Black is when all the light goes away and there’s nothing left. They brought their paw up before their face, flexing their claws and watching inquisitively as the limb slowly faded from view. Were their abilities the answer to this?

   So you can think, then.

   Jehu started, their fur bristling as they whirled around. The alley slanted off into the rest of the crowded, labyrinthine district, as light fought to touch the ground. And the silence, the absence of whispers and bustle, betrayed the state of things. No one was there. 

   Of course no one was there, for Jehu had ran away from the city center as soon as the opportunity presented itself, and came to the part of the night market as secluded as they could manage without getting lost. And Jehu knew exactly where that voice had come from.

   It had come from Jehu.

   “I don’t take orders from you.” Jehu snarled. 

   Of course you do, said the thing inside Jehu. You know you do. You do know what I am, right?

   Jehu settled onto the ground, tucking their paws beneath them. This was long overdue. “Kinda,” they mumbled aloud. “You’re the part of me that wants to be wrong.”

   What is ‘wrong’, believer? Tell me, is it all that goes against the word of your saviours? Who gave them the right? Who decides? Who earns righteousness?

   Burying their head into the rough ground and clawing at their ears, they snarled, “Shut up! The hell are you talking about?! I was saved from the Waste by Meraxes, by Helena... they wanna save me and they wanna save others! That’s it! There ain’t no more to say!”

   There was a long, painful minute of silence from Jehu. They simply lay there, claws digging into their flesh, trying their hardest to stop thinking. It was getting harder and harder to do that. The thinker inside them would not be so easily waved off, not anymore, and it soon resumed in earnest, pushing against Jehu’s demands.

   Shunning me will get you nowhere. I will ask you this question again. Do you know what I am, believer?

   Jehu swallowed deeply, tears beginning to bead in their eyes as the thing continued to push and insist. “You… take things from me.”

   What do I take? It was urging Jehu, encouraging them to dig deeper, to break through to the darkness 

   “The blackouts... You take my memories... but why? What would you want with ‘em?”

  You ask the wrong question.

   Jehu paused, the gears whirring in their mind. Suddenly, their head shot up, as if something painful had shot right through their body like a lightning bolt. “Why do… why do I want them gone?”

   As they spoke those cutting, revealing words, a feeling of deep satisfaction spread throughout Jehu, like a deep purr rumbling in their chest, spreading into every corner of their body. The feeling did not quite belong to them.

   Finally, said the thing. We’re on the same page.

   “You’re the blackout.”

   Incorrect. The blackout is where we meet.

   “You’re the dragon,” Jehu managed to choke out.

   Half-correct as always, believer, but you continue to deceive your own perceptions. I am not the dragon. We are the dragon.

   Jehu’s claws resumed their agitated flexing as their memory took them back to their old home, so very far away now. Those last days had been some special kind of hell, where everything they had seen and known as their reality had begun to crumble and fall away. Cats leaving, fights breaking out... And worst of all, Meraxes losing his very essence, the thing that made cats like Jehu trust in his design, that fire within him, those eyes. 

   Thoughts of the silvery spotted cat entered Jehu’s mind. In those last days, he had done nothing but stalk around the camp erratically, snapping and snarling at his sister. One of the last things Jehu remembered him saying was, “A dragon does not lose to the likes of the Legendaries!” Roaring, he had dealt a blow to a clump of ground, sending earth and pebbles flying into the air as he whirled on his sister. “They want to defile the earth? Ha! I’ll scorch it.” 

   Back then, Jehu hadn’t known what to think. It was so long ago now, Jehu didn’t remember how they’d felt when the traitor Alum had approached them the next day and simply said, “we’re going.”

   “Where’re we going? To train?”

   “We’re going far away. Meraxes, he... he wants you to come with me on a special mission.”

   ...

   Jehu blinked traitorous little tears away, claws digging in even tighter to their ears as they recounted the memory. Lies after lies had taken them so far from what they once held dear. Not just physically, but in their mind, the fickle thing, which wandered places it never should. When Jehu returned home, would there be anything left for them? Had they wandered too far?

   The dragon continued. The reason you are speaking to me is because you know we must come to an agreement if we are to continue on this road together. So I come to make a deal.

   Slowly, gently, a set of claws retracted from a cat’s ears, and the paws that owned them were brought to the ground, settling on the floor, scraping against the rough ground as the cat knew with conviction what was about to become of it.

   We may not see eye-to-eye. You are like a fire, you are a subject of your convictions, while I, by definition, am subject to nothing, like the dark of night.

   But, the dragon paused. We have a common enemy now. You wish to cleanse these daybreakers of their inherent sin, their transgressions against the right, I intend to scorch the very earth they stand on.

   Open yourself to me, it said. And I will help you remember it all.

   The cat’s paws curled out in front of them. Claws now sheathed, the cat did not say a word as it made the hardest decision it had ever made in its life.

   “What if I don’t want to remember?” Jehu whispered, staring blankly at their paws.

   This is to be a transformation. If your memories cost you your belief, you will never regret it. If they don’t, you’ll become like the mountains. They will never shake you.

   And with that, a pair of bright green eyes closed tight. The sun began to set as the day drew to an end. And when those eyes opened, they were never innocent again.

   Before Jehu’s eyes, a black dragon smouldered, a jet aberration in the dying light. Its form shifted unlike the surreptitious shadows, or even the roiling storm clouds. It lived like smoke, dancing and ephemeral. Its slit-eyes burned like hot embers. The low sunlight shone only to die within it. This apparition was Jehu’s evolution.

   Jehu’s breath was loud and ragged, as a burning sensation tore through their chest. This transformation was not without its pain. Now their blackouts had dissipated, now that Jehu reconciled the conflicting experiences within themself, they were privy to every painful detail that they had once locked away and fed to the dragon.

   You found it so hard to reconcile your beliefs and your reality, they thought in a voice that wasn’t quite their own. If you had let them exist together, you would have been swallowed whole. But it’s okay now, it reassured, I will carry reality for you. Now breathe.

   And Jehu breathed darkness.

   And Jehu saw the light through the darkness.

   And Jehu’s conflict fell away.

   “I don’t care that Helena made the Wastelings. ‘Cause she still wants to make a new world.” Jehu whispered. “And I don’t even care that Celyn succumbed to it, ‘cause her brother betrayed me. In fact... ” Jehu’s eyes flicked up to the dark dragon, an aggression that seemed almost playful dancing across their face. “It’s pretty easy to keep believing. When you really think about it, the outcome justifies what’s gotta to be done to get there.”

  You sound just like him, said the dragon to Jehu alone, sounding half-impressed, half-disappointed. Perhaps we are more alike than we both realised.

   “Oh, you? You’re even less than a traitor,” Jehu spat. “You’re all that was wrong with me.”

   The dragon descended onto Jehu’s shoulders, whispering into their ear.

   Then call me Meraxes.