Lunar New Year

The young black pup gave a low sound of dislike, trying not to shift or move even a little as his mothers fingers dug into him a little rougher than needed. Though he tried to stand and endure it as she spread paint over his black fur. However her next scoop of paint and pressing against his shoulders made him stumble, making her hiss lowly. "That is ENOUGH, Hexxus!" she snapped at him, glowering towards him and making him hunch his shoulders in shame and upset. "Now look what you've done! I worked hard to make it symmetrical and actually try to make you look decent for once!" she ground out, making him bow his head even lower. "I-I'm sorry." he whispered out sadly. "The paint is all sticky and--" "I don't care for your excuses! This is a blessed day of the moon! And I will not have you walking around looking as you do! I will not have you affronting the moon today of all days!" she sneered at him. "I'm s-sorry!" he insisted again, quietly. "I d-don't mean t-to." he insisted quietly. "If you don't start obeying and being humble... if you don't learn discipline and your place..." she shook her head. She didn't have to say a thing for him to see the shame and disappointment in her. His body ached from the cruell press of her fingers.... But still. He bowed his head down and swallowed. "I'll be still." he promised quietly. "I-I don't want to o-offend." he insisted quietly. "I'll be good." he promised, hesitating a moment and putting a hand on her arm. "Please... I don't... I don't want to be like this." Hexxus told her quietly, flinching a little when his mother moved, expecting a strike or to be berated. But instead, she stroked against his cheek and mane softly, making him look at her in surprise. "That's the first sensible thing you've ever said." she told him quietly. Tapping his nose in an almost playful manner and giving him a smile. It wasn't much of one, but it was one that he had never before been able to get, and it made him swell a little. Moving and picking up the paint and timidly holding it out to her. "Please..." he asked quietly. "Please let me please the moon." he pleaded quietly. *Please let me please you...* 

Nightmare's eyes cracked open slowly, blinking slowly in the dark room until he could make out shapes of the rock above him. His breathing and the steady thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat against his ribcage the only thing he could hear, fingers curling and tapping as agitation slid along his spine like a snake. Making him swallow and push himself up from his bedroll, and wiping the sleep from his eyes. The dream unsettling him in a way most things did not... it was a memory he had long ago pushed from his mind. Forgotten and hated like everything about him back then... 

He headed outside into the night time and looked around, his gaze falling upon the perfectly round, bright sphere. Like a great eye of light staring down upon him and casting judgment on him. The feeling made him peel his lips back and snarl in anger and annoyance towards it. "What are you looking at?" he sneered at it, puffing up a little before letting out a huff, looking away. "Something on your mind?" a familiar, curious voice called out, making Nightmare turn to see where his father was arranging an altar for the moon. He wanted nothing more then so smash it. To crush it beneath his foot and see it gone from the world forever. "No." he told his father simply, looking away from him as Mathias stood. 

"Liar." he told his son, walking closer. "Hexxus plea-" "Don't call me that!" he snapped at his father, growling in a way that made his father give a worried look of surprise. "I am not calling you that wretched name you call yourself." he insisted quietly. "Well then don't call me by anything." he challenged back, making Mathias sigh and look to the other, coming closer to stand next to the hulking form of his son, now over a head taller then he was, and even he was quite tall for a male. "Something has put you in a fowl mood." he told him lightly, looking to him and putting a gentle hand on his mid back, about where he could place it comfortably. 

It made Nightmares pelt twitch and shudder his touch, but he didn't shrug it away. He only turned his head back to glower at the giant sphere above them. "... I wish you would lessen your anger.. The moon is a good thing. A giving thing." he told him gently, making the black beast give a snort. "It's not anything... It's not worthy of love, or praise." he told him flatly, making his father sigh. "It's no less worthy then the Darkness." he noted, peeling up at his son from the corner of his eye. Nightmare seeming to do the same as well before catching himself and averting his gaze, which only seemed to make the blue pelted toskal smile. "The Darkness doesn't lie... the moon is spoken of greatness, of light, and warmth. And yet others are still killed in the name of it. Sacrificed to it, hated because IT wouldn't approve." he told him, looking to his father and meeting his gaze. "The Darkness does not lie, or hide what it is. It is danger, and safety. As likely to save your life as cause your death. The worthy live, the unworthy die. And it doesn't care to dress itself up as something brilliant or beautiful." he ground out. 

"It doesn't pretend to be good, or bad, and it doesn't turn others away for their looks... even blue pelted might see the way." he noted, almost absent, making Mathias chuckle. "Ah yes... blue pelts are your own hatred... Like mine." he noted, making them look at each other once more. "No." Nightmare told him simply. "Like hers." Mathias corrected, knowing he was right as Nightmares muscles tensed under his hand. "It's not like you were any better... You didn't do very much to stop it." he told him, his words harsher than intended, and it was his father's turn to flinch and tense. "I am not proud, of what happened... I had... I had hoped she would... she would learn to love you as I did... that she would see..." he swallowed and hung his head, his voice thick with emotion, Nightmare realizing too late that he his face because he was crying. "That she would see the blessing that you truly were. Our strong, little black pup." he whispered quietly. "I was wrong... And I will pay for that for the rest of my life. Do not blame the moon for what your mother has done." he told his son. 

Nightmare was silent for a long time, having no idea what to do with his father crying beside him and his insides writhing and waring in turmoil within him. Like waves of emotions crashing together and threatening to drown him... he just didn't know what emotion was going to overcome him first. "If it wasn't for the moon, she would have no reason to hate me as she did." he told him simply. "If it wasn't for the moon, and the way she thought I should be when I could not help it, she might never have caused harm, or done any of the things she did. She would have never wanted me dead." he told him flatly. 

"She might have loved you." Mathias whispered, saying the words Nightmare couldn't bring himself to speak out loud. "She could have." he whispered. "She might have... Once. For only a moment." he told him quietly, Mathias looking to him curiously. The two settling down and having a sit as Nightmare told him, hesitantly of his dream. Of the touch that had been so soft... so kind. Only for a moment. A small, fleeting moment... it had never lasted long, of course. It had only been hours after that that she had struck him across the face hard enough to send him flying back for eating the moons offering... a dirty trick played on him by one of the pups. Though she hadn't heard any of it at all and had blamed nothing but him, knowing that her judgment had been wrong... that he would never belong. 

"I will never understand what hatred took your mother... what darkness laid in her own heart. She had not been the mate I had loved so deeply... I wish you had known her. I wish you had gotten the mother who was eager, excited to have you... smiling and proud. You would have grown up well with that female... you would have adored her, as I once did... I don't know what happened to her. And it is not, and will never be your fault... I just... you have no idea how much I wish things were different, and that you had gotten the love you deserved." he told him quietly, rubbing his sons back. "You deserved so much more than either of us had given you." he told him quietly. 

"It doesn't matter." Nightmare told him quietly. "She did what she did, and I don't know that loving creature you speak about. She was nothing but hateful, and cruel, and blamed me for anything and everything she could. All she did was try try and make me small. Make me nothing." he sneered towards him. "Hexxus." Mathias tried, but again he was cut off, this time his son standing back up. "DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" he all but roared, Glowring down at his father. "Hexxus was small, and weak! Hexxus LET HER beat him down, and grind him into the dust until he felt like nothing! Until he *WAS* nothing! Hexxus broke, and shattered into a million pieces... Hexxus is dead." he snapped at his father, who's eyes were wide and starting towards his son. "Now there is only ME. There is only Nightmare. And he will NOT allow the same thing to happen to him. I. Won't. Allow. It." he insisted, breath heavy and body shaking from the force of his emotion. "I will never, NEVER let anyone make me feel small. Or weak, or unimportant. I will never let anyone grind me into the ground and make me feel as if I am nothing, and worthless. I am not. I am not small. I am not weak, I am not ordinary. And I will never let what happened to that pup happen to me." he told him flatly. 

The two stared at each other for a long time. Mathias swallowing nervously as he stood up, slow and careful, before he came towards his son. Nightmare suddenly feeling a flash of uncertainty and taking a step back, which made Mathias go still as the two stared across from each other a moment. Finally, Mathias moved closer once more, this time, Nightmare didn't move and let him come, and let his father take either side of his large head and gently, coaxingly pull it down so it was level with his own. Looking at each other for a long moment before Mathias pressed their foreheads together. 

Nightmare seemed to jolt, as if struck by a strong shock from another, shuddering a little and letting out a sound he would never admit to to anyone later. "I love you, my son... and I know what happened was horrible... but you were that pup." he told him quietly, keeping their foreheads together and stroking the soft black fur. "You were that pup, and it did happen to you." he told him quietly, the words enough to make Nightmare tremble, and slip slowly to his knees, shoulders shaking in silence as his father hugged him as tight as he could, letting the great beast lament for all it had lost and would never know.