i'm exposed

Jefferson Soul · 07-09-2010, 08:49 PM

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Had he forgotten how to smile? Perhaps. Jefferson had never truly known in the first place; he had shaped himself from misery, formed himself from the scars in which this identity had been born. Perhaps Maluki had been friendlier before his insanity struck, but with the loss of his memory that innocence was taken away as well. Jefferson had not known the crimes he committed when he first woke, weak and emaciated and drenched in his own blood. The first glance at his own reflection—a torn, ripped monster crying what seemed like an endless supply of blood from a worthless blind eye—had disgusted and marked him forever, and the image that came to mind since when he pictured himself was no different than that first stare into his own face. He was a monster, he had always been a monster; even before he learned of the crimes he committed from his own children he knew himself to be a sinner. The identity of Jefferson, the nameless creature born out of Maluki's insanity and that pool of blood, had been a demon even from the beginning.

There had been a kindness in his life for some time. He'd known love against all odds, he'd found pleasure in the company of others, he led a pack of idiots that depended on a worthless soul like he. In his first days as Jefferson, he had declared himself a loner for life, a sinner unfit to dwell in the meddlings of the innocent, like a splatter of black against a canvas of brilliant hues. Somewhere along the way he had strayed from that path, allowing himself to pretend he was one of them, capable of friendship and love. Even now, there were still few he could have called his closer companions—through his apprenticeship, Ty had forged a special place in the scarred one's heart—but the woman he loved, the one he thought to have changed him forever, had removed something from him in turn as well. His heart hadn't been ripped out, the beast did not experience heartbreak—he knew only loneliness, and he dwelt in it willingly. That was where he had come from, and where he now expected to linger again.

Phoenix Valley had not gone abandoned in his impromptu absences. Jefferson had dawdled in and out of the territory, wandering borders with half the attention he usually paid them, and avoiding those he called his friends and members. He avoided the ranch, where he knew many sought to find him, not to mention where his once-lover may or may not have still idled. Jefferson avoided the risk of seeing her, the risk of facing his emotions. He preferred the solitary life he claimed to now have, though Phoenix Valley's welfare still fully lay in his care. How could a pack leader still call himself a loner? For now Jefferson chose to find out.

He sat at the edge of the northern Mirror Lake, the starry night hanging above him. The stars twinkled and winked at him in a cloudless sky, the water rippled around his scarred toes that dipped at the lake's edge, and outstretched on his back he stared into the dark abyss of the night. The breeze, cool and serene, pushed at the grass around him and brushed the dark hair over his eyes; he breathed in its essence, relishing the smell and taste of the evening, and released the air to the wind once more. If nothing else, the land of Phoenix Valley still provided him a peace he found nowhere else. At times he lost himself to his thoughts, at others he simply listened to the crickets and stirrings of the night. Peace.

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