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There was nothing but an inky emptiness: a void with nothing, without even darkness, because there was no light and never had been light.
Then, he existed, where before there had been nothing.
He opened his eyes and saw for the first time: to him, it was the first light that had been ever shed on the world. He, who had never seen before, saw.
One might say that all the creatures of that space had a childhood and a mother, but this was not so for him, who existed suddenly after only having not existed, who had no memory, no childhood, no parents, and comes from nothing.
She was the first thing he saw. He was running, and did not know why: perhaps he was born running, and were he a more pensive soul, he might wonder what could cause someone to be born in any state other than at rest. But he was not, and so he only knew what it was to run, and to see, and to see her.
He saw her, and placed his claw against her, reaching for her shoulder. Stripes of bright color erupted from her, parting the darkness with flashes of yellow, white, and red. Heat. Damp, hot and sticky on his claw: more heat than he thought possible, for his only life so far had been cold, dark, and misty.
It was his first feeling of blood, his first experience of that wetness on his fingers. It would not be his last, whether we speak of her blood or of the blood of others, though he did not know that. For him, there were only two creatures in the world: him, and the beautiful other one. She was the first he saw, and the first he felt, and the first he cut destined to transfix him.
But then his legs carried him onwards, and she was gone, gone into another room, because he could not stop running. He was in a large room, a new one, the largest he had ever inhabited in his short life. He remembered the small room, though— had lived long enough to have memories now, and to think about those memories, to compare a space to a previous space, and to feel the slowly cooling blood on his claw and wonder at the beauty that he had witnessed.
In his memories, he thought of that color, of the bright reds and yellows beneath the woman’s dark shell, waiting to spring forth at his touch. In him, he knew, there was only darkness, yearning to come out in his touch, in his movements: an inky smoke that gave him strength beyond his own understanding. But now, he he understood: to caress is to cut, to cut is to kill.
And now, all around him were those who sought corpses, whether his or those of others.
So, when he was bound, he responded in kind: he placed his claw against the flesh of the other being, white and soft and fluffy, and sent it tumbling down. A red heat welled up again, ever so brief, and then nothing.
The others moved in, and he moved away. Nothing of interest there for him, and he had no interest in them, with their ropes and nets, their blues and browns, their strange dances and erratic movements, their hoops and their binding. All the beauty in the world, which he had seen so soon after he was born, which he had felt under his claw, was gone, lost to darkness.
Lost to memory.
Then, she returned. He saw it all: colors and stripes, bright against darkness, a pattern too beautiful not to want to touch, too beautiful not to want to press a claw against.
Snicker-snap, slash, and then— no! There were ribbons of yellow again, too garish to fit in this world, and a pattern too difficult to touch more. Dripping heat between his talons. Dark blood on his claw. The claw mark marred her pattern: just one set of colors against a constellation of light.
He was in the past again, the past from this memory of dance and fighting.
He stepped forward.
In his mind, he knew his action. It would be all too simple to reach out a clawed hand, and have that claw sink into fabric and flesh, and draw out the beauty within. But to strike that way would be to disrupt that beauty, to change the pattern to another. And he had learned: sometimes, the strike ended the movement. Sometimes, all that was inside someone was stillness.
He did not strike.
He looked upon her, the first being he ever saw, touched, struck, drew blood from, felt beneath his claw.
She danced and sang: her hair was wild. Her fathers spilled out from her arms, hanging and sawing with her movements. He knew there was great beauty in her, and if he had the words for it, he would have known there was more beauty to her than to any mother, to any lover, to any child. She transfixed him, and he could only watch in awe at her beauty and majesty.
And then, he was transformed.
The world was gone; the other creatures were gone as well. There was no referee, no netted people, no strangely colored creatures, no drab crawlers. To him, the only thing that existed in the world was her: her dance, her step, her hands thrown high. She came to him, and he lifted her up and the feeling was exquisite: to use his claws not to rip and tear, but instead to press, to hold up, and to feel her weight back against him.
She sang. She moved. And he could hear her, because he had never heard anything before he heard her, and his heart, which he had now and did not have before, thumped with the beat of her rhythm.
His claw had pressed against her side as he lifted her up. He could feel the heat from her hip, and he could have clenched his claws, brought his fingers together, and felt the warm blood come through, just as he had claws before, but he did not.
He watched, and did nothing else, until the dance was over, and they were alone.
He no longer had claws. He had hands, and he pushed those hands to her. She turned back to him, the fire around her eyes fading, red stripes turning brown with oxidation, and she became who she was again: someone like him, someone dark, someone who was not from this place.
He did not speak, because he had never spoken before.
So, she spoke for him: “take my hand.”
He did, and for the first time in his short life, he was worried: worried he would cut her with his claw, worried that his action may not be what he wanted. But no cut came, and he did not grasp her too tightly. Warmth spread from her hand to his, but it was not the warmth of spilled blood: it was the warmth of contact.
A galaxy of stars exploded from her eyes, assaulting him. His eyes were open, and he couldn’t look away as she unfolded her color into him. With that color flowed understanding: they were the same kind, he now knew, though he did not know what it meant to be the same kind as someone else. She poured into him understanding, if not knowledge, and that would have to be enough for him right now.
He no longer had a claw. He had a hand. He had always had a hand.
He held her hand in his, and he saw the color in his own body, the darkness that wrapped around the greens, purples, and blues just beneath his skin: he was no longer grayscale.
He remained transfixed, eyes on her, and she danced, and he felt the same dance, the same rhythm, growing within him. It was a rhythm and a melody, growing stronger with each downbeat, drawing him further in, until at last—
—he parted his lips and began to sing.