January 13th
((Lunar)) (D)

Lunar walks in, keeping to the shadows but not precisely hiding . . . seems like he's got quite a bit on his mind, and it's distracting him.
Oracle is looking at the sky as though watching the empty space where someone departed.
Lunar notices Oracle, but says nothing, and definitely doesn't move towards her. He looks around, optics narrowed, as if angry at the world.
Oracle finally turns around to leave, but....something catches at the corner of her optics.
Lunar doesn't look back at her. His fists are clenched, his optics now staring straight aheard, his lips clenched in a grimace.
Oracle looks like she's going to keep going, but then seems to think better of it. "Hello?" she inquires.
Lunar stops, his shoulders rising and falling in an exaggerated sigh. "Shouldn't you be with Brawl somewhere?"
You say, "He had to return to duties...shouldn't you be far away? You've already made your anger quite apparent."
Lunar still doesn't face her. "I needed to work it off. I'm liable to kill someone in this mood, so it's not good for me to hang around my allies, is it?" Each word is bit out, precisely, cold fury under them.
You say, "Perhaps not. I don't want to know the identity of who helped you...that would aid the Militia far too much...but explain how you got these friends when you claimed to have none."
Lunar shakes his head. "Not friends. Allies. Why the third degree?"
You say, "Third degree?"
Lunar turns and glares at her. "You getting information for your dense boyfriend, Oracle? Is he going to show up again?"
You say, "I don't think he would...and I am purposefully /not/ getting specific information so that I can honestly say I don't know anything."
Lunar growls. "I'll bet." Boy, he's really ticked off about something.
Oracle spreads her arms in an open gesture. "I don't want to know; I don't want to lie...but you /did/ say that Solar was the only one you trusted, and apparently three people helped you escape...."
Lunar growls. "Just . . . go away. I don't want to see you any more, I don't want to think about you, I don't want your presence constantly distracting me."
Oracle looks at the ground and says mildly. "I was here first...you were the one who came here."
Lunar turns around and begins walking away. "Fine. Then I'll leave."
You say, "You don't have to Lunar...."
Lunar turns and looks at her. "I'm free now, Oracle. I'm starting all over again, for the second time. And, like the first time, I'd prefer to have no memories of the past. You are a memory . . . a powerful one. And I want to forget it."
Oracle keeps her optics to the ground. "It is sad that you do...but I will say this: /I/ won't forget...."
Lunar looks down and sighs. "Brawl loves you, at least as far as he's capable of such things. If you choose him I'll leave you both alone, pretend you don't exist. Then you'll forget . . . and I will."
You say, "I was meant to remember things...I am a historian, and I can hardly ignore my own history."
Lunar snarls. "Then don't forget, but for Primus's sake let ME forget!"
Oracle hesitates for a moment. "If ... that is truly what you wish. But the one you cared for, you never forgot her completely, and her story certainly caused you more pain than I ever could."
Lunar walks to a wall and slams his fist into it, wincing with the pain. "And because of her I shut out all emotion, all chance for that pain from me, but you had to open me up again, slag you!"
You say, "If I knew it would turn out like this, I would have left you alone...but I didn't know, couldn't have known...and I'm sorry. I fear I did more damage to you than you did to me, and that is inexcusable."
Lunar sighs. "It's not your fault." He snarls and hits the wall again. "Slaggit, listen to me! Thanks to you I actually care more about easing your pain than I care about myself. But it's not your fault. I should never have allowed myself to open up, I should never have listened to your fool talk about goodness, about everyone having a chance."
You say, "Yes, but you didn't know it would turn out this way either...you were confident in your closedness, just as I was confident in my goodness."
Lunar shakes his head. "I knew. I knew from that day in the bar when we had that staring contest. I knew I should've stayed away from you."
Oracle looks up. "Did you?"
Lunar leans up against the wall, looking down. "You were strong, unafraid . . . not even realizing how evil I was. Everything I used to be, everything I wanted . . . so I gave in. And now this."
You say, "At least you are free...you /can/ get away from me."
Lunar shakes his head. "I'm free, physically . . . but I can't get away from your memory, Oracle. Even if I killed you, like I tried to do, I wouldn't be able to get away from it."
Oracle lapses into silence, her ponderous optics gazing at Lunar wordlessly.
Lunar looks up at her, their optics locking. "Surprised? Is this unexpected?"
You say, "Perhaps..."
Lunar snorts. "Perhaps. Then you saw it too."
You say, "I don't know if seeing is the appropriate term."
Lunar says, "Sensed it, felt it, deduced it, who cares. You knew it."
You say, "Maybe only after the fact. It will suffice to say I wasn't surprised at the realization of it."
Lunar nods. "Then you can guess why I don't want to see you again. Without seeing you the memory is a dull ache, like Venom's memory. Seeing you though . . ."
Oracle nods her head...she understands all too well.
Lunar frowns. "Then you'll leave me. You won't try to see me again." Something's in his voice . . . regret, possibly? Could it possibly be he doesn't want her to go? Nah. "I realize what you tried to do. But I'm better off as I am, shut out from the world."
Regret isn't hiden on this individual, it's quite plain. "If only the timing of our lives wasn't this way..." Oracle's sentance trails off.
Lunar blinks. "What . . . are you saying?"
You say, "I am simply saying that things would be simpler if I hadn't met you....or if I hadn't met Brawl. Meeting the both of you was a hazard I suppose."
Lunar frowns. "Brawl? What does he have to do with any . . ." Lunar blinks again. "What do you mean?"
Oracle sighs deeply. "It would have been easier for me that way...I don't like conflicts."
Lunar says, "What . . . conflicts? Brawl and I hate each other, but one loves you, or says he does. Where is there a conflict?"
Oracle looks down again. "It doesn't matter."
Lunar growls softly. "Oracle . . . speak plainly."
Oracle looks guilty...she is committing a social crime, so to speak, something that no one has any sympathy for and something that condemnations are high for. "Perhaps if I didn't know Brawl, I could follow you instead..."
Lunar looks at her for a long while in silence, then laughs. Not cruelly, but softly, and pitifully. "The worst part is that I'm tempted to see how far you would go with that train of thought." He shakes his head. "Oracle, stop. It's not Brawl that would come between us. It's Venom. And while you may be able to get Brawl out of the way, you will never be able to remove Venom's ghost from my mind. I can't care about you, or anyone else, as long as she's there. And she'll always be there."
Oracle doesn't shift her optics. "Then what is your pain coming from in this situation?"
Lunar sighs. "I'm going to be honest, Oracle, because I'm too cruel not to be. It hurts because I wish Brawl was the only thing between us. Brawl can be surmounted. I wish I could care about you, and I wish I could ask you to follow me. But I can't. She won't let me."
You say, "She is rather demanding then, isn't she? And if you could speak with her once more, but only once more, what would she say to you? What would she will you to do? What would you say to her?"
Lunar closes his optics and leans back against the wall. "I wouldn't say anything. I'd just hold her again, feel her again. I'd kiss her. Do everything I wish I had done, do everything I always regretted not doing because I thought we had all the time in the world."
Oracle nods her head. "And what would she say to you? Would she be able to restore you to yourself? Or is your bitterness /that/ deep?"
Lunar sighs. "I don't know. Maybe it is. But she would be able to make me feel again without regretting that I could feel. She could make me risk pain to love her."
You say, "Then I wish she were here right now..."
Lunar snarls, snaps open his optics, and turns on her, claws fully extended. "Well she's NOT! She's never coming back, because those voidspawn killed her! And I'll never get to kiss her again, I'll never again tell her how much I love her. I'll never bond with her, we'll never have kidlets, it's all GONE!" He's been moving forward this whole time.
You say, "I didn't mean to upset you by my words...I meant it kindly..."
Lunar keeps moving forward, closer to her, his claws out. "And you talk to me of following me, and how you would have to choose between me and Brawl, knowing fully well that I'm still in love with her! With her and her memory, I have no room for you or anyone else!"
You say, "There are more than one ways of caring, feeling concern...."
Lunar grabs her, gripping her shoulders hard. "Not after loving her!" Suddenly he blinks. He releases her, his claws sliding back into his hands. "I . . . I'm sorry . . . I . . ." he trails off.
You say, "I was refering mostly to myself..."
Lunar looks down at his hands, just a touch of fear behind his optics. "I should have realized . . . I'm so sorry . . . I . . . I nearly hurt you again . . ."
Oracle winces for a moment, then shrugs it away, waving her hand dismissively. "It's okay Lunar."
Lunar shakes his head, turning and taking a step away. "I've never done that before . . . never lost control. Everything I've done . . . I've always known exactly what I was doing. Even when I was angry I knew what I was doing. But . . . Primus, I almost hurt you . . ."
You say, "You are too afraid of making the slightest error, the slightest step away from your precieved identity."
Lunar looks down at his hands. They're trembling slightly. "I nearly lost control, Oracle. I've never lost control. I've hurt people, but never because I was too angry to think straight . . . and I nearly hurt you, the one person I . . . I mean . . ."
Oracle only looks back at Lunar with those ponderous, serene, green optics of hers.
Lunar crouches down on the ground, breathing heavily, his hands shaking now. "Primus . . ."
Lunar tenses, and for a second seems like he might bolt like a frightened animal, but he doesn't. He just remains still, his hands no longer trembling, every servo in his body straining with tension.
Oracle speaks softly, soothingly. "Lunar?"
Lunar says nothing, remaining tense. He slowly turns his head, looking at her with his blood red optics that suddenly seem very wide and scared, at least as much as the demon mask will allow.
Oracle kneels down slowly beside Lunar. Her nature is such that she can't stand seeing anyone like this...she would make a poor warrior and that is evident.
Lunar doesn't move, doesn't relax. His optics follow every move she makes. His twisted mask does not allow his face to assume anything other than a cruel expression, but it is the least cruel as Lunar has ever been, and his optics reveal fear and . . . hope?
Oracle doesn't speak...for once she truly has no words fit for the occasion.
Lunar takes a deep breath, lets it all out in a sigh, and takes her hand off his shoulder, relaxing slightly. "No . . . I can't feel such things. I shouldn't."
You say, "Shouldn't? I know you think you shouldn't, but isn't it just as bad to /not/ feel them. I think that either way there will be pain...for someone at least."
Lunar looks into her optics, his own optics filled with fear and pain. "I can't, Oracle. I can't feel what I'm feeling. It's wrong. It's weakness."
Oracle stiffles a sigh. "You're too narrow thinking when it comes to the topic of weakness."
Lunar shakes his head once. "Slaggit, don't be logical with me. I've gone through too much, Venom is too close, I can't feel what I want to feel, what I AM feeling. I can't think what I am thinking, I can't want what I'm wanting."
You say, "Can't? What is it that's stopping you? Is it your feelings, your memories, or your fear of a weakness that might not be a weakness?"
Lunar half-growls, "I don't KNOW, slaggit! I can't think straight, too many emotions, too many desires. I just can't . . ." He looks around, furitively, then back to her, to her green optics, those optics that have a peace so different from the turmoil in his optics . . .
Oracle stays in her kneeling position. "It must be quite a trial for you to think with emotion after avoiding it for so long. I would request that we talk lightly, but that is an impossibility for you...and for me."
Lunar looks down. "How can you be so calm and logical." Frustrated and angry, more at himself than at her, he snaps his gaze back to her. "Slaggit, do SOMETHING."
You say, "What can I do? No matter what there will be a loser, and I don't want to be the one to decide. I am trapped more than you were while in prison..."
Lunar frowns, closing his optics. When he opens them again they are hard . . . though maybe not quite as hard. "Then bond with Brawl. He's someone who will be whoever you want. I'm just who I am, no changes. And you want who I used to be, not who I am." He touches his mask. "You want the man under the mask."  Lunar sighs. "I only wish I could give him to you . . . but I can't."
You say, "Yet, somehow you still are that person, or I never would have seen it. But I /have/ seen it...seen it through a thin sheet of metal that bent just the right way at the right time so that I could glimpse something....beautiful...but the metal sheet returned to block that view. But I /have/ seen it."
Lunar sighs. "Parts of it shine through, but the mask is always there . . . and you don't want the mask."
You say, "We all have masks, yours is more literal than others perhaps, and more persistant than most, but..."
Lunar shakes his head. "Oracle, you care about the man under the mask. But my mask won't go away. Perhaps, someday, I could remove most of it, but there will still be traces, memories. I can't regain my innocence. I'll never be the man you want, the mech I used to be."
You say, "But who is it that is standing before me now? Who was it I followed? Who did I visit in the jail cell? It certainly wasn't the innocent you, the previous you...or else I wouldn't have met you the way I did."
Lunar looks into her optics. "It's someone who was once a mech who could have made you happy, and who could have loved you. But he is no longer that mech. Perhaps he could love you again . . . but he could never make you happy. It's someone who has seen too much to believe he would not destroy you if he chose to care for you."
You say, "Perhaps..."
Lunar frowns. "Why don't you believe it, Oracle? You're so stubborn you'll never give up until you believe me, so why won't you believe me?"
You say, "Because I'm a skeptic in someways, all the wrong ways, and I have too much faith in those things which I probably shouldn't. It's the twist in /my/ character."
Lunar looks straight at her. "Oracle, answer me a question truthfully. As I am now, nothing changed . . . could you care about me?"
Oracle looks back at Lunar. "In a way I already do....."
Lunar frowns. "Answer the question. Everything, the bitterness, the hatred, the cruelty . . . do you care about me, as I am, not as what you think I could become." He doesn't mention that the question has changed from "could you care" to "do you care."
Oracle looks guilty again, the weight of such an announcement is heavy. It is almost visible, the questions she is asking herself. What about Brawl? Am I doing wrong? What should I say? Is lying more of a crime than confessing? She hesitates.
Lunar continues looking at her, his mask a hideous visage, demonic, diabolical, evil . . . this is the creature that tortured Oracle, that attacked Wildfire, that threatened to kill Patrol and Brawl. Is it even possible to care about such a creature?
Oracle looks back at Lunar. She /knows/ how horrible the mask is, how horrible the face underneath, and how horrible it felt to get those scars she stil wears, yet it isn't a look of fear on her face right now...not at all.
Lunar says softly, "Well?"
You say, "I...don't know if...well...it's a hard question to answer. Not because I don't know the answer, but because it could cause so much trouble..."
Lunar frowns. "Be honest. You can always be honest with me, in fact I prefer it."
Oracle speaks the word, "Yes." She can't say anymore.
Lunar sighs. "Slag."
You say, "It seems the answer is disliked by everyone, but remember that you were the one who wanted honesty."
Lunar nods. "Yes. And I'm glad I know. Now it makes it that much more important to avoid you."
You say, "For your sake, or for mine?"
Lunar says simply, "Both."
You say, "And what would you have done if I had said no?"
Lunar frowned. "I would have suggested we avoid each other, since you can't form a relationship based on what you think someone can become."
You say, "So it would be avoidance either way...so why ask if your intentions would have been the same?"
Lunar says, "I wanted to know . . . if you felt as I did."
You say, "Isn't it worse knowing...knowing and only knowing without acting?"
Lunar is silent for a long while. "Yes it is . . . but in a strange way it isn't. Now I won't wonder anymore." He frowns. "Oracle, if I asked you to leave everything and be mine, would you?"
Oracle turns away for a moment..."I don't know if I could. It's all so complicated, yet so simple, so simple it can't be broken down, or detatched, or disected...."
Lunar says, "If I asked, would you go?"
Oracle stays turned away. "I don't think I can answer that now...I'm a thinker, not an acter."
Lunar nods. "No matter, I wouldn't ask such a thing. Not of someone I actually cared about . . . like you." He looks down. "Oracle, after we leave, we're going to go to two seperate worlds. You'll go back to the city, I'll go back to the streets. Any contact between us could compromise both of us."
You say, "That is true in your case, and I won't let them find you this time...I believe it was my fault that found you in the first place."
Lunar shakes his head. "Don't go back into that, I've told you before it wasn't your fault." He runs a hand across his mask. "I've let my facade drop tonight. When I leave, it will come back into place. Oracle, I want to see you again . . . but each time my resolve slips further. You have an effect on me that can only cause pain to both yourself and I. So . . . this will be the last time we meet. No arguments."
Oracle looks like she's about to argue, then stops. "Very well, but I have something to ask of you then."
Lunar raises an optic ridge. "What?"
You say, "If...something...untoward should happen to you, have one of your associates inform me somehow. I doubt anyone else would."
Lunar nods. "I shall . . ." He falters a bit, then says, quietly, "I guess this is it, then."
Oracle doesn't move to agree with him.
Lunar says, "I . . . do not think I will forget you anytime soon."
You say, "I am not certain if that is a good thing or a bad thing. But if I can occassionally hear word of you from any of your associates, I might not have to worry so much."
Lunar nods slowly. "I would like to . . . but seeing you again . . . would hurt."
You say, "At least we can be assured that each of us are in good condition instead of completely not knowing. I won't betray your associates if they don't want to be known."
Lunar shakes his head. "If I am to break with you I should make it complete . . . otherwise . . ." he brings his head up, looking at her. "What have you done to me? I'm doing what's right, what's best for me and you . . . but I feel like my spark's being ripped out."
You say, "I haven't done anything to you specifically...at least, not by trying at any rate."
Lunar chuckles wryly, bitterly. "But you do it all the same. I am Lunar, creature of the night. I am evil, no light touches me. I know what I am doing and what I am accomplishing, and I am always sure of myself. Yet around you I feel unsure, like I don't know what is right."
You say, "Then perhaps trying to change you never can, but you changing yourself is a slight possiblity..."
Lunar chuckles a bit more. "It's ironic. Very ironic. All my existance I've kept up this facade of evil, fighting against all my better instincts to do the wrong thing. Now I find myself fighting against every instinct I have to do the right thing."
You say, "Is doing the 'right' thing such a horrible, terrible thing Lunar?"
Lunar shakes his head. "No. Now I know what is right, and I know what I must do to do what is right. Yet everything I'm feeling tells me to do something wrong, very wrong."
You say, "And what would that be?"
Lunar shakes his head. "I don't even want to consider it, but it comes unbidden to my net." He walks over until he stands in front of Oracle. "Is it so unusual? I've been doing the wrong thing for so long, why should I suddenly do the right thing? Yet I can't give in to what I want to do."
Oracle stands up, brushing the bits of ground off her legs. "You do what you have to..."
Lunar nods. "But . . . do I do what's right . . . what makes sense . . . or what my spark tells me to do?"
You say, "I'm afraid I can't answer that. Contrary to my name, I can only tell of the past, not the future."
Lunar frowns. He's standing quite close to her. "I don't know what to do, Oracle. I don't want to lose you, but if I don't . . . you will probably be hurt, as wellas I.
You say, "Maybe we should just give this time...neither of us can be fully rational right now."
Lunar sighs. "You're right. A decision must be reached . . . but not tonight." He turns and begins walking away. "Good night, Oracle."
You say, "Good night...Lunar."