#childthiefking

The shadows eyes grew big. Somehow he understood what all those names meant, though he had never seen the creatures and even now couldn’t quite imagine them properly. The intent of the words flowed through his mind as he recalled the language his Master had given him.

“I don’t think so. I’m made of shadows.” But he took one look at Bakurahs disappointed expression, however short lived the flicker was, and put the whole cookie in his mouth. Who could have ignored that kind of challenge. He crunched it up to crumbs and swallowed it, giggling at the tickly feeling of it.

For Bakura it was as though time had stopped. His creation was wiggling his toes, looking blankly down at the sand shifting between them. The God didn’t breathe, didn’t speak, in case that somehow spoiled the moment. His creation was looking at his pale hands, looking down his arms and body. He made a noise, a grunt of sound. He bent each finger one at a time, he looked up at the stars above.

Then he looked at Godling. Though his face was blank Godling could feel his wonder and even then he remembered his own and knew it was being mirrored. But he’d had some residual memories to draw upon. This creation, he had nothing. Bakura curled his face into a smile and his creation copied the expression.

“Tasena maut.” He said warmly and nodded when the name was repeated sloppily in a deep slow voice. Bakura recognized that delight, that instinctual love for your creator. He stood up, brushing his knees off. “You need clothes. Copy mine.” The form of his creation wavered, face blank again in concentration. Eventually he twisted and turned his shadows again to clothe himself in a colorless copy of Godling’s jeans and coat. Well t-shirts weren’t that necessary were they.

“Good.” Bakura praised and Tasena maut’s face curled in the smile again. “I have a lot of things to show you before you’re ready for your mission. Come with me.” He walked a few steps backwards, watching the shadow being stumble forward and learning to walk by trial and error of moving limbs.

Expressions and how to use his voice were tiny things he taught as they walked. Then he showed him a snake and had him secure a snake form. He found Necrofia’s cat Ahura curled on a couch and let Tasena maut copy that form too, surprising the awoken Ahura with an albino copy of her.

He left him momentarily to visit a friend, being away too long was suspicious, and when he returned he was delighted to find Tasena maut had since caught a mouse and a sparrow and copied both forms. The forms themselves were a worryingly pathetic choice, but it proved Godling had succeeded in one of his goals. To make Tasena maut of fewer shadows to allow him to more comfortably copy small creatures. He’d been unsure when he’d seen his servant had been made taller even than him.

It had worked. It had worked and he’d made a person. Not just any person, he’d made a servant. A living shadow servant. Bakura had done it and the fruits of his long hours of work was staring at him with a perfected hopeful expression.

“Master?” He asked in that steady voice, slow and careful to get every noise right.

“Yes Tasena maut? You may ask me.” He looked over at his creation, still scarcely believing it.

“Do you think- I am ready to meet .. Him?”

The trickiest part now was merging the souls. It was easy enough to mix them, but he didn’t want a mixture. Not competing pieces but a new soul entirely forged from two initial parts. Again and again he twisted the shards together only to have them slide apart. Perhaps he was being too hasty. Perhaps he was trying too hard in the wrong parts. Thinkign too much about the mechanical process and not neough about the result.

It did hurt yet he barely noticed it, far too used to having his soul ripped and pulled about. The piece of his soul he sealed into a second ring and now with the two component souls and his blood full of darkness he had everything he needed to make this work. Everything except the experience to do this confidently.