"Oh for the love of- I didn't get OUT until over a year later, what did you want from me??" the Night Master demanded, gesturing at nothing in particular. "To call you up from beyond this realm - from beyond the damned grave essentially - to say 'hey Yuck, so as far as I presently know you've severed all your ties with me, but here's what's been going on in in my life recently! Oh, also I have no particular ETA on when I'll be back! Sorry!'"
Frustration and more than a little defensiveness was bubbling to the surface now, and while he knew it wasn't the moment for it, he could feel a scowl twisting his mouth. "You didn't know I wasn't perma-dead for over a year? You were still one of the first people to know I was back." (Barring, as mentioned earlier, Flaviour. And the new-old Night Master, but that idiot hadn't realized who he was anyway.) "You 'bumped into me' a... a month? Month and a half? After I'd settled into this house. And to this day you're one of the only to know."
Scowl growing more pronounced, he spat, "And yeah, actually, since you mentioned it, I do know how you felt to not only be locked out of the lair, but have to learn that Coop-" (the name was thrown from his throat like he'd just coughed out something disgusting and burning) "-had not only escaped before me, but was being heralded as a hero besides! Because I went through the same damn thing!"
(The memory of being told by his own sentry that he no longer qualified as evil enough to be allowed back into his own house was still humiliating enough to make his face burn, and the knowledge that somewhere, at that very moment, Coop was enjoying the power he'd spent a lifetime working for, riding on a reputation he didn't deserve, made him want to vomit. He was in a lovely physical and emotional state, to be sure.)
"But I guess just a minion doesn't deserve better than that, huh?" Nothing he did or said was ever going to be good enough for this child, no amount of honesty or vulnerability would ever satisfy him. Had he not just said he saw him as more than a minion now? It was a game Yuck demanded they play that the Night Master wasn't allowed to win.
"Do you understand what happened when I was defeated?" he asked, and it took conscious, concentrated effort to not let the question turn into a snarl (even more effort to keep the nausea that was starting to stir his stomach under control - more and more he was wishing these particular memories had stayed under the blanket of the rest of his thoughts where he couldn't see them.). Upping the ante a bit, he added, "Do you know why direct light hurts me? Extra credit! These two things are tied together! Tell me how!"
"I didn't get OUT until over a year later, what did you want from me??"
"You were still one of the first people to know I was back."
"Because I went through the same damn thing!"
"Do you understand what happened when I was defeated? Do you know why direct light hurts me? Extra credit! These two things are tied together! Tell me how!"
...Except he can't. At this point, Yuck no longer knows what to say. The frustration, the rage-- they're still there, smoldering, begging to be released, but he knows the Night Master is not the target of those emotions. Not really. But with nowhere to go, no target to unleash them upon...Yuck doesn't know what to do with these emotions within him.
What IS he supposed to say? He's already bared enough of his soul, enough of his shame, before his master and mentor-- more than he would've ever wanted to bare before him. What else is he gonna tell him: about the guilt he felt, thinking that if he hadn't failed in his mission to steal the Toilet Brush of Foolumination, he could've been there at the final battle, and maybe things would've been different?That, for all the months after those stupid Fooplicates revived him, a part of him resented the fact that he was still alive while the person he owed that very same life wasn't?
Yeah, right.
But Yuck, stubborn child of fire and fury that he is-- he just can't back down from this argument. He doesn't dare answer his master's questions, dreading the answers he'll get if he does-- but he doesn't dare look away or lower his glare, either. The only thing he can do now is wait-- wait for the Night Master to enlighten him. And if he is to curse Yuck's very existence at this point, well...Yuck has no choice but to take it.
"For Evil's sake Yuck-" The Night Master griped, reaching down and flicked between Yuck's eyes. He was becoming a little too overwrought to worry overly much about "maturity" just then. Anyway it wasn't like his present company was about be showing him any back even if he did. "Would you stop glaring at me like I've done something to you?"
He took a breath, in and out. On paper, that made it sound like he was trying to calm down (indeed, that had been the original point of the action). In practice, it was a little too harried to pass as such.
(Didn't help that he'd tossed out questions that, in hindsight, he realized he didn't especially want to answer. Oh well.)
"How my power works- worked, whatever - they aren't simply... based in darkness. It's- I'm- I am darkness."
He faltered, because that wasn't quite right, and and gestured at nothing for a moment as he tried to get his words right. "I mean I'm not- the actual term for it is 'umbrakinesis,' but how it worked for me is that I wove it into my entire being. It gave me unprecedented control and a considerable boost to other powers I possessed, but at the expense that light would affect me the same way it would, say - a shadow. Too much of it could literally make me disappear."
He shivered suddenly, memories of pain and burning and make it stop no more making his entire body prickle. "Being made of blood, bone, and all other forms of bodily encumberment, I didn't have the luxury of just... vanishing, unfortunately. So instead I got shunted off to a realm of nothing but darkness. No light - which was fine, but- I can usually still see in a complete absence of light, and here I couldn't - there was no smell, there was no sound, not even when I tried to make noise myself, I had no sense of touch-"
The Night Master shuddered, again, involuntarily wrapping his wings around himself.
Swallowing, he finished, "I suppose if you want to argue technicalities, I wasn't truly dead, but I hope you don't mind if I classify myself as 'close enough,' considering..."
I would've PREFERRED to be dead, honestly...
