I have come to a conclusion: that I am better at writting form first person P.O.V. Seriously I am atcually, maybe, proud of this and usually I hate what I write. Well anyway this took me almost two days to type, and considering that was inbetween the first day back at college (second year timetables bite), my uncle who suffers from verbal diarrhoea and doesn't seem to understand the concept of sitting still (don't ask), and my bratty little sister who thinks she rules the house I think that is nothing short of a miricale.

Sorry about the title for this little drabble, I know it's crap but its too late at night/early morning to be faffing around with it now and it does hold some revelence to the plot-thingy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh I am just an amateur writter trying to improve herself.

How Many Nights Does It Take To Say Enough?

How many nights have I stayed here now? How many days have I spent flitting about this coast, this beach? I have no idea. I feel there is much out there that I do not know; I feel that there is much I have forgotten. I have travelled up the deep rivers that spill into the sea until the water became too shallow and the risk of being seen became too great but still I return to this beach. Each night to this very rock. It is as if this rock is the only thing I know, the only thing that knows me. How foolish does that sound? And yet I do not know why I stay, I have tried to leave, I really have, but something always pulls me back, always. Sometimes I say to myself 'I shall leave tomorrow. I shall swim the seas and see the world and learn all I have forgotten. And it will be a grand adventure filled with discovery and meaning and love.' And then the sun rises and I begin to swim into the deep parts of the water and something always pulls me back, something as mundane as the feeling of having forgot something although I own no possessions or something as life threatening as coming face to face with a shark and being chased all the way back to the point where it cannot follow. This beach and this rock are the only things I know.

I don't understand what I am. I don't understand why I am. I don't remember ever seeing another that looks as I do. I don't remember how or when I came to live by this beach. I don't know if there are others like me or if there ever was. But surly I was born to someone. Every animal I have seen has a family, a mother and a father, sisters and brothers, even if these families never get know each other they still know one another exists. They still know where they came from. I do not. For all I know I was born of sand and sea foam, my tears are pearls and my hair is coral, I do not know, I have never cried and I have never seen my hair in full view, only the parts that float before my eyes. The only thing I understand about myself is that I am male. I do not even have a real name, only one I fashioned for myself after hearing a conversation between two creatures of the land, Yuugi. I do not know what it means or if it is even a real name but I like the sound of it and it is an improvement from being a blank.

I don't know anything and that is the one anguish of my soul. I want to know why the sea sometimes reaches higher upon the sand of the beach, I want to know why the scales of my tail are a bright purple almost red during the hotter days and why, when the days grow colder and shorter, my scales change to a paler solemn blue and lilac and why, when the cold is fading and the warmth is coming and all the animals around me seem to come together, I am restless and angrier and almost possessive of the rock that is practically my home.

No. I have lied. There is another anguish that haunts me. It took a very long time for me to recognise it and even longer to remember what name to call it by: loneliness. I am lonely; I long for another, a companion, an acquaintance, an enemy, anything that knows what I am. Anyone who looks and feels and thinks the same. I want to know if I am the last, I want to know if I was the only and will always be the only one of my kind. I want to know if am alone and yet at the same time I am terrified of the answer. If I am right and I am the only, or the last, then it would be a seal to my fate. I would forever wander, I would forever feel lost and no matter how much time passed my future would never hold anything new, it would always be the same as my past: bleak and meaningless. But what if I am wrong and there are others. What if I found them and did not know what to do, how to act? What if I found them and found they were as different to me as the dolphin? What if I was an outcast? It would be the same as before, as if I had never found them. The only thing settled within me would be the argument of 'yes' or 'no'. And that is no achievement at all.

Maybe this is why I stay here. Maybe I have always feared leaving because I feared what leaving would mean. Maybe I have attached my self to this rock as securely as if I had strapped my physical body to it. As if this whole coast is a prison I created to keep my self in. Maybe I live in a cage that has bars as transparent as the air but as strong as the great whale.

And so the beach is my home and I live here with the happiness of a person who knows nothing else. Because I, truly, know nothing else. During the day I stay beneath the water: I avoid the boats and watch the fish and, on occasion, test the boundaries of my prison. During the night I sit upon the rock that juts out of the water and stay above the surface: I sometimes watch the stars or the moon or, when it rains, I will watch the droplets splash upon the ocean surface. But almost all of the time I watch them. The creatures that held closer resemblance to me then anything else I have seen. They do not have tails and they live upon the land and they most certainly cannot swim with any grace but they are fascinating. How long have I been watching them? How many have I seen walk along the shore? As long as I have been here and that is the only answer I can give to you. And yet they never see me. I do not know why I feel they aren't allowed to see me, every other creature I allow. Maybe it is because of another reason I cannot remember: a law maybe? A taboo? Or maybe it is another reason entirely. Am I jealous? Do I envy them and their large families? Do I avoid them because I do not want to face their pity? Their scorn?

Most of them I see at this time of night are in twos. Couples. A male and female. Do they come to the beach to court as the turtles come to lay their eggs? Sometimes I see one alone and this one always avoids the others. This one is a male and he comes most nights to the small wooden structure that juts out from the land. His body is always covered in black fabric, unlike the others who don themselves in bright colours. I do not understand why he does this. He is almost like myself in his strange quite ways. I have never seen him interact with another of his kind; does he even consider himself as one of them? What a very foolish thought, of course he does, he is surrounded day and night by others like him: he knows where he comes from, he knows what he is. To scorn that would be to scorn everything that made his race. And besides how could he deny something so obviously in front of him? A foolish thought.

And yet I do still wonder about this one in particular. He comes almost every night that it does not rain and even then cold downpours do not always deter him, he seems as obsessed about this beach as I. I am never close enough to see him in any real detail but I can tell you this: it seems his hair would be the same as mine given half the chance, the colours are the same, I believe he is a little small compared to many others of his kind and he seems young but not an adolescent, I think his skin is darker then mine but under the faint light of the moon that is not always very noticeable and he seems to hold himself different from the others… tighter… more severe. I have countless nights to contemplate this and I do so simply because I feel more connected to him then any other living thing. It is probably because he is one of the few constants in my life; he is like my rock in some respects I can rely on him to keep to a specific pattern. I do not know what I would do if he cessed gave me this stimulation, if he suddenly began to halt his nightly walks, surly I have lived without him before though. What must he mean to me if I watch him every night and miss him when he doesn't come? What does he do to trigger such speculations about him and myself? We are utterly separate entities and yet he is the closest thing to my heart. Is it a type of love?

I have never gone to meet him. I have never gone closer to him then from this rock. He has never seen me. I could not really communicate with him after all, are the sounds I make even considered words? I do not remember ever using them to converse so what if it isn't a language? What if it never was? I do not know. He is standing there now. I remember one night a while ago when, as usual he was stood upon the wooden outcrop and I was sat upon the rock, I had felt myself grow abnormally tired and, instead of waiting until he had left as I normally do, I had left the rock and dove into the waters to sleep. I had never thought of the chance that he might hear or see me. I remember looking behind me through the surface and saw him give such a start. He had seemed to jump and move forward, or was it backwards? He had obviously heard the splash, the ocean surface was always so calm this time of night, but had he seen me? He had stood and stared at the rock as if expecting it to come alive. He would never have seen me if I hadn't moved but now… if he did see me I must have appeared as only a vague outline but…it felt strange to think that someone like him may know I exist.

Of course there is no way to be sure he saw anything and certainly after that night he gave no indication that he may have, nothing in his attitude changed and his schedule remained the same. So in the end nothing changed… but I could change that. Sometimes I thought that maybe one day I would confront him, one day when my confidence had built up so it could face such a terrifying prospect I would go to him and… and… and what? I have no guarantee that he would change how I lived, I have no assurance that he would not just push me away or hand me nothing more then his pity, and I have no belief that he could tell me who I am, what I am, he would not know what it is I am supposed to do with my existence. But still I like to entertain the idea. It would, after all, bring a little change into my life. And what would come after it… I do not know what would come of it but I do know that it would either change everything… or nothing at all.

But tonight he is doing something rather unexpected. He is standing too close to the end of the wood to be normal and he almost teeters upon the edge. Is he planning on diving in? These creatures are so very strange. I can see his eyes more clearly tonight; they are a strange deep colour. Enchanting. I think they are red but I cannot be sure. He has a very harsh face. Very serious. I think he is very used to being unkind to the world, I think he shuts it out. If only he knew my own torment then maybe we could swap, then maybe he will understand what it is like to be utterly ignorant in everything. Because that is another thing I have noticed, he has clever eyes; he understands why he suffers from his own torment. Yes, I can see that too. He is as pained as I, but for different reasons. Maybe he would understand? I think to myself: 'Maybe he comes to this beach for the same reasons as I. Maybe he cannot leave, or feels he cannot. Maybe he is trapped within his own prison as am trapped in mine. And maybe he is now only a breath away from escaping that prison and discovering what really does lie in wait out there.' And truly he looks as if he is struggling. As if there is a war inside himself, the argument of 'yes' or 'no' and what would come of the future if either of these answers was taken. He is scared too. He wants to know, wants to find and discover and feel love but he is afraid. He is afraid he will find nothing or he will find the wrong thing. And finally he backs away; the answer is 'no' he cannot do it, at least not tonight. And suddenly I see myself in this strange creature, I see the loneliness and the longing and the confusion. We are worlds apart but we are like each other in so many ways, and I think to myself with a strange slow thought: 'Maybe I am not alone? Maybe we are not alone?'

And I see him walk back and away from the beach and I know he is fighting through similar things as I, and I know that tonight is not the only night he will try this, there will be others. Other resolutions. Other promises. But always the same questions. Who am I supposed to be? And I think that I love him for that. I think that I love the fact that I may not be as alone as I thought, that I am not the only one that searches for something I am terrified of. I think that I love him.

Something within me has settled but still there is my unrest. The questions have not left me. Who am I? What am I? How did I come to this place? And where, if the place still exists, do I come from? I slip beneath the waters for another night by this coast and tomorrow will be another day in which everything will be the same. And I think to myself: 'I shall leave tomorrow. I shall swim the seas and see the world and learn all I have forgotten. And it will be a grand adventure filled with discovery and meaning and love.'

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Please do not ask for a second part to this. It's supposed to stand alone. It doesn't really mean anything It's just the product of a raibid plot bunny attack. Anywho it was fun to write even with all the distractions. There will be the scond short story coming soon (probably sooner then Phoenix's Ashes 'coz it's being a bitch at the moment) and that ones much longer (with numerous cahpters)... and has a real ending too.

Thanks to all the people who reviewed Phoenix's Ashes, it means a lot. Love you guys.

OH! And I have a new story coming up soon called 'Firefly In Ice'. Hopefully the prologue for that will sound better then Phoenix's.

Review please!