Disclaimer: I don't own Dissidia, except for Kuja… all right, fine. I don't even own Kuja.

Initially, I wanted to work with the idea of an untrustworthy narrator. It's evolved since then, and while I wrote this a few months ago, it took more time (than, say, Dissonant) because… Kuja talks ten times more than Cloud does (Zidane's normal), but I didn't want volume to speak for content. Let's move on to the technical stuff…

Silkscreen Requiem is rated T because of swearing, violence, and controversial topics including but not limited to suicide, bulimia, sadism, and various emotional weirdness. That said, please read and enjoy!

Silkscreen Requiem

Introit

If nothing else, I can always count on my reflection in the mirror.

Long moonlight waves that fly whichever way they choose—which is why long is the only option—that steep to violet and blue at the ends in such a perfect way that it must be a genetic defect.

My porcelain doll's skin. The freakish feathers that could only be mine.

I add the red to my eyes myself, of course, every morning after my usual cup of black, exceptionally caffeinated tea. I need something to counterbalance that telling Terran indigo.

My body, stunning and statuesque in how it grotesquely represents Terra's deathly idols, a mockery that had been forced upon me by my creator, a façade that literally devours me from the inside regardless of how much I eat or drink.

Trust me on that one. The debutantes and duchesses of Treno have nothing on me when it comes to the nameless monster inside that rejects nourishment only moments after consumption.

Garland and his genius foresight. What business do I have, after all, enjoying the small details of life? As his Angel of Death, even I must agree it's a little counterproductive. In theory.

But he figured out when I was around twelve that he wasn't doing himself any favors by giving me more reasons to hate him. The next model was blessedly free of Garland's dominating restraints. Mortality, among others.

Somehow, Garland, that didn't win me over.

But how can I forget the tail? As if the other distortions of normalcy weren't enough, I have that final brand to remind me every step I take that I have him to thank even for the pathetic excuse of a life I do manage to cling to despite his well-meaning fatherly intentions.

Yes, I can always count on my reflection to be consistent. No matter how exquisite, I always love how much I hate it.

I truly am a breathtaking mistake. I deserve, uphold and exceed every variation on the definition of 'narcissist'. Such is my beauty that people have this obsession with viewing me as they want me to be, rather than who I am.

Like that other model I mentioned earlier. He thinks….

That I have a good heart, even if it needs a little dusting. That I just need someone who can understand me and become friends with me, and maybe even love me.

My little brother sincerely believes I have some complex stemming from my dysfunctional relationship with Garland, and that's why I'm so delightfully sadistic. Some inability to trust people and accept kindness, springing from some deep, buried anxiety of rejection, misplaced emotional hurt, and a lifetime of loneliness. That I really don't want to become a god and rule the world from now until eternity do us part.

No. I'm so sorry.

I really, really do.

"Aren't you the pretty little peacock today, strutting about like that?" Ultimecia sneers every time she sees me. Unfortunately, she continues to believe that her voice is actually something I want to hear on a regular basis, even though I've told her otherwise.

But if it's not her, it's someone else. And some of them aren't even as artistic in their insults as she. They're all so proud of their accomplishments and the years they've soaked in Chaos, as if they actually enjoy it. In their eyes, I simply can't compare.

It's laughable.

"You don't know pain. You're just a naïve schemer with delusions of grandeur. You don't belong here with the rest of us."

I don't know pain? I don't belong here? Can't they tell why I'm here in the first place?

Do they just look the other way when they see me collapse, caught in the throes of my father's final curse?

Damn them. Damn them all.

I hope that when they die, it's because they slip up and do something irrevocably stupid. I hope it's their own mistakes that finally do them in, because it will mean that their precious experience and age were worthless in the end.

And I hope that each of them dies alone.