It’s good to be the Moon Knight.
You never have to second-guess a step when you’re bound to the service of the Pathfinder, right? And it’s definitely nice to know you’re on the straight and narrow when pain and death are the job. Pain and death on people who have it coming, that’s the crucial part.
And Arthur Harrow is good at his job.
Well, sort of. He’s brought the pain upon a /lot/ of bad guys. It obviously needs work, though. Khonshu’s not … happy, exactly, but thinks he has potential. That was Arthur’s best interpretation of ‘not my ideal servant, but you’ll learn in time,’ anyway.
He channels the anxiety into the crescent darts, into his boot as it connects again and again and again. These guys dished it out, and now they’re going to take it. Everybody’s going to get what they deserve. Now and tomorrow and the next day, until the night is safe.
The night is never safe.
***
Arthur just has to figure out where he’s going wrong. Oh, Khonshu’s happy to tell him where he’s failed in the specific details, but there has to be a broader issue he can address.
Arthur cleans up the world like a ravenous beast, and Khonshu always seems pleased — until he’s not, definitely not, and it’s time to go again, and try to be efficient this time, and it’s always night somewhere.
Arthur knows he serves The Traveller, but sometimes he just needs a moment. He always seems to need more moments than he’s given, though.
Well, he took the deal, took this path to make something of himself. This mantle is Arthur’s responsibility. It doesn’t sound like other avatars through the centuries have struggled this much. There’s gotta be something he can fix.
Maybe the ‘ravenous beast’ part is the problem. Maybe he needs to work on his professional mindset, because apparently, the Fist of Vengeance is more of a workhorse than a wildcat.
Because it doesn’t /stop/, you know? The Timekeeper’s voice keeps at it like a metronome. A metronome that is disappointed in Arthur specifically.
If Arthur doesn’t reach a bad guy soon — a really bad guy, the kind that don’t count as human anymore, the kind you can just go /crazy/ on and not think twice — he’s probably going to cry.
***
It turns out you can’t put out a fire with the blood of the arsonist. Getting the bad guy doesn’t always stop the badness. Khonshu says he just needs to be faster. Arthur doesn’t know how to be faster. Sometimes he thinks the vestments are all that’s keeping him standing up.
The Embracer heals his servants, sure, but stitching up wounds over and over and over again isn’t the same as rest. Cloth binds and bandages every inch of him, keeping him functional and faceless.
Why one Moon Knight? Why isn’t there a Moon Cavalry? A lot of people travel the night; why is protecting them something to be done alone? All alone with the voice in your head?
Khonshu says that multiple avatars would be a violation of the Heliopolitan Convention. And to shut up. Khonshu apparently cares about the rules now. Is that on even-numbered dates, then?
Arthur is so, so tired.
***
Arthur sits eating chicken-heart yakitori, reading laminated photocopies of an old book.
He just wants to find the good. After years of being used to prune a poisoned garden, he wants to see one actually grow. The seeds of a finer world. A community of actual good people, and also Arthur.
He wants it so bad, he could taste it.
Well, what he can actually taste is grilled myocardium, with burnt crunchy bits. Arthur’s been trying hard to go vegan, do a little less harm in the world, but sometimes it’s just irresistible to pull a warm bird heart off the stick with his teeth and devour it.
Some of what he’s reading worries him. Some of it seems so …merciless. But isn’t the bright clear line of ruthlessness a mercy upon the world itself? The world as it could be?
Arthur can almost hear his father’s voice, commenting drily that it isn’t at all surprising that he’s spent years playing for the wrong team.
He thinks that’s his father’s voice, anyway. Please, please, he doesn’t want to be confusing disdainful baritones. Please let there be something left that’s just Arthur Harrow.
Maybe he had better clarify whom he’s praying to.
***
Jalisco, Myanmar, Beirut, Johannesburg.
The sharp edges are infinite, but there’s a memory for every scratch. Arthur makes a blood sacrifice in every footstep, for all the damage he’s done.
But of course that’s not how it works. That was just an illusion of control. Performing penance was pretending to himself that he could soak up the suffering he’d sown in the world, balance the scales without actually producing as much life and joy as he had death and pain.
But when his Goddess tells him the truth, he realizes part of him must have known it all along. He is the man Khonshu made him. There is no altering that. A blood sacrifice is only useful before the bad blood taints the lives of others. There is no fixing him; the reason for his continued existence is that She chooses to use him anyway.
He should have lain down and died before answering Khonshu, but he can’t do it now. He’d rather save the world.