ù Ç ™

Sometimes, I actually feel as if I owe that man an apology.

What he did he did out of the kindness of his own heart -- and even if that kindness and compassion was rather rusty through misuse and disuse, it was a noble attempt.

However, it seems to me that he never really understood what was going on, nor just what he was dabbling in when he attempted to mess with my protectorate. As it so happens, it has been said that time is like a river. And, like a river, time will correct its own course against any change. Whether or not I actually assist it or not.

Yes, it is on a night like this that I do indeed wish that I could have a new job -- or have my emotions taken from me so that this little vocation of mine would not play with my pathos so. It would be bliss; for even though others say and do believe that I feel always the same, I feel nothing, I hurt when they hurt. I cry with them, even if I am only falling apart on the inside instead of the outside.

Watching Saffir die again brought me no perverse pleasure, nor did observing Demando's grief make me happy. It was possibly even harder for him this second time around, because now he must carry the guilt of knowing that maybe he could have saved his little brother, given that he was warned.

Now I stand aside as I always do, and I play the game where I watch, and listen, and merely observe. A stranger on the outskirts of reality, only occasionally stepping into the fray to play a cameo.

Demando took the body of his brother into his arms again, as if it weighed no more than a feather, for lack of a better metaphor. Petz had been understandably resistant to Demando's bearing away of the corpse, but Demando had been far too immersed in his own world of tormented suffering to pay much attention to her.

Perhaps he should have listened to what she had to say.

Regret... it is the most useless of all emotions. Maybe that is why I have never felt it in any great degree. To be an Outer Senshi, as we are called, requires this somewhat undesirable character trait. And that is the ability to shut off one's emotions to those of the ones who suffer for our cause. Sailor Saturn had always been like that. She found beauty in her destruction so that she could handle it. The moment of silence before the destruction of everything became music to her, because if she didn't see its beauty, she would have hated herself for bringing down the scythe of the goddess of death.

And Uranus, Neptune... both carrying the terrible knowledge that innocents would have to die because of them, they had nonetheless carried out their mission. The courage of those two makes me revel in my solitude -- I rarely hurt anyone from my place here, at the Door of Time itself.

Still... I digress. It seems to me that I do that often, but it helps to take my mind away from the terrible understanding that I have just separated two brothers who cared for one another very deeply for a very long time.

And in doing so, have changed the timelines.

Oh, they will realign themselves, and things will proceed on... with another human in the world. What difference could one more human make?

Yes, Demando lived through his brother's death, lived through the battle with the Wiseman; at least, he did in this dimension.

What a pity.

Yet, sometimes I see him, alone. He writes about his brother, he expresses his heartfelt emotions over a brother he professed to love, but could not protect.

Sometimes, I wonder how he can live on, knowing what he did. But the guilt that radiates from him like a star gone supernova... it tells me that he has no rest, he is never at peace.

Just like me.

ù Ç ™

ù Ç ™

Okay... yes, this does signify the beginning of another short story, but be damned if Iâm going to post it here until I finish it.... because I just might NOT. Dammit.

Anyway, the quote about the light comes from a song written by a good friend of mine, so NO-ONE steal it. The lyrics enclosed by brackets are by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Bai-bai, minna!