I couldn’t help but smile, considering the situation. Annastasia had finally gone to sleep, her slight figure curled up beneath the blanket I had wrapped her up in.
My smile faded quickly, my thoughts revering back to Chaos. Poor Chaos. All he had wanted was to be accepted. He wanted to become something other than what he was born as. And what had he received for dreaming? He had been killed by his own brother, Devinity.
How I hated Devinity. How could someone just accept the evil they were born in and kill their own brother? A warm tear trickled down my cheek, stinging the small cut that had been all I received from Devinity’s fell blow.
It was still raining. I thought it was dying earlier, but it had remained at a steady pace since Chaos died. And with that, I finally realized I was letting poor, sweet Annastasia get soaked in the rain.
Frantically, although very gently, I dug my arms beneath the blanket Annastasia was safely wrapped in. Getting a good grip on the other side of her waist, I lifted her up, carefully and gently. With a pang of self-pity, I realized I hadn’t really gotten any stronger since I last had to carry her. Her weight, although slight and probably less than mine, stung my arms. I grimaced, but lifted her up as carefully as I could and got to my feet.
Making the weight easier, I shifted her body so I held just above the back of her knees and her lower back, and held her sideways. Her sleeping head, still moist with her recent tears, lolled to the side, coming to a rest on my upper chest. I couldn’t help but blush.
I began walking with her small figure towards the tent nearby, the one she had refused to lie in earlier. And the tent in which Chaos sat with us only three or four hours ago now.
As I took a few steps, I began to notice how tired I really was. The sleep was dragging my body down like a small child perched on my shoulders. My eyes fluttered, but I shook the sleep off. I pressed on for what seemed like miles towards the tent.
Finally, I shoved the tent flaps away with my right shoulder, and came into the dryness I had almost forgotten. My black tunic, now almost out of season, was weighed down with hours of rain.
I really needed to change my tunic. I lay down Annastasia upon the soft sleeping bag which she had claimed, and shyly, still making sure she didn’t look, changed into my dark blue tunic, a gift from the Aroz very long ago which still fit. I changed my khaki pants into new jean pants, and re-strung Ragnarok over my back. And, with one last look at the beautifully asleep Annastasia, I slipped out of the tent.
I had my hope set that Kimo and the others would arrive tonight, and I intended to be awake to greet them. I didn’t want them to find out the hard way that Chaos was gone. I walked for a bit, still desperately shaking off the sleep along with the sorrow like angry bugs which needed to cling to me.
I reached the end of the small plateau-like land we were at; the end being about twenty feet from the tent. There was a long hill, which was really quite steep. I remembered walking up the slope with Annastasia and Chaos merely last night.
There was a large, dirty boulder perched at the very top of the slope, watching over the hill and everything below. Seeing it as a suitable place, I climbed up it with difficulty. But it wasn’t too high, and I got up in a few moments. And there I stood; my fingers toying with the string dangling from the satchel which held my Memore Chains within, my tired eyes surveying the dark plains ahead. I watched every branch dangle with the wind; something expecting it to be caused by Katiel, playing in a bored manner with his wind magic. Every crunch must have been one of my approaching friends stepping on the drying grass, the autumn leaves and the undergrowth near each tree. Every little noise had to somehow be one of them, I knew it had to be.
And as I was anxiously surveying the plains with my tired eyes, I experienced a fright. Two arms found their way around my waist, and softly held on. I couldn’t help but jump, but within a second, I could tell it was the just-as-anxious Annastasia. I heard her soft sobs behind me, her soft figure still trembling...with her tears, or the cold?
“Ryoku...?” Her soft voice beckoned my attention. With some caution, I carefully turned, careful not to break her heavenly embrace. Her eyes were still moist, but the clear blue of her soft eyes looked at me with a strange emotion.
I forgot she was soaked. Her blue and white robes had been covered with the rain, and clung to her soft skin.
“Ryoku...” Her soft, slightly cracking voice beckoned further. Her blue eyes penetrated deep into the eyes of my own. They must have sensed the attraction hidden behind my eyes. The irresistible urge to dry her eyes and kiss her sweet lips.
“Can you...Can you stop this death? This pain...? Can you make it...all better?”
Her words bit through my sense of reality. What was she saying? I couldn’t stop death. I couldn’t stop pain. As much as I wished it, stopping Bazanex wouldn’t be the end of pain and death. But how could I say that? Her eyes...they betrayed her. She, for the first time, looked deep into my eyes, her hope boring through my soul. I felt a soft tear form from my eye, and another.
One of Annastasia’s arms had lost it’s grip on me. It reached up, and touched my cut cheek. It stung, but somehow sweetly. Like it was the touch of an angel. She reached up with one finger, and she touched my tears. With the simple bliss of the angel she was, she wiped them away, gone like an old memory. But her hand remained, holding my cut cheek. My blood must be staining her hand. My blood....my blood didn’t deserve to be touched by so sweet a soul.
Annastasia’s blue eyes were still locked on mine, still penetrating deep into my eyes, like the sky meeting the treetops of a looming forest. And before I knew what was happening, she pulled me closer, softly beckoning my face closer to hers. And before I could protest on a poor mortal kissing one of such sweet stature, her soft lips had at last met my own. Her blue eyes had closed, and no longer gazed into mine. She held me closely, one hand holding my waist close to hers, the other making sure I didn’t pull back, as though I actually wished to pull away from this new heaven.
I couldn’t help it, and my eyes had closed too. I became aware of nothing but her soft hands clutching me closely, and her sweet lips embracing my own. My mind was screaming, protesting; that one such as I had no right to hold an angel. But before I could control myself, my own hands reluctantly reached out. One held her waist, softly and gently; expecting to be drawn back any second. The other hand found her shoulder, and, taking a deep risk, found it’s way around to her back, and softly wrapped around the back of her neck to hold her closer. She did not back away; neither did she seem to intend to.
I felt her hand, resting at my side, extend to hold my waist, and pull my body closer to hers. Her other hand dropped from my cheek to hold my neck, and press her lips closer to mine.
The kiss seemed to last forever. It seemed like the sun rose, peaked in the sky, and set again before she finally pulled her lips away; although it had only been around two minutes. But her hands did not leave the embrace she had clutched me in. She rested her soft, angelic head on my shoulder.
“Oh, Ryoku...I love you.”
I was speechless. I felt like her light had absorbed my capability of speech. The rain seemed to thicken. I had forgotten about it; it didn’t seem like the sky could cry at such a heavenly moment. And I hadn’t noticed that my tears seemed to have forgotten the reason to leak free.
“I have always loved you...ever since you proved to me that you do. And I have been waiting so long...”
I couldn’t respond to her sweet voice. My voice worked, but caught somewhere in the throat which her hand so tenderly held close to her. It felt like a million butterflies had woken within my chest.
“You have been out in the cold rain too long, my sweetheart...”
My voice continued to fail my heartfelt attempts to reply to her angel’s song of a voice.
Her hands had slipped free of me at last, and she pulled away. But as I let my hands drop from her sweet body, she caught my right one with her left, and gently tugged.
“Come along, sweetheart...You cared for me while I was cold and tired, and now I will care for you while you are so.”
I could not respond, but I urged my legs to work. Hesitantly, I followed her off the large boulder, feeling as though I walked in the steps of an angel. Holding her hand felt like holding a small orb of light. But I still failed to work the emotions of love into words which could match the song of this sweet angel.
She walked me over to the tent, and used her free hand to push the curtains aside. I had never seen her being so gentle; never, since when she healed the fell blow struck onto me by defending her.
She didn’t even free my hand from her grip even to grab a dry blanket from by Chaos’ old sleeping bag. She draped it over my shoulders, held me close, and draped it over her own as well.
“You’ll be safe and warm with me.”
Still shocked from the kiss, I finally managed to clear my lungs for room for a few words...
“I love you too.”
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