I think of Seiya sometimes. When I'm stressed out trying to meet a deadline. When I'm out drinking sake with the girls. When I'm staring at myself in the mirror above Darien's bed as he kisses my skin.

The curtains are drawn, and wisps of twilight sneak in through the cracks, shedding sporadic light about the room, while everything else remains still, unmoving. I squint at my white complexion, golden hair ablaze framing my face like fire, my figure silhouetted against the dark shadow of the bed sheets.

I think of the differences between them, like a northern and southern wind, they cross, but Darien would write a story about me. He would use his words like paint to put roses in my hair, sprinkle them like raindrops over the soil of the empty winter crops. He'd paint my eyes silver instead of blue. He'd leave out the freckle above my right rib. He'd leave out the most scars under my clothes. But he would keep one single scar on my heart, that remaining puncture of my past life that I never looked at enough for it to heal entirely. He never sees it as the mark where a woman destroyed her friend, forced her to do harm.

The scar on my heart is that of a frightened, childish Serena, who needed years to build up the courage to escape the world

His story would become art. A way to idealize me, to help me recover, and become something that I am not. Nor will I ever be.

My eyes suddenly burned from the dazed stare. I went into a still panic; if I blink, tears would brim over and trickle down my face. I didn't cry anymore. Yet eventually, and instinctively, my eyes would shut. I didn't want them to. I feared the images behind my eyelids.

I think of Seiya again. His despair and longing. I see myself in the mirror for a moment. Not searching for an escape, but seeking a lost friend.

Seiya would literally paint my reflection, and the flowers in my hair would've been forget-me-nots instead of roses. He would keep the freckle above my rib. If it were Seiya, I would have the cuts and scars from battle.

If it were Seiya, he wouldn't have dressed me up and titled me Angel or Goddess or Princess. I would be Serena. But if it were Seiya, I wouldn't be numbly gazing at the mirror above the bed.