Author's note: Hey everyone. It's like 2:30 in the morning, but I HAD to finish this. Ok…so the italicized parts are flashbacks…and everything not in quotes are Rosiel's thoughts. The flashbacks are from the first two volumes of the manga. I hope no one is confused…Enjoy el ficlet.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, NOTHING I tell you! The usual.

Breaking

My hands are shaking. In the odd gleam of the mirror in the darkness, I can see them. It must be nearly dawn, but I have not slept…or eaten…not in days. I can see the circles that are starting to form under my eyes, and I wonder why, why I slept away so many years during which my mind may have still been intact. How I hate sleeping… but how I wish I could sleep…how I miss being sane.

My eyes-I don't like them. They reflect something…or perhaps I've imagined it? No, there's something in them that wasn't before. Sadness, maybe, or loneliness? Or pain? Pain. I should have predicted that my emotions would eventually find a way to display themselves…

Yes, I see it now. The strands of hair I twist around my fingers are the same as they have always been, I haven't lost or gained a quarter inch in height, I haven't gained a single ounce of weight. But my eyes, my face…I barely recognize them as my own. Have they really been disfigured so much through the years? My face has become so childlike, and my eyes reflect such strange emotions…emotions even I don't fully understand…

But is this vanity? Staring at a reflection, trying to see myself as others do? But what is vanity? What is vanity but caring so desperately what others think of you?

"And oh…Katan, I forgot to ask one thing more. Am I beautiful? As beautiful as when I ruled Atziluth?"

"Yes…there's been no change between then and now. Nothing…no jewel in the world can compare. Your ultimate radiance will never, ever fade."

Katan, I would die to believe you…

I would die to believe you…

My hands…they've grown so skeletally thin. Beautiful? Who could possibly find me beautiful? No, I am not beautiful, not anymore. I hear what they say about me. They call me a monster… they say I don't love anyone but myself…they say I have so much pride…I hear them. I hear them.

I hear them, but they couldn't be more wrong. Love myself? No. Pride isn't loving yourself. Pride is being hard pressed to love another because of unwillingness, an inability, to love yourself. But I am not proud, I can still love…

Katan, you have always told me I was beautiful, you have always believed I was beautiful, even when I could not. You have always cared for (loved?) me, and you have never suspected how much I need you… but I have hurt you…but I had to…

"Lord Rosiel…! What is she saying?"

The sadness in your eyes mirroring that which I'm surely failing to conceal in my own…

"Kirie's a student, so her absence won't be as noticeable. But you…you need to return quickly."

Don't you understand, Katan? I can't have a servant that I'm afraid to put in danger.

"I respectfully disagree…"

Yes, respectfully, respectful as you always are, never enough courage to stand up to your master…are you afraid of me?

"You don't understand what I'm saying. You insist on defying me. I have no need for subordinates who won't attend to my orders."

I have no use for subordinates that I hate to give orders.

"You're no longer necessary, Katan."

I never loved her, Katan. Did you believe that I did? I liked Kirie…she and I are alike in a way…and I miss her, sometimes... She said I was beautiful, believed I was beautiful…but she was young. I didn't love her. But Katan, you love me so much that it hides the love I don't have for myself.

You understand, don't you? Don't you, Katan? But of course you don't. Its just as I told you such a long time ago…

"Katan, someone as beautiful as you could never understand. You are one of the very few pure angels who love humans from the heart."

And perhaps other angels from the heart as well…

"Pure and gentle, you know no hatred or jealousy…Sometimes when I look at you, I wanted so much to taint you…"

Because I wanted you to understand, I wanted you to know what its like to be evil. But would I love you then?

Would it be easier? If you were evil, and I could hate you?

If…I could…hate…

I can see it in my eyes again (loneliness? pain?), I can see it…how I hate my eyes, how I hate my face. Could I shatter this mirror into a thousand pieces and never see either again? The sound of breaking glass is oddly satisfying. Yes, I'll close my eyes so I can't see them and break this mirror into so many pieces that no one can ever see my reflection in it again…

But when I open my eyes, my hands are bleeding. There is glass embedded in my fair luminescent skin, which is becoming stained with red blood. But my body regenerates most of the time… I'll be very angry if this leaves scars.

I'm sitting in the broken glass, and strangely, I feel like crying… I haven't bled in so long, I can't even remember the last time… but the physical pain, I can barely feel it…I feel like crying… I haven't cried in so long, I haven't cried, haven't bled, in so many millennia…

How odd I look reflected in the shattered bits of glass, blood staining my hands and arms, and what may actually be tears shining in my eyes. But I am not crying. I'm looking at the thousands of pieces and the thousands of reflections in them. Seeing myself clearly despite all my wasted efforts. Vanity, pride, pain, love… all so strangely clear. Insanity? Maybe. But I'm not stupid… I know I'm breaking.