White Knight
By Dan'yu
When we were young, and the days seemed brighter,
We played childhood games under the summer sun.
Games of pretend, of fantasy and adventure,
Of damsels in distress and the knights to their rescue.
I would bravely step forward, to slay the monsters in our path.
And I became a hero in your eyes.
As we grew older, innocence faded into passion,
And the damsel in distress became the beautiful maiden.
The angelic child who looked at me with adoring eyes,
Became the majestic sorceress ensnaring me in a web of dreams.
A temptress boggling my mind,
Infusing my heart with loving desire.
When I was young, I made a vow.
A promise to love, a promise to cherish, a vow to protect.
The lowest of creatures I have become now,
Failing in my knightly duties,
My honor crumbling as I watched you pull away from me.
My vows to protect are failed.
What was once warm and loving in your eyes,
Has faded to the cold, distant protection of hatred.
You look at me now, and I know I have failed.
For in the end, I could not defend my princess,
And the white knight is nothing more than a fallen hero.
-White Knight
----
It is an amazing feeling to love someone so deeply that you grow to know him or her so well, so completely that the person you hold dear becomes your heart; you feel they are a part of you. I achieved that feeling once, by loving Rin as deeply as I did.
I was the person closest to her, the one who understood her best. I glorified in the feeling, the escape from all the secrets shadowing our family, the chance to finally achieve the type of intimacy our curse made forbidden to us as Jyuunishi. I loved her, and it gave me freedom, gave me wings. But I became so complacent, so confident in my knowledge of her that as I spent all my time soaring above the cage of the Sohma, she was suffering at the very bottom.
When we were still little more than children, that day I found her collapsed on the path was the most dramatic and important day of my life since my first meeting with Yuki. I saw how she suffered, the pain she bore, the burdens, and rage and sympathy filled me in a tidal wave, filling with the kind of intensity of emotions that only came with my release to the Black. I made a silent promise back then, to both her and myself, that I would watch over her.
I was young, then, and foolish, but something about me must have endeared to that beautiful, vulnerable girl who was able to move so much inside me, confuse and thrill me at the same time until she left me dizzy, because she allowed me near.
When we were younger, we would play children's games. Our age did not matter; all that mattered was the chance to share something together, something innocent, a taste of the type of childhood denied to all Jyuunishi. To play the valiant prince who saved the captured princess was a role she often gave me, and after I had slayed the deadly beasts and monsters, she would smile at me, her dark, dark eyes warm with affection and other emotions I could never identify. She would take off running, waiting for me to give chase.
As a boy, that was the closest I ever came to flying, racing through the hidden paths of the Sohma estate, my face flushed, my breath shallow, my heart thundering in my ears, gaining on her, and then losing her once more as she pulled yet another creative eluding maneuver; finally catching her from behind, the two of us collapsing together into the grass in an entanglement of limbs and laughter.
That time has long since gone now. The warmth in her eyes has disappeared whenever she looks upon, replaced by nothing but cold, cold anger, pain so deep I see her drowning in it. I reach out to her. She pushes me away, and just goes on drowning.
Somewhere along the line, I know I went wrong. Somewhere, I became so complacent, so self-confident and desperate for her love, that I missed her greatest cry to me.
I am no hero to stand up for the hurt and oppressed.
I am no white knight capable of saving her from all that would do her harm.
In the end, I've only failed her.
Owari