title: amaranthine
summary: Always.
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Russia is a cold, hard place, unforgiving at best and forgetful at worst, and so, although you are almost as far from human as it gets, the cold is still biting, still a knife lodged in all of your bones.
You are bleeding, and it vaguely feels like dying all over again only not.
"Forgive me," she says, a whisper that makes your heart clench in your chest, and her name is out of your lips before you know it – "I can't keep my eyes open any longer..."
Lidded brown eyes look up at you, hazy and unfocused. It feels like you are only a boy again, meeting her for the first time; things were better then, when she was all laughter like church bells, arrogance in a pink dress with cake stained-fingers. When she played the violoncello and taught you how to work magic with the chords.
When things were still simple.
(When she did not know she has a sister.)
"Just like the last time, I wonder if my long sleep has finally come..."
You smile, slightly, a barely-there thing curling around the edges of your mouth. "I will be waiting," you promise, again and again and again, and you will.
You will wait for her no matter what happens.
You always will.
"Do you remember our promise?" she asks, and you can hear her heart beginning to slow down, can feel her muscles going lax, losing the last bit of strength she has left. "If I defeat Diva...when I defeat her...you have to kill me."
Her eyes slip closed, the end of her terrible reminder a whisper you wish you had not heard.
She has fallen into her long, long slumber, and she cannot hear you anymore – and even if she could, she would forget she had.
You speak, anyway, because that is all you can do for her now.
"I will stand guard over you," you tell her, promise her, swear on all the blood that flows through your veins, on your heartbeat and on your name, "even if you change into someone else. Even if we get separated, I will surely find you."
I will always be by your side.
You let your head incline, your forehead rest atop hers. "So, for now...goodnight, Saya."
The snow falls around you, a cold caress.
You press your lips to her temple, gather her up in your arms. She is so incredibly tiny, a small bundle of woman and cloth, and it will never cease to amaze you how someone so delicate is seated at the very top of the natural order and its' food chain. Sometimes, you have to touch her, just to make sure she is not a dream conjured up by a sickness of the mind. And even then, it is hard to believe she is not illusory, although presented with the foolhardy proof of her existence by the very flesh beneath the tips of your fingers.
The snow keeps falling.
You tuck her a little closer to your chest. You would store her inside your ribcage, if you could; protect her from all of the world's evils. But you cannot, so holding her and guarding her will have to do.
She needs a place to slumber safely – her cocoon will begin to form soon, and so you must get moving.
Russia is a cold, hard place, unforgiving at best and forgetful at worst. It is not a good place for reveries, not a good place for your queen to have her rest.
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fin.