Life wasn't fair.
No, not at all.
But why should it be? Was that its purpose, to be fair?
No-it was horrible and wonderful and terrible and exciting. It was frightening and exhilarating.
"Haven't seen you around lately." He nodded cordially to an old friend.
"Haven't had the need to search anyone out." She smiled at an old enemy. "Anything new?"
"Could Gourry understand mathematics?" He joked to an almost lover.
"Good point. I can't believe I forgot how dull your life is." She mocked a temporary crush.
"Dinner?"
"Me or you?"
"Me, of course; am I to expect you to pay for your own meals now?"
"Just wondering if you recalled."
"How could I forget?"
She quirked an eyebrow at something only she would ever understand. "Why should you remember?"
And life was inside out, turned around, like having a sheath in a sword instead of a sword in a sheath.
Like having milk instead of ale.
Like…like falling in love with the one man she couldn't have, because he would live and she would die. He would live on as an immortal and she would die for him and he would be happy, and then she would die for herself and she would find rest.
"How is Amelia?" An old friend asked an old enemy and pretended that she didn't know.
"Wonderful and the same. I would swear that she lives on caffeine, but that seems to be my job." He smiled and chuckled and pretended that this was all a game.
"Had any kids?" and her elbow found it's way into his side, but instead of him wincing in pain, she cradled a now bruised elbow. "Ow, I never can seem to remember."
"No, but I found a spell." He smiled and laughed with her and they kept up the act until he finally reached for her arm. "Let me see it." He demanded, and acted like it mattered.
"No." she teased, and acted like nothing hurt.
But he didn't know she knew, just as the young, buxom sorceress didn't know she knew that the girl didn't really care. It was all a game for her; her young mind, untouched and unscarred. Love for her was like a trickle of water creeping into the ocean. Love for her was like watering a sapling when she could have been growing an oak.
Love for her was as a chimera man, dressed in fancy garments he didn't like, surrounded by snobby people who didn't like him, and suffering through the puppy affections that made it all the more stifling.
"So how does it feel to be king, eh?"
"How does it feel to be undefeatable?"
And they looked at each other and knew that they were tired and sad and that everything was old.
"Why do you stay?"
"Why should I leave?"
"Why do you keep answering questions with questions?"
"Why do you keep asking?"
When would she figure it out? When she was twenty? Fifty? Older? Stone doesn't age, demons don't age, and as a mixture of both, an inhuman specimen, a stone demon won't age.
Trapped forever in a body he hated, with a woman he didn't love, surrounded by people who smiled and waved and were fake; remembering the times with people who liked him for who he was, and never knowing that he could have held the love of another like him. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a monster in a monster, but she saw a human in the monster.
"You said you found a spell?"
"Yes."
"Why haven't you tried it?"
"Because it doesn't work."
"But you haven't tried it."
"Do I really need to?"
What could she say? Yes-go ahead-she didn't mind. She would watch as he got smothered in a love he didn't want, and she suffered through unrequited grief, pity, and reluctant memory.
Life was like a box of chocolates. She never knew how quickly it went until it was gone and gone and she looked and saw that it was never coming back.
So she sat there and watched him live through it all. She knew his thoughts, felt his pain, and stayed his silent redemption in a world where too much love smothered and too little starved. He had had both at the same time, different times, equal times. It never stayed the same, and in a world ever changing he never grew up until the end, where he became a man and never a teenager.
"Have you ever thought-what would have happened?"
"Every time I hear a story."
"What kind of story?"
"The adventurous kind. Just like ours."
"There is no story like ours."
"But it is one, now."
"Yes, I suppose we will all be legends."
"Is that a good thing?"
"Depends on what the legends say."
What was the difference between them? They lied and cheated and acted and if they were to be honest it would not be truly them. But he lied with a straight face and she acted with a long one. He stayed calm and often sadistic. She took it out on the world. He pitied himself. She did too, but wouldn't let him know that.
She stares at things now and pictures what made them and why they made them and if there was a reason. Why is there a painting? Who would have painted the painting? Why would they spend a week of their time, hard at work over this priceless piece of work, when it will only get burned and destroyed and then it would all be over.
He looked to the side and flinched, just barely.
"What?"
"Hmmm? Oh. The…painting."
She looked up and up and saw nothing but an oil canvas of a bouquet of flowers, gorgeous and frozen in time. "What about it?"
"I do not like paintings."
Her eyes took in his frame and posture before nodding. "Why do you fear pictures?"
"Because they stop time."
"That's silly."
"Have you ever thought about it before?" her head shook and he nodded. "See? A picture, painting, canvas, sketch, whatever you want to call it, it's still the same—a lie. The flowers this painting was fashioned after? They are long since dead, but this keeps them alive, trapped, unable to breath."
"You think too much."
"You would too. You know there are pictures of you in the palace, right?"
She went strangely silent.
Take that further. Why would a person wish to amass great treasure and jewels? They would die and it would leave and go to someone like her who would sell it because it is trash and get food because it is useful. How edible is a gold coin?
Even further? Why live? He was apathetic. She was an optimistic. But remember, she lied. Was she an optimistic, or apathetic or perhaps a pessimist and everyone was as unobservant as she first suspected.
She cried and wept and laughed and smiled over his pain and sadness, because she knew how it would end because she had seen it so much. He worried about himself too much; no one cared except for his friends. He stressed over what he looked like and she could never help but to compare him to a boy.
He slipped an ivory cloak over his head and shoulders. "Well, it was good to see you." He smiled at her but she could not tell if he was lying or not.
She gave him a haunted mockery of her old expression. "Was it? Was it really?"
He nodded and turned. "Come again?"
"Only if you promise to live-not drift. We are here for you."
"I promise. Try not to clean out the bandits surrounding Seiroon too much. I need a stress reliever."
And then suddenly, every thing seemed deeper and fuller and she knew that it was time and that he was going to make his decision. She knew. He didn't know, but she knew. Smother and live with love; or live without it and starve.
"Live and love." She whispered into the wind. Perhaps it would find its way to him. "And remember. Always remember-I'm here for you, whether you know it or not."
Zelgadis had another choice. He just didn't know it.
And he never would.