What did it truely mean to live your life for another?
He used to know what it meant; to swear and to prove your undying loyalty to the visions and aspiration of the one that you believed in. He used think that the approval of his Lord would be the conjurer of his legacy. And perhaps it was.
But the desire to serve another was just desire given to the benefit of another. To desire for ones self...
He never really cared about what he wanted for himself, mainly because he never wanted much more than to see the land unified under the undying virtue of his lord Liu Bei.
That was all before.
Before he met him. His enemy and friend.
His hopes and fears.
His...everything.
Against the horizon's twilight, he peered through the amber of a candles glow against a window. He saw his sillouette. He was there. Just seeing him brought forth the dancing of muses that were perhaps his most cherished memories, ones that elicited passion not from his warrior's valiance, but something else entirely.
He thought back to the night he first met him. It didn't seem like much back then, but it was the first time he had ever felt truely alive. The honor to meet such a man was aspiring. He realized that man was everything he sought himself to become. Everything he understood about honor, strength, loyalty, and courage, that warrior embodied. After facing him in battle over the years, he knew that now.
But to see a friend and an enemy as one in the same is to see a darkside. A side kept hidden from everyone else. As a warrior, they both strove to hold steadfast to their duties, and never allowed their emotions to get in the way.
Everyday, it became more of a struggle to do that, which is why he stood in Hefei, before the door that his friend and enemy resided behind, mustering the courage to see his face again.
He brought his hand up and gave a knock on the door. Immediately his body trembled at the thought of seeing him again. He came in the hope that seeing him off the battlefield would lead to a different kind of confrontation, one that would rekindle the flame from when they first met at Xiapi 16 years ago. But what if he didn't see it that way? What if he scorned him, rejected him on the grounds of the kingdom of which he served. He knew now that this man had more conviction than he did. If one of them was to hold true to their loyalties...
The door slowly swung open. His blood froze. They stood there, each taking in each other. Seeing the other, like the sight of a dead battleground, silenced the coldness of the call of duty.
"Hey!"
It was like spring blossoming in the red snow.
"Hey."
And he felt whole again.