Vanadium Vanadis
Vanadium: a rare element, symbol V. Harder than steel, toxic, and yet considered soft. What a perfect chemical to describe him.
…
It's amazing how a roman numeral, one letter, the 22nd to be exact could impact an entire country and yet it wasn't the number that mattered to her. No, it was the man that hid behind the mask. The man she never got to see in the year she'd been with him, foolishly squandering time after he released her. In their last moments together he confessed the words she always wanted to hear from him.
If only she hadn't called him a monster.
Or walked away.
If only she hadn't run from what he was trying to give her, time and time again. Would he still be alive? How do you describe someone when you never really knew who they were? Sure she knew what he was. Knew what he wanted. Knew everything he represented. And yet she never really knew the man.
But that didn't matter now.
Gone.
He was gone…
Well, at least physically and even she wasn't sure of that, as she viewed the crowd. Physically, yes she watched him speed off toward Valhalla. Mentally, he was in her every thought. Spiritually, could he be here in this very room? Surely, she would be able to feel his heavy gaze even through death?
Yet…nothing.
Maybe he did make that final journey into peaceful obliteration…
But thoughts like that wouldn't help her get through her task any easier. It didn't help that there were so many of them. Old, young, women, men, and even children. They all adorned the crowd. All dressed as one man. The one man that circle her thoughts. The man she was dedicating the new Shadow Gallery Museum too.
V.