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Prologue: Destruction
I missed it all, I messed you up.
[ "Homecoming" Hey Monday]
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She could not see his face through the smoke but she knew he was there. She was no great psychic, and it was not truly his presence she felt. More akin to Pavlov's dog, she felt that he must be there, simply because he was always with her.
And here, in her last great battle, he would rightly see her though it.
[Never mind the rest]
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To him, she was grace. She was light from within. She was intensity given form.
He thought too much of her.
She was damned with weakness. Even now, the only thing keeping her from screaming mercy, begging, was the comfort that he felt every sting of ash, every song of flame; and by feeling, lessening her own affliction. She was selfish, for she could not let him go. Not even now, not to save his soul from shattering.
Especially not now.
[She still could not say the words]
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It was not right for a chosen to be prideful. Yet that was what she had been.
She had wanted so badly to be everything he thought her to be. To prove that she could be worth his love.
It only proved that he was too good for her. Too precious. She could not hurt him like that. Not with her affection.
[It didn't matter; she had hurt him anyway]
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She would not let him touch her, except when the battle stung her flesh.
She would not let him hold her, except when near to death.
Pride, pride. Her own wretched pride had harbored her death. She had seen its coming but prayed escape.
And it was on this delusion that she had led her last assault; on his confidence in her, on her wish to ground his faith.
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Where was their faith now?
She hadn't slept last night. She was sure he hadn't either.
He would have kept council with the thought that she would be saved, that the good do not die.
He was still so innocent when it came down to it; he saw good men die everyday and still he believed what his own eyes denied.
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Not like this…
She could not die like this…
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She looked up, but she would not look to God.
A small irony that he would have more faith than she did. Her death would devastate it completely.
[Because there was no God to save her]
Sparks flew into her eyes as the wood below crumbled, evaporating and freeing itself.
She was going to die. She knew it.
But still she could not say it, not even here where he would never hear.
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Oh, Claude, forgive me…
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[Dreaming Omega]
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