DISCLAIMER: Dragon Knights (c) Mineko Ohkami

NOTES: I really love this fic...I think it's my personal favorite among the DK ones I've written. I see Viaresu's whole life as a story—a tragedy, really—of unrequited love, of hope and desire, of disappointment and betrayal. Yet he lives through it with his spirit intact, tougher and more independent than any other Dragon Knights character. And as I complete this third ( ;) revision, I can truthfully say that I really do love and admire him...this fic is a sort of memorial to that life from me. And though I now know thatSPOILER ALERT he comes back to life in DK 21 END SPOILER ALERT, writing this piece just makes me happy. PS: Oh, and for that someone who asked a question: yes, at the end, if you read carefully, you can see that it sort of ties into my other Viaresu/Cesia fanfic, Unfulfilled...good observation skills. oO;

Watching You

[A Viaresu (Bierrez)/Cesia one shot

Frozen here, watching you.

It is all I can do now. No chance drag you back to safety as I watch you head into danger with my heart in my throat, no way to be there for you to pick you up when you fall. All I can do is watch as you live, as you laugh and cry. Your tears shatter my splintered heart all over again; your smiles bring light into even this darkest of planes.

Yet your smiles are not for me. They are his alone.

Don't you understand—?

He can only hurt you. His past is a dark one, crisscrossed with blood, drenched by tears. Alone among the mountains of corpses that remain of his victims, I lived to tell the tale...and still he claimed my life in the end. I have seen what he has done to countless others, so cruelly, so carelessly, so mirthfully. His hands are stained dark with the blood of a thousand innocents—invisible to the eyes of most, perhaps, but not to me. I have seen him for what he truly is.

Do you suspect at all? I think you have heard the whispers of his shadowed past, and yet you continue to ignore them, insistently making your own way. Stubborn...so stubborn, as always. I want to smile and scold at the same time your foolish tenacity. I want to warn you, to push you away from him—but all I can do is watch.

It's hopeless; I know. And yet I still watch.

You seem happy now. I watch your smiles—smiles that glow with the pure ecstasy of living—and sometimes they even bring an answering one to my own face. And sometimes, I think that, even in this cursėd pseudo-existence, I have found happiness.

But tell me, what is that happiness? What is that smile of untainted joy on your face? Few were the times that it ever replaced your scowl, however briefly, in the past. It comes often now, in his presence. Are you blinded to his true self? Or do you simply choose to ignore it? I wish I could ask you. I wish I could sit by your side just once more, listening to your familiar lilting voice reaching through the early-morning mists of the Valley, recounting your pleasures, disappointments, the pains of living in disguise, the excitement of learning to wield your magic...

...and in those rare moments when we talked, the tightness between your brows smoothed out and a cool breeze momentarily lifted the thick fogs. Those days were the closest I have ever come to perfect serenity.

And now? I watch.

All I can do is watch.

Perhaps you know how I feel. I watch as you speak of me, think of me, and can only hope that the fleeting expression crossing your face is one that mirrors the one on mine now. I never asked you; too fearful, too foolish; but even now as I regret the words I never spoke, I wonder...do you realize?

And still you turn to him? He the monster, he the murderer, he the blood-marred and joyful death-god?—weights upon a heart that no longer beats. I want—need,with a choking, insistent, urgency—to ask you—but all I can do is watch.

Watch, as the familiar ache of regret claws its way up to torment me. So short a life it felt, shorter still the hours spent in your presence, and yet so many failures. I failed to protect you, and in the end, blinded by my own shortsightedness, I entrusted your protection tohim. I lived a life of regrets, only to end it with the greatest sin of all.

It hurts to see you, so close and yet so far from me. A beautiful thing, too delicate, too pure for me to ever hope to touch. And yet I watch. Your visage is my retribution, my reminder: I have a task yet unfulfilled to complete.

Maybe, just maybe, one day I will be able to breach the distance between us and seize my chance—

—but for now, all I can do is watch.

Watching you.

sotto mezameru
hakanai omoi zutto
donna toki demo negau yo
anata ni todoku you ni to...

"ato sukoshi" to yuu kyori ga fumidasenakute
itsumo me no mae wa tozasarete-ita no
aitai aenai hibi wo kasaneru tabi ni
tsuyoi tokimeki wa setsunasa ni naru yo

moshimo eien to yuu mono ga aru nara
toomawari shite demo shinjite mitai
"bukiyou dakara KIZUtsuku koto mo aru" to
wakatte mo tomaranai mou dare ni mo makenai

anata no koto wo omou
sore dake de namida ga
ima afuredashite kuru yo
hakanai omoi zutto
donna toki demo negau yo
anata ni todoku you ni to...

tsuyogaru koto dake shiri-sugite-ita watashi
dakedo ano toki kara mayoi wa kieta yo

misetai to omou mono ga kitto atte
kikasetai kotoba mo takusan aru
egao nakigao mo zenbu mite hoshikute
matte-iru watashi wa yamete
"CHANSU" wo tsukamu yo

anata no koto wo omou
sore dake de kokoro ga
tsuyoku nareru ki ga suru yo
tookute koe ga todokanai dakedo itsuka wa
kanarazu todoku you ni
shinjite la la la la la la...
shinjite la la la la la la...
shinjite la la la la la la...

Quietly awakening...
I always, always wish
that these fleeting thoughts
would reach you...

Unable to move forward across "just a little more" distance
The way I see before me is always blocked
Every time the days I want to see you but can't pile up,
My strong heartbeat turns into heartbreak.

If there is such a thing as "eternity,"
I want to believe, even if I have to take the long way.
Although I know that I've been hurt before because I'm clumsy
I won't stop; I won't give in to anyone.

I think of you
and that alone is enough
to make the tears start to flow now
I always, always wish
that these fleeting thoughts
would reach you...

I've known all too well about pretending to be strong.
But since then, my doubts have vanished.

There's definitely things I want to show you
And so many words I want to hear
I want to see all sides of you, when you laugh and cry
So I'll stop waiting
and seize my "chance."

I think of you,
and I feel like that alone is enough
to make my heart grow stronger.
My distant voice can't reach you now, but I know that someday
it definitely will...
Believe. la la la la la la...
Believe. la la la la la la...
Believe. la la la la la la...