She is possibly the most dangerous person I have ever known, I have only lightly touched the pure abandon that she embraces daily. If not for the self-control that the elements have fostered in me, I wonder if we would be so different from one another.

Her hair is black silk against my skin as we lay in the mansions attic that serves as my loft. She is asleep, facing me; I move her skewed hair from her face, tucking the ebon strands behind her ear.

When first we met I was so enamored by her contentions; this woman who I found to be more alive than any other yet she risks her life recklessly to feel alive. Somehow she saw a kindred spirit in me and we became friends; no closer than friendships I have with my teammates but altogether different.

None of the X-men know the true nature of the relationship we share and if they do then they have never let on. My need for secrecy is not born of shame or fear, I simply feel that I must keep for myself; some drop of privacy.

I have loved men and so has she and we will again, yet no matter whom I share a home with; Yukio and I will always have each other.

My plants do not speak to me, but through my bond with the planet I have a deep empathic rapport with them. I feel as they feel and while my bond with Yukio is not as involved it is no less profound.

I water them, whispering to my adulations.

Years ago, I rebelled against my mantles, sheathing the role of goddess and my unnatural control of my emotions, I attribute the courage to do so to Yukio. We were in Japan when we met and I became instantly enamored by her facetious abandon. The odds were against us in our battles and my control over the elements was wanting at the time, yet she roared her glee; I wanted to be her.

I wonder how she found anything endearing in me; I was her polar opposite. Did she see my yearning to be free; were my muffled frustrations audible to her?

We do not see one another very often; our lives rarely bridge us. Sometimes there are months between trysts.

There are times when I dream of a home with Yukio. I often want to have her as my own, forever, but my rational self knows that she could not sing if she were caged.

Forge was not privy to the more intimate details of the relationship between Yukio and I, yet I do not feel that I have betrayed him. While I can see how one would find the deception to be clear, there is a camaraderie that I share with her that could not exist between another and myself. I love her apart from her sex, while I have not labeled myself; I wonder if there is a woman with sufficient mettle to inspire comparable feelings.

Yet, my standards are not lowered in the case of men. Am I really as unafraid as I believe myself to be? I have loved so few romantically; is it that Yukio is the only woman I have loved, that I believe myself incapable of the same feelings for another woman?

There isn't a person in the world that I love more than Jean Grey, yet I have not shared this facet of myself with her and I know that I could never have these feelings for her. Jean Grey is in the ranks of the purest souls I have ever encountered; the most genuine human being I have ever met. Her love is relative to the boundless, unconditional love of a child; it never waivers in it intensity and I value that in her friendship more than anything. Yet the stirring in my heart for her is purely platonic.

Logan and I have shared the most brief of encounters, yet we have never transgressed beyond the casual. While when we first met I found him repelling, yet, even in the heat of the most feral rage; there are few that I trust more in battle.

I turn from my quenched garden to look at my luminescent Yukio, wondering what it is exactly about her that stirs me so.

This isn't a question that need be answered tonight. I return to bed, pulling my self as close as possible.