Seeing Red -
Some people looked at the stars and saw beauty. Some looked at them and saw legends.
There were a few looked at the stars and saw history itself.
Milo was vaguely certain that there were very few who looked at the stars and saw a glittering chronicle of death and life. The constellations may have belonged to the Saints in name alone, but they were theirs none-the-less.
He wondered if there was a lesson in that, and then decided there wasn't . They were just stars, after all. Burning orbs of energy that eventually consumed their own existence in a glorious chemical suicide. It was possible that the ones he could name were already dead.
It was a bitter truth, and Milo hated the science that had explained the phenomenon . It was a cold, impassionate thing, devoid of emotion and honor.
He didn't want to think that there might be a time when the shining red sphere, shining brightly in the northern sky, would no longer shine.
He didn't hate scarlet. It proved you were human. He just wished he didn't have to see it so often.
He hated himself, of course, for wondering if perhaps things would have been better if he had been killed with the others whose Cloths now stood empty, awaiting the day when their new masters would arise and take their places as the guardians of Athena and humanity. If they had all died, then Athena could have started with a clean slate. Sanctuary would no longer be tainted with the blood of the innocent.
But then the guilty would be free to taint the steps with something far worse than blood.
Besides, the moment you died wasn't something that you were allowed to decide. You lived until you could no longer do so. If you were lucky, you died of old age.
If you were a Saint, you probably died because someone killed you.
Milo chuckled, knowing the sound would remain unheard by anyone but himself in the darkness. His hand clenched around the glass he held in his hand.
The liquid inside was burgundy.
Then he hated himself for brooding. He wanted to live, more than anything. This was his destiny, to be a Saint. He i would /i die before giving that up. He couldn't think of a single time when he had regretted his role in the world.
The only proof of life was death. The only way to stay alive was to defy death. A circle of proof that defied logic.
Flowing in dark rivers over white the color of porcelain, crimson had been the perfect proof of that irrationality.
But it was his own knowledge of the color that gave Milo his own proof of life.
Scarlet. The color of passion and resolve.
Crimson. Proof of life.
Burgundy.
All three shades of red mixed within his veins, at times heating to the point of scalding. Those were the moments that Milo proved his existence. Lost in the consuming righteousness of being a defender of the most acceptable relevance to the mistress of humanity, it was impossible not to appreciate the color.
Carved in the stone tablet of Milo's own soul, his destiny shone red.
Above Milo, recorded in the account of existence that the stars told without fail, the symbol of his destiny reflected the color back at him.