I move in silence with each step taken
snow falling around me like angels in flight
far in the distance is my wish under moonlight

Yuan's is the only one of Raine's goodbyes that does not last forever.

Still, she doesn't come when the axe-girl succumbs to the same degenerative illness that claimed her father. She doesn't come when the fallen angel takes his own life, or when the Chief of Mizuho's broken heart stops in her sleep. She doesn't even come when the boy who named me, long since a man, bleeds out for the sake of stopping an already bloody rebellion. Even after the Chosen of Regeneration finally ascends to the heavens eighty years later than her destiny demanded, Raine does not return.

Meanwhile, Yuan's conscience troubles him more and more as he reflects on his irrevocable and unjust words—the reason for her absence. His sleep becomes fitful, his thoughts restless, and he inexplicably finds himself as anxious for Raine as a guardian for his charge. Perhaps he should not have placed the weight of the world on her shoulders, not even a century old. Far more frail than his own back, made strong over thousands of years.

Yet, unbeknownst to Yuan, Raine does not bear her grudge for long. She stays out of his life more because she cannot figure out how to enter it again than because she wants no part of it. As she sees more of the truth behind his cynicism, her frustration is gradually replaced by a profound sorrow and weariness. She comes to understand and even appreciate the warning Yuan meant to deliver, well meant even if spitefully offered.

But as many farewells as she has endured, just as Yuan predicted, nothing can compare to the pain of realizing that no one needs her anymore.

Homesick for a place that no longer exists, or perhaps never existed at all, Raine stands atop a ruined tower, gazes at the stormy sky, and longs for wings. She has as little interest in death as in life, but nonetheless the thought seeps into her mind like poison. She could fall, and no one would care. One of her friends thought the same way, even if he walked a knife's edge instead of a rampart like this.

Raine holds her breath and waits for his voice to remind her not to make his same mistakes, but she hears only the howling gales. All at once, the reality of her loneliness falls over her like a shadow, and she gives a dry sob, closing her burning eyes. No one is there to catch her; it is by her own strength that she lives on, and so it will always be.

How often has the same realization crossed Yuan's mind?

Though this is by no means the first time Raine has thought of him since their last parting, it is the first time she has truly seen herself in him. Not as a fellow half-elf alone, but as the bearer of her own soul, only made cold and callous by lifetimes of constant impermanence. Perhaps it is for that reason that Yuan is the last person in this world who might still need her.

After all, Raine brought him news of the outside world, whispers he might not otherwise have heard, his tie to a reality intertwined with but separate from his own. Alone in the garden of the Giant Tree, living out the rest of his life in seclusion, Yuan feels a sense of borderless tranquility… and the uneasy innocence that comes with ignorance. He misses the unpredictability of Raine's visits, the possibility of variation in an ultimately routine life, but he knows better than to believe she'll ever come back. Or so he thinks.

The day Raine finally returns is one of his hunting days, but she has all the time in the world to wait for him. There is no need for locks, and never has been, so she lets herself into the house. Rather than investigate his library, she curls up on his rug as comfortably as though she belongs there. Breaking and entering is enough of a crime for one day, she tells herself, and loses herself in joyless daydreams instead.

Yuan knows something is amiss the moment he gets home, and nocks another arrow in preparation for a different kind of hunt, but stops dead as soon as he gets through the door, his fingers trembling. First, he doesn't recognize what exactly he's seeing, and then he refuses to believe it, though a rush of relief follows the burst of shock. There lies Raine, unannounced and unassuming. And awake.

She pushes herself upright as soon as she senses him staring, his lips parted incredulously. "Hello, Yuan," she greets him in a murmur, the room strangely airless. For the moment, nothing else matters except that neither of them are quite so alone anymore. The bad blood between them has long since dried, and the evanescence of resentment has never seemed so clear before. "It's been a long time."

"I… I'm sorry," says Yuan, almost before she finishes—the phrase he's kept unspoken in his head for decades. His voice comes out low and hoarse from disuse, and he clears his throat self-consciously, setting down his bow and quiver. He had not intended to say it so soon, nor so disjointedly, but the suddenness of her appearance has unsettled him more than anticipated.

"For what it's worth, I don't think you have anything to be sorry for," says Raine, smiling distantly, and he blinks at her in astonishment. "That said, I came here to apologize as well. And to ask a question." She pauses, searching Yuan's expression for forgiveness or permission, and he grants both with a halting inclination of his head. What else can he do?

"I'm… still a historian," says Raine, rising, and cannot quite meet Yuan's eyes. "My interest in the past has not changed. I'd like to know if I'm still forbidden from asking questions." She speaks slowly, almost clumsily. She doesn't say it aloud, but they both know she is in desperate need of a purpose. This is more a request for help in finding something to do with herself than any desire to become his biographer.

Not too many years ago, Yuan might have said no without a second thought, but this time, he hesitates. Raine's questions may not be so painful anymore, now that she too has lived through the losses every half-elf must overcome. Yet there's still a part of him, stubborn and selfish and irrational, that insists that his past should remain buried like a thorn in his heart, that pulling it out would hurt more, that she has no right to see it.

"You don't have to answer right now," says Raine, her voice disarmingly gentle, and approaches a few tentative steps. She's grown more observant in her time away, thinks Yuan, or perhaps he's just gotten easier to read. "I have the rest of my life ahead of me. Just take care that you don't take the rest of yours to make a decision."

They share a small smile, bittersweet and instinctive, before Raine dips her head and turns to leave. She doesn't want to overstay her welcome after arriving so unexpectedly, after all, especially since the time and distance between them already changed both their temperaments so tangibly.

Yuan has little choice but to follow her silently outside, where the sun shines blindingly bright on the snow, and wonder what it is she sees in him—why she's returned, after all these years, only to leave him alone again. Is this his punishment?

As she climbs elegantly into her Rheaird, Yuan finds his voice at last. "Raine," he says suddenly, stronger now, but falters. He wants to ask her not to stay away too long this time, and the words are on the tip of his tongue, but they flit to the farthest corners of his mind as she tosses him a cautious and questioning glance. He never learned how to shelve his pride, so he sighs and settles for his traditional goodbye instead: "Safe journey."

"Thank you," returns Raine softly, and Yuan echoes her words too quietly for anyone to hear as he watches her soar away.