under the heavens, we journey far
on roads of life, we're the wanderers
so let love rise; so let love depart
let hope have a place in the lover's heart
hope has a place in a lover's heart
They're not quite lovers, but they could be, if you could only see how they look at one another.
For all the seasons they spent apart, it takes remarkably little time for them to catch up. Both of them feel that they have changed in some fundamental way since their separation, but cannot articulate the shift. They simply drink in one another's presence, finding solace in their shared, unspoken sentiment.
Once the smiles give way to more words, they fashion their sessions into dialogues, no longer soliloquies. Raine, too, has her own history, intertwined with Yuan's—and those of his companions—in unexpected parallels. But even her entire story is a short one compared to his. She finishes most of it within the time Yuan spends recovering from losing his voice again, nursing his tea.
Raine talks of passing as an elf, moving from place to place in her youth to conceal her more rapid aging, and raising her brother on the road. More reluctantly, she talks of teaching, traveling the reunited world, and finding ways to justify her existence to strangers. But she does not speak of matters closer to her heart: all else Yuan has heard, or can guess.
Once he can speak again, Yuan reciprocates with tales of his own travels, this time including his companions. There was his fiercest rival turned most steadfast ally. There was the boy who should have been like a sibling or a son to him, but never was. And… there was the woman he meant to marry.
It takes time and liquor to loosen Yuan's tongue, but loosen it does. How many new doors his lady opened in his mind, and led him laughing through. How many subtle blessings she gave him, each one counted daily like a prayer. How utterly she transformed him, thawing the soul he had frozen in misguided self-preservation. Since her death, it turned to ice again, but is no longer.
How did it soften this time…?
Deep down, Yuan knows, and cannot bring himself to look at Raine anymore. Too much of what he says applies to her as well. Yet still she believes Yuan has never once let his fiancée go, because she can see all too well that his face is ruddy in more than firelight or tipsiness. After all, her late husband harbored the same untouchable love, pure in its past tense. Why is it that another woman must always come first?
As Raine's heart constricts as though swallowing regret, she must remind herself that Yuan owes her nothing—that she is here only to listen, and nothing more. She tells herself that his lost little half-smiles are enough, at once melancholy and brilliant. They complement the glimmer of resignation in his gaze, just barely too soft to be steely.
But for all Yuan's quiet determination, he becomes more and more nervous the farther they retrace his steps along his former course. He walked in darkness for many centuries, and he fears the necessity of guiding Raine along his twisted path. What if her light is not enough to guide him through? Or what if, mired in his misery, she refuses to follow him to the end?
"Raine," begins Yuan, on a night when neither of them can sleep, and leans against the doorway to his bedroom. "Can you ever forgive me?"
Raine glances up from her book, no hint of surprise at his wakefulness in her expression; only a perplexed frown. "What for?"
"For… everything," says Yuan, unable to meet her eyes. "There will soon be nights when I must speak of the millennia I spent supporting the Age of Lifeless Beings. Even after I founded the Renegades, I was still party to unforgivable crimes." He sighs. "You are a historian, Raine. You know that intention is irrelevant compared to the damage done."
Raine shakes her head. "Yet you still fought to undo it. Your choices led to destruction, but your choices also brought about its end. And…" She hesitates. "I know that, for the most part, you only acted in the interest of self-preservation." The scale of their deeds may be incomparable, but she too remembers the morals she had to abandon in order to survive childhood. She has tried, many times, to forget.
"That is no excuse," snaps Yuan, agitated. "I sacrificed countless others to save myself, and for what? To resurrect one woman who never wanted any of this?" He grips his arms tightly. "Kratos, at least, had the courage to make a clean break and find his own happiness. I clung to what I knew, rather than face the prospects of a death I more than deserved."
"No, Yuan," says Raine gently, closing her book, and rises. "The best decision you ever could have made was to keep struggling. It might have been easier for you to resign yourself to the end, but you knew the world would be better served with you still in it." She braves a smile. His resolution is altogether too reminiscent of the last man she loved. "I appreciate… no, I admire that."
But Yuan cannot hear Raine's praise over his hateful heartbeat. "My life meant less than nothing until I swore to guard the Giant Tree."
"And it seems to be flourishing under your care," says Raine, glancing aside to compose herself as her voice trembles slightly along with her fingers. She, herself, does not know the meaning behind what she is about to say. "But… I owed you my life long before you took up such a task."
Yuan stares at her, disarmed. "What?"
Raine takes a deep breath to calm the sudden fluttering in her stomach. "It is strange to think about. But had you lived a normal life, or perhaps even if you had allowed yourself to die a little earlier, I—and innumerable others like me—may never have been born. Even if we walked this earth, I never would have met you." Raine meets Yuan's eyes evenly. "And that would be a shame. I'd miss our conversations."
Her insistence is gratifying, but however precious new life may be, it does not make worthwhile the devastation that wrought it: Yuan cannot accept her compliment. "If we never conversed, you wouldn't be able to miss it," he says instead. "I think you'd find plenty of other men you could just as easily…" Yuan swallows the word 'charm' as it makes its way to the tip of his tongue. (No. Not now. Not yet.)
"You are not expendable, Yuan."
It is not until Raine says the words aloud that Yuan realizes the extent to which he truly believes in his inadequacy, and blinks at her in shock. Even his lady could never have offered such prompt and perfect reassurance; in her day, he was a different man, with different needs. He and they have both changed since, and she is no longer here to fulfill either of them. But Raine is.
In that moment, Yuan recognizes that he has already let go.
"Do you need to hear it again?" asks Raine, half-understanding and half-misinterpreting his silence, and takes measured steps forward. "You are irreplaceable. You, as you are, the son of a human and an elf, with all your scars and burdens." She stops just before Yuan, searching his face. "Your own life is no less valuable than any of those you have taken. Remember that."
As Raine speaks, sincere in her acceptance, Yuan is pulled into the depths of her eyes as though stargazing. Here is someone who will not betray or abandon him—the most unpredictable part of his life since the fall of the angels, now his only constant. And Raine sees that realization unfold in Yuan's softening countenance, tenderness overtaking all his doubt and fear. He will be able to sleep now.
She can tell, from the way he kisses her good night.