It is hard being the Seer of Light.

I may have the ability to see the most fortuitous path, but that does not mean the other paths cannot happen. It does not mean that we cannot stray towards different events due to external shenanigans. Luck can pan out in any way, even when one can see how lucky they are. For example, say someone was to roll a pair of dice – and know for a fact that they had extremely high chances of achieving the numbers they want to get, as compared to other people. When they roll, it does not necessarily land on their number – and even if it does, there is no guarantee that they will procure what they want. Someone else can change plans. Someone else can change their mind in a single second.

All it takes is an instant.

And that is what worries me.

The saying goes "with great power comes great responsibility". No one ever told me there are two other things that come with power in addition to that. With great power comes great fear – great doubt. Others look up to me to show them the way. Others look to me to help out when needed. That is the responsibility part. However, no one ever told me that I would doubt if I am doing things right. No one ever told me I would have to act forward, confident and sure of myself when I am not. I want to be able to show my doubt, yet I cannot do this – if I show how I am doubtful of certain issues, the others will become disconcerted. They will not be at the top of their "game", so to speak, when we arrive at the next session. This could cost us our lives. There is no way I can show how scared I am of making a wrong decision, either – interpreting what I see as a Seer of Light wrong, or how luck can still change to be against us. My abilities are not foolproof. None of our abilities are. Mine only seem to be the most advantageous. That is why they look to me for advice and decision making. I could be in my room, like I am now, and they automatically expect me to burst out with an epiphany and make sure things happen so that we can win.

There is only one person – well, troll – that I have talked to about this. At first, even with her, I had to keep up the charade. I had to be forward to advance my relationship with Kanaya, too. I knew fortune was on my side, and I observed her actions toward me and what she had said to me. Yet, even still, there were possibilities where she would not have reciprocated. She could have spontaneously changed her mind – right on the spot. She would have good reasoning to do so. One is the situation we are in. Two is the fact that we are two different species. These are the two very obvious reasons why she could have turned me down, let alone the subtler reasoning. I was worried that I was being too forward. I could have been too presumptuous. I would have forced myself on her if she had no romantic inclination toward me. Thankfully, this was not the case.

I am the Seer of Light. That is an intricate part of my identity now. It may be my entire identity now, essentially.

But I am not an oracle. I am merely a gambler.

Sometimes I wish that I had these powers before my mother died. If I did, then maybe I could have saved her. I know the truth, though. I would not have died if she did not. I would not be God Tier, and I would not be able to help the others win the game in the null session we are heading to. We would not be able to win and possibly recreate earth. There are things that have to happen in order to paint the bigger picture. That does not make me feel any better. In all actuality, it hurts a lot more to know that I could have tapped into these abilities sooner if I had just found my quest bed earlier, or if I had not let myself get tricked by who I now know as Doc Scratch. I have cried over why this did not happen – it is an awful feeling.

I am not allowed to be weak. I am not allowed to show how I have the same amount of doubt and fear as everyone else. I can barely do so in the confines of this teeny room. My feelings are a jumbled up mess that I have to control because I will not allow myself to fall into grimdarkness again. Everything is about knowing what is going to happen. It is about controlling what is happening when there is no way to actually do so. It has always been a charade. Although I despise having to keep it up, the others rely on me. They do so for information about the status of our mission and the research I have done. The first and foremost reason, however, is because I give them hope. I am the only light they see at the end of the tunnel, metaphorically speaking.

I am the Atlas of this meteor. SBURB is the vast heavens upon my back. The weight of it is threatening to crush me. This meteor is a prison to me. It is deafening in its silent screams that add to your own, due to the fact that there is nothing to do other than think. My barely decorated steel room is the only salvageable safe haven I have within this meteor. The bed I am sitting on is where I usually unleash my relentlessly agonizing thought process. I am not sure how long it will take, or if we can win this game at all. This could all be for naught. We still have to try for the sake of ourselves and our loved ones – it is difficult to hope to win when you can see all the hundreds of ways our goals may not be achieved… so very, very, difficult. It is when I think about these things all at once, I tend to start –

Crying.

Great. I had to go and start the waterworks – still salty as ever, too. Not only do I have to deal with the salt, oh no – I have to deal with the bitter taste of defeat. It is a battle not to cry every time. Now it will take way too long to stop. I have more research to do. This is not the time for this. At least no one will turn down this hallway for a while. I can be by my damaged self for the time being. I do not know if I like to be by myself like I used to, actually. Sometimes being with the others provides distraction, though everything is always in the back of my mind. The tracks of my mind are bumpy and arduous paths to walk along, and I do not like to walk along them like I used to. It is more like I am looking at the footsteps –

Wait a tick. Are those footsteps in the hallway? They are faint, but those are definitely footsteps. Did I miscalculate the timing? No, I am pretty sure I did not. Who could it be? Is it one of those times where someone made a last minute decision? That must be it. The weakness proves itself yet again.

I start to wipe my face – the footsteps are getting closer and closer to my door. If someone is coming to see me, I will never be able to hide it in time. I should at least clear my throat – no, what if they do not know I am here? I could save myself if I stay quiet. That sounds like a good plan.

The footsteps echo throughout the hallway, pounding in my ears as loud as my own heartbeat. The footsteps cease. I can see a shadow under the door through the slit just below.

Fuck.

"Rose?"

Oh no – not now. Not now, Kanaya. She is the one being I cannot hide from, since it is more than likely she looked for me everywhere. I am split between silence and telling her to leave me be – that I am tired or some excuse or another. I will go for the latter. She usually gives me space when I need it.

"Yes, Kanaya?" I say, just when my voice decides to crack. If it could talk, I am pretty sure it would be saying "Hey, Rose! I'm going to send you up two octaves so she knows something is wrong!" Thank you, voice. I appreciate it.

Well, that puts the nail in my coffin. I am doomed. She is going to come in. I did not lock the door. This is it. This is the moment everyone finds out that I am weak. Look at me – making the wrong decision even though I am the Seer. This is absolutely fabulous.

"Rose, is something wrong?"

I can hear the careful enunciation of each word. Each one of them is laced with worry now. I let out a sigh. No point in hiding now.

"Come in, Kanaya."

The door handle jiggles a little, and makes a tiny click. Kanaya pushes it open slowly, acting cautious as always. She enters with a look of worry on her face, and when she sees me she furrows her eyebrows a bit more. I am certain I have tear stains drying on my cheeks. In a pathetic attempt to return to my normal state, I sniffle and clear my throat. The sniffles and throat clearing sounds probably make me seem pathetic on the outside, too. I fold my hands and put them on my lap. I look down at them and try not to look anywhere else – especially not at Kanaya. I hear her moving toward the bed and a moment later she is sitting next to me. The weight shifts to accommodate us both. My pulse is reverberating in my forehead and my ears. I really do not want to do this right now, but do I really have a choice at this point? Well, technically speaking, I do. No other pathway would be prudent to walk down, sadly. I turn my body towards hers. I unfold my hands, though I keep them on my thighs.

Kanaya has not seen me crying until this moment. I do not want to show her how weak I really am – that I am not the person she thought I was. I am supposed to be the strong one for every individual on the meteor. I am the Atlas. I am supposed to be unyielding like pure diamond. I am –

…on the receiving end of a hug.

It catches me off guard, so I make what I hope is a practically silent noise of surprise. She is not holding me too tight nor is she is not holding me too loosely. Her skin is an odd mixture between cool and warm. It sends a shiver down my spine – presumably due to the different body temperatures. This is preposterous. I am not a child anymore. I do not want anyone to see me blubbering about my problems and issues. I should be able to take care of them, or at least deal with them, by myself. I do not know what is compelling me to cry again. I do not want her to see me cry at all. Yet, now all I want to do is cry in her arms. I refuse. I will not. I cannot. I…

I am going to break down.

I wrap my arms around her and lay my head on her shoulder – it is comfy, albeit a bit bony. It is not more than a millisecond later when I start to crying – no, I do not cry. I legitimately sob. This includes all the disgusting mucus and choked sounds. I start trying to explain what is going through my head, but not a single word comes out clear. I know Kanaya is listening anyway – trying to piece together my indecipherable language. She is motionless, yet, as she listens, I feel her grip me tighter – not hard enough to feel like I am being squeezed until I cannot breathe, though. It might as well be said that it is problematic to catch my breath, as it is inversely related to my sobbing. It seems like an eternity before I calm down.

I am sure Kanaya has only caught bits and pieces of what is happening to me. It is likely she pieced some of it together. She is intelligent, after all. When I finally force myself off her shoulder, I see the mess I made of her shirt. I feel terrible about it. I am terribly sorry she had to see me this way.

"Kanaya, I am –"

She immediately silences me. There is a sad smile on her face, and she is less tense than it was before. She kisses me on my forehead – an extremely gentle kiss – mother-like, perhaps. Her gray eyes, which have been turning greener by the day, move to mine, and it seems like all the care and love she can offer is in them.

"Rose, it is going to be alright."

I know she is idealistic. There is a limit to how idealistic one can be, though. It is not alright. I showed how weak I really am. I wonder how differently she thinks of me. I am not who she decided to be with. I am not who I wish I could be. How could I possibly explain? I will not beg to have her back. I will not –

… and she is cupping my face with one of her hands.

"I believe the phrase is 'you are only human'. It is okay to have emotions. Trolls have them too."

"No, Kanaya, you do not seem to understand –"

"I may not completely understand, however, I understand enough of your situation to tell you that you are the strongest individual I know. It is healthy to let yourself cry and show emotion. It does not make me appreciate your company any less."

I am having trouble comprehending her words. Is she really okay with it? How could she be? This is not what she signed on for – this utter mess of a person. Her hand is still on my face. I cover it with one of my own. The fringes of her lips tug upward. Her face, as always, is elegant – nothing short of gorgeous, really. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how she could be more amazing than she is right now.

"Are you sure?"

"I have never been surer in regards to anything that has happened in my six sweeps of life. Actually, my five sweeps of life and a sweep of undead life."

Her sentence elicits a chuckle out of me, though I know it is inappropriate timing. Her smile turns to something more similar to her regular one. Throughout this whole situation, she has been poised. I have been on the edge. Maybe I can come off of the precipice I have been on for more than a short amount of time.

"I hope you know that I want to be with you when all of this ends."

I sit there – frozen in my place. Shocked – completely and utterly shocked is the only way to describe me right now. Maybe I misheard what she said.

"Can you say that again, Kanaya?"

"Hm?"

"What you just said. Can you say it again?"

Her grin comes out this time – she is beaming at me with such a brilliant smile, I almost want to turn away. "Almost" is the key word here.

"I want to be with you when all of this ends."

So I did hear her right, then. Hearing that…I am getting butterflies in my stomach. I do not know if it is because Kanaya is saying it, or if it is the phrase in general. I finally smile back; however, for some reason, she blushes and drops her hand from my face. She is no longer looking me in the eye. Oh, no – did I do something horrible without realizing it – something bad enough that she would start averting her eyes like this? Maybe I did hear wrong. But why is she blushing? I look at her, confused. She looks up the tiniest bit, her face becoming more jade colored by the second.

"I do not know if this is the right time to say this, or how to say this. I do not know if you will understand it in my terms or if I should use your terms. If I use your terms I will not know if I am using them right and I could be saying the wrong thing. If I use my terms I will know what I am saying, but then you might not. It is quite a dilemma and I am split between –"

"Kanaya, you are rambling."

She clears her throat, apologizes, and tries again.

"Let me try it this way. In my terms, I would say I am flushed the deepest of reds for you. In your terms, I believe the phrase is 'I love you'."

It takes me a minute to really hear what Kanaya said. At first, it flies right over my head. No one has ever said that to me – maybe platonically, but never romantically. When I understand what she said, I realize how much courage she has. Usually, I would be the one to be forward. I would be the one to initiate something of this matter. This time though, she got to it first.

I am glad she did.

"I love you too."

She looks up at me, her face glowing even with the tints of jade. It looks like she is about to cry – I do not think it is for the same type of reason that I cried for earlier. I wonder how long she has been holding those phrases in. I decide to take the lead – and it is not because it might lead me to the most fortuitous path. I am taking the lead because I want to. Before I change my mind, I lean forward, grab her, and pull her toward me – so much so that we fall backward. She is on top of me, and I am lying on my back. She does not seem to have realized what happened due to the flurry of motion. She regains her senses soon enough. As soon as she does, she is stuttering and bumbling over her words. Her blush goes up to her ears – down her neck as well. I grin up at her, putting my hand on her face this time instead of vice versa. I use my fingers to trace down from the tip of her ear to her jaw line. I trace further and further down until I reach her collarbone.

I can feel Kanaya's breath changing with each touch – with each movement. I feel her heartbeat becoming faster and faster as my finger traces back up her neck. She must be touch-sensitive. I feel her lift herself ever so slightly into my touch. Her eyes flutter, then she shuts them. I suppose she is trying to feel the sensation. I lift my hand up to one of her horns, and start rubbing the base. At the same time, I push down on her head with a little force so that I can put my lips on to hers. My lips vibrate as an "mmm" comes out of her own. She pushes her lips on me harder, so I oblige and return the favor. There is something different about me this time. I want to be bolder – do something I have not done before. I move my hand from her horn and gradually go down from her hair to her neck – from her neck to her back, and then down to where her shirt ends. I suck on her bottom lip as I go under her shirt and start rubbing her back – the skin down there is still cool compared to my warm hand.

When Kanaya lets out a squeak of surprise, I laugh. She looks down at me, and though she's trying to look mad, her eyes are too glazed over for her to look serious. Smiling, I trace circles on her lower back. I know there's a scar on her back and stomach from what happened. I will avoid it for now. Not one to be outdone, Kanaya crashes her lips into mine. Her lips were off as soon as they were on, though. Instead, she moved them to my ear – licking the curve of the lobe and running down my jaw line with her tongue. I let out a moan – I did not realize this would feel so good. Her teeth are scratching along my skin as she kisses and licks down my throat. This must be torture for her. I should help her with that.

"Kanaya."

She lets her lips detach from my neck, though it seems she was reluctant to do so.

"Yes?"

"You can bite."

Her eyes widen. She starts to ramble a bit with nervous stutters. It is a speech akin to "Rose, are you sure?" I repeat what she said to me before.

"Kanaya, it is going to be alright."

She looks at my neck, and then my face, as if still asking for permission. I give her a nod. With that, she licks her lips – that is indubitably the sexiest thing I have ever seen – and she goes back to giving attention to my neck. She leaves hickeys all along it, but from what I can tell none are bigger than the one left on the junction between my neck and my collarbone. I can feel myself lifting my neck for her to get a better angle – so I can feel it more. Kanaya licks where she made the red splotch, and grazes it with her teeth. I hope it does not hurt – I do not think it will. She licks one more time before –

Okay, maybe it hurts more than expected.

I scratch into her back with my nails as Kanaya repositions herself to get more comfortable – or more blood. It is either or, really. It does not change the fact that when she repositioned herself, she put her knee near my…well, for lack of a better term, crotch. When she maneuvers to suck more, her knee moves upward causing heat to rush down to my lower region – all while taking blood from me. My eyes start to shut – the sensation is a bit too much. It sends shivers down my spine. I could get used to this. The whole time I am making noises in pitches I have never heard from myself. My neck lifts as she slowly takes her fangs out – like I want her to bite again. To be honest at this point I am panting – almost gasping for breath. My face is so flushed – I can feel the heat becoming more intense every instant she touches me. Kanaya lifts her head and looks at my face – she seems to be out of breath too. It's too bad for the both of us, really, because I want more.

I unwind my arms from their previous position and wrap my arms around her neck to pull her down to me – accidentally thrusting her knee into me more. I did not know I could moan so much. I push my lips onto hers with wanton abandon – letting her teeth cut and bruise my lips while I ignore the taste of blood. I lick and nip at Kanaya's bottom lip and top lip, giving her the hint to open her mouth. I lick the tip of her tongue with my own as she matches every movement I make – even going so far as imitating each movement with the exact same speed. That is, until I suck the tip of her tongue. A lengthy, breathy moan escapes her when I suck harder. At the same time, I take one of my arms off of her in order to place my hand in between both of our bodies – I push upward just a bit as I grope at one of breasts softly, noting that there seems to be no nipple under her clothes. It seems to still be an erogenous zone, though, as she moans into the kiss more than before. To finish up, I lick at the tip of her tongue once again, and suck at her bottom lip and pull it towards me. Then, I finally let go. I remove my hand from her breast, deciding to place it in her hair and run my fingers through it. The heat has gone to my groin, mostly, and I know what this means. However, now is not a good time – not when I was upset about an hour ago. I try to do something simple – catch my breath. There is a companionable silence as she lies on top of me, her breath completely ragged. It is a while before I feel the need to speak.

"Well, that was fun." I say with a smirk.

Kanaya picks up her head a smidge, seeming to be in a daze of sorts, and smirks back – fangs and all.

"I would have to agree."

There is a new kind of look in her eye. It is an amazing feeling – to know I gave her that look. It may be odd to say since I am the seer and one of the only species of my race left, but I feel like I am the luckiest person in the entire universe. I am at my happiest around her – especially at this moment. Perhaps we should do this more often. For now, I just want her to stay with me.

"Kanaya?"

"Yes?"

"Would you stay with me tonight?"

Kanaya looks at the empty space on my bed – she has never stayed in my room nor slept on a bed, as of yet. She looks back at me, after she contemplates the offer, and nods.

"Nothing would make me happier, Rose."

"You might want to get off of me, then."

She looks down and notices that she is still on me – when she does, she nods frantically and stammers quite a bit. Once again, I cannot help laughing. It is adorable when she does this. After about thirty or so tries, she manages to get a coherent sentence out.

"Oh, yes – right – of course."

Kanaya removes her knee – I must admit there is a sense of longing to have it placed back – and readjusts herself so that she is on her side and next to me on the bed. I turn myself on my side as well, so that I can nestle into her. She is warmer now, probably from all the actions that have recently occurred. I have never cuddled before. I can feel her breath slowing down, and eventually it is in sync with mine. Her heart has slowed. I enjoy that I am lying on her chest – I am able to hear her own unique, one of a kind heartbeat. While her shoulder was comfy enough, her chest is much comfier. She wraps an arm around me – I already feel my eyes closing. They feel like stone – which is cumbersome because all I want to do is stay awake and feel this wonderful girl wrap her arms around me. She is whispering something – it sounds like she is saying "I will always be here for you", however, I am too tired to entirely understand. The last thing I feel is Kanaya kissing the top of my head.

Maybe, just maybe, it is okay to have fears and doubts.

So long as you have someone to share them with.