the sea of death
Life swiftly treading over endless space;
And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace,
The ocean-past, which, with increasing wave,
Swallow'd her steps like a pursuing grave.
Sad were my thoughts that anchor'd silently
On the dead waters of that passionless sea…
Dead grass crunches under his feet.
He continues walking.
He remembers.
He's kneeling there, waiting.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"Why?"
He doesn't have an answer.
"Don't look…"
He can't stop looking.
"…please…"
He knows it's coming. He can't look, but he can't stop staring.
"…don't…"
He stops breathing.
"…cry…"
The man in the bed reaches out one slow, unfocused hand, grasping for his face, but he catches it before it can trace a pattern across his cheek. Instead, the fingers clasp together with his own.
The man smiles. He attempts to.
He kneels there by the side of the bed at eye level with the man for what seems like years. Then the man slowly closes his eyes.
He holds the man's hand for another eternity until one of the others enters the room.
He's standing in the plain, silent.
Looking back, he finds that he's just out of sight of Ignacia. He decides to walk a bit further.
He needs to be completely alone.
It's almost sundown when he stops.
He sits – almost collapses – on the dried-out grass.
He closes his eyes and tries to convince himself to go back home.
He's only able to hear the footsteps – even on the crunching grass – because of what he is, and he hates himself for that.
He doesn't care who it is. He wishes they would go away and leave him to his thoughts.
"There is a difference between acting and being strong," the wise voice says. He hears the old man sit down beside him, a chorus of tiny crackles. He tries to ignore the noise, shutting his eyes even more tightly and tensing himself.
Silence passes for a few moments before the old man sighs. "It took me a long time to figure that out."
He flinches momentarily. He wasn't expecting the voice to be so open.
The voice continued slowly. "For a long, long time, I had blamed my brother's fall from grace on the fact that I wasn't strong. If I had gone out to retrieve my own katana… If I had just admitted my mistake to our father…"
He hears the old man swallow nervously. "But then, many years ago, I was given a different perspective. I was told that it didn't matter, because the past is the past."
He slowly opens his eyes and turns to look at his sensei.
"But it goes beyond that," the old man says. "The future is the future. You can decide what it holds."
Silence passes again. He turns away from the old man, and breathes out slowly.
"I'm not here to tell you what to do," the old man tells him. "I'm just telling you that you still have a choice on where to go."
The man begins to stand. He turns in his direction and reaches out to grab his hand.
"Thank you," he whispers.
"Strength is not found in falling down, but in getting up again," his sensei says. He turns and begins to walk back towards the village, little more than a dot on the horizon against the setting sun.
The sun disappears below the horizon, and the sky becomes dark.
As the first stars begin to appear, he stands.
So lay they garmented in torpid light,
Under the pall of a transparent night,
Like solemn apparitions lull'd sublime
To everlasting rest,—and with them Time
Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face
Of a dark dial in a sunless place.
Thomas Hood
(A/N): I wanted to write Zane feels. I also wanted to write what happened after Julien died before S3. So there.