Farewell to an Old Friend.
Nightfall. It was just a couple of weeks after Athena’s birth. Dokho had been more attentive than ever to his task. The danger Hades represented had to be stopped in case a moment of alarm could have happened. The waterfall gracefully fell in to the stream that flowed below his feet, down the peak where he might be forever seated on.
Dokho had never complained about his fate. He had chosen Athena over anyone else in his world and not a day had passed without him being blessed by the Goddess. That night n particular, Dokho wondered about himself, meditating on the facts of his life and his actual state. Two hundred years had passed already. Before his eyes, prophecies and future had become past, hence history and he was afraid about what the future would bring. Athena’s Saints were not ready yet. Some were just being born at the very moment he was thinking about them.
Dokho sighed, for the fate of the world, was nothing but an illusion now.
The Libra Saint looked at his hands, realizing for the thousandth time, how old they were. He knew his appearance was nothing but an illusion itself. His body had wrinkled and dwindled through time. His skin had turned dry and rough. Yet his mind—and his cosmos had grown beyond his own expectations. Even when to him, nothing but a day had passed.
Those were his thoughts when he felt Shion’s cosmos fading away.
Libra’s relationship with Aries was still unclear for him. What were they? Friends? Lovers? Saints of a Goddess? All and nothing at the same time? Back in time, more than two hundred years ago, they had shared everything that was truly worthy of being shared. Their lives, dreams, hopes, and endeavours. However, one day, War had begun and the result had been all their partners dead in Battle and a reward for the two of them of life beyond expectations. Death had been an option—yet—it was not supposed to be like that.
“Shion.”
Roshi, as people called him now, stood up and remained motionless. He could not do so. It was his duty to stay there, sitting until the moment the seal was broken. He was not allowed to feel, separated from his beloved one by thousands of kilometres. The Saint let a groan escape his lips. Shion’s vital energy was definitely dying. With him, the new hopes he had embroidered on his heart.
The man returned to his seat, trying hard to concentrate on his meditation while he felt Shion dying, far from him. Inside, his soul screamed in rage for the pain of such a dishonourable death. For the loss of a friend who was once his lover. For the Saint that was becoming one with the Universal cosmos. There, he was to find him.
Dokho’s wooden cane cracked between his fingers. Impotence won him over. He had inwardly loved him for years, now, he was equally helping him enter the world of the dead. He narrowed his eyes, closing them to let the tears flow in unison with the water that ran near him.
“Shion.” Roshi muttered reverently once more time, before Shion’s cosmos finally disappeared.
Ariadne, 2005