I haven't touched an instrument very often since that day when I took lightning into my hands in the service of my lord. On my perch, high up on this pillar of rock, I lift my face to the stars, my hair a loose, heavy river down my back. Even though my loyalty as a Seishi should be to Seiryuu's Miko and to the Emperor of the country that she summons the god to guard, my devotion is not so simple. In watching my lover's cruelty without letting it stain my one pure memory of his compassion. Because he intends to possess everything for himself.
Desire builds on desire, and death piles up on death.
Somewhere among the rocks below an animal screams, one high wail that rises and rises through the air and then is cut off. I'm just the same as anyone else is. It's a dry comfort, like this glistening desert sky, but it's the one bright thing that I believe in. Far away across the sand, Suzaku's Seishi shiver, dreaming in the middle of a false Sairou town. My lover sleeps in silence in his tent, wrapped in the aftermath of healing and sex.