To Each One's Own, Sorrow

***To Each One's Own, Sorrow*** is the second of two poems that was released before the official release of Clash of the Shops, Part V II. It is an account of the scenes during the epilogue of the arc from Shadow's perspective. It was written by Sakurai Rie.

## Organization

The poems is comprised of four quatrains and one cinquain. The dominating rhyme scheme is A-B-C-B, but this eventually strays as the end-of-line rhymes are rhymed not with one another, but rhymed internally with words of the same line. In contrast, the meter is mostly constant, a trochaic pattern of one stressed and one unstressed syllable. However, the amount of trochees in each line varies. There is a total of twenty-five lines.

## Lines

Walk along the empty road and away from that conclusion place,

Walk with me, but do not comfort me, for I am the journey of the one they call Empty.

Walk together, our stride in play, but please do not comfort me, no, for I am the one who

fights alone and does not need to see.

Walk along the winding way and farther from that no-matter space,

Walk aside me, but do not comfort me, for nothing happened, nothing while you did not see.

Walk with me, our steps as one, but please do not comfort me, no, for nothing truly did befall

me, the events as nonexistent as they be.

Continue to Walk, do not stop, you have no need to comfort me.

Walk along, you are but the one in my way, please do not comfort me.

Walk along, I say to you who search for those buried emotions, I move away and you embrace
 me, please do not try to comfort me.

Walk with me, I say to you, for I cannot bear to share,

Let go and walk, for the awful burden of the troubles I faced in there,

Walk together, yet no stride in play, for I cannot be comforted, for the emptiness in me has
 filled to the brim and has been packed tightly under key.

Walk along the empty road and away from that conclusion place,

Walk with me, against your wish as it be, for I shall bear the name of the journey, Empty.

Walk together, our strides in play, so that no one fights alone and gets chance to see, and
 no one dies of bursting, the breaking through the secret deadly.

Walk along the road away and hear what you've been waiting for this hour's day,

Walk aside me, but do not comfort me, for now you are with me on this blood filled history.

Walk together, the good before our eyes darker, but mine the gray and yours the black, the sum
 a shadow of me and a shadow of yours as had be.

Continue to Walk, we but not near the stop, my Empty no more lonely and disheartening,

Walk along, you now seem to hide from my way, please now let me comfort you.

Walk along, you say to me, with 'A speck of nothing, compared to your dark history,' for your
 happy smile and your joyous face negate truth straight to that of Mine, and I unwittingly walk

with only some of you away from that dark day.

## Analysis

This is an account of the events that immediately followed the Second Annual Clash of the Shops, the poignant scenes during the epilogue. In this, Shadow acts as the speaker and voices her replies in response to Rayde's requests to hear what had transpired that day. The repetition of "do not comfort me" reflects Rayde's persistence in her asking, as well as Shadow's persistence in keeping silent.

The fact that she uses these words, however, implies that she knows that she expects to be comforted by Rayde once she tells of her "blood filled history", suggesting that she knows of Rayde's value she places on her friends and her ability to comfort her, and that she would rather suffer than tell her, keying into her distrust she had reaped from her struggles with the now-disbanded Coalition. This is also evidenced by the lines "for I am the one who/ fights alone and does not need to see" and "for the emptiness in me has/ filled to the brim and has been packed tightly under key", both clearly ironic in their pessimistic and incorrect views, perspectives completely different from what she had held before the betrayal scene.

These and other lines also convey the increasing tension that began to develop between the two during the scene, evident with the growing sense of dramatic and romantic reasoning behind her silence with each stanza, reflecting the moments when Shadow continued to hold to her silence and Rayde began to assume that Shadow did not trust her enough to tell her. Although Rayde was correct in this, she was incorrect in her assumption that Shadow did not trust her from the beginning, possibly revealing Rayde's insecurities and fears she associates with those who get close to her, most likely an effect her dysfunctional family had on her.

The fifth stanza brings forth a shift in the poem, both in perspective and outcome. Reflecting the first stanza with certain phrases, the point of view of the speaker temporarily shifts from Shadow to Rayde. In its likeness to the first stanza, it associates itself with a softer, more comforting tone (as it had been in the beginning, as opposed to the higher-strung stanzas before it), again as it had been during the events of the epilogue after Rayde had calmed down. Following the events of the chapter, Shadow relents once she does and tells her "what you've been waiting for this hour's day", her perspective switching in for the rest of the stanzas. There is a definitive softening in her tone as well, and the use of "we" in "we but not near the stop" in the last stanza presents both the trust that she has placed in Rayde and follows the theme that sharing in one's troubles adds it to the troubles of the listener's.

This seemingly happy end to the poem is punctuated by melancholy and sorrow. Following the theme mentioned above, the second to the last stanza is concluded with "Walk together, the good before our eyes darker, but mine the gray and yours the black, the sum/ a shadow of me and a shadow of yours as had be." These lines bring forth the notion that Rayde is in fact more troubled than her, struggling with both her newfound darkness Shadow has shared with her and the darkness she herself has reaped from the events of the day.

The knowledge of the fact that Shadow's perspective dominates the speaker in the last stanza suggests that Shadow does notice this and even mirrors the questions Rayde had asked her in the beginning but, as seen in the chapter as well, she dismisses these thoughts. Unlike the chapter, however, Rayde replies to Shadow's inquires with "'A speck of nothing, compared to your dark history'". Although this is not present in the chapter, this can be directly attributed to the items Rayde had claimed Shadow had done to make her uneasiness apparent: "I can see... that you’re different, there’s something different in your expression, in your thoughts... And, you said it was ‘nothing’ when I asked..." This can also be seen as a method to avoid lying completely: although she does lie that "nothing" affects her, she veils the truth that she reveals: the extent of her troubles. Her final quote in the chapter, "You know, such things like problems... they're items only the living possess," seem to link with her final quote, suggesting that she is not completely one of "living", holding not a single problem, but "nothing". In its dismissive tone, however, and the fact that Rayde greatly cares for her, the last few stanzas reveal the reason for her secrecy, one that is completely different from the one responsible for Shadow's keeping silent: she would rather suffer than let her troubles trouble her friend. Somewhat hypocritical, she does not allow Shadow to shoulder her burdens even though that was her main arguing point to her former argument as to why Shadow *should* tell her.

It is interesting to note, however, that although Shadow seems to inhabit the speaker's position in the last stanza in a first person view, she notices Rayde's dishonesty *yet does not notice it*, seen in the lines "for your/ happy smile and your joyous face negate truth straight to that of Mine, and I unwittingly walk/ with only some of you away from that dark day." Therefore, for those last few lines, it presents the notion that the poem is a memory, and that Shadow relates it from the future. The purpose of this is clear: by elaborating on what she did not see, she consequentially elaborates on what she *could* have had she looked closer.

## Trivia

* This is a continuation of the first poem, *The Rustling Wind*, which tells of the same events, but from Rayde's perspective.
* Because this, along with *The Rustling Wind*, was released before the last chapter of CotS and the arc epilogue had been released, the context for the events described were absent and was thought to be only a symbolic side poem for the plot. It was only after the release when readers connected the events to the mirrored events in the epilogue.