Smile

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

Where are you?

Why can I not find you?

I see you on the edge of my time, just past the horizon line.

I feel your painful warmth on my flesh and yet I cannot embrace you but run away for fear of my existance.

Why?

I see your smile as you create that which I must destroy. I see the bareless trees become adorned with leaves in marvelous hues of green.

The same as you.

I see the flowers that adorn your hair spread outwards in waves, making the greens of the watered grasses become a myriad of colors matched only to that of the rainbows that arc above us.

So beautiful.

It's all so beautiful.

You are beautiful.

You're feminity is a perfect balance between childlike innocence and womanly sensuality with the wildness of your hair being tamed by the pearls of your smile. I can barely see you in this distance above you, where the coldness of the stars are my only comfort, and yet I can see such detail with the eyes of the hawks. You are perfect in every way imaginable. You bring life to the lifeless, allow the colors of the rainbows to touch the earth, and spread forth the joy that comes from the sun and the sapphire skies.

You are perfection.

You are Spring.

You are Life

And yet…

You are my opposite.

Where you create, I destroy.

Where you gather colors of every sort, I collect hues of white and gray.

Where you can feel and experience life, I see and experience death.

You spread warmth and cheer to all, I spread coldness and despair.

You are Spring and Summer incarnate in the beauty of life.

I am Fall and Winter embodied in ugliness matching that of death.

My flesh is pale, barely different from the snow-cloak that adorns me. My hair, short and hard as ice is matched with eyes of blue. My hands can only destroy with claws sharper than a predator's own and whatever I embrace withers away into nothing before the coldness of ice enwraps them. I have never smiled as you have, not even a simple one, and only frown to match the void winds that howl eternal around me.

I am Winter.

I am Death.

Whenever I race towards you, your marvelous greens begin to change into the reds and yellows that are the calling card heralding my time on earth. You begin to tire both from the exhaustion of your own works and the spreading cold of my presence. I race towards you, faster and faster, hoping to catch you in my arms, to let your eyes fall upon me and give me some semblance of peace but you are gone.

Asleep.

WHY!

Why can I not at least meet you eye-to-eye? Are we so different, so incompatible that we cannot be allowed a breath's time together if only so you could judge me? Must I forever exist not knowing your own feelings to me and what I have done and will continue to do to your precious greens and rainbows? Must I always be forced to acknowledge the simple fact that you know nothing of me while I know everything there is about you?

The winds howl around me, kicking up the snowflakes that are my own tears.

Your precious elk, your friend and your helper knows of me. He knows of my hideousness and has long since chosen to hide me from you and can only stand the sight of me for so long. He too has left me to my lonliness. Moons and suns come and go and I refuse to move back to the stars. The sun is warming the earth and burning across my skin.

I am through with this game.

I will see you eye-to-eye.

Even if I must die to do so.

The elk brushes past me, casting me a confused but sympathetic eye. He knows not why I have not feld to the upper skies, but he is aware of the price I might pay for this solace. He's gone and I can feel the warmth increasing, stars above this warmth is brutal upon me.

My hairs is slack and moist, the occasional strand falling away into whisps of water and steam. My claws, once sharp and pointed as icicles are dull and round, falling away into the puddle forming beneath me. It's taking all my power to keep my snow-cloak from melting away and even then it looks more and more like the slush that's rapidly disappearing around me.

Please.

Please hurry.

Laughter. I hear your laughter. Birdsongs, flowerblooms, evergreens, and everything in between. I can feel it surrounding me and, for a moment, I lose myself to it. It's as beautiful as I thought it would be. The elk rushes past me, running to match the flightspeed of your plant-cloak. He circles around me but I pay him no mind, my eyes are focused only upon your warmth, your eyes.

They're as beautiful as the stars.

You hover before me, looking at me with a puzzled air. You do not speak in words but your eyes tell me everything just as my own do.

Who are you?

I am Winter.

Winter… Is it you who casts forth the snow and ice, and sends the greens and rainbows away into oblivion?

Yes…

Why?

I wanted it… the greens and rainbows… I wanted the warmth and the sun… I wanted it all… but where I go… there is only white and grays… coldness and a darkened sky… Where you have life and freedom… I have death and imprisonment…

… Why are you here?

To tell you… I'm sorry… and to say…

I cannot finish, I'm slipping away into the puddle, my body in such great pains that I cannot even feel anymore. I'm melting faster now, my hair gone and my arms nothing more than useless stumps. I'm merely water now, there's no coldness within me anymore. Perhaps there never was really. Perhaps it was my own selfishness that kept me from her. My selfishness to have what she had and my desire to remain alive even if it meant being away from her.

I'm slipping…

I have no time for words or anything else save for one final look into her eyes. Into those starry orbs I convey everything that I've ever felt towards her. Everything. She reaches towards me, her hands passing through my shoulders and exiting out from them, wet from the waters of my body. She doesn't understand what's happening. She has seen death and has experienced it herself but she cannot comprehend why I have done this. Dying just for the sake of meeting her.

My body is fading away into mist, but I've got enough strength to say it.

"I love you."

Her eyes are wet and I want to tell her not to cry, to not waste her tears upon something as ugly as I but I haven't the strength anymore. I can only fade away further.

"I love you." She speaks for the first time. It's a lie, I know it is. How could something so beautiful as Life love something as ugly as Death? She wants me to escape back to the stars, back to their cold embrace. To live…

But I won't…

Because even if it's a lie…

I can still die…

With a smile…

…