When he saw her there, lying on the cold, hard ground, he had to protect her, save her life. Her, the very one whose words had given him a new lease on life. There were always the three words that hung unspoken between them, yet they both knew what the distance between their two hearts represented. Ever since he had first laid eyes on her, with her head of fiery locks, that echoed her personality so. Even when he had been possessed by "Zeref", he chose to take her place, to be absorbed by Etherion. Deep down, he knew what had driven him to do it.

"I don't quite know how to say how I feel."

He had never been good with words. Magic came naturally to him, yet when it reached the point whereby he had the chance to enunciate all that was in his heart, he chose to lie. He told himself that it was to protect her, yet he knew, it might have stung for a moment or two. The two of them could never be together, he convinced himself, she was an angel of light, while he could only be compared to a demon skulking in the depths of hell.

"Those three words are said too much, they're not enough."

Maybe one day, in the future, when all this was over, when he had atoned for all his sins — that would probably never happen, he was guilty of too many evil deeds — he would tell her. He don't want it to be cliché, with flowers and chocolate, or something like that. Perhaps he could write it in the stars with his Heavenly Body magic. A testament to the emotions that were his driving force in everything. Then again, that was probably more overrated than anything else.

"I need your grace to remind me to find my own."

"Live!" She had told him. "Living is a sign of strength!" "You must live to atone for your sins!" Yet in those empty seven years, there were times he began to believe what others in the magical world were saying, that Titania — and the rest of those with her — were truly dead. That was when the suicidal thoughts resurfaced, when he felt that living in a world without her, was pointless. That before he could atone for anything he had done to her, she was already gone. Then she had returned, and though he expressed that he was better off dead, she had told him to live. Thus he would make it his mission in life, to live or that woman, who had given him so much, without asking for anything in return.

"All that I am, all that I ever was, is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see."

She knew him from the beginning, when it had all started. He hoped that one day, she would be there when it ended too. The only way he lived was in the present. The future was too unpredictable, the past too painful. Her eyes compelled him to do things, things he would regret. So he resisted. The theme of his guild was punishment. Depriving himself of the one he loved was just one of his ways of fulfilling it. One day, perhaps, when he was free to do as he wished, though that chance might have been squandered a long time ago, he would tell her, he would be with her, he would protect her. Until his dying breath. As long as he kept that thought in his heart, he had hope.