[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

It's dark.

It's cold.

The sky above is so vast, and so black.... The silence somehow feels alive, envelopping the small, fragile shape which shies away from its embrace, in vain. There are tiny specks of light up in the sky. Stars...but their light is weak, and great clouds dance to a tune only they can hear, masking them, revealing them and then masking them again. The small shape suddenly falters and falls on the hard rocky ground, tricked by the moving shadows resulting of the clouds' game of hide and seek.

The stones under the little girl's fingers are cold, as cold as death. Her knees hurt where the sharp rocks have scratched them. Yet she gets up almost immediately, without a sound. She brings her hands to her chest, as if to comfort herself. She can feel her heart beating wildly, and each breath burning her inside. She looks back, and at that moment, the veil of clouds parts to allow the faint starlight to envelop the landscape. Unmoving, the little girl stares, as if trapped by the sight of the looming peaks behind her. On the highest of them she can see small rectangular shapes, like steps on a distant flight of stairs reaching up to the sky. One of them, on the peak's very top, detaches itself against the night.

Small...she sees them so because they're far away, she knows. She watches them. There's something strange in the way the starlight touches them, something...eerie. She can almost *feel*.... The whimsical clouds mask the stars once more, and the little girl turns around, as if abruptly freed from a spell.

Remembering.

She must go on. She must. So she starts running again, ignoring the dull ache rising in her left side which reaches out to engulf her whole body. She must leave this place, it's the only thought which echoes endlessly in her exhausted mind, the only thing that makes sense.

The silence of the night is all around her, it cradles her in its arms, it terrifies her but she cannot escape it. She needs it to hide her, to help her. This silence is full of inaudible sounds, of a life she has never felt during the day. The night is an alien thing, a hunter which plays with her like a cat plays with a mouse, but she must go on. She must play along with it. She has no choice. No, she has none. None....

They want.... No, she cannot. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot even make herself *think* it. She's come so far, so far from a place and people she knew, from familiar surroundings and sounds.... It's a very powerful reason which has brought her here, to this faraway land, to strangers whose tongue she doesn't understand, but....

What they want to do, what they want her to--

She has tried to remember why, she has tried to remember the love and duty which carried her so far. She's really tried. Really...but it's not enough. Nothing can ever be enough to make her.... Deep within her soul, something cries out again, and screams its desperate refusal at the thing that has been asked of her.

No. No matter what.

Never.

She must hurry. They'll come after her, maybe they're already pursuing her. The little girl forces herself to accelerate, unheeding of the air burning like flames in her lungs. Oh she feels the pain, but that is nothing compared to the feeling of terror which stalks her. She has no right to do this, they told her she could never leave this place again. Even though she doesn't speak their language, their explaining gestures were eloquent enough.

She goes on, a fragile ghost fleeing in the night. She goes on, angry at the stars for being so weak, angry at them for abandoning her almost completely to the terrifying darkness. Angry at them for shedding light which might give her away. Angry.... She runs, while silent sobs rise in her throat. She runs, refusing to think, refusing to acknowledge that she doesn't know where she's going. She's not lost. She's going away, she's not lost. Not lost....

She runs, she who has even forgotten her name, she who is no one, she who has no self. She's nothing, nothing but fear.

She runs....

And runs....

And runs....

I leant back against the rock, sighing slightly as I felt the stone's warmth seeping into my body. The sun had heated it during the day, and even now that it was about to vanish beyond the horizon, the stone radiated a heat I could have done without. I thought with a wry smile that Greece's Summers were decidedly persistant and cunning enemies. I cursed silently against the ache in my back which had made me rest against the rock. It had been a long, hard day.

In the distance, the sun touched the Aegean Sea and started sinking into it, setting it in fire for a fraction of a second. I watched the spectacle, only distantly aware of its beauty. The night would be long, longer than the day had been. As all nights had been ever since.... I shook my head, watching the Sanctuary below, watching the training grounds and the small houses, far below.

Watching the great flight of stairs leading up to me....

The temples known as the Twelve Houses along its steps....

They were empty.

Empty....

Had it been only a few months, or an eternity since I and Ophiuchus Shaina had been summoned to Athena's chambers? I'd have been unable to tell. The same scene kept flashing in front of my eyes: Kido Saori, current incarnation of the Goddess, turning towards us with a sad smile on her lips, her deep purple gaze laying our souls bare.

I have a great favour to ask of you....

There had been regrets in her voice.

A new war is coming.

Sorrow.

Our arch enemy has awoken from his slumber, my seal has been ripped off his servants' prison.

Fear.

When the both of us had told her she could depend on all the Saints in the Sanctuary, she had shaken her head.

No, this battle is one which must be fought in the dark, where none of you can follow.

We all knew that she didn't want another war, that she didn't want to see anyone hurt ever again, but....

This is a battle I must fight on my own.

We had protested then, for it was our duty to fight for her, to protect her, and never let her come to harm. She had simply smiled, her right hand tightly holding the scepter on which rested Nike. Nike, victory.... The light of her cosmo had shined in the room, envelopping us, warm. Gentle.

Infinite.

Eternal.

I will soon leave the Sanctuary, and it's likely the Gold Saints will be gone as well.

I smiled bitterly, remembering the fear which had gripped my heart at those words. She had seen it at once, of course. But the thought that she and the Gold Saints might be gone, all of them....

It's very possible we'll never return from the place we must go to. If such is our destiny....

A part of me had wanted to run away then, but I had silenced it, and I had kept on listening carefully, dismissing the turmoil of emotions in my heart, sending it back in the shadows like the insignificant thing it was.

In time, new Gold Saints will come, and one of them will be the one to take the Pope's place, until the day when I am born again. However, I cannot tell you when that might happen, and before it does, the Sanctuary must keep its cohesion, and this place, the altar beyond it, those and Star Hill must be defended. None but those who have been granted the right since the dawn of time may reach those holy places. None but those persons may use the power sleeping there. I have chosen the two of you to be the guardians of these places, because I know the strength of your hearts, and because I know you won't foolishly run after me and disobey the order I've given you now. No matter what may happen.

There had been a sudden wistfulness in her smile, and both Shaina and I had at once known she was thinking about the Bronze Saints. It had been hard to deny the feeling of cold which had engulfed me at that moment, as I had contemplated the death of Athena, of all the Gold Saints, of the Bronze Saints....

The death of those who had been the heart and soul of everything....

We had sworn to uphold the task she had set for us, as we had to do. As we had no choice but to do. We were her Saints, we were her servants, and nothing mattered but her words. Our feelings, our emotions were irrelevant. We knew this as we knew ourselves. Indeed, far better than the male Saints were aware of this harsh truth, we *knew*.

Oh yes, we knew.

Around me, the light of day had faded, but the stars' light was illuminating the night, the Milky Way's shining arch reaching from horizon to horizon like the most beautiful of rainbows.

Soon after that, her words had come true. In a single, terrible night, everything had been accomplished. Everything.... Just as she had said, the Bronze Saints, to whom she had forbidden to ever come back here under penalty of death, had come. The fools had come, Seiya first among them, and they had gone with the Gold Saints. All of them, they had gone.

Had died....

Died....

Gone.

And we had kept away from their battle, we had kept away from helping them. We had spent our time leading the other Bronze Saints around the Sanctuary's cemetary, seeking ghosts, safely away from the great flight of stairs so as not to be involved in the fighting, so as to be ignored and forgotten...wondering whether we could have tipped the balance of power, had we joined them.

Wondering....

In the morning, we had climbed up to the heart of the Sanctuary, and what the light of dawn had showed had been death. Blood on the altar of Athena. And the golden statue of the Goddess.... Gone. As if it had never even existed. The statue which held Nike in her right hand, and the Shield of Athena in her left, gone. The very essence of the Sanctuary, of the order of the Saints, gone.

I absentmindedly chased away a stray lock of red hair from my face. Not that it could disturb me, the mask prevented it from tickling me, but the gesture was a simple, ordinary one that a distant part of me found oddly comforting. I let my gaze wander over the Sanctuary before and below me, and realized after a while I was staring fixedly at one of the Twelve Houses...the fifth one from the start, the House of Leo. A gentle breeze rose in the night, catching in my hair, and I kept on watching the small temple far below, berating myself and the wind for being stupid, idiotic. I looked away, thinking the damn breeze should have known better. Likely the breath of air would have been a gentle caress on most girls' cheeks, wiping away their tears, but the foolish wind should have remembered one thing.

Masks cannot cry.

The little girl hugs herself, shaking with cold and fear. It's been a while since she's stopped running. Her legs have stopped obeying her, she can't flee anymore. She can't escape, she can't win free, no matter how hard she tries. She can't get up again. The only thing she can do is hide here, and hope she won't be found.

But she will be, she knows she will be.

There's no hope, there's never been any hope.

The cold of the stone under her is different from that of the rocks on the paths she's followed until now. It's even colder, and it hurts a bit, although the sensation is slowly going away. She's heard adults call this: "growing numb", once. It's a good feeling, a bit like when she falls asleep. Now if only it could help her forget her fear, if this "growing numb" could also include her heart and her soul....

She starts shaking again, weakly, and hugs herself tighter, but that doesn't help. She looks around her, and sees only the same rectangular stones planted in the ground everywhere. They're small, no higher than two times the size of her head, like the one close to her, the one behind which she's hiding. There's something written on it, and even though she knows very little romaji, when she's first dropped down beside it, she's tried to distract her mind by deciphering the inscription. Even though darkness reigns, it was an easy thing to do. It reads:

Shion. Gold.

Somehow she's certain all those oddly upright stones have something marked on them. She reaches out to the one beside her, and focuses on the feeling of the carved stone against her fingers. What does the inscription mean? It seems to her it's almost like the name of somebody. Distantly, the little girl thinks that if there were flowers and trees, this place could almost be a cemetary like the one she knows, back to the place she's left behind. A cemetary like the one where her parents are buried. It's funny....

Isn't it?

The little girl looks up, but there are no stars to be seen, the clouds have been masking them for what feels like an eternity. It's so dark.... It's been so dark, for so long.... Will there ever be an end to the night? Perhaps it's better if it never ends, if she stays forever like this, hidden. Better if she never sees the light of day again. If the darkness remains, the maybe she'll never be found. Just maybe....

The silence around her is absolute, she cannot even hear herself breathing. She can only feel the muted vibrations of her heartbeats. It's as if she's crossed a border, come to a place where nothing lives. Her fingers leave the carved stone beside her, and she hugs herself again. It's good. Yes, it's very good. She slowly lies down on the bigger plane stone resting at the foot of the other, laying her right cheek on its hard surface. It's colder than she had thought it would be, but it's all right. The feeling will go away soon. She brings her knees against her chest and hugs them, closing her eyes.

There is still a part of her who wishes the clouds would dance away, and let the stars shine in the night, there is still a part of her who wishes she could reach out to these tiny speckles of light and bathe in their radiance. But it's impossible, nobody can reach the stars and touch them. Nobody will ever give her their light.

Nobody.

And so, it's better that the clouds keep masking them, yes, it would be good if they could mask them forever, if dawn never came. It's good to be here, in this place where the silence feels like a hungry ghost devouring the slightest noise she makes. It's good to be in the dark.

To drown in it.

To be absorbed by it.

Don't ever let the sun shine again, don't ever let the light come. Let the night protect her, hide her. Let her remain here, until she dies.

It's good....

It's good....

It's good....

I came awake in an instant, bolting upright, my heart beating madly.

Damn it.

Angry at myself for having let my guard down, I slowly stepped to the edge of Athen's altar, right above the last part of the great flight of stairs. I had fallen asleep, a mistake only the youngest of novices would have made, and only the feeling of a close presence had woken me. Far too close.

I looked at the figure silently climbing up the stairs below me, and thought that if she had been an enemy, I wouldn't have had time to react. I'd have died before I even realized my stupidity. As she reached the last step, she cocked her head to the side, and said ironically, "My, but you look unhappy! What happened? Did you fall asleep?"

I turned away, and walked back to the spot I had chosen to spend the night, snorting. "I don't look anything, Shaina. Unless you can distinguish my expression through the mask."

She laughed at that. "No, of course I can't see your face, but I can read your stance clearly enough, thank you." She came to sit beside me, and added, "And I'm absolutely sure you're in a very bad mood right now, Marin." I didn't reply anything to that, there was nothing to be said. She let the silence stretch for a while, and then asked, "Why are you here again?"

I shrugged, unwilling to start yet another round of argument. "I'm doing my duty."

"Driving yourself to exhaustion? That's what you call doing your duty of defending this place?" Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. As usual.

I sighed, refusing to rise to the bait, and said reasonably, "I have to do this, we both have to. How can we be sure that an enemy would follow the honorable path and challenge us for passage?"

She sighed heavily, shaking her head. "Look, nobody will try to sneak behind our backs. There's simply no possible enemy left. Oh, people will try one day to come up the stairs or to reach Star Hill, but they'll follow the command of Athena. That'll be their only way of getting what they want, of gaining legitimity, and the loyalty of all the Saints in the Sanctuary. None of us would follow one who'd have cheated the code of honor, and you know it full well. So stop being a fool."

I stayed silent for a while, unable to deny the probable truth of her words. They had been fought, the wars against Poseidon and Hades. They had been fought and won, and the gods were gone.

For a time.

But still, Shaina's words were only a probable truth. Who could tell if there wasn't someone we had never heard about, waiting for an opportunity to cease power, to make a move on the earth and humanity now that they were so vulnerable, now that....

Athena was gone.

And besides...I smirked. "If I'm a fool, what are you? Why are you here, in the middle of the night, when you should be resting like you so wisely tell me to do? You also have a duty to perform, haven't you?"

She looked away from me, towards the Aegean Sea on which the light of the waning moon was reflected. She whispered in the night, "I wasn't standing guard at Star Hill like you're doing here, if that's what you think." She stood up, and walked to the edge of the stairs. "I couldn't sleep, so I visited Kassios' grave. I noticed you weren't in your house so I figured you'd be here. That's all. Now do what you wish, but think that if someone challenges you and you lose the duel because you were exhausted by a night's watch, you'll have been more than unworthy of the Goddess' trust."

That said, she started climbing down the stairs and soon disappeared form my view. I listened to the waning echo of her steps for a while, and eventually stood, going for the center of the small parvis, before the altar itself. I looked up at the stars, and thought that Shaina was lucky.

She had a grave at least, a place where she could grieve. I.... I stifled the pain rising in my heart, the pain which had neither reason nor right to be. I had nothing, I had only the stars.

The stars, and their lights....

I shook my head, wishing those thoughts would just go away and leave me. I turned to go back to my watching spot, and stopped as I laid eyes on the statue of Athena, in the center of the altar. Even though it couldn't be touched by the starlight, protected by a roof of marble, it seemed to shine in the night, as if radiating its own light. I stared at it in reverence, feeling the presence of something divine hovering in the air, as if somehow the Goddess' spirit was still here in part, envelopping the whole Sanctuary and protecting it.

Watching over it.

Oh Athena...if only....

But I remembered only too well. Nobody in the Sanctuary had known. Nobody had come up here on the morning of the battle to see the blood splashed over the altar. Her blood....

Athena's blood.

Nobody had ever found out the truth, nobody had ever known that the Goddess had taken her own life. She had done so, because it was her only way of fighting the enemy on his own ground, in the darkness where he reigned. To die was the only way to reach Death's realm and its lord, Hades. And I had had no choice but to remain here and wait, my only part in the struggle had been to protect Seika, Seiya's sister, with the help of Shaina and the other Bronze Saints. That had been done, and the girl sent back where she belonged once the danger had passed, once the ecplise had been over.

Once the eclipse had been over....

The statue, which had disappeared after Athena had gone to Death's realm, the statue which was the Divine Cloth only the Goddess could wear, had reappeared and again found its original place at the heart of the altar. The statue, Nike and the Shield had come back, but nothing else.

No one else.

I looked away from the statue, and once more my eyes swept over the Sanctuary, over the tiny houses far below harboring the sleeping Saints of Athena, and then abruptly stopped over the House of Leo. I stared at it, unable to move, feeling something liquid and warm slowly roll down my cheeks, a secret safely kept behind the silver mask on my face.

Damn you, Leo Aioria.

Damn you....

Why had you gone without me?

Why?

After a long time, I managed to tear my eyes from the fifth House, and finished my inspection of the Sacred Domain. All was quiet and peaceful as Shaina had said it was. As I knew it was. Perhaps my being here night after night was folly after all. Perhaps she was correct, and I a fool who kept fearing ghosts, like a little girl who was afraid of the dark.

We had all lost a part of ourselves when the Goddess had died, whether we had realized it or not. But I had lost more than that. I had lost....

A purpose....

A meaning....

A reason....

Sighing, I cut short to my morbid relfections, and started down the great flight of stairs. There was no sense in staying here any longer, I needed a bit of rest. All around me, the sky was slowly turning to grey.

Heralding the coming of dawn.

From above the small slope, I observed the two men on the training ground below. They were merely warming themselves up, but still the spectacle was a very pleasant one. There was a rare elegance in each of their movements, their fight more a dance than a combat. This was a sure sign of the greatest talent, but even though they were a few years older than I was, none of the two had won the right to wear a Cloth yet. In fact, none of them had ever expressed anything on that subject, none of them had ever felt drawn to any of the masterless Cloths. They were an oddity in the Sanctuary, eternal apprentices who were as strong and skilled as the greatest Silver Saints, maybe even more.... At last, remembering I was late, I jogged down the slope, and at once they stopped, turning towards me.

The starkingly pale blue eyes of Merle settled on me, and he said, in a reproaching voice, "You're late, Aquila Marin."

I looked at the severe expression on his fine features, at the long, slightly curling chestnut brown hair which reached down to the slim young man's shoulderblades, and grinned under the mask, replying, "Yes, I am late, but that won't save you from a good lesson on how to show proper respect to your better." He smiled at my words, and I vaguely thought he was really beautiful on the rare occasions when he chose to gift the people around him with a smile.

"Pray, lady Marin, don't be offended by this fool's disrespectful words." I turned towards the other, and found his emerald eyes set on me like a hawk's on its prey. He was truly magnificient, standing there with the sun shining on his fiery red hair. He bowed with a flourish, adding, "Please, be welcome. We're honored by your presence."

I snorted as I reached the training ground, telling the handsome young man, "Keep the banter for more foolish and gullible girls, Lune. I have teaching to do, and you have bruises to collect." He grinned at me, his eyes glinting with the sunlight, and I thought that nature had perhaps gifted this particular young man a bit too much for his own good. Ah well, he would learn to his cost that flattery and flirting were useless weapons when one confronted a Saint, male or female.

I stepped to the center of the training ground, and made ready to start an ordinary day in the Sanctuary.

End of the Prologue.

On to Next Part.

Back to my Fanfic page.