joy.

Evangelique loomed over the insentient vessel, her breath taken away by his swift death.

“Why did he...” she gasped, bewildered.

“N-No...” choked Tsubaki. Eva turned to see Tsubaki slowly transforming from his beastly form. His right hand gripped onto a large gash on his left shoulder. The blood from the incision trickled down his knuckles and dripped into the dirtied snow.

“I-I was...” he gagged heavily. Crimson descended his frostbitten lips. He lifted his right forearm to his mouth and wiped his face with the sleeve of his tattered coat. After another cough escaped his lungs, he started to crawl towards the man’s freezing corpse.

“I was supposed to kill you!!” growled Tsubaki. He picked up the man by his neck and began to crush it mercilessly.

“Tsubaki, stop!!” she hasted to him, grabbing hold of his arms. He shook the body violent, screaming curses at it.

“Tsubaki, he’s already dead!!” screamed Evangelique. She wrapped her arms around him, her head touching his back.

“Eleanor wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself like this...” she whimpered. “I know you know that...”

Tsubaki’s stopped his desperate actions at the sound of Evangelique’s words.

“Eleanor loved you, didn’t she...?” sobbed Evangelique. She held onto him tighter, tears rolling onto his coat. “When someone loves you, and you love them...they wouldn’t want you to suffer in sorrow, they’d want you to live in joy...”

The image of Eleanor smiles flooded his mind. In the dead of night, when spirits and specters of his unfortunate youth played with his mind, her embrace set his cries to rest and in her loving arms. She gave him a maternal sanctuary and freedom to be as defenseless as the frightened child he was.

Her infectious enthusiasm made his frowns open into bubbling streams of laughter. In her presence was euphoria was more vivid than the abendrot sunsets that glimmered upon the ocean surface.

He remembered standing in a cathedral, the voices of many singing in harmony. He felt safe in that place. He believed he could close his eyes and fall asleep without having to worry about nightmares. The weights around his soul felt lighter; he could feel the sunlight cascading through the stained glass.

Eleanor’s smiles were always more radiant in that place.

Now that she was gone, he couldn’t find the strength to stand in another cathedral.

Her light was gone.

All warmth from her was gone.

The beauty and brilliance of her existence had exited the earth’s stage and taken eternal rest from its hour-bound play. Time controlled her no longer, and the pain was unseen in the golden halls of Aeternia.

Forevermore, she would be in harmonious fortitude, her head leaning on the lap of the Father King, Elohim.

Tsubaki began to weep bitterly, his cries echoing through the winter midnight. He missed her, loved her, and wished her to remain.

But there was no resurrecting what was lost when the wind’s of eternity took ahold of the soul.

“You’re not alone, Tsubaki...” whispered Evangelique through her sobs. “I’m here with you...”

She knew no words of consolation, only her heart’s deepest cries. In her soul, she prayed her utterances gave comfort, even if it was only an ounce of it.

“I’ll always be here with you...and I won’t let you cry alone.”