Look for me on the battlefield, when all has ended. You slay my friends, I take away those by your side - our path to each other, worn in blood. To worthy enemy, the honor of my fight. The dice have been cast long before we were bound: to our land, to our condition, to our fate. No other choice.

Rise pyres to those who have fallen - the price of our peace, paint the heavens in mists of smoke - cover the eyes of the gods, and hear the wails of the lost; our offerings made, silence reigns again. When the skies clear and the cries wane, come. The way has always been open, marked by the passing of our former selves, drawing ever close. Wait for me.

Sorrow, worry and regret hold me back still, my spirit crushed under the heavy steps of memory, wings dragging behind - laden, ominous, crumbling. I bear the burden of my existence, intricately woven into my soul - patterns blending, stitches fading. Patched.

Am I visible underneath all that I've been? You shine through, beyond everything you've become. I see and you know. Be patient. Don't strain against your ties, they'll be no more. Soon.

I hold your freedom in slivers of steel; in cups of honeyed poison, you promise me relief. I carry your death with my destiny as your hands keep my life. It will all be over. I reach out - sharp, glinting - in loving caress - lips pleading. Be merciful and swift - trembling, torn - taste sweet. Rest.

Infinity awaits.

They call him 'corrupted', associate evil to his name and give darkness his appearance - 'he's fallen', they say. Betrayal and deceit are the children of his faith, marks of his descent. He thinks he doesn't miss his gilded cage - eyes glinting black - for he gained freedom in his fall. He wanders now - the sole constant of his present - his own condition urging, driven by the obscure hunger of the empty, beacon to the lost ones. He cringes in disdain at their proximity - the feeble ones among whom he has to dwell, but keeps on his unattended path, arrestingly aloof - undeterred. He cares nothing for their petty wars and wounds of flesh; they bleed and cry - they die - only to rise again under different guises - unmistakably flawed, painfully fragile - prone to love, crude. Tainted mirror to their distorted existence, misplaced among desires convoluted and smiles twisted in malice, he asks for oblivion. He is denied forgiveness.