I get to my feet to stretch tired and cramped muscles, giving into tiredness and cracking a yawn. It was much easier when I had the mask, when I could keep it all underneath. They figured it out eventually, though, knowing how to read my emotions with the mask on. I could never understand how they did it.
          Ah, well. Suzaku seishi had their ways, I suppose.
          I reach behind me into my bag, dig out the incense and candles that I burn as a nightly ritual. The breeze is still brisk, but the candles won't go out. They have never gone out.
          I kneel once more, settling my kasa over my knees like a second skin, striking flint and tinder gently to produce a single flame, which I transferred to one of the tall graceful candles sitting before me. There are two.
          The flame flickered and danced in the wind, the two elements warring with each other, wind and fire. I can feel the wind's desire to extinguish the fire, to rid it of the small but tenacious existence that had suddenly sprung up in its void. And I can feel the fire's strength, holding on against the rushing of air.
          If I am the wind, I think my fire has gone out.

 
          We stood together before the palace of Konan, the place which had become our second home for so long. If I imagined hard enough I could see Chiriko through the windows of the library, Mitsukake coming down the steps with Tama-neko curling around his feet, Nuriko lounging gracefully, Miaka hanging onto Tamahome's shoulder. Hotohori standing at the entrance in all his majesty, beckoning us to enter.
          It was gone.
          A rough cough brought me back to the waking world, the world which I wished so fervently to escape.
          "So…uh…I guess this is it, huh?"
          I sighed.
          "I suppose, Tasuki-kun." For once I can't bring my voice to its customary high pitch, can't bring myself to smile and say it'll all be all right, it'll all be fine. Kitto daijoubu, I imagined myself saying, kitto daijoubu, no da.
          It didn't fit anymore. It wasn't right.
          To think of it, I hadn't been able to do that much for a long while. It was as if I had been drained, only half the man that I was when I started out.
          Or maybe it was because I was more than the man I had been, and I had put those things behind me.
          I didn't know what to do, how to bring myself to look into those pleading amber eyes. I had never been good at goodbyes. I supposed I never would be. I jolted in surprise when suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around my waist and a flame-red head buried itself in my shoulder. I could feel the tears fall, staining my shirt, but I didn't mind. Gently, awkwardly, I twisted around and let my arms snake around him, letting him cry. Wishing I could. Wishing I had his freedom of expression, his confidence, his raw and unrestrained nature which let him weep on my shoulder in the broad daylight without fear.
          "Tasuki...no da…"
          "I'll never see you again." His voice was muffled against my shoulder.
          I frowned, punching him playfully in the shoulder. "That's not true, no da. I'll drop by Mt. Reikaku from time to time. You know I could never leave you alone for five minutes before you got into trouble, no da."
          He chuckled, but it sounded forced. "Shit, Chichiri…I can't believe…I can't…"
          "Shh," I soothed. "Tasuki." I could feel the tears beginning to run under my mask, no matter how hard I tried to blink them away.
          "They're all dead," he said, pulling away and wiping his face with his sleeve. "They're all dead and we're left…why? It doesn't make sense." His gaze was imploring.
          "I…Tasuki…" I floundered.
          "Chichiri."
          "…da?" I swallowed under his intense golden gaze. Before I realized what was happening he had reached up and snatched the mask away from my face.
          "You're crying," he said softly.
          "It's all your fault, no da," I muttered, not daring to look at him, wondering what he thought of my scar, though he'd seen it many times now.
          A finger reached up and brushed the tears away. "Ah, I've gone and made a mess of things, as usual. Damn, I don't know how-"
          I caught his hand before he could say anything else. "Don't. Don't apologize, Tasuki." I smiled despite myself. "The time for that is over."
          "I'll miss you, Chichiri," he said. "You know, I'll really miss you. Shit, I…" He trailed off. My heart went out to him. He looked lost and confused, a little boy who had wandered too far from home for too long and had no idea how to return, no idea how to pick up from where he left off.
          "Tasuki."
          He had turned away, securing his bags to his horse's saddle. When he turned around, the sun caught his hair and for a moment it seemed like the flames of Suzaku surrounded him with a holy light.
          I smiled through my tears.
          "Be happy."

 
          I light the second candle, aware of the memories drowning me in a vast ocean of roaring currents.
          Why? Why now? Why of all times, at the end of a long day, when I am exhausted from traveling and simply yearn to finish my nightly routine before curling up for sleep?
          I pause, the white flower still gripped in my hand. It is a nightly routine, isn't it? I remember when I was first deemed fit to perform the rites as a monk. The first time I lit the candle, when my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the flame. My first time reciting the prayers I had learned by heart, the words rising up from my trembling throat, my young heart hoping that Suzaku found them acceptable.
          How far I have come.
          It is just an old habit now, more than anything else. Light the candles, burn the incense, say the prayers, dutifully wait for the moon to rise, retire for sleep or for more work. When we were in Sairou I had gradually stopped doing it all together, having to travel by night and keep the band together as the traps set by Seiryuu became increasingly more frequent.
          I'd gone back to doing it again after Tasuki and I parted company. I remember that night as I dug out the old candles from my bag and rummaged around for incense, as I knelt to pray, the old routine so familiar after even such a long time, I had wept. Wept for everything we had lost, for the blood that had been shed, for the dreams that would never be realized.
          The candles waver in the wind but never blow out.
          Am I a failure? Is there no hope for me?

 
          "You love her." It was not a question.
          "I do," he said quietly, deep voice and stunning profile even in sadness stirring a flicker of barely-conscious jealousy within my breast. He was always so noble, so strong, and suffering and trial only made his beauty shine.
          I have never felt so conscious of my own shortcomings as when I face the emperor of Konan.
          "She is his, though," Hotohori said softly. "His, and I won't begrudge her her happiness. Happiness is, after all, so fleeting a thing."
          "So you say we go through life filled with suffering and pain? Never to be happy?"
          Hotohori closed his eyes a moment, even that simple movement filled with gentle grace and beauty, like a dance. The sunlight highlighted his skin with gold and bronze and he looked like a statue. A living, breathing statue, painfully lovely.
          "No," he said at last. "That's not true. I believe that in the pain, there is joy."

 
          I breathe the prayers with a reference I have not had in years, feeling suddenly peaceful. In my hand I clutch the flower tightly, and when I finally remember to loosen my grip, some of the dried petals have crumbled.
          With an unexpected twinge, I toss the dried fragments into the wind and examine the crumpled bit of white that was left.
          Why, Suzaku? Why were we left? You never answered my question from all that time ago.
          The night is quiet and peaceful, the voice of the river below the rocky cliffside laughing as it tumbles over rocks and branches.
          Somewhere a wolf howls.
          The wind shifts, and I feel a presence, sparkling, vibrant, strangely majestic. Its voice echoes around me, the voice of time and nature and the wilderness surrounding me, pristine in its beauty.
          Be happy.
          I raise one hand, questions on my lips, but it is gone.

 
          "When you lost Shouka, how did you feel?"
          Mitsukake's face was surprised as he stared down at me. Tama-neko purred on the railing as the healer's large hand stroked him back and forth. I watched as emotions warred back and forth on the other seishi's face. Outrage at my question. Sorrow. Self-guilt. Resignation. Curiosity. Acceptance.
          "I died," he said simply.
          I closed my eyes. Saw her kissing him again. Saw her begging on her knees, her words striking like swords into my heart. Saw her white face, peaceful in death. Saw him on the riverbank as he lost his balance and the river claimed him greedily.
          "I know," I said.
          "I died," he said again, "but then I learned I had never really lived at all."
          I glanced at him quizzically then, cocking my head a little to the side. My staff jangled as I shifted position.
          "I don't think I quite follow you, no da."
          "To live, you must look beyond yourself. The man who cannot do that is not truly alive." He smiled at me, a gentle Mitsukake smile. A mysterious man. "Shouka understood that. I did not. For all those years, I had never truly lived because I could not see, feel beyond myself, open my eyes and see the world as it was instead of how I wanted it to be."
          I was silent, mulling over his words. Strange how I the advice giver was suddenly in the role of student.
          Sometimes it is better to sit and listen and learn.
          "You saved me," he concluded quietly. "All of you."

 
          When the moon finally rises that night, I am standing on the rock, the flower lying open in my hand, and its petals catch the light, shimmering with a thousand silver beams. Like the flowers last night on the river.
          The wind rises and the blossom flutters from my hand, following the beckon of its age-old master. It dances and then leaps, caressing my cheek for a brief instant.
          In its flight under the moon, it is alive once more.