Aeal

Respite

Winter― in Lumina, that is. The snowflakes fall, dancing in the wind, giving me a quiet reprieve from pain. I am one of the fallen, the numberless that lie here, lost to the world, perhaps dead, perhaps not. It’s hard to tell. No matter, for we are equally fated: to die, alone, yet not, ‘tis worse than being alone, because here you have not even the solitude of aloneness. The dead and dying are always watching, as I watch the others die, one by one, always there, so many eyes as one upon the whole of Lumina. It is a place of light, yes, how bright! A place of truth, yes, though now the truths lie half-buried and forgotten. It is beautiful in its desolation, a field of carrion corpses where not even vultures roam the mounts. In winter, as it is now, white glistening snow covers the whole of the place, hiding, for a time, the raggedness of the land. I suppose that’s what we are: one big bloody stain. The snow disguises, shields us from the everpresent pain that consumes us, as it shields the unwitting traveler― not that there are any, of course― shields them from our desolate form, and us from ourselves. How gentle seems the falling snow to one who can move no more, nor speak, but silently attends all around with a mind that is all too clear. Here is such beauty, such horror, juxtaposed in this weary composition. And yet, the beauty comes from the dead, for regardless of form, they are both the same, as I am also. I am

filth, death, destruction, unnamable mute horror, and yet as surely as I am those, I am beauty, light, purity, and

love also. For I am Lumina.


Do the words one utters before death tend to be truer, or can they be a lie?
--Subaru, X/1999