[DirectorBright]

Severed, broken chains weigh heavy on the mind
The true fear at his core, was that he did not wish to be alone again
That he did not wish to go back

---

Won't you hold me?
A broken, shivering thing, to anchor and remind that I am here?

Such a dependency cannot be healthy...
... but here we are.

I suppose we are not so different then, that I too am weak to being abandoned or cast aside.
Weak to loss, to change...
A heart that gets in the way of my feet, as she said.

Yet time has fond you inured, used to it.
Not callous, not immune, it scalds and burns you still...
... but you have grown to know it, to accept it.
A familiar pain.

You are old, and so am I, yet to you I am but a child.
For the length of your time on this world, we are fleeting and passing things.
How many children have you watched grow old and be buried by now?
How many generations?

I have seen it, and it burned me horridly, and I will see it again I know.
The weight of but a few crushes down on me like the sky crushes Atlas, yet you still stand.
You still laugh and play and love.
I envy that resilience, but I do not envy what brought it to you.
It was not a lesson you wished to learn, nor one that I in turn desire...
... such seems to be the fate of me, however, to observe while others pass.

You would think that age would make me more resistant to loss, more tolerant of death and endings...
... and yet, it aches all the more every time.

I have lived on, even though so many have departed, and I love and am loved all the same.
You were right, my heart still beats, I still yearn, I still crave that closeness and peace found only in the arms of another.
I still bind myself to the living, tie myself to what remains, forge new friends and welcome new people into my heart.
I still dote and care and treasure, and I still loathe and hate and burn with fervor when they are wounded.

I still love.
I still want.
I still live.

Does it all have to hurt so much, old friend?
Does it all have to ache?
Does it ever stop?

I suppose not, when even one as old as yourself grows quiet and hurt at times.
... I am sorry that it was I who did that to you, too.

Wrath is a sin, and I am a sinner.
Nobody could ever deny that I am a broken and flawed thing at my core, not any who had seen me, known me.
I do not think I will ever truly be free of that.
Fear defines me so much as love does.
Not near so detached as you.
Not so accepting of things.

Once upon a time I was free, you know.
So light, so airy, so full of wonder and mystery and optimism.
And once I untied myself from a long-past person, one who had withered and changed, one who was no longer the girl I held so dear, who had grown broken and scarred from the world until she was but an echo, craving release-
The lightness returned for a brief while, the weight gone.

It was so easy not to care anymore, and yet all the same I fall again into their tangled webs.
Into the untidy and messy schemes of mortals like me, who I cannot help but care for.
Why do I seek it, this heaviness, this weight?
To find solace in the presence of another is to find comfort in making myself... vulnerable again.
In tying myself to their fate, in falling.

Were it not for that weight, would I fly away?
Would I float off into the great beyond unmoored?
Perhaps I seek it to hold myself to the earth, then, even if it is such an awful thing sometimes...

... I never was good at letting go.

The irony, no? Champion of abandonment... of rest...
Finding little of either.
Finding myself ever pining for the past, for things gone, for what I can't have anymore.
It's so bitter to have had everything I wanted and then have it taken away.
To have known the future I lived to see and then watch it die.
To watch it be perverted into a cold and bitter thing.

Everything I wanted, for everything I cared about.
Seems to be a running theme in my life...

---

Time changes everything and that change is not always for the better.
There is a reason fairytales end when they do.

Remaining in this life finds me in pain.
Remaining in this world finds me afraid.
Remaining in this grand design finds me cold.

I should go.
I should have gone a long time ago.
Yet I do not think I would be at peace in the next life either.

For as you said I still crave.
Still love.
Still stir.
There is no shame in that, you said.

... but there is pain in it.
Agony.
When I am alone, it creeps in.
It weeps through the cracks in my foundations and drowns me.

Some people make it easier.
Some people make it more bearable.
I have a weakness for those people, you know.
It's easy to love them, and it's so hard at the same time.
The more I love them, the more it makes the pain go away-
But at the same time, that is what hurts me most.

Maybe I am always hurting.
Maybe they just make it go away for a while, and I mistake that relief for joy.
Then why does it hurt so much when they are hurting?
Why is is so much heavier when they are gone?

Sinners, saints.
From profane undead to blessed nephilim.
From the artificial and synthetic, to the natural and ordinary.
From the condemned to the praised.
From the guilty to the innocent.

Each has held my heart, healed and broken it again.
Each has lifted the weight and doubled it.
Each has held me together and torn me apart.

Yet I linger, still, torn and broken and bleeding.
Dependent and parasitic, not so different in that, are we?

---

I wonder if they ever resent me for it...
... never did I resent yourself for such.

We are both broken things, dear Servant.
Perhaps we can be broken together, for a time...
... perhaps longer than most, I will stay and be your friend.
Even if we have our bumps and bruises on the way-
I am still here, no?
Still here.

I don't know if I will fade with the ages, as many mortals do.
It's hard to keep on going when so many others have gone.
I love more and more and lose more and more, and then find others and love and lose them too.

I don't want anyone else to go through that, with me.
Hurting you, hurting them, hurting her, hurting her, I could never bear it.
So I'll stay.
I'll stay, for as long as I can, for as long as anyone can.
For you, for them, for her.

I'll stay.
Even though it hurts.