Every so often, Kain would stop to think. He thought often, and stopped often, but when he did these two things together, things had a tendency to spiral out of control, to tumble off the edge of the cliffs of this mountain. This damned, cold, relentless mountain. Every time the sun would rise, Kain would note with dissatisfied despair that things were no different, that he couldn't trust himself, that he was someone else. Maybe he always had been someone else. He couldn't remember when the changes began.
He couldn't even remember how long it had been since he slipped away into oblivion. A week? A year? A century? But what did it matter? He was never going back. He told himself all the time: When this is over, I shall go home. But he knew that just wouldn't happen. He would never forgive himself again, and this cursed, sacred mountain would know his own shame forever.
It wasn't a lack of determination, for if there was one thing Kain Highwind could live on, it was determination. Even when he had lost everything, he would never stop. This was admission; he would stay in this place and pay rent with blood and tears. It was all he could afford now. The price of staying anywhere near his home and family was far too high. And of course Rosa and Cecil were his family. They always had been. He could think of no other word for those who believed in him so wholly that they could forgive him after what he had done-- or at least pretend to, had they not truly let go in their hearts.
He would never claim to be under the influence of the cruel, mind-eating Lunarian magics. He could have fought harder, broken free, something. There was one thing Kain hated in humans, and that was weakness. That he could be so easily controlled, tamed like some dog wanting a biscuit, was sign enough to him of his weakness. So much the better; he didn't want pity, and he surely would gather it in plenty if he sought it out. The great dragoon commander, brought low by nothing but whispered words of threat and promise.
But maybe this once, he could give in to weakness once more. He was getting nowhere, getting restless, getting desolate. He wanted to remind himself why he was doing this, what he was fighting for. So he set out immediately to the East. He left himself behind on that mountain, because he would have to come back. But for now, he traveled a long, indirect path to Baron by ships bound to faraway places.
And eventually, he made it. It wasn't such a difficult thing for him to do, after all. He was patient, and he knew this world by heart. Baron, even more so. He took some trail no one else knew straight into the castle, for this land was burned into his heart forever. None knew it better than he. He, who traced the very lumps in the bricks into his mind day in and day out, counting the cracks until he could return.
He knew where he could enter, undetected. He knew of doorways that shouldn't exist. He slipped into this place like a soft breath joining the song of longing, and none would ever be the wiser of it. He dared not go through the corridors so freely, but he remained in his place and watched for hours how men and women drifted by. But then, there was a sight that caught him completely off guard: a flash of silver, a throb of blue. It was a form he knew better than his own name, however much the attire differed from his eternal memory. The dragoon stepped quickly, panicked, from his hiding place, staring with eyes faded from a lack of proper nutrition. He uttered one word in a voice rasping from disuse.
