It’s been years now, but he still remembers.  He shall never forget, he thinks.

When the sunlight filters hazily through carefully stained glass windows and casts lurid, multicoloured shadows on the frequently-tended floor, it calls to mind the sweetest of poisons; of a beautiful woman behind a bar, her hair like clouds and her eyes like cathedral windows, bright and kind but filled with darkness and anguish.  She was a contradiction, and he remembers her in her entirety.

And when he walks among the people-- his people-- his eyes devour past their fill.  He takes in their daily lives like sustenance, and they do not find it strange, for he is their king, and he is beyond questioning.  When his gaze trails over armour, it flickers; he remembers hair burning like the soul it grew from, an unwavering will.  Not his Erza, not anymore.  Ten years of her, but then, that was still so very long ago.  A lifetime ago.  As strong as she was, she could not forget; not even when her face was shared by another whom treated with him daily.  Perhaps especially in that case.  He does not forget.

But when the rains come down, harsh and chiding as a mother who finds her child has spoiled his supper, he embraces it in its entirety.  The first, perhaps the second and third times, he sends his retainers into turmoil, for what is one meant to do when one’s king has so recklessly exposed himself to the elements?

They have long since given in, for he cannot be deterred.  He has always been one with the world around him, and though he relinquishes solitude and freedom, he will not give this up.

He does not fear the lightning.  He does not flinch from the thunder.  He has felt their wrath, and it is not so terrible-- not to him.  From his balcony, silver droplets gather at the tips of his midnight blue hair, soaked thoroughly.  He is alone with thoughts of a family he cannot forget-- alone enough; just inside, watching from closed glass doors waits someone with a towel, waits someone who wishes he would find the air chill enough to retreat back indoors.

❝Between the two of us,❞ he muses to clashing skies, as though they would deliver his message between worlds, across time itself.  Sometimes, that’s all he could do: he spoke to storms as though they were a dear friend.  In another life, they just might have been.

                             ❝...you were the stronger, just as you believed, in all the ways that mattered to you then.  I concede defeat.❞