Doors Halloween (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} doorsween) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} doorslogs, |
"I did not always," the assassin admitted, for there was a time when he had seen nothing but corruption when he looked upon the world and its people, and he had known only pain and loss. It had taken years for him to recover the hope he'd lost when his heart was torn from his chest, and maintaining it, keeping that flame lit and burning, was no easy task. "Once, bella, I had no faith. There was nothing worth fighting for and no one worth saving. It was no simple task to get from there," he gestured to his right, "to here." And he gestured to himself, then. "Those things beneath the surface keep us human, no matter what we've done. Even monsters have a sliver of humanity within them. I like to believe there is always hope," he said with an almost self-deprecating laugh, "but I acknowledge reality, and I know that some cannot be reached." When all was said and done, he was a realist. He did not live in a fantasy world where evil was only a tale told to children and good always prevailed. "There are, yes, but I would be a different man if I did not know them." He paused, the hint of a frown flitting over his features before he pushed it away. "Are we happy?" He echoed her question back at her. "Perhaps some of us are not meant to be."
That made him laugh. He had lost count of the number of people he had angered, offended, or otherwise left disgruntled with his words, but it made him no more inclined to hold his tongue. Men like him were rarely silenced. "No. I speak the truth, and I speak my mind, and I will continue to do so regardless of whether they like it or not." There was no bitterness in his tone, nothing vindictive. It was simple fact, though he thought there were some with whom he might have tried, at least, to soften the blow.
He shook his head. "I do not wish it to be one, no," he said. That might not have answered whether or not it was, that balance between his loved ones and his duty, but he was loathe to lose either, though he had carried the latter with him for much longer. He thought of the woman he vaguely remembered, and he thought of her loneliness, of him causing it, and there was something like discomfort in the slope of his shoulders; he didn't want to dwell on such things. If he failed to put her first it was not intentional, but did that matter? Would she care? He doubted it would be so.
To the assassin Death might have been an old friend, but beneath that facade was one who denied it, who would fight until his last breath to thwart it, and leaving her to be taken by that which had taken his parents was no easy feat. Yet he managed to rise, finding his feet as he looked upon her, and when she held out her hand he brought it to his lips, a last farewell which lingered. "A domani, bella," he echoed, a sad smile upon his features as he let her fingers slip from his. "I will remember." A promise before he left her, before Death claimed what he had waited for.