“You.. You want me to what?” The lovely Asian woman spoke quickly and several others fluttered around her, pulling her into a room where she was quickly disrobed and wrapped in a soft skein of fabric from below her arms to mid-thigh. She didn’t have time to be bashful or really notice that her stomach was no longer flat, but concave from not eating properly, before the group of servants once again ushered her out of the room to the outdoor bathing facility. The grounds of Kentaro’s house were beautiful and had always been that way, a little piece of paradise in the middle of a city that had once been the same. As they unwound the fabric, she grasped at it with her hands, her knees pressed together in a shaky fashion as she was publicly made nude. Though she had visited before, never had she been stripped down by a posse of silk covered maidens with a far Eastern charm and her cheeks were flushed bright red as she lowered herself into the hot water, the women nodding and urging her to do so. All else disappeared as she did so and she let out a moan of satisfaction, her limbs instantly losing their will to move or do much else at all.

She felt like curling up and sleeping in this little bed of warm rocks and soothing water and she evaluated what ever part of her body was saying. Her feet thanked her for finally not being enclosed in stilettos or high heels, her calves echoing their sentiment with small twangs of her muscles relaxing. Rubbing her foot against the stone beneath her, she let out a small laugh as it tickled her foot. She’d never quite mastered not being ticklish and even at her age, someone touching her ribs in the exact right way sent her into peals of laughter. The water cascaded over her entire body, her shoulders became instantly movable and her stiff neck felt 300 years younger. The thought made her laugh again. Three hundred whole years old. “And my mom told me I’d grow to hate my 40’s…” She murmured aloud and scooted down in the water so that only her nose stuck out above it and her long hair floated like a red halo above her.

The world sounded entire different underwater, muted and a bit scary from time to time. As water filled her ears, she experimented with what exactly she could make out happening around her. The sound of footsteps from wooden sandals with their unusual plat formed bottoms clicked and clacked as Kentaro’s ladies moved around the garden. She was startled as one of them appeared above her and poured a small cup full of what she figured to be soap into the water around her, a strong scent of exotic flowers rose up in the air pungently. Running water from the river rushed around her head, soothing her and causing her eyes to close. As she slid back up in the water, her eyes still shut, she stretched and put her folded arms behind her head as a pillow, the foam in the water covering the rest of her body. Her voice was thick and low in her throat as she forgot herself and where she was and spoke the only sentence that came to mind. “Mmm,” Crystal announced, “This must be Heaven.”

Crystal smiled softly as he spoke, knowing the things he said were true. She wished she could have opened her mouth to tell him that while she projected an image of strength, of someone that could be loved, there was no possibility of her completing one half of a relationship. In her heart, she knew that she could have never satisfied him in the way a wife should because her soul still belonged to her first love, and his image in her heart was far too strong to wash away. She wished she could have told him that her first marriage was full of harsh words and fights because she had held something higher than them at all costs and that, was herself. The selfish nature that flooded her body would have always kept her at an arm’s length from Kentaro, even if he had asked for her hand in marriage. Crystal could have never been his because she belonged only to herself and despite her struggles with it, the fact could never change unless forced by a catalyst not of her own making. Something, someday would force her to love another undyingly and unconditionally, but until then, her heart would remain her own possession.

Tears rose to her eyes because she felt as helpless as his voice sounded, of all the things she could control, her own happiness was not one of them. Her moods changed as quickly as the wind blew, one moment as high as the clouds themselves, then next, swooping the ground close enough to graze blades of grass that stuck up too high. “I need you too, Kentaro. I need the Council. Without these staples, I fear my life itself would end. I need this place, Genil.. This home. I have to heal my own war wounds, too deep to even bruise the surface. One day I will be strong enough to stand before Genil and tell them that they are under total protection.” Please, please just wait for time to give me the ability… her thoughts receded back into her mind. She loved him, just not as a woman should love a man. Crystal’s love for him was as a sister loves a brother, a bond so strong, from the moment it is forged, time itself cannot disintegrate it. A fight could never destroy this love, nor jealousy, nor grief. Time itself feared a bond such as this and stepped back from it, letting it live on forever.