She has never, not for a moment, forgotten how beautiful this
world is.
There are reminders everywhere. In the pure hearts that call to
her, that cling to each other, that tremble in every emotion that
exists and even some that do not have a name yet. She does
not need to remind herself — every moment stands as testament
to this tiny, fundamental, truth. And she is grateful.
But the fact of the matter is, she is also lonely.
Which seems about as ungrateful as anyone can be.
Still — even if it’s sad and selfish, it still makes her feel human
and that is a blessing in and of itself. The universe does as well —
spread out infinitely before her, blanketed in stars, she feels
small and that, too, is beautiful. But the best part, the part that
is warmest and most precious, is that she is not alone.
-“Thank you for staying with me,” she says, eyes still fixed on
the sprawling worlds laid out in every color before her. “I haven’t
been able to share this with anyone before.”
Cosmos has accepted loneliness as a burden from the day she
watched her world and all her loved ones burn. She has accepted
it through the infinite years that fly by as she stands alone,
unchanging, the only sign of her millenniums the white hair that
never ceases growing.
And she has accepted pain, a vast aching chasm within her that
grows wider and wider with each world she sees destroyed,
with each clash with Chaos that she knows will only be a Pyrrhic victory.
But now there is someone else, and that fact alone makes
everything different. This being she has found among the
stars is like her, yet not like her at all. Cosmos feels safe lying
beside her, a comfort in the other woman's presence as she
stares out at the beauty of her namesake, a beauty she has forgotten.
This warmth inside of her...she remembers it, a forgotten
emotion that she has left in the dust.
Hope.
"...I should thank you," she murmurs, and tears glimmer at
the corners of her eyes. "I feel as if this must be a dream."
