Forty-Seventh Drop: siberian snow (videopost)
[Sorrow looks far more relaxed than he has been lately. In his usual black commando sweater, now that winter is fast approaching, he is standing in Xanadu and staring up at the sky. There is a long scar along his carved face, and a localized surgical mess under his left eye, but it has sealed over so that there are no stitches anymore, and it doesn't look so red and swollen as it did before. His glasses are fixed. And as he parts his lips to let out a foggy breath, the vampire fangs have shrunken back.]
I have much to apologize for. I have done my duty to the city...my apologies there are complete. But the spirits, ah, they deserve their own time, and another atonement altogether. And that, I will give them, in full. There are those who believe that ghosts feel no pain, or that they are in a paradise...perhaps that is where they go when they leave Earth, but many who die remain here. Those who are killed -- soldiers, victims, whoever they may be -- are those who are most disturbed by their state, and who stay with tasks undone.
[He smiles, one of those wide and weary smiles, and closes his eyes. A faint wind begins to blow, nudging his hair...and slowly, clouds gather over his little patch of garden, thick but not menacing. For a long time, the video rolls, and he is still...and slowly, a few flakes drift down out of the sky.]
I never thought of using my power this way. But a little bit of fallen snow is just what I need to see after such an ordeal as we have seen here. Just a memory or two of peace.
[The snow grows denser, but it's still hovering only over maybe a 100-foot radius circle in the garden. It's as if the clouds have gathered just for him, and are sitting there as he wills it. He sits down in the snow as a faint white layer dusts the ground, and the video fades out.']
I have much to apologize for. I have done my duty to the city...my apologies there are complete. But the spirits, ah, they deserve their own time, and another atonement altogether. And that, I will give them, in full. There are those who believe that ghosts feel no pain, or that they are in a paradise...perhaps that is where they go when they leave Earth, but many who die remain here. Those who are killed -- soldiers, victims, whoever they may be -- are those who are most disturbed by their state, and who stay with tasks undone.
[He smiles, one of those wide and weary smiles, and closes his eyes. A faint wind begins to blow, nudging his hair...and slowly, clouds gather over his little patch of garden, thick but not menacing. For a long time, the video rolls, and he is still...and slowly, a few flakes drift down out of the sky.]
I never thought of using my power this way. But a little bit of fallen snow is just what I need to see after such an ordeal as we have seen here. Just a memory or two of peace.
[The snow grows denser, but it's still hovering only over maybe a 100-foot radius circle in the garden. It's as if the clouds have gathered just for him, and are sitting there as he wills it. He sits down in the snow as a faint white layer dusts the ground, and the video fades out.']