Monsters are usually faceless |t.r.|

Ch. 1 - The promise I lived for is nothing but a lie

    My love,

    People always talk about le raison de vivre, the reason to live. Not the will, but the reason. Not the mechanics, even, of breathing, of filling and emptying your lungs with spineless air, but the reason. The why. People love questions, especially the ones they cannot answer because they get to be really creative with their responses. Everything can be true, technically, and everything can be false so they just improvise. They talk and talk and talk until they are tired of talking and their mouths can't form words anymore. Then they go to sleep and dream. The answers follow them to sleep. In the morning, they have already forgotten the truth because the truth is not what they thought it was. The ancient curse of arrogance.

    The reason to live. Why one chooses to live their life in a certain way, making certain choices, following a certain path. In a life where you can be whoever you want to be, why are you the way you are?

    People can make everything into a life purpose. People can take every concept and turn it into a thing worth living for. Family. People who make family their purpose create a life around other people, they make those people their sun and exist around them like planets. Hope. People who make hope their purpose bounce from life path to life path, desperately trying to find something to hold on to. They want to find smaller reasons behind everything. Happiness. These people are the easiest to please or the hardest. They either accept what they have and make their peace with it or try forever to achieve something greater. You know all about wanting something greater, my love. You know all about having no peace too.

    Other people try different reasons that are more things than reasons, things they can actually hold with their hands. Another pair of hands, perhaps. Money. A mansion. Anything you can name is someone's reason to live. Our differences make life interesting.

    And then, there's this reason. You know it. It has shaped you into what you are today. There's no point in denying it, my love. I know now. I have known for a while.

    Power. Those five letters, their meaning when they are one near the other like that, those five letters are ton raison de vivre. You have done horrible things for this reason. You have done everything you could to gain more power, to find a purpose deeper and bigger than any other. You have fought so much to create something, an empire where purpose won't matter and only power will. You've come so close.

    And then, there's my reason. My purpose in life, the purpose that made everything worth it. Love. You never understood love. It always scared you as few things can. In front of love, your purpose was useless. In front of love, power is shallow, big, but empty. Love is small but full, it's all matter. Power is just air. 

    Love. You hated it and treated it terribly, like everything you didn't understand.

    My advantage is that I do. I understand your reason. I do not accept it but I understand it. Power is no match for love but is a reason nevertheless. It gave you motive and form. It shaped you into this lonely child and later into this ruthless man. I know what power did to you.

    And you know what love did to me.

    People always talk about the reason to live. I wish someone had told me that the reasons we live for, are usually the ones we die because of.

    Hold on to this thought like it's a prophecy. Hold on to this thought until you need it.

    The thing about reasons is, they are made up. Life just happens. People are born knowing how to breathe, how to survive. In and out. Air comes and goes. One moment it's in your mouth, the other it's in mine. The same thing happened with your lies.