JustAddWater/AThousandLies

The tiny, aged-seeming woman pushed open the door and limped out into the winter night, feeling every trace of the cold seep into her bones. Aoi-for that was the name she had been given, and she had long ago forgotten her real name, the name she had been born with- was actually younger, far younger, then she looked, but a lifetime in servitude to House Cynis and experiencing the range of the depravity that the scions of that House were known for had aged her prematurely, taken her beauty and youth and left her old before her time. But still, her master had kept her, for he still had a use for her.

"Kiyoshi, child?" she called soothingly, standing in the doorway. She knew that he was sitting outdoors: for some reason, he seemed to enjoy sitting outside at night, it was something that at least calmed him down, and she knew that he wouldn't try to run: after all, he, like all the others, knew the consequences for even trying.

She peered more closely into the darkness, and saw a slender figure sitting on the marble stairs, staring up at the stars. It always unnerved her, to see him watching them so closely, so calmly, almost as if the rest of the world matter. He'd done it when he was a child, spent hours and hours staring up at the night sky when he wasn't wanted (which was rare), and still took every chance he could.

"Kiyoshi," she repeated, louder this time, and startled, the boy turned his head towards her.

"A-Aoi?" he stammered softly, after a moment, soft voice nervous and barely audible, startlingly blue eyes flickering about, not looking at her. He knew, of course, why she was looking for him, bearing a summons, of course, delicate hands trembling. Ten years and he was still afraid, still somehow unused to it, and he could see the brief, very brief, flicker of pity in her aged, lined features, that had been beautiful once.

"The master wants you." Aoi said. After a long pause, she saw him swallow nervously, before standing and beginning to hurry past her, back inside. "And...he has friends."

Kiyoshi paused at the doorway, looking pained and frightened and so very, very young, and for a moment, it almost seemed that the star of the Maiden of Endings brightened briefly, before fading back to join her sisters, and the young man disappeared into the doorway in a flutter of translucent silks and long, long pale blue hair.

Aoi stood out there, for a moment longer, staring up at the night sky, and shaking her head. How that child had managed to go so long and never become numb...never simply *accept* it, still hurting...it was almost a tragedy, really. His life would be so much easier if he just became numb to it all, just let himself stop feeling. It was the only way she had survived so long without going absolutely mad.

"Being beautiful is the worst thing to be in this world." Aoi said to herself, folding her arms over her chest and staring up at the sky, thinking of how she used to look, of Kiyoshi's delicate, transcendent beauty...of all the beauty that House Cynis used and destroyed, of all the beautiful things and people who were broken in this world.

Because, the one lesson she had learned, in her years of living, was that beauty was pain, beauty made you an object to be possessed and used, and that it was not worth it to be beautiful. That it made life cheap, when all you were worth was your beauty, and that you were nothing anymore, worse then the nothing you had been, when it was gone.

Aoi turned and went inside.

Perhaps Kiyoshi would understand someday. That there was never an ending: misery simply went on and on. That maybe, one day, he would stop staring at the stars, and maybe just learn to endure, before he broke.

Perhaps.