I stood up uneasily and as I did, my head spun wildly. I nearly fell over. I leaned against the wall and clutched my head "God, I really have gone to seed haven't I," I shook my head gamely and tried to muster up a professional smile, one that spoke of competence and reliability, and looked at her face.

My heart leapt up into my throat. I have seen many beautiful women throughout my life, but she would be the one that will stick with me forever. Her living, porcelain-white skin. Her heart-shaped face. Her long, curly black hair that fell to her waist. The sapphire dress that blazed with beauty. Her full breasts that were reminiscent of Italian models of the Renaissance. My God, she was lovely. 

Her pale, pink lips quirked up into an arch and said "Like what you see?" with a teasing manner. "I'll have you know that I'm asexual and I prefer women to boot," 

"Oh," I tried to not let my disappointment show too harshly on my face. Leave it to me, a mere remnant of a good man with a brain that has more holes than a reality TV show, to fall in love with someone that I had no chance with. She shook her head with friendly mock-sadness "You men are all the same, you can't look at a women without imaging her naked, while women wonder what she would be like as a person. That's why I like 'em," 

Embarrassed, I put out my hand and tentatively asked "Can we start over and be friends?" Her face lit up and grasped my dirty hands with no hesitation and said "Of course, my name is Ilianna,"

We walked out of that dirty alley and into the city proper. 

"So what were you doing out there, all by your lonesome, trying to create your own Walden?," 

I huffed out a harsh laugh. "Nothing so...introspective or romantic as that. I was trying to atone for my sins in my own bizarre way,"

She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "That sounds fairly emotional to my ears but maybe because I'm just a feeble woman that doesn't have a man to properly guide her down the road of being a proper young lady, I'm probably wrong,"

That elicited a rich, deep laugh that started in my belly and rolled it's way out of my mouth. "I take it that you're a feminist, then?" 

Her face twisted into an ugly expression that I would've done anything to fix "Ew. Nothing like those Tumblr misandrists. All they do is rant about things they don't even know and bully men. They don't even care about the real issues in Third World Countries. They harass women who don't agree with what they say. They want to be on top when I want for everyone to be equal. Not to redistribute wealth to everyone but let everyone take a crack at success. I want men and women to treat each other with respect and love. I want people to ignore color and just be friends. I want religion to just stop and let people do what they want. They're just. Ugh," 

Relieved that she wasn't mad at me but at someone else, I raised up my hands in surrender and said "Woah there. You're kinda preaching to the choir here, I'm an Egalitarian myself," 

Her brows furrowed in confusion and she dead-panned "What's that,"

I blinked my eyes and wondered how she didn't know what Egalitarianism was when everything she said was practically the core tenets of it. "An Egalitarian is someone that believes everyone is equal and that everyone deserves the same opportunities,"

She smiled and held onto my arm for a second "That sounds exactly what I want to be, I just didn't know that there was a word for," I could barely hear what she said over the leaps my heart was making. 

We talked the miles away with laughter and became fast friends quicker than I would have thought possible.

The culture shock I felt when I saw what they had done to my city floored me. Gone, were the institutes of higher learning. Usurping their place, were the gaudy, neon street signs that blared out everything and anything from the crass to the simply tacky. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find the coffee shops where I had spent so much time in. Poorly replacing them, the pungent street carts flooded the streets offering foodstuffs from chow mein to deep-fried gargoyle. They bulldozed the statues crafted by the local artists and plastered ads all over the buildings.

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A tidal wave of greasy rage welled up inside of me. Did they think they could just come into my city and do whatever they wanted with it? Did they think they could roll her over, rape her, and expect me not to care! 

Ilianna saw my fists that were clenched white at my sides and quickly unwrapped them, prying them apart one finger at a time. She kept on quietly talking to me as she tried to stop me from doing something I knew I would regret later. Oh but, it would feel so good to give in right now. And now was all I had in my mind. 

I could let loose a flood and wipe away their trespasses, the fact that innocent lives would be swept away along with the sinners meant nothing to me. I could show them the power of a god born from mortal mind, free of the laws of the world. I could pluck away their sight and give them nightmares. how dare they deface my fathers home.

I worked past the red haze that held me and tried to listen to what Ilianna was saying "I can't imagine what you're feeling right now. I don't think I ever will. But I do know that whatever you're thinking in your head right now is scaring me," She paused for a moment and stared into my stormy eyes. There was something that wasn't quite right.

Her eyes. Her eyes had fear in them. Her body was trembling quietly-she tried to hide it but it still racked her body with tears. I looked around me and saw that everyone was staring at us. They were staring at the tall, dark, mysterious man who had murder in his eyes and the scared, perky little girl holding my hand and trying not to cry. They were staring at a dragon and the princess trying desperately to hold it back, even at the cost of her own life. No, they were just staring at me. The monster.

I let go of the tension in my body. At that moment, a heavy pressure was visibly lifted away from the people around us. My terrible wrath brought a palpable presence with it, a force that rang from a void that no one could see that sound like a glass bell shattering, that forced the weaker-willed to their knees. I opened my fists and put my hands on either side of Ilianna's face. 

She flinched away from my touch and tried not to flee. This hurt me more than any physical would I could have ever felt. I looked at her. At the tears freely flowing from her doleful brown eyes. At the redness in her cheeks. At the determination she showed. 

"I'm sorry, that won't happen again. I promise," 

She looked up at me, this time with a wholesome smile. "Thank you, we all get a little irrational every now and then,"

She pried my hands away from her face, gently but firmly. Wordlessly setting the boundaries that I must never cross, at the line I must step over regardless of what will happen.

We walked together towards a nearby crumbling bar that caught my interest, away from the prying eyes. Away from the few people that wondered how this new appearance would affect the fragile balance of the game board. 

You never knew what could be hiding behind people's eyes. Like the tears that fell from mine as I thought about how Father would never recognize this city as his own, not in a million years. They fell slowly, like an aging pendulum on its last legs but still keeping the count of time until entropy would stop it forever, and when they finally felt after what felt like an eternity. They shattered the concrete that they landed on and turned the cracks into iridescent crystal, silently to the senses of the merely mundane but with a roar to those that could see with the Sight, which made it all the more deafening. The webs laid down shining tendrils that wouldn't have surprised me if they went down to the very bedrock. 

Thankfully as I had thought, Ilianna was empty of the slightest trace of magic so she didn't hear the miracle that had transpired behind her.

Blind, deaf, and mute to the magic that shook around me she could never see the raw titanic beauty of what lies underneath nature. She could never see the hurt that spilled forth from my overflowing emptiness.

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