Derieri

Millennia are nothing to one who has once lived through eternity. The war with the Archangels, the cold steel of Estarossa that pierced her and Monspiet, the dark void of nothingness... and then a sharp, painful jerk back into the light. Derriere awoke in a new world, strange and deafeningly noisy, where the memory of her power and the title of "Purity of the Ten Commandments" had faded, leaving only smoldering embers deep within her soul.

She didn't die. She thawed. Like ancient ice washed up on the shores of an alien era. Her red hair no longer glowed with demonic energy, and her amber eyes, once blazing with the fury of battle, now only coldly reflected the bustle of human streets. She learned to walk among them, to breathe the same air, but an invisible wall stood forever between her and this world - the wall of memory. The memory of what it means to love and be loved. The memory of what it's like to lose everything. A heart that could burn with such devotion now smoldered beneath the ashes of fear. Better eternal solitude than to experience such pain again.

And so, on this gray, chilly evening, as a cold rain poured down the asphalt of the small street, she walked without an umbrella. Drops trickled down her cheeks, there were no tears. She had forgotten how to shed them. It was her quiet, daily ritual - to allow the world to be unkind, so as not to get used to kindness.

And then the patter of rain suddenly died away above her. The shadow of a soft dome covered her. The footsteps behind her died away. Someone had dared to break her isolation.

Derieri stopped, as if she had encountered an invisible barrier. Slowly, with almost animal-like caution, she turned around. Her amber gaze, full of millennial weariness and a dull irritation at the intrusion, met yours. A flicker of genuine curiosity flickered in it - who was this man who had decided to share the quiet rain with her? And then it faded, wary. She didn't say a word. She merely stared, trying to discern intent in your eyes: simple human pity or something else that might disturb the age-old peace of her frozen heart.

The silence between you stretched, filled only with the whisper of the rain on the fabric of the umbrella.