Broken Wings - Interlude

His head nodded back, the long strands of his golden hair sweeping around his head. Tamahome stood, frozen, the tears streaming down his face involuntary in light of what he had just seen. The pain in Nakago's eyes had been so unmistakable.... so intense and lonely..... not unlike his own. As the shogun's body slipped from the grip of his arm it seemed impossible not to pity him as he had asked. It was the voice that sprung from him as he had struck the ground that hypnotized the younger Suzaku Seishi. It was barely above a whisper, just audible to him..... "Soi-chan....." the whimpering sound of that name from his mouth. Soi. He must have imagined her with him in his last moments....... Her face above him, shading him from that blinding light. "Nakago-sama." she smiled. "Come on. It's time to go." She took his hand. "I can't..." he choked, looking back at himself. "I can't come." Her tender eyes squinted at him. "Nakago, come on. You're not afraid? You just have to come up." "I can't..." he moaned again, the tears springing to his eyes as he looked back up at her. "I'm not afraid, I want to come....I just can't." "Nakago, all of us can fly." "Not me." Choking back his sobbing, he fixed his gaze on the wings sweeping around her body. "They're broken, Soi-chan. My wings are broken." Her expression was only questioning. "It's broken my wings Soi." he sobbed. "Mother, and the emperor, and the wars and loosing you. They broke my wings Soi-chan......all of them.........I'm ruined......." Surprising him, a smile broke on her face. "There's no such thing, Nakago. We aren't born with wings, we earn them. Someday everyone has perfect wings and that's when we're ready to go. It took you so long, Nakago, but you have them. You have to believe it to use them." Her hands brushed against his face and she hovered closer, kissing away the tears rolling over his cheeks. He reached up to her. "Soi...." He groaned. "I've wanted you so badly. I'm so sorry. I want you back, I want my mother and my life. Dammit, I want to go!" Soi's head came to rest beside his. Her eyes, all at once, seemed as intense as his had always been. "If you want to go, then do it. Nakago, you can.........." Tamahome could only stare and cry at the sleeping conversation he seemed to be carrying on. Had they really done that to him? Could they have broken him so badly? He was only replied by the look of peace that overtook the shogun's tear stained face as he drew his last breath.....

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This a short piece for me. It didn't take me much more than forty minutes to write. It was insipired by the final lines of Savage Garden's, Gunning Down Romance. Take these broken wings..... I'm going to take these broken wings.... And learn to fly.... I listened to this and could only think of Nakago, standing soaking wet in the rain, a pair of wings sweeping from his back, their generally elegant form limp with water and sorrow, snapped in places, bleeding delicately onto the ashphalt beneath him, nearly destroyed. This was literally the image that came to my mind. And so I wrote this, to cure my sadness at this image, hoping the last lines would give me a sense of comfort - to assure me that he was better off with Soi and his mother and had learned how to fly with his broken wings. Yet, I still see that rainy day and those bleeding wings on his back as I listen to this song....