How many children are there in the world who suffer the fate of being forgotten? How many, Megavolt wondered as he held his cousin in his arms, don’t even have the courage to try to solve their problems? How many don’t even know they want love, but suffer more because they cannot put a name to what they lack?

Megavolt could feel the girl sobbing in his arms, but she was as quiet as a still summer night with no waves in the bay and no wind in the air. This, too, was no strange thing to him. Long ago his tears also came with the silence of a child who is used to hiding them in the night. How well he remembered being carried by the feathery arms of dreams through long days after a night filled with sorrow… How well he remembered the feeling of dried tears on his sleeves, the burning salt below his unfocused eyes, the isolation of watching the world through stained glass.

And how well he knew that these memories were shared by the child in his arms.

He could say nothing to ease her pain. To speak would be his undoing. Already his heart yearned to join hers in mourning for the thing that was lost, but was never truly there to begin with. Stronger and stronger grew the pull of such thoughts, until at last a tear fell from his glowing eye, then another. Soon he too wept for the love he had never known.

He could not fully recall the magic that silenced his cries of grief, nor did he understand why his cousin’s arms drew him closer to her. Never since he was little more than a helpless toddler had his sorrow been given any compassion or understanding. The same was true for Mina. Though neither knew how to receive such love, or perhaps because they did not know, each gave it freely.

Their tears ceased when the dawn rose over the sparkling bay, for sorrow was not made to be held in the heat of the shameful day. Sorrow such as theirs was formed in the hands of the lost souls, and given to those who could hold it and savor it in the cool of the sacred night. As this new dawn came, they both knew the end of their time together was approaching.

“What will you do now?” Megavolt asked.

Mina drew her knees up to her chest. She shivered slightly and leaned closer into her cousin’s sheltering embrace. “I will go home,” she said simply. “Knowing that you care about me is enough to give me strength.”

“It shouldn’t be enough,” he said sadly. “But it is for me, too.”

“Is that how it will always be for us?” Mina asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we.”

“I guess so.”

With those as their parting words, they exchanged one final embrace and parted. It was a happy parting, since they knew they would see each other again as sure as the sun rose. But now was a time for holding the past that, to both, was dearer than their whole lives. Tomorrow was the time for tomorrow.

…end…